***Official*** West Indies in England

[wfdu_ben91]

KP gone, good.

I seem to remember posters telling us England were a one-man batting team, but we seem to be doing alright in the last few tests without a major contribution, from him.

I doubt any English batsman would be equally or more successful against an opposition team that isn't New Zealand, West Indies or Bangladesh. KP cashes in when it counts most.

 

[stumpski]

Superfluous gloves coming out, is Strauss considering calling them in before tea?

Would be a good attacking move, we're well past the stage where West Indies can win this.

 

[superkingdave]

Superfluous gloves coming out, is Strauss considering calling them in before tea?

Would be a good attacking move, we're well past the stage where West Indies can win this.

Would hope the message was get as many as you can we are declaring at tea. Means we won't lose the 10 minutes or 2 overs it takes

Mind you, Collingwood playing like he's been told he's all the time in the world.

Prior gone.

 

[Briony]

Should declare now!

 

[King Pietersen]

They should definitely declare now, not send another batsman in and waste time. Just get 'em in for a few minutes before tea. We've got enough. Another good innings from Prior, looks a class act with the bat!

 

[oitoitoi]

They should definitely declare now, not send another batsman in and waste time. Just get 'em in for a few minutes before tea. We've got enough. Another good innings from Prior, looks a class act with the bat!

He's the worst kind of flat track bully IMO, the Aussies will show him up for sure. His test record is quite incredibly misleading.

 

[pietersenrocks]

He's the worst kind of flat track bully IMO, the Aussies will show him up for sure. His test record is quite incredibly misleading.

He may have scored a lot of runs against Windies, but he sure is a class act. He keeps scoring runs in Tests, and also performed better than a lot of other batsmen in SL. No matter how he got runs, he always plays fantastic cricket strokes. I hope Aussies will test him out.

 

[superkingdave]

Didn't know Stuart Broad's sister works with England in video analysis, bet Stuart loves working with her all the time.

 

[grecian]

Yep call him a FTB, when he's actually failed against someone. His stats may well be misleading, but he's done well, and he looks to have lots of time at the crease.

It's over a 1000 runs he's scored now, so it's not exactly a small sample.

50 for Colly, not a thing of beauty, but pleased for the lad at his home ground

The poor weather may affect the declaration, no point declaring if Gayle will take the light....

 

[oitoitoi]

The only really top side he's played against is India, against whom he averages a whopping 23. Add his shocking keeping and he's of little real value to the side. Only really going to score runs when you'd back the top 5 or 6 to put enough on the board anyway (e.g. today), when they fail he's probably going to fail too. Keeper's should be fighters, the type of batsmen who can score when it's really tough, even if they don't score a lot on flatties. At test level prior isn't close to that.

If Johnson starts banging it in short against him with his open stance he's going to really feel the pain. Expecting him to struggle a lot in SA later this winter too. Ambrose, Davies, Foster all could have done what Prior did today, and they're all better keepers.

 

[King Pietersen]

His average against India is poor because he first played them a few years back when he wasn't quite as good. He had a decent enough tour of India over the winter, making an unbeaten 50 in one of his 3 innings. Averaged over 40 in Sri Lanka as well, which is pretty decent against Vaas, Malinga and Muralitharan on their home turf! He looks very good technically as well, I'm backing him to continue to make runs this summer!

 

[stumpski]

That's tea, 569-6, and surely the end of the innings. I know England don't need to declare but it would be ludicrous to carry on batting this evening.

 

[pietersenrocks]

The only really top side he's played against is India, against whom he averages a whopping 23. Add his shocking keeping and he's of little real value to the side. Only really going to score runs when you'd back the top 5 or 6 to put enough on the board anyway (e.g. today), when they fail he's probably going to fail too. Keeper's should be fighters, the type of batsmen who can score when it's really tough, even if they don't score a lot on flatties. At test level prior isn't close to that.

If Johnson starts banging it in short against him with his open stance he's going to really feel the pain. Expecting him to struggle a lot in SA later this winter too. Ambrose, Davies, Foster all could have done what Prior did today, and they're all better keepers.

He's aggressive and plays the shot balls really well. Hopefully, He'll cut and pull Johnson's short deliveries. I really think that Prior is going to prove you wrong. Also, he batted well with Bell in SL, when England were under pressure. He had a bad series against India, nothing more than that. He may need to work a lot more on his keeping, but he'll probably keep scoring.

 

[four_or_six]

Prior looks a decent enough test no.6. I'm certainly not complaining about us having another top-six batsman averaging around 50, whoever the runs are against.

 

[superkingdave]

His average against India is poor because he first played them a few years back when he wasn't quite as good. He had a decent enough tour of India over the winter, making an unbeaten 50 in one of his 3 innings. Averaged over 40 in Sri Lanka as well, which is pretty decent against Vaas, Malinga and Muralitharan on their home turf! He looks very good technically as well, I'm backing him to continue to make runs this summer!

He only debuted in 2007, he first played India a year before he played them the second time. Regardless, Prior is decent against spin...unfortunately he's not going to face a lot of it in the next two series. I think he's a bit suspect against high quality pace bowling...which is what he is going to face against Australia and South Africa. I hope he is successful (and doesn't drop any) but his start to test cricket has been pretty fortuitous in who he has faced so we will see.

 

[GIMH]

Not sure they'd been too bothered they can just come on air earlier. It's more to do with possiibility of dew on the ground that they don't earlier (not particularly relavent in this match i know). When the test matches were split and Sky had 1-2 a year, thes terrestial matches used to start earlier (10.45 or 10.30 iirc) because they didnt want the cricket to disrupt prime time but sky still had theirs at 11 as this was the ECB's preffered time and sky didn't have a problem with clashing with Hollyoaks. I think the opinion is that a start time before 11 just in most cases skews the contest towards the bowlers

Sky probably wouldn't mind an earlier start as the viewing figures for 1030-11 would be higher whilst 50% plus of the audience are going to turn over to Sky sports 1 after midday

When were they split? I don't remember Sky showing home Tests at all before 06, just ODIs, but I am probably wrong

 

[oitoitoi]

He looks very good technically as well

Would have to disagree with you hugely there. Just look at his stance, he sets himself up to look to play everything though the covers and point, he'll always struggle against decent swing bowling, especially inswing. He also commits to the front foot very early, will find bouncier tracks much more difficult. Defensive technique is very shaky too, especially off the back foot. With such a stance left armers and right arm round the wicket will always cause him problems.

 

[Briony]

He only debuted in 2007, he first played India a year before he played them the second time. Regardless, Prior is decent against spin...unfortunately he's not going to face a lot of it in the next two series. I think he's a bit suspect against high quality pace bowling...which is what he is going to face against Australia and South Africa. I hope he is successful (and doesn't drop any) but his start to test cricket has been pretty fortuitous in who he has faced so we will see.

He's done well this series but coming in at #6 against the Windies on flat pitches doesn't indicate how he might perform in the Ashes if England's in trouble and the ball is doing something in the hands of the likes of Mitch.

 

[GIMH]

Is the follow-on 150 runs less than our target because we lost a whole day yesterday? I thought that only applied when it was the first day that gets lost

 

[wfdu_ben91]

If you take out Prior's stats against West Indies (bowlers averaging over 40) then his average goes from 47 to 29.