England's winter of cricket 2024/25

First topic message reminder :

The squad for the tour of Pakistan has just been announced...Stokes and Crawley are back, with Dan Lawrence dropped. There are also recalls for Rehan Ahmed and Jack Leach, with Brydon Carse getting a tour also.

Full squad (likely XI then others);

Zak Crawley
Ben Duckett
Ollie Pope
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes
Jamie Smith (wk)
Gus Atkinson
Olly Stone
Jack Leach
Shoaib Bashir

Reserves:
Jordan Cox
Brydon Carse
Rehan Ahmed
Chris Woakes
Josh Hull
Matthew Potts

Will MacPherson noting they see Tom Hartley as more suited for the true turning wickets of SL/India/Bangladesh, hence his omission. Tests likely to be played at Rawalpindi, Multan, Rawalpindi. (Two Pindi tests...fun).

Extra seamers suggest Stokes might not be fit to bowl?

England's heads have gone and with it the series

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:I know Pakistan's results have not been good, but I struggle to see this England side getting near to replicating what they did in 2022 in Pakistan.
The seam bowling is significantly weaker, no Stokes bowling either (as he was on that tour) or to provide balance....and generally poorer preparation coming here right off the back of the English summer.
Pakistan's bowling also at this point looks STREETS better than it has been recently and was in 2022. We'll see how it plays of course.

Absolutely screams Pakistan 2-1 series win to me.

Nailed it - and made a nice pound or two in the process.

KP_fan wrote:

Duty281 wrote:  

It's a curious series. Pakistan are in a dreadful state and there's an argument that they're the weakest WTC team around right now. No wins in their last ten tests at home. Shocking. England should be targeting a 3-0 win, and I hope they've learned from the slap in the face SL gave them.

Pak have hit their nadir. They cannot go lower while going up is a possibility.
Pak are a nation whose cricketing passion cannot be doubted not do they lack skills. All that they need to do is get rid of 4 or 5 warring seniors and plug-in talent from their reasonably good FC system.
A younger cohesive team cannot do worse.
If I was PCB, I would order a rank turning pitch and in a lottery that would given them a 50% win chance which is not a bad probability.

Therein lies Eng's problem....that they are somewhat likely to find a  resurgent Pak....and Pak's loss to BD and Eng's own show last time  has set reference bar at 3-0 for a good performance.
Eng should be careful and play "proper" test cricket and be ready to take 1-0 or 2-1 win also as a good result.

Let me also claim "Nailed it" about a month and a half back  
Although I didn't punt any Dollars on it.
Had PCB listened to me they too would have nailed it 3-0

Not nearly good enough with the bat but I think this game largely turned when England managed to turn a 90 run lead with 3 wickets left to take into a 70 run deficit. Recriminations aside it's been a major issue for a while now that England don't close out innings.

More than a few will be glad there's no return to Asia for a while

I see everyone lining up to claim their brilliant pre-series predictions

Fair enough : though I imagine Duty won't want to revisit his over-optimistic assertion that England would prevail 3-0 without breaking sweat...

Not sure any of us quite knew what would actually unfold though. The first game , on a flat pitch , went exactly the same way as the previous tour. So Pakistan were forced to do something completely different : sack the selectors , dump their best pace bowlers and most experienced batsman - and pick , not some new and youthful find , but a couple of veteran journeymen spinners...not to mention manufacturing a weird pitch or two...and it worked a charm.

Should it have ? I do think England displayed very little cricketing sense in much of their play over these two games. In truth they are very poorly equipped for matches on seriously spin-friendly pitches (a number of the batsmen simply haven't a clue how to play on them ; and the spinners are moderate at best by comparison with opponents more attuned to such conditions). Even so , I reckon they made a real mess of this last match - failing to take advantage of winning a vital toss by frankly brainless first day batting (Smith excepted : though even he threw it away just before tea when left with the tail - something Saud Shakeel didn't do the next day in a similar situation)

They had a real chance to take a grip with Pakistan 177/7 : unaccountably they seemed to fall away from their usual attack at all cost and allowed far too many risk free runs to Shakeel and his worthy spin bowler assistants . I really do not understand why : seems so opposite to anything I have seen from a Stokes-led team before


Once Pakistan ended up with that unexpected lead it seemed England were mentally beaten : the batting last night was limp - total contrast to the foolish gung-ho approach of day one but equally ineffective. Have been out all day at my own club so saw none of the final session but not at all surprised at the way it unfolded.

Very disappointing finish to the series . They will be thankful they aren't going back to Asia for two-three years ; but they probably have work to do to recover their previous confidence for any sort of contest after such a heavy pair of defeats. And the previously assumed set in stone top six might need to have a bit of a look at themselves before they resume action : don't want to be re-assessed as just a bunch of FTBs !

Hopefully we can avoid the football cry of "heads must roll !" . But a bit of serious introspection might be called for...

alfie wrote:
Hopefully we can avoid the football cry of "heads must roll !" .  But a bit of serious introspection might be called for...

Yes this is a disappointing series defeat - but still some positives within there, and definitely some work to be done.

Crawley/Pope should benefit most from the "no Asian tours" schedule we have upcoming - both look wholly uncomfortable in those conditions. I think they have earnt the NZ series and will need performances there to go into next summer with places assured. If not, some alternatives need to be explored or considered.

Stokes is a concern for me. Not the captain, the player. Since his comeback in 2020, his numbers outside England are atrocious...and he's barely bowling (he's bowled 102 overs in test cricket combined in 2023/2024). For reference pre-Covid, the least amount of overs he'd bowled in a year since he made the XI was in 2017, when he only played 7 games, 156.3 overs (he bowled 87 overs in three games in 2013, and 117.4 in three games in 2014).
The whole point of him is to balance the XI with that fourth seam option, and destructive batting at six. If he isn't bowling, then he becomes a specialist bat/captain, and his batting for a dedicated number six, isn't good enough at the moment.
If we're to have any hope of doing anything in Aus next winter, we need him to be able to bowl 10-15 viable overs a day. We cannot go in with four bowling options and Stokes/Root barely being a fifth bowler. If he can't do that, then his spot at 6 needs to be considered...(does he move up the order with more responsibility as Carlos has indicated? He does seem to bat better in "situations").

Would I like to see Brook be a tad more consistent? Definitely. I think it'll come though, he's still in the early part of his test career.

Positively though, I think Carse/Atkinson/Potts have all advanced their cases on this tour. In particular Atkinson and Carse, who look like they could be very handy players in the 8/9 spots in the XI. Atkinson continues to be just a very solid cricketer.
Duckett continues to be a good opener - he may not get the "big" hundreds, but he's doing his role well.

Spinner is one to watch - honestly I'd like to see them show more faith in Rehan. Bashir clearly has potential, but unless he makes a huge leap in the next 12 months, I'm not sure you can take a spinner who isn't of that good a level, who also doesn't offer anything with the bat and is poor in the field. Similarly, Leach isn't good enough to overcome his lack of another facet. Potentially Rehan could be, albeit his batting has been pretty woeful at international level so far. He's a good fielder though I think.

Just a complete embarrassment.

I don't believe my prediction was overly optimistic, although I've clearly overrated England. My predictions were actually the wrong way around. I thought Pakistan would win in 2022 because I thought they would learn from the debacle v Aus and prepare spinning pitches on which England would lose. But they didn't and England won. This year, I thought Pakistan were never going to learn and would just stay with the flat pitches, on which England might win. But they didn't and Pakistan won.

Let's remember how bad Pakistan are. They lost 2-0 to Bangladesh. They hadn't won a home test since early 2021. It was something like 5/6 straight test defeats going into this series.

And England have lost.

Stokes and McCullum's leadership needs to end now, not just wait for the inevitable crushing in Australia. We know they haven't made any improvements from what Root was doing. But in the sub continent, England have actually regressed. They've gone from being a team, under Root, who swept two series away v Sri Lanka (a Sri Lanka team better than Pakistan), and a team that crushed India in Chennai, scaring them into producing joke pitches; to a team that has lost to the worst form team in the WTC and got comprehensively annihilated by a much weaker Indian outfit than the one Root faced (further proven by NZ actually winning!).

That's the regression. Even the cult, the likes of Shelmit, will have to accept it. England have gone backwards under Stokes and McCullum. Just over two years now and this is where England are.

