England

Huge blow for England with both Broad and KP missing out.

They made the right call with Morgan coming back. England have really missed that finisher role in their games so far.

But I am dissappointed with the Tremlett pick. England already have a decent seamer in Shahzad to replace him. Since KP's gone, I was really hoping they would recall Davies and sort the opening patnership out. Never should have been dropped in the first place. I'm guessing Bopara will open now?

It has to be Trott.

Thing is, if we'd have gone for sorting out another position, what happens if Jimmy breaks down before a game and you end up using Luke Wright or James Tredwell, nah, too risky.
 
England showed all the imagination of a dry dogturd in opening with Prior :facepalm He had scored 20 runs from three innings, he nearly doubled that tally but wicket-keepers and opening don't work well and yet still England insist on trying it. Trott has scored FOUR fifties in his five innings to date, surely his stickability would have been worth trying at the very top of the order, might be too late now.

I've decided now is the time to look at how the squad selection looks, in brackets if the decision was correct :

Strauss (yes) - fine as a batsman, poor as a captain
Pietersen (yes) - not in great form, needs to wake up to himself and not an opener, but is capable of scoring big runs - just needs to do it more often
Trott (YES) - four fifties is hard to argue with, pace of innings of secondary importance to volume of runs
Bell (YES) - could do with some more pace of innings, he is capable
Collingwood (NO) - bowling is tidy but unthreatening most of the time, batting has been poor. Sadly he is the closest thing to an all-rounder in the squad
Bopara (yes) - needed runs from him against Bangladesh, but done enough with bat
Morgan (YES) - selected, replaced, then a replacement, pretty blameless so far.
Prior (no) - not scored runs

Wright (NO) - looks like he was picked as a fielder and emergency batsman/all-rounder. Not good enough, waste of a squad place
Yardy (NO) - a journeyman county batsman turned into a bowler by T20, not used as a batsman and not a wicket taking 'spinner' so just gives most opponents free runs.
Bresnan (yes) - not done much with the bat, but has been one of our best bowlers, near two wickets per match
Swann (YES) - chipped in with runs, picked up near two wickets per match
Broad (YES) - yet to do much in ODIs with the bat, but probably our first pick bowler. Two wickets per match, won England the South Africa game without which the rest of the squad would be on the plane not long after him
Shahzad (maybe) - did well in one match, not so in the other.
Anderson (no) - been very poor, only a smallcase no because you can understand people picking him as for some reason they can't see the inconsistency of Anderson.
Tredwell (maybe) - could say he shouldn't have been picked if he wasn't going to play, he was a poor pick as he is inexperienced in ODIs.
Tremlett (maybe) - yet to play

Batting - mostly "yes", Collingwood and Prior the two questionable selections and performers

Bowling - three "yes", three "no" and three "maybe", while some will argue batting hasn't put enough runs on the board, I would argue in each of the games the bowlers did not do well enough :

HOLLAND - near 300 to chase, the batting side had to be a bit more cautious as it is a big total. At 149/4 the bowlers could have done more to restrict Holland, although fielding has been as big an issue this World Cup. Anderson giving away 0/72 is the standout bad performance. NONE of the batsmen scored less than 30no

INDIA - while England batsmen were looking favourites at 281/2, they were chasing 339 and matched India's total. They were chasing 339 because of Anderson 1/91, Shahzad 0/53, Yardy 1/64 and Swann 1/59. But for Bresnan 5/48 it might have been worse. You can't blame England's batsmen, even if they were on course. If anything you could blame the middle and lower order, 6-10 scored 53 runs between them

IRELAND - disaster, posted 327/8 which might have been more but for a lower order contribution of 22 runs off 24 balls, but the bowlers let the win slip when Ireland were 111/5. Ireland got home with wickets and balls to spare, scoring at eight an over for 25 overs if I recall correctly. Broad had a mare with 0/73, Yardy was typically nothing with 0/49 off seven overs and only Swann made much impression with 3/47 which were the last three wickets a bowler took and the last at 111/5.

SOUTH AFRICA - could blame the batsmen here, they didn't score 290+ and but for Broad's 4/15 England would almost certainly have lost. So 3-1 to the batsmen.

BANGLADESH - close call on this one, England did collapse from 162/3 to 225 all out, but then Bangladesh were 169/8 and Anderson in particular was poor (again) with ill-directed deliveries against their tail and 0/54. Fair to say half the attack was blameless (6/120 between Shahzad, Bresnan and Swann at 4.00 rpo) while Bopara, Collingwood and Anderson conceded 0/97 off 19 overs at 5.11 rpo. Batting could have been better, but the game was there to be won by the bowlers.

Call the last a draw so the bowlers lose 1-3, that is three games you could not blame the batsmen but could blame the bowlers - Holland for leaving a big total to chase, India for the same reason and Ireland for not finishing off a non-Test nation from a position of 111/5. As the batsmen scored 290+ in each match it is a bit hard to say they could have done better, performed more of a miracle perhaps.
 
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I'd agree with all of that. I think this World Cup has shown several things.

