Fletcher - Time To Go?

[UncleTheOne]

A long term replacement that can bat must be the next priority for English cricket.

Step forward Steve Davies, the boy does look very gifted. Future England keeper/batsman.

 

[PY]

yes i could, but its not as if England have had some good times in ODI in Fletchers time in charge, they beat SA here in 2003, drew in India 2002, got to the final of the last CT, no much i'd admit. But as i said England's poor ODI performances is more down to the players themselves not being able to adapt to the shorter form of the game rather than faults in Fletcher's coaching.

Surely part of the coach's job is to make the players better prepared for the conversion from Tests to ODIs?

 

[tooextracool]

yes i could, but its not as if England have had some good times in ODI in Fletchers time in charge, they beat SA here in 2003, drew in India 2002, got to the final of the last CT, no much i'd admit. But as i said England's poor ODI performances is more down to the players themselves not being able to adapt to the shorter form of the game rather than faults in Fletcher's coaching.

the coach's job is to pick the right players(although like Chappell i think the coach shouldnt be involved in the selection), not pick the lights of Plunkett, Kabir Ali and Sajid Mahmood when none of them will probably ever be good enough for ODI cricket. England may have won a few fluke series, but they are yet to win a major ODI trophy since Fletcher has come into charge and they havent won a triangular series that didnt involve bangladesh or zimbabwe. and the only reason they drew the series in India was because of Nasser Hussain.

 

[tooextracool]

No they don't, different people deserve to be treated differently, i agree with Fletcher on picking Jones, i just couldn't imagine going into an ashes series with Read batting at 8.

Right, players averaging 20 for 2 years without exceptional keeping ability should be retained while players averaging 40 in their last series with better keeping skills should be dropped.....

 

[Matt79]

i dont see how that works. Luck plays a significant role in results. As such you could have dropped Gillespie before the last Ashes and with the results it might have been a great decision, but based on logic it would not have been. its really like playing a poor shot. If Collingwood had connected and hit a 6 of Warne on 95 at Brisbane would you say it was a good decision to play the shot given the situation? Similarly would you say Kevin Pietersens second ball 4 today(a pull over mid on) was a good shot given that it went for 4? At the end of the day, a good decision IMO should be judged on how logical it is, ie what reasons there are to make that decision, rather than based on how many runs or wickets it produces.



Jones is always going to 'look' better in the nets than read because hes a more extravagant batsman. Its a similar comparison to looking at Collingwood and Pietersen in the nets. Jones' problem has always been that he been a little bit of a dumba**, and you cant measure that quality by watching someone in the nets.



Yes but thats clearly not the reason why he was favored over Read, otherwise he wouldnt have been dropped ITFP.

Dropping Gillespie before the last Ashes would have been a good decision because he was bowling tripe in the ODIs and tour matches, and didn't look to be improving at all.

If Collingwood had hit Warne for six, it would have been hard to criticise him. The poor decision making there lay in not understanding his capabilities, not the shot itself. It was only poor shot selection for a player who was incapable of hitting that ball (which granted would be most batsmen).

You are just pretending that Jones isn't a better batsman than Read, when its a pretty evident fact that he is. Yes his top score to date is 33, but if you're assessing him on the criteria of "which of our two keepers is a better batsman", rather than "Is Jones really a quality keeper/batsman" then the answer is obviously that he is better than Read.

You say Read had done nothing wrong. I'd say that he hadn't done enough right. They dropped their incumbent, offered the understudy a couple of opportunities to stamp himself on the role and make it his own. He failed to do that, and when it came to the crunch, Fletcher preferred the guy who he has faith in and believes to be the better player. That's logical from his perspective. You might disagree with the criteria he's used or the weight he's placed on different arguments, but its unfair to say he's acting without a reason or logic.

And if watching players in the nets doesn't tell you anything about a player's form with the bat, why does every coach and selection panel in the world pay attention to it. Form in the nets probably shouldn't come into consideration if a player's got a proven record of achievement in recent games, but in situations where you're tossing up between a couple of players, what other basis are you meant to compare them on? What Statsguru tell you about them?

 

[marc71178]

You say Read had done nothing wrong. I'd say that he hadn't done enough right. They dropped their incumbent, offered the understudy a couple of opportunities to stamp himself on the role and make it his own. He failed to do that, and when it came to the crunch, Fletcher preferred the guy who he has faith in and believes to be the better player.

The thing is, in those 2 games I believe he scored more than Jones had done in the last 7 games (or something like that)

 

[techno t]

Right, players averaging 20 for 2 years without exceptional keeping ability should be retained while players averaging 40 in their last series with better keeping skills should be dropped.....

you hit it right on the head there dude

*

 

[andmark]

With grey haired Ashley Giles bowling D fletcher should go now.

 

[superkingdave]

After last nights 'heroics' the 4th option seems a lot more appealing, even if i couldn't spell it correctly.

 

[Richard]

I'd like the option - "yes after this test"! At least with England's batting performing our lack of fire in the bowling due to the ludicrous trade off between 20 runs at no8 vs wickets from your spin bowler is likely to brought into stark contrast, hopefully without actually costing England any hope in the series.

Nicked from another forum...

Can anybody make a case for Giles’ inclusion in the team?

Here is the case:
(conversation between English Ashes tour selectors, Duncan Flether and Andrew Flintoff)

DF - We seem to have a bit of a problem with a long tail in our batting.
AF – Hmmm…what can we do about it. We can’t have a long tail.
DF – I know, we’ll include Ashley Giles, he should be fresh and really up for the battle. Hasn’t played for 12 months you know.
AF – 12 months, really. That long is it. Well yes then he should be really fresh and up for the battle.
DF – And he was a major part of our 2005 Ashes success. It was even named after him.
AF – Funny I never realised that, you’re right, Ash’s success.
DF – And he’s great to have in the dressing room.
AF – But I thought we were going to include him in the team to go out onto the ground.
DF – No, I mean before play, during breaks etc.
AF – Oh yes, good point.
DF – He averages 21 with the bat, you know. But it’s not just the runs he gets, it’s the way he gets them. Really sticks it up them he does. And it’s the runs that the other player scores whilst batting with him.
AF – Averages 21? What’s his average against Australia?
DF – How’s your ankle coming along?
AF – Fine, you know I was reading the other day that Brett Lee averages 30 with the bat against England, and Shane Warne about the same during the last 10 games or so. So lucky we’ve got a proper number 8.
DF – Yes but Warne and Lee haven’t had to face Warne during this period. Great spinner.
AF – Yes, they’ve only had to deal with our spinner, that wouldn’t be hard. Avearges 55 against them, strike rate 90, economy rate 3.7 rpo. Who is our spinner again anyway?
DF – Ashley’s just has a few unlucky games.
AF – What’s his batting average against Australia then, I bet it’s higher than Warne’s and Lee’s, they’re just sloggers? I read the other day Dennis Lillee averaged 17 with the bat against England, Merv Hughes and Geoff Lawson 16, and none of them could bat. Ashley must average at least 30 in Ashes contests?
DF – Panesar can’t bat, you know. Can’t field and I no longer think he’s the best left arm orthodox spinner of Indian descent playing for England in the world. I was only saying that anyway. PR exercise. He was getting a bit too popular. For some unknown reason, people really seem to like him.
AF – yeah, you’re right, Giles must play. Averages 55 with the ball against Australia, 16 with the bat, and he’s great in the dressing room. And he’s fresh.
DF – Glad you see it my way old boy. Big future for you as captain of this team you know.

That has to be one of the most utterly ignorant comments I've ever read.

Wonder which idiot on which forum wrote it...