Posted by The ECB media cheat sheet will have been passed around again after today’s performance. All this running talk of attacking batting is understandable, but England repeatedly show a worrying lack of aptitude for walking the full 50-over distance (actually only 45 in this instance). Six times in their last seven matches they’ve been bowled out.
There are many interlinked problems and it goes beyond team selection. That said, we’d actually be tempted to drop Eoin Morgan on recent form. We’ve no idea what’s wrong with him, but he appears to need some form of arse-kick and James Taylor surely needs to get a few games before the World Cup.
As for Alastair Cook, we’re not going to start laying into his batting just yet – but only because it’s a seven-match series and there’s another long one-day series and World Cup to come. Cook ain’t going anywhere, so we’ve got to pace ourself. If we give full vent to our anger now, what are we going to do when he makes a 32-ball duck against Scotland in February?
It seems it’s all about getting to 300, because some rent a quotes in the say it is the new par score. I read that only 25% of first innings are going to 300 around the world. Even rohit played himself in before going mad. Morgan is struggling but he seems to be coming in after continued failings at the top. I don’t think you can play cook bell and root. I’d drop bell.
Certainly, the English team look set to drop a clanger at the World Cup.
Bell: 2012 – average 54.9, strike-rate 82.68; 2013 – average 43.0, strike-rate 76.87; 2014 – average 34.21, strike-rate 90.89.
Root’s scored a couple of hundreds this year.
Not looked up Cook’s record.
I’d drop Cook, because obviously.
Also, Bell has to play a few more ODIs yet:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;team=1;template=results;type=batting
At current rate, he might stagger past Colly by the end of the World Cup.
Anyway, what with people getting better when they aren’t in the side I’d definitely drop Morgan for Taylor for a few games.
Woakes isn’t even a good List A player, I have no idea what he’s doing anywhere near an ODI side.
The funny thing is that almost all of the “similar deliveries” that appear when Cook is commented on are going on about how wonderful he is. Good times, eh?
They’re not talking about ODIs, of course.
To be fair to Cook, he’s going through and important rite of passage for every England captain. It seems only fair that he be given the same opportunity to lead a team to abject failure at the World Cup that every Strauss, Vaughan et al had.
It seems a pity that the only captain ever to win a limited overs tournament was summarily discarded when a smarter administration might have sought a way to keep Collingwood in the team for a lot longer than he was. I’d keep Bell in the team but Cook has been out of form in both formats for a year and a half and being roughed up by the Sri Lankans on their home turf ain’t gonna turn that round sometime soon.
What’s this obsession with movement? Why does KC invoke sprinting and crawling? Why does cricinfo claim SL cantered? I prefer the entire range of my cricketers’ motion to be between stationary and quasistatic. Are there no true players anymore?
Ah, good old Pakistan. For about three and a half tests, they seemed to have shed their capricious nature and be building an empire of success, at least in the UAE. Now they’re back to unpredictable collapses and the like.