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International Cricketer
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2011
He actually batted at 7, which I think was fair enough in that line up. Taylor should be batting at 3 when Root isn't around. Although I think Ali is very much a T20 top three player, I don't think he's a brilliant one day batter. I think he's better off doing what he does in test cricket, which is bullying tired bowling with an old ball.
Stokes and Buttler aren't in great form, but both are well caps able of match winning hundreds on their day.
I'd convinced myself a month ago that Ali had to temporarily open in test cricket in the UAE. I've changed my mind now. Hales' technique looks so much more solid. I'd give him a go and probably bat Ali at 5 or 6. Then Rashid/Ansari can come in at 8.
That's crazy, Hales as such a flimsy technique, it looks like a school kid slogging away at times. I wanted him opening in tests but nt now, the Pakistani bowlers will make him look foolish, like they have done to England away since 2005. We don't need that type of embarrassment again.
In terms of this ODI series, Ali is a guy who has a century and a couple 50s opening the batting and now he's 7? Below even Taylor who is just coming back into the team, in a line up consisting of hopeless Buttler and inconsistent Stokes?
Ali has got to be in at 5, he is a damn specialist batsman, not a bits and pieces cricketer like Stokes, Woakes and Buttler.
This is the same nonsense England carried on with throughout the late 90s and most of this century: drop your best players and fill the ODI side with untested commodities or bits and pieces so called all rounders...oh and make a mockery of your better players by fiddling around with their roles.
I thought they had turned a corner since the NZ series but it's clear this is the same old "no clue about ODI cricket" England I've seen my whole life.