NatWest Challenge 2005/2nd match-Lord's Sunday 10 July.

[John]

As a South African I am only too pleased if Vaughan remains in the One Day side, its just like seeing Dippenar on the SA team sheet. You know what you will be getting.
It's reassuring to the opposition. It's part of cricket there is always one ineffective player who gets picked. It's a strategy to keep the opposition scratching their heads. Whereas any other player gets kicked out of the side for that sort of form this player seems to have an agreement that the occasional half decent innnings is good enough.

[Victor Frankenstein]

in fairness to vaughan, he keeps his place because he's captain, and it's an english tradition to pick the captain first and then the team, rather than the australian version which is pick the team and then the captain from those players.

it's hard to disagree with it though when the second choice for captain is tresco, who bowls first under lights when no one in england has ever won bowling first etc..

[Trescothick]

It's very close so far, and it all builds up to a very exciting Ashes series, heres a lil comparison of the players:

Tresco - Just bowl it repeatedly outside the offstump and he will nibble at it sooner or later and be caught cheaply.
Gilchrist - Let him free his hands for the first five overs, we know what will happen as he edges to Jones after scoring 20.

Strauss - Bowl and inswinger and hit his stumps or let him try his 'brilliant' cut-shot into his stumps
Hayden - Throw the ball near him, he'll lose his temper and soon try and hit out and again will be out.

Vaughan - Useless tosser, hasn't really looked utterlty convincing with the bat for years. Will be Mcgraths bunny
Ponting - Is this guy a batter? He hasn't really shown any worth to the side except for a fluky century which we've even seen Warne do.

Bell - Stunning batsmen, his highlights come from high scores against the Great Bangladesh, really deserves his test place after a fair county season, scoring runs of the likes of D. Cork.
DR Martyn - Too be honest I haven't seen him out at the crease, by the time I've got my drink and sit down to watch him hes out!

Thorpe - Great, bring in the man who has a back-problem and is losing his sight! But he did manage to score a few against Gloucestershire but infact his score was one of the lowest of the whole team!
MJ Clarke - His last three innings have been mighty impressive: 2,2,3 He really brings confidence to the Aussies as their middle order collapses heavily.

Flintoff - Chops it to mid-on.. Caught! The scenario is just a little bit familar but I'm sure the Aussies won't pick up on that so I gaurnteed hit.. Keep using the same old trick!
Symonds - The man of the series after devastating Bangladesh and managing to overturn them. He also has managaed to defend his wicket for a couple of runs against England. Luckily hes not a test player.

SP Jones - The hype around him before the series has really developed being smacked around when handed the new ball. He should do a great job
Gillespie - Has silenced his critics with his 201 runs for 1 wicket against England. Bowled consistently and really shown England whats hes made of. Great in the field too.

Hoggard - The same Hoggard who Gayle knocked around for six fours in one over... He should do brilliantly against the world No. Ones.
Lee - A great bowler, can get the wickets but someone should tell him where the line is so.. It doesn't count when you step over there son!


Giles - The most exciting cricketer of all time who drys up the runs and even worth while when the pitch isn't right for a spinner.
Kasprowicz - Another class act here, getting his wickets from some great batting: chopping onto own edge... trying to smack him for six. He should provide real useful in the tests for the Aussies.


Anyway you get the picture.. I can't be bothered to do the rest of the teams. But this Ashes is likely to be full of ducks from batsmens, no-balls from the bowlers and mistakes all round in general I can't wait...

[Seamer]

Originally Posted by Victor Frankenstein

I actually hope we lose the next one dayer, not by too much, but enough to make us have to think about the first test properly, as we seem to have a habit of believing what the papers say. .

Don't wish the game away Victor. Others don't agree, but this is the last time they face off, and the winner will take a psycological edge in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Victor Frankenstein

One win over australia and it's "easy victory over has beens", and then the next game we don't turn up for, we get beaten, .

I agree with you there. England threw away their wickets the other night. Seemed to me they did'nt show up to play. But the Australian batsmen can be accused of the same thing, particularly Ponting, Gilchrist and Hayden.
.

Originally Posted by Victor Frankenstein

I really hope it's a good competitive summer, it's going to be interesting to see what the difference is in the test teams as both sides currently have better test sides..

Well to be fair, the Aussies are rightfully no1 in ODI's as well. We recently beat second ranked NZ at home 5-0. Maybe Australia played below their best, maybe England are better than their ranking indicated. They got flogged by SA recently sure, but to be fair, that was at the end of a long tour and the boys were tired.
Don't worry about competitivness, England will give a good account of themselves i think. They have too many good players not to.

