England in West Indies

[Mercules]

If they think it'll have a lot of pace and bounce shouldn't they be more inclined to drop Sidebottom over Anderson?

Though I'd take both over Harmison whatever the conditions.

 

[RoboRocks]

Harmison was dropped for poor form and would make no sense to recall him regardless if the pitch is bouncy or not. Anderson didn't deserve to get dropped in the first place and shouldn't be left out without having chance to make an impact.

 

[Skater]

The groundstaff have pulled it off, a miracle! The match referee has declared the ARG as fit for cricket.

 

[Mercules]

The groundstaff have pulled it off, a miracle! The match referee has declared the ARG as fit for cricket.

He did say that about the other one though.

 

[Skater]

With the other one he said no one had tested it so they had to wait and see what problems could arise. There had been concerns about the outfield at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium well before the game, there are no such glaring safety issues like that at the ARG. The beggining of the bowlers' run ups used to be the goalmouth on the football field, so they are grassless, and there is a ridge on the pitch itself which used to be the centre circle, but they shouldn't cause too many problems.

 

[Owzat]

Harmison was dropped for poor form and would make no sense to recall him regardless if the pitch is bouncy or not. Anderson didn't deserve to get dropped in the first place and shouldn't be left out without having chance to make an impact.

Anderson took one wicket in each of his last four bowls - 1/28, 1/51, 1/84, 1/51 - nothing spectacular about that. He was probably unlucky in as much as others have been equally ordinary or worse.

Cook has scored 762 runs in 13 Tests and 23 innings since his last hundred. That's a disappointing average of 33.13, that in itself may not seem sooooo bad, but he's scored EIGHT fifties and not one of them above 76. He needs to go on and score big scores, I believe that's what "wunder captain" Vaughan said of the side a while back. He's added throwing his wicket away to his repertoire, that added to an inability to score hundreds and average over 40 says drop him down the order or drop him altogether

Bell scored 214 runs in his last 12 innings @ 19.45 since he scored 199 against South Africa. Highest score of 50, five single figure scores and 3/4 of the time he hasn't reached 25. He was overdue dropping.

Since we last played West Indies, Panesar has bowled 4,647 balls and taken 55 wickets @ 40.38 with an SR of 84.49. Hardly spectacular, we got that kind of return from Giles except he could bat. In that same period Panesar has scored 69 runs (nearly as many wickets as runs) @ 3.29. Are those the kind of returns we need? Is it any wonder we're not winning Tests when batsmen can average under 20 for half a dozen Tests and a bowler can keep his place despite averaging around 5-10 more per wicket than is acceptable?

Harmison has taken 14 wickets since the same West Indies series, bowled less than 1/4 of the deliveries and taken those wickets @ 43.43.


The 51 all out is the second time in 14 months England have capitulated for less than 100, EIGHT players featured in the 81 all out against Sri Lanka and again in the 51 all out against West Indies. England have carried underperformers for years, the odd big score or good haul carrying four or five of them.

You do have to wonder about the influence of Flintoff, since and including the Ashes of 06/07 we've lost all but two of the 11 Tests he's played. He's viewed by some/many as "world class" and yet does little to live up to that tag other than (in their eyes) "bowl well". And despite some reckoning we need to play five bowlers as Flintoff can't bowl as part of a four man attack, he's bowling 34 overs per Test - and in four of those Tests he didn't bowl second innings

FLINTOFF (AUS 06/07-WIN 08/09)

Tests : P11 W1 D1 L9
Series* : P3 W0 D0 L3

*Australia (away), South Africa (home), India (away)

Batting : 518 runs @ 28.78 (HS 89, 3x50)
Bowling : 29 wickets @ 37.48 (SR 78.00, ER 2.88)

No five wicket hauls, steady but nothing spectacular and the two instances he's taken four wickets in an innings is when he's bowled 30 overs in that innings to get them - he's even bowled 40 overs in an innings to take ONE wicket.