Stokes' captaincy, and McCullum's leadership, has been horrendous throughout. It's been characterised by embarrassing media comments, a weak mental attitude, awful jobs for the boys selections, hilarious field placements, baffling bowler choices and now poor results. These two have made error after error, but been bailed out at times by actually having a number of world-class players and coming up against poorly prepared opposition.

The series that England have managed to win under their leadership was v an injury hit Kiwi side, a dodgy unprepared SA side, an atrocious Pakistan side (who England now can't beat), and two simple home series against WI and SL. Oh and Ireland. England still can't beat NZ away, Aus at home (Aus were on track to win the series in England by 4 or 5 nil until Lyon's injury), now can't beat Pakistan away, and got annihilated by an India team that are no longer great. What a sum total.

Root's England have achieved more, we all know that.

Selections have been eye wateringly bad. Mates of Stokes/McCullum, like Crawley, like Pope, like Moeen (picking Moeen for the Ashes at 3 should have been a sackable offence), like Bairstow, given chance after chance. Poor options like Bashir and Hartley given preference over Leach and Dawson. Joke options like  Hull picked as well. What on earth is that all about? And if you're not one of the lads, if you're Lees, or Foakes, or Rehan, you're going to struggle.

Stokes in the field doesn't have a clue. He sets up weird ODI fields, gifting singles and twos. He seems to think every opponent also wants to blast away at 5 an over, and then doesn't react when nothing happens. Shakeel got something 70 singles for his century, which was a record. And Stokes has little idea on how to use his bowlers. We've seen it all before. Rehan, in this test, by far the best spinner of the three, but Stokes didn't use him immediately after lunch yesterday. It's awful. Bowling to the tail? Stokes is lost.

England's mental attitude is so weak as well. They crumble under the slightest challenge. No doubt it's down to the rubbish spouted by Stokes/McCullum about how entertainment is more important than winning, and it fosters a terrible mentality.  You see how low energy they are in the field when an opposition partnership develops. You see how easily collapses happen when put under the merest hint of pressure.

It's time to draw a line under Stokes and McCullum's failed leadership. This is England's worst test series result since losing away to the West Indies in 2019, and they're heading for their worst WTC performance so far. England have lost 50% of their WTC games so far, they've never done this bad.

It, of course, won't happen. We'll have to wait until the hammering in Australia before anything happens. Until then, England will carry passengers like Crawley and Pope, will continue to put Josh Hull in test squads, and will continue to bizarrely believe in Bashir as England's number one spinner.

The NZ series will be interesting.

alfie wrote:I see everyone lining up to claim their brilliant pre-series predictions

Fair enough : though I imagine Duty won't want to revisit his over-optimistic assertion that England would prevail 3-0 without breaking sweat...

Not sure any of us quite knew what would actually unfold though. The first game , on a flat pitch , went exactly the same way as the previous tour. So Pakistan were forced to do something completely different : sack the selectors , dump their best pace bowlers and most experienced batsman - and pick , not some new and youthful find , but a couple of veteran journeymen spinners...not to mention manufacturing a weird pitch or two...and it worked a charm.

Should it have ? I do think England displayed very little cricketing sense in much of their play over these two games. In truth they are very poorly equipped for matches on seriously spin-friendly pitches (a number of the batsmen simply haven't a clue how to play on them ; and the spinners are moderate at best by comparison with opponents more attuned to such conditions). Even so , I reckon they made a real mess of this last match  - failing to take advantage of winning a vital toss by frankly brainless first day batting (Smith excepted : though even he threw it away just before tea when left with the tail - something Saud Shakeel didn't do the next day in a similar situation)

They had a real chance to take a grip with Pakistan 177/7 : unaccountably they seemed to fall away from their usual attack at all cost and allowed far too many risk free runs to Shakeel and his worthy spin bowler assistants . I really do not understand why : seems so opposite to anything I have seen from a Stokes-led team before


Once Pakistan ended up with that unexpected lead it seemed England were mentally beaten : the batting last night was limp  - total contrast to the foolish gung-ho approach of day one but equally ineffective. Have been out all day at my own club so saw none of the final session but not at all surprised at the way it unfolded.

Very disappointing finish to the series . They will be thankful they aren't going back to Asia for two-three years ; but they probably have work to do to recover their previous confidence for any sort of contest after such a heavy pair of defeats. And the previously assumed set in stone top six might need to have a bit of a look at themselves before they resume action : don't want to be re-assessed as just a bunch of FTBs !

Hopefully we can avoid the football cry of "heads must roll !" .  But a bit of serious introspection might be called for...

I don't agree, it's how England usually bowl to the tail and lower order. Something that does predate Stokes. Why it happens, I don't know. But it is very bad.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

alfie wrote:
Hopefully we can avoid the football cry of "heads must roll !" .  But a bit of serious introspection might be called for...

Yes this is a disappointing series defeat - but still some positives within there, and definitely some work to be done.

Crawley/Pope should benefit most from the "no Asian tours" schedule we have upcoming - both look wholly uncomfortable in those conditions. I think they have earnt the NZ series and will need performances there to go into next summer with places assured. If not, some alternatives need to be explored or considered.

Stokes is a concern for me. Not the captain, the player. Since his comeback in 2020, his numbers outside England are atrocious...and he's barely bowling (he's bowled 102 overs in test cricket combined in 2023/2024). For reference pre-Covid, the least amount of overs he'd bowled in a year since he made the XI was in 2017, when he only played 7 games, 156.3 overs (he bowled 87 overs in three games in 2013, and 117.4 in three games in 2014).
The whole point of him is to balance the XI with that fourth seam option, and destructive batting at six. If he isn't bowling, then he becomes a specialist bat/captain, and his batting for a dedicated number six, isn't good enough at the moment.
If we're to have any hope of doing anything in Aus next winter, we need him to be able to bowl 10-15 viable overs a day. We cannot go in with four bowling options and Stokes/Root barely being a fifth bowler. If he can't do that, then his spot at 6 needs to be considered...(does he move up the order with more responsibility as Carlos has indicated? He does seem to bat better in "situations").

Would I like to see Brook be a tad more consistent? Definitely. I think it'll come though, he's still in the early part of his test career.

Positively though, I think Carse/Atkinson/Potts have all advanced their cases on this tour. In particular Atkinson and Carse, who look like they could be very handy players in the 8/9 spots in the XI. Atkinson continues to be just a very solid cricketer.
Duckett continues to be a good opener - he may not get the "big" hundreds, but he's doing his role well.

Spinner is one to watch - honestly I'd like to see them show more faith in Rehan. Bashir clearly has potential, but unless he makes a huge leap in the next 12 months, I'm not sure you can take a spinner who isn't of that good a level, who also doesn't offer anything with the bat and is poor in the field. Similarly, Leach isn't good enough to overcome his lack of another facet. Potentially Rehan could be, albeit his batting has been pretty woeful at international level so far. He's a good fielder though I think.

It's always been weird to me that they don't back Rehan, because backing an exciting leg spinner is surely the most attacking thing you can do. But they have a thing for 'high release points' above all else. Bashir will get destroyed in Australia. It's a very tough place for a finger spinner to go. Even Swann got destroyed in Australia (22 wickets @ 52).

Agree about Carse/Atkinson/Potts/Duckett.

Really unsure about Brook. He doesn't seem to have the mental toughness to score in difficult conditions and he gets frustrated too easily if he gets tied down. But he will score on flat decks.

I think Stokes still has enough worth as a home specialist bat on recent evidence, but away from home he's a waste of a spot at the moment. His bowling will never return to the old levels and I don't think the media expecting him to is of benefit.

I seriously doubt Crawley and Pope's place is under any sort of threat. Pope will probably get 200 v Zimbabwe next summer and be safe for another five years!

The match here and the one in India shows the value of slow leftarm bowling.

There was a time in England when all sides, including many club sides, had a SLA merchant. Most right-handers would admit they never enjoyed facing these types of bowlers.

Of course, England's plight against spin is not helped by the county championship schedule which sees matches pushed to April, May and September. The result? The likes of Pope and Crawley, when they do turn out for their counties, are playing predominantly seam bowling.

How many county matches has, say, Pope played in June, July and August? Not many, I wager. And what about the standard of slow bowling in county cricket? The top counties, knowing when matches are going to be played, are more likely to concentrate attacks on seam not spin.

Leach has emerged from all this with a reasonable record. But he's short of top class. I echo what has been said above that it's just as well that England are steering clear of Asia for a while.

Bring back Mo

Anyhow the solution can't really involve the county championship when not many international players play much FC stuff anymore anyway.

