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Loading ...Well-thought article, and I tend to agree.
Why not push Bopara up the order and include the likes of Mascerenhas, Nash, Carberry?
After all, if now isn’t the time to experiment then I don’t know when is.
Strauss not right for Twenty20
By Mark Tilley last year, mid-March Add your comment below
Just a thought on England’s miserable Twenty20 performance tonight. As admirable and as brilliantly as Andrew Strauss has played and captained the side since his elevation to skipper, how can the powers that be possibly have included him in the team for this format of the game?
Yes, he’s the captain and in an ideal world, the captain should play across all formats of the game. But, this isn’t an ideal world English cricket finds itself in. Strauss, a masssively talented batsman, is blatantly not a Twenty20 player. He may have a fine collection of shots in his locker and he may even have a good future in the 50 over version of international cricket. But he doesn’t really fit in with this format of the game.
His innings today wasn’t necessarily terrible. After all, in a lame England batting performance, Strauss notched up the second highest score. But his 22 came off 25 balls and featured just two boundaries. Twenty20 cricket is demanding and a strike-rate of under 100 is unforgivable in the majority situations. There comes a certain point where unless your partner down the other end is belting the ball to all parts, you are just wasting balls.
Surely, Paul Collingwood or someone else could have been asked to captain the side for just today’s game? Strauss will lead the team in the conventional one day series and rightly so but for this condensed version of cricket, why couldn’t someone else have done it? Was it really worth including Strauss in the side just because he is captain? Australia regularly choose Twenty20 games as an opportunity to rest Ricky Ponting and give Michael Clarke an opportunity to take charge. It baffles me as to why England have not done something similar here.
Strauss’ inclusion was not the sole reason for England’s defeat (you’d need about three blogs to cover their various Twenty20 inadequacies) but they aren’t doing themselves any favours at all with poor selection choices such as this one. People lambasted the England selectors for including Alastair Cook in the Stanford Series squad and by the same token Strauss should have been left out here. A great player, no doubt, but not the most innovative and Twenty20 is clearly not his forte. England, please take heed in the future.
Tags: andrew-strauss, captaincy, england, england-in-west-indies, paul-collingwood, twenty20 |
6 Responses to “Strauss not right for Twenty20”
March 16th, 2009 at 2.42 pm
March 16th, 2009 at 3.22 pm
Agreed regarding Strauss as he is a typical test opener. When he comes to the crease his instinct is to play himself in, bat time and put away the bad balls that come to him in the meantime.
This approach just doesnt work in Twenty20. You need players who are willing to hit the ball over the infield from ball one and put the pressure on the fielding team straight away.
I however disagree that Collingood should Captain. I have serious doubts that Collingwood is a match winner in this format. All of his best ODI innings have been based on anchoring the innings and accumulation of singles, and i dont think this is the most effective tactic in twenty20.
Id like to see a top 6 with the ability to hit with power and which has the invention to over come really good bowling.
England really have no answer at the moment to teams bowling stump to stump.
March 17th, 2009 at 11.55 am
Agree, a great chance to blood the youngstgers this 2020.
However I grow frustrated with the conservative selection policy of the bowlers – we seem not able to walk on to the field without 4 or 5 seamers – as if whereever we play we expect it to be a green headingley like seaming pitch – calling foul play (see recent test series) if the oppo provides anything else. Why are we frightened to pick 2 or 3 spinners (domestic T20 sides often do).
Poor Adil Rashid – at least he wont need to knock a new bat in for the county season – it hasnt got any use out there!
March 18th, 2009 at 7.56 am
If you have a strong batting lineup you can afford to have someone like Strauss who doesn’t give his wicket away and scores one or two per ball with the odd boundary. Maybe have him at three or four with some more explosive bats at the top.
March 19th, 2009 at 2.19 pm
waiting for IPL to start!!!
March 20th, 2009 at 4.57 pm
Sometime i think Strauss is even good as a captain or not and of he is good enough why he was removed before
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