Cricket: England vs New Zealand Test Series

[Pie-chucker]

Good stuff, lads.

Although a Pom (and around since the days of Cowdrey and the broken arm) I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Team England (yeuch) supporter, except against Aussies when I'm fiercely one-eyed. Tend to support depending on the situation (egging Ross Taylor on), the spreads in play (!), whatever will set up the game well etc.

I detect I'm not alone in hoping England stuff this today. Yup, there's recently been 'doing just enough' to hang on to a place, eg Napier.
There's the terrible thought that if they show backbone and knock off the runs soon after tea the exact same XI will play for the 4th test in a row. And we'll have to read crap Bell ghosted columns about how this side have got character blah, blah. Bollocks. Complacency, coasting more like.

If Ramps were to skewer the 100th 100 in the next week the clamour for inclusion would only increase. Bloody right, the 'long-term' plans for England extend precisely to the Ashes next year.

I think Collingwood only would go, bringing in A. Decent Batsmen. This will be spun as reconstructive surgery on his shoulder/needs a break from the game to get right. Bell will once again finger his file full of pics of Peter Moores doing a Max Mosely and pop up again at 6.

C'mon kiwis, today!

[Pie-chucker]

1.80 Eng
2.40 NZ

I'd call it

2.30 Eng
1.90 NZ

but much will depend (cliche time) on the first 45 mins.

[seabird]

With a run rate of only about 2.30 England should win easily. After 15 minutes the progress is snails pace but I've been tempted to take the 8/15 on offer for an England win.

[seabird]

The snails pace suddenly suddenly changed to turbo pace with 12 in one over. Now that was good timing to put a bet on. Come on England.

[Sir Fernando]

150-2

Vaughan caught behind.

[Pie-chucker]

LUNCH

England are a talented, gutsy and positive test side coached by a motivational mastermind.

Same XI for the 3rd Test and same again right through to the Ashes.

[Sir Fernando]

Pietersen almost run himself out.

[Sir Fernando]

England, glad it was finished off before tea.

NZ must be gutted, thrown it away, all credit to the Montster and Straussy.

[meatman]

Great knock from Strauss today and useful Vaughan and KP runs

I thought Bell looked ok ish, Collingwood was absolutely shocking at times

I'd like to see some changes made but I'd be surprised if it's a different XI for Trent Bridge

[WoodyTHFC]

Yeah NZ definitely threw that match away, 240 odd runs ahead with 8 wickets in hand (effectively 7) but then a dramatic collapse and suddenly England were back in it. However credit to Monty for giving them the opportunity and to the batsmen for actually performing and knocking off the runs and doing so in a much more positive manner than the bizarre first innings performance. Still though it must be said that I do think the win does paper over some cracks and one that will be exploited by better teams. After all this was only NZ and we made them look like world beaters for a stage. Certainly on form, Colly should not be playing atm, whether through injury (shoulder) or whatever it is, he looks poor and when you consider that Hoggard was dropped for his first bad match in years it does raise some questions. Bell needs a proper score too. Also I still refer to the strange first innings batting aggression (or lack of it), in the second innings I thought they played really well and that bit more aggressive without being foolish, if they played like that all the time then there would be no problem but I just dont understand the first innings approach here. Im not sure england did either and Bell eluded to that prior to the play. Against a good team that would cost england. Anyway a win is a win, well done England for beating the mighty force of New Zealand.

[meatman]

Originally Posted by WoodyTHFC

. Also I still refer to the strange first innings batting aggression (or lack of it), in the second innings I thought they played really well and that bit more aggressive without being foolish, if they played like that all the time then there would be no problem but I just dont understand the first innings approach here.

Well England batsman were heavily criticsed for 'giving their wicket away' a few months ago weren't they. I know this negative batting was an issue in the Hamilton test match and it cost us that game. It's almost as if they are too scared to get out sometimes. For me it's very hard to criticise those top 3 at the moment though, at the end of the day you've gotta have solid foundations in any innings.

[WoodyTHFC]

Originally Posted by meatman

Well England batsman were heavily criticsed for 'giving their wicket away' a few months ago weren't they. I know this negative batting was an issue in the Hamilton test match and it cost us that game. It's almost as if they are too scared to get out sometimes. For me it's very hard to criticise those top 3 at the moment though, at the end of the day you've gotta have solid foundations in any innings.

