If Eng lose Anderson, they lose the series--Warne

First topic message reminder :

Warne's views in the aftermath of T1.....Aus in the ascendancy and Eng all to be worried about.
he is recommending brining in Faulkner and Khwaja for Starc and Cowan.

and he's kinda echoning a lot of my thouhgts that I have been writing dispersed throuhg many threads....in bold below

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10181374/Ashes-2013-England-were-lucky-and-Australia-can-still-win-this-series.html


By Shane Warne
6:10AM BST 16 Jul 2013

Before the series started Australia would have felt worried about playing England. But less so now. After the first Test, the Australian players will now believe they can win this series. Australia did not play as well as they can in Nottingham, but very nearly won the match.

Before a ball was bowled, some were arrogantly predicting that England would win the two Ashes series 10-0. Perhaps they are feeling a little concerned now.

The first Test has given us perspective. Although England remain the favorites, as I said before the series started, I believe Australia could win 2-1.

Let us break down the first Test; it exposed a lot of England’s problems. It exposed some Australian issues too, but I think they gained more out of the match.

England showed Alastair Cook’s mindset in terms of what he thinks of his bowlers. He does not have full confidence in Steven Finn. Australia liked facing Finn. James Anderson bowled 13 overs straight on Sunday because he was the only bowler looking capable of taking a wicket. Anderson was superb. England look a little bit of a one-man show with the ball, not one of the other bowlers took a wicket, and they were bowling to tailenders on that last day.
Graeme Swann did not have any real impact on a fifth-day pitch, bowling to all those Aussie left-handers who we were told before the series he would knock over for fun. Swann though, will be better after his overs in the first test.

A concern will be the amount of knee-high full-tosses he bowled and the little impact he had. I have said before, he is the best Test spinner in the world. But, I just wonder if he felt the weight of expectation as he knows England have prepared pitches especially for him to bowl on and lead the team to victory. He needs to put in a better performance.

The moral of Sunday for England is if they keep preparing these slow, dry pitches, they are negating Finn and Broad and putting all hope on reverse swing and Swann.

Anderson is going to have to get through a lot of overs because he looks the only fast-bowling threat that can take wickets on these surfaces. Cook showed that by bowling him for 13 overs in a row. England have to wrap him in cotton wool and be very careful of his workload. If they lose him, they lose the series. To bowl 13 overs in a spell with another Test starting a few days later was a big gamble and makes the toss on Thursday absolutely crucial. If Anderson has to go in the field for a day and a half again the little niggles, aches and pains will really hurt.

Joe Root is a good young player but has not experienced the intensity of Ashes Test cricket. It was a big call for him to open the batting and he will be feeling the heat a bit more after making 30 and five in the first Test. Jonny Bairstow has some concerns. He has hardly played cricket recently and is looking for touch in an Ashes series. Australia can expose him.

Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell are strong. Bell made a fantastic hundred, probably the best of his England career. But he might think he has done enough now and get lazy. He has done that before.

If Australia had made those final few runs these would all be issues for England. A lot was covered up because England won, but they underestimated the Australian team, so did many.

There were enough encouraging signs for Australia. Guys like Chris Rogers and Brad Haddin added steel. Steve Smith has improved out of sight, and Phil Hughes played really well under pressure in the first innings. He was very unlucky to be given out in the second innings. I will argue until I am black and blue in the face that the ball pitched outside leg stump, there is just no way it pitched in line. But, let us not talk about that wonderful, 100 per cent accurate DRS.

Michael Clarke only managed 23 runs in the game and got one of the best balls of his career in the first innings. That will not happen again. Shane Watson is about to explode with a huge score, he is in too good a form. There is potential for so much more from the Australian side.

Ashton Agar’s performance showed the mood has changed in the dressing room.

Three months ago, 117 for nine in the first innings would have cost Australia a 100-run lead. Agar handled the situation and pressure brilliantly. It showed a happy team environment where young players feel free to express themselves.

