**Official** West Indies in England 2012

[Jager]

Really poor captaincy by Sammy in my eyes, no idea why he has persisted with Samuels for so long.

 

[roseboy64]

Don't think Gayle would have made too much difference. For one thing, I don't think even in prime form he'd be able to buy a run against Anderson in England and to some extent we saw this the last time the Windies toured. In addition to that, I suspect from having seen Gayle in the IPL over the past couple of years that his technique has transformed, which in test match terms has deteriorated, but obviously has helped him become a superior investment in t20. He's played 1 FC game since his last test 1.5 years ago and given what happened with Sehwag in England last year, I think I'd wager my bets on Kieran Powell, Braithwaite et al over Chris Gayle.

Sarwan on the other is another story, and it is perhaps particularly frustrating that he is scoring bucket loads of runs while literally driving distance away from his teammates.

Also, what is the deal with Deonarine? Is he not with the group yet?

TBF to Gayle he does average 36 in England which compared to Powell is miles better. Affected badly by that last tour in 2009 of course but before that he was able to manage quite well against English bowlers.
In 2004 he faced Hoggard, Giles, Harmison, Jones, Anderson and Flintoff. And in 2007 he played against Hoggard, Harmison, Plunkett, Panesar and Sidebottom.

Deonarine arrived but didn't have any practice games so Samuels took back his spot.

 

[Spark]

damnit cook. make the game boring then waste time by making someone else bat

edit: i bet a few journos will be annoyed by that too.

 

[GIMH]

Gah

 

[Howe_zat]

Pretty sure we'll lose from here

 

[GIMH]

itstl

 

[Jacknife]

I bet that's not what Jonny wanted, sat there packing your kit up, 2 runs to win and next thing he knows he's in.

Plenty for England to get better at and should as the series goes on, pretty poor pitch as usual for Lords.

 

[Spikey]

disappointing that they gave up

 

[stumpski]

And that's that, time for a round of golf or liquid lunch depending on what the pundits are going for. MoM straightforward for Broad I'd say - Strauss needed 2nd-innings runs to challenge him - credit to the visitors for taking it to day five but really, I can't remember seeing a team so utterly dependant on one batsman. Even Lara had good players around him for most of his career - Hooper, Adams and Richardson early on, and later Gayle, Sarwan and Chanders himself.

Shillingford to play on Friday, surely?

 

[LegionOfBrad]

Plenty for England to get better at and should as the series goes on, pretty poor pitch as usual for Lords.

It doesn't seem to deteriorate AT ALL anymore. Its been like this a while now. I think it was 06 when we played Sri Lanka and they racked up 500 in the follow on, looking like they could bat forever. If the ball stops swinging its bloody hard to get wickets.

 

[Jacknife]

It doesn't seem to deteriorate AT ALL anymore. Its been like this a while now. I think it was 06 when we played Sri Lanka and they racked up 500 in the follow on, looking like they could bat forever. If the ball stops swinging its bloody hard to get wickets.

It almost plays better as the game goes on.

 

[Howe_zat]

I don't think we can criticise too much. Given the wicket and a typically defiant effort from Chanderpaul, the only occassions we came off second best were the brief periods where this Windies attack got their act together and England weren't patient enough. And yes, I'll concede that Bresnan had a poor match but hey - 12 wins from 12.

In the end we did get a 150 run lead and then won comfortably, so it's not really as close as it may have seemed at times. That said, if the Windies can start stringing together the periods where they can resist with the bat and worry us with the ball, instead of a few half an hour periods per day, this could end up being a cracking series.

 

[Uppercut]

Decent performance from the Windies. England are the much better side and generally played pretty well after winning the toss but they managed to stay in the game right up until the very end.

 

[GIMH]

Bell getting twin 50s for the match, quiet return to form it seems

 

[MW1304]

Christ it looks like an election debate in the studio.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Easy in the end, nice start to the summer. Should wrap the series up next week.

 

[Uppercut]

Don't think Bell ever 'lost form' as such, just struggled in different conditions for a couple of away series. Tonned up in the CC last week didn't he? You'd always have backed him to get runs this summer.

 

[GIMH]

Don't think Bell ever 'lost form' as such, just struggled in different conditions for a couple of away series. Tonned up in the CC last week didn't he? You'd always have backed him to get runs this summer.

True, but he looked like he was batting with a cricket stump out there over the winter

 

[Jacknife]

I think quietly England will have got just what they needed from this game, Strauss and Bell's getting runs is just what England were looking for with the whole summer still ahead, add to that the bowlers getting more overs under their belt.

 

[Uppercut]

True, but he looked like he was batting with a cricket stump out there over the winter

Yeah. But if he was facing Rehman and Ajmal in Dubai right now he probably still would.

Hate the tendency to attribute differences in performance to "losing form" or "finding form" when there's such an obvious reason why he struggled in one situation but not in another. It's like that time all of the Aussie batsmen coincidentally lost form at exactly the moment England arrived in the country. Then coincidentally regained form one year later when India arrived.