England v Australia, 1st Test, Cardiff, 8-12 July, 2015

Whichever Mitch ever.

The one who swung with the tache at one stage.

skully wrote:Nah, Hazy will be the unfortunate one.

nope, Harris isn't fit.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/content/story/892931.html

Rashid in the squad, as is Finn (no idea what he's done to justify moving ahead of the other seamers in the training squad...)

Chances are those two will be the ones left on the bench, anyway, with the others being the XI who faced New Zealand.

Tho Bayliss is claiming they'd like the flexibility of using 2 spinners if conditions suit. SO - unless a ploy - Rashid can't be judged out of the reckoning.

Cook (c), Ali, Anderson, Ballance, Bell, Broad, Buttler, Finn, Lyth, Rashid, Root, Stokes, Wood.

Finn instead of Plunkett (training squad). I hope they've spotted something we haven't.

No idea why they've gone with Finn ahead of the left arm option of Footitt.

I reckon the question of whether Rashid plays will be a bit of a Bayliss v Cook showdown. Should be interesting.

In retrospect, Footitt may have been just used for practice for the bats (Johnson, Starc, conceivably Faulkner). He's not their speed though, is he? (The first two.)

So they don't look too much of a titt with their footwork.

Finn's shown nothing like the pace he needs to be a Test bowler again, even if he can do a job in the shorter stuff.

Maybe he's good at prepping glasses and clinking bails?

Well, proper squad members don't do 12th man duties in home Tests anyway. Certainly not fast bowlers... they'll have a couple of local Pratts to hand.

PeterCS wrote:Tho Bayliss is claiming they'd like the flexibility of using 2 spinners if conditions suit. SO - unless a ploy - Rashid can't be judged out of the reckoning.

Cook (c), Ali, Anderson, Ballance, Bell, Broad, Buttler, Finn, Lyth, Rashid, Root, Stokes, Wood.

Finn instead of Plunkett (training squad). I hope they've spotted something we haven't.

Why oh why opt for bloody Ballance?!
A walking wicket ... totally exposed as Boult's bunny, and so they pitch him in against
the yards quicker Johnson ..... F.F.S.

And please don't give me that sh*t about "look what he's done in the past" ... yeah, sure
against the Lankans and the WIndies on flatbeds ... walking back and across his stumps
against Johnson must be making that bowler salivate at the thought!

Once again, other than Lyth at the top, it's crab, crawl, crab, crab, crawl till we get down to Root.
And thereafter it's crash, bang, wallop biff ...till Broad appears ... then it's duck, duck quick,
and duck again FFS !
Let's hope Bayliss gets the balance right PDQ ... overrule Cook and play Rashid ...
and send Finnie back to Middlesex.........please!

PeterCS wrote:In retrospect, Footitt may have been just used for practice for the bats (Johnson, Starc, conceivably Faulkner). He's not their speed though, is he? (The first two.)

So they don't look too much of a titt with their footwork.

He's got some nip - they're not thinking that he's just net practice, they're talking of him as a starting player. Just unlucky that they think that Finn still has something to offer....

Footitt is around 85-88 mph. Quick enough. And provides left arm variety. He's also torn up county cricket these last two years.

Finn bowls 82 mph half-trackers and has had modest county returns since last being considered "unselectable " , So yeah, it should have been obvious which one England's genius selection panel was going to pick....

I've seen Footitt get it up to 90 at times. The best thing about him is that he swings it. Not that it will count at the minute: it's f*cking hot, there's no moisture at all and no wind. Can't wait to see the Lord's Test, if it stays like this, none of this dogshit about it being a 'great cricket wicket' if there's no overhead conditions to help out. It will be as uninspiringly dead as usual.

Merlin wrote:

PeterCS wrote:Tho Bayliss is claiming they'd like the flexibility of using 2 spinners if conditions suit. SO - unless a ploy - Rashid can't be judged out of the reckoning.

Cook (c), Ali, Anderson, Ballance, Bell, Broad, Buttler, Finn, Lyth, Rashid, Root, Stokes, Wood.

Finn instead of Plunkett (training squad). I hope they've spotted something we haven't.

Why oh why opt for bloody Ballance?!
A walking wicket ... totally exposed as Boult's bunny, and so they pitch him in against
the yards quicker Johnson ..... F.F.S.