1) We still don't know what our best side is.
2) Senior players are still not stepping up to the plate.
3) We're very jaded and bordering on uninterested.
4) Selectors just aren't making the right decisions.
5) Broad is critical to our ODI bowling attack. Which is both good and bad, good because we can build around a young bowler, but also bad because we shouldn't really be relying on someone who is still relatively inexperienced.

I'm not sure what we do with Anderson in ODIs. His form has been very two ways of late, his Test form is stunning, averaging around 20. I like Shahzad, think we need to persevere with him and build with him, because he is a wicket taker and I think he's got a lot of talent.

I'm not sure they will drop Anderson though.
 
2) Senior players are still not stepping up to the plate.

englands best two test players according to the rankings are cook in batting, then anderson for bowling. anderson has long been known as a woeful ODI player, particularly vulnerable at the death, and Cook isn't even selected. no other team has that problem. some teams have a secialist odi wicket-keeper who bats better than their test one, sanga, van wyk/de villiers, I suppose mccullum now. England select their test keeper because he's a very good test batsman, arguably the best, and yet he's a liability in ODIs. In some ways I think this exasperates the problem you are citing. the players that play the senior role in the test side just can't produce on the ODI side.
 
England's World Cup problems have always been the fact that their captains are meant for the longer version of the game. This has happened every time since 1996.

1996- M Athertonn
1999- A Stewart
2003- N Hussain
2007- M Vaughan
2011- A Strauss

Barring Stewart, none the of the others have had great careers as the English ODI captain. Though the Test performance of each has been more than impressive.

A person like KP or Flintoff or Collingwood would make a good captain for their ODI side, Strauss ain't a fast thinker-more suited for the Test formats.
 
Yes, but then that leaves you with Colly only. England need to groom separate leaders for ODI and Tests. Strauss's captaincy has been exposed in this WC. At the Test level, he is good, somehow he falters at the ODI level.
 
I'd agree with all of that. I think this World Cup has shown several things.

1) We still don't know what our best side is.
2) Senior players are still not stepping up to the plate.
3) We're very jaded and bordering on uninterested.
4) Selectors just aren't making the right decisions.
5) Broad is critical to our ODI bowling attack. Which is both good and bad, good because we can build around a young bowler, but also bad because we shouldn't really be relying on someone who is still relatively inexperienced.

I'm not sure what we do with Anderson in ODIs. His form has been very two ways of late, his Test form is stunning, averaging around 20. I like Shahzad, think we need to persevere with him and build with him, because he is a wicket taker and I think he's got a lot of talent.

I'm not sure they will drop Anderson though.

They got to drop him. Anderson superb test form, but decline as an ODI bowler reminds me of Matthew Hoggard circa 2004-2007 when he suffered the same fate.

Post world cup England main 3 ODI bowlers should be Broad/Bresnan/Napier or Shazad.

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You've either missed the point or deliberately danced around it, my point was that who keeps wicket seems to be given WAY too much attention and debated ad nauseam compared to other equally or more important issues like the batting (5-6 players) and bowling (5-6 players) Happened with Read vs Jones, so much focus on which should be the keeper when in fact was it that important??!?!? (rhetorical question, answer is no) There are TEN other players in the side, I've maintained in the past that the keeper should be last picked (in Tests certainly) and whether it is best bat or best keeper will depend on the balance of the batting ie if you have a strong batting side, pick your best keeper, if you are a little lacking and the keeper needs to bat 6-7 then pick your better batsman.

Or maybe you don't understand the concept of fixation


Nah thats not true. Since i've been following ENG in ODI cricket dating back to the mid 90s, MANY different ODI positions have taken up fixation, along with who should be the keeper.

- I remember before Trescothick came about in 2000. We had yearssss of struggling to find a proper ODI opening combination. Only Knight stepped up.

- We had the issue/fixation with these stupid bits & pieces all-rounders that started after ENG fluked that ODI series victory in Sharjah 1998 under Adam Hollioke. That up to this day with the likes of Wright & Yardy around, ENGs selectors haven't learnt not to stop picking such players.

- Before Pietersen came around in 2005, for years ENG never had a commanding middle-order ODI batsman like other teams (although Thorpe was decent) & a fixation of who should make up the top 6 seemed to argued every ODI series.

The keeper issue is just another one of those problems/fixation, that the ENG ODI side always grappled with. But it certainly was not the MAIN one.
 
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England look a really good unit going into the world cup after a long time, they have settled batting line up, Quality pace bowlers and a world class spinner.

On the back of a 1-6 against Australia I am so glad that OP wasn't an English OP :thumbs

Problem is the pace bowlers aren't quality, the back up spinners are not either and England are desperately lacking a fifth bowler of note. The batting is susceptible even if it is "settled", some might use the word comfy or complacent
 
I'd call it anything but settled, but the likes of Strauss, Trott, KP and Morgan are easily good enough in ODIs.
 
To qualify England will need to beat West Indies and India will need to beat West Indies or South Africa will have to beat Bangladesh, but either way England can't lose to WI.
 
Big game tomorrow for the English, just hoping for another thriller after 2 days of really dull cricket.
 
Had to laugh at headlines on BBC "Shahzad to miss rest of World Cup", the rest of the squad will be on the next plane home.
 

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