England v New Zealand, 5th ODI, Lord's, 28th June

Okay - so let's cut through the crap.

England were sh!te.
Top, Middle and Bottom.
KP's leadership was okay (circumspect batting screwed him up)
... Shah batted well ... Ambrose returns to CC ... and the rest .....
well,W really G's AF now?

NZ deserved the series win - so congratulations.

But, listening to Moores post match "analysis" ... don't hold yer breath for heads rolling
after this crap-shoot.

"Wer'e still learning ..... don't you know!"

FFS. FFS. FFS.
The Jaarpies are probably peeing in their trews now with anticipated glee.

Naz made a few comments post match along the following lines which, IMO, elevated him to God-like status.

"Having played 69 almost contnuous games for England, when is Bell ever going to
produce the goods and go on after making a start.
He must learn to get his head down and make runs, yes, under pressure ... or else ..."

Gower then interrupted him to pass over to Ath's for the presentation ceremony.

So I'll finish Naz' sentence ... "... geld the bugger or else shoot him."

I'm fed up hearing about how talented and young he is.
69 chances ... and he's still in the f**king squad!
Bottom line - he just isn't good enough.
England should have picked up on that single fact back in Ashes '05 when he was abjectly useless.

It's getting harder and harder to defend Bell. Maybe it's time to see what Denly is made of as an ODI opener.

Vettori: "I was very surprised that Owais Shah has only played 40 one-day internationals, and you compare that to an Indian or a Pakistan player who racks up one hundred games in next to no time, it makes it more difficult. We're playing a lot of one-day cricket; I'm not exactly sure how much England are. But they've certainly got the talent there to be a force in world cricket."

He obviously hasn't been following English selection "policy" for the last decade. It's only in the last 12 months that England have - grudgingly - realised that Shah might be a reasonable player after all and given him a go. But even then, I don't think they're convinced by him...

Why drop Bell? Who is going to replace him?

England's performance today and in the whole series can be summed up as complacent attributable to the cosy club mentality of the contract system and the one-man selection procedure that seems to favour Sussex and ex-Sussex players regardless of talent or ability. The substitution of Cook for Collingwood was totally insane and was bound to lead to the result we had today where once the Kiwis survived the initial assault they could mount an offensive against the lesser bowlers.

It is incredible to me that a player like Mark Butcher will probably go through his whole career without a single ODI cap to his name yet Cook, who doesn't possess half the attacking shots in his repertory that Butcher does is regularly selected on the grounds, presumably, that he may captain England one day and needs to get experience in all forms of the game. Meanwhile England continues to get slaughtered.

England do not have another ODI until 18 August at Edinburgh following the 4th Test against South Africa so do not have to make immediate selection decisions. However Cook, Ambrose (certainly) and Wright should be discarded in favour of Mustard and Mascarhenas, whose main fault seems to be not being registered with the right county i.e. Sussex, plus an attacking batsman such as Solanki or Loye (but both opening not batting at 7) or even Napier of Essex in view of his recent innings (against Sussex, natch).

Pietersen had a difficult task taking over the reins from Collingwood but he very much captained by numbers today and showed no tactical flair or imagination. However he illustrates one of the problems of the contract system. In the old pre-contract days most senior international players would have had the experience of captaining their county when the regular captain was injured or putting his feet up if they weren't already appointed county captains themselves.

Pietersen came to this match having had no captaincy experience himself, even at school level. It's like asking a player to put on the gloves before a Test Match or ODI who's never kept wicket before. Having made the decision I expect Pietersen will be persisted with during Collingwood's lay-off. However serious consideration should be given to having a specialist one-day captain such as Adams (despite my predilection against Sussex players!) or, if he's considered too old, Maddy.

I would go further and have separate managers for the one-day and Test sides as the skills required for each game are so disparate (maybe splitting the one-day set-up when T20 cricket becomes more dominant). I would also not allow the manager to select the side. We should go back to the old system of having 4 ex-England players of fairly recent vintage such as Gooch, Stewart and Gatting (not exempting those still playing such as Gough and Trescothick) who should pick the side and the coach should do precisely that and coach the players he's given.

We seem to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the Dunk 'n' Do-nut era and gone down the same route of "looking for positives" and clubby favouritism. International caps, in Tests, ODIs and T20s, should be awarded on the basis of merit and ability in that particular form of the game not on the basis of one man's preferences or the fact that a player already has his name pasted on a hook in the Lord's home dressing room.

Moores earned my respect when he awarded Harmison and Hoggard the Order of the Boot following the Hamilton debacle last winter but I'm afraid that the credit he earned then has since pretty much dissipated. As far as selection for the 1st Test against the Saffies goes I don't think the ODI series has made much difference. Collingwood, despite his captaincy problems which don't apply in the Tests (assuming Vaughan stays fit), andBell have probably done enough to remain the side but there should be at least one change that may prove vital.

