Dec 10-12: Victoria v England XI at Melbourne

lol I bet people will have a field day, branding this the "return of the England collapse tendency"

As far as I am concerned, this match was to test out the pace bowlers, everyone else was just stretching their legs.

Not sure batsmen ever "just stretch their legs", Collingwood (29no and 8) should have batted three both innings and Morgan probably four (DNB and 6) because they are likely to be called upon should a batsman get injured.

The bowlers were more or less auditioning to replace Broad, sadly none of the three seamers did much (one wicket between them) and I fear England will see Bresnan as like for like

COUNTY AVERAGES 2010

Tremlett (LVCC2) : 230 runs @ 20.90 & 48 wkts @ 20.18
Shahzad (LVCC1) : 238 runs @ 26.44 & 34 wkts @ 29.79
Bresnan (LVCC1) : 203 runs @ 25.37 & 17 wkts @ 31.64

Tremlett is way ahead on wickets, if you factor in the theoretical comparitive weakness of LVCC2 to LVCC1 then I'd say he's still ahead on averages - and don't forget his home ground is now the Oval. But I think England may opt for the more recent Test player, and the theoretical stronger batsman (Bresnan) While we are playing six batsmen and a keeper, they still love to bat all the way down. I think England would have done much better in 06/07 if they'd dropped Anderson or Mahmood and gone with the extra batsman. We may not have won the series, but I think we might have fared better and maybe salvaged one draw with Flintoff at seven with less batting responsibility and the keeper debate marginalised as their role would have been lessened with the bat.

I maintained back then that playing four bowlers would make way for Read to play, what a lot of people want (and some never seem to let go of), but while Flintoff was batting six then the keeper had to be able to bat. What always made me laugh about the pro Read brigade was they said the keeper should be picked on keeping ability, but still pointed out his county batting average! :rolleyes
 
The bowlers were more or less auditioning to replace Broad, sadly none of the three seamers did much (one wicket between them) and I fear England will see Bresnan as like for like

Well Tremlett's probably the best choice, but Bresnan won't be a bad replacement. Let's be honest, Broad wasn't threatening much at all in the first 2 Tests, but he was at least keeping the scoring down, even if it was often just slightly back of a length, wide of off - standard dry up bowling. I'm pretty sure Bresnan can do that...
 
lol I bet people will have a field day, branding this the "return of the England collapse tendency"

As far as I am concerned, this match was to test out the pace bowlers, everyone else was just stretching their legs.
The captains set the game up for a tough chase at the end. There was aggressive batting, but I wouldn't say it was really lazy.

On the other hand, it was the fast bowling that didn't look like it tried too hard. 78 overs for 1 wicket, with Tremlett perhaps the pick on dropped catches. I said earlier, I'm not sure what England took away from it and it surely hasn't changed decisions for selectors. If they were going to go with someone, they're still going to go that way; if not, it's still a tough choice.
 
Looks like a good performance by McKay, he had fallen down in the pecking order for Test but this performance will push him back up the order. Got rid of two of the main problems for us so far in Bell and Cook.
 
Well, we didn't get anything from that game. Not of the bowlers got any wickets and the performance of the batsmen wasn't great either. It's not required when Australia are the ones reeling at the moment.
 
Meh. I think Prior's looked a tad out of form for the whole tour thus far just seemed to lack that bit of touch.
 
Prior finally getting into form?

Yeah, you're right.

I was just thinking about the team performance and the fact the bowlers were ineffective. It would have been useful to put in a good performance here to keep the momentum going.
 
Meh. I think Prior's looked a tad out of form for the whole tour thus far just seemed to lack that bit of touch.
It's only fair because teams such as the West Indies make him look like Bradman. He's decent, but he shouldn't ever look that good.
 

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