Drop Prior Now

You know it makes sense.

we can give you Haddin as prior's replacement

DROP PRIOR NOW

Oh perleeeze Baz , keeping wicket like a castrated one legged wanker in Test/ODI cricket doesn't count ...

He's one of England's finest batsmen FTB slogger's, don't you know!

I suppose it makes sense to return the favour.

I don't know why England don't just employ a basket in a strategic position behind the stumps to 'catch' the ball. I'm sure it would concede less byes than Prior. Or maybe a basket with an arm that first slip controls. Or is that Prior?

Oh, the confusion. What is Matthew Prior do you think? An Aussie-bot sent to destroy English cricket? An alien trying but failing to learn the finer arts of God's greatest game? Or a testicle, tragically torn from a now forlorn ball sack, that has steadily made its way in the world?

Answers on a postcard. I agree with the thread title though, I would literally take anyone in county cricket over Matt Prior. Except Geraint Jones who is both Welsh and crap. Which is the only combination worse than being ugly and crap like Prior.

Basil wrote:You know it makes sense.

Of course, and that's exactly why it won't happen.

Drop fartz now.

You know you want to.


"Where'er ye be
Let yer wind blaw freeee"
as Rabbie put it.

You're all too nasty on him. It can't have been easy for him to concentrate living with the fact his wifes arse got fondled by swindler live on TV.

Augustus wrote:I don't know why England don't just employ a basket in a strategic position behind the stumps to 'catch' the ball. I'm sure it would concede less byes than Prior. Or maybe a basket with an arm that first slip controls. Or is that Prior?

Oh, the confusion. What is Matthew Prior do you think? An Aussie-bot sent to destroy English cricket? An alien trying but failing to learn the finer arts of God's greatest game? Or a testicle, tragically torn from a now forlorn ball sack, that has steadily made its way in the world?

Answers on a postcard. I agree with the thread title though, I would literally take anyone in county cricket over Matt Prior. Except Geraint Jones who is both Welsh and crap. Which is the only combination worse than being ugly and crap like Prior.

Nice post. and not as contorted as Gus sometimes makes em. Pleasant syntax etc.

On the basket - can we have the guillotine too?

JKLever wrote:You're all too nasty on him. It can't have been easy for him to concentrate living with the fact his wifes arse got fondled by swindler live on TV.

Especially as she must have been well on. And thus particularly plumptious. Hence highly tickled (by a huckster).

[Ken Dodd allusions, for young folks]

Geraint Jones' "wicket-keeping" almost cost England the 2005 Ashes.

Only an incompetent selection panel could make the same type of mistake again.

I totally dislike the guy as a person and a player. However, you've gotta look at our Wicky stocks before making such extravagant statements. Yes, he does drop the odd catch and let through the odd bye (10+ per game), but who else are we gonna pick that can slog on featherbeds against tired minnows?


The biggest Minnows are coming to town in July, he'll be hoping for a motorway.

Give Davies the gloves for the last three ODI's.
He deserves a chance ... he's a far better keeper, and can bat in the shortened game as well, if not better, than Priority.

I suspect Strauss will look at that costly drop which cost England the match and do a Dinga on Prior .... "strike three and you're out till further notice".

An inside edge standing up to a medium pacer isn't the easiest catch you know.

Of course you can pick anyone else and it will be the just doesn't score any runs option instead of the bit ropey behind the stumps option. Neither option is good so excuse my eternal ambivalence.

Eric Air Emu wrote:An inside edge standing up to a medium pacer isn't the easiest catch you know.

Of course you can pick anyone else and it will be the just doesn't score any runs option instead of the bit ropey behind the stumps option. Neither option is good so excuse my eternal ambivalence.

If the ball had deviated to a significant degree after hitting the bat, I would agree - but it was the slightest of edges, so no excuses.

Eric Air Emu wrote:Of course you can pick anyone else and it will be the just doesn't score any runs option instead of the bit ropey behind the stumps option. Neither option is good so excuse my eternal ambivalence.

