Thank God that guy is out.
Tbh this ODI series does not deserve its own forum.
It doesn't. It's a part of the Ashes tour...
I felt that Rashid and Wright did well at the end. I thought Bopara, Prior and Colly lacked the intent to keep us in the game. In the end, we'd have won it comfortably if they'd have been more positive. That said, Australia did bowl pretty well, but we can't afford to have two out of form batsman in the top 5.
We have to get Trott in, he's got over 10 domestic one day 100s and is a very good OD player. It's pretty farcical, and that isn't being irrational, it's genuinely awful that he isn't in the side given his success in that test match and his own record.
We will struggle without KP, name me a side who wouldn't struggle without a player of that calibre.
I know England love their Broad's batting, but Rash is better, not just based on tonight's efforts, but his run a ball tons in the Championship this year.
We've got Morgan. Colly is brilliant in the field, in both aspects. But his batting isn't good enough when we have so many all-rounders. I think Wright is a must in the side as without him we haven't got any punch at all in the bottom half of the order. I know I'm biassed about him (and he is in excellent form with the bat this year, averaging 50 odd in the Championship, some good innings in the FPT and P40 show that), but England can't have a side where we don't have anyone to hit boundaries at the back end of the innings.
I think the loss of Denly is quite big. He will give impetus to the opening. I hope Ravi can take this 49 (from 88 balls), which I believe cost us the game, and improve his form for however many games he plays in the rest of the series.
Not all doom and gloom. Rashid was excellent throughout. Colly in the field. Wright at the end, etc.
One more thing...why the hell didn't we take the powerplay when Shah and Colly were in? I know Wright and Rashid did well (46 from 5 is pretty damn good), but if we'd have got 45-50 runs, about 5-6 overs earlier than we did, we'd have had a much better chance at the end.
Australia did well. England had their faults, but they did play some good cricket. Ferguson was excellent, Watson did pretty well too. White and Clarke could have been slightly more pro-active, restricted by the efforts of Rashid. Mitch bowled well, Bracken did, as he always does. I'm always happy, as an England fan, to see Brett Lee bowling, 65 from 9 overs tonight. I always have confidence that you can score runs off of him. Hauritz did well too, felt we could have got some more runs off of him.
Decent game of cricket. Two evenly matched sides, 6 more games to go. If it remains this even, we could have a good 7-match series for once.
