England cricket squad for 1st test v Pakistan

[nil_desperandum]

I wouldn't change captain mid series and filling out a team with bits and pieces allrounders has been a proven failure in the past. Got to be a test standard in at least one skill. Papering over the cracks with the next Dermot Reeve isn't the way I hope they take the test team.

Isn't Root appointed for this series?, so that's not an option anyway, but I think we should be looking at a potential long-term replacement for the next series.
In the past I would have agreed with you totally about the "Dermot Reeve" type selection policy, but at present it strikes me that the likes of Woakes, Buttler and Moeen Ali are better batters than those batting at he top of the order in some mediocre Championship teams, (as has been demonstrated by recent experiments with 2nd rate players towards the top of the order.)
I can see the potential for Livingstone to make the grade if he is thrown in there, and as I said in my previous post - if not Livingstone, then who do you suggest as the potential contenders? (They don't exactly jump out at you).

[CleggHall]

Sadly there is a dearth of talent in English cricket, Livingstone has not played test cricket yet so captaincy is some way off. Jennings, Hameed, Lyth, Ballance, Vince etc have been tried and failed. It is time to rebuild but there is no straw/bricks, we must be patient and take the losses on the chin. Root to continue as captain until something better emerges.

[TheFamilyCat]

To be fair to Hameed, he hasn't tried and failed. He tried, did well and then broke his finger.

His county form since then though has been abysmal.

[nil_desperandum]

Root to continue as captain until something better emerges.

Sorry that makes no sense at all. We keep losing matches - and badly.
Root captaining the side appears to be detrimental to his own performances and batting average, and is certainly not helping the team, (or so results would suggest).
Even if we struggle to find the right captain, we might at least release Root from the burden of captaincy and let him start enjoying the game again. He was always enthusiatic and energetic until he became captain. Where's the smile gone?
He's not likely to score shed-loads of runs whilst he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The advantage of appointing a young virtual unknown is that they are not worn down and jaded by defeat, and they aren't part of the current "club".
Of all the current County captains Vince looks the strongest candidate, but unfortunately his International appearances suggest that he hasn't the application and temperament for the job.

[Steve-Harpers-perm]

Poor stuff from England again as Agnew and co pointed out we don’t just get beat in the final session of the 5th day we get absolutely hammered within a few days. Time for a change at the top with someone who understands he concept of test cricket.

[tybfc]

Sorry that makes no sense at all. We keep losing matches - and badly.
Root captaining the side appears to be detrimental to his own performances and batting average, and is certainly not helping the team, (or so results would suggest).
Even if we struggle to find the right captain, we might at least release Root from the burden of captaincy and let him start enjoying the game again. He was always enthusiatic and energetic until he became captain. Where's the smile gone?
He's not likely to score shed-loads of runs whilst he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The advantage of appointing a young virtual unknown is that they are not worn down and jaded by defeat, and they aren't part of the current "club".
Of all the current County captains Vince looks the strongest candidate, but unfortunately his International appearances suggest that he hasn't the application and temperament for the job.

We need Root's runs and he isn't scoring them as captain.

He doesn't look happy at all either in the field or batting and his decisions as captain have been awful.

I am sure that it would be a weight off his shoulders if the captaincy was taken from him.

[tiger76]

Poor stuff from England again as Agnew and co pointed out we don’t just get beat in the final session of the 5th day we get absolutely hammered within a few days. Time for a change at the top with someone who understands he concept of test cricket.

Lost this test on the first morning crazy decision to bat first but having made the call,Root should have led from the front not gift his wicket,Buttler and Bess salvaged some pride but by this time Pakistan were coasting in the evening session on day 3,once they regrouped on day 4 England again rolled over meekly.I agree the whole set-up needs reviewing seperate the one-day/t20 from the test players if necessary but the players on central contracts have it too easy need a shock to the system,who the replacements would be is when the problems emerge,Jennings has to be given a shot next test surely,Stoneman is out of his depth Malan has shown he can score runs at test level so i'd give him another chance,Vince is similar to the captain looks classy for 40-70 then gets out,England need one of the top 4 to score centuries regularly to give the bowlers some hope of building pressure.

[Quickenthetempo]

Jennings will open in the next Test reported a couple of hours ago.

People are putting far too much weight on Batting first. It was the right decision as it would take crazy conditions to bowl first in a Test Match as the format is so heavily biased in the Batting first side's favour.
The conditions stayed the same for long periods we just got outplayed by a decent side.

I was impressed with Pakistan's back up bowlers as they're was no respite. Where as teams playing us just block Anderson Broad and wait for the lesser bowlers.

[tybfc]

Jennings will open in the next Test reported a couple of hours ago.

