The weeks pass so quickly and Test cricket gets squeezed into a schedule and has to play second fiddle to what has come to be known as ‘franchise cricket’, the thirst for cash ruins everything. The result is the greatest game is suffering in terms of quality and a bloody test series is over as soon as it has begun. None of which excuses two poor performances from England which allowed a 1-0 advantage to slip away, this after the amazing, record breaking first test. What is going on? How can England be so good one week and so poor the next? We can’t point to injuries this time because we fielded two first choice elevens and good selection has been a feature of the BB era. Maybe I should blame myself, every time I heap loads of praise on them -“…best team in the world…” etc. they fall flat on their faces. However if the team plays with some consistency then this best in the world accolade would become reality.
What has to
change? Our last team to be number one
in the world was Andrew Strauss’ team in 2011/12, in which all of the top seven
batsmen averaged over forty. In our
current top three we have two players averaging under thirty five. England’s brains trust like having Crawley
come out and bat like a number six and when it comes off it is spectacular but
when it doesn’t we give the opposition a start.
To be fair Crawley’s form has mostly been going in the right direction
recently but he’s been fortunate to get the opportunity to play fifty Test
matches. The leading openers in county
cricket are the likes of Jennings, Hameed, Lees and Burns all of whom have been
tried and discarded before. Then we have
Ollie Pope who has played a couple more tests and has also had more chances
than most test cricketers who have similar numbers. Surely both these players must find form to retain
their places?
The captain has been
questioned this week but his place is certainly not in question however I wonder
what is his playing role these days? If
he is still a genuine all rounder then fine, we know form is temporary and he’ll
be firing again soon. But if his bowling
days are over then the balance of the side is altered and the line up must
change. In this case I’d have to say
goodbye to Pope, bat Stokes at three, move Smith up a place and play him purely
as a batsman then pick a proper wicket keeper, Jordan Cox looks like getting a
chance in this spot in the near future.
Our pace bowling unit
has had big changes enforced upon it in the last twelve months and a few
players have taken their chances; Atkinson has had an excellent start to his
career and the likes of Potts, Stone, Carse and Tongue have done okay but none
of these should stand in the way of fully fit Mark Wood and dare I say it Jofra
Archer. I like Chris Woakes and would
have him around for a home series, specially if the captain isn’t bowling. Ironically our spin bowlers are looking good, I
say ironic because we won’t be playing in Asia again for a few years now so it
will be rare to have more than one spinner in the XI. So we get to choose between Leach when fit,
the almost forgotten Tom Hartley and the current first choice Shoaib Bashir. However for me the most exciting spinner is
Rehan Ahmed and I’d love to see him in the side more regularly. His younger brother is said to be even better
and hopefully one of these players could develop into a genuine all rounder
because I have a feeling that space will be vacant sooner than any of us would
like.
Next up are three
test matches in New Zealand beginning at the end of November. The Kiwi’s are always hard to beat (as
recently demonstrated in India!) but we should expect England on top form to
win comfortably. If not then it should
be time for some hard questions. Oh yeah
there’s some white ball stuff coming up later this week too, I might take a
passing interest…