Possibly better preparation before the first game? Always be an element of that playing in foreign conditions. England have looked as woeful against spin as some top class players have against the moving ball in the early part of the English summer in fairness

Somerset curate a pitch that turns square on day 1 and we're decrying that neither of the spinners they've provided on this tour are able to match Pakistan's spinners also tbf.

sirfredperry wrote:The match here and the one in India shows the value of slow leftarm bowling.

There was a time in England when all sides, including many club sides, had a SLA merchant. Most right-handers would admit they never enjoyed facing these types of bowlers.

Of course, England's plight against spin is not helped by the county championship schedule which sees matches pushed to April, May and September. The result? The likes of Pope and Crawley, when they do turn out for their counties, are playing predominantly seam bowling.

How many county matches has, say, Pope played in June, July and August? Not many, I wager. And what about the standard of slow bowling in county cricket? The top counties, knowing when matches are going to be played, are more likely to concentrate attacks on seam not spin.

Leach has emerged from all this with a reasonable record. But he's short of top class. I echo what has been said above that it's just as well that England are steering clear of Asia for a while.

I feel that's the case regardless of when CC games are played though, Fred. It is often overlooked how deep that problem runs. Folk like to blame the Hundred now. Before that it was T20. Before that it was internationals taking peak months that the CC should be played in. Bottom line though, English County pitches don't turn into Mumbai in July and August. They need to be intentionally prepared (i.e. doctored...) that way regardless of the months fixtures are arranged. Which counties just don't want. Somerset tried it briefly and got fined into not doing so anymore.

I'm a firm believer that the CC should be spread across the season as I think that provides the best chance for players to actually train, be coached and improve in the season. By having regular but smaller gaps you have real coaching opportunity, then the opportunity to test what's be coached relatively soon. As opposed to a non stop treadmill of games, then a huge break, then another treadmill.

The idea that playing the CC in the peak of England's summer would significantly change our players ability to bowl and play spin just feels like a pipe dream. We'd still have the vast majority of counties producing the seaming wickets they like, bowling spin as a last resort.

I firmly believe Alec Stewart is one of the most astute minds in English cricket. It wasn't a leave of sanity that led to the Oval ground staff preparing the pitches they do and he didn't build a squad with a battalion of seamers who can bat out of madness. He did it because Stewie knows English cricket inside, out and he knew it would work. Which it has.

As discussed at length earlier in the thread between myself KP_f and Guildford in particular, there's an argument that England stopped producing spinners regularly after covered pitches. Underwood was brilliant, played most his Test career on covered pitches but learnt on uncovered. In the completely covered pitch era, Swann was excellent. Then we were debating between Leach, Monty and Phil Edmonds for runner up. It's an issue that goes way deeper than the modern schedule.

Ashley Giles played 54 Tests in a period when the CC was played in sunnier months. This has been an issue for a while!

A series loss that I'm not sure how to feel about. Part of me thinks, Pakistan finally came to their senses, produced spinning wickets and we saw yet again that England are average at bowling spin and many of them are dire at batting against it. In which case, we've learnt what we already knew. Another part feels that they had clear chances in T2 and T3 but squandered them.

I do feel that Pakistan deserve lots of credit for playing better after T1. The exhaustingly black and white dialogue around this regime means that most losses get put down to England's errors. This team are generally categorised as either brilliant or embarrassing. There's two teams involved though. Pakistan were just so much better after changing the pitches and selection. Ghulam and Shakeel both batted excellently for their tons. Agha looked a quality cricketer throughout. Whilst Sajid and Noman bowled really well after coming into the side. They identified what was needed on each pitch very quickly and just did that well over and over again.

The biggest bright spot for England was definitely Carse. He looked really good in brutal conditions and adds things England really need. Atkinson was good again too. Whilst Potts looks a much better bowler with that extra yard of pace. He's an ideal squad man in the Andy Bichel type role. He can take the new ball, bowl first change and he can bat a bit. I wouldn't want Potts to be first choice, but, he's a really good seamer to have around the squads.

Duckett has quietly become just a really good Test opener too. Significant runs at a good average and fantastic SR.

Smith's knock in the first innings here was another glimpse at his huge talent too. He's so exciting after such a bleak period for England batting talent.

Using Rehan more going forward could be interesting but his batting so far in Tests has been diabolically bad given he's got plenty of talent there. It's telling, and correct on evidence, that he batted below Atkinson. I'm a big fan of him running after the ball like he's being chased by a bear though. There's something oddly unathletic and manic about his running style. He's sort of simultaneously leaning so far forward that he might fall over but has his head up. Arms going everywhere. It's great. Pretty good fielder off the back of it.

On the upside, it's been a good couple of weeks for the Big Three getting their noses bloodied. NZ winning a series in India from nowhere. Pakistan playing incomparably better to beat England. Australia's next Test series is of course the BGT - which I can't wait for! I wouldn't say it's out the realms of possibility that Sri Lanka can knock them over when they tour in '25 though.

I might address Duty's "Just a complete embarrassment" post when I've stopped laughing...  Has to be deliberate irony , no ?

Predictions wrong way round ? Surely were...

But honestly : England have regressed under Stokes and McCullum ?  On what planet ?   They have lost two series in Asia : fairly predictably if still a little disappointingly to India - and then this , which I agree was a bad one.  Other than that their record has been generally rather good despite the odd lapse - which most of us have criticized as being brought on largely through overconfidence and carelessness. Have they been perfect ? No , of course not : but they have (other than these two Asian series) been either extremely competitive or totally dominant against a variety of opponents - and seriously entertaining into the bargain (though the WTC doesn't award style points). To suggest that hasn't been an improvement on what came immediately before is just ridiculous. And that is not a condemnation of Root's leadership or former coaches : there were a number of reasons why England's Test side had become a right mess around 21/22 ... but a mess it was. And this leadership group got it back on track almost overnight : why some people resolutely refuse to give them due credit for this frankly astounds me...

Now I am not going to claim everything they've done has worked . Or that it has all been wise - though just because I don't agree with them on occasion means very little : I would not claim to be better qualified to make decisions than a couple of highly experienced International players ... even if some of the armchair critics apparently do

The old chant of "jobs for the boys" is just BS.  They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches. With some success , I'd suggest  - though it hasn't been unalloyed . Players like Crawley and Pope have actually produced some extremely good performances  , arguably more than their earlier form might have suggested likely : the caveat being that neither have managed to achieve the sort of consistency we would all hope for. But is anyone going to suggest that previous occupants of their positions over the last ten years were doing better ? Or even as well ?
Bairstow given "chance after chance " ? He averaged over 60 the year before his injury : and 40 in the Ashes despite some struggles with the gloves ...and one poor series against India saw him dropped ...hardly evidence of favouritism. As for Moeen in the Ashes : I didn't like the selection originally but I have to admit his contributions with bat (selflessly stepping up to three for the good of the team ) and ball played significant parts in the comeback from 2 down : would say , Dawson have done as well , or better ? We can't know ... but just asserting the selection was "bad" proves nothing other than a personal bias.

Sensible discussion over selection is fine. Everyone is entitled to their views. I certainly don't like one or two of the choices they have made (The Hull punt ; being a bit too sure that Bashir is the new spin messiah at the expense of the likes of Rehan - and even Dawson) but who's to say whether my picks would be better or worse ?

Stokes is "clueless" in the field ? Says who ? Not saying it should be compulsory for any critic to have a CV including significant captaincy experience at a fairly senior level : but I am inclined to take such comments from those who haven't with a generous helping of salt. My own personal view is that Stokes is extremely innovative ; generally errs if he does in over-attacking (which is why I was surprised the other day at his tactics to the Pakistan late order) ; and has on balance over achieved given the resources at his disposal far more often than not. I have never met a captain who always gets it right : those who do so more often than not fit my definition of "good" ... and Stokes does that. Rate him higher or lower , opinions are free ... though a lot of them are pretty worthless.

Sorry for going off on a rant but I just can't sit here and put up with all that nonsense uncontested. I know you like to express robust opinions , Duty , which is fair enough . But I think your dislike of Stokes/McCullum has gone totally over the edge.

Not expecting to be getting the last word

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

alfie wrote:
Hopefully we can avoid the football cry of "heads must roll !" .  But a bit of serious introspection might be called for...

Yes this is a disappointing series defeat - but still some positives within there, and definitely some work to be done.

