England. 2008. Stats.

End of year report time. Two easy series against the NZ club cricket XI (featuring special guest star Daniel Vettori), and two toughies against SA and India.

**God, it's a massive hassle getting these stats lined up for presentation, so I'll just link them until I can be bothered with it all**

BATTING TEST

Pietersen (50.75) and Strauss (48.60) the only England batsmen of the "they all average over 40" brilliant batsmen to average over 40.

BOWLING TEST

Sidebottom leads the way in wickets (47) and averages (20.25) and silly hair. By miles.

Stuart Broad, incidentally, has seen his career average rise to 45 after ten Tests (25 wickets). I can't think of any fast bowlers of recent times to have been given such backing. Sajid Mahmood stalled on eight Tests after 20 wickets @ 38. Liam Plunkett got nine Tests (23 wickets @ 39). And neither of them got to play half of their games against the minnows of NZ. Mahmood's games were against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia.

Broad's promise seems to be buying him a hell of a lot of leeway...

And onto the ODIs:

BATTING ODI

Pietersen and Shah with the most runs. Shah with the most fifties, Pietersen with the only hundreds. The rest are much of a muchness, with only Flintoff (50.16 from half the amount of games of everyone else) and Mascarenhas (52, but based on just two completed innings, HS 29*) seeming to be anything above mediocre.

BOWLING ODI

Flintoff the outstanding performer, alongside Stuart Broad.

James Anderson: 20 games, 10 wickets @ 74.70, econ: 5.65

Wow. Just wow. One maiden in 132 overs of international cricket spanning an entire year. I think the Cycle must be jammed open on "TAYPOC".

So, in closing: Pietersen, Strauss and Sidebottom are worth their places in the Test team, while Pietersen, Shah, Flinoff and Broad are our only ODI players.

Good year?

Didn't learn owt from that. Except that KP is a fantastic batsman. But we already knew that. Fantastic-er. A century every four innings. Virtually every two matches. Wow.

Anyway, my team was always something like this:

Strauss
(Cook)
(Shah)
Pietersen
-
Flintoff
-
(Broad)
Sidebottom
-
-

With the probablies in parentheses and the 'who knows' indicated by -es.

Whereas the selectors seem to think thusly:

Strauss
Cook
Bell - Can we get Vaughan in here?
Pietersen - Or here?
[s]Shah[/s] - Just kidding, Peter, before you flip - COLLINGWOOD really.
Flintoff
Peter's catamite - PRIOR.
Baby-faced Broady.
SUPER JIMMY ANDERSON
Any randomer from county cricket will do.
Ashley Giles wearing a turban - Monty remains in the cellar.

Horrible year for England....

Just as bad as the year before, which started with the tail-end of the 5-0 Ashes defeat, the World Cup debacle, a win against the WI minnows, defeat at home to India and defeat in Sri Lanka.

Stay "positive" chaps...

I think Flintoff (bat ave 28, 16 wickets @ 33 from his five matches) can be considered to have earned his place in the Test side as an allrounder.

Also, you should give a spinner's dispensation: Panesar is probably doing what you'd hope an English spinner could do. Except that he can't bat at all.

I think Prior's return could be considered not crushingly disappointing but I'm sure it is early days yet and he can be relied upon to be fail soon.

BTW look at Cook's stats: someone who's reached 50 eight times in the annum can normally be considered to have had an okay year, but he was dismissed eight times between 50 and 76! Habibul's curse.

OK, Cook should have kicked on in at LEAST 2 of those innings. But we are carrying a few other players a lot more than we are carrying Cook.

Of course it is a team game, and you'd have to say that the disappointing result of the year was the series against RSA.

"OK, Cook should have kicked on in at LEAST 2 of those innings. But we are carrying a few other players a lot more than we are carrying Cook."

Sure, sure, I am not particularly knocking Cook, I think he is a good opener. Just had a bit of bad luck going on with his starts this year.

It is, as they say, a funny old game.

OP Tipping wrote:Panesar is probably doing what you'd hope an English spinner could do.

Bowl filth and score the odd "crucial" 27* at #8?