Australia will now go into the next Test looking forward to it and not thinking ‘oh no we have been beaten’. They will be upbeat and will have lost any doubts they could not win. England are looking nowhere near as strong as they have in the recent past, the series has a long way to run. James Faulkner and Usman Khawaja to replace Mitchell Starc and Ed Cowan for me, with Tim Bresnan coming in for Finn for England

VTR wrote:When do we get to read the next Warne article? I can see it now "Australia in the ascendency: Part 78"

Will include phrases like:

"That last wicket partnership which must have lasted well over 20 minutes has surely stolen the momentum"

"Watson is too good to keep missing the ball when playing across the line, probability dictates an unbeaten 150 with all runs scored behind square on the leg-side is imminent"

"I've seen enough of Usman Khawaja's strokeplay to declare the second coming of Brian Lara"

   

"Did you see Anderson throw the ball up in the air when England got the last wicket? That suggests arrogance and complacency. England will soon fall on their sword."

"With a bit more luck, Australia could be 3-1 up here."

"Australia will be taking more positives out of the fourth Test than England."

"Brisbane is only a few months away, and then we start again from 0-0. We can scrub this series from memory!"

Like 'em Duty! If anyone wants to add any others, we can just cut and paste the lot and send them to the big man himself. Will save him the job of bothering to write the article.

Got to love Warne.. Not afraid of saying the most stupid things

[laugh]

The mask is off - with the series gone Warnie now reveals his true thoughts. Pretty good piece and a contrast to the optimistic cheer-leading of his previous efforts:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10241012/Ashes-2013-England-won-the-fourth-Test-against-Australia-in-Durham-in-spite-of-Alastair-Cooks-captaincy.html

Do like the way that, in Australian minds, there is absolutely no doubt that Australia would have won at Old Trafford but for the rain. The fact that England have been 30/40 for three on about four occassions during this series, and have gone on to score well over 300 on each of them, appears to have passed many Australians by.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Do like the way that, in Australian minds, there is absolutely no doubt that Australia would have won at Old Trafford but for the rain. The fact that England have been 30/40 for three on about four occassions during this series, and have gone on to score well over 300 on each of them, appears to have passed many Australians by.

 England are very good at battling back, hence us not losing for a while.

England's lowest scores have, remarkably, come when they've got a reasonable start. At both Nottingham and Durham they were in good first innings positions before collapsing.
Warne appears to have been writing complete nonsense the whole series (or does someone ghost his pieces ?).

I used to really like Warne as a commentator, but ever since that personal attack on Aleem Dar I couldn't care less what he says now. He's doing his best to play mind games with the England camp but it's no use.

This Australian side are so used to losing now it's difficult to get out of the habit. Whether they are good players are not is now becoming irrelevant. England had some good players in the late 90s/early 00s but they were so used to losing Ducan Fletcher just had to rid them from the team when he took over. Their mental state was beyond repair.

VTR wrote:The mask is off - with the series gone Warnie now reveals his true thoughts. Pretty good piece and a contrast to the optimistic cheer-leading of his previous efforts:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10241012/Ashes-2013-England-won-the-fourth-Test-against-Australia-in-Durham-in-spite-of-Alastair-Cooks-captaincy.html

We've won 4 out of 5 series under Cook. Were they all in spite of Cook's captaincy? Warne wasn't too specific!

Duty281 wrote:

VTR wrote:The mask is off - with the series gone Warnie now reveals his true thoughts. Pretty good piece and a contrast to the optimistic cheer-leading of his previous efforts:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10241012/Ashes-2013-England-won-the-fourth-Test-against-Australia-in-Durham-in-spite-of-Alastair-Cooks-captaincy.html

We've won 4 out of 5 series under Cook. Were they all in spite of Cook's captaincy? Warne wasn't too specific!

Must be if Warney says so! I think captaincy is a bit overrated in cricket anyway, its not like Cook is making all the decisions on his own especially with such an experienced team. And why shouldn't the various coaches have input to what goes on in the field - it is what they are paid to do!

It's interesting to think what Cook actually did as captain on Monday. First 10-15 overs was pretty conventional, and we created a few half chances but runs were starting to come a bit too easily. He changed the bowlers round sensibly and went to a more defensive field to try to exert some pressure, which paid off with Rogers edging to slip (the only catch at slip in the innings - Swann dropped one diving in front of 1st that was dropping on him).
Khawaja largely got himself out, then Cook must have seen something happen that caused him to make the double bowling change that brought on Bresnan and Broad.
Bres got Warner very soon after with a very good ball that bounced and left him for an edge to Prior.
After that though, it was largely a case of the bowlers bowling at the wickets rather than for edges, so no need for too many close catchers.

Clarke - Good ball first up after the break, and with an interesting field change in moving the short leg behind square perhaps making Clarke think a short one was coming.
Smith - beaten for pace on his pull shot. Slightly unlucky with where the ball went though.
Watson - Very good captaincy, in getting Bresnan to bowl straight and giving him a 5-4 legside field. Bad batting though to be planting his foot down the line of off stump and trying to hit through midwicket against that field...
Haddin, Harris, Lyon - just good accurate quick bowling
Siddle - Only a matter of time before one of them holed out somewhere, again no real need for innovative field placings.

So Cook had a pretty good day after the opening burst - slowed the run rate when he needed to and was still able to get the first couple of wickets, after which he made a very good bowling change and had a couple of good ideas for field settings that contributed to dismissals. With the relative lack of pace and bounce of the wicket (bar the odd flyer), it was never really a 3 slips, 2 gullies and 2 short legs type of pitch, and he (plus the bowlers) recognised this and did a good job of playing to the conditions in the post-tea session.

on Warne.....
http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/666205.html

Warne's still scrapping
Jon Hotten
Warne: still going to war for Australia alongside good mate Michael Clarke © Getty Images

Enlarge

Only time could rob Shane Keith Warne of his genius with a cricket ball in hand, and not even time can quell his desire to compete. He remains Australia's arch-provocateur.

As Gideon Haigh has illuminated, Warne shimmers through Australian cricket and Australian culture. His hold on batsmen was both physical and psychological. He was the player of games, one of those people who somehow understood which buttons to push and when. To encounter him on the pitch was to engage with not just a bowler but a persona.

The bowler has gone but the persona lives. Through his column for the Telegraph newspaper and his perch in the Sky Sports commentary box, he has engaged with England from as close as he can get.

Warne has never believed that a cause is lost. He was at his best as a player and as a man in 2005; a leviathan in defeat and with his spirit and his skill undefeated.

This summer, nine years on and with so much changed (then: still the ageing rogue-about-town in the world's greatest team; now: slimmed-down, blue-toothed metrosexual, with England's Liz Hurley as his girlfriend), he has been caught in a cleft stick, smart enough to know which way the wind blows, yet still believing he can make it prevail in his direction.

Here are some sample headlines from his weekly column, which read retrospectively as a study in false hope with a swelling undertone of delusion: "We can surprise England", "Lehmann the right man", "One big score and the fightback is on", "Clarke is best captain in the world", "How to beat England", "Australia must take Anderson down", "England were lucky", "England have been too arrogant", "England won despite Cook's caution", "Fear factor gone, so bring on the fight Down Under".

In the commentary box, he was often undressing the game more quickly than the players. Warne has never seen a batsman whose technique he can't unpick, and he probes at a point in the same way, altering his angles, rephrasing his questions. As the lone Australian voice, he was fighting a corner too, and he prickled occasionally at the triumphalism around him.

Much of this is surface, the part that Warne wants the public to see and hear. The message is almost always sunny, and where it can't be sunny it is at least forward-looking. It's the public manifestation of that unyielding, unending belief that any game can be won. He has never hidden his close friendship with Michael Clarke, nor his close links with the dressing room. He was a presence there too, often speaking to Clarke out on the field before the start of play.

In that context, his message can be seen as travelling two ways, not just outwards to the public but inwards to the Australians. His headlines and commentary are exhortations, rallying cries. Perhaps this is their truest meaning.

When Warne was losing on the pitch, he was at his most indomitable - along with 2005, the shocking reversal of fortune in Adelaide in the return series was a living example of what can be achieved with force of will. The effects of his time at Hampshire and in Rajasthan are still being felt, so deeply did his beliefs and methods imbue themselves there. Along with being one of the cricketers of the century, he has been one of the great shapers of a collective mindset. That's what he is trying to do in the media too.

In sport, battles are lost but the war is unending. After the unofficial watering of the Oval square by England, Warne once again sought the smallest advantage:

"To go and disrespect something as ancient as the Oval pitch in such an unnecessary and crass way is a pretty ordinary and arrogant thing to do, I wonder also if the opposition was mentioned too?"