broadyfan94
Cricket Spectator
Following on from the ashes, I feel we really need to start pushing on and winning home and away. The other day I created a thread regarding who we should bring to the UAE and a lot of interesting points came up and it got me thinking how we should set up home and away.
For me our main weaknesses are having an opener to partner cook which has been a problem since Strauss retired and finding a front line spinner which has been a problem since Swann retired.
Finding a solution to our opening crisis is no easy task. Our Options are Lyth, Hales, Robson, Compton or promoting one of our middle order batsman which I have never been a fan of. Although quite an unpopular opinion I'm very tempted for us to keep going with Lyth, since Strauss retired we keep on ditching Opening batsmen after one series and I just feel we're going to keep on going through so many batsmen if we continue not to put faith in someone and I am not confident about hales temperament.
We've got Bell and Root who are the certain starters in the middle order however if Bell continues to struggle he may start to see his place come under threat. I've got a lot of faith in Bell , for me his test record shows he will come good again. He has 7500 runs at 43 and he could overtake gooch to be our 2nd highest test run scorer until Root overtakes him. I would like to see Balance come into fold again, although not immediately. He's the third quickest England player to score 1000 runs with an average of 47 and scored the 2nd most runs in the West Indies however when he came back to England he did not have the technical ability to bat at 3, however he proved last summer being second top run scorer in the series versus India he's can become a very solid batsman. I would like to see him return maybe after a lions winter tour and going back to the county system to rebuild his confidence and see him at 5 with bell and root at 3 and 4 in a years or so time. For me Moeen has shown his batting ability this summer but has not really impressed enough with the Ball to be selected as the sole spinner. I would like to see him moved back up to the middle order and be the support spinner to our front line spinner. I feel his batting is clearly his strength and he has all the capabilities to bat at 5 or 6 but if he wants to remain in the side he needs to be scoring consistent runs at 5 or 6 which is far more challenging than batting at 8. I believe he will have two opportunities in the UAE either to out bowl rashid and prove he should be our main spinner which I don't think will happen or to prove he is a reliable middle order batsman who can consistently score which he is more than capable of doing. However if he fails to do either his place will come under pressure. At 6 I could see stokes being there for a long time, consistently gets us out of trouble and great with the ball. On Bairstow I feel he has so many technical issues and with Taylor and Vince also on the fringes I feel bairstow's best option is to compete with Buttler for WK position. If you compare Bairstow ( 0 100's ) and Ballance's ( 4 100's ) Careers so far there is no comparison and in the long run Balance will return to number 5. In terms of new Talent there's only one youngster I can think of who's really made the break trough, Jack Leaching who's scored 800 County Championship runs at 49 who looks a real talent, we'll see if he develops into test material.
For the wicketkeepers position I'm going for Buttler. He's had a bad series but was very strong against New Zealand and West Indies in terms of batting, and is becoming a top class keeper. One bad series does not make you a bad player and he had been consistently performing until the ashes. I don't like dropping talented players at the first sign of trouble he's clearly going to be a better player than Bairstow in the long run so lets not change things which don't need changing.
For Bowling Anderson and Broad are first picks with Steve Finn being our third seamer with Mark Wood being back up in seaming conditions. I believe Rashid should come into our side as the main spinner and with a first class batting average of 35 he will make a great number 8. Not too happy with the way England have treated him, always been criticised for his bowling being too slow but never really been given the chance to prove doubters wrong.
We've got two really exciting prospects in Craig Overton and Mason crane. Mason Crane is an 18 year old legbreak spinner who in his first two first class games has 10 wickets at 22 is looking a great prospect. Still to early to tell if he will become a great player but is definitely looking promising. Craig Overton has 36 wickets this season in 7 Matches at 18 , he's still only 21 and having top scored with 99 in county cricket can score useful runs down the order. Could definitely see both in the test side in the next 5 years.
Winter Test Series
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Bell
4. Root
5. Moeen
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid
9. Broad
10. Anderson
11. Finn
1 Year Into the Future
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Bell
4. Root
5. Ballance
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid
9. Broad
10. Anderson
11. Finn
3 Years Into the Future
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Root
4. Ballance
5. Moeen
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid/ Crane
9. Broad
10. Overton
11. Finn
Of course its just speculative guessing what our future test team will look like but its still interesting to think about it. Players who were expected to be greats can turn to nobodies in weeks so it's impossible to guess but what are your thoughts.
