posted Jan 18, 2007

Why did things go wrong! So many reasons, its hard to know where to start. 1) Australia are so good & 2005 was a fluke for England, we got the rub of the green, our players over-achieved, their players were out fo sorts. 2) We took injured players YET AGAIN & it didnt work - players with no overs under their belt 3) Fletcher overseas can pick his mates like Giles and G.Jones, which he cant do in the home series 4) No Simon Jones, as good as no Harmison, no swing for Hoggard and poor Freddie with a crocked ankle these days - not quite the same as 2005. We had to bring in the likes of Anderson and Mahmood who are not good enough 5) The moment Vaughan lifted the Ashes, Australia planned for this series - Ponting prepared his troops perfectly and everthing they did was for this series - I have never seen a team so focused! 6) No Vaughan as skipper - Fred is a king but no captain - his tactical skills are not in the same league as Vaughan 7) We lost Troy Cooley as bowling coach and now our bowlers look like a village green outfit. The new bowling coach has a lot to answer for. I am sure there are more reasons but a mixture of this lot explains it! 5-0 is just not good enough and I just hope this review committe that has been brought in to analyse performance has the guts to really expose the truth!

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posted Jan 18, 2007

Anybody who is having a go @ Fletcher should remember he has won the Ashes and let him get on with things

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posted Jan 18, 2007

I like this committee with a cricket nobody, an ECB apologist and the 2 biggest media apologists for Fletcher including his first captain. Wow that'll scare them. As we know from Bliar and 'The Thick Of It' reviews are called as a means of dissapating anger and white washing. Committee of 7 so tilted to support what was clearly absolutely poor management but Capt Tattoo and his organ grinder. Indeed only committee member Hussain would appear to dislike Reid more than Fletcher so selection will be a non issue for them.

Shocking insult to our intelligence.

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posted Jan 18, 2007

Someone on this site mentioned earlier that is 2005, England over achieved and Australia under-performed - it is that simple. With Vaughan as captain England are a different proposition, however we are still woefully short of world class cricketers.

For me we should do the following: -

1) increase the competetive nature of county cricket by intoduction of say 6 zones where the best play against the best in four day and one day cricket (using the county circuit as the feeder into these zonal select elevens). Include 2 overseas players per team - we have to let our players play and perform against the best there is

2) the best performing players will rise to the top in performance, the best players graduate to the one-day squad first, when they are ready.

3) To excel in one-day cricket you need to excel in at least two of the three main disciplines in the game (bat, bowl and field). If performance is good then you come into contention for the prestige, the test team

4) test team is selected initially from a) the current team and b) the best performers in the zonal cricket. To break into the test team you have to excel in one-day cricket

5) once in the test team then your place is yours to lose. The quality of the current test team is not good enough, there is not a single player in that team (yes Flintoff included) who would make it into the Australian XI.

Lets face it, County cricket is crap, the divisions have improved things, but anybody that who can spell "Bat" will get a few runs in county cricket. The Test Team probably includes players who are not really good enough but they are pretty much the best we have.

To fix Englands one day problems then select the test team, they are the best cricketers we have.

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posted Jan 18, 2007

Sad fact is I don't think the 'review board' have the bottle to make big enough changes to improve the team. They see Freddy as the face of english cricket so pick him as captain to raise PR. The FA took a bold move in dropping Beckham, so I would like similar decisions to be made here. From the 1st 11 it may only need 1 or 2 changes but there has to be more squad depth for when they are on tour.

The Australians were so much more up for winning the Ashes back which you could see in every wicket they took and frankly think England underestimated them which was shown in poor squad selection expected injured/off form players to do well.

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posted Jan 18, 2007

Ive said this all along but we were without our 2 best batsmen (tres and Vaughan), our best swing bowler(jones). If it was the other way around that would be like the aussies being without Langer and Hayden and missing someone like Bret Lee. Im not saying that was the only reaon but its one i feel isnt taken on board enough. If the Aussies had been without those three im sure it wouldnt have ended 5-0

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posted Jan 19, 2007

Any team that selects more than one red head can't be serious about wanting to win.

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posted Jan 19, 2007

Ive said this all along but we were without our 2 best batsmen (tres and Vaughan), our best swing bowler(jones). If it was the other way around that would be like the aussies being without Langer and Hayden and missing someone like Bret Lee

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Vaughan has averaged 35 in test cricket in the past 3 years, so was he a big loss as a batsman?


Actually rogers/jaques/north/d.hussey can replay hayden or langer. The fact that they are new (although vastly experienced at first class level) is offset by the fact that neither langer or hayden set the world on fire in the series.

Lee would easily be replaced - Gillespie, Bracken, Johnson, Tait, Kasprowicz, Hilfenhaus. Actually Lee was the worst of the bowlers in the Aus. team in THIS series so it wouldn't have been hard anyway to fill his role.

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posted Jan 19, 2007

Simon Mann should wait until the verdict from the "What went wrong in Ashes" Royal Commission before making anymore comments appraising current English Cricket team. Did he really believe that England had any chance of winning after scoring 155? ("Assies were in for a shock loss if it werent for the "Controversial" decision that went for Hussy.")
Australians think that "the Royal Commission'is a joke (read crick info's match commentary on today's match), but I think you guys really need one so you won't be as excited when your bowlers start taking a few wickets in a match after being tonked the whole summer.

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posted Jan 19, 2007

The english, and even the ch9 commentators who are desperate for any semblance of a contest, make such a pathetic fuss at the close chances that the english team miss.

I know it's because there have only been a few, but what you have to keep in mind is that australia have about 2-3 times as many close misses of any sort in any one game, if not more. It doesn't get any airtime because they've been overwhelmingly better this summer. Commentators would rather be talking about pigeons or the weather while lbw appeals that seem very good are turned down when Australia bowls. Or appeals for caught behind.

And Hussey probably didn't even nick that one. There was the faintest possible disturbance on snicko at the same time as the ball passing the bat and bat passing the pad.

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