***Official*** Australia in England (The Ashes)

[tooextracool]

Flintoff can, does and has swung the ball conventionally - just inswing.

other than the rare occasion- against b'desh at Lords, No he has not. hes bowled with the angle, in much the same way that harmison has.

 

[Neil Pickup]

other than the rare occasion- against b'desh at Lords, No he has not. hes bowled with the angle, in much the same way that harmison has.

Which makes...

Flintoff cannot and never will be able to swing the ball conventionally with his current bowling action

entirely false.

That will be all for now.

 

[tooextracool]

For the record, he's only made obviously bad mistake. Bowling first at Edgbaston. But, if you remember before the match, a lot of the commentators, reporters, etc. were saying that the person who wins the toss will probably bowl first, and pulled out those stats that show that not many teams have batted first and won on the ground historically. Some of these people were also former captains. So, really, he's not the only one that could make that mistake.

so you wouldnt classify setting defensive fields when flintoff comes in to bat and even at one stage having 9 fielders on the boundary as being a 'bad mistake'?

 

[tooextracool]

Which makes...



entirely false.

That will be all for now.

err any pace bowler no matter how rubbish will be able to swing the ball 'marginally' when the conditions suit swing incredibly. fact is doing it once in a blue moon isnt good enough to be able to count any bowler as being able to swing the ball.

 

[tooextracool]

Half decent bowlers like? Shoaib, Pollock, Donald, Kumble, Harbhajan, Murali, Hoggard, Ntini, Vaas, Walsh, Bishop, Srinath, Cairns? Those sorts of guys? He's scored centuries against all of them. He also averages about double what Ramprakash did from a comparable number of tests.

and would he have averaged more if he were to be playing in the same conditions in which ramprakash played most of his test career i wonder?
he might have, then again if you look at his record in England he might not have.

 

[tooextracool]

It was a pretty ordinary attack (Nel and Irani being the only ones averaging under 30, and Irani didn't bowl) and a very flat pitch. Essex scored 500 the previous day as well, so it's not as though Australia did anything particularly special.

and it does appear as though nel gave up after his first 10 overs.

 

[tooextracool]

Looking at the highlights just now, he looked to have sorted out his technique. I know the pitch was a road, but he has been playing away from his body in the tests, but from what I saw, he was waiting for the ball and getting in good position...We'll soon see.

i cant see the above claim actually having some truth in it, especially after hayden only recently stated that he wasnt going to bother with tampering with his technique or even reading whatever had been said about his technique in the papers. i wish him the best of luck.

 

[tooextracool]

But his front foot problems will still remain, whether he plays away from his body or not. I see him as a prime LBW candidate, and I won't think twice about giving the new ball to Jones ahead of Harmison, provided Jones can produce the outswing with the new ball, like Hoggard does.

and jones can outswing the new ball and did it plenty of times at trent bridge.
unfortunately he isnt going to be playing at the oval, and thanks to the folly of the english selectors yet again, we can choose between the 'big match garbage' from anderson or the 'i can provide a bit of everything without actually being good at anything' from paul collingwood.

 

[tooextracool]

This is very unlike me, but I would go for Anderson. Jimmy A has proved he's got the temperament to succeed when thrown in at the deep end in the past - he just has to take this game as it comes and not get overawed by the occasion.

just curious, how many times did anderson do the above in test match cricket against non-zimbabwe teams? it really is strange, but when he was having a ball in domestic cricket he still couldnt hurt a fly at the intl level, can you imagine just how bad he'd be at the international level when hes been struggling at the domestic level?
and im not particularly sure if anderson provides anything more than hoggard already does. in which case if the ball doesnt swing,instead of having 1 bowler not carry a major workload for the innings, we will now have 2.

 

[marc71178]

Lords-failed to read an inswinger, lbw. 2nd inning score 91 before unluckily edging a ball onto his stumps

Unluckily?

England set out to restrict him and he cracked under it.

 

[tooextracool]

Unluckily?

