Sack Fletcher!!!!

[tooextracool]

What about the Wasim\Waqar of 2001\02? The McGrath\Gillespie of 2005? The Ambrose\Walsh of 1988?

The fact of the matter is, Gough and Caddick for that time were excellent, even if Caddick remained conditions-reliant to take wickets and Gough still had the odd poor spell. It was only a brief spell and doesn't make them better than many other partnerships because they were only opening together for a couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that they were both superb for most of that time..

they were superb only on wickets that suited them. caddick was always mediocre when it cam to bowling in the subcontinent or in Australia. Both failed miserably on the flatter wickets of SA and both didnt succeed against Australia. Ok so Gough could be very good on his day anywhere,but inconsistency was the hallmark of his career

They weren't rubbish, they just weren't good enough? O...K... same thing in my mind.
Either way, that doesn't change how they'd bowled in the previous 18-24 months.

how on earth is being rubbish and not being good enough to bowl out an all time great batting lineup the same thing?
Like i said earlier, Gough was very good in said period, caddick was good on pitches that suited him and poor otherwise. thats certainly not the 'best bowling combination' you could ever wish for. nor is their failing against the 2 best sides in the world at the time either.

 

[tooextracool]

Not if the seeming better candidate was the 2nd appointment and only appointed ITFP due to injury..

without considering of course that the number 1 appointment was also appointed due to injury. Vaughan was still the man in possession, it had been announced that he would be captain on return.

A clear feudal order had been established, and that would've been broken by giving Strauss the captaincy.

And the class-feudal order is clearly the most important thing rather than competence, injury concerns, performances or experience. Like i said earlier, Englands policy is basically ' we are not going to do anything that upsets Flintoff because he is a cricketing God'. everyone knew that Strauss was the better captain, even you deep down know that in terms of cricketing logic, Strauss was the logical choice.

Obvious to you. There were many good judges (in other scenarios) making the case for Flintoff. It was not a straightforward choice and once it went wrong (which was inevitable) there was always going to be criticism.

and their reasoning behind the decision was equally stupid. Reasons going around were that 'hes our best player', 'the Aussies respect him' and that ' he would get the best out of his best mate'. How does any of that make him a good captain?

You've completely ignored my point. Had he bowled Panesar the game would still have been drawn because that amount of catches going down is always going to cost a victory whoever bowls.

Had the catches been taken there'd have been no criticism aimed his way for bowling himself lots. Indeed, it might've been praise instead.

Err your point is irrelevant. The result was not what im questioning(Although he made enough stupid field placings on his own to have cost England the game anyways). My diatribe against him is what on earth he was doing bowling 58 overs in an inning and consequently getting himself injured at the end of the series? The logical option was to let Panesar bowl especially considering that a) it was a 5th day wicket, b) Panesar dismissed 2 out of the top 3 batsman and consequently had the best figures of the whole inning. I mean even if you think Flintoff should have bowled as many overs as he did in a 5 man attack, what on earth were plunkett and Mahmood doing bowling more overs than Panesar?

So you reckon Strauss wouldn't have made any mistakes and\or wouldn't have been criticised for poor captaincy had he captained us to that 5-0 loss..

No even mike brearly made mistakes, no one is inerrable. However Strauss would not have made those ******** mistakes that Flintoff made and that is pretty obvious. Things like having the field back to Symonds when he came in at the MCG.

Botham relinquished the captaincy because he would've been pushed had he not. And in any case, it has nothing to do with that because it was a home series. Many captains have resigned in the middle of a home series. Only Mike Denness has ever done so in an away one, and even that was just stepping-down for 1 Test.

So resigning in a home series is not as humiliating as resigning in an away series then? The selectors then were probably just as enamored with Botham as they are with Flintoff right now, so i doubt they would have pushed him. It was the sensible and logical thing to do when he undergoing a very traumatic experience as captain. Even in the VB series, when he could have quite easily not accepted the captaincy, he once again took up the responsibility. You sometimes have to wonder whether there is anything going on inside his head. Its really a case of the England selectors not being ruthless enough to dent the confidence of their best player(and ironically in doing so have managed to have accomplished that anyways) and a case of a captain not being able to swallow his pride and let a better tactician take over the responsibility

How many times did Flintoff state, before and after being given the captaincy, that being England captain was to him the ultimate honour? What would that then say about and to him were he to relinquish it in the middle of a tour?

If he's man enough to admit that he can't do everything at the start of next summer and that he doesn't ever want the captaincy again, well, good for him, but the middle of a tour is no time for such a thing as far as I'm concerned.[/QUOTE]

 

[Richard]

IIRC he said something along the lines of players that play with a straight bat make themselves vulnerable to the turning ball(and he provided detailed reasoning for it), that the best players of spin in the world like Hayden, Thorpe and Lara were all very good players of the horizontal bat stroke and that when you sweep you completely take lbw out of the equation and that it was therefore risk free. Therefore it couldnt be any more obvious what case he was making and that has been influencing some of the England players to do the same.

It's been obvious for some time that he's been persuading some batsmen to play the sweep - I have to say I'm surprised he's as keen on it as that, though.

IMO it's simple - if the ball's a good length to sweep, you sweep it. If it's not, you don't.

A good coach would. Nor is it particularly surprising that their standard of fielding went down during Duncans reign.

How can a good coach turn two with hopeless hands into two with decent hands?

