England v WI, 2nd Test, Chester-le-Street, May 14 - 18

Windies 18/0: not much in it for the seamers.

Basil wrote:Windies 18/0: not much in it for the seamers.

Make that 18/1: Smith bowled Anderson for 7

34/1: bad light stopped play.

Devon Smith in missing a straight ball shocker. Please Lord can that be the end of his test career.

Adrian fuggin Barath FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is an awful decision!!!!!!!

FFS first bad piece of umpiring and it is to one of our most important players.

Ashocker took his time to live up to that nickname in this match then...

beamer wrote:Ashocker took his time to live up to that nickname in this match then...

But he more than made up for that in terms of the awfulness of the decision and the critical nature of the error.

edit

Jimmy has bowled very well and has been the only bowler to get any movement at all.

But lets analyse the three wickets:

1) Smith missed a straight one
2) Gayle got an absolute shocker.
3) Simmons opened the face of the bat to a delivery that straightened.

No excuses here, the movement has been minimal and Smith and Simmons displayed poor technique.

For all the quality that Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan have, along with the battling qualities of Nash, there are still two extremely weak links in their batting line-up. To progress they clearly need a young batsman or two to step up and give them a solid top six.

beamer wrote:For all the quality that Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan have, along with the battling qualities of Nash, there are still two extremely weak links in their batting line-up. To progress they clearly need a young batsman or two to step up and give them a solid top six.

Absolutely 100% spot on. Simmons deserves a run in the side so I will keep him for the Bangladesh series in July. If he does not dominate against them he will have to be reconsidered. Although I'm tempted to bat Dwayne Bravo at 4 and bolster the bowling attack at the same time.

As for Devon Smith, he is a glaring weakness that the selectors inexplicably force upon the team. I still can't believe that Barath didn't make this tour. An FC average of almost 50 having dominated at every level since the age of 15. It should not matter that he is still only 19. His record suggests he should be given a chance.

The 2 largest problems we have are the openers position and the 3rd seamer. Smith isn't good enough and Baker isn't either. Benn isn't ideal but if he fails against Bangladesh we have a lot of very talented spinners in the region.

WIFAN wrote:

No excuses here, the movement has been minimal and Smith and Simmons displayed poor technique.

That's been the difference in that Englands bowling was pretty disciplined here - Onions was quite impressive with his control and has a good effort ball. It's the sort of pitch against a decent batting side where you would be made to bowl 25 overs for your 3 or 4 wickets.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow afternoon and that will probably kill the game in terms of a result but still plenty to play for as far as Onions & Bresnan are concerned. I though Bres got some nice shape on a few of his deliveries but he's the kind of bowler who needs to be given a decent spell.

Broad was a mixture, when hitting the right areas he was a handful but seems he gets bored a bit and throws in a short ball too often for my liking.

Yeah England bowled very well I thought. They stuck to the line and lengths that work in early season English conditions. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Bresnan as he had a tiny bit of shape to his bowling.

The shocker dealt out to Gayle helped them out though because he was motoring and hitting some of the good balls for 4 as he tends to do. He also looked very determined for once.

Shiv to get a 700 ball century perhaps? He'll have to pick up his strike rate a bit if he wants to.

Out of interest, what are Anderson's stats since he came back into the team against India at home in 07? I think he's a better bowler than an average of 35 suggests, or at least has been since New Zealand last year.

Winkle Spinner wrote:Out of interest, what are Anderson's stats since he came back into the team against India at home in 07? I think he's a better bowler than an average of 35 suggests, or at least has been since New Zealand last year.

Since India :

73 @ 33.56 (not including this match).

Since NZ:

57 @ 31.32.

Cheers Vilks. moving in the right direction, then.

It has been encouraging how he has managed to improve as a bowler when so many in the England set-up have gone completely stagnant. I think sometimes people give too much responsibilty to the management as to how players turn out. They are adults, after all. A good management should facilitate a player improving himself, but a bad should at worst slow the rate of improvement, not actually make him go backwards. That's what I think, anyway.

vilkrang wrote:Shiv to get a 700 ball century perhaps? He'll have to pick up his strike rate a bit if he wants to.

OMG, I've just watched the highlights programme and I still feel irritated after watching his 3 runs from 33 balls. Grrrrrr.

I really hope you are irritated for most of if not all of tomorrow then

The thought of that made me groan!

Winkle Spinner wrote:Cheers Vilks. moving in the right direction, then.

It has been encouraging how he has managed to improve as a bowler when so many in the England set-up have gone completely stagnant. I think sometimes people give too much responsibilty to the management as to how players turn out. They are adults, after all. A good management should facilitate a player improving himself, but a bad should at worst slow the rate of improvement, not actually make him go backwards. That's what I think, anyway.

still not convinced myself about all the commentators creaming themselves about our new leader of the attack.... still think he's very ordinary. Would be interesting to see his stats against anyone other than NZ or WI in the last 2 years.

His stats against us aren't exactly spectacular either tbh.

Having said that he just looks a lot more accomplished than he used too and he has really mastered the in-ducker to the right handed batsman.

Stats don't tell the story all the time. For example, Fidel has become a test class bowler over the last 2 years after a bad start to his career but the stats can't tell you that. Stats also don't show that he gets more catches dropped off his bowling than anyone else.

It's a similar story with Anderson. He is a class bowler as of now, whether the stats say so or not.

Agree with Wifan. Don't think Jimmykins will ever consistently average under 27/28 ish against anyone good, but there's no doubting he's a lot better than he was, and has a good attitude. May yet step into Hoggard's much-missed shoes.

Winkle Spinner wrote:Agree with Wifan. Don't think Jimmykins will ever consistently average under 27/28 ish against anyone good, but there's no doubting he's a lot better than he was, and has a good attitude. May yet step into Hoggard's much-missed shoes.

That wouldn't be so bad actually.

JKLever wrote:

Winkle Spinner wrote:Cheers Vilks. moving in the right direction, then.

It has been encouraging how he has managed to improve as a bowler when so many in the England set-up have gone completely stagnant. I think sometimes people give too much responsibilty to the management as to how players turn out. They are adults, after all. A good management should facilitate a player improving himself, but a bad should at worst slow the rate of improvement, not actually make him go backwards. That's what I think, anyway.

still not convinced myself about all the commentators creaming themselves about our new leader of the attack.... still think he's very ordinary. Would be interesting to see his stats against anyone other than NZ or WI in the last 2 years.

15 @33.93 against SA last year. Hardly world class, but pretty useful against a team like SA.