The 'key' To An Improved England Batting Line Up??.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

7 matches. 142 runs. A highest score of 45. Average 20.28. A rousing success ?[..]No wonder he was dropped for the World Cup squad.

In comparason to the openers before him is that series - he was a success - remember there was NO opening partneship until he was selected.

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

Not sure how you can term anyone else a failure if that's how you define success!!

Success in that one day series was reletive to what the other players where achieving NE: Had Loye not been selected England would not have won that series, no other opening partnersip reached 10 overs - with Loye it did and gave the lower order batsmen a chance against an older ball.
In that Loye succeded, and that on that occasion is how I defined success.
An opening batsmans job firstly is to see off the new ball, and in that he succeded.

Originally Posted by Notts Exile

Key must be well behind the other batsmen in there. However, should he score heavily in the meantime then he must have a chance once they've all failed!

Which other batsmen have the stature of Key?, the England batting at best is inconsistent and at worst and usually is fragile.
How could Key weaken this England batting line up?, or Ramp's for that matter.

Attacking players like Pietersen, Collingwood and Flintoff would have scored many more runs had they not been brought to the wicket to early - far to many poor opening stands.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Ernest

How could Key weaken this England batting line up?, or Ramp's for that matter.

Simple - by scoring 31 and 27 runs per innings as opposed top 41-43!!!

How can you strengthen a batting team by including players with inferior batting records. I just don't see the logic!

[Collyisamackem]

I didn't ever really agree that Key wasn't good enough to play for England, people made too much of his weight. I was very impressed with him against the West Indies, where he batted sensibly and well where others lost their heads (and wickets) too easily, irrespective or the quality of the opposition. I've also seen players average worse against Australia (Strauss and Bell whom I rate, Ramprakash who I'm not sure is a long or even medium term option not necessarily through his own doing, and others). I haven't seen him play since that SA series, but his off-side technique seemed to need a bit of work, but if he has done that I'm all for him having another chance - he was brought into the side aged 25/26 which was young, and is 29 now, and therefore (as ther article I'm about to reference says) should be at the peak of his game and have a good few years (4 or 5) left in him at the highest level. Plus, it's not all about quality youth and players learning in the international environment, you do need experience too. As we have Cook, Bell, Pietersen, Ambrose, Broad and Panesar all learning (and learning well, and mostly performing) and young, we need Sidebottom, Hoggard, Collingwood and Vaughan (though if he fails at 3 this summer, this is one of my first indications that I think his time may be up and Collingwood should captain) too. Key was given one chance, did score a double century and get a couple of decent scores against South Africa despite (like Anderson, and others) having no match practice, and I think he does deserve another if he genuinely looks a better bet (to me) than:

Cook, Strauss, Bell, Vaughan, Pietersen, Collingwood (consider fielding, bowling and captaincy in addition to sensible and solid batting), Shah, Carberry, Denly et al.

And unlike some others in times before him, he really wants it:
Cricinfo - All for England

I don't want county trundlers or journeymen, but I don't want wayward pace or irresponsible and unconcentrated (too few conversions, centuries and especially double hundreds, Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell Alistair Cook and Andrew Strauss) batting either. I'll not rule players out either, people can learn. I want players who are good, talented, skillful and with the right winning mindset to play for England, nothing less. We had that in 2003-5, let's get it back.