2007 has been pretty good for England ODI side.

[wpdavid]

And that's the problem, isn't it. We're dealing with an unsatisfactory situation where we have to choose one of several least bad options. "Mr X" just about somes up our current lack of viable openers in the whiteball game, so there's no reason to believe that any of the possibles would do better than Mustard or Prior. Brown & Loye are too old, Benning et al did nothing of note last year, and beyond them? I was even wondering if Strauss had really been so bad when Cook was having his run of zeros.

Funny how things change. 5 years ago, we had two very good openers, a middle order that was good on paper but usually folded whenever under any pressure, and no lower order. Today our openers are crap, all but one of our middle order aren't that highly rated (and the one exception's been out of form for most of this year) and a bunch of kids in the lower order - and we're being more competitive. Can't get my head around it, tbh.

 

[Richard]

Seems alright, I find his capacity and battle points a little worrying at only 1 and I can't see how stealth helps in the game of cricket, especially for an opening batsman. Never going to be more than average IMO.

Meh.

TBH, I only put The Unnamed as the other opener because I'm so, so fed-up of the latest nobody picked to open in ODIs for England that I'm getting to the stage where I almost wish you could scrap opening the batting in one-day cricket completely. No-one ever seems to be able to be that good at it in this country.

Seriously, there's a compelling case against just about everyone you could possibly name who might be suggested as openers.

 

[sledger]

My missus has quite a sense of humour on this issue.

She said that if she dies in a car accident, she'd like "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division played.

Certainly a cut above my unsubtle suggestion of the Primitives classic, "Crash"

tbh i dont really see where that comes into this thread.

 

[sledger]

Meh.

TBH, I only put The Unnamed as the other opener because I'm so, so fed-up of the latest nobody picked to open in ODIs for England that I'm getting to the stage where I almost wish you could scrap opening the batting in one-day cricket completely. No-one ever seems to be able to be that good at it in this country.

trescothick like him or not did a better job than anyone else imo.

 

[Richard]

He did, it's just a shame that pretty much everyone else who's attempted the job from his debut onwards (even Knight in the summer of 2002) has been utterly useless.

 

[pasag]

Owais Shah
A bit better than his previous ODI incarnations, which would have been almost impossible to worsen, but still distinctly poor, really - a good series against West Indies, a poor one against India (disguised due to a crucial bad decision) and a pretty poor one against Sri Lanka so far. Still categorically not a ODI-standard player and if I were pushed I'd say less likely than more to become one.

dwta

 

[Richard]

What, that he's not now or that he won't be one sometime soon?

If the now, I ask you how one series of decent scores plus one 82 in the current series makes someone ODI-standard.

If the future, what in him do you see that makes you think he'll be one? He's better at one-day cricket now than he was in 2001, obviously (and he's rarely played more than 2 or 3 games on the trot since then, though obviously he would have done had he performed better in the games he did play) but I still don't see his deeds since his latest comeback as offering anything remotely remarkable. His 82 was a good innings, beyond doubt, but I need to see more than one really good innings TBH.

 

[pasag]

What, that he's not now or that he won't be one sometime soon?

If the now, I ask you how one series of decent scores plus one 82 in the current series makes someone ODI-standard.

If the future, what in him do you see that makes you think he'll be one? He's better at one-day cricket now than he was in 2001, obviously (and he's rarely played more than 2 or 3 games on the trot since then, though obviously he would have done had he performed better in the games he did play) but I still don't see his deeds since his latest comeback as offering anything remotely remarkable. His 82 was a good innings, beyond doubt, but I need to see more than one really good innings TBH.

The latter, for me he's looked good everytime he goes out there, his early results might be abit inconsistent but I certainly see a future in him as well as Bopara and feel they can provide a stable middle for years to come. I've watched nearly all his innings in this latest stint (not including all of the WI ones remarkably) and certainly think he'll be an asset to the side in the future. Call it gut more than anything. Also, how do you arrive at the assessment that he is not ODI standard (besides stats) if I may ask?

 

[four_or_six]

He did, it's just a shame that pretty much everyone else who's attempted the job from his debut onwards (even Knight in the summer of 2002) has been utterly useless.

That two people having the same icon thing is confusing... I just had to read it three times to realise you weren't having a conversation with yourself!

 

[Richard]

The keeper is the main worry IMO.

Jones, Nixon, Prior or Mustard aren't the answer. But out of those lot, I'd definitely go Prior.

I am amazed that although having such a strong first class competition, England can select a keeper who has an absolute DISMAL batting record.

Just spotted this...

We've got plenty of decent prospects as Test wicketkeepers. Pothas (if he was a few years younger), Foster, Davies (hopefully in a year or 2), Prior himself even. Heck, even Geraint Jones when he was picked had a very good case. Believe it or not, so did Read in 2003\04 and 2006.

However, sadly a strong First-Class competition won't help you get good ODI players. You need a strong one-day setup to do that, and England's one-day competitions have rarely been flash, and are now even worse than they've ever been. It's perhaps - though I don't believe exclusively - to do with this that England have not produced many OD cricketers of calibre.

Obviously, it's not helped that some of those few we have have often struggled to be picked.

 

[Richard]

The latter, for me he's looked good everytime he goes out there, his early results might be abit inconsistent but I certainly see a future in him as well as Bopara and feel they can provide a stable middle for years to come. I've watched nearly all his innings in this latest stint (not including all of the WI ones remarkably) and certainly think he'll be an asset to the side in the future. Call it gut more than anything. Also, how do you arrive at the assessment that he is not ODI standard (besides stats) if I may ask?

