*Official* England in West Indies

[Richard]

Harmison is playing for sure, ARG suits hit the deck bowlers and England camp said he was bowling menacingly in the nets... not that you'd take much from that.

Freddy will be a handful on the pitch despite it's flatness, interesting to hear Cooky say that the pitch is a lot bouncier and livelier than the previous one... maybe the deck wont be that flat... anyway, predicting Freddy to get plenty of wickets in this one, as well as Edwards, both guys will have their pace up hopefully.

I'm taking nothing for granted vis-a-vis the ARG pitch. Sounds like some serious hocus-pocus is going to be done with it and who knows what the end result will be.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Harmison is playing for sure, ARG suits hit the deck bowlers and England camp said he was bowling menacingly in the nets... not that you'd take much from that.

Freddy will be a handful on the pitch despite it's flatness, interesting to hear Cooky say that the pitch is a lot bouncier and livelier than the previous one... maybe the deck wont be that flat... anyway, predicting Freddy to get plenty of wickets in this one, as well as Edwards, both guys will have their pace up hopefully.

Would be nice if the pitch actually wasn't slow + flat. It seems like most pitches these days are fairly lifeless.

I'm sure WI will try and produce yet another trademark attritional crap pitch tho.

 

[Jigga988]

Would be nice if the pitch actually wasn't slow + flat. It seems like most pitches these days are fairly lifeless.

I'm sure WI will try and produce yet another trademark attritional crap pitch tho.

We better if we want to win

 

[roseboy64]

Basically sammy2 should just man up so we can end this thing.

 

[roseboy64]

I've seen worse batsmen play, but not be a regular part of a Test set-up for a year and more. He may, at some point, start making plenty of runs. But equally, he might very easily not do. And I'm not talking about what happens someday, I'm talking about right now. And right now, he's woeful.

He has more fundamental basics than Runako Morton does, but right now he's absolutely no way close to being as good as Morton - and that really is saying something.

He's only played in 3 series in the last year and less than 10 Tests at that so a bit disingenuous there.

 

[cowboysfan]

so 2nd test is abandoned and they are playing the 3rd test at the old stadium?

 

[biased indian]

why is it stated as match Drawn and not abandoned

some body look inot the ststa after along time will be confused there will be 2test match between same team on same day

2 test 13-17 feb drawn
3 test 15-19 feb what ever the result

 

[shivfan]

Would be nice if the pitch actually wasn't slow + flat. It seems like most pitches these days are fairly lifeless.

I'm sure WI will try and produce yet another trademark attritional crap pitch tho.

Andy Roberts said the pitch is fine....

He is the head groundsman, so that probably means the usual ARG road will be dished up.

I hope that there is a bit more life in the pitch, and unexpected bounce, to give the bowlers a chance, but somehow I believe the pitch will be yet another bowlers' graveyard....

Expect some unexpected bounce in the outfield, though!

 

[Jigga988]

Andy Roberts said the pitch is fine....

He is the head groundsman, so that probably means the usual ARG road will be dished up.

I hope that there is a bit more life in the pitch, and unexpected bounce, to give the bowlers a chance, but somehow I believe the pitch will be yet another bowlers' graveyard....

Expect some unexpected bounce in the outfield, though!

Expect some unexpected bounce everywhere, have you heard the reservations Chris Gayle had about the pitch, two days is no where near enough to flatten out a wicket lets be serious, a week needed minimum to get the ARG to its usual flatness... Harmy and Freddy are bound to cause havoc because of the bounce and nature of the wicket... and we got screwed by our own laziness...

 

[Richard]

He's only played in 3 series in the last year and less than 10 Tests at that so a bit disingenuous there.

Nonetheless it's a handful of Tests and plenty of ODIs. Not one of which he's merited inclusion in. He may someday be a reasonable player, but at every point in his career so far he's been a diabolical one. Even West Indies have better players than him, I know that beyond all doubt.

 

[roseboy64]

Nonetheless it's a handful of Tests and plenty of ODIs. Not one of which he's merited inclusion in. He may someday be a reasonable player, but at every point in his career so far he's been a diabolical one. Even West Indies have better players than him, I know that beyond all doubt.

