England Cricket Team Thread

[Lord Rother]

Haven’t seen it but on TMS they agreed it was a mutual cock up and that they both decided 2 was on, so blame equally apportioned.

[Diamond Dog]

Haven’t seen it but on TMS they agreed it was a mutual cock up and that they both decided 2 was on, so blame equally apportioned.

Really? On TV they were saying it was definitely Bairstow's call.. it looks to be to me....but if it was a joint decision, they both need their bollocks kicking.

[Penk!]

Bairstow, of course, is an even worse culprit than Root for chucking away his wicket at vital times. But whoever’s fault it was, it just seems Root is cursed.

Meanwhile lots of comments that there is a lot of movement available for the bowlers. As long as England don’t pitch it too short...

[Penk!]

So, Dawid Malan made just 8 and has now dropped Kohli twice in the slips. One innings to save his test career...

[Darkness_Fish]

Heeeey, it's the England Batting Collapse (TM)

[Diamond Dog]

86-6.

Going swimmingly then.

[Lord Rother]

We are useless.

[Penk!]

A shambles. At some point the Powers That Be need to wake up to the fact that serious changes are needed.

India have bowled really well but the batting has been beyond pathetic. It must be so frustrating for someone like Anderson to compare this shower to the excellent team he played in five years ago. For him to bowl his heart out yesterday only for the catching to let him down.

[never/ever]

Bad light to the rescue!

[Lord Rother]

Not advocating throwing the baby out with the dishwater (hang on, is that really an expression?) but when youngsters come in and make an impression (talent, temperament and balls) stay with them as we have had too many good players in recent years with only 1 or 2 of those attributes.

[mentalist (slight return)]

You're all a bit harsh. A tight contest between two well matched sides, one however which has Virat Kohli. I fear what will happen here during our summer against India, with the suspended Smith & Warner not eligible to play.

[Rayge]

erm... wow.

[never/ever]

You're all a bit harsh. A tight contest between two well matched sides, one however which has Virat Kohli. I fear what will happen here during our summer against India, with the suspended Smith & Warner not eligible to play.

C'mon. Schadenfreude is all we have left here.

[Rayge]

well, I never

[never/ever]

We are useless.

[Penk!]

You're all a bit harsh. A tight contest between two well matched sides, one however which has Virat Kohli.

I don't think so. England bowled superbly and their fielding improved a lot in the second innings; there was, however, still time for another Malan drop which was fortunately not too costly this time. And Root took some smart risks this morning, which paid off.

This shouldn't though overshadow the fact that the batting was once again largely disastrous, needing a raw 20-year-old to save the day yesterday. The bowlers simply cannot keep bailing out the flimsy, lackadaisical batting. Root and Bairstow need to knuckle down and stop getting out for 63s and 82s. Malan needs to go and someone in-form needs to come in: I imagine it will be Clarke, who has reportedly been training with the England team recently. Burns has also been making piles of runs but he is another left-hander and an opener and I expect he is pencilled in to come in for Jennings or Cook, whichever of them fails to convince in this series. I do suspect that Cook's eyes are going - he has a couple of double-hundreds in the last year but nothing else, which suggests he's finding it harder to get himself in, and his catching has been poor too. But are there enough good openers out there to replace both of them? How's Gubbins doing this year?

India's batting was also dreadful, but that was more to be expected with a group of batsmen who have for the most part never left their subcontinental comfort zone coming up against an experienced and talented bowling attack in their favoured conditions. Even Kohli, as brilliant as he was later on, should have been out two or three times early in the first innings and his first 60-70 runs all came off the edge.

That all said, England usually buck their ideas up after the first test of a home series. India may have had their chance and blown it... or perhaps they will bring in Pujara and Khumar and sort themselves out.

[Lord Rother]

Hadn’t read Penk’s post before I typed this reply to Maarts. Looks like he’s already covered a lot of what I said below....

We are useless.

Ok, ok.

But we were playing against a 1 man batting outfit.

And our batting was terrible. Bowlers were excellent.

I know we won’t change anything much after winning but we really really should. Cook has been awful for ages. The double century in Australia apart, he has done nothing. Drop him to No. 3 as a last chance if they can’t bring themselves to drop him but he can’t handle the quicks with a hard ball in their hand anymore.

And Malan is hapless.

I’d actually consider bring an in-form Ian Bell back to add a bit of experience and orthodoxy into the team. I also have a hankering for Morgan but not sure a middle order of Morgan, Bairstow, Stokes and Buttler has enough stability about it.

Clarke and Ollie Pope seem to be the next in line, so, if they don’t fancy Bell, get one of them in now.

Jennings
Burns
Root
Bell
Bairstow
Stokes
Buttler
Curran
Rashid
Broad
Anderson

Cook is a hugely likeable and honest guy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he retires from Test cricket himself, mid series.

[mentalist (slight return)]

You're all a bit harsh. A tight contest between two well matched sides, one however which has Virat Kohli.

I don't think so. England bowled superbly and their fielding improved a lot in the second innings; there was, however, still time for another Malan drop which was fortunately not too costly this time. And Root took some smart risks this morning, which paid off.

This shouldn't though overshadow the fact that the batting was once again largely disastrous, needing a raw 20-year-old to save the day yesterday. The bowlers simply cannot keep bailing out the flimsy, lackadaisical batting. Root and Bairstow need to knuckle down and stop getting out for 63s and 82s. Malan needs to go and someone in-form needs to come in: I imagine it will be Clarke, who has reportedly been training with the England team recently. Burns has also been making piles of runs but he is another left-hander and an opener and I expect he is pencilled in to come in for Jennings or Cook, whichever of them fails to convince in this series. I do suspect that Cook's eyes are going - he has a couple of double-hundreds in the last year but nothing else, which suggests he's finding it harder to get himself in, and his catching has been poor too. But are there enough good openers out there to replace both of them? How's Gubbins doing this year?

India's batting was also dreadful, but that was more to be expected with a group of batsmen who have for the most part never left their subcontinental comfort zone coming up against an experienced and talented bowling attack in their favoured conditions. Even Kohli, as brilliant as he was later on, should have been out two or three times early in the first innings and his first 60-70 runs all came off the edge.

That all said, England usually buck their ideas up after the first test of a home series. India may have had their chance and blown it... or perhaps they will bring in Pujara and Khumar and sort themselves out.

Fair enough. Malan looked pretty good in Australia, thought he'd be in the side for a while, but looking precarious now. You're a better judge than I as all I do is go to Cricinfo. Anyhow for Australia's sake I hope you do a job on India.

[Jumper K]

Ian Bell is not the answer. James Hildreth is.

[Penk!]

Seems it’s neither Clarke, Bell nor Hildreth: they’ve gone for Olly Pope. I don’t know much about him except that he’s scored a lot of runs - he has a first-class average of 63, albeit from just 15 games.