Ambrose, like Prior, heralded his arrival on the international scene with an entertaining and ultimately valuable knock with the bat. However as opposing bowlers have grown used to him he has failed to scale those heights since and usually been worked out pretty early on, today being a case in point. More significantly, his wicketkeeping is well below the level expected at international level as today also demonstrated. On these grounds alone he should be replaced by Chris Read in the squad named for Lord's if the England side is not to experience a similar fiasco on the same ground in a fortnight's time as it did today.

PearlJ wrote:Why drop Bell? Who is going to replace him?

Bernie, from Weekend and Bernies, and a series of elaborate winches and pulleys.

Dello wrote:

PearlJ wrote:Why drop Bell? Who is going to replace him?

Bernie, from Weekend and Bernies, and a series of elaborate winches and pulleys.

I thought Moores had already picked him!

Allan D wrote:
Collingwood, despite his captaincy problems which don't apply in the Tests (assuming Vaughan stays fit), and Bell have probably done enough to remain the side...

Bell followed up the Test series where he couldn't buy a run with a one-day series with no meaningful contributions in spite of being given the opportunity to face the maximum amount of balls possible.

Define "done enough".

England have a massive problem with writing off potentially good players too early whilst failing to write off the wrong ones early enough. There's an obsession with technically correct, bio-mechanically perfect freaks who play like robots and act with the emotional uncertainty borne out of trying to replicate human emotions and actions. Unorthodoxy that is not in the shape of genius is destroyed and deformed into orthodoxy. Numerous bowlers in recent years, James Anderson namely, have had their talent reformed for the worse for the sake of orthodoxy. I think that Pietersen has slowly but surely been dismantled by England's attempts to turn him into a proper batsman too. The whole England team, and subsequently the ODI team, is too orthodox and too boxy - it needs to think outside the box without over-complicating the game for complication's sake.

The name of ODIs nowadays is to whack it early and late. If you fail in the first objective, then you rebuild (like Australia yesterday and New Zealand today) and make sure you can whack it late. It's not a massively complicated objective. The situation obviously dictates to you as do the conditions, but you have to take advantage of one of the two windows if you're to win a game. You cannot hope to score the large mass of your runs in the final 30 overs because your opening batsman failed all of the time though. The obvious problem with England's current 'whackers' is that they cannot choose the right ball to whack; they play the Twenty20 game and seem to whack and defend randomly. Mustard and Wright have shown with varying degrees of success that they have the brawn but not the brain for the role. Our late order whackers are equally inept; Ambrose doesn't have a slog in him, nor it seems does Broad. Swann can hit a ball but he's usually in at 100/6, so there's no chance.

England's batting is a mess. Kevin Pietersen is a mess. I think that's probably the same sentence in different forms. No disrespect intended to the guy when I say firstly that he is not a number 3. In ODIs, he's barely a number 4. I think people over-estimate his ability somewhat in assuming he has the power to single-handedly exploit the PowerPlays whilst also scoring big hundreds with regularity to dig the team out of trouble. I don't think it's any coincidence that he and England were best at 5, where he came to the crease aware of the situation and aware of how many he would have to score and at what rate. He usually had license to thrill whilst also having the naturality of the situation to dictate to him. Now, he has to shoulder every single burden - the Test Match hero, the ODI basher and single hundred scorer. Mr Should Be Consistent, Mr Should Wow the Fans, Mr Everything. Now, some might not excuse his failures for that burden, but when you add the captaincy on top of them it's too much.

The rest of the batsman are simply not good enough. The lower order usually has to share out the runs to make up for their repeated failures. A purple patch for Owais Shah seems to have absolved him from blame, but let's not get ahead of ourselves - he averages 26ish. He has batted at 6 for much of the time, admittedly, but he still isn't the great hope of England's ODI cricket. Ravi Bopara's got a reputation as young gun going places on the back of hundreds against pop-gun attacks in Division Two (James Hildreth and Samit Patel did all that and more last year), whilst Alastair Cook has steadily but surely regressed with every single international match he has played. Luke Wright is Sussex. Sussex, Sussex. Super sex at Sussex. Gang bang. ****** knows how else he gets in the team given how impossibly rubbish he has been in just about every ODI he has played in. He can bowl right-arm dobbers. He can field a bit. He can slog (usually in the air to mid-off, mid-on, cover or mid-wicket).

