Monty and Swann

[Goughy]

Because one can so easily break down.

That is not a good enough reason.

To have a massive excess capacity built in is a huge inefficiency.

You cant cover for an injury, they just dont happen often enough. Also, when they do happen it isnt as if the game has to be conceeded. You just have to have a plan b ( a part time bowler). It isnt ideal but then it isnt an ideal situation. To play 5 bowlers just in case 1 breaks down is conservative in the extreme.

It doesnt pay off in the long term and you make decrease your long term chances.

It is like wearing a massive coat in summer and sweating and being uncomfortable just in case a freak cold spell comes along. Every now and again you can say "Aha" but most of the time you are the 'fool in the coat'

 

[Woodster]

Because one can so easily break down. Even if it's only for a session, you could end up with an extended spell from Paul Collingwood or the like. With the added pressure of having to bowl a quarter of the team's overs (more if one of the others bowls badly), an injury is a lot more likely.

The West Indies do it, but they have Chris Gayle- against NZ in the first innings, he bowled 21 out of 116 overs (taking three top-order wickets). Were India to try it, they'd still have Virender Sehwag to run through a few quick overs. Australia do it sometimes but with Symonds and Clarke in the team. South Africa have Jacques Kallis, so there'll always be five bowlers. Four seamers plus Paul Collingwood/Kevin Pietersen, unless the latter in particular proves himself to be a decent part-timer, is a recipe for disaster.

Surely you can play 4 seamers and a specialist spinner. I'm presuming I have mis-understood something here from a previous post, apologies. I would never really consider Freddie as one of a four-man attack. With Freddie batting at 7 you could include three other seamers, thus giving you 4, and a specialist spinner.

 

[Jigga988]

basically, all Panesar has done good againsttests against opponents like the Windies who havn't got a clue when it comes to spin, as only two players can play it - Sarwan and Chanders. Sarwan missed the whole series while Chanders missed the second test. Thus explaining why Monty got man of the series in that tour and took a million and one wickets.
However, put Monty against good players of spin - the Indians and he is made to look average. To be fair to him, the field placements wern't ideal, i.e. he kept on having to adjust to Yuvraj then Sachin but still the way he bowled was poor. I firmly believe Panesar could learn alot from Vettori, Panesar spins it as much and generally is as accurate, but the subtle changes of pace and line along with the best arm ball in cricket makes Vettori such a deadly bowler.
With regards to Swann, he didnt do too badly, I just think Panesar has a bit more potential than Swann if someone would teach him that he needs to learn to vary pace and line. Patel would be a waste of time due to the fact that he is definitely not the next best batsman for England, there's at least 4 ahead of him and in India his bowling would be ineffective.

I think the premier spinner is debatable right now, Panesar is still probobly ahead due to past tours but if Swann has a nother decent game and Panesar has a nother rubbish one, it could be Swann facing the Windies line up come february. Also, Swann's got the fact that he can hold a bat to help him out, a lot of owness these days are put on bowlers who can hold a bat, a good example of this being Martin who was dropped from, NZ squad.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Yep. I think he needs some "good" guidance. England would do well to get Mr. Bedi involved here. He is lacking professional guidance for long and is harsh on him to be expected to be the complete spinner at his age, without any mentoring. He is certainly no Warne or Murali to make his dough just on his inherent talent.

Someone on the Guardian lambasted the ECB for exactly this. They shelled out on getting all sorts of pace bowling experts like Cooley for instance to ensure the English pace attack was up to step with all the tricks in the book but it seems that they are quite willing to allow fingerspinners like Monty to mark time whilst the swoon over the likes of Rashid, who for all we know could end up a batsman with fairly useful spin rather than the English Warne the ECB wants.

I will go and dig up the article just now

*Digs up article*

Do you think that no one in England has told him to slow it down and flight it? If we can work it out, and if I can tell it to Under 10s and they can get their heads around it, then I don't think it's the coaching staff that need the fingers pointing at them. Panesar needs to do it himself, and if he's only going to listen to someone with more Test wickets than him then he can piss off back to Bedfordshire.

