NZ v England test matches, November 2019

[Arthur Crabtree]

I suppose KW will have a bit of a bowl tomorrow. Sounds like there was some turn out there.

[Durhamfootman]

starting to look a bit same old, same old

we know Stokes can bat long, but he can't do it all the time or to order, so Denly and Root have to do a lot of the work. Pope is unknown really and Buttler... well.... perhaps he can hang around longer than YJB so maybe.

I confess it didn't even occur to me that England would have so much trouble negotiating spin or I'd have picked Santner in my FL team.... oh wait... I did.... must have been a wild, hopeful punt, born out of desperation.... it certainly wouldn't have been a considered selection born out of experience

[sussexpob]

[quote="alfie" Night watchman Leach gone too. Bit unlucky. Should have taken the review[/quote]

I could imagine if a nightwatchman took a review and got it wrong, he'd have to walk back from NZ at the end of the tour.

[mikesiva]

Sibley looked poor. How can a guy get so many runs in County cricket, and look so out of his depth at this level? What does that say about the standard of county cricket?

I can't stand Nick Knight and Rob Key. Why on earth did Sky pension off David Gower? I much preferred him.

[backfootpunch]

[quote="alfie" Night watchman Leach gone too. Bit unlucky. Should have taken the review

I could imagine if a nightwatchman took a review and got it wrong, he'd have to walk back from NZ at the end of the tour.[/quote]
You sure he was night watchmen and not just been promoted above root?

[Arthur Crabtree]

It was his debut though, so early days.

[sussexpob]

Sibley looked poor. How can a guy get so many runs in County cricket, and look so out of his depth at this level? What does that say about the standard of county cricket?

I can't stand Nick Knight and Rob Key. Why on earth did Sky pension off David Gower? I much preferred him.

I cant imagine anyone likes Nick Knight.

I made my point about Sibley, but time will tell. He either has a freakish hand-eye ability to make up for everything else, or he's going to struggle v extra pace.

Root throws his wicket away

[backfootpunch]

Another captains innings from root...

Two absolute brain fades this test

[sussexpob]

Denly looks less than convincing to Santner

[bigfluffylemon]

I just don't get how these guys score big runs at lower lever, and their attitude to batting to save a test.

Four dismissals, each batsman culpable in his own downfall - three chasing balls they didn't need to play, one was not out but failed to review.

I understand that in some cases rotating the strike and keeping the scoreboard ticking along can help - throw a bowler off his rhythm, make him bowl to different batsmen so he can't settle, and try and get a lead so NZ will have to bat again could make the difference at the end of the day if the last few wickets fall very late. But there's a difference between that and just chasing wide balls.

What is it with England facing the bowling of Colin de Grandhomme? He's pretty unthreatening as a bowler, pretty much straight up-and-down medium pace, but England's batsmen keep finding ways to get out to him, or he can lock them down. They really struggle when the ball doesn't come cleanly on to the bat.

And as df says, England's record against second-rate spin this year is beyond embarrassing.

[sussexpob]

I struggle to come up with a justification for someone like Root's nosedive in form. As a batter, I have seen him have pronounced technical issues only once, in OZ in 2013 when he struggled with the pace and bounce to really judge his length and whether to play back or forward (ended up kind of hovering in a no mans land committing to neither).

But there isnt any glaring issues with that now. I dont look at him and think he's making technical errors; its all errors of judgement. And once could say he's playing too much ODI cricket and all that rubbish, that he's trying to be too aggressive. But it doesnt add up in his stats. In fact, as a general trend in his career, the slower he bats, the less runs he scored. He was at his best as a batter when he was attacking far more. His scoring rate (low 40s) is glacial for the modern age in 2019. Its virtually Mike Atherton-esque.

And we can also say its some form of patience, that he's unable to bat time.... his average balls this year is 63, his average balls faced in his top run scoring year (one of the top 10 run scoring amounts in test history in a calendar year).... 76. So its hardly like this is noteworthy to explain averaging almost half.

