Predict the England side to play Sri Lanka

England squad for SL in June has just been announced.

Chopra
Porterfield
Trott
I-Ron Bell *
Troughton
R Clarke
Woakes
Ambrose *
Barker
Gordon
Rankin
Westwood
Hannon-Dolby
Milnes

Giles Sharke, sorry CLARKE, has reiterated that all applications for the post of England head coach will be carefully considered, and no particular conclusions should be drawn from the makeup of the squad for Si Lanka.

He went further. Any rumours to the contrary, he stressed, were bearfaced lies, or his name was not Giles [Clarke]. If these malicious slanders continued, the country's most expensive lawyers would be engaged by the ECB.

Jade Dernbach has just been added to the squad, as Giles the ECB had forgotten about his Surrey credentials.

"Jade is one of our brightest prospects, and can be relied on to give reliability, accuracy and penetration in all forms of the game, on and off the field", the tall, gawky, curiously masked spokesman for the ECB emphasised in a curious disguised voice. "I can assure you he will always be one of the very first on my team sheet."

Dello wrote:Vaughan picked his XI for the first Test on 5Live last night.

Cook
Robson
Bell
Root
Morgan
Stokes
Buttler
Borthwick
Broad
Jordan
Anderson

Wouldn't surprise me if he's on the money.

TAYPOC

And that's why it wouldn't surprise me if that's the team.

If Robson starts well, he may well be the new opener and replacement Saffa.

Root will be in the Pietersen 4 spot with Morgan back in.

Farking Timmy will continue to get a game bowling trundle, with the keeper and spinner tbc!

Henry wrote:

Dello wrote:

Henry wrote:Root would be dependent on early season County form. He's another in a long line of players who has been crushed by the England environment in the last 3-4 months.

Bumble's a big fan. Thinks the winter debacle will be the making of him and considers him one of six who are certainties to retain their place.

I'm not holding my breath with anyone. If Giles is the coach then he'll likely continue his downward spiral. I hope England start picking a few players for the WAY they play their cricket as much as their bare first class statistics.

Yeah, finding Test players is about much more than numbers. If that wasn't the case, plenty of successful England batsmen would never have got an opportunity, and we would have picked dozens of 70mph trundlers with no chance of international success.

Well they need to decide where they want Root to bat and only pick him in that position. I think he should be considered as an opener only. It's where he'd batted his whole life before he came into the England side. He should be competing with Carberry, Robson, and even Cook for a spot. I hope they haven't completely ruled out Compo either. Seems like he was a less publicised victim of England's 'the only way is ethics' policy.

Well if it's the "let's take a whole day to be bowled out for 200" strategy he's a prime candidate.

beamer wrote:Well if it's the "let's take a whole day to be bowled out for 200" strategy he's a prime candidate.

He's not usually as defensive as he showed against the Kiwis last Summer. Most of the England batsman became shotless towards the end of the Flower regime.

Showing they can play positively, though not recklessly, should be a requirement for those coming into the side. While we need someone to slot into the game changer role with the bat, even if it's a number 6 or 7, it's not an excuse for the rest to score at 2 an over. The trouble is, if we have too many naturally defensive batsmen then the scared mentality will continue to take hold, i.e. scratch around for 20 or 30 then lose patience and get out.

I agree it's hard to judge the natural game of those who have only played a few Tests, it's up to the selectors to find a balanced line-up from what's available.

Who knows anymore. Carberry had a reputation as an aggressive player before the Ashes, and he was painfully slow at times. Root had a reputation of being Vaughan-like in his aggression. And we see occasionally in the shorter form that he does have the ability to play his shots.

For whatever reason, batsmen these days come into the England team and don't play the same as they do in domestic cricket. I remember when Vaughan was captain, he always spoke about players enjoying themselves and playing their natural games. He may have been (and still is) a complete wally in many ways, but he was the leader of an aggressive England team.

I remember that batting line-up at the peak of their powers, and wishing we had a "boring" batsman like a Dravid or Kallis to add a bit of steel to it!

beamer wrote:I remember that batting line-up at the peak of their powers, and wishing we had a "boring" batsman like a Dravid or Kallis to add a bit of steel to it!

Well we had Trott, although bizarrely, he suddenly started playing a shot a ball before he flew home from the Ashes.

Henry wrote:

beamer wrote:I remember that batting line-up at the peak of their powers, and wishing we had a "boring" batsman like a Dravid or Kallis to add a bit of steel to it!

Well we had Trott, although bizarrely, he suddenly started playing a shot a ball before he flew home from the Ashes.

