England lucky to not to play tests in India this time!

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Very very lucky lucky.
The tables are turned, England lions have been found out. Lions at home lambs abroad. Ironically the saying fits on both the teams

India befittingly taking the revenge by white washing England. As soon as Cook went, it was like Indian spinners smelling the blood, Dhoni hunted down all their men and inflicted another humilating defeat. One area where Indian team can claim superiority is ODI format. Even when playing in England, India fought well in all the matches whereas England's defeat reeflects more or less same kind of scoreline India showed in tests when playing in England.

In Eng, India bowling was not upto the mark and in India the batting of Eng players is not up to the mark. They cant play spin only.

England have been saved by the scheduling or else they would have suffered the same fate in the tests too.

The top five teams - England, South Africa, India, Australia and SL - are about the same.

England: Poor record in the subcontinent. Won in Australia, but overall 'away' record in the past five years is poor. Struggles in the ODI format. The most balanced team in test cricket.

South Africa - The team with the best 'away' performance. Could be #1, but has the habit of just falling short of reaching the very top or not able to keep intensity level to stay at the top. Best fast bowler and best all-rounder.

India - Hard to beat at home. Weak bowling unit in test cricket. Uncertain future as their star batsmen are about to move into senior citizen communities.

Sri Lanka - Good team at home. Fragile batting on tour. Struggling after retirements of Murali and Vaas.

Australia - Recovered to some extent in the bowling department after losing McGrath and Warne. Unreliable batting, with the exception of Hussey.

With this set up, we are likely to see musical chairs with the top 5 rankings. The bottom three - Pakstan, West Indies and New Zealand - are unlikely to climb enough in the near future to enter the elite top 5.

Leff
Pakistan are dominating Sri Lanka.

Shaky, PK is capable of good performances here and there. However, the team has never performed consistently well in the past ten years or so. Having said, I see the ongoing series as SL's struggle in transition.

Pakistan cricket team is like a superweed, you can never count them out
So many retirements (Shahid afridi, Mohd Yusuf) betting scandal, ball tampering incident, a wickertkeeper rebel, ipl exclusions, a self destructive cricket board, politics in the team and the absence of decent coach.

But such is the abundance of talent that they come back again and again. Even in the world cup they reached SFs defying all the odds.
Well done Pakistan!

There is no way on earth that SL would be able to challenge the top 3 or Australia who although lower in the rankings are a far better side.

Over a 5-year period, SL will still have a winning record at home even with this outfit.

Leff wrote:Over a 5-year period, SL will still have a winning record at home even with this outfit.

not sure i would agree with that comment at this moment in time

they looked very poor at home to australia recently and are very reliant on sangakarra

their bowling attack is very weak so cant really see them winning alot of games until they sort that out

Leff wrote:The top five teams - England, South Africa, India, Australia and SL - are about the same.

England: Poor record in the subcontinent. Won in Australia, but overall 'away' record in the past five years is poor. Struggles in the ODI format. The most balanced team in test cricket.

South Africa - The team with the best 'away' performance. Could be #1, but has the habit of just falling short of reaching the very top or not able to keep intensity level to stay at the top. Best fast bowler and best all-rounder.

India - Hard to beat at home. Weak bowling unit in test cricket. Uncertain future as their star batsmen are about to move into senior citizen communities.

Sri Lanka - Good team at home. Fragile batting on tour. Struggling after retirements of Murali and Vaas.

Australia - Recovered to some extent in the bowling department after losing McGrath and Warne. Unreliable batting, with the exception of Hussey.

With this set up, we are likely to see musical chairs with the top 5 rankings. The bottom three - Pakstan, West Indies and New Zealand - are unlikely to climb enough in the near future to enter the elite top 5.

south africa also dont play anywhere near enough test matches.

cricketfan90 wrote:
south africa also dont play anywhere near enough test matches.

There is some truth to this that SA team does not play as many test matches as England, but they play at least as many matches as SL and WI, and more than PK and NZ.

What is clear is that SA has been the best team on the road in the recent years.

Test matches played in the past 5 years:
Eng 63, Ind 55, Aus 51, SA 44, SL 41, WI 41, PK 37, NZ 34

Tour records (W-L, ratio) of top 5 teams:
SA 11-4; 2.7
Aus 11-12; 1.1
Ind 11-12; 0.9
Eng 8-11; 0.7
SL 4-7; 0.6

In fact, SA is the only team that does not enjoy home advantage.

does that include England's 5-0 defeat in Aus? Surprised they have so poor a record otherwise...

Yes, that 8-11 tour record include last two ashes series (0-5 and 3-1) in Australia.

in all honesty most of india's batsman probably would have retired by the time we play them in india.

