Thetownend.com

...the Convicts fucked up in bigger style v Saffers, than we did v India.

 Ashes as a contest back on.

Doubt it Reg. We're hopeless really. Although the Aussies have been shocking for their standards recently and we do have home advantage.

 I'd like to win...but more importantly I'd like a contest...there are definitely signs that the Aussies are nothing like unbeatable.

Ware not hopeless Onion!...weve competed well....the Indians are brilliant,ive enjoyed both matches.

I'm not so sure Leefer. Doubts can be raised about the bowling. What's happened to Panesar? We still don't have a solid WK (we should stick with Prior now and we should have done that before) and Flintoff (although he has done OK this test to be fair) has been way short of his standards. I'm not sure about KP as captain yet either. Time will tell on that one.

Flintoff short of his standards, are you mad?!

No. What has he done between the last Ashes series and now? Nolthing really. Not the amazing innings we used to see him play. He's been OK with the ball at times to be fair to him. He's spent half of the last 3 years getting pissed.

 Flintoff did have an excellent couple of years around the mid 00's, and he's still a very decent cricketer..just not Ian Botham class.

 I'm always amused by the fact that the King of Spain, reached the 1000 runs 100 wickets landmark before Flintoff.

Flintoff is good but clearly over-rated in my opinion. I'll draw the line on it there.

Who would you rate as a better all rounder, out of interest?

Big Fred was bunging it down at 93mph the other day.

And in one of the ODIs he also hit the biggest 6 that both Bumble and I have ever seen.

Aussies struggling again today to bowl out South Africa. Paul Harris made 39 Dale Steyn made 79 and Jp Duminy made a brilliant 166

 Saw the highlights of this...sweet... Duminy looked useless when he played in the one dayers back end of the summer. Fair play now looks a proper player.

No real relation, but this is a Cricket thread.

If Vaughan and Bell get in the Windies squad ahead of Shah, I will be supporting New Zealand from now on.

That was quality last night...the Aussies are ther for the taking next Ashes...they dont seem to have a plan B now he has retired....there all busy watching musicals about him...that Steyne has got real balls the way he played after the hits his hands took.

 Convicts are right in the shitter...the problem is England are still in worse shape.

looks like South Africa will win series bowled aussies out for 247. Dale Steyn took another 5 wickets. Close SA 30-0 chasing 183.

Clarke century boosts Australia

Australia gave themselves a good chance of earning a consolation victory in the final test
against South Africa on the back of Michael Clarke's fine 138.

The Aussie vice captain,dropped twice on the first day,converted an unbeaten 73 into his
10th first class century.

And with further runs from Mitchell Johnson (64) and Nathan Hauritz (41) the Australians
totalled a solid 445.

South Africa replied with 125 - 1 Graeme Smith retiring with a broken hand that will keep him
out for six weeks.

Johnson is going to be a real handfull in English conditions.

also Brett Lee is out for 5 months having ankle surgery.

There's a new kid on the block for Australia, in the shape of 22 yr old batsman David Warner.
He played on sunday in the 20/20 game against S Africa, scoring 89 of just 43 balls.He hit his
first two balls from Dale Steyn both for six.

What also marks Warner out from others, is that he is ambidextrous and has been working on
batting both left and right handed.Gray-Nicholls have manufactured a double sided bat for him.

Going to be abit complicated when he plays the reverse sweep!....he looks good though.

Warner doesn't bat left and right handed. That bat has been given to 5 or 6 of young Australian batters for their domestic Twenty20 comp, but none of them have played using the back of it so far

 :cry:  Convicts batter Saffas with a newish looking line up.

 England looking a bit of a rudderless ship off the field right now...on it very patchy at best.

 Cunty cunts...looks like we're in for a right battering in the summer.  The Convicts look to have replaced a generation with some fresh talent, like Philip Hughes 20 years old and a century v Saffas.

 They're probably not as strong as old, but look to have the makings of a decent team.

 Hughes has been lined up to play for Middlesex, early season just so he can get used to English conditions....great.

Why aren't we 'declaring' already?

Prior has his 100, we're well ahead, we've scored slowly... and need to win.

Oh, we've now declared.

They must have seen my post on their laptops.

  Well it was interesting....England now up to 5 in the Test rankings, Convicts down to 4.

  In many ways a strange series, apart from Strauss and to a lesser extent Prior, no England player had much more than one decent showing....it was just these happened at key times.

 Strauss did a good job with the coin...which was a help apart from Headingley..

 We have made some progress, insofar as Strauss/Flower seems a decent management team, Onions came in and did OK, Trott will now get a run, and Swann has had a decent year, and Broad has come on.

 Against that, Flintoff has gone, Monty has gone backwards, and Boparda seems to have completely imploded....not at game and not mentioned in credits...Flower even talking of 14 players used when it was 15.

 It was nice to see Harmy clean up at the end, but we don't seem to have a young quick on the horizon.

 The boy Meaker at Surrey, may fit the bill, Saffa and gets it through at 90 mph, but only 20 and lacks experience...I had hopes for Finn at Middlesex, but he doesn't seem to have progressed.

Agreed. Altough i'd add that alistair cooke also seems to be going backwards too, maybe time away from the big test arena will suit him,but he hasn't looked at all like he was when he first played international cricket.

Haha, well done IOB, once again making a total chode of yourself in this section!!

No, not really.

He said that Prior should be kept on (and he has done very well this series), that Flintoff is fucked (and apart from Lords and a run out at the Oval he is).

KP was out of the equation.

Chode? Nah, IOB has a normal willy I am certain.