Originally Posted by Victor Frankenstein

brett lee, not taking anything away from the bloke, but his five wickets were nothing special and the nature of them weren't something that would immediately make me want to drag him into the test team. Like gough, he's actually picked up wickets to uncessary one day shots and then gone for runs inbetween, so i'd actually happily see him in the test side over gillespie who i just don't believe will be a bad test bowler.

Normally i would agree. But Gillespie is not bowling well and has not for a while. I think Lee is overrated, but with Gillespie apparently a spent force, the Aussies will have no choice. I can see why English fans would like to see him in, but i am not so sure your batmen would agree. He is very fast and can, on his day, blast a top order out. Unlike Gillespie, the English have struggled against Lee so far.

[English_Al]

Saw the highlights of the second game last night, and then been reading through all you guys threads this morning. I think I'm thinking is similar areas to you Victor and Seamer, but anyway, here's my take!

My opinion (controversial??) at the moment is that it's mainly down to England's application as to the outcome of the game. For me Oz have been consistantly improving game by game since the 20/20, whereas England's attitude seems to be toing and froing all the time. The batters are either nice and tight or throwing the bat around, our bowling is either all over the shop or extremely dangerous, and a lot of the time I think it's our mental application, in other words I wonder if we are over exited or nervous or something when playing the Aussies.

It's tough to judge yesterdays game from just the highlights I saw but I really do think that our batsmen got themselves out rather than being steam-rollered by the Aussie bowlers. Vaughan got a great ball from McGrath which he left at his peril, but apart from that they were all odd dismissals playing shots. I also agree with you Victor about Brett Lee. Although everyone has been saying how marvellous he was, none of his wickets game from good balls, they were all from 'one day' shots, I still dont think he's as good as he's made out to be.

Ponting seemed to play very well, he had to get there eventually, the good batting wicket was very welcome I think.

As I mentioned in my post last Friday, I really wanted to see Flintoff get some runs, and now he has with a nice innings.

As for tommorrow's game, as the Oval is a good batting wicket, I think the Aussies will win. However, I really feel that if England could get themselves settled and play as they can in a level headed way, I think we actually have the players to compete and beat Oz!!!

[Victor Frankenstein]

thinking about it logically, every time australia play well we'll usually say "well they are number one for a reason" etc.. so i guess by the same token, when looking at england and wondering why one minute we can cain australia and the next made to look like schoolboys, i guess we should really just say "well we are 6th in the world for a reason".

before this series started, if someone had told me we'd beat them at the 20-20 game, then beat them heavily in two out of 5 one dayers, drawing a third when we would normlly have lost to our lowest total ever, i'd have bitten their hand off. Some of it is down to rustiness but i think we have also improved a lot from playing the best, this time last year didn't even make it to the final and lost repeatedly and heavily to two sides that we beat in the test matches.

Seamer said elsewhere that the reason he felt the aussies would definatly win the ashes now was that the english were satisfied with just competing. I'd agree at the start of the summer that was the case, but i think that now we've realised we can actually compete we'll be going all out for the wins, just like we did in south africa when everyone had written us off there beforehand too. Under Hussein the team slowly learnt to secure the game first, then began to compete, under vaughan we've moved on to competing for longer and now winning games, the next stage is to do what the aussies do, compete for every session and sustain the pressure until they win.

[flanflinger]

I think it is Flinger agrees with Victor day!!

Good to point out that we are Seventh in the ICC ratings, behind the West Indies and Australia are top by a clear 19 points!! and yet I would say this is a fairly even contest which has see-sawed all the way through.

The fact is we have played each other 6 times in the last two-three weeks and the result is two wins each, one tie and one wash-out (which either side could have won) tomorow, should we get a result either way, may finally decided who is the better team, for me this suggests that England have played very well in the form of the game they are least competent in.

I cannot wait to see how they perfom in the Test arena, where they are a much much better team.

[Collyisamackem]

I think it's Colly agrees with Flinger and Victor day! I think our one day side is improving

[Kirsty Harris]

Originally Posted by Collyisamackem

I think it's Colly agrees with Flinger and Victor day! I think our one day side is improving

I think it's a day for agreement - me too!! We look to be forming a good OD side finally, the bowling needs a bit of work still; but it's come on along way in the past 12 months.

[Collyisamackem]

Two things:


- The new ball -> Harmy and Flintoff should bowl with it, with Goughie and Jones (or a second Harmison spell) at the death.
- The top order need to be more measured and stop playing reckless shots. Measure the line and length, then take it on, like they did in the ICC trophy game.

If we sort out those two, we could be a real ODI force again.