Yeah, the revolving door approach hasn't worked which is one reason why I've supported them giving him a bit of time to work on his keeping. Patience has to be wearing a little thin now I admit, but as I've said before you can't afford to pick specialist fielders when your batting and bowling resources are as weak as ours. Otherwise we'd be dropping Cook from the Test side and selecting the best short leg in the country instead, and just hoping he can make 20 runs at the top of the order...

I'd like to see Davies make the job his own in the longer term, if he can be a decent keeper at international level and average 30+ with the bat then that will probably be good enough. But I think it would be a bit soon to throw him in now for the Ashes etc, some have said we ruined Read and Foster by picking them too early and can we afford to make the same mistake again? Give him a summer to see if he can make runs in the top division, maybe a few ODIs etc. and take it from there.

Basil wrote:

Eric Air Emu wrote:An inside edge standing up to a medium pacer isn't the easiest catch you know.

Of course you can pick anyone else and it will be the just doesn't score any runs option instead of the bit ropey behind the stumps option. Neither option is good so excuse my eternal ambivalence.

If the ball had deviated to a significant degree after hitting the bat, I would agree - but it was the slightest of edges, so no excuses.

I think most people on this forum would struggle to stop the ball if they were standing back to Mascarenhas, let alone taking catches standing up. The catch looked easy as anything in super slo-mo on Sky- it's the tiniest split second affair in real-life. Granted Prior was in the wrong position but it's not the absolute clanger that Sky's finest made it out to be.

The salient point is that he's never likely to take anything standing up, and Ramdin took a far more difficult chance later in the day, ironically off Prior himself.

Prior is not an international keeper, and England are a compromised international side with him gooning about trying to imitate one.

Merlin wrote:Give Davies the gloves for the last three ODI's.
He deserves a chance ... he's a far better keeper, and can bat in the shortened game as well, if not better, than Priority.

Probably not going to happen as that would mean a total reshuffle of the batting order as Davies is a one-day opener - he himself admits it hasn't worked for him batting in the lower middle order in limited overs cricket, as he's not really a hitter.

Now Strauss has anchored himself in as an opener, and with Bops getting a run first up, there's no obvious place for Davies to bat other than the lower middle-order - a job that is way more suited to the powerful and occasionally sloggy Prior.

Play Bops or Davies at 3, and drop KP down to 4.

Job done.

Eric Air Emu wrote:

Basil wrote:

Eric Air Emu wrote:An inside edge standing up to a medium pacer isn't the easiest catch you know.

Of course you can pick anyone else and it will be the just doesn't score any runs option instead of the bit ropey behind the stumps option. Neither option is good so excuse my eternal ambivalence.

If the ball had deviated to a significant degree after hitting the bat, I would agree - but it was the slightest of edges, so no excuses.

I think most people on this forum would struggle to stop the ball if they were standing back to Mascarenhas, let alone taking catches standing up.

Indeed we might, but that's not the point. The debate is whether England can justify playing a wicketkeeper who is so palbably short of the required standard at the international level.

I think England need to rely on a bit more than the very occasional faint snick off a medium pacer. They didn't trouble Chanderpaul a jot for the rest of his innings. In the imaginery world of Narnia England need a f*ck of a lot more than the one and half ODI genuine ODI bowlers their attack amounts to at the moment.

Slightly off-topic- Having watched a bit of cricket this weekend I honestly thought Colivin and Marsh of England ladies looked far better spinners than Gareth Batty.

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:Play Bops or Davies at 3, and drop KP down to 4.

Job done.

So, the thinking that it's probably best to have your best players facing as many balls as possible in one-day cricket goes straight out of the window as two rookies occupy two of the first three places in the batting order?

England's best batsmen in this form of the game are Pietersen, Shah and Collingwood. At four, five and six? That's a recipe for success...

KP's hardly flourishing there is he?