Eng in Lanka

From not being keen on Moeen's position, Cook now uses him to open the batting and bowling sometimes.
While I am a fan of Moeen's temperament, I dont think he is the saviour that Eng is looking for.

also he won't do well as an opener for too long.

Cook has strong dislikes and it seems now Hales is on that list.


Lanks has been Mauled by India and must be at lowest possible morale.

Eng is not a great ODI side and lagging by the day as Morgan observed.

Should be an even series if not a high quality one. Lanks might still win

Typical England, playing it safe. If Mooen is going to open it should be with Hales if anything. If Cook has to be in the team (personally I don't think he should be near it but he is captain) he could bat at 3 or 4, doing a similar anchoring role that Trott used to do.

Cook and Bell both in the top 3 is a recipe for pedestrianism, even then I think Bell is a better ODI player than Cook as he can at least pick the gaps and score 4's.

I think they need Moeen in the side in Sri Lanka to bowl his spin, alongside Tredwell, and the middle order seems pretty set so opening is the only place really. I think he might struggle in Australia against some real tall, bouncing quicks and his spin will be less necessary there. Questions the wisdom of playing ODI's in SL before the WC, but at least they have the tri series in Aus before the WC

Hales, Moeen, Ballance/Bell, Root, Morgan, Buttler, Stokes, Woakes, Broad, Tredwell, Finn. For the WC. Jordan was really expensive again today, which is a shame because he'd be a good all round cricketer to have in the team.

any ODI cricket as teams get closer to WC is better than no cricket.
But then the aim should be to simulate the scenarios ans combinations that are likely in WC.
Cook is as passionate about ODIs as Dhoni about tests

Hales really should be opening..In an ideal world possibly Hales and Mo....but for now with Cook being in the side, should be... Cook.Hales, with Mo at 3...

Interesting news that Kumar Sangakkara is close to retirement...

Gerry SA wrote:Interesting news that Kumar Sangakkara is close to retirement...

Surrey apparently sniffing around strongly.

Anyway, Moeen had a good game yesterday as England beat Sri Lanka A in a rain restricted encounter. 3/29 off his 9 overs and then 56 off 37 balls. I've always had more time for his batting than many here - feel he reads the situation well and plays with sensible aggression although accept that he needs to show greater consistency.

Pretty decent team performance by England. The only concern being Jordan going wicketless and for 48 off just 5 overs.

Super Mo should have a good time in SL, plays spin well too

Agree with all you folks that Hales should be playing instead of Cook, but let's face it unless the selectors wake up and smell the coffee it ain't gonna happen

Hales in Eng's Finch

JDizzle wrote:I think they need Moeen in the side in Sri Lanka to bowl his spin, alongside Tredwell, and the middle order seems pretty set so opening is the only place really. I think he might struggle in Australia against some real tall, bouncing quicks and his spin will be less necessary there. Questions the wisdom of playing ODI's in SL before the WC, but at least they have the tri series in Aus before the WC

Hales, Moeen, Ballance/Bell, Root, Morgan, Buttler, Stokes, Woakes, Broad, Tredwell, Finn. For the WC. Jordan was really expensive again today, which is a shame because he'd be a good all round cricketer to have in the team.

Shame number 4 in the ICC ODI rankings can't bat.

England side for 1st odi

Cook (c)
Moeen
Bell
Root
Morgan
Buttler (wk)
Bopara
Stokes
Woakes
Tredwell
Gurney

2 specialist bowlers, 4 all rounders (Moeen, Bopara, Stokes, Woakes). 2 plodders in the top 3.

And this is the blueprint for World Cup success??

With Bopara or Stoke or Woakes at No. 9....the formula for Eng is very Dhoni-sque.

set us whatever you will...and we will chase it down with our 9 batters.

though Woakes and Stokes are no part-timer....but hold place on the bowling merit largely.

4 decent seamers, 2 spinners + Bopara is a decent attack

its a good side.....and far more likelier to get to semis then Tendulkar thinks.

they need to get the attitude and batting order right

Lanka on the other hand is still too dependent on Jaya and sanga....who I am surprised to see are still playing....I thought I saw their retirement announcements...some time back

they are not like they used to be....and so batting lacks solidity especially outside home country.

and they are playing the two Mendises and hertah who might be effective here, but will be far easier to handle on the world cup pitches

from the scorecard it seem Tredwell is bowling impressively......he has always impressed me as one who punches above his weight from the time i saw him closely in the Champions Trophy.
He would  serve Eng well in tests also.