 

[Scaly piscine]

It's not for me to decide if he is one of the six best batsmen in the country, as I don't get paid to make such a decision, I only have an opinion. My opinion is that at the moment I would back six other batsmen ahead of him to be more successful in Test cricket.

I appreciate that while he would add depth to the batting, although it should not be necessary to have him coming in at 8 or wherever you may propose, when we could have a specialist bowler in that position, a bowler that would bring much more to the side than Patel, not necessarily a spinner.

If Patel is to play for England in the future, it should be as a top 6 batsman.

Err he'd bat at 6. Flintoff at 7 and a genuine wicket-keeper (ie not Prior) at 8.

You have to look at the whole thing. If you pick Patel then you can go with your best 4 seamers (or best 3 seamers and a spinner in the sub-continent). It deepens your batting lineup and makes it easy to play a proper wicket-keeper as the batting is less important for the balance of the side.

 

[Goughy]

However he was guilty of pitching it short enough for the batsmen to play it super-late. He would do well to learn that in the subcontinent less speed, more loop and more pitching up would get him rewards than the fastish good length which Bracken would be proud of.

His problem with his length is a long standing technical one.

This is something I posted 2 1/2 years ago, at the beginning of his career, and pointed out repeatedly since.

Panesar- His head falls away towards the legside in delivery. This mean he will always struggle with length. Not for a long time have I seen a left arm spinner get cut so often. Why? because his head is not even close to being level. This means he cannot judge length correctly. In fact he may be putting the ball where he wants but because of the head problem it is a misjudgement rather than an errant ball. He must be forced to keep his eyes as level (horizontal) as possible during delivery. It would make a massive improvement.

Panesar is still an unproven Test cricketer.

 

[Woodster]

Err he'd bat at 6. Flintoff at 7 and a genuine wicket-keeper (ie not Prior) at 8.

You have to look at the whole thing. If you pick Patel then you can go with your best 4 seamers (or best 3 seamers and a spinner in the sub-continent). It deepens your batting lineup and makes it easy to play a proper wicket-keeper as the batting is less important for the balance of the side.

Right so now you're changing the keeper aswell. Pretty difficult really then to discuss the make-up of a side when I have no idea what your side would be ?

I agree if you were to have Prior at 8 it would make sense to pick a better wicket-keeper as his runs would not be as vital, although I think that would be harsh on Prior as it stands. It's your opinion have Patel in the side and that's fair enough, just think using Freddie as one of four frontline bowlers would increase his workload still, and that is not the best idea for me.

Patel's bowling, imo, would be no more effective in Test cricket than someone like Ravi Bopara, who I would prefer as a batsman between the two.

Also, you say if we go with Patel you can pick your 4 best seamers, well why don't you pick your 4 best seamers anyway and include another bowler, be it specialist spinner or seamer. With Flintoff and Prior at 6 and 7, I don't believe Patel is such a better batsman than Prior (if at all) to mean doing without a specialist bowler.

 

[andruid]

Do you think that no one in England has told him to slow it down and flight it? If we can work it out, and if I can tell it to Under 10s and they can get their heads around it, then I don't think it's the coaching staff that need the fingers pointing at them. Panesar needs to do it himself, and if he's only going to listen to someone with more Test wickets than him then he can piss off back to Bedfordshire.

Well they seem to be willing to spend loads to bring in all sorts f experts to tell for one their pacemen to 'put it in the right areas' (Cooley, Gibson, Donald etc.) their batsmen to stop sweeping against the spin and so forth (See Flower) so the point stands.

 

[GIMH]

That is not a good enough reason.

To have a massive excess capacity built in is a huge inefficiency.

