After the Whitewash (or How to Lose the Ashes)

[Perm]

Excellent article Neil, very well written and a pleasure to read.

[superkingdave]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

Top stuff as always. You'd be a huge loss to the fourth estate if you end up a humble pedagogue.

WRT to the four/five bowlers debate I'm still firmly in the five bowlers camp if we have five bowlers worthy of the name. Yes, it'd be nice to have a batter who sent down a few overs or a bowler who could bat, but where are these players in our county scene? We're in serious danger of falling into the "bits-and-pieces" trap again.

Corky

Seriously the possible next generation(Broad, Smith, Rashid) are at lot more handy with the bat than the current bowlers

[Slow Love™]

Nice stuff, Neil. Don't think the disclaimers at the end were necessary though.

Couldn't believe Fletcher's over-candid comments today/yesterday regarding his uncertainty about replacing Strauss with Flintoff as captain (well then don't go and do it, man!) and Freddie's difficulties with Harmison's crap attitude. It really is almost like a parody.

[PY]

Very readable article.

Send Saj and Jimmy back to country cricket to try bowl more than a hundred overs in a season. Some terrible statistics looking at the overs bowled by the younger chaps. Shane Warne bowled, during this series, one quarter of the overs that Mahmood has bowled in his entire FC career.

One thing I'd definitely like to see before 2009 is England's players being released to play more country cricket before series start as you mention Neil, or even during the series if the player needs overs (like England's cronically did) or time at the crease.

Freddie should have the captaincy ripped off him, and get him fit for goodness sake. If we play five batsmen, he needs to be able to hold a bat the right way and he hasn't this series. I think I'd take 4 bowlers at the moment. Panesar, Hoggy, Flintoff and ______ depending on Jones. I'd get shot of Harmison, his attitude stinks and his performances don't smell much sweeter.

One thing is for certain, someone needs to be teaching our potential bowlers how to hold a friggin' cricket bat because none of them can at the moment and we can't have four absolute Duracells at 8-11.

[Jamee999]

Stewie! Stewie! Stewie!

[PY]

Originally Posted by Jamee999

Stewie! Stewie! Stewie!

The way Alec took the Aussies to pieces in the Golden Oldies match, I'm inclined to agree.

[Anil]

pretty good article neil!

[Saqqy Mush]

Originally Posted by Neil Pickup

These are the fruits of a train journey between Cleethorpes and approximately Rotherham.

Feedback appreciated.

Didn't take long to spot an error.

Opening line of point one.

1: CAPTAINCY
Pick the wrong man
You have at your disposal the finest all-round cricketer in the world,

They don't.

[adharcric]

Top article Neil. Definitely agree with regard to the captaincy, superficial team balance and selection of non-performing bowlers.
Had England gone in the right direction in all six of these areas, there were still huge issues that would have guaranteed an Australian victory IMO.

1) Flintoff was not at full fitness and was very ineffective (by his standards) with bat and ball. England cannot hope to defeat Australia without their world-class all-rounder firing.

2) Harmison generally lacks consistency and things went terribly wrong here. This is one reason I've been saying that England are too inconsistent to be the #2 test side in the world. The reason they had retained that position leading up to these Ashes is because all of the other contenders are equally inconsistent.

3) The Australians were out on the field driven by revenge, passion and attitude. Conquering such a talented team with additional drive is a huge ask and England would have to be at it's very, very best to compete IMO.

Of course, England could have made a decent contest of this by making the right decisions in the areas you have mentioned. They could have even made a very good contest of this by doing all that and having Flintoff and Harmison at their best. Honestly, I don't think they could have defeated a driven Aussie side of such caliber. That's just my opinion.

[adharcric]

Just like Virender Sehwag, Steve Harmison is an immense talent who is terribly inconsistent. The selectors need to teach him a lesson and send him back to domestic cricket.
He seems to have made that choice for them since he won't be playing in the World Cup. Is there FC cricket between now and India's tour of England?

Flintoff is not reliable enough to bat at #6, especially with someone like Jones or Read coming in at #7. There is nothing special about playing five bowlers if a few of them are bowling or being bowled like part-timers. Pietersen and Collingwood can provide support if necessary and England should go with a four-man attack until Flintoff is good enough at #6 and a wicketkeeper is found who can consistently produce 30 runs at #7.

[pasag]

Originally Posted by Saqqy Mush

Didn't take long to spot an error.

Opening line of point one.

1: CAPTAINCY
Pick the wrong man
You have at your disposal the finest all-round cricketer in the world,

They don't.

[Richard]

^^^^

And yet at the moment nothing's still been done about 't...

[Barney Rubble]

Originally Posted by pasag

Skull, nailed on.

[tooextracool]

without wanting to sound pessimistic but why is there no mention of fitness? I mean its an absolute joke that both Jon Lewis(who didnt even play the test series) is already injured, as is Anderson. Surely it cant be coincidence that we havent been able to put our first string side in nearly 2 years? I mean everyday when i log onto cricinfo i find that someone else in the England side is injured, its absolutely ridiculous.
For mine, flintoff and anderson(and plunkett) might both have been considered fit and ready for the tour, but both were clearly short of match practice. Why on earth did it take until after his horrendous performance in the first 2 tests to start putting in all that effort in the nets? I mean what was he thinking? that his game would just fall into place when he walked onto the field? Why has Flintoff's fielding standard dropped over the last few years?
Why was Troy Cooley let go?
There are far too many factors to count really.

[Neil Pickup]

Originally Posted by tooextracool

without wanting to sound pessimistic but why is there no mention of fitness? I mean its an absolute joke that both Jon Lewis(who didnt even play the test series) is already injured, as is Anderson. Surely it cant be coincidence that we havent been able to put our first string side in nearly 2 years? I mean everyday when i log onto cricinfo i find that someone else in the England side is injured, its absolutely ridiculous.
For mine, flintoff and anderson(and plunkett) might both have been considered fit and ready for the tour, but both were clearly short of match practice. Why on earth did it take until after his horrendous performance in the first 2 tests to start putting in all that effort in the nets? I mean what was he thinking? that his game would just fall into place when he walked onto the field? Why has Flintoff's fielding standard dropped over the last few years?
Why was Troy Cooley let go?
There are far too many factors to count really.

"2: BOWLING
Ensure your attack is selected based on your checklist, and that it has barely played cricket for a year"