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England Cricket 2021 (excluding Ashes)

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  • One down, 9 to go.
  • I down.......

    There's still a chance. A slim chance...but a chance.
  • I cant believe there is a think tank for this. little thinking going on. 
  • And is this just a warm up to watching the English football team lose today. 2 defeats in around 4 hours would be impressive.

    Happy days are here again.
  • edited June 2021
    .
  • That was an awful performance by the team .. not sure how many of these deserve to stay …. Question is it time to replace Root ??
  • That was an awful performance by the team .. not sure how many of these deserve to stay …. Question is it time to replace Root ??
    Simple answer is No
  • That was an awful performance by the team .. not sure how many of these deserve to stay …. Question is it time to replace Root ??
    who do you suggest? 
  • That was an awful performance by the team .. not sure how many of these deserve to stay …. Question is it time to replace Root ??
    Not as a player, but maybe as captain. 

    Hopefully by the time we play India the first team will be fit (Stokes, Butler, Bairstow, Foakes, Woakes and we can drop the 2nd XI.



  • From age group cricket to the senior team very little time is spent training for the longer form of the game. It is all about power plays, scenario batting, where are my scoring options, hitting big etc etc. This and when the CC is played is why we produce so few top 3 bats.






    This is what George Dobell has written on our failings as a batting unit:

    At the same time, we've given the prime weeks of summer to limited-overs tournaments and prioritised white-ball success. Young batters have been encouraged to learn short-format skills and excel at performing in conditions where the pitches are perfect and the white-ball hardly leaves the straight. They can afford to be mediocre in the first-class game. Attack has been prioritised over defence.

    Technical coaching has been replaced by something very close to cheerleading - correcting a player's technique is believed to undermine their confidence, though less than failing at international level, you would have thought - and a scouting system has been introduced which has led to such gems as Jason Roy opening and James Bracey keeping in Test cricket. Really, whoever thought those were good ideas needs to be in a different line of work.


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  • The irony is that sibley has perfected his poor technique in the 4 day game. 

    Equally so poor technique doesn't seem to be criticised at club level..it just matters that you get it done..the higher up the game you go the more important technique becomes ..see above

    I said long ago that 20/20 and test cricket are 2 separate games...a baseball player could possibly cross over to 20/20 rather than an established test bat say a boycott 

    I don't think Crawleys issues are just shot selection..its foot movement and closed bat face too especially early in his innings..hes a batsman in a fast bowlers body that doesn't help 

    For what its worth I'd drop sibley for good, give Crawley a chance to regain confidence in county and forget about bracey...hameed must play 

    I think malan has been hard done by so may be worth another run but he has got better by not playing..also thought lyth was unlucky not to get a longer run 


  • A lot of batsmen got dumped with an average of less than 30, and then replaced with other players who averaged a similar score

    Compton - 16 Tests - 28.70
    Robson  - 7 Tests - 30.54
    Lyth - 7 Tests - 20.38
    Malan - 15 Tests - 27.84
    Westley - 5 Tests - 24.12
    Denly - 15 Tests - 29.53
    Stoneman - 11 Tests - 27.68
    Vince - 13 Tests - 24.90

    There are probably others!
  • That was an awful performance by the team .. not sure how many of these deserve to stay …. Question is it time to replace Root ??
    Not as a player, but maybe as captain. 

    Hopefully by the time we play India the first team will be fit (Stokes, Butler, Bairstow, Foakes, Woakes and we can drop the 2nd XI.
    Why on earth is his name on that list 
  • lolwray said:
    The irony is that sibley has perfected his poor technique in the 4 day game. 

    Equally so poor technique doesn't seem to be criticised at club level..it just matters that you get it done..the higher up the game you go the more important technique becomes ..see above

    I said long ago that 20/20 and test cricket are 2 separate games...a baseball player could possibly cross over to 20/20 rather than an established test bat say a boycott 

    I don't think Crawleys issues are just shot selection..its foot movement and closed bat face too especially early in his innings..hes a batsman in a fast bowlers body that doesn't help 

    For what its worth I'd drop sibley for good, give Crawley a chance to regain confidence in county and forget about bracey...hameed must play 

    I think malan has been hard done by so may be worth another run but he has got better by not playing..also thought lyth was unlucky not to get a longer run 



    I could have written that myself but not so well

    Crawley's issue is a crisis of confidence which has meant that his desperation to score runs leads him to playing shots that he needs to put away until such time as he is in a dominant position in the innings

    @mid_life_crisis, who knows a thing about batting and coaching, hit the nail on the head very early on so far as Sibley is concerned. I was initially prepared to give him a chance but his few successes mask his issues and the problems he presents to the team. 

