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[smilley792]

Massive six from hameed!!


Better attacking opener than hales ever was.......

[rickjames]

Beautiful cover drive off Ashwin as well. Love the kid

[ppccopener]

Good start really like hameed we must let him settle in to opening you can see he's a natural temperament for it and text book defence.

Excellent bowling from Rashid today will do him a lot of good....

[dcullen8]

Is it too early to be dreaming about this partnership for a few years to come?

[ppccopener]

No...we leave him in come hell or high water.
England have coaches to help should he need advice.
Got to work with him to improve his game, temperament and technique he has already.

[smilley792]

Optimisms from me here.

But

Surely this is near the side for a while now?

Off the top seven, I'd say only duckett to prove himself.


And when we get home, barring injuries our seam attack will be Anderson broad woakes and stokes.

Which means we have a interesting choice in the last spot (number 8 or 9 dependant.

Do we go extra spinner in England. Ansari or Rashid?
Do we go extra seamer to make 5? Wood, plunkett, ball etc.

Or do we say 4 seamers and Ali is enough, and put an extra batsmen in after bairstow? Buttler, billings, Roy? An attacking number 8?
Couple Ben see hales back as a lownorder attacking player.......

[petehosk]

I was wrong - I thought that it may be a little too much to ask for Hameed to be thrown into the Indian Tests straight away, but he actually looks very comfortable!
I suspect that Hales is watching this knowing that his days as a Test opener are pretty much over!
Fingers crossed that Hameed is now given a long, long run and can establish himself as Cook's partner!

We just need Duckett to stand up and solve the No4 spot now

[lexx]

Brilliant innings by hameed. Looks solid and plays the drive very well.

[rickjames]

Opening partnership of 100 up. So sacred...

[WalkingWicket37]

Opening partnership of 100 up. So sacred...

First 100 opening stand since Cook and Duckett vs Bangladesh last month!

[Seniorplayer]

Optimisms from me here.

But

Surely this is near the side for a while now?

Off the top seven, I'd say only duckett to prove himself.


And when we get home, barring injuries our seam attack will be Anderson broad woakes and stokes.

Which means we have a interesting choice in the last spot (number 8 or 9 dependant.

Do we go extra spinner in England. Ansari or Rashid?
Do we go extra seamer to make 5? Wood, plunkett, ball etc.

Or do we say 4 seamers and Ali is enough, and put an extra batsmen in after bairstow? Buttler, billings, Roy? An attacking number 8?
Couple Ben see hales back as a lownorder attacking player.......

[smilley792]

Senior dude. Did you mean to reply to my post? Or just randomly quoting it for no reason?

[northernboy1987]

Optimisms from me here.

But

Surely this is near the side for a while now?

Off the top seven, I'd say only duckett to prove himself.


And when we get home, barring injuries our seam attack will be Anderson broad woakes and stokes.

Which means we have a interesting choice in the last spot (number 8 or 9 dependant.

Do we go extra spinner in England. Ansari or Rashid?
Do we go extra seamer to make 5? Wood, plunkett, ball etc.

Or do we say 4 seamers and Ali is enough, and put an extra batsmen in after bairstow? Buttler, billings, Roy? An attacking number 8?
Couple Ben see hales back as a lownorder attacking player.......

This is what I was getting at earlier, if our seamers are high quality (I'd suggest Anderson, Broad, Woakes and Stokes certainly are) do we need 5 seamers or can we take a little pressure off Mo (seeing as he's batting at 5) by having Rashid share the spin duties (helps that he's a very capable lower order batsman too)?

Could be the making of Rashid as a test cricketer this tour. If he has a good tour and, as others have said, finally bowls more like we see him bowl for Yorkshire and if Moeen continues to bat well at 5, is there a case for simply swapping Ansari for Anderson and going into next summer with 4 seamers and Mo and Rashid sharing the spin duties? Or do we think Rashid will lose his place to Ball or Finn?

[petehosk]

In more English-type wicket conditions I suspect it will more like...

Cook
Hameed
Root
Duckett (if he starts to prove himself!)
Ali
Stokes
Bairstow
Woakes
Ball/Rashid/Ansari
Broad
Anderson

Looks as though Hameed is looking like a decent option for opener for a while, and hopefully for good.
Fingers crossed that Duckett starts to perform and cement his place as number 4.
The only other question in my mind is number 9 spot! There are a number of options in my book!
If it is a green top then a 5th pace bowler so Ball would get the nod for me.
If it is likely to be a turner after a couple of days then either Rashid or Ansari could be playing.
The last option could be that if the 4-man pace attack is doing well and the Ali & (part-time) Root are only needed for the odd couple of overs here and there, then how about giving Buttler a game? He could bat at 8 with Woakes moving to 9 and really add absolute carnage if batting with Stokes or Bairstow?

[petehosk]

My last post is perhaps a question for after the Indian Test series. So maybe the more pressing question is what to do if Jimmy is back bowling?
He is absolutely our premier bower and capable of swinging it both ways in most conditions....plus Anderson has dismissed Kholi more than any other bowler in Tests, so surely that must be enough reason to bowl him!!
So let's assume that the top 7 are  the same (Cook, Hameed, Root, Duckett, Ali, Stokes, Bairstow.). Assuming the wicket for the 2nd Test is spin-friendly and we play 2 spinners (Probably Ansari and Rashid) then that leaves only 2 spot for pace bowlers to join Stokes at 5!
And for those 2 spots we have Anderson, Broad, Woakes and Ball. No offence but Finn isn't looking anywhere near the same bowler he was previously at the moment!
So which 2 get the gig? Would it be worth giving Broad and Woakes a rest and playing Ball and Anderson to see how they do? Or only make one change?