7 months away from the Ashes...

[pup11]

McGain anygood because Siddle and Krezja were ****ing atrocious in that last .

I have seen McGain bowl and he is pretty good given the current Aussie spin stocks, he has got very good accuracy for a leggie and gets good drift too, so he would my spinner for the Ashes series given he recovers from injury and shows some form for the Bushrangers later in the season.


If everything goes right form wise and injury wise then this the Aussie squad i would like to see for the Ashes

1.M.Hayden / P.Jaques / P.Hughes
2.S.Katich
3.R.Ponting (C)
4.M.Hussey
5.M.Clarke
6.A.Symonds
7.B.Haddin (wk)
8.M.Johnson
9.B.Lee
10.B.McGain
11.S.Clark
12.B.Hilfenhaus
13.D.Bollinger
14.S.Watson
15.J.Krejza / N.Hauritz

Ideally would like to see Haydos play till the Ashes but if he retires or is dropped, then i would prefer to have Jaques,but in case he isn't fit or is out of form then i would give the chance to young Philip Hughes, would add certain amount of X- factor to the side with his youthful exuberance and talent.

Otherwise won't tamper much with the batting line-up and would persist with the same crop of batsmen, bowling wise Lee, Clark and Johnson should be the three quicks and McGain would be the spinner, Hilfenhaus and Bollinger should be the reserve fast bowlers, and Watto would be cover for Symonds, and taking the second spinner depends on what the selectors think, because having 7 quicks in one squad won't make much sense, but in case they don't find a need for a second spinner they can pick a reserve batsmen, someone like Hodge or David Hussey who have some experience of playing in the English conditions due to their county stints.

 

[pup11]

Australia's best bowler (Clark) is better than England's best (Flintoff) in more conditions than not. However, if England get the conditions right (and obviously a bit of it is down to luck as if the weather's bad you can't prepare with the attention-to-detail you'd like), Flintoff could easily be better than Clark.

England's second-best (Sidebottom) is potentially better than anything else Australia have to offer (be it Lee or Johnson). Lee and Johnson have both been poor very often but have also of times been devastating.

Anderson is similar to the above two Australians - often poor but potentially excellent and having demonstrated his excellence not so long ago.

The rest of the seamers who might play have so far done nothing to suggest they're any good at Test level - but that doesn't mean any of them won't be. Come July 2009, Tremlett and Bracken\Bollinger (or others) could be bowlers who can perform at Test level.

To make many assumptions about the spinners would be dangerous - we don't know how good Bryce McGain really is. He could be better than MSP or Swann - he's a wristspinner. However, he could also perfectly possibly be nowhere near as good under most circumstances. One thing's for sure, though, if McGain doesn't play, England >>>>>>>> Australia in spin and would be exceptionally unwise not to try to play to that strength.

I think your assesment when comparing bowling of both the sides is quite accurate, but i think that certain edge that the English bowlers have kind of gets blunted when you compare the batting of both the sides, Aussies bat pretty deep and unlike the English side there isn't any heavy dependence on a few certain individuals to click in order for Australia to score big runs.

 

[Richard]

Australia's depth of batting currently is envious, no doubts, but I'd still hope Flintoff and Sidebottom could knock-over the Lees, Johnsons and whoever-else-is-playing-with-any-batting-ability's without great difficulty when the ball is swinging.

 

[Manee]

Definately not, imo, the Australian tail is far from the ability of someone you can knock over with consistency.

 

[Richard]

None of them are top-order batsmen. Really good bowlers can expect to knock-over players who are not top-order batsmen with great regularity.

 

[Uppercut]

None of them are top-order batsmen. Really good bowlers can expect to knock-over players who are not top-order batsmen with great regularity.

Flintoff doesn't though. Sidebottom won't if the ball doesn't swing. Noone else in England is a "really good bowler", South Africa are having real trouble with the Aussie tail and England's attack isn't a great deal better than SA's, if at all.

 

[Penguinissimo]

Sorry to have posted and then dropped out of the discussion.

