I think nixon is perfectly positioned where he is due to his gritty nature and ability to bat with tailenders.

Keep Australia under 250 and they are in trouble

Australia have a batting line up far superior to every other team in the tournament, but a bowling line up that would be lucky to keep it together at county level let alone international level.

This thread is somewhat bizarre: England have just strung together 7 wins from 9 ODIs... and despite some misfortune missed out in the last game by just two runs in a game against one of the strongest sides in the tournament! For once the side is having a run of games with an unchanged, first choice XI... the batting now has great (perhaps unprecedented) depth and middle-order core based on genuinely world class ODI stars... the bowling options are looking as good as anything England has put together in years... and the inner-circle fielding is excellent - though getting Joyce to leave the field and Dalrymple on as substitute would be needed for the fielding to reach "outstanding"

England's one clear weakness is judging a pitch and a 'par' score: the sides misses Knight's nous. Fortunately, England like chasing and most of their opponents like batting first... which takes a lot of that pressure off.

None of this guarantees a semi-final spot... but if England can compete as well against Aus, SA and the WI as they did againt SL and end up going home after the super eights the ODI side would deserve as much credit as the Test side did after the 2005 Ashes: crediting with being able to mix it with the best and able to punish any side that falls away from that standard.

Well Bopara has to bat above Flintoff for a start as at least he has some talent and form with the bat.I'd also play Strauss instead of Joyce and hope for the best as i can see us getting hammered.

Rachael, I think the problem is that our WC chances have now sank like Flintoff on a pedalo.

If we had beat Sri Lanka we would have at least had a chance, now we have to win every game and with our top 3 looking vulnarable and Pieterson only capable of scoring nice 30-50's and Flintoff horibbly out of form our batting is looking very weak.

But yes, there are some positives to build on for the future. The selectors have realised (eventually) that Dalrymple is no where near to being an international cricketer, Bopara looks decent. With the addition of a fit Trescothick the batting looks respectable.

By the way would we qualify if the game v Aus was rained off and we won the rest of our games and SA lost v NZ ??

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Mark.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is Miss Piggy!!!

At least we have more chance than India.

Agreed. But my reply was related to the combination of all those events that Pie Chucker quoted that have to come to pass for England to get into the semis through the back door. In my view, forget all that complicated and fruitless planning and go for it with a Nixonian approach and anything can happen. Sometimes, a shock treatment is the only answer when a conventional approach has failed more than once.

That is why I suggested that Nixon should be tried as an opener with Strauss or Vaughan as a shock tactic. If he fails, there is the consolation that he is only a lower order batsman and the regulars are still there. On the other hand, if Nixon goes about his crazy batting and gets a few runs in the fielding-restricted powerplay overs, the opposition might be thrown off balance.

In the West Indies the trend has been to win the toss and bowl first to make the most of the early morning conditions. Of the 7 games we have played we have only bowled first twice. Vaughan is a rubbish tosser.
Unfortunately I don't think we are good at chasing side because the plan of starting slowly puts pressure on incoming batsmen and we go at 4.00 an over in the middle period anyway. What will happen when we have to chase 300+ we can't afford 1,2 and 3 to play at their Test cricket pace and let the run rate rise rapidly.

So bowl first and put the batsmen under pressure chasing unless we have Flintoff given free rein at the top.
Bat first and the bowler's can't take advantage of the conditions.

Warm up game v Australia - lost toss - batted
Warm up game v Bermuda - lost toss - batted
v New Zealand - lost toss - batted
v Canada - lost toss - batted
v Kenya - lost toss - bowled (nice of Kenya to let us bowl first)
v Ireland - won toss - batted (win our first toss - our bowlers were not happy)
v Sri Lanka - won toss - bowled (finally Vaughan gets it right)

If we ever have to chase 300+ plus i fear an embarassingly poor total on the cards!

Why cant our top order batters:

a) last more than 3 overs
b) score runs at a decent rate (they should watch videos of Aus and SA bat)

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Mark.