Another bad week for Ravi Bopara, 56 runs from 4 innings is hardy the sort of form that will have Andy Flower pencilling him into the side for the 1st test with Sri Lanka.
More worryingly and telling for me is Bopara’s response to his latest low scores. He said on Twitter “No heavy rollers & tiflex balls is a recipe for low scores. Crap cricket!”
That sounds like excuse making to me, it’s not the sort of response I’d expect to hear from a top class test cricketer. It’s taking the easy way out.
I keep hearing about how talented Ravi is, how he has all the shots in the book. This all may well be true, but I think he badly lacks the temperament and strength of character to be a test cricketer.
He was found badly wanting against Australia in 2009 and I haven’t seen or heard much to convince me that anything has changed with him. I just don’t see him ‘gutsing it out,’ a quality that top class test cricketers possess.
At the moment it looks like Ravi should have took the hundred grand on offer.
In other matches it was great to see Graham Onions back in the wickets with his 5/53 against Yorkshire.
I was shocked when I heard it was his first game in 15 months, it’s amazing how quickly you can forget about a cricketer when his name is out of the public domain.
I would imagine that there must have been times when he wondered if he had played his last game. England looks a long way off for him now, but I’d imagine he’d quite happily take a quiet season playing for Durham after the last 15 months.
What has happened to Warwickshire? I got quite excited yesterday when they got to 416/6, I was absolutely amazed when 642 was finally posted.
I heard it mentioned on a radio show this morning that this must be the first time in 2 years that Warwickshire had secured maximum batting points, I thought at the time that it was a sarcastic remark. On thinking about it, such has been the Bears poor batting over the last couple of seasons, it’s probably not far off the truth.
I did then expect to see Somerset blitz their way to a similar score, but no – they haven’t. Rikki Clarke and Chris Woakes triggered a collapse and now Somerset are in deep trouble.
Boyd Rankin struggled and still needs the kick up the arse I recommended yesterday, while the unknown (to me anyway) Andrew Miller got off to an impressive start with figures of 12-3-25-1.
Brian Carpenter
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve always had doubts about Bopara’s mentality – he comes across as a bit too cocky for his own good and players like that usually get found out at the highest level.
Looking outside his batting, the fact that his fielding remains poor indicates a degree too much self-satisfaction for my liking too.
Still, Mr.Gooch is an admirer (apparently) so he’s going to be around the England side for a while yet, regardless, probably, of how much or how little he does in county cricket.
Cricket Betting Blog
Funnily enough, Bopara’s fielding is another point I raised during last years IPL. I watched a match and seen him drop a sitter and misfield 3-4 times in quick succession afterwards.
I think it is a reflection on his cricket on the whole, way too casual and cocky.
I get the impression watching him and listening too him that he thinks he is already good enough to play for England, that no improvement is needed.
I do worry that the Essex influence around the England camp could get him an unjustified call up.
I’ve wrote it somewhere – not sure if it was on my site or not – that I don’t think he has even done enough to nail down a place in the ODI team – let alone the test one.
When you think back, how many years has he been in and out of the side in all forms of cricket? And he still hasn’t established himself anywhere yet.
betting blog
I actually don’t mind Ravi as a batsman but he really does need to believe in his own batting skills. I think he took a huge knock in confidence back in 09 and although his batting was rubbish he was hung out to dry a bit in my opinion. The selectors could quickly see that he was out of form and low on confidence but kept sending him out to get targeted by the Aussies. At least that gave Trott the big chance he deserved though.
Cricket Betting Blog
@ betting blog – I’m not a massive fan, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed – but I would agree with you that he was handled very badly in 2009.
In fairness to the selectors they give players a chance these days, but I thought he was left in the side too long in 2009 when he was clearly struggling and needed taking out for his own good.