English Cricket Thread

[sussexpob]

Giles had to go, he made mistakes in the role. And Silverwood just cut a figure of someone lost in a job that was way over their head.

Not sure how I feel about the return of Andrew Strauss. The slide in test cricket started on his watch, and the ODI success have always felt like easy wins once the team finally embraced modern approaches (its hard to credit any vision Strauss had in regards to the ODI game, because he did captain a side that was rubbish in ODI cricket and played like they were 20 years out of date, so its not like in 150 ODIs he ever showed on the pitch he had any clue about how to win ODIs with frequency).

With Strauss in place I have a really horrible feeling that a certain Zimbabwean might suddenly appear again. Please god no!!

Stewart is favourite, which would be a popular choice I think. Gilly is up there in the odds, as is Kirsten. Langer at 7/1 sounds overpriced, surely England wouldnt hire Australias current coach.

Punter at 8/1.... obviously Gary Neville serves as a warning about how interesting commentators can flop totally as coaches, but I find the prospect of Punter coaching England really intriguing. Along with Tony Romo in the NFL, Punter is the most interesting commentator in sports, and shows a level of forensic understanding in the game that very few, if any, display.

But surely if Punter is up for coaching a team, Australia would never let him come to us pommies.

[Durhamfootman]

Stewart is favourite, which would be a popular choice I think. Gilly is up there in the odds, as is Kirsten. Langer at 7/1 sounds overpriced, surely England wouldnt hire Australias current coach.

he seems to have been their 'under-fire' coach for a while. Prior to the ashes I'm not convinced that his position as Aussie head coach was particularly secure so England being hopeless has probably just kept him in work a little longer.

What about that nice Mr Lehmann? He seems like a good sort

[Durhamfootman]

Strauss is someone that I really liked as a player, but who has continually gone down in my estimation ever since. The more that time passes the lower he goes.

not sure why, there's just something about him that always ends up disappointing me

[sussexpob]

Stewart is favourite, which would be a popular choice I think. Gilly is up there in the odds, as is Kirsten. Langer at 7/1 sounds overpriced, surely England wouldnt hire Australias current coach.

he seems to have been their 'under-fire' coach for a while. Prior to the ashes I'm not convinced that his position as Aussie head coach was particularly secure so England being hopeless has probably just kept him in work a little longer.

What about that nice Mr Lehmann? He seems like a good sort

Langer just resigned right now according to the Mail

[Durhamfootman]

Stewart is favourite, which would be a popular choice I think. Gilly is up there in the odds, as is Kirsten. Langer at 7/1 sounds overpriced, surely England wouldnt hire Australias current coach.

he seems to have been their 'under-fire' coach for a while. Prior to the ashes I'm not convinced that his position as Aussie head coach was particularly secure so England being hopeless has probably just kept him in work a little longer.

What about that nice Mr Lehmann? He seems like a good sort

Langer just resigned right now according to the Mail

only 6 months longer

England shouldn't touch him, even with the longest barge pole in the world

[bigfluffylemon]

England wield the axe, including Anderson and Broad for the Caribbean tour.

Looks like the squad will give a run-out to potential new talent. That's not necessarily a bad thing, given England desperately need to reset and rebuild for the next four years, but feels a bit disrespectful to the West Indies given we haven't won there since 2004.
England squad: Joe Root (Yorkshire) captain, Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire), Zak Crawley (Kent), Matthew Fisher (Yorkshire), Ben Foakes (Surrey), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Alex Lees (Durham), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire), Craig Overton (Somerset), Matthew Parkinson (Lancashire), Ollie Pope (Surrey), Ollie Robinson (Sussex), Ben Stokes (Durham), Chris Woakes (Warwickshire), Mark Wood (Durham)

[Arthur Crabtree]

'End of a cycle'....

Anderson will get to quit on his own terms.

Dom Bess, Sam Billings, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Haseeb Hameed and Dawid Malan are dropped.

I expect though that this is just a low priority tour (though as bfl says, they're hardly on a run in WI) and they'll be back for the summer. Including A&B.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not much batting! Lees must be playing.

Lawrence at 3?

[alfie]

Bit light on for reaction to the new look England squad on here so far ...interest waned after a horrible Ashes ?

Not altogether what I expected but I can see the reasoning behind most of the choices. Letting Broad and Anderson sit this one out while they give Wood & co more responsibility - and possibly try a couple of new boys - isn't outrageous. I'd expect both to play a part in the home summer anyway ; and a full rest now followed by a normal CC lead in to the season is arguably the best way to handle ageing but still highly effective bowlers. Suppose the question is how well the rest will stand up (Brisbane wasn't a great sign !) but probably this was the time to give them the challenge...

