still waiting to see why everyone is always pining for bresnan to be dropped and finn brought in.
edit: and bresnan has just taken a wicket, albeit an incedibly lucky one
Not "pining", just Finn offers different. In this match that something different has replaced something very different (Swann)
The match seems nicely poised, England getting out of jail later in the day. I don't know why the media seem so fixed on the number of wickets as the main/only indicator of who is on top, England were 267/3 and for me that is only a slight advantage to England over South Africa's similar score for 5 down.
I find it absolutely ridiculous that when England fail with the bat they change a bowler for the next Test. They had no choice but to change Bopara, but while the bowlers didn't exactly knock over the saffers, the batsmen were bowled out twice on a good batting track for below par scores. We did this in UAE as well, batsmen fail yet get more chances. The only explanation I can come up with is they won't drop Strauss or Pietersen (reputations and captain), Cook or Trott, the latter two are consistent but noone should be undroppable.
Yawn thinks the saffers are well on their way to victory, they still have under 300 runs on the board on what looks a decent pitch, but I think he is as much to blame as Strauss, and their predecessors for the toss decision. It was a cowardly decision, obviously having been bowled out twice relatively cheaply, and the bowlers having taken only two wickets, they didn't want to be bowled out cheaply and wanted to "prove" something with their bowlers. It's rare you should bowl first, you have to back your batsmen to put runs on the board.
Oh and TMS were waffling on about playing five bowlers, as if quantity makes up for pitches being FLAT :FP: Prior is not strong enough to bat six, and after we just got beat by an innings I think talk of weakening the batting is laughable. One of them said he knew what the reply would be, in a day's bowling one bowler would not bowl many overs and that reply would be sensible and logical. Play four seamers if the pitch is right, play a spinner when you will need one. I find it funny that we're about as successful as we've been in 20-30 years and the "experts" think that changing the four bowler formula that has worked so well is a genial idea.
Gooch had the right philosophy, get runs on the board and then see about winning the game, don't try to win it by playing five bowlers at the expense of batting strength. The reason it didn't work back then is a lack of quality players, even when Caddick, Gough and Cork arrived on the scene in 1993, 1994 and 1995 respectively they didn't play together all that often. Batting wasn't all that strong either, maybe if they'd stuck with Atherton, Thorpe, Hick, Stewart, Cork, Gough and Caddick as the core of the team then they'd have had more success, maybe play Stewart as opener and Russell as keeper.
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