Sack Fletcher!!!!

[Richard]

What I meant was before The Ashes, as I quite clearly stated.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Richard

Sorry, what? How many top-order batsmen fell to sweep-shots in either of those second-innings? Flintoff (to a slogged-sweep) at Multan, that's it. Everyone else got out because they misplayed shots, not picked the wrong one.

I don't disagree that he sometimes gets preoccupied with the sweep-shot, but it certainly wasn't to blame for the loss in Pakistan.

i couldnt be bothered to check how many they were, but from memory there were plenty and geraint nearly got himself out a half dozen times playing the sweep shot as well. I think we've seen many many dismissals to the sweep shot over the last year and half or so and theres enough from DFs autobiography to suggest the reason behind them as well.

Originally Posted by Richard

Err, 1999-2001? Before Nick Knight dropped that one at Old Trafford to set-off an epidemic which lasted 3 whole Tests (the nadir being Gilchrist being given 4 let-offs in a couple of sessions at Lord's) I can barely recall a significant dropped catch in that period. Nor, for that matter, in 2004 (no coincidence that those two were the most consistent periods of success in recent years.

false, Butcher and Thorpe alone were responsible for about half a dozen dropped catches during the WI series in 2004. Where on earth do you come up with this? Butcher dropped more catches during that time than he caught.

Originally Posted by Richard

The dropped catches and no-balls were appalling in The Ashes 2005 from both sides (cost Australia far more than it cost England) but to suggest catching has always been a problem in Duncan Fletcher's reign is utterly wrong - the truth is it's veered from brilliant to hopeless, several times.

And given what Hussain says about his fielding-drills in his autobiography, I hardly see that he can be blamed for it being poor when it has. D'you think he's stupid enough not to realise that taking catches is about the most important thing in cricket?

And, for that matter, was England's catching any better under previous coaches? About as long as I can remember, England have dropped crucial catches, sometimes series-losing catches.

Whether the previous coaches have been any good is rather irrelevant. Fielding standards have dropped recently, and at the end of the day the coach is responsible for it. Whether it was better before, and honestly its been woeful since the Ashes 2001

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Richard

What I meant was before The Ashes, as I quite clearly stated.

Logic? Both Caddick and Gough were fully fit and in form during that series so no excuses. You cant just pick and choose their best periods and then stop at the times when they face a quality batting lineup.Caddick and Gough were good, certainly not the 'best you can ever wish for',not when they couldnt bowl out quality lineups.

[tooextracool]

Originally Posted by Richard

Geez, why the hell didn't they just give Strauss the captaincy in India?

He should have been made captain back then yes, but again doesnt change the fact that it was a poor decision.

Originally Posted by Richard

Let me assure you, if England had won the series the decision to appoint Flintoff captain would be being hailed as a masterstroke. By most people. Regardless of how good or poor his captaincy had actually been. You might be different, because you often are, but 99.99% of the country would be hailing Freddie The Greatest Captain There's Ever Been.

again point being? England were never going to win with Flintoff as captain because he simply wasnt good enough, and he was quite likely to break down given that he just got back from injury. Nobody in England is going to say that Freddie lacks cricketing intelligence but its pretty obvious when you watch him bat or when hes captaining on the field that he clearly does so. Again DFs fault

Originally Posted by Richard

And if you seriously think good captaincy would have changed any of those results (with the possible minute exception that we might just have scrambled a draw at Adelaide) you don't really know much about cricket. Most of the England players simply weren't a patch on those the Australians could put out. Captaincy, as I've stated countless times re the Stephen-Waugh-was-the-greatest-captain-ever nonsense, can't change the calibre of the players on view.

Nicely done contradicting yourself. Now you yourself claim that it might well have been 4-0 instead of 5-0. Anyhow im fairly certain that the scorecards would have been a lot closer if we had a better captain, and the 4-0 or 5-0 would have hurt a lot less.
I have no doubt that the captaincy was only one factor in the loss, there were several others which i have mentioned before, but again you digress how does that prove the point that DF made poor selection and other decisions?

