Dean Jones says England should produce seaming wickets

http://aus.cricinfo.com/link_to_dat...EWS/2005/APR/227838_ENGAUS2005_11APR2005.html

I'm with him here, as I said one of the other Ashes threads. I think England are going to struggle mightily if the tests are played on flat pitches given that McGrath and Gillespie are more than capable of taking wickets on them, and Warne is experienced and useful on non-turning tracks as well, probably as much as any spinner ever has been given the wickets he usually gets to work with. If the pitches take spin then Warne and perhaps Macgill are likely to run through England pretty easily as well. I think the best hope for England is to produce pitches which offer something for Hoggard, Harmison and Flintoff, and back their batsmen who are more experienced playing in seaming conditions. Australia's bowlers are certainly far more proven on flat wickets than in seaming conditions which these days are almost never found in Australia.

If Lee comes in he will undoubtedly be a handful on seaming pitches, and the likes of Ponting, Martyn, Langer and Katich are all excellent players in seaming conditions, but I still think it will give Harmison and Hoggard in particular an advantage, and it is England's best chance of taking a test or two and pushing for a close series.

FaaipDeOiad said:

http://aus.cricinfo.com/link_to_dat...EWS/2005/APR/227838_ENGAUS2005_11APR2005.html

I'm with him here, as I said one of the other Ashes threads. I think England are going to struggle mightily if the tests are played on flat pitches given that McGrath and Gillespie are more than capable of taking wickets on them, and Warne is experienced and useful on non-turning tracks as well, probably as much as any spinner ever has been given the wickets he usually gets to work with. If the pitches take spin then Warne and perhaps Macgill are likely to run through England pretty easily as well. I think the best hope for England is to produce pitches which offer something for Hoggard, Harmison and Flintoff, and back their batsmen who are more experienced playing in seaming conditions. Australia's bowlers are certainly far more proven on flat wickets than in seaming conditions which these days are almost never found in Australia.

If Lee comes in he will undoubtedly be a handful on seaming pitches, and the likes of Ponting, Martyn, Langer and Katich are all excellent players in seaming conditions, but I still think it will give Harmison and Hoggard in particular an advantage, and it is England's best chance of taking a test or two and pushing for a close series.

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Agreed! I think the fact Australia like to score at 4 an over in tests would also help England's chances if they are green seaming tracks

What do they want to do.....die?

i've lost pretty much any respect ive had for dean jones. clearly he knows nothing about england or the aussie bowlers. seriously only a fool would think that bowlers like harmison and flintoff would do better than mcgrath, gillespie and kaspa on a seamer friendly wicket(thats really feeding them to their strength really), especially considering that the above 2 have a history of wasting seamer friendly conditions. if deans jones didnt already know that both harmison and flintoff are bowlers who prefer bounce over movement, then he clearly has no idea what hes talking about.

tooextracool said:

i've lost pretty much any respect ive had for dean jones. clearly he knows nothing about england or the aussie bowlers. seriously only a fool would think that bowlers like harmison and flintoff would do better than mcgrath, gillespie and kaspa on a seamer friendly wicket(thats really feeding them to their strength really), especially considering that the above 2 have a history of wasting seamer friendly conditions. if deans jones didnt already know that both harmison and flintoff are bowlers who prefer bounce over movement, then he clearly has no idea what hes talking about.

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I don't think he is suggesting that Harmison and Flintoff are necessarily going to out-bowl McGrath and Gillespie on seaming wickets, but that playing on seaming wickets might generally reduce the gap between the teams. The English players have more experience in seaming conditions generally, and the Australian bowlers are capable of wasting seaming conditions too, particularly Gillespie when he isn't on song. On a flat deck I can see Australia belting a 500+ score and then McGrath, Gillespie and Warne making scoring extremely difficult for the English batsmen and eventually beating them the same way that they usually do on flat decks. On a seaming wicket if luck goes their way the English bowlers could at least reduce the Australian total, and I think the overall chances of them winning a test or two is better under those circumstances.

