Time for Captain Morgan to deliver

Plenty of time to play himself in today

What a horrible shot

Bit of pressure already on the middle order now...

And he does it

Well done. Now go on and a match winning hundred

Well done Hales

I know there's lots of differences , but is odd he hasn't performed in Tests

Enjoyed Mikey's comment on why Duminy was left out

..you do not run out the Captain...

think the big difference is the line and lengths from the bowlers

because captains keep 2 or 3 slips in for much longer in tests it encourages the bowlers to bowl that good length outside off-stump alot more and thats where hales is loose

once he gets past the first couple of overs in an ODI thats less of an issue and i think he plays a bit more confidently at the ball as a result

Plus Hales techniques isn't really the best you can actually see bowlers that move the ball of the seam or swing troubling him.
Even in ODI if the ball is doing a bit he does struggle, I do remember B kumar causing him problem 2 years ago.

But he should be ok in ODI cricket with the ball hardly ever moving and also the fact players these days are stronger and can clear boundaries with such ease that in ODI their isn't any area where bowlers can bowl to restrict batsman.

Bl**dy H**l

Went to make a cuppa and 2 wickets have gone

I wonder if India will mankand WI to win the game.

Hope so

TBH WI have actually been good in this competition Loads of quality players and players have looked like they wanted to win at all cost and looked like they actually wanted to play for West indies unlike the senior team.

I reckon after 12-18 months 6-7 of the players in this team will play in the senior side, maybe all 11 in the Test side when players pull out for T20 stuff.

Bowling attack and Batting actually look good.
Pope, Hetmyer, Springer, Joseph and Holder all got great potential.

Crazy to think WI were 2 runs away from finishing 9th overall.

Fair points and a terrific partnership to win the game but that 'Mankading' was totally wrong

Only watched small bits of the final, did India freeze when batting ? 145 looks well under par

Yeah the mankading was totally wrong, but barring that WI have been good to watch in this tournament.

i know its easy with hindsight but these middle order collapses the last couple of games are the reason i wanted taylor in the team

yeah especially with the style of play this England team play at, being aggressive means you need 2 solid batsman in the team so you can at least bat 50 overs at all times.

Although quite funny reading twitter now with everyone attacking england style of play considering the same people were probably asking for this 4-5 months ago.

Nothing wrong with the way england play they just need to find the perfect balance between having the best batting line up and having loads of bowling options.

i was one of the people who wanted us to be much more positive and even if we lose today and lose the series i am still happier than i was this time last year

i just think we would have a better balance with the 2 aggressive guys opening and root/taylor behind them

if we get off to a flyer we promote the likes of morgan, stokes, buttler up the order

if we lose a couple of wickets we have 2 guys in root and taylor who are both capable of "anchoring" the innings , and i dont mean in a jonathon trott way as both can do that without really being reckless and can keep the scoring rate reasonable whilst doing it

having said that i assume morgan is meant to be playing the role of that second accumulator and him hardly making a run has exposed the hit and miss nature of the middle order

If it was the last 5 overs, then numbers 7, 8 and 9 playing those shots whilst the guy at the other end is 90*, then not a problem

But with 15 overs left

Needs a re-think

exactly

the job of woakes and rashid was to rotate the strike and give hales as much of the bowling as possible

not swing at everything and get themselves out to a couple of pretty terrible shots

by all means be aggressive but have to be aware of the game situation as well

Also it is stupid expecting Root to bat 30 overs every game to set up the game for the hitters.
looking at the current team
Roy is the pinch hitter.
Hales
Root
Morgan
Buttler

Can be classed as the solid batting line up, the rest are all rounders.
Stupid expecting the likes of Stokes, Woakes, Ali, Rashid, Broad, Jordan etc to bat 30 overs.
Also the long batting line up gives the batsman false hope that they can go for 6s and 4 every ball since they bat till number 10 when in reality they still have to bat normally till the 30-35 over.

Although the likes of Stokes and Ali have been disappointed with the bat.
TBH I would drop Stokes as a batsman and play him as a bowler.
Don't think you need 6 front-line bowlers + root in an ODI game.

Grats to Hales, played so well in the ODIs, shame that this 100 is likely to be irrelevant.

210 up before the end of the 40th over and one of your openers has 100 at close to a run a ball yet we are in alot of trouble

Well done Hales

Morgan gonna be interesting in this world cup cycle since he might be that english player that isn't good enough for the team but being captain means he has to play.

I don't really rate morgan now, think he been find out at this level.