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Hi All,
My L15 for this series is:
Top Eng bowler: A. Flintoff 4/1 Ladbrokes
Top West Indian bowler: F Edwards 7/4 general
Top Eng batsman: A Cook 9/2 Totesport
Top West Indian batsman: R Sarwan 9/2 Totesport.
I know Flintoff is a slight doubt for the 1st test, but he seems to be healing quickly.
My BIG fancy is for Alastair Cook to top bat for England. He is strong pulling and hooking and plays pace well. KP has to fail sooner or later….bit specious that reasoning – but he is not a machine.
Cook is ready to announce himself as a true world-class opener – his supreme concentration will bring him some hugs scores in this series imho.
Who do you guys fancy?
Zip
Interesting thoughts, Getzippy.
Cook may be the answer, as may Strauss who I think will thrive on the responsibility of captaincy. I don’t usually back KP as the odds are invariably too short, but this may be an exception.
For top England bowler, a fit Harmison is an obvious contender, but I will side with Panesar, given the West Indians’ traditional weakness against left arm spin.
For the home side, avoiding the three obvious candidates, I like the look of Brendon Nash, the white Aussie Jamaican, who may be hampered by batting at six, but could well be promoted as the series goes on and the defeats mount up.
Either Edwards or Jerome Taylor would be good picks at odds against as I can’t see any other bowler taking many wickets.
I can’t have Monty, Andrew.
I think the Windies may find him easy to play.
Nash is a game pick! He looked OK against NZ – promising I guess.
I wouldn’t be that surprised if KP did it again…just have a big feeling for Cookie.
Zip
In my opinion it is high time Cook took his game to the next level. He is well capable and you may be right that this is his time.
However i couldn’t back against KP,
he is a machine.
90 of 71 in a warm up game.I love his confidence. Is it possible he is getting better? Short term wise his loosing the captaincy may have been for the best but i just can’t shake this lingering feeling that if KP doesn’t ever regain the captaincy English Cricket may have missed a trick.
Bowling wise i came to the conclusion in India, after Sehwag’s heroics, that you can’t trust Harmison and Anderson to be in the same team against decent opposition, which WI don’t quite live up to at the minute. A decision needs to be made on whether Broad now has to come in for one of the two. A fit Sidebottom, Flintoff and Panesar should be deffo starters.
I’m with Andrew on Monty for top wicket taker who is available at 13/2, an over reaction in my opinion. I read somewhere that he has made some adjustments including shortening his run up, so it might be interesting viewing.Harmison comes alive on Caribbean pitches and has to play.
Panesar may not have progressed as well as we’d hoped, but he’s more than good enough for the West Indians.
Quite the strangest days cricket I’ve ever watched from the West Indies. A slow wicket, a lush and heavily grassed outfield and two spinners bowling before lunch. Anyone predicting this before the game would have been locked up for their own safety.
Though the England batting became increasingly painful to watch as the day progressed, I reckon they might have judged conditions quite well and that any first innings total over 300 will be very competitive and worth at least 350+ with a normal Caribbean outfield.
I now wonder whether Strauss will be able to get Pieterson to bowl his off spin and make a contribution to add to his batting?
Recent Sabina Park pitches have tended to be flat early (well flatter than they used to be) then crumble later. But given that this one is crumbling already, I think you could be right. 300+ might be enough.
Having said that, the West Indies are equipped with the sort of batsmen who are suited to an attritional game – Chanderpaul, Sarwan and Nash can grind it out with the best of them.
Harmison, Flintoff and Panesar should all enjoy themselves and KP too – like you, I hope he is persuaded to turn his arm over – he turns it more than Monty. It has been a failing in recent years that neither KP nor Collingwood have worked on their bowling so that we could have a Kallis or even a Steve Waugh type option for when Freddie isn’t fit.
Very impressed with Chris Gayle’s whiskers too. He won that contest with Pietersen by a sideburn and a half.
I def agree a 300 total could have the Windies struggling.
KP amazing – Cookie crap!
Zip
Still time for Cook to come good.
By the way, Brendan Nash was available at an astonishing 16-1 to be top series bat for the West Indies with Totesport yesterday. Given the frailty of their batting, he will have every chance to bat plenty and compared to the 11-1 about Flintoff for top England bat, 16-1 is rather high.
Well, Andrew, Nash could do it for you….but it may be 2018 by the time he passes 100!!
Monty finally picked up a wicket….
I thought Sarwan was excellent, but has KP wrapped up the England top bat?
Zip
Ps,
Surely this match will end in a stalemate…?
- Total Posts 17716
Well, I always make the effort to watch England no matter where they’re playing (04:00 starts during their tour of India whilst I was at university were a killer) and can say without hesitation that the last three days have produced some of the dullest cricket I have ever seen.
A draw looks long odds-on now and, frankly, I can’t wait until it’s over.
Have to agree – the wicket is winning this game hands down. About the only way England can get anything out of the match now is to keep the WI in the field for as long as possible, given the short break before the start of the second test.
It is looking boring, I’ll admit and yes, Nash has his work cut out, but I’m relying on a few collapses in which he picks up the pieces later in the series.
The last ten games at Sabina Park have all seen a result, so I wouldn’t rule it out yet. The pitch may yet start to crumble as it did last year where first innings totals of 400 and 300odd (if I remember) still produced a result. I might lay the draw depending on the price.
- Total Posts 17716
There’s just no accounting for the inadequacies of the England team, is there?
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so painfully embarassing.
Truly awful – and with the Aussies now 2-0 down in a home one day series to NZ after losing tests and one dayers against SA, the Ashes takes on the look of a relegation six pointer!
The lack of footwork displayed by Cook suggests he’s had his spikes replaced by roots.
Have to admire Sidebottom, still chuntering about a failed referral with England at 50-7 ! Not much good, but at least he cares ………
What the Jeremy Clarkson was that! That was worse than Trinidad in 94, much, much worse.
This England team have been in a comfort zone for a long long time. They are long overdue a shake-up. That’s when the real weakness of English cricket smacks you in the face. Where are the replacements? Owais Shah? Fair enough, but he’s been knocking about for 4-5 seasons. Rob Key? Ditto. We have a professional game with 18 teams and 400 full time pros. Where are the replacements?
The next coach is going to have to do what Fletcher did, bypass county cricket and promote players on potential. It’s too late for the Ashes, but it should begin as soon as they get home from the Caribbean.
As for the Ashes, Australia are having problems, but their cricketers tend to be mentally tough. If it comes down to a scrap between two equally mediocre teams, I’d favour the team who were stronger mentally.
As a small aside, when trying to calculate the odds for the series/1st Test, I first used the ICC rankings and when I’d factored in the home advantage, the two teams were equally matched. I put a line through it because my gut instinct was that the West Indies were still poor and we would have enough. Credit to the ICC rankings.
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