West Indies in England 2009

[Leicester Fox]

Happens a lot at Lords though.

Played Bopara, we'll probably get skittled out early tomorrow.

 

[King Pietersen]

RV KING OF SIXERS is immense. Told ya he'd come good for England, and now with back to back hundreds in consecutive innings he's proving that. His Test record looks poor because of his tough start in Sri Lanka (if he gets 150 in this innings his Test average will go up to 42), but he's a far better player now than he was then. Gonna be the future of the England team I think, should open in ODi cricket for a long time to test him out and they should stick with him at 3 in the Test side. He's gonna be a class act.

 

[Leggie]

Ishant'll own him in 2011

In all due respect, he played a terrific innings under pressure. Got home and saw Bopara still out there with too many wickets down really. I really did not think he had it in him to bat at No.3 for England but he has proved me wrong big time. He is England's new prospect. Not Ian Bell.

 

[Leggie]

Wow, just watched the highlights on Channel and I was gobsmacked. Windies dropped at least 6 sitters. They could have had them all out for 250.

Is it me or is there a hint of Tendulkar in Ravi Bopara? With the cover driving, etc.

 

[evertonfan]

It's just you.

 

[vaibhav mehta]

Surely, you only, Sanjay. Well played Ravi. Temperament has been key for Ravi throughout the innings. I think match is evenly balanced at the moment.

 

[adyhorn]

I'm going on Sunday if it lasts that long.

 

[King Pietersen]

Is it me or is there a hint of Tendulkar in Ravi Bopara? With the cover driving, etc.

You'd hope so, considering Sachin's Ravi's idol and he's basically tried to base himself on Sachin, hence why he's so delighted about being given the chance to open up in OD cricket. I definitely see the hint of Tendulkar in Rav, he's very wristy and the cover drives are very Sachin-esque. Clearly Bopara won't have a career anywhere near as good as the Little Master, but if he manages to build a long and successful international career for himself in both forms, then I'll be happy. Easily my favourite player in the world atm, fallen out of love with KP

 

[Skater]

An alright day for England, nothing more. We want 3/4 wickets down after the first day at most but we are close to 300 which will do on first innings for me. If conditions are similar tomorrow our seamers will cause problems. Great innings from Ravi Bopara, nice to see Essex making a mark on the England team once more, but the jury is still out on Pietersen.

 

[Sureshot]

Alistair Cook really should have ironed out that massive gap by now.

 

[King Pietersen]

I don't understand how Cook still has the same technical deficiencies he had 3 years ago. It's utterly baffling. He's got seemingly the best coaches in England helping him sort out his technique, yet he's still riddled with flaws. His foot movement is still fairly poor, he's still playing the ball with his front foot in the air, and his head is still falling over. He's still grinding out runs, but he's shown zero development, same with Panesar.

 

[Dare]

6 to be exact, wonder what these guys are thinking off, sadly makes little sense to cry over spill milk, but this is madness, we could have batted today!!

you would think they would do something about it after the horrible fielding in the Caribbean.

 

[PhilD123]

I don't understand how Cook still has the same technical deficiencies he had 3 years ago. It's utterly baffling. He's got seemingly the best coaches in England helping him sort out his technique, yet he's still riddled with flaws. His foot movement is still fairly poor, he's still playing the ball with his front foot in the air, and his head is still falling over. He's still grinding out runs, but he's shown zero development, same with Panesar.

I can understand the point you're making and agree with it to a certain extent, but aren't you a supporter of Bell? He's really not improved dramatically since the summer of 06 when he made a few hundreds against Pakistan.

Anyway, decent day for England, better than it could have been really when we had that mini-collapse just after lunch. Really good innings by Bopara, however, we need to be careful not to overstate it. It's happened too many times before where a player has come in, played a good innings first time round (I know that wasn't Bopara's debut, but it was his return to the side) and then fails to live up to expectations. A typical example of that is Prior's first spell in the team.

 

[aussie1st]

Bopara is looking like a real talent for England. He and KP could really take the game away from us very quickly when on song. Good bowling by Edwards, he really has come along nicely especially since the IPL.

 

[angryangy]

I don't understand how Cook still has the same technical deficiencies he had 3 years ago. It's utterly baffling. He's got seemingly the best coaches in England helping him sort out his technique, yet he's still riddled with flaws. His foot movement is still fairly poor, he's still playing the ball with his front foot in the air, and his head is still falling over. He's still grinding out runs, but he's shown zero development, same with Panesar.

I tend to think Gower got it more right than Nasser when they were looking at those 3 dismissals. The analysis was essentially correct, that for each batsman, the fatal flaw was to play from a terrible position and the remedy would be to play a more orthodox shot. However, as Gower went on to say, these things are all tied to the decisions that are made by the player. If you're late to make the decision, then a good, rapid bowler will happily make you look stupid and under-coached. Collingwood and Pietersen were new to the crease, but Cook seems reluctant to take the front foot throughout every innings.

I recall Ian Chappell once saying how important front foot play is to the player who prefers the back foot. You want to play your back foot shots to short balls, so you don't want the bowler to bowl full. He won't want to bowl shorter if you look like getting out against the full ones, so the key is to look convincing off the front foot.