***Official*** England in Sri Lanka

[Pup Clarke]

He might become a ODI class all rounder one day.

Bowling allrounder me thinks.

 

[chaminda_00]

He did, and he was pretty good at that too.

I don't really get what you mean by most of that post though TBH. You basically seem to be saying Dharmasena had no right to bowl well at early stages because Murali and Jayasuriya did it later on. Dharmasena did the job earlier in the innings very well indeed, and Murali and Jayasuriya later. What's wrong with that?

Basically that all top line spinners have to be able to bowl outside the middle order to cope in ODIs these days. There not many, if any outside guys that can carried by seam attack i.e Hogg, Boje, Giles that can just bowl in the middle orders. Out of those three mentioned only Hogg is good ODI spinner and Giles is passable, Boje was dire.

 

[chaminda_00]

Bowling allrounder me thinks.

Its the same thing in Sri Lanka TBH, no such thing as an out and out all rounder.

 

[Richard]

I just felt the shot selection of Collingwood was wrong no matter how good the delivery was. I've always thought that if the ball pitches on the off stump you play an off side shot and vice versa, Collingwood is magnificent of his pads but I've rarely seen him take a ball on off stump and try to work it, maybe against spinners but that's about it.

I've seen it many times. Try looking at a HawkEye of his shot-plot sometime. He makes off-stump balls look like they're drifting down leg, because he's so good off his pads. Inzamam-ul-Haq is exactly the same. So was Mark Waugh. So was Vivian Richards. So is Sachin Tendulkar on the rare occasion he wants to be (mostly when people were bowling to packed off-side fields). All occasionally even used to take balls from outside off and hit them through leg.

The "hit the ball on the off if it's on the off" is a general rule, and like all general rules, there are exceptions. If your strengths are on the leg-side, it makes sense to play to them. It doesn't make sense to try and play more shots you're less comfortable with.

So your telling me if Fernando hadn't have bowled a slower ball that the ball would have ended up at square leg?

Probably, I think, yes. Can't be certain, obviously.

 

[Richard]

And FFS will England stop this experimenting at the top of the order with players who are not naturally openers, good luck to Mustard an all but seriously he's played well for 3/4 of a season and was dire in List-A before. What's gonna happen next, Carl Gazzard picked to open at the top of the order cause he scored 60 of 30 balls on Sky?

I highly doubt it. The next-flavour-of-the-month thing, however regrettable and inestimatably annoying, has been around for long enough to suggest it's probably never going to be gone.

 

[Richard]

Basically that all top line spinners have to be able to bowl outside the middle order to cope in ODIs these days. There not many, if any outside guys that can carried by seam attack i.e Hogg, Boje, Giles that can just bowl in the middle orders. Out of those three mentioned only Hogg is good ODI spinner and Giles is passable, Boje was dire.

Oh, quite, ODI-class spinners are pretty damn rare (never rated Giles THAT highly in ODIs personally). Dharmasena, however, was generally used pretty well and did the job far better than most spinners are capable of doing. Anil Kumble used to too, up until 1999.

Murali, obviously, is an exceptional bowler, as to a lesser extent was Warne, and Mushtaq Ahmed too (for much longer than he was a good Test bowler for).

Mostly, a spinner won't get by even if he is used exclusively in the middle-overs. It's a good start, though, and for someone who shows rare promise, I think it's something you could reasonably expect early in a career.

 

[Lostman]

Just hope SL replace Mubarak with Loku for the next game, wasnt really impressed with both Dilshan and Jayasuriyas bowling. A Srilankan team with no frontline spinner just doesnt look right on paper.

 

[Richard]

No indeed, it was astonishing.

I doubt it's completely unprecedented, but it must be exceedingly rare.

 

[Scaly piscine]

And FFS will England stop this experimenting at the top of the order with players who are not naturally openers, good luck to Mustard an all but seriously he's played well for 3/4 of a season and was dire in List-A before. What's gonna happen next, Carl Gazzard picked to open at the top of the order cause he scored 60 of 30 balls on Sky?