It's also possible of course that McGrath and Gillespie could destroy them on a seaming wicket, but I think England have to back their abilities, and I find the likelyhood of the English batsmen surviving McGrath and company on a seamer higher than Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff running through the Australian batting lineup on a flat track.

FaaipDeOiad said:

I don't think he is suggesting that Harmison and Flintoff are necessarily going to out-bowl McGrath and Gillespie on seaming wickets, but that playing on seaming wickets might generally reduce the gap between the teams. The English players have more experience in seaming conditions generally, and the Australian bowlers are capable of wasting seaming conditions too, particularly Gillespie when he isn't on song. On a flat deck I can see Australia belting a 500+ score and then McGrath, Gillespie and Warne making scoring extremely difficult for the English batsmen and eventually beating them the same way that they usually do on flat decks. On a seaming wicket if luck goes their way the English bowlers could at least reduce the Australian total, and I think the overall chances of them winning a test or two is better under those circumstances.

It's also possible of course that McGrath and Gillespie could destroy them on a seaming wicket, but I think England have to back their abilities, and I find the likelyhood of the English batsmen surviving McGrath and company on a seamer higher than Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff running through the Australian batting lineup on a flat track.

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how long is it going to take for you to realise that bar hoggard the rest of the english bowlers arent even suited to genuine english conditions?
and mcgrath and kaspa are about as likely to waste seaming conditions as rob key is of starting the first test, because mcgrath in particular has a history of bowling brilliantly on every seaming wicket. you dont go into any test playing to their strengths, unless you have a death wish. if england want to stand a chance they need to prepare pitches that suit their strike bowler- and that man like it or not is harmison. and for them to be able to do that, they'd be much better off preparing bouncier even flatter wickets that got more uneven as the game went on. if england do end up preparing seaming wickets for the ashes, well they might as well give up before hand, because they have absolutely no chance of playing mcgrath and co, mcgrath in particularly is virtually unplayable.

tooextracool said:

how long is it going to take for you to realise that bar hoggard the rest of the english bowlers arent even suited to genuine english conditions?
and mcgrath and kaspa are about as likely to waste seaming conditions as rob key is of starting the first test, because mcgrath in particular has a history of bowling brilliantly on every seaming wicket. you dont go into any test playing to their strengths, unless you have a death wish. if england want to stand a chance they need to prepare pitches that suit their strike bowler- and that man like it or not is harmison. and for them to be able to do that, they'd be much better off preparing bouncier even flatter wickets that got more uneven as the game went on. if england do end up preparing seaming wickets for the ashes, well they might as well give up before hand, because they have absolutely no chance of playing mcgrath and co, mcgrath in particularly is virtually unplayable.

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Bouncy, uneven wickets would also suit the likes of McGrath and Lee right to the core, and the chance of players like Hayden and Martyn struggling to handle a bit of extra bounce is pretty much nil, particularly if Australia win the toss and make England bat last. It is at least concievable that the Australian top order would struggle on a seaming wicket if England bowl well. Australia's strength is flat pitches, and that is why since 1999 in the biggest era of flat wickets in 50 years Australia have dominated more in terms of win percentage than any other team in history (aside from the fact that they are very good, obviously). If the Ashes is played on 5 flat pitches England will need a miracle to win a single test.

Actually, I've only seen Australia truly humbled on raging turners. Another Mumbai, perhaps?

Then again, what Giles can do, Warne can do better........

LongHopCassidy said:

Actually, I've only seen Australia truly humbled on raging turners. Another Mumbai, perhaps?

Then again, what Giles can do, Warne can do better........

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Yeah. Big turners can cause Australia problems, but if Sri Lanka and Murali couldn't beat Australia and Warne on three big turners (even though they did get close each time) England don't have a chance with Giles. On a flat deck their bowlers will get murdered while McGrath will probably do pretty well as he usually does on flat wickets, and the other Australian bowlers are all better than their English counterparts when the pitch isn't helping too. Fast, bouncy wickets could help if Harmison bowls out of his skin, but I can't see him outdoing Gillespie or Lee for unplayability on such wickets.

