Root looks absolutely drained. A lack of alternatives isn't a good enough excuse to keep him on as captain. There must be a talented County Captain out there who could bat at 6, average 30 and keep us ticking over for a couple of years......
Lee's hasnt done bad. I'm not sure what needs changing but this is as far from a reset as is possible
Drop the central contracts? Do that and I guess more will chase the white ball money. Dilemma is, would we risk losing the big names who go off and chase the big money for the sake of the test team? I doubt we would
It can't be a reset when you have the majority of your team/squad who have tried and failed before Crawley, Lawrence, Bairstow Woakes, Woakes, Overton and Leach have all been dropped at various points in the last 18 months for not being good enough, yet the ECB think a "reset" is to bring them back and expect different results
Leach I feel sorry for as his treatment as our "spinner" has been shocking. Hes hardly played then expected to perform miracles The rest, what are they coached? Central contracts doesn't seem to involve coaching apart from the few days before and after tests
Leach actually has a decent record considering how much he's been mucked about. He reminds me of Ashley Giles - not the most threatening spinner but will hold up an end and get 2-70
been away for the weekend and just caught up with the scores...'the english way' is certainly not working, whatever that is it does come across that as long as a bowler hits a good line and length then he could get smacked all over the ground for non stop boundaries, for the batsmen, i think it might be all about how they walk to the crease and back again, from what i have seen it has nowt to do with performances...either that or our lads just crumble when it comes to test cricket.
I'm tempted to try Billings. Played enough County cricket. Full of enthusiasm unlike Root who now has none. God knows why they thought our 3rd choice bowling attack would be good enough.
Root was made captain because he was the best batsman. Everyone knows this. But everyone has also , at one time or another had a boss who was just not the right cloth. So it is with Joe. He has no imagination at all in the field, copes badly when things go wrong and appears to favour friends in the team. Okay when they are Ben Stokes, ( though he clearly should not have been prevailed on in the winter), but not when it is Chris Woakes , or Craig Overton for instance. It is amazing that his batting has held together, and it is not his fault that the team is in sharp transition, but "starting again" with a near 34 year old who was always poor away and whose best days are long gone and a 28 year who will never be a good test bowler is on him. I'd imagine Stokes as captain. Less bowling from him, but a young attack, with the odd game from Broad or Anderson. It will take time, but the change is overdue, and the players will respond to Stokes, who is a born leader. Just looking at Durham, both Potts and Carse are more likely to make it at test level than Overton . There are others and it is past time to try them.
this 'middle order batting collapse' is nowt new as it seems to have been englands problem for ages now and we seem to struggle to find a couple of good bowlers as well, maybe we need to change our way of looking at the game and training methods, although i would presume 'world wide' methods are employed now. probably goes back to a previous post of mine where 'the empire' not only had some english thinking they were superior to others and many simply not expecting to beat us so they did not really try or did not have the facilities we did...they see us a wee bit like the rest of div 3 see s.a.f.c. as the big fish to be taken down, maybe they up their game against england and we have just forgotten how to push ourselves for that extra 10%.
Managed to avoid watching it yesterday, Saturdays viewing was bad enough. I still fail to see how and what these central contracts are achieving apart from a bit more money for the players and more rest. You never hear of the centrally contracted players actually practising or getting coaching, yet often hear "player x is taking a break to recharge / rest" Surely the best thing for the test squad is to be going back to county cricket and actually playing some games before the next series starts? I appreciate some will be involved with the limited over stuff, but any that aren't should be gearing up for the first game in the CC? The whole system seems broken to me, take Leach as an example, hardly played for 2 years now, if he wasn't going to play then release him back to his county to play and practice. I just can't see how we can expect players to improve if half the time they are not even playing
