India vs England, Official Fourth ODI Match Thread

[Vrock]

lol - I very much doubt that NE. But it looks as though Fletcher is keen on having Prior open so why not let him conserve energy and bat rather than have to keep as well. I was really making this point from a Fletcher type angle.

I'm in favour of bring a straight bat in, (no pun intended) give Ian Bell a shot, he deserves a go seen as no-one else has given the goods.

[Alison]

Originally Posted by Rachael

In short.. there's no space in the world cup squad for an extra batsman.. and if injuries leave the wrld cup squad light on batting... the reserve wicket-keeper will have to step in - so it makes sense to give him experience!

I'm sorry but that sounds like a very strange set of priorites in a series to me. And I'd say if it's true it might be a large part of the reason we keep losing - we're not actually taking the series seriously, but only trying to give fringe players experience. It's all very well experimenting once the fate of a series has been decided but if we use our one day series' to try players out and give them experience then it's no wonder we keep losing and what's more we're extremely unlikely to actually put together a winning side.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Alison

I'm sorry but that sounds like a very strange set of priorites in a series to me.

The only ODI tournament of any consequence is the World Cup.... and for that Fletcher would ideally like a squad of 16 players who've all got at least 40-50 ODIs under their belt... and a first XI whose "spine" consists of players with > 100 ODIs.

Flintoff and COllingwood were the only player in today's game to qualifies as "experienced"... and they only qualify by the standards of his team mates: they remain relative novices compared with some of the Indian players - Tendulkar has 362 caps himself... beating Dravid's 284... but Kumble's not guaranteed to play despite having 264 caps... and even 27 year old Sehwag already has 145 caps...

Tresco - 114
Vaughan - 74
Strauss - 48
Pietersen - 28
Collingwood 89
Flintoff - 102 incl. "ROW"
GO Jones 42
Giles - 62
Harmison - 38
S Jones - 8
Anderson 48

Reserves expected to travel:

Blackwell - 32
Prior - 10
Solanki - 48

Reserve options for final 2 bowling spots (in possible order of probability):

Tremlett -3
Kabir Ali - 11
Plunkett - 8
Hoggard -25

Outside possibilities (cover for squad places):
Shah - 18
Read - 28
Batty - 7
Mahmood- 2
Gough - 157

This close to the actual tournament the prime concern has to be to play as many of the 1st XI as possible as often as possible... but where that is not an option the priority has to be building experience WITHIN the squad: that might mean a few unbalanced sides and overlooking a few folk.... but this close to the WOrld Cup is too late to be experimenting.

[Alison]

Originally Posted by Rachael

The only ODI tournament of any consequence is the World Cup.

I still think that attitude is a root cause of our problems in one day cricket.

[Collyisamackem]

I'm thinking that maybe we only took the Champions Trophy seriously last time because we hosted it...I think with this year's event coming so soon before the Ashes that we may not take it as seriously as in the last event.

[gavasker]

Shambolic IMO. We were set for a big score and Yuvraj took a great catch all the in my opinion he made it look a little 'theatrical' still a great catch though. We all know it's hot in India- abosolutely roasting to be precise and KP just tired in the heat but just try and battle through it. See of Harbhajan for 10 overs and just try and milk him. No stupid ridiculous huge 6 attempts- although his interview the other week he was correct about it's his natural game, but the pre-meditated shot wasn't on to that delivery.

Hope England can salvage some pride in the remaining 3 ODI's...

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by gavasker

Hope England can salvage some pride in the remaining 3 ODI's...

To late for that, any hope of leaving India with pride in their one day performances has long gone, but really it IMO does not matter.

[Vrock]

Leaving with any sense of pride would be England winning at least one game after racking up >300 runs. The chances of that are very slim IMO.

[Rachael]

Is Anderson going to be anything other than delighted? Or Blackwell? Or Geraint Jones? Prior should be pretty happy... and Pietersen, Collingwood and Flintoff look set to leave having further consolidated their status as top ODI players. Some of the others will be hoping to get more positives out of the remaining game to compensate for a mixed experience to date.... but essentially.... the positives from this series have been huge.

The results don't matter that much: the key thing is that in a series in which they expected to be systematically outplayed in all departments... they have been able to more than compete for large parts of every game (including today's, where they actually did fine up until the Pietersen & Flintoff dismissals).

[Vrock]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Pietersen, Collingwood and Flintoff look set to leave having further consolidated their status as top ODI players.

I think they did that with all their performances in the past, you could even say that Collingwood's bowling has been very poor this series, only bowling a couple of overs and going for more than a run a ball.

Please post any comments on the fifth ODI in this thread please.
http://www.world-a-team.com/showthread.php?t=6080