Arthur Crabtree wrote:Making_Splinters wrote:Phew, we've won a game.
To be honest, England have competed in every game. If our bowling had been a bit tighter we might have won all three. It was good to see contributions throughout the order. Roy looks very settled at the top of the order, he needs to convert more of his starts but he's giving the inning impetus from the get go, his partnership with Hales looks like a = long term term one.
Stokes has continued his good form from last year, he needs to shore up his bowling which can be expensive, but he's been solid with the bat for 12 months now.
Willey looks a very good bowler in this format, he just needs to be getting all his overs every game.
It was good to see Morgan make an impact again, Root was solid but struggled to turn it on when needed. Buttler had a quiet series but we still posted 300+ in every game. This team's batting is very strong, we just need the bowling to back it up now.
Personally, I'm very pleased with England in this series.
Bowling hasn't really improved since the WC, but hasn't got worse either, even with an overhaul of the attack. A huge backward step for England in this series was the sudden jettisoning of Rashid, and the lack of confidence in Moeen (or Dawson).
A big plus for England has been the batting of Woakes. Often notional lower order all rounders actually do very little with the bat, but Woakes can be a match winner.
Some of the bowling can be excused by the small grounds and flat tracks in this series, but it is actually a long term trend which has been covered up by the batting.