    I believe that Sibley has the highest percentage of "leaves" in Test cricket. This isn't an issue in itself but a strike rate of 35.25 is never going to put the opposition under pressure. And they recognise this too which is why they deliberately hang the ball outside the off stump for four or five balls an over.  Equally, they won't feed his on side strength by bowling at middle and leg but they will target, once or twice an over, his 3rd/4th stump area knowing full well, that with little or no off side options, he will be tempted to work that ball to leg. And as if by magic he's out because he ends up LBW or bowled playing across his pads or being caught behind/in the slips because the bat hasn't come down straight.

    All of which is why I suggested that Burns opens with Hameed and Lawrence is promoted to 3 again even though I would prefer Pope to be given that opportunity because, if they don't do that, then the Surrey man will be back at 6 once Stokes returns. And doing a job that really isn't his strength - nursing the tail. He's become a bit of a "20 and out" player, with a top score of 34 in his last 15 Test innings having managed to have got himself in on at least two thirds of those occasions.


  • A lot of batsmen got dumped with an average of less than 30, and then replaced with other players who averaged a similar score

    Compton - 16 Tests - 28.70
    Robson  - 7 Tests - 30.54
    Lyth - 7 Tests - 20.38
    Malan - 15 Tests - 27.84
    Westley - 5 Tests - 24.12
    Denly - 15 Tests - 29.53
    Stoneman - 11 Tests - 27.68
    Vince - 13 Tests - 24.90

    There are probably others!
    And Sibley, with 20 Tests to his name, has had more chances than any of them. He averages 30.78 overall but, for this last 12 Tests that drops to 22.15 and only in one of those has he scored more than 60 in the match!
  • lolwray said:
    The irony is that sibley has perfected his poor technique in the 4 day game. 

    Equally so poor technique doesn't seem to be criticised at club level..it just matters that you get it done..the higher up the game you go the more important technique becomes ..see above

    I said long ago that 20/20 and test cricket are 2 separate games...a baseball player could possibly cross over to 20/20 rather than an established test bat say a boycott 

    I don't think Crawleys issues are just shot selection..its foot movement and closed bat face too especially early in his innings..hes a batsman in a fast bowlers body that doesn't help 

    For what its worth I'd drop sibley for good, give Crawley a chance to regain confidence in county and forget about bracey...hameed must play 

    I think malan has been hard done by so may be worth another run but he has got better by not playing..also thought lyth was unlucky not to get a longer run 



    I could have written that myself but not so well

    Crawley's issue is a crisis of confidence which has meant that his desperation to score runs leads him to playing shots that he needs to put away until such time as he is in a dominant position in the innings

    @mid_life_crisis, who knows a thing about batting and coaching, hit the nail on the head very early on so far as Sibley is concerned. I was initially prepared to give him a chance but his few successes mask his issues and the problems he presents to the team. 

    I believe that Sibley has the highest percentage of "leaves" in Test cricket. This isn't an issue in itself but a strike rate of 35.25 is never going to put the opposition under pressure. And they recognise this too which is why they deliberately hang the ball outside the off stump for four or five balls an over.  Equally, they won't feed his on side strength by bowling at middle and leg but they will target, once or twice an over, his 3rd/4th stump area knowing full well, that with little or no off side options, he will be tempted to work that ball to leg. And as if by magic he's out because he ends up LBW or bowled playing across his pads or being caught behind/in the slips because the bat hasn't come down straight.

    All of which is why I suggested that Burns opens with Hameed and Lawrence is promoted to 3 again even though I would prefer Pope to be given that opportunity because, if they don't do that, then the Surrey man will be back at 6 once Stokes returns. And doing a job that really isn't his strength - nursing the tail. He's become a bit of a "20 and out" player, with a top score of 34 in his last 15 Test innings having managed to have got himself in on at least two thirds of those occasions.