England set out to restrict him and he cracked under it.

arguable, fact was that it was an inside edge onto the stumps which could so easily have missed. and i fail to see how this is a technical weakness either, if anything it proves the point i've been arguing all along, that his temperament isnt very good.

 

[Barney Rubble]

just curious, how many times did anderson do the above in test match cricket against non-zimbabwe teams? it really is strange, but when he was having a ball in domestic cricket he still couldnt hurt a fly at the intl level, can you imagine just how bad he'd be at the international level when hes been struggling at the domestic level?

All I meant is that when he was thrown in against Australia for his ODI debut he responded well. I'm looking for positives, really, rather than accepting the seemingly inevitable fact that he's going to have a shocker.

 

[tooextracool]

Had Collingwood got those 4 balls in the first 2 Tests he'd probably have scored so few runs.

However I doubt he'd have got 2 fifties at Old Trafford.

there'd be questions about whether collingwood would actually be good enough to edge some of them.

 

[marc71178]

arguable, fact was that it was an inside edge onto the stumps which could so easily have missed.

Yes, but it was a shot that shouldn't have been played at the time, thus IMO negating any call of bad luck.

 

[aussie]

just curious, how many times did anderson do the above in test match cricket against non-zimbabwe teams? it really is strange, but when he was having a ball in domestic cricket he still couldnt hurt a fly at the intl level, can you imagine just how bad he'd be at the international level when hes been struggling at the domestic level?
and im not particularly sure if anderson provides anything more than hoggard already does. in which case if the ball doesnt swing,instead of having 1 bowler not carry a major workload for the innings, we will now have 2.

true, but has i said before i thin both the England & Aussie selectors are not willing to risk their talented youngsters in Tremlett & Watson for such a crucial test thus neither were picked......

 

[tooextracool]

Yes, but it was a shot that shouldn't have been played at the time, thus IMO negating any call of bad luck.

and your absolutely certain that he shouldnt have played that shot at the time?
hindsight is a wonderful thing, it really is, but if a player who has 91 in his account and is batting against hoggard at a time when runs are more important than time, isnt allowed to go for his shots, then the only players we'd have in test match cricket would be geoffery boycott. maybe he could have played a better shot, but the fact that he played a shot at the time was not a mistake.

 

[tooextracool]

true, but has i said before i thin both the England & Aussie selectors are not willing to risk their talented youngsters in Tremlett & Watson for such a crucial test thus neither were picked......

indeed, lets not risk someone who a complete unproven at the international level. lets infact go with someone whos been a proven failure in test match cricket as well as a failure in domestic cricket all season. at least he has the 'experience of being useless at the international level'.
if they didnt want to risk tremlett in a big match situation and they were looking for big match experience, the answer was staring them in the face- andrew caddick.

 

[aussie]

indeed, lets not risk someone who a complete unproven at the international level. lets infact go with someone whos been a proven failure in test match cricket as well as a failure in domestic cricket all season. at least he has the 'experience of being useless at the international level'.
if they didnt want to risk tremlett in a big match situation and they were looking for big match experience, the answer was staring them in the face- andrew caddick.

hahaha you are a harsh critic TEC , but please give Mr.Anderson some praise he is a lancastrian.......

 

[greg]

indeed, lets not risk someone who a complete unproven at the international level. lets infact go with someone whos been a proven failure in test match cricket as well as a failure in domestic cricket all season. at least he has the 'experience of being useless at the international level'.
if they didnt want to risk tremlett in a big match situation and they were looking for big match experience, the answer was staring them in the face- andrew caddick.

Caddick is struggling with shin splints.

 

[marc71178]

and your absolutely certain that he shouldnt have played that shot at the time?

Yes I am - the plan England were enacting was to get him to play that sort of shot.

hindsight is a wonderful thing, it really is, but if a player who has 91 in his account and is batting against hoggard at a time when runs are more important than time,

Runs were not more important than time when he was batting on the 2nd afternoon in the 3rd innings of the match.