The England Thread

[BoyBrumby]

England can win World Cup says Ganguly



From the BBC. He's on drugs, I reckon. Reckons we're one of five teams capable of winning it (Oz, India, Pakistan & SA the others).

 

[Salamuddin]

From the BBC. He's on drugs, I reckon. Reckons we're one of five teams capable of winning it (Oz, India, Pakistan & SA the others).

One day cricket is a funny game....if you can get into a groove, a rhythm you can start winning matches and then anything is possible.

This is a WC - anything can happen - noone gave India a chance in 1983 against the might of the West Indies, Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996.

Whatever you might say about Ganguly (arrogance and what not), he's no fool.....he's played enough to know that England have got some very good players and if they can find that groove, that right level of organistaion, they can be a handful for anyone.

A team of say

Loye
Strauss (would prefer Tresco)
Bell
KP
Colly
Freddy
Dalrymple
Read
Mudhsudhan
Anderson
Lewis has potential IMO.

Maybe not championship material but it wouldn't surprise me if England made the semis.

 

[Salamuddin]

Oh and I should add that it might be worth bowling KP in ODI's. I think he can develop into quite a useful ODI bowler ....there's definitely potential there.

 

[Richard]

From the BBC. He's on drugs, I reckon. Reckons we're one of five teams capable of winning it (Oz, India, Pakistan & SA the others).

A bit bizarre that he rates us higher than SL, WI and NZ but he's certainly not wrong about Afzaal, I've been saying that for 3 years.

 

[Richard]

One day cricket is a funny game....if you can get into a groove, a rhythm you can start winning matches and then anything is possible.

This is a WC - anything can happen - noone gave India a chance in 1983 against the might of the West Indies, Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996.

Whatever you might say about Ganguly (arrogance and what not), he's no fool.....he's played enough to know that England have got some very good players and if they can find that groove, that right level of organistaion, they can be a handful for anyone.

A team of say

Loye
Strauss (would prefer Tresco)
Bell
KP
Colly
Freddy
Dalrymple
Read
Mudhsudhan
Anderson
Lewis has potential IMO.

Maybe not championship material but it wouldn't surprise me if England made the semis.

MSP ahead of Lewis and James in the order?

 

[Salamuddin]

MSP ahead of Lewis and James in the order?

Well ok Mudhsudhan to bat at 11 then.....

 

[Richard]

I like your thinkin'!

 

[GIMH]

He bats above Anderson generally.

 

[aussie]

So did Plunkett and Kabir Ali not so long ago.

Long time that lasted.

Kabir Ali was always a waste yo, even when he took that 5 for vs SA in 03 i never really rated him. Plunkett started well & has faded a bit yes but he's young & like Broad its too early to write them off.

 

[aussie]

and the likes of Harmison, Strauss, Vaughan, Collingwood, S. Jones hold such fantastic ODI records dont they?
In fact all of them bar Harmison failed miserably in the 2005 summer.

Your kidding right..

 

[aussie]

There were times when it looked like he could barely land the ball on the pitch last summer. He bowled absolute garbage short and wide stuff in his 2nd ODI.

Ha, come on man, he clearly wasn't bowling as bad as you are making it sound. Maybe he did lose the plot in this game you are refering to, but he showed enough good signs rather than bad one's. He's young how many young bowlers do you remember coming in & being absolutely on the spot? Cut him some slack will ya mate..

No one can be wicket taking if they arent accurate, no matter how much potential they have.

True but as i mentioned above Broad's even though he went for a few at times, his accuracy wasn't as horrific as you are making it sound.

The biggest problem is that when Strauss and collingwood bat they look like they spend more time getting set rather than scoring runs . Strauss infact looks like has has absolutely no idea how the game of ODI cricket works. When was the last time you saw Strauss(or for that matter anyone other than Pietersen) take advantage of the 20 over restrictions and hit the ball over the top of the infield? The problem is that they cant hit over the top, nor can they nudge and nurdle and take singles every ball so why on earth are they dead certainities in this English ODI side?

I'd give you that reason for Strauss, but not Collingwood at all yo. Collingwood is very good ODI player, he clearly has the ability to play 2 gears in that he can nudge it around and smoke it and the end when its required.

