England v New Zealand ODI Thread

[LondonTiger]

First topic message reminder :

Fixtures

Tuesday 9th June 2015
14:00 Edgbaston

Friday 12th June 2015
13:00 The Kia Oval

Sunday 14th June 2015
10:30 The Ageas Bowl

Wednesday 17th June 2015
14:00 Trent Bridge

Saturday 20th June 2015
10:30 Emirates Durham ICG


New Zealand Squad

Brendon McCullum (c)
Corey Anderson
Trent Boult
Grant Elliott
Martin Guptill
Matt Henry
Tom Latham (wk)
Mitchell McClenaghan
Nathan McCullum
Adam Milne±
Luke Ronchi (wk)
Mitchell Santner
Tim Southee
Ross Taylor
Ben Wheeler
Kane Williamson


England Squad

TBC

[djlovesyou]

you must be new here......

Ignoring the rant as Olly said, but no Swamy, I'm most certainly not new here.

[KP_fan]

you must be new here......

Ignoring the rant as Olly said, but no Swamy, I'm most certainly not new here.

Ok..whatever makes you happy

[king_carlos]

They are excellent batting pitches but the bowling (and fielding in parts) has been poor as well. Whilst I agree that more is needed for the bowlers, they haven't helped their own cause.

Boult has shown that it is still possible to get good figures on these wickets with intelligent and disciplined bowling.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

They are excellent batting pitches but the bowling (and fielding in parts) has been poor as well. Whilst I agree that more is needed for the bowlers, they haven't helped their own cause.

Boult has shown that it is still possible to get good figures on these wickets with intelligent and disciplined bowling.

Today was a good wicket - you'll never get a green top in ODI's, but that pitch had good pace, good bounce and spun for the spinners. Pretty much the perfect ODI wicket imo

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

BBC TMS Twitter account reporting that it's 10pm and the lights are still on at The Oval - so why did we have to finish at 9:25??

[Hammersmith harrier]

So perfect that in excess of 750 runs were scored, I actually with KP_Fan on this, for ODI's to have any significance and not be seen as a 50 over T20 then 280 should be seen as a defendable score.

[LondonTiger]

But what can they do differently with that pitch? It had pace and bounce and would offer good bowlers something. They could have offered a pitch with cracks I guess, or a really green one but then we would be moaning about something else.

The problem was not the pitch but the fielding regulations, the size of bats and the fact that much of the bowling was pretty ordinary.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

But what can they do differently with that pitch? It had pace and bounce and would offer good bowlers something. They could have offered a pitch with cracks I guess, or a really green one but then we would be moaning about something else.

The problem was not the pitch but the fielding regulations, the size of bats and the fact that much of the bowling was pretty ordinary.

I'd like to see Test fielding regulations enforced in ODI's, would be interesting to see how they went about it.

Ultimately we just bowled utter tosh today - Jordan in particular. And so did they bar Boult, who was very good.

[guildfordbat]

This started an hour earlier than I was expecting...glad I came on here and noticed...

And pleased that the rain has gone away to let guildford take his seat and watch some cricket...at 90 quid you don't want to be watching the rain come down !  Any chance it will stay dry ?

Bouncy first couple of overs.  Same team , as I think was to be expected.

Thanks, Alfie. Pretty tired now but a good day with some good mates. I'll give a few thoughts in the (UK) morning.

[LondonTiger]

Well Jordan's side strain probably rules him out of the next game.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Yes you'd expect Wood to come into the side for Jordan, and although I wouldn't do it myself (I'd give him one more go), I wouldn't be surprised to see Willey come in for Billings

[hampo17]

Funny that he gets a "side strain" after being smashed round the park for nine overs.

[Mad for Chelsea]

oh for some common sense in cricket! Seriously though, there is NO reason whatsoever why that game couldn't have been played through to its (non-DL) conclusion, and in general I never understood why you had to start taking overs off so quickly in day-night matches anyway. But then that's cricket for you, common sense has all too rarely been involved.

Shame as it somewhat spoiled the ending of a pretty spectacular game of cricket.

