shankybiggestengfan wrote:Making_Splinters wrote:greyblazer wrote:So can this batting line-up help England to win a WC? Now bowlers won't win you too many matches away from home.
I don't know Grey, when we can bat at our own pace this side is very capable however when run rate pressure is applied they seem to wobble badly.
We'll find out in India where our bowlers won't be that effective and the home side like to make big scores.
The problem with this line up is that they are not naturally attacking players. They can score at a decent(not rapid but decent) when they are at their top of their games. But when they are out of form, they likes of Trott, Bell, Cook and Ravi might just end up eating a lot of overs without scoring a lot of runs. In case of naturally attacking players, say for example, KP or Gayle, they are still capable of a streaky 30 ball 40, when out of form. I think our line up is OK but we need one more attacking player really. KP's chances of a comeback are looking brighter now. Here's hoping that he'll be back.
Just to look at those two quite valid points seperately Shanks, I'd disagree that say for example Bell will eat up balls, it is clear that he has put in a tremendous amount of working into his limited overs batting, he's gone from being a player who was reliant on a couple of scoring shots which were easily cut off by a decent captain - we could look as recently as the World Cup where is tendency to play spin with a dab sweep was rendered almost null and viod by Dhoni - to a player who is comfortable going over the top both off and on sied as well as using his feet to go aerial straight over the bowler's head too. We can see the same to a lesser degree with Cook who can now play over the top on the on side off the front foot as opposed to his earlier strenghs of playing off the back foot and in Trott who has worked on his reverse sweep and playing his sweep much squarer than he used to, though I would stress that these are definitely to a lesser degree than the improvements Bell has made. As for Ravi, he has all the shots though is still vunerable as he doesn't go back to spin bowling naturally but when he is out of form his foot movement completely vanishes and anything slightly back of a lenth outside off is going to get him out. Phew.
As for KP, I really don't see where he can fit back into the side, we can't not play six bowling options in the side - and no KPs "spin" and Trott's medium whatever you want to call it do not count - and Bell, Cook, Trott and Morgan are all at present nailed on. Now it might be easy to say drop Trott but that isn't going to happen.