Was bowling well short of his usual pace during the first test as well. Im also wondering why Sidebottom doesnt bowl from around the wicket much either. He used that tactic fairly effectively in NZ, and personally I think left armers are more likely to be successful to right handed batsman bowling around the wicket than over the wicket but I am extremely surprised that he hasnt even tried it recently.
Actually, Strauss for me has looked the money for the entire duration of all his innings this series. And then hes somehow gotten out. Dont know what the problem is really, at first I was thinking that it was just a matter of time before he made a big score, but hes still got a lot to prove. Seems almost Butcheresque from the 2001 Ashes series, but I dont think Andrew Strauss is talented enough to play an innings of the calibre of Butcher's 173* at Headingly.
I think its fair to say that the storm has been brewing for a while though and if England hadnt lost this test they would have lost the next one. England's batting has simply not been firing for a long time now and changes needed to be made. I cannot think of anything that from this England side that has particularly inspired me since the last Ashes. We made hard work of beating a rather poor WI outfit at home and dismissed their only world class batsman once. Lost to India at home, a series we really should have won whatever way you look at it, lost 2-0 in SL which was really disappointing and then nearly lost to NZ in NZ before struggling to put them away at home. I dont mind Vaughan as captain if England had been delivering the results or if Vaughan had actually been scoring runs but the fact of the matter is that neither the case and if this rather uncomfortable decision wasnt made now, it would have been by the time Vaughan had managed to drink his tea in India after losing all the practice games.
Not if you want someone who can actually catch.
Can only presume it'll be Bell three, Bopara five. And Bell three is yet another abysmally poor idea.
Prior > Ambrose.
Or someone who can score one-day runs, which Prior has proven well incapable of.
Yep. Bopara. Oh FFS. I wonder who Owais Shah slept with? Geoff Miller's wife perhaps?FFS, Bopara in for the Fourth Test and Samit Patel in for the ODIs.
Bull**** yet again.
Indeed. Want Pietersen to come out and say something really controversial. "Death to Mandela!" or something...
And Key and Joyce, who both have better cases, don't even get a mention for those indignated.
It was always going to be him. The idea that Key would come in was never going to happen. How many chances has he had? He's now viewed with the likes of Hick / Ramps as great county players (although not as good as those 2 obviously) who just didnt have the mentality for international cricket.FFS, Bopara in for the Fourth Test and Samit Patel in for the ODIs.
Bull**** yet again.
Yeah I would say it's going to be
So true. Said to a colleague whilst watching just now that I could have just stuck a CD of sporting cliches on instead of scheduling my lunch around it
Yeah, the thing with Shah though is that he was clearly the next in line, based on his standing in for Vaughan last summer, only to get shafted in SL. You'd have thought with Bopara's massive failure in that series that they would turn back to Shah this time.
