Should England keep or dump Tim Ambrose?

Anyway, we could be here all night... - but I won't be as I have to get to bed.

If you're not having Read, and that argument is going round in circles, what about James Foster? Very neat and tidy keeper, solid batsman who will only average about 3 or 4 runs less than Prior and quite a combative character (without being a total pr!ck). Surely Foster over Prior?

We may as well stick with Ambrose. I doubt Foster would score anymore - certainly no test no.6/7

Aye, Gary - I've been saying since the Ashes debacle that they have to give Foster a go.

Hopefully Timmy will hit his straps from next week, but if not then Foster is where they have to turn.

If he fails too (and you'd have to give him whatever is left of this summer plus the winter), then in the absence of the emergence of any other outstanding candidate in the interim England's only sensible choice is to swallow their pride and go back to Read.

JKLever wrote:We may as well stick with Ambrose. I doubt Foster would score anymore - certainly no test no.6/7

My impression is that Ambrose is much more of an instinctive batsmen. He has fast hands and a good range of shots, but is a poor starter. He'll average 32 over 35 tests, with a lot of low scores punctuated by aggressive innings of 70 and 80 scored at nearly a run a ball.

Foster would also average 32, but he's more technically correct and organised. Less likely to score a quick 70, but would regularly weigh in with 20s, 30s and 40s.

Both are good with the gloves.

Gary 111 wrote:

JKLever wrote:We may as well stick with Ambrose. I doubt Foster would score anymore - certainly no test no.6/7

My impression is that Ambrose is much more of an instinctive batsmen. He has fast hands and a good range of shots, but is a poor starter. He'll average 32 over 35 tests, with a lot of low scores punctuated by aggressive innings of 70 and 80 scored at nearly a run a ball.

Foster would also average 32, but he's more technically correct and organised. Less likely to score a quick 70, but would regularly weigh in with 20s, 30s and 40s.

Both are good with the gloves.

I'd tend to agree, and think the latter is really what you're after.

You want a keeper who is regularly going to chip in with steady runs down the order to build partnerships with the remaining batsman at the other end, and / or help eek out some runs from the tail.

England's current batting fragility and historical relentless ability to collapse makes this even more vital, and one of the reasons* I felt Foster would be the better option when we returned from 'Oz and would have given him the nod over the continued selection of Read.

* - The other being that the experience was bound to have scarred Read to some extent.

Foster is averaging 29 this season. In Div 2.

I know CC is much maligned but the performances should at least have some weighting.

Foster either gets 0 or 50+. Of late his seasons have tended to consist of one big score surrounded by lots of little ones.

Bob Taylor is only just 67. I'm sure he still knows how to keep wicket.

Foster's batting is awful. His career is littered with duck, and he has shown a lack of quality even with the Lions, so why anyone thinks he's capable of averaging 30-odd is beyond me. No England keeper except for Prior will manage a career average of over 30. Foster and Read would average in the low to mid 20s, though Read is probably a better batsman. Ambrose I'd expect to loiter around 28, perhaps briefly rising towards 30 before dipping back down again (assuming he gets a run in the team). Like I said the other day, I'm perfectly happy with Ambrose as a number 7, but the Flintoff equation has messed things up. I personally wasn't as impressed by Flintoff the other day either; he wasn't at full pace, and lacked the spark that characterises his bowling. England should steer clear of writing him into their long-term future just because he's Flintoff - he has a lot to prove too.

Ambrose is under pressure, especially so in a 5 bowler strategy. The only way to strengthen the batting is to drop him for Prior. I haven't seen enough of Prior recently to know if his keeping has improved but he is scoring big. Generally I'd say it's easier to improve keeping than batting.

It doesn't seem to really matter who they pick for the role. They all look and play the same damn rubbish.

leg glancer wrote:It doesn't seem to really matter who they pick for the role. They all look and play the same damn rubbish.

Rubbish...

Ambrose & Read are good keepers & Prior is a good bat.

And Foster? Have I missed something? Has the Eagle crashlanded again?

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:For those championing Prior, can we have a breakdown of what you anticipate in terms of runs scored and byes conceded per innings compared to the likes of Foster / Read / Ambrose.

I'll even make it easy for you: -

Prior

Runs Scored: -

Byes Conceded: -

Difference : -



Foster / Read / Ambrose (Delete as Applicable)

Runs Scored: -

Byes Conceded: -

Difference : -



At least then we have a starting point to work with, so we can judge whether your assessments are realistic, and we can then weigh the anticipated difference against the likelihood of chances spilled.

Ta.

I have tried to back up that cricinfo article by working out for myself how many runs I think Prior has cost England.....

and seeing as we haven't had any correct answers in yet, here are the Test results from Prior's exam paper over his first 10 matches:

These are my figures are per Test match:

Runs scored: 56.2
Byes conceeded: 14.2
Runs conceeded in missed chances: 49

So effectively Prior's contribution was -7 runs per Test.

Will try to do something similar for Read, Ambrose, and a few international keepers at some point if I can be arsed.

For people interested in stats, by my reckoning Prior has caught 28 catches and dropped 8, completed 0 stumpings and missed 2. So 28 out of 38 chances, a success ratio of 73.7%. I also found 7 occasions where he narrowly failed to get a glove on it - the commentators speculating that it might have been a chance - but haven't included these in my figures.

Another thing I noticed - Prior only tends to mess up against good batsmen: Tendulkar, Jayawardena (x2), Chanderpaul, Laxman, Gayle, Jaffer & Dilshan (plus Ramdin & Fernando) are in this exclusive club.

Gary 111 wrote:

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:For those championing Prior, can we have a breakdown of what you anticipate in terms of runs scored and byes conceded per innings compared to the likes of Foster / Read / Ambrose.

I'll even make it easy for you: -

Prior

Runs Scored: -

Byes Conceded: -

Difference : -



Foster / Read / Ambrose (Delete as Applicable)

Runs Scored: -

Byes Conceded: -

Difference : -



At least then we have a starting point to work with, so we can judge whether your assessments are realistic, and we can then weigh the anticipated difference against the likelihood of chances spilled.

Ta.

I have tried to back up that cricinfo article by working out for myself how many runs I think Prior has cost England.....

and seeing as we haven't had any correct answers in yet, here are the Test results from Prior's exam paper over his first 10 matches:

These are my figures are per Test match:

Runs scored: 56.2
Byes conceeded: 14.2
Runs conceeded in missed chances: 49

So effectively Prior's contribution was -7 runs per Test.

Will try to do something similar for Read, Ambrose, and a few international keepers at some point if I can be arsed.

For people interested in stats, by my reckoning Prior has caught 28 catches and dropped 8, completed 0 stumpings and missed 2. So 28 out of 38 chances, a success ratio of 73.7%. I also found 7 occasions where he narrowly failed to get a glove on it - the commentators speculating that it might have been a chance - but haven't included these in my figures.

Another thing I noticed - Prior only tends to mess up against good batsmen: Tendulkar, Jayawardena (x2), Chanderpaul, Laxman, Gayle, Jaffer & Dilshan (plus Ramdin & Fernando) are in this exclusive club.

I'd be interested to see the other stats Gary if you can be arsed. But remeber those chances that Read didn't go for that were his that went between him and first slip please!?