That Bopara is bowling economically implies ( without watching) ball ain't coming on the bat.....which in turn means the 3 spinners + dilsahn + Matthews will make Eng's life hard.

They don't wanna be chasing above 270....and that means they need to trigger a mini collapse of the lankan batting at some point to keep them from cutting loose.

Tredwell is a solid performer, just outside the top 10 in the ODI rankings I believe.

It just dawned on me you would expect Anderson, Broad, Finn, Tredwell to be the main bowling attack come the WC. On its day that could cause problems for any team, the lineup we see today lacks wicket takers I would say.

Anyway, it's probably one out of Stokes, Woakes, Bopara for the world cup, 2 out of those 3 at a push.

We do need to try something with the batting though, why not Taylor (the best List A batsman in County Cricket) instead of Bell (never done much in ODIs)? What about Hales?

317 is massive and I think beyond reach by about 40 to 50 runs

I agree with the supportive comments above about Tredwell. He doesn't get intimidated and uses his nous to good, dependable effect. Incidentally, a nice catch by Buttler for Tredwell's second wicket.

I only saw a bit of Sri Lanka's innings but from what I did we were too lacking in control, Stokes especially. Didn't see Bopara bowl but his figures are tidy (0/15 off 4 overs). I appreciate the need to ''bank'' things and settle for what you've got so far from a sixth bowler but would have thought he could still have had at least a fifth over.

Whilst hoping to be proved wrong, I fear not only is the score beyond us but that it may prove overly daunting and lead to a collapse.

More than decent start by England in their reply. 51/0 off 6 overs. Moeen Ali leading the way with 40 off 20, supporting my comments above a few days ago about his batting.

Still a mighty long way to go though ....

And just before I press ''send'' - Cook falls to ex-Surrey man Dilshan!

the pace of Eng's chase so far seems surreal.

in such cases one wicket goes and the rest of the house comes down tumbling trying to keep up the unrealistic momentum

143/4 off 22.

Moeen Ali 78 from 55, Buttler 14 at a run a ball. Run rate is good but an unhealthy amount of wickets already lost.

Ian Bell's knock today was pretty much his entire ODI career summed in up one innings. Breezy start, begins to get bogged down, wafts at an innocuous ball, 35 (35).

Moeen brings up his hundred and we are still up with the rate. Pity we've struggled to have a set partner at the other end.

If you start from a blank piece of paper, what possible reason can there be for having A Cook - brilliant Test player though he is - anywhere near any One Day squad? Bell also is never going to ask questions of good One Day sides.

England's only hope of becoming seriously competitive is to start with raw ability at the top of the order and ignore who happens to be in the Test side. How about?...

1. Hales
2. Moeen
3. Roy

SimonofSurrey wrote:If you start from a blank piece of paper, what possible reason can there be for having A Cook - brilliant Test player though he is - anywhere near any One Day squad? Bell also is never going to ask questions of good One Day sides.

England's only hope of becoming seriously competitive is to start with raw ability at the top of the order and ignore who happens to be in the Test side. How about?...

1. Hales
2. Moeen
3. Roy

Exactly, you need a batting line up these days who can hit a better than run a ball hundred - Cook and Bell are not capable. The big hitters might not always come off e.g. Morgan and Buttler today but they are absolutely the right players to be in the team. Cook and Bell simply waste two of the positions that have the chance to bat for the most time. From the current squad I really feel the top 6 should be:

Hales
Moeen
Taylor
Root
Morgan
Buttler

Its been a one man show and he's probably done his quota or most if it for the series.
someone else has to stand-up during the series.
for now because of wkts lost Lanka is looking 60 40 favourite

Indeed - it was a fine innings, the type that us England fans are not used to whilst the whole of the rest of the world has been taking that approach for the last 5 years at least.

But watch him get out playing a shot for a ten ball 20 in the next game, and Aggers will be demanding Trott back in the top 3 to make the bowlers work for their wickets.

VTR - re Trott for Mooen: a London cabbie told me the other day he'd had that Chris Tavare in the back of his cab just the other day and Chris was looking trim for his age and raring to go.

You never know...

Get him in the team!

Eng didn't pace their chase right......they went too fast too early and ran out of gas in the last lap.
Like a 5000m runner who ran too fast in the early laps stayed ahead of pack but no stamina at the end

Watch Ind chase these totals.....and they have chased plenty of near or above 300
they keep wkt in hands......and even 170 is gettable in last 20 with 7 to 8 wkts in hand

KP_f - yes, being 4 down within about the first 20 overs made an uphill task even steeper and more difficult. We probably did pretty well to get so close but it always seemed just out of reach. Yet again, a decent effort from Bopara but no cigar!

