social said:
LOL it's not my argument, I just meant that that's the one I read on here a lot - people don't want Flintoff to be part of a four-man attacks because of the whole burnout issue. My opinion is that a Flintoff/Hoggard/Harmy pace attack with Monty as the spinner would be better than any attack the Aussies could care to throw at us this winter - yes, I know they have Warne, and McGrath, but McGrath hasn't played all year, who knows if he'll be up to his usual standard, but even if he is, I would then rather have the three pacemen I mentioned than any of the other Aussie bowlers, Brett Lee, Gillespie, Clark etc etcGoughy said:
Put simply, a great bowler is someone that performs year in, year out for many years.GeraintIsMyHero said:
Read may well get his chance in the next test. According to cricinfo Geraint has broken the ring-finger on his right hand. Link here:Nishant said:
I certainly have to question your logic here. For you to claim that the England bowlers are not great because they havent performed in all conditions yet, and to then go back to their 4 man pace attack from the 90s and talk about how great the aussie attack was then is quite ludicrous. With the benefit of hindsight one can call both Gillespie and Mcgrath great, but only a fool would have said during the time that Gillespie was a great bowler. Nor for that matter had Mcgrath proven himself in all conditions back then, In fact it was only after the india series in 2001, that Mcgrath could even make a claim to greatness given how wretchedly poor he had been in the subcontinent before then. Your logic here is clearly flawed because bowlers dont usually become greats until well after their primes because the underlying fact is that they need to prove themselves everywhere and for a consistent period. Does that of course mean that Mcgrath, Gillespie and Warne in their primes werent that good because only one of them could claim to be great? NO.social said:
Would anyone be surprised if our dim-witted England selectors end up picking James Foster? Certainly someone like Scyld Berry thinks so: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/07/30/scscyl30.xmlBoyBrumby said:
I think im starting to warm up to the idea of playing 4 bowlers- Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard and Panesar especially if Jones and Anderon continue to be casualties. Certainly having Flintoff bat at 7 and hopefully Read at 8 would make for a very solid batting lineup, im starting to believe that our middle order of Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood and Bell is the best middle order that we've had since Thorpe last played because it is the perfect blend of strokemakers and stodgers.GeraintIsMyHero said:
No i think the top order Butt/Malik(if he were playing)/ Farhat etc were always going to fail and most people would have predicted it all the way back to the series in Pakistan during the winter. Razzaq isnt and never has been test class, certainly not without any footwork, and his inclusion in the side should always be questioned.Xuhaib said:
Giles isnt a better bowler. Panesar has show some amazing improvement in his bowling in a very short period of time and it goes to show what putting in a lot of effort can do at the international level. He's starting to use drift in his bowling and hes also shown that he can now bowl an arm ball, which he used to get Younis Khan out to, both of which we havent seen from him until recently. Id say Giles was probably more adept at using variations of pace and flight though. However one cannot deny that the Old trafford pitch was a spinners paradise with turn AND bounce, and how in the world someone like Kaneria could bowl so poorly on it is unexplainable.pskov said:
Do you honestly see Pakistan taking 20 wickets with that pace attack? They havent even come close all series. Sami and razzaq are far and away not test class, and id even be more open to seeing Mushtaq Ahmad and Shahid Nazir in the side ahead of those 2.GeraintIsMyHero said:
Thats actually a very interesting theory and one that i hadnt considered myself. i think the major reason why England have tried to go in with 5 bowlers in recent years is due to the lack of faith in our spin bowlers- Giles/Panesar. in Giles' case outside the subcontinent they could never be assured of him bowling 20-25 overs or so in a day unless the pitch was turning and therefore needed 4 other bowlers to share the burden. However they now need to be able to lay trust in that Panesar can do that everyday, because the fact is that their unnecessarily sacrificing an extra batsman and going in with a very long tail to allay their fears.greg said:
I really wonder how this game proves so much.Even Steve Harmison commented that he'd been waiting for this sort of pitch for 8 months. Yes we all know Steve Harmison can bowl on wickets with uneven bounce, but he really needs to come to the ball on the other wickets. Furthermore i'd say that most of his wickets were down to poor batting rather than good bowling, something which he cannot be relying on down under.Langeveldt said:
i think caddick would have got 5 wickets on this wicket because compared to Harmison right now, Caddick was probably a better bowler and certainly not too bad when it came to extracting uneven bounce out of a wicket himself. If Caddick just bowled the right lengths more often hed have been one of the best bowlers around.TT Boy said:
Surely if it's a broken finger it will affect his batting, but that doesn't seem to matter much as he spends very little time out in the middle anyway.marc71178 said:
