Hereward Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 It is Andrew Strauss, I've seen him talk about it before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Just leaving this here... :leaving: Fabulous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoë Sumra Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 For those in the UK, last night's Not Just Cricket was fabulous (iPlayer link available till 10.30pm on 3rd February). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 It is Andrew Strauss, I've seen him talk about it before. If I remember correctly it was a rare moment of levity during a one-sided defeat by South Africa. Strauss retired shortly after, probably realising that he'd never be able to top the sunglasses trick and might as well leave on a high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stubby Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 It is Andrew Strauss, I've seen him talk about it before. Cool, Thanks. I had considered him but for some reason discarded him as a candidate. I'm ashamed now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. X Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Just leaving this here... :leaving: Amazeballs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Good innings from NZ. 5th 50 for Williamson in 5 ODIs. And 10th ODI century for Taylor. Pity the one Friday for the next several months I'm not in Wellington but visiting Dorkland. Good start with the bowling too. I hope it keeps going that way. What do people think about this WASP thing, which shows the win chance % for the side batting 2nd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Winged Shadow Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 SL mercilessly crushed Bangladesh. Not unexpected, but I had high hopes for the series, and now that is all but gone. Hopefully next one won't be so one sided. On the other hand, Kiwi's ass kicking of India is giving me great joy! Silver linings :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 What do people think about this WASP thing, which shows the win chance % for the side batting 2nd? A bit nonsense, to be honest. There are so many variables with these things, there's simply no way to quantify probabilities. On the other hand, unlike Duckworth-Lewis, it's at least harmless nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex. Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Andy Flower has been given the old tin tack by the looks of it. Interesting decision, that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arataniello Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Someone had to take the fall for the the latest Ashes debacle. The ECB is painting this as a decision driven by the need to unite the coaching for Tests and ODIs - whatever makes the medicine taste better I guess... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Andy Flower has been given the old tin tack by the looks of it. Interesting decision, that. I think maybe he was thinking of standing down at some point in the next year or two even before the Ashes debacle, if so then it probably makes sense for him to step down now. I bet he's probably wishing he'd stepped down on a high after the previous Ashes. He did take England to some successes unprecedented in the time I've been watching cricket (three Ashes victories, one series win in India, winning the T20 World Cup) so the next coach has a tough task to follow. The ECB is painting this as a decision driven by the need to unite the coaching for Tests and ODIs - whatever makes the medicine taste better I guess... That might imply they're adding the Test coaching to Ashley Giles' limited-overs coaching role. I'm not sure the recent limited overs performances have been much better than the Test performances (although at least they won a match) but it must have been hard inheriting such a dejected team. I wonder if there are some Barmy Army members out there currently trying to unearth their old "Ashley Giles, King of Spain" banners? In others news, Scotland and the UAE have become the final qualifiers for the 2015 World Cup. It's nice to see Scotland qualifying again (especially since it's such a rare experience in any sport), a decade ago they were probably on a par with Ireland but they've really fallen behind as the Irish have improved. They seem to have qualified with a young team so hopefully they can continue to improve, even if they're likely to have as much success in Australia next year as England did this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Imagine my shock when, during my very brief lunch break, I read on my phone about the hamstringing of Andy Flower. I don't have enough cricketing experience to have a strong opinion on the move, although clearly something had to be done. Lots of comments of the team becoming "robotic" and whatnot. You see the same argument between the Sabermetrics/stats-driven teams and those who have "intuitive feel" for the game of baseball. The sweet spot, of course, is to build a team around stats, and then back the fuck off, something Flower apparently wasn't capable of (and I'm not sure Cook is, either). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeor Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Flower's sacking was expected, something had to happen. Cook should retain the captaincy though. I think he still can be a good captain, if the selectors surround him with the right people. There's still a place for the conservative captain who does things by the book - if Cook is given creative and aggressive players to manage and a couple of decent senior players, then he can be the calming influence that brings it all together and steadies the ship when things aren't going so well. As to where those creative players are...we'll have to see what England have got stocked in their cupboards. They need at least one more aggressive batsman (which is why all this talk of Pietersen being dropped is lunacy) and a decent spinner but apart from that there are elements in place for a strong team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuem Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Wow. They axed Flower. Wow. Thats like telling Shane Warne to bowl pace and to wicket keep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Flower's sacking was expected, something had to happen. Cook should retain the captaincy though. I think he still can be a good captain, if the selectors surround him with the right people. There's still a place for the conservative captain who does things by the book - if Cook is given creative and aggressive players to manage and a couple of decent senior players, then he can be the calming influence that brings it all together and steadies the ship when things aren't going so well. As to where those creative players are...we'll have to see what England have got stocked in their cupboards. They need at least one more aggressive batsman (which is why all this talk of Pietersen being dropped is lunacy) and a decent spinner but apart from that there are elements in place for a strong team. Agreed. I should have also qualified my stats comment, as stats are usually good for finding undervalued players -- those who are very talented but have low salaries. While stats will help ID some interesting young (and likely undervalued) cricket players, obviously a competitive salary market is not part of international cricket. That kind of information is much better in a domestic league where transfers and salary issues are high priority. I do agree that England need some creative and aggressive players. They played like goddamned plastic mannequins in Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 Agreed. I should have also qualified my stats comment, as stats are usually good for finding undervalued players -- those who are very talented but have low salaries. While stats will help ID some interesting young (and likely undervalued) cricket players, obviously a competitive salary market is not part of international cricket. That kind of information is much better in a domestic league where transfers and salary issues are high priority. I think in the case of the English cricket teams in recent years it hasn't really been stats driving selection, selection seems to be generally more based on potential rather than their averages and this seems to have been a fairly successful strategy over the long term - although the potential downside is that they sometimes a bit slow to realise that players they like aren't in good enough form. Where statistics and over-analysis might be a problem is in working out their tactics for the games, they seemed to have come up with set plans for different situations and players based on analysing those player's past performances which isn't a bad idea but there seems to be a lack of any plan B when the initial plan doesn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alester Florent Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 I am a big supporter of Alastair Cook and I think he is fully capable of being a good captain (his record prior to this tour was excellent). He might not be enormously imaginative, but imaginative, "funky" captaincy is a commodity in the modern game and shouldn't be the primary factor in selection. Among world captains, only Clarke has shown any real aptitude for it, and that has frequently backfired on him. South Africa attained the #1 ranking following a long period of Graeme Smith captaining so conservatively he made the Tea Party look like commie sympathisers. It's a luxury, not a requirement. But I wonder whether the captaincy is heaping too much burden on England's most important player. We have seen time and again that the captaincy, at least in England, wears players down, and now the honeymoon period is over I think we might be looking at that for Cook. England need his runs more than his leadership. The problem is that there's no obvious candidate to replace him. England are short on senior players: Bell is the only other batsman guaranteed a place, but that just shifts the problem of the captaincy burdening England's most important batsman around. Prior and Trott might never play for England again. Besides which, Bell has no captaincy experience, and nor, as far as I'm aware, does Anderson. That just leaves Broad, who could be the best bet. Bowling captains are out of fashion and all-round captains even moreso, but I wonder how much of that is due to the legacy of Botham and Flintoff. England have had good bowling and all-round captains in the past (Illingworth, Greig, Close) and while that was some time ago it at least shows the job can be done. The only other realistic option is a radical one and that's KP himself. His run spurts are already so unpredictable that the team no longer relies on his runs, so losing them would be less significant than losing Cook's or Bell's as things stand. Moreover his mentality is such that the captaincy might actually improve his batting. He clearly wants the job, and has a decent record as captain. He's also in the twilight of his career so wouldn't be a long-term one: he'd clearly be in the job as a caretaker which would minimise any negative impact on other players in the squad as they'd know he wasn't going to be there for long. But it would give a chance for a new captain to be groomed - or even for Cook to mentally reorganise himself and come back to the job with a better sense of what it requires. In any case, I think sacking Cook would be the wrong move; batsmen don't tend to react well to that. He might be given the opportunity to step aside, however, and advised it would be in the best interests of his career, before he burns himself out, so long as he isn't presented with an ultimatum a la Ross Taylor/David Gower/etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuem Posted February 2, 2014 Share Posted February 2, 2014 You can head home now poms. 1 win. 1.4 stars rested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DemonKing Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I used to say to my wife before the Aussie's golden generation was gone that it would be more interesting to have some decent competition again, but after a few years of fairly dismal and unpredictable results, I've come to the conclusion that what is best in life is to see a bunch of pale, whinging Poms getting sun burnt and thrashed consistently over the course of a long, glorious summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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