Crawley/Pope should benefit most from the "no Asian tours" schedule we have upcoming - both look wholly uncomfortable in those conditions. I think they have earnt the NZ series and will need performances there to go into next summer with places assured. If not, some alternatives need to be explored or considered.

Stokes is a concern for me. Not the captain, the player. Since his comeback in 2020, his numbers outside England are atrocious...and he's barely bowling (he's bowled 102 overs in test cricket combined in 2023/2024). For reference pre-Covid, the least amount of overs he'd bowled in a year since he made the XI was in 2017, when he only played 7 games, 156.3 overs (he bowled 87 overs in three games in 2013, and 117.4 in three games in 2014).
The whole point of him is to balance the XI with that fourth seam option, and destructive batting at six. If he isn't bowling, then he becomes a specialist bat/captain, and his batting for a dedicated number six, isn't good enough at the moment.
If we're to have any hope of doing anything in Aus next winter, we need him to be able to bowl 10-15 viable overs a day. We cannot go in with four bowling options and Stokes/Root barely being a fifth bowler. If he can't do that, then his spot at 6 needs to be considered...(does he move up the order with more responsibility as Carlos has indicated? He does seem to bat better in "situations").

Would I like to see Brook be a tad more consistent? Definitely. I think it'll come though, he's still in the early part of his test career.

Positively though, I think Carse/Atkinson/Potts have all advanced their cases on this tour. In particular Atkinson and Carse, who look like they could be very handy players in the 8/9 spots in the XI. Atkinson continues to be just a very solid cricketer.
Duckett continues to be a good opener - he may not get the "big" hundreds, but he's doing his role well.

Spinner is one to watch - honestly I'd like to see them show more faith in Rehan. Bashir clearly has potential, but unless he makes a huge leap in the next 12 months, I'm not sure you can take a spinner who isn't of that good a level, who also doesn't offer anything with the bat and is poor in the field. Similarly, Leach isn't good enough to overcome his lack of another facet. Potentially Rehan could be, albeit his batting has been pretty woeful at international level so far. He's a good fielder though I think.

Agree with most of this. Though probably more negatives than positives overall I'm afraid . The fact that the next Asian tour is a long way off puts the "spin problem" off for a while ... but it will still probably exist ; and will have to be addressed eventually.

The pace bowling really is promising though. Like many I was sad to see the last of Anderson , and Broad before him ; and was more than a little apprehensive as to what would follow. Bit early to say "all fixed !" - but the performances of Carse , Potts  , and particularly Atkinson have been hugely encouraging. Tongue might get fit again soon too ; and Stone is around ; so even if Wood remains "breakable" and Archer probably more likely to appear in the shorter formats I think there is a fair bit to be hopeful about. Wish I could say the same about the spinning : we keep seeing signs of promise and then a bit of slippage ... which is probably not unnatural with young spinners. Can't all be Shane Warne ; Swann didn't mature overnight . Just hope they can manage these young fellows who have shown at least a spark...

Stokes remains the big issue. They need him as Skipper I reckon.  (Pope didn't do a bad job filling in ; but I think he needs to concentrate on his own game at present . I would really not fancy him having to lead the team to Australia , taking on that heavy responsibility in addition to trying to address his woeful batting record in Ashes contests ! Such a thing as too much pressure)  But as you say , he needs to be capable of bowling a decent share...even moving him up the order doesn't solve the balance problem because there really isn't anyone else around at present who could bat six and do the bowling job is there ?
The injuries Stokes has had are the problem : how I wish he had not been talked into making that white ball comeback , delaying treatment of his earlier issues - and similarly wish he would have gone nowhere near the Hundred. I can sympathise with his wish to play a bit of the exciting short form stuff ; but for England's sake I would far prefer to see him kept in cotton wool outside of the Tests. At least for the next couple of years.

At the same time I am not too concerned about Stokes' poor batting in these two games. He's not the best against spin ; he did still manage one effort that was better than most of his troops - and as he was coming back after battling injury for some time I am prepared to cut him a bit of slack. I doubt he will ever maintain a high batting average as he is a bit too mercurial ; but he has a knack of producing the remarkable when it is desperately needed (and conversely often not doing much when others have the situation well in hand) so I think he is fine as a number six ... as long as he can supply that 4th seamer bowling option. Crossed fingers...

alfie wrote:I might address Duty's "Just a complete embarrassment" post when I've stopped laughing...  Has to be deliberate irony , no ?

Predictions wrong way round ? Surely were...

But honestly : England have regressed under Stokes and McCullum ?  On what planet ?   They have lost two series in Asia : fairly predictably if still a little disappointingly to India - and then this , which I agree was a bad one.  Other than that their record has been generally rather good despite the odd lapse - which most of us have criticized as being brought on largely through overconfidence and carelessness. Have they been perfect ? No , of course not : but they have (other than these two Asian series) been either extremely competitive or totally dominant against a variety of opponents - and seriously entertaining into the bargain (though the WTC doesn't award style points). To suggest that hasn't been an improvement on what came immediately before is just ridiculous. And that is not a condemnation of Root's leadership or former coaches : there were a number of reasons why England's Test side had become a right mess around 21/22 ... but a mess it was. And this leadership group got it back on track almost overnight : why some people resolutely refuse to give them due credit for this frankly astounds me...

Now I am not going to claim everything they've done has worked . Or that it has all been wise - though just because I don't agree with them on occasion means very little : I would not claim to be better qualified to make decisions than a couple of highly experienced International players ... even if some of the armchair critics apparently do

The old chant of "jobs for the boys" is just BS.  They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches. With some success , I'd suggest  - though it hasn't been unalloyed . Players like Crawley and Pope have actually produced some extremely good performances  , arguably more than their earlier form might have suggested likely : the caveat being that neither have managed to achieve the sort of consistency we would all hope for. But is anyone going to suggest that previous occupants of their positions over the last ten years were doing better ? Or even as well ?
Bairstow given "chance after chance " ? He averaged over 60 the year before his injury : and 40 in the Ashes despite some struggles with the gloves ...and one poor series against India saw him dropped ...hardly evidence of favouritism. As for Moeen in the Ashes : I didn't like the selection originally but I have to admit his contributions with bat (selflessly stepping up to three for the good of the team ) and ball played significant parts in the comeback from 2 down : would say , Dawson have done as well , or better ? We can't know ... but just asserting the selection was "bad" proves nothing other than a personal bias.

Sensible discussion over selection is fine. Everyone is entitled to their views. I certainly don't like one or two of the choices they have made (The Hull punt ; being a bit too sure that Bashir is the new spin messiah at the expense of the likes of Rehan - and even Dawson) but who's to say whether my picks would be better or worse ?

Stokes is "clueless" in the field ? Says who ? Not saying it should be compulsory for any critic to have a CV including significant captaincy experience at a fairly senior level : but I am inclined to take such comments from those who haven't with a generous helping of salt. My own personal view is that Stokes is extremely innovative ; generally errs if he does in over-attacking (which is why I was surprised the other day at his tactics to the Pakistan late order) ; and has on balance over achieved given the resources at his disposal far more often than not. I have never met a captain who always gets it right : those who do so more often than not fit my definition of "good" ... and Stokes does that. Rate him higher or lower , opinions are free ... though a lot of them are pretty worthless.

Sorry for going off on a rant but I just can't sit here and put up with all that nonsense uncontested. I know you like to express robust opinions , Duty , which is fair enough . But I think your dislike of Stokes/McCullum has gone totally over the edge.

Not expecting to be getting the last word

On planet earth they've regressed. I didn't actually think the Bazball cult were still defending this. But when you get the same result v Australia in 2019 and 2023, but only manage the 2023 result by virtue of the opposition losing one of their most key players to injury, you've regressed. When you get savaged by India more heavily in 2024 than in 2021, with only once in a lifetime performances from Pope and Hartley stopping it being 5-0 in 2024, and India in 2024 being far, far weaker than in 2021, mainly due to player absence, then you've regressed.

And, most obviously of all, when you go from being a team that takes apart Sri Lanka 5-0 across two series, but then manage to lose to the worst Pakistan team in living memory, you've clearly regressed. Once again, let's remember how bad Pakistan were. They hadn't won a home test since 2021. They lost 2-0 to Bangladesh just prior to this series (and before anyone starts hyping Bangladesh up, let's remember how easily India put them away). They were on a run of five straight test defeats. They were destroyed by internal division and bickering. And England lost.

Or you can look at the WTC table, which shows England are currently doing the worst they've ever done in the competition. Doesn't award style points? Quite right too. Winning's the only thing that counts.

