England v Sri Lanka, 1xT20 + 5xODI, 21 May - 3 June, 2014

Hales has, so far, faced 1/3 of the deliveries bowled in England's innings after 9.5 overs.

beamer wrote:
TOP POSTING USERS THIS MONTH [MAY 2014]
Rank Username Posts Percent Graph
1 horace 197 20% AUS
2 JGK 128 13% AUS
3 taipan 118 12% SA
4 lardbucket 113 11% AUS
5 skully 106 10% AUS
6 Brass Monkey 85 8% ENG
7 tricycle 84 8% IND
8 Big Dog 81 8% AUS
9 beamer 55 5% ENG
10 Merlin 43 4% ENG

Well over 60% Australian now, this place...

All we need is Zimmy and Zat

Extras the 2nd highest scorer at this stage.

Lessons learned from the T20 World Cup = Zero

Lessons learned about limited overs cricket since the 1992 World Cup = Zero

Morgan, Buttler and Bopara all batted one place too low.

I just don't get the thinking behind bringing Bell back to T20... a 31-year-old red ball specialist who hasn't even played the game at county or overseas franchise level for 3 years.

They'll bring Cook in to re-unify the captaincy next.

Actually, Nasser claims he's 33. Split the difference and you might be right...

He also didn't realise it was only T20s that Mahela and Sanga had retired from, getting ahead of himself on all counts!

Belf seems well out of place in the England T20 side.

Congrats to the Lankans.

beamer wrote:Everyone's given up on England I think, it's only you and the Aussies keeping this place going...

Doesn't help that we've had this seemingly endless spell of limited overs cricket... this is England's 20th straight white ball international since our last Test, just five more to go before we can start rebuilding where it matters!

Basil wrote:Lessons learned from the T20 World Cup = Zero

beamer wrote:Lessons learned about limited overs cricket since the 1992 World Cup = Zero

Oh I don't know. ~ Reasons to be cheerf Reasons not to be too bleedin' miserable (yet): 1, 2, 3:

1. Meh, meh, thrice meh. It's T20.

2. SL are the world champs in this format. Malinga is still a ninja assassin in this sort of stuff, for starters.

3. After all the bloodletting, you can expect some shuffling around and settling in (and Gurney can't be worse than Jade), T20 is the best place to get that over with.

This is not claiming there was much inspiring about the New Model Army's performance. But it's Early Moores yet. Let's wait until a 0-5 marmalisation in the less amorphous shorter form, before we hit the nihilism button?

4 (bonus): It's not the end of the world.

And beamer - re: quote at top - I can't speak for Lever, BBB, ever hopeful or whoever, but "giving up on England" has nowt to do with my posting less.

At least Swann seems to understand the mood among England supporters.

"Alastair Cook will be desperate for a couple of new heroes to emerge and really stamp their names on proceedings for the summer and become the new faces of English cricket," Swann told BBC Radio 5 live.
"The team did become a bit distant and disconnect from the fans so it is important to reengage that relationship.
"If no one turns up to watch no one is going to get paid. We need to play in front of full houses, we need to play exciting cricket, but most importantly we just need to win. Three or four wins at the start of this summer and all will be forgotten."

Was going pretty well until the last sentence... a few scrappy wins won't turn around public opinion, especially if it's just JAMODIs, and even winning a couple of Tests in the turgid style of a year or so ago won't cut it. The ECB have made it even harder for the players to win over the public and media with the PR disaster that was the KP axing, even if not stumbling blindly into appointing Giles gave them a very small bit of credit back.

Well, well, well. Welly, welly, welly. Wellity, wellity, wellity... Ian Bell eh? Whoda thunk'd he'd have wasted 'nuff' balls, including crucial PP balls? Not I.

I was such a visionary that I could see him being 'a presence up the order'. WHAT a presence he was up the order. SL felt his presence for 17 balls. To their credit, though, they really held their nerve. Brave f*ckers, these Sri Lankans. They treated him like a bloke who'd always been shit at the format and hadn't played a T20 for three years.

I'm sure it'll come back to bite them, though. When he presences the f*ck out of them.

The regime has started well - just as cunning and thoughtful as the last one......

Brass Monkey wrote:Well, well, well. Welly, welly, welly. Wellity, wellity, wellity... Ian Bell eh? Whoda thunk'd he'd have wasted 'nuff' balls, including crucial PP balls? Not I.

I was such a visionary that I could see him being 'a presence up the order'. WHAT a presence he was up the order. SL felt his presence for 17 balls. To their credit, though, they really held their nerve. Brave f*ckers, these Sri Lankans. They treated him like a bloke who'd always been shit at the format and hadn't played a T20 for three years.

I'm sure it'll come back to bite them, though. When he presences the f*ck out of them.

The regime has started well - just as cunning and thoughtful as the last one......

Aye. It's okay going meh, it's only a T20, but one can already see the favouritism and the lack of thought processes that destroyed the last regime. Time for another urn?

Yeah, that's the thing. WGAF about the result. As you say, already the regard someone is held in as a human being is outweighing his value to the side. If you're going to pick someone at three, they have to throw the bat. I'm sure Luke Wright, for instance, could block a 13 off 17 balls. That's not what T20's about though. Striking at 76 is horse shit in ODIs, let alone T20s. It's so strange that we could all telegraph what would happen, but the people in charge can't. Amazing, in fact.

That's Tim Bresnan for ODIs and Tests then. F*cking lovely bloke.

Deckchairs. Titanic.

beamer wrote:
They'll bring Cook in to re-unify the captaincy next.

Ah yes, the New Dawn beginneth . . .

Brass Monkey wrote:I'm sure Luke Wright, for instance, could block a 13 off 17 balls.

You give him too much credit. He could blindly swing, miss, hack, mistime and uglify his way to 13 off 17 balls. There'll be no blocks or leaves. They require some semblance of technique and batsmanship.

We can't have Bell at three and Root at four in a T20 game FFS! One of them has to go.

And I thought that those ridiculous shirts were an aberration for the T20 World Cup

Basil wrote:We can't have Bell at three and Root at four in a T20 game FFS! One of them has to go.

Root.
A terribly over-hyped player.

Dello wrote:

You give him too much credit. He could blindly swing, miss, hack, mistime and uglify his way to 13 off 17 balls. There'll be no blocks or leaves. They require some semblance of technique and batsmanship.

Point being that, at the very least, he won't be wasting powerplay balls. He won't die wondering. Whereas Bell will die wondering if he's executed the leave outside off to perfection.

He has, though. He's got it down to a tee.

Puke's omission went under the radar a bit. Perhaps another scapegoat for Bangladesh. He's someone who can "come off" once in a while as a batsman but hasn't really matured as a cricketer, remains strictly bits and pieces and it's probably right to move on from him even in this format. Although I'd still rather have him than Bell and Root in the T20 side.

An injured David Willey would've been a better option than a 32 year old who is modest at the format and hasn't even played a domestic game in three years. That selection was utter lunacy.

Oh right. There's a game on

Ronald did pretty well. Wasted PP balls. But there we go. Not as many as his partner. Awfully pedestrian pair, they are. They take any scant pleasure there was left from watch ODI batting.

Apart from the post ashes hangover series losses, when was the last time England was hopeless in ODIs at home? Edit- Maybe it was against Sri Lanka when Tharanga was in form.

Can't understand the lack of Hales in this side.