***Official England in India***

[Richard]

I hope we get the same conditions the crims got, give us good grounds for comparison and see if I'm really on the money about us having a better attack.

Obviously I don't know the ins and outs of the Brabourne Stadium because it's not a regular international ground, but from the little I've seen the pitches there have tended to be more proper old-style Indian pitches that turn and break-up properly rather than the majority of the recent stuff that is just start slow, don't turn much and get even slower. Certainly the two Tests in the Australia series that were drawn were like that, and the ones with results weren't vastly different, though if they were exactly the same I'd guess those games might well have been drawn too.

As for Motera, well, I've seen 3 Tests there and all 3 pitches have been different. There's absolutely no way of knowing what it'll be like, but I must say if we get a green seamer like SA got there any victory we might win would feel just a little bit hollow in terms of "a win in India".

 

[jondavluc]

An utterly stupid early post is always amusing.

Yeah I just needed to say that after hearing Geoffrey Boycott saying that england could be the number 1 team soon.

 

[pup11]

You reckon England's batting is better than Australia's?

No its not about England' batting being better than Australia, its the conditions that would pretty much decide the outcome of the series, if you look at the Aus-Ind test series the Aussies batted poorly on a batsmen friendly Mohali pitch and that pretty much cost them the series, otherwise if one looks at the state of the pitches in India off-late, in general they haven't been result producing tracks and i can't see much changing in that regard in this series.

 

[Precambrian]

So then, the action moves to Indore tomorrow, Not the luckiest ground for England as they lost there despite putting in 280 odd. Good news is that Sidebottom is fit.

Will Eng field the same side as last? Except Sidey coming in for Anderson?

 

[Woodster]

So then, the action moves to Indore tomorrow, Not the luckiest ground for England as they lost there despite putting in 280 odd. Good news is that Sidebottom is fit.

Will Eng field the same side as last? Except Sidey coming in for Anderson?

I would expect that to be the only change. No need for wholesale changes for England, just hope for a much improved display.

 

[jondavluc]

why anderson? that is simply absurd.Seriously why does england see the sunshine out of harmison's ass?

 

[Prince EWS]

why anderson? that is simply absurd.Seriously why does england see the sunshine out of harmison's ass?

Anderson's been pretty hopeless in ODIs for quite a while now. It's strangely coincided with his dramatic improvement in the consistency of his bowling in Tests.

I still think he's likely to be more effective than Harmison in ODIs but Harmison's been.. lets say "less ****" than Anderson in one dayers since his recall, and Pietersen really likes having him in the team, so he'll be there.

There's infinitely more chance of Sidebottom just not making the team than Harmison being dropped at this point in time, as dire as that is.

 

[Manee]

Seriously though, Patel's action is more McGrath-esque than anyone I've seen.

Indeed. The only issue I see is that Patel doesn't quite have the core strength of Mcgrath to hold the rigidity of the action when tired/stiff and so he can sometimes lose his line completely and so is prone to the odd shocker of a performance, going against the run of play at times, whereas this'd only happen for one or two balls in a spell for Mcgrath, where he'd bowl that wide half volley.

 

[Manee]

I seem to recall Munaf hitting a six on Test debut.

Munaf >>> McGrath as a batsman.

Munaf visibly looks the April fool with the bat, but he does score quite a few runs, so I'd have to agree.

 

[Manee]

This Yusuf Pathan is one of the most innocuous-looking specialist fingerspinners I've ever seen. Albeit this is a pitch offering nothing to bowlers of any kind.

If Pathan doesn't bowl again you'd have to say his was the worst performance in a single game in the context of his team-mates in ODI history.

0 out of 387-5 and so far 3 overs for 30 out of 105 for 5.

Pathan's strength has never been his bowling, nor has it been taking wickets with his bowling. He can be tight though and that is his strength as part of the fifth bowler - he has a bad game with the ball, he is not a bad limited overs bowler.

Twas a shocking performance though and have thought a similar thing.

 

[Precambrian]

Munaf visibly looks the April fool with the bat, but he does score quite a few runs, so I'd have to agree.

No way better than McG.

 

[Manee]

Obviously Pathan's not in the side purely based on bowling, but he's also quite patently not that good a batsman, you can tell that from the fact his First-Class average is only 36 (which is decidedly moderate by Indian standards).