Where is the evidence of improvement? Worse results, bigger hammerings, lower in the table. Why were you only 50/50 on England's chance prior to the series? I would have thought that a team that had made improvements on Root's leadership, which won six tests in a row in the subcontinent, would have been a lock to win a series v the worst form team in the WTC?

And, once more, the reason why England were in a mess in 21/22 was because they played 14 of their last 17 tests against the very best in the world, most of them away. Stokes' team haven't had close to a fixture run like that. And probably a good thing.

"but they have (other than these two Asian series) been either extremely competitive or totally dominant against a variety of opponents - and Root's England weren't? Beating South Africa home and away. Beating India 4-1 at home? Six winning tests in a row in the subcontinent, including thrashing India in Chennai, scaring them into producing joke pitches? All memory holed now, of course.

"They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches" - no, they give their favourites time to settle into positions, i.e. guaranteed places, but the non favourites are one failure from the scrapheap. Rehan has just comprehensively outbowled Bashir and shown how much more talented he is, but it's unlikely Rehan will play another test until 2027, barring injury. That's just one example.

Pope has produced extremely good performances, admittedly outliers. Crawley's extremely good performances are astonishingly rare. Moeen played a significant part in the comeback from two down?! Goodness. Moeen was one of the reasons why England were 2-0 down, coming up with 3/207 in the first test, while his opposite number came in with 8/227. And then 6/259 for the rest of the series and a batting average of 25. All while better players were sat at home.

Stokes is innovative? That's a good one. His field placings to the tail/lower order have been the same as previous captains - too defensive and generally clueless. One of the main reasons England lost this series was because of his clueless plans to the lower order, 177/7 to 344ao in the third test was game changing, as was the 156/8 to 221ao in the second.

My View on Eng...they have regressed playing on spin pitches compared to last two tours of India and SL.
Why?
because they all try to play like Duckett.......whereas Root should bat like Root & Smith, Brook should ape the natural Root & Stokes aim to bat a mix between Root & Duckett.

On Non-Spin pitches too Eng have regressed this summer a loss to SL and a tight chase based on Root's proper inning...compared to the last 3 tests of Ashes summer before where they totally dominated Aus.

Eng have 4 spinners and a host of seam bowlers at their disposal & other than the spot of Pope are well settled.
The secondary non-settlement issues is lined with Stokes's ability to either show he can bowl consistently or hold a place as a specialist batter.

Yet Eng have regressed overall IMO because they don't have a clear way of playing test cricket.....there should be more calm and balance between proper cricket and bazballing frenzy-
Calm & balance are the operative words here.

Not to accuse of bending certain things to suit a predetermined narrative. But it does seem to repeat itself at the first sign of a poor England performance.

Certainly trying to equate the 2-2 Ashes draws under Root and Stokes is overdoing it mildly. England were very rarely in the former (and only when the oppositions most key player was injured ). Whereas in the most recent series Australia were rather doing a rain dance to get on the plane as quickly as possible and avoid a decider.

Bazball is by no means perfect, and by all means happy to discuss the relative merits of it (including getting the most of what remains a fairly mediocre bank of talent currently available). But I kinda feel we're just going round in circle again

alfie wrote:I might address Duty's "Just a complete embarrassment" post when I've stopped laughing...  Has to be deliberate irony , no ?

Predictions wrong way round ? Surely were...

But honestly : England have regressed under Stokes and McCullum ?  On what planet ?   They have lost two series in Asia : fairly predictably if still a little disappointingly to India - and then this , which I agree was a bad one.  Other than that their record has been generally rather good despite the odd lapse - which most of us have criticized as being brought on largely through overconfidence and carelessness. Have they been perfect ? No , of course not : but they have (other than these two Asian series) been either extremely competitive or totally dominant against a variety of opponents - and seriously entertaining into the bargain (though the WTC doesn't award style points). To suggest that hasn't been an improvement on what came immediately before is just ridiculous. And that is not a condemnation of Root's leadership or former coaches : there were a number of reasons why England's Test side had become a right mess around 21/22 ... but a mess it was. And this leadership group got it back on track almost overnight : why some people resolutely refuse to give them due credit for this frankly astounds me...

Now I am not going to claim everything they've done has worked . Or that it has all been wise - though just because I don't agree with them on occasion means very little : I would not claim to be better qualified to make decisions than a couple of highly experienced International players ... even if some of the armchair critics apparently do

The old chant of "jobs for the boys" is just BS.  They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches. With some success , I'd suggest  - though it hasn't been unalloyed . Players like Crawley and Pope have actually produced some extremely good performances  , arguably more than their earlier form might have suggested likely : the caveat being that neither have managed to achieve the sort of consistency we would all hope for. But is anyone going to suggest that previous occupants of their positions over the last ten years were doing better ? Or even as well ?
Bairstow given "chance after chance " ? He averaged over 60 the year before his injury : and 40 in the Ashes despite some struggles with the gloves ...and one poor series against India saw him dropped ...hardly evidence of favouritism. As for Moeen in the Ashes : I didn't like the selection originally but I have to admit his contributions with bat (selflessly stepping up to three for the good of the team ) and ball played significant parts in the comeback from 2 down : would say , Dawson have done as well , or better ? We can't know ... but just asserting the selection was "bad" proves nothing other than a personal bias.

Sensible discussion over selection is fine. Everyone is entitled to their views. I certainly don't like one or two of the choices they have made (The Hull punt ; being a bit too sure that Bashir is the new spin messiah at the expense of the likes of Rehan - and even Dawson) but who's to say whether my picks would be better or worse ?

Stokes is "clueless" in the field ? Says who ? Not saying it should be compulsory for any critic to have a CV including significant captaincy experience at a fairly senior level : but I am inclined to take such comments from those who haven't with a generous helping of salt. My own personal view is that Stokes is extremely innovative ; generally errs if he does in over-attacking (which is why I was surprised the other day at his tactics to the Pakistan late order) ; and has on balance over achieved given the resources at his disposal far more often than not. I have never met a captain who always gets it right : those who do so more often than not fit my definition of "good" ... and Stokes does that. Rate him higher or lower , opinions are free ... though a lot of them are pretty worthless.

Sorry for going off on a rant but I just can't sit here and put up with all that nonsense uncontested. I know you like to express robust opinions , Duty , which is fair enough . But I think your dislike of Stokes/McCullum has gone totally over the edge.

Not expecting to be getting the last word

There's no point engaging with a post which proclaims that England would have lost the Ashes 4/5-0 last summer if Lyon didn't get injured - totally failing to mention England's own spin bowling injury, and that for some rain in Manchester, they would have won 3-2.
Clear what the agenda is there

GSC wrote:Not to accuse of bending certain things to suit a predetermined narrative. But it does seem to repeat itself at the first sign of a poor England performance.

Certainly trying to equate the 2-2 Ashes draws under Root and Stokes is overdoing it mildly. England were very rarely in the former (and only when the oppositions most key player was injured ). Whereas in the most recent series Australia were rather doing a rain dance to get on the plane as quickly as possible and avoid a decider.

Bazball is by no means perfect, and by all means happy to discuss the relative merits of it (including getting the most of what remains a fairly mediocre bank of talent currently available). But I kinda feel we're just going round in circle again

That just isn't true, though. England were well on top at various stages in the first test in 2019, before being denied by Smith brilliance in both innings, and England would have won the second test in 2019 had it not been for rain.

As for the talent argument, I feel Stokes has worked with a greater deck of cards through his captaincy than Root did, though more recently this has been thrown into doubt with the loss of Broad (who retired) and Anderson (who was removed by the England set up).

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

alfie wrote:I might address Duty's "Just a complete embarrassment" post when I've stopped laughing...  Has to be deliberate irony , no ?

Predictions wrong way round ? Surely were...

But honestly : England have regressed under Stokes and McCullum ?  On what planet ?   They have lost two series in Asia : fairly predictably if still a little disappointingly to India - and then this , which I agree was a bad one.  Other than that their record has been generally rather good despite the odd lapse - which most of us have criticized as being brought on largely through overconfidence and carelessness. Have they been perfect ? No , of course not : but they have (other than these two Asian series) been either extremely competitive or totally dominant against a variety of opponents - and seriously entertaining into the bargain (though the WTC doesn't award style points). To suggest that hasn't been an improvement on what came immediately before is just ridiculous. And that is not a condemnation of Root's leadership or former coaches : there were a number of reasons why England's Test side had become a right mess around 21/22 ... but a mess it was. And this leadership group got it back on track almost overnight : why some people resolutely refuse to give them due credit for this frankly astounds me...