The bowling actually looks okay for once. As ODI bowling goes, this has to be described as a solid, workmanlike effort for England. Now and again they get tonked, but many a time in the past few series they've knocked the opposition over and single-handedly won England matches. There's many a match they should have won for England, who subsequently then failed in their chase. There's a few matches they should have won for England but they themselves failed (tie in NZ), but that's life. Anderson aside, though, they're a decent bunch, bowling only a few extras and keeping it tight. It's unspectacular, dour stuff, but it's better than the Mahmood/Plunkett/Anderson triumvirate that leaked runs, extras and buffet balls with regularity. The fifth bowler conundrum is admittedly tying us down, but for me there's no stand-out individual who can provide 10 overs whilst also offering something in the way of batting depth. Given our frail batting, it is unfortunately the case that the fifth bowler MUST bat.

Anyway - the coach is crap, the wicket-keeper's crap, the theories are all wrong, and we'd be a lot better off, as Allan D said, in selecting a specialist ODI coach who actually has proven theories that work in the international arena. We'd be better all-round if we had a coach with theories that work, instead of him being a "life coach" who tells people what they want to hear in the hope of instilling confidence. On the ODI side of things (and Twenty20), considering the likely increase in fixtures in the next few years, we could do a lot worse than John Bracewell. I know he's an awful Test coach, and doesn't really fancy international cricket next year (Gloucestershire-bound), but he'd be a good one. We'll be needing a new Test coach soon as well, 'cause this muppet's a master of ineptitude and muppetry. He has an indefatigable muppetry about him in fact that is simply incurable. I wouldn't be surprised if our remaining score in the summer fixtures was zero to South Africa's however many the weather allows.

Excellent post, by the way, Allan D. Really enjoyed it. It inspired me to make a long post that just sort of turned into a miscalculated conglomeration of rants and moans mixed in with some rubbish opinions that have no basis in fact. It didn't ebb and flow, but I felt this forum needed a few more long posts, so I stuck at it and emptied my mind of its thoughts. That's better.

I don't have a problem with Luke Wright. I think he's a rough diamond. They gave him a whirl opening - which was fair enough. Probably didn't work (but he scored more fifties than his opening partner), but if you don't buy a ticket, you'll never win the lottery. Worth a try.

Fielded well and showed plenty of promise with ball - not least a terrific over at the death which should've won England the Oval match.

He's a better investment than, say, Mascarenhas. They just need to work out where to bat him and let him grow into the role.

I think there's room for a player like Wright in a limited-overs side.

Dello wrote:

Allan D wrote:
Collingwood, despite his captaincy problems which don't apply in the Tests (assuming Vaughan stays fit), and Bell have probably done enough to remain the side...

Bell followed up the Test series where he couldn't buy a run with a one-day series with no meaningful contributions in spite of being given the opportunity to face the maximum amount of balls possible.

Define "done enough".

Didn't get out first ball in all 5 ODIs.

On second thoughts we might as well stick with what we've got ...

http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/averages/competition-avg.html?PcompetitionAverage=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.CompetitionAverage-L-40

http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/averages/competition-avg.html?PcompetitionAverage=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.CompetitionAverage-L-35

http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/averages/competition-avg.html?PcompetitionAverage=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.CompetitionAverage-L-38

Only kidding.

Allan D wrote: International caps, in Tests, ODIs and T20s, should be awarded on the basis of merit and ability in that particular form of the game not on the basis of one man's preferences or the fact that a player already has his name pasted on a hook in the Lord's home dressing room.

Exactly, and after so many poor ODI performances I'd clear the decks and pick a squad consisting of Shah, Key, Mustard, Pietersen, Solanki, Sales, McGrath, Denly, Wright (7 at best), Bresnan, Mascheranas, Swann, Broad, Tremlett, Anderson, plus of course Flintoff and Jones if fit and give them two, or maybe three one day series max to turn our fortunes around. They might fail, but for me defeat would be easier to take knowing the selectors had given those players a chance to shine.

What we're missing on the bowling front is the bowler we can throw the ball to when we need wickets. As well as better death bowlers - which was ordinary today.

Fred fits the bill obviously.

Geoffrey Trueman wrote:I'd clear the decks and pick a squad consisting of Shah, Key, Mustard, Pietersen, Solanki, Sales, McGrath, Denly, Wright (7 at best), Bresnan, Mascheranas, Swann, Broad, Tremlett, Anderson, plus of course Flintoff and Jones if fit and give them two, or maybe three one day series max to turn our fortunes around. They might fail, but for me defeat would be easier to take knowing the selectors had given those players a chance to shine.

I've no argument with "clearing the decks" and picking a fresh set of players although 8 of the players you name above are already in the present squad. My problem is with treating the England side as the 19th county and giving the players seasonal contracts and all the cosy clubbiness that goes with it. There should be open competition for places, it works to raise performance and quality in business so there is no reason why it shouldn't do the same when it comes to the England Cricket XI (at either Test or ODI level).

