*Official* Pakistan in England 2010

[Themer]

Reading this post in Boni's voice was a pleasure.

Still don't think Bresnan should be anywhere near opening the bowling for England in ODIs. Don't think he's good enough now and I don't think he's going to improve immeasurably over the next few years.

Get a proper new ball bowler with alot of potential in; James Harris.

 

[Howsie]

Can somebody explain to me why Stuart Broad doesn't open the bowling?

 

[King Pietersen]

Guessing it's because Bresnan's a swing bowler, and if he's going to get any movement it'll be with the new ball. The main problem with that, is that Bresnan generally bowls too short in ODi's to get any movement. Really need to get rid of him. He's a decent T20 bowler, but he's been awful in ODi's.

Yousuf gone as well. Anderson bowling very well here, looks a completely different bowler when it's moving around. He really has improved as an ODi bowler in the last 18 months or so.

 

[Prince EWS]

Bopara > Wright as a bowler. I don't care if Wright bowls a little quicker; Bopara's bowling has really come on of late and he's not exactly slow medium himself these days.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Wright's bowling just seems a complete waste of time at this stage of the innings. He can bowl good death overs, but otherwise he just gives easy runs away.

 

[Howsie]

Guessing it's because Bresnan's a swing bowler, and if he's going to get any movement it'll be with the new ball. The main problem with that, is that Bresnan generally bowls too short in ODi's to get any movement. Really need to get rid of him. He's a decent T20 bowler, but he's been awful in ODi's.

So it has nothing to do with Stuart Broad not being good enough to do so, nor him not wanting to do so either? Strange. Bresnan's a terrible one day bowler but if he has to be in team somewhere then he should be playing as first change imo.

 

[Faisal1985]

Some sense restored in this target building finally....the batting line up is looking much better with these 4 Yousuf, Alam Shafiq, Umar in the middle order....They should stick to this in the Test side as well.

 

[Prince EWS]

Wright's bowling just seems a complete waste of time at this stage of the innings. He can bowl good death overs, but otherwise he just gives easy runs away.

Yep AWTA. Wouldn't be against him trying to work on his death bowling and making the team that way (as odd as a specialist death bowler would be) but he shouldn't be bowling in the middle. Certainly not when five frontline bowlers (not even including Bopara) have been picked and they've all done well.

 

[Faisal1985]

But Swann is Swann...the dude is on top of the world with his spin.

 

[Prince EWS]

Azhar was your best batsman in the Tests though (not that it's saying much, admittedly) so that's a strange call unless you think he should open. That'd be fine as he's an opener domestically but he should definitely be in the Test team somewhere.

 

[Flem274*]

Rooting for Pakistan here. Fawad Alam for a ton.

 

[King Pietersen]

Umar Akmal in mindless batting shocker.

 

[Howsie]

Brainless.

 

[Flem274*]

Phail.

 

[Jacknife]

Did anyone else see the shot of Akmal running past Bresnan and giving him a bit of elbow on the way past.

 

[Themer]

This is a conspiracy to keep Bresnan in the team for the long term.

Terrible shot; it wasn't required at all. All these pair needed to do was keep taking the singles and the odd boundary when a bad ball was bowled but instead Akmal once again proves he has the temperament of a Honey Badger.

 

[King Pietersen]

Superb bit of fielding from Luke Wright that, maybe he's got some use in this side after all. Not been the best spell of bowling from Michael Yardy though, that full toss deserved to be put away.

 

[Neil Pickup]

This is a conspiracy to keep Bresnan in the team for the long term.

Terrible shot; it wasn't required at all. All these pair needed to do was keep taking the singles and the odd boundary when a bad ball was bowled but instead Akmal once again proves he has the temperament of a Honey Badger.

Welcome to CW. Time to try to get Sky Player to work...

EDIT: Love Windows 7 and split displays. I've got the cricket in front of me on the whiteboard in one IE window, and everything else on the normal monitor. Now to see if I can actually get any work done like this...

 

[Prince EWS]

Yardy's such an enigma. He's picked primarily as a bowler - and would have have quite a case to be included on it alone at this point - in one day cricket for his country, but he's so impotent in First Class cricket that he doesn't bowl a single ball for his domestic team all season in it. Has there ever been a bowler with such a vast difference between his OD and FC credentials?

To cap that off he's a genuinely good First Class batsman with a terrible one day batting record! Although admittedly the difference between those two has closed in a bit in recent times.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Hahahaha.