Originally Posted by Richard

The fact that he'd been made captain before Strauss and Strauss only got the captaincy because of injury?

And strauss had done his job admirably by leading his side to a 3-0 victory against pakistan as well as contributing positively with the bat. Flintoff's shortcomings had already been seen in the home series against SL and he even managed to injure himself by bowling himself like an old shoe.

Originally Posted by Richard

Habibul Bashar?

The fact that (most) people don't point-out your mistakes if you win is precisely what I meant. For most people, it's not as simple as if-you're-rubbish-you're-rubbish-simple-as. Most people will just look at the results and say that someone was good because they won and poor because they lost - witness some of the utter crap that was (was, at least, we might be hearing less of it now) spouted about Vaughan-vs-Ponting in 2005.

Had Strauss been captain he would have made some mistakes because everyone does, and they'd have been magnified with the defeats and it'd have been "why wasn't Freddie given the captaincy?"

You are once again missing the whole point. Since when do you care about the masses of cricket fans? Ive provided enough reasons, most of which you havent found any answers to, to prove to you why it was a bad decision to have flintoff as captain. And i think its common sense really.
Even when ponting made those poor decisions in 2005 i backed him as a captain and said that he has been a decent one and anyone who watched him could see that. In flintoffs case there is nothing to back him with. Hes simply been miserable from day one. Despite appearing to be physically and emotionally drained by his teams performance he didnt relinquish the captaincy during the series which IMO he should have done. I dont rate Strauss very highly as captain but he wouldnt make those rather dull errors that flintoff committed and it might well have helped his game and Flintoffs as well. Really for mine Vaughan and Tresothick are far better tacticians than either of the 2.

[marc71178]

Originally Posted by Richard

Flintoff was the man in possession, and to pick Strauss ahead of him would have been not only inconsistent but a massive put-down on Flintoff's part. One that he might not have recovered from.

It could be argued that Strauss was the man in possession from having been the most recent captain.

As for the not recovering - is it a mere coincidence that his best 2 performances of the tour have been this week?

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by marc71178

..... is it a mere coincidence......?

Almost certainly. Might as well also credit:
a] his family returning north
b] proximity to Antarctica
c] new shoelaces
d] whatever

Originally Posted by marc71178

.....his best 2 performances of the tour.....

Either your dictionary lacks the word 'hyperbole' or you write for one of the London tabloids.

[marc71178]

Originally Posted by McKanga

Either your dictionary lacks the word 'hyperbole' or you write for one of the London tabloids.

Please tell which of the Test performances come close to either batting effort this week (not to mention bowling in the NZ game when he was rightfully not given the new ball)

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by marc71178

Please tell which of the Test performances come close to either batting effort this week (not to mention bowling in the NZ game when he was rightfully not given the new ball)

He just played with a steady degree of competence. He isn't suddenly performing cricketing miracles. His tactical decision making is no better in that with plenty of wickets in hand around 40 overs he was surely capable of more than the dot..dot..single...dot etc that led to the close finish?

[marc71178]

I see that you couldn't give me any Test performances then - thus justifying my initial comment.

If he was playing so many dot balls, how did he manage to score his runs at almost run a ball, unless you're going to blame him for Lewis hitting those dots at the end?

Also, did he not go for a big shot, and nearly get caught, thus deciding to calm it down a bit so that he didn't get out?

[GIMH]

Originally Posted by pasag

I don't see why a post where a person who calls others who don't share the same opinion as him "fools" and "clowns" who have a "complete lack of cricketing intelligence" should get any award for it tbh.

Ah well I only said I agreed with most of it, don't even remember reading any insults tbh, but fair enough. Take them away though, and it's a very good post.

[GIMH]

Originally Posted by McKanga

He just played with a steady degree of competence. He isn't suddenly performing cricketing miracles. His tactical decision making is no better in that with plenty of wickets in hand around 40 overs he was surely capable of more than the dot..dot..single...dot etc that led to the close finish?

