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pprozac

Listed below are comments made by pprozac between Wednesday, 12th August 2009 and Friday, 2nd October 2009.

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Champions Trophy surpasses expectations 5:28pm on 02 Oct 2009 Johnson winning the award goes to show that there are very few top bowlers around these days. Yes his 8-60 odd was impressive (as was Jerome Taylor skittling out England for 51)-but let's be honest here. He flopped in the Ashes and lost the new ball and came close to getting dropped.
The English crowds laughed at him. Strange choice.
Champions Trophy surpasses expectations 03:53am on 02 Oct 2009 Johnson is a surprise choice considering cometh the hour-he flopped miserably in the Ashes. His bowling on that first morning at Lord's was some of the worse bowling I have seen on the opening morning of any test match. He was again flogged at Edgbaston and showed little with the bat.
Andrew Strauss or Graeme Smith would have gotten my vote. Strauss had a marvellous tour of the West Indies and continued his good form in the summer as he captained his side to the Ashes.
Smith led S Africa to an unique win in Australia where he was immense and only injury semed to stop him.
England one-day player ratings 01:25am on 21 Sep 2009 Morgan a 4-come on Ben!

He had one very good innings with clever shots aswell as hittng sixes-I think he was England's top scorer on two occasions and would have scored more if he had better support and came in at a decent position for once-all this and he's only 23 as well. Did just as much as Denly if not more.
Him and Denly were finds for me and should have good futures ahead of him.
Ashes player ratings 6:32pm on 24 Aug 2009 Joyce has never played tests so why disregard him?
He played ODIs and scored a hundred against future world champions Australia. Having said that he is not an opener but more of a #4 and deserves another chance at some point.
County cricket has produced 2 Ashes winning teams in four years and Strauss, Cook, Prior and now Trott have all scored hundreds on test debut. I am sick of people downgrading county cricket.
Strauss's England worthy winners 2:29pm on 24 Aug 2009 Re: Bopara

Listening to the presentation-I actually forgot about Bopara. Probably Strauss did too since Bop was not in the dressing room. No issue here.

As for England-well looking forward to SA and SA are a good team-#1 in the world already and it looks like Parnell will be a star for them. They have also found good spinners which they were lacking for a while.
In short SA should win the series-my prediction is 3-0.
England should not be favourites at all to win and many should expect them to lose. I hope when it happens-the English media and public do not lambast the team.

Strauss wants to be #1 which is commendable-but to get there-England need fast bowlers who can run through teams. They do not have that and will not have that for some years to come.
Flintoff a very English hero 1:43pm on 24 Aug 2009 Great article. As a 34 year old I have always looked at Keith Miller's stats and wondered why some years back he was voted by Australians as their #1 favourite cricketer ahead of Bradman. I guess his persona and influence must have been similar to Flintoff.
Even Botham's stats are okay-some deride him for his earlier performances against Packer-less sides.
Botham's stats even for the 1981 series hide his impact on the series-I think he only averaged 30 with the bat and when the Ashes were retained in 1987 again he only averaged around the same.
I listened to the TMS archive of that series and CMJ said that he had an average series. I thought this to be unfair-Botham smashed 138 in the first test to set up a series lead and then in the 4th test-bowling at a pedestrian speed and suffering from a serious side injury-he took 5-41 to set up another win. That is the stuff legends are made off and looking at cold stats hides all of this.
Strauss's England worthy winners 03:08am on 24 Aug 2009 Also where has Graeme Swann been? He is a much better batsman and bowler (and fielder) than Ashley Giles. It is a shame that Duncan Fletcher could not tolerate him. He is ironically the perfect Fletcher type of player. He should have been on that last Ashes tour. Fletcher made a mistake in sticking to his 2005 heroes for that tour.
England must learn from this.

Despite the end of this test-I would not like to see Harmison play again. I think he is clearly past his best.
New blood needs to come into the team.
Sidebottom and Onions should come in-Rashid too. Denly or Moore need to be given a chance to put pressure on Cook.
Bell is not a #3 and Collingwood to me looks tired. He has played non stop for 4 years now and possibly could do with a break.
Broad needs to be protected too.

I would pick entirely different teams from the tests for the ODIs-in order to give experience and develop a squad of say 25 players who are comfortable in the international arena.
Strauss's England worthy winners 02:58am on 24 Aug 2009 I don't agree with the notion that Australia were the best team. The stats are inflated in the batting due to Australia's second innings scores (Lord's, Edgbaston and today). A team that collapses so dramatically in their first innings in three tests out of five will rarely win and deserve to win a series.

Anyway-stop the bickering. Enjoy the moment-we have beaten the then #1 side in the world, beaten the Aussies & won the Ashes without our two supposedly only world class players (KP and a fit Flintoff).
Broad for a 23 year old was amazing in this test.
Both he and Swann scored runs and took wickets.
It looked like Flintoff was not able to bowl that much today-but he still played his part in the run out of Ponting. A thrilling moment.
Strauss deserved to be man of the series-he has been in wonderful form for a year now.
Jimmy Anderson has his good days and bad-when he is good he is unplayable. He just needs to be more consistent.
I think Onions and Trott are major finds. Bopara has the talent to come good as a middle order batsman.
Prior has come good-just needs to knuckle down more in the batting.

As for the Aussies-well Mitchell Johnson's duck summed up his series. His stats are better than he played. He came here with a reputation as the spearhead of the attack and well he was demoted to a first change bowler and was lucky not to be dropped. Most of his wickets were got when the pressure was off-or when the 4th test was already one.
For me he did not look comfortable in his body-he reminded me of Harmison.
Hilfenahus was steady and is just an average test bowler, Hauritz too.
Only Siddle made any impact (at Headingley).
Their batting looks solid-except they will need to find a proper opener to partner Katich.
Their bowling though looks very ordinary and if SA get their spin bowling right-they could be #1 for some time to come.

Usually when England lose both the selectors and county cricket are lambasted.
Well-well done the selectors for sticking with Broad and Harmison for this test and for picking Trott(and Bell to a lessor extent).

Also Strauss,Cook, Prior & Trott have now made hundreds on their test debut.Kudos for county cricket. Their is still lots of talent around, younger and older- Joyce, Sidebottom, Denly, S Davies, Rashid, Taylor, Fletcher, Finn, Woakes, Rankin, Ambrose, Foster, Morgan, Malan, M Davies, Blackwell, Patel, Wright, Waller, Raynor, Harris, Carberry....
England's bowlers face Oval challenge 3:02pm on 14 Aug 2009 Two spinners- for me Panesar should not play as he has been out of form for a good year now. What about James Treadwell or Rashid? Huge gamble but...
Ramps for The Oval? 8:26pm on 12 Aug 2009 It could not matter who England pick. The toss is going to be so important.My prediction is for Ponting to win the toss and score a hundred himself as Australia rack up 400 on the first day. And that'll be that.

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