England In India - October 2011/12

[Haarithan]

BBC Sport - Former England captain Michael Vaughan urges one-day shake-up

Vaughan wants more English wickets to be prepared like the slow turning pitches found on the sub-continent.

He added: "We're playing a different brand of cricket in England that we're not getting away from home.


"They have got to reverse that and start preparing wickets in England that aren't all the traditional wickets of green grass.

"A flat wicket without a huge amount of pace and spin should come into play a lot more.

"It would enable players to play more often on these kind of pitches you play on overseas."

Hah, can't say I didn't see this coming.

 

[swacker]

There is just a vague sense of people just not being bothered about ODIs among England supporters (or at least those I know). Obviously I'd like to be seeing England doing better but if I'm honest I couldn't really care less about that we've been thrashed this series.

Its the level of the performances that have been disappointing to say the least.

 

[Owzat]

BBC Sport - Former England captain Michael Vaughan urges one-day shake-up

Vaughan wants more English wickets to be prepared like the slow turning pitches found on the sub-continent.

He added: "We're playing a different brand of cricket in England that we're not getting away from home.

"They have got to reverse that and start preparing wickets in England that aren't all the traditional wickets of green grass.

"A flat wicket without a huge amount of pace and spin should come into play a lot more.

"It would enable players to play more often on these kind of pitches you play on overseas."

-----------------------------------

Hah, can't say I didn't see this coming.

He's a tool, really is. He tries creating 'trendy' sayings like his laughable "bang bang" thing he tried to introduce but never took off, to describe taking two quick wickets

What we should be producing is wickets that offer spinners enough and not just if the conditions are right and it's the 4th day (no 5th day in LVCC) But not to the extent he's suggesting, we start making spinner friendly wickets then we will get stuffed by teams that come here with that attack strength.

And it's not as if our batsmen spend much time in the counties to play cricket anyway, they are England players 24/7/365 these days.


I looked at the stats this morning from this series, e-mailed them here.

Runs scored : India 1332-1105 England
Wickets taken : India 44-26 England
Took all 10 wickets : India 4-0 England

India took all 10 England wickets on FOUR occaisions, England didn't do it once which says it all. Current stat for England ODIs since 2007 World Cup reads :

10 wkts : P33 W27 (Won 81.82%)
9 wkts : P12 W9 (Won 75.00%)
6-8 wkts : P35 W12 (Won 34.29%)
0-5 wkts : P25 W0 (Won 0.00%)

Of those ODIs England took 6-8 wickets SIX were duckworth-lewis (out of nine ODIs affected) That compares to eight of the 36 wins under duckworth-lewis when taking 9-10 wickets (8/9 vs 28/36)

Either way the evidence is there, and across various playing surfaces/conditions so the fact that England didn't take many more than half the wickets in India and didn't take all ten in any of them. England were poor batting in the ODI series, but conceding through the lack of proper fifth bowler didn't help and conceded maybe 20-30 extra runs easily.

 

[sifter132]

^No the 5th bowler didn't help, but I'll say it again, the other bowlers were crap too. Finn was the ONLY one taking wickets. The super mighty awesome Graeme Swann did stuff all, Bresnan, Meaker and Dernbach were ineffective. It was just a poor effort all round, don't try and pin it on the 5th bowler. 5th bowler is an issue going forward, but I don't think it made the difference here.

 

[War]

1. Davies (+)
2. Kieswetter (+)
3. Trott
4. Pietersen/Bopara
5. Morgan (C)
6. Buttler
7. Bresnan
8. Broad
9. Swann
10. Borthwick/Briggs/Dernbach/Anderson/Meaker
11. Finn

Maybe light on a 6th bowler, with just KP/Bopara and Trott, but we shouldn't need one that often with 5 specialist bowlers.

Yea i like the idea of Davies and Kieswetter opening. Davies remains one of the better proven openers in the country and was harshly dropped, plus of course he is the better glovesman than craig.

But fact is Cook and Trott can't play in the same team and if one has to go, it going to have to be Cook, by the looks of things.

I would still have KP or Swann as ODI skipper, instead of Morgan though.

Dont think a second spinner in the ODI set-up is required, since none are good enough. Instead i would pick Chris Woakes - his batting potential is very good and in partnership with Bresnan/Broad/Swann - he would further give us a strong lower-order, as we look to compensate for not having a genuinely good ODI all-rounder coming in @ # 7.

Its time like this i wish Flintoff was still around, the test side may not miss him - but the ODI side most certainly does. Maybe also if ENG could have tried to convince Ten Doescate to play for us, that would have helped too.

