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legendaryselector

Listed below are comments made by legendaryselector between Monday, 14th July 2008 and Thursday, 13th November 2008.

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India's young stars bristling with talent 4:22pm on 13 Nov 2008 If England want to win, they have to bring a significant change in their batting style. All the matches will be played on batting tracks and every batsman has to play more number of unorthodox shots per over. Playing over the infield is another thing Indians are very good at. Therefore, having Trescothick during the power plays, would have helped England. Prior should be used as a slog over batsman, and a specialist batsman should go for opening the innings with Bell.
Confidence and consistency is key for England 1:24pm on 22 Aug 2008 If best odi batsmen are to be selected, then they should be selected on basis of their performance , not only on their potentialities. I have always beleived in having a combination of 6 best odi batsmen(min season avg 27-30,min season s/rate 60-65), best keeper of the country(does not necessarily need to score runs with a decent avg., but will have to be in good wkt keeping form), 3best new ball bowlers( max season avg 35-30). All the players in the first 11 should be able to perform according to the standards set within their first10 games. According to this theory a team can be set in this way:-

Trescothick
Cook/Strauss
Shah
Pieterson
Bell
Collingwood
Flintoff
Swann/Panesar
Broad
Ambrose
Sidebottom(if he is injured, then Harmison)/ Anderson
Pietersen will bring a new style of leadership 11:37am on 06 Aug 2008 It's good to see that the best batsman of the team has become the captain. Hopefully, his batting form will remain as effective as it has been for England in last few years.But, the important thing is, whether he becomes a captain capitalising on the development of his players rather than immediate result. He needs to give enough time to his players and they have to be used them in proper positions. And, similarly, KP also needs time as a captain.
Pietersen will bring a new style of leadership 11:05am on 06 Aug 2008 After the world cup of 2003, english Selectors came back to the strategy of having more specialists, which did work. though Vaughan, Solanki could not prove them as better oneday cricketers, but it worked. Anderson, Harmison, Jones, Gough bowlers who can not bat, bowled and won matches by picking up wickets. And it was vaughan, who lead the way with his attacking captaincy.
Ultimately, it's the batsmen's batsmanship and bowlers's wicket taking ability which win matches for Australians and South Africans. As the new captain KP will have to capitalise on having more match winning batsmen and bowlers rather than depending on the batsmen who can bowl or the bowlers who can bat or the best batsman among the keepers.
Pietersen revels in his coronation 08:53am on 05 Aug 2008 well, good luck to KP for the next test, but again english selectors overlooked the fact that, he denied to take the oneday captaincy last year, and it was given to Collingwood.If a person was not ready to enjoy it last season, then what happened this season? It could have been Flintoff or Trescothick( if Hooper could get the captaincy along with his return in 2001 vs SA and could be reasonably successfull, then why not tresco?).
Five batsmen not enough for England 08:42am on 24 Jul 2008 The team for edgebaston should be like this:-

Trescothick(VC)
Strauss
Cook
Pieterson(C)
Bell
Shah
Mustard(WK)
Sidebottom
Anderson
Harmison
Panesar

Flintoff(12th man)

I think that, Mustard has to replace Ambrose, because he scored a lot of runs in the last season and was unnecessarily dropped after the ODI series in NZL. He is doing really well with the gloves in domestic cricket and also continuing to score runs with the bat.

Trescothick is in great form. If he is to be brought back, then it is the ideal time.

Vaughan, Collingwood both are going through an ordinary time. Their batting avarages are below of 30 this year. Perhaps, England can take a chance with Shah at no.6.

Harmison is the highest wicket taker in county champ, div1, this year. If still he is not brought back, then it will be a big question on the efficiency oif the selectors.

The last series against NZL has gone well. This series against the world's 2nd best test playing nation has not been enjoyable so far. So, the only thing the englishmen can do, is to work hard and waiting for better things to happen. The entire process of upgrading a side can not be completed within few months. Team will loose, team will win, but finding out talented individuals and coaching them to be better international cricketers, is a slow process.
Pattinson selection causes a stir 08:50am on 19 Jul 2008 Pattison's selection once again proved that no particular process is being followed by the england selectors. I feel, they find themselves more important than the players to win a test match/series. They want to show people that they will make odd, surprising selections which will help england to win serieses.
This will prove that they are the men who understand cricket better than anybody else(even than the coach or captain who are directly involved in the execution of the game plan). Sometimes it looks like, they just make changes to prove the existance of the selection committee.
What has happened to Hoggard, Harmison, Jones , Tremlett or Plunkett is not only limited to bowling department only. Thorpe(in 2003), Trescothick, Joyce were the batsmen who did not have any reason to be out of the side.
As far as selecting a new bowler was concerned, they could have gone to Murtagh also who has been performing for a long time in first class cricket. Young McLaren from kent is also doing well. They went for somebody who has not even been the top wicket taker in the season yet. Pattinson's selection will create an unprecedented confusion in the minds of current england players.
England lack cutting edge 10:59am on 14 Jul 2008 It is very surprising that no body is looking at Trescothick for bringing him back to the English side in both forms of the game. He was one of the best performers among the english batsmen when he disappeared from the team. This season he is getting so many runs and he should be a good replacement for Andrew Strauss, secondly, he also can form an openning pair with Cook in one day cricket.

Harmison and Flintoff, two of the other seniors, should also be brought back as second and third pacer, where Anderson
should retain his place as the first chice among the new ball bowlers. if sidebottom is injured, then Hoggard should replace him.
I think, it will be too much of hurry, if Broad is dropped, he did well in New Zealand and impressed with his bowling after coming back home. He needs the time which was given to Harmison, Anderson or Hoggard in the past.

Geriant Jones , the former wicket keeper is also in good wicketkeeping form, this season. He surely, can be the best man to replace Ambrose, because of having international success earlier. But, is it really a right thing to deselect a keeper who has not played his 10th test match, but already has impressed people with his performance in both,keeping and batting? certainly, he should retain his place in next two tests, otherwise it may send a wrong message to the young players, who are performing in domestic cricket for getting a chance in the national side.

There are several ways of selecting a squad for succeeding on a temporary basis.
But, to build up a side of 11 regular performers and 5/6 talented reserve bench players, time has to be invested behind the highest run scorers and wicket takers in domestic cricket. It is to be controlled entirely by the system, and the process should not be disrupted or discontinued because of one or two series losses.

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