***Official*** India in England 2014

[viriya]

Depends how they do it - is that 24% chance of India winning?

yes. 24% india win, 9% eng win, 67% draw

 

[Adders]

Worst possible score card to wake up to........again.

This is now a serious problem (to add to the list) that we've got taking the 10th wicket, Shami and Kumar putting on a 100 stand is probably worse than letting Agar score 98 on debut.

And Cook.......wtf to do about Cook??

 

[Viscount Tom]

Seriously Adders you go to bed and Cook loses his wicket, man up and stay awake for Cook's sake.

 

[Adders]

Seriously Adders you go to bed and Cook loses his wicket, man up and stay awake for Cook's sake.

Hahaha. Actually I went to bed very content with India 350/9, if I had stayed up for Cooks sake I don't think I'd be going to work this morning........I'm guessing it would have to have been nearly 2am Aus time before Eng had a bat?

Getting up each morning and checking the scorecards this whole summer has been mostly very traumatic.......can't think of a many occasions where I thought "that'll do"

 

[Viscount Tom]

#Addersfault

Reckon this'll pop up a few times over the next few weeks.

 

[social]

England need to pick a specialist spinner

It's not a case of finding the next Swann, it's simply someone that can bowl serviceably from one end, change the tempo and take the load off the fast bowlers for a while

England's quick bowlers were knackered towards the end and simply couldn't summon the energy to finish off what had been a sterling job

At this rate, a couple will be fried after 2 tests

 

[social]

In other news, I thought Cook's captaincy was a massive improvement over some of his last few outings

 

[hendrix]

England need to pick a specialist spinner

It's not a case of finding the next Swann, it's simply someone that can bowl serviceably from one end, change the tempo and take the load off the fast bowlers for a while

Completely disagree.

For a start, Moeen Ali is very serviceable.

But if they want to pick a different bowler, they should move Stokes to 6 and bring in Jordan.

 

[social]

Completely disagree.

For a start, Moeen Ali is very serviceable.

But if they want to pick a different bowler, they should move Stokes to 6 and bring in Jordan.

Mooen is not serviceable and, more importantly, Cook doesn't appear to trust him to bowl more than a couple of overs at a time

Adding Jordan to the team would be ridiculous as it would be just more of the same

 

[hendrix]

Mooen is not serviceable and, more importantly, Cook doesn't appear to trust him to bowl more than a couple of overs at a time

Adding Jordan to the team would be ridiculous as it would be just more of the same

Moeen is very nearly the best spinner in England.

I watched him bowl and he wasn't bad. He was pretty good vs SL too. Jadeja and Dhoni were going to take apart any spinner on this pitch.

 

[viriya]

Picking a spinner for the sake of it makes no sense.. if anything a fast bowler would give more rest to the others because his over takes longer to bowl.. as it is Ali gets hit for 6/over and his over is done in 2 minutes with Anderson/Broad/Plunkett/Stokes barely able to catch their breath from the previous over..

 

[hendrix]

Picking a spinner for the sake of it makes no sense.. if anything a fast bowler would give more rest to the others because his over takes longer to bowl.. as it is Ali gets hit for 6/over and his over is done in 2 minutes with Anderson/Broad/Plunkett/Stokes barely able to catch their breath from the previous over..

Right, but let's not forget that they're still picking 5 bowlers this way.

If they were to bring in a proper spinner instead of Ali, that's still only 5 bowlers IF they choose to bat Stokes at 6.

I really think that this is the right attack. They have 5 bowlers without compromising their batting. They could arguably bring Jordan in for any of Plunkett, Stokes or Ali.

 

[social]

Sorry but England does not have a 5 man attack

They have 3 main bowlers + an emerging all-rounder + some options that vary in degree of usefulness

The balance is all wrong, is reminiscent of the dark days of the 90s and they will struggle to bowl any side out for an acceptable score on a regular basis unless conditions are favorable

What's more they have 9 batsmen in the team that have scored test centuries - happy days if it doesn't compromise the bowling but in this case it does

 

[viriya]

Jordan in for Ali would make a lot of sense if Cook was making runs and the batting line up looked more solid as a result.. Right now he's a walking wicket so Ali seems to be a requirement.. No easy solutions for England.

India have a real chance here - I can see them posting 400+ in the first innings in every test with Anderson and Broad likely to bowl worse and worse as the series goes along.. Just need Shami/Ishant/Bhuvi/Ashwin/Jadeja do combine and bowl consistently enough the way the SL bowlers did.

 

[hendrix]

They have 3 main bowlers + an emerging all-rounder + some options that vary in degree of usefulness

they will struggle to bowl any side out for an acceptable score on a regular basis unless conditions are favorable

That's a 5 man attack by modern standards. Stokes is better than most 4th seamers in the world, and Ali is more than part time.
NZ hasn't struggled to bowl sides out and their 4th seamer (Anderson or Neesham) is worse than Stokes and their spinners (Sodhi or Craig) are worse than Ali.
Obviously they're not all front-line bowlers, but no team in the world picks 5 front line bowlers.

Aside from that, even if you're going to pick a frontline bowler ahead of Stokes, I'm not sure that the options (Jordan) are any better.

 

[Flem274*]

Harris, Johnson, Siddle, Lyon, Watson looks pretty frontline for their respective roles.

Stokes is fine for his role as the fourth quick. Where England will find trouble is Moeen isn't really a proper spinner but they knew that, they just wanted the batting allrounder 5th bowler to be the spin option because it's a better package than Monty or Kerrigan.

 

[viriya]

That's a 5 man attack by modern standards. Stokes is better than most 4th seamers in the world, and Ali is more than part time.
NZ hasn't struggled to bowl sides out and their 4th seamer (Anderson or Neesham) is worse than Stokes and their spinners (Sodhi or Craig) are worse than Ali.
Obviously they're not all front-line bowlers, but no team in the world picks 5 front line bowlers.

Aside from that, even if you're going to pick a frontline bowler ahead of Stokes, I'm not sure that the options (Jordan) are any better.

I would think Craig is clearly better than Ali no? Maybe his returns vs WI flatter him.

.. actually surprised to see that he ended up with a 40 average.. I guess the first test was a one-off..

 

[hendrix]

Every side ever relies on their first 3 frontline bowlers to take the majority of the wickets. Even when you have an excellent 4th seamer that's indisputably better than Stokes (which England don't), he's not going to be taking that many wickets or having that much of an impact.

Ali very nearly makes the side on his batting alone. And it's very questionable whether they have a genuine spinner better than him.

Harris, Johnson, Siddle, Lyon, Watson looks pretty frontline for their respective roles.

Stokes is fine for his role as the fourth quick. Where England will find trouble is Moeen isn't really a proper spinner but they knew that, they just wanted the batting allrounder 5th bowler to be the spin option because it's a better package than Monty or Kerrigan.

Watson is not a frontline bowler. He's perfect for his role though. I think Ali and Stokes are fine in their roles too.

I would think Craig is clearly better than Ali no? Maybe his returns vs WI flatter him.

.. actually surprised to see that he ended up with a 40 average.. I guess the first test was a one-off..

Windies pitches + windies batsmen + a massive first innings deficit + Southee and Boult building pressure...most spinners would've done well in those circumstances. Including Ali.

 

[auditor]

Bye bye Cook.

Aborigines eaten Cook

 

[Burgey]

O_o