Sri Lanka v England, 7xODIs, Sri Lanka, 26 November - 16 December, 2014

This brave bold tour begins by England dropping Alex Hales, their only top order batsman capable of mass destruction, for the warmup match. Hoof*ckingray.

I wasn't sure what Trev's "7" reference was (thinking initially he might have been having a stab at 7 English players), but it's the number of games in the upcoming series. 7 FFS!!! Oh well, World Cup practice is important, I guess.

World Cup practice is important, unless you're England. Then it becomes a lesson in ineptness.

Skulls has evidently decided this bit of Anglo High Masochism is not a serious contender for an ***official thread***.



But, errrr, if you're EXPECTING seven "spectacular embarrassments", Trev, can they be said to be that?

If the spirit is cauterised and seven thumbs are down (*), before any of these pathetically feeble gladiators have a chance to be devoured by raging big cats, where's the drama in that?

(*) - okay, that didn't really happen.

Well no doubt England will surpass even my own expectations of feebleness. An English trait- plan for the worst, expect the worst.

Plan for the worst you can imagine, but always expect things to be even worse than that?

You can only imagine how awkward it must be in England selection meetings these days, as they constantly tiptoe around the elephant in the room that is Alastair Cook's woeful batting form. Hasn't scored a century for England in 18 months.

Nice bloke.

I agree with Dello re Cook

...it is phantasmagorical that international cricket has at least one leader who is ahead of the curve on the niceness stakes

Apparently, England have been practicing at the Nondescripts ground......................

Noice.

Dello wrote:Nice bloke.

Yeah, even KP said he wasn't a total qunt.

Too stubborn to realise his limitations and stick to Tests though, which has farked up yet another World Cup cycle for us. It's fair enough to block for 15 overs if you can change gear and go Napeshit after that, but Cook and Bell are only capable of the first third of that Rohit Sharma innings, their only change of gear is selecting reverse and heading back to the pavilion with a panicked top-edged swipe or a lame chip to the infield.

Chris Jordan 5 overs for 48! You're gonna need to rethink that role at the death mate. Worse than Dernbach.

I think I'm starting to love Moeen Ali a little bit.

What's not to like about Moeen?

Unless you're IS(IS/IL)/ALKaida, Nitinyahoo/Likudorworse, or a BNP/UKIP member, obviously.

EDIT: What's not to like about Moeen,  if you belong to the human race?


Ah .... I see you said "love". Mmmmm ...

So Bell calls for an aggressive approach in ODI's and then proceeds to score at a strike rate of 45.71 in a warm up game when England were absolutely cruising, chasing only a small total.

It's all boding well for the future.

krikri wrote:So Bell calls for an aggressive approach in ODI's and then proceeds to score at a strike rate of 45.71 in a warm up game when England were absolutely cruising, chasing only a small total.

It's all boding well for the future.

It's an absolute abomination. To not even bother to push yourself in a shitty warm-up is a complete disgrace. What he'll 'learn' from nurdling 15 runs is way too far beyond my realms of comprehension.

It's great, having England back playing. All of my indignation had pretty much subsided. Now it is has flooded back in tidal waves after just one dogshit warm-up match.

Channel that indignation into a couple more calendar pictures...

Brass Monkey wrote:

krikri wrote:So Bell calls for an aggressive approach in ODI's and then proceeds to score at a strike rate of 45.71 in a warm up game when England were absolutely cruising, chasing only a small total.

It's all boding well for the future.

It's an absolute abomination. To not even bother to push yourself in a shitty warm-up is a complete disgrace. What he'll 'learn' from nurdling 15 runs is way too far beyond my realms of comprehension.

It's great, having England back playing. All of my indignation had pretty much subsided. Now it is has flooded back in tidal waves after just one dogshit warm-up match.

The 7 JAMODIs themselves are dogshit, never mind the warm-up... it's all completely pointless, conditions not comparable to the World Cup, a team that's not up to it anyway...

We should be playing three Tests at this time of year instead.

I wonder if Cook will have the guts to leave himself out of the second warm up match in order to give Hales a hit.

Henry wrote:I wonder if Cook will have the guts to leave himself out of the second warm up match in order to give Hales a hit.

He's far too nice a bloke to do that to himself.

beamer wrote:
The 7 JAMODIs themselves are dogshit, never mind the warm-up... it's all completely pointless, conditions not comparable to the World Cup, a team that's not up to it anyway...

We should be playing three Tests at this time of year instead.

The exceptionally naïve point of playing 12 million ODIs is that it'll make us better ODI players. I doubt that if I played 12 millions ODIs, I'd suddenly be good enough to compete at international level. That notion is exactly the same for all of these completely inept no-marks. It has never really been about the experience. It has been about the mindless 'tactics' of our selection committee and the spackers they pick. Bresnan played about 45-50 more ODIs after his shambolic WC, did he improve? F*ck no. The list goes on.

SL squad for first three ODIs: Angelo Mathews (Captain), T.M Dilshan, Kusal Janith Perera, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Lahiru Thirimanne, Jeevan Mendis, Thilina Kandamby, Rangana Herath, Dilruwan Perera, Ajantha Mendis, Shaminda Eranga, Dhammika Prasad, Thisara Perera and Lahiru Gamage.

Say what? Chandimal dropped and Kaushal Silva was also considered for the opener's position.

Not just England who are in disarray, and that too a side whose form has been good apart from one series where it was obvious that they weren't ready.

Excellent points by beams and Monkeh. The Aus (and even Snoozie) conditions in Feb-March will not be even close to what England will be facing in this series. 7 JAMODIs seems over the top, IMHO.

Scheduled in the monsoon season too.

They'll be lucky to get four full games in.