In general, pitches with good bounce and pace are always going to be conductive to high scores in ODIs, because it means the ball comes onto the bat nicely and the batsmen can hit through the line. I'm not sure either side actually bowled particularly badly (the odd player on each side did, but not as a unit), and yet both sides scored at 8 per over! For me it was mostly superb batting.

Onto the more general context, does it matter? Are we really saying that today wasn't entertaining because it was too easy for the batsmen? I'm not so sure. I guess the bigger problem is that, well, bowlers are to a large extent being made redundant, and in that respect I guess more could be done to give them a chance.

First and foremost: the ball. It seems to me that Test scores aren't increasing (though run rates are improving) and 400 is still a good score in Tests. Why then is it becoming so common in ODIs? Simple answer is that the white ball doesn't seem to swing as much/at all compared to the red one (especially in England). Weird as when it was first introduced it swung so much that some bowlers had to bowl first change to control it (McGrath, Donald IIRC to name but two used to regularly not open). If we could get a ball that swings more, maybe that would help...

Obviously other solutions are to tinker yet again with the regs. I actually like the new fielding restrictions, as it has made the middle-overs more interesting. Ultimately, cricket still has to be entertaining, and watching sides plod along for half their innings rarely was. I would get rid of the batting PP (mostly redundant now) and maybe (Mike's idea) relax the fielding restrictions for the last ten overs - say, six fielders outside. Of course, this may overly favour the six hitters rather than the more "clever" gap exploiters, but I do think it might be worth trying.

Finally, you could reduce bat sizes, but I'm not sure how much effect this would have. It's probably more about better understandings of the dynamics of power hitting than the bat sizes, and you do want to keep the possibility for spectacular sixes in any case.

Not an easy debate for me, certainly. Thoughts?

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

oh for some common sense in cricket! Seriously though, there is NO reason whatsoever why that game couldn't have been played through to its (non-DL) conclusion, and in general I never understood why you had to start taking overs off so quickly in day-night matches anyway. But then that's cricket for you, common sense has all too rarely been involved.

Shame as it somewhat spoiled the ending of a pretty spectacular game of cricket.

In general, pitches with good bounce and pace are always going to be conductive to high scores in ODIs, because it means the ball comes onto the bat nicely and the batsmen can hit through the line. I'm not sure either side actually bowled particularly badly (the odd player on each side did, but not as a unit), and yet both sides scored at 8 per over! For me it was mostly superb batting.

Onto the more general context, does it matter? Are we really saying that today wasn't entertaining because it was too easy for the batsmen? I'm not so sure. I guess the bigger problem is that, well, bowlers are to a large extent being made redundant, and in that respect I guess more could be done to give them a chance.

First and foremost: the ball. It seems to me that Test scores aren't increasing (though run rates are improving) and 400 is still a good score in Tests. Why then is it becoming so common in ODIs? Simple answer is that the white ball doesn't seem to swing as much/at all compared to the red one (especially in England). Weird as when it was first introduced it swung so much that some bowlers had to bowl first change to control it (McGrath, Donald IIRC to name but two used to regularly not open). If we could get a ball that swings more, maybe that would help...

Obviously other solutions are to tinker yet again with the regs. I actually like the new fielding restrictions, as it has made the middle-overs more interesting. Ultimately, cricket still has to be entertaining, and watching sides plod along for half their innings rarely was. I would get rid of the batting PP (mostly redundant now) and maybe (Mike's idea) relax the fielding restrictions for the last ten overs - say, six fielders outside. Of course, this may overly favour the six hitters rather than the more "clever" gap exploiters, but I do think it might be worth trying.

Finally, you could reduce bat sizes, but I'm not sure how much effect this would have. It's probably more about better understandings of the dynamics of power hitting than the bat sizes, and you do want to keep the possibility for spectacular sixes in any case.

Not an easy debate for me, certainly. Thoughts?

I'd have to seriously question people who didn't find today entertaining tbh

I'm sure the kids/families who went today were sitting there thinking "too many sixes being hit here, I only came to watch Ross Taylor struggle to 30 (51)"....

