England 2012 Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

"Hoping all is sorted & I'm on the New Zealand tour in February." Pietersen has tweeted that, which suggests he thinks it's been dealt with now.

[PaulWinch again]

Thus far this tournament has been pretty poor, some individual performances apart. The crowds have been terrible and the games have been massively one sided. The only game that got a bit interesting was India vs Afghanistan. Now I hope we hammer Afghanistan, but it would be nice to see some contests.

[The Left Side]

When is the India game?

[The Left Side]

When is the India game?

Just checked, it is Sunday but being in Canada I have no chance of seeing it live

[PaulWinch again]

Bloody hell watching this Twenty20, are our players ever going to learn how to play spin? These aren't even turning much and we're being slaughtered.

[PaulWinch again]

We are going to get massacred in India on the evidence of this. I know it's a different team, but same problems.

[paul_e]

English players will never be good against spin, the pitches in the UK just don't lend themselves to learning to play spin in sub-continent conditions.

They key to playing spin well is to play a long way forward but english batsmen develop as backfoot players.  Bell and Cook are the key ones, both are textbook English batsmen, they both do ok against spin but never look comfortable because they're too deep in their crease and their balance is all wrong.  Watch players who are regarded as strong against spin and they always come out of their crease a lot more and just give the ball less time to do anything.  That forces the bowlers to play around with their length so they generally go shorter and can be picked off.

The place where we could learn something is the IPL but our players aren't allowed in it thanks to scheduling.

[PaulWinch again]

Sounds like KP is on the verge of coming back, which in my opinion is good news.

[Dave Cooper please]

Yep, sounds like KP will be going to India.

[paul_e]

Sounds like KP is on the verge of coming back, which in my opinion is good news.

Looks like it's all but been confirmed today.

Great news, he's too big a talent to be dumped over nonsense which is no worse than stuff players come out with all the time.

[rutski]

just to let you know if interested, ashes tickets go on sale today at old trafford and trent bridge. i am waiting in the queue obviously!

[Chico Hamilton III]

just to let you know if interested, ashes tickets go on sale today at old trafford and trent bridge. i am waiting in the queue obviously!

December for the Oval

[PaulWinch again]

Martin Crowe has been diagnosed with Lymphoma. Good luck Martin and hope you fully recover as soon as possible.

[peter w]

Didn't he have it, or some other serious illness, previously?

[PaulWinch again]

Not that I'm aware of, but possibly.