Flintoff's bowling analysed (AUS 06/07-WIN 08/09)

Innings Bowled : 18
Wickets Taken : 29
Overs Bowled : 377

Overs/Bowl : 21
Wickets/Bowl : 1.6

0-9 overs : 3x (2 wickets @ 45.50, SR 69.00)
10-19 overs : 6x (6 wickets @ 51.67, SR 100.67)
20-29 overs : 4x (7 wickets @ 42.14, SR 93.43)
30-40 overs : 5x (14 wickets @ 27.93, SR 70.00)

So anyone claiming he can't bowl as part of a four should rethink that belief. The least overs he's bowled to take three wickets in that period is 18.2 and the split below shows he can bowl 20 overs an innings

0-19 overs : 9x (8 wickets @ 50.13, SR 92.75)
20-40 overs : 9x (21 wickets @ 32.67, SR 72.38)

Obviously bowling more than 20 overs in an innings doesn't make him less effective, it makes him more effective if anything. If he's bowling 20+ overs as often as not then he might as well be part of a four man attack, might actually focus the selector's attention on getting the bowling attack right and picking the best bowlers rather than picking Harmison because he's very quick, Panesar as the left arm spin variety, Anderson because he can swing it and Sidebottom because he's a left arm quick. It's about time more of the bowlers delivered more than just the ball six times an over

 

[barmyarmy]

That's a really interesting post and shows that there are no quick fixes to the current England side. I've always felt the side were flakey and they have definitely lost that ability they had briefly before then Ashes to sweep aside inferior sides. We're not struggling to beat anyone in tests let alone the innings/10 wicket victories we had under Fletcher.
I actually don't think the players are all the problem. Many of them played in the period leading up to the 2005 Ashes I'm talking about and they haven't suddenly become bad players. At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'm going to blame the departure of first Troy Cooley and then Duncan Fletcher.
England need a world class coach who has the respect of the players and can provide technical support as well as give well-deserved tongue-lashings.

 

[karnog]

Flintoff is a tad hyped. On cricinfo they showed that whenever Flintoff plays England perform marginally worse (5-10% i think) in victories. It could be that Flintoff creates a comfort zone for the team. Or even more daring his personality splits the team. Not sure. Whatever the reason England perform better. Maybe the six batsman, keeper, 4 bowlers theory works for England.

 

[wolf]

Flintoff has been our best bowler for many years and is also our best slip fielder. If he could field in the slips off his own bowling I'm sure he would have taken a few more wickets. The selectors have always been reluctant to have him as part of a four man attack for whatever reason, they say it would add to his already full workload (but as has been said he bowls so much already it would probably by the other bowlers making up the extra overs). With the emergence of Prior as quality batsmen/keeper I would say the selectors were further away than ever from making this move. It has always been said that Flintoff's ideal batting position is #7 and it might come about now we have a keeper averaging above 40.

 

[Themer]

Looks a belter of a pitch, Cook was in a fluster at that ball then and the pitch has plenty of bounce and pace from the looks of it.

Monty and Sidebottom dropped, not sure why Harmison's back in the team yes its a bouncy wicket bit he's so poor on anything that doesn't have bounce that there are only a few pitches here and there that suit him, I'd of given Monty another match but him being out is justifiable.

 

[Sureshot]

Lots of swing available for the bowlers. Sidebottom dropped. Well done. Doesn't look like much pace or bounce either. We seem to have done okay so far, barring that piece of comic running.

 

[King Pietersen]

Cook and Strauss seem to be going nicely. Doesn't look a minefield after all, a little bit of pace and bounce. 300-350 looking good atm, the outfields exceptionally fast!

 

[angryangy]

It looks like the character is hard and fast, but the thing is that the Windies don't really have an assortment of bowlers to generate lots of extra bounce and make it look like it's unbelievably quick and bouncy. England may well be at an advantage here.

 

[King Pietersen]

I think dropping Sideys a good shout. I think you need to bowl 87mph+ or have Harmison height to get anything of worth out of this surface. Sidebottom would have got swing, but I don't think he'd be particularly dangerous after the first 10.

 

[Leicester Fox]

Harmison was slooooowww in the last match though. Sidebottom must be crying now. I'd be going mental at the selectors, seriously, wtf is up with this. We drop Hoggy after a couple of bad games and he disappears never to be heard from again aside from the odd episode of "a question of sport" but give Harmison a million and one chances despite his consistent failures at international level. More than happy for him to prove me long like the last bowler I slagged off did

This stadium is so much better than the last one too, the new one might have colourful plastic seats but this has character.