Sep 27 - England v West Indies

[puddleduck]

The reality is, needing 24 runs off the last over of a 20-20 game with 7 wickets still in hand is pretty unforgiveable.

I'm all for sticking with the young lads, but we've left out our best 20-20 batsman. Someone who was player of the tournament last time. Any other side would struggle a bit if you took out their best player. Added to the fact that the likes of Kieswetter, Bairstow and Buttler have barely batted outside England they're always going to struggle.

I mean Wright batting at 3 is a ridiculous decision when you consider the players who were below him in the order, whilst I can't stress enough how rubbish Dernbach actually is against any kind of high quality batsman. He's an 85mph+ bowler who gets smashed everytime he bowls anything but a slower ball, and even those are getting picked now.

Of course, there's still a lot of cricket to come and the Windies have a strong 20-20 side (I mean even their fielding was amazing at times). However, I really don't think Broad is a captain. His field placing was invariably wrong, often moving players just before a ball would fly down to the gap he'd just created. He also gets too emotional on the field.

 

[MUFC1987]

I agree, we should have won. But also, you send out Bairstow, lacking in experience at 0-2 and you have to ask, what is he meant to do? He knows he can't afford to get out, so he has to try to play around that. That's why we should have put Morgan in, a more experienced player. That's not Bairstow's fault for me.

Regarding players not having played outside England, would you rather we took Bell and Cook say, instead? I know I wouldn't. Not Kieswetter though, he was Man of the match when we won the trophy, in case you've forgotten and he's had success in the CLT20 in tough conditions, if anything I'd say he's struggling to know his role in this England side. Mainly because it seems that they want him to go for the jugular from ball one, when he's better with someone alongside him doing that, e.g. Trescothick or Levi at club level.

Your point about Broad and Dernbach kind of agrees with mine though, in that it's a management problem rather than just being on the players. Personally, I think Bairstow and Buttler will both be great players in the future, so I'd rather have them out there, knowing that they can win games that other players cannot, which probably isn't too far from the Flower theory. Without KP we're an inexperienced side and you're going to get good with the bad, but like I said, at least give them the whole tournament before writing players off completely.

 

[puddleduck]

Oh I'm writing them off for this tournament, but I have faith they'll deliver in the long-term You are of course right about Kieswetter, and I agree that despite performances he seems to never be as comfortable as perhaps he should. As you say, perhaps it comes from not quite being sure what his role is.

Thing with Bairstow is, there's not getting out and going at a SR of about 100 (which in 20-20 is still far too slow), but going at almost 50 for that long, he may as well have just swung and edged a couple, or just gotten out. You really can't afford to use up 4 overs worth of cricket at a run-rate of 3rpo.

 

[War]

Good point about Shah. I have never really understood why he has been left out in the cold and someone like Bairstow is shoved in there to try his luck. There is just no consistency from England, no idea what to do to win this kind of cricket. Lets face it, we may have invented Twenty20 but we certainly havent adapted to it yet. Yes we won two years ago but even then a lot of the obvious flaws in our team got papered over. Whether we like it or not we neeed our top players playing IPL, Big Bash and the like. The domestic English Twenty20 is just not the right environment to become a consistently good player.

Flower and the selectors a long time ago made the decision to stick with the youth of Bairstow and Buttler in the middle-order. Now however in this tournament the lack of Shah is exposing the middle-order in a year in which England's achillies heel vs spin is being target and may eventually see us fail to qualify from the super eights sadly.

Fact is their could have been a place in the overall squad for Shah, Bairstow and Buttler.

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However, I really don't think Broad is a captain. His field placing was invariably wrong, often moving players just before a ball would fly down to the gap he'd just created. He also gets too emotional on the field.

Ye i was always against Broad becoming T20 captain after Collingwood lost his place. Don't know what captaincy credentials he ever had that tempted the selectors to go with him.

The t20 captaincy really should have gone to Swann or KP while he was in the team.

Also i'm sort of seeing with you on Dernbach's bowling. He indeed never seems to get his death bowling right versus top class teams, so far in his career.

 

[Owzat]

The reality is, needing 24 runs off the last over of a 20-20 game with 7 wickets still in hand is pretty unforgiveable.

Exactly. If we'd gone down all guns blazing and run out of wickets you accept nothing could be done, but to have that many wickets in hand even at the death begs the question of the approach and mentality.

I often raise eyebrows when a side finishes any limited overs innings with more than 2-4 wickets in hand, whether they might have attacked a bit sooner. There will be the odd instance where everything someone tries comes off and you simply don't lose wickets, but usually the score will reflect that as being well above par

I mean Wright batting at 3 is a ridiculous decision when you consider the players who were below him in the order, whilst I can't stress enough how rubbish Dernbach actually is against any kind of high quality batsman. He's an 85mph+ bowler who gets smashed everytime he bowls anything but a slower ball, and even those are getting picked now.

I've always wondered what exactly Dernbach brings to the side. In the shorter formats even journeymen county cricketer types can pick up wickets or score runs every now and then, being consistent and of a good kind is something else

As for Luke Sh1te, well he fits the profile the ECB want (or maybe the captains) but take away that 99no and he averages 12.7 in T20Is to go with 22.61 in ODIs. That might be good if his bowling weren't very part-time in use and return, 57.53 in ODIs in FORTY-SIX matches and a fairly inauspicous 7 wkts in 14 bowls in T20Is at 33.57 and 8.10 ER (not that bad, but not great)

Of course, there's still a lot of cricket to come and the Windies have a strong 20-20 side (I mean even their fielding was amazing at times). However, I really don't think Broad is a captain. His field placing was invariably wrong, often moving players just before a ball would fly down to the gap he'd just created. He also gets too emotional on the field.

Broad off the field isn't exactly a genius, said we need to get Gayle out early........................ If that was the sum extent of his strategy then it's no wonder we lost.