Add to that, a great knock by Moeen and a typically useful performance from Tredwell with the ball. However, that rather disguises the remaining ordinary individual contributions. The bowling was particularly poor with a lack of control and too many wides.

SimonofSurrey wrote:VTR - re Trott for Mooen: a London cabbie told me the other day he'd had that Chris Tavare in the back of his cab just the other day and Chris was looking trim for his age and raring to go.

You never know...  

Of course we need a stroke player to partner Boycott at the top of the order...

More seriously, the big problem today was that while Moeen and Bopara were playing innings that should have won the match, the other end was losing wickets much too regularly. Any reasonable support from the likes of Cook, Morgan or Root and we'd have been home with a couple of overs to spare.

We need to be able to chase down these 300+ scores if we are going to win many ODIs given the recent changes to tactics and field restrictions.

I'd be all for having Cook/Bell in the side if they played like Trott used to, and made runs similar to him. Matter of fact is that neither of them do, they don't make the runs Trott did, they haven't shown the acceleration and ability to rotate strike like Trott did (especially Cook). Ultimately the game has moved on from having players like them in an ODI side. 

Root for me is fine, he has shown he has the ability to accelerate and make scores.

Get Hales in for Cook and Taylor for Bell. How Taylor, the best List A county batsman of the past two/three seasons isn't in the side or really been given a shot is mental

the problem with Eng is not lack of talent or the side composition...they just do not know how to strategise for the shorter form.

also the poise , calm, astuteness to handle limited over situations is just not well developed....they are just not exposed enough to the situations that prime IPL playing nations do.

Its the same as India's naivety in test cricket

Please for the love of god wake up selectors and give Taylor and hales a proper shot

England bowled like drains in the first game to give their batsmen experience chasing "unchasable" totals.

Now they're putting in a pathetic show with the bat to give their bowlers experience defending "undefendable" totals.

Really taking this World Cup preperation seriously.

Looking down at the scorecard only:

Same old problem for Cook. 22 off 37 with 3 fours. That's 12 from 3 and 10 from 27. That's at least 17 dot balls in the powerplay. 17+ in 37 is about 50% which is too many.

Ali failed. He won't always come off.

Bell got another run-a-ball start, another failure though.

Root and Morgan went about rebuilding, but both fell without making a significant contribution.

Ravi is doing a great job, as he did the other day. He's playing the situtation he's been given and trying to bat us to a decent total.

Buttler appeared to try to do the same, but that isn't really his game. Maybe he was trying to play his way in before teeing off, but he failed too.

Woakes is just trying to stick in with Ravi and add what he can.

Same old problems for England. Not rotating the strike enough, then losing regular wickets as we need to go for the big shots to up the rate.

the game was off the radar...... amidst the Hughes grieving , and Mccullum fireworks.......and suddenly i notice Lanka has sneaked in 9 wicktes for nothing and Eng side looking like a car with wheels stuck in sand.....the harder the try to come out, the more they get stuck

and as I write bowled out for 185

We've been bowled out inside 50 overs in 6 of our last 7 ODI innings

We just hit 8 boundaries in 250 odd deliveries.

We suck

I love moeen

I am glad I didnt wake up early.

Has a team ever lost an ODI series 7-0 before? I remember we were going to in India in 08(?), before it was abandoned after the tragic Mumbai shootings.

Exciting stuff. Pray for rain.

robbo277 wrote:
Same old problem for Cook. 22 off 37 with 3 fours. That's 12 from 3 and 10 from 27. That's at least 17 dot balls in the powerplay. 17+ in 37 is about 50% which is too many.2/3

Your maths is way off, as is your reasoning. 10 from 34 more like it so at least 24 dot balls (roughly 2/3ds). In fact 50% if dot balls in the PP (when the field is up) is more than reasonable going, 2/3ds is probably too many, but the real issue is lack of boundaries. Cook's rate if expanded across the entire PP (so for both batsmen) is a boundary every two overs, which if you expect (roughly) boundaries to contribute half your runs (maybe a bit more) in the PP would mean 40 off the first 10 overs.

robbo277 wrote:Ali failed. He won't always come off.

