England tour of New Zealand 2023
- Thread starter wasteyouryouth
- Start date
wasteyouryouth
Verified
Not really. An England run chase should be fun tonight. Plus I've slept well for the last two days and Jimmy Anderson can put his feet up until June if he wants.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
wasteyouryouth
Verified
Unless someone has an astonishing start to the county season, I expect he will be there until at least the end of the Ashes if not at least 12 more months.
He's still averaging more than Kieran Powell, Daren Ganga, Imrul Kayes, Devon Smith and Javed Omar as an opener.
wasteyouryouth
Verified
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
He really derailed his charge to the bottom with that two-innings purple patch either side of a flight to Pakistan.
However if there's one silver lining, Jonny Bairstow returning does leave a bottleneck for places.
Neptune
Panel of Selectors
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2020
It will be really sad if Bairstow doesnt make the 1st 11 now, he's taken over half a decade and a career's worth of matches to become good at test cricket again. Crawley probably has to go for that though, and someone else has to open. If that does happen, I think Stokes might just start opening, he's reduced his bowling workload and he clearly does not care about his stats
Bevab
Staff Member
Stokes in his current element as an opener makes too much sense. Bairstow’s very likely to be back in the XI. I wouldn’t be surprised if they even moved Pope up as an opener and tried Root as three in all their infinite Baz wisdom.
pillowprocter
Panel of Selectors
Why can't Jonny open? He's much more experience opening than Pope or Stokes anyway.
wasteyouryouth
Verified
Could Bairstow do better than Crawley as an opener? Probably no worse. But the more important question is who are England more likely to drop? Zak Crawley, stastically one of the worst openers of all time, or Ben Foakes the best keeper in the world who averages almost 40 in the Bazball era?
wasteyouryouth
Verified
If KLR's Dad plays golf with the Jay Shah, Crawley might be the English version.
No one knows if Bairstow's injury will impact his keeping, but yeah, they have picked Pope ahead of Foakes in the second test in Pakistan (he kept in the first test when Foakes was ill) for 'batting' reasons.
Bevab
Staff Member
I don’t think Foakes is getting dropped. He’s already spoken of as a very important part of the current side and Bazball is all about the small differences adding up to get you a win. Foakes with the glove is one of those crucial differences, he’ll get you a wicket or two just with his keeping every couple of matches. I believe Will Jacks’ presence was the primary reason for Foakes not playing that second test vs Pakistan alongside him perhaps not being fully fit (pure speculation). Asking Pope to keep and bat in the top three under a Bazball workload is a recipe for disaster.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
Well it doesn't look like I'm going to get to bed for a while
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
Ollie Pope's second innings stats: 400 runs @ 16.67 (best 82) in 27 innings. Although given as Joe Root has just run Brook out for a diamond duck, this seemed pretty irrelevant before I'd even finished typing it
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