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England players and selection discussion thread

Nintendo

Cricketer Of The Year
Woakes unlikely to be fit for the 1st test, guessing Lawrence in a similar position. So assuming they stick with the same openers and keeper from the WI tour that leaves 3, 5, 8 and 9 to fill. Robinson making a case for 8 I'd guess, Leach is the incumbent spinner although Parkinson is having a great start to the season, so who bats 3 and 5? Bohannon / Malan and Pope / Brook? could be anybody!
Woakes missing out makes this england side alot worse at home. Don't get how he can go from hadlee tier hax at home to utter pedestrian away, it really is something else.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Woakes missing out makes this england side alot worse at home. Don't get how he can go from hadlee tier hax at home to utter pedestrian away, it really is something else.
He's not the first, is he. I grew up watching guys like Hendrick and Old who were perfectly serviceable in England but less so overseas, unless bowling at the Aus 3rd XI in 1978/79. Without checking the stats, Caddick probably belongs in this category too.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Woakes unlikely to be fit for the 1st test, guessing Lawrence in a similar position. So assuming they stick with the same openers and keeper from the WI tour that leaves 3, 5, 8 and 9 to fill. Robinson making a case for 8 I'd guess, Leach is the incumbent spinner although Parkinson is having a great start to the season, so who bats 3 and 5? Bohannon / Malan and Pope / Brook? could be anybody!
I think Craig Overton will play. Decent start to the season and is at least an almost plausible number 8.
 

Blenkinsop

U19 Cricketer
The pitches in the WI should have suited Woakes and Overton really, but both of them bowled total crap.

The other Overton looks to have altered his action and is bowling with some fairly serious heat this season, I wonder if he'll be a contender.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yep, seems to be. I'm not thrilled by either Root or Stokes moving down a place to be honest. Bairstow was playing well at 6 and I don't see holding Root back until we're ~zilch for 2 is better than sending him in at ~zilch for 1.
I like Stokes going to 6, Bairstow can just keep and bat at 7.

Root we all know should ideally be 4 but feels like there are way more candidates in the middle order. Do we have any idea who is supposed to bat 3?
 

Red_Ink_Squid

Cricketer Of The Year
I like Stokes going to 6, Bairstow can just keep and bat at 7.

Root we all know should ideally be 4 but feels like there are way more candidates in the middle order. Do we have any idea who is supposed to bat 3?
Yeah agree Root at 4 would be the ideal but when we don't have a single credible top order bat I think the balance is better with him at 3. Much more likely our other players can score runs batting in his wake (like Lawrence did in the WIndies) than anyone will lay a decent platform batting above him.

My best guess for 3 would be Bohannon maybe? Decent FC record, bit of hype around him, started the season well batting 3 for Lancs. I've never seen him bat though, so only going off what people have written about him. Other options would be Malan or Lawrence again I guess, but I think both of them would be much better at 5 than 3 (same goes for Pope and other potential newcomer Harry Brooks as well).
 

Xix2565

International Debutant
Without checking the stats, Caddick probably belongs in this category too.
Caddick actually took wickets though, so that's a bit harsh to bring him up as the point of comparison. 106 wickets in 29 Tests at 29.70/58.9 isn't bad.
 
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tooextracool

International Coach
Never felt that Stokes was a good enough bat deliver at 5 consistently. I've felt the same way about Bairstow as well and I think the two of them at 6/7 against wearing attacks is ideal but unfortunately with our brittle top order they are often in during the first or second session of the game.

Root at 4 seems like a backward step but it is what it is. The goal should be to move away from mediocrity - Malan, Vince, Burns, Overton and be willing to invest in younger players that could, with the right support and coaching, be around for the next decade.
 

Blenkinsop

U19 Cricketer
There are no obvious technical flaws in Stokes' batting though, unlike Bairstow or any of those others. It's more a question of whether he is temperamentally suited to batting up the order. Personally I don't have a problem with it, he has shown that he can block the **** out of it when he needs to.
 

jayjay

U19 Cricketer
There are no obvious technical flaws in Stokes' batting though, unlike Bairstow or any of those others. It's more a question of whether he is temperamentally suited to batting up the order. Personally I don't have a problem with it, he has shown that he can block the **** out of it when he needs to.
Stokes at 5 makes sense, any higher then what's the point of actual batsmen?
 

tooextracool

International Coach
There are no obvious technical flaws in Stokes' batting though, unlike Bairstow or any of those others. It's more a question of whether he is temperamentally suited to batting up the order. Personally I don't have a problem with it, he has shown that he can block the **** out of it when he needs to.
Definitely some technical failings against spin - hard hands, not a wide range of strokes (over reliance on the slog sweep), use of the crease etc. Good spinners will always have the advantage, in fact, not so good off spinners like Dilruwan Perera have created plenty of problems over the years
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
I see that BMac is now a leading candidate to coach England's test team. Weird
Yeah, I mean he was a genuinely decent test captain and has some IPL experience, but AFAIK hasn't ever coached a first class side, even.

If he was under consideration for the limited overs gig, I'd be totally onboard but for tests? When the central heating is ****ed send for the boilermaker, not his apprentice and the current state of our test set up would be flattered to be called "****ed".
 

kevinw

State Vice-Captain
I knew Key would make a statement somewhere. This would be it. It would be a huge break with the Silverwood and Root risk-averse era.
 

Flem274*

123/5
It will be interesting to see how the English respond to McCullum's standards. He was known for aggressive fields and bowling his strike bowlers out early in ODIs to get out the cake and carve through runny icing but I think the best thing he brought to the side was near impossible expectations of commitment to performance and uniting a bunch of jocks into a common cause. Taylor had the expectations of his team but seemingly not the ability to make them like it.

It's no secret that even when England were perfectly fine if on the decline that they had entire sessions of falling asleep in the field. They're not going to be allowed to do that anymore and they're going to like it or else, and that concerns me.
 

Uppercut

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It will be interesting to see how the English respond to McCullum's standards. He was known for aggressive fields and bowling his strike bowlers out early in ODIs to get out the cake and carve through runny icing but I think the best thing he brought to the side was near impossible expectations of commitment to performance and uniting a bunch of jocks into a common cause. Taylor had the expectations of his team but seemingly not the ability to make them like it.

It's no secret that even when England were perfectly fine if on the decline that they had entire sessions of falling asleep in the field. They're not going to be allowed to do that anymore and they're going to like it or else, and that concerns me.
It always felt to me like McCullum used his hyper-aggressive cricketing philosophy to get the players to buy in to all the hard work. You give up a tactical edge in some spots by attacking when it's better to defend, but in return you get a lot of adrenaline that you can put to good use.
 

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