The Cricket Thread 2016

[taylorsworkrate]

See I'm still convinced that Moeen has the skills to bowl, but he is really short of confidence at the moment, which isn't helped by Cook. If I were England I'd rest him for the ODIs and I'd let him go back to county cricket in order to get a lot of overs under his belt before the Ashes. When he's confident he's a real threat, but that's been eroded at the moment.

I'm far more worried about his batting at the moment.

[bertlambshank]

Williamson has a great wrong un it's called a chuck.

[PaulWinch again]

See I'm still convinced that Moeen has the skills to bowl, but he is really short of confidence at the moment, which isn't helped by Cook. If I were England I'd rest him for the ODIs and I'd let him go back to county cricket in order to get a lot of overs under his belt before the Ashes. When he's confident he's a real threat, but that's been eroded at the moment.

I'm far more worried about his batting at the moment.

I wouldn't be. For a start he's batting at 8 at the moment. Secondly he's had a poor match, but before this he had two 50s and a 40 in his last 5 innings. That's hardly terrible.

[PaulWinch again]

Taylor has a first class average of 47 with 18 first class centuries. Even if he hasn't had the best start to the year, he was brilliant last year and certainly deserves a chance.

[Villan For Life]

They've had numerous opportunity to pick the likes of Taylor, Hales and Rashid but haven't selected them. Why? Are they perceived as not good enough?

[Chris Jameson]

Think the best we can hope for now is a draw.

[Villan For Life]

Said the main with his tongue firmly in cheek!

[Villan For Life]

Buttler is beginning to bat with some real maturity. He's not all bish bash bosh after all. I do have concerns about his keeping though.

Edit. There's the poster's version of the commentator's curse.......out LBW without playing a shot.

[Chris Jameson]

What a shame there are only two Test matches, why not have a proper series instead of yet another pointless One Day series?

[aj2k77]

So we have number 3 and 4 playing terribly poor. Slip catching is very shoddy. The spinner doesn't look very good. Anderson isn't penetrative and the bowling at the lower order is giving too many freebies. Lyth the jury is out and obviously needs more time.

On the plus Stokes and Cook have batted well and Wood looks like he has some potential.

All in all a test series that has posed more questions than provided answers.

[PaulWinch again]

Glad to see Ali is being rested. He needs overs in county cricket.

[olaftab]

What a shame there are only two Test matches, why not have a proper series instead of yet another pointless One Day series?

Arrogance from our side not regarding Kiwis as genuine test match opponents. It's all about Australia.

[Chris Smith]

What a shame there are only two Test matches, why not have a proper series instead of yet another pointless One Day series?

I agree, these are two well matched sides and a longer series had the potential to be a belter.

[spangley1812]

England ODI squad to face New Zealand: Eoin Morgan (Middlesex, capt), Sam Billings (Kent, wk), Jos Buttler (Lancashire, wk), Steven Finn (Middlesex), Alex Hales (Nottinghamshire), Chris Jordan (Sussex), Liam Plunkett (Yorkshire), Adil Rashid (Yorkshire), Joe Root (Yorkshire), Jason Roy (Surrey), Ben Stokes (Durham), James Taylor (Nottinghamshire), David Willey (Northants), Mark Wood (Durham).

[paul_e]

So we have number 3 and 4 playing terribly poor. Slip catching is very shoddy. The spinner doesn't look very good. Anderson isn't penetrative and the bowling at the lower order is giving too many freebies. Lyth the jury is out and obviously needs more time.

On the plus Stokes and Cook have batted well and Wood looks like he has some potential.

All in all a test series that has posed more questions than provided answers.

I suggested keeping Jordan in the side purely because he has the best hands in English cricket and a few said you can't pick him for his fielding, I don't disagree with that but he could well have been the difference for us in this test.  Given his batting can also be very good (for a low order player) I think we can accept his slightly hit and miss bowling (which i think has a lot of potential anyway) if it means we take the chances the other bowlers create.

From that ODI squad who opens with Hales there?  Roy, Taylor and Root are all good top order batsmen but I'm not sure any of them is right to open internationally at this point.  Does that mean they might be looking at Buttler to be an opener rather than a finisher? He's matured a lot playing in tests and I think he could be a very good fit.  With Stokes, Jordan and Rashid in the bowling setup we have some potential finishers anyway and giving Buttler a chance to bart for more than 10 overs without worrying about the number of wickets we've lost might help push or scores into the 350+ realms that are required now.