Batting 2008
12 Tests 1015 runs 50.75 5 100s 1 50 - Pietersen
12 Tests 972 runs 48.60 4 100s 3 50s - Strauss
2 Tests 88 runs 44.00 0 100s 1 50 - Prior
11 Tests 636 runs 39.75 2 100s 4 50s - Collingwood
12 Tests 676 runs 37.55 2 100s 2 50s - Bell
9 Tests 371 runs 37.10 0 100s 3 50s - Broad
12 Tests 758 runs 36.09 0 100s 8 50s - Cook
5 Tests 197 runs 28.14 0 100s 1 50 - Flintoff
10 Tests 371 runs 24.73 1 100 2 50s - Ambrose
9 Tests 363 runs 24.20 1 100 1 50 - Vaughan
11 Tests 131 runs 21.83 0 100s 0 50s - Anderson
3 Tests 57 runs 14.25 0 100s 0 50s - Harmison
8 Tests 95 runs 11.87 0 100s 0 50s - Sidebottom
1 Test 21 runs 10.50 0 100s 0 50s - Pattinson
2 Tests 11 runs 3.66 0 100s 0 50s - Swann
1 Test 6 runs 3.00 0 100s 0 50s - Hoggard
12 Tests 48 runs 3.42 0 100s 0 50s - Panesar

Bowling
355.0 overs 47 wickets 20.25 econ 2.68 s/r 45.3 - Sidebottom
408.5 overs 46 wickets 29.84 econ 3.35 s/r 53.3 - Anderson
461.4 overs 39 wickets 33.12 econ 2.79 s/r 71.0 - Panesar
207.0 overs 16 wickets 33.37 econ 2.57 s/r 77.6 - Flintoff
100.3 overs 8 wickets 39.50 econ 3.14 s/r 75.3 - Swann
68.5 overs 5 wickets 41.80 econ 3.03 s/r 82.60 - Collingwood
325.2 overs 25 wickets 43.24 econ3.32 s/r 78.0 - Broad
30.1 overs 2 wickets 48.00 econ 3.18 s/r 90.5 - Pattinson
27.3 overs 2 wickets 50.50 econ 3.67 s/r 82.50 - Pietersen
91.0 overs 6 wickets 57.33 econ 3.78 s/r 91.0 - Harmison
38.0 overs 1 wicket 151.00 econ 3.97 s/r 228.0 - Hoggard

Flintoff's also set up at least half the wickets everyone else has got, so he definitely deserves a spot as a bowler. For someone very accurate, very quick, with great control of movement and good plans, I genuinely don't understand why he's only ever got two five-fers.

As for Cook, can he not go and do some more work with Gooch? There's a world class opener in there somewhere, I'm sure. We're missing Tres more with each passing series, though. The first (only) agressive batsman we've got is at four and that's no way to organise a batting line-up. Someone has to put the bowlers on the back foot early, but Strauss seems to be back to approaching his old form so we can't drop him. The partnership with Cook has never been satisfactory, but since I'm starting to ramble, anyone got any ideas?

Dropping Cook is the last thing that should be done. Genuine class.

Cook originally came into the side at #3, but we had two shot-playing openers then, in Tres and Strauss Mk1. He was made into an opener when Tres went home with depression. At this point, his run production sharply dropped. I'd say he is a #3 not an opener. It would help if we had Vorn back at the top of the order, with Cook at #3, but then where would Shah go?

He's a better batsman than Colly, but he'll lose out in te fight for a place in the squad for the Windies I fear.

Rob I wrote:Cook originally came into the side at #3, but we had two shot-playing openers then, in Tres and Strauss Mk1. He was made into an opener when Tres went home with depression. At this point, his run production sharply dropped. I'd say he is a #3 not an opener. It would help if we had Vorn back at the top of the order, with Cook at #3, but then where would Shah go?

That's just wing and a prayer stuff, Rob. Vaughan opened pretty recently, I believe, when Strauss was dropped, and he was hopeless. He then decided he wasn't an opener and that number three was his "real" position. And he was hopeless there too. If England want a new opener, Bobby Key's scored thousands of runs over the years, Stephen Moore's had a beast of a season and Joe Denly is an interesting prospect.

The idea that Vaughan should be recalled, and as an opener to boot, is a load of nonsense.

I fully expect to see to see him recalled, however. At Shah's expense. And no-one will ask the selectors how they can possibly justify such a decision, given that they went on record as saying Vaughan would have to earn his place back and he hasn't even played a game in months let alone made some runs, or how they can claim to be addressing England's batting weaknesses by dropping the only batsman in the squad who didn't play - everyone will just get all misty eyed and nostalgic about "the best batsman in the world in 2002" and England's steady decline will continue apace.