[Hammersmith harrier]

I watch Cricket to see skill not a slogfest, I have to question anybody that does find it entertaining to be honest Olly, seeing rank awful batsmen like Aaron Finch excel shows how bad it has become.

[hampo17]

Yeah, because it's so easy to hit 84mph+ bowling to the boundary with ease

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Yeah Taylor/Williamson/Morgan's innings were really lacking in skill today.....as were Root's and Buttler's the other day now I come to think of it....

[Hammersmith harrier]

Williamson and Root play authentic cricket shots, the others slogged, it is that simple and it doesn't require significant skill to smash the ball into the crowd.

[hampo17]

Takes a lot of skill and ability actually.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Williamson and Root play authentic cricket shots, the others slogged, it is that simple and it doesn't require significant skill to smash the ball into the crowd.

Fancy taking guard against Boult and Southee on Sunday then fella? I might pop along and have a game too, don't need any skill to do it

[JDizzle]

'Doesn't take significant skill to smash the ball into the crowd.'

[Hammersmith harrier]

If you think one day cricket highlights a modicum of skill then I really do worry about the future of the game, being destroyed to appease the simple minded who can't appreciate what actual cricketing skill is.

[JDizzle]

I think to say that the modern game is too far weighted in favour of the batsman and something needs to be given back to the bowler is a perfectly reasonable point of view. But to say that no skill is needed to belt the ball in to the stand is nonsense.

[Duty281]

The modern ODI game is pretty rubbish, particularly with these ever-changing fielding rules and modern bats. Watching parts of it today resembled something akin to a game of baseball - hit and hope, slog and slog etc.

The only good thing about ODI cricket these days is bookmakers don't understand it!

[alfie]

Pretty exciting game rather spoiled by (unnecessary ?) over reduction...wish I'd stayed up for the England innings now. Had a feeling they'd get quite close ; really seem to have embraced attack mode under Farbrace

Couple of points : the result perhaps hinged on some rather poor England fielding during the later overs (I didn't see NZ field so don't know if they were as generous ? But think not.) Even so , England bowling still lacks a little...but in the interests of developing a squad going forward I am happy to experiment . Wood or Willey in next ? Or both , given Jordan is out for a while...
Pleased to see Hales playing a bit of an innings at last. I like him , but have been disappointed so far by his 50 over efforts. This is a start ; though I'd still like to see him play a big one.
Morgan : great comeback after his rotten recent run ... Wasn't just Internet "experts" who were suggesting he was close to the chop after the World Cup. But these games show a bit of patience can pay off sometimes ; any chance those maligned selectors will get a bit of credit for this choice ? Probably not

I don't mind a couple of high scoring games , though I'd hate to see every match being a batsman's benefit. Do think those fielding restrictions need relaxing : hard enough for bowlers with shorter boundaries , two balls staying hard and not reversing , and "wide " calls for balls missing leg stump by a centimeter... Bit of variety even in this format ,please.
But for now I am happy to see another well contested series and an inspired new approach from a mostly newish England outfit. Roll on Sunday...

[msp83]

When we talk about skill's are we suggesting that smashing the ball into the crowd is the only skill worth having? There is a massive imbalance between bat and ball, and the game is all about the batsman.
In Indian villages, people would usually come together before a TV set and watch and comment and live the game when there is an ODI. With these slogfests being the norm, let me tell you, a lot of people are not feeling the need to be involved. If the 50 over games becomes an extention of T-20, then it just isn't worth it.
And recently some clowns from India have invented a bat with no edge so that the batsman would have an even further edge!!!

[Mike Selig]

Oh some of you guys...

You don't think it takes tremendous skill to hit the ball the way these "sloggers" do? This nonsense notion of "proper way of playing" is a hangover from the Graham Gooch era. The game has moved on, and the way of playing the game has moved on also.

Frankly batting has never shown as wide an area of skills and techniques as it has currently.

It is a combination of the regs, T20, mindsets, understanding of the science of hitting, and bowlers not yet adapting which has led to the situation as it stands. The bats, IMO, haven't had that much to do with it. Players have mishit 6s since time memorial.

