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The Opening Batsmen.

CissesUnderpants9

CissesUnderpants9

Striker
I don't know a whole lot about country cricket, or other forms, because I only take an interest in how the England team do in general, so there's the truth up front, but one thing I have noticed as I have been paying attention to the England team over this test series with the west indies, where is the next Cook and Trott, because to win the ashes next year, we are going to need a lot of run's.
 

There aren’t any. We seem to have a surplus of middle order stroke players though.

The young ones I’d hoped would step up and push for Test selection such as Yates at Warwickshire have never really pressed on and in some cases regressed.

Young Finley Bean at Yorkshire looks canny but is playing in the second tier.
 
That game has long gone imo

The wickets are the issue and
Winning in Australia is having our bowlers on point

I think baz ball could suit the Australian surfaces. If we can ride out the bouncers
 
The openers who played before these two the likes of Sibley, Hameed and Burns not only scored slow they did not score many runs, meaning more often than not we were 2 down for next to nowt even if they had been at the crease for a while with Root saving us time and time again.

The current two openers far from perfect and no doubt will continue to get criticism when they play a attacking shot and get out,

But they take the game to the opposition rather than simply waiting for their name to be on a ball like the ones I mentioned
 
Inside Forward said:
There aren’t any. We seem to have a surplus of middle order stroke players though.

The young ones I’d hoped would step up and push for Test selection such as Yates at Warwickshire have never really pressed on and in some cases regressed.

Young Finley Bean at Yorkshire looks canny but is playing in the second tier.
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It's just, the reason why i thought about them was, I think if you had opening batsman, like cook and trott, who can just pile on the runs it would make it a whole lot easier to get back to being number one in the world, and the bazball form of cricket I think expects the bowlers to win you the game, I am not for or against bazball, as a concept as it has proven successful however, I do think, sometimes you just need to bat it out.
VXi said:
Any particular reason Stokes opened yesterday?
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He did well, at opener as well.
 
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CissesUnderpants9 said:
It's just, the reason why i thought about them was, I think if you had opening batsman, like cook and trott, who can just pill on the runs it would make it a whole lot easier to get back to being number one in the world, and the bazball form of cricket I think expects the bowlers to win you the game, I am not for or against bazball, as a concept as it has proven successful however, I do think, sometimes you just need to bat it out.

He did well, at opener as well.
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He did indeed. But, just seemed strange to not give Crawley the shot.
Wondered if there was an injury.
 
VXi said:
Any particular reason Stokes opened yesterday?
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I think to entertain like only he can. And he did.

I think Stokes' leadership credentials are top notch. He has a vision and a method and his 'mission' appear to be to win while entertaining.

The game was basically already won.
Here’s a summary of the number of Test matches played and won by some of the notable England cricket captains since 1960:

  • Peter May (1955-1961): Played 41, Won 20
  • Colin Cowdrey (1959-1969): Played 27, Won 8
  • Ted Dexter (1961-1964): Played 30, Won 9
  • Ray Illingworth (1969-1973): Played 31, Won 12
  • Mike Denness (1974-1975): Played 19, Won 6
  • Tony Greig (1975-1977): Played 14, Won 3
  • Mike Brearley (1977-1981): Played 31, Won 18
  • Ian Botham (1980-1981): Played 12, Won 4
  • David Gower (1982-1989): Played 32, Won 5
  • Graham Gooch (1988-1993): Played 34, Won 10
  • Michael Atherton (1993-2001): Played 54, Won 13
  • Nasser Hussain (1999-2003): Played 45, Won 17
  • Michael Vaughan (2003-2008): Played 51, Won 26
  • Andrew Strauss (2006-2012): Played 50, Won 24
  • Alastair Cook (2010-2016): Played 59, Won 24
  • Joe Root (2017-2022): Played 64, Won 27
  • You must be logged on to see external links
 
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Bri said:
I think to entertain like only he can. And he did.

I think Stokes' leadership credentials are top notch. He has a vision and a method and his 'mission' appear to be to win while entertaining.

The game was basically already won.
Here’s a summary of the number of Test matches played and won by some of the notable England cricket captains since 1960:

  • Peter May (1955-1961): Played 41, Won 20
  • Colin Cowdrey (1959-1969): Played 27, Won 8
  • Ted Dexter (1961-1964): Played 30, Won 9
  • Ray Illingworth (1969-1973): Played 31, Won 12
  • Mike Denness (1974-1975): Played 19, Won 6
  • Tony Greig (1975-1977): Played 14, Won 3
  • Mike Brearley (1977-1981): Played 31, Won 18
  • Ian Botham (1980-1981): Played 12, Won 4
  • David Gower (1982-1989): Played 32, Won 5
  • Graham Gooch (1988-1993): Played 34, Won 10
  • Michael Atherton (1993-2001): Played 54, Won 13
  • Nasser Hussain (1999-2003): Played 45, Won 17
  • Michael Vaughan (2003-2008): Played 51, Won 26
  • Andrew Strauss (2006-2012): Played 50, Won 24
  • Alastair Cook (2010-2016): Played 59, Won 24
  • Joe Root (2017-2022): Played 64, Won 27
  • You must be logged on to see external links
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Well, it was because Crawley was away having a scan.
 