    I'm not sure Pope's failures to post big scores are down to being at number 6, it's more a mental thing. Especially in this series when the tail have scored more runs than the majority of the top 7.

    James Vince made pleasing looking 20s and then got out. Going back a bit further Mark Ramprakash never had the Test career he should have had, when you look at his county record. Pope has to be careful not to end up the same, someone who never scored the Test runs to match his talent
  • I used to watch a lot of  county cricket when Mark Ramprakash played for Middlesex and then Surrey he was brilliant, lovely to see him  bat, but test cricket ii never worked out, when Ollie Pope began his test career I thought he will play for England for years, I hope he still does but he does keep finding ways to get himself out at the moment, I think Zak Crawley and Dan Lawrence have got  the talent to play test cricket as well.
  • lolwray said:
    The irony is that sibley has perfected his poor technique in the 4 day game. 

    Equally so poor technique doesn't seem to be criticised at club level..it just matters that you get it done..the higher up the game you go the more important technique becomes ..see above

    I said long ago that 20/20 and test cricket are 2 separate games...a baseball player could possibly cross over to 20/20 rather than an established test bat say a boycott 

    I don't think Crawleys issues are just shot selection..its foot movement and closed bat face too especially early in his innings..hes a batsman in a fast bowlers body that doesn't help 

    For what its worth I'd drop sibley for good, give Crawley a chance to regain confidence in county and forget about bracey...hameed must play 

    I think malan has been hard done by so may be worth another run but he has got better by not playing..also thought lyth was unlucky not to get a longer run 



    I could have written that myself but not so well

    Crawley's issue is a crisis of confidence which has meant that his desperation to score runs leads him to playing shots that he needs to put away until such time as he is in a dominant position in the innings

    @mid_life_crisis, who knows a thing about batting and coaching, hit the nail on the head very early on so far as Sibley is concerned. I was initially prepared to give him a chance but his few successes mask his issues and the problems he presents to the team. 

    I believe that Sibley has the highest percentage of "leaves" in Test cricket. This isn't an issue in itself but a strike rate of 35.25 is never going to put the opposition under pressure. And they recognise this too which is why they deliberately hang the ball outside the off stump for four or five balls an over.  Equally, they won't feed his on side strength by bowling at middle and leg but they will target, once or twice an over, his 3rd/4th stump area knowing full well, that with little or no off side options, he will be tempted to work that ball to leg. And as if by magic he's out because he ends up LBW or bowled playing across his pads or being caught behind/in the slips because the bat hasn't come down straight.

    All of which is why I suggested that Burns opens with Hameed and Lawrence is promoted to 3 again even though I would prefer Pope to be given that opportunity because, if they don't do that, then the Surrey man will be back at 6 once Stokes returns. And doing a job that really isn't his strength - nursing the tail. He's become a bit of a "20 and out" player, with a top score of 34 in his last 15 Test innings having managed to have got himself in on at least two thirds of those occasions.


    I'm not sure Pope's failures to post big scores are down to being at number 6, it's more a mental thing. Especially in this series when the tail have scored more runs than the majority of the top 7.

    James Vince made pleasing looking 20s and then got out. Going back a bit further Mark Ramprakash never had the Test career he should have had, when you look at his county record. Pope has to be careful not to end up the same, someone who never scored the Test runs to match his talent
    I do totally agree that it is a mental thing. But that is the point - you have to have a different mentality. The best ones are those batting there are those that take the game away from the opposition and that really isn't his strength. As for the tail scoring more than the top 6, we are coming from a very low starting point and I'm really not sure that it has consistently wagged over the last year or so in the same way as it did when we had the likes of Moeen Ali and Woakes batting at 8 and 9. Granted Robinson will be a good option at 8.

