England 2012 Cricket Thread

[bertlambshank]

You gonna blame me arn't you.

[Bernie]

You gonna blame me arn't you.

Yup

[bertlambshank]

What a bonkers day's cricket.

[john e]

Fantastic stuff

[tomd2103]

Feel we might have missed a trick by not bringing in Finn before Anderson.  We know Jimmy can block fairly well, but Finn is capable of playing a few shots and hitting boundaries.  Any momentum we had seems to have gone at the moment.

[Rick_avfc]

No need to rush though.  They need like 53 runs to win from like a minimum of 123 balls.  patience is the key from now

[manic-road]

Well South Africa proved they deserve to be the No.1 team in the world after winning in England 0-2. Good game though.

[PaulWinch again]

Good Test and South Africa deserve to win, they've been the better side across the series. This has been a chastening experience and the final exclamation point on a really poor 6 months of Test cricket for England. Our top order has more than often failed, and in this series our bowling attack has looked pretty poor. Cook got a century when South Africa bowled poorly and then got fuck all for the rest of the series, Strauss got fuck all for the entire series. Trott got a couple of scores but nothing remarkable and failed a lot. If your top 3 consistently fail, which more often than not they have over the last 6 months you're going to struggle.

There needs to be some firm analysis and reevaluation of the side and they need to be brutally honest. There are big question marks over Strauss, Pietersen(for different reasons), Broad, Bresnan and Swann and all need to massively improve. The fielding also needs to be sorted out, dropping so many catches is unforgivable.

On the positive side Prior, Finn and Bairstow enhanced their reputation. Prior consistently got runs and overall his glove work was good. Finn was the one bowler who looked like he could go through the South Africans and should have played the first game as well. Bairstow showed he could cope with the best attack around and he'll be a top player.

[Villan For Life]

It's been a disappointing 12 months for the test side. We've really struggled.

I’ve been thinking about this and trying to decipher what has gone wrong.

The obvious choice is complacency. This seems to be a malaise that affects top-level English sport after they’ve achieved their stated goal. Think Rugby World Cup 2003, Ashes 2005. Those sides were great but once they’d reached that pinnacle they never again achieved  the same level of performance. We don’t seem to be capable of building a sustained period of dominance that the Aussies did in Cricket.

The other thought that I had was about how important the number one test status actually is. I got more pleasure from winning back to back Ashes series than I did from England achieving the number one test status. This could conceivably smack of sour grapes; when we’re poor at one-day level we claim test cricket is more important. Now we’ve the number one status then the Ashes are more important.

So come on fellow cricket fans, and without sounding like a nose (we don’t care if we go down as long as we beat the Villa), what is more important Number One test Status or winning the Ashes?

Ashes for me and the grapes taste very sour today

[PaulWinch again]

I'm not sure they're mutually exclusive, both are important to me. Winning the Ashes should also give us the boost towards the number 1 ranking. However that ranking only has value if you're consistently winning whilst your number 1. The only time I felt like we were number 1 was when we beat India, since then we've lost too much to legitimately be considered the best Test side.

[Chris Smith]

The number one status is taken from results over a 3 year period so is always going to be difficult to maintain. It's disappointing that England have lost it but if it was an easy target to achieve then it wouldn't count for much. Test cricket is healthier if it changes regularly rather than one country dominate for years.

I reckon an Ashes win probably just edges it as it's more memorable but as a measure of the strength of the side then the overall rankings is the one.

[paul_e]

It's been a disappointing 12 months for the test side. We've really struggled.

I’ve been thinking about this and trying to decipher what has gone wrong.

The obvious choice is complacency. This seems to be a malaise that affects top-level English sport after they’ve achieved their stated goal. Think Rugby World Cup 2003, Ashes 2005. Those sides were great but once they’d reached that pinnacle they never again achieved  the same level of performance. We don’t seem to be capable of building a sustained period of dominance that the Aussies did in Cricket.

The other thought that I had was about how important the number one test status actually is. I got more pleasure from winning back to back Ashes series than I did from England achieving the number one test status. This could conceivably smack of sour grapes; when we’re poor at one-day level we claim test cricket is more important. Now we’ve the number one status then the Ashes are more important.

So come on fellow cricket fans, and without sounding like a nose (we don’t care if we go down as long as we beat the Villa), what is more important Number One test Status or winning the Ashes?

Ashes for me and the grapes taste very sour today

First thing, the problem with the rugby world cup side is nothing to do with complacency, it was to do with the fact that it was a last big effort for a lot of the players involved.  Of the 22 involved in the final only about 8-9 were involved in the 6nations 5 months later.  That level of loss from any side is going to result in a slump.

I agree this is the problem in the cricket though.  Trott and Cook were awesome for 18months but now they've been average for the last 12.  Strauss has been poor for the majority of that time.  KP is what he is, a great talent but takes a lot of effort to manage and can be infuriating.  Bell has been consistently good and is probably our best batsman, then 6 has been a nightmare for a while.  Even the last year of Collingwood was poor and we're yet to find a consistent replacement.  Bairstow has the talent but needs time.  Finally Prior has been good.

So in effect 2 good batsmen in the top 7 and then a mixture or poor form and inconsistency in the other spots.

In the field we've been a lot weaker than we were in winning the ashes.

With the ball Swann has struggled, Broad and Finn have quality but are inconsistent, Bresnan is consistant but lacks a bit of quality and Jimmy has been generally good but hasn't taken the wickets he probably deserves, however we've generally had 1 or 2 turn up in each match and there have been few matches where failing with the ball has cost us (SA first test and maybe the first against pakistan are the only ones I can think of where we failed as a unit).

[UK Redsox]

Why isn't Philander in the South Africa ODI squad ?

[paul_e]

absolute shocker of a shot from cook, the ball was decent but you shouldn't be out to a full straight one like that.

[PaulWinch again]

It's a bit of a concern, that technical flaw in Cook's game where he falls across his stumps has returned this summer and he needs to sort it. Also Trott continues to be poor.