I certainly see Bopara as having a future - just perhaps not a present, and TBH I feel playing now is likely to do him more harm than good. He has the temperament - he has one of the best heads on his shoulder I've ever seen really. His first serious ODI innings was one few would be capable of playing (the one against SL in the WC). But he just doesn't seem to me to possess the strokes at the current time, and is somewhat limited. He's had a couple of innings where the side's collapsed around him and he's sailed to a well-deserved not-out; he's had 2 innings where he's played brilliantly in an incredibly tough situation... but he's not looked like your classic "Bevan" mould OD player, in that he has only one tempo, that a sedate one. The best players, Bevan being the best example, have had two tempos, even if one of them only gets a showing fairly rarely.

As regards Shah... if this had been his first foray into ODIs I'd undoubtedly see plenty of promise. However (and as a point of interest I don't know how much you saw of him in 2001 and 2001\02, or indeed 2002\03) bearing in mind this previous set of stints and the current one, there is still, to me, far too much in common. He looks a better player, yes, but he still looks a hell of a lot like the old Shah. In one-day cricket (and until about 2000 in the longer game too) he has always been someone who promises much but delivers little. Yes, he almost always looks good, which can give you the "gut feeling" that he'll break through any time soon. But he's always looked like that, and he's always failed to deliver all that much really. And never for any reason other than he keeps getting out. There's no consistency in his dismissals, it's not as if he's been worked-out, he just finds a different (and usually daft) way to get out each new innings.

 

[Perm]

What, I favour a decent bowler over an exceedingly average batsman?

Yes, yes I do.

I think what he meant was that you highly praised Mascarenhas, yet derided Collingwood by saying the occasional big score "disguised a whole lot of mediocrity in between", when infact the same description could be used for Mascarenhas. His two knocks of any note were on flat pitches, and in his other three innings he registered single figures. As for his bowling, he was reasonably effective against the West Indies at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge. He helped to skittle India at Lords, but apart from that he has been fodder.

 

[Richard]

He hasn't been fodder at all (any comment of mine to do with Mascarenhas will usually be as a bowler, I don't see him scoring that many ODI runs TBH), he's bowled in ODIs 7 times, 4 of which have been excellent spells, 1 of which was nothing special (it was his debut so I think we can forgive that, and it was also just 4 overs), 1 of which was very poor (4 for 31) and 1 of which was poor but actually could (and would for many bowlers) have been far worse (10-55-2).

Mascarenhas has bowled far better in his limited ODI career to date than Collingwood has batted. Not for a second am I decrying the quality of those last 3 knocks in the CBS but the fact is it's just 3 matches and only on 3 other occasions in his career has he ever strung together more than 1 or 2 decent knocks.

 

[NZTailender]

He's scored 1064 runs @ 40.92 in ODI matches. What have you done with your year, Richard?

 

[Richard]

Yet the truth of that is it amounts to 3 superb innings at the end of the CB Series (one in which he was mostly absolutely abysmal) and good innings in the summer from game three to game ten. As I say, he was poor for most of the CB Series, had a very poor World Cup (31, 14, 2, 30, 6), 2 poor innings to start the summer against West Indies and a shocker in Sri Lanka.

What does comparing him to me help with anything? I'm not an international cricketer.

 

[Athlai]

Let he who hath no sin cast the first stone? Or something along those lines.

 

[Richard]

If no-one can criticise because they too have sinned The World will be without criticism.

And as we all know - no criticism = no improvement.

 

[gettingbetter]

I certainly see Bopara as having a future - just perhaps not a present, and TBH I feel playing now is likely to do him more harm than good.

Where is his future though?

I think much of ther eason he hasn't been as porpoerous as he could of been is due to his batting position, he has batted at number 3 and 6 once and all his other innings have been at 7 with two innings at 8. With Bell cementing his place in the colours for many years to come, and with the middle order looking solid - KP, Collingwood and Shah, it would be asuch a waste of talent having Bopara be a number 7.

Without all the commotion coming from certain members of this board, where would you bat him or would you do a shuffle e.g. Bell opening, Bopara at 3?

 

[Richard]

Certainly Bopara is not suited - at all - to the number-seven position, as I've alluded to once or twice when saying the impressive thing about him is a cool head and little more (ie, not really a big stroke-hitter).

Therefore, if Bell is ahead of him for the number-three position (which he is currently unless he's opening) I'd be happier for Bopara's sake if he didn't play. He's not a front-line bowler, not by a long chalk, and I've always preferred five bowlers in a ODI. The trouble with that is, without Flintoff, it leaves one hell of a tail as the Sidebottoms and Andersons aren't batsmen of any repute (nor are the MSPs, but I hope he might be out of the ODI picture soon) and the Swanns, Mascarenhases and Broads are nothing more than decent lower-order bats.

So you have Swann at seven, Mascarenhas at eight, and Broad at nine - which while not a house-of-cards-act-expectation, is hardly something containing a wealth of runs for most occasions.

 

[vic_orthdox]

What does comparing him to me help with anything? I'm not an international cricketer.

I thought Geg was more saying, "What have you been watching?" - what have you done with your year, because you've clearly not been watching Collingwood.