England in Australia

[aussie1st]

Lee and McGrath seemed to have taken a bit of stick in particular McGrath. Definitely not used to seeing him 6 overs for 26 runs. Clark is again making a statement grabbing 2 wickets.

 

[BigCrickNan]

KP and Freddie totally carting the bowlers at the moment, we need them two in the right form at the right time. Especialy Freddie because he aint done a lot with the bat lately. KP should be confident from his innings against WI and he had a fairly decent series against Pakistan with 135 and 96.

 

[sifter132]

Australia have a luxury with their selections. They have one the great spinners to bowl lots of economical overs and one of the great batting keepers to give the batting depth at 7. This means they only need to play 3 pacers to rotate with Warney, but I hope they play Watson anyway - just to let Lee bowl shorter, sharper spells. England on the other hand need 5 bowlers (including Flintoff), since they can't rely on their spinner to bowl lots and Flintoff is a fragile asset, not to be overbowled - especially early in the series.

That means that while they should have enough bowlers, England's real problem is their long tail, and I think that will play heavily in Fletcher's decisions. He has already gone for Jones over Read and it can only be on batting potential as far as I can see. Now think if England doesn't play Giles and go with Panesar, the tail becomes longer and dodgier, and that will be the main thing stopping Monty.

You only need to compare from 6-9 with Australia. If we play Watson it will be Watson, Gilchrist, Warne & Lee for us versus Flintoff, Jones, Giles(maybe) & Hoggard for England. I'm thinking Aussies win from 6-9 by a fair margin, and that's with Watson, if we play Clarke its an even bigger gap. If Gilchrist finds any form he will wipe Jones for runs and keeping ability and personally I'd rather Watson in my batting than Flintoff (for those into figures, Watson averages 50 at FC level...Flintoff 35). Flintoff will have to bat well - a guy who averages 35 must be in great form to justify a spot in the top 6.

Bottom line is, that if Flintoff and Jones don't fire with the bat, it will be a long summer of collapses and England's top 5 will have to be in supreme form to keep the series close.

 

[BigCrickNan]

Bottom line is, that if Flintoff and Jones don't fire with the bat, it will be a long summer of collapses and England's top 5 will have to be in supreme form to keep the series close.

Freddie had a terrible start to his career - his batting average for the last 3 years (reasonable amount of time?) is a lot lot higher. And in his last 5 tests hes got 4 50's... And he didn't do too badly in last years ashes as that bloke on the scaffolding at Edgbaston should know.

Lol we are smashing you now... 35 runs in 4 overs..

 

[sifter132]

yeah i agree, flintoffs average is a big misleading, he deserves a 40 maybe 45 average - but he's not a 50, his strength is bowling and ideally he should be batting at 7 (but he can't really in this team)

 

[rickyp]

oh well, i think my vcash is safe in the hands of mr.draw

 

[angryangy]

Flintoff's a weird one, it's not that he's inconsistent, he just doesn't get a lot of big scores. His average hovers where it is, rather than rocketing up, because he'll get out rather than bat to a hundred or a not out.

 

[wolf]

Thank god for that, that is great form for both bowlers and batters, just what we needed.

 

[Sureshot]

The thing with Freddies batting, is in a series he'll score a hundred a couple of fifties and a few small starts.

I'd pick say Bell/Cook over him if he wasn't bowling and Vaughan was back, at 6 he does chip in. His average over the last 3 years is high 40s though isn't it? Just like how his bowling is mid 20s over the last 3 years.

Oh how I giggled when in the first tour match one of the Aussie commentators said he thought Kallis was better

---

By that I mean that you cannot call Kallis an all rounder, he's a much better batsman, but he's no all rounder.

 

[Kal-El]

Why does Ian Botham open his mouth? He's called us 'Dads Army'. He's now in the position where unless England win the Ashes he'll look like a complete and utter fool.

 

[andrew_nixon]

Why does Ian Botham open his mouth? He's called us 'Dads Army'. He's now in the position where unless England win the Ashes he'll look like a complete and utter fool.

As will Dennis Lillee who said pretty much the same thing.

 

[Stephen Bailey]

Why does Ian Botham open his mouth? He's called us 'Dads Army'. He's now in the position where unless England win the Ashes he'll look like a complete and utter fool.

The man's an idiot to be honest. Fantastic cricketer, but like so many other good players, talks crap.

 

[angryangy]

Flintoff doesn't score a hundred every series, it's more like once every three or four series. If he scored 2 fifties and a hundred each series, he'd average way better than 40.

I guess who you would drop for Vaughan depends how much you think his captaincy goes to winning games. There's noone in the top six who he has out batted in the last 3 years and it's ludicrous to suggest he'd be anywhere near decent match fitness.

 

[cricketmad09]

By that I mean that you cannot call Kallis an all rounder, he's a much better batsman, but he's no all rounder.

I would. He is a very handy, underused bowler. Bowled more in his younger days.

 

[evertonfan]

I would. He is a very handy, underused bowler. Bowled more in his younger days.

Kevin Pietersen bowled more in his younger days too. :

I'd call Kallis a batsman who bowls. He's pretty much an average bowler, but he does have over 200 Test wickets and along with his 8000 runs, that deserves some recognition as an all-rounder.

I'd dearly love Fred to get a 100 here; His batting has been poor of late and a century here really will give him a boost ahead of Brisbane.

Bell goes for a duck too. I only hope that he isn't still carrying his Ashes demons from last year.