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England Cricket 2025
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It will be interesting to see what happens behind the stumps after this tour too. Smith has looked utterly lost compared to the player he's looked in English conditions. Another change behind the stumps with Cox or James Rew and find a way to play Smith as a batter only?0
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Just watch all these players make runs after this test match. Pressure off. Runs galore. Win last 2 test matches
You'll have Rob Key saying how desperately unlucky we were not to be coming home with the ashes3 -
Fair play to Crawley for showing some fight. Has arguably come out of this tour OK.1
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The Ashes was a golden opportunity to expand the appeal of cricket in this county but instead has turned into a masterclass of awful tactics and planning and disastrous PR.0
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Ironic that the Ashes will be lost in a typical BazBall situation. 400 odd chase with a day and a half to go.
Tear it up and start again0 -
Definitely needs to be torn down , Key,Wright,Baz and Patel all need to go. Stokes might have to stay on as skipper because there's no alternatives in the current side.
What slightly complicates this is Baz coaching the white ball side too , they're off to Sri Lanka at the end of Jan and then straight into a T20 World Cup. Not a lot of time for the ECB to make decisions.1 -
He’ll stay on until after the WC with Key desperately hoping they do well so the trigger doesn’t get pulledMarcusH26 said:Definitely needs to be torn down , Key,Wright,Baz and Patel all need to go. Stokes might have to stay on as skipper because there's no alternatives in the current side.
What slightly complicates this is Baz coaching the white ball side too , they're off to Sri Lanka at the end of Jan and then straight into a T20 World Cup. Not a lot of time for the ECB to make decisions.0 -
This really does sum the squad and tour up. Brook standing there, slack jawed, unaware that he'd even been bowled.
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Bring back FoakesMarcusH26 said:It will be interesting to see what happens behind the stumps after this tour too. Smith has looked utterly lost compared to the player he's looked in English conditions. Another change behind the stumps with Cox or James Rew and find a way to play Smith as a batter only?3 -
Skipper is quite a problem. Neither Pope nor Brook are viable alternatives and I doubt Rooty wants another go. You have to admire Stokes as a player but I do wonder if his leadership is maybe a bit one dimensional.0
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He’s not the answer though . This will hopefully be the last test series we see him in.Laddick01 said:Fair play to Crawley for showing some fight. Has arguably come out of this tour OK.1 -
I hope Brook is never given the captaincy of the Test side.
As good a batsman he might be , I don't think he's that bright when it comes to his decision making.
Not sure who the next captain after Stokes will be though as Pope probably won't be in the side and I don't think Crawley is captain material either3 -
Crawley has always been undroppable regardless of form as evidenced by the fact that only a convicted spot fixing cheat is below him in terms of average (31.77) of all top five Test batters that have had 100 innings plus. It is also now 26 times that he's got to 50 (in 113 innings) and on only five occasions has he converted. 70s and 80s simply do not win Test matches and that is the reason why he only has one MOMs in 62 matches - that one occasion was against Pakistan in a drawn match on a road. Head got to 85 and doubled up. That's a match winning innings.fenaddick said:
He’s starting to show he can play closer to a traditional opening bat, if he could do this on a regular basis he’d be undropableLaddick01 said:Fair play to Crawley for showing some fight. Has arguably come out of this tour OK.
His average in the series is 35.66 and that puts him seventh from both sides but, from our perspective this is "land of blind" stuff because the likes of Duckett (16.16), Pope (20.83), Brook (28.83), Stokes (27.50), Smith (15.20) and Jacks (25.66) have been so awful. That said, as people have pointed out, he batted like one would expect a proper opener to. He left and he left and he left. It was joyous to watch him on just one off 28 balls in fact. As he said in his post match interview, the bowling was challenging but he dug in. Which is totally against what he has been told to do previously and against this very attack too. Therein lies the issue with Bazball.