Now I am not going to claim everything they've done has worked . Or that it has all been wise - though just because I don't agree with them on occasion means very little : I would not claim to be better qualified to make decisions than a couple of highly experienced International players ... even if some of the armchair critics apparently do

The old chant of "jobs for the boys" is just BS.  They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches. With some success , I'd suggest  - though it hasn't been unalloyed . Players like Crawley and Pope have actually produced some extremely good performances  , arguably more than their earlier form might have suggested likely : the caveat being that neither have managed to achieve the sort of consistency we would all hope for. But is anyone going to suggest that previous occupants of their positions over the last ten years were doing better ? Or even as well ?
Bairstow given "chance after chance " ? He averaged over 60 the year before his injury : and 40 in the Ashes despite some struggles with the gloves ...and one poor series against India saw him dropped ...hardly evidence of favouritism. As for Moeen in the Ashes : I didn't like the selection originally but I have to admit his contributions with bat (selflessly stepping up to three for the good of the team ) and ball played significant parts in the comeback from 2 down : would say , Dawson have done as well , or better ? We can't know ... but just asserting the selection was "bad" proves nothing other than a personal bias.

Sensible discussion over selection is fine. Everyone is entitled to their views. I certainly don't like one or two of the choices they have made (The Hull punt ; being a bit too sure that Bashir is the new spin messiah at the expense of the likes of Rehan - and even Dawson) but who's to say whether my picks would be better or worse ?

Stokes is "clueless" in the field ? Says who ? Not saying it should be compulsory for any critic to have a CV including significant captaincy experience at a fairly senior level : but I am inclined to take such comments from those who haven't with a generous helping of salt. My own personal view is that Stokes is extremely innovative ; generally errs if he does in over-attacking (which is why I was surprised the other day at his tactics to the Pakistan late order) ; and has on balance over achieved given the resources at his disposal far more often than not. I have never met a captain who always gets it right : those who do so more often than not fit my definition of "good" ... and Stokes does that. Rate him higher or lower , opinions are free ... though a lot of them are pretty worthless.

Sorry for going off on a rant but I just can't sit here and put up with all that nonsense uncontested. I know you like to express robust opinions , Duty , which is fair enough . But I think your dislike of Stokes/McCullum has gone totally over the edge.

Not expecting to be getting the last word

There's no point engaging with a post which proclaims that England would have lost the Ashes 4/5-0 last summer if Lyon didn't get injured - totally failing to mention England's own spin bowling injury, and that for some rain in Manchester, they would have won 3-2.
Clear what the agenda is there

As previously said, I think you can argue the Ashes both ways, as to whether England stagnated or regressed from 2019. Improvement is a little harder to argue though.

That's arguable. England's regression in the subcontinent is unarguable. England's regression in the WTC is unarguable.

England's 'own spin bowling injury' was nowhere near the same consequence as Australia's. Lyon is pivotal to Australia. Not only is he a fantastic spinner and match-winner, he also takes vital workload away from Australia's devastating trio of quicks. The drop off to Murphy was a huge loss and placed greater workload on the Aussie trio, leading them to be completely out of steam by tests four and five, which England took advantage of. Leach's loss wasn't remotely the same. Not a match winner, not a crucial option, and could have been easily replaced by someone of similar level, such as Dawson or Rehan, who would have both offered more with the bat and in the field also. It was England's fault that they went with the dumb, jobs for the boys, option of Moeen.

Four or five nil? We'll never know. But we do know that, with Lyon, Australia were 2-0 up after 2, recovering from a bad toss to lose to win the first test, and winning the second test comfortably. England certainly wouldn't have come back if Lyon stayed fit, but the final margin would have been interesting.

Australia's big three quicks have fallen off in long series a few times now due to the refusal to rotate them more. Back to back Tests are brutal and though that trio are great, it's happened with Lyon in the team too. When it comes to the big games, be it white ball or red ball, repeated Australia coaches have now defaulted to those bowlers regardless of fatigue or recent injuries. It's obvious why they do that. Those three bowlers are guns and it's brought them success. That reluctance to rotate has caused Australia issues with fatigue at the end of a series with Lyon playing as well.

Having the extra batter in Cam Green for Old Trafford also came in pretty darn handy when they were batting to save the match as well.

alfie wrote:The old chant of "jobs for the boys" is just BS.  They've generally tried to give players a decent opportunity to settle into positions rather than tossing them in or out after just a couple of matches. With some success , I'd suggest  - though it hasn't been unalloyed . Players like Crawley and Pope have actually produced some extremely good performances  , arguably more than their earlier form might have suggested likely : the caveat being that neither have managed to achieve the sort of consistency we would all hope for. But is anyone going to suggest that previous occupants of their positions over the last ten years were doing better ? Or even as well ?
Bairstow given "chance after chance " ? He averaged over 60 the year before his injury : and 40 in the Ashes despite some struggles with the gloves ...and one poor series against India saw him dropped ...hardly evidence of favouritism. As for Moeen in the Ashes : I didn't like the selection originally but I have to admit his contributions with bat (selflessly stepping up to three for the good of the team ) and ball played significant parts in the comeback from 2 down : would say , Dawson have done as well , or better ? We can't know ... but just asserting the selection was "bad" proves nothing other than a personal bias.

I've pointed this out before, but this is especially important point with Bairstow I think. The often touted idea that Bairstow is "one of the boys" is built entirely on people not knowing the story there. YJB was a well renowned utter pain in a**e through his academy years and early time at Yorkshire. Likely triggered somewhat by the horrendous childhood trauma from losing his dad as he did.

He's still an abrasive character in adulthood and isn't the bosom buddies with Stokes and crew that people presume. A good story there came from George Dobell when YJB broke his leg. A rumour went around the comms box that it happened when Stokes jumped on his back whilst playing golf. So they messaged the England team manager to find out. Who got back to them basically saying, "I don't know the full story yet but can confidently say that Jonny and Ben wouldn't be spending their time off together". They are very different people and really not that close. Playing a lot of cricket together doesn't make you one of the boys. Look at the Warne and Gilchrist relationship for starters.

There was just a lazy assumption among many that because Bairstow bats aggressively and had been around all formats for a while that he must have been recalled because the face fits. Which it really didn't and hasn't for most of Jonny's career. More often that not, he got where he did in the game despite of his character fitting. He's also been dropped numerous times and earned the recall through weight of runs with Yorks. As you say Alfie, he was incredible pre injury, actually batted well in the Ashes, then was dumped from the Test team after being poor in India.

The other "jobs for the mates" list makes little sense either now I've got round to reading that post in full.

Crawley. We've discussed there being no other opening options plenty of times. Apparently Lees isn't picked due to friendship - Jesus this post gets more hilarious as I read. He played under Stokes and was worse than Crawley. All the other opening options making CC runs have played Test cricket and been worse too. Jennings. Lyth. Robson. Hameed. There just isn't the talent in that area.

Pope. The only specialist number three from the CC you could bring in is Bohannon. He unavoidably has a worse F-C record than Pope though. There's slightly more of an argument here than saying Alex Lees isn't being picked because he's not mates with Stokes - that's getting funnier each time I think of it. Bohannon's form for Lancs means there's one option to try at 3. A worse F-C record than Pope is hardly making leaving him out impossible though.

How does Rehan possibly class as "not one of the lads"? He got picked from the U19s as a teenager because he fitted how they wanted to play for f**k sake.

Which brings us to the tired Dawson debate. He did play Test cricket and looked ineffective. I doubt he's an incomparably improved bowler now. I'm a Dawson fan too. I wish he'd been used by the white ball side more. He was bowling slow, loopy straight breaks to Test batters though. I'm in the camp of suspecting his excellent CC numbers are more indicative of the inconsistent standards there than Dawson suddenly being Regana Herath. Hence why I actually quite like the selection route of looking for particular attributes in bowlers rather than just the numbers.

Somewhere there's an alternate reality where Foakes takes his 5th stumping off Dawson to complete a win by an innings following an Alex Lees 100 in Brisbane.

Just a half for me of what GSC's drinking.

Meanwhile, I'll give Stokes, Pope and the rest the New Zealand series before diving in. Less than a month until that starts ....

guildfordbat wrote:Just a half for me of what GSC's drinking.

Meanwhile, I'll give Stokes, Pope and the rest the New Zealand series before diving in. Less than a month until that starts ....

