How many runs will Alastair Cook score in the 2013/14 Ashes?

[uvelocity]

Yeah I can't figure out why Johnson can't swing a two piece either.

one piece when i was at school

 

[Prince EWS]

one piece when i was at school

I think a lot of those things are still made out of two pieces despite the seam being entirely fake.

 

[uvelocity]

not sure. been a while. why don't we check with the world's foremost kanga cricket expert, tipnrunmark00

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Why are you so touchy?

It's my period

 

[Son Of Coco]

burgey you don't set fields to bad bowling. the difference with bell is he is able to manipulate good bowling to 3rd man for easy boundaries. that's what requires plugging. if a bowler is bowing poo and won't pitch the thing up, you take the **** off.

The problem with this theory is that in 2010 none of our batsmen could bowl.

If you keep the fields up and where you want your bowlers to bowl, and they continue to bowl where you don't want them to bowl, you're slightly insane.

 

[Cabinet96]

Yeah setting fields to bowling you know is unlikely to be executed is just overly stubborn and can cost your side. Not even the dumbest ****wit would have a plan to bowl short nothing deliveries to Cook, but if you bring Johnson on and he bowls two wide long hops in his first over you have to push the man out otherwise you're not going to be able to get a hold of the game. The odd good ball that goes for one through the vacant gap for one instead of a dot doesn't override the literally thousands of runs that are saved every time a wayward bowls drops short.

Same thing applies with Cook in India last year. No one wanted Dhoni to put deep point out for Ashwin because it was "setting a field to bad bowling" but it saved loads of runs and kept the pressure on every time Ashwin dropped short, which was regularly enough to warrant the man back.

Why would you not set a field to bad bowling if your bowlers are bad?

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Why would you not set a field to bad bowling if your bowlers are bad?

This is the kind of deep thinking that makes leaving here impossible.

 

[hendrix]

Some of this talk about stopping Bell via a third man is cute.

Perhaps Bell played so many shots down there cause there wasn't a third man.

Crazy thought, but batsmen do occasionally aim for unoccupied areas of the field ...

Yeah OK mate Bell can play any ball anywhere that there's a gap in the field. Happy now?

If he can actually do that, good luck to him. There's really nothing that the bowlers can do at that point. If he's able to pull a length ball from outside off stump to deep midwicket, congratulations. It's a risky shot but when players are extremely good they can do it.

Really, I could count on one hand the number of players that I've seen in such rare form that they're able to do that at will. Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Mohammed Yousuf, VVS Laxman, Hashim Amla, Kevin Pietersen.

As good a series as he had, that list does not include Ian Bell. If the bowlers bowl well to a set field and Bell manages to do what he likes with the ball then he will indeed be a truly superb batsman. Some of the above players (e.g. VVS, Pietersen) weren't really in the class of the others, but on their day they could do that. We'll see if Bell falls into that category.

In which case, fair play to him. Not much anyone can do, really.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

All i'm saying is, he won't be letting it run to third man if there's a third man there.

I know that, as do you.

 

[Burgey]

He'll knock back singles then. Ok.

Beginning to come around to Guy's thinking here. Cook will make 23,000 runs this series without being dismissed. Bell won't get a bat all summer, such will be Cook, Carberry and Trott's dominance. KP will make 20 not out in the only innings of the fifth test when Trott retires hurt for 675.

 

[GIMH]

He'll knock back singles then. Ok.

Beginning to come around to Guy's thinking here. Cook will make 23,000 runs this series without being dismissed. Bell won't get a bat all summer, such will be Cook, Carberry and Trott's dominance. KP will make 20 not out in the only innings of the fifth test when Trott retires hurt for 675.

Our batsmen are too good to get hurt you dumb ****

 

[Tangles]

Bell caught out the Aussies in England. They were focused on Cook, Trott and KP. Now he still played very good cricket but it will be harder to duplicate that form. He will get more attention and more focus. That might be enough to disrupt him if he can't quietly go about his innings. If he scores like that again then that's too good.

Now I'd be happy as an Aussie if he has to cover for the top order again.

 

[GuyFromLancs]

He'll knock back singles then. Ok.

Beginning to come around to Guy's thinking here. Cook will make 23,000 runs this series without being dismissed. Bell won't get a bat all summer, such will be Cook, Carberry and Trott's dominance. KP will make 20 not out in the only innings of the fifth test when Trott retires hurt for 675.

Your optimism that Cook will be limited to 23,000 is borderline trolling.

Where is PEWs with his infractometer?

 

[Burgey]

Why don't you report the post then and see how you get on?

 

[dermo]

guyfromlancs is worse than swingpanzee

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Why don't you report the post then and see how you get on?

Because reporting posts like some ***** ain't MY thing.

I'm English, son

 

[JontyPanesar]

Bit controversial maybe, but I genuinely believe Clarke won't be as troubled by the short ball in Australia as he was in England, even though the wickets will be faster and bouncier.

While I think the short ball will always be a relative weakness for Clarke because he's a converted batsman, the fact that he has handled it so well over his career tells me he's more than capable of shoring up that area of his game.


In contrast, Cook's method for dealing with full & wide deliveries has always been discipline, and I don't see him all of a sudden getting the stride in during this series. I suspect he'll keep waiting for that which can be flicked or cut, or else succumb to the scoreboard pressure.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

guyfromlancs is worse than swingpanzee

Yeah swingpanzee was funny at least.

 

[dermo]

Because reporting posts like some ***** ain't MY thing.

I'm English, son

quite possibly the worst thing ive ever read

 

[benchmark00]

An English poster once reported this post for trolling:

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cri...-test-series-report-analysis.html#post2777695

True story.