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Something interesting about Englands (relative) test sucess over the past 4 years.

Bob Bamber

U19 12th Man
I was just thinking back to Englands past 4 years in the test , and something struck me a little.

Winter 04 - West Indies , 4-0 (No Spinner of any value).
Begin Summer 04 - New Zealand , 3-0 (Without Vettori)
End Summer 04 - West Indies 4-0 (No Spinner)
Winter 05 - South Africa , 2-1 (Nicky Boje ...)
Begin Summer 05 , Bangladesh , 2-0 (There not that good , so you can't really account Mohammed Rafique for anything).
End Summer 05 , Austrailia , 2-1 (Warne, 40 Wickets , and they still lost...)
Autumn/Winter 05 , Pakistan , 0-2 (Kaneria)
Winter 05/Spring 06 , India , 1-1 (Kumble + Singh)
Begin Summer 06 , Sri Lanka , 1-1 (Murali gets 8 wickets in 1 innings).
End Summer 06 , Pakistan , 2-0 , (Kaneria couldn't get control and pressure without decent seem attack with him , but nevertheless , we still struggled)
Winter 06 - Australia , 5-0 , (Warne )

Whenever England come up against a decent spinner , we struggle. Is that our problem?
 

PhoenixFire

International Coach
Well it's no secret that traditionally England are much weaker at playing spin, than they are against pace, especially weak against leg-spin.
 

pskov

International 12th Man
I was just thinking back to Englands past 4 years in the test , and something struck me a little.

Winter 04 - West Indies , 4-0 (No Spinner of any value).
Begin Summer 04 - New Zealand , 3-0 (Without Vettori)
End Summer 04 - West Indies 4-0 (No Spinner)
Winter 05 - South Africa , 2-1 (Nicky Boje ...)
Begin Summer 05 , Bangladesh , 2-0 (There not that good , so you can't really account Mohammed Rafique for anything).
End Summer 05 , Austrailia , 2-1 (Warne, 40 Wickets , and they still lost...)
Autumn/Winter 05 , Pakistan , 0-2 (Kaneria)
Winter 05/Spring 06 , India , 1-1 (Kumble + Singh)
Begin Summer 06 , Sri Lanka , 1-1 (Murali gets 8 wickets in 1 innings).
End Summer 06 , Pakistan , 2-0 , (Kaneria couldn't get control and pressure without decent seem attack with him , but nevertheless , we still struggled)
Winter 06 - Australia , 5-0 , (Warne )

Whenever England come up against a decent spinner , we struggle. Is that our problem?
You could have done exactly the same analysis with pace attacks really.

WI 04 - Best, Edwards, Washington etc.
NZ 04 - pre-Bond average attack
SA 05 - Ntini, Pollock and Kallis give England a tough series
Bang 05 - No good pacers
Aus 05 - England won the two tests that McGrath didn't play in
Pak 05 - Shoaib in great form, Shabbir and Naved excellent back up
India 06 - RP Singh and Patel come to the fore for India
SL 06 - Vaas and Malinga and Fernando
Pak 06 - poor attack with only Gul decent
Aus 06 - McGrath, Lee and Clark

So basically the lesson is that England win easily against poor attacks and lose or have a tough time against good ones. Not exactly genius is it? ;) ;)
 

open365

International Vice-Captain
Well they wouldn't be a decent spinner if they didn't give batsmen trouble would they.

Warne and Murali are two greats of the game, no shame in having trouble with them, and even then, i thought we played Warne quite well in parts of the 05 ashes series even though he got 40 wickets.
 

Bob Bamber

U19 12th Man
Dave? :unsure: ...
Don't think Dave Mohammad can be called a good spinner. I know i said no spinner. He only played 2 of those 4 tests didn't he?

Well they wouldn't be a decent spinner if they didn't give batsmen trouble would they.

Warne and Murali are two greats of the game, no shame in having trouble with them, and even then, i thought we played Warne quite well in parts of the 05 ashes series even though he got 40 wickets.
But England play well against teams who don't have a good spinner is what Im saying.
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Warne and Murali are two greats of the game, no shame in having trouble with them, and even then, i thought we played Warne quite well in parts of the 05 ashes series even though he got 40 wickets.
Warne was monumental in that series and bowled brilliantly. But the amount of wickets he got were indicative of how weak Australia's pace bowlers were in that series, McGrath excluded.
 

Perm

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Don't think Dave Mohammad can be called a good spinner. I know i said no spinner. He only played 2 of those 4 tests didn't he?

But England play well against teams who don't have a good spinner is what Im saying.
Exactly, because there is no good spinner bowling against them to restrict the runs and take wickets which is traditionally what good spinners do.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Just want to say, if England have had 'relative' success, then Australia must be pretty much the only country with actual success. That's a harsh scale.
 

Bob Bamber

U19 12th Man
I didn't see people being as picky as this.

Anyway more to the point. I was making the observation , that Englands main failings are because of good spin attacks. Rather than anything else. A case in point the Ashes. McGrath after Lords , was never fully fit. Lee was a bit expensive , and found himself on the end of the good batting , and the faffing about with the third bowler is fairly self explanatory. Warne however , probably kept that series from what could have been quite a comfortable win for England. 100 wickets to take , minus the declariations and that England only batted once at The Oval. So that leaves about 80 odd wickets (Im sure someone will correct me on that). And Warne to half of them .

I agree with the fact that Warne and Murali are excellant bowlers , the very best. But when was the last time England struggeld against a pace attack. Compared to the amount of times spinners have undone them. This world Cup , vs Bangladesh , their three Slow Leftees , took us apart.

One thing for Peter Moores to improve I think.
 

tooextracool

International Coach
i think this is actually a pretty good thread, although i think a lot of people already mentioned before the last Ashes that we had no idea how a lot of the players would go against Warne because they havent played any spinner of note during that successful run from 04-05/06. As it turned out, despite what Swervy and a few others might say, England were distinctly average against Warne in the Ashes of 05 and im confident had Australia been intelligent enough to throw Macgill in the frame that Australia would have had a lot more success in that series.

As far as why England is poor against spin is concerned, well it all starts with the now ex-coach, Duncan Fletcher who by and large kept advocating the sweep and reverse sweep despite most players not being good enough to play it. A lot of credit is given to Duncan Fletcher and the way he got his team to deal with spin in their subcontinental victories of 00/01, but the fact is that most of the players who played a part in those series- Atherton, Hussain, Trescothick, Thorpe and Craig White were already extremely good players of spin and had nothing to do with Fletcher's methods. Only Butcher IMO can be said to be have improved his technique against spin during the Fletcher era. Most of the players now- Strauss, Flintoff, Geraint, Cook and a few others are almost useless against quality spin bowlers which shows up as a minus in Fletcher's end of term portfolio.
 

tooextracool

International Coach
Well it's no secret that traditionally England are much weaker at playing spin, than they are against pace, especially weak against leg-spin.
I'd say England are weak at picking bowlers from the hand rather than leg spin. Murali for example isnt a leg spin bowler and has almost always reaked havoc on our side. Only Ian Bell from the current side can be said to be attempting to pick bowlers from the hand, which means he's always had more time to play the ball than most of the other players do.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'd say England are weak at picking bowlers from the hand rather than leg spin. Murali for example isnt a leg spin bowler and has almost always reaked havoc on our side. Only Ian Bell from the current side can be said to be attempting to pick bowlers from the hand, which means he's always had more time to play the ball than most of the other players do.
In other words it can be said that English batsmen (of the current lot) aren't good at picking variations, which tend to be the best preserve of wristspinners.
 

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