Lancs out of the twnety/20
Flintoff was back close to his usual self. Bowled brilliant and he reached a well deserved 50. Malan for Middlesex though was top draw. 100 off just 50 odd balls. One for the future by the looks of things.
Typical white rose yorkshire scum cheating their way to victory. Playing a pakistan player but not registering him as an overseas player. Typical. Who cares if he's captained England at under 15 and 16 level as well as played for the England under 17s. Obviously this is me takin the piss, it's typical of the idiotic english cricketering board not having a plan for anything until it happens. Then they pass the buck and blame everyone but themselves. ECB don't know the first thing about running the game. It's an embarassment. The ODI's with NZ proved that. The Pietersen shots, the half hour break when the rain was on it's way and bringing on the Irish captain to play for England. I mean these are the people running the sport and they didn't have anything in plan for any of these incidents. The rules say umpires can use their common sense but that doesn't mean cutting down the break between innings to ten minutes from thirty despite them knowin the rain would come and make the match a shortened version anyway. Then they walk off instead of bowling one over which would of determined a match between us. Neither side wanted to go off but the umpires walk off anyway.
On the international front I'm glad to see England MAY be setting a new world record for the most consecutive tests with the same side. Although I'm all for consistantcy and keeping a winning side, I think there's one or two, ah F**k it, six players who could be understandably dropped. We may of beaten New Zealand in the tests but we didn't play well. We were on many occasions down and out before our bowlers pulled us out the sh*t. The batsmen bar Strauss were not good enough. Cook is still young so gets away with it, Vaughan is the captain so gets away with it, Pietersen is the idol for English cricket so gets away with it which leaves Collingwood and Bell and possibly Ambrose who hasn't really set the world alight since his 100. I'd keep Cook, Pietersen and Bell but drop Vaughan, Collingwood and Ambrose for Rob Key, Flintoff and Phil Mustard. On the bowlers unless he can get some consistantcy then Anderson is in danger of losing his place, my replacement for him would be Tim Bresnan who is unplayable at times.
This up coming test series with the South Africans is gonna be a test. But if our players can hit form at the right time we can beat anyone, including the aussies. We proved that in 05. All our players (bar Geraint Jones) hit their best form at the right time. Their pace attack scares the sh*t out of me because we're not used to that expressed pace. Although their not as good as Pollock and Donald were in tandom, Steyn, Morkel, Nel and Ntini are gonna cause us havoc. Kallis is always a danger with bat or ball. Boucher best wicket keeper I've seen for his keeping ability. Doesn't drop anything. Smith plays well in England, can't say I know McKenzie all that well though. Good opener by all accounts. Ashwell Prince is hit and miss. He's either very good or very poor. But as always I'm confident we'll come through the tougher tests with flying colours. We'll win the series. Got a feeling Cook is gonna pull up his socks this series, man of the series I'm goin for.
« Last Edit: Jul 09, 2008 02:06:46 am by dunlop_liddell_shankly »
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