The future of cricket is Windies and Pakistan who stood against the atrocious partnership of Big 3 and always sought revival of purest form of cricket

Win for Windies

Some dodgy England fielding today didn't help.

Reckon we'll still win the series but some very poor moments throughout this test

Not great. Only way is up.

Good to get Root back, Which means reckon Denly is all but finished

https://wisden.com/series-stories/england-v-west-indies/why-backing-joe-denly-makes-sense-for-england/amp

Food for thought. Glad I don't have to make the call.

Looks like Denly will be kept in the team even though I would guess it's not what most fans would do. As for Crawley you could say he has time on his side.

That's Jennings all over again. He even got picked for Sri-lanka. doesn't matter if they are any good. just pick them..Denly will never make a 100..if he does it will take him 25 tests..

English batting is in rebuilding phase and that will be the case with the bowling. They did exceptionally well to drew series against Australia because it will take another 2 years atleast to become formidable again

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndyHa_/status/1281987324029665281

comment by Amanda Hugginkiss (U11574)
posted 16 hours, 13 minutes ago
https://wisden.com/series-stories/england-v-west-indies/why-backing-joe-denly-makes-sense-for-england/amp

Food for thought. Glad I don't have to make the call.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I do agree with the sentiment of the article. Denly as I've said before whilst not having a great average, does do the other half of his job as a top order batsman very well. He gets himself in, he spends time at the crease to protect our middle order from the new ball.

As good as Crawley looked in this test and as well as he did in SA, his test average is only 31. It's only from 5 tests but then it matches his first class average from 42 games. There's a decent looking player in there but it wouldn't be an awful decision to play Denly over him.

I personally would pick Crawley now as it makes sense as he's clearly the long term option and with Root coming back into the side, there'll be plenty of experience around him.

Like you say, I wouldn't want to make that call as it's not as clear as someone like Michael Vaughan makes out.

Looking back on this test match overall and you have to say well done to the West Indies. In the first innings they were better with bat and ball and deservedly had a big lead. England did better in the second innings with both but after the Crawley/Stokes partnership was broken, we should have still put on another 60-70 more runs than we did and that may have been enough to at least not lose the match.

I wouldn't worry too much about this performance as a whole in terms of how we look as a team. The greater worry is that we always look under cooked in the first test of a series. This is obviously unusual circumstances but Windies were in the same position so it's not an excuse.

Read today that we've lost the first test in something like 8 out of our last 11 series. Seems to be a problem that for some reason we're starting series' slow.

I didn't realise it was quite that bad but that is awful. The main problem seems to be the batting and hopefully as the batting line up takes shape and gains experience then we will see improvements here.

Although it feels like Burns has been about for a while, he's only played 16 tests and Sibley has just 7 and a few of those were with Crawley. Hopefully that opening partnership can develop into a strong one for us and set the tone for starting a series well.

We've got our best batsmen at 4 and 5 and then probably the most promising batsman we've had come through for a long time in Pope at 6. Bar the number 3 slot, you feel like we have batsmen in the side who could be our top 6 for the next 3-4 years. Whether that is enough to make a difference to how we do in the first test of a series remains to be seen but it should help.

West Indies will win this series 3-1 or 4-0

comment by chooshanguru (U21387)
posted 8 minutes ago
West Indies will win this series 3-1 or 4-0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That will be quite difficult considering its a three match series.

Choosh strikes again.

comment by Neo- PL CHAMPIONS (U9135)
posted 4 hours, 32 minutes ago
comment by chooshanguru (U21387)
posted 8 minutes ago
West Indies will win this series 3-1 or 4-0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That will be quite difficult considering its a three match series.

Choosh strikes again.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------
That will be quite difficult considering its a three match series.

Choosh strikes again.
_____________________________________________________
must be a neverton fan..

Denly dropped

Correct decision probably.

It's the right decision and one that he can't have any complaints over. Hopefully Crawley gets a good run in the side as he's an opener with all the shots which in theory should make a pretty good number 3.

Crawley did better in his ‘audition’ - and is 12 years younger.

I do wonder with Denly whether things might have been different had he got that 100 against Aus instead of the 94.

A lot of his problems seem mental given he regularly gets in to the 20's and 30's.

Crawley is the future. Denly has done an ok job coming in so late in his career.

Middle order seriously need to step up this test.