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Lord's prayer -- do England have one?
Jul. 14th, 2009 11:26 amEngland will have come away from the first Test at Cardiff happier than the Australians, having bravely avoided defeat, but apart from the minor detail of the result they were pretty comprehensively tonked.
It would be hard to argue that the Australian batsmen (excepting Ponting) are more talented than ours, but look at the way they stayed in and accumulated runs. It's pretty poor to see England's top seven, each batting twice, reach a max of 74, while five Australians topped that just in one go. But there's not much we can do about that batting, other than hope that they've been given a good scare and will try harder not to play loose shots and give wickets away next time.
The bowling is more of a problem area, because ours looked anaemic and nervous. We'll only play one spinner at Lord's, and presumably it will be Swann, for his batting as much as what he does with the ball -- he and Panesar were equally poor at Cardiff. It seems Flintoff may be unable to play, in which case Harmison comes in for him and presumably Onions for Panesar, anticipating a bit more swing. This puts off what might have been a difficult decision -- whether to drop Broad. I don't think they would have done -- but I'm not sure it would have done him any harm to have a bit of a shake-up and a reminder that his place in the team isn't nailed down just yet. He really was pretty dire last week -- does he have the character to turn that around at Lord's?
Harmison seem to have demonstrated that he needs to be dropped every now and then to stop him getting complacent. We can probably expect a pretty fiery and effective display when he does get the ball in his hand. I wonder if the same would be true for Broad -- and if we'll ever get the chance to find out.
It would be hard to argue that the Australian batsmen (excepting Ponting) are more talented than ours, but look at the way they stayed in and accumulated runs. It's pretty poor to see England's top seven, each batting twice, reach a max of 74, while five Australians topped that just in one go. But there's not much we can do about that batting, other than hope that they've been given a good scare and will try harder not to play loose shots and give wickets away next time.
The bowling is more of a problem area, because ours looked anaemic and nervous. We'll only play one spinner at Lord's, and presumably it will be Swann, for his batting as much as what he does with the ball -- he and Panesar were equally poor at Cardiff. It seems Flintoff may be unable to play, in which case Harmison comes in for him and presumably Onions for Panesar, anticipating a bit more swing. This puts off what might have been a difficult decision -- whether to drop Broad. I don't think they would have done -- but I'm not sure it would have done him any harm to have a bit of a shake-up and a reminder that his place in the team isn't nailed down just yet. He really was pretty dire last week -- does he have the character to turn that around at Lord's?
Harmison seem to have demonstrated that he needs to be dropped every now and then to stop him getting complacent. We can probably expect a pretty fiery and effective display when he does get the ball in his hand. I wonder if the same would be true for Broad -- and if we'll ever get the chance to find out.