 

[angryangy]

^No the 5th bowler didn't help, but I'll say it again, the other bowlers were crap too. Finn was the ONLY one taking wickets. The super mighty awesome Graeme Swann did stuff all, Bresnan, Meaker and Dernbach were ineffective. It was just a poor effort all round, don't try and pin it on the 5th bowler. 5th bowler is an issue going forward, but I don't think it made the difference here.

Somehow I think you won't stop him repeating his argument a few more times yet

 

[Owzat]

angryangry, do one. You don't like what I'm saying, noone is forcing you to read it.

England's inability to play spin seems to be the song everyone is singing, I am hammering home the importance of taking wickets and that England weren't actually that far behind in terms of runs scored (47 per ODI) compared to 18 wickets behind which is 4.5 per ODI and frankly shocking.

So I'm not jumping on the "can't play spin" bandwagon, and making a strong case for the lack of wickets. aw diddums did I say it a time or two more than you liked.

And it's hard to tell if anyone read the first few mentions because everyone posts the same f in bowling line-ups in their XIs and change the batting Say something constructive or say nothing, never had you down as a ****

^No the 5th bowler didn't help, but I'll say it again, the other bowlers were crap too. Finn was the ONLY one taking wickets. The super mighty awesome Graeme Swann did stuff all, Bresnan, Meaker and Dernbach were ineffective. It was just a poor effort all round, don't try and pin it on the 5th bowler. 5th bowler is an issue going forward, but I don't think it made the difference here.

England underperformed here with bat, ball and overall, fair enough, but it still exposed the lack of fifth bowler. While you can't expect the fifth bowler to take wickets if 1-4 don't, you do need more from them to keep them in most games.

The fifth bowler situation is one that can be addressed, you can't 'guarantee' 1-4 will perform so that's in their hands and all you can do is pick the best or on form, whichever floats your boat.

Do you know what Gooch did ahead of the 1987 World Cup semi? If I recall correctly he practised sweeping. And waddyaknow, he scored 115 in the semi and took England to the final. While Vaughan might think we can produce great players of spin by trying to turn England into spin central, albeit we'd gift home advantage to visting sides who have better spinners and players of spin, the Test players don't play in the counties so do we propose taking the best players of spin to India and similar tours? If so, why not do so now? Or go out and find some saffers and aussies to integrate into England?

We lost this series (badly) for quite a few reasons, a lot more than form which is what you're pointing at. There is also mentality and approach, England are too set in the ONE way of playing ODIs and think luck, poor form, inability to play spin, blah blah blah is why they lose and not team selection, fifth bowler, powerplays, muddle overs etc which all add up to us not being a great side.

 

[shravi]

Unfortunately Shravi, if we took that view to every disucssion, there would be no point in having a Cricket Discussion site.

I understand that. I'm just saying that there's not enough precedent to make that specific argument yet.

 

[Ollie_H]

But fact is Cook and Trott can't play in the same team and if one has to go, it going to have to be Cook, by the looks of things.

Why? Something wrong with Cooks S/R of 98?

 

[Haarithan]

Here's an interesting or should I say a shocking fact:

England are the last side at present to lose an ODI series on home soil. They last lost during August 2009 against Australia when they were mauled 6-1 after the 2-1 Ashes victory. Since then, they've not lost any bilateral ODI series on home soil!

Let's have a look at the other team's most recent series defeats on home soil:

Australia - Lost 2-1 to Sri Lanka, Nov 2010
South Africa - Lost 2-1 to Australia yesterday, before that, lost 2-1 to England on Nov 2009
India - Lost 4-2 to Australia, Oct 2009
Sri Lanka - Lost 3-2 to Australia, September 2011
Pakistan - Lost 3-2 to South Africa, sometime during 2010 in the UAE.
New Zealand - Lost 3-2 to Pakistan, January 2011
West Indies - Lost 3-2 to India, May 2011

Didn't see that coming? Did ya?

Btw, this has nothing to do with who's better or who's worse. Just a shocking fact that I observed when I lay down on my bed day-dreaming.

 

[MUFC1987]

Kieswetter is only dealing in stunners today it seems.

 

[Rohit Doshi]

Hahaha 2 down!! Still a 140ish score will be tough to chase

 

[Aalay]

Hahaha 2 down!! Still a 140ish score will be tough to chase

I would say 150 is enough.

 

[MUFC1987]

That was plumb. So unlucky for Bopara.

 

[Sureshot]

Yeah, I'd love to know how much the umpire is being paid for that. Shocker. Still, we've done well so far, Finn bowling very well still, which is great to see.