***Official*** South Africa in England

[TT Boy]

His form in all formats of the game this season have been of the highest standard, and with it he brings a hustling style of medium pace.

Just a shame the cricket he has been playing in four day cricket isn’t up to the highest standard.
Also, his bowling is rather irrelevant to his presence considering his replacing a batsman.

 

[TT Boy]

I'd agree with that. Bopara has scored a hell of a lot of runs this season and deserves another chance. Whilst I would have preferred to see Shah in there, I do not begrudge the selection as Bopara could turn into a very good batsman. Now's the correct time to try him, SL was too early.

EDIT: not a big fan of batsman who bowl a bit though, hopefully that wasn't used when debating Shah v Bopara

And a mere eight months later is about right?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Ambrose for the most part in his short ODI career wasn’t required to come in and slog but merely rebuild and consolidate the innings (which he failed to do miserably) - If he was asked to come in and just slog away from overs 40 onwards then fine but he usually come in with amble time left in the game.

I wasn't talking about what he's done so far, actually. I phrased it wrongly. For one, I've not actually seen him bat in coloured clothing so far. Ironically, the one time that I was due to see him bat, the cable went for a few minutes and he was out by the time it returned.

My comment was more the role that he will likely play in the long term, given where he's likely to be batting. He's far less likely to succeed down the order than a Chris Read (who I know is ICL). He has indeed had to rebuild more often than not thus far, but that's not a fair basis to judge him so early in his career. Better batsmen than Ambrose would have faltered in such positions early in their career. Especially given that the conditions and bowling hardly made it easy.

If Ambrose is to play ODI cricket, he needs to do so in the middle order. Around 5 (where I believe he plays for Warwicks) would be just fine. Because even if there is a collapse, he will always enter with 7 wickets intact. It's not even close to the pressure he would face at 7 or 8 in light of a collapse.

In summation, when I said "asked to slog", I meant the implication of his spot in the batting order.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

And a mere eight months later is about right?

It could be though. His flaws were exposed brutally in that series. With the right guidance and application, he could well have gone a way toward repairing those holes in his game. He's not an old dog, so this could very well be the case.

Again, I'm not advocating the selection of Bopara here, but merely contributing to a more well-rounded debate. Personally what I saw of him in the ODIs v NZ didn't suggest that he had improved much.

 

[Uppercut]

I wasn't talking about what he's done so far, actually. I phrased it wrongly. For one, I've not actually seen him bat in coloured clothing so far. Ironically, the one time that I was due to see him bat, the cable went for a few minutes and he was out by the time it returned.

My comment was more the role that he will likely play in the long term, given where he's likely to be batting. He's far less likely to succeed down the order than a Chris Read (who I know is ICL). He has indeed had to rebuild more often than not thus far, but that's not a fair basis to judge him so early in his career. Better batsmen than Ambrose would have faltered in such positions early in their career. Especially given that the conditions and bowling hardly made it easy.

If Ambrose is to play ODI cricket, he needs to do so in the middle order. Around 5 (where I believe he plays for Warwicks) would be just fine. Because even if there is a collapse, he will always enter with 7 wickets intact. It's not even close to the pressure he would face at 7 or 8 in light of a collapse.

In summation, when I said "asked to slog", I meant the implication of his spot in the batting order.

Purely from watching him bat, he seems awfully limited for one-day cricket. He's not blessed with extraordinary timing, nor can he hit the ball especially hard, and as is repeated without rest, is overly reliant on cutting. Mustard can swing a bat at anything outside off or on his pads and hit it to the boundary. The quick cameo at the top in which he specialises is probably of more use to the team than anything Ambrose can muster. But like i said, there's got to be a better option than either of them somewhere in England.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Purely from watching him bat, he seems awfully limited for one-day cricket. He's not blessed with extraordinary timing, nor can he hit the ball especially hard, and as is repeated without rest, is overly reliant on cutting. Mustard can swing a bat at anything outside off or on his pads and hit it to the boundary. The quick cameo at the top in which he specialises is probably of more use to the team than anything Ambrose can muster. But like i said, there's got to be a better option than either of them somewhere in England.

Mustard is vastly overrated by many, it seems. The man is very limited himself. If the ball does anything, he's going to be virtually useless. And against decent bowlers it's the same story. At the end of the day Mustard strikes me as a poor batsman who will strike lucky occasionally. Mustard is about as likely to produce this talked-of "quick cameo" as Luke Wright is, IMO.

I'm not saying Ambrose is a particularly good OD batsman. But I do believe he's better than Mustard (and Prior). That said, he's a limited batsman in general. Even when he was tonning up against New Zealand I thought so. It was one of the less convincing international hundreds I've seen. My belief that he's better than Mustard is more down to how poor I believe Mustard is.

 

[gio]

And a mere eight months later is about right?

In 8 months technical deficiencies can be ironed out. I'd also suggest that coming into the side towards the end of a county season is easier than waiting 3 months since the county season ended for your test debut.

