Trouble with Balance is that his weaknesses got found out and exposed. That's not necessarily a problem, happens to almost everyone in international cricket sooner or later, and the best players who are gonna have long careers work on it, maybe change a few things, and overcome the problem. See Cook, Tendulkar, etc etc. Balance is no doubt a serious batsman, but he's said he won't be changing anything. Might as well have a sign on his back with instructions on how to get him out.
Tough one - the problem he experienced was that his tendency to hang back deep in the crease left him vulnerable to a high class left arm quick pitching the ball up around off stump. He might well think that, hold on, there are maybe three or four of those in world cricket (Boult, Starc, Wahab, Johnson pre-retirement) and he never seemed to have the same problem when he faced slightly lesser bowlers (Junaid, Wagner, McClenaghan, Parnell). His argument would go look, when I'm in a bit better nick, this won't be an issue and I don't wanna throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Is he right? Time will tell. But...
I said at the time that he was an odd choice to bat first wicket down and I stick by that. When he comes back in to the side - and lets be clear, he is way too high class a player not to at some point - he should bat four or five as he has always done in county cricket. Doing so, he's that bit less vulnerable anyway and is doing the job he grew up doing.
Should he be in the squad/side at the moment? I'd say he's luckier even than Compton. He might have been just a bit unlucky to be dropped when he was, but it had to happen sooner or later, and he did not do that much back at Yorkshire. You'd have thought they'd have set him a more demanding target to earn his spot back - three or four first class tons, say - so that he came back in top nick rather than spending a winter drinks waiting.
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Topic: South Africa vs England (Read 242622 times)