It just feels like England are cursed to forever have selectors who feel they know best and want to go with a big gamble on gut instinct, rather than trusting the stats.

Remember Ed Smith with Buttler... Now we have Rob Key with Pope at 3...

On the subject of Foakes at 7, I've actually thought for a while now an option would have been playing Stokes 5, Foakes 6 and then Woakes 7.

In England Woakes is a no brainer both with bat and ball, and outside of England his bowling is very average but his batting is still useful so making him 5th/6th bowler along with Stokes would suit him rather than making him first bowling change.

You could argue it makes our batting weaker but he averages 28 with the bat, which is basically the same as a lot of our batsman currently do.

India for example do similar with Pant at 6 and Jadeja at 7.

Yeah, and Sam Curran (on current form) would slot nicely into the same role if that's what we want - a decent bat who can offer something with the ball even if it's just the option to give our front line bowlers a few overs' rest 😂

Jamie Overton feels like an increasingly big miss from the side nowadays, given the pace and bounce he offers and considering how good his batting has become (didn't he have the highest average in the T20 Blast the other year? I think he bats at 5 in the Blast for Surrey

So we have arguably 3 guys in the squad whose best position is 5 and none of them are going to bat there.

I very much hope they give Potts a go as otherwise they've almost called him and Brook up as token call ups as a nod to county cricket but actually it counts for nothing really.

Its quite amazing really, England at an all time low, the batting is a shambles and as bad as its ever been. The line up in the last test; Crawley, Lees, Root, Lawrence, Stokes, Bairstow, Foakes.

New director, new coach, new captain, new ideas. What have you got for us lads? Wait for it.

Lees, Crawley, Pope, Root, Bairstow, Stokes, Foakes.

So you've dropped Lawrence and brought in Pope?

Yeah and?

Ohhh you've dropped Root to 4 and bumped Lawrence's replacement up to 3. And swapped Bairstow and Stokes over.

Ta da!

Cheers lads

Apologies I'm just being a misery guts, it's been a hard week football wise, Compton is now out and whilst I know changes will be gradual and who knows, maybe the mentality will change, maybe its just Crawley being in the team that irks me. It just feels bleurgh

From listening to some interviews is does sound like McCullum and co want to see how the current lads do under a new regime first before bringing the changes, which I can understand, but when those players aren't performing at County then surely you have a good reason to drop them and bring them back when they do start performing.

Thing is, between the 3 of us we've raked over the squad from every conceivable angle, and... It's still pants. It just doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny.

Still, nice to think of the lineup we could have in 5 or 6 years...

Compton (he's only 28!)
Yates
Bohannon
Pope
Brook
Lawrence
Smith

Bohannon is in 5/1 after Jennings has already fallen, will probably have to get used to that if he does play for England so will be a good test

Aaaaand he's gone for 0

No scores of note since that 230 which is disapointing.

Porter and Cook have been absolutely immense, Cook has been very good for years now but Porter not quite on it for the last year or two. For about 4 years he was one of the best on the county circuit. They've terrorised the top order with a new ball that is doing just enough to be hugely problematic. At least I've been able to enjoy this

Not sure I see the point in watching Brook if he's not gonna play. I'm already annoying myself wondering why Compton isn't playing!!

Wow 24/5 after scoring almost 400 when Cook failed. Very surprising performance so far considering how the season has gone.

comment by Amanda Hugginkiss (U11574)
posted 56 minutes ago
Thing is, between the 3 of us we've raked over the squad from every conceivable angle, and... It's still pants. It just doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny.

Still, nice to think of the lineup we could have in 5 or 6 years...

Compton (he's only 28!)
Yates
Bohannon
Pope
Brook
Lawrence
Smith


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How much longer do you reckon Root will go on for? It's one of those things where the captaincy and the toll of being our best bat for so long may take its toll like it did on Cook when he's 33/34 as he'd have played a lot of test cricket by then and just a lot of cricket in general.

