Shah or Strauss?

[wpdavid]

I love how we are in a big lull in the quality of Englands performances and yet its possible that 2 batsmen averaging over 40 may be cast aside. Must be a better team than I thought.

Id play Strauss. There are technical issues, especially leaning back when driving, but he has done a decent job, is an opener and is experienced.

Im happy with Cook and Strauss opening. Less keen on Strauss at 3. Its possible that players have bad runs and its possible that he can score runs in this series.

Who's the 2nd one?

 

[Goughy]

Who's the 2nd one?

Prior

 

[Perm]

I've seen Jean-Paul Duminy picked for ODIs as a bowler.

Sure about that?

 

[tooextracool]

tbh Strauss should be allowed straight back in, the team could do with his experience if you ask me. And Owais Shah has been unconvincing in the opportunities he has had so far, he always strikes me as looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Owais Shah has played 2 tests, one of which he scored a match turning 88 and 38 in Mumbai on debut. Its hard to chastise him based on one very nervy test at Lords against the WI.
Strauss on the other hand has been extremely ordinary from 2005 onwards and if people get over the fact that he had a honeymoon year where bowlers bowled consistently to his strengths, they would realise that he isnt worth his pinch as a player in the side.

 

[tooextracool]

Prior

Whether Prior could hold down his place as a batter alone would be very questionable indeed, especially outside of the subcontinent.

 

[Goughy]

Whether Prior could hold down his place as a batter alone would be very questionable indeed, especially outside of the subcontinent.

I never said he could.

 

[Richard]

Sure about that?

Yep. It was as if his batting average (about 60 at the time IIRR) simply didn't register. As if it was so good the fact that he was a batsman (ie, someone you pick to bat ABOVE the likes of Boucher, Klusener and Pollock) escaped them.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Owais Shah has played 2 tests, one of which he scored a match turning 88 and 38 in Mumbai on debut. Its hard to chastise him based on one very nervy test at Lords against the WI.
Strauss on the other hand has been extremely ordinary from 2005 onwards and if people get over the fact that he had a honeymoon year where bowlers bowled consistently to his strengths, they would realise that he isnt worth his pinch as a player in the side.

Pretty much exactly my feelings on the subject. At the end of our win in SA in 04/05 Strauss was averaging over 60, but since then he's only averaged a gnat's over 34, a figure massaged by him filling his boots during our win over a Pakistan team with an extremely ordinary attack in 2006.

Anyway, his ton in the second innings has probably settled the issue for the first couple of tests at least &, as a one-eyed Englishman, I was him all the best.

 

[Richard]

I've probably said this before but despite everything, I've always believed in Strauss' ability to be a Test-match player of calibre. I don't believe his bad run started until 2006, in India, and while it's been familiar stories throughout - weakness against spin and inability to keep the ball down when driving through the off on the front-foot - they're not things I believe are insoluble.

It depends, though, on him, and those around him, realising there are technical problems there, something that simply doesn't seem to have been done so far. He needs to have worked, very hard, on driving properly - both making sure to leave lots early in his innings, and when he does get the drive out to play it with a high elbow rather than snatching at it as he has done so often the last 2 years.

If he hasn't done this, he'll always struggle against a seam-attack that manages to do the not-particularly-difficult matter of pitching the ball up, away from the pads, to him.

 

[Goughy]

Yep. It was as if his batting average (about 60 at the time IIRR) simply didn't register. As if it was so good the fact that he was a batsman (ie, someone you pick to bat ABOVE the likes of Boucher, Klusener and Pollock) escaped them.

What does that show?

In games you list where he batted 8, he only bowled in 1 of them and that was as the 7th bowler.

JP was never picked as a bowler. His early selections may have had a lot to do with things other than cricket and therefore he was slotted in to awkward positions but he wasnt picked as a bowler.

 

[Richard]

Funny, I could've sworn he bowled regularly thought the series.

It's still stupid to pick him to bat below Boucher, Klusener and Pollock (it'd have been stupid if he'd been a decent batsman, even more so given he looked at the time like he might've been one of the best South Africans ever to pick-up a bat). But perhaps not quite as stupid as I'd originally thought.