    The other possibility is switching Stokes and Pope when he does return. There is an exceptional batsman in Pope but it's a question of getting that out of him. The issue with Ramprakash is that he was probably dropped a dozen times and admits that, like Hick, he never felt that England believed in him and too much was expected of and by himself. Dropping or resting a player once like most are advocating for Crawley is infinitely different. 
  • Batsmen that rely on confidence/good form find it harder these days. Batsmen used to be able to get some decent scores in County Championship games between Tests. Nowadays, they have too many things standing in the way of that - this ranges from the IPL, other formats playing for England, the overload of fixtures generally, the reluctance of the ECB to allow players to play for their Counties etc. Most batsmen need time at the crease and the leeway to battle through difficult periods. I found it interesting watching Ross Taylor bat for NZ. He was clearly out of touch, but had the experience to know how to battle through and get a decent score. There aren't sufficient opportunities for the likes of Sibley, Pope, Crawley to bat like a Test batsman even if it is dealing with a more modest attack than we have faced against NZ and in India.
  • Batsmen that rely on confidence/good form find it harder these days. Batsmen used to be able to get some decent scores in County Championship games between Tests. Nowadays, they have too many things standing in the way of that - this ranges from the IPL, other formats playing for England, the overload of fixtures generally, the reluctance of the ECB to allow players to play for their Counties etc. Most batsmen need time at the crease and the leeway to battle through difficult periods. I found it interesting watching Ross Taylor bat for NZ. He was clearly out of touch, but had the experience to know how to battle through and get a decent score. There aren't sufficient opportunities for the likes of Sibley, Pope, Crawley to bat like a Test batsman even if it is dealing with a more modest attack than we have faced against NZ and in India.
    And they used to have to do it against the overseas bowlers that were fixtures in County sides along with their England counterparts. Off the top of my head, how many bowlers currently on the circuit are on a par with:

    Garner 
    Botham
    Marshall
    Holding
    Imran Khan
    Willis
    Hoggard
    Gough
    Walsh
    Ambrose
    Proctor
    Wasim Akram
    Waqar Younis
    Hadlee
    Donald
    Underwood
    Emburey
    Intikhab Alam
    Bishen Bedi
    J K Lever
    Mushtaq Ahmed
    Kapil Dev

    Every county had two/three bowlers that batsmen had to be wary of. Now it should be just one at most. But because of white ball cricket, poor technique and when we play the likes of Darren Stevens, bowling at 69mph, are unplayable.

    There, was, of course, one other benefit of these bowlers playing County cricket and it wasn't just that they were in opposition. It's that our batsmen used to have to face their overseas team mates in the nets. What better preparation for when you have to do so in the middle on international duty?
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  • It was great watching county cricket all those years ago.
  • The interesting thing though is that the batsmen/all rounders missing from this side currently are the ones who are also white ball stars (Buttler, Bairstow, Moeen, Stokes, Woakes, Curran etc), whereas the ones picked for the NZ series (other than Root and Lawrence) won't have played white ball cricket since last year, so it's not as if the dismissals of Burns, Sibley, Crawley, Pope and Bracey can be blamed at them having been playing T20 leagues, and thus used to hitting out.

    Many of the Kiwi players also play lots of T20 cricket, yet they managed to play "proper" Test match innings.


  • Ollie Robinson (Kent) is one of best young England keepers. His development as a batsman has been somewhat stifled by having to bat at 6 in the County Championship but he is now opening and has had scores of 43, 14 and 120 doing so. I'm certainly not saying that Ollie is ready as a Test batsman yet though he wouldn't be far behind Bracey in that respect. 

    But if we are talking about pure glove work there are few better. An example of this is the catch that he took the other night down the leg side off Darren Stevens to dismiss D'Arcy Short. Ollie has to adopt a wide stance to get a view of the ball because Stevens is bowling across the left hander - the hands go first and are followed by the head and body rather than the old style of getting the body across first:

    https://live.nvplay.com/ecb/#ve52bb638-311d-4572-a581-1f1eb2ede5c6
    Robinson was mentioned by Nasser in his post match analysis when questioning why we turned to Bracey. He said that, in terms of keeping, Robinson is way ahead of Bracey and that we ended up playing the latter at 7 when he bats at 3 for his County i.e. we picked him as a batsman first but then didn't play him in his position and forgot that the keeper has to be a top keeper too! He also said that Billings had been asked to join the squad but not used and that he hadn't kept consistently in the CC for over two years

