Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

should be 1 or 2 or 3, of course, Arthur

the way i put it looks more like I meant 1 and 2 and 3
but yes... fair enough

although the score card reads as if he was only playing in order to bowl the first 5 overs of each innings

England already have a team containing 2 keepers and on another occasion it might be 3 keepers, so if you add 2 all rounders (3 with Moeen) to that, more than half the team may one day be either an all rounder or a keeper, which feels like a team full to the brim with bits and pieces cricketers to me

Don't get me wrong... I like Sam Curran, I'm just not sure whether adding 40 runs to a 200 run victory represents best value for his place in the side in this series.... especially since England are still experimenting and still desperately hoping to find some batsmen capable of holding down a top order role for years to come

They could easily have played Denly instead of Curran without affecting the margin of victory unduly

easy in hindsight, of course

Durhamfootman wrote:should be 1 or 2 or 3, of course, Arthur

the way i put it looks more like I meant 1 and 2 and 3
but yes... fair enough

although the score card reads as if he was only playing in order to bowl the first 5 overs of each innings

England already have a team containing 2 keepers and on another occasion it might be 3 keepers, so if you add 2 all rounders (3 with Moeen) to that, more than half the team may one day be either an all rounder or a keeper, which feels like a team full to the brim with bits and pieces cricketers to me

Don't get me wrong... I like Sam Curran, I'm just not sure whether adding 40 runs to a 200 run victory represents best value for his place in the side in this series.... especially since England are still experimenting and still desperately hoping to find some batsmen capable of holding down a top order role for years to come

They could easily have played Denly instead of Curran without affecting the margin of victory unduly

easy in hindsight, of course

Moeen, Ben 1, Sam, Jos, Ben 2 as all batting -bowling all rounders or wicket-keeper batsmen all rounder. There are 5. That is too many imo as well. However, the all rounders are doing better than specialist batsmen or specialist bowlers. But if they (specialists) are not played they will not be found at all. At least two need to go as soon as the replacements specialists are found. So a hard decision needs to be taken and performing multi skilled players must be dropped. Having said that i would not drop players performing in unfamiliar conditions. Perhaps England will find the optimal solution in dropping 2 of them and risk grooming potential specialists in home matches rather than in Asia. The specialists are more probable to perform better at home so the experiment is not as risky.

It's tough to expect a team to score 400 to 600 runs with 3 specialist batsmen (Rory, Keaton, Joe) in the recent match. More specialist batsmen are required to score big totals. Same with wickets / bowling. Ideally one proper all-rounder and one wicket - keeper batsman would be more than enough if the specialists are doing their jobs.

Probably need to find a number three with the potential to average more than Moeen's 30, which sends him down into the crowded late middle order. Only play two of JB1&2 and Foakes. Probably play one of Stokes and Curran in most circumstances.

In England, potentially neither of Leach of Rashid will play. Maybe one of them sometimes.

Might as well forget about Buttler's keeping. He's a specialist bat now. As proven by Foakes coming into the squad and then the team to keep when JB1 got injured.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Probably need to find a number three with the potential to average more than Moeen's 30, which sends him down into the crowded late middle order. Only play two of JB1&2 and Foakes. Probably play one of Stokes and Curran in most circumstances.

In England, potentially neither of Leach of Rashid will play. Maybe one of them sometimes.

Might as well forget about Buttler's keeping. He's a specialist bat now. As proven by Foakes coming into the squad and then the team to keep when JB1 got injured.

Moeen Ali at 3 is a shocking experiment. If he is used as all rounder batting at 6 or 7 or that is understandable, but 3. Maybe ECB have declared a prize for its employees to be innovative and someone wants to win that prize very badly at all costs.

By no means i am saying he should not be in team, but definitely i would not like to bat him ahead of specialist batsmen in test lineup. That's my point.

It is fine if all-rounders are giving batting average of specialist batsman. Then we need not look at what label they have. Accept such as batsman ignoring the tag. But most all-rounders will fail to give test batting average at least over 40 if not over 45 which is what we expect from specialist batsman.

meninblue wrote:
Moeen, Ben 1, Sam, Jos, Ben 2 as all batting -bowling all rounders or wicket-keeper batsmen all rounder. There are 5. That is too many imo as well. However, the all rounders are doing better than specialist batsmen or specialist bowlers. But if they (specialists) are not played they will not be found at all.

I agree entirely that a tour of SL may be a challenging place to do that, but that's probably true of every away tour. Got to start somewhere, imo, but then again my job isn't on the line should a heavy defeat happen

England have tried specialist batters who have failed to come up to the mark. Westley, Lyth, Stoneman, Duckett, Pope (so far) and plenty more who haven't amassed the stats, like Malan, Hales, Compton, Ballance and Vince. Or who were unfortunate like Taylor and Haseeb. Trott was recalled. Cook was held on to. There are others...

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Probably need to find a number three with the potential to average more than Moeen's 30, which sends him down into the crowded late middle order. Only play two of JB1&2 and Foakes. Probably play one of Stokes and Curran in most circumstances.

In England, potentially neither of Leach of Rashid will play. Maybe one of them sometimes.

which is why I question Denly not playing. Perhaps England think Moeen is the long term answer to the number 3 conundrum, so that in home series an extra seamer can be employed?