Do we want to redress the balance? Can we? How?

Ideas over relaxing the fielding restrictions are all well and good but will it make a huge difference? Batsmen are so confident in hitting 6s nowadays, and so good at it that they will probably still score heavily, but it might make them a bit more selective.

I like the idea of fiddling with the ball, I hadn't thought of that.

I would suggest relaxing the wide criteria on the off-side, maybe by 6 inches or so. With batsmen capable now of slicing wide balls over cover/point for 6 we can afford to be a bit more lenient I think. I would also like to see the wide line "move" with the batsman, so if he steps across you can fire it wider. I know this would make some wide calls more contentious, but that's a price I'm prepared to pay. Batsmen shouldn't feel entitled to runs for missing or leaving the ball anyway.

Apart from that carry on and appreciate it.

I don't understand the mindset of someone who can watch that match and not appreciate the skills involved. Then again I don't understand the "T20 isn't proper cricket" mindset, so that probably explains it. Frankly these people need to get out from their own backsides, challenge their pre(mis)-conceptions and understand that cricket has always moved on and evolved.

Oh and most people seem to agree that the recent 2 tests in Eng were excellent. Would we have had these games without T20? Probably worth a thought...

[msp83]

T-20 has certainly pushed the game along, and it has enhanced skill levels of players, particularly batsmen. But powerplays and artificial field restrictions, absolutely flat substandard pitches, short boundaries, modern bats, they all have combined to make the contest between bat and ball an absolutely onesided affair. for some it is entertainment, for many others it isn't. And if 20-20 becomes 50-50, then there is no value addition of uniqueness that it brings to the game. South Africa and Australia have played some absolutely outstanding all time great ODI games, the 434-438 one is there as is the WC semi final of 1999. Asked to pick between the 2, I most certainly would pick the latter. Some of us are just like that.......
Now, modern day ball hitting is an extremely demanding task that needs seriously good skills. An AB de Villiers or a Chris Gayle or a Brendon McCullum are not just mindless sloggers, they are a lot more than that. It is not as simple as some of us seem to think. The issue is not that of skills or the lack of it, the issue is one of balance between bat and ball. At the moment it is 90-10 in favor of the batsman....... It is reflected in our judgment of a good pitch. A pitch that is described as a good pitch is an absolute road that doesn't seam, offer a bit of extra bounce or turn. It is a pitch where in the ball comes on to the bat gun barrel straight at a true and consistent bounce each and every time!! Who would want to be a bowler in this day and age!?

[Mad for Chelsea]

Good points Mike, so responding to some of them.

Frankly batting has never shown as wide an area of skills and techniques as it has currently.

Totally agree with this. How people can watch, say, Buttler's innings from the other day and see a lack of skill is beyond me. I mean, if you look at where he scored his runs, he litterally hit boundaries in every area of the pitch (OK the ones to fine third-man were edges, but...). Someone who can deliberately hit a boundary to all 360° of the playing area may be lacking in many things, but skill is most certainly not one of them...

It is a combination of the regs, T20, mindsets, understanding of the science of hitting, and bowlers not yet adapting which has led to the situation as it stands. The bats, IMO, haven't had that much to do with it. Players have mishit 6s since time memorial.

Well, players probably mishit 6s less when they had to litterally hit the ball out of the ground to hit a 6 . Though on that point, bringing the boundaries in has also helped the fielding side, making things like diving headfirst to prevent a boundary possible (and indeed catches like the one to get rid of Rashid last night, another great bit of skill ). Back to the point, I would say the bats as well as the "understanding of the science of hitting" have made it easier to mishit 6s than before. How much each plays a part I'm not sure, but I would say the latter has played significantly more of a role.

Do we want to redress the balance?

It's an interesting point as to whether it really matters if the balance shifts towards the batsmen. For instance, if 370 becomes par, does it matter? The best bowlers will have figures like Boult's (i.e. eco rate of 5.5-6 or so), while those not doing so well will go for 10+, but that's just a shifting of what are considered good bowling figures, much like a Test batting average of 40 used to be a sign of excellence (now it's certainly much closer to 50). Having said that, I do worry that bowlers are becoming somewhat "redundant", so I would like to see the balance shifted a little back towards the bowler, while maintaining the potential for excitement as we saw last night. I think also, much as a low-scoring game can be a thriller, a high-scoring one-sided beatdown (like Tuesday) will always be more entertaining than a low-scoring one?