Yeah, I meant the '05 team... even Strauss was scoring at a fair rate the form he was in back then.

Henry wrote:Who knows anymore. Carberry had a reputation as an aggressive player before the Ashes, and he was painfully slow at times. Root had a reputation of being Vaughan-like in his aggression. And we see occasionally in the shorter form that he does have the ability to play his shots.

For whatever reason, batsmen these days come into the England team and don't play the same as they do in domestic cricket. I remember when Vaughan was captain, he always spoke about players enjoying themselves and playing their natural games. He may have been (and still is) a complete wally in many ways, but he was the leader of an aggressive England team.

maybe the bowling at CC level is a few grades below what they face in tests

No shit, Sherlock...

I was trying to be kind to henry

Well of course it is horrie you old twit, but the attitude and INTENT can still be the same. Mitch Johnson still bowled his fair share of rubbish in between the wicket taking balls, but this time England were in no frame of mind to cash in.

easy there young fella...it is easy to bat with intent when you have a modicum of form and not facing what you may think is the probability the next ball faced will take your wicket..

KP in fact batted with intent several times and when he got out was roundly castigated - inc by you...chef too tried the 'intent' style...did not help him much either...

horace wrote:easy there young fella...it is easy to bat with intent when you have a modicum of form and not facing what you may think is the probability the next ball faced will take your wicket..

KP in fact batted with intent several times and when he got out was roundly castigated - inc by you...chef too tried the 'intent' style...did not help him much either...

Intent is not just big shots. It's looking for quick singles, and turning ones into twos. I can barely remember England running a quick, scampered single all series. It was either block or hideous swipe.

Trescothick and Vaughan were the best England opening partnership I've seen because not only did they play their shots, they ran exceptionally between the wickets from ball one.

Yeah, I always liked that opening partnership - right-left combination, positive in different ways, ideal as an opening pair. Even though they didn't actually open together for long, as Vaughan started off down the order with the likes of Atherton, Stewart and Butcher still around, and then dropped down again as captain when Strauss came into the side.

Can't remember if Cook and Tresco ever opened together for England, if they did it would probably only have been a handful of times, but opening with a player like him would have brought the best out of Cook as it did with Strauss in his early days.

agree with that

beamer wrote:

Can't remember if Cook and Tresco ever opened together for England, if they did it would probably only have been a handful of times, but opening with a player like him would have brought the best out of Cook as it did with Strauss in his early days.

Don't think so. From memory, Cook came into the side when Trescothick left the India tour with his personal issues which pretty much accounted for his international career.

He returned to the side in the summer for one last try before calling it quits - and I think Cook batted at three during that time.

List of partnerships
Partner Wkt Runs In Out Inns Opposition Ground Start DateAscending
AN Cook 2 127 1/86 2/213 1 v Sri Lanka Lord's 11 May 2006 Test # 1802
AN Cook 2 14 1/25 2/39 2 v Sri Lanka Nottingham 2 Jun 2006 Test # 1804

Marty, if you can run those algorithms (or whatever the hell they are), could you produce a similar Test partnership record for Trott with Pietersen?


Why ask?:

This is sensitive area at the moment, clearly. So perhaps I should stress to those who sniff preconceptions and conspiracies that this is just a hunch:

For whatever reason (though there are a couple of obvious ones like diametrically opposed temperaments (highly-strung precise, studied/intense introvert v highly-strung extravagant, go-for-it star turn), I never got an impression the two enjoyed or relished batting in partnerships. My hunch is that most of their partnerships did not last very long - and second (a slightly different matter) that it was rare for both to spark in the same innings. No doubt there were exceptions. But it's a hunch.

And no, I am not even potentially blaming Kev for Leon's breakdown. I think the latter might well have had a bit to do with flaws in a previously highly successfully technique being discovered, repeatedly worked on and taking over from good batsmanship. And the extreme exasperation and despair for a careful, painstaking player that he could not put it together again. Humpty-Dumpty style, a great fall.

(As also was Cook's - but the captain is not the fidgety, fretting, brooding type. Far too little, to be frank. He just kept proceeding on to the next cheap/derisory dismissal, one innings at a time, without ever letting it get to him. A mayfly with a (non-flying) bat.)

I think an elephant-sized chicken that very definitely SHOULD come home to roost - actually potentially the biggest reason for the Pom catastrophe of the lot, as I have suggested before - is: "Where were you all that time, Goochie? What progress did you make?"

Whereas first impressions are that the laurel-crowned batting hero is above reproach, whatever he does. Or rather, hasn't done.