 

[aussie]

One day cricket is a funny game....if you can get into a groove, a rhythm you can start winning matches and then anything is possible.

This is a WC - anything can happen - noone gave India a chance in 1983 against the might of the West Indies, Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996.

Whatever you might say about Ganguly (arrogance and what not), he's no fool.....he's played enough to know that England have got some very good players and if they can find that groove, that right level of organistaion, they can be a handful for anyone.

A team of say

Loye
Strauss (would prefer Tresco)
Bell
KP
Colly
Freddy
Dalrymple
Read
Mudhsudhan
Anderson
Lewis has potential IMO.

Maybe not championship material but it wouldn't surprise me if England made the semis.

Would slot Vaughan in, but with regards to your post in general good read, especially from a bloke who doesn't really pay much attention to the English team.

 

[Richard]

Kabir Ali was always a waste yo, even when he took that 5 for vs SA in 03 i never really rated him. Plunkett started well & has faded a bit yes but he's young & like Broad its too early to write them off.

How on Earth did Plunkett start well?! Wow, he managed 3 gifted wickets (at the deat) in his 1st ODI! I'm sure it'll happen again sometime! Fact is, just like Kabir Ali, he was at one time talked-up as having potential, and has proven nothing of the sort. Seriously, Plunkett has to be one of the luckiest cricketers ever to be picked for England - he'd done close to nothing to merit it.

Neither, really, had Broad.

 

[Richard]

Your kidding right..

Nope, not at all (though he's wrong in the Vaughan case)...

Strauss, Collingwood and Jones were all rubbish against Australia in the summer-2005 ODIs.

 

[Richard]

Ha, come on man, he clearly wasn't bowling as bad as you are making it sound. Maybe he did lose the plot in this game you are refering to, but he showed enough good signs rather than bad one's. He's young how many young bowlers do you remember coming in & being absolutely on the spot? Cut him some slack will ya mate..

Which all adds to the reasoning that he should never, ever have been remotely considered at such an age.

I'd give you that reason for Strauss, but not Collingwood at all yo. Collingwood is very good ODI player, he clearly has the ability to play 2 gears in that he can nudge it around and smoke it and the end when its required.

Which is why he's done so fantastically well in ODIs...?

 

[tooextracool]

Trescothick proves nothing of the sort, unless you know of the exact state of his mind last summer. There were many articles which suggested he had temporarily recovered and merely suffered a relapse when in Australia.

so he temporarily recovered for about about a couple of months, failed miserably in both forms(bar the odd game) and then coincidentally decided to take time off instead of playing the champions trophy thereafter? We can clearly presume that he was doing perfectly fine mentally during said period.
Believe it or not random occurences do happen. Occasionally natural talent and brilliance overcome mental frailities and hinderances. We've seen it with billions of players before, even your beloved mark ramprakash had a successful stint in test cricket.

What I said was "you can hardly argue that Hick being dropped in 1995 was a bad decision, because he responded with a brilliant century". Frankly, until Hick talks about it (maybe in an autobiography of his own) we can't know what affect it had on him, we can only presume. In your favourite book Atherton's autobiography, he presumes it had a positive effect. You presume the opposite. But without Hick talking about it we can't know for certain..

so if we dropped Andrew flintoff right now it would be the righ decision then? Hey hes only had success for a few years, hes been miserable in his few tests, lets not forget how many years he was rubbish for. He needs to be dropped so that he doesnt take his place for granted. Do you agree?

Except that Hussain didn't score 5 single-figure scores in 6 innings. Maybe if he'd done that in the last of those series, he too might have been dropped.

and hussain didnt have 3 years of unparalleled success in the england side either.

I know that, and it made no sense whatsoever, as it weakened the batting by putting Russell in the side while completely taking Butcher out of position. If they wanted Butcher in the side, they should've persisted with him as an opener. If they thought his form was too poor, they should've dropped him. SA are now doing exactly the same thing with AB de Villiers.

Err yes and thats what i argued.The selectors did treat Hick poorly by selecting Butcher(who was clearly not good enough at the time) and even made him bat at 3(which was hicks position). Stewart batting at 3 made no sense, but it clearly proves that it had nothing to do with not wanting him to open the batting and what not, because theres hardly much difference in terms of resting time after wicketkeeping for a keeper to bat either opening or at 3.

