England 2012 Cricket Thread

[paul_e]

bresnan has failed today but his batting record across his test career is fantastic for an 8, ditto broad for a 9/10 and swann for a 8/9.  Between them they average over a hundred, which is huge when they're picked as specialist bowlers.

As said before Bresnan need to become more consistent.  If he can get that right and come in and regualrly get important runs and support the top order guy with him (i.e. do the job Taylor did) he'd be ideal as a 6, allowing 4 specialist bowlers and giving us a meaningful 5th option.

and as I said he isnt being picked as a specialist bowler

yes he is, but our success has been built on every player being good in a 2nd discipline of the 3 (batting, bowling, fielding).  Monty, Onions and Finn are all good bowlers but don't bat or field well enough to get in ahead of Swann, Broad and Bresnan.  Bresnan's record with the ball is fine for a 3rd seamer, yes Finn would bring more threat but as part of the team it's more valuable for Bresnan to be picked as a specialist bowler.  That the reason for that is made because of non bowling reasons doesn't stop him being given the spot as a specialist bowler (interestingly, if you check the stats Bresnan actually has a better bowling average at test level than Finn, so it's arguable that he should get the nod purely on bowling merit).

As for him batting 6 or 7 his average with the bat is 40, that's more than good enough to be picked as an all rounder.  The problem is that he currently plays as someone coming in and trying to boost the score.  To play higher up he needs to play the situation better and be willing to dig in a little more.  He needs to be able to do what he's done so far and score quick runs, but he also needs to be able to do the 'wall' role that we saw yesterday.  I still think he'll end up batting 7 for us (with prior up to 6) so we can accommodate Finn.

[PaulWinch again]

This just isn't good enough at all.

[UK Redsox]

"Reported for touching a boy" ?


... oh,....... "bhoy"


Who knew that Victor was a sailing expert

[Villan For Life]

bresnan has failed today but his batting record across his test career is fantastic for an 8, ditto broad for a 9/10 and swann for a 8/9.  Between them they average over a hundred, which is huge when they're picked as specialist bowlers.

As said before Bresnan need to become more consistent.  If he can get that right and come in and regualrly get important runs and support the top order guy with him (i.e. do the job Taylor did) he'd be ideal as a 6, allowing 4 specialist bowlers and giving us a meaningful 5th option.

and as I said he isnt being picked as a specialist bowler

yes he is, but our success has been built on every player being good in a 2nd discipline of the 3 (batting, bowling, fielding).  Monty, Onions and Finn are all good bowlers but don't bat or field well enough to get in ahead of Swann, Broad and Bresnan.  Bresnan's record with the ball is fine for a 3rd seamer, yes Finn would bring more threat but as part of the team it's more valuable for Bresnan to be picked as a specialist bowler.  That the reason for that is made because of non bowling reasons doesn't stop him being given the spot as a specialist bowler (interestingly, if you check the stats Bresnan actually has a better bowling average at test level than Finn, so it's arguable that he should get the nod purely on bowling merit).

As for him batting 6 or 7 his average with the bat is 40, that's more than good enough to be picked as an all rounder.  The problem is that he currently plays as someone coming in and trying to boost the score.  To play higher up he needs to play the situation better and be willing to dig in a little more.  He needs to be able to do what he's done so far and score quick runs, but he also needs to be able to do the 'wall' role that we saw yesterday.  I still think he'll end up batting 7 for us (with prior up to 6) so we can accommodate Finn.

That's as I see it. Bresnan's figures speak for themselves.

His average is better than Broad's with the bat and the ball and is anyone questioning Broad's continued selection?

[PaulWinch again]

Broad is another one who should be looked at, his level has dropped off badly. Finn should have had the new ball as well.

[Villan For Life]

Broad is another one who should be looked at, his level has dropped off badly. Finn should have had the new ball as well.

So I'm not the only one who thinks that about Broad. Apart from 11 wickets in the Lords test against the Windies he's been disappointing for some time. He's not alone in that though.

