Who said Test Cricket is dull

[Stanley Bowles]

Welldone to England, who dug in at the end in the 1st test in South Africa in the sun to draw the match.Lets see how many slag the game off that dont understand the beautifull game of cricket, our real national sport

[George Dawes]

great stuff!!


for me this is the best England team Ive seen in a long time, just about strong in every department now

[outsider]

A good old fashioned test match, my only concern was that England didn't give it a go before lunch just to see if we could have sneaked the win, but then again the way we collapsed it would have been over by tea.

[RedRedWine1]

England did well to dig out a result, but I'd hardly get carried away. South Africa have shown that they hold the edge in all three departments as we head into the next test.

Can't agree that this is our best side for a while. The 2005 ashes squad was much stronger with both bat and ball. Strauss, Pietersen and Possibly Trott are currently the only world class players in the squad. All three are actually born in South Africa. Swann is playing well at the moment but might find the top level progressively harder as the top batsmen play him more often (like Monty before him). Bell does not have the mental toughness to cut it at the top level, Prior continues to improve behind the stumps but is average with the bat, Cook has been found out, and the bowlers will struggle to take 20 wickets in a match without sacrificing a batsmen for a more balanced attack. Not a patch on Hoggard, Jones, Harmison, Flintoff and the King of Spain in their pomp.

[George Dawes]

England did well to dig out a result, but I'd hardly get carried away. South Africa have shown that they hold the edge in all three departments as we head into the next test.

Can't agree that this is our best side for a while. The 2005 ashes squad was much stronger with both bat and ball. Strauss, Pietersen and Possibly Trott are currently the only world class players in the squad. All three are actually born in South Africa. Swann is playing well at the moment but might find the top level progressively harder as the top batsmen play him more often (like Monty before him). Bell does not have the mental toughness to cut it at the top level, Prior continues to improve behind the stumps but is average with the bat, Cook has been found out, and the bowlers will struggle to take 20 wickets in a match without sacrificing a batsmen for a more balanced attack. Not a patch on Hoggard, Jones, Harmison, Flintoff and the King of Spain in their pomp.

Batsmen = you've named 3 out of 5 batsmen in a team line-up as world class thats not bad going? and Cook like most batsmen is going through a bad patch just like Strauss 18months ago and will come back to form

Wicket-keeper = Prior is the best wicket keeper in my opinion we've had in 10yrs his batting is a bonus

Bowlers = Anderson as always been hard worker but his pace as let him down in the past but now he can bowl up to 90mph and swing it more consistently, Broad is arguably of the best all-rounder in the world now, Swann can rely on his batting in the team to warrant the odd bad match with the ball unlike Monty who cant bat and cant even field so you cant compare them as players


and Bell was a let down in 2005 and still is now along with the hit n miss form of Collingwood in the batting

the bowling attack in 2005 was undoubtedly better, but nowhere near as good with the bat as tailenders we have now(Flintoff exception)

[RedRedWine1]

Prior's batting is not a bonus. It's what he is picked for ahead of his keeping abilities. He is ok behind the stumps and getting better, but IMO there are much better English wicket keepers than him and generally he can be slightly untidy. One of them, Chris Read, has been continually overlooked for the role for years because when picked for the test side his batting failed. It's nothing new, Jack Russell was a better keeper than Alec Stewart, but Stewart was much better than Russell with the bat. On balance I'd probably go for Prior over Read, but there are others (Mustard, Davis, Ambrose and Sutton for example) that are waiting in the wings that are better keepers and not too far away with the bat. With Flintoff retiring, Prior is now under more pressure to deliver on a consistent basis as we are a batsmen down.

Broad has made a promising start to his international career, had a brilliant ashes series, but the 3 wickets and 17 runs for this test match tells you he is not world class yet. Not a chance he is ahead of kallis, Vettori or Watson at the moment, I'd even add Gayle and Bravo to that list to be honest. Perhaps he unfairly has too much on his plate at the moment, big shoes to fill in Freddy.

You can't compare Cook to Strauss. Strauss had poor form a couple of years ago (coupled with some really harsh umpiring decisions during the 2007 ashes), but came back. Frailties in Cook's technique have been exposed, he has had to go away and completely remodel his approach. The batting department is the strongest area of the team, but it is only as strong as its weakest part.....Bell. You can't depend on 50% of your batting line-up to deliver you the result all of the time.

We need to take 20 wickets, drop Bell for Sidebottom. Swann and Sidebottom more than make up for the loss of a batsmen.

[marky]

On the keeper front, there's a promising young lad who plays from Somerset who qualifies to play for England next year. I can see Kieswetter knocking very loudly on the England door come next summer...