England v SA 2nd test thread

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The Breen Machine said:
Disagree about them being test quality although the jury is out on Hales, but I wholeheartedly agree with your second point, we need some grit and concentration, not more dashers.
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We have Cook and Root to amass big, slower hundreds. We must give Bairstow a chance up the order, he's our 3rd best batter.

Hales and Buttler both have big hundreds in them, the pace of the scoring is largely irrelevant.

The problem we have is 2 of the top 3 are getting out for next to nothing. Neither are good enough and we don't have old school slower scorers in good form.

We've tried Jennings, Compton, Balance and Hamed. The first 3 aren't good enough and the other is out of form.
 


Keith S30S said:
We have Cook and Root to amass big, slower hundreds. We must give Bairstow a chance up the order, he's our 3rd best batter.

Hales and Buttler both have big hundreds in them, the pace of the scoring is largely irrelevant.

The problem we have is 2 of the top 3 are getting out for next to nothing. Neither are good enough and we don't have old school slower scorers in good form.

We've tried Jennings, Compton, Balance and Hamed. The first 3 aren't good enough and the other is out of form.
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we've tried all the others you mentioned too though

get Rocky in... if only to piss off Surrey
 
Sandboy said:
we've tried all the others you mentioned too though

get Rocky in... if only to piss off Surrey
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He isn't international class IMO.

The others are real match winners in the shorter game. We need to give them another go. Balance has had 3 chances now, fair enough due to runs in county cricket but he's been awful twice now.
 
Keith S30S said:
He isn't international class IMO.

The others are real match winners in the shorter game. We need to give them another go. Balance has had 3 chances now, fair enough due to runs in county cricket but he's been awful twice now.
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he keeps getting a chance because we don't produce cricketers like Boycott, Atherton, Gooch (even Tavare) any more, we've got a team full of big hitters so we either win or lose by a margin. Test cricket is becoming a 3 day game, we need someone to take all day to score 90 and let the flash fucker do their bit at the other end

we used to be a good test team and shit at 20/20, we've gone too far in the other direction now
 
Sandboy said:
he keeps getting a chance because we don't produce cricketers like Boycott, Atherton, Gooch (even Tavare) any more, we've got a team full of big hitters so we either win or lose by a margin. Test cricket is becoming a 3 day game, we need someone to take all day to score 90 and let the flash fucker do their bit at the other end

we used to be a good test team and shit at 20/20, we've gone too far in the other direction now
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But we still have Cook in a similar mould. Root scores faster but is more old school in technique.

The Aussies of 15 or so years ago were full of dashers and it did them no harm.
 
Keith S30S said:
He isn't international class IMO.

The others are real match winners in the shorter game. We need to give them another go. Balance has had 3 chances now, fair enough due to runs in county cricket but he's been awful twice now.
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The last thing we need mate are white ball specialists

Keith S30S said:
Hayden especially but Pointing too scored quickly.

If we had Cook and Root in the top 3 along with Hales it wouldn't be so different.
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Root scores quicker than any player we've had
 
Keith S30S said:
All 3 are proven at international level, good characters, match winners and are still improving albeit the shorter versions of the game.

I don't see anyone better, they deserve another chance at test cricket over the 3 average chokers we've picked.

Obviously none of the 3 would be much kop in a backs to the wall situation like to today but if one of them came off we wouldn't have been in this dire position.
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Being better than Dawson and ballance hardly makes them proven test quality!

The Breen Machine said:
. Michael Vaughan has hit the nail on the head for me today when he said that no one is prepared to make ugly runs.
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Be fair, all.thr runs bairstow scores are ugly.

Effective but horrible to watch imo
 
DaveAngel said:
The last thing we need mate are white ball specialists



Root scores quicker than any player we've had
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White ball specialists like David Warner was a few years ago?

Root scores quickly because he's a great player not because he takes lots of daft chances. He's an accumlator of runs who can also hit boundaries.
 
Keith S30S said:
White ball specialists like David Warner was a few years ago?

Root scores quickly because he's a great player not because he takes lots of daft chances. He's an accumlator of runs who can also hit boundaries.
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Aye, but we have tried both of them and they weren't good enough.

Warner is just a world class player, with more talent.
 
