Keaton Jennings? You gotta be kidding surely?
The selectors are somehow getting back handers from somewhere

Jennings is surely just a back up as Burns is injured. Not many other openers out there to call up to run out drinks for two tests.

I'm glad Denly has been retained with Bairstow left out. Good to see the selectors keeping faith. Hopefully Bess and Parky will be on song.

Jennings selection makes some sense, hopefully he's just a back up for the top 3 as it's just for 2 tests and Burns will be back for the summer. If he does need to come in as emergency cover then his record on spinning tracks is pretty good. Better option than Bairstow anyway .

I'm also glad to see there's a 3 day and a 4 day warm up game rather than a couple of 2 day games.

What has Buttler done to justify inclusion in the Test squad?

In his last 25 Test innings, he averages just 20.65 with just three 50`s and a highest score of 70.

Bairstow must feel a little miffed to be left out of the squad, albeit his own batting has been poor of late, he has a better overall record in Tests than Buttler.

Jennings is a walking wicket at Test level.

comment by Billy The Yidd (U3924)
posted 2 hours, 1 minute ago
What has Buttler done to justify inclusion in the Test squad?

In his last 25 Test innings, he averages just 20.65 with just three 50`s and a highest score of 70.

Bairstow must feel a little miffed to be left out of the squad, albeit his own batting has been poor of late, he has a better overall record in Tests than Buttler.

Jennings is a walking wicket at Test level.
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I'm hoping neither Jennings nor Buttler actually plays in the first test. Jennings does have a very good average on the subcontinent tbf

From what I'm reading, Buttler will keep his place for the first test with Foakes as back up.

His mind seems scrambled which isn't great considering he's going to be keeping on turning pitches. I thought he turned a corner in 2018 when he was brought back into the side but it looks like he's gone back to type. His average in first class cricket in over 100 matches is only 32 and that matches his test average of 32 in 40 matches.

Even if Foakes has a bad series with the bat, he'll definitely be an improvement with the gloves and that'll be even more important in this series.

I can understand not fast-tracking Foakes straight into the side considering his first-class scores haven't been brilliant, but...

Firstly it seems a bit pointless to call him up and then not play him when there's clearly a weakness in the squad that he would cover. And secondly, we need to get out of the mindset of picking keepers based on their batting, as opposed to their keeping.

Foakes is the best keeper we have by a country mile, so he should be our keeper. If there were another keeper who had a better batting average but wasn't as good behind the stumps, then we should still be picking the better keeper. Of course, as we know, Foakes' Test batting has thus far been more reliable than Buttler's and Bairstow's too, so there isn't really a reason not to pick him.

The bigger question will be do England line up with 1 seamer, Stokes and 3 frontline spinners or do they go with 2 seamers and just the 2 frontline spinners with Denly and Root offering some part time spin options?

I'm guessing they'll go with the latter because they'll probably want to include Wood and having him and Stokes as the only seam options would be a risk. So you'd expect one of Broad, Curran or Woakes to play.

Crawley
Sibley
Denly
Root
Stokes
Pope
Foakes
Bess
Broad
Leach
Wood

THIS NEEDS TO HURRY UP

First warm up game is next week but the first test is still 3 weeks away

At least the football is starting to get a little better

for you.................................

Some decent results for the Lions in Australia recently. Sibley and Jennings both hit centuries and Dan Lawrence got a century in both games.

Lawrence looks he won't be far off a call up if he keeps his form up but annoyingly he's another number 5/6 so no idea where he'd fit in.

Keaton Jennings batting at 3 as well. Guessing that's where he'll go in Sri Lanka then, with Denly dropping out and Crawley retaining his place.

Not that he got any runs or was deserving of his call-up in the first place, of course

Sibley hit tons in both games as well but it's going to be a really tough couple of test matches for him and Crawley at the top. Great to see England using the Lions as an opportunity for time at the crease for the top order.

Dan Lawrence is a talented batsman but you're not wrong, he bats at 4 for Essex and he only moved there last season with Bopara being dropped down to 5. Unlikely to move up the order either unless Cook retires and Westley moves back up to open.

comment by TCM (U8959)
posted 1 day, 20 hours ago

At least the football is starting to get a little better
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You were saying...?

Hurry up cricket!

Mark Wood has been ruled out of the Sri Lanka Tour. He has a left side strain and will be replaced by Saqib Mahmood.

Poor Mark Wood. Probably wasn't a series he'd have as much of an impact in anyway but he'll be gutted.

Cricket?

comment by Phendombele (U20037)
posted 3 days, 13 hours ago
Cricket?
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Just watch us perform even worse vs Sri Lanka than Spurs vs anyone, just to rub salt in the wound.

And then it turns out England have been taking special coaching sessions from Mourinho

That would be painful. You guys with Mourinho feels at the moment like a condensed version of us with Emery, which wasn't particularly long in itself. Results were good at first but fans were wary of performances that were getting worse and the results would surely follow. Bad results came which just made the performances look even worse.

Hopefully Silverwood doesn't follow in the steps of either

honestly nothing is worse than how spurs are playing