2nd Ashes Test - Edgbaston, 4-8 August: Pre-match thread

[Occasional Fan]

England's team will be announced at 0930 BST tomorrow, Sunday, and is expected to be unchanged, according to this report from the BBC.

[GlennMcGrath500]

Go aussies

[Occasional Fan]

Vaughan (c), Trescothick, Strauss, Bell, Pietersen, Flintoff, GO Jones, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison, SP Jones.

Twelfth man: Tremlett.

David Graveney makes the valid point that this is a team which bowled Australia out twice at Lord's and that, barring the several dropped catches, competed. I would agree with this: without the drops, the story might have been rather different last week. We can't expect a repetition of that disastrous fielding performance. Graveney also confirms that Graham Thorpe has not been approached to re-consider his retirement decision.

Report from Cricinfo here.

[Seamer]

Sensible decision this one. Had any changes been made, it would not have sent a good message to the English squad. This team has been succesful over a long time and knee-jerk axings from one loss would have been a mistake.
Bell had better take his chance this match though because Collingwood's domestic form has been irresistable by all accounts.

[The Phantom Ram]

Originally Posted by Seamer

Bell had better take his chance this match though because Collingwood's domestic form has been irresistable by all accounts.

Collingwoods last 5 County Championship innings have been 103no, 190, 12, 181, 105no. That is 591 runs in 5 innings at an average of 197!! These innings have been against Worcs, Derbys (x2) & Somerset (x2). Before this run Collingwood had only scored above 26 once all season in first class cricket (129 vs Worcs in April) in 10 innings. So it may be that he is in the form of his life or it may be his opponents? Interestinglythese runs have come at a time where he has stopped bowling. In the sequence of 4 centuries in 5 innings shown above Collingwood has only bowled twice. He had 20 overs in Derbyshire's second innings - he only scored 12 in Durham's 2nd innings and a further 4 overs in Somersets 2nd innings. Earlier in the season he was bowling around 10 overs per innings on average. Maybe he should concentrate on his batting?

[John]

I am not particular surprised about the squad thats been picked. I don't know if it will cheers up England fans or not I think they will have visions of the last hour of the last day.
The players I would be worried about in order
1. Giles- what role does he play against the world Champions? His spin has is not been up to it his supposed containing role wasn't worthy of a one day match. Yes he did get 9 wickets last year at this ground against WI last year but England had already posted over 550 batting first.
2.G. Jones- Dropped catches, wheres his batting?
3.Vaughan- Looks like he has never scored a fifty in any form of cricket the way he is playing.

[Collyisamackem]

That would be the same Vaughan who has just carried his bat, scored 116 and taken two wickets in today's one-day game against Kent then?

[John]

Originally Posted by Collyisamackem

That would be the same Vaughan who has just carried his bat, scored 116 and taken two wickets in today's one-day game against Kent then?

Apparently so. Hard to believe. Unfortunately I caught the wonderful news after I had posted the comment that will teach me.
Just as its hard to believe Giles got 9 wickets in one Test match; against WI well maybe not that hard.
Anyway good luck to Vaughan.

[The Phantom Ram]

Originally Posted by The Phantom Ram

Collingwoods last 5 County Championship innings have been 103no, 190, 12, 181, 105no. That is 591 runs in 5 innings at an average of 197!! These innings have been against Worcs, Derbys (x2) & Somerset (x2). Before this run Collingwood had only scored above 26 once all season in first class cricket (129 vs Worcs in April) in 10 innings. So it may be that he is in the form of his life or it may be his opponents? Interestinglythese runs have come at a time where he has stopped bowling. In the sequence of 4 centuries in 5 innings shown above Collingwood has only bowled twice. He had 20 overs in Derbyshire's second innings - he only scored 12 in Durham's 2nd innings and a further 4 overs in Somersets 2nd innings. Earlier in the season he was bowling around 10 overs per innings on average. Maybe he should concentrate on his batting?

What is your view on Collingwood, Colly?

[Victor Frankenstein]

I think they were right to name an unchanged side for this test, and even if we lose this test i hope they don't replace anyone unless that is their view for the future of the team rather than just because we're trying to win this one series. i.e only drop bell, jones and giles if they've ended their careers, don't drop them only to drop their replacements in a few matches time.

Giles is sadly the best spinner/batsman in the country, jones has been the best batsman/keeper that's been tried so far, and bell is the best young batsman in county cricket by a long way, so we need to make something of these players rather than abandon them. The only reason i would consider collingwood is as a replacement for giles, on a tactical basis rather than form basis, ie it's a non-spinning pitch and therefore better to take an extra bat. I would prefer we got our top order batsmen to perform though rather than doing the old english thing of replacing other players to make up for the deficiancies in our top order.

I'm glad to see vaughan get a hundred, especially as the rest of his team was collapsing around him, if he could just take that concentration into the test matches with him we'd be sorted. On the other hand though, he does have a habit of getting a decent score then thinking he's back to his best and slogs to mid on with an ugly shot. Here's hoping he doesn't. Duncan Fletcher really should bang vaughans head against the wall before he goes out to bat, remind him he's a batsman and has to earn his runs.