Are you coming over again, Guildford? A long haul I know but worth the wine and splendid scenery... and hospitality of course.

Definitely agree with the regression, but not going to pile in completely, think there's a lack of batting talent coming through which does limit things

The way I see it is 2022 was spectacular and will live long in the memory. Outrageous run chases and run scoring feats, whilst winning nearly every Test

2023 things started to level out, including the stunningly awful captaincy to make NZ follow on and the first Ashes Test declaration. Two matches almost chucked away

2024 I do agree we are back to achieving the results any England side in about the last 25 years would pretty much achieve, given who they've been playing

Pal Joey wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Just a half for me of what GSC's drinking.

Meanwhile, I'll give Stokes, Pope and the rest the New Zealand series before diving in. Less than a month until that starts ....

Are you coming over again, Guildford? A long haul I know but worth the wine and splendid scenery... and hospitality of course.

Sadly not, PJ. Did get together with our Kiwi friends though when they were over here last month.

VTR wrote:Definitely agree with the regression, but not going to pile in completely, think there's a lack of batting talent coming through which does limit things

The way I see it is 2022 was spectacular and will live long in the memory. Outrageous run chases and run scoring feats, whilst winning nearly every Test

2023 things started to level out, including the stunningly awful captaincy to make NZ follow on and the first Ashes Test declaration. Two matches almost chucked away

2024 I do agree we are back to achieving the results any England side in about the last 25 years would pretty much achieve, given who they've been playing

Yes, I think 2022 was mostly spectacular for the early part, but it was never going to be sustainable.

Those great chases against NZ and India were like making gallant comebacks after being 2-0 down at HT. Great to watch, but it was never going to be something a team could keep doing. I actually said after the NZ series win in 2022: " I don't think this overly attacking approach will work in the long-term for the test team, and I worry that this result will entrench it as a good idea. 'Remember when England beat New Zealand 3-0' will be the cry as England hack and slash their way to 98ao in Pakistan." And "Oh dear. This isn't going to end well. Not everyone will serve up buffet bowling like New Zealand." At the time of writing that, I was of course expecting Pakistan to prepare turners in 2022, I had to wait another two years for vindication!

Stokes and McCullum, of course, got the credit for installing England with the confidence to go and complete those chases, but with England now being bowled out inside 40 overs in three innings across the last four tests, I think it's only fair they get criticism.

Since the chase v India, incidentally, England have been set 250 or more to win a test six times and succeeded just the once, which is everything leveling out.

The 2022 SA series was incredibly poor quality, and the 2022 Pakistan series was something hyped up at the time, but:

a) Seeing that Pakistan were also dismal at home v Aus/NZ/Ban rather took the shine off it and
b) I think there's now an acceptance that if Pakistan had prepared turning pitches in 2022, instead of being utterly foolish for so long, then England wouldn't have triumphed.

Since 2023, I think results have been average to poor. Disappointing not to win in either NZ or Pakistan. Home series wins v WI and SL nothing out of the ordinary. No change in the Ashes. India tour soundly beaten.

NZ series will be interesting. Normally good batting wickets, so that should be to the liking of England, but I wonder if NZ will juice it up in some way? Big pressure on Stokes/McCullum to get a positive result this series.

Jacob Bethell is going to be called up for the NZ tour, apparently.

Smith will miss at least two tests, maybe the entire tour, due to his partner giving birth. That means Cox will get the gloves and a debut for when Smith is out. And Bethell comes in as cover.

Bethell has played 20 FC games. Averages 25 with the bat, no centuries, and averages, um, 96 with the ball.

Spoiler:

Duty281 wrote:Jacob Bethell is going to be called up for the NZ tour, apparently.

Smith will miss at least two tests, maybe the entire tour, due to his partner giving birth. That means Cox will get the gloves and a debut for when Smith is out. And Bethell comes in as cover.

Bethell has played 20 FC games. Averages 25 with the bat, no centuries, and averages, um, 96 with the ball.

Spoiler:

He's also signed up with the Renegades; being the 10th pick on the international draft.
So, he'll have a good experience down here playing in different conditions... or carrying the drinks and towels.
I've not seen much of him (just those couple of T20s he played in September) but maybe Cam White or somebody thinks he's worth a shot.

Just looking at some other signings. There's also Matthew Hurst (Scorchers) and Jafer Chohan (Sixers). Both quite young. And Tom Alsop (Heat) who's a little bit older but I don't think he's played here before. Vaguely heard of him but not seen him play at all.

Do you know much about them, Duty?

Ben Stokes (captain); Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Bryson Carse, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

England's 16 man test squad named for the NZ tour. Smith will miss all of it, and Bethell is in as expected. The only change from Pakistan is Bethell in for Smith, with Hull not featuring (presumably due to injury).

I'm slightly confused to see all of Rehan, Bashir and Leach retained - it's NZ, you surely don't need that many spinners?

Pal Joey wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Jacob Bethell is going to be called up for the NZ tour, apparently.

Smith will miss at least two tests, maybe the entire tour, due to his partner giving birth. That means Cox will get the gloves and a debut for when Smith is out. And Bethell comes in as cover.

Bethell has played 20 FC games. Averages 25 with the bat, no centuries, and averages, um, 96 with the ball.

Spoiler:

He's also signed up with the Renegades; being the 10th pick on the international draft.
So, he'll have a good experience down here playing in different conditions... or carrying the drinks and towels.
I've not seen much of him (just those couple of T20s he played in September) but maybe Cam White or somebody thinks he's worth a shot.

Just looking at some other signings. There's also Matthew Hurst (Scorchers) and Jafer Chohan (Sixers). Both quite young. And Tom Alsop (Heat) who's a little bit older but I don't think he's played here before. Vaguely heard of him but not seen him play at all.

Do you know much about them, Duty?

Only Chohan, really. He's a very exciting talent and is in England's white ball squad for the West Indies games. Alsop's interesting, because I think of him more as a FC player, but he does have a decent T20 record and I think it's his first time in an overseas franchise league. Hurst did well in the Hundred.

Duty281 wrote:Ben Stokes (captain); Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Bryson Carse, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

England's 16 man test squad named for the NZ tour. Smith will miss all of it, and Bethell is in as expected. The only change from Pakistan is Bethell in for Smith, with Hull not featuring (presumably due to injury).

I'm slightly confused to see all of Rehan, Bashir and Leach retained - it's NZ, you surely don't need that many spinners?

Maybe McCullum thinks NZ might do a bit of pitch doctoring like Pakistan.

Jetty wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Ben Stokes (captain); Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Bryson Carse, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

England's 16 man test squad named for the NZ tour. Smith will miss all of it, and Bethell is in as expected. The only change from Pakistan is Bethell in for Smith, with Hull not featuring (presumably due to injury).

I'm slightly confused to see all of Rehan, Bashir and Leach retained - it's NZ, you surely don't need that many spinners?

Maybe McCullum thinks NZ might do a bit of pitch doctoring like Pakistan.

The flat wickets that NZ have leant to for a while now would play into how this England team like to bat. There's certainly something to be said for preparing turning wickets when so many of England's batters are poor against spin.

NZs spin options remain about as flawed as England's too. Whilst Santner has just had the day out of all days out, he isn't exactly a gun Test spinner. Excellent white ball operator. I'd still pick Leach ahead of Santner purely as a Test bowler though and I'm fairly critical of Leach! Ajaz is on a really similar level to Leach I feel. Phillips is a really fun bowler who puts plenty of action on the ball but remains a part time. Rachin is a brilliant batting talent but worse than Root with the ball.

Given how badly some of England's RHBs play SLA, you'll surely want at least one of Santner or Ajaz playing though. Then, presumably Phillips at 7 as the batting all-rounder and offie to target the LHBs - i.e. Stokes for England given that Duckett plays spin pretty darn well.

It'll be interesting what they do. It feels like NZ would want similar home pitches to what England would choose. They no longer have Wagner to bang away on roads though. A first choice seam attack (presuming Boult doesn't play and Jamieson is injured) of O'Rourke, Henry and Southee is very good but not best suited to the pitches they used to play on. Greener pitches then bring England's seamers into it.

They feel like a pair of well matched sides. Should be a close series, hopefully a good one to watch.

Duty281 wrote:

Pal Joey wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Jacob Bethell is going to be called up for the NZ tour, apparently.

Smith will miss at least two tests, maybe the entire tour, due to his partner giving birth. That means Cox will get the gloves and a debut for when Smith is out. And Bethell comes in as cover.

