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Originally Posted by Mike  The selectors made a huge mistake playing Bopara at the expense of another specialist batsman. England's bowlers are good enough but don't bowl the right lengths. They can't seem to adjust from the lengths they habitually employ in England conditions. |
Bopara is a specialist batsman... and has been consistently promoted as such: he bowls a bit in ODIs... but is first and foremost a batsman (as Collingwood always was). The England management did prefer him ahead of Shah... but it's always been clear that Shah and Bopara were the reserve batsmen on this tour and that Bopara was in favour with the management following his impressive displays in the ODI series.
In fairness to Bopara... he's looked like a fairly accomplished performer against spin: not as sophisticated and classy as Shah.... but quite at home (in a way that the likes of Cook, Strauss and Flintoff have never really looked at home).
Regarding the seamers: Sidebottom should have adapted a bit better than he did but was actually getting such prodigous and uncontrollable swing that (rather like Hoggard of pre 2004) he was unable to decide on an appropriate line - leg stump was perfect if it DID swing prodigously... but lousy if it did not... whilst off stump was perfect if it went straight on... but was a wasted delivery if it swung - pitching the ball up when you're dealing with such vagaries is not necessarily a great idea!
Troy Cooley got Hoggard to cut down the amount of swing he sought to solve that problem: someone's got to work with Sidebottom on the same thing... but let's not expect an overnight transformation - all concerned should be impressed if Sidebottom can master that inside 6 months!
ps. Harmison's only ever pitched the ball up when confident. He's got Caddick's tendency to bowl short when he is tight, and he has always tended to get tight on pitches that favour the batsmen - as true in the WI in 2004 as it is today.