Off Topic The Ashes

I just think we are undercooked and lacking a good pair of openers....

Bairstow should be in the side and we need a good spinner.

 

If Buttler struggles against the soft ball at No.7 I can only imagine what Starc, Cummins and co would do against him with the new ball.

I think Buttler's problem is that when he doesn't have a single goal (block for a draw, or pinch hit for a declaration) he seems to struggle with the balance between defence and attack. He either nicks off scoring 8 from 3 balls, or gets done after being bogged down scoring 3 from 50 balls

he could do a lot worse than look at how David Warner paces his innings - nothing wrong with being 5* from 50 balls as long as you then start to build momentum once you are in (and the ball is softer)

 

I remember when they got chris tavare (sp) in to open as no one else was doing the job efficiently...he would be there all day but only for a few runs and by a few i mean less than double figures, he would defend his wicket then go for a 10 yard wander to the side of the wicket and back every ball, don't think i ever saw him hit a boundary.

In 2012, Alex Massie wrote that, for Tavaré, scoring runs seemed "a disagreeable, even vulgar, distraction from the pure task of surviving"

seems he actually did manage some decent hits but no mention of 'balls faced'

 

That was the old way of playing cricket. The “Buoycoutt” way. No good in the modern game

 

What the **** happened to young Mason Crane?

There was a lot of excitement about him going back to his teens but it seems like he is something of a forgotten man having barely had a sniff.

 

. He's still playing and still only 23, or 24, pretty young for a leggie. But , as with many bowlers who break into the England set up, they come into contact with a battalion of coaches who mess with them. Some never recover or take years, particularly the quicks, who are told to stop the quick stuff and hit a length.

Just off the top of my napper they have ruined Stuart Meaker, a young quick whose stock ball was over 90mph. One summer with the squad and he was never the same again. They ruined Steven Finn. They completely befuddled Liam Plunkett, who has said he came back from his first spell with the squad with so many pieces of advice he couldn't bowl anymore. It took years and later Jason Gillespie, to say , " Liam, just run in and bowl fast and straight". They almost ruined Jimmy Anderson years ago. They made him change his action, saying that he would get a stress fracture bowling as he was. So he did, and got a bloody stress fracture! Anderson was stubborn enough to tell them to sod off, went back to his own way and took hundreds of wickets.

This is still happening now. Saqib Mahmood, who is laughably not in that team, was apparently " advised" to look at his run up in the summer, after being the stand out bowler in the one day games !

There are many others who are reduced after contact with this awful cabal of hidden jobsworths. Mostly they are in the ear of younger players, who are understandably keen to do anything to keep in the squad.

These coaches - and England spend more on their set up then any other country - get away without censure year after year.

 

might have hit the nail well on the head there mind, how many young 'starlets' do we see in our sports only for them to fade...it does seem to be a wee bit of a recurring theme in english sport.

 

Silverwood stubbornly refusing to accept he did anything wrong in team selection. What a clown

 

Read the plunked stuff and it is utterly terrifying.

What a bunch of hapless twats.

 

Yip. I thought when we beat S.Africa away it was going to be happy days. He's arguably picked the wrong team selection in every single test this year.

 

He is in the job because he was in the building when they were looking for someone. Giles would never take a risk, and I doubt he would appoint someone who would become more significant than himself.

Blazer wearing wage thieves IMO.

 

Good ECB man, makes a good cup of tea etc

 

Once the inevitable happens and they get their arses handed to them, that would be it I reckon for Root being captain but who could it be handed to? Broad and Anderson are coming to the end of their careers, Stokes maybe but if he is still not 100% right mentally could be afford to have the extra pressure? No one in that squad sticks out for me as captain material.

 

That's why he'll probably keep the job. I seriously hope they don't give it to Stokes. History has shown that all rounders cannot captain the test team

 

Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers?

 

Surely there has to be a good captain from the country ranks who can at least hold a bat and average 30 batting at no.6?
A good captain can be worth more than the sum of his runs, just look at JM Brearley - 39 tests, 1442 runs @ 22.88

Captained England in 31 of those tests and only ever lost 4

 

English allrounders I meant. Botham and Flintoff were massive failures

 

I’d keep Root as captain but it has to be the end of Silverwood.

 

Well they keep insisting he’s the next big thing so.

He will come in for Hameed I reckon. Burns probably did enough to save himself with that second innings performance but he needs a big score too.