luckyeddie said:
For the benefit of the many who watched the game on Cricinfo ball-by-ball, there a number of things you ought to be aware of with respect to England's performance in this match in particular, but it holds for the tour in general.
Generally agreed, but a couple of points:
1. Trescothick is in terrible nick - although yesterday the feet started to move really well and he looked a much better player. The nonsense about 'everyone's worked him out' is just that. Like many batsmen, his weakness is also his strength. Sure he gets out flashing, but that's where he gets his runs anyway.
Whether he's been "worked out" or other teams have realised that a man wearing cement boots is most likely to have difficulty with the ball going across him at pace is really a semantic argument. His innings yesterday has given him a stay of execution, but he has to be regarded as stilll under pressure for his place.
4. Hussain has been the reliable one throughout. Barnacle-like at the crease, even at 36 he is still an excellent fielder. Will certainly retain his place beyond his dream of 100 tests. I've a feeling he wants another dig at the Aussies in 2005. Hell, he's a youngster compared to that geriatric Waugh who just got his bus pass.
Where do you get this feeling he wants to carry on into 2005? It's been an open secret that he is going to retire after The Oval this year assuming he retains his place that long, and an interview I saw early in the tour in which he talked about how little he has in common with the new generation of PlayStation users in the team spoke volumes about a man very muc preparing to move on to life after Test cricket.
5. Thorpe - the 90 at Port of Spain was a sign that Thorpe was on his way back - in difficult circumstances and with the game in the balance he 'went on' to convert a start. Bridgetown was that - and more. It was an innings of absolute quality and in the context of what was going on around him probably his finest-ever innings.
Post-match, he rated it below his ton at The Oval last year. What I don't understand is why his 113* at Colombo in 2000-01 never gets a mention as his greatest innings.
6. Flintoff - Oh, I wish that he could bat with some consistency. The reason his bowling has improved of late is that he has worked with excellent coaches who have ironed out some pretty basic flaws (same with Harmison) - wrist, seam position etc. The reason his batting will probably never improve is that the faults there are mental, not technique-based.
The flaw in this argument is that his batting has improved a great deal of late. As evidence, I would cite his performances at Colombo. What is certainly the case, though, is that people will say "Another soft dismissal" after 75% of his innings. Because someone who basically gives it welly is most likely to get out caught off a shot played without 100% conviction, and that always looks like a soft dismissal. The basic question is how often he will have made a useful number of runs before it happens.
8. Giles got thrashed around the park at Kingston yet came back and took the vital wickets of Smith and Hinds who were thrapsing England all round the island, let alone all round the park at the time. Without those two wickets, England might actually be behind in the series, let alone 3-0 up. They were that vital. In the last two tests he's been an irrelevance with the ball but once again vital with the bat.
What reasons do you have for supposing that Gareth Batty (for instance) could not perform the same role? Giles may be the skipper's Best Mate, and he's engagingly honest about the fact that he's not bowled well for over a year, but I don't quite see why that honesty should keep his place for him. He's not got quite the record on dropping catches that Butcher has, but that's only because he gets taken out of the close catching area before Butcher does.
I entirely endorse the view that he tries damned hard and makes some useful contributions, but it's still not enough.
9. Hoggard - for me, he has been even more of a revelation than Harmison on this tour, because he does two jobs and does them both well. Bowling with the new ball he probes away, a fine, attacking bowler. Later, he comes back with the old ball and is capable of bowling long spells economically. If you go in with four seamers, it's what you need. As for the idiot who dismissed his hat-trick saying that it was due to the pitch, I really hope the same happens to you one day and your team-mates say 'No, you can't have the match ball. It was too easy. The pitch helped.'
Hmmm. Yes, the hat-trick was down to excellent bowling rather than a minefield of a pitch.
BUT. Hoggard had a good series in New Zealand a couple of years ago, and then got caned when he played on flat pitches where his lack of variation or devilment were exposed.
The difference between then and now is that management and bowler have both come to understand what his limitations are as well as his strengths. If he gets a hatful, great, but they're not really expecting him to be a strike bowler - and that means that he doesn't have to try and bowl wicket-taking balls with an old ball which isn't swinging.
10. Simon Jones - He is where Harmison was a year or so ago - whole-hearted, raw. Given the terrible injury, I'm surprised he ever played again. May or may not be a long-term answer, the obvious choice to make way if and when Anderson is brought into the side, but still a valuable squad player.
But Anderson doesn't bowl like Jones - he bowls like Hoggard. Unless you want two swing bowlers (which could be right in certain conditions), it's Hoggard's place that Anderson threatens. I'd have thought Jones was going to come under pressure from Sajid Mahmood.
11. Harmison - an absolute revelation, will continue to do well. Then, some time in the summer or maybe even next year, he'll bowl one really bad spell, including a leg-side four wides. It'll probably include a couple of lucky wickets. About 100 people on CW will instantly jump on that saying 'See. I told you he was rubbish'.
One really bad spell? I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had a bad match. Bowlers do, sometimes. I mean, I'll be surprised *when* it happens, but not *that* it happened.
I readily admit that I'd given up on him before the second innings at The Oval last year, but I'm very happy to have been proved wrong. It's really quite sad that there are still people who would prefer to hold on to their comfort blankets of derision despite the overwhelming evidence that he has become a superb bowler, but perhaps they enjoy wearing eggy face-masks.
Cheers,
Mike