Life is a Rollercoaster - England Story

[Chasjs]

Series Reaction
The team did very well winning both games convincingly. However, the first innings batting was unconvincing. Players usually got starts but failed to push on, which lead to some disappointing totals. This may have been somewhat to do with the poor condition of the pitches. The bowling attack on the other hand did really well, all with an average around 20 and restricting Bangladesh to some really sub-par totals.

Man of the Series - Rashid, while not impressing with the bat as much as in previous Series' with the ball he was devestating. He took 14 wickets at an average of 11.29. Pretty impresive.

[Chasjs]

The ECB Selection Committee announced a 15 man squad for the ODI series at home to Bangladesh:

ECB Selection Committee
A Strauss*
J Anderson
I Bell
R Bopara
T Bresnan
S Broad
J Clare
S Davies^
A Flintoff
S Harmison
E Morgan
S Patel
K Pietersen
A Rashid
L Wright

Davies keeps his place for the ODIs and plays ahead of Prior. Vaughan misses out on the ODI squad for the first time due to injury. Collingwood also misses out with the selectors wanting to try out a more long term option. This may move Flintoff up the order to five. Patel and Rashid are chosen as the two spinners with Swann missing out. Flintoff will captain the T20 side.

[Chasjs]

First T20

Wight opens the batting with Morgan, with Davies playing in his second T20 at six. This team has plenty of bowling options available to it with Anderson, Harmison, Flintoff and Broad providing pace bowling. Clare and Wright back it up while Rashid is the only spinner chosen. Clare was picked ahead of Patel due to pitch conditons.

England win the toss and bat first.
England get off to a good start, with Wright in devestating form hitting 28 off 13 balls before getting out in the forth over. Morgan is out soon after but Pietersen and Bopara prove unstoppable. Pietersen reaches his fify.

They push England on to a score of 163.

England start well with some tight early bowling. The fielding was great with two run outs in the powerplay. But the middle innings bowling is poor with Rashid having a shocker. From after the powerplay Bangladesh are always ahead of Englands rate. They go into the last three overs requiring 14 runs but only have 3 wickets remaining. Broad bowls an over of six singles. Anderson takes a wicket first ball, the dangerman Kapali caught behind, but is then hit for four and two ones off the next three. Bangladesh need one to draw, two for the win. Anderson finishes the over with two dot balls. Broad must bowl a maiden for England to win. First ball, Bowled. Second ball the number eleven hits it over the bowlers head, but Clare at mid-on sticks out his hand and catches it. England win by one run.

England win by 1 run
Man of the Match - Pietersen
England Man of the Match - Broad, with most of the other bowlers being expensive, Broad bowled really well, wrapping up the tail in the nick of time.
Other Notable Mentions - Wright, Pietersen, Bopara, Anderson
Poor Game - Rashid, Harmison, Clare

[Chasjs]

First ODI

With the weather very cloudy in the afternoon the toss is a must win as chasing will be hard at best. Still, if this happens runs will needed to be got very quickly at first so Wright opens with Strauss. Incase he gets out early on Bell can steady the ship before Pietersen, Flintoff and Bopara come to score runs quickly. The pitch isn't particularly suited to spin so no spinners are picked. Instead a powerful pace lineup is selected which, if bowling through cloud, could rip Banglasdesh's batting order to sheds.

England win the toss and elect to have a bat.
England get off to a good start. Wright doing his job perfectly, getting out on the last ball of the first powerplay for 33 of 26 balls. England on 63 going along nicely. England lose a flurry of wickets in the middle overs. Flintoff plays well and tries to keep the tempo up but is eventually out for 33. Bopara is run out cheaply.

Davies matches his score. Bresnan and Broad spare Englands blushes pushing England up to a total of 251 with an unbeaten partnership of 96.

Despite sticking around for a long time the opening pair scored very slowly. After they went though, wickets fell consistently over a twenty over period with Flintoff wrapping up the tail in his final spell.

England win by 70 runs
Man of the Match - Flintoff
England Man of the Match - Flintoff, scoring 33 runs off 30 balls was an important contibution to the total. Then taking 4 wickets for 16 runs at 2 RPO shows why he is the best all-rounder in the world.
Other Notable Mentions - Wright, Bresnan, Broad
Poor Game - Pietersen, Bopara, Davies

[Chasjs]

Second ODI

The pitch is looking like it will favour spin a bit more so two spinners are chosen. Rashid and Patel come in for Bresnan and Harmison. Other than the only change is a reshuffle of the late batting order.

Banglasdesh win the toss and put England in to bat.
England lost Wright early on. Strauss and Bell did well but after this partnership was broken England started to lose wickets pretty often. Bopara, despite a slow start finally got going, reaching his fifty, with Davies providing good support at the other end.

Bopara eventually pushed the score up to 250.

Bangladesh lose an opener first ball but Al Hasan leads the fightback. Nafees never really gets going. Rashid comes on picking up a wicket instantly. Saleh provides good support until he becomes Rashid's second victim. Banglasdesh begin to lose wickets but Kapali and Islam manage to stick around long enough to push Bangladesh over the line to send the Series to a decider.