 

[Uppercut]

Mustard is vastly overrated by many, it seems. The man is very limited himself. If the ball does anything, he's going to be virtually useless. And against decent bowlers it's the same story. At the end of the day Mustard strikes me as a poor batsman who will strike lucky occasionally. Mustard is about as likely to produce this talked-of "quick cameo" as Luke Wright is, IMO.

I'm not saying Ambrose is a particularly good OD batsman. But I do believe he's better than Mustard (and Prior). That said, he's a limited batsman in general. Even when he was tonning up against New Zealand I thought so. It was one of the less convincing international hundreds I've seen. My belief that he's better than Mustard is more down to how poor I believe Mustard is.

Probably. I wouldn't get into defending Mustard too heavily, he's really rather poor. I just think Ambrose is an even poorer one-day batsman because he doesn't seem to have that ability to slog over the top that comes in so useful in ODIs. It is in fact the only thing Mustard has going for him, but even so, Ambrose could come in and score something like 15 off 40 balls that actually ends up losing the game for his side. Slow innings with no potential for gradual accelaration are very detrimental to the cause, as Rahul Dravid often showed towards the end of his one-day career.

 

[tooextracool]

as Rahul Dravid often showed towards the end of his one-day career.

Surely you mean at the start of his career? By the end of his career, Dravid was actually pretty impressive with his SR.

 

[tooextracool]

I continue to be staggered by the response to Bopara's elevation back into the England Test team. I can understand Owais Shah fans being a little peeved as Bopara has leapfrogged above him despite the sheer weight of runs Shah has scored in recent seasons, but perhaps they think Bopara is more likely to succeed at Test level than Shah is and is in better form this year, not that form this season dictates wholly who should be selected for Test cricket.

Bopara has a style that makes batting look easy, and despite his sufferings in Sri Lanka, I believe has the abililty to succeed at the highest level. He is still only 23, yet people are writing him off because of his failings in his THREE Tests in Sri Lanka, which is quite simply ridiculous.

His form in all formats of the game this season have been of the highest standard, and with it he brings a hustling style of medium pace.

Was more impressed by his medium pacers in SL than his batting tbh. Anyways, lets hope he does well this time around.

 

[tooextracool]

The thinking is, good wicket keeping = extra wickets, a good batsman = extra runs. Extra runs are worth more proportionally than wickets in ODIs compared to tests.

Not sure I agree with that but I will take it nonetheless. IMO, one would think extra runs that Prior would conceded in terms of byes and leg-byes not to mention the possibility of dropping someone like Mark Boucher on 0 could have a significant impact on the result and would make up for his contributions with the bat. Always thought Rhodes' fielding for example was worth infinitely more in ODIs than in tests because of the fact that the difference between 2 teams in ODIs is generally considerably smaller and every run conceded counts.

 

[tooextracool]

He's not, there's at least 2 better (1 of whom is ineligable for international cricket) but he's nowhere near as bad as you made-out earlier. He's barely dropped a catch in Test cricket and is an infinitely better wicketkeeper than Prior.

Infinitely? Doubt that. His wicket keeping in tests has been ordinary at best and whilst his catching has been ok so far hes still conceded far too many runs when he genuinely should have stopped the ball. For someone whos playing as a keeper-batsman rather than the other way around, he should be doing a bit better than that.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Sidebottom and Bopara omitted from the 13.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Sidebottom and Bopara omitted from the 13.

Where have you heard that? Quite content if that's the case as it's possibly what I'd have opted for:

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Harmison
Anderson
Panesar

?

 

[Steulen]

Sidebottom and Bopara omitted from the 13.

Haha...WTF?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Where have you heard that? Quite content if that's the case as it's possibly what I'd have opted for:

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Harmison
Anderson
Panesar

?

Sky Sports News - straight from Captain Marvel himself.

 

[Manee]

Flintoff to go 6, Ambrose to go 7 and Broad 8, confirmed on SSN.

 

[Steulen]

Where have you heard that? Quite content if that's the case as it's possibly what I'd have opted for:

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Collingwood
Ambrose
Flintoff
Broad
Harmison
Anderson
Panesar

?

Anderson above Harmison, surely.

 

[Jigga988]

I think this batting line up is way too frail, firstly they should have gone with Bopara at 5 and played the extra batter and furthermore, surely Broad should bat at 7 before Ambrose who cant even buy a run

 

[Jakester1288]

Harmison, when in form, is one of the most destructive bowlers in world Cricket. It is a shame that he is a up and down bowler, who really fails to find form. However, when he does, he can rip through the best of batting line ups with his steepling bounce. I, personally, hope he is in a rough patch of form when the 2009 Ashes roll around, because I think he could honestly threaten out batting line up, and with Panasar working on his pitches, doing what he does and Flintoff backing them up, with either Simon Jones or Matthew Hoggard (for Englands sake, hopefully both) they will be serious contenders for the 2009 Ashes.