Rohit yes. Raina never. He will never get out of ODIs or T20s.
Alternatively, Key to open with Wright dropping to 6 instead of Mascarenhas.Just think, as others have said, against the better bowlers who bowl short and quick he's looking all at sea at the start of the innings. Taylor and Edwards against him tomorrow
I agree with you about him in the field, I'd be happy if Owais made way and Wright batted down the order, but I really want Napier in.
Test bowling is solid and the opening pair is probably the best in the world Gambhir looks someone who will last the distance though middle order might get fragile if the youngsters don't step it up after Sachin, Dravid and Laxman departs. I will sit on the fence for this.
See this sounds really arrogant. Assuming that all India had to do to win was get things right on their end. You are all quick to pounce on us when we lose to the Netherlands, collapse against South Africa etc, but we win two games on consecutive Sundays, and both times it was because Pakistan and then India didn't play well. Nah, not having it, we deserved the win, you lost because of the way we played, you didn't allow us to win it
Not for me. I say open with KP, he's getting in early enough anyway, he's the only one who can take advantage of the PPs, and have Napier for the mid-overs where we've become stymied every match. Dimi, Shah or Wright to drop out. Won't leave us too stretched with the bowling either.
Aye, that's why i want Napier in. Could well fail, but it's no coincidence that our wins have come when KP has top-scored. Need someone else who can hit a few quick runs.
Well.. win a WC and then you too can take out the swagger on us...
GIMH, there was no such pouncing on my part. The margin of defeat today was a mere 3 runs, and considering all the plainly avoidable mistakes India have made, it is reasonable to put forward the argument I did. If I were studying for an examination, and chose not to focus on the obviously important parts, and scored a 94, while my friend did focus on the stuff that was required and scored a 97, it would be reasonable for me to conclude that I threw it away more than I got beaten by him. It would certainly have been arrogant to reach that conclusion were the margin huge enough to compensate for these obvious lapses, but that isn't the case here.
This is some joke or what?
WOW - so finally 2 minnows gonna play 'The Ashes'
Nah, if you're sitting an exam the two of you aren't having any effect on each other at all. This is the equivalent of you taking an exam, and your friend dancing naked in front of you so superbly while you were sitting it that you weren't able to perform to your full potential, and hence your, uh, friend got a better score than you.
Fine, make it a 2 player quiz where you've got to buzz in the answer before the other guy does. The principle is sound, you're nitpicking on form.
Sorry, I know there wasn't any pouncing by you, large chunks of my post were just addressed to the CW community as a whole. I disagree that you lost the game more than we won it, but we'll leave it at that, agree to disagree and all that jazz
I think thats putting a bit of a rose tint on the batting today. Lets face it, India gifted a lot of runs, Harbhajan on his own gifted 10 runs in wide deliveries and there were several runs in the field that we got as a result of poor fielding. Pietersen's 46 from 27 was the only reason we got close to what we ended up with today, and we already knew that without Pietersen scoring England tend to struggle to get anywhere above 120+.
Pietersen is our premier batsman, and we really need to him perform every game. But, I don't think we are dependent only on him. If Bopara & Wright fire, they could single handedly win the game. IMO, 2 out of the top four are needed to score, else we'll end up around 130 at best.
Wright, Bopara, Pietersen and Shah are 4 players who if they bat 10-15 overs they are likely to get England to a very competitive total. Collingwood, Mascarenhas and Foster on the other hand, I would have little hope for, both in terms of actually batting 10-15 overs or scoring at a decent lick. However, all 7 of them are dodgy starters and need to play themselves in before they can start to play the big shots.