And please don't give me that sh*t about "look what he's done in the past" ... yeah, sure
against the Lankans and the WIndies on flatbeds ... walking back and across his stumps
against Johnson must be making that bowler salivate at the thought!

Because we don't do "knee-jerk" any more, thankfully... I know you'd prefer someone who averages 30 over a similar number of Tests to someone who averages 52. No county bias there, of course... After all, stats are bullshit, that was the Moores way...

@Monkks:

Might suit a leggie? (If he can land it.)

beamer wrote:
Because we don't do "knee-jerk" any more, thankfully... I know you'd prefer someone who averages 30 over a similar number of Tests to someone who averages 52. No county bias there, of course... After all, stats are bullshit, that was the Moores way...

Yeah, I mean I do think, and have thought, for most of his career that Ballance looks poor against left arm over / right arm around, he seems to not be able to play lively bowling well, or any semblance thereof. Although it hasn't happened thus far, I've always maintained that he seems like an LBW candidate.

But at the end of the day, he's earned the right to be given a chance to prove the likes of me wrong. He's got a buff average and has had one of the better starts to an England batting career.

One thing that we can ALL agree on, though, is that he's a liability in the field.

PeterCS wrote:@Monkks:

Might suit a leggie? (If he can land it.)

I don't think that even leggies like featherbed, corporate pitches that are helping to destroy the integrity of Test cricket....

Brass Monkey wrote:

beamer wrote:
Because we don't do "knee-jerk" any more, thankfully... I know you'd prefer someone who averages 30 over a similar number of Tests to someone who averages 52. No county bias there, of course... After all, stats are bullshit, that was the Moores way...

Yeah, I mean I do think, and have thought, for most of his career that Ballance looks poor against left arm over / right arm around, he seems to not be able to play lively bowling well, or any semblance thereof. Although it hasn't happened thus far, I've always maintained that he seems like an LBW candidate.

But at the end of the day, he's earned the right to be given a chance to prove the likes of me wrong. He's got a buff average and has had one of the better starts to an England batting career.

That's exactly my point. He's certainly not favourite to top the averages this summer, the Aussies may well target him as a weak link... but we have to judge him on career to date rather than just a very poor NZ series and the fact he has a bit of an "ugly" technique. If they just dropped him now then people would look at the record books and see this batsman averaging over 50 in a not insignificant number of Tests and think "what happened to him, did he punch the chief selector or run off with his wife or something?"

Two or three games into the series, that's time to reassess... but it's almost as likely that it won't be Ballance or Bell but another couple of players who are having their futures questioned at that point. And anyway, Shit Mitch is going to turn up this year, Cook will grind out another 700 runs with the others all cashing in around him...

Apparently Johnson was fearsome at Qent...

beamer wrote:
Because we don't do "knee-jerk" any more, thankfully... I know you'd prefer someone who averages 30 over a similar number of Tests to someone who averages 52. No county bias there, of course... After all, stats are bullshit, that was the Moores way...

Did you see me mention Morgan on this thread?
Where ...  

Morgan has choked in both M'dsex appearances since the ODI fantasies - and I'm the first one now to
acknowledge he be kept under the radar and specifically for the Aussie ODI's.

Re Ballance - how many more revolutions does your door have to make before realisation dawns?
He can't bat at top International level FFS ...oh, he was grand against Sri Lanka, India and the WIndies...
(even averaged 52,  so you desperately keep pointing out!) ...

Let's not do a Moores and checkout recent averages shall we ...

Ballance's scores in all his seven 1st class matches since 21st May 2015 ...
1, 0, 29, 6, 1, 29, 14 -   7 matches Avge: 11.43

Checkout Bairstow in the same period:
50, 66, 125*, 0, 15, 219* -  6 matches - Avge: 118.75.

But hey, stats don't matter, do they?!

 Two or three games into the series, that's time to reassess ...

You don't say!
Aye,  3 - nil down - time to eject Ballance!
Sound thinking that!

Bell still hiding at 5 is he?

I really hope Ballance has a great series now, just to shut a certain person up.

If Boof hasn't honed in an Ballance's obvious weakness to the full swinging ball, then I'd be gobsmacked. I expect to see Koo, Midge and Rhino absolutely wearing a hole in the pitch full on off stump.

beamer wrote:I really hope Ballance has a great series now, just to shut a certain person up.

both of those wishes are forever doomed; commiserations beamer