England tour of West Indies 2021/22

Who will the the Richards-Botham Trophy?


  • Total voters
    8
  • Poll closed .
A genuine observation about Joe Root's promotion to number three though - I absolutely don't see the point in turning a strength into a potential weakness just so that you can fit other players into more natural positions for them. Root is the perfect example of that.

In the ideal Test team, he would bat at number five. He's a busy player; he likes to score quickly and has a tendency to push away from his body against the seamers because he likes to feel bat on ball. Doesn't like to leave the ball, and is also the team's best player of spin. He also has an average of nearly 70 batting in that position, despite most of those innings having come before what would notionally be considered his peak.

There is also supporting evidence in the fact that the further he gets away from his ideal number five position, the less success he has: at number four, he has an average of 51, in the top three that drops further to about 40. Promoting him to number three is the sort of desperate roll of the dice that shows a team's planning and analytics are up the spout: Root's value against a replacement number five is astronomical; his value against a replacement number three is not.

The compromise of batting him at number four is a decent one; it still gets somewhere near the best out of him (see: 2021) whilst allowing England to squeeze in another two middle-order players (currently Stokes and Bairstow) where they would otherwise only be able to fit one. Shunting him up to number three though - that's pretty iffy.

I don't have answers to who England can pick in order to solve any sort of Root-related balance problem, but it would be an interesting start to begin with picking the best players in their best positions and then filling in the gaps around them. Would probably look something like:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Root
6. Stokes
7. Foakes
8.
9.
10. Broad
11. Anderson

... and quite how one builds a balanced team out of that I have no idea.
 
Zak Crawley out "trying to hit the ball too hard" is a totally new story. Never seen that one before. Ever. Not once. What do you mean "all his wickets"... FFS
 
@Aislabie why would we not consider Chris Woakes an all condition bowler? Pretty much seems like the 2016-18 version Bhuvi to me.
 
@Aislabie why would we not consider Chris Woakes an all condition bowler? Pretty much seems like the 2016-18 version Bhuvi to me.
It's not so much about the conditions as the ball

He's an old-fashioned style bowler with an away-swinger as his stock ball, and that's something that only really works with the Dukes ball at the moment
 
Woakes is probably closer to Ashwin as a comparison
Was rather looking at someone who bowled with an average speed of 134 kph and could just float around with the ball when on song while not afraid to try a quicker one on odd occasions.

Bhuvi sits well for me in that role
 
Promoting him to number three is the sort of desperate roll of the dice that shows a team's planning and analytics are up the spout: Root's value against a replacement number five is astronomical; his value against a replacement number three is not.
About that
 
Was rather looking at someone who bowled with an average speed of 134 kph and could just float around with the ball when on song while not afraid to try a quicker one on odd occasions.

Bhuvi sits well for me in that role
I always thought Bhuvi would do great in England if he had a county deal it did wonders for Ishant. Although I don't really see Bhuvi getting into the test team again.
 
Honestly think Woakes should be given the reverse Mark Wood treatment. Play him at home, don't play him overseas. Him playing today isn't indicative of the 'reset' England were going after. The fact that he can bat is probably keeping him in the side.
 
Was inevitable. Almost as if moving a guy up and dropping his average by 12 is a bad plan.
They can talk all they want about "leading from the front" and "taking personal responsibility" and other babbling, but the sample size is big enough to show that at Test level Root is a number five already batting out of position at four

(that is quite aside from him also being thoroughly out of position as captain)
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top