Despite a slight purple patch England surrender a 93 run lead and now bat. This is it now. Meed to man up and deliver.
It looks as though the innings defeat will be saved but not.much else. England have dropped their only real test bowlers for unfit odi bowlers (at best) on the grounds of some sort of future build but went with the same captain and same failed test batsmen who have done precisely what they did v India and Australia. Ask wafted at balls or left them and stupidly. Half of all English wickets are thrown away pas per. Not many done by a great ball is there. Somehow need to get a 100 lead here.
Pick 11 players for england and pick coaches that will work with them on how to keep a straight bat. IMO there should be 5/6 batsmen Burn - no. not a good technique. not a solid scoring option. Sibley - no - woeful Crawley - very few decent showings. very few. but a straight bat. Might be stuck with this. pope- no hope pope more like malan - meh Root -only as batsman. 3rd/4th not sure which now. Lawrence - another T20 hacker. Baristow - yesterday's man. has tried his best to develop form an odi specialist but is a long way shy. wicket keeper Buttler - can't bat. i dunno whats wrong with this lad but he won't ****ing swing away and is constantly out. Bat like its ODI Foakes - average allrounder Stokes. seam Bowling Simple as... anderson. cannot leave the only guy who knows how to test bowl out when you want to educate new players Robinson - average enough player tbh. woakes as a spare option which shows how bad it really is. (cos he can swing a bat mostly) Broad - cos theres nobody else. Spinner: England's options are a disgrace ehre and its a profound lack of willingness to back anyone and actually develop them. Leach is a pathetic but only option. root frankly should be told to either be an all rounder of get his mits off the ball. meanwhile england squad for t20 Eoin Morgan (Middlesex – captain), Moeen Ali (Worcestershire), Tom Banton (Somerset), Sam Billings (Kent), Liam Dawson (Hampshire), George Garton (Sussex), Chris Jordan (Surrey), Liam Livingstone (Lancashire), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Tymal Mills (Sussex), David Payne (Gloucestershire), Adil Rashid (Yorkshire), Jason Roy (Surrey), Phil Salt (Lancashire), Reece Topley (Surrey), James Vince (Hampshire). I just see a lot of players who tried and failed at longer form game. I simply do not see a way out of this for england. they will need to just hope for hundreds from root and wickets form the oud fellas this summer. they've just lost to the worst "real" test side in cricket. thats reality. they play NZ and SA and are more focused on world T20 and ODI this year. #deadsport.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60895801 Root gone. had to put himself out of his own misery which is classic england weakness. Right call. Just go focus on hitting centuries and then stop selecting oneself as a bowler as well, move from first slip as well. Just too conservative
Hopenit doesn’t tar his reputation and legacy as hell go down as one of England greatest ever batsmen when he finally retired. Still only 31 and should have another 3-4 years easily
I don't see it as such. All captains end up in disgrace really But in the end his record as captain might be a lot of runs but is is stark in terms of not winning much (aka best was drawing ashes in 2019 but not taking the ashes form australia) but playing a shed load of tests Hockeyed away by australia drew pakistan Beat india 4-1 Beat sri lanka away Draw ashes at home 2-2 beat SA away (high point imo) beat windies (no big deal) beat pakistan in empty grounds 1-0 over 3 tests sri lanka win India absolute hockeying (the start of the england selector messing imo) Ashes absolute hockeying Windies hockeying I think he did fine in the middle there against what I'd call the midtable sides but really england are focused on T20 and ODI world cups etc and imo set the side up for failure constantly and this has built to the point where roots living a nightmare and rightly stepped down. to even think to go away to windies without broad and anderson even in a wider party to pass on knowledge and expectations to new bowlers shows the mentality and stupidity at selector level. Root should have resigned before that tour. In the end what will england go do? simple. straight to stokes who's half fit at best and he will then don the superman cloak and try to it all as per. Its not like england are dripping in options though but again that is absolutely symptomatic of the failure to focus on test cricket.
He’s just been let down by quality of squad ultimately. All england batsmen face 70mph dobbers on green pitches all summer in county game and then go to test matches and face 90mph bowlers on decent pitches around the world and suddenly show that just can’t cope.
there is that for sure. the entire set up is to focus on the money makers not the long form game. But in the end he can only take responsibility for own actions which have been quite negative at times tactically. He has to focus now on batting. no 3 or no 4 for a new captain.
Well that's that. The obvious stupidity has been delivered. Stokes as England captain. Fully expect to see him bat bowl and field until broken totally. He should refuse himself from bowling totally here to do that but won't imo. He will now open the bowling ffs.
England team takes shape. 1. 2. 3. Root 4. 5. 6. Stokes 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Stokes to open bowling and bowl from both ends while also standing at first slip All going as predicted thus far.
Stokes has now proclaimed that root will.be no 4 not no 3. So that's England 3 down in every game before batting starts Who plays 1, 2 and 3 then?
1. Burns/lees 2. Crawley 3. ? 4. Root 5. Bairstow 6. Stokes 7. Folkes(w) 8. Woakes 9. Robinson 10. ? 11. Anderson So England zero top order. Little backing in the midfield and a hapless unbalanced bowling line up as they won't ever back a spinner despite now having 5 seamers with stokes probably deciding he opens the bowling