This innings is definitely something to build on and will hopefully fill him with confidence. Crawley's fellow opener, Duckett, has had a torrid time though dating back some six months in both white and red ball and between the two of them they've managed opening partnerships opening partnerships of 0, 0, 5, 48, 37 and 4. However, given we've only taken one spare batter and Bethell is more of a replacement for Pope, we will, presumably persevere with Duckett. His issue is that the Aussies have, unsurprisingly, worked out that he cannot resist cutting and have fed that addiction on wickets that bounce more than back home. Perhaps he needs to take a leaf out of Crawley's notebook.3 -
The one "Baz and Key" punt which has actually proved relatively correct, is that Crawley's game suits Australian conditions, as he seems to like the decent bounce and relative lack of lateral movement. He might average just 32 in Australia, but with our dismal performances after 10/11, that isn't a terrible number. Root only averages 37 in Australia and Pope 16.
Bizarrely Crawley overall averages 41 in 11 Tests against Australia, but a ludicrous 10 against NZ also in 11 Tests.0 -
It will be an interesting few weeks as I have no doubt a lot of the current players as well as friends in the media will come out in full support of Mccullum staying on. A huge issue within this setup is the absolute lack of accountability and pressure on places but if you are fortunate enough to be one of Mccullum’s favourites who gets a game no matter what then you are unlikely to want anything to jeopardise that, e.g a change in coach.
There is also a very strong perception that this team just don’t work hard enough. You can’t blame the players for the lack of preparation as that is on the management setup but it certainly doesn’t appear many of the players are to unhappy about doing the bare minimum of training and spending most of the time on the golf course. Again, if you are being paid very handsomely to do the bare minimum and spend lots of time golfing why on earth would you want that to change?This series is gone now but we have to hope it has a long term benefit on some of the existing players who are likely to form part of the setup for the next few years. Duckett, Crawley, Brook, Archer, Tongue etc are all likely to be around for a good few years yet and perhaps this series will reduce some of the arrogance and hubris we have seen from this team over the last few years. The fundamentals of test cricket haven’t changed in decades and this idea everyone else has it wrong and we are right has been nauseating to watch from the outside.There is a lot to dissect around decision making leading up to this series but watching this third test there have been three things that really stood out for me.
Watching Lyon bowl today it is clear what an important role a proper spinner plays in test cricket, especially in the right conditions. The Bashir experiment has simply been an absolute mess from the beginning. The idea that he could play test cricket at the highest level because of a TikTok video someone happened to watch is absolutely farcical and had there been any accountability in this setup someone would have brought an end to it from the very start. Instead as usual this setup have convinced themselves they are right and everyone else is wrong and have backed him despite it being obvious to everyone that he is nowhere near the required level yet. Guess what? He has been smashed all over the place for the Lions and numerous pundits have suggested he has looked atrocious in the nets and we have headed into the third test with our closest spinner to Lyon being Will Jacks.Secondly, Carey has had a magnificent series and actually comes across like a thoroughly good bloke as well. Who would have thought having a proper wicket keeper might be a good idea? For once England genuinely have someone who is one of the worlds best in their position (Foakes) and yet inexplicably he has being discarded as an after thought. We are led to believe it’s because his batting was not the run a ball style the setup wanted and Key has suggested wicket keeping isn’t really that important anyway. How ironic that three tests in we have a number of batters, including Stokes, batting in a very similar manner to how Foakes batted in India (For which he was dropped) and one of the players of the series has been the Aussie wicket keeper.Lastly, Stokes seems to be getting a lot of compliments for digging in his last few bats. However, he more than anyone has purported this myth that you don’t need to prepare, should smash every ball, and have zero accountability. One thing you can’t criticise Stokes/Mccullum for is their clarity of message. Some might not agree with how they want to play but they have been very clear it’s how they will do things and selection decisions have been made with this in mind. There’s a lot of players in County Cricket with much better stats who haven’t got a look in because they don’t play in the manner this setup have decided is their best approach.Fair enough, they have a style of play and suggested they will stick to it. Except now that it’s fallen apart we have this bizarre scenario where Stokes almost seems to have washed his hands of it and is calling out ‘weak men’ and implying they need to dig in more like he has had nothing to do with the messaging over the last few years. If you constantly deliver a certain message as a leader you shouldn’t be surprised to see those you lead doing exactly as they have been told. It has been abundantly clear the last few years if you don’t fully embrace Bazball or play in the manner this setup want you will not get a look in, pure and simple. Now it has fallen apart all the blame seems to be getting pushed onto the players who have been told to play in the exact manner Stokes now seems to be calling them out for.3