    Kent have often bemoaned the fact that we do not produce fast bowlers. But we have, since time began, had a conveyor belt of keepers. The man responsible for guiding the likes of Billings, Robinson and Cox was Ray Willis. He was also the Kent U14 coach for a number of no longer coaches the keepers but, along with his son, Simon (who is an ECB talent spotter for the South and former head of the Kent and Sri Lanka Academy) and Geraint Jones used to run a monthly training session for keepers during the winter too. I wonder if all the counties do that?
  • They need to release players for more county cricket. The amount of long form games the centrally contracted players play is way too few 
  • Batsmen that rely on confidence/good form find it harder these days. Batsmen used to be able to get some decent scores in County Championship games between Tests. Nowadays, they have too many things standing in the way of that - this ranges from the IPL, other formats playing for England, the overload of fixtures generally, the reluctance of the ECB to allow players to play for their Counties etc. Most batsmen need time at the crease and the leeway to battle through difficult periods. I found it interesting watching Ross Taylor bat for NZ. He was clearly out of touch, but had the experience to know how to battle through and get a decent score. There aren't sufficient opportunities for the likes of Sibley, Pope, Crawley to bat like a Test batsman even if it is dealing with a more modest attack than we have faced against NZ and in India.
    And they used to have to do it against the overseas bowlers that were fixtures in County sides along with their England counterparts. Off the top of my head, how many bowlers currently on the circuit are on a par with:

    Garner 
    Botham
    Marshall
    Holding
    Imran Khan
    Willis
    Hoggard
    Gough
    Walsh
    Ambrose
    Proctor
    Wasim Akram
    Waqar Younis
    Hadlee
    Donald
    Underwood
    Emburey
    Intikhab Alam
    Bishen Bedi
    J K Lever
    Mushtaq Ahmed
    Kapil Dev

    Every county had two/three bowlers that batsmen had to be wary of. Now it should be just one at most. But because of white ball cricket, poor technique and when we play the likes of Darren Stevens, bowling at 69mph, are unplayable.

    There, was, of course, one other benefit of these bowlers playing County cricket and it wasn't just that they were in opposition. It's that our batsmen used to have to face their overseas team mates in the nets. What better preparation for when you have to do so in the middle on international duty?
    That's a very fair point which went through my brain as I was posting. I guess the big difference is the number of red ball innings that batsmen face each year has dropped. I have no facts to hand, but I suspect a Test batsmen has less than half the hours at the crease these days compared to yesteryear.
  • The interesting thing though is that the batsmen/all rounders missing from this side currently are the ones who are also white ball stars (Buttler, Bairstow, Moeen, Stokes, Woakes, Curran etc), whereas the ones picked for the NZ series (other than Root and Lawrence) won't have played white ball cricket since last year, so it's not as if the dismissals of Burns, Sibley, Crawley, Pope and Bracey can be blamed at them having been playing T20 leagues, and thus used to hitting out.

    Many of the Kiwi players also play lots of T20 cricket, yet they managed to play "proper" Test match innings.


    Poor technique in the case of most of them bar Crawley who is failing because of his desire to get at the ball - he has a better strike rate in Test cricket than most of the NZ line up and that includes Kane Williamson. He needs to get back to occupying the crease but where does he get to do that?  There are just two First Class matches (so a maximum of 4 innings) before the Hundred kicks in and he will also, presumably be involved in the T20s in between.

    The cold hard facts though are that the majority of the NZ batsmen have a solid technique which is why, based on averages, only Root in this match would have got into their top 7.  Williamson, Latham, Nicholls, Taylor, Young and Nicholls are also at least as good playing against a red ball as they are a white one. 

  • The lockdown easing has been delayed by 4 weeks until the 19th July, including sports events other than test events

    No problem for the India series, but the white ball matches before then will be affected (I'm meant to be going to the Pakistan ODI at Lord's on the 10th July)
  • I held off getting anything until India in August, as I had no confidence enough people would be vaccinated before then.
  • Wondering where this leaves the 100, as it starts just before end of restrictions. 
  • The lockdown easing has been delayed by 4 weeks until the 19th July, including sports events other than test events

    No problem for the India series, but the white ball matches before then will be affected (I'm meant to be going to the Pakistan ODI at Lord's on the 10th July)
    I've got debentures at Lords and we were sent an email last week saying they'll refund and do what they did for the NZ test if they're not allowed the full capacity and we put our requests in for tickets last week , pre empting the process just in case it's a reduced capacity again
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