It is all about finding the balance between attack and defence. I stand by that in the first innings the balance was wrong, Vaughan scoring 30 of 130 odd balls, that is just snail pace, too defensive. It is not the first time it has been like that either, you mention Hamilton, what about the Sri lanka tour and in that adelaide second innings. In the second innings the balance was right for me and england should be congratulated for that. Im not saying go out and give their wickets away but just bat in a slightly more attacking frame of mind without being reckless, rotate the strike a bit more and keep the scoreboard ticking.

[meatman]

Originally Posted by WoodyTHFC

It is all about finding the balance between attack and defence. I stand by that in the first innings the balance was wrong, Vaughan scoring 30 of 130 odd balls, that is just snail pace, too defensive. It is not the first time it has been like that either, you mention Hamilton, what about the Sri lanka tour and in that adelaide second innings. In the second innings the balance was right for me and england should be congratulated for that. Im not saying go out and give their wickets away but just bat in a slightly more attacking frame of mind without being reckless, rotate the strike a bit more and keep the scoreboard ticking.

yeh you've gotta find the right balance, not always easy though.

[Sir Fernando]

I think Ravi Bopara should be brought in for Collingwood, people will probably disagree but Ravi's young, had lots of first class cricket with Essex, ODI experience with England and offers a bowling option like Collingwood does.I think he's ready, thats been Englands problem for years, never throwing them in when their young, Stuart Broad,Panesar and Cook have all shown what the youngsters can bring to the test side.

[WoodyTHFC]

They did throw Bopara in though. Remember Sri Lanka last winter? Somehow he played the tests ahead of Shah and the consequences were disastrous, Bopara scored just 42 runs in the whole series (34 of them in one knock), averaged just 8.4 and finished the series with a pair. His 'bowling' took just one wicket in the whole series at an average of 81. Whenever I have seen him play, he does look to have some talent and he has proved that to some extent in the ODIs but I would not have him in the team ahead of Shah/Key/Ramps as a batsman and tbh I think too much is made of his 'bowling.' As discussed Bell/Vaughan and Kp could do a similar job and even some could argue Shah would be more effective with the ball, certainly on a turning pitch.

[kevshat]

You are really clutching at straws by picking fault with our run rates in Sri Lanka. Our run rates in that series were 3.01, 2.77 (trying to bat out the final day for a draw), 2.77, 3.24, 2.62 and 2.64. Now on Sri Lankan pitches there's absolutely nothing wrong with those run rates, in fact I'd take that all day long. So it comes down to 3 slow innings in how long? Not really much of an arguement. Maybe, just maybe it could be that NZ bowled well and we need to accept that? One thing I will say is Vettori bowled down wind in that 1st innings meaning if we came down the ground and went over the top we'd be hitting into the wind. We may have been slow in that 1st innings but that's how the conditions dictated and as Meatman says it's all about working the conditions out and adapting to them. The fact all of our batsmen played the same way would suggest it was more the conditions than anything else.

I like your selective stats on Bopara too . What you failed to mention was he bowled 26 overs in that series and condeded only 81 runs, on pitches which probably didn't suit him. The pitches over here do and given he's a year older and wiser and continues to churn out runs I think he deserves a proper chance if you like. As I said earlier whoever comes in at 6 has to be able to bowl 10-12 overs a day and so he's the best option we've got. Shah's bowling is irrelevant because KP will always bowl in a test match before him and we don't produce turning pitches.

Back to this match and I thought we played well today. For me, Strauss is batting really nicely at the minute and the captain is beginning to show signs of his quality which can only be a good thing. It's important we don't brush this under the carpet though but hey, we've won when not playing particularly well so that should bode well I guess.

[kevshat]

Just doing the housekeeping and on the bets from 2 pages ago, all 4 lost so I'm now -14.3pts for the series despite the good start although Sidebottom looks like he'll be good for 8 of those as he only needs 4 wickets on his home ground to bring my outright bet in.

Final test is at Trent Bridge next Thursday.

[TheRat]

Yep, was a very good chase
Was worried about chasing here, but Monty put is in a great position and the batsmen took their opportunity.

