**Official** Group A Discussion - England, India, Afghanistan
 

Wed Sep 19
3rd Match, Group A - Afghanistan v India
R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

Fri Sep 21
6th Match, Group A - Afghanistan v England
R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

Sun Sep 23
10th Match, Group A - England v India
R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

England to get knocked out in the group stages?

I'd quite like to see Broad, Swann, Finn, Dernbach, Briggs bowling attack because I think they're a contrasting bunch who would offer a load of wickettaking potential. Unfortunately I don't think they can risk having that kind of tail. So more likely I'd bring in Bresnan for Finn and play as they did in the last T11 against SA. Finn's unfortunate but I think Dernbach is a must pick. They could play Patel and Finn and no Briggs and Bresnan but Briggs is lightyears ahead of Patel as a bowler and England fielded really well in the T11 when Patel wasn't playing.

I'd say there is no favourite for the tourny and any of India, SL, SA, AUS, WI or Pakistan could win it. I don't think England or New Zealand have any realistic chance.

It was a very decent fielding side with no weaknesses, which makes a change, could be very vital. I just hope we get 4 bowlers who do their job, with 4 not disastrous overs from elsewhere, it's what won us it last time. Not sure who though, Broad will have to step up on his recent performances. Lumb has three guys that aren't playing at least that would be massive improvements. The weak link I think, but he can score quick.

The IPL distorts t2o by being so batter dominated, when in fact bowlers win it, more often than not.

Tbf to Samit, he's no worse a fielder than Briggs.

Who's sitting on a more unstable time bomb? Indians, so dire at T20 and with easy weaknesses to exploit, or the English, with their rather public squabbles and poor handling of the Pietersen saga, and their weaknesses in South Asia?

The Indians need to play five bowlers, as the fuller bowling side was much better than the fuller batting unit. They played five bowlers and took out the Lankans quickly, but even with seven batsmen, they struggled until Rohit and Dhoni bailed them out. If their strike rate falls flat like it did in Chennai, they don't need seven specialist batsmen. T20 may not have disabled the spinner, but it has wiped out the part-time bowler, and that aspect of the Indian team needs to be put in the cooler if they have to win.

It's anybody's guess who should open the innings- maybe bench both Sehwag and Gambhir for the whole event, or at least the league games.

As I say, England just need to bowl well, not sure what the interminable KP saga as to do with that. If we're chasing less than 155 every game we should win. Lumd against KP would be a ridiculously uneven contest though, but we've got talent to score quick runs.

Very interesting take

T20 is much more of a batsman's game IMO.

As evidenced by India's comedy bowling being the decisive factor on a batsman's pitch against Pakistan.

As I've said before Test cricket is mainly a bowler's game, ODIs are heavily weighted towards batsmen and T20s are pretty balanced.

#plsafghans

Yep. That.

Would settle for Virat K**li getting sconned or sawn off cheaply and taking a few minutes to drag himself off the pitch.

It's not a bowlers game imo in the sense that batsmen have a larger room for error than bowlers (which I'm sure is what Smali was talking about), but I agree with you the bowlers are more often than not, the decisive factors in most T20 games.

yeah......in T20 the batsmen can take their chances without too much fear since the innings is so short. Batsmen can afford to make mistakes because they don't have to stick around too much. Also the pitches usually favor batsmen and the fieldings are in their favor too.

AWTA. A lot is in the batsman's favour. The main way in which bowlers are brought into the game are in terms of pitch conditions. On a flat pitch with a nice pace, batsmen are really just free to hit it where they like if the ball is ever on a length, and even the best bowlers in T20 can get hammered no matter where they put the ball, shown by the amount of new shots coming into the game to counter yorkers and low full tosses.

Loving having Trescothick on Sky btw, hope he becomes more full time in the future. Rob Key too.