Thoughts on England's tour of Pakistan 2015

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Mr Redknapp

Striker
Now that the dust has settled on a thoroughly enjoyable series off matches, what have we learned?

Personally the main thing I take away from the tour is the fact that England have a decent side maturing at a decent rate.

My players I impressed or depressed you?

Will we see Ian Bell play again.?
 


Have to toughen up mentally in Tests. Not enough steel when things go pear shaped - crying out for a Graham Thorpe type batsman in the middle order who will play spin well and not be flummoxed at the crease in testing circumstances. Collapses are too common place and Root and Cook can't do everything. Seam bowling attack is excellent. Nothing really learned about spinners. We knew they weren't great and the series confirmed that. Ali has a knack of taking wickets but provides no control at all. Wicket keeper situation is problematic. I think it should be Buttler going forward but many will disagree and say Bairstow deserves a longer run.

ODI and T20 - everything looking very good. Good leadership, plenty of talent, plenty of options, plenty of freedom in their play. Dark horses for the T20 world cup
 
Delighted with the emergence of Taylor and Bairstow as Test players. Excited to see them in SA and again in our home Tests. If they continue their upward progress we could have a batting lineup to rival any Test side. I genuinely see a team for years to come if an opener can be found:

Cook
AN Opener
Taylor
Root
Bairstow
Stokes

Some top 6 that.
 
Delighted with the emergence of Taylor and Bairstow as Test players. Excited to see them in SA and again in our home Tests. If they continue their upward progress we could have a batting lineup to rival any Test side. I genuinely see a team for years to come if an opener can be found:

Cook
AN Opener
Taylor
Root
Bairstow
Stokes

Some top 6 that.

Im just not seeing it with him. Seventeen tests, no tons, only five fifties, average of 26ish. He just doesn't look right at Test level to me.

The way Vince has come in to T20 and taken to international cricket I can see him being fast tracked into Tests within a year.

Hales to me has to be given the opportunity opening up as well. I like a left hand right hand combo and Hales scoring rate will allow Cook to do what he does best.
 
Have to toughen up mentally in Tests. Not enough steel when things go pear shaped - crying out for a Graham Thorpe type batsman in the middle order who will play spin well and not be flummoxed at the crease in testing circumstances. Collapses are too common place and Root and Cook can't do everything. Seam bowling attack is excellent. Nothing really learned about spinners. We knew they weren't great and the series confirmed that. Ali has a knack of taking wickets but provides no control at all. Wicket keeper situation is problematic. I think it should be Buttler going forward but many will disagree and say Bairstow deserves a longer run.

ODI and T20 - everything looking very good. Good leadership, plenty of talent, plenty of options, plenty of freedom in their play. Dark horses for the T20 world cup
Think that is why Compton has come back in. Cook, Compton and Root to be the spine, Hales, Bairstow, Stokes and Taylor to bump the run rate up
I'd persevere with Rashid, but you just know the selectors will go with Ali at 8

Cook
Hales
Compton
Rooooooooooooot
Taylor
Stokes
Bairstow
Ali
Jordan
Broad
Anderson
 
Delighted with the emergence of Taylor and Bairstow as Test players. Excited to see them in SA and again in our home Tests. If they continue their upward progress we could have a batting lineup to rival any Test side. I genuinely see a team for years to come if an opener can be found:

Cook
AN Opener
Taylor
Root
Bairstow
Stokes

Some top 6 that.
Let's be honest, that's not really 'some top 6 that' is it?

There's no outstanding candidate for the openers position, Taylor is still unproven at test level and isn't a number 3, Bairstow doesn't look very good at all and Stokes fails an awful lot more than he succeeds. We need to stick Ballance at 5 and just leave him there, Root goes up to three and Taylor bats four - if Bairstow stays in the team he's six and Stokes drops one to seven. Of all the areas in the test team I think the top/middle order is the main weakness, so fragile.
 
Im just not seeing it with him. Seventeen tests, no tons, only five fifties, average of 26ish. He just doesn't look right at Test level to me.

I think you've probably got to forget the stint he had before and start from his fresh start. He probably wasn't ready for Test cricket last time but he's gone away, worked on his game and come back stronger.

He may still prove to be a failure, but I think he has to be judged from now. I felt he did well in the UAE, often up against it and whilst wickets were falling around him.
 
