***Official*** India in England 2014

[zaremba]

Annoyed they didn't appeal when Dhoni edged it at 90-9, because it opened the door for him to do exactly what he did, namely to increase the score by over 50%. At 90-9 your only hope is that it turns out to be a low-scoring game and in a low-scoring game the difference between 90 all out and 150 all out is enormous. However the damage has been undone by a great start by England's openers, the umpire who let Cook off the hook, and the BCCI who let the umpire let Cook off the hook.

Brilliant stuff from England again; abject from India again.

But hats off to MS Dhoni. He's up there amongst the thorniest of thorns in England's side over the past few years. Whenever I watch he seems to get important runs against us. As skipper of a failing team, the pressure on him is enormous and yet he just keeps on delivering with the bat. My hat is well and truly doffed.

 

[Cabinet96]

Woakes could be done if he doesn't perform here. At least Jordan has that sort of rawness about him that hints at improvement, as a cricketer Woakes is as good as he is going to get its just about performing now.

I can't argue he hasn't been given chances, its do or die now.

He's got out once in his test career. You don't pick someone as 4th seamer all-rounder then drop them after three test matches because they haven't dominated in one of their disciplines.

 

[Viscount Tom]

Gambhir played

Yeah but its a stretch to say he's participated in this series.

 

[91Jmay]

He's got out once in his test career. You don't pick someone as 4th seamer all-rounder then drop them after three test matches because they haven't dominated in one of their disciplines.

Is he the 4th seamer? He was given the ball at OT. But I am glad he has shown what he can do, bowl well 2nd dig and he can start to nail down that place.

 

[Kirkut]

Annoyed they didn't appeal when Dhoni edged it at 90-9, because it opened the door for him to do exactly what he did, namely to increase the score by over 50%. At 90-9 your only hope is that it turns out to be a low-scoring game and in a low-scoring game the difference between 90 all out and 150 all out is enormous. However the damage has been undone by a great start by England's openers, the umpire who let Cook off the hook, and the BCCI who let the umpire let Cook off the hook.

Brilliant stuff from England again; abject from India again.

But hats off to MS Dhoni. He's up there amongst the thorniest of thorns in England's side over the past few years. Whenever I watch he seems to get important runs against us. As skipper of a failing team, the pressure on him is enormous and yet he just keeps on delivering with the bat. My hat is well and truly doffed.

Dhoni is purely a crisis player. Always gets runs when the team's buttocks is on fire.

 

[NasserFan207]

Good knock from the captain, even though its probably meaningless.

 

[Cabinet96]

Is he the 4th seamer? He was given the ball at OT. But I am glad he has shown what he can do, bowl well 2nd dig and he can start to nail down that place.

I think they pick their three seamers (Jordan, Broad and Anderson) then pick Woakes as an all-rounder. New ball was just because he's less likely to waste it with wayward stuff and a poor seam position. I'd genuinely be absolutely stunned if they picked him thinking he was the 3rd best pacer in the country. Not even I could justify him even being top 6/7.

 

[grecian]

Well done Dhoni for 2 out 3 innings, but are we totally ignoring all the times in Tests when he's played quite frankly disgraceful shots in dire situations?

 

[Howe_zat]

Well done Dhoni for 2 out 3 innings, but are we totally ignoring all the times in Tests when he's played quite frankly disgraceful shots in dire situations?

Yeah this is the first Test series where I've been at all impressed with him

 

[Cabinet96]

It's been spoken about at length before, but I think he's almost a very good bowler in several different ways, but not quite in any of them.

There is no standout weakness about him that you can usually point to in an unsuccessful bowler to explain why he won't be successful. He's fast enough, accurate enough, gets enough bounce, bowls well enough to a plan and gets enough movement for Test level. He's got all the tools in that regard -- nothing in particular to work on to correct a flaw.

What he doesn't have though is a major strength that he can build his bowling around and get batsmen out with. He's not fast enough, accurate enough, bouncier enough etc to make any of those aspects the main feature of his bowling. As such, he'll probably look to be bowling better regularly but take less wickets than someone like Jordon who is a significantly worse bowler at lower levels but has a couple of genuine strengths to take wickets with in Tests even when he's bowling poorly overall.

It's often said that Woakes is a jack of all trades but the master of none because he's almost a Test bowler and almost a Test batsman. But I'd extend that even further to his bowling specifically -- he's almost a Test quality swing bowler, almost a Test quality fast bowler, almost a Test quality line bowler etc. I like to root for these bowlers and instinctively we think they'll be serviceable but I think in reality allround bowlers with no big strength to take wickets with are less effective than we'd imagine.

