team for the next game is now announced again.
England squad: Joe Root (capt), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Rory Burns, Jos Buttler (wk), Sam Curran, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
tragic squad
Burns - has done better with hameed smee to like running the singles
Hameed - Starts well but goes negative. needs to get this out of his game
Malan - done "ok" but not brilliant.
Root - one average test after many marvellous ones but captaincy needs positivity.
Pope - mixed.
Bairstow- terrible batting - Does he get dropped??
Buttler - has been poor with bat.
8. ?
9. ?
Robinson - has done really well in england, big tests in the future but solid for this test
Anderson - one innings man now??
the issues here are fairly stark. woakes and overton did ok, good accuracy and applied pressure but fell away and we are headed for old trafford.
I would possibly do the following:
a) Drop bairstow given his lack of runs. He will be a specialist batsman here and 20-30 isn't enough.
b) put woakes in as no 7. thats your seamer right there. Promote buttler to 6 and be done with it.
c) Put alli in no 8. he can score but the instruction has to be get 30 not score big so he might as well just have at it and hope.
d) put leech as no 9. You've brought him in. use him or don't bother.
e) have to think about wood here. faster pace is at least something different, but i'm out of spaces so anderson is the only one and i can't remove him for old trafford can i?
I look at that 1 to 6 and think flaky with the bat. I look at them and think not great fielding either. so i've no confidence in it.
I look at anderson and am only putting him in due to pressure and maybe for 10 overs in a day he will threaten. This then puts huge pressure on the two spinners and robinson and woakes to bowl for a long time. Add in a bit of root spin too.
thats 6 possible bowling options and 3 are spin, purely on the basis of it is old trafford.
I still think wood would have a big shout here.