Thetownend.com

Think this is it really in terms of progressing to the semi-finals,we need to win today,gulp.

It's pretty much a quarter final match where winner gets through (to get thrashed by the aussies).

we'll probably win today, then lose to the windies. or just get battered today, which does seem the most likely option

We've been so poor this World Cup, that i can't see us pulling it out of the bag. Obviously, KP will have the bit between his teeth today, but i think it'll be our bowling that'll let us down

I shall be having the afternoon off again to watch this one - I cant see us doing it without one hell of a lot of luck .. COME ON ENGLAND!

we can win today and still get beat on saturday by the WI. Come on England.

Yep, its almost certain that the winner will progress. Its strange how we can be so bad and have only won 2 games but yet this win will put us in the semi's and potentially 2 games away from being the world cup winners!!!

Do you think Freddie should open with Vaughan. Cause I do. Play his own game swing from ball 1.

There have been mutterings about him opening for a while,can't see it happening tbh,not in such a massive game like this, think Fletcher will stick with what we've been doing so far.Though i have to agree with you Ultra,the thought of Freddie being able to bat through the powerplays is mouthwatering,but really its an idea that we should have tried before now.

England won the toss and decided to bat.

Was it heads or tails?

9-0 off 7 overs!!!!!  are we planning on upping the rate a bit in the 2nd innings or something.  Can anyone quickly rush out to the Windies and let them know it's a limited over game not an unlimited one?

Relax Rob we'll be fine, we're going along at a steady pace - Mailbu for breakfast for the carribean pace of life.  No need to rush.

How long can one fucking tournament take ffs

 :D  :goodpost:

One day internationals my ass

47 for 2 off 15 overs, openers Bell & Vaughan back in the pavillion.

Looks like our favourite Sauth Arfricans will need to deliver....

Pietersen gone  :|

http://www.waleswatch.welshnet.co.uk/images/clowns.jpg

You're not wrong blackcurrant!

Gutless wankers!

I know Batsman have got to play themselves in but the start of our innings was a joke.

this is all abit shit, and highley embarrasing. when our innings eventually ends, south africa will knock 'em off in about 10 overs

Play.com sent me 2 copies of EA Cricket 07. Weird!

Larwood's gone very quiet...

Is anyone else a bit worried?

Do you think she's alright?

she probably has a life and isn't on an internet messegboard :D

Ive been out running so luckily i missed most of this shocking display.  :)

:-))( well thats us on the plane home.....

| just have this mental picture of her sat in front of a muted TV screen, open bottle of scotch on the table, quietly sobbing.

Either that or storming about the house swearing and slamming doors.

I'm planning on doing the second as soon as lunch starts.

as ive said before useless fucking cunts

how about this for a team

prior
loye
adams (c)
peiterson
irani
yardy
shah
flintoff
wright
broad
panesar


a team and captain thats used to winning

No doubt now, heads must roll after this debacle,  its about as big a mismatch as Ireland v Australia.

  New selectors, new coaches, new captain and new players.

Can we change the sport as well?  are we any good at the odd sport Real Tennis?

as much as i love mal loye's trademark slog sweep for 6, i would rather see some young blood at the top, someone like surrey's james benning. that boy can certainly ping a cricket ball.

 The sport is in need of some major changes....the structure of International cricket is now farcical, as has been shown by this tournament, too many pointless one day internationals clogging up the calendar and leading to player burn out and opening the possibility of corruption.

I listened to all of it at work and it was dreadful. We are missing Trescothick at the top of the order. Who can bully sides.

Thank fuck i went out before the South African innings started i think i would have kicked in my HDTV.  :?

Why the fuck isn't Owais Shah in the side? oh that's it, it's because we might actually win games then.

that was truly woeful, watched it in walkabout...it was funny at the time  :?

Right im going to comment as someone who does not really know fuckall about the sport and i maybe totally wrong but this is the way i see it.

I cannot remember us ever actually having a good team we got a lucky win in the ashes and everyone starting going mad about it.The problem with any decent sportsman outside football is that they get caught up in the celebrity shit that goes with it.It has happened to jenson button,gavin henderson and its now happening to the good cricketers.To a certain extent the cricket team is like the football team and the supporters expect more than the teams are probably capable of.

I await the abuse

I agree with Reg, heads must roll.  Probably the first to go will be Andy King - I heard he was in charge of tactics! :king:

I do think the one day team is very poor standard wise, but that in itself is a huge concern.

The team that won the Ashes was pretty good though, and still could be as a Test team but they won by going out and attacking Australia.  Since then we've retreated back to the old just try and stay in mentality, especially at one day level and I just don't get why.

No abuse, but you're miles off and the fact you're implying footballers make the best role models is laughable.

I'm annoyed and disappointed like everyone, but this is no suprise. We've been a poor ODI side for a long time, and Test cricket is rightfully our priority.

Mex, get real...

prior- tried, tested and failed
loye- tried, tested and failed. get over the novelty of the slog sweep and there's no international class there
adams- why go back to someone who couldn't cut it in 1998 and can't decided whether he wants to retire, coach, play for sussex or what?
peiterson- of course
irani- old old old, the bowling's gone and decent bowlers will get him out
yardy- too slow a batsman, unfit, not a wicket taking option
shah- yes, get him in the side
flintoff- sort himself out, or fuck off
wright- Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick
broad- in a year, yes
panesar- yes

Tell me where i once said footballers are role models :?

sort of, that's how i interpretated it.

you said footballers handle the fame and the money better than any other sportsmen which is just clearly wrong

The exact result England needs.

Not to mention the World Cup.

The brand of cricket played by England here has been a disgrace.