I don't really know that you can expect someone responsible for such a stupid decision to then go and pick Hick instead of Butcher.

and now you've gone full circle and call the same selectors who you said didnt treat Hick poorly as 'stupid' for not selecting hick over butcher? tsk tsk

So you think he'd have been picked (for ODIs or Tests) if he had never picked-up a ball in his career?

and you think by bowling 20 odd overs that they put faith in his bowling ability? if they picked him for his bowling then he should have bowled far more than what he did, because the fact is that even hick can turn his arm over and would have probably bowled just as many overs had he played in the same number of tests at the time.

If you mean Hick was averaging 55 and Ramprakash 50, then yes, he was, but given what ended-up happening with Ramprakash in WI and for most of the next 3 years when he wasn't opening, I'm happy enough that Ramprakash was given the go.

you are once again using the hindsight for your selection reasoning. Its even more ridiculous than those that claim Pietersen should have played instead of Thorpe in the Ashes in 2005. Logically, when you have 2 players, one averaging 55 in county cricket with 3 years of brilliance in the test match arena, the other averaging 50 with not a single noteworthy international series, i know which one i would pick.

 

[tooextracool]

And not so long ago you were arguing that he was absolutely rubbish because he never bowled in the last 10 overs.

Go on then show me where i ever called him rubbish? Ive always maintained that he was a good enough bowler when he played but that there were better bowlers in England, referring to Caddick, Gough, Mullally and Fraser.

Turn out of the rough is rarely any problem for a right-hander as mostly the rough is in a position where they can simply pad it away.

Point being? Robin Smith wasnt amongst the category of 'most players' when it came to spin. He was in the category of 'garbage'. While stewart mostly had problems on slow wickets when the ball wasnt coming onto the bat(as opposed to not being able to pick spinners in general) Robin Smith couldnt play spin with any sort of conviction against anyone who managed to turn the ball a quarter of an inch of a wearing pitch.

So what's Smith's second-innings record like against the likes of May, then?

wouldnt matter much IMO, you dont need to get someone out for someone to have problems against your bowling. Smith cleraly had problems against May and Warne, and those who watched him against them would know.

Some pitches deteriorate to offer turn as the game goes on. Others don't. And it's extremely unusual for a pitch to turn more and not get slower at the same time.[/QUOTE]

 

[tooextracool]

From the BBC. He's on drugs, I reckon. Reckons we're one of five teams capable of winning it (Oz, India, Pakistan & SA the others).

more so because he didnt have the WI on that list.

 

[tooextracool]

One day cricket is a funny game....if you can get into a groove, a rhythm you can start winning matches and then anything is possible.

This is a WC - anything can happen - noone gave India a chance in 1983 against the might of the West Indies, Pakistan in 1992 and Sri Lanka in 1996.

Whatever you might say about Ganguly (arrogance and what not), he's no fool.....he's played enough to know that England have got some very good players and if they can find that groove, that right level of organistaion, they can be a handful for anyone.

A team of say

Loye
Strauss (would prefer Tresco)
Bell
KP
Colly
Freddy
Dalrymple
Read
Mudhsudhan
Anderson
Lewis has potential IMO.

Maybe not championship material but it wouldn't surprise me if England made the semis.

is it just me or do people not see that dalrymple is being wasted at no 7 and 8? Hes not much of a slogger, and hes certainly capable of scoring runs in the middle order. Beats collingwood coming in and scratching around for his entire innings.

 

[tooextracool]

Your kidding right..

i think the most hilarious joke ive heard was Fletcher talking about how Strauss was out of form and that when he is in form the batting revolved around him. Im sorry but how on earth does our batting revolve around someone who cant even average 30? Its been 3 years since he last scored a meaningful 100, and hes so clearly not suited to play ODI cricket its insane.
Collingwood has been rubbish for a long long time now. His situation is a little less understandable given that before the 2003 world cup he was actually quite good and realy did look the part at one point.
and anybody who thinks vaughan and simon jones given their records is seriously deluding himself.