If I had to pick an England XI now, it would be:

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan (because I will kill someone if Bell plays, and Shah is dodgy in English conditions)
Pietersen
Collingwood
Flintoff
Prior
Broad (because if you're going to bat Flintoff at 6 you need some back-up down the order)
Swann (because Monty needs a season back in county cricket to sort his game out)
Harmison (because in a five man attack you can afford an X factor bowler)
Anderson (to be replaced by Sidebottom if he can prove his fitness)

 

[Jigga988]

Flintoff doesn't though. Sidebottom won't if the ball doesn't swing. Noone else in England is a "really good bowler", South Africa are having real trouble with the Aussie tail and England's attack isn't a great deal better than SA's, if at all.

yup, exactly, yorkers that Flintoff may bowl arn't really that effective and if there is no swing then Sidebottom and Jimmy would find it quite difficult to dislodge competent batsman such as Johnson and Lee and even Clark can bat a bit, dunno about the spinner though

 

[Jigga988]

Sorry to have posted and then dropped out of the discussion.If I had to pick an England XI now, it would be:StraussCookVaughan (because I will kill someone if Bell plays, and Shah is dodgy in English conditions)PietersenCollingwoodFlintoffPriorBroad (because if you're going to bat Flintoff at 6 you need some back-up down the order)Swann (because Monty needs a season back in county cricket to sort his game out)Harmison (because in a five man attack you can afford an X factor bowler)Anderson (to be replaced by Sidebottom if he can prove his fitness)

yeah i like Vaughan in the squad, he's a proven batsman in English conditions and i am sure he will be really fired up for the ashes. Also, he'll help out Pietersen who looked like an inexperienced captain in that first test against India.

 

[pup11]

Sorry to have posted and then dropped out of the discussion.

If I had to pick an England XI now, it would be:

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan (because I will kill someone if Bell plays, and Shah is dodgy in English conditions)
Pietersen
Collingwood
Flintoff
Prior
Broad (because if you're going to bat Flintoff at 6 you need some back-up down the order)
Swann (because Monty needs a season back in county cricket to sort his game out)
Harmison (because in a five man attack you can afford an X factor bowler)
Anderson (to be replaced by Sidebottom if he can prove his fitness)

I think its time to move on and look somewhere else, going back to Vaughan would be like taking a few steps backwards and even if Vaughan were to be brought back into the side, it should be on the basis of him scoring some runs and showing good form in county cricket rather than just bring him back without any real reason, i think English selectors need to decide what they want to do with Bell, they have invested a lot of time and games in him, and now to just drop him before an important series like the Ashes would be a very hard decision, but the good thing for him and most English batsmen is that they get to play a lot of tests against the Windies before the Ashes, so it could be fill your boots time for all the batsmen who have been out of form and who have their spots under the scanner.


Prior is another guy the English selectors need to make up their mind about, he is certainly proved that he can hold his own when compared to the other keeper-batsmen in UK in terms of batting and he is arguably the best batsmen among all keepers in England currently, but what they need to decide is are they willing to ignore Prior' shoddy glovework just for his batting and is his batting really that good for them to take this risk, it would be very harsh on the English bowlers if they work hard and make a Ponting, Hussey or Clarke edge one only to see Prior spill the chance and later seeing the same batsman going onto make most of that let off, i personally believe Read is the best wicket-keeper in England and he should be persisted with or they could go for Foster, but Read would be my choice.

Other than that i agree with the rest of the names in there, Monty needs to dropped he needs to go back and work on his bowling all over again, but i doubt that would happen because if they can pick Giles over Panesar during the last Ashes series in Australia, then Panesar too might just be able to secure his spot till the upcoming Ashes series, on the other hand Swann has really impressed me his with changes in pace, loop and overall style of bowling and he is someone England should persist with for the upcoming series against West Indies and see where it goes from there.

EDIT: Just noticed that you don't have Sidebottom in there, tbh he would the first English bowler i would pick if he is fit.

 

[Penguinissimo]

Pup -

The problem is that Vaughan is the best of a bad lot of alternatives. If we have a lot of very talented batsmen coming through the ranks, then most of the guys who have been in the closed shop of England's top order would have gone by the board a long time ago. The fact is that the Ashes is a series that we want to win, and don't care at all about developing people for the future - we have to pick the side, regardless of age or prospects, which has the best chance of winning that series.

You're just advocating Bell because you know he's a pushover mentally and you'd love to see him coming out at first wicket down. If I supported any of England's opponents, I'd be paying the selectors to carry on picking him. I can't tell you how much I want Bell to be dropped, and have wanted him to be dropped for about the last 9 months. I was distraught when he scored that 199, because it's his annual "well, that shows he's got potential" innings.

On the keeper, personally I think James Foster should have been in the side in India. He's a stunningly good keeper (better than Read in my opinion, since Read has issues with knowing where his first slip is), and more than competent with the bat. But since they've chosen to ignore him, they've got to stick with Prior for a year now.

As I've said in a different thread, if Sidey bowls like he did in the 12 months after his recall, he should be a guaranteed pick ahead of Anderson. But an out-of-form or short-of-fitness Sidey is not something we speak about.

 

[Richard]

Flintoff doesn't though. Sidebottom won't if the ball doesn't swing. Noone else in England is a "really good bowler", South Africa are having real trouble with the Aussie tail and England's attack isn't a great deal better than SA's, if at all.

