Cricket 2010 Thread

[villajk]

Never again will I watch a game against them after being surrounded by racist gobshites for the day at Edgbaston last time they were here.

I am amazed a riot didn't break out in the Eric Hollies.

A fight broke out around us, between pakistani supporters, and one lot got thrown out.

[cdbearsfan]

Have Warwickshire signed anyone exciting for the new season? I'm guessing... no.

Anyone know if Maddy will be fit this year?

I will settle for staying up in the Championship and a decent run in the Twenty20. We look shit.

[Villan For Life]

Have Warwickshire signed anyone exciting for the new season? I'm guessing... no.

Anyone know if Maddy will be fit this year?

I will settle for staying up in the Championship and a decent run in the Twenty20. We look shit.

The Bears have signed Imran Tahir the Pakistani leggie as their overseas player and also Varun Chopra the Essex opener.

Maddy is fit but has sustained a bad facial injury in the nets that will require surgery.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/counties/warwickshire/8567712.stm

[cdbearsfan]

Hope Maddy makes a speedy recovery. Any idea if Messrs Tahir and Chopra are any good? Must say, I would like it if we would occasionally sign a household name. Has Martin O'Neill taken over?

[Villan For Life]

Chopra is an ex-England under 19 captain whose career seems to have stalled a little. Hopefully the change of county will help him.

Tahir has a reasonable county record. He played a couple of seasons for Hampshire and got 90 - odd wickets, including as I recall 40-odd in about 6 matches in 1998.

I think that the days of showpiece signings in county cricket are long gone. International teams play all year round and so the top players will only come for a few weeks 20/20. There's no point in signing players on the verge of the England team as you will lose them to central contracts.

As for the Bears, another season of consolidation but Trott will leave a huge gap in the batting.

[cdbearsfan]

Fair enough. I'm hoping for the best anyway. I predict Woakes will be a star... then bloody England will nab him and the season will fizzle out.

[TheTimVilla]

England won by 181 runs. 10 wickets for Swann, the first time for an English spinner in the subcontinent. Two spinners in the second test?

[Mazrim]

Couldn't believe my eyes when I got up this morning and saw Bangladesh still batting.
At least we wont take them lightly again and they're definitely improving.

Rashid should be there. They started introducing him to the England set up in T20, when bowlers are on a hiding to nothing and then, when he has the chance to go to the sub continent where he'd be most effective, they dont pick him. Or his replacement. Harsh I think.

Tredwell is decent enough but Rashid offers more dimensions and variety.
But hey ho, its not going to happen now. So its Tredwell for the next test and a batsman will miss out. When you have a "tail" of Bresnan, Broad and Swann you dont need to pick 6 batsmen plus Prior. Who msses out though?

I'd go:

Cook
Trott
Pietersen
Collingwood
Bell
Prior
Broad
Swann
Bresnan
Tredwell
Finn

Harsh on Carberry perhaps but I think Trott is the better player.
I like the look of Finn and have done for a year or so now. He's going to be a handful on a livelier pitch (basically any other pitch). He should put on a few yards of pace as he gets a bit older too so I expect him to be exceeding 90mph regularly when he's 22/23.

The other option is to play Wright (or Shahzad) if they're not going play Tredwell. Lengthens the batting and a genuine 5th bowling option.

[cheltenhamlion]

Tredwell will start the next game.

[Chris Smith]

Rashid should be there. They started introducing him to the England set up in T20, when bowlers are on a hiding to nothing and then, when he has the chance to go to the sub continent where he'd be most effective, they dont pick him. Or his replacement. Harsh I think.

I don't like the idea of rushing youg players into the international setup too soon. They need to play a few years of county cricket to hone their skills and become more street wise. That's why Swann is so much better now than when he was first picked.

[Mazrim]

I think Rashid has played enough county cricket. But I take your point. Although sometimes we wait too long to blood players at the highest level.

[hilts_coolerking]

I think a worse problem and one, for the most part, we avoid these days was picking a player for one or two tests against strong opposition and then discarding them.

The number of talented players that were tried against the West Indies and Australia in the 80s and 90s only to be discarded after their initial failure is shocking.  As if failure on debut against arguably the two most dominant teams in Test cricket history is reliable evidence of a player's ability.

Admittedly a few of them were bad picks and a few were persevered with (notably Gooch, Atherton and Flintoff) but overall the management, such as it was, of the England side in the 1980s and early 90s was disgraceful.

[KevinGage]

 Rashid should be there. They started introducing him to the England set up in T20, when bowlers are on a hiding to nothing and then, when he has the chance to go to the sub continent where he'd be most effective, they dont pick him. Or his replacement. Harsh I think.
 

Agree, Swann and Rashid should be the spin options. I'd have also taken a punt on Monty and included him in the squad, though in truth his form over the past 12 months (batting heroics at Cardiff aside) hardly merits it.

But he has test experience, and a track record of getting some of the very best batsmen in trouble. Batsmen get cuter, and might work out plans to ounter that, true. But you surely don't lose all that natural ability and accuracy.

Hard to know just why his star has fallen so drastically, going from first choice spinner and indeed one of the first names on the teamsheet > not even considered for a trip to the Subcontinent.

Perhaps he just needs that one magic innings to get back in the groove.

[TheTimVilla]

I think a worse problem and one, for the most part, we avoid these days was picking a player for one or two tests against strong opposition and then discarding them.

The number of talented players that were tried against the West Indies and Australia in the 80s and 90s only to be discarded after their initial failure is shocking.  As if failure on debut against arguably the two most dominant teams in Test cricket history is reliable evidence of a player's ability.

Admittedly a few of them were bad picks and a few were persevered with (notably Gooch, Atherton and Flintoff) but overall the management, such as it was, of the England side in the 1980s and early 90s was disgraceful.

Mind you, the Ozzies have given a lot of debuts in the last twelve months.

[Mazrim]

I think a worse problem and one, for the most part, we avoid these days was picking a player for one or two tests against strong opposition and then discarding them.

The number of talented players that were tried against the West Indies and Australia in the 80s and 90s only to be discarded after their initial failure is shocking.  As if failure on debut against arguably the two most dominant teams in Test cricket history is reliable evidence of a player's ability.

Admittedly a few of them were bad picks and a few were persevered with (notably Gooch, Atherton and Flintoff) but overall the management, such as it was, of the England side in the 1980s and early 90s was disgraceful.

Robin Smith? Discarded prematurely to say the least.