Ideas over relaxing the fielding restrictions are all well and good but will it make a huge difference? Batsmen are so confident in hitting 6s nowadays, and so good at it that they will probably still score heavily, but it might make them a bit more selective.

My biggest worry with this is that it favours the big 6 hitters over perhaps the more deft "touch" players who rely on placement to hit 4s. I think 6 hitters are favoured enough as it is, so would be reluctant to hand them an extra advantage...

I like the idea of fiddling with the ball, I hadn't thought of that.

Why thank you . Thought about it when someone (may have been Botham - shudder) said that a big difference with the Tests was that the ball wasn't swinging. Epiphany: why not try to make a white ball that will swing?

I would suggest relaxing the wide criteria on the off-side, maybe by 6 inches or so. With batsmen capable now of slicing wide balls over cover/point for 6 we can afford to be a bit more lenient I think. I would also like to see the wide line "move" with the batsman, so if he steps across you can fire it wider. I know this would make some wide calls more contentious, but that's a price I'm prepared to pay. Batsmen shouldn't feel entitled to runs for missing or leaving the ball anyway.

I like these ideas. The second one is one I've raised in the past: it gripes me when a batsman steps well across to the offside, aims a massive heave to leg, misses, and the ball is called wide.

[ShankyCricket]

T-20 has certainly pushed the game along, and it has enhanced skill levels of players, particularly batsmen. But powerplays and artificial field restrictions, absolutely flat substandard pitches, short boundaries,  modern bats, they all have combined to make the contest between bat and ball an absolutely onesided affair. for some it is entertainment, for many others it isn't. And if 20-20 becomes 50-50, then there is no value addition of uniqueness that it brings to the game. South Africa and Australia have played some absolutely outstanding all time great ODI games, the 434-438 one is there as is the WC semi final of 1999. Asked to pick between the 2, I most certainly would pick the latter. Some of us are just like that.......
Now, modern day ball hitting is an extremely demanding task that needs seriously good skills. An AB de Villiers or a Chris Gayle or a Brendon McCullum are not just mindless sloggers, they are a lot more than that. It is not as simple as some of us seem to think. The issue is not that of skills or the lack of it, the issue is one of balance between bat and ball. At the moment it is 90-10 in favor of the batsman....... It is reflected in our judgment of a good pitch. A pitch that is described as a good pitch is an absolute road that doesn't seam, offer a bit of extra bounce or turn. It is a pitch where in the ball comes on to the bat gun barrel straight at a true and consistent bounce each and every time!! Who would want to be a bowler in this day and age!?

Did you seriously mention Gayle and McCullum in the same sentence as AB De Villiers? I mean, like REALLY? Gayle has been virtually a T20 specialist for the last 4 years.

[guildfordbat]

oh for some common sense in cricket! Seriously though, there is NO reason whatsoever why that game couldn't have been played through to its (non-DL) conclusion, and in general I never understood why you had to start taking overs off so quickly in day-night matches anyway. But then that's cricket for you, common sense has all too rarely been involved.

Shame as it somewhat spoiled the ending of a pretty spectacular game of cricket.

As some of you know, I went yesterday. The view of MfC was certainly that of many in the crowd who had stayed to see the finish. In fact, far less polite comments were heard on the train home!

For myself, I was more philosophical. Many were shocked and annoyed by the artificial ending (certainly as they perceived it) whilst I knew what to expect it. That's not to say I felt it right - I'm actually not sure whether the finish time was dictated by council bye-laws or match regulations or both. Whatever the reason, it did seem something of a ''jobsworth'' decision ignoring, as MfC suggests, common sense.

My mood had also been improved by having seen some thoroughly entertaining cricket (more of that below) for several hours, throughout most of which some imbibing had occurred . Heavy rain had been forecast for much earlier and so I had the mindset that any play beyond 6 pm was a bonus.

