Our batting feels in a really good place, even with question marks over Crawley and Pope - Brook, Root and Smith are class, and Bethell looks promising as next man in waiting.
Seen some suggest that Stokes and Smith should swap places on the batting line up, think it's becoming harder to argue against that. Also saw someone advocating for replacing Bashir with Bethell and putting him up the order. Both interesting suggestions
Seen some suggest that Stokes and Smith should swap places on the batting line up, think it's becoming harder to argue against that. Also saw someone advocating for replacing Bashir with Bethell and putting him up the order. Both interesting suggestions
Smith is averaging 250.00 batting at number seven this year, 144 higher than any other batter. Any suggestion he should be batting anywhere else should be rejected, quickly.
Is Stokes still worth his place as an all rounder ? .. his batting is getting worse and worse but is compensated by his captaincy and influence on the team
Seen some suggest that Stokes and Smith should swap places on the batting line up, think it's becoming harder to argue against that. Also saw someone advocating for replacing Bashir with Bethell and putting him up the order. Both interesting suggestions
Not going to argue with the Smith suggestion or that Bashir shouldn't be replaced (preferably by Dawson) or that Bethell isn't a real talent with the bat but the latter is even less of a Test spinner than Bashir and has just 12 FC wickets to his name. Being a successful red ball spinner takes a lot longer than being able to turn your arm over for 4 overs with the sole aim of darting the ball in.
Can’t disagree with any of the above, think it was someone working from the obvious point that the ECB want to crowbar Bethell in. You’d end up needing a lot of overs from Root which is far from ideal
Smith should stay where he is. 7 is a specialist positions, he's very good at it. Batting with the tail is a skill. It's part of the reason Foakes was dropped from the side. Smith has shown to be excellent at it and he can also play innings like today. Leave him where he is
Whether it's deliberate or not these flat pitches and hot weather are good preparation for our bowlers ahead of an away ashes this winter. They've had to toil multiple times already in this series but I'm hoping they've learnt a lot and will come out of it as better bowlers.
Whether it's deliberate or not these flat pitches and hot weather are good preparation for our bowlers ahead of an away ashes this winter. They've had to toil multiple times already in this series but I'm hoping they've learnt a lot and will come out of it as better bowlers.
The Sheffield Shield pitches the past couple of years have been proper green seamers. Not many batsman getting runs over there.
Smith should stay where he is. 7 is a specialist positions, he's very good at it. Batting with the tail is a skill. It's part of the reason Foakes was dropped from the side. Smith has shown to be excellent at it and he can also play innings like today. Leave him where he is
Only works if the tail is prepared to do their bit - they contributed 5 runs out of a total of 20. Brook and Smith put on 303 runs with Smith effectively coming in at 6. Stokes coming in 7 strengthens our tail. Interestingly, Stokes averages exactly the same (35.13) whether he bats at 7 or anywhere else and he hasn't hit a Test hundred for over 2 years.
Comments
Harry Brook is only 26.
Just need to sort the bowling.
Duckett
Bethell
Pope
Root
Brook
Smith
Stokes
Dawson
Atkinson
Carse
Archer/Wood
We then have a mini collapse & they are looking at having a lead of 180.
Only 1 winner here I'm afraid.
The other 9 batters = 46