The England batsmen only seem to play well when their place is really threatened. You'll see someone who should be out of the team hit a century or take a couple of wickets and they'll stay. That 98 will keep Shah in for about 15 more matches.
1st semi final: England vs Australia
- Thread starter angryangy
- Start date
Offspinner
Club Cricketer
Lee and Siddle have started really well. Hopefully Johnson, Hopes and Hauritz can follow it up.
piriyanth
International Cricketer
He hasn't actually been that bad over the last year tbh. The thing with Shah is that he'll get a lot of 20-40's but not many 50+ scores.
Offspinner
Club Cricketer
Has anyone else noticed the amount of bounce? Siddle has pitched a few up that have carried really well back to Paine.
That's not really enough for a middle order batsman. That's what you'd hope from a number 7 or 8.
Of course that's not good enough. But he's averaged 36 since this time last year without really putting on any scores of note, he's just doing enough to stay in the team.
Offspinner
Club Cricketer
Sharp work by Ponting there. The Aussies have looked pretty good in the field so far.
Time really flies in ODIs, doesn't it? It's hard to believe that he's played 70 ODIs and Bopara's played 30.
Also that's that annoying sort of average where you'd feel hard done by if you got dropped for that.
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Offspinner
Club Cricketer
Hopes into the attack before Johnson? Have I missed something?
Yes time most certainly has flown by, because Bopara's already played 50 ODI's
But yeah you're right Shah wont be dropped for a little while yet. The thing is if he actually went on with 2-3 more of these starts he'd probably be England's best one day batsmen. Pietersen has only averaged 2 more runs an innings over Shah over the last year or so and people would consider him to be 10X the player.
piriyanth
International Cricketer
Bit weird to see Hopes comes in before Mitchell Johnson.
