**Official** New Zealand in England

[Richard]

Think today just goes to show how important Collingwood is to the English ODI team.

Really??

Also, Graeme Swann - underrated? England fans always seem to berate spinners when doing badly, but seem to be quiet on someone doing relatively well. Not dominating but doing his job well and I thought he was England's second best specialist bowler in this series, behind Broad.

I don't think Swann has yet done much to make anyone stand-up and take notice. He's only been in the team less than a year. His progress is deeply encouraging, and not terribly surprising either to those who've observed his doings in domestic cricket from 2003 onwards. But that's all it is yet. He needs to keep doing it a little longer before I'm going to get too pleased. But yes, so far comfortably the most promising bowler to debut (effectively, at least - I don't really count that single game back in 1999/2000) since, well, probably Mark Ealham. And that really is saying quite something, as that was 12 years ago now.

 

[NZTailender]

Really??

Yes. But then he was replaced with a batsmen. That said, there are various balance issues in the England line up (playing Wright weakens you in both batting and bowling imo, as you'd probably agree). Collingwood is a good batting/bowling balancer for England, that's crucial in ODIs.

 

[Richard]

Certainly, Collingwood's bowling was missed but I thought it was captaincy-wise you were suggesting he was missed.

Pietersen did reasonably enough for my money. The Shah experiment went horribly wrong but I don't really think it'd be likely to have been any different if he'd given that over to Bopara as people were hindsightly suggesting he should have.

 

[GIMH]

Might have gone better himself though

 

[Richard]

Doubt it TBH. All right, Shah is woeful, but the pressure of bowling as a part-timer when captain (ie, having said "I trust myself") is huge. And that'd be more true than ever if it's your first game.

 

[GIMH]

Vaughan has never done atrociously, IMO.

 

[Richard]

Vaughan almost never bowled in ODIs as captain.

Bowled in 14 matches out of 43 against serious oppo. This compared to 11 out of 24 under Hussain and his replacements.

 

[GIMH]

Aye but when he did bowl he went okay, from memory alone. Admittedly there was far more pressure on KP so fair enough. In general he's a better bowling option than Shah though, IMO.

 

[Richard]

Pietersen > Shah as a fingerspinner, beyond question. But I could more than understand a reluctance on Pietersen's part to bowl himself on that day, his captaincy debut.

 

[social]

When you're starting to think about Vaughan/KP/Shah etc as your 5th bowler, you know your in trouble

Not that I rate Symonds, but he's light years in front of those guys.

I've got no answers, but Eng need a guy to bat through (to a degree, stuff the run rate and score a 80 - ton more often than not), a wk who contributes with the bat and someone that can bowl at the death (everyone seems to be trying to take wickets rather than bowling it straight and up there)

 

[Prince EWS]

When you're starting to think about Vaughan/KP/Shah etc as your 5th bowler, you know your in trouble

Not that I rate Symonds, but he's light years in front of those guys.

I've got no answers, but Eng need a guy to bat through (to a degree, stuff the run rate and score a 80 - ton more often than not), a wk who contributes with the bat and someone that can bowl at the death (everyone seems to be trying to take wickets rather than bowling it straight and up there)

Vaughan was actually a pretty good offie - better than Symonds IMO: in OD cricket at least. He didn't often bowl though because it risked his knee.

 

[GIMH]

TBF, Vaughan is a decent offie who would have bowled much more had he never been skipper*. As for KP, he bowls a lot of good balls but also a lot of bad balls. You're right though, they are not really 5th bowler material, which is why we missed Colly so much who is perfect for the role.

edit - and the knee, as stated in EWS's post

 

[Richard]

When you're starting to think about Vaughan/KP/Shah etc as your 5th bowler, you know your in trouble

Not that I rate Symonds, but he's light years in front of those guys.

I've got no answers, but Eng need a guy to bat through (to a degree, stuff the run rate and score a 80 - ton more often than not), a wk who contributes with the bat and someone that can bowl at the death (everyone seems to be trying to take wickets rather than bowling it straight and up there)

Flintoff solves two of those four problems. The wicketkeeper one is rather more insoluble on current evidence. You can't magic a wicketkeeper-batsman out of thin air. Currently, Ambrose is one of the best one-day batsmen of those who keep wicket in the country. Possibly, in fact, the best of those who are actually allowed to play.

I've never, ever liked to see a team go into a ODI with just four specialist bowlers. Always like to see five who can bowl 10 overs for less than 40 runs. If you don't have this, you're always likely to struggle, sometimes often, unless your front-line four also take lots of wickets.

 

[social]

Vaughan was actually a pretty good offie - better than Symonds IMO: in OD cricket at least. He didn't often bowl though because it risked his knee.

Without his injury, Vaughan could've been quality

Unfortunately, Eng are left with what they've got

 

[Richard]

Vaughan could never have been a quality ODI player - he wasn't good enough with the bat, regardless of how good his bowling might have been.

Incidentally, I always thought Vaughan was overrated and underrated - some observers thought he was better than he was; he thought he was less good than he was.

 

[GIMH]

I remember listening to TMS during the World Cup (didn't have sky sports for the second half of it ) and Aggers suggested we should bat him at 7 as a bowling all-rounder

 

[Richard]

As I said - his bowling was seriously overrated in some quarters. That comment wasn't completely a joke.

 

[Burgey]

Came home from a night out on Saturday evening just in time to turn on the TV and see the England keeper drop that skier.

Was going to watch the game, but after seeing that it kind of summed up how I thought things would go for England.

Very happy to see Styris do well - a quality ODI player.

 

[FBU]

Styris didn't look in any type of form. We could have kept it that way had Shah taken that first catch when he was on 0.

1st ODI 18
2nd ODI 19*
3rd ODI 4
4th ODI dropped on 0, 27, 28 and went to to make 69
5th ODI 87*

and his bowling 2 wickets at 61.00 econ 6.77 compared to Elliott's 5 wickets at 8.80 econ 3.56 might have meant a drop for Styris when Ryder came back but it will be someone else now.

 

[stumpski]

Unless he comes back for the Twenty20 next year (assuming England will be hosting it) that may well turn out to be his last innings in England. Not a bad way to finish.


Is this thread going to be used for NZ's two matches in Scotland by the way? Hardly seems worth starting one for a 'triangular tournament' of three matches.