You cant cover for an injury, they just dont happen often enough. Also, when they do happen it isnt as if the game has to be conceeded. You just have to have a plan b ( a part time bowler). It isnt ideal but then it isnt an ideal situation. To play 5 bowlers just in case 1 breaks down is conservative in the extreme.

It doesnt pay off in the long term and you make decrease your long term chances.

It is like wearing a massive coat in summer and sweating and being uncomfortable just in case a freak cold spell comes along. Every now and again you can say "Aha" but most of the time you are the 'fool in the coat'

Yes, completely and utterly agree. And that analogy is brilliant, and it made me

 

[Richard]

basically, all Panesar has done good againsttests against opponents like the Windies who havn't got a clue when it comes to spin, as only two players can play it - Sarwan and Chanders. Sarwan missed the whole series while Chanders missed the second test. Thus explaining why Monty got man of the series in that tour and took a million and one wickets.

TBH, the game Chanderpaul missed (and Sarwan got injured in) MSP bowled 7 overs and picked-up 1 wicket, when the game was almost over.

MSP also bowled very dangerously at Old Trafford (as he has done more than once, because it's the one Test pitch in the country in recent times that's turned) and would've troubled better batting units. However, there's no doubt that he was massively flattered by his figures at Lord's and The Riverside, and also benefited from the sheer terribleness - as well as shortage - of the seamers (Sidebottom, who played just 3 out of 4, aside) for most of that series.

MSP has had his moments - many of them coming at Old Trafford - but it's been diabolical how much some of the country has overrated him for much of the past 2 years. I said all along that those doing so were going to be disappointed some day, and it's now beginning to happen.

 

[Richard]

Indians would be licking with anticipation to see a parttimer spinner in operation at Mohali.

You'd generally be mad to go in without a genuine spinner (which Patel isn't) in India, even though Mohali has been one of the most seam-friendly grounds in the country.

However, outside India and Sri Lanka, I feel - and have felt for the last decade - that England are simply handicapping themselves by repeatedly picking someone (first Croft and Tufnell, then Giles, then MSP, and now possibly sometime soon Swann) principally to bowl fingerspin. Fingerspin simply isn't, can't be, effective in most places around the globe - there aren't enough pitches that allow it to be any more.

Given there's never been a wristspinner from this country who's looked remotely close to Test-standard and that doesn't appear likely to change any time soon, England are much best served going into most Tests with their specialist bowlers (ie, who are not picked principally for their batting) being four seamers. I believe this now and I've believed it since 2000, at the latest, when I first saw how well the strategy can work if the seamers have the requistite quality.

However, the trouble is that there's too often the belief that "you must have variation". It's believed that a decent-to-good fingerspinner (which all of Croft, Giles, MSP and quite possibly Swann are) is a better bet on any surface than an average seamer if the rest of the attack is seam, which quite simply isn't true. Of the seamers who've played for England in the last decade, all of Fraser, Gough, Cork, Headley, Caddick, Mullally, White, Hoggard, Flintoff, Anderson, Jones and Sidebottom are much, much preferable on the vast majority of pitches. Even the less long-lasting types like Tudor, Giddins, Johnson, Kirtley, Bicknell and (to date) Tremlett would've been preferable to a fingerspinner under most circumstances IMO.

Only the sheer useless types like Plunkett and Mahmood (and, to date, Broad, though that's clearly likely to change sometime eventually) are less preferable to a fingerspinner. Harmison is a moot point, as he's mostly been useless but has had odd Tests (and one 7-Test spree) of huge effectiveness.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Right so now you're changing the keeper aswell. Pretty difficult really then to discuss the make-up of a side when I have no idea what your side would be ?

I agree if you were to have Prior at 8 it would make sense to pick a better wicket-keeper as his runs would not be as vital, although I think that would be harsh on Prior as it stands. It's your opinion have Patel in the side and that's fair enough, just think using Freddie as one of four frontline bowlers would increase his workload still, and that is not the best idea for me.

