Road to the Ashes 2021/22

[Anil]

hey @Burgey, do you think root answered all the questions he needed to answer?

 

[Burgey]

Not at all. Typical soft ball interviews since the whole thing blew up. The questions remain unanswered. His position as captain is untenable. He must resign or be stood down. There are no other decent alternatives.

Not that I think he or English cricket are decent.

 

[Uppercut]

His position as captain is untenable. He must resign or be stood down.

Have you seen Root's captaincy? I'm not sure you've thought this through.

 

[GIMH]

@Burgey when?

 

[Burgey]

I mean, a fella like Hameed. How can he feel comfortable with racism's tacit approver as skipper?

 

[GIMH]

@Burgey but when?

 

[zaremba]

Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Pope
Stokes
Buttler
Should be our line up even tho I still don't expect much from them its the best we can do.
Bowlers I have no idea who they should play, I can't see leach doing well, I think wood should play too. Id probably try
8. Woakes
9. Leach
10. Wood
11. Anderson

Top 6 is fine. In fact, if a bit of form is found, it's potentially a pretty good top 6.

Bairstow maybe better than Buttler in Tests but, again, I wouldn't expect much from either of them.

Spin cupboard is horrifically bare. You do want a spinner at the Gabba so I suppose Leach gets the gig, on the basis that Bess is woefully short of ability. Though I'd be tempted to say that Root and Milan can share a dozen overs instead. But then you end up picking 4 or 5 seamers including Stokes and the whole thing looks horribly unbalanced.

If Robinson is dropped then the selectors have taken leave of their senses. He's our best bowler.

Very conflicted about Wood. Lovely chap, and probably the quickest bowler in the world, but so for a while was Mohammad "52.74" Sami.

So:

Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Pope
Stokes
Bairstow (w)
Ollie Robinson of Sussex CCC
Leach
Broad
Anderson

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Surely of the bowlers Robinson is first choice as he will probably play all 5 like Stokes and the other pacemen get rotated. As for a spinner, no idea why we keep dropping Leach, head and shoulders our best spin bowler and should play every game.

 

[mr_mister]

Whatever happened to Scott Borthwick? Watching the 13/14 ashes and he did a decent job (in the second innings at least) as a last minute replacement for Swanny

 

[Burgey]

It will be a big statement from the ECB in light of recent events if Root is captain and the first bowler picked is Robinson. Presumably second will be Overton.

The One Nation of cricket teams.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Well there must be a chance Anderson doesn't play in Brisbane as you would think the 2 games he has to play are Adelaide under lights and Melbourne and seeing as we have 3 tests close together he may well miss out on the first game as he surely can't play all 3.

 

[honestbharani]

Crawley seems to have been the best batter on show on day 1 of that Lions V England game?

 

[Burgey]

Well there must be a chance Anderson doesn't play in Brisbane as you would think the 2 games he has to play are Adelaide under lights and Melbourne and seeing as we have 3 tests close together he may well miss out on the first game as he surely can't play all 3.

Why would you play Anderson on a flat deck in Melbourne when there's the fetid, humid stench of Brisbane with cloud cover in the offing?

 

[Gob]

W O R K L O A D
O
R
K
L
O
A
D

 

[Burgey]

He hasn't played a test in months. There's no workload to worry about. It's obvious he's about to be dropped.

D R O P P E D
R
O
P
P
E
D

Dropped.

 

[Starfighter]

Whatever happened to Scott Borthwick? Watching the 13/14 ashes and he did a decent job (in the second innings at least) as a last minute replacement for Swanny

At the time he was already most of the way to being a specialist batsman for Durham and was bowling increasingly little.

 

[Starfighter]

Why would you play Anderson on a flat deck in Melbourne when there's the fetid, humid stench of Brisbane with cloud cover in the offing?

Yep. If he's going to play three tests, Brisbane, Adelaide and what's looking like Melbourne under lights are the best options.

 

[mackembhoy]

Whatever happened to Scott Borthwick? Watching the 13/14 ashes and he did a decent job (in the second innings at least) as a last minute replacement for Swanny

He became a number 3 bat and pretty useless spinner.

Went to Surrey after being one of the top runscorers in the country for 3 seasons at Durham. Would have been a better pick than Westley for England at the time at 3.

But was pretty average at Surrey now back as Durham as captain and wasn't particularly great last summer.

 

[Burgey]

Jeez that’s some career arc

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Well there must be a chance Anderson doesn't play in Brisbane as you would think the 2 games he has to play are Adelaide under lights and Melbourne and seeing as we have 3 tests close together he may well miss out on the first game as he surely can't play all 3.

Called it.