England team changes for saturdays decider

Drop Cook for Sidebottom, and bring Wright up to open? We were desperately short of quality bowling today.

Drop Agarkar. Drop him now and preferrably from an unsafe height.

Drop the useless minnow basher and play Sharma hopefully, but they won't do that.

As for England. Would be foolish to drop Cook IMO. The man oozes class.

Both sides were definitely a frontline bowler short today, a major factor in it ending up 320 runs a side.

Unlike India with their long tail I think we can afford to lose a batsman, and Cook is the only one who hasn't really made runs since that first game. Wasn't convinced by Sidebottom in the WI ODI's, but would give him a chance over Lewis after the way he performed in the last match.

I don't think I'd go with Wright alongside Prior to open - maybe push Bell up to the top of the order and drop the keeper down to the middle order, or is that too much tinkering for a series decider?

Please drop Prior. Please. Please. Please.

A wicket-keeper as opposed to a gormless bloke stood there with a pair of gloves on would have stopped that thin inside-edge in penultimate over.

Ambrose, Read, Foster, Nixon, Mustard, Pothas, Batty, Davies, I really don't care. At this stage i'd prefer to see Henry Cooper there than that bald pr!ck.

England team changes for saturdays decider...

doremi wrote:Drop Agarkar.

Interesting tactical decision.

doremi wrote:Drop Agarkar. Drop him now and preferrably from an unsafe height.

Drop the useless minnow basher and play Sharma hopefully, but they won't do that.

As for England. Would be foolish to drop Cook IMO. The man oozes class.

i dont rate gambhir but his was a very valuable contribution today, kept us ticking over during a tricky period

His initial crabbing made Tendulkar play that shot. His crabbing during the latter stages along with Dhoni almost lost us the match.

The RR was over 9 when he departed. It was below 6 when he came in.

His initial crabbing made Tendulkar play that shot.

I disagree. The sight of Ganguly getting ready to come on as Tendulkar's runner made him play that shot. He would rather 'commit suicide' so to speak, than have Ganguly 'kill' him.

Definitely a quality bowler light. No way on earth should Collingwood or Djimi be 1st change.

How many of us are expecting Fred to play on Saturday?

Yeah, don't all rush to hold your hand up!

Ganguly doesn't get run out himself very often, he runs the other man out. Wouldn't have been too bad IMO.

But you can just imagine Ganguly being fast asleep out at square leg, having completely forgotten that he's there to run for Sachin Tendulkar.

Ganguly's lazy, not stoopid.

JKLever wrote:
How many of us are expecting Fred to play on Saturday?

Yeah, don't all rush to hold your hand up!

I held my ankle up - just to be topical.

Cook (there's no other batsmen in the squad)
Wright (what the hell)
Bell
Pietersen
Shah
Collingwood
Prior +
Broad
Sidebottom
Anderson
Panesar

I guess. Personally, I think Mascara-in-ass played well enough today to maintain his place, but we were seriously light on the specialist bowler front.

And Panesar still hasn't looked anything like a ODI bowler, but there's no-one else in the squad, so he'll have to stay.

Why didn't Collingwood bowl Wright? How bad can a guy who started his career as a bowler be?

Perhaps he was worried that if he bowled all right AND scored runs, his own position in the set-up as budget all-rounder would be jeapordised.

Wright as opener is a good call. He could do some scary things in the powerplays. His bowling is ok - at least as good as Bresnan

Beginning to lose faith in Prior - behind the stumps he looks like a village hick.

You'd have to say, Prior's had nearly three whole series of opening in ODIs for one fifty.

How long do you flog a plan before you accept it's not happening?

He should drop down the order now.

Dello wrote:

How long do you flog a plan before you accept it's not happening?

Geraint Jones in ODI's anyone?

The faith in Prior is weakening. Its not a surprise hes not got a great ODI record as his list A record was poor too.

Anybody but Read though...

Jones is history ( I hope) Ambrose or Davies for me.

Timbrose, Mustard or J Batty for me.

Everyone forgets Batty, perhaps by association with another Batty or because he's getting on in his career, but he's not as old as Nicko.

Bowling; Ditto what Dello said.

Moutard for me. He actually tries to score in the powerplays. He's constantly improving his FC batting and is young.

Dello wrote:You'd have to say, Prior's had nearly three whole series of opening in ODIs for one fifty.

How long do you flog a plan before you accept it's not happening?

He should drop down the order now.

Agree.
My line-up for Lord's

Cook
Wright
Bellend
KP
Shah
Colly
Prior
Broadly
Sideshow
Monty
Jimmy

Aye, plenty of batting and 3 reasonable backup bowlers who are capable of sneaking the odd wicket.

Basil wrote:Wright as opener is a good call. He could do some scary things in the powerplays. His bowling is ok - at least as good as Bresnan

Beginning to lose faith in Prior - behind the stumps he looks like a village hick.

sage?

Gary 111 wrote:Please drop Prior. Please. Please. Please.

A wicket-keeper as opposed to a gormless bloke stood there with a pair of gloves on would have stopped that thin inside-edge in penultimate over.

Ambrose, Read, Foster, Nixon, Mustard, Pothas, Batty, Davies, I really don't care. At this stage i'd prefer to see Henry Cooper there than that bald pr!ck.

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