I would support a senior figure from the Lord's hierarchy addressing the current ODI squad and telling them in no uncertain terms that their performances so far have been substandard and that they have been defrauding the public who have been paying substantial sums either at the gate or in TV subscriptions. The time to improve is not in the next series or in the one after that or the one after that but now and if they don't improve they will be out on their ear after the next game.

Dr Johnson famously once wrote that "when a man knows he is to be hanged on the morrow, it concentrates the mind wonderfully." The dropping of Harmison and Hoggard after Hamilton not only brought new blood into the side but also utilised the principle recognised by Voltaire after the execution of Admiral Byng "pour encourager les autres". I'm sure the 9 players who were left in the side after Hamilton thought that "if Mooresy can drop Harmy and Hoggy I might be the next for the chop" and raised their level of performance accordingly.

Unfortunately the efficacy of the medicine seems to be wearing off, or has never been sufficiently applied to the ODI side, so some strong doses are needed forthwith. I think the test case (literally) may be to see if Ambrose is included in the squad for Lord's against the Saffies on the 10th.

IMO the bowling, on the whole is okay ... maybe a couple of tweaks here and there - example - 265 was a regular score on todays wicket at Lord's.

Where England fail abjectly is in their batting - whether chasing or setting a score.
Slow chugging starts begin piling up the pressure. Then, as individual innings look like
they're being built on, rash strokes hand the wickets over - sometimes two within the space of a few overs, thus putting added pressure on the middle order - who aren't firing anyway ('cept Shah) ... then the tail are expected to finish the game off at 10 r.p.o.

I like the look of GT's team. All there on merit ... proven track records rather than central contracts dictating that the lumbering ballast of Cook, Bell and Collingwood get picked ahead of ohers more worthy.


Ah, bollocks - I give up.
And resigned myself to a crap series against the Jaarpies -
Why?
Coz we haven't a f**kin' clue.

Well done to the Snoozers in securing victory in both this match and the series. I have to admit that I thought the English would contain the Sheep to way less than 266, but Styris shepherded his team brilliantly to the competitive total. Young Southee was again impressive with the ball, as was Gillispie and Vettori, who bowled his usual choking 30 run 10 over spell.

So KP ain't the messiah just yet.

give the shermanator a go!

horace wrote:give the shermanator a go!

Hehehe. I've heard he plays it very hard. Some would even erroneously suggest "Australian style".

Merlin wrote:Okay - so let's cut through the crap.

England were sh!te.
Top, Middle and Bottom.
KP's leadership was okay (circumspect batting screwed him up)
... Shah batted well ... Ambrose returns to CC ... and the rest .....
well,W really G's AF now?

NZ deserved the series win - so congratulations.

But, listening to Moores post match "analysis" ... don't hold yer breath for heads rolling
after this crap-shoot.

"Wer'e still learning ..... don't you know!"

FFS. FFS. FFS.
The Jaarpies are probably peeing in their trews now with anticipated glee.

fixed

Allan D wrote:I've no argument with "clearing the decks" and picking a fresh set of players although 8 of the players you name above are already in the present squad.

Yes, I know, but most of them are bowlers, of the batsmen only Shah and Pietersen remain and Pietersen, as good as he is on his day can count himself lucky to still be in the squad. Besides, if I'd got rid of those eight as well nobody would have taken me seriously... not that they would anyway.

On reflection maybe things aren't as bad as we think, give it a couple of months and our 6, 7, 8, 9, ten jack could look something like this...

Flintoff
Bresnan/Wright
Swann
Broad
Sidebottom
Jones

I can't say I'm happy with Fred at 6 but 7, 8, 9 and 10 should make up for any shortcomings on Freds part. With Mustard blazing a trail at the top of the order that would mean any four from Shah, Key, McGrath, Solanki, Denly, Pietersen and Sales.

I don't know about you but I reckon we could knock the living daylights out of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe with that side.

lardbucket wrote:

Merlin wrote:Okay - so let's cut through the crap.

England were sh!te.
Top, Middle and Bottom.
KP's leadership was okay (circumspect batting screwed him up)
... Shah batted well ... Ambrose returns to CC ... and the rest .....
well,W really G's AF now?

NZ deserved the series win - so congratulations.

But, listening to Moores post match "analysis" ... don't hold yer breath for heads rolling
after this crap-shoot.

"Wer'e still learning ..... don't you know!"

FFS. FFS. FFS.
The Jaarpies are probably peeing in their trews now with anticipated glee.

fixed

I'll farkin spew if you and Zoggy give that term a run in the Glossary!!

Meh.

Watching the highlights...Ambrose, taypoc.

He's from the McCague, White, and GO Jones range of Australian exports.