posted Feb 13, 2008

England should do what India did a few years ago.

They had India Red, Blue etc teams.

Pick the best performing English talents.

Who Knows - I might see my DREAM that A.FLINTOFF bowling 'chicken' dancer KP out for a DUCK.

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posted Feb 13, 2008

Kiwis kicked the Ozzies backsides 3 zip and one of the games was a ten wicket loss last year in NZ. I don't think it is the end of the world to lose to that bunch of energetic hustlers and one fatboy slugger (though it was very possibly the end of Mike Hussey's captaincy career!).

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posted Feb 13, 2008

it was a terrible performance the question is really why did mascarenhas lose his place? he was one of if not the best player in the 2020 side. So Peter Moores changed the winning team then after the side Moores picked fails he retains them. Terrible decision.

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posted Feb 13, 2008

I know that i have mentioned this before but have just been looking back at scorecards for the Sri Lanka Test and One day series and have found that Bell only got one score over Fifty (unless i'm mistaken) Now surely the whole thing of selection is that they choose the most in form player. But it seems that Bell is always in the team and generally dodges a lot of negative comments. I think as a few people have said one way or another, the england selectors should stop picking players on how big a player they are and on current performances.

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posted Feb 13, 2008

I think Mustard has looked good if not quite the finished article. He stands well behind the sticks and has potential to make some good scores.

For me the player who I think looks like he needs to take break and go and discover some form and can't use the excuse of inexperience is KP. I am sorry but when was the last time he conistently made contributions. Has he not worked out the bowlers now have a plan which is to get him to play around his front pad early in the innings and umpires are just waiting to give him out - he's being out thought. What realy annoys me about KP is that he is such a prodigous talent and so destructive that he should be doing better. At the momment I would drop KP promote Shah and bring in Wright cos KPs head does not seem to be in the right place.

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posted Feb 13, 2008

Primarily what the England team need to do is to stop wishing their wicket keeper was Gilchrist! It would be far more sensible to have a specialist batsman opening the innings rather than a wicket keeper/slogger!

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posted Feb 13, 2008

I think it's a good article and many of the comments hit the spot too. I agree that England focus on the Ashes too much and most seem to agree that the batting focuses too much on Bell and Pietersen. Bell has not given Pietersen the support he needs for a long time and KP's batting has a permanent look of 'ok I'll do the best I can, but if I don't succeed it's about time it was someone else's turn, eh?' and it's just never Bell's turn. Pietersen likes to 'grandstand' on his own terms and he's not comfortable when it's forced upon him as these days, it invariably is. The Mustard/Prior/Foster/Uncle Tom Cobley and all thing is only important in that the England selectors must understand they reap what they sow. There are still surely ten or twelve more keepers to try out over the next four or five years...

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posted Feb 13, 2008

It makes me laugh/weep when Collingwood or whoever is Captain at the time rolls out the usual "we shall learn from our mistakes" quotes at the latest one day bashing only to be thrashed a couple days later due to poor play rather than anything else. Change the record, the current one is getting very worn and boring. A bit more concentration and application of the teams (limited) talents are required and remebering what they actually get handsomely paid for.

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posted Feb 13, 2008

4thecaptain, sorry don't know what the stats say about KP but obviously his form of late has been mediocre. Still more talented than any of the current kiwis. But, apart from KP there aren't any other strikers in there without Freddie. You won't beat the kiwis at home with a mediocre bowling attack and only one aggressive batsmen.

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