Patel's bowling, imo, would be no more effective in Test cricket than someone like Ravi Bopara, who I would prefer as a batsman between the two.

Also, you say if we go with Patel you can pick your 4 best seamers, well why don't you pick your 4 best seamers anyway and include another bowler, be it specialist spinner or seamer. With Flintoff and Prior at 6 and 7, I don't believe Patel is such a better batsman than Prior (if at all) to mean doing without a specialist bowler.

Flintoff is always going to bowl a lot, but he bowls even more when you pick players like Panesar, Broad as frontline bowlers. Most of the time a finger spinner is going to be relegated to bit-part containing bowler. If you have 4 good seamers then they can share the workload. If you fudge things and pick Broad and Panesar (Broad being picked because Panesar can't bat) you're often left with 70-80 overs being bowled by 3 guys - it happened repeatedly this summer - because the captain wants to keep the pressure on the batsmen.

Pick 4 front line seamers and they can bowl 20+ overs each per day, Patel get through a few quiet overs as can Colly. You get your primary bowlers (the seamers) being fresher and can bowl more aggressively. Meanwhile your batting is stronger as well. The only downside is you might not capitalise so much on a wearing pitch - but Panesar doesn't manage to do this himself anyway.

For me a specialist spinner adds little in most Tests because they're not really in the game and just take up a passive role.

 

[Uppercut]

That is not a good enough reason.

To have a massive excess capacity built in is a huge inefficiency.

You cant cover for an injury, they just dont happen often enough. Also, when they do happen it isnt as if the game has to be conceeded. You just have to have a plan b ( a part time bowler). It isnt ideal but then it isnt an ideal situation. To play 5 bowlers just in case 1 breaks down is conservative in the extreme.

It doesnt pay off in the long term and you make decrease your long term chances.

It is like wearing a massive coat in summer and sweating and being uncomfortable just in case a freak cold spell comes along. Every now and again you can say "Aha" but most of the time you are the 'fool in the coat'

To be fair, a Patel would be only that- a back-up for whenever one of the pacers is bowling very poorly, a two-over spell before lunch, a final resort if all four pacemen fail. It's more than just injuries that concern me about six pure batsmen, i just feel it's generally less than ideal. You don't want to be forced into bowling Harmison's Finest Meat Pies for longer than necessary.

Far better than a five-man attack all picked for their bowling though.

The best case scenario for England is that Prior (or Foster, or another wicket keeper) proves to be good enough to bat six. Freddie's a number 7, and you can still pick four other bowlers. South Africa, Shaun Pollock said on commentary during the summer, plan to do something similar with AB De Villiers when Kallis retires.

 

[NZTailender]

Like Swann, mainly because I manage to sign him at one point or another in the ICC game series, and he takes shedloads of wickets and is a pretty decent #8.

 

[Richard]

To be fair, a Patel would be only that- a back-up for whenever one of the pacers is bowling very poorly, a two-over spell before lunch, a final resort if all four pacemen fail. It's more than just injuries that concern me about six pure batsmen, i just feel it's generally less than ideal. You don't want to be forced into bowling Harmison's Finest Meat Pies for longer than necessary.

So don't pick Harmison. Pick a seamer who can actually bowl. Believe it or not, there are a few, and one or two more who look like they might become such a thing at some point.

 

[Richard]

Like Swann, mainly because I manage to sign him at one point or another in the ICC game series, and he takes shedloads of wickets and is a pretty decent #8.

Such a stupid reason, yet so irreversably ingrained.

Used to do that on CM with various players so often back in 1995/96, 1996/97, 1997/98.

 

[Precambrian]

His problem with his length is a long standing technical one.

This is something I posted 2 1/2 years ago, at the beginning of his career, and pointed out repeatedly since.



Panesar is still an unproven Test cricketer.

Excellent observation. Surprised to see how stagnant Monty's been over the last 2 years.

