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el_nino_81

Listed below are comments made by el_nino_81 between Thursday, 19th November 2009 and Thursday, 24th December 2009 (12 Hours Ago) .

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Skipper Strauss seeks smoother blend 2:38pm on 24 Dec 2009 ballsintherightareas & Bored3death,

Nobody is arguing that Ian Bell has made a half decent amount of runs in his test career, what we're saying is that his runs tend to come when the pressures off.

When the chips are down and we need someone to hold their hand up in a pressure situation, more often than not Bell looks like a rabbit in the headlights and sells his wicket cheaply.

His last 2 test have been the same old story and we need to accept he's not mentally strong enough and start trying other options.

Technical deficiencies can be corrected with decent coaching but you can't grow a pair of balls overnight.
Skipper Strauss seeks smoother blend 2:49pm on 23 Dec 2009 It's easy to look through the county averages and say that nobody is knocking on the door but look at Trescothick and Vaughan. Two of England's finest Test cricketers of the last 10 years and i seem to remember both of these having fairly moderate county averages when first receiving their England calls.

Perhaps Moore, Denly, Carberry, Hildreth etc will fail miserably at Test Level but on the other hand, perhaps there's a world class test batsman in there who just needs a chance. As we've seen in the past, some people are more suited to test match cricket than county cricket and will raise their game - just like Vaughan and Tres.

We'll never know unless we give them a chance...
Skipper Strauss seeks smoother blend 2:36pm on 23 Dec 2009 I said this when the squad was announced and i'll say it again, it's ridiculous to name just 6 batsmen - especially if you're thinking about playing 6 batsmen. Potential injuries aside, what if a batsman is woefully out of sorts?

Bell should never have been recalled in the first place. He made tons of runs for Warks last year but that only underlined what we already knew - he's a tremendously talented batter. His problem is that he can't produce consistently under pressure when it's needed. As other posters have pointed out, his centuries all come when someone else already has one.
Paying a heavy penalty 2:19pm on 23 Dec 2009 Dixon and Lawro have the typically British view that penalties are a lottery and it's all down to luck. Perhaps that's why we tend to lose more often than not.

If you side foot your penalty either side of the keeper and hope they go the wrong way then yes, you're trusting to luck. If you aim toward one of the top corners, it's unsaveable and you take luck out of the equation.

You also hear managers saying ridiculous things like 'there's no point in practicing as you can't practice for that sort of pressure'.

You don't hear Tiger Woods, Phil Taylor or Stephen Hendry saying - 'I don't bother practicing as practicing is totally different to playing in a tournament. They practice for up to 6 hours a day and when the pressure comes, they're better placed to deal with it as they've perfected their techniques.

Dan, it's not just Aussie cricketers. I've seen some interviews in SA recently and Paul Collingwood and Graeme Smith (amongst others) like to start every sentence with 'Aawww listen...'. Very annoying.
Woods image battered but not beyond repair 4:03pm on 03 Dec 2009 Nomez - Federer's white blazer at Wimbledon was far more distasteful then the antics of Henry and Woods.

I switched back to Bic disposables some time ago - I now have very little skin left on the bottom half of my face.
Wenger finds defeat hard to swallow 1:02pm on 03 Dec 2009 Arsenal fans, stop trying to pretend this incident was anything other than Arsene throwing his toys out a little bit. You can attack Hughes all you like and cry about how 'Hughes entered Arsene's technical area to retrieve a ball' but we all know the truth.

Arsene is a poor loser - even Martin 'I don't have an opinion' Tyler said this in yesterday's commentary.

Not shaking the opposition managers hand is an act of poor sportsmanship - it's not exactly a massive deal though so let's just get over it and move on.

I saw the game last night and Adebayor wasn't at his best but he led the line well and his work rate was impressive. Those suggesting otherwise are clearly biased because of their dislike of him.
That was horrid, Henry 9:41pm on 19 Nov 2009 When a defender deliberately handles the ball on his own goal line to prevent a goal from being scored, is that cheating?

I've seen that dozens of times and never heard the culprit described as a cheat. He's usually applauded with comments like "He had to do that" or "It was a good save".

On another note, I find Anelka's dive a lot worse than Henry's handball.
A dive is premeditated and often practiced beforehand. The only difference is that the referee got the Anelka decision correct and the Henry one wrong.
That was horrid, Henry 2:38pm on 19 Nov 2009 What happened last night happened in a split second. Henry didn't have time to hold a board meeting to discuss the moral rights and wrongs or the consequences.

I suspect that keeping the ball in with his hand was an instinctive reaction at an increasingly desperate time.

I haven't been in the same situation so i don't know how i'd react.

Perhaps that sort of instinctive reaction is that of a dirty cheat. Or, perhaps he's a good honest pro who's just suffered from a split second moment of madness.
That was horrid, Henry 2:25pm on 19 Nov 2009 I was gutted for Ireland last night until i woke up this morning and realised that, come the summer, when we (England) go out on penalties in the quarter finals they'll be laughing their asses off along with the Welsh and Scots.....errr...and Argentina....and France.....and Germany....and Iraq! We're not very popular are we?
That was horrid, Henry 2:16pm on 19 Nov 2009 Bojangles,

Because you said 'maybe the right precedence'.

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