*Official* England in West Indies

[Uppercut]

Great, draw a line under someone after 3 games.

Anyway, Prior managing something really fairly remarkable - scoring pretty quickly on a very difficult pitch on which to force the pace. 41 off 43 so far.

How do you feel about Prior these days? His batting's more than good enough. Definitely should be batting above Flintoff. His glovework isn't convincing but he's avoided any major disaster since his recall. Strangely he's very good at keeping to spinners.

I don't think I can criticise him just for making me feel like a disaster is round the corner.

 

[sammy2]

prior doing his best, eng really want to win this game.

 

[Richard]

How do you feel about Prior these days? His batting's more than good enough. Definitely should be batting above Flintoff. His glovework isn't convincing but he's avoided any major disaster since his recall. Strangely he's very good at keeping to spinners.

I don't think I can criticise him just for making me feel like a disaster is round the corner.

Can't criticise him for it and as things stand he's unquestionably the best for the wicketkeeper-batsman job and there's no case for him to be left-out in the immediate future.

His batting is still yet to be tested against top-quality seam in my book (just been one instance so far where he has - India 2007, where he failed dismally), but there isn't a lot of that around currently.

I retain doubts about his wicketkeeping as he looks wholly unconvincing but IF he can continue to avoid errors and score runs (which is always likely against spin and low-quality seam), he stays in the side. Simple as.

As for the Prior-Flintoff question, there's never been any good reason for Flintoff to bat above Prior and nothing has yet changed. Whenever Flintoff comes back, I still fully expect to see him at six and Prior at seven.

 

[Jamee999]

His batting is still yet to be tested against top-quality seam in my book (just been one instance so far where he has - India 2007, where he failed dismally), but there isn't a lot of that around currently.

 

[PY]

Wrong thread.

 

[Uppercut]

I think the caption you're looking for is, "oh crap".

 

[Richard]

Probably. Hasn't face him yet though.

 

[Richard]

100 for Cooooooooooooooolingwood.

 

[Uppercut]

Really unsuccessful defending by Gayle. When you concede 114 runs in 27 overs it kinda defeats the purpose of setting the field back.

Then again, he only has one bowler, so not much he can do.

 

[Richard]

It's difficult to know whether England would've scored quicker or slower if the field had been set up.

I think it might at least have been worth a go though. Knocking the ball around on this pitch hasn't been terribly hard; smacking it through a well-set infield has been so far. Though Prior has made it look easy.

 

[ozone]

Then again, he only has one bowler, so not much he can do.

He could have selected another bowler TBH.

 

[TT Boy]

He could have selected another bowler TBH.

Yeah Windies only got themselves to blame. You go into a test with a ****e non-existent attack, what do you expect?

England should be generous with the declaration, they need to win so get 500 max and then stick the Windies in before the close tonight. Always a feeling that they might as well just bat and get as much as possible once but time is more important and if you have to bat again, you have to bat again.

From what I have seen so far, the England seamers won't be doing much here.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Yeah Windies only got themselves to blame. You go into a test with a ****e non-existent attack, what do you expect?

England should be generous with the declaration, they need to win so get 500 max and then stick the Windies in before the close tonight. Always a feeling that they might as well just bat and get as much as possible once but time is more important and if you have to bat again, you have to bat again.

From what I have seen so far, the England seamers won't be doing much here.

England will still need the runs, the only reason to declare that early is if the numbers 9-11 are fannying about.

 

[TT Boy]

England will still need the runs, the only reason to declare that early is if the numbers 9-11 are fannying about.

I agree in principle but at this rate England won't have 600 plus until tomorrow afternoon and that gives England only 2 and a bit days to get 20 wickets. Think they need 3 days at least.

 

[Uppercut]

I agree in principle but at this rate England won't have 600 plus until tomorrow afternoon and that gives England only 2 and a bit days to get 20 wickets. Think they need 3 days at least.

Hmmm. They'll need the pitch to deteriorate quite considerably anyway, so the extra session-/half-session probably won't make much difference. Their best shot at winning is to get as many as they can before midway through the final session tonight, then bowl the West Indies out in 120-odd overs, which would get them batting at lunch on day 4. Then set them a total and hope Swann and Monty do the business on the final day.

 

[BoyBrumby]

This is just arse as a spectacle. I appreciate the onus is on England, being the team that needs to win and all, but yer Windies aren't even vaguely trying to take wickets now.

 

[Scaly piscine]

I agree in principle but at this rate England won't have 600 plus until tomorrow afternoon and that gives England only 2 and a bit days to get 20 wickets. Think they need 3 days at least.

But they're not going to continue scoring at this rate. Say England are 480-5 at tea - Strauss just tells them to score as many runs as they can in the next hour. They can easily get 6 an over and you get to say 570 and declare. If a few get out quickly taking risks then you just declare anyway.

Now say you bowl WI out for 350-400. Ignoring the follow-on that leads to two scenarios - one where England are only 100-150 ahead and bat in a relatively normal manner til they get another 100 or so, eating up 30 overs - as happened in the Test where they needed one more wicket to win. The other scenario is when you've batted longer in the first innings you're far enough ahead to just come out and smash 150 in a session.

 

[superkingdave]

Just drove home and listened to TMS on the way, its struck me before but is Viv Richards, legend of the game not withstanding, one of if not the worst commentators? Talks absolute garbage and they seem to keep giving him segments where he has to talk on his own for a while, half seems as though the rest of them are taking the piss.

Anyway Shah literally running out of chances lol

 

[ozone]

Personally would like to see England bowl for about an hour tonight however many runs they get. We're going to need to make it as difficult as possible for them and making them bat tonight will be the best way to do that. Therefore, we should really just go for it after tea to try and get as many as possible.

 

[ozone]

This is just arse as a spectacle. I appreciate the onus is on England, being the team that needs to win and all, but yer Windies aren't even vaguely trying to take wickets now.

Thought that when I saw the WI team and nothing they have done suggests otherwise.