England vs India first test

At least Sibley can catc... Oh.

 

Oh dear Sibley

 

Sibley can’t even catch now ffs. Anderson bowling beautifully here.

 

At least he wears sun block with style! Nope.... nope, he can't pull that off either...

 

I think the phrase useless lovely person is appropriate.

 

I've every sympathy for him to be honest. I first saw him play T20 for Surrey. He batted middle of the order and was a spin bowler. He then got promoted up the order. Moved counties and got a lot of runs and subsequently got picked for England.

He's struggled, a lot. But he does have a bit of determination, but that won't eradicate the flaws in his technique. Just like they won't for the flat track sloggers at test level.

It's a failing batting unit, and that's going to put a lot of pressure on the openers.

Hopefully we can bowl India out cheaply and give ourselves a chance to dig in and try and get a score. I don't expect us to, but it should be last chance saloon for a good number of that top 6 and if they can't deliver, the future may be elsewhere.

 

he couldn't catch a cold

 

Bowlers doing their best to get the batters out of trouble. Love seeing Kohli get a golden duck.

 

Nice bit of rain.

 

I know he's 39 but he needs to up the over rate

 

He can’t play through the offside at all, which means teams can now just bowl straight with well set fields and wait for him to miss or mistime one. It might take them 100 balls to get him, but he’ll have only got 25 in that time and hasn’t hurt them at all.

I’ve been supportive of him throughout his England career, I was there when he got his first century in Cape Town and thought that would be the breakthrough innings for him but he’s been completely found out at this level. Time for him to be moved on I’m afraid, he’s had his chance and failed.

 

The problem is aside from Root, our top order fails repeatedly. We've tried loads of people, juggled the order round and all it exposes is we've either sloggers or prodders. I might keep Burns a bit longer, but I'm not convinced by him, in most other eras he'd be nowhere near the England set up.

Maybe there is someone out there who can step in and provide a fresh impetus, but as a whole, we've got big problems. The tenure of our previous coach was a disaster for our test team. Thrashing the bat aggressively may be very Australian, but a good player it makes you not. To then take many of those players and ask them to suddenly find patience and technique, well that just compounds the disaster and probably limits the scoring slightly more.

If the rain holds off, they've got a second innings to see what they can do. But it all feels very ground hog day and my level of expectation isn't high.

 

Well, not 88 for 5, but even 125 for 4 sounds a whole lot better!

 

Agree with every word.

Burns - I like him and think he’s got something about it, he’s never going to average 50 but if he can keep improving I think he can be a solid opener for a few years for us. Also, potentially next captain with a complete lack of alternatives.

Crawley - Very talented but needs to go and score some big runs in county cricket for me. He’s a bit James Vincey at the minute.

I’d bring Malan back in immediately at 3. He’s proven he’s got the mentality at international level and has already had a crack at test level and was reasonably successful. He’s also got runs in Australia.

I’d then probably go with Hameed to open, he deserves another go and looks to be the best of the rest.

 

I think Burns has a decent temperament and he has captained Surrey, so he's probably the only option unless the ECB decided to change captain and there is a stand out leader, who may not be the best player, but could bond the team more cohesively (Brierley-esque).

As for the rest of the top order (Root aside). Put some names in a hat. Pull some out. Cross your fingers.

 

Bring back Hales and Vince.

 

There are some excellent points put forward in those opinions dwl, mido.
Having more 4 day cricket would bring leading run scorers to the fore but doesn't necessarily provide world class batsmen, eg Graham Hick (smashing county trundlers around everyday).
Good coaching should iron out faults in technique. These current lot have had plenty of time and help with that , Root and Bairstow aside.
Aptitude is in the mind, maybe it takes time to develop, maybe they won't achieve it!
Replacements/ alternatives, Dawid Malan, Joe Denly have similar 1st class averages to Mike Brearley who is regarded as one of the best test match captains. He had a test match ave of 23.
Then there's money good players can become very wealthy just playing franchise cricket alone. Chris Gayle extremely wealthy from short form cricket.Test ave 42 top score 333.
You can't now put the t20 genie back in the bottle, and I do agree with DWL about adding another short form tournament I have really enjoyed it and watch as much as I can, even though I've been brought up watching test match cricket I still love it and think it's the best form of the game.

 

I absolutely love test cricket. But it’s gone as the number one form of the game.

Despite what protestations you’ll see no cricketer growing up now wants to block all day for pennies when you can slog it and earn thousands.

Test cricketers of the future will be one day players who can adapt, it used to be the other way around.

Undoubtedly skill levels have increased since 50 over cricket was started to be taken seriously and the explosion of T20 30 years ago but long term application hasn’t

batters want to knock it over the stand, bowlers can’t bowl line and length or they get whacked

I’m not sure what the answer is, I’d hazard a guess there isn’t one, maybe we just need to accept 250 is a big score and be surprised when a team makes 400…

 

Why don't we bring in shorter formats of "red ball" cricket instead of "white ball" cricket and alternate between the two. That way players get used to the "red ball".