***Official*** England in India

[superkingdave]

It is still highly unlikely that India will loose to England but it wouldn't take away from the poor methods applied to achieve end results.

yep, i definitely think England's middle order is the looser.

 

[grecian]

Read is a better wicket-keeper-batsmen in one-dayers, in my opinion. He hits sixes late on, but Geraint has the ability to build innings better, so he should play in the tests.

With Vaughns knee looking increasingly dodgy, and the chance of him being replaced by Collingwood all the more likely, does anyone feel england might make up hoggys bowling with bell and collingwood, and play both Monty and Blackie?

Blackwell is turning the ball, and looks a wicket-taking option, but he could go for runs, Panesar looks like he may have more control, and is more likely to tie down an end.

 

[Sanz]

Selectors have done a good job here by dropping Ganguly. He had his chance in Pakistan, he didn't do as well as he should have done. Also, It is good that Ganguly issue is resolved for good. It created an unnecessary pressure on Dravid which led him to open. Sehwag, Jaffer, Dravid, SRT, Laxman, Dhoni, Pathan, Bhajji, Kumble, RP Singh, Santh or VRV looks solid to me.

If we want one of the bowlers can be dropped to accomodate Raina.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Read is a better wicket-keeper-batsmen in one-dayers, in my opinion. He hits sixes late on, but Geraint has the ability to build innings better, so he should play in the tests.

With Vaughns knee looking increasingly dodgy, and the chance of him being replaced by Collingwood all the more likely, does anyone feel england might make up hoggys bowling with bell and collingwood, and play both Monty and Blackie?

Blackwell is turning the ball, and looks a wicket-taking option, but he could go for runs, Panesar looks like he may have more control, and is more likely to tie down an end.

Colly's injured too. Back problem.

 

[steds]

Isn't there an Official England in India thread for this talk?

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

India pick 17 year old leggie to face England - Ganguly dropped !!!

...merged with this one. Proceed.

 

[superkingdave]

saw some highlights of today's play.

Strauss chopped one on, didn't look to happy with himself. Bell edged to gully, Flintoff chipped one to mid on (grr). Pietersen looked in quite a bit of pain. Blackwell actually hit the umpire fairly flush with a straight drive - it still went for 4 through wide mid off. Geriant Jones was bowled by a straight one playing down the wrong line, so was Hoggard. Blackwells wicket was sweeping, umpire gave it straight away, batsman didn't look happy.

 

[wpdavid]

That bad?Christ,i thought he (Jones) was at least averaging 25.

In tests, he averages 29, and I don't think he's batted against either of the minnows. Still not special, as he's supposedly there as a keeper who's a genuine test batsman. Presumably his average of 17.8 is in ODI's

 

[Sanz]

A year in which he's played 30 Tests?

Look for yourself, his last 30 test matches. except 2004, he was less than ordinary with the bat.

http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?...edhigh=;csearch=;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

 

[grecian]

Colly's injured too. Back problem.

Ok, rather a moot point then, still think Monty and Blackie may both make their test debuts in the First test.

Gosh this threads got confusing

 

[wpdavid]

Look for yourself, his (Flintoff's) last 30 test matches. except 2004, he was less than ordinary with the bat.

http://statserver.cricket.org/guru?...edhigh=;csearch=;submit=1;.cgifields=viewtype

The real difference is between home & away. In England, he's a genuine test number 6: there was no problem with his 2005 batting at home to Aus. Elsewhere, he clearly isn't, and the sooner we recognise that, the better.

 

[PY]

Vaughan's injury:

"The injury in Pakistan was to the inside of his knee; this time it's on the outside and I'm more confident." www.bbc.co.uk/blah blah blah

Bruising then?

 

[PY]

Gosh this threads got confusing

Blame Liam.

 

[Sanz]

I believe the comparison was made at 56 Tests because:
Suppose, both Kapil and Flintoff start playing for a some club side together.
After playing 56 games, Kapil has better stats than Flintoff. That would indicate that Kapil is the better player.
Such a comparison would be better than comparing only their best periods or worst periods, whatever..

PS: I am assuming the comaprison was made at 56 Tests. There are too many posts and too little time.. If have made an error, please omit and disregard.

Yes, Comparison was made @ 56 tests. By 56th test Kapil had taken 218 test wickets compared to Flintoff's 163, Kapil had 16 Fifers and one tenners compared to Freddie's 2 fifers and 0 tenners. Kapil's Avg. 28.93, Freddie's avg. 31.51, Kapil's strike rate 55.59 Freddie's 63.41.

 

[Sanz]

What's the point in quoting stats back from when Fred was rubbish? We're talking about them at their primes.

So his all time great status will be determined by stats from his prime only ? Look man I have nothing against Freddie, I think he is a great player and I would love to have him in my team but right now I am not ready to declare him an all time great and it has nothing to do with him being an English.

People like TEC come here and post crap when they say that SRT is not an all time great despite having at least 12 super quality seasons all over the world, yet Freddie Flintoff is all time great on the basis one great season that too mostly in England.

 

[wpdavid]

Ok, rather a moot point then, still think Monty and Blackie may both make their test debuts in the First test.

Maybe. I know Dunc doesn't go for oneoffs as a basis for selection, but it's tempting to see tomorrow's play as something of a playoff between Hoggard & Panesar for the 1st test. Blackwell's looking a certainty, AFAICS.

 

[adharcric]

Flintoff is clearly the best all-rounder in the world right now.