Root probably has another 2/3 years at the truly top level you'd think before his average starts to decline, but even then he'll probably still be one of our best bats

Meanwhile Brook passes 50 again

There goes Brooks for 82. Averaging 140 for the season - at that rate he'll be near the 1,000 mark after the 2nd innings

For once I actually feel a bit harsh on Bairstow in wanting him dropped given he's had 2 decent series in a row for the first time in about 5 years, but it's surely madness not to play Brook against NZ.

How many opportunities will we have to debut a guy who's averaging 140

He's out for 82. I was wondering whether he might be able to go out and score a majestic double ton, get himself to 1000 runs and say to the selectors "are you seriously not going to pick me?".

I do get the idea of getting him into a squad first and then maybe picking him later in the summer once he's a bit more integrated when a position becomes vacant.

On reflection, one thing I will say as a nod to key is at least he has been quite transparent on Pope. It probably would have been less controversial to pick Pope at 5 and Bairstow at 3 given they could say "we don't have think we yet have a viable option at 3, Jonny has a lot of experience, averages just over 30 at 3, has a test 100. We've got plenty of potential players but we don't believe they are test ready as yet and therefore would not be considered in our best XI" at least its a we believe that Pope is the man.

Whether that's fair on Pope though? I'm not too sure but if he responds well to that kind of positive endorsement then great.

comment by The Welsh Xavi (U15412)
posted 2 minutes ago
For once I actually feel a bit harsh on Bairstow in wanting him dropped given he's had 2 decent series in a row for the first time in about 5 years, but it's surely madness not to play Brook against NZ.

How many opportunities will we have to debut a guy who's averaging 140
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Good point, he does have 2 hundreds in his last 8 knocks when you come to think about it objectively. I'd still rather they chose between him and Foakes though and if they go Bairstow then fair enough.

Yeah - Bairstow has the better recent test form but he's had no red-ball summer.

Whereas Foakes was on pretty poor test form but he's had a great summer so far.

You could argue for either, though obviously Foakes is a much better keeper and, again, square pegs for square holes for me

Well the squad is done now and I guess nothing that will happen is going make an impact. They'll know the XI they want. I'm not convinced Potts not playing this week means he's definitely in, he's played 5 games, I think Overton is playing his 5th game as he missed the first one plus there is a bit of a break until the first test anyway.

On the county scene, its been a great 2 and a bit days for Essex. Lancs all out for 103 and are following on! Doing you Surrey boys a favour here although. Plenty of time to try and bowl them out again but only a lead of 288 so will potentially have to chase something as I'd expect them to bat a bit better. At least Jimmy can have his feet up for a bit either way

Although usually tougher the second time round*

If Sam Cook was 6 inches taller or 6mph faster then he'd have been called up for England by now. He's an exceptional bowler and even on flat pitches this year, is still taking wickets at a low average.

He's just relentless with a probing line and length and just doesn't bowl bad balls. Considering our injury issues with bowlers at the moment, if we get a couple more, we could do a lot worse than little chef.

comment by Emile Death Rowe (TCM) (U8959)
posted 4 hours, 13 minutes ago
Well the squad is done now and I guess nothing that will happen is going make an impact. They'll know the XI they want. I'm not convinced Potts not playing this week means he's definitely in, he's played 5 games, I think Overton is playing his 5th game as he missed the first one plus there is a bit of a break until the first test anyway.

On the county scene, its been a great 2 and a bit days for Essex. Lancs all out for 103 and are following on! Doing you Surrey boys a favour here although. Plenty of time to try and bowl them out again but only a lead of 288 so will potentially have to chase something as I'd expect them to bat a bit better. At least Jimmy can have his feet up for a bit either way
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Yeah I'm an Essex fan this week. Unfortunately Somerset couldn't hold up their end of the deal. What a pitiful performance against Hampshire, though at least they were so bad than Hants couldn't get many batting points...

Harmer looking like getting back to his old self. Unfortunately couldn't get the last wicket so there could be one ball tomorrow to finish it off

Poor Jimmy, at least he won't be bowling again so he probably won't mind having a bit of a bat.

Somerset forgot they couldn't bat for a couple of games but reverted back to type against Hants. At least they made Hants bat twice!

Took'em 4 balls to hit the one run they needed

Cricket is a silly game at times