Dropped for the Windies tour. As have Burns, Hameed and Malan. Interesting. Good to see 2 Yorkies in the squad in Lees and Fisher.
Buttler I guess is still injured? Crawley Lees Pope Root Stokes Bairstow Foakes Robinson Mahmood Wood Parkinson Fisher, Lawrence, leach, Overton and Woakes carrying drinks unless Jonny keeps wicket and fisher gets a run out for foakes.
A lot of people have been calling for mahmood to be involved which is fair enough but one small problem is that he simply isn't as good as Broad or Anderson.
The only excuse for this is if they didn’t want to go but I would assume that would have been announced if so
I’m guessing that they can’t play December-Feb-June without a break as they’re both knocking on. Given we’re playing New Zealand in June I expect they’re saving them for that.
The interim selectors felt it was an opportunity to look at other options with the squad. There was obvious pressure on them to make changes which they have done, so it seems reasonable to drop 8 players ( some only temporarily ! ). Root will bat at 3 which he has been doing practically anyway ! Foakes will keep wicket which he would have done for the last 2 years if not for his injury. Buttler won’t play Test cricket again. The last 3 mentioned points must be all good !! ?? Well done Collingwood, Strauss and Taylor
He showed great potential with Yorkshire when he was 20 ish but slumped in form and got sent to Durham. He’s got a few centuries since and captained the Lions in Australia. His average must be mid 30’s I guess but he is a technically sound opener which England always go for. If he performs as an opener, perhaps a future as England captain is likely. We have very few untried options to open the innings so, who knows ?
Nice to see Hoylandswaine opener Lees get called up and of course Fisher. If it's the end of Broad and Anderson then it wouldn't be such a bad thing as we need to look to the future and look at guys who can hopefully play every game if needed.
Thing is that Lees as an opener cannot be literally any worse than the others that have been before him, for literally years. We haven't been able to replace Cook unfortunately. Sibley & Burns don't have the correct technique, Hameed is scared to hit a run in case he gets out, Crawley showed potential but never properly fulfilled it. Even going back to Denly, Roy, Stoneman, Jennings, Compton & even Duckett, all a waste of time. The position is proper up for grabs, but nobody seems to have both the temperament & ability to make it their own!! Why that is, is a completely different argument!!
They missed a trick listening to Boycott lamenting Vince's temperament and technique. He needed more time. Eventually he'd have turned one of those 40 odds or 70's or 80's into a big one and gone on from there. Harshly overlooked since the Ashes in whatever year it was. They dropped a b ollo ck kicking Hales out after his rant at Trentbridge v Pakistan. He'd just made 92. I'm certain he had the talent to play in our batting line-up. Jason Roy might not be an opener at test level. However, he's talented enough given a proper run. Opening against Australia in 2019 killed him.
No part of me thinks dropping Broad and Anderson was a good idea. The issue is the batting, and though bringing through bowling talent is required, the experience and support they’d bring, plus the fact they are still more likely to bowl teams out than the others, makes it seem like throwing the baby out with the bath water. They haven’t been ‘rested’. They’ve been dropped. Jos Buttler shouldn’t go near a set of whites again, his white ball game is going to end up suffering from it if he does.
The issue isn’t Mahmood’s selection imo. It’s the selection of Woakes and Overton, who should be making way for broad and Anderson