[PaulWinch again]

Broad is another one who should be looked at, his level has dropped off badly. Finn should have had the new ball as well.

So I'm not the only one who thinks that about Broad. Apart from 11 wickets in the Lords test against the Windies he's been disappointing for some time. He's not alone in that though.

Broad's batting has gone backwards and overall his bowling has lost rhythm and consequently his pace is down. He'll come back but he needs to sort it out. Unfortunately we're going through a phase where a vast majority of the team are below their best by some way, and you can't get away with that.

[paul_e]

Broad has been inconsistent ever since he made the breakthrough.  He holds on to his place during the poor phases because generally he doesn't go for much over 2-2.5 an over and he is capable of building pressure at one end allowing Jimmy and Swann to skittle people at the other.  Broad also has an ability to get a wicket from nothing which is valuable.

Finn doesn't have that.  Even at his best he can be expensive, when he's not taking wickets and starts trying to force things he goes up to well over 4 an over, which isn't good enough at test level.

All that said, if we start with Finn he should open the bowling with Jimmy, Finn has great pace, which we aren't making the most of by giving him a ball that's 10-15 overs old.

Englands biggest problem with the ball at the minute is actually that Jimmy and Swann haven't been as good as they were a couple of years ago, they're still playing well but you don't see the unplayable 7-8 over spells where they get a few wickets and barely give a run away anymore.  Those spells were a key part of the ashes win, along with Cook and Trott playing like 2 of the best batsmen on the planet, a level they have also failed to get back to since.

[Villan For Life]

Broad has been inconsistent ever since he made the breakthrough.  He holds on to his place during the poor phases because generally he doesn't go for much over 2-2.5 an over and he is capable of building pressure at one end allowing Jimmy and Swann to skittle people at the other.  Broad also has an ability to get a wicket from nothing which is valuable.

Finn doesn't have that.  Even at his best he can be expensive, when he's not taking wickets and starts trying to force things he goes up to well over 4 an over, which isn't good enough at test level.

All that said, if we start with Finn he should open the bowling with Jimmy, Finn has great pace, which we aren't making the most of by giving him a ball that's 10-15 overs old.

Englands biggest problem with the ball at the minute is actually that Jimmy and Swann haven't been as good as they were a couple of years ago, they're still playing well but you don't see the unplayable 7-8 over spells where they get a few wickets and barely give a run away anymore.  Those spells were a key part of the ashes win, along with Cook and Trott playing like 2 of the best batsmen on the planet, a level they have also failed to get back to since.

Braod never seems to deliver when it really matters; against the Aussies and the South Africans. He does well against the next tier of test nations - West Indies and Pakistan etc. He needs to deliver consistently now or risk being dropped. He's been around International Cricket long enough now to have learnt what it is all about.

[PaulWinch again]

Bit of an indictment of our bowling/selection that KP looks the only danger.

[PaulWinch again]

As I said Broad, Bresnan and Swann have been poor of late. We can't afford to carry that many bowlers. Finn should have the new ball as well.

[paul_e]

Just how much would it annoy SA for KP to get a '5for' here.  Fingers crossed.

Shows just how wrong they got it to not include Swann though, looks like there's a lot happening off the pitch now.

[PaulWinch again]

Well to be honest between selection and performance(with the exception of a couple of really good individual efforts) we've been a shambles so far this series. KP is now our leading wicket taker, oh dear.

[PaulWinch again]

There's that Broad knack of getting wickets. Too little too late, but oh well.

[Villan For Life]

There's that Broad knack of getting wickets. Too little too late, but oh well.

If we'd got another 50 runs in our 1st innings then things things this afternoon may have got interesting, there's still 50 overs to go. As it stands, we've got to take 5 wickets very quickly and then try and score the runs without being bowled out ourselves with our out-of-form batting line-up.

Edit - now 6 down. I take back evrything that I said about Broad who's taken 3-10 in this spell.