Bangladesh win by 3 wickets
Man of the Match - Al Hasan
England Man of the Match - Bopara, without him it would've been a much lower total.
Other Notable Mentions - Bell, Davies
Poor Game - Pietersen, Wright, Patel

[Chasjs]

Third ODI

With conditions poor for spin the same lineup as the first match was used.

England lost the toss and Bangladesh chose to bat.
Bangladesh batted well for the most part despite Anderson taking a few wickets in his second spell as the coulds came in. Nazimuddin, though, batted through the poor conditions to see Bangladesh though to a respectable 243.

Strauss fell early. Wright batted fantastically at the other end though.

Everyone else though was disappointing with no major contibutions. In the end it was left to Bresnan and Harmison to keep up with the rate. They couldn't, needing 12 off the last over. They managed 6 singles, England falling 5 runs short to a shocking Series loss.

Bangladesh win by 5 runs
Man of the Match - Nazimuddin
England Man of the Match - Wright, an excellent batting display as opener.
Other Notable Mentions - Anderson, Harmison, Flintoff
Poor Game - Broad, Bopara, Pietersen, Strauss

Series Reaction
Bangladesh win ODI Series 2-1

Despite the disappointing loss their are positives. Wright batted really well, getting good scores in two of the five games averaging 40 for the Series with a strike rate of 114.28. His fellow opener though Strauss did poorly. As did Pietersen. Bell did okay nothing to shout about though while Bopara and Flintoff had one good game each with the bat, likewise Davies. Bresnan batted well in both games, while Broad did well in the first, he was poor in the last two. With the ball it was a bit hit and miss. Flintoff was the pick with a low average and RPO. Anderson was a little more expensive but picked up wickets. Harmison was the oppostie while Broad and Bresnan were just too expensive for the most part. Patel failed to take a wicket and was very expensive while Rashid bowled okay picking up a few.

Man of the Series - Wright, fo his good contibutions with the bat getting two of the three innings' off to a great start, something which we lacked last year.

[Chasjs]

Series Highlights

4 - Pietersen's Century in the first innings of the Second Test. With no-one else contibuting a large amount of runs, Pietersen steps up and adds 139.

3 - Wright's 86 in the last ODI. Almost spurring England on to victory.

2 - Moore's second innings century in the First Test.

1 - Broad ripping through Bangladesh's batting order to put England in the driving seat in the Second Test.

[Chasjs]

The ECB Selection Committee announced a 18 man squad for the Test Series at home to the West Indies:

ECB Selection Committee
A Strauss*
J Anderson
T Ambrose
I Bell
R Bopara
T Bresnan
S Broad
P Collingwood
A Cook
A Flintoff
S Harmison
S Moore
M Panasar
K Pietersen
L Plunkett
A Rashid
G Swann
M Vaughan

Although most of the players used will come from this squad, it is only a provisional squad. Other players may be brought in due to injuries. If the Series is won, the remaining games may include some untested players looking for a place in the Ashes squad in the winter.



The ECB Selection Commitee also annouced another two provisional squads. The first a Provisional squad for the Ashes Tour in the winter.

ECB Selection Committee
A Strauss*
J Anderson
T Ambrose
I Bell
R Bopara
T Bresnan
S Broad
P Collingwood
A Cook
J Clare
J Cobb
S Davies
J Denly
A Flintoff
S Harmison
P Horton
S Mahmood
S Moore
E Morgan
G Onions
M Panasar
S Patel
K Pietersen
L Plunkett
M Prior
A Rashid
G Swann
J Trott
M Vaughan
L Wright

The second a provisonal squad for the ODI Series vs Australia and the World Cup on the Sub-Continent.

ECB Selection Committee
A Strauss*
J Anderson
I Bell
R Bopara
T Bresnan
S Broad
P Collingwood
A Cook
J Clare
N Crompton
S Davies
J Denly
N Dexter
A Flintoff
J Foster
S Harmison
J Harris
D Malan
D Mascarenhas
S Moore
E Morgan
S Patel
K Pietersen
M Prior
A Rashid
O Shah
G Swann
J Trott
M Vaughan
L Wright

[MattyEva]

Just dropping a note to say this really is a brilliant story. It inspired me to start mine, and is really fascinating reading. Thanks!

[YoungTwistah]

This is a really interesting read; it's got an interesting and intriguing style. I am considering doing one of these myself for my team -Sussex.

However, I urgently require information; how do I get pictures of in-game (while the ICC'09 window is up) stats, etc? I have a Windows XP (Toshiba) in case that helps. IDK if this is the right place to ask, but oh well. Here goes.

[Imager36]

You'll want to look at this - http://childishthings.co.uk/forum/sh...14&postcount=1

And good luck with the martlets by the way, big fan here!

[mclaren007]

i dont understand why this story is stuck for months or is it ended

[Chasjs]

Yeah... I've just gone to Uni and haven't got ICC on my laptop yet.

[Frosty10]

I really want this story to continue

[Chasjs]

It would... if I had the saves at Uni .