People are putting far too much weight on Batting first. It was the right decision as it would take crazy conditions to bowl first in a Test Match as the format is so heavily biased in the Batting first side's favour.
The conditions stayed the same for long periods we just got outplayed by a decent side.

I was impressed with Pakistan's back up bowlers as they're was no respite. Where as teams playing us just block Anderson Broad and wait for the lesser bowlers.

Could not disagree more.

The pitch was green on the first day and the conditions were a dream for quick bowlers.

Why choose to bat???????

Pakistan were going to bowl had they had won the toss.

Day three the wicket had turned white hence little movement but the damage had already been done on day one at 10.30am.

[CleggHall]

Agreed ty, Root got carried away that Lords took spin last year (on day 5 ) and he thought he had a decent spinner Bess in his lineup. Have yet to hear anyone go along with his decision to bat first. What did Anderson, Broad and Wood think of this decision? It would be nice to know. Root is an inexperienced captain, lost a big game against Middlesex for Yorks a couple of years ago,he can only learn and get better, there's no-one else.

[ClaretTony]

The pitch was green on the first day and the conditions were a dream for quick bowlers.

Atherton pointed that out in commentary yesterday. Totally different pitch after the first day. If in doubt, bat first, was always the thought, but this was very definitely a put them in wicket.


I did think we'd make more than one change, but Stoneman had to go. Is Jennings the answer? Not from what we've see of him so far in test cricket.

[Quickenthetempo]

Could not disagree more.

The pitch was green on the first day and the conditions were a dream for quick bowlers.

Why choose to bat???????

Pakistan were going to bowl had they had won the toss.

Day three the wicket had turned white hence little movement but the damage had already been done on day one at 10.30am.

It's fine to have a different opinion Ty.

Lords has often looked a green pitch but turned out to be placid, a Chief Exec pitch as they get called.

[tybfc]

It's fine to have a different opinion Ty.

Lords has often looked a green pitch but turned out to be placid, a Chief Exec pitch as they get called.

Try telling that to people with tickets for days 4 & 5

Root cocked up. End of.

[JarrowClaret]

I understood Roots reasoning it may have been a difficult 4th innings 5th Day pitch BUT you have to get there before it becomes that. I would have bowled first but I don’t think Roots decision was the reason or the main reason we lost though, it was purely awful Batting in the main ordinary Bowling and dog toffee fielding that cost us.

[claretspice]

There's always too much hand-wringing after these occasions, and its also too easy to find individuals to blame rather than acknowledging systemic failings that are more difficult to solve. Same way that every failure in a major tournament results in the England football manager being hung out to dry, and perhaps the odd key player being painted as a villain.

Root probably made an error with the toss, but these things happen. However, it doesn't excuse the poverty of the batting performance on the first day, and in any event given how England bowled and Pakistan batted in Pakistan's first innings, I'm not sure the toss determined too much any way.

I still think the decision to go with 4 right arm fast-medium seamers was a bit safe, and there are some kids on the circuit with genuine pace and/or bounce who warrant a go (Olly Stone, Josh Tongue). In that sense the squad was a bit safe. However, the batting line up pretty much picked itself with the exception of Buttler, who did OK in the second innings - my only criticism is that to have 2 of the top 7 jetting straight in from the IPL without a single warm up was more than a bit complacent.

Stoneman has lost his place for the next test, but in truth he's not done much wrong and he's a victim of the clamour for change, any change. He gained his place on debatable grounds last year because Jennings lost form and the players identified as having real potential weren't in form, and he's lost it on similarly dubious grounds. The fact is that we've stopped producing test quality opening batsmen, and we subject those who might to a job to such extraordinary scrutiny and criticism (hello, Bob Willis) that it's imposssible for them to flourish.

The lack of test class fast bowlers coming through the ranks, and test class opening batsmen, are two different symptoms of the same problem. Its a long term problem requiring long term solutions, and there's no reason to believe that changing captain, coach, or shuffling the selection pack, will speed up the recovery.

[Foulthrow]

I’d make Jimmy skipper. I can’t see it having any impact on his bowling. He’s got bags of experience and, unlike most fast bowlers, he fields close in anyway. I’ve never understood why bowlers aren’t considered as captains.

[RocketLawnChair]

We bowled ok 360 was about par on that wicket if not slightly below.

The batting on the other hand is desperately poor. I agree we should have a plan of how we want to play as a unit and the overriding feeling is we want to play positive cricket BUT there comes a point when somebody has too say however, and this is where Roots captaincy is flawed, in that first innings last Thursday they were like lemmings of a cliff. Then come the second innings it was as if they'd read the media criticism and decided to shut up shop completely and Stoneman and Malan in particular just dropped anchor and let half volley after half volley drift through to the wicket keeper. And this is where the top players just play the situation and play the bowling on its merit. We have too many batting to instructions it simply doesn't work.