Yes, but what Marc said was "his best performances of the tour" and as such it's clearly accurate. He bowled well at Brisbane, and batted well in the 1st dig at SCG, but he hadn't put together any all-round performances like the Flintoff everyone knows and loves. Noone said he'd performed miracles, just that he's looked a different player in the OD series thus far.

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by marc71178

I see that you couldn't give me any Test performances then - thus justifying my initial comment.....

Sorry I didn't realise you expected a reply on that, thought it was rhetorical. But then there was no noticeable difference for me. He's an honest and capable player who has achieved slightly more in the ODI stuff. 47 n.o. batting, no wickets bowling against us. A stoic but pedestrian performance against NZ. If that is what you consider supercharged, adventurous Freddie you are easily pleased.

Originally Posted by marc71178

....If he was playing so many dot balls, how did he manage to score his runs at almost run a ball, unless you're going to blame him for Lewis hitting those dots at the end?.....

Freddie lifted England back into contention when we all thought the required run rate was beyond them, but then stopped. His average means little, he was unproductive when the game was in the balance. The fact that Lewis was stuck there frittering away England's chances was down to Freddie being so determined to hold his wicket when it no longer mattered. You had three wickets in hand.

Originally Posted by marc71178

.....Also, did he not go for a big shot, and nearly get caught, thus deciding to calm it down a bit so that he didn't get out?

Yep I commented on that elsewhere, must be on another thread. But as I said above there came a point where the dot balls he was accruing were worse for England than him losing his wicket. And if you had lost he'd be copping it big time and he would have received no credit whatsoever for being not out.

[McKanga]

Originally Posted by GeraintIsMyHero

Yes, but what Marc said was "his best performances of the tour" and as such it's clearly accurate.....

Well I'm sorry then. Shan't go back X posts to see where I stuffed up, will take your word.

Originally Posted by GeraintIsMyHero

......he hadn't put together any all-round performances like the Flintoff everyone knows and loves. Noone said he'd performed miracles, just that he's looked a different player in the OD series thus far.

I think we'd all like to see that.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by tooextracool

i couldnt be bothered to check how many they were, but from memory there were plenty and geraint nearly got himself out a half dozen times playing the sweep shot as well. I think we've seen many many dismissals to the sweep shot over the last year and half or so and theres enough from DFs autobiography to suggest the reason behind them as well.

I assure you, I did check and in those last-innings collapses just 1 wicket fell to a sweep. As I said - I don't deny that there are times when English batsmen have been preoccuppied with the sweep and I don't think DF is blameless on that front. But rare indeed is the cricketer without falt.

false, Butcher and Thorpe alone were responsible for about half a dozen dropped catches during the WI series in 2004. Where on earth do you come up with this? Butcher dropped more catches during that time than he caught.

Butcher and Thorpe were poor, but they had been for a time - who else dropped many?

Whether the previous coaches have been any good is rather irrelevant. Fielding standards have dropped recently, and at the end of the day the coach is responsible for it. Whether it was better before, and honestly its been woeful since the Ashes 2001

It's been very poor often, but not invariably.

Why is the coach neccessarily responsible for it? I say again - do you really think he's not intelligent enough to realise that catching as many catches as possible is about the most important thing in cricket?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by tooextracool

Logic? Both Caddick and Gough were fully fit and in form during that series so no excuses. You cant just pick and choose their best periods and then stop at the times when they face a quality batting lineup.Caddick and Gough were good, certainly not the 'best you can ever wish for',not when they couldnt bowl out quality lineups.

So New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka didn't have quality line-ups? No, they certainly did, and Caddick and Gough were simply good enough to use the conditions to make them look wholly ordinary, often.

Gough and Caddick were damn superb in that period, and they were pretty rubbish in The Ashes. Yes, they were fully fit, but they damn sure weren't in form. Only a fool would claim that they didn't bowl far, far worse than they had been for the previous 2 years. And in Caddick's case, he never recaptured that consistency, and more reverted to his 1993-1998 case.