 

[Precambrian]

Do you think that no one in England has told him to slow it down and flight it? If we can work it out, and if I can tell it to Under 10s and they can get their heads around it, then I don't think it's the coaching staff that need the fingers pointing at them. Panesar needs to do it himself, and if he's only going to listen to someone with more Test wickets than him then he can piss off back to Bedfordshire.

However a pep advice from a guy who has managed to be successful at the top level, like Bedi, would give that added boost to the message. I myself would prefer to be given batting advices from Tendulkar than say, a Ranji Trophy player, however qualified he be. Bedi has proven his mettle across a variety of surfaces, and certainly has the insight to guide Monty here. What is to be seen is whether ECB really consider Panesar to be the premier spinner in the years to come. If they do, they should immediately consider hooking him up with Bedi.

 

[Precambrian]

You'd generally be mad to go in without a genuine spinner (which Patel isn't) in India, even though Mohali has been one of the most seam-friendly grounds in the country.

However, outside India and Sri Lanka, I feel - and have felt for the last decade - that England are simply handicapping themselves by repeatedly picking someone (first Croft and Tufnell, then Giles, then MSP, and now possibly sometime soon Swann) principally to bowl fingerspin. Fingerspin simply isn't, can't be, effective in most places around the globe - there aren't enough pitches that allow it to be any more.

Given there's never been a wristspinner from this country who's looked remotely close to Test-standard and that doesn't appear likely to change any time soon, England are much best served going into most Tests with their specialist bowlers (ie, who are not picked principally for their batting) being four seamers. I believe this now and I've believed it since 2000, at the latest, when I first saw how well the strategy can work if the seamers have the requistite quality.

However, the trouble is that there's too often the belief that "you must have variation". It's believed that a decent-to-good fingerspinner (which all of Croft, Giles, MSP and quite possibly Swann are) is a better bet on any surface than an average seamer if the rest of the attack is seam, which quite simply isn't true. Of the seamers who've played for England in the last decade, all of Fraser, Gough, Cork, Headley, Caddick, Mullally, White, Hoggard, Flintoff, Anderson, Jones and Sidebottom are much, much preferable on the vast majority of pitches. Even the less long-lasting types like Tudor, Giddins, Johnson, Kirtley, Bicknell and (to date) Tremlett would've been preferable to a fingerspinner under most circumstances IMO.

Only the sheer useless types like Plunkett and Mahmood (and, to date, Broad, though that's clearly likely to change sometime eventually) are less preferable to a fingerspinner. Harmison is a moot point, as he's mostly been useless but has had odd Tests (and one 7-Test spree) of huge effectiveness.

A couple of good points there. However, it is never going to add to the confidence of the spinner in the team, if he is dropped for a pacer in a match in the subcontinent. Mohali traditionally assists pace but is conducive for turn in the last 2 days. The other question is, who will the 4th seamer? If it is going to be Broad, my money is on the Indians carving into him. Broad is a good ODI bowler but is not yet a test class bowler, though he is on the way to becoming one. Throwing him into the team as the 4th seamer on a subcontinent track can be very risky.

If I'd be Kevin, I'd stick to the current lineup for the next match too. The bowlers had a bad second innings in Chennai, true, but that means underrating the sheer skills of Tendulkar and Sehwag on song, and that Yuvraj on another day would have directed some of his miscues to the fielders. They should take confidence from the fact that they won all sessions upto the 4th day lunch, and they managed to get India all out in the first innings relatively cheap on a non-assisting (atleast then) track.

 

[Richard]

I'm certainly far from 100% about the idea of Broad replacing MSP at Mohali (had originally thought it was very likely he was going to be replacing Swann - no-one really foresaw Swann bowling considerably better than MSP at the Chepauk).

However, it's about the only change plausible. And I've said it before, I never much like to see a team changed in a two-Test series unless someone's actually got injured after the first game or an obvious key player has missed the first and is fit for the second.

And certainly when the series in India is complete, I don't want to be seeing two fingerspinners remotely considered, and ideally not one either.