Bethell has played 20 FC games. Averages 25 with the bat, no centuries, and averages, um, 96 with the ball.

Spoiler:

He's also signed up with the Renegades; being the 10th pick on the international draft.
So, he'll have a good experience down here playing in different conditions... or carrying the drinks and towels.
I've not seen much of him (just those couple of T20s he played in September) but maybe Cam White or somebody thinks he's worth a shot.

Just looking at some other signings. There's also Matthew Hurst (Scorchers) and Jafer Chohan (Sixers). Both quite young. And Tom Alsop (Heat) who's a little bit older but I don't think he's played here before. Vaguely heard of him but not seen him play at all.

Do you know much about them, Duty?

Only Chohan, really. He's a very exciting talent and is in England's white ball squad for the West Indies games. Alsop's interesting, because I think of him more as a FC player, but he does have a decent T20 record and I think it's his first time in an overseas franchise league. Hurst did well in the Hundred.

Hurst, who is only 20, also had a very decent debut season in the red ball stuff - averaged 37 in Division 1, whilst keeping wicket in an awful Lancs side. He looks a proper player to me and the Scorchers are pretty successful so must be a good judge of a player. So hopefully he goes well!

Jetty wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Ben Stokes (captain); Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Bryson Carse, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

England's 16 man test squad named for the NZ tour. Smith will miss all of it, and Bethell is in as expected. The only change from Pakistan is Bethell in for Smith, with Hull not featuring (presumably due to injury).

I'm slightly confused to see all of Rehan, Bashir and Leach retained - it's NZ, you surely don't need that many spinners?

Maybe McCullum thinks NZ might do a bit of pitch doctoring like Pakistan.

This is what they must be anticipating, because I don't understand three spinners if it isn't the case. Particularly when the England Lions are touring in South Africa at a fairly similar time, if you're not going to be playing Rehan (most likely one to not), he'd surely be better off going to play with the Lions?

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

Jetty wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Ben Stokes (captain); Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Bryson Carse, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.

England's 16 man test squad named for the NZ tour. Smith will miss all of it, and Bethell is in as expected. The only change from Pakistan is Bethell in for Smith, with Hull not featuring (presumably due to injury).

I'm slightly confused to see all of Rehan, Bashir and Leach retained - it's NZ, you surely don't need that many spinners?

Maybe McCullum thinks NZ might do a bit of pitch doctoring like Pakistan.

This is what they must be anticipating, because I don't understand three spinners if it isn't the case. Particularly when the England Lions are touring in South Africa at a fairly similar time, if you're not going to be playing Rehan (most likely one to not), he'd surely be better off going to play with the Lions?

You're presuming there's any logic to these selection policies when they haven't even picked a proper reserve batsman.

Back to the white ball stuff tomorrow. England trying to rebuild in the first of three ODIs v the West Indies, but as is often the case with these squeezed bilateral series, numerous players are absent and selection is a bit of a mess. Cricinfo are predicting the team will be this:

England: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Will Jacks, 3 Jordan Cox, 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Liam Livingstone (capt), 6 Dan Mousley, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Jamie Overton, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Reece Topley

It looks batting light, but very pace loaded and plenty of spin options.

Absurdly weak batting in reality. Livi going from out the ODI squad, to captaining it after a good summer sums things up. It's the reality of the schedule rather than indicative of weak white ball batting talent or bad selection I think.

Even if we're as pessimistic as possible, saying: Root doesn't bother with ODIs again. Buttler remains injured. Stokes never returns - which is by far the most likely there. Then the below top 5 still looks pretty damn powerful with 2 of Bethell, Livi and Surran behind it at 6 and 7.

1.Salt 2.Duckett 3.Jacks 4.Brook 5.Smith

Even beyond them, I really think Crawley could be fantastic in ODIs. Two new balls that don't move much, flatter pitches and boundary restrictions. I could see Crawley being brilliant in the PP.

It not on the level of the top 6 that Morgan and Bayliss had of course. That was a freak collision of generational talents peaking at similar times though. That's still a group of batters that I could see doing very well though.

Cox is a talent too in fairness. I just don't think number 3 is his spot in ODIs. I think he'd suit 6 much better. Which is sort of the frustration with these depleted squads. England really need to find finishers at 6 and 7. Cox might be that. Bethell I think will be that. Instead, they're batting 3 and 4 though as the Test players need a rest. Meh. A meh series, with meh squads.

king_carlos wrote:Absurdly weak batting in reality. Livi going from out the ODI squad, to captaining it after a good summer sums things up. It's the reality of the schedule rather than indicative of weak white ball batting talent or bad selection I think.

Even if we're as pessimistic as possible, saying: Root doesn't bother with ODIs again. Buttler remains injured. Stokes never returns - which is by far the most likely there. Then the below top 5 still looks pretty damn powerful with 2 of Bethell, Livi and Surran behind it at 6 and 7.

1.Salt 2.Duckett 3.Jacks 4.Brook 5.Smith

Even beyond them, I really think Crawley could be fantastic in ODIs. Two new balls that don't move much, flatter pitches and boundary restrictions. I could see Crawley being brilliant in the PP.

It not on the level of the top 6 that Morgan and Bayliss had of course. That was a freak collision of generational talents peaking at similar times though. That's still a group of batters that I could see doing very well though.

Cox is a talent too in fairness. I just don't think number 3 is his spot in ODIs. I think he'd suit 6 much better. Which is sort of the frustration with these depleted squads. England really need to find finishers at 6 and 7. Cox might be that. Bethell I think will be that. Instead, they're batting 3 and 4 though as the Test players need a rest. Meh. A meh series, with meh squads.

I think Mahmood is better than Topley.
Mahmood 22.85 ahead of Topley 26.13 in the ODIs and Turner 16.45 instead of Topley 28.84 for the T20s

Duty281 wrote:Back to the white ball stuff tomorrow. England trying to rebuild in the first of three ODIs v the West Indies, but as is often the case with these squeezed bilateral series, numerous players are absent and selection is a bit of a mess. Cricinfo are predicting the team will be this:

England: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Will Jacks, 3 Jordan Cox, 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Liam Livingstone (capt), 6 Dan Mousley, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Jamie Overton, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Reece Topley

It looks batting light, but very pace loaded and plenty of spin options.

Probably just as well there are plenty of spin options as I wouldn't bet heavily on getting 30 overs of pace out of regular sicknotes Archer, Topley and Overton.

guildfordbat wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Back to the white ball stuff tomorrow. England trying to rebuild in the first of three ODIs v the West Indies, but as is often the case with these squeezed bilateral series, numerous players are absent and selection is a bit of a mess. Cricinfo are predicting the team will be this:

England: 1 Phil Salt (wk), 2 Will Jacks, 3 Jordan Cox, 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Liam Livingstone (capt), 6 Dan Mousley, 7 Sam Curran, 8 Jamie Overton, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Reece Topley

It looks batting light, but very pace loaded and plenty of spin options.

Probably just as well there are plenty of spin options as I wouldn't bet heavily on getting 30 overs of pace out of regular sicknotes Archer, Topley and Overton.

Spin ‘options’ is a very polite way of describing some very part time stuff! Bethell looked okay in the summer, but he’s not even a Moeen level spinner. Mousley bowling 70mph darts might be okay in the T20s, but getting even 5-7 overs might be tough! I actually like Jacks’ bowling when I have seen it in domestic cricket but he always seems to get hammered in internationals - too slow maybe?

West Indies winning the toss and putting England into bat. Could be some rain around later, so a very sensible decision. England's team as expected, except Turner making a debut at the expense of Topley. West Indies team looking pretty solid, with Hetmyer reinforcing the batting.

Adil Rashid has played more ODI games than the other ten England players combined!

Finally, we get the rubbish out of the way and start the series that everyone has been waiting for

That’s three international innings now for Jordan Cox, and whilst many great players have failed in their first three, it is concerning he hasn’t looked comfortable at all in the any of them. Could be a long few months coming up if he doesn’t find some form.

Jamie Overton playing as a specialist bat at number 8 and getting a first baller just about sums England’s attitude in ODIs up.

Yeah, it was a scratchy, stop-start innings, with lots of poor dismissals trying to force the pace on a slow pitch, perfectly summing everything up. Archer's numbers with the bat outside of England games are still a source of confusion, because whenever he bats for England he looks a proper tailender.

The rain has delayed things, doesn't look terminal, but the West Indies' task will probably be made easier.