The storm in this week’s tea cup (or is that this week’s storm in the tea cup, I’m not sure, although I don’t think it especially matters) is dredging up of Fredalogate which happened, as far as I can tell, for exactly no reason whatsoever. Whether or not some cricket journo was having a really slow day and decided to cause some mischief, I’m not sure, but the short version of events is that Vaughan apparently blamed Fred for England’s failure in the World Cup, Jim Cumbes (Chief Exec at Lancashire) wagged his finger at Vaughan saying he was out …read more

Oooh-ee. England continued their rampant meander through this World Cup by accidentally beating Bangladesh in their latest Super 8 clash. England appeared to have taken heed of the must-win status, when the bowlers did a good job in bowling the ‘deshi’s out for 143. Sajid Mahmood generated some good pace and did a good job in roughing up the inexperienced-against-bouncy-bowling batsmen, and at the other end, Andersen and Flintoff backed him up. Monty also finally looked in form, taking a useful 3fer towards the end of the innings. It wasn’t a totally convincing performance – they were 70 odd for …read more

England have announced their 15 man squad for the World Cup:

Michael Vaughan (capt)
Ed Joyce
Ian Bell
Andrew Strauss
Kevin Pietersen
Paul Collingwood
Andrew Flintoff
Paul Nixon (wk)
Ravinder Bopara
Jamie Dalrymple
Monty Panesar
Jon Lewis
James Anderson
Liam Plunkett
Sajid Mahmood

There are one or two obvious things about this squad: 1) Vaughan is in it, despite all his recent injury concerns. Certainly Vaughan is the best man for the job in terms of captaincy, but is form on the field is not debatable – he’s out of form, and is an injury risk. In one day cricket, you can’t have one man filling a spot who is not physically available on the field. …read more

What was I saying about this team being in reverse? No sooner was Michael Vaughan back in the team after being out through injury, he is again back out of the team through injury – apparently he’s torn his hamstring. Now, I know that “tearing a hamstring” tends to sound considerably worse than it really is and nowadays modern physiotherapy practices can have him up and dancing in no time at all, but in this instance he won’t be fit for this Friday’s match against Australia and England have renamed Andrew Flintoff as captain. Once again I’m struggling to comprehend …read more

Well one of the big questions was answered yesterday as England managed to scrape a win out of its contest with New Zealand, albeit only just. Neither side played with much conviction, as New Zealand posted a miserable 205 off their 50 overs, and England miserably managed to score the required runs, with just one ball left. There were some plus points to come out of this – Jimmy Anderson found some form with the ball with another 4fer, Flintoff showed some evidence of why he was once the most revered man in cricket with a match-winning 75 off 72 …read more

I was in two minds as to whether to simply post a blank entry here, to try and symbolise being speechless about the latest debacle. Just when I thought it really couldn’t get much worse, it did, as England were beaten by an innings inside 3 days. Australia didn’t even post a gigantic total, 419, which in being-beaten-by-an-innings terms is pretty paltry, in fact maybe it’s a question for Bill ‘Bearded Wonder’ Frindall. I digress. To lose by an innings and 91 inside 3 days is nothing short of disgraceful and a new low in English cricket. But it can …read more

England will need to score 292 runs in a day if they are to save this Ashes series. Oh, and they have to do it with 5 batsmen. On Day 4, the England batsmen assembled something of a fightback, with runs from Ian Bell and Alastair Cook who looked to bat out the whole day and really frustrate the Australian bowlers, yet a flurry of wickets late in the day handed the initiative back to the Aussies.
The question that will now decide the series is simple: exactly how out of form are Flintoff and Geraint Jones? KP is at …read more

If you visit any of the cricket forums at the moment, there are a number of common topics, man of them surrounding team selection. The discussion England’s side seems to be especially vociferous, mainly due to the sheer volume of question marks surrounding the side.
Will Flintoff be fit enough? (injuries)
Monty or Giles? (spinners)
Collingwood, Bell or Cook? (mid-order batsmen)
Tresco? (is his head screwed on?)
Read or Jones? (wicket keeper)
Mahmood or Anderson? (bowling)
Harmison? (see Tresco)
With some many possibilities, pre-empting Duncan Fletcher’s decision is nigh-on impossible. All I can do is say what I’d do, if I was in his shoes:
Tresco
Strauss
Bell
KP
Collingwood
Fred Flintoff
Read
Mahmood
Hoggard
Harmison
Panesar
I’d be really …read more

England win the 3rd Test at Headingley – but was it “all that” ?

Hurray for still being able to hide behind the injury excuse. If I had the inclination, I’d go through all the cricket news stories from the BBC and CricInfo in the last couple of months and figure out what proportion of them are do with an injury concern with the English cricket team. Since I don’t have the inclination, I’ll guess, and say “a lot*”. Heck, you’d need more than two hands to count all the posts on the subject right here at Six and Out.