Just wait 'til Sehwag's back they said!!!!!!!! lol

S.

And, FWIW, those who are trying to pick negatives out of the best England team in more than a generation need their heads testing. Why can't you just enjoy us dismantling teams! You must have watched Australia in the 90s and thought 'jesus, why can't we do that?'

Hey, I'm enjoying it as much as the next man, but, quite simply, when Morgan comes up against a good quality attack, he will be found out....Steyn and Morkel will tear him to pieces.

Yes, he got a hundred, but the two lives he got were almost comical.....A 2ndXI club fielder would have been shame-faced at those dropped chances.

The only saving grace for Morgan, is that he may just have the luck of his fellow countrymen...

Regardless of how many runs we had, Cooks score and how many wickets we had lost I think we were always going to declare about an hour before close.

I see no problem with that as it means the openers have to face the new ball twice. It also worked perfectly and we are pretty unlucky to not have them 2 down. Remember there are still 180 overs in the match - if they save the test from here it'd be nothing short of miraculous.

On another note, Cook was awful to watch today, really awful and yet there was still something immensely satisfying in watching him accumulate 1s and 2s and grind them into the dirt!

They really do need to sort out the rules on bad light. On the second day they went off for a brief shower. As they went off Davis took a light reading, one of the commentators said "That will set the standard for the rest of the match". But there was no suggestion that the light was bad, just that it was spitting. So why should a light reading at that time set the benchmark? Loved reading this: www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/eng ... 1i9y7.html

They really do need to sort out the rules on bad light. On the second day they went off for a brief shower. As they went off Davis took a light reading, one of the commentators said "That will set the standard for the rest of the match". But there was no suggestion that the light was bad, just that it was spitting. So why should a light reading at that time set the benchmark? Loved reading this: www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/eng ... 1i9y7.html

Looks like India might just make it through to lunch.

Bresnan sends England to number 1.

When do we play South Africa?I think we need to beat them to be crowned the real #1 team in test cricket.I know we're officially the top team but beating SA will top it off.

SA come here next summer.

After this series we don't play another test until the new year, so they have the chance to go above us as they play the Aussies and Sri Lanka before we are back in action.

I don't think there is much us and SA, two very evenly matched sides.

[url=http://tinyurl.com/3seodducan you keep in oven gloves?[/url

Best England XI that you have seen play:-

Boycott
Gooch
Vaughan
KP
Gower/Lamb - Probably Gower
Botham
Flintoff
Prior
Swann
Gough
Anderson

Four great seamers, Swann as spinner backed up by KP and MV. Bats down to 10 also.

That would be an entertaining side.

Michael Vaughan
Martyn Moxon
Anthony McGrath
Craig White
Adil Rashid
Richard Blakey
Tim Bresnan
Ajmal Shazhad
Darren Gough
Matthew Hoggard
Ryan Sidebottom

A bit light in the top order but plenty of bowling options!

My serious offering would be:

Cook
Trescothick
Vaughan (pre captaincy form but as captain - is that allowed!)
Pieterson
Thorpe
Bell
Prior
Swann
Harmison (2004 version)
Gough
Anderson

I think it's easy to pick players from this current side because of the success they've had. I didn't consider the likes of Gooch and Gower and I only saw the very back end of their careers. I wanted to pick Flintoff but he wasn't in the best 3 bowlers or even close to the top 6 batters. Picking him at 7 meant Prior batting at 6 and with the length of the tail compared to present times I wanted a stronger top 6.

It'd be interesting to see how a side of the best players from the last 90s where we achieved very little would have competed against todays XI.

Cook v Atherton
Strauss v Stewart
Trott v Hussain
KP v Thorpe
Bell v Ramps
Morgan v Hick
Prior v White
Bresnan v Cork
Broad v Croft
Swann v Gough
Anderson v Caddick

There's barely a name that you'd pick in front of todays players but had they played in the same era I bet many would have been in the reckoning

I can't believe no-one has picked Michael Andrew Atherton or Alec Stewart. And Darren Gough???? Ahead of Caddick or Fraser? Or Matthew Hoggard for that matter?

FWIW here's my effort...

Michael Andrew Atherton (captain)
Marcus Trescothick
David Gower
Robin Smith
Graham Thorpe
Alec Stewart
Jack Russell (wk)
Graeme Swann
Jimmy Anderson
Gus Fraser
Andy Caddick

Not the longest batting line-up but I would back that top 6 to get more than enough runs.

People harp on about this current England team being the best ever but name me more than 1 truly great bowler (Dale Steyn) currently playing Test cricket? The likes of Gooch, Atherton, Stewart and Thorpe had umpteen top top bowlers to contend with. Even the team of 2005 had to cope with an awful lot better bowlers than they do now. Not that this is a slight on the current England team who are are a superb team and fully deserve to be ranked number 1.

Darren Gough - 229 test wickets at 28
Andy Caddick - 234 wickets at 29
Angus Fraser - 177 wickets at 27
Matthew Hoggard - 248 wickets at 30

Not as much between them as you might think - notable that you chose a Lancastrian as your prime opposition to Gough's selection though, before adding in another Yorkshireman as an afterthought to reduce accusations of bias.

I went for the 2 who had the most 5 fers and 10 wicket matches, honest! I would have picked Hoggard (ahead of Fraser) as I thought he was a massively underrated bowler then and still is now until I saw Fraser had got 13 5 fers!!

Actually forgot about Stewart, stick him in for Prior and put him in front of Botham in the batting line up. I considered Trescothick and Athers but went for Boyc's as he could sit there for the day whilst all the shotmakers went for it.

Boycott
Gooch
Trott
Gower
Thorpe
Stewart
Botham
Swann
Underwood
Anderson
Willis

As I've got a genuine all rounder I'm going to have a second spinner. The tail is a bit long, but with that top seven it shouldn't matter too much.

Main weakness is the lack of a captain who was a notable success, despite six of them having done the job for England.

I have to say I'm a fan of picking the better wicketkeeper, and Stewart was nver quite so prolific with the bat whilst keeping wicket, so I thought hard about picking Knott ahead of him with Botham a place higher, but I guess my Surrey bias swung it there.

Trott isn't the most glamorous option, but he's simply the most prolific run scorer in a key position. The rest of the batting harks back to yesteryear, but I felt batsmen had it tougher then as I feel there are fewer world class bowlers in the contemporary game compared to ten, twenty or thirty years ago.

Gooch
Trescothick
Vaughan
Gower
Thorpe
McGrath
Russell
Swann
Hoggard
Anderson
Caddick

BUMP......



I stick by this assessment.....he will never be a Test batsman of any repute.

Aggers seems to have grown tired of some of the online indian support, blocking loads of them twitter.com/#!/Aggerscricket

Aggers seems to have grown tired of some of the online indian support, blocking loads of them twitter.com/#!/Aggerscricket

I've always thought the same myself, although my judgement may be clouded by the fact I don't think he should be playing for England in the first place. I accept there are going to be players with dual nationality, or individuals who relocate to another continent and make their home there, but "upgrading" to a better neighbouring national team when you've already played at senior level for your native country just doesn't seem right to me. Boyd Rankin has even playded ODIs for Ireland and England (Lions) in consecutive months now.

what about 'downgrading' like Gavin Hamilton?