I love Monty and it looks like everyone else does as well - he got some massive cheers when they were handing out the awards. Whilst I appreciate he has been playing shit recently, what I don't understand is the way they manage players such as Monty. Once the ECB lose interest in a player they just seem to give up on them.

Monty goes back to his county and ends up playing in the 2nd division. What fucking good is that? Why aren't they ensuring that players like Monty are playing in the 1st division? His batting is obviously shit, so why aren't they forcing him up the batting order at county level? He is shit in the field, so why aren't they forcing that as well?

fuck off jonny, so you force counties to play players? and in what division? counties are there on merit, end of.

Monty's batting has been shit since he came into the side (hang on, what about cardiff ?) some 4 years ago now. As has his fielding - Is first division fielding better than second division ? If he was that good perhaps some first division side might offer him a contract.

I'd imagine he's third in the pecking order now, with Swann and Rashid ahead of him for the SA tour. If someone is going to get by solely on bowling, he has to be exceptional, and Monty is on the slide at the moment - hopefully he can turn it round, but this season has been poor for him.

I know you're a die hard Sussex fan, so I can understand your reluctance to interfere with the County set up more than is necessary.  But I can see where Jonny is coming from.  Cricket is quite like rugby union (and unlike football) in that many more people will follow the national side than follow a club side.  If the County structure is failing to develop fringe England players like Panesar, I think there could be a fair amount of support for adjusting things...especially if it boosted our chances of a few more days like yesterday.

is cricket more like rugby union but not like football because you dont follow them?

phone call from haiti manager : lescinel is not scoring enough goals at international level, you have to play him as centre forward.

yeah that would work.

Sorry.  Didn't understand that at all.


Taking a concept to its logical extremes is probably not the best way of arguing this.  My point is simply that County cricket could not survive in its present form without the money generated by the national side.  Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and a few other County sides would have enough of a following, but many others would not.  So adjusting the set up to benefit the national side is not a ridiculous idea.

STFC, on the other hand, does not rely on the Haitian national side for its continued existence.  I agree that DW would tell the Haitian manager where to get off if such a phone call was made.  Not a good example.

from the beginning of april due to the world cup, the england squad will not be allowed to play for there clubs......hows that for an example?

Hang on a sec....

I'm not saying that any county side should be forced to play a player. All I'm saying is that players like Monty should be placed with a 1st Division side if one of them wants him - if necessary there should be some form of incentive for a 1st Division club to play them and for the 2nd Division club to release them from their contract.

Cricket has got the potential to be a far bigger sport than it is at present and they need to build on the success of events such as the Ashes and the Twenty20 World Cup and make the England team more successful if they are going to capitalise on that potential.

They could really do with sorting out their ticketing system as well. During the Twenty20 World Cup there was a good few games with tickets available - I'd have gone to at least one of them if I could have figured out how the fuck you bought tickets and how much they cost. I spent about an hour on the interweb and didn't get any closer to figuring it out. Having to just turn up at the ground on the day is just bollocks, especially when you have to travel a long distance.

I think everyone likes Monty because of his fielding and batting, they like him playing the fool

The selectors could of course pick a spinner who's playing in the First Division

Are you saying that Bopara should move from Essex as well then.

And takes how many wickets exactly? He averages 80 or something this summer for his county? If he were to play 1st division cricket would he get more wickets and learn his trade or would his confidence take a hit which would then be an even bigger problem for his county who have taken him on and for England?

Monty did well for a spell, as did many other players who played a few times for England but then were left on the fringe (Shah, another example). But he hasn't been the best or even the second best spinner on the county circuit this year, the standard he's played at is irrelevant as he hasn't taken enough wickets.

We need to let Rashid into the side now. Forget about Monty. He's had his time and has got worse as that time has gone on. He'll need to find his form again if he wants to get back into the team.

How exactly? I claimed we should have stuck with Prior instead of fucking around with that useless Ambrose bloke. And I was RIGHT. I claimed Freddy was way past his best and on the evidence of this series (Lords aside and an innings with the bat at Edgebaston i think it was) he's done hardly anything. He managed the run out in this game but aside from that he was there for a spectacle of it being his last test and to try and lift the team with his presence. I don't think I was too far off the mark with that one either. And given that he's now retired from Tests it all now makes sense eh? Well to most it does.

Is KP still captain now?  :D RIGHT again.

And to think this thread was started in 2008. Call me genius if you will.....

Rashid is a tricky one...no doubt he has promise, but I don't think his bowling is anywhere near test match standard yet...his batting is decent, so he should be looking to become a number 6 who can bowl a bit.

Didn't he get a century and take 5 wickets for Yorkshire the other day? I agree though I wouldn't chuck him straight into the test team especially with Swann going well and doing a good job. I'd put him into the 1 day side though. Why not? And he should deffo be ahead of Monty.

Indeed he did and Ravi Boparda scored 201 for Essex...but doing it at test level is something else.  I'm sure Rashid will get a chance.

Somewhat off the subject anybody see the Shane Warne masterclass with Beer and Waller at lunch time yesterday....wonderful stuff.

Is my brother the cricket version of DaVe?

yup, very interesting. although one of the two kids grunts when he bowls like a female tennis player...


no, DV's far worse

I loved the way the 2 boys were bowling full toss after full toss and Warney's just chucked one down on a length and watched it spit past off peg... thank fuck they didn't persuade him to play on the track!

Beer has improved incredibly this season, definately one for the future. Rayner is still got his place over him in the 4 day game however.

Just let them bowl at whatever end Asad Rauf is umpiring and they'll take wickets galore.

 Of the pleasing number of young leggies coming through I think Borthwick at Durham might be the best....only seen him in a couple of one dayers on the box...but he's impressed.