*Official* England in West Indies

[superkingdave]

Yeah, the weather argument doesn't really hold a lot of water (lol). Even Simon Jones up till last year was at the wettest ground in the country. Southerners need to start producing fast bowlers....when was the last time a southerner was remotely successful bowling fast in test cricket..Dean Headley maybe.

 

[Manee]

I'm sure preparing bouncier strips with pace is made harder by our weather conditions, but it's not impossible. Old Trafford always has bounce and if a track that offers help to Harmy-style bowlers can be made in a city with the average rainfall of Manchester I reckon it can be done more or less anywhere.

There's a chicken-and-egg side too tho; if your bowlers are medium-fast seamers it pays to prepare tracks that offer something to them. It also means that sadly a lot of our bowlers are rather neutered on less response decks.

Valid and interesting points...

Something which has interested me is the prospect of 'making a fast bowler' and I think Napier is the most evident example. He mixes biomechanics (he is the model of the Fast Bowlers Bible) with a vigorous and yet cricket specific workout and the product is someone who was once a semi-promising seamer to someone who can bowl 90mph, seemingly out of nowhere. I think the notion that fast bowlers are 'born not made' is something which limits all countries.

 

[roseboy64]

As a fielder but his batting or bowling isn't even close to world class.

XI for England...

Gayle
? - Ganga Sarwan
Nash
Chanderpaul
Bravo
Ramdin
? - Sammy/Hinds...
Taylor
? - Anyone but Powell or Benn
Edwards

Looks pretty decent. If they could find a decent opener and a 3rd quick who isn't awful then they would be very competitive.

Don't even joke about that.

 

[roseboy64]

Already posted the most likely squad anyway bar one/two errors.

 

[Uppercut]

Perhaps, but 'building' tracks which aid genuine pace outside of areas of natural occurance like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand is most difficult. We had a damp summer, not much can be done about that; it is not as if quick bowlers did not play well, Napier, Harmison, Kabir Ali, Simon Jones, Robbie Joseph are all 85mph+ and bowled well - so calling it a graveyard may be inaccurate.

Moreover, there would have been reports if there was a bowler of 90mph, or several, who have been languishing in mediocrity due to the pitches. Frankly, Meaker may have been clocked at 95mph, but he seems the only example of such and it appears apparent that he is merely quite raw rather than punished by the pitches.

I'm sure preparing bouncier strips with pace is made harder by our weather conditions, but it's not impossible. Old Trafford always has bounce and if a track that offers help to Harmy-style bowlers can be made in a city with the average rainfall of Manchester I reckon it can be done more or less anywhere.

There's a chicken-and-egg side too tho; if your bowlers are medium-fast seamers it pays to prepare tracks that offer something to them. It also means that sadly a lot of our bowlers are rather neutered on less response decks.

The funny thing about this speculation is that England, before this series, had as good an away record as anyone outside of Australia. Everyone has trouble travelling, and the only way to deal with that is by being good enough to discount it.

What could help, however, is playing home tests on pitches similar to those in county cricket. If Davies and co. were let loose on a wicket resembling Durham's last year I doubt many international batting lineups would deal with it. When you bowl everyone on seaming tracks in FC cricket then give them flat ones to work with at test level there's an adjustment period that helps noone.

 

[zaremba]

this is their first series win over a non-subcontinental, non-zimbabwe team in a genuine test (ie, bangladesh excluded) since they beat england in 1998, and even that was a very fortuitous victory.

I suppose in some ways this one was a little fortuitous as well, but i'd say less so than 1998 was.

nooooooooooo!!!!!!

 

[FBU]

TBF though, the choice came down to picking Collingwood or Anderson, and Anderson was out of sorts. If there was another seamer knocking about that they felt could have done the business, I think they'd have picked him. I mean I geuss you can say that's a cautious attitude in itself, but I don't think there was a conscious decision from the outset to play seven batsmen.

.

Anderson had last played in SA after his action was changed during the tour and he hadn't played since the summer and had no warm up games and he was terrible. He came back to Lancs and took 60 wickets in the season so was back in some kind of form. I wouldn't say he was out of sorts. Tremlett was 12th man for the first four Tests.

 

[Richard]

nooooooooooo!!!!!!

 

[Richard]

I have to disagree with Nasser here, there were seaming decks throughout last season.

Think that might be the very nub of Nasser's gist tho. Our green, sappy pitches offer prodigious seam movement, especially in the spring and early summer, and our overcast conditions keep the swing bowlers interested. It's possible to be a successful seam-up bowler in England whilst being a way off real "pace".

Perhaps, but 'building' tracks which aid genuine pace outside of areas of natural occurance like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand is most difficult. We had a damp summer, not much can be done about that; it is not as if quick bowlers did not play well, Napier, Harmison, Kabir Ali, Simon Jones, Robbie Joseph are all 85mph+ and bowled well - so calling it a graveyard may be inaccurate.

Moreover, there would have been reports if there was a bowler of 90mph, or several, who have been languishing in mediocrity due to the pitches. Frankly, Meaker may have been clocked at 95mph, but he seems the only example of such and it appears apparent that he is merely quite raw rather than punished by the pitches.

I'm sure preparing bouncier strips with pace is made harder by our weather conditions, but it's not impossible. Old Trafford always has bounce and if a track that offers help to Harmy-style bowlers can be made in a city with the average rainfall of Manchester I reckon it can be done more or less anywhere.

There's a chicken-and-egg side too tho; if your bowlers are medium-fast seamers it pays to prepare tracks that offer something to them. It also means that sadly a lot of our bowlers are rather neutered on less response decks.