Your original point was with him being a part of the Test setup for close to a year. Nothing to do with ODIs and I've pointed out that despite it being a year he's not played a lot of Tests. If a player performs creditably against stronger opposition then quite clearly he deserves a run in the team. He made runs against Australia and accordingly was granted a chance in New Zealand. He didn't take it and was given a final chance in Kingston but didn't do well so fair enough he's been dropped. Not a questionable selection policy there at all. It may have been to call him up against the Aussies but he repaid the faith initially.

 

[Richard]

Your original point was with him being a part of the Test setup for close to a year. Nothing to do with ODIs

No, it was that he'd been around the Test setup for a while and had played plenty of ODIs. If he'd never played a ODI I'd be unlikely to think all that much of him - ie, instead of thinking "he's diabolical" I'd just think "oh well, he's a relative nobody".

and I've pointed out that despite it being a year he's not played a lot of Tests. If a player performs creditably against stronger opposition then quite clearly he deserves a run in the team. He made runs against Australia and accordingly was granted a chance in New Zealand. He didn't take it and was given a final chance in Kingston but didn't do well so fair enough he's been dropped. Not a questionable selection policy there at all. It may have been to call him up against the Aussies but he repaid the faith initially.

He made something like 1 innings of note against Australia, no? In which he had at least 1 let-off.

 

[roseboy64]

Had two 50s in two games.

 

[Jigga988]

He made something like 1 innings of note against Australia, no? In which he had at least 1 let-off.

2 actually, not that it makes much difference but gonna agree with rose on this one, his performance in Australia warranted giving him a shot against other teams, felt he needed to be opening to continue the form he showed in Australia, but Chatergoon didn't really warrent getting dropped so he wasn't allowed to open and failed at 4.

I don't really envision Marshall getting anywhere near the test side any more, plenty of people willl be ahead of him in the pecking order - R hinds, Dar Bravo, Simmons, Barath Dev Smith etc.

 

[superkingdave]

Not convinced we will get a game tomorrow. We will see

 

[Richard]

2 actually, not that it makes much difference but gonna agree with rose on this one, his performance in Australia warranted giving him a shot against other teams, felt he needed to be opening to continue the form he showed in Australia, but Chatergoon didn't really warrent getting dropped so he wasn't allowed to open and failed at 4.

I don't really envision Marshall getting anywhere near the test side any more, plenty of people willl be ahead of him in the pecking order - R hinds, Dar Bravo, Simmons, Barath Dev Smith etc.

I obviously don't know a thing about Ryan Hinds' form last year but if he was in any sort of nick it seems to me to be a travesty that Marshall got picked ahead of him.

Every time I hear him mentioned he always seems to have had \ be having an excellent season.

 

[Jigga988]

Not convinced we will get a game tomorrow. We will see

Yeah, 50-50 they must be getting reinforcements from the next door prison to help out like they usually do! They usually have more inmates working on the ground than groundsmen...

 

[pskov]

Not convinced we will get a game tomorrow. We will see

I am sure we will get a game, the WICB will make sure of it. The pitch shouldn't be a problem, it'll just be a bit lively compared to ARG decks in the past, the question is the outfield which by accounts I've read is club standard. Still, club standard is better than the farce of an outfield there is a the VRS.

 

[Jigga988]

I am sure we will get a game, the WICB will make sure of it. The pitch shouldn't be a problem, it'll just be a bit lively compared to ARG decks in the past, the question is the outfield which by accounts I've read is club standard. Still, club standard is better than the farce of an outfield there is a the VRS.

There's only so much the WICB can do, especially an incompetent WICB, with Gayle expressing his concerns about the safety of his players and the pitch only getting a couple days to prepare it's hardly a sure thing we'll get play tomorrow.

 

[roseboy64]

I obviously don't know a thing about Ryan Hinds' form last year but if he was in any sort of nick it seems to me to be a travesty that Marshall got picked ahead of him.

Every time I hear him mentioned he always seems to have had \ be having an excellent season.

Hinds was picked for the preceding series against Sri Lanka but got injured. Everyone who'd be ahead of Marshall was picked before he was except Barath.