***Official England in India***

[sledger]

Believe he was quoting a film ITBT.

 

[Uppercut]

Apocalypse Now, implying that he loves people fighting. Only in a less serious manner.

 

[zaremba]

Of that I have no doubt. However, given the time where I am (and I've always presumed judging by your location that your time is of a similar if not identical nature to mine) reads approximately 2230 hours, I fail to see quite how that is currently of significance.

This Is The End

dum dum dum

My Only Friend, The End

 

[Richard]

Even being the not-terribly-keen-on-films type that I am, and knowing nothing of the film in question, I had kiiiiiiinda guessed it was some sort of quote from somewhere.

Rest assured, my previous post had roughly little of seriousness about it.

 

[Jamee999]

So, how about that cricket?

 

[Richard]

You know, my first thought upon logging-on was "I bet a Mod will have posted something along the lines of "this is not the place for discussing the Dickinson-Brumby feud""... and yep, first post I read, sho' 'nuff. Fair noof though, mind. If this is to be continued, it should be in SD.

Anyway, squad announced today IIRR. That should do the trick.

 

[sledger]

What are the odds on Simon Jones being called up? Got quite decent figures for the season, but can't say I've followed his progress other than checking his average every now and again so have no idea how well he's bowled at all.

 

[Richard]

I think that, like Vaughan, has been pre-squad-announcement "it won't happen"ed.

Had Jones managed the entire season it'd have made little sense for him not to have gone to India. But he didn't. He (like the rest of his county's bowling-attack) got injured towards the end. IIRR, that's been enough for him to be put back a few places in the queue again.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

You see? Tiresome, as I said.

If people stopped quoting his words of wisdom I wouldn't respond as I'd be none the wiser. In fact, if the forum's software is capable, it'd be an absolute boon to me if all of Dick's posts as quoted by others still showed up as: This message is hidden because Richard is on your ignore list.

 

[Richard]

Been noted before how ignore-lists are in part for the weak-willed.

 

[Migara]

With all due respect to you mate, have you seriously seen KP bat, he treats spinners with no respect whatever, he has got an unorthodox style of tackling spin bowling, but.. boy its surely effective, i can't really understand where you are coming from as KP has never been troubled by even great spin bowlers, he is more vulnerable against good fast-bowling rather than spin bowling.

Knock Knock Knock, he was done fair and square by Muralitharan in the SL series. AVerage of 25 is nothing much to write home about. Ang guess what, India will have a stronger spin attack than SL.

 

[sledger]

Knock Knock Knock, he was done fair and square by Muralitharan in the SL series. AVerage of 25 is nothing much to write home about. Ang guess what, India will have a stronger spin attack than SL.

I would say that is highly debateable. Always thought Pietersen plays spinners fairly well to be honest, always looked quite confident when dealing with Warne. LIke Pup says, I would argue that he is weaker against a lot of pace bowlers than spinners.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Been noted before how ignore-lists are in part for the weak-willed.

No, from our perspective ignore lists are there to preserve the forum atmosphere.

 

[sledger]

No, from our perspective ignore lists are there to preserve the forum atmosphere.

Stop ignoring the bigger picture Jack.

 

[Richard]

No, from our perspective ignore lists are there to preserve the forum atmosphere.

Oh, beyond question they can indeed serve this purpose, and do for those who use them well (eg SJS) - but clearly they don't do that if the person using the ignore-list isn't strong-willed enough (or, of course, doesn't want) to use their own conscious spurious decision-making to ignore something that the ignore-list doesn't hide, and to completely cease referring to the person on their ignore-list.

To my mind, unless you make absolutely no reference whatsoever to someone on your ignore-list, that's very poor. Equally it's poor to bang-on about the fact you use ignore on people, anyone - it does every bit as much damage to the atmosphere than would be done by no ignoring. I've long been very surprised the Mods tolerate this.

 

[sledger]

England Squad announced, no real surprises, though would have preferred to see Ambrose left out.

England squad: Kevin Pietersen (capt), Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Tim Ambrose (wk), Matt Prior (wk), Stuart Broad, Steve Harmison, James Anderson, Monty Panesar, Ryan Sidebottom, Owais Shah, Graeme Swann.

 

[zaremba]

I would say that is highly debateable. Always thought Pietersen plays spinners fairly well to be honest, always looked quite confident when dealing with Warne. LIke Pup says, I would argue that he is weaker against a lot of pace bowlers than spinners.

AWTA.

By itself, the fact that he averaged 25 in a single 3-Test series tells us very little indeed. KP is a good player of spin, and has shown this repeatedly against the best spinners, including Muralitharan.

Shane Warne's view (expressed in his current book) is that "I don't think he has an obvious flaw in his technique." But obviously Migara knows best.

 

[zaremba]

England Squad announced, no real surprises, though would have preferred to see Ambrose left out.

You have to have 2 keepers to allow for illness.

 

[Richard]

Knock Knock Knock, he was done fair and square by Muralitharan in the SL series. AVerage of 25 is nothing much to write home about. Ang guess what, India will have a stronger spin attack than SL.

I would say that is highly debateable. Always thought Pietersen plays spinners fairly well to be honest, always looked quite confident when dealing with Warne. LIke Pup says, I would argue that he is weaker against a lot of pace bowlers than spinners.

To my mind, Pietersen's biggest problem against spin (and there's no doubting that spinners have had the better of him of times - he hardly had a great time in Pakistan and India in 2005/06, nor in SL in 2007/08) is that he can often get caught in two minds. By nature he is a strokeplayer, and some of his best innings - most notably Lord's and Edgbaston 2005 and Edgbaston 2006 - (as well as not a few failures) have come when he's played shots against the spinners. However he's also more than capable of stonewalling, and there are times when this is your best chance of scoring (especially when the pitch is slow). What he needs to do is avoid being caught in two minds about which method to use, and if he can do that we'll see him making scores like 100 off 130 balls and 100 off 204 balls, both regularly enough.

 

[Richard]

England Squad announced, no real surprises, though would have preferred to see Ambrose left out.

England squad: Kevin Pietersen (capt), Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Tim Ambrose (wk), Matt Prior (wk), Stuart Broad, Steve Harmison, James Anderson, Monty Panesar, Ryan Sidebottom, Owais Shah, Graeme Swann.

You have to have 2 keepers to allow for illness.

I still hope Ambrose might be the first-choice.

Either way, good to see they've managed to avoid picking Rashid and very pleased indeed they appear to have gotten the Shah-or-Bopara question right on this occasion.

I guess Samit Patel's a bit unlucky, but it's only a 2-Test series. You don't want an overly large party.