[backfootpunch]

He seems to have far less low risk scoring options

He used to cruise to 30 or 40 with ease, it all looks a bit more like hard work now

The captaincy must be effecting his mental state when batting

[sussexpob]

I hazard a guess that in Roots case, he's lost a bit of form and the team have been criticised for playing too attacking, so hes making a conscious effort to occupy the crease; but he gets caught in a bit of an alien mindset where he is fighting his natural instinct to attack, and picks a ball to attack in a pre-meditated way. His mindset seems to be "ill defend, but when I get licence, im going for it"....

The problem is two fold. We have seen him come down the pitch last summer more than once and mow a ball to a fielder, because the ball was just not there. A hint wide maybe, a hint full, but one you should let go. The second problem is, he often realises this....

How many times in the last two years has he got out steering a ball to a fielder, or not really committing to an attacking shot? Get in a position where, and you can see the mindset in the final result, he realises the ball isnt there and rather than follow through with an orthodox attempt, tries some terrible improvisation?

He just needs to be told, dont go out with a mindset to do anything unless you have a situation where you must block out a 100 balls and not score.... just go out, judge everything as its put to you, and play accordingly.

England as a team are like this too. So many batters seem to see a few blocked balls as licence to have a go. And they dont realise that if you see 100 balls off for hardly anything, the bowling will start to drift. Your scoring opportunities will come. But England dont bat like that. I dont think its all about inability to defend or what not, or not all the time; sometime England let bowlers bowl right at them too.

[bigfluffylemon]

Good stats SP.

Average balls faced as 76 per innings in a top run scoring year seems pretty low, but I guess if you have an SR of 65 and face 76 balls per innings, you'll average around 50, especially if you bag a couple of not-outs.

To me, with Root it seems to be all mental. His judgement in the test arena is fried. There's one obvious reason that he isn't batting freely in tests any more: captaincy, and the pressures thereof. When the team is doing badly, especially.

Sometimes dips in form are just that - as the old cliche goes, form is temporary, class is permanent. Because of the nature of cricket, where all it takes is one mistake to get out, and most are vulnerable early in the innings, statistically good batsmen can easily go on a trot of 10 or so bad innings in a row through doing nothing particularly wrong - a combination of a bit of bad luck, good deliveries, dodgy decisions and sometimes you just get out. Root's been on a pretty bad run, but his last ton was seven tests ago in the West Indies, he passed 50 four times in the Ashes. And in the one day arena, he averages 54 in 2019, with an SR of 92 (well above his career SR), 2 hundreds and 4 fifties in 17 innings (plus passing 40 four additional times). So it's not as it he's forgotten how to bat.

In an ideal world, I'd at least experiment with letting him play in tests as a batsman only. But that's never going to happen. Taking the captaincy off someone looks like a punishment and politically isn't overly palatable for the ECB, even if it is good for the team (thankfully they did it with Cook in the ODI arena, but they also had to drop him from the team - we don't want to drop Root if we're taking the captaincy off him to help recover his batting). The other issue is who else do you give it to? Stokes, Buttler and Broad are the only players in the current side with more than 15 test matches to their names. Can't give it to Stokes after his off-field issues (and all-rounders tend to make bad captains - look at Flintoff and Botham). Broad is getting towards the end of his life. Buttler isn't a shoo-in for the side to me - Foakes should be strongly in contention for a return, and it seems as though the management will still allow Bairstow to be breathing down his neck too (even though there is no reason he should).

It might be a bit left-field, but I'd suggest giving it to Burns. Yes, he may not be a shoo-in for the squad (is any opener?), but he's probably done enough to ensure that unless he tanks in South Africa, he'll be in the England team through the 2020 domestic season. And he's got experience having captained Surrey for a couple of years, including to win the Championship (and captained Sibley, Pope and Curran along the way).

[bigfluffylemon]

England as a team are like this too. So many batters seem to see a few blocked balls as licence to have a go. And they dont realise that if you see 100 balls off for hardly anything, the bowling will start to drift. Your scoring opportunities will come. But England dont bat like that. I dont think its all about inability to defend or what not, or not all the time; sometime England let bowlers bowl right at them too.

Funnily enough, the only person who seems to get that is Stokes. He's toughed it out in several innings then cashed in later, not least in the first innings here (although it did end tamely). And he's held on until lunch now.

That's one reason he averages over 50 this year, and the next highest is 32 (Denley and Burns).