Black Cat Bone

England squad for the Caribbean Tour announced.

Full England squad: A Cook, A Lyth, J Trott, G Ballance, J Root, I Bell, B Stokes, J Buttler, J Bairstow, A Rashid, L Plunkett, S Broad, J Anderson, C Jordan, M Wood, J Tredwell.

Woakes and Ali Injured. Good to see Trott back. Hopefully he has recovered his mental toughness.

Finn dropped.

Bowling coach Saker moving on soon which is good, as I'm sure Finn would agree.

Hopefully Kevin Shine will follow - this article, highlighting Shine's intentions / ambitions from 2012 is a bit of a hoot considering (without any exception I am aware of) every single quickie to go through his hands at Loughborough has slowed down since the experience.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cric ... 17880.html

Remarkable really.

Cunning plan by the ECB to sabotage Yorkshire's defence of the Championship by making half our team unavailable for the first six weeks of the season.
Won't work, we've got plenty of good young talent to step up.

I am a Lancs fan but I am full of admiration for what Yorks are producing at the moment.

Not exactly on topic but on the day the England squad fly out to WIndies...

Do have a read of this re corruption in the Bangladesh Premier League.

Fascinating and stuff and leaves you with a bad taste about the ridiculous treatment suffered by Ian Pont.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/ ... 58011.html

I can't remember the last time England got to 50 without three wickets down. At least Root hasn't been tarnished yet...

Fine recovery yesterday from Bell, Root and Stokes.

Particularly pleased for Stokes as it appears last year's troubles, when he could barely scratch a run from anywhere, might be behind him. (His previous 3 Test innings had accumulated precisely 0.)

Having a proper bowling all rounder is so important - now if we could just get Rashid to bowl 6 half decent deliveries an over rather than 5 and a rank long hop we might be getting somewhere.

... and a collapse!

Lord Rother wrote:I am a Lancs fan but I am full of admiration for what Yorks are producing at the moment.

And a crushing 3 day win at Worcester despite 6 men in West Indies, captain unfairly suspended and Ryan Sidebottom gone in the fetlock while batting. Excellent start.

borofan wrote:

Lord Rother wrote:I am a Lancs fan but I am full of admiration for what Yorks are producing at the moment.

And a crushing 3 day win at Worcester despite 6 men in West Indies, captain unfairly suspended and Ryan Sidebottom gone in the fetlock while batting. Excellent start.

...and despite the 'injured' Moeen scoring well in the first innings.

Back to England, and this series doesn't look like a real test. They should beat WI even if England don't hit their stride.

Good cleaning up of the tail, but Cook and Trott need to be left out next time. Cook just seems to have lost it.

Even if he gets 8 more scores under 20 in the 4 Tests between now and The Ashes he'll still be captain come Cardiff in July.

Leaving Kevin Pietersen out, and picking any of the muppets they do, is akin to Portugal leaving Christiano Ronaldo out and picking Heida Postiga as a direct replacement.

If it's 'for the good of the team' then why do the team look so fucking bad?

Oh look, England struggling to remove lower-order batsmen after running through the top six. Not seen this before!

They didn't really run through the top order now did they?

Part of the top order gave it away.

The wicket / ball was doing nothing and once the batsmen decided to show some grit it became very difficult to prise them out.

I thought we bowled well.

Lots of positives to take from the game.

And very well played Jason Holder. He looks and sounds like a decent bloke and a very fine player with bat and ball.

Diamond Dog wrote:Leaving Kevin Pietersen out, and picking any of the muppets they do, is akin to Portugal leaving Christiano Ronaldo out and picking Heida Postiga as a direct replacement.

If it's 'for the good of the team' then why do the team look so fucking bad?

Pietersen's made his intentions abundantly clear by missing the IPL in favour of playing for Surrey. His 150+ score can't have been missed, but i just read he's only hit 19 in the first innings of Surrey's current match. If he gets some decent scores in the coming weeks, the pressure from the media and public to pick him for the Ashes will be phenomenal.

Pietersen has not been consistent since his injury in 2010. He was outstanding in the test series in India but other than that mediocre. Scoring a ton against Oxford is hardly an endorsement of form.
He may come back but he'll never have the impact he once had. Come to think of it bringing back Trott seems like a total waste of space too.

The 170 against a bunch of kids is completely irrelevant.

It'll be interesting to see who scores the most County Champ runs before The Ashes are upon us - Kevin Pietersen, James Taylor, or Alex Hales.

PENK wrote:Cook and Trott need to be left out next time. Cook just seems to have lost it.

Better this time round, albeit against a harmless attack.

Apparently this is England's first century opening stand since March 2013.

Cook displays similar determination to that knock in the Pakistan series in 2010 which probably saved his test career and allowed him to retain his place for the Ashes of 2010/11.

As an England cricket fan, my main opinion on Joe Root is "this can't continue much longer, surely". The best batsman in the world right now?