New Zealand in England May - June 2013

[Owzat]

Just as well I threw Bresnan in, he has taken serious stick late on but without pressure that's no surprise. The rule of double the score at the 30 overs stage has gone out the window due to a lack of wickets, and a lack of decent bowlers!

If those three are one day "specialists" then perhaps England should retire from ODIs, I know in the 90s we went from all-rounders to specialists to all-rounders in a round and round fashion, but we're light in bowling and the batting doesn't look any stronger to compensate. After Morgan it's Buttler as keeper, then Woakes, Bresnan and Swann, ideally they'd all three be eight or nine - although I think Swann could make himself a decent seven none are really there at the moment.

I think we'll get slaughtered, when the fourth wicket goes which may be before 150 as we can't dally chasing 360 to win, the middle order may well crumble. Decent if you're trying to add late runs in the last 5-6 overs, but frankly I wouldn't want to be too far from home when the fifth wicket falls with Woakes batting seven.

 

[Haarithan]

My reaction to Guptill's knock, New Zealand's batting, England's bowling, and Cook's captaincy in a nutshell

 

[MUFC1987]

I think Bresnan and Anderson are good enough to be 2 of 4 pace bowlers. It's just that they have to do all the pressure bowling (Start, Powerplay, Death) because Dernbach and Woakes haven't been good enough. Likewise, I think with Broad and Finn back, we could afford to have Woakes as one of the bowlers, batting at 7, because we have those reliable options there.

The problem with this lineup is that Dernbach is not reliable and that means we have Anderson bowling at the end, which he isn't good at at all. If Broad and Finn aren't fit, then surely we can find better alternatives as a specialist bowler. Whether that be Rankin, Tremlett or even a change of plan and going for Tredwell.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

looking at that bits and pieces squad just makes me even more baffled by Chapple's solitary cap.

 

[MUFC1987]

Trott's been superb today. Quite why he gets so much stick is beyond me. He's the one positive in that batting lineup, not the negative. Just a shame the rest of the order couldn't have stuck with him.

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People like Ian Botham annoy me. He claims we should be picking 'proper players' to play in the ODI side and recalling people like Prior as well as putting Bairstow in the side somewhere. Presumably he wants Trott to send down 10 overs a match or something?

We're in the situation we're in because we've tried to shoe horn Test players into that ODI side.

 

[sifter132]

The more I watch ODI cricket the more I think about tactics to change things a bit. Strikes me that England (and some others) could attack a bit more with the ball early, really emphasise their Test quality bowlers by setting attacking fields ie. basically treat it like a Test match for the first 20 overs. Leave cover open, get a short leg in there etc. Time and again we hear teams, especially those batting first, wanting to keep wickets in hand. Well, try and disrupt that plan. Don't bring on Root early to roll through some quiet overs, that's exactly what the Kiwis want. Bring on Swann, give him 3 men around the bat and plenty of encouragement. At least pretend like you want to get guys out...I'd rather see them use Anderson, Swann, Bresnan early and attack, then use your 'specialists' later when the slogging starts. But no, those 3 only bowled 10 of the first 20 overs.

And I love the bits n piece challenge Owzat's posed...let me dwell on an XI. SO many candidates!

 

[sifter132]

Here we are, my bits and pieces England XI. Allowed myself one specialist batsman, bowler and keeper. Went through a list of guys who'd played at least 10 ODIs for England to help my memory - some very entertaining (re)discoveries! I'd go with something like this:
1 Michael Vaughan (c)
2 Luke Wright
3 Ronnie Irani
4 Michael Yardy
5 Jamie Dalrymple
6 David Capel (late 80s dude - replaced Botham for a time, and was poor with both bat and ball. Perhaps this is where England's obsession with the bits n pieces guy began - looking for another Botham)
7 Rikki Clarke/Ben Hollioake - both young guys when picked, so some leniency should be noted.
8 Paul Nixon/Geraint Jones (wk)
9 Tim Bresnan/Dougie Brown
10 Gareth Batty/Ian Blackwell - Batty worse, Blackwell persisted with for longer
11 Jade Dernbach - challengers would be Saj Mahmood or James Kirtley, going back a bit maybe Dean Headley - he seemed to do nothing in ODIs.