DaveAngel said:
Aye, but we have tried both of them and they weren't good enough.

Warner is just a world class player, with more talent.
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Originally Warner was a world class Twenty / 20 player who could barely get a 1st class game in Sheffield Shield.

A good player is a good player.

Hales scored the best part of 200 a couple of weeks ago. Buttler has won many a game with big hundreds and would get a game for pretty much every side in test cricket as a keeper / batsman.

We've over looked them for too long. Time for another chance for good players.
 
Keith S30S said:
Originally Warner was a world class Twenty / 20 player who could barely get a 1st class game in Sheffield Shield.

A good player is a good player.

Hales scored the best part of 200 a couple of weeks ago. Buttler has won many a game with big hundreds and would get a game for pretty much every side in test cricket as a keeper / batsman.

We've over looked them for too long. Time for another chance for good players.
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Yes, in one day games

We haven't overlooked them at all, they weren't scoring runs so we dropped them. Simple.

The main issue is clearly the top 3, if we had say Strauss and Trott in their prime, with Cook, it would allow 5, 6, 7 to play with freedom.

You don't want to be too critical of them, because they are all rounders. But that is the point, they are, and they are probably batting too high.

I am Bairstow's biggest fan, he is a fantastic player, but for me, in the current side, he can't play 5, he is too loose.

He needs to bat 7, with Stokes at 6 and Ali at 8. Been saying that all year. It is too much of a luxury batting that high.

Also need more from Root, sounds rich after a 190, and being our best player by far, but look at the scores Steve Smith pulls out, nobody can tell me he is more talent than Root, but he is massively outscoring him, and he bats time. He is doing so in a team with similar batting problems to England too.

Root's problem is when he is playing so well, he almost finds it too easy and their is always a nick or loose shot in him. He just needs to bring it in a little bit.

In the short term, Ballance needs to go to 5, and Stoneman has to open, as he has the perfect game in theory for Australian pitches.

They also need to get a right hander in the top 3.

Bowling wise, Wood should only play if he is going to bowl in short 90mph bursts.

I'd take a look at Plunkett, he can bowl quick, and he can handle the pressures of international cricket.

Jimmy and Broad are world class, but they can be too short and wide, and if they don't fire, we struggle to take wickets. I thought Stokes bowled fantastic this test though.

Bit of a long post, but they are my thoughts anyway.
 
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viccarlton said:
Very poor batting display, some of our batsmen (most of them) need to learn the basics, T20 skills do not transfer into the test arena.
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It was tricky but not impossible to bat on that pitch imo.

England have 2 or 3 world class players and the rest are very good but not a few of them are not test quality.
 
Frankel said:
Jennings, Ballance, Dawson, Wood out.

Stoneman, Buttler, Rashid, Ball/Curran in.

Cook
Stoneman
Root
Bairstow
Ali
Stokes
Buttler
Rashid
Broad
Ball/Curran
Anderson
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Has Buttler played any red ball stuff this year?

Just checked an Buttler has played one first class game this season

He averages 1.5 with a top score of 2

He doesn't deserve a test call up
 
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chunkylover53 said:
Has Buttler played any red ball stuff this year?

Just checked an Buttler has played one first class game this season

He averages 1.5 with a top score of 2

He doesn't deserve a test call up
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And that's not counting the fact that his career record with the red ball is poor, at all levels.

At least talk of him taking the gloves off Bairstow should stop now. After moving from Somerset to Lancs because he couldn't win the gloves off Craig Keiswetter, he now can't win them off Alex Davies.
 
DaveAngel said:
Yes, in one day games



In the short term, Ballance needs to go to 5, and Stoneman has to open, as he has the perfect game in theory for Australian pitches.

.
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If Ballance was an all-rounder you could get away with him moving down the order. But he isn't. He's in there purely for his batting.

It doesn't matter if he bats 1 or 11, his fundamental problem remains & untill such time as he eradicates that big step backward, he's an LBW just waiting to happen.
 
Cook
Stoneman
Root
Bairstow
Ballance
Hales
Stokes
Ali
Broad
Wood/Ball
Anderson

The top 4 is Stoneman plus our 3 best bats. 5 & 6 could be anyone but we lose the advantage of Stokes and Ali by batting them too high and we need to lengthen the batting order.
 
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