**Official** England in The West Indies

[Swervy]

yeah...but its what good tough test cricket is about

 

[Swervy]

Prediction for the game....England rack up 550 in a day...leave WI to get 100 in the last session..West Indies bowled out in 12 overs for 46.

Wow..that would be some game

 

[Neil Pickup]

on this note England are stuggling for young batsman IMO bell, Kadder, Troughton, Key are not good Enough

Key's not exactly young, Kadeer's useless (that's been long established), Bell, Troughton and Wagh need big years (I think Bell's going to have one), but we've still got:

Lumb, Gidman, Pietersen, Collingwood, Clarke, Newman, Cook, Davies, Strauss, Jefferson, Shafayat (should he remember how the bat works) and Joyce, and there's probably quite a few more.

 

[garage flower]

Er... Only Lara and Chanderpaul are over 30 years of age of the batsmen there. Joseph, Gayle, Sarwan, Powell, Smith, Bravo, Hinds are all under 28 years.

Really meant to say a few new batsmen. Only Joseph, to some extent and Bravo - who presumably is selected as an all-rounder, rather than specialist bat - come close to fitting the bill.

I would have left out Smith to have a look at another batsman.

 

[Swervy]

does this game look like England are going get a draw????

 

[Tom Halsey]

Great innings from Freddie (not sure that Richard would have like it though - dropped).

 

[Beleg]

Anything can happen tommorow.

 

[marc71178]

congrats to Flintoff for a fighting hundred

Agreed.

This could be a key innings in his future career - he's shown he can score a battling innings at 50 S/R rather than a big hitting one at 80 or 90.

 

[marc71178]

And Best rocks Harmison's stumps. I didn't actually see it, but on the radio they suggested that he gestured Harmison back to the pavilion. There may be a fine involved there.

To be fair, hadn't Harmison just pulled him for a glorious four?

What's wrong in showing a bit of passion -the team were criticised earlier in the series for a lack of it with the "Party in the stands"

 

[Rich2001]

What's wrong in showing a bit of passion -the team were criticised earlier in the series for a lack of it with the "Party in the stands"

I agree with Marc's comment, but S.Jones would be pretty unhappy if Best gets away it, when Jones himself got a heafty fine for doing the excat same thing to R.Sarwan.

But yeah I agree they aren't doing anything wrong, just showing the passion for playing and for their country.

 

[marc71178]

does this game look like England are going get a draw????

The thing to look at is that in nigh on 100 overs, only 5 wickets have fallen, and Jones apart, none of them were expected to last that long.

 

[marc71178]

on this note England are stuggling for young batsman IMO bell, Kadder, Troughton, Key are not good Enough

So they're not good enough to take the place of Thorpe, Hussain or Butcher - that's not a major crime IMO considering the records of those 3.

A Side looks top heavy judgeing by this team

Struss
Key
Smith
Pietersen
Clarke
Collingwood
Read
Kabir Ali
Anderson
Batty
Mahmood

Since when has that been the A team?

A lot of those weren't in the A team that was selected.

 

[Langeveldt]

England 145-0

This is the kind of track I thought were everywhere in the west indies!! thank god they werent... Should be a draw tomorrow...

Most annoying thing of the day?? Everyone calling Andrew Flintoff "Freddie"... jeezus get a grip its a crap name....

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

To be fair, hadn't Harmison just pulled him for a glorious four?

What's wrong in showing a bit of passion -the team were criticised earlier in the series for a lack of it with the "Party in the stands"

Yes, but according to the ICC Code of Conduct it's unacceptable. Since the new Code has been established, I believe the West Indies has only been booked once, which is a very impressive record.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Great innings from Freddie (not sure that Richard would have like it though - dropped).

The innings was good, but not as good as some would make it out to be. As you say, he was dropped - four times in 100 runs. That's a lot.

 

[badgerhair]

Hehe, Iam going to get on well with you

It's ok Langeveldt, M.Vaughan has already stated that Jones will have at least the same chances as Read had and that Jones (injury depending) would def' start the NZ series.

Now 8 games if that is just Tests would mean he would keep for the vast morjority of the summer, however if they throw him into a few ODI's too then the re-evaluation would be before the WI series.

I entirely support the idea of giving Jones the same sort of chances as Read has had to show us what he can do.

There are people questioning why Read is being retained as ODI keeper, and I think I can see a reasonably good reason for it. Looking down the road apiece, when we've got an order looking something like Tresco, Strauss, Vaughan, Pietersen, Flintoff, Collingwood, Clarke, it's going to become a bit unnecessary to have a keeper who can guarantee loads of runs because you're getting pretty desperate if you need them, and so having a top-class keeper who's actually not quite a complete mug with the bat could be vital in those helter-skelter runout and stumping sort of things you get in one-dayers.

It's certainly too soon to tell how good a keeper Jones is, because he's not really had a lot to do, but I liked what I saw. The trade may well be worth it in Tests, less so in one-dayers.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Craig]

Brian Lara (capt), Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricardo Powell, Dwayne Smith, Ryan Hinds, Sylvester Joseph, Ridley Jacobs, Dwayne Bravo, Ian Bradshaw, Mervyn Dillon, Ravi Rampaul, Corey Collymore.

I hope Bravo and Bradshaw get their chances. Dwayne Smith is a weird selection as I dont think he is good enough for his Island's 2nd XI (ok maybe he is, not good enough for Barbados), then how is he good enough for WI in both forms of the game?

 

[garage flower]

I hope Bravo and Bradshaw get their chances. Dwayne Smith is a weird selection as I dont think he is good enough for his Island's 2nd XI (ok maybe he is, not good enough for Barbados), then how is he good enough for WI in both forms of the game?

Yes, as I mentioned earlier I'd rather the selectors had a look at somebody new, rather than sticking with Smith.

If the squad has been picked for the full series, I'm sure Bravo and Bradshaw will both get a run out, though they may be competing for 1 spot in the "first" team, which could look something like:

Gayle
Chanderpaul
Powell
Lara
Sarwan
Hinds
Bravo
Jacobs
Rampaul
Dillon
Collymore

This would have good batting depth and useful bowling options (Bravo, Gayle & Hinds in particular) to supplement the 3 specialists.

 

[Craig]

Liam is there any plans in place to celebrate Lara's 400* in Trinidad?

Last time he did it, he got a Promanade named after him, a motorcade around the island, all this money from different sponsors (ie 375 - $375,000) and free air travel. Maybe even a mansion was thrown in there from the T&T Government?

 

[tooextracool]

i wonder if he'll get another bat with 400* inscribed on it like he did for his 375 and 501