***Official*** England in India 2016/17

[honestbharani]

Professional sportsmen have to tell themselves that results are completely within their control and that every loss can be attributed to their own mistakes, rather than the opposition just being better. Otherwise how would you convince yourself that you can win the next match?

The media should be able to provide a more balanced viewpoint though.

Not really. Professional Sportsmen should believe they can get better and defeat people who may have been better than them on a given day. What you are saying is basically a form of arrogance and superiority complex which means just a few defeats will bring everything back crashing down. I would never advise professional sportsmen to think that no one can beat them when they play well. A normal loss or two can send all that built up confidence crashing down.

 

[andruid]

England shall regret neglecting Ollie Rayner

 

[OverratedSanity]

There is just way too much theory around English cricket. And has been since the days of Andy Flower. Some mighty good players emerging and getting along for a period may have papered over those cracks but God, they are surely not helping themselves by sticking to "plans" as much as they do. Sometimes you need to take punts, go with hunches and sometimes, pick a player because he is actually good, not about how he gets along with others or how he can contribute in other disciplines.

As someone else mentioned, they've taken several "hunches" recently with Woakes, Rashid and Hameed which seem to have worked.

 

[ImpatientLime]

England shall regret neglecting Ollie Rayner

i love ollie and being a fan of the middle i've seen him plenty. he is a threat when there is some bounce in the track but utterly toothless when there isn't.

he's not international class.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Must be something in the water up that part of the country. Both our Durham posters love to make a mountain out of a molehill.

These same selectors have persevered with Woakes and Rashid when many of us on here had written both off. Been brave enough to select a teenage opener when many thought it was too soon for the lad and also brought back Bairstow when a lot thought he wasn't good enough after his previous failures. Yes they have made mistakes but name me a national board of selectors that haven't made mistakes over the years?

Woakes was a guy who either clicks and becomes very effective, or he's totally innocuous. In India he's the latter, when he was a little bit short of 'something' he was the latter. Sorry but the only one the selectors get credit for is Rashid. But then they have the team to make it easy to allow luxuries like Rashid in the first place.

The job of the selectors is to pick a side that wins matches, but also to back up the county game as that's symbiotic relationship, if players are performing there then at the very least they should be looked at. If they don't play there needs to be a good reason for it, that could simply be you have no room and have a settled winning side. Duckett, Hameed and Jennings were the new performing bats. Borthwick also in the first half of the season. You also had Bairstow scoring runs for fun. As I've said before they should pick him as a specialist batsman, but they're basically going to waste some of his ability - a batsman average 50 is much more valuable to England in particular than a crap keeper averaging 35-40.

The selectors randomly picked Ballance and pissed all over the county game
The selectors picked Ansari and Batty and pissed all over the county game
The selectors picked Finn bar two matches all year when he's clearly bowling shite, and pissed all over the county game.
Now they've topped it off by picking Dawson.

Some time the England set up (lets call it that, it's all about England and the county setup is treated like a dog toy) might realise they actually need a strong county game and to reward consistent and strong performances instead of picking guys on a whim. Because when they've done these absurd selections based on a guy being 'a solid county pro who can bat a bit' the results been pathetic but they've undermined the whole system in which their players come from.

 

[vcs]

Not really. Professional Sportsmen should believe they can get better and defeat people who may have been better than them on a given day. What you are saying is basically a form of arrogance and superiority complex which means just a few defeats will bring everything back crashing down. I would never advise professional sportsmen to think that no one can beat them when they play well. A normal loss or two can send all that built up confidence crashing down.

I wouldn't call it arrogance, more a conviction that "if we execute our disciplines to perfection, 9/10 times we'll win no matter what the opposition does".

Rightly or wrongly, in the aftermath of a loss, most top-level sportsmen will usually look at what they did wrong rather than giving effusive credit to the opponent.

 

[Shri]

Chennai gears up for heavy rains as Cyclone Nada forms in Bay of Bengal | Skymet Weather

Depending on how the weather plays out over the next week, Chennai might not have time to prepare the best possible pitch they can. Will be an interesting test if it happens.

 

[mackembhoy]

This post is a joke, right

Of course. But we keep selecting players off the strength of white ball performances how else do you explain the recall of buttler and selections of Vince/Dawson/Duckett. They obviously never watched any of them playing championship cricket.

