After the Whitewash (or How to Lose the Ashes)
 

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

Feedback appreciated.

Great article.

I'd rather have four bowlers, including the all rounder and six top order batsman. If one of the six can send down a few overs, thats good enough. If not, thats still good enough. The depth of English batting would be exceptional if they batted with Flintoff coming in at seven and a keeper at eight. Flintoff would make them the deepest batting lineup in the world. Just look at how much it has helped SA out this series with such vital knocks by Pollock.

Four bowlers, assuming all are fit and have match perparation, ought to be enough. But with Flintoff not at full speed and injury concerns with some of the others...I realize it may not be possible.

If Jones gets fully fit and FLintoff is better with his ankle, how about Flintoff-Jones-Panesar-Hoggard? Or you can even go with four quicks at Flintoff-Jones-Hoggard-Harmison.

Top drawer, Pickup. Not enough praise of Mahmood though.

I love #5...

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.

Kevin Pietersen is a bowling allrounder.

Good piece, showing admirable restraint. Nothing unfair or exaggerated that I could spot.

The only thing I'd add is the complacency that's been present for most of the last 15 months, evident the charge of the ****e brigade at Multan, the "lets not bother with a decent night sleep before playing pakistan so we can wallow in the ashes with the Beeb" episode, the staggering slopiness in all 3 tests against SL, Fred's view that he can publicly refer to our elected PM as a "knob", pretty much every utterance from Steve Harmison this year and, as you mentioned, the idea that we could take on the best in the world after about a week & a half in their neck of the woods. They had this coming big time, and you can only hope that lessons will be learnt, acted on, and not repeated in our lifetimes. Cue pigs flying ....

Maybe in Natal, buddy, but this is England. :p

Exactly. The land where Rikki Clarke is a batting allrounder. What's your point? :p

But then you have a huge tail. Giles wasn't doing any good but you still need to be able to bat down to #8 with #8 at least able to rotate the strike and stay around for a while. Flintoff gives England the shot to field the deepest batting lineup, even more than the one SA has. And SA has been killing us with that deep lineup this series...its vital IMO.

Five bowlers is my ideal, it isn't always appropriate for every test. It isn't desirable to have such a long tail as we do currently, obviously. Which comes back to my point about bowlers being "worthy of the name". Saj may've batted like a drain, but if he'd taken a five-for the game would've looked very different. I actually would've played Dalrymple (almost the dictionary definition of bits-and-pieces) for the fifth test, simply because it's very obvious Flintoff doesn't rate Saj at all and Jamie was more likely to score some runs than Saj or Read.

Fred is the key for balance, obviously. Before he came along we could fudge the issue with Alec Stewart doning the gloves, but now with Fred very much a bowling all-rounder & neither of our keepers looking remotely close to being up to it with the bat, our batting depth is too shallow. Food for thought: we were 234-4 at the end of day one & ended up 291 all out; Oz were 188-4 after day two & finished up 102 runs ahead.

Top stuff Pickup, agree with every point you made :)

Fantastic article!

Excellent work Neil - well done :)