His bowling clearly plays a fair role in his selection, as much as his batting at least, and he's quite clearly a fairly nothing bowler. Just straight up and down. The ball was never going to turn much today but he didn't even do anything else. Can only come to the conclusion that he's either a) a small handful on a turning pitch or b) he doesn't always bowl like he did today.

Woah! FC averages for ODI cricket and that without taking into account current form! Richard, is that really you?

 

[jondavluc]

Anderson's been pretty hopeless in ODIs for quite a while now. It's strangely coincided with his dramatic improvement in the consistency of his bowling in Tests.

I still think he's likely to be more effective than Harmison in ODIs but Harmison's been.. lets say "less ****" than Anderson in one dayers since his recall, and Pietersen really likes having him in the team, so he'll be there.

There's infinitely more chance of Sidebottom just not making the team than Harmison being dropped at this point in time, as dire as that is.

yeah I guess so\ Sidebottom is prefered over anderson anyways but still harmison has had so many chances and really he has done nothing to be considered a spot over anderson.ehh thats england for ya.

 

[Woodster]

Anderson or Harmison is a close thing. Personally I'd favour Harmison in these conditions, as the ball is doing very little either off the pitch or through the air, and in such cases Anderson's effectiveness is pretty much nullified. Harmison will bowl a better natural length on these tracks whereas I would expect Anderson to be a little too full.

Harmison was slapped about a little in the first, but is a genuine wicket-taking threat for us.

 

[Precambrian]

Anderson or Harmison is a close thing. Personally I'd favour Harmison in these conditions, as the ball is doing very little either off the pitch or through the air, and in such cases Anderson's effectiveness is pretty much nullified. Harmison will bowl a better natural length on these tracks whereas I would expect Anderson to be a little too full.

Harmison was slapped about a little in the first, but is a genuine wicket-taking threat for us.

Yeah, particularly if England is batting first, then Anderson is nullified in the afternoon sun. Harmy can cause trouble anytime with his bounce. Though he can have his off-day, I think Harmy is much better to keep the Indians on the back foot, than Anderson.

 

[Richard]

Yeah I just needed to say that after hearing Geoffrey Boycott saying that england could be the number 1 team soon.

Well, they could. It's not particularly likely, but they could.

Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, Geoff Boycott doesn't post on these forums. So try not to direct comments which should be directed at him at those on the forums.

 

[GIMH]

Well, they could. It's not particularly likely, but they could.

Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, Geoff Boycott doesn't post on these forums. So try not to direct comments which should be directed at him at those on the forums.

Would be awesome if he did itbt

 

[GIMH]

England 2-0 in the Tests, 7-0 in the ODIs (maybe 5 or 6 if the weather wrecks a game or two). With some nice symmetry Flintoff will have his best all-round Test series since India 06. He is back baby, believe it.

Revising this, 6-1 in the ODIs is my new shout

 

[Richard]

Anderson's been pretty hopeless in ODIs for quite a while now.

Anderson's been fairly hopeless in ODIs for just about all his career, really. He's tended to bowl well maybe 1 in 5 or 6 games and then very poorly in the others. Trouble is, not irregularly (and never more than in the summer of 2003) even his poor performances have ended-up producing something like 10-50-3, which has enabled the "ah, he's expensive, but he takes wickets" brigade who think that wickets are more important than economy whatever stage of the innings the wickets come at to claim he's actually quite good.

This added to the fact that, as we know, when he's good he tends to be really good (getting, say, 8-20-3 or something of the like quite often) so even though it's fairly unusual, it still takes 3 bad spells before his figures even look mediocre, if you only look at the average rather than the economy-rate.

I've wondered all his career whether he's not going to get to a stage where people don't allow his figures to flatter him. It's appeared to be happening more than once before now so I won't be holding my breath that this time it actually is going to.

But England will be much best-served in ODIs getting shot of him, and I hope the figures for the next year, say, are poor enough that people actually start to consider doing it. I just can't believe after so many years of poor performance and now aged 26 he's ever going to amount to that much.

 

[Richard]

Woah! FC averages for ODI cricket and that without taking into account current form! Richard, is that really you?

I only used his First-Class average to suggest a broad indicator of his skill as a batsman - ie, that he certainly wasn't someone you could consider to be a front-line batter.