[WoodyTHFC]

Disagree regarding run rates in Sri Lanka. You highlight all those examples but yet on every single one of them, Sri Lanka, had a higher run rate for their respective innings and sometimes it was substantial. I reckon most, if not all international sides, would muster a better run rate than us in those circumstances. If you want a specific point where I reckon we batted too negatively then I would highlight the first innings of the first match. We had Sri Lanka in major trouble, bowled them out cheaply and started our innings well and positively, indeed Vaas and Malinga went at over 4 runs an over. However England then went into their shell when facing Murali. Now we all know scoring off Murali is not an easy thing to do but nevertheless, England scored at a paltry 1.57 runs an over during Murali's 35 overs. Murali one by one picked them off and ended up with six. Consequently, England achieved a lead of 90 odd that was quickly wiped off and in their second innings they could not save the game. The general consensus that I picked up on from around the world after that game was that England were too defensive against Murali in the first innings. If you look at the series after that, Murali was played in a slightly more positive manner and generally played better by the England batsmen imo. Indeed in every innings after that he would go for at least 2 an over bar one occasion when he only bowled 4 overs. It is all about the balance between attack and defence and that balance was wrong on at least one occasion in the first test, the vital occasion, and the series was lost.

One way I could understand the run rates a bit more was if we actually made them count and went onto make the truly big scores. We did not do that in Sri Lanka. Whereas the Sri Lankan batsmen like Jayawardene, Sangakarra and even Vandort all went onto make 100s and big 100s at that, we made the hugely significant sum of 1 hundred in the very last innings of the series (Cook.) The England batmen made lots of starts, lots of 50s but in terms of making them count into significant match winning scores (ie. big hundreds) they were not there.

I do not disagree with you that NZ bowled well in the first innings. However Im not changing my mind, england were too defensive in particularly on the second afternoon. New Zealand at that stage were bowling nothing more than basic line and length on a pitch that during that stage was not playing many major tricks. England should have been looking to push on more a touch more at this stage but they did not, they played negative cricket in stark contrast to the way they used to play say during 2004 and 2005. At the rate Vaughan scored, only 121 runs in a day would have been scored and it was not as if he went on a made that big 100 I already mentioned, he made a torturious 30 and then got out in a defensive manner. Yes New Zealand bowled well but even still England scored too slowly at the start of the first innings and approached it in the wrong frame of mind. Too negative. If they did that against a good side they will get murdered imo and they were lucky that Panesar gave them an opportunity to recover.

As for Bopara and my 'selective stats.' You are of cause correct, I failed to mentioned that he bowled the massive amount of 26 overs in Sri Lanka going for 81 runs (3.11 runs an over) and taking 1 wicket in the whole series. Big bloody deal. Vaughan hardly hard the confidence to actually use him, sometimes 100 overs would be bowled before Bopara would get anything like a proper bowl. Bopara should not have played that series ahead of Shah, big mistake and it cost England and I would not want him to play ahead of the likes of Shah/Ramps/Key and even araguably I would say someone like Sales or even Mark Butcher (he used to bowl a little bit of medium pace, does that mean he should be in the Eng team ) His batting is not better than these guys imo, indeed Im not even sure it would be that much better than Flintoff, even in Flintoff's recent struggles with the bat, he did not average 8.4 in a series. If bowling 10/12 overs a day is that important (KP,Vaughan and Bell could all do it Im sure anyway and if it meant they would get in the team because of it then Im very sure they would do it) then go for more of a bowling type of all rounder in that position like Flintoff, even Dimi.

This is not a witch hunt on Bopara. I actually think he maybe a good cricketer for Eng one day but he was thrown into the team too soon in Sri Lanka and was totally out of his depth. Let him score a bucket load of runs for Essex for at least the whole season and then maybe look at him again, maybe let his bowling improve in county cricket so he could become soemthing like a genuine all rounder (he has 12 first class wickets this year, is that a start?) Im all for putting youngsters in if they are good enough and better than other alternatives, Cook, Broad, Panesar I believe are good examples of that but if they are not better than other alternatives (ie. Fletcher picking the likes of Mahmood and Plunkett over Sidebottom) then do not pick them until they do make themselves the no.1 choice imo.

[Sir Fernando]

im sorry but the whole selection process is wrong, youngsters from less 'fashionable counties' dont seem to get a chance, i played cricket few years ago with Alex Gidman, who i still see now and again, (got me free tickets for the weekend Gloucester cricket festival aswell) Why aren't the players from England A coming through.