England in Australia

[evertonfan]

I don't think we were ever 'bigging up' Read's batting, it was actually more of a case "Well he can't possibly do any worse than Jones".

 

[puddleduck]

well i hope people stop "bigging-up" Read as a batsmen..

I admit GOJO has been poor..but READ is just out of his depth..looked like a tailender.

Poor chap, hangs around and gets some useful runs in his last innings and within one innings looks like a tailender?

I can only imagine how hard this tour has been for Read, given next to no practice matches and told before the tour started that Jones was going to play the entire series, 3 tests in and he is suddenly thrown in with the series lost, and the team playing poor cricket. Keeps flawlessly, has one decent innings where everything else collapsed around him, and then gets out when asked to bat through the new ball, something our openers and Colly both failed to do, and he's not good enough?

No one by the way has bigged him up as a quality batsman, he is not, but what he is, is a good keeper, who battles when in the middle and unlike Jones has actually scored some runs in his last 5 innings in test cricket. His treatment on this tour has unfortunately been nothing short of shambolic, and depressingly reaked of the problems that afflicted English cricket in the early nineties.

Unluckily for Read I think his time is up and that England will discard him next summer despite never having given him even half the run in the side that Jones got.

 

[aussie_ben91]

I think Read did pretty well in the 2nd innings of the Melbourne test. Unless their another keeper in the future whose siginificantly a better batsman then Read (eg. the calleb of Alec Stewart or close to it, batting quality wise anyways) should retain his spot.

I also thought it was funny when Pietersen said in the last test to Andy Symonds, "let's get the professional fieldsmen out!"

 

[davefryer]

Thanks, Puddleduck. Some rational comment about Read who appears to be one of the innumerable sacrifices that the U.K. selectors make to smooth the feathers of their own particular enclaves.
I'm not sure about who would be better for his job in the U.K. cricket world but from what I've seen he was a "walk up start" for this series.
It doesn't happen like that in Australia - the best man gets the job no matter who he is associated with.
Years ago when I had the luxury of doing a cricket tour to the U.K (spectator only) I was shocked at the amount of parochialism in the lesser competitions.
It really is time for the U.K. to keep this current team together, they're all young, and develop them. Maybe one or two will retire but that's alright. There is a s--- load of talent in most of the current "Pommie" Test team.

 

[Sureshot]

What's all this UK business? Scotland and Northern Ireland aren't included within our team.

I don't see the point in dropping Read because all the selectors will do is reverse back to Jones.

We have to start fresh in keeping front, but after the WC as doing it now will just make us even more of a laughing stock.

Come the India series in the summer (we play them first iirc) if Read hasn't made any runs in the ODIs (or Nixon if he plays ) then we have to start fresh, drop both Read and Jones and tell them to get big runs in county cricket. We then start a fresh, I'd be tempted by Davies but he is very young and I'd hate for it to be too young and ruin his career. Everyone here knows I think Prior has to be given a chance and stats back that up, no one is more succesful in county cricket as a keeper. Batty has done well at Surrey and is vastly underrated. Pothas is pretty good but is 33 and has played 3 ODIs for RSA but I think he is eligible. Batty is only a year younger and has 12 FC centuries opposed to Pothas' 19 and Priors 14. Foster has 8, Jones 4/5 and Read has 9.

I'd have Foster and Prior as the two keepers,, depeding of course on certain form and Prior tours Bangladesh with England A in Feb so that's a good chance for him.

Foster didn't do too bad for England averaging 25 with the bat.

The keeping problem is huge and I feel it might contribute to us dropping a bowler in preference of a bowler who can bat better, Ie Giles for Panesar.

 

[manee]

Monty has been bowling poorly with all this media attension he is getting, doing interviews and the like, he should make his cricket do the talking and unfortunately it is not saying much.

 

[aussie1st]

Monty has been bowling poorly with all this media attension he is getting, doing interviews and the like, he should make his cricket do the talking and unfortunately it is not saying much.

Of course it doesn't help when your captain is setting Giles like fields instead of Warne type fields.

 

[Sureshot]

Monty has been bowling poorly with all this media attension he is getting, doing interviews and the like, he should make his cricket do the talking and unfortunately it is not saying much.

He may not be as penetrative as in the summer for three reasons 1) who was captain in the summer? and 2) look at the fields and finally 3) he's not being used in the right way, Monty is as likely to take wickets as any other bowler on this tour if not more so, yet the captain seems to think he should come in the case of "If the seamers aren't doing the job then I'll put Monty on to some defensive fields", he's not been at his best but he's still been quite good and has been unlucky too in terms of some decisions (they come and go and even themselves out eventually) more so in how the captain views his position.

 

[slade]

After england won the last ashes series, all the english players were honoured with MBEs from the queen. Surely, its only fair for the Aussie players to be honoured by their queen after regaining the Ashes? :

 

[aussie1st]

It's not a big feat for us given we've had the Ashes for the past 19 years

 

[Left_Hander]

I did enjoy that six off Clark though, because I'm not much of a Clark fan. I don't think he belongs and all of his success will come undone once McGrath and Warne are gone. The same thing I reckon will happen to Lee, although I don't have anything against Lee; I think Clark is a bit of a dud and I'm supprised Pietersen hasn't given him a bit of a hiding yet.

To Clark's credit - what about the series in South Africa. McGrath didn't play and he got 20 wickets @ 15.75. Sounds good to me.

 

[aussie1st]

Anderson really having a good game now, just got the big wicket of Hussey.

 

[Leicester Fox]

England need to break this partnership now. this is a crucial wicket

 

[aussie1st]

They sure do, if both these guys start firing England will 200 odd behind. Symonds is looking really good yet again, another 100 here will secure his spot even longer.

 

[Leicester Fox]

Monty does it again. Once Warne and Muralia are gone he is the worlds number 1 spinner. Monty vs Warne now. Should see some fireworks from Gilchrist too

Monty had Warne there. No doubts. The umpires in this series have been shocking