Is it only me who can't see Ali succeeding at the top of the order on the faster wickets in Aus. Pretty good fit for the subcontinent, but if preparing for the WC is the plan, I'm not entirely sure where he fits into the England side TBH. If he's not top 3, and given Root, Morgan, Buttler are fairly well established at 4,5,6 then I guess he's fighting Ravi for that number 7/all-rounder place (or England go for 5 genuine bowlers). Tredwell is still comfortably the superior ODI spinner.

In fact the logic of preparing for a WC in Aus by stacking a load of meaningless ODIs in Sri Lanka strikes me as completely utterly daft. Then again so much of what England do, and the international cricket schedule strikes me as daft, so...

robbo277 wrote:Same old problems for England. Not rotating the strike enough, then losing regular wickets as we need to go for the big shots to up the rate.

I don't think I agree. I think the main problem is lack of boundaries. It allows the bowlers to settle, the fielders to be a lot tighter and expecting the attempt at rotation (so easier to cut off), and this makes rotating the strike harder.

Mike Selig wrote:

robbo277 wrote:Ali failed. He won't always come off.

Is it only me who can't see Ali succeeding at the top of the order on the faster wickets in Aus. Pretty good fit for the subcontinent, but if preparing for the WC is the plan, I'm not entirely sure where he fits into the England side TBH. If he's not top 3, and given Root, Morgan, Buttler are fairly well established at 4,5,6 then I guess he's fighting Ravi for that number 7/all-rounder place (or England go for 5 genuine bowlers). Tredwell is still comfortably the superior ODI spinner.

In fact the logic of preparing for a WC in Aus by stacking a load of meaningless ODIs in Sri Lanka strikes me as completely utterly daft. Then again so much of what England do, and the international cricket schedule strikes me as daft, so...

While I kinda agree with the points about Ali, he's not the problem here. The problem is the bloke opening from the other end is horrifically out of form and even when he's not, in modern ODI's, he isn't up to scratch. Like I said earlier I'd have no problem if he could play like Trott used to, but he can't and doesn't. So we should be looking at other options imo

Morgan also out of touch. I personally would never drop him (especially considering he did very well in the odi's in aus last time), but you gotta score runs at some point

Like many I guess, still feeling rather flat and so couldn't get too worked up by this game. Did watch some of the Sri Lanka innings though. Highly professional performances from Sangakkara and Jayawardene. Both very impressive even if it did seem too easy. Until these two batsmen hurried things along towards the end, it looked for a long time that England were just drifting to defeat. There was more control from the England bowlers than last time but not much penetration. To be fair to them, our batsmen set a pitiful target.

Harsh to have a go at Bopara when he's at least making a contribution but too often it seems to be handy and lessening the margin of defeat rather than commanding and match changing. I'm not convinced that tucking him down the order and giving him around 3 overs with the ball is going to change anything. I'm coming to the view that we need to give him a more meaningful role or leave him out.

Cook again seemed an uninspiring captain in the field lacking innovation. However, until Pietersen is made chairman of selectors, we seem to be stuck with him and so there's probably little point dwelling on that.

All in all, very disappointing and hard to see things being turned round soon. Sorry.

Not disagreeing with any of that Olly. Ali obviously not the problem, but personally I doubt he's the solution either (at the top of the order; he could develop into a very good all-rounder at number 6-7).

It is becoming somewhat tiring and perhaps unfair to keep repeating, but Cook is not one of England's best 11 ODI players. I'm not saying (as some on twitter like to suggest) that replacing Cook will fix all (or even most) of England's problems, but it would be a start.

Roy
Hales
Vince

What is there to lose? England aren't currently competing. They won't compete for large stretches at the WC. Is it that much worse to be bundled out for 150odd and get thrashed than to stutter to 220-250 and get thrashed?

Bell has the ability to be a top order ODI player, but has never quite succeeded. Why, I simply don't know. Cook for me does not. And when his ODI form gets reasonable his test form suffers.

Oh and the bowling and particularly the death bowling also needs some serious work.

Hales, Roy, Taylor, Vince should all be in the side

There is nothing to lose Mike, but the people at the ECB rather bafflingly have it in their heads that we are actually going to do well at the world cup with the team how it is. The sheer arrogance (or ignorance depending on how you see it) is astounding.

You have James Taylor, who in List A cricket, has the third highest average of all time (http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282914.html) and he can't even get a shot in one of the worst ODI sides going. How, just how on earth can the selectors justify that on any level!!

And then looking further down the list at 7th you've got Gary Ballance, is he even on the tour?!

Yet again James Taylor misses out.
Oh well, I suppose that, when the batting's been going so well for England recently, it's only right that probably the best List A batsman in the country should wait his turn, isn't it?