what catch is this?The catch was six years ago mate.
Ending the winter on such a horrible defeat should be a good thing in the long run for english cricket - hopefully. Hopefully it will mean that there is more analysis of what is wrong and why - and it won't just be forgotten. Losing to Australia in the ashes is one thing. They're a good team but losing to the Dutch is embarassing. This isn't the team that England would have been looking at a year ago. Finn, Swann, KP etc all aren't around. But the players available should still of been good enough to beat the dutch. You've gotta question county cricket and what is happening there and ask why the players in reserve are so average and lacking of so many basic skills.
Look at Parry and his so average bowling. No spin and there wasn't even control of length in this game. Buttler awful behind the stumps. Jordan shovelling everything down the leg side when he bowls. Kieswetter the same block or bash merchant he was. Hales game going backwards. Ali lacking the power for international t20 cricket.
Everybody can moan about Giles or Flower or Saker (and they are culpable to a degree) but it's the players on the field. A lot of them don't have the basic solid foundations needed for T20 cricket. And the rest are too knackered or spread too thin to make the telling contributions.
This winter more than anything has shown that outside the 11 or 12 guys who are good international cricketers there really isn't a lot of quality underneath. Unfortunately more than most because of their all year round schedule, the depth in English players gets tested more than say a NZ or SL who play less.
Yeah, Williamson is so so versatile these days.**** shot Williamson, don't do it again. This is an accumulation pitch. ****'s sake just push it around and hit the odd ball to the boundary with proper cricket shots.
Aaaannnd, I'm on NZ at $1.80. Thank you and goodnight.Sri Lanka $4.50, I'll take that.
A "buzzing" NZ top 6 is sure to wobble hard in the chase, at which point I'll greenbook.
If that is the situation, which I don't think it is - it's the first thing 'pundits' go to when a country has a rubbish tour - then it was created by the selectors. They have given a big two fingered saluted to the guys, who, season after season have done all that could be asked of them in County Cricket (see Onions) and yet been ****ed about behind the likes of Finn, Bresnan, Tremlett. People selected when they've been injured or off the pace, who have simply been given their place back and not had to earn it.What it shows is that the appaling arrogance and complacency that we saw from the test team leading up to the ashes debacle is actually endemic in the county game. As long as they get their handout from the ECB, it's OK to produce the sub-mediocre timewasters that we see coming into various vesions of the national team nowadays. People can call for Giles to go all they want, but no-one would be capable of making a competitive international side from this sort of garbage. A pox on all of their houses.