FaaipDeOiad said:

Bouncy, uneven wickets would also suit the likes of McGrath and Lee right to the core,

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err lee wont play a single test unless the aussie selectors get too much to drink one night, and i think its fairly obvious that mcgrath is more suited to wickets that offer movement that he is to bouncy uneven wickets. in fact if anything the english pacers have more pace than the australian bowlers, so you'd think if anything they'd be more suited to bouncy uneven wickets than anything.

FaaipDeOiad said:

and the chance of players like Hayden and Martyn struggling to handle a bit of extra bounce is pretty much nil, particularly if Australia win the toss and make England bat last., It is at least concievable that the Australian top order would struggle on a seaming wicket if England bowl well.

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australian batsmen will struggle against good bowling on any wicket, just like any team would. fact is that good bowling is more likely to occur for england on a bouncy wicket than on any other wicket. you can almost bet your life that harmison,flintoff and to an extent jones will waste any seaming wicket that they get by bowling too short, in fact if you've watched any amount of english cricket recently, you'd already know that.

FaaipDeOiad said:

Australia's strength is flat pitches, and that is why since 1999 in the biggest era of flat wickets in 50 years Australia have dominated more in terms of win percentage than any other team in history (aside from the fact that they are very good, obviously). If the Ashes is played on 5 flat pitches England will need a miracle to win a single test.

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no they wont, because most wickets dont stay flat for all 5 days. if england for example bat first and score 450, even if australia scores 500, england can get a total of 350 odd and then bowl australia out as the pitch gets uneven, especially with the bowlers that they have being capable enough to exploit uneven bounce. england need to bat as well as australia to win this series, because they sure as hell wont bowl as well as australia.

FaaipDeOiad said:

Yeah. Big turners can cause Australia problems, but if Sri Lanka and Murali couldn't beat Australia and Warne on three big turners (even though they did get close each time) England don't have a chance with Giles. On a flat deck their bowlers will get murdered while McGrath will probably do pretty well as he usually does on flat wickets, and the other Australian bowlers are all better than their English counterparts when the pitch isn't helping too. Fast, bouncy wickets could help if Harmison bowls out of his skin, but I can't see him outdoing Gillespie or Lee for unplayability on such wickets.

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except that given gillespie's consistency and the fact that lee wont be in the starting XI you'd back yourself to have more of a chance on that wicket. if england prepare seamer friendly wickets they will get absolutely annhilated, i'll be surprised if they got over 150 in any inning.
you might also wanna consider the fact that adelaide 2003/04 was flat, as was antigua 03 and sydney 02/03(with a lot of uneven bounce towards the end).

Trying to make a pitch to Englands advantage is pretty much impossible as Australias bowlers are much better and would expolit difficult pitches better than the england bowlers. pitches that offer something for both bat and ball are the best for producing good cricket so id just go for that maybe make them a little slow clarke certainly didnt like the slow rose bowl wicket

If England prepare cr*p pitches it'll be 5-0 or 4-1 to Australia, if they prepare flat pitches it'll be 3-0 or 4-0 but the matches will last in to the fourth day so the ECB wont lose money.

richard had an intresting theory about preparing turners, i wonder what he will have to say about this. flat tracks would be the most wise i would say, as it offers no real advantage to any side, and lets face it england will be at a huge disadvantage already. preparing any type of pitch asides a flat one will only result in england being beaten my a further margin.

a turner is a very poor idea and warne would destroy them. I think a slow pitch could be a good bet but for the good of the contest a pitch that is good for the batsmen but offers a bit to the bolwers usualy the best.

I think it was Scaly piscine with the turner theory, and I think it *might* work. Warne is going to turn it at will on anything, so we might as well help our spinner too. If you want to nullify Warne your best bet is probably to prepare a pitch which doesn’t bounce.

prepare turners and Australia will play the Macgill as well. whos the 2nd English spinner?

I’m not worried about MacGill in the slightest.

lol well you certainly should be, especially if you produce a turner or two

tooextracool said:

err lee wont play a single test unless the aussie selectors get too much to drink one night,.

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Because Kaspa's form has been so brilliant right - he's failed in all bar one innings of his last 4 tests and was dropped for another.

Dont let your blind bias towards Lee cloud your judgement AGAIN.