I think it is. I think Flintoff and Sidebottom in some conditions are better than Ntini, Steyn and Morne Morkel. This includes the sort of conditions the SA trio are currently playing in, though not the sort of conditions you'd stereotypically expect to get in the UK.

 

[Richard]

Prior is another guy the English selectors need to make up their mind about, he is certainly proved that he can hold his own when compared to the other keeper-batsmen in UK in terms of batting and he is arguably the best batsmen among all keepers in England currently, but what they need to decide is are they willing to ignore Prior' shoddy glovework just for his batting and is his batting really that good for them to take this risk, it would be very harsh on the English bowlers if they work hard and make a Ponting, Hussey or Clarke edge one only to see Prior spill the chance and later seeing the same batsman going onto make most of that let off, i personally believe Read is the best wicket-keeper in England and he should be persisted with or they could go for Foster, but Read would be my choice.

Prior's wicketkeeping in the two Tests in India was actually perfectly OK, can't remember him doing much wrong. If he can keep wicket like he did in those games, he's fine with the gloves. What I wonder is whether he will do, given how poor he was in the ODIs beforehand. I also retain plenty of doubts about Prior the batsman's ability against good-quality seam and swing (his play against spin is established beyond too much doubt) and hopefully the quality of bowling in WI will be good enough to test that.

If Prior keeps wicket poorly in West Indies, he has to go, simple as, IMO. You cannot afford an inept wicketkeeper in Test cricket, you must have an adaquete one even if he's merely a decent rather than good batsman.

Foster or Ambrose would still be my choice at the current time. Foster is a good wicketkeeper and Ambrose an adaquete one. Ambrose's batting has potential to be good IMO, and Foster's is certainly potentially that of a decent lower-middle-order player who can regularly hang-around. And frankly, someone who can average 30-31 by regularly staying in more than 10 deliveries is preferable to me to someone who makes the occasional century and regularly gets out for nothing.

BTW, Read won't play for England again as has been said a faiiiiiiir few times TBH. He's an ICL player now. In Test cricket, for me that's an unadulterated good thing, though I'll say it again I still see no evidence that there's a single competent wicketkeeper (even if Prior was competent) who can bat as well as he can in one-day cricket and if he wasn't an ICL player he'd still be my first-choice in ODIs.

 

[Furball]

Steve Davies, if he continues the form he showed with the blade last season.

 

[Richard]

Even while I've many hopes for Davies in the long-term, I don't want to see him pitchforked into an Ashes as his debut series or ideally even his 2nd one.

If we're going to have a wicketkeeper-batsman other than Prior between now and then, I'd like it to be Ambrose or Foster, both of whom have played before and have a good few seasons of First-Class cricket, with decent to good performance, behind them.

 

[Uppercut]

Even while I've many hopes for Davies in the long-term, I don't want to see him pitchforked into an Ashes as his debut series or ideally even his 2nd one.

If we're going to have a wicketkeeper-batsman other than Prior between now and then, I'd like it to be Ambrose or Foster, both of whom have played before and have a good few seasons of First-Class cricket, with decent to good performance, behind them.

Well if you accept that Prior can't currently be dropped for the WI tour, and you can't give someone a debut the series before or at an Ashes tour, does that mean Prior behind the stumps for them has now become the best-case scenario?

 

[Richard]

For the Australia series? Nah, I hope that a bad series in WI will still see Prior dropped, but I just want the man replacing him to be Ambrose or Foster, not Davies. Not yet. Though maybe on the winter tour if Ambrose\Foster don't do that well against Aus.

I wonder who the last England player to do well when facing Australia (a better-than-diabolical Australia - Tim Robinson doesn't count) right at the start of his career (be it debut or sophomore series) was? I might be missing someone but I can't think of anyone for quite some time.

 

[Jungle Jumbo]

I wonder who the last England player to do well when facing Australia (a better-than-diabolical Australia - Tim Robinson doesn't count) right at the start of his career (be it debut or sophomore series) was? I might be missing someone but I can't think of anyone for quite some time.

Pietersen?

 

[GIMH]

yeeaahhhhhhhhhhhhh :gun

 

[Furball]

Even while I've many hopes for Davies in the long-term, I don't want to see him pitchforked into an Ashes as his debut series or ideally even his 2nd one.

If we're going to have a wicketkeeper-batsman other than Prior between now and then, I'd like it to be Ambrose or Foster, both of whom have played before and have a good few seasons of First-Class cricket, with decent to good performance, behind them.

Was referring more to your point about Read still being the best ODI keeper-batsman in the country.