England Unchanged for 1st test vs South Africa

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/7497128.stm

like we didn't know already that the Engalnd team is a closed shop! Colly to scratch round and get 30 odd and Bell to get a pretty 80 are my predictions!

Yeah, it's hardly sensational news.

Colly needs to come out and just play his shots. His technique just isn't up for a scrap at the moment.

Now there's a surprise.

Enter Charlie, stage right

Love the 'breaking news' bit.

Captain Michael Vaughan said: "I think our performances got better as the New Zealand series went on and we want that to continue against South Africa."

Vaughan added: "Hopefully this side will put in a similar performance to the one we delivered against New Zealand at Trent Bridge (when England won by an innings and nine runs)."

could just as easily have said

Captain Michael Vaughan said: "We're on track,nothing is wrong everything is sailing smoothly in good ship Angleterre."

Vaughan added: "Everything is going as planned, we all average over 40 y'know."

" England Unchanged for 1st test vs South Africa"

ie: They're still crap.

Kevin P is President wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/7497128.stm

like we didn't know already that the Engalnd team is a closed shop! Colly to scratch round and get 30 odd and Bell to get a pretty 80 are my predictions!

Cor, will be one helluva dead track...

A Bell pretty 80 would be more than welcome, and probably worthy of praise coming against that attack.

Brass Monkey wrote:

Kevin P is President wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/7497128.stm

like we didn't know already that the Engalnd team is a closed shop! Colly to scratch round and get 30 odd and Bell to get a pretty 80 are my predictions!

Cor, will be one helluva dead track...

or coming in at 4/30 chasing 500

Of course they're unchanged. Now they can back up their "we all average 40" excuse with "you don't go from being a record-breaking side to a bad side just because of ten defeats on the spin".

So that's MBEs and record-books they've cheapened...

I am most certainly looking forward to seeing our boys shape up tomorrow if SA win the toss and have a bowl!!!

SA bat? 325-3

Eng bat? 180 all out

Or is that optimistic?

JKLever wrote:SA bat? 325-3

Eng bat? 180 all out

Or is that optimistic?

Pessimistic until the end. You have to admire the dedication.

You people leave IR Bell alone. He may be England's saviour in this test series!

Anniyan wrote:You people leave IR Bell alone. He may be England's saviour w*nker in this test series!

Fixed.

Napier and Malan for Bell and Collingwood.
Now THAT'S gonna take some balls from Dusty and his yes men.

Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

JKLever wrote:Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

Gone all 'Trev' you mean.....

JKLever wrote:Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

Okay ... I'll return to this topic on Saturday after Dinga's bagged a pretty 10 and Colly swishes a rapid 20 in 15 overs!

Seriously - watching the highlights I recorded of last nights T20 (okay, I know ... T20) ...
Naz apparently tackled Dusty at Lord's a couple of days back and suggested an ODI challenge ..
Current England XI vs Young England Hopefuls (to include Napier and Malan amongst others).
Seems Dusty went a chalky white and refrained from taking up the challenge!
Now I wonder why that would be.

Hate to see this, but at the risk of incurring the forum pseudos wrath, I would love to see England get their
arses caned by the Jaarpies at Lord's just so that changes will HAVE to be made and their f**king
complacency (having sha**ed a piss poor Kiwi team) exposed for the sham it is.

It's going to happen .... believe it.
So bring on Napier and Malan and Morgan and other young tykes who will, at least, bring some
much needed sparkle back to the crap nip n tuck from the current mob of contracted players.

PearlJ wrote:

JKLever wrote:Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

Gone all 'Trev' you mean.....

Eh?!!
Do me a favour.
Colly I can tolerate now ... Bell ...NEVER.

A KP hundred and England thrashed wouldn't make the worst five days entertainment for moi, either. I don't consider this England side to be progressive and would gladly see a humiliating defeat to hasten the end, not only of dreadful players like Bell and Collingwood, but also of those who encourage the cronyism that is disrupting the England team such as Moores and Vaughan (definitely as captain). It says a lot that one of the worst England sides in a long time has set a world record like this, to cries of 'it ain't a closed shop'.

In other news, Robert Mugabe runs a fair election.

Merlin wrote:

JKLever wrote:Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

Okay ... I'll return to this topic on Saturday after Dinga's bagged a pretty 10 and Colly swishes a rapid 20 in 15 overs!

Seriously - watching the highlights I recorded of last nights T20 (okay, I know ... T20) ...
Naz apparently tackled Dusty at Lord's a couple of days back and suggested an ODI challenge ..
Current England XI vs Young England Hopefuls (to include Napier and Malan amongst others).
Seems Dusty went a chalky white and refrained from taking up the challenge!
Now I wonder why that would be.

Hate to see this, but at the risk of incurring the forum pseudos wrath, I would love to see England get their
arses caned by the Jaarpies at Lord's just so that changes will HAVE to be made and their f**king
complacency (having sha**ed a piss poor Kiwi team) exposed for the sham it is.

It's going to happen .... believe it.
So bring on Napier and Malan and Morgan and other young tykes who will, at least, bring some
much needed sparkle back to the crap nip n tuck from the current mob of contracted players.

If Napier's a Test Match cricketer then i'm a Dutchman.

