England in Australia

[Simbazz]

I was thinking of somthing which shot maybe peanuts instead of blood, but oh well if Jonny English wants to go over to Australia to protect Monty, ill object!

 

[puddleduck]

After this post potholes im ready to sit down and watch the Ashes

I loved reading your post, you brought humour into you views of the first test

You mean my massive thesis on Read v Jones at the top of that page didn't do it for you :

 

[potholes]

After this post potholes im ready to sit down and watch the Ashes

Are you a TV pundit? Boycott?

I loved reading your post, you brought humour into you views of the first test

But i totally agree, anyone giving Monty a hard time, or even being racist should be shot!

Hehe nah i'm not a Tv Pundit. Just a lowly uni student on end-of-year hols whose been looking forward to a summer of cricket since, er, last summer For some strange reason channel nine decided not to show the tour matches on free-to-air telly so i'm busting for some ball-smacking cricket!

On a personal level though, i'm really looking forward to Australia regaining the ashes. Just before the last ashes series i was in England and laughing heartily at suggestions by my family and local pub-goers that England will put up a fight. My how i have suffered since those ill-timed displays of cockiness.

However, the good news is that England have an exciting side now (with the exeption of The Wheelie Bin- Which reminds me, i must go and wheel ashley out to the curb, it's 'bin day' tomorrow) so cricket is alive and well.

It'll be interesting to see how adventurous both sides will be. England could play Giles as a safe option, or aim for a bit of Monty magic. Likewise Australia could show a bit of adventure and stick Taity in the side, hoping that he will offer a bit more aggression and strike-power. Sadly, they will probably go for the safe option and pick Stuey Clark (yawn). Why MacGill isn't in the squad is beyond me....it wouldn't have anything to do with Merv Hughes being on the selection panel would it? A little illustration of The Fast Bowler's Brotherhood? Hmm...

Btw i noticed your domestic team is Lancashire...I'm from Preston (like Freddie) and was envious of the facilities you guys have in England: Beautiful pitches surrounded by huge oak trees (one in Preston was first layed in the 1800's- amazing).

 

[Simbazz]

Yeah, the pitches ive visited away from my home ground are all the same, they all have nice trees surrounding them, one even had a pond in one corner, and obviously us being 16-17 year olds decided to aim for it..... i unfortunatly didnt win Although my off-stump ended up somewhere near it

Preston is an ok place, but ive not been to many cricket grounds there, just the one infact and that was a load of crap to be honest, uneven track, green, the fast bowlers had a dream day, i on the other hand being a SLA or Chinaman didnt find it good.

Monty will play in the first test, im pretty sure, and im sure that either Tait or Johnson will feature in the first test aswell.

G.Jones last scores in international cricket - 5,1,3,11*,4,19,6,18,16,8

Puddleduck, big read there, but i think you last line summed it up who should be England gloveman! It should be Matty Prior

In Aus, id say Read, Jones can hold a bat to save his life, although he did have a decent knock with Fred on sunday!

 

[potholes]

If Monty does play then he will have to learn quickly to flight the ball and slow his pace (like Dan Cullen suggested). We're on heavy water restrictions in Qld at the moment (u can only water your garden with buckets) so it would be safe to assume the Gabba pitch is going to be like concrete. If he just fires it in he will get belted. Having said that Australia's achilles heel is definitely SLA, so he has the potential to be devastating.

Regarding those ENglish pitches, I could only give them an aesthetic appraisal while i was over there, but i can imagine they wouldn't be much fun for the finger spinners. Whatever their conditions, I wouldn't like to be fielding on the boundary on any of them. When i was there a huge group of lads were heckling the hell out of the fine leg/deep mid-off fieldsman. I think he managed to shell 3 or 4 in an hour or so..poor guy. Not only that, he was also dubbed 'chocolate wrists' by the increasingly intoxicated onlookers (Not 'butter fingers'- no, no, no- 'chocolate wrists'). To this day i have no idea where that came from, but it sure does make me laugh when i think of it.

 

[Simbazz]

Thats what you'll find from the north of england.....You drop a catch, or 3 or 4 in some cases, you'll certainly get targeted as most lads from up here on the pitch are very vocal, im sure as hell am. Sledging is my favorite part of the game, the comebacks, its always nice to be batting and get the better of the bowler And being a spinner isnt too bad, i dont get many wickets right at the start of a season, or in the tail end of a season, but once the English summer kicks in and the pitches dry up and lose thier green, its a joy to bowl. But luckily i can bowl Left arm medium quite well, not as good as spin, but it helps to bowl a bit of medium pace at the start of the season.

Monty will adjust better to the Australian pitches than Giles because he can flight the ball well, and has some amazing way of making the ball dip so quickly its untrue. Giles has the batting abilities at 8, but he doesnt have the ability to take Punters, Hayden, Langer or Hussy's wicket. Do we need a few extra runs at the end of an inning? or restrict the runs scored by australia. My opinion is that if we go with Giles then he will give away more runs when bowling, but will make up a few of them batting, but what happens when he fails with the bat? If we went with Monty, then he would restrict the batsmen scoring, and im sure will knock of at least 30 runs to what Giles would. Batting for monty has improved, so i think Panesar will get the nod.