Butcher was never that good anyway, I don't really think you can blame Duncan for it becoming even worse. Thorpe was brilliant for ages and only became poor after his 2003 comeback, by which time his back was hindering him. Unless you're suggesting he has some miracle cure for back problems (or Thorpe, averaging about 70 with the bat, should be dropped for his poor fielding) I don't see how he can be blamed there, either.

You havent noticed? His fielding used to be considered the best in the England side and he had pulled off some absolute blinders. Recently he's dropped some absolute dolly's.

Obviously he used to be considered the best in England, but I can't recall too many dollies he's dropped of late.

Remind me?

From what i remember they employed a baseball coach for a 4 week period once before the series of SA. Did they employ anyone for a consistent period?

They've employed the same bloke - Mike Young - on many occasions. I don't know the particulars, all I've heard is he wasn't used directly before Ashes 2005 - suggesting he'd been used pretty often before that. Certainly his first foray into cricket was 2002. And England have also used him. Evidently, though, not enough.

 

[Richard]

they were superb only on wickets that suited them. caddick was always mediocre when it cam to bowling in the subcontinent or in Australia. Both failed miserably on the flatter wickets of SA and both didnt succeed against Australia. Ok so Gough could be very good on his day anywhere,but inconsistency was the hallmark of his career

Not in the year between 2000 and 2001 it wasn't. He bowled as well then as anyone of his height ever has. And he had his moments elsewhere, too. Of course, he also had plenty of injuries.

Caddick didn't have that many unfriendly wickets between 1999 and May 2001, so it wasn't much of a problem. Even when he did, he usually bowled economically, which is all you can ask for when the pitch doesn't suit you and you're taking wickets when it does.

how on earth is being rubbish and not being good enough to bowl out an all time great batting lineup the same thing?

Being rubbish and not being good enough are pretty much the same thing. Adding the bit about "to bowl out an all time great batting lineup" makes a bit of a difference.

Like i said earlier, Gough was very good in said period, caddick was good on pitches that suited him and poor otherwise. thats certainly not the 'best bowling combination' you could ever wish for. nor is their failing against the 2 best sides in the world at the time either.

Obviously, but neither happened during that period I was referring to.

 

[Richard]

without considering of course that the number 1 appointment was also appointed due to injury. Vaughan was still the man in possession, it had been announced that he would be captain on return.

Where did you get the idea I didn't consider that? Had Vaughan been fit, he'd obviously have taken the captaincy. Yet had Flintoff not got injured in 2006, Strauss would never have got it at all. And therefore it would change an established pecking-order to the appoint Strauss when Flintoff was fit.

And the class-feudal order is clearly the most important thing rather than competence, injury concerns, performances or experience. Like i said earlier, Englands policy is basically ' we are not going to do anything that upsets Flintoff because he is a cricketing God'. everyone knew that Strauss was the better captain, even you deep down know that in terms of cricketing logic, Strauss was the logical choice.

I don't. He might be the better captain, and we might be able to tell that now, but I maintain that there was no obvious choice as captain for that tour once Vaughan became unavailable.

and their reasoning behind the decision was equally stupid. Reasons going around were that 'hes our best player', 'the Aussies respect him' and that ' he would get the best out of his best mate'. How does any of that make him a good captain?

The Aussies respecting him is fair enough IMO.

The reasoning was simple IMO - he was the first in line, and would've been an automatic choice had he not been injured.

Err your point is irrelevant. The result was not what im questioning(Although he made enough stupid field placings on his own to have cost England the game anyways). My diatribe against him is what on earth he was doing bowling 58 overs in an inning and consequently getting himself injured at the end of the series? The logical option was to let Panesar bowl especially considering that a) it was a 5th day wicket, b) Panesar dismissed 2 out of the top 3 batsman and consequently had the best figures of the whole inning. I mean even if you think Flintoff should have bowled as many overs as he did in a 5 man attack, what on earth were plunkett and Mahmood doing bowling more overs than Panesar?

It was poor, did I say it wasn't? I said that it wouldn't matter who bowled, that game would've been drawn regardless because catches go down whoever bowls.

No even mike brearly made mistakes, no one is inerrable. However Strauss would not have made those ******** mistakes that Flintoff made and that is pretty obvious. Things like having the field back to Symonds when he came in at the MCG.

That wasn't what I was saying - what I was saying is that your mistakes - however poor, however minor - are criticised when the team you're captaining goes down 5-0.

So resigning in a home series is not as humiliating as resigning in an away series then?

No, of course it's not. Captaincy on a tour is far more of a responsibility than captaincy at home is. How many captains have resigned in the middle of an away Test series? Virtually none. How many have resigned in the middle of a home series? Plenty. Hussain and Gooch, two of the last 3 to resign, both did, and Atherton would've done had Graveney not talked him out of it.

The selectors then were probably just as enamored with Botham as they are with Flintoff right now, so i doubt they would have pushed him. It was the sensible and logical thing to do when he undergoing a very traumatic experience as captain.

Everyone knows he was on the verge of being removed as captain when he resigned, it's in just about every book written about the series. Alec Bedser isn't as sympathetic a man as David Graveney.

Even in the VB series, when he could have quite easily not accepted the captaincy, he once again took up the responsibility. You sometimes have to wonder whether there is anything going on inside his head. Its really a case of the England selectors not being ruthless enough to dent the confidence of their best player(and ironically in doing so have managed to have accomplished that anyways) and a case of a captain not being able to swallow his pride and let a better tactician take over the responsibility

Maybe so.