England Have The Batting!,Have They Got The Bowling?.>

[Ernest]

What a turn around from a few years back, when Englands batsmen collapsed innings after innings.

But a generation has changed all that, now we have players knocking at the door for all the top possitions.

Butcher although not playing that bad, has not had a very large score for some while, so I would say his place is in grave danger from Robert Key.
Does not end there, G Thorpe has to watch his back, Bell is there waiting to pounce, as is Pieterson, so as good as he has been, he has to keep at his best.

Any thoughts? are Butcher and Thorpes places cemented in concrete?.

Not same on the bowling front though, if Simon jones were to regain his former fitness, what a formidable attack it would be, but if is a big word as far as Simon Jones is concerned.remember that horrible injury, can he fully recover?.

We must have another pace bowler playing for some county, can anyone put just one new name in the hat?, just to prove we have strength in depth to our bowling as well.

[Rachael]

Hmmmmm. I'd agree that the batting s stronger than the bowling right now.. but is that really saying vey much?

Tresnofeet: journeyman at best, liability at worst.
Strauss: a couple of encouraging innings early on.. but unproven at this level.
Butcher: journeyman standard recently.. promises more.. but can he deliver?
Vaighan: a class apart in theory.. but not worth his place in recent times
Thorpe: top player.. but no Hayden / Ponting / Kallis / Lara / Tendulkar
Flintoff: decent summer.. but stil a novice and yet to be tested by a quality attack.
Jones: complete novice.. who knows?
Giles: great no 8, questionable no 7
Hoggard: most improved tail ender in world cricket, still limited.

And the reserves...
Bell: signs of real class, but suspicions he'll become bogged down when the bowling is good
Key: questionable technique, potential flat track bully
Pietersen: completely untested at highest level

The bowling IS weaker.. with just one bowler that would walk into any other team as a specialist... and with no obvious candidate looming as a new ball partner for Harmison that would allow Hoggard to drop down to first-change.. and with Giles still no more convincing as a world class bowler than Butcher or Tresnofeet are as world class batsmen... but there is one redeaming aspect - Flintoff. Takes the pressure of the specialists somewhat!

[R W S]

The England side for the first test in Port Liz is pretty much set in stone wit the only question mark over Mark Butcher, but given Dunc & MV's loyaly I cant see him not being given at least four at bats.

The arrival of Troy C with the rest of the test players is a welcome sign - surely Jimmy A could have used his help in Mugabeland.

I would bat first if we won the toss - genius arnt I!?

Iloved this "Another time he instructed fast bowler Andre Nel to try to hit his idol, Allan Donald, on the head in a provincial match. When Nel succeeded and promptly broke down into tears after it became apparent Donald had been hurt, Jennings sent the 12th man out to tell Nel to stop blubbing or he would never play again."

[Beny]

I thought it was the otherway around Ern!!

England's batting is nothing to rave about.
Vaughn is a class player but is not producing how you would expect.
Strauss is a good prospect.
Tresco's overated and how any english supporter could call Mathew Hayden a bludgening bully when you guys have this bloke.

I wont go through the rest but really I think it is the English batting which needs work and thier bowling which is winning matches.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Beny

I thought it was the otherway around Ern!!

The batting isn't poor.. it's just not really one thing or another: this side is neither a modern, Aussie style outfit (basically ODI focussed) that looks capable of batting other teams out of matches.. nor a more traditional English (Test focussed) outfit that looks capable of grinding opposition teams into the ground.

Doesn't make any individual player in the line up an inappropriate selection.. just makes the rag-tag collection a bit odd.

Whichever way you look at it though.. there's greater strength in depth in the batting.

A first choice top order of players now pressuring Tresco, Butcher, Vaughan and Thorpe could now read Strauss, Key, Pietersen, Bell, Collingwood, Flintoff.. and that's better than certain test sides can muster. That compares to Harmison plus support as an attack.. with question marks existing over Hoggard (dropped quite spectacularly within the last 12 months, only playing because Vaughan insisted), Giles (only survived at the insistence of Vaughan, still needing to prove a bit), Flintoff (novice bowler) and Jones (not even remotely dependable, seemingly in to mop up the tail with reverse swing).

Look at it another way.. the guys pressuring the above include a kid who doesn't look capable of commanding a place in county cricket (Anderson), a journeyman with a dodgy action (Kirtley) an unproven medium pace trundler (Saggers) and assorted folk who've still not graduated from nappies (Mahmood, Lewis, Harrison, etc).

No question.. Ernest's right.. the batting is the strength.

[Ernest]

Beny what I am saying, at the moment we have a good bowling attack, but not a lot of alternatives battling for places like in the batting dept.

[Pabs]

Originally Posted by Ernest

Any thoughts? are Butcher and Thorpes places cemented in concrete?

I find it bizarre that you should single out Thorpe - the guy has averaged 59 in tests since his comeback in 2003! I would say his place is as secure as anyone's, and certainly more so than Strauss, Butcher or Tres.

[Milo]

Another amazingly strange thread. Did you not watch England bat in the Caribbean? Just because the likes of Strauss, Flintoff and Trescothick have scored runs at home (something Trescothick has always done) it suddenly means they are world beaters.

Thorpe, who you question, is a dead cert. He has rescued England on a number of occasions over the last year and has been the top player in the side for the last five years, when he played. The likes of Bell and Key are not alternatives to Thorpe. That's like saying Saggers is an alternative to Harmison.

[Pabs]

Originally Posted by Rachael

and assorted folk who've still not graduated from nappies (Mahmood, Lewis, Harrison, etc).

Would that be the 29-year-old Jon Lewis from Gloucs?

You're right that English pace bowling is a bit shoddy at present. A lot of bright prospects seem to be falling by the wayside - strange in an age when biomechanics is meant to ensure durability! My own county (Yorks) is one of the worst culprits - lots of teenage quicks and the worst First XI attack in the country. I do think the young leggie, Mark Lawson, is going to be something special tho.

[Milo]

Seems to me that the likes of Strauss, Key, Trescothick etc and not in the class of Stewart and Atherton. If they had the fortune of playing against the pack of rubbish the West Indies bought over here instead of the likes of Ambrose and Walsh then we would be saying that out batsmen of the 90s were fine.

You can only judge the batsmen of this era against top quality bowlers (of which there really is only a few). Gone are the days when playing South Africa meant you had Pollock and Donald coming at you, that Pakistan had the 2 Ws and the West Indies was always a test.

The Ashes next year will be a completely different matter...we will struggle, just like the Stewarts, Athertons and Hussains did. They are better than the mediocrity that is sitting in England's XI at the moment (Key for God's sake, are we really calling him a good bat - he will disappear against the Aussies much like Ian Ward did).

If one was to make up a composite top six of players that played for England in the last ten-fifteen years, only Thorpe and Vaughan would get anywhere near it. And these were during the times we were said to have a weak batting line up. Lamb, Smith, Gower and Gooch would be scoring runs for fun against most of this dross. England's batting is average at best.