Cricket

Monty rules so shut it

Monty is one of the most brainless cricketers I've ever seen. His interviews betray a mind utterly empty of anything except "bowl it in the right areas". I've met him and when away from the cameras he punctuates with "fuck" and "fucking". His boon is that he is a bowling-machine, a single-minded sportsman with one talent, that for plonking it in the right place with spin. But he is not by any means the sort of vibrant spinner that I so thrill to watch. Sri Lanka just trounced India thanks to two men, one old one new, who purvey the beautiful art in an intelligent and profoundly innovative manner.

If Harmison bowls really well it would be hard to NOT take him on a winter tour: one more pathetic crack at solving this enigma, which isn't an enigma at all and just attitude, as you say. So yes, I'd hope they would resist any temptation. xp

Not sure it's entirely attitude to be fair. He's a bowler who needs lots of bowling to find a rhythym and he's not always had that on overseas tours. Hardly his fault if he's undercooked going into a test due to lack of warm up matches. His attitude is a factor though.

Not sure that Monty's stupid either- he has a degree from Loughborough, and always seems quite thoughtful to me.

Anyone watching the 2020 finals today? Might try and catch some of it down the pub later...

A degree in computer science. His final mark is unsupplied. Let's face it, his cricketing ability probably had a say in his acceptance, especially at Loughborough. Let's just be glad he's an international cricketer rather than a video-store clerk, eh?

I'm listening to the cricket, might watch the final up t'pub before Selzer's big do. Anyone going to that, I'll see you there!

haha louis being snobbish about a degree. Damn oxbridge student!

I'm not being snobbish about a degree, I'm merely saying that having a degree doesn't necessarily mean that one has much intelligence, especially creative or constructive intelligence.

Harmison being interviewed on 5LSE, happy to be back in the Test squad apparently! Well done him. :-|

Maybe it'll turn out I've been ridiculously harsh and he's genuinely found himself again. But as things stand I feel he's very lucky to have been given another chance after he threw the last one away in such a pathetic, profligate manner.

So, Harmison is not being selected after all, with Collingwood in for Broad. Weird. Whatever you think of Harmison, it seems bizarre to go to the trouble of bringing him back into the squad, then not to bother selecting him.

Selectors have a lot of questions to answer this series.

When I was at university, a degree from Loughborough was pretty much another way of saying "I R dum but gud at sprtz"

Very strong on library studies, believe it or not!

They also had quite a good physics department ;)

I AM NOT CONTENT

let's solve our bowling crisis by replacing a bowling all-rounder with an out-of-form batsman who happens to be good mates with the captain

GRRR

Broad should not be dropped.

This pitch does not suit Harmison though, he should have been in the last match.

the only changes should have been sidebottom in for pattinson, foster for ambrose, broad up to bat at 7, flintoff at 6, foster at 8, anderson 9 etc

oh and bopara/shah for vaughan, KP captain, but that's personal grump coming through

Broad's bowling not good enough yet

Fuck it then, Broad to bat at 6, he's got the talent and the composure to make it there. 5th bowler duties for him, Flintoff 7, Foster 8 etc.

"I reckon the lad needs to go back to goundy grigid, learn his trade a bit... I didn't get where I got to, as the greatest human being in the universe, without first learning my trade with Yorkshire Goundy Grigid Glub..."

Boycs actually wants Broad in the team, as a batting all-rounder.

For me:

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan (C)
Pietersen
Bell
Collingwood (will come good again IMO and bats well with Fred)
Flintoff
Ambrose (until the end of this series anyway)
Sidebottom
Anderson (had no luck at Headingley, Edgbaston should suit him)
Panesar

Broad needs a rest and to get some overs under his belt at county level. No doubt that he could be a proper all-rounder in future though.

And I've totally repeated the cliche Tom D lampoons above!

Yup,

Broad is currently better at both bowling and batting that Collingwood, move him up the order make him 5th bowler, take the batting pressure off Flintoff.

Flintoff was an all rounder that was supposed to be a better batsman than a bowler but it turned out to be the opposite, perhaps Broad will go the other way.

I like the idea of having differently weighted all-rounders in the squad at the moment.

Broad's never batted higher than 7, has he? Relying on a 20 year old bowler to stiffen yr batting line up, Sarf Ifrikans would be loving that.

Until he takes a hundred off them. Anyway, if he fails, there's a safety net beneath. In theory.

A long tail, in other words, and particularly if Freddie doesn't score any runs.

Long tail wouldn't matter if the batters could bat!

Hey, not forgetting our stirling wicketkeeper.

There is the argument we should go the other way and pick Matt Prior to bat at 6.

