Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,270
3.2 overs to go, 10 and Jack at the crease. England would probably bite your hand off if offered 375, sit back and watch the bowlfliddery unfold once again.
Close of play - Day 1
India 290-9 (90 overs) after being inserted by Captain Cook.
A pretty decent day for England I would say - not having seen a ball bowled all day!
I though it was a poor day for England. You never put a team in first unless you're confident of getting them out for under 200. Anything above that score is a bad day in my book. Granted you can never tell untill both teams have batted but like people have said, movement and bounce on a green pitch and we've let them get to near enough 300. If you bowl first you do that with the plan that you'll bowl them out that day and we didn't, which is why it was a poor day.
Prediction for the day ahead:
India: 307 all out
England: 173 all out
India: 88/2
This is a MASSIVE session for Cook. If we don't get that last wicket in the first 20 minutes or so, or if we do and Cook gets out cheaply (again) I can see him taking an awful lot of what would be deserved criticism.[/QUOTE
I like Cook, he's obviously a fantastic batsman but I don't think he's a great captain. Having said that there aren't any obvious choices to replace him. I wonder whether it might be worth thinking of the captain as a "specialist" , pick a whiley old county captain who's been around and knows his stuff stick him in at 6 and get him to mentor someone like Joe Root so that two or three years down the line he can take over.
To be fair I think it was a really tough decision for Cook. He's almost dammed if he does dammed if he doesn't. I said I would have batted based on weather conditions yesterday and the decison to bowl is based on the green picth. Basically if we didn't bowl them out quickly then the criticism is we made the wrong choice. Yet if we'd batted and got bowled out quickly then the citicism would have been he made the wrong choice because the pitch was green.
It's not what I'd have done, but I don't think bowling first was a bad call I just think we didn't bowl as well as we needed to. Like others said at 147/7 it looked like a very good call.
The bowlers and keeper let him down in sessions 1 and 3 and his captaincy in the third session was laughably poor.
Can't remember who it was, but during the last test one of the Sky pundits (it might have been Botham) was opining that with Andersen and Broad being senior members of the squad, they have too much influence over what to bowl and field settings, and that Cook doesn't have either the balls or the air of authority to reign them in and do what he wants.
This is a MASSIVE session for Cook. If we don't get that last wicket in the first 20 minutes or so, or if we do and Cook gets out cheaply (again) I can see him taking an awful lot of what would be deserved criticism.[/QUOTE
I like Cook, he's obviously a fantastic batsman but I don't think he's a great captain. Having said that there aren't any obvious choices to replace him. I wonder whether it might be worth thinking of the captain as a "specialist" , pick a whiley old county captain who's been around and knows his stuff stick him in at 6 and get him to mentor someone like Joe Root so that two or three years down the line he can take over.
Yes but who is a wiley old County Captain these days?? It seems to be such a transient position with all the cricket being played. Can't think of one with real tenure and experience other than Rob Key. Surely we couldn't go back to him