Bayliss even talked up Jason Roy as a potential test option at the end of the summer. Didn't even mention Jennings who's now in the side( a player he's never seen)

I know Duckett scored championship runs. But his batting against spin clearly isn't good and they based it off lions performances.

 

[mackembhoy]

Must be something in the water up that part of the country. Both our Durham posters love to make a mountain out of a molehill.

These same selectors have persevered with Woakes and Rashid when many of us on here had written both off. Been brave enough to select a teenage opener when many thought it was too soon for the lad and also brought back Bairstow when a lot thought he wasn't good enough after his previous failures. Yes they have made mistakes but name me a national board of selectors that haven't made mistakes over the years?

It's not really serious but we are selecting players not off what they do in red ball cricket. Fundamentally wrong.

Well I backed Rashid all the way. Woakes went away and worked on his game after South Africa. Still shouldn't have selected him in that series.

 

[Woodster]

Seems a bit of fuss on here being made by England not giving India enough credit for winning the last two Tests and instead looking at our own incompetence. Well, to be fair, that's exactly where we should start when trying to look at improvements that can be made for the remaining Tests. This is still, effectively, a 'live' series, not sure too much praise for the opposition is quite what is needed at this point when we are looking to reverse the fortunes of the last couple of Tests. I'm sure after the series if, as expected, we are travelling home having received a sound beating there will be a lot of praise for how the home side play in their conditions and the qualities they have shown which this bunch of players can hopefully learn from.

There's no need to heap praise on India and state the obvious in that they have been the much better side recently. To be fair, Cook and co. also have a point when suggesting we've gifted things to India by being so below par in certain areas. Some of the shots we have played have been woeful, that's not to say that they've not been a result of good, probing, accurate bowling, but we're looking for a response from those culpable and for them players to stand out for the duration of this tour. Constant praise of how well Ashwin has bowled or Kohli and Pujara have batted won't quite get the response from our players that is intended.

 

[Daemon]

To clarify, Cook said that none of the balls were unplayable besides the one to Bairstow which is fair. He said the pitch was not misbehaving, they didn't bat well enough and India were very accurate as usual. I think that's fine tbh.

Unfortunately most pressers don't show you the questions asked if you're not watching live.

 

[Energetic]

What's the point of playing 5 test matches against England in India? Bangladesh would've made more of a fight than the so called "Lions".

 

[indiaholic]

Because playing Bangladesh doesn't make much money.

 

[Groundking]

What's the point of playing 5 test matches against England in India? Bangladesh would've made more of a fight than the so called "Lions".

Cricket should only be played in 5 and 3 test match series....

 

[Compton]

Just caught up with the last day's play. Helluva lot of respect for Hameed.

 

[indiaholic]

Right? Was feeling bad for Hameed when Nasser was slagging him off during the lunch break.. Thought it was way too harsh on him.

 

[Daemon]

Regarding Leach,

but his Somerset captain in 2016, Chris Rogers, suggested he had "emotionally… a bit of a way to go" before he was ready for international cricket

What's this about?

 

[Furball]

Regarding Leach,



What's this about?

Reads like a temperament issue to me.

Rodgers is definitely someone I'd be listening to.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Reads like a temperament issue to me.

Rodgers is definitely someone I'd be listening to.

These days listening to an Australian about a spinner in cricket is like listening to a Scotsman talking about strikers in football. In the rare occasion they have any inkling about what they're talking about there's always a risk they'd say something just to try and sabotage England. I think what he said was merely trying to back up his "I am still a big believer that you need more than one good season to play for England" comment, which is clearly a load of **** looking back at some of the selections Australia have made in the past.

I would place far more weight in how Leach has fought his way through the levels in pretty unglamorous circumstances and kept finding ways to be effective. And obviously that he took 60odd wickets at 21. Instead of 20odd wickets at 40odd or similar like the other guys that have been picked. His figures just make it a total no contest with the likes of Batty, Ansari, Dawson etc.

 

[Bijed]

. I think what he said was merely trying to back up his "I am still a big believer that you need more than one good season to play for England" comment, which is clearly a load of **** looking back at some of the selections Australia have made in the past.

Tbf to Rogers, he had to put in about 15 good domestic seasons before he got a decent run in the test side.

That said, I'd have taken Leach to Bangladesh and India and am actually quite surprised that he didn't go out as part of this change to the squad,