Woodster
International Captain
In my opinion we have COverton, Tom Curran, Mason Crane, Daniel Lawrence, Joe Clarke, to a lesser extent Liam Livingstone, amongst others, that in my opinion shouldn't really be playing Test cricket for England at this point. I appreciate we have to pick XI and it may be that some of these players have to be thrown in to see how they do, I just hope they're managed properly and don't suffer any long-term damage. It's a difficult situation and in a perfect world these players would be allowed to develop in county cricket and Lions cricket and be dipped into international cricket when the time and opportunity are right. I get that this is far from an ideal world though.Would you be able to expand on this? Guys like Lawrence, Clarke, Livingstone and more established players such as Northeast, Hildreth and Rory Burns have good records. The first three aren't novices anymore which belies there age. They have both played over 40 first-class games (roughly 2 1/2 seasons) which is good experience
I understand not changing the team for NZ too much as it's basically an extended tour, but these players have to be introduced in the summer.
If there is a hugely talented young player then there will be times he'll benefit from being thrust into international cricket at an early age, I'm just not sure the guys I've mentioned should be doing it yet.
That said, I'm not against including Livingstone ahead of Ballance for the NZ tour and let him bat without any undue pressure down the order.