Not Root But Who?

It's not looking great. The sad thing is we've got 3 great players who probably walk into any XI in Root, Anderson and Stokes. Beyond those 3, there's a smattering of decent players like Broad, Robinson, Wood, Archer and Woakes (at home) who contribute a decent amount to this team but the issue is they are all bowlers.

Vaughan pointed out on the TMS podcast that since Root took over as captain, there have been 25 debutant batsmen / wicket keeper batsmen who have come into the side and only Burns has an average over 30 (at 30.32). That is poor and this team just cannot score big runs consistently enough to set us up to win test matches.

As Blue Heaven said, I think Root will stay on at least for the summer and we'll see how the summer goes. He is deluding himself if he thinks the team have made progress though. The batting continues to go backwards although Lees played his best knocks when everyone else struggled, I have more faith in him scoring runs in the summer than Crawley (if we stick with that pair) although I think they'll both be dropped before the end of the summer.

Indeed - and that one player who averages over 30 has been dropped in favour of a player (Crawley) who has all the hallmarks of being as predictably unreliable as James Vince, on the basis that he's young and has promise - which should be showing more clearly in his figures at first class level by now, but isn't.

My point being that Root isn't helped by the selection policy which appears to be scattergun and inconsistent. Then again Root has a big hand in selections I understand, so he's hardly blameless...

yes

Root clearly isn't a great captain but I don't think he's an awful one either. There are times when he has let the game drift but I'm sure all captains are guilty of this. It's just more painful when we've only got 2-300 runs rather than 4-500.

True, Root must have been quite influential in the decision to leave Anderson and Broad at home this tour which is why he was quite sassy to Agnew when asked about them at the end of the series.

I've noticed that we generally seem to get hung up on selection issues around the bowling, generally because there are often decent options that miss out. However from a batting perspective, you look at who played in this series and there is no "we really missed X and Y". Essentially we could bring a Billings in, or try a Livingstone, or give Burns, Sibley, Vince, Pope et al another go. However I just don't think the result would have been different.

'England vice-captain Ben Stokes says he cannot make any plans for the summer until he has had a scan to assess the extent of a knee problem. The Durham all-rounder struggled with the issue during England's recent series defeat against West Indies....'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/61007258

If he can't bowl then he should still be in the side as a batsman but fingers crossed it's not too bad

comment by Emile Death Rowe (TCM) (U8959)
posted 1 week ago

Vaughan pointed out on the TMS podcast that since Root took over as captain, there have been 25 debutant batsmen / wicket keeper batsmen who have come into the side and only Burns has an average over 30 (at 30.32).

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Good.god that is shocking.

I notice Vaughan's been brought back quietly into the fold btw. Incredible seeing g as his voice was deemed to.offensive to even broadcast via a foreign feed a few months ago

Well, we will soon find out!

I wonder whether Ali Cook was approached, and also whether Mccullum/Stokes will approach him regarding playing ?

I can't see it happening. His biggest strength was his mentality to just stick it out and want to bat all day. Putting a play and a miss behind him and just moving onto the next ball without getting bogged down even if it looked like he was.

Now days for Essex he plays with a bit more freedom and is just happy to play without that same level of intensity. Drives a lot more than he ever would for England.