For me our main weaknesses are having an opener to partner cook which has been a problem since Strauss retired and finding a front line spinner which has been a problem since Swann retired.
Finding a solution to our opening crisis is no easy task. Our Options are Lyth, Hales, Robson, Compton or promoting one of our middle order batsman which I have never been a fan of. Although quite an unpopular opinion I'm very tempted for us to keep going with Lyth, since Strauss retired we keep on ditching Opening batsmen after one series and I just feel we're going to keep on going through so many batsmen if we continue not to put faith in someone and I am not confident about hales temperament.
We've got Bell and Root who are the certain starters in the middle order however if Bell continues to struggle he may start to see his place come under threat. I've got a lot of faith in Bell , for me his test record shows he will come good again. He has 7500 runs at 43 and he could overtake gooch to be our 2nd highest test run scorer until Root overtakes him. I would like to see Balance come into fold again, although not immediately. He's the third quickest England player to score 1000 runs with an average of 47 and scored the 2nd most runs in the West Indies however when he came back to England he did not have the technical ability to bat at 3, however he proved last summer being second top run scorer in the series versus India he's can become a very solid batsman. I would like to see him return maybe after a lions winter tour and going back to the county system to rebuild his confidence and see him at 5 with bell and root at 3 and 4 in a years or so time. For me Moeen has shown his batting ability this summer but has not really impressed enough with the Ball to be selected as the sole spinner. I would like to see him moved back up to the middle order and be the support spinner to our front line spinner. I feel his batting is clearly his strength and he has all the capabilities to bat at 5 or 6 but if he wants to remain in the side he needs to be scoring consistent runs at 5 or 6 which is far more challenging than batting at 8. I believe he will have two opportunities in the UAE either to out bowl rashid and prove he should be our main spinner which I don't think will happen or to prove he is a reliable middle order batsman who can consistently score which he is more than capable of doing. However if he fails to do either his place will come under pressure. At 6 I could see stokes being there for a long time, consistently gets us out of trouble and great with the ball. On Bairstow I feel he has so many technical issues and with Taylor and Vince also on the fringes I feel bairstow's best option is to compete with Buttler for WK position. If you compare Bairstow ( 0 100's ) and Ballance's ( 4 100's ) Careers so far there is no comparison and in the long run Balance will return to number 5. In terms of new Talent there's only one youngster I can think of who's really made the break trough, Jack Leaching who's scored 800 County Championship runs at 49 who looks a real talent, we'll see if he develops into test material.
For the wicketkeepers position I'm going for Buttler. He's had a bad series but was very strong against New Zealand and West Indies in terms of batting, and is becoming a top class keeper. One bad series does not make you a bad player and he had been consistently performing until the ashes. I don't like dropping talented players at the first sign of trouble he's clearly going to be a better player than Bairstow in the long run so lets not change things which don't need changing.
For Bowling Anderson and Broad are first picks with Steve Finn being our third seamer with Mark Wood being back up in seaming conditions. I believe Rashid should come into our side as the main spinner and with a first class batting average of 35 he will make a great number 8. Not too happy with the way England have treated him, always been criticised for his bowling being too slow but never really been given the chance to prove doubters wrong.
We've got two really exciting prospects in Craig Overton and Mason crane. Mason Crane is an 18 year old legbreak spinner who in his first two first class games has 10 wickets at 22 is looking a great prospect. Still to early to tell if he will become a great player but is definitely looking promising. Craig Overton has 36 wickets this season in 7 Matches at 18 , he's still only 21 and having top scored with 99 in county cricket can score useful runs down the order. Could definitely see both in the test side in the next 5 years.
Winter Test Series
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Bell
4. Root
5. Moeen
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid
9. Broad
10. Anderson
11. Finn
1 Year Into the Future
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Bell
4. Root
5. Ballance
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid
9. Broad
10. Anderson
11. Finn
3 Years Into the Future
1. Cook
2. ?
3. Root
4. Ballance
5. Moeen
6. Stokes
7. Buttler
8. Rashid/ Crane
9. Broad
10. Overton
11. Finn
Of course its just speculative guessing what our future test team will look like but its still interesting to think about it. Players who were expected to be greats can turn to nobodies in weeks so it's impossible to guess but what are your thoughts.
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