I think Taylor is the only absolute positive in terms of moving forward (and I'm only talking about Tests here). The Ali experiment had the easily predicted result and both spinners weren't as effective as they were trailed to be, swing and seam did the job.

We haven't found an opener that we're confident and don't have a number three either.

Wood cemented his place in the team injury permitting and Plunkett has been unlucky as was Finn with his injury.

Buttler is a disappointment, is his approach too white ball for the red ball game? We learnt a year ago that you shouldn't pick your one day team based on Test attributes I'd say the opposite applies too.

In summary, the bowling unit looks solid apart from the spinners who are so-so while the batting has problems apart from a few star performers and the wicket-keeping slot is now problematic This is pretty much the same situation that existed before the tour began.

As for the white ball team I didn't watch but it sounds like it's doing pretty well.
 
I worry about the batting. Cook and Root were great, but nobody else up that end of the order really fills me with confidence. The next opener needs a full year IMO to settle into it, and we have to hope Taylor can kick on. I remain very unconvinced with Ballance, especially against the quickies this winter.

Stokes has to stay at 6 for me, Buttler should be persevered with and told to bat with more freedom.

Bowling wise the worry is the spinners as ever, however I think Rashid has done enough to be persevered with. He looks a million times more confident now than he did at the beginning of the tour, and is starting to show a bit more consistency. Ali less of a threat with the ball for me but offers a good batting option at 8. Stokes in the side means we can afford to carry our spinner a bit in non-sub continent conditions so can see the 2 spinners sticking around for a while.
 
Have to toughen up mentally in Tests. Not enough steel when things go pear shaped - crying out for a Graham Thorpe type batsman in the middle order who will play spin well and not be flummoxed at the crease in testing circumstances. Collapses are too common place and Root and Cook can't do everything. Seam bowling attack is excellent. Nothing really learned about spinners. We knew they weren't great and the series confirmed that. Ali has a knack of taking wickets but provides no control at all. Wicket keeper situation is problematic. I think it should be Buttler going forward but many will disagree and say Bairstow deserves a longer run.

ODI and T20 - everything looking very good. Good leadership, plenty of talent, plenty of options, plenty of freedom in their play. Dark horses for the T20 world cup

or dare i say it, a paul collingwood :cool:
 
Delighted with the emergence of Taylor and Bairstow as Test players. Excited to see them in SA and again in our home Tests. If they continue their upward progress we could have a batting lineup to rival any Test side. I genuinely see a team for years to come if an opener can be found:

Cook
AN Opener
Taylor
Root
Bairstow
Stokes

Some top 6 that.

Is it? Not sure personally.

Only, Cook, Root and Stokes for me.

We've learned that Peter Moores really was on glue last March.

Well he was absolutely spot on about Lyth and Rashid like wasn't he?

He had to go, but ridiculous the stick he got for those decisions, both aren't good enough at test level.
 
Confirmed what we already knew that more so than ever home advantage is everything nowadays.

The last two test series we have played, I am convinced if the games were played at the oppostite country,would have been the opposite series result even with exactly the same teams.

There is another test series going on in India now which confirms this as well.
 
Most of them.

like not picking Lyth and Rashid? He was 100% right

Confirmed what we already knew that more so than ever home advantage is everything nowadays.

The last two test series we have played, I am convinced if the games were played at the oppostite country,would have been the opposite series result even with exactly the same teams.

There is another test series going on in India now which confirms this as well.

South Africa massively on the decline though, good time to play them this winter
 
Confirmed what we already knew that more so than ever home advantage is everything nowadays.

The last two test series we have played, I am convinced if the games were played at the oppostite country,would have been the opposite series result even with exactly the same teams.

There is another test series going on in India now which confirms this as well.
I think England were very competitive for most of the series. They should have won the first test and had chances to win throughout the series.

The ODI team is looking pretty handy these days too.
 
I think England were very competitive for most of the series. They should have won the first test and had chances to win throughout the series.

The ODI team is looking pretty handy these days too.

Yep, good tour I think, more positives than not.
 
Delighted with the emergence of Taylor and Bairstow as Test players. Excited to see them in SA and again in our home Tests. If they continue their upward progress we could have a batting lineup to rival any Test side. I genuinely see a team for years to come if an opener can be found:

Cook
AN Opener
Taylor
Root
Bairstow
Stokes

Some top 6 that.
I'm far from convinced about Bairstow like
 
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