I'm sure there are worse players, but they probably didn't get to 10 games.

Special mention to a guy who sticks in my mind: Neil Smith, who opened the batting in the 96 World Cup - basically because he could bowl off spin I think...I remember him because he vomited next to the pitch during a game!

 

[CG123]

Guppy's last three ODI innings against England - 27* (on one leg), 103*, and 189*. Not to mention in the three T20Is down here (before the ODIs) he scored 44, 47, and 59. It's just a shame that he hasn't been able to transfer any of his outstanding limited overs form into Test cricket.

Please Vettori hurry up and get fit so we don't need to see Franklin bowl anymore. Also it's slightly strange how we haven't taken a back-up opener over there, since Ronchi seems a bit out of his depth against Anderson.

 

[Skater]

It might have been a losing cause, but Trott's innings was brilliant. If we had someone else to stay with him we would have been right in it.

 

[Owzat]

I was about right with my projection, I said England would be four down around 150 and I was all of 16 runs out which isn't bad in a pretty high scoring affair.

A lot of the pundits are slating England for going out of the blocks too fast, their theories are all well and good, saying they needed to keep wickets in hand for a late onslaught, but if you don't score runs early on you'll leave yourself too much to do and wickets in hand are useless if you are losing wickets regularly trying to sustain eight an over for more than 8-12 overs.

England were :

10 overs 64/1 - 6.40 rpo, required 7.40 rpo
20 overs 118/2 - 5.90 rpo, required 8.07
30 overs 169/4 - 5.63 rpo, required 9.80
40 overs 237/8 - 5.93 rpo, required 12.30

New Zealand were :

10 overs 36/1 - 3.60 rpo
20 overs 98/1 - 4.90 rpo
30 overs 160/2 - 5.33 rpo
40 overs 227/2 - 5.68 rpo
50 overs 359/3 - 7.18 rpo

You cannot plan to score 132 runs for 1 wicket off the last 10 overs, no matter what the pundits "think". England conceded way too many in that closing spell, maybe if one batsman had batted through like Guptill it might have been possible, but I think that was a one-off innings and England's bowling is weak. Even 100 off the last 10 would have been tough, if the target had been closer to 300 England might have had a shot.

Here we are, my bits and pieces England XI. Allowed myself one specialist batsman, bowler and keeper. Went through a list of guys who'd played at least 10 ODIs for England to help my memory - some very entertaining (re)discoveries! I'd go with something like this:
1 Michael Vaughan (c)
2 Luke Wright
3 Ronnie Irani
4 Michael Yardy
5 Jamie Dalrymple
6 David Capel (late 80s dude - replaced Botham for a time, and was poor with both bat and ball. Perhaps this is where England's obsession with the bits n pieces guy began - looking for another Botham)
7 Rikki Clarke/Ben Hollioake - both young guys when picked, so some leniency should be noted.
8 Paul Nixon/Geraint Jones (wk)
9 Tim Bresnan/Dougie Brown
10 Gareth Batty/Ian Blackwell - Batty worse, Blackwell persisted with for longer
11 Jade Dernbach - challengers would be Saj Mahmood or James Kirtley, going back a bit maybe Dean Headley - he seemed to do nothing in ODIs.

I'm sure there are worse players, but they probably didn't get to 10 games.

Special mention to a guy who sticks in my mind: Neil Smith, who opened the batting in the 96 World Cup - basically because he could bowl off spin I think...I remember him because he vomited next to the pitch during a game!