I think it needs to be emphasised that New Zealand batted splendidly and England weren't too far behind. I'll leave others to debate the technical aspects of all the six hitting but I would make the point that it sure adds to the thrills and excitement for the crowd (most of whom have forked out a lot of money to attend) when the ball is landing amongst them. Thus, bar the ending, I think any youngster who went yesterday for the first time would have loved the experience. However, what the sixes don't do - normally anyway - is add to the tension of a game; I suspect that's largely msp's concern and I understand that. There's nothing much better than a tense finish and you don't need a lot of runs for that; in fact, a runfest can be counter to it.

Unlike many, the most enjoyable sight to me in cricket - whether at the ground or watching on tv - is not a six but to see a stump cartwheeling out of the ground. Thus, a slight personal disappointment was that no one was bowled at all. However, I still took great satisfaction from seeing the performance that stood out the most to me for being both highly effective and different. That came from Boult. His bowling was a class apart. If we could have swapped him for any one of our seamers, we would probably have won. Msp suggests - my words and my exaggeration but I don't think it's stretching things that much - bowlers are pretty irrelevant in the current 50 over game and you might as well have any 5 pie chuckers as things will be decided by the batsmen. The performance of the other bowlers - England's in particular - showed there is a lot of catching up to be done by most with the ball but Boult demonstrated that it's not totally a batsman's game.

A quick few other points:

* England's attack seems very samey and unable to introduce a Plan B. Even Rashid's legspin is attacking in nature and, on yesterday's evidence, incapable of halting a flow of runs. As per King Carlos' post, I do feel there's a lot to be said for bringing in Tredwell (if he's fit, I'm sure Tiger can provide the latest medical bulletin ) not as a replacement but as an alternative foil to Rashid. Appreciate - as King Carlos also did - that Tredders isn't in the squad so it almost certainly won't happen but it's what I would seriously consider. We need at times to take the pace off the ball and with a more frontline bowler than Root.

* Excellent boundary fielding by New Zealand. Several athletic diving stops but what caught my eye - long before the Boult/Southee catch - was how they nearly always raced for the ball in pairs.

* Credit to the umpires for keeping play going as long as possible even though there was light rain about earlier (Dickie Bird who has somehow re-invented himself as a national hero would have been leading the players off 90 minutes beforehand).

* What did so much harm to England - certainly Ducky Lewis, but also the chase itself - was the loss of Root and Hales at virtually the same time. From then on, we were always one wicket too many down and looking to get to a certain fairly far off score before losing the next. Tough to blame those two batsmen - Root has much credit in the bank and Hales had batted well up until then (an aggressive innings like Roy's but with more mature shot judgement) - but the uphill task became much steeper after their dismissals.

* After my generally supportive post here about Jordan a couple of days ago, he did me up like a kipper. Poor bowling display.

* England were slow and shoddy in bowling their 50 overs - surprised MfC didn't mention that. If we had been quicker, I don't know if we might have had more overs to bat or whether the interval between innings would just have been longer. Unimpressive anyway.

[jimbohammers]

Would bring in Wood and Willey for Jordan and Billings.

[KP_fan]

Did you seriously mention Gayle and McCullum in the same sentence as AB De Villiers? I mean, like REALLY? Gayle has been virtually a T20 specialist for the last 4 years.

that's a fair point...there are skilled hitters...who take apart highest quality of bowlings on any pitches.....not too many likes of ABDV, KP, Kohli, Maxwell perhaps in that category..( to varying degrees)

and then there are FTBs.....who raise their heads on "Patta" pitches...likes of Rohit, Dhawan, gayle, Mccullum, Butler, Morgan, Watson, lankans ( other than Sangkkaar9

Being an FTB is also a skill...but a lesser degree and pitches that allow FTBs to raise their heads are more bad for the game than good.

