England 2012 Cricket Thread

[paul_e]

Well regardless he's bowled well today and looked threatening again. They are essentially 209-5, which may well be too much for us any given our appalling batting. However if we can bat decently, I'd say we need them out for less than a lead of 270-280 to stand a chance.

It's all about attitude once we get back in to bat.  If we can keep the target below 300 (which should be the target after today) the batsmen have go with the attitude of only playing the bad balls.  If we can get 100-150 with no more than a wicket down we can then start playing a few shots and putting their bowlers under pressure to keep it tight whilst trying to make a breakthrough, it's all about pushing the pressure onto the bowlers now.  If they get another 150 tomorrow then we're in trouble as we'll not be able to apply that pressure if they have that many runs to play with.

[PaulWinch again]

If we do lose this game, then a lot of questions need to be asked. Fundamentally we seem to be having the same problem we had in the UAE against a poorer attack. The first innings performance will be shocking regardless of whether we win, but if we do win our second innings will have had to be good so that'll mitigate the first a bit. Whatever happens there are several batsmen under significant pressure now. The bowlers keep bowling very well and then being let down by other areas of our game.

[PaulWinch again]

That's the name of the player I forgot! Ben Stokes is another player who I thought looked really talented, and should be given the opportunity.

[Villan For Life]

They hid behind a lack of preparation excuse after the Pakistan series. That can't be used this time, indeed Flower said in interview that he would ensure that they were adequately prepared.

The issues seem to be as much mental as technical. They've concentrated so much on the spin issue that they've become paranoid. I wonder if the team psychologist is on tour with them? Him and Gooch, if he's there, have their work cut out!

[PaulWinch again]

Well it is interesting, because KP's shot was appalling by all accounts and was against medium pace.

[Dave Cooper please]

As nice a guy as Strauss is I reckon he needs to go, he's not contributing with the bat and he is so bloody defensive in the field it's probably giving the opposition 50-100 extra runs an innings given how good our bowling attack is. Sri Lanka are something like 15-3 and he only has two slips and a short leg in catching positions? We should have been all over them.
Time to give Cook a go in the summer I reckon.

[PaulWinch again]

We're letting them get too many here. Well to be honest 150 is probably too many, but still.

[PaulWinch again]

This is pretty disasterous stuff.

[PaulWinch again]

340 to win, that's about 140 more than we should have been facing with the combined ends to both Sri Lankan innings and our shocking batting. Places on the line for the batsmen here.

[Villan For Life]

Strauss is by nature a defensive captain and to be honest it's worked pretty well for him.

You can't blame him for being defensive in the second innings. His confidence in the top order (himslef included) will have been shot to pieces and he would have wanted to keep the 4th innings run-chase total down to a manageable figure.

It's a fine line between all out attack and leaking runs or a defensive field to contain and eke out wickets.

At least a couple of the batsmen really must play big innings here.

[PaulWinch again]

I think we are batting a bit quickly here, there's no rush get yourselves in boys!

[Dave Summers]

Good one to win anyway, but history suggests it will be too much.

There is no doubt that the batters have let themselves down over these last two months and they probably know that themselves better than anyone.   However, I do hope we don't go down the route that we took in the 80's and 90's of changing players left, right and centre every other game.   We have got to the top by being patient with players and allowing them to work their way out of their bad runs of form.   Whenever we discuss possible changes to the batting line up, I always ask, who is their better to come in, than what is there?.    Looking around the counties and admittedly I don't see anywhere near as much as I used too, I can't see anything that immediately springs to mind?.   The Bairstow's, Roots, Stokes of this world all have potential there is no doubt, but are they really going to get more runs than Strauss, Trott, Bell, KP, Cook etc?  Don't see it myself at the moment.

The other thing about this game and a few others as well, we have let Sri Lanka off the hook I reckon about 4 times over two innings.   When we have our foot on the throat, we need to go for the kill and not let them off.      We did it in Cardiff last summer, when we bowled them out in 30 overs, albeit in completely different conditions.   This has been a trait of this England team, the ability to kill an innings off and it has been lacking a little this winter.

[PaulWinch again]

Cook gone, that's pretty disasterous for us.

[PaulWinch again]

Stop bloody sweeping Strauss.

[Villan For Life]

Good one to win anyway, but history suggests it will be too much.

There is no doubt that the batters have let themselves down over these last two months and they probably know that themselves better than anyone.   However, I do hope we don't go down the route that we took in the 80's and 90's of changing players left, right and centre every other game.   We have got to the top by being patient with players and allowing them to work their way out of their bad runs of form.   Whenever we discuss possible changes to the batting line up, I always ask, who is their better to come in, than what is there?.    Looking around the counties and admittedly I don't see anywhere near as much as I used too, I can't see anything that immediately springs to mind?.   The Bairstow's, Roots, Stokes of this world all have potential there is no doubt, but are they really going to get more runs than Strauss, Trott, Bell, KP, Cook etc?  Don't see it myself at the moment.

The other thing about this game and a few others as well, we have let Sri Lanka off the hook I reckon about 4 times over two innings.   When we have our foot on the throat, we need to go for the kill and not let them off.      We did it in Cardiff last summer, when we bowled them out in 30 overs, albeit in completely different conditions.   This has been a trait of this England team, the ability to kill an innings off and it has been lacking a little this winter.

I pretty much agree with this but I do think that the present batting line up is harder to get out of than get into. This will allow complacency to flourish.