***Official England in India***

[Richard]

BTW is there any chance these threads could be merged with this one? It'd make things so much easier to find.
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39958
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39110
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38879
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37964
http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37606

 

[GIMH]

Rich, why not try reporting posts do get things like that done? I did and five minutes later the official tags were on the title.

 

[Richard]

Have done that of times TBH.

Usually just use MSN if that doesn't do the trick though ITBT.

 

[FBU]

Team for the first Test

Cook, Strauss, Shah, Pietersen, Collingwood, Prior, Flintoff, Sidebottom, Harmison, Anderson, Panesar

 

[Richard]

If they elect for six batsmen and five bowlers, I reckon Bell is likely to play at three, not Shah. And Flintoff (given fitness) seems about as certain to bat six in the next game or two as the sun is to rise tomorrow, so if it's him and Prior it'll be Flintoff six and Prior seven.

Oh, and obviously it'll be Strauss-Cook not Cook-Strauss.

 

[masterblaster]

For all the Australian Cricket fans who want to watch the England tour of India. It will be telecast live on Setanta Sports and NOT on Fox Sports.

Here's the link confirming that Setanta Sports will be showing the the games in Australia.

http://www.setanta.com/en/AU/Our-Sports/Cricket/

 

[Precambrian]

Team for the first Test

Cook, Strauss, Shah, Pietersen, Collingwood, Prior, Flintoff, Sidebottom, Harmison, Anderson, Panesar

We will be in for some extremely poor over rates there. Unless Panesar virtually clogs one end for most of the day, in which case, the 4-pace-bowler theory would be rendered pointless. A solution could be to use Flintoff sparsely and use him more as the strike weapon + proper batsman.

 

[tooextracool]

White made bowling look far easier, certainly - I think it was Kev who noted a little while ago, on his sterling comeback performance at Edgbaston, that bowling every delivery seemed to require every ounce of effort he possessed. White on the other hand simply jogged to the crease and still bowled even quicker than Flintoff can.

Same can be said about Simon Jones, who in his last test run simply ambled to the crease and still tossed it out there at around 90mph.

 

[tooextracool]

Ha, really?. Don't think White could have done what Freddie did in the Ashes, but i do think Flintoff of 2004 to now could definately have matches White's feats in the sub-continent in 2000/2001

Yea he does look a bit laborious in his bowling stride at times. But to say he has no variety in his bowling, well i'll just have to wonder what you consider variety in bowlers armory?, because Flintoff certainly is by no means gun barrel straight...

So what does Flintoff do with the ball exactly? He bowls short of a length for a majority of the game and looks to get a bit of seam movement or cut into or away from the batsman. Eventually he'll pitch one ball all the way up as a yorker so that someone who is not expecting it might just play all over it. On a good bowling day with plenty of cloud cover, he'll get the odd ball to swing away a tiny little bit from the right hander. Is that a lot of variety? Not really IMO. Flintoff's strengths are that you can count that he'll give it 110% every time he bowls for England. Because he bowls heavy balls, hes harder to get away and this makes him appear faster to batsmen and also makes it more difficult for them to score runs.

White on the other hand could do absolutely anything with the ball. He could bowl booming inswingers and away swingers with the new ball. He can bowl inswingers with the old ball, he can bowl off cutters and leg cutters and he can hit the seam and make use of any seam movement. Not to mention of course that he could bowl at 90mph. Its unfortunate that, like Gough, hes shorter and bowled with a lower trajectory which meant that when he lost a yard of pace as he did in 2001, when he went up to Hussain and told him that he was no longer the same bowler, he became fairly innocuous.

 

[tooextracool]

If White could have done what Freddie did in 05, he would have made some sort of impact vs AUS in 01 after the sub-continent tours since he had declined as a bowler as yet.

White had visibly declined significantly by the time he went up to bowl in the first test at Edgbaston in 2001. He was injured and missed the series against Pakistan earlier in the summer and missed half the Ashes series as well.

 

[tooextracool]

Not sure that's ever actually been substantiated however. I never saw him get much above 91-92, but as I say - that was when apparently only going at 70-80% effort.

Dont think I recall him bowling a ball over 90mph during that summer, though he bowled plenty of deliveries that were at or around 90mph. He may very well have been the quickest bowler that summer though, definetly came out of nowhere at the time.

 

[tooextracool]

One thing which may have prevented a fit White from matching Flintoff's performances of 2005 in 01, was the extreme difference in conditions in the respective summers.