I do think there is some more classical opening batsmen in county cricket who could probably step up to the demands of test cricket, but their style is not very en vouge at the moment.

Bohannon, Wells, Haines, Browne are all consistent performers but really averages for openers in England should be treated with a bit of context as we play so much cricket in April/September.

I am still a firm believer that you need an opener and/or number 3 who can drop anchor when needed and build foundations around. This also gives you freedom at 4/5/6/7 to pack the middle order with more attacking players to punish the old ball and tiring bowlers.

We will not see that with this England side and it worries me that Lawrence was likely to open in place of Duckett if Duckett needed to miss a test for the birth of his child.
 
Alex Lees really should be next cab off the rank, yet he isn’t. Without overly disgracing himself he’s probably never going to play for England again.
 
The Breen Machine said:
I do think there is some more classical opening batsmen in county cricket who could probably step up to the demands of test cricket, but their style is not very en vouge at the moment.

Bohannon, Wells, Haines, Browne are all consistent performers but really averages for openers in England should be treated with a bit of context as we play so much cricket in April/September.

I am still a firm believer that you need an opener and/or number 3 who can drop anchor when needed and build foundations around. This also gives you freedom at 4/5/6/7 to pack the middle order with more attacking players to punish the old ball and tiring bowlers.

We will not see that with this England side and it worries me that Lawrence was likely to open in place of Duckett if Duckett needed to miss a test for the birth of his child.
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This! I've been saying this for a while and it's the main criticism i have with the current bazball approach. Don't get me wrong, the nature of the way we play now will mean there will be plenty of time we find ourselves 100-0, but there will also be occasions we will be 30-3 or worse. We don't seem to have the ability to alter our approach when up against it and just rely on someone coming in and hitting a quick 30/40 to turn the momentum.
 
Nathan Gunn said:
This! I've been saying this for a while and it's the main criticism i have with the current bazball approach. Don't get me wrong, the nature of the way we play now will mean there will be plenty of time we find ourselves 100-0, but there will also be occasions we will be 30-3 or worse. We don't seem to have the ability to alter our approach when up against it and just rely on someone coming in and hitting a quick 30/40 to turn the momentum.
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However before this approach and before Bazball, when we took a more sedate approach we were 30-3 on a regular basis anyway, a lot more than under this new regime.

There seems to be this notion that if we did not attack soo much we would not lose early wickets soo much.

But we were regularly before bazball.

With the new ball and quality bowlers if you just look to survive eventually your name will be on a good ball, and while you may have occupied the crease for longer if the runs have not been scored just puts more pressure on the rest
Bri said:
I think to entertain like only he can. And he did.

I think Stokes' leadership credentials are top notch. He has a vision and a method and his 'mission' appear to be to win while entertaining.

The game was basically already won.
Here’s a summary of the number of Test matches played and won by some of the notable England cricket captains since 1960:

  • Peter May (1955-1961): Played 41, Won 20
  • Colin Cowdrey (1959-1969): Played 27, Won 8
  • Ted Dexter (1961-1964): Played 30, Won 9
  • Ray Illingworth (1969-1973): Played 31, Won 12
  • Mike Denness (1974-1975): Played 19, Won 6
  • Tony Greig (1975-1977): Played 14, Won 3
  • Mike Brearley (1977-1981): Played 31, Won 18
  • Ian Botham (1980-1981): Played 12, Won 4
  • David Gower (1982-1989): Played 32, Won 5
  • Graham Gooch (1988-1993): Played 34, Won 10
  • Michael Atherton (1993-2001): Played 54, Won 13
  • Nasser Hussain (1999-2003): Played 45, Won 17
  • Michael Vaughan (2003-2008): Played 51, Won 26
  • Andrew Strauss (2006-2012): Played 50, Won 24
  • Alastair Cook (2010-2016): Played 59, Won 24
  • Joe Root (2017-2022): Played 64, Won 27
  • You must be logged on to see external links
Click to expand...
Stokes win ratio will always be good, because what Stokes and McCullum have done is very much increase our chances of winning games.

Because even on flat wickets they have practically took away one of the three possible results ( the draw) meaning now unless we have loads of rain, we either win or lose.

McCullum said before one series think it was the Pakistan one ‘ We will risk losing to win’

Absolutely love that philosophy!!
 
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