A good summary.
SA don't just have better players. They play the game properly.
Sorry, but bazball is rubbish. We might win the odd one but long term we won't be winning much including this series.
We didn't bat for a days play across 2 innings. That's pathetic.
Great test teams, in any era can attack when it calls for it, and defend. I think of us in 2005, and that great aussie team. Fantastic attacking players who played the game as it flowed.
This reckless play has taken us backwards in 50 over and t20. It's got no future in the 5 day game. It wont win in Australia or SA or India.
The captain needs to start leading from the front ... making big runs. Not hacking his way to 25 and out giving 3 chances on the way.
A purple patch from bairstow and Root can't cover up this flawed way of playing. Australia will win 4/5 nil here If we play like this and there's no way we are getting anything from this series.
I get what you're saying mate and part of me agrees with it because I'm not a massive fan of that style of play for Test cricket. But the way we turned our fortunes round in white ball cricket was by being fearless and just going hard regardless of the situation we found ourselves in. Now in Test cricket, there's no need to play that way to the extreme we have been because there's so much more time in the game and I do think "bazball" got away with a lot of criticism during the first few Tests of the summer because we won. But we really shouldn't of if New Zealand took advantage when they had us under the kosh.
But I am willing to give it some more time because as I said yesterday, we're still trying to find a team that's good enough to play Test level for England - regardless of the style we play. We're short of genuine quality in a number of areas. So whether that's playing the defensive style we had under Root or the aggressive style under Stokes, this side isn't good enough right now. And on top of that, bazball is still in it's infancy so the players are still trying to come to terms with it - especially when it's such a change from the way we were playing in the Caribbean.
And finally we have to consider the number of injuries we've got at the moment, especially in the bowling department. We seen with Nortje how dangerous express pace can be. We've got that in Archer, Wood and Stone who are all out injured right now. We're also missing Woakes, who offers us a bit with the bat down the order. Mahmood and Fisher are both out as well. Curran and Robinson have just recently returned. So we're reliant on the very experienced pair of Anderson and Broad, who've played the full summer and Potts who's also had a long time bowling.
A lack of a genuine world class spinner has meant that the seamers have to had get extra overs in their legs as well. And the poor quality of spin bowlers coming through has been an issue for some time now.
The problem he's got is whether there's talent coming through to come in and perform in this side. Crawley certainly needs to be dropped and there are big question marks around Lees and Foakes too. Lees gets starts but can't convert and if we're going with Broad at 8 then whoever plays at 7 needs to be a capable batsman and Foakes hasn't shown that yet. But who comes in for these 3?
I think Foakes is the easiest to replace because it doesn't have to be like for like. You can bring in an extra batsmen to deepen the line-up and give Bairstow the gloves. You would have to believe that they're going to give Harry Brook a go at some point. And although being a white-ball specialist, I think Livingstone because of his ability to offer something with the ball as well, is a shoo-in to get a go at some point.
At the top of the order, I remember saying the day Cook retired that he'd end up being asked to come back. He's still scoring plenty of runs for Essex and it wouldn't surprise me but I do kind of hope they don't. The Kent pair of Daniel Bell-Drummond and Ben Compton are both possibilities if you're looking at who's scored runs at the top of the order this season at County level. Compton I think will certainly get picked at some point, Bell-Drummond maybe not because he's already 29. And after that it's the tried and failed Keaton Jennings who is back scoring runs for fun with Lancs.
Logged