In 01 is was pretty flat expect for that test where Tudor took 5 for & then again looking back at that summer of 01 the 4-man pace attack that destroyed a weak Windies team the year before, really didn't step up in 01. So on a more general note could a fit White have done better than Gough/Caddick?

The ball definetly seemed around at Headingly that summer, and actually there were plenty of times during the summer of 2001 when there was something on offer for the bowlers except for Edgbaston and the Oval.

 

[Richard]

We will be in for some extremely poor over rates there. Unless Panesar virtually clogs one end for most of the day, in which case, the 4-pace-bowler theory would be rendered pointless. A solution could be to use Flintoff sparsely and use him more as the strike weapon + proper batsman.

You can only use someone as something they're capable of being though, that's the problem. I'm still highly sceptical that Flintoff is capable of batting like a "proper" batsman for very long at a time, else he'd have done it by now.

Certainly though I can't see him being anything other than the most-used seamer on tour. He is a better bowler, under any circumstances, than any other seamer in the party, or currently available indeed.

 

[aussie]

So what does Flintoff do with the ball exactly? He bowls short of a length for a majority of the game and looks to get a bit of seam movement or cut into or away from the batsman. Eventually he'll pitch one ball all the way up as a yorker so that someone who is not expecting it might just play all over it. On a good bowling day with plenty of cloud cover, he'll get the odd ball to swing away a tiny little bit from the right hander. Is that a lot of variety? Not really IMO. Flintoff's strengths are that you can count that he'll give it 110% every time he bowls for England. Because he bowls heavy balls, hes harder to get away and this makes him appear faster to batsmen and also makes it more difficult for them to score runs.

White on the other hand could do absolutely anything with the ball. He could bowl booming inswingers and away swingers with the new ball. He can bowl inswingers with the old ball, he can bowl off cutters and leg cutters and he can hit the seam and make use of any seam movement. Not to mention of course that he could bowl at 90mph. Its unfortunate that, like Gough, hes shorter and bowled with a lower trajectory which meant that when he lost a yard of pace as he did in 2001, when he went up to Hussain and told him that he was no longer the same bowler, he became fairly innocuous.

Solid enough summary teco, can live with this..

 

[zaremba]

So what does Flintoff do with the ball exactly? He bowls short of a length for a majority of the game and looks to get a bit of seam movement or cut into or away from the batsman. Eventually he'll pitch one ball all the way up as a yorker so that someone who is not expecting it might just play all over it. On a good bowling day with plenty of cloud cover, he'll get the odd ball to swing away a tiny little bit from the right hander. Is that a lot of variety? Not really IMO. Flintoff's strengths are that you can count that he'll give it 110% every time he bowls for England. Because he bowls heavy balls, hes harder to get away and this makes him appear faster to batsmen and also makes it more difficult for them to score runs.

An excellent description of Fred's bowling.

Also, to be fair, he can (on his day) get a bit of reverse swing.

And he also has an ability to bowl a killer spell when he lifts himself, the crowd and his own team apparently by sheer force of will. Eg Edgbaston '05; Oval '05; and that spell v Kallis in the recent Test series.

 

[Richard]

I think the inspirational quality of Flintoff's odd sensational spell here and there which you allude to is in no small part due to the fact that every ounce of effort is so obviously put into it. It's that which turns a crowd from high interest (which might be the case in a "normal" devastating spell) to fever-pitch.

 

[Uppercut]

An excellent description of Fred's bowling.

Also, to be fair, he can (on his day) get a bit of reverse swing.

And he also has an ability to bowl a killer spell when he lifts himself, the crowd and his own team apparently by sheer force of will. Eg Edgbaston '05; Oval '05; and that spell v Kallis in the recent Test series.

I would say that description doesn't really do Flintoff justice. It could just as easily have been a description of, say, Makhaya Ntini's bowling, and he's a hugely successful test bowler. Some pitches (although they're increasingly rare, it seems) are tailor-made for back of a length heavy balls, and Flintoff also hits the right line more often than most. There's nothing wrong in the description, it's factually 100% accurate and nothing is left out. It just made Flintoff appear less effective than he really is.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Monty's bowling "not worth £7k", says ECB

Well that's what they've refused to part with to secure his club stint in Sri Lanka, which has now gone for a Burton. From the BBC.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Well that's what they've refused to part with to secure his club stint in Sri Lanka, which has now gone for a Burton. From the BBC.

So that would be 0.2% of the ECB's share of the Stanford money.

In other news, 0.5% of the ECB's share of the Stanford money would pay for the entire County youth. winter coaching programme. So 19% of the money would cover every single county's youth coaching for the winter. Wonder how much we'll see of it.

 

[GIMH]

My approximate guess is none