Mustard is quite clearly more of an opener than a lower order bat in limited overs cricket. His rubbish record was when he batted down the order, as soon as he switched to opening he's been awesome at county level, smashing plenty of international bowlers about as well as the usual plodders.

The comparison with Gazzard is absolutely ridiculous, get a clue about what you're talking about before you pipe up with stuff like this.

 

[Matt79]

And England stuff up another somewhat tricky but ultimately very gettable chase. Worst ODI team in terms of talent of players to results ratio. Not to take away from what sounds like decent tactical bowling by SL, but it sounds like England did it to themselves mainly.

Can't help whether England's direness contributes to the view of some of their fans that 250 is a decent total. Any decent team should be able to manage near a run a ball throughout an innings without too much drama.

 

[Richard]

And England stuff up another somewhat tricky but ultimately very gettable chase. Worst ODI team in terms of talent of players to results ratio. Not to take away from what sounds like decent tactical bowling by SL, but it sounds like England did it to themselves mainly.

Can't help whether England's direness contributes to the view of some of their fans that 250 is a decent total. Any decent team should be able to manage near a run a ball throughout an innings without too much drama.

Nah, no way. 270 was way, way too much. Nor did England's batsmen really cause the problems, the Sri Lankan seamers were just capable of making it way too difficult for run-scoring for it to be a realistic proposition.

And when you're being outbowled - considerably - by Dilhara Fernando and Farveez Maharoof (wouldn't have been quite so bad had it been Vaas and Laaasith Maaalinga) you've got worries.

I disagree that England have many talented ODI players, too - the jury's pretty much out on everyone in the lineup yesterday bar Pietersen. Even Anderson is very much still to ever completely convince. Shah is rubbish in one-day cricket and always has been, Bopara so far has demonstrated a cool head and not much else, Collingwood's always been very average, Bell has been for most of his ODI career other than the previous series to this one, Mustard's had 1 game, Cook's still very much to convince in ODIs, Broad's still yet to justify the ridiculous amount of hype people like to place on him; and Sidebottom just isn't suited to ODIs IMO, especially if he's going to bowl at the end.

Can see some potential in Swann, but only if the captaincy of him is better.

 

[Days of Grace]

Sidebottom bowled the last over fairly well, I thought.

 

[Richard]

He did. He did the same in his previous ODI too.

He also bowled some horrible, horrible overs in the death period.

How he's got selected ahead of Mascarenhas I'll never know. Almost certainly a lesser bowler and beyond question a lesser batsman.

 

[aussie]

Didn't see the game, but damn yo reports say it zipped around a bit under lights because i shudder to think that Maharoof could run through Englands top order, plus how were England's new boys Mustard & Swann for those who watched?

 

[Mister Wright]

Didn't see the game, but damn yo reports say it zipped around a bit under lights because i shudder to think that Maharoof could run through Englands top order, plus how were England's new boys Mustard & Swann for those who watched?

Mustard looked pretty good. Was solid with the gloves and certainly has a good arsenal of shots. Just took one risk too many. Definitely see a promising opening partnership between Cook and Mustard, they complement each other well.

 

[Richard]

You can see a prosperous opening partnership between Cook and Prior, too - until Mustard actually produces something other than a few swings at decent balls, I'm not getting remotely excited.

 

[Richard]

Didn't see the game, but damn yo reports say it zipped around a bit under lights

It will almost always do more in the evening than it will during the day, especially at somewhere like Dambulla, South Africa or The UK. This was one such instance, and Maharoof (surprisingly) cashed-in on this superbly.

 

[andyc]

Meh, I give up, I'm off to bed. England to win btw, SL will miss Murali too much.

Or not.

 

[Richard]

Haha, you and Matt (of the 79 variety) are damn lucky there's no weekly Greigies ATM.

 

[Prince EWS]

Mustard yet again gets a start and then throws it away. As I asked before, when will the selectors learn and get this dunce out the team?