On anotehr note...James Taylor is not in the England playing XI
he was the perfect ODI batsman in the world cup....likes of Taylor, Rahane, Amla, Smith have an important role in ODis...unless he has an injury its shocking

[Hammersmith harrier]

For me the main skill of batting is mental fortitude, for instance I would far rather watch Cook accumulate his 162 against New Zealand than watch any one day innings for that reason. Having to overcome a swinging new ball twice with your team with a big deficit while wickets are falling around you takes supreme skill and temperament, that is the art of batting not a d1ck measuring contest of who can hit the ball furthest.

[GSC]

That is precisely the attitude that sees England years behind the rest of the world, rather than turn our noses up at it we need to embrace it.

[kingraf]

I've got no issues with a team scoring and chasing 400. but it's supposed to be a treat, something which happens when everything falls into place. Cricket's version of breaking 60, if you will. Just something that happens when the stars align. That's not the case anymore, and for me, it's taken the sheen away. I understand why it's happened, as the middle overs are boring as sin, but the alternative is no fun.

[jimbohammers]

What I don't understand is Billings playing just as a batsmen, when you've got players like Vince and Taylor waiting in the wings...

Vince has struggled in championship but is in good form in t20. A 99* off 57 balls last night.

[JDizzle]

Craig Overton called up as cover for Chris Jordan. Intersting with Willey still in the squad, but they clealy want to take a clsoer look at him. Can't see him getting a game though.

[LondonTiger]

Just for you GB, Tredwell played for Kent in T20 yesterday:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/natwest-t20-blast-2015/engine/match/804539.html?view=runsballs

[guildfordbat]

Thanks for flagging, Tiger. Glad Tredwell's back from injury and you're looking out for him. Hopefully he used that game to shake the rustiness out of his system and will soon be back in England contention. No problem if you want to call him ''our man Tredders''.

[chrisss]

What I don't understand is Billings playing just as a batsmen, when you've got players like Vince and Taylor waiting in the wings...

Vince has struggled in championship but is in good form in t20. A 99* off 57 balls last night.

Because Billings is a finisher and Vince and Taylor are top 3 batsmen. I'm a big fan of James Taylor, but there's no way he should be batting at no.7 in the ODI side.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Plunkett also out injured now - have to wonder who his replacement will be

[Hoggy_Bear]

Plunkett also out injured now - have to wonder who his replacement will be

Willey and Overton to play tomorrow? I would be surprised, but possibly pleasantly, if that were to happen.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Plunkett also out injured now - have to wonder who his replacement will be

Willey and Overton to play tomorrow? I would be surprised, but possibly pleasantly, if that were to happen.

You'd imagine it'll be Wood and Willey coming in tomorrow, imagine the only selection headache of potentially removing Billings for another bowler has been put to rest for this game (don't think you can play Overton at such short notice personally)

As for Plunkett replacements - not sure about Woakes's fitness (Hoggy able to update?) - Mark Footitt would be a good shout, or maybe Boyd Rankin (who actually bowled well in the ODI stuff before)

[Hoggy_Bear]

Still no update on Woakes I'm afraid Olly, (though others may know more). Last I saw he was saying that he hoped to take part at some point during the summer, but didn't give any specific times or dates.

[JDizzle]

Yeah, think it has to be Wood and Willey to come in tomorrow. Would seem harsh to have Overton by passed them, but I think it depends if they believe Overton's bowling is better than Willey's as if Willey is going to bat 9 it is hardly worth setting much stick by their batting.

Footit actually goes round the park a bit in List A cricket. Nowhere near the same as he is on CC cricket. Topley? Any idea how he has gone this year? Just hope it's not Bressie lad.

[LondonTiger]

Aye, leave TimTom with us please.

I am worried about Willey forming part of what is ostensibly a 5 man attack, as at this level I view him as a Faulkner type of bowler - glad to get 6 overs from, only take 10 if going really well.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Wood and Willey in for England in place of the injured Jordan and Plunkett.

Henry and Wheeler replace the rested Boult and awful Nathan McCullum

[NickisBHAFC]

Still have no idea who Willey is. Must of been better options out there.

Solid start from the openers so far.

[NickisBHAFC]

Still have no idea who Willey is. Must of been better options out there.

Solid start from the openers so far.

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