Minus Flower, Cook is EXPOSED

First topic message reminder :

Cook was a "Remote control" in the hands of Flower.
and while Flower was anything from Defensive to Diabolical to spin-doctor...he was not stupid.

He used his remote control captain well to get good results from the team until his ideas became too controlling, his strategies too stale and the Aussies broke him and his "remote control" down with an assault of words and physically brutal cricket.

Although Flower" End of Life " was recognized, and he was fired, overtly KP was chosen the convenient. cause of the debacle and punished to usher a new era.....
Many ignored and most did not realize that the "remote controll" was useless when not in the hands of a clever master.

Now though the master-less remote, the headless chicken is getting exposed.
He talks loud but largely irrelevant.
He acts still in the shadow of unhealed wounds from the Ashes hammering.

How long will they carry him ?
If they relive him of captaincy they might save th the batsman Cook that still has some life left in him.

gboycottnut1 wrote:One of the problems England still have is that on wickets which are flat and favour the batting side, England don't have any bowlers with true express pace (like a Mitchell Johnson or a Patrick Cummins or a James Pattinson) who can easily bowl teams out by defeating batsmen through the air with sheer pace.   Perhaps it is time for the likes of Jimmy Anderson to move on as he just doesn't have the pace required to do well on such flat wickets.

Lords was a flat wicket and Anderson was excellent.

Gregers wrote:

Anyways moving on, Cook needs to drop the captaincy but it will look like an admission of failure. Moeen to move up to 3, where he has batted all his life seams like the simple answer. Ballance's technique is woeful for a test number 3, maybe play him at 6 and see if it improves.

Well said.

kingraf wrote:Captain Cook!!

Look, a captain is, and always will be, confined to the limits of his team... It's not even 12 months ago Clarke became the first Aussie captain in 30 years to come back from the Ashes without a single win.

England don't miss KP... and they aren't going to. Trott? Yes. Swann? Definitely... but they don't miss a guy good for a maximum of one century a series (he never scored more in any series... ever, in the history of his career, since the beginning of time)- no team does... those are called luxuries. You've got serious structural problems if you're trying to replace/fix the Ferrari before you pay the mortgage. I'd go on, but I'm rather drunk and have a day at the Grand beach in Mauritius ahead of me - night all... Here's to a decent Indian series

Anyone remember Pietersen's numbers in the India series of 2011? Kingraf, your stat can hold only if you don't count a double hundred as a century!.

My apologies... He scored two centuries in a series once, against the same attack that let a finished Ponting score for fun. Hardly disproves my point. KP isn't needed, he's a luxury, players like him always are. I love AB, but much like KP, I wouldn't exactly cry if he left. Steyn, or Amla on the other hand.

KP is a good player in a good team... he's a haphazard liability in any other team.

I point back to this thread...Cook's little astuteness was because of Flower in the back-ground.

One of 2 decisions Eng need to make is whether to keep Cook as a batsman...

Firing him as a captain has inevitability written all over it....

the second decision is whether to let him go now mid series or at the end ??
Mid series firing is like handing over the morale to the opponent.......
keeping him to the end means diminishing the chances in the series significantly

and the karmik theory should not be forgotten...which also equates to " what goes around comes around"
the blood of an innocent KP on their hands......has turned  Cook a failure driven probably to the edge of mental breakdown......and ECB in a self created deep poo-poo

The worst thing about today is ANOTHER Agnew article backing Cook. Agnew is an absolutely horrid character. Self-proclaimed guardian of the spirit of cricket, his attitude to players has been 'If you don;t talk to me, you're aloof'. His constant harping on about how England came unstuck because of hubris and an unwillingness to open up to the media, be less insular, and listen to outside voices was one of the most self-serving episodes in journalism. Frankly, the England team could do with a few less weary soundbites from Cook and a bit more of a bunker attitude. Sorry, rant over.

a good article


Clueless Alastair Cook is only half the problem as ECB continue to bury their heads in the sand
Jul 21, 2014 21:38
OPINION Mike Walters BY MIKEWALTERS
After ‘Sharmageddon’, it beggars belief that not one person at the ECB feels the time is ripe for a regime change, writes Mike Walters

Gareth CopleyToo many Cooks? There are plenty to blame for England's current struggles
This is what you get when the England cricket team is run along dismally corporate lines as a cosy club.

In years to come, when India reflect on only their second Test win at Lord’s, the procession of brainless England batsmen who fell for Ishant Sharma’s startlingly obvious booby trap will be known as ‘Sharmageddon’.

Had Kevin Pietersen, scapegoated after last winter’s Ashes meltdown, played a self-indulgent shot like the negligent hook Matt Prior shovelled down deep midwicket’s throat, he would have been crucified.

But Captain man sausage-up himself, Alastair Cook, says there is a place for Prior as long as he is “desperate to carry on playing and wants to help turn things around”. Draw the curtain, nurse, and fetch matron. The patient is refusing to take his medicine.

If Pietersen is not the answer to all of England’s ills, the joyless incompetence of the last six weeks has proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that he was not their biggest problem.

Losing at home to Sri Lanka, in a series England should have won 2-0, was bad enough. But to squander first bowl on a pitch greener than a stag night hangover was simply criminal.

This is the worst England team since 1999, when we lost to New Zealand at The Oval with a side containing three No.11 rabbits – Alan Mullally, Phil Tufnell and Ed Giddins. Not even a dose of Viagra would have made that tail wag.

And we are led by men you would not even follow into the chip shop, never mind the trenches. England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke couldn’t even spot a boggle-eyed fraudster landing his helicopter on the practice ground at Lord’s.

Stu ForsterCooked: The skipper's dismal form with the bat is considerably affecting his batting
Paul Downton, England’s managing director, was happy to include Pietersen’s dismissal from a premeditated slog in Melbourne on the charge sheet when he sacked him. Strangely enough, Downton Shabby forgot to mention the six-and-a-half hours of KP’s honest toil which came before it by way of mitigation.

Peter Moores began his first incarnation as England coach by losing at home to India in 2007, and after man-of-the-match Sharma’s 7-74 he is well on the way to repeating the dose.

And Cook – one of the nicest blokes you could wish to meet – is currently failing all three acid tests of his leadership.

Is he a good captain? No. Is the captaincy affecting his form as a batsman? Yes. Are England winning Test matches under Cook? No – of the last 10, they have lost seven and drawn three.

India’s only previous Test triumph at Lord’s, in 1986, cost a 29-year-old left-handed batsman his job. David Gower, sacked by chairman of selectors Peter May, was forced to hand his successor Mike Gatting a T-shirt bearing the inscription “I’m in charge”.

After ‘Sharmageddon’, it beggars belief that none of the corporate dimwits, half-wits and nitwits at ECB feel the time is ripe for regime change.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/clueless-alastair-cook-only-half-3892873#ixzz38CWguNzm
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The reports emerging Cook has been granted 3 tests.....and all but Downton wanted to sack him.

Downton's fear is his nose......the new captain / new regime will bring in KP

the chance of KP returning is real....if Cook fails.....KP returns