posted Oct 23, 2006

Pick the best team when oz was 34 for 3 if Monty was there he may have got a few wickets at best or at worst tied one end down and the aussies may have crumbled.The spinners in the side are all part timers so much for batting depth clearly England are out of depth see a shrink first this is elementary.

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posted Oct 23, 2006

Steve Harmison is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to one day cricket and the abject performance of England in one day internationals of late.

I agree wholeheartedly re Harmison being left out of the one days to prolong his career and get the best out of him in the test series.

I do disagree though with Michelle_Fivefer we cannot hope to play five fast bowlers without one of them being Flintoff, none of the five she lists are recognised bowlers who can bat.

The whole team needs looking at. Flintoff and Peterson continue to get themselves out too cheaply too often and when both of them fail as they did last week we hit our tail very quickly.

Flintoff must realistically bat at six or even seven. We also need to have a wicketkeeper who can score one day runs quickly and intelligently at eight and ideally a spinner who bats at eight or nine and can marshall a tail, if necessary, like Daniel Vettori did last week for New Zealand.

In addition to the spinner who knows the correct end to hold the bat we need three fast bowlers other than Flintoff at least one of which must be able to sensibly swing a bat in a technically correct and reliable manner or ideally a decent one day batsmen who can bowl adequately.

It is easy talking about bowlers not getting wickets but if we bat first and put up abject totals as we did last week and have no strength in depth in our batting we are all merely "fiddling while Rome burns" talking about the bowlers.

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posted Oct 23, 2006

Not sure there's a lot of benefit in saying we need thing we haven't got. Though I agree that Freddie should be kept back in the batting order. Possibly he could bat at 5 if we manage to get some starts.

I'd like to see Harmi persevered with until the World Cup, after which I think he'll retire from ODIs anyway.

Dalrymple has done so well for the side as well. Strange that people should turn on him so rapidly after one relatively unproductive game. Gilo would be my first choice, but I'd have every confidence in JD if he got the nod.

Re the captaincy. It seems likely that MPV will be back to lead us in the World Cup. Plenty wanted him to be dropped just before he was injured. I'd be happy to see him in the team. The only problem then is do we drop Bell, or only play 4 bowlers plus Collingwood. Something like-

Tres
Vaughan
Bell
Strauss
Pietersen
Flintoff
Collingwood
Read
Giles
Harmison
Anderson

or-
Tres
Strauss
Vaughan
Pieterson
Flintoff
Collingwood
Read
Giles
Mahmood (or Lewis, Jones? etc)
Harmison
Anderson.

i guess Read hasn't cemented a place either.

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posted Oct 23, 2006

How about Tresco replacing Harmison with Flintoff taking over bowling duties while the only way Vaughan can get back is to bowl and replace Yardy so,

Trescothick
Strauss
Bell
Vaughan 5
Pieterson
Collingwood 5
Flintoff 10
Dalrymple 10
Read
Mahmood 10
Anderson 10

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posted Oct 23, 2006

I suppose it depends how well they're playing, but we did well in the West Indies last time with our fast bowling attack. I can see how people are frustrated with Harmi- I am. But we all know what he's capable of, and still delivers pretty often as well.

He's had some bad days in ODIs, but up to a year ago he was superb in the short game and right in among the top ten.

If he's close to his best, I'm not sure we've got anyone better in ODIs. His height should mean that he can bowl a little fuller than other bowlers, without the ball being there to hit.

I'm inclined to pick 5 bowlers, but I must admit, I'm losing conviction. My first team list above bats a long way down, and the bowling's ok. I just tend to think that if our pace bowlers turn up in good shape, there'll be no let up and the team will be a handful.

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posted Oct 23, 2006

Shame we haven't got a keeper who is an option to open the innings or come up the order to up the RR early on.

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posted Oct 25, 2006

Although the Champions Trophy problems stemmed from the poor batting by most of the team, Harmison is so wayward with the white ball that his opening overs against India ruined any chance there might have been of recovering the situation. No professional wants to perform poorly (unless involved in betting coups!) and I think it would be best for him and for the team to drop him from ODIs for the forseeable future.

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posted Nov 3, 2006

Jon Lewis is our best one day bowler and should be the 1st name down when picking the bowling attack. After his performances for England in the summer I think it was disgraceful that he was not picked for the first two games in the Champions Trophy. It was pretty obvious that the games were just being used as warm ups so Harmison and Anderson could get some overs in, sorry, but shouldn’t we have being picking a team that could win the games and get into the final??
Harmison should not have played against Australia after his poor performance against Sri Lanka; players should be playing for their places and not playing badly knowing they’ll get picked for the next game no matter what.

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posted Nov 19, 2006

Harmison is the new Sean Long!

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posted Nov 21, 2006

Is poor old Harmy homesick yet?

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