Sachin
Dravid
Sehwag-probably through injury
Laxman

Firstly whether India or England beat each other doesn't bother me in the slightest, but if you look at the side who has the best record in India, in recent times, its South Africa. We've won one series, lost one and drawn three. Not even the fabulous Australian side come close to the South Africans in India. When playing in India, stick to your strength, ie South Africa play one spinner only. There is no need to play multiple spinners if your strength is seam bowling. If England want to win in India, they have to play 3 fast bowlers. Even then, they don't have a Dale Steyn!!!

Demon Racer wrote: When playing in India, stick to your strength, ie South Africa play one spinner only. There is no need to play multiple spinners if your strength is seam bowling. If England want to win in India, they have to play 3 fast bowlers.

agree totally with this statement

you cant pick a team based on a predetermined formula if you dont have the players to fit it

all the talk about it being a must to play 2 specialist spinners is fine if you have a second spinner thats good enough , atm england dont and sacrificing a 6th batsman or one of the seamers to get someone who is at best an average spinner into the team is not a good trade off.

When Meaker was picked i thought what are the selectors doing!

but to be honet he wasnt bad. He picked up wickets at a decent rate. But people that said he was 90+ all the time, his quickest was 87mph thats not 90 lol

I had heard that he was 90+ too, obviously he is sharp but nothing express.

Who knows, might turn out like Finn who has incredibly added around 6 to 8mph of pace to his stock ball.

to be honest i think we are the missing the fast bowling all rounder we had in freddie. You look at the county game, there is no fast bowling all rounders. Stokes is medium pace, and there is no genuine fast bowling all rounders who can bat in the top6.

Do any countries really have a genuine quick bowling all rounder anymore though CF? Kallis maybe, but his bowling has slowed down and he doesn't do it as much as he used to. Watson is nothing more than military medium after all the injuries. After that I can't think of one!

Chris Woakes is the answer, in my opinion.

His bowling style is more suited to Test cricket than ODI cricket, and his batting is already very good at a young age.

unless you are going to go to a 5 bowler setup and dont want to extend the tail too much i just dont see woakes getting near the test team for awhile , too many bowlers in front of him and i just dont see him being an option in a 4 man attack

JDizzle wrote:Do any countries really have a genuine quick bowling all rounder anymore though CF? Kallis maybe, but his bowling has slowed down and he doesn't do it as much as he used to. Watson is nothing more than military medium after all the injuries. After that I can't think of one!

Bresnan?
Broad?

Chris Woakes looks like he could be a very good 50 over player but tests?

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

JDizzle wrote:Do any countries really have a genuine quick bowling all rounder anymore though CF? Kallis maybe, but his bowling has slowed down and he doesn't do it as much as he used to. Watson is nothing more than military medium after all the injuries. After that I can't think of one!

Bresnan?
Broad?

Mitchell Johnson.

Stella, he has found most of his success in the 4 day game.

Obviously this isn't going to happen in the next 18 months or so at the very least, as we have a great battery of fast bowlers, but if his batting can keep improving then he will allow us to play a 5 man attack, with Prior moving up to 6 and Woakes batting at 7.

But as rich1uk says, he is probably not good enough in a four man attack and is not a test number 6.

No but he can be a Test number 7. He is a better bat than the likes of Broad, Mitchell Johnson etc.

Still needs slight improvements in all aspects, but he is as promising an all-rounder as we have.

i think he would need to up his pace to be an effective test bowler , i think he could be someone who is actually the sort of bowler that all the WUMs accuse anderson of being

good at home when the ball is swinging and seaming but just doesn't have enough pace to be a wicket taking threat if it doesn't

But with 6 batsmen, he would be one of three pacemen.

Finn
Anderson
Broad
Bresnan
Tremlett

Are all ahead of him.

just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Well we would obviously have to go with 5 batsmen if that was the case.

Morgan, remember, has been far from impressive at Test level, so it would be his place that went.

I'm not saying this is what I think we should do, but it is a possibility.

His pace is around 85mph...similar to that of most of our bowlers. Agree that he would be better in England than the subcontinent, but that rings true for all of our bowlers.

Woakes needs to repeat his achievements of last season, which were quite extraordinary, for his selection to become even a remote possibility, but he certainly has the ability.

rich1uk wrote:just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Very good point, but on flatter wickets you might want 5 proper bowlers, and Woakes gives an opportunity to do this.

Ok, I see.

Prior is a better bat than Morgan, so he could bat at six.