 

[Sureshot]

I agree with Sureshot about Prior. Even if his keeping isnt as good as the other two (it's still pretty solid) his batting is far superior and he is capable of scoring hundreds regulary. Unlike Fletchers description of jones saying he can make hundreds.. his last hundred was over 2 years ago!.

ps 3k!!

Prior is better keeping to spinners than Jones, he reads them very well (he's learnt from reading Mushy so he's very good at it) Jones can't read spinners, he will miss chances from Giles/Monty/KP this Ashes series, no doubt.

Prior is aggressive and can give his wicket away but he's been the most consistent English keeper in English County Cricket in the last 3 seasons. I believe he's got 6-8 hundreds in the last 3 season, not including OD cricket. I find it hard to fathom why he hasn't been given a chance to prove himself in Tests when we clearly have a problem there.

Not having a go at you, but at Fletcher for this!

You say he wasn't scoring runs, but he did in the 2 test matches he played!! Surely he should be judged on test matches, not one dayers where our whole team is in a mess.

He has but he didn't look that good, but then I don't think any of us care how an English batsman makes runs (to an extent anyway).

Monty is going to be interesting. I hope they play him. I want to see him on an unresponsive pitch. His warm-up's havn't been flash, but of course they don't mean everything.

I do have a feeling that England will use Giles. Yes, for batting but also because the pitch won't be spinning a great deal and if thats the case and Australia take Monty on, it won't be very good. Giles is less dependant on spin and more on accuracy and decieving the batsman with pace and flight etc.

Will be interesting to see who they go with. England used Giles last time and he did his job. Nothing extra special but some sound performances.

Interesting then that over the last 10 tests they've each played Monty has been more economical, it's a myth that Giles is more accurate, I remember him frequently being cut for 4 in the Ashes.

As for unresponsive pitch, he took 6 wickets at Headingly arguably the least responsive spinning wicket in the world. Giles averages over 50 with the ball vs Aus if Monty over the 5 tests does that I'd be very surprised.

And when players like Dalrymple and Yardy make the side, I can only feel that they're not even trying to find good players.

JD is a very good player, but Fletcher doesn't do attacking spinners in ODIs. Yardy is better than he's shown, he's only been bowling 'spin' for 2-3 seasons.

 

[Simbazz]

Monty relies on spin

Monty is dependant on his straighter ball more than his spinning one. Watch him, he will put in 3 or 4 balls with little or no spin, and then shoot one in with lots of spin. If a batsmen is going to get out to Panesar id bet it was his straighter ball, than the one of his spin.

 

[treva]

Blackwell WAS injured

He has now recovered, he actually got in the last couple of games for Somerset

Yep he has recovered now and ready to lead Somerset to glory :happy
But I agree he isn't ready to play in either forms of international cricket yet.

And yes monty doesn't really get a lot of spin and relies on his line and length upsetting batsman into making rash shots!

 

[evertonfan]

In all honesty, I think Monty got most of his wickets during the summer with spin and variations in pace, bounce and flight.

 

[JamesyJames3]

Yep he has recovered now and ready to lead Somerset to glory :happy
But I agree he isn't ready to play in either forms of international cricket yet.

And yes monty doesn't really get a lot of spin and relies on his line and length upsetting batsman into making rash shots!

How much spin do you expect from a finger spinner? He gets a lot for a finger spinner. It's a well know fact the wrist is stronger than the fingers. Most off-spinners or slow left arm bowlers don't get anywhere near the turn Monty does.

 

[evertonfan]

How much spin do you expect from a finger spinner? He gets a lot for a finger spinner. It's a well know fact the wrist is stronger than the fingers. Most off-spinners or slow left arm bowlers don't get anywhere near the turn Monty does.

Good point. I can think of a lot of a fair few offies who can't offer the turn that Monty does. I'd even go as far as saying that Monty is the best turner of the ball in the left armers category.

 

[puddleduck]

If you watch his action quite closely, he puts a fair amount of wrist into it, probably more so than most finger spinners. Unless you include Murali as a finger-spinner.. which I don't think I do

 

[JamesyJames3]

If you watch his action quite closely, he puts a fair amount of wrist into it, probably more so than most finger spinners. Unless you include Murali as a finger-spinner.. which I don't think I do

Murali is a wrist spinner obviously!

Yes, Puddle, there is nothing stopping the wrist assisting the revolutions put on the ball by the fingers, but all the spin on the ball only comes from the fingers. As an off-spinner (and I like to think a succesful one ) in club cricket, I have tried bowling many times in the nets by not using the fingers and spinning the wrist. You will see if you try this that revolutions aren't put on the ball.

 

[evertonfan]

If you watch his action quite closely, he puts a fair amount of wrist into it

Yeah I sort of agree with you on that. When observing him, he seems to use the bottom of his palm/wrist a lot in his delivery. Has a lovely pivot at the end of his delivery stride too.