Pakistan v England, 4th ODI, Dubai, 21 February, 2012

Dare I say it ... but even he admitted in the post match interview that he rated it his best ODI innings.

The timing, the pace and the confidence of making sure England crossed the line when wickets were falling all around him showed him in a new 'non-arrogant' light ... which hopefully bodes well for the next few series.

Well in those terms, if he believes so yes but in reality, as shown by England resting some of their best players, it was a dead rubber at the end of a rather one-sided series.

As has been observed .... he could have gone out and, as with his past innings, played with his usual flamboyancy
but for himself ... this time he hung around for the team.

That's what makes it special.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:WTF is Briggs? Where is Tom Riddle?

Briggs is a 'spinner' in the Daniel Vettori mode. Lofts it up, but in essence doesn't get much purchase off the wicket. But you shouldn't think of him as 'Briggs'. You must think of him as 'Ohhhhhh DANNY Briggs', as most pundits and total arseclown dribbling fans think he's worthy of all sorts of plaudits, England berths, company cars, free massage wanks and all the Skittles he can eat.

A non-spinning spinner. Bit depressing, really. Borthwick went the same way in his ODI outings - what's up with all these great young spinners who don't put anything on the ball?

Seems a good egg, Briggs, although from a distance he looks like a badly drawn Ian Bell. But he'll never amount to owt if he can't turn the ball on a used pitch.

That said, he out-bowled FS Patel, who is basically Michael Yardy with slightly better batting. Poor spinner.

Aye, I'm not convinced by Patel, really not. He gets quite a few of his wickets from batting misjudgements and whilst it could be argued that he could elicits those mistakes I think they are usually borne out of overconfidence against him. Less than one wicket per ODI, averging highish 30's, economy 5.6 or so...

Goodish batsman, though. Don't think he can really get on with it, but maybe he should be batting further up the order.

He's a functional one-day player, I suppose. A bits-n-pieces thingamy. But he's more of a Bopara type all-rounder - should rarely bowl out his ten overs, but can chip in here and there with the ball.

Aye, they need to figure out some way to get 10 overall. If it's turning loads, then he can have his 10 but if not, the amalgamated 5th bowler could go for quite a few.

This series is like the 06-07 Ashes where ENG got hammered in tests but won both finals of the ODI series.

That ODI side was f*cking awful. Awful.