In saying all that, because he's such a rounded bowler, a small increase in overall skill could result in a exponential increase in results. Given he's a #7 standard Test batsman as well, that means he's a player England have every right to be quite interested in; he's some slight improvements away from being a huge player, if he can even manage them.

This is probably the best analysis of Woakes I've seen.

 

[Captain_Cook]

What is it with the cricketing gods favouring Cook? I think that he needs to spend the next 6 months honing his technique playing first-class cricket in South Africa or Australia to prepare himself for the West Indies and the Ashes...

A century here would give him a massive false sense of security and he'll feel that he should play in the ODIs and the World Cup... Johnson and Harris are going to bring him crashing to Earth...

 

[GIMH]

What is it with the cricketing gods favouring Cook? I think that he needs to spend the next 6 months honing his technique playing first-class cricket in South Africa or Australia to prepare himself for the West Indies and the Ashes...

A century here would give him a massive false sense of security and he'll feel that he should play in the ODIs and the World Cup... Johnson and Harris are going to bring him crashing to Earth...

Yeah the captain should defo sit out the World Cup tbf

 

[zaremba]

Yep, and runs and confidence are truly the last things he needs.

 

[G.I.Joe]

You were asking for Cook to be played into form when you scheduled a series against our bowlers. This comes as no surprise.

 

[Captain_Cook]

Yep, and runs and confidence are truly the last things he needs.

Runs against an Indian attack isn't going to help him when he's on the end of 85-90mph deliveries on off/fourth stump. If he doesn't spend some time re-working his technique vs fast bowling then he will be nicking off, getting lbw and be further from the century against Australia on English shores that he must crave.

If England are going to win the 2015 Ashes then Cook is going to need to score at least two centuries to give us the start we need to get 400 runs.on the board in the first innings.

 

[GIMH]

Runs against an Indian attack isn't going to help him when he's on the end of 85-90mph deliveries on off/fourth stump. If he doesn't spend some time re-working his technique vs fast bowling then he will be nicking off, getting lbw and be further from the century against Australia on English shores that he must crave.

If England are going to win the 2015 Ashes then Cook is going to need to score at least two centuries to give us the start we need to get 400 runs.on the board in the first innings.

It's true, we've been really ****ed over by Cook not scoring tons in the last two home Ashes

 

[zaremba]

Runs against an Indian attack isn't going to help him when he's on the end of 85-90mph deliveries on off/fourth stump. If he doesn't spend some time re-working his technique vs fast bowling then he will be nicking off, getting lbw and be further from the century against Australia on English shores that he must crave.

It's the same technique which he's used to cobble together, well, more Test hundreds than any of the other 664 men who've played Tests for England. More than Gooch, Gower, or Grace; more than Hobbs, Hutton or Hammond. He's been out of form and playing poorly. He's now back in form and playing better, against what I reckon (and perhaps I'm in a minority here) is a decent Indian pace attack in often helpful conditions. I think that's a good thing. The alternative which as I understand it you favour is that he fails abysmally, gets dropped from the team, miraculously reshapes his technique (at age 30), and returns to the team as a transformed player to win the Ashes. With all due respect, I think that's unrealistic. It's better for him and for the team for him simply to end his bad trot and to get back to the productive vein which has served him pretty well over the last 100 odd Tests.

 

[GIMH]

You're reasonable and logical posts aren't needed or wanted on Cricket Web, zaremba

 

[Cabinet96]

It's the same technique which he's used to cobble together, well, more Test hundreds than any of the other 664 men who've played Tests for England. More than Gooch, Gower, or Grace; more than Hobbs, Hutton or Hammond. He's been out of form and playing poorly. He's now back in form and playing better, against what I reckon (and perhaps I'm in a minority here) is a decent Indian pace attack in often helpful conditions. I think that's a good thing. The alternative which as I understand it you favour is that he fails abysmally, gets dropped from the team, miraculously reshapes his technique (at age 30), and returns to the team as a transformed player to win the Ashes. With all due respect, I think that's unrealistic. It's better for him and for the team for him simply to end his bad trot and to get back to the productive vein which has served him pretty well over the last 100 odd Tests.

Didn't you know? Cook's technical issues only came about last July. Before that he'd never shown a weakness outside off and people used to try to bounce him out every ball. He's clearly never going to score a run against a non Indian side ever again unless he switches to being a right hander, shrinks a few inches and remodels his technique.

 

[Pothas]

What a silly series this has been, not that I have not hugely enjoyed what I have managed to see of these last 3 tests.