Spoiler:

Don't know why you're all hoping for England to get thrashed, England fans - we're not far short of our full strength line-up, and all these miracle crocked fast bowlers who haven't played for years aren't guaranteed to bale us out.

I for one, would like to see our young new bowlers like Broad, Panesar and Anderson do well. They have replaced the 2005 attack (who don't forget bar Jones let us down badly in Australia) and performed creditably, and are improving all the time. While Sidebottom (the comparative veteran) has given everything for the cause and bowled with immense skill and passion - when's the last time you could say that about Harmison?

And why the witch-hunt on Paul Collingwood? He's given everything for England over the past few years and dug us out of many a hole. He's a fighter and not to forget the most brilliant fielder we've had in many a year. He's only been dismissed 3 times in Tests this summer, i've seen far worse runs of form from good and from great batsmen in the past. Would rather have Collingwood in the side than a talented waster like Shah who didn't even have the character to face SA this week so he could pursue business interests and fields like a donkey compared to Colly.

Gary 111 wrote:

Merlin wrote:

JKLever wrote:Merlins gone all knee jerk on us...

Okay ... I'll return to this topic on Saturday after Dinga's bagged a pretty 10 and Colly swishes a rapid 20 in 15 overs!

Seriously - watching the highlights I recorded of last nights T20 (okay, I know ... T20) ...
Naz apparently tackled Dusty at Lord's a couple of days back and suggested an ODI challenge ..
Current England XI vs Young England Hopefuls (to include Napier and Malan amongst others).
Seems Dusty went a chalky white and refrained from taking up the challenge!
Now I wonder why that would be.

Hate to see this, but at the risk of incurring the forum pseudos wrath, I would love to see England get their
arses caned by the Jaarpies at Lord's just so that changes will HAVE to be made and their f**king
complacency (having sha**ed a piss poor Kiwi team) exposed for the sham it is.

It's going to happen .... believe it.
So bring on Napier and Malan and Morgan and other young tykes who will, at least, bring some
much needed sparkle back to the crap nip n tuck from the current mob of contracted players.

If Napier's a Test Match cricketer then i'm a Dutchman.

Spoiler:

Aye.

Merls I hate Bell with a passion, but to implicate Napier instead of him, thats a little bot OTT for even me.

Gary 111 wrote:Don't know why you're all hoping for England to get thrashed, England fans - we're not far short of our full strength line-up, and all these miracle crocked fast bowlers who haven't played for years aren't guaranteed to bale us out.

I for one, would like to see our young new bowlers like Broad, Panesar and Anderson do well. They have replaced the 2005 attack (who don't forget bar Jones let us down badly in Australia) and performed creditably, and are improving all the time. While Sidebottom (the comparative veteran) has given everything for the cause and bowled with immense skill and passion - when's the last time you could say that about Harmison?

And why the witch-hunt on Paul Collingwood? He's given everything for England over the past few years and dug us out of many a hole. He's a fighter and not to forget the most brilliant fielder we've had in many a year. He's only been dismissed 3 times in Tests this summer, i've seen far worse runs of form from good and from great batsmen in the past. Would rather have Collingwood in the side than a talented waster like Shah who didn't even have the character to face SA this week so he could pursue business interests and fields like a donkey compared to Colly.

Gary there is little abuse of the bowling unit bar Anderson, whose cycle is somewhat irritating to say the least.

The problem that irks most I believe is that the selectors, coach and Captain (and you by the looks of things) are happy to take ineefectual and below par performance over a prolonged period of time S/L, NZ away, NZ Home from our batters. If you think that a combined total of runs from a number 5 & 6 in tests in 3 matches of 77 runs is acceptable then I would have to wholely disagree.

The tiresome bit is this type of underperformance from our top 6 has been going on for a prolonged period of time.

A talented waster I would suggest is slightly unfair on Shah. Hardly wasted his talent has he? When has he been given a chance. He showed truely what he was about in 1 test in India, made telling contributions to draw a series, and then had a poor game at Lords. Other than that he was by far our best batter in the recent OD side, and decided that instead of a shortened warmup game against SA - when he knew he wasn't in the test side, he would put his benefit year first for those 3 days. Hardly a massive sin is it?

Gary, you may as well join Dusty and his Cronies, with the everything all right attitude like that.

Nasser's quote regarding the likes of Napier was referring to JAMODI/T20 cricket, where the senior side is totally lacking direction and there are a few players starting to really knock on the door.

The Test situation is different as there isn't really a queue of young players forcing their way into the selectors' thoughts in the longer game (and our Test side isn't as bad as our limited overs team, not that that's saying a lot). I still think they will get a big wake-up call from the South Africans and be forced into a major rethink. Although that rethink will probably be a recall for the Ashes Four with the ball while the batting line-up stays the same after being rolled over for 150 twice!

If we lose the first test - it will serve the selectors right for not addressing the weaknesses in the batting exposed by the NZers.

You could drop either Bell or Collingwood for me - either would deserve it. Colly's place is probably most at risk because of a certain Mr Flintoff getting back into his stride.

Anyway - that's proably guaranteed that they will both score tons, which if it secures victory should be welcomed by everyone on here despite their personal prejudices.