Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted January 30, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2017 Yeah, it was certainly a better state of affairs when Swann came into the team as he would hold up one end and be our main wicket taker as well as getting some runs down the order. Â He's also a nob, unfortunately. He blocked me on Twitter because apparently he's a Gervais-esque self-searcher and presumably found a tweet where I suggested he was an unfunny twat who can dish it out but not take it when he went all mard arse over something Kevin Pietersen said about him. I might as well just have @ him with it like twats who want attention do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted January 30, 2017 Moderators Share Posted January 30, 2017 Who do you replace Giles with at the time though? Batty? Shaun Udal? Go the Ali route and have Ian Blackwell stinking it up because "he can bat a bit"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted January 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2017 There was no one at the time knocking the door down to take Giles's place. Batty/Udal/Blackwell would have been even worse as butch points out. Anyone else they tried would have ended up like poor old Simon Kerrigan. Bowl shite once and never bowl again, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted January 30, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2017 I was a big fan of Blackwell's batting and thought he should have got a longer run in the ODI team, his bowling was handy in that format and his record was good on that front. But picking him for the test team was nuts as he wasn't good enough at either batting or bowling to keep his place. That's why he only got one test. Â England picked some awful bollocks looking for that elusive all-rounder. Remember Gavin Hamilton? Exactly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted January 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2017 Gavin Hamilton was certainly no David Capel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted January 31, 2017 Moderators Share Posted January 31, 2017 (edited) I was going to have a pop at Mark Ealham, but then I remember how that fat bastards medium pace moved well on a cloudy day, up there with Pringle in 92. Â So I'll just have a pop at Anthony McGrath instead despite him having a better test record than Kallis avg wise. Possiblyone of the best in Test Cfricket. Â Was shit though Edited January 31, 2017 by PowerButchi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted January 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted January 31, 2017 I have a lot of time for Ealham. My own cricketing style was once described as been like "A shit Mark Ealham mixed with a shit Dermot Reeve" so I was always a fan. Not so much a fan of dodgy Dermot though, it's not the sniff that bothers me about him, but selling moody Don Bradman signatures on eBay is a proper shithouse move. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted February 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted February 13, 2017 So, ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO is the new England Captain.  I greet this with a jumbo sized portion of beige. I'm not particularly enamoured by it as an appointment and haven't got a better idea either.  In other news, my Somerset membership arrived. In addition to the tickets/ability to get in the members stands I get a FREE SCORECARD with every home fixture!!!!!! That'll save me literally nothing over the course of the season, as I never buy the fucking things anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 13, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 13, 2017 I think he'll be a more inventive and forward thinking captain than Cook and there were no other candidates, really. Â I think Broad is unlucky in a way. When he did a bit of T20 and ODI captaincy a few years ago I thought he was really good, loads of ideas and enthusiasm for the job. Never understood why they binned him from the T20 role, to be honest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted February 13, 2017 Moderators Share Posted February 13, 2017 (edited) Mike Brearley, obv. Â Actually, is the art of the specialist captain cricketer dead? Maybe not the greatest player, but has fantastic people skills and tactical nous? Edited February 13, 2017 by PowerButchi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Gus Mears Posted February 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted February 13, 2017 (edited) Yep, it's dead. Which is a shame, because Brearley's tactical nous more than made up for his bang-average batting. These days you have to bat inconsistently and bowl reasonably well to get in the line up. Or keep wicket poorly in addition to batting. If Brearley had some shit left-arm spin, then he'd be getting the call.  It's just how times have changed. Chris Jordan played 8 tests in recent years as an "allrounder" and I think he's absolutely honking with both bat and ball at red ball level. Edited February 13, 2017 by Gus Mears Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted February 13, 2017 Moderators Share Posted February 13, 2017 Cricket's been dead since Dean Headley jacked it in anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallicks Posted February 13, 2017 Share Posted February 13, 2017 Do England still "bat deep"? A few years ago, this was definitely the buzz phrase amongst Athers, Hussain et al. This was before Bell was "good" (i.e. never) and usually the middle order was generally ropey as fuck, but you could usually count on Swann or Broad to get a few to give the score an air of respectability (c.f. Bresnan "can bat a bit" whilst averaging about 2). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chunk Posted February 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted February 13, 2017 Don't get the shouting for Cook to step down. For the most part England haven't lost games because of his captaincy being poor and he's actually managed to maintain his batting whilst being captain - something historically difficult to do. Now we've got Root in charge ... putting the batting form of our number one batsman at risk so that we can have a captain in charge who has basically no captaincy experience. Stupid. The likes of Michael Vaughan campaigning for Cook to step down is the sort of shit I expect from football, not cricket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 13, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 13, 2017 Do England still "bat deep"? A few years ago, this was definitely the buzz phrase amongst Athers, Hussain et al. This was before Bell was "good" (i.e. never) and usually the middle order was generally ropey as fuck, but you could usually count on Swann or Broad to get a few to give the score an air of respectability (c.f. Bresnan "can bat a bit" whilst averaging about 2). Â Well, yeah. They had Rashid coming in at 10 in India and he's got about a dozen first class centuries. Also, Bresnan averaged about 30 in tests with the bat, he was a more than decent hand, just like Woakes is in the same position. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.