Today's Match Eng v WI 5th ODI

[Scott-Wozniak]

Originally Posted by Nikhil

It'a all over for England for sure now. Fantastic batting, I must admit.

Well thank god that PITA Smith has just been clean bowled by Freddy - still in with an outside chance here!

Scott

[Mark Kidger]

With Sarwan still there, it is too little, too late.

[Nikhil]

Now then. Should Freddy have got an over earlier? Again it's so easy from here. Won't like to be in Vaughan's shoes.

[Scott-Wozniak]

Originally Posted by Mark Kidger

Harmison, Blackwell and Anderson have been dreadful under pressure. It's hard to believe that these are the same two teams that played the Test series.

Yes and no coincidence that they are the three most relatively inexperienced ODI bowlers England have. Freddy and Gough have bowled superbly, but England lost this game by not accelerating the runs in the last 5 - 10 overs of their own innings, they never really capitalised on the great start they got. I thought 281 would be enough, but clearly 300 was nearer what they needed.

Scott

[Mark Kidger]

Originally Posted by Scott-Wozniak

Yes and no coincidence that they are the three most relatively inexperienced ODI bowlers England have. Freddy and Gough have bowled superbly, but England lost this game by not accelerating the runs in the last 5 - 10 overs of their own innings

Anderson was superb in Australia last winter and in the World Cup. It is obvious that he is still struggling badly. The problem is that in a side packed with bowling, two of the key bowlers have had a nightmare and when Vaughan went for the experience of Blackwell instead of Collingwood or Clarke, Blackwell got some real hammer, the West Indies built up the momentum that they needed and that was that. They were far enough behind the run rate that the match should have been safe, although I've been warning all along that I didn't like the way things were going with the West Indian chase (just call me "Cassandra").

Vaughan just did not have enough overs of Freddy and Gough left at the end to compensate for the disastrous results of other bowlers.

[Whips_off_the_bails]

281 should have been defendable on this ground: the bowlers lost the match. England blundered by not having a frontline spinner. Blackwell has been found out of his depth in two matches now. Apart from one brilliant over when he sent the run-rate up over nine by bowling a maiden at Sarwan, Harmison had a match to forget. The fielding wasn't as sharp as it could have been.

Freddie Flintoff didn't deserve to be on the losing side in this match, but you have to say that Sarwan and especially Dwayne Smith were brilliant with their six-hitting in the last few overs. Congratulations to WI on a superb win.

So Engand finally lose a match in the Carribean - after two months! No one would have predicted that at the start of the tour.

[Mark Kidger]

Originally Posted by Whips_off_the_bails

So Engand finally lose a match in the Carribean - after two months! No one would have predicted that at the start of the tour.

Clive, I guess that saying "I told you so" will not go down too well with you, but I was warning that the ODI series would be something else. England have an experimental side and the West Indian batting is set up best for ODIs. Thanks to a lucky result in the first game England are level after 5 and may still win the series, but my initial prediction was 5-2 to the Windies and even after England corrected some problems with the initial squad by picking Gough (and how well he is bowling!), I could still only see the result narrowing to 4-3.

[Notts Exile]

With eight overs to go we should not have lost that match. Evidently neither Anderson nor Harmison had watchd how Gough and Flintoff bowl. Blackwell gets taken aoart at county level so this is no real surprise.

Harmison doesn't play limited overs cricket for Durham, this is the reason. If we're going to select different players for each squad then Harmison should not play one day cricket. He isn't Andy Caddick. No idea wehat has gone wrong with Jimmy Anderson but at the moment he doesn't look like an international bowler.

[Mark Kidger]

Originally Posted by Whips_off_the_bails

281 should have been defendable on this ground: the bowlers lost the match. England blundered by not having a frontline spinner. Blackwell has been found out of his depth in two matches now.

Have England got a front line spinner to pick? Seeing the way that Giles has fallen apart in recent Tests when being attacked he certainly would not have been the solution today. I still like the idea of bowling an off-spinner against a West Indian side packed with left-handers, but would Gareth Batty have done better under pressure? My gut feeling is "yes", but it's not a suggestion that will be popular on this MB.

I'm afraid that it is now time for Blackwell to leave the ODI plans definitively. He has not been effective as a bowler, despite enormous experience in one day cricket, and he has rarely come off with the bat. Blackwell has had plenty of chances over the last year, but it's a long time since he really took one. He's played 20 matches now and his last two significant innings were an 82 in his second match and 43 in his 4th. Only against Australia in a dead final qualifying match of the VB series has his bowling really come off. He averages barely 5 overs per game, which says a lot about Hussain and Vaughan's faith in his bowling, and has just 14 wickets in his 20 matches, although if truth be told, by going at only 4.3 an over he has been relatively economical.

It makes me wish that Jeremy Snape had not fallen out with John Bracewell at Gloucestershire because he really showed some promise as a finisher and ODI bowler in his short career.

Another player who I think is running out of time rapidly is Rikki Clarke. I've been a strong supporter of his since Bangladesh because there he did do everything that could reasonably have been asked of him in the Tests. Admittedly he has hardly batted, but although his chances have been limited, he has not known how to take them when they have appeared. I still think that he's a great prospect, but I wonder how much longer he'll stay in the side if he doesn't bowl and fails to show that he's a "finisher" with the bat.

[Mark Kidger]

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

With eight overs to go we should not have lost that match. Evidently neither Anderson nor Harmison had watchd how Gough and Flintoff bowl. Blackwell gets taken aoart at county level so this is no real surprise.

My own feelings on Blackwell are expressed elsewhere. It is obvious that Anderson still has problems and has not got his form back. He is knocking over some wickets, but is being far too expensive.

However, I think that you are wrong. The writing was on the wall well before the last 8 overs. I was definitely worried well before then seeing how the West Indies were in touch and that it only needed a couple of good overs (and they had wickets in hand, batting to come and well-set batsmen) and they would be right up there. What I never imagined is how easily they would cruise to victory, nor how badly England's bowlers would fall apart.

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

Harmison doesn't play limited overs cricket for Durham, this is the reason. If we're going to select different players for each squad then Harmison should not play one day cricket. He isn't Andy Caddick. No idea wehat has gone wrong with Jimmy Anderson but at the moment he doesn't look like an international bowler.

Harmison is oin the side as a strike bowler. It looked like a good pick to keep his dominance over the batting. However, he's not the man to come back for a late containing spell. For his selection to make sense, Harmison should probably bowl his 10 overs off the reel at the start and Vaughan should give him a licence to attack and strike out wickets.