I've whittled it down to 50 contenders, most you've named are in it except I had to refine the "selection policy"

Bowlers/All-rounders have to have an average higher than 35 with the ball, batsmen an average lower than 28 so Vaughan sneaks in as does Tavare. Keepers I've picked down to below 20 average with bat, picking at their keeping would be a tad difficult given so many and so many hours of keeping.

I think Dougie Brown only played nine ODIs for England. Smith had half decent figures, and both Jones and Nixon I've excluded for scoring 20+ . I haven't time to go into too much now, I'll probably start a thread when I've decided how to weigh up the ODIs played against the average eg Vaughan averaging 27.15 over 86 ODIs against say Crawley averaging 21.36 over 13.

For keepers look at Downton, Russell, Gould, Richards, Taylor and French. Jack Russell averaged a mere 17.63 in 31 innings with SEVEN not outs to boost that (13.65 runs per innings) While 20 isn't a great average, it isn't that bad in ODI terms so I'm looking at well below ordinary and averaging 28+ with bat, or under 35 with ball isn't THAT shocking.

Headley, Ellison and Tremlett are the only ODI bowlers with 10+ caps I could find with a higher ODI average than Dernbach, they all played 13-15 ODIs to Dernbach's 24

Good effort by the way, for batsmen you might want to look at Ali Brown, Maynard, Larkins, Brearley, Bairstow (EDIT, sorry that is the keeper David), Willey, Solanki, Randall (super fielder though), Robinson and Ramprakash, although the "bits n pieces" would suggest all-round types. You could allow several of those as supposed one day specialists, certainly Solanki and Brown were never likely to play Tests.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I think that's fair owzat, it's the old cricket thing where for some reason pundits start criticising the batting when it's the bowling that's at fault.

it's just the lack of nous that's worrying for england, they don't seem capapble of bowling in an attacking but controlled way and their batsmen have difficulty picking the correct gear to bat in.

 

[Owzat]

I think that's fair owzat, it's the old cricket thing where for some reason pundits start criticising the batting when it's the bowling that's at fault.

They see a total of 300+ and it seems to numb their brains, automatically assuming it is a great batting pitch. What you have to factor in is how well the batsmen played AND how well (or otherwise) the bowlers bowled.

Bottom line is three of our bowlers gave away too many runs by 10+ each, look at their figures and not only did they take wickets bar Franklin, only Franklin and Bracewell went at around 7+ an over.

I'd surmise it was a good pitch, maybe a par of 300-320, and England just gave away 30-50 too many runs. Even if England had batted steadily for say 36 overs at 5.5 an over that would have left 162 runs off 14 overs at 11.57 an over, if the pundits thought England could "just do what the kiwis did" then maybe having played cricket counts for nothing. Bradman averaged nearly 100, maybe someone should "just do what Bradman did", Lara scored 400 runs in a Test innings, maybe someone should "just do what Lara did".

it's just the lack of nous that's worrying for england, they don't seem capapble of bowling in an attacking but controlled way and their batsmen have difficulty picking the correct gear to bat in.

It's sad that the kiwis have a better ODI side and indeed set-up than us. England just seem to think they can bring someone in and it will "fix" the problems, or a bit of luck and things will go their way. They haven't grasped what it takes to be the best, or the difference between being successful in Tests and being successful in ODIs, just because you are the strongest in one format doesn't mean it is easy to be the best in the other.

The aussies were phenomenal thanks to having Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath and a strong supporting cast of batsmen and bowlers who didn't need to be that great. Other sides have to have a strong batting and bowling line-up, we seem FINALLY to have woken up to the fact that trying to copy Gilchrist with a pinch-hitting keeper isn't going to work, they've drafted in Bell and he is averaging 40 as an opener. Trott averages 50, but scores at a fairly ordinary pace.

The bowling seems to be reliant on a Test model, as the whole set up does too much. If England could pick three out injured then the last ODI would have boasted Cook, Bell, Trott, Pietersen, Swann, Finn, Broad and Anderson which is eight regulars from Tests.