One-day cricket is not rocket-science; bowl straight, hit straight and work harder at fielding than anyone else.

England on the other hand; have quick bolwers bowling everywhere, try and dabble every ball through third man, fielding goes from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Mex's team is so bad it's not funny. We've got close to the 15 best players in the squad and need to stick with themn. England's problem is a lack of experience, most of our guys have only played 30 ODIs as opposed to 300 for most opposition players. We need to identify the bets players and stick with them for four full years. For this summer:

1. m prior+
2. i bell
3. o shah
4. k pietersen
5. p collingwood
6. a flintoff
7. r bopara
8. bowling all-rounder that goes well early season
9. s broad
10. m panesar
11. j anderson

and macca if the 2005 ashes result was a lucky win what about the 7 conescutive series wins against world class opposition home and away that led up top it??

dave i picked a team with the exception of flintoff and panesar who know how to fucking win.

why not? you saying the current lot are better?

undoubtedly

knowing how to win might be one thing, but that side is not good enough

why would you have the best number 3 in the country batting at 7?

the rest i can't even be bothered to argue it's worse than fletcher's logic and that my friend is embarrasing for you

no, i'm saying half of your lot were given the international bullet almost a decade ago!

so you dont reckon adams would make a good captain 2 county championships in 3 years and a c&g cup. name another captain with that sort of record. plus a fucking great couple of batting seasons.

he obviously knows how to inspire a team to fucking win.

mark alleyne has a much better one-day captaincy record than adams.. shall we bring him back as well?

adams will be about 521 years old when the next world cup comes around. keep moving forwards not back

no-one's disputing what he's done for sussex.

if you genuinely believe he should be back in the england side after 9 years out of it then you're fucking crazy.

let's build for 2011 not put in some long-serving county pro from one of the weakest domestic set-ups in the world.

takie your sussex goggles off and put your fucking england ones on.

im not saying for the next world cup, im meant this one would have been a far more exciting prospect with that lot playing.

mate i'd rather slit my neck than watch yardy and adams try and play guys like murali, malinga, tait, hall and co in a pressure situation like they've never experienced before

boeta sometimes your so full of shit :D  last season they twatted the likes of warne, hoggard, west indies,  ah fuck it whats the point.

twatted warne? doesn't look like it here: http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/cgi-bin/player_oracle_reveals_results2.cgi?playernumber=1999&playername=s%20warne&playernameexact=&displayplayername=SK%20Warne&team=&teamexact=&opponent=sussex&opponentexact=&captain=&wicketkeeper=&homeawaytype=All&matchtype=All&resulttype=All&startseason=2006&endseason=&searchtype=InningsList&startscore=&endscore=&startwicket=&endwicket=&branding=cricketarchive

in fact in the one-dayer it looks as if yardy played his typical go-slow one-day innings

Lets face the facts, Some of the current players are simply not good enough for international cricket .Virgil needs to step down,Flintoff needs a rocket up his arse and needs to stop being Billy Big bollocks,Nixon played well enoung but is 36,Bell is not an opener and must never play there again,Dalrymple is a joke,Joyce needs a good county season to get some confidence back .No doubt my opinions will get shot down by our two resident experts .

on the bright side, we hit more 6's than south africa did

I actually think its time for a complete regime change

Its been a long time in place for the current lot - that means the removal of Graveney - Fletcher AND Vaughan

A friend suggested Shane Warne as coach - which I initially laughed at - but the more I thought about it the more I kind of liked it!

Bob Willis seems to be very keen on moving the game forward - perhaps he should be the new Graveney? I dont really know who else there is in the game that could do it - any suggestions ??

As for the captain - well overall Id like to see a new YOUNGER England - put together now with a slant on the future ...

Captain Cook anyone?

Shane Warne has already been quoted ruling out a move as an England coach due to his commitment to Hampshire.

Something has got to be done,Fletcher has had more than enough time,the only bloke who springs to my mind is Tom Moody.He's done a great job with Sri Lanka,turned them from a pretty hopeless ODI team into a very capable one that is in with a big chance of winning the world cup.

Having said that i wonder if the ECB will make any changes,surely if they are going to change the ODI coach then changing the coach for the test team will have to happen as well?I'm not sure that the ECB will want to do it tbh.

I was thinking the same - is a hierarchy change needed - whereby the test and ODI sides are managed separately, the games whilst relying on the same principles are totally different - and perhaps are diverging more now than ever (see the amount of ODIs seasoned test players like Butcher and Hoggy played).  Obviously to do this I'd assume Fletcher would have to go which from a test perspective mightn't be the best.

Maybe they will want an overall head coach with ODI and Test coaches working under him?  Clearly despite the amount of domestic ODI cricket played in England we are struggling to reproduce it, and even our genuinely world class players are looking like mugs

i love the kneejerk things that get thrown about, no-one gets anywhere by complete revolution every four years

obviously a new coach with fresh ideas is a must (other than moody i can't really see too many candidates, i'd take peter moores though), a new odi captain i'm not sure.

these players we've got are close to the best we've got. add a couple like shahro in, cook when his game has fully developed, prior or davies keeping, and we've got a good young battery of fast bowlers coming through who need to be stuck with for the next 4 years. there's no point in giving them all these games now and then not sticking with them until they develop into world-class cricketers which they will

eNGLAND'S PROBLEMS ARE NOT REALLY THE PLAYERS, BUT THE PHILOSOPHY. tHEIR APPROACH IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT WAS IN 1979 wORLD cUP, LOOK IT UP. wE HAVE 20 YEARS OF CATCHING UP IN ODI CRICKET IN TERMS OF HOW WE THINK ABOUT THE SHORTER GAME.

oops lots of capitals i see