England tour of West Indies 2021/22

[Ed Smith]

Red.

Ball.

Reset.

Gone really well so far

 

[beechcroft]

Crawley, it’s hero or zero with him. More zero then hero.

 

[Neptune]

Mayers really working Root over here. Going to be hard for England, will need lower order heroics again, preferably not from their #10 and #11 this time though

 

[Ed Smith]

Could be done tonight. Be a shame to have to come back in the AM

 

[blockerdave]

Wheels off now

 

[Aislabie]

13-7-9-5

That's an absolutely elite set of bowling figures, and it's further proof (as if any were needed) that England have been missing a huge trick with their continued non-selection of Darren Stevens

 

[Ed Smith]

13-7-9-5

That's an absolutely elite set of bowling figures, and it's further proof (as if any were needed) that England have been missing a huge trick with their continued non-selection of Darren Stevens

Man literally couldn't be any worse than what we've got now

 

[Aislabie]

Time for another effortpost I guess, but most of the headlines aren't really headlines.

England are awful at Test cricket? Heard that one before. Joe Root the captain is an absolute lettuce of a leadership figure! Change the record. Young spinners are managed worse than the average HR training department! Obviously. There is not a single visibly obvious Test opener in all of English cricket! Where have you been since 2014?

From here I see three essential steps that have to be made, and three options that England have to choose between.

The Essentials:

1. Create a role of a Director of Men's Cricket to have authority over off-field aspects of the County Championship, Under-19s, Lions and Test team. This individual would be tasked with creating a clear strategy to prepare players for Test cricket before they even get there. They would start with more or less a blank sheet of paper. (I would also recommend that all touring teams get a first-class warm-up match against an England U23 XI. England get a warm-up against the Lions.)
2. Treat every Test series like an Ashes series. They're all part of the WTC after all, a competition in which England now occupy a hard-earned last place. They all matter. You're not building for an Ashes, you're playing for a World Championship you bunch of cauliflowers.
3. Send Captain Rooty to the glue factory. As a batter and player, Root still has huge amounts to offer English cricket. If you leave him in place as the Habibul Bashar to this team of Aftab Ahmeds, you will lose years of this cricketing legend at his peak.

These are non-negotiable now. It's come too far to be able to avoid them. The remainder of this is more interesting.

The Options

1. "Age is just a number". This is an ageing team, make no mistake, but there is still the chance to be very 90s West Indies about this and keep playing the elder statesmen until they've nothing left to give. This would be the Captain Broady option, among other things.
2. Rebuilding from the rubble. This would mean nuking everything and restarting from scratch. This was the option that led to the 2005 Ashes triumph, and has the upside of filling the team with players not scarred by this nonsense. This would probably see something like Captain Loz.
3. Trust that these are the best players available and just wait it out. The option with the lowest ceiling, but it's a long-standing English policy usually phrased as "better to give a guy 10 Tests too many than one Test too few". This option leads to either Captain Stokes, Captain Jonny or worst of all more Captain Rooty.

Of those three, I'd be *inclined* towards Option 2, built around some of Yates, Crawley, Lawrence, SCurran, Mahmood, Carse and Parkinson. It's not easy though because it guarantees a tough transition period.

 

[blockerdave]

We are watching, in Woakes & Leach, 2 batsmen better equipped to open the batting than anyone who has played there since Strauss & Cook.

 

[qpeedore]

fearsome tweak yeah. Won a series.

 

[Gaurav_7]

Wow what a match this for the WI! England test team seems to have gone really bad over the years.

 

[asprin]

Resting your best bowlers and persisting with Root as captain are the biggest mistakes England seem to be doing right now. There's the issue of not having quality batsmen as well, but they first need to address these two.

But still, I would expect them to win the one-off Test against India later this year.

 

[Umair7]

 

[Ed Smith]

About right aye

 

[LiveLoveABD]

Post the Ashes, there were three things right with English cricket and probably not much more-

1) Anderson
2) Broad
3) Root at 4

They changed all that and nothing else. Mind numbing things the poms can pull off.

I will never for the life of me understand why they play Woakes as a specialist test bowler anywhere but England. It just boggles my cricket brain no end.