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[ppccopener]

just on BBC.
Bell wants to tour SA and England need his experience-Bayliss.

I can see where he is coming from, personally I think the openers spot is the one that needs sorting first. And not sure about keeper, does Bairstow get a decent run now? who is the better gloveman out of Butler and Bairstow?  not much in it I don't think, Butler is prob the better keeper but well out of form with the bat

Nothing is clear cut so tricky decisions coming up.

[kdale6]

just on BBC.
Bell wants to tour SA and England need his experience-Bayliss.

I can see where he is coming from, personally I think the openers spot is the one that needs sorting first. And not sure about keeper, does Bairstow get a decent run now? who is the better gloveman out of Butler and Bairstow?  not much in it I don't think, Butler is prob the better keeper but well out of form with the bat

Nothing is clear cut so tricky decisions coming up.

I would say the ODI series would go some way to deciding the keeping position as both bairstow and buttler will be likely to play

[northernboy1987]

More agreement. being 12th man is for a kid not someone who is about to play test cricket. Fine be with the team in the build up but as soon as it is apparent they aren't goign to play, go and get a game for your county, or if on tour a local club.

Couldn't agree more with this. 12th man duty for me should be either for someone who the selectors see playing in 12-24months time and want to give them the experience of being on a high profile tour and to let them know they are in the selectors thoughts for the future OR a gun fielder who's got little chance of making the current team as a batsman/bowler like Gary Pratt in the '05 Ashes (Chris Jordan would be good for this role at the moment!).

[brokenbat]

Bob Willis is in the form of his life, on The Verdict

[Jamesfield]

Fully expecting the SA bowlers to bully our batsmen.

[ProCricketer1982]

This series yet again highlights how the ashes pitches over played this side.

Opening in test cricket is a specialist position, treat it as such. Ali opening is a disgrace and he simply isn't good enough to bat top,six anyway. If his spin isn't the best in England (it isn't as he bus wickets rather than be them out) then sack him off. Ansari, if he's the best spinner get him in, if not then don't wreck the kid, get him playing WI tears in Asia, learn from sessions with warne/Swann etc.

Bairstow isn't a test batsmen, not good enough. However, he's at least showed guts to try and play test cricket. Butler simply isn't good enough and needs dumping back to lvcc and only considered if he plays a full season and scores regular 50+ scores (batting properly not smashing pies around because the lvcc is poo). Hales isn't good enough, it's obvious and he'll fail.

England lack a middle order batsmen in the mould of hussey, coolingwood.. Someone capable of batting normally and brigadier blocking to,save a game. Stokes may have potential to be as good as flintoff but Freddie was only good enough to bat six for about 2 years.. Stokes isn't good enough, he's a 7/8 for now.

Bell, he's finished. Avg'd 20 since his last 100 in the WI, not good enough for a senior player. Simple as that.

Overall the team is in a mess just as much as it was 12 months ago, only we had a doctored win at the ashes against a poor aus side

[csnew]

Bob Willis is in the form of his life, on The Verdict

Tore apart Rashid! least someone said it.

[Mr_Orange]

Great article showing how good Alastair Cook is in Asia... http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/937409.html

A few extracts:
"His aggregate of 2252 is the highest in Asia, almost 200 runs better than the next best"

"...the first non-Asian batsman to face 5000-plus deliveries in the continent."

"In 21 Tests in Asia, Cook's average is 60.86, which is among the best for non-Asian batsmen who have scored 1000-plus runs in the continent. His average outside Asia is 44.54 in 101 Tests, which is similar to his home average of 43.51 in 68 matches..."

"Cook's century rate in Asia is even better than those of Kumar Sangakkara and Sachin Tendulkar, which indicates how comfortably he has handled these conditions."

[TangoWhiskey]

All hail Captain Cook. I'm so glad he's shut up all the people who were calling for his head in the last couple of years. Now if England can get the selection policy right and pull a spinner out of somewhere we'll be golden.

No real shame in losing to Pakistan in the UAE where they have looked invincible, we went toe to toe with them and were found lacking in two sessions out of 44 played with a very young side. The future is brighter than some of the doom and gloom on here and in the general media.

[jezza39]

New ICC rankings, 1. SPD Smith (910); 2. AB de Villiers (890); 3. JE Root (886).

Rankings never reflect the real story, we all know the great man ABDV is the best batsmen in the world.

[rickjames]

So, the ODI series. Anyone else excited? Biggest problem I guess is the seamers with Wood out, so I guess it'll probably be Plunkett, Willey and one of Woakes or Jordan, sigh. Would love it if Topley gets a go though.

Feel like this is where Roy and Hales score a truckload of runs as well.

[Buzz]

All hail Captain Cook. I'm so glad he's shut up all the people who were calling for his head in the last couple of years. Now if England can get the selection policy right and pull a spinner out of somewhere we'll be golden.

No real shame in losing to Pakistan in the UAE where they have looked invincible, we went toe to toe with them and were found lacking in two sessions out of 44 played with a very young side. The future is brighter than some of the doom and gloom on here and in the general media.

Sorry - this is tosh, Cook has responsibility for some of the atrocious selections, allowing Moeen to open the batting with him etc. if he had scored at .2 of a run per over faster we would have won the first test. Etc
Sorry as Captain he is responsible.

I could rant at this further - he claimed England were still in "transition" well they have been in transition for the whole of his captaincy, which has been lousy.

[northernboy1987]

So, the ODI series. Anyone else excited? Biggest problem I guess is the seamers with Wood out, so I guess it'll probably be Plunkett, Willey and one of Woakes or Jordan, sigh. Would love it if Topley gets a go though.

Feel like this is where Roy and Halesy score a truckload of runs as well.

I'm hoping we see Roy convert the good starts he's been getting into some big scores, he looks a real talent.

[Manormanic]

I can see where he is coming from, personally I think the openers spot is the one that needs sorting first. And not sure about keeper, does Bairstow get a decent run now? who is the better gloveman out of Butler and Bairstow?  not much in it I don't think, Butler is prob the better keeper but well out of form with the bat

A year ago there was probably nothing between them as keepers, but Buttler has spent considerably more time actually keeping and has kicked on further than JB to this stage (though I thought, the second easier stumping aside that JB had a decent match given his lack of recent practice in Sharjah) but there is a lot between them as batsmen - Buttler has the edge in the inventive one day stuff, though JB is an awesome power hitter when needed - but you would struggle to see him playing long test match innings in the same way (he has only four first class tons to JB's 16) and has never set a game up in the way Bairstow has against South Africa and Australia.  Its a question of what you prefer, I guess...

The questions remain:
1. does Bairstow quite have what it takes as an out and out batsman to select both and...
2. is Buttler "on a promise" from management.  If so...
3. is Bairstow about to get royally shafted?

I think in answer:
1. Jury is out - given the next 12 months, series against South Africa away and then Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home are a perfect proving ground for him.  He certainly has a better technique against pace (and a better one than Taylor for that matter)
2. You'd think so from the way this was handled.
3. Possible, isn't it.

[uknsaunders]

I think Buttler was given 9 tests to score some runs and failed. Bairstow deserves the same as a keeper batsman.

Not convinced either of them are technically tight enough for test cricket. However, Bairstow does at least have some decent scores against SA/Aus (the benchmakr imho) and looks further down the road as a batsman who can make scores.

Keeping is irrelevant, if it was neither would be playing as a keeper.