I think a long tail might take a bit of pressure off and let people rediscover form.

However if the pitch is a flat track we're screwed.

Give Bell the gloves, train him up.

Ugh, the purist in me is vomiting at that thought.

The purist in me despairs every time I see Ambrose and Prior trying to keep wicket

Yeah, well Foster seems to be the consensus choice.

Anyone reckon Jones should get a match soon? He's been talking up his chances, but Worcs are treating him with kid gloves at the mo.

He's bowling quick, the majority of his wickets have been Div 2 lower-order batsmen tho. Kabir Ali has been our real star man this year, he's in phenomenal form.

I'm a (casual) Worcs fan too. Ali used to be on the fringes of the England team didn't he?

He got a game in the Test side, last time SA visited. Wicket in his first over, 5 overall, but England lost the game thanks to Gary Kirsten and Monde Zondeki putting on the luckiest 100 partnership you've ever seen. Then Andrew Hall had a bit of fun and that was that tbh.

He also had a run of games in the one-day side, with varying degrees of success, and a few real highlights, until the last two games of a series against Sri Lanka, in which he was rather spectacularly demolished on a couple of very flat decks. That's the last we've seen of him in an England shirt at this stage.

Also, why is it that every other Test team is so infinitely more likeable than ours? Why did we get all the crusty, tight-lipped, dullard cocks?

You mean every team but Australia?

I like most of the Australians! Except, like, Hayden. Brett Lee is a massively awesome guy and if you can't see that then I feel sorry for you.

As Australian teams go i suppose this one has plus points - no Waughs for instance

Steve Waugh was a great spokesman for the game, a great and open theorist, and a man I would happily do drinks with.

Michael Vaughan is a sullen, secretive PR man.

I get the impression not even Australians like their team (Esteban to thread?). Vaughan is still very likeable, despite bad form w/bat. Steve Waugh came across as nice considering how tough he was in the field, unlike Boycott who has to wear his mask on at all times.

Monty takes wkts and influences games => cricketing intelligence, and all that matters.

I can see Broad being left out in the sense that sides are often unbalanced with two all rounders however in bringing Harmison and Flintoff they're undoing the work to move on from the Fletcher era that seemed to drive Pattison's selection for the last test. Selection is completely incoherent at the moment.

Monty is only much use on a turning deck, or against substandard batsmen, and he doesn't have the variation or guile to consistently trouble the best. Cricketing intelligence DOES matter. Look at Harmison. Fairweather bowler, hugely talented in the physical sense but the brains of a peanut. Vaughan has never been especially likeable IMO.

Devon Malcolm >>> Harmison

Totally disagree. I agree that Monty isn't, say, Warne or Murali but those two are one offs. He makes things happen as his record so far shows and I think he'll get better with age, too.

The intelligence talked about upthread seemed to be of a non-sports variety. Harmison problems seem to be of an iffy temperament, a lack of application...

Never liked but LOVE Vaughan really, his poor form with the bat is painful to watch.

xp = er, no. Devon now was really even more maddeningly inconsistent.

That last bit was deliberate wind-up nonsense. They're both as bad as each other, but at least Devon never lost pace, or pretended to be anything other than a scattergun, if he never gained such a decent run of returns as Harmison once did before the wind changed and he didn't know how to cope.

Vaughan the batsman = a thing of beauty when in form, sadly he's lost his eyes I reckon, and this'll be his final summer of Test cricket.

Monty does make things happen but like I say he's a bowling machine. The best batsmen will always be thinking a step ahead of him. Not that he isn't, at present, well worth his place.

Vaughan will be in the Ashes next summer, easy.

The problem with Monty is that he's not enough of a machine at times.

Is that what you want spinners to be, machines? Is that right? Go and look at the scorecard, and indeed the online highlights, of India's much-vaunted batting line-up being utterly ravaged on a flat deck by two Sri Lankan spinners. Then tell me that Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan are 'machines'. They're both fantastically clever, devious, unpredictable purveyors of the beautiful art, and if you think plonking it on a length at 55 mph with a bit of turn is going to make you a legend of the game like Murali, then think again. Monty needs to mix it up a lot more, but I'm not sure he has the mental capacity to do so successfully. He's gotten where he is through sheer hard work, bowling ball after ball in the nets, perfecting the machinery, and yet we don't see a doosra, we don't see variations in flight, we don't see a particularly great arm-ball (true, he gets a lot of right-handers lbw, but mostly beaten for pace if anything).

Vaughan won't be in the Ashes side if he doesn't get a couple of decent scores before then. I reckon he's got one, maybe two fifties at the most left in him for the rest of this summer and over the winter.