Yeah, the weather argument doesn't really hold a lot of water (lol). Even Simon Jones up till last year was at the wettest ground in the country. Southerners need to start producing fast bowlers....when was the last time a southerner was remotely successful bowling fast in test cricket..Dean Headley maybe.

I can't really understand why anyone thinks the type of pitch available will influence how quickly seamers bowl.

The "slow and green" archetype has gone a fair way out of the window in county cricket in recent times (becoming slow and un-grassed) though fortunately we've seen a little reversion to type in the last couple of years. England should be a seam-friendly country, and I don't want to see lots of pitches that offer nothing to the seamers.

However, maximum pace is maximum pace. No-one without the ability to bowl 90mph can bowl 90mph just because the pitches (whether or not they move off the seam) have high bounce and quick pace. Equally, pitches of low bounce won't stop someone who can bowl at 90mph bowling there.

The reason England have not had many really quick bowlers of late is because those who can bowl really quick either a) are utterly rubbish and thus are rightly left to wallow in Club Second XI cricket (I've seen one or two bowlers who can send it down a fair bit quicker than reasonable-quality county bowlers in my travels around Devon) or b) don't play cricket and do something else.

Anyway, as has been said ad nauseum, bowling quick in itself is of no use at all. 90mph outswingers >>> 83mph outswingers, but 83mph outswingers >>>>>>>>>>>>> 90mph balls that go through gun-barrel straight.

 

[TT Boy]

Bravo aint a good enough test # 6, Ramdin despite his hundred on that road would never be a good test # 7 & # 4 is definately too high for Nash.

Unfortunately, the Windies don’t seem to have many better options (Marshall, Hinds et cetera) and I think if Bravo batted top six he could average over 30 comfortably. Ramdin for me isn’t good for more then twenty odd consistently but who else can keep? Whilst Nash at four sure beats having Marshall or Hinds at four.

 

[vic_orthdox]

I reckon Ramdin's fine; the only reason that people are questioning his batting ability is because of the expectations of a number 7 after Gilchrist.

 

[zaremba]

Apologies. Slightly OTT admittedly. It's a thing I have about the word "fortuitous" being used when what's meant is "fortunate".

 

[fredfertang]

I was slightly perplexed too - I ended up concluding you were mimicing Mark Nicholas Mr Z

 

[Shoggz]

I really don't know how this series is going to go... As an England fan, of course I want my boys to win, but having said that, I think the West Indies are more likely than any time since 2000 to upset the form book.

I don't think any of the media are giving them a chance and I think they may just spring a surprise or two... (Beyond a magnificent performance by Shivnarine Chanderpaul, which let's face it is de rigueur for him against England)

Sometimes I hate being proved right!

There's now a lot of talk in the media about how the West Indies have turned a corner and are now on an upwards trend. As much as I wish that were true, I'm not sure a 1-0 series win against this England side in this manner is necessarily cast iron evidence of that..

What do the Windies fans think? Are you convinced by Mr Dyson's words?

 

[Richard]

Apologies. Slightly OTT admittedly. It's a thing I have about the word "fortuitous" being used when what's meant is "fortunate".

Ah, I see. Well, I'm a tad fond of the word TBH, so you may have to get used to it.

 

[Richard]

I reckon Ramdin's fine; the only reason that people are questioning his batting ability is because of the expectations of a number 7 after Gilchrist.

Nah, Ramdin's batting is inadaquete, and if Gilchrist had never played cricket that'd not be any different. An average in the mid-to-low-20s is no longer good enough for a wicketkeeper. No competent wicketkeeper is ever terribly likely to repeat Gilchrist's batting deeds of the first half of his career, so not many reasonable people are going to expect anyone to.

Ramdin's batting suffers in comparison to just about all wicketkeeper-batsmen of recent times: Healy, Boucher, Prasanna Jayawardene, McCullum, Dhoni, Rashid Latif. Stewart and, possibly, Haddin are different matters as they were\are good enough to play Test cricket as specialist batsmen regardless of their wicketkeeping.

Ramdin's wicketkeeper-batting would be more at home in the late-1980s and early-1990s, amongst the Richardsons, Smiths, early-career Healys and Latifs, and Mores.

However, Ramdin should certainly keep his place in West Indies' team as there is no-one who is an obviously better batsman so thus it's not worth dropping a perfectly decent wicketkeeper in favour of someone who might (and might also very easily not) bat a bit better.

 

[Jarquis]

Ramdin's FC average > Prassana Jayawardene's

 

[Prince EWS]

Ramdin's FC average > Prassana Jayawardene's

Scoring runs in Sri Lankan domestic cricket > scoring runs in West Indian domestic cricket.

 

[Jarquis]

Fair point,

Test match average differs by a little more than 1 run in favour of Jayawardene, still Richards point of saying "An average in the mid-to-low-20s is no longer good enough for a wicketkeeper" contradicts the later point of "Prasanna Jayawardene is a different matters is good enough to play Test cricket as specialist batsmen regardless of his wicketkeeping."

 

[Prince EWS]

Fair point,

Test match average differs by a little more than 1 run in favour of Jayawardene, still Richards point of saying "An average in the mid-to-low-20s is no longer good enough for a wicketkeeper" contradicts the later point of "Prasanna Jayawardene is a different matters is good enough to play Test cricket as specialist batsmen regardless of his wicketkeeping."

There's a full-stop after Latif; I daresay you thought that was a comma. It changes the whole context of the sentence.

He was merely saying that Jayawardene's batting (along with Healy's, Boucher's etc) > Ramdin's. Only Stewart and Haddin were deemed by Richard to be worthy of batsmendome.