The Ashes 2006/07: The Melbourne Test Thread - Day Three

[south beds mikey]

Monty out so probably not an issue.

[Tendlya]

Read should have been the choice instead of Jones

[Mr Hutt]

Well 4-0 now... they are not even allowing some face saving...this is seriously flawed

[greg]

Absolutely pathetic.5-0 is a certainty.

[Nazza]

Originally Posted by Ernest

IF - the England batsmen had played as good as Mahmood - 4 wickets @ 25 each, they might have been in a stronger position.

You don't give up, do you ?

[Mike]

I'd love to know what the Barmy Army were singing when Read and Hoggard were batting. I thought they would've left the ground before the last rites were administered.

[Occasional Fan]

They are not very numerate, Mike, and are from the "Never Say Die" school. After the Perth test match, they were singing "Four-three, we're gonna win four-three". My guess is that at Melbourne they will have modified that to "Five-four".

[Nazza]

I always thought Australian immigration policy wouldn't have allowed the Barmy Army in - you hear all the time about how strict the criteria are...............maybe we should do ourselves a favour and not let them come back.

[Occasional Fan]

I've nothing against them: they went out to enjoy themselves, they did so, they didn't upset anyone else in the grounds as far as I could see - and, importantly for Australia, they spent a load of cash. Anyone would be mad to refuse to have them, and most, if not all the Aussies I spoke to when I was there pretty well agree with that comment.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Irish Left Armer

109/7, England are abject, spineless, gutless and rudderless all rolled into one.

Ahh yes, but at least we have an "inspirational" figurehead as captain.

I rather think that all this means that Strauss can never get the job again. Some of the stuff that's come out in the last few weeks suggests that the camp is riven with splits.

So Graveney, Fletcher and Miller removed the captaincy from one and gave it to another and expected everyone to tug forelocks and be happy.

Life doesn't work like that. Cricket tends not to either.

In my cricket club we have had a rotational captaincy for the past eleven seasons, so there are no dictatorial leaders and everyone gets a game at some point during the season. Supposedly! Which is fine, so long as you have some respect from the rest of the team, in which case you can direct the proceedings happily from fine-leg (I'm a specialist fine-leg) without chaps running up to you from all over the field telling you what to do. Actually that's the one good reason for captaining from fine leg... nobody wants to run that far to tell you what they would be doing "if I were you."

I suspect in the professional game, a team with three or four captains - not necessarily of like mind - will naturally be awash with different views, and after finally kow-towing to the general consensus and finally picking two players who should have been there from the start (and who would have been under one captain) there will no doubt be quite a lot of simmering resentment.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall for this series quite late on but yet only just before it actually started. In that three-day practice match when Harmison pulled out and Mahmoud played in his place and STILL Flintoff did not give him a bowl in either innings. That smacks of determined yet crass stupidity.

You have to roll with the punches. You have to change the plan as a series develops, though not always drastically. And not just if it is spilt to the opposition.

Every match is not the same. That is why we watch. And that is why Flintoff should NOT be captain again. Ever.