Is Flintoff the current player with the best career as an all-rounder? Kallis, Pollock and until recently Cairns would also contend for that one.

One, two or even three years are not enough, Flintoff needs to perform at a world-class level for at least half a decade, especially given the not-so-impressive earlier part of his career. That said, he should end up as an all-time great, but he isn't one just yet.

 

[William]

Apologies if this has already been posted but Sky have a new programme called "TBA" which appears to be running from 4am til 12 noon for 5 days from March 1st. I don't know why but I get the impression it might have something to do with cricket..?

 

[kvemuri]

tendulkar has only played once at headingly, and that was in 2002. his maiden test century was at Old trafford, where nearly 1000 runs where scored in the first 2 innings itself.

You are right it was at Old Trafford, my bad. Also close to 1000 runs were scored in the first two innings itself but when he came out to bat in the second innings India were struggling at 109/3 and the next to go was Vengsarkar and soon followed by Azharuddin and it was 127/5. 9 out of 10 times that Indian team would've folded up the tent, hadn't it been for Tendulkar's maiden 100 that would've been a loss too. Thats not worth mentioning as the game was not played on a swinging/seaming condition.

bouncy wickets have no correlation with seam and swing, and in general bouncy wickets are quite easy to negotiate once you get used to them.

Really? so in your own words his "negotiation" of the bounce and pace against the likes of McDermott, Hughes, Whitney, Reiffel and Moody, before he smacked 114 off the final 272 score, is not worth mentioning.

it was actually a slowish wicket without any seam or swing prominent, which is why it ended up being a draw.

Not when the Indian top order of the 90's is considered the scorecard read a miserable 127/6 with the top 6 batsmen reading 7, 14, 7, 9, 7, 2 and of the total 227, Sachin Tendulkar had 111, if he hadn't scored we wouldn't have had a chance to end the game in, in your own words a draw.

Another match I forgot was his 122 at Edgbaston in the second innings of the total score of 219 runs we put up, we didn't win that game, but hadn't it been for him we wouldn't have even reached 100. Well to quote the game report

"He made a fraction under 64 per cent of India's runs while he was in, countering the pitch's increasing uneven bounce with marvel- lous co-ordination in defence and punishing the imperfect balls with instinctive flair and classical strokes."

SRT's 122 at Edgbaston

i dont know how the cape town wicket was seamer friendly. as bad as the indian bowlers are you would think that they would at least be capable of dismissing the SA side once in 2 attempts on a seamer friendly wicket.

Well if we were discussing indian seamers or the lack of I couldn't agree with you more, but in this innings again we were already on the backfoot 58/5 and looking no chance in hell, hadn't it been for his innings we would've folded up much earlier.

that innings was quite a joke. tendulkar should have been given out not once but twice. once sanford had him caught behind and then dillon had him absolutely plumb lbw only for asoka de silva(not surprisingly) to give him not out on both occasions.

He did get reprieve but if you apply that logic there are many times, the recent one being Akmal twice got reprieve's (one a clear cut Leg before and one a close call) in Karachi test and he went onto play a match winning knock. Thats what luck is all about, he got chances and he utilized them, same as SRT's knock here and that resulted us in winning the test.

oh come on, there was swing for about a session, that was it, by the time tendulkar came in it was as flat as a pancake and most people will tell you that it was one of the flattest headingly tracks in a very long time. in fact it even started to take turn towards the end of the game as you can see from the wickets kumble and harbhajan took.

The second day there was no swing in the morning session? when he actually scored his 100..here's a quote

"As ever in these conditions, there was encouragement for the bowlers, but there were numerous instances of frustration that were seized upon rather than the consistent inspiration that was required."

from the following article Day two match report

tendulkar has had plenty of chances to play on seamer friendly wickets over his career, especially since it spanned the 90s when we saw a fair few of them. however he was also capable of cashing in on the flat tracks and bringing his average up

That is one singularly un-true statement, a man with close to 75 100's in both formats of game and close to 25,000 runs under his belt being a Flat Track batsmen only is entirely mis-leading comment. Especially given the examples above where it clearly shows him scoring on variable bounce, seaming conditions, bouncy pitches etc.

On top of it to tag a statement that SRT is overrated just because he hasn't delivered consistently on swinging tracks is complete flawed logic as with that logic applied no one is great then, pick a batsmen and he wouldn't have performed consistently in one or more different types of conditions. By that logic even the great Brian Lara is overrated as he has consistently not performed against India. In 3 test matches Lara played in India his highest score has been 91 and I can further tag him to be afraid of playing on spinning tracks.

In fact in 13 matches Lara has played against India he has 1 100 and 6 50's with 103 his highest score and an average of 37, While in comparision he has plundered the Aussies for 9 100's and 11 50's with a staggering average of 51 in 31 games, against Eng it is 7 100's and 11 50's with an astounding average of 62 in 30 games, against Pakistan in 9 games he has 2 100's and 2 50's with an average of 42, with these stats I can further generalize this as Lara's in ability to score against gentle medium pace and hence term him to be overrated.

I know we will end up at square one after this post of mine and I also understand that no matter what stats are shown, you will maintain your stance of SRT being overrated. All I am asking is to bring is better logic than "he hasn't scored consistently on swinging/seaming conditions" to the table before terming SRT to be overrated.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Apologies if this has already been posted but Sky have a new programme called "TBA" which appears to be running from 4am til 12 noon for 5 days from March 1st. I don't know why but I get the impression it might have something to do with cricket..?

Looks like it.