The batting concerns me : well the batting always concerns me ! But of course there is no magic wand to fix it instantly so I do applaud the sensible decision to try one new opener (lord knows if he will do any good but he can't be any worse than Hameed in Australia !) and not go nuts with a slew of new hopefuls all at once. The thing that concerns me is the absence of a third opener or recognized number three . In an ideal world (from this squad) I would have Lees and Crawley plus one at one to three ; and a core of Root Stokes Bairstow in their best spots next. But unless you are going to punt on Pope at three (where I suppose he couldn't do any worse than he did at six in Australia ) that line-up seems unlikely.
I don't have a perfect solution to the number three though either , I'm afraid.

In a sense this is a bit of a mixed recovery/development/experiment tour. Want to win - which the last three West Indies tour parties have failed to do ; but also want to see which players , old and new , are really up for the challenges ahead. A bit of a prologue to a rather significant home summer... where the New Order will be taking the reins. Should still be worth watching , I hope...

[Arthur Crabtree]

Lees
Crawley
Bairstow/Lawrence
Root
Stokes
Pope/Lawrence
Foakes/Bairstow
Three from Woakes/Wood/Mahmood/Robinson/Overton/Parkinson/Fisher
Leach/Parkinson

Maybe Root will go back to three.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not altogether what I expected but I can see the reasoning behind most of the choices. Letting Broad and Anderson sit this one out while they give Wood & co more responsibility - and possibly try a couple of new boys - isn't outrageous. I'd expect both to play a part in the home summer anyway ; and a full rest now followed by a normal CC lead in to the season is arguably the best way to handle ageing but still highly effective bowlers.
.

I'm guessing Anderson's Test career will outlast Wood's.

[DiligentDefence]

Maybe Root will go back to three.

I hope not. He seems to have some mental block about batting at 3. England need him to be as productive as possible and that means batting at 4 imo.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Six pacemen (plus Stokes) and no number three or reserve opener.

[sussexpob]

Apparently Strauss is the right man to revamp the county game and English cricket.... if you ignore the fact he was in charge for years when the rot started. If Strauss was the right man for the job, then why did he just happened to overlook all this the first time? Its not like since that drubbing in 2013 in OZ we have at any stage been anything but a poor away team, and gradually become less competitive. Who hired Collingwood for the team originally? And Thorpe? Who hired the much aligned Ramprakash? Who hired the Data man to select the team despite no previous relevant experience?

Oh, that would be Strauss.... been there, done that.

So Silverwood had to go, the final nail in the coffin played against him was dropping his best players at Brisbane (if you take the Sky boys opinion on a recent podcast, that was the main issue).... the answer.... drop them again!!

I personally liked the messaging in Strauss' press conference - while announcing a team he selected at the same time as revamping the whole game in his first few days, he gave a small lecture on why it was foolhardy for someone with other responsibilities to ever get invovled with selection

I guess Sir Andy must be a bit dim not to see the self-incrimination there.

So the Captain keeps his job because he was able to defend himself by saying the county game is to blame.... while the guy in charge of the county game also keeps his job, because... er..... well no one knows. But him keeping his job is good for the game (according to him). We have a new director, who isnt new, he just run away before the rotten structure he built collapsed onto the next man. And we have a new coach.... who isnt really new, he just got promoted out of a coaching stock that hasnt managed to improve a single player in any discipline in ages.

All feels fresh and positive, right?

And yet again, lets select the same failing batsman and blame the two best bowlers weve had in decades for everything. Fantastic idea.

I am sure giving extra responsibility to front line bowlers like Wood, who plays 2 tests before getting injured, and Woakes, who averages like a village trundler on every away tour, is the answer.

Strauss found a coach who realised England picking pedestrian batters was a terrible idea in ODI cricket (not like I was saying that for 20 years) and picked aggressive bashers instead, and he's suddenly a genius? I mean, we know Strauss hasnt a clue about how to play ODI cricket, because he was captain of a crap team for years.......

Strauss feels like one of those guys who lucked out all his life. Just happened to be there when talent was around him

[Durhamfootman]

Maybe Root will go back to three.

I hope not. He seems to have some mental block about batting at 3. England need him to be as productive as possible and that means batting at 4 imo.

been told he has to, according to Dobell

https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/eng ... ndies.html