I cannot see the selectors picking five bowlers but if they did then Woakes looks like a good bet.

i still dont see us moving to 5 bowlers tbh

if morgan does get replaced it would be more likely to be with another specialist batsman. since flintoff retired i think we have played one match where we went in with 5 bowlers and that was as much due to the extreme heat and humidity as anything tactical

Thing is with Woakes and others like him, how do you know until you give them a try?
Trouble with writing off bowlers because you don't think they're fast enough is that you end up picking bowlers based purely on pace rather than skill.
Bowler bowling 80-85 mph (which is where I reckon Woakes bowls on average) CAN be effective on all surfaces, so let them have a go.
This is not to say that I think Woakes should be in the team, but I don't think lack of pace should be a reason to exclude him if he keeps performing at county level.

Fists of Fury wrote:

rich1uk wrote:just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Very good point, but on flatter wickets you might want 5 proper bowlers, and Woakes gives an opportunity to do this.

i still think on the type of wickets you would want 5 bowlers you would be more likely to want a second spinner than a 4th seamer tho

I think Woakes is more likely to find a place in the ODI side because of his allround abilities.
So guys who know more about him,plz tell me whether he actually has a good yorker at the death and other variations?

rich1uk wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:

rich1uk wrote:just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Very good point, but on flatter wickets you might want 5 proper bowlers, and Woakes gives an opportunity to do this.

i still think on the type of wickets you would want 5 bowlers you would be more likely to want a second spinner than a 4th seamer tho

Didnt you say yesterday that you are not a fan of 2 spinners unless both are good enough?

We will most likely go with the safety first tactic of 6 specialist batsmen and then Prior, which has been a success for us and I agree we shouldn't change it.

5 bowlers is just a nice option in extreme conditions or on an extremely dead track in say Sri Lanka.

We've suffered a bit on the all-rounder front since Freddie bowed out, so it is at least nice to know that we have a potential option if required.

So, Woakes is far more likely to be picked in the ODI side before the test one.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Thing is with Woakes and others like him, how do you know until you give them a try?
Trouble with writing off bowlers because you don't think they're fast enough is that you end up picking bowlers based purely on pace rather than skill.
Bowler bowling 80-85 mph (which is where I reckon Woakes bowls on average) CAN be effective on all surfaces, so let them have a go.
This is not to say that I think Woakes should be in the team, but I don't think lack of pace should be a reason to exclude him if he keeps performing at county level.

Spot on - Praveen Kumar is a great recent example of what control and accuracy can do for you in totally differing conditions.

Shanky, in response to your question, Woakes does have a decent yorker, but I'm not too sure about slower balls etc - which is no bad thing after Dernbach's recent failings! I know that he was working on consistency before last season, so now that he has found that it'll be interesting to see if he starts adding other deliveries that he has worked on in to a real game situation.

shankythebiggestengfan wrote:

rich1uk wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:

rich1uk wrote:just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Very good point, but on flatter wickets you might want 5 proper bowlers, and Woakes gives an opportunity to do this.

i still think on the type of wickets you would want 5 bowlers you would be more likely to want a second spinner than a 4th seamer tho

Didnt you say yesterday that you are not a fan of 2 spinners unless both are good enough?

i'm not

i'm also not a fan of 5 bowlers tho and dont see what a 4th seamer really adds apart from the odd few overs to give the other three a break and dont think that justifies the loss of a 6th batsman

It adds a hell of a lot when you're on a dead track in searing heat.

rich1uk wrote:

shankythebiggestengfan wrote:

rich1uk wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:

rich1uk wrote:just one more thing on woakes

the type of conditions that i think he needs to be effective are also the type of conditions that we probably wouldn't need to play 5 bowlers anyway

Very good point, but on flatter wickets you might want 5 proper bowlers, and Woakes gives an opportunity to do this.

i still think on the type of wickets you would want 5 bowlers you would be more likely to want a second spinner than a 4th seamer tho

Didnt you say yesterday that you are not a fan of 2 spinners unless both are good enough?

i'm not

i'm also not a fan of 5 bowlers tho and dont see what a 4th seamer really adds apart from the odd few overs to give the other three a break and dont think that justifies the loss of a 6th batsman

Fists of Fury wrote:It adds a hell of a lot when you're on a dead track in searing heat.

and in those sort of conditions surely a second spinner would be better than a 4th seamer

South Africa have always done well in INdia because they have good pace bowlers and played only one spinner. If you play 2 spinners in India, Indian btsman will milk them all day long. You need to play 4 fast bowlers in India to trouble the INdians.

The only game I can remember in recent times where we went in with five bowlers was a dead pitch in Bangladesh where after struggling to force a win in the first test they picked Tredwell as back up to Swann. It worked, because it was Bangladesh and Bresnan got 90-odd, but for me 4 bowlers is still the way to go in the huge majority of cases. I do agree Woakes is good enough to bat 7, but for me his bowling is probably not good enough on flat pitches right now...

woakes isnt good enough to bat 7 not yet.