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We’ve a lot of time for both Ravi Bopara and Eoin Morgan. Far from feeling it necessary to identify one as being a better bet for the Test team, we’re simply happy that one of them misses out.
The true strength of the great Australian Test teams of yesteryear was measured in Brad Hodges, Michael Bevans and Stuart Laws – the players who couldn’t get in. England are a fair way off that, but having a man like Morgan stewing in county cricket is no bad thing.
Eoin Morgan seems to like a bit of pressure. That’s his greatest attribute. The pressure he felt before scoring a hundred for England Lions against Sri Lanka would all have come from himself, but that still counts.
All forms of pressure get filtered through your own mind, after all. You rate the feelings of other people, decide whether they have a case for applying pressure and then your brain does the application on their behalf if you feel it’s justified.
Many people think we should join Facebook. We disagree and therefore feel no pressure to do so. Conversely, while takeaway delivery drivers doubtless have far worse customers than us, we nevertheless find ourself crippled by nerves when the ‘how much to tip’ question starts to loom.
there’s a difference between genuinely not being able to get into the team and being unfairly left out of the team.
Is that a reference to one of those Aussies?
It was reffering to the possiblility of morgan being dropped – and yes, after going on the Ashes tour, it would count as him being dropped – after showing he’s still the form player and the more reliable batsman.
But on reflection I guess it refers to one of the aussies too.
Long-term, there’s been little to choose between Morgan and Bopara as batsmen, so Bopara’s bowling makes him a better replacement for Collingwood in the eyes of the selectors.
Or, you could say that there’s little to choose between them as batsmen and Morgan is the incumbent, so ought to get the first go.
True, but our point is that however strong Morgan’s case, we’re not sure that leaving him out amounts to unfairness.
Long term James Taylor is a better bet than either of them.
He fields in pads though, which seems odd. Or maybe everyone does it now and I’m massively out of touch. Which is likely.
You tip takeaway delivery drivers?
Almost always. We couldn’t live with ourself if we didn’t.
Do you tip the postman too?
Where would the tipping end……
Oh no. Now we feel guilty for that as well.
You don’t? You’re a stiff.
In other pressure-related news, Shane Warne retires today (from cricket, not I assume from publicity). Healy and Langer were interviewed on the radio about him this morning, and the question of his ability to handle pressure came up. One of them said (can’t remember which) that it wasn’t that he handled the pressure well, but that he would have needed to be told that there was pressure to handle.
In English cricket, we are very good at taking players with this sort of attitude and then telling them over and over and over and over and over…
…and over and over and over again that they MUST feel the pressure. And when they finally succumb to this, we bash them for not being good enough. We would have killed Warne long before he got as far as bowling to Mike Gatting.
We always thought Ravi was of a similar mind, but either we were wrong, or what you describe happened to the lad.
I don’t actually remember the last time I had a takeaway delivered to my door.
When I was young we used to get an Indian every Friday night and watch 999 with Michael Buerk.
Simpler times.
Its either takeaway or delivery. How can it be both?
“Takeaway” is the name of a whole cuisine, Deep Cower.
Yep, I’m with you 110% on that. I’m waiting right now for my takeaway to be delivered. I have resisted phoning the pizza company every few minutes to make sure that they do it exactly right, because I reckon that the extra pressure that would apply would increase the chance of them doing it wrong. Last week when I phoned them twelve times this extra pressure caused my pizza to turned up all wrong, spread all over the box, and covered in tiny shards of glass.
Haunted by the delivery-tip issue, we’re making takeaway at home tonight.
It will be with us in about 40 minutes.
I am still confused. And I am pretty sure you are fucking with me.
It doesn’t matter though. I am looking forward to the long weekend. Victoria Day, apparently. Celebrated on the last *Monday* on or before May 24. Clever, these Canadians.
Eoin Morgan has apparently said he’ll fuck off back to the IPL if he’s not in the side for the First Test. So he can go then – if he doesn’t care about playing cricket in England, as far as I’m concerned he can go and stuff playing cricket for England. That’s as good as not making himself available.
I find the best way is to order food specifically with a tip in mind. Make sure your food costs £1 – £1.50 less than the nearest tenner and tell them casually “don’t worry about the change.”
The drawback is that you might need to order more or less food than you actually want, but no system is perfect.
You’ve highlighted the absolute nightmare though. What do you do when the order comes to £14.95?
The only options are to say “Don’t worry about the FIVE PENCE change”, or to stand there waiting for FIVE PENCE change. In either case, you WILL look like a proper wanker.
What I do is to wait for the change AND tell them to hurry up about it. This resolves any ambiguity, and lets everyone know where they stand.
Morgan’s been picked now then. Or more accurately, he’s not been dropped for a guy who hasn’t played a Test for two years.
Having Ravi Bopara in reserve is no bad thing…