Arthur Crabtree wrote:
Might as well forget about Buttler's keeping. He's a specialist bat now. As proven by Foakes coming into the squad and then the team to keep when JB1 got injured.

yet he bats behind 2 all rounders, which suggests that England don't think he's a specialist bat, but have him as a luxury... someone to come in and thump the opposition once the top order have racked 300 up. Problem seems to be that most of the time he has to play with the tail to try and get England up to 300 all out, so not much of a luxury really

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England have tried specialist batters who have failed to come up to the mark. Westley, Lyth, Stoneman, Duckett, Pope (so far) and plenty more who haven't amassed the stats, like Malan, Hales, Compton, Ballance and Vince. Or who were unfortunate like Taylor and Haseeb. Trott was recalled. Cook was held on to. There are others...

I see 12 inexperienced test batsmen there, Arthur. All of them failed. One succeeded but post injury could not score even in county (Haseeb). Others probably ended with average below 30 or 20. What i find odd is they really had to try 11 specialist batsmen and secondly why none of them came good. Think Jos has best test average (36) amongst these experiments. What's the issue here. Are they selecting wrong players or are the players being given test cap are correctly selected but international format is something they cannot cope up with or they are not given a decent continuous run or something else apart from these reasons.

meninblue wrote:

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England have tried specialist batters who have failed to come up to the mark. Westley, Lyth, Stoneman, Duckett, Pope (so far) and plenty more who haven't amassed the stats, like Malan, Hales, Compton, Ballance and Vince. Or who were unfortunate like Taylor and Haseeb. Trott was recalled. Cook was held on to. There are others...

I see 12 inexperienced test batsmen there, Arthur. All of them failed. One succeeded but post injury could not score even in county (Haseeb). Others probably ended with average below 30 or 20. What i find odd is they really had to try 11 specialist batsmen and secondly why none of them came good. Think Jos has best test average (36) amongst these experiments. What's the issue here. Are they selecting wrong players or are the players being given test cap are correctly selected but international format is something they cannot cope up with or they are not given a decent continuous run or something else apart from these reasons.

County cricket just isn't producing any top batsmen at the moment

At the moment our best batsmen just happen to be keepers as well, fortunately the likes of buttler and bairstow are excellent fielders without the gloves on

They are batsmen who can keep for me not wicket keeper batsmen

If they are the best we have which tbh it looks like they are then they play

There really isn't anyone scoring so many runs they are forced to pick them other than burns

Some didn't have the county record to suggest they would succeed. I suspect there are problems at international coaching level. Since Joe Root, I don't think anyone has averaged over 40. And that was eight years ago. Ballance did ok, but lost his way badly.

OK, Haseeb averaged over 40. But he wouldn't be if he hadn't got injured.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

Even the payers we think are doing well, like JB1 and Stokes, aren't.

backfootpunch wrote:

meninblue wrote:

Arthur Crabtree wrote:England have tried specialist batters who have failed to come up to the mark. Westley, Lyth, Stoneman, Duckett, Pope (so far) and plenty more who haven't amassed the stats, like Malan, Hales, Compton, Ballance and Vince. Or who were unfortunate like Taylor and Haseeb. Trott was recalled. Cook was held on to. There are others...

I see 12 inexperienced test batsmen there, Arthur. All of them failed. One succeeded but post injury could not score even in county (Haseeb). Others probably ended with average below 30 or 20. What i find odd is they really had to try 11 specialist batsmen and secondly why none of them came good. Think Jos has best test average (36) amongst these experiments. What's the issue here. Are they selecting wrong players or are the players being given test cap are correctly selected but international format is something they cannot cope up with or they are not given a decent continuous run or something else apart from these reasons.

County cricket just isn't producing any top batsmen at the moment

At the moment our best batsmen just happen to be keepers as well, fortunately the likes of buttler and bairstow are excellent fielders without the gloves on

They are batsmen who can keep for me not wicket keeper batsmen

If they are the best we have which tbh it looks like they are then they play

There really isn't anyone scoring so many runs they are forced to pick them other than burns

I checked this and it's correct. Jos has batting average of 35.97 and Jonny has batting average of 37.19. I don't think any players who were/are experimented have better average than these two.

Given the trial and error results, the averages of 35.97 and 37.19 is atleast close to that expected from specialist batsman. So it is better to remove their wicket keeping batsman tag and invest more time in them and see if they can get it over 40 as next improvement step. If and Once they achieve that in reasonable time , discard the tag of wicket keeper bats and jsut play them because they are yeilding results of specialist bats


While the Jos and Jonny improvement continues, the whole setup accountable should be expected to identify why this problem exists and how it can be resolved. That is because the idea of converting multi skilled to specialist bats is not going to work everytime because it may work with Jos or Jonny. So the actual specialist problems cause has to be sorted.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Some didn't have the county record to suggest they would succeed. I suspect there are problems at international coaching level. Since Joe Root, I don't think anyone has averaged over 40. And that was eight years ago. Ballance did ok, but lost his way badly.

OK, Haseeb averaged over 40. But he wouldn't be if he hadn't got injured.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

Even the payers we think are doing well, like JB1 and Stokes, aren't.

So one problem is wrong selection and second is international coaching .

English cricket has only rarely given the impression it is well run. From top to bottom.

playing county cricket in the spring and the autumn is the biggest factor, for me. Top order batsmen just find middle time almost impossible to come by.

done to death, though, so I'll let it go

At least 5 specialist batsmen must be present in team to expect a score of 400 to 600 from them on batting friendly wickets. Otherwise it's unrealistic expectations from 3 specialist batsmen to post big totals with runs from all rounders

SL had 5 and Angelo who is actually a all-rounder. At least they should have posted big total here