It isn't as much a case of persistence with bowling, you don't get to bowl 5-6 overs in a spell and if you don't get wickets then you come back and try again later, with a new ball perhaps, or when wickets are falling or tailenders are in. You have to bowl reasonably tightly and pose some kind of wicket threat most of the time, at the same time. Our bowlers are much of a muchness in pace, do any of them have any major "weapon" in their locker like an unplayable Yorker or a well concealed slower ball etc?

Anderson is "breaking records" for England, most wickets in all formats, this format, that format etc, but he is in truth a good but not great bowler. Averages of around 30 in all three formats back this up. His SRs show he takes his wickets at a fairly standard frequency, near enough every 10 overs in Tests and every six in ODIs, one a match in T20Is. He's taken a 5wi against all Test opponents except Bangladesh (BB 4/78), but only ONE 10wm (against Pakistan) He's steady eddy, sadly he's one of our better bowlers and that shows our bowlers aren't up to that much.

Swann does have potency, 5wis also against everyone bar one (not played Zimbabwe). Still for someone who does pose a threat his average is still only a couple of runs per wicket better than Anderson in Tests and ODIs, a very good 20.80 in T20Is, but I gather spin is an advantage in that format FWIW. Very similar SRs as well in ODIs and Tests, can you win a World Cup without a truly top class bowler in your midst? I guess "India" might be the one word answer, England in 1992 had some decent all-rounders but no one great bowler (Botham past his pomp)

 

[Owzat]

Series over, England ditch Dernbach and Woakes and win. I think there are still big problems with the side, we got away with Teeny Boppera and Root as the fifth bowler, but if the kiwis had batted as I would have and I think they should have, then I think we'd have been in trouble.

I think the crunch was 76 runs off the last four overs, about the margin (34 runs) more than you'd want to concede. Getting Bopara backfired on the kiwis, Buttler scoring 47no off 16 balls when Bopara had taken 38 balls to get to 28.

So did England "get away with" the fifth bowler? The key was picking up regular wickets, Root coming on at 88/2 and bagging Williamson in what I'd describe as a cheap(ish) wicket. By the time Bopara (0/21 off six ) came on to bowl the kiwis were all but out of it at 140/6, how often is it likely to happen that Root picks up a wicket and the opposition are six down before they get to 200?

In real terms we bolstered our batting, were heading for a fairly mediocre score until a late flurry of runs gave us a better than average total to defend. If we had gotten maybe 44 off those last four overs and there'd been a bit more at stake with the kiwis not batting that well then we may have paid the price again.

For the kiwis I've got to ask why Franklin is picked? Handy pick for fantasy cricket a few years ago, but 23 runs in the series most of which were a 16no when the kiwis were all but home at Lords and 13 overs for 93 runs and no wickets.

He looks like he's supposed to be an all-rounder, but 81 ODI wickets at 41.16 albeit a reasonable ER, and 24.69 average with bat mainly thanks to being not out 1/3 of the time (16 runs per innings and not very quickly scored with a 77.24 SR) seems weak for any side. He'd be a contender for my bits n pieces side if he'd done that for England - I'm not sure a few runs and a few overs with the odd wicket or two really justify a pick over a proper batsman or bowler.

 

[MUFC1987]

You know one of the signs of madness is talking to yourself, right?

Personally though, I would have stuck with Woakes. The guy has got massive potential, even if he's not quite there yet. I think his batting is decent enough, we just need to work on that 6th bowling option in case he can't get through his 10 overs every time. Bringing Bopara back papers over the cracks really. As has been said, his innings wasn't that good and Buttler got him and a few other batsmen out of jail really. His bowling also seems to appear every time the going gets a bit easier, so it's hard to tell how that would stand up against a batting onslaught.

 

[MUFC1987]

T20 currently ongoing. Wright bowling well is good to see. I just wish we'd have picked Ballance over Hales, with Wright opening. Hales is in no form whatsoever and Ballance is an exciting prospect in that middle order.