[Papabendi]

Have we really gone from being the no1 in Test cricket to, in the space of five or six years, no hopers with systemic issues?
We would be expecting some bigger Test scores than this if we were playing 20/20 cricket, quite frankly, so to my mind, it is severe under performance and poor coaching at work first and foremost.

It should be remembered that at the point Bayliss came in, the Test team was in reasonable health and all the issues that needed fixing were with the white ball. That looks to have been his focus and look where we are now.

I will be very interested to see how the Test team fares once Bayliss is gone (which to my mind can't come soon enough).

[Dark Cloud]

Whilst the batting hasn't been at all good for a while and I totally agree Root has found being captain (which he doesn't seem cut out for) and scoring runs at the same time difficult, even though he really is our classiest batsman, we can lose sight of the fact that none of our bowlers, including Broad and Anderson look particularly menacing any more. The conditions should really have suited all our pace bowlers, but the opposition actually exploited them far better. The problems go well beyond just batting issues imo. Broad works hard, but really offers little threat and his batting which was once half decent has become absolutely woeful.

[claretspice]

Whilst the batting hasn't been at all good for a while and I totally agree Root has found being captain (which he doesn't seem cut out for) and scoring runs at the same time difficult, even though he really is our classiest batsman, we can lose sight of the fact that none of our bowlers, including Broad and Anderson look particularly menacing any more. The conditions should really have suited all our pace bowlers, but the opposition actually exploited them far better. The problems go well beyond just batting issues imo. Broad works hard, but really offers little threat and his batting which was once half decent has become absolutely woeful.

In his last 15 tests, in a variety of different conditions, with different balls and in a generally underperforming team, Anderson has his wickets at 19, which is extraordinarily menacing. Broad had a poor Ashes tour but bowled pretty well in New Zealand and the fact is that they're the two best bowlers we've got. The issue is the lack of long term successors apparent.

Have we really gone from being the no1 in Test cricket to, in the space of five or six years, no hopers with systemic issues?
We would be expecting some bigger Test scores than this if we were playing 20/20 cricket, quite frankly, so to my mind, it is severe under performance and poor coaching at work first and foremost.

It should be remembered that at the point Bayliss came in, the Test team was in reasonable health and all the issues that needed fixing were with the white ball. That looks to have been his focus and look where we are now.

I will be very interested to see how the Test team fares once Bayliss is gone (which to my mind can't come soon enough).

A generation of players has got old and the replacements haven't really been of the same calibre. We haven't produced a test class opening (or number 3) batsman, or a test class opening bowler (or arguably any test class bowler), in over a decade. No long-form cricket team can cope with that sort of dearth of talent.

It was never Bayliss' job to improve the players - it was his job to deal with the finished article and create an atmosphere in which they could flourish. He's done that in both test and ODIs - its just that the finished articles are better, and more finished, in the ODI set up. As Bayliss himself said, there's 16-17 players good enough for the ODI team, and 7-8 good enough for the test team. That's the system's fault, not one hired hand's.

[Dark Cloud]

You make a number of good points Spice and I think the underlying issue running through it all is that test match cricket is still very,very appealing to thousands of people in England (and in Australia when they're playing us), but generally it's losing (or has lost) it's appeal as crowds prefer the shorter forms of the game and people who can actually watch and enjoy the tooing and froing of a 5 day game and people who have the mentality to actually play the 5 day game are dwindling. In fairness many players probably aren't that fussed as the financial rewards and kudos in the shorter games are much bigger.

[joey13]

In his last 15 tests, in a variety of different conditions, with different balls and in a generally underperforming team, Anderson has his wickets at 19, which is extraordinarily menacing. Broad had a poor Ashes tour but bowled pretty well in New Zealand and the fact is that they're the two best bowlers we've got. The issue is the lack of long term successors apparent.



A generation of players has got old and the replacements haven't really been of the same calibre. We haven't produced a test class opening (or number 3) batsman, or a test class opening bowler (or arguably any test class bowler), in over a decade. No long-form cricket team can cope with that sort of dearth of talent.

It was never Bayliss' job to improve the players - it was his job to deal with the finished article and create an atmosphere in which they could flourish. He's done that in both test and ODIs - its just that the finished articles are better, and more finished, in the ODI set up. As Bayliss himself said, there's 16-17 players good enough for the ODI team, and 7-8 good enough for the test team. That's the system's fault, not one hired hand's.

Not Bayliss job to improve players ?
It’s not his job to make them worse , the test team has gone back 20 years since he took over