It is no secret that England have many, many problems in the Test arena, but they go beyond whether Buttler or Vince get's picked.
Clearly, the current coaching set-up isn't working. The meteoric rise of the ODI team has been matched by the plummet of the Test team.
England are a group of individuals, not a team in test matches. There's no solidity, no camaraderie and so on. Look at Pakistan- a team of fairly average players, with an inspirational captain and a fantastic team belief, ethic and spirit. 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. Pakistan are a whole- England are literally just a few decent players, here and there.
We need pretty drastic change to the test team. Bayliss needs to go, and we need a genuine test specialist. I don't buy into this 'nice' captain nonsense that Root and to a lesser extent Cook have been all about. We need a captain that isn't afraid to be loud, angry with his players and also be an inspirational figure. Root's interviews make me cringe, honestly. He couldn't say boo to a goose- and a couple of his 'candid' ones have shown how disunited and factional the team is in places. I'm not on about a KP/Prior situation at all- I mean the players not sticking together, there not being that vital, central buy-in and culture that they need to be successful. You end up with a team of cliques and individuals, which is what we have now. That is why Pakistan will probably win this test series- and if I were a neutral, I'd support them every day of the week. Mercurial, exciting and a true team. If we get beaten, maybe change will happen. We've said that before though... I remember Warne moaning in his autobiography about some military/survival bootcamp they did to mould them as a team, and he may have hated it- but it worked.
We need a Brearley to be able to get the best out of this group of players- maybe just pluck the very best County Captain and give him the team. Alternatively, within the England side I can only see Bairstow with leadership potential, and I'm worried he too might be 'too nice'. The current thing of just giving the best player the captaincy (Root) doesn't work when your team simply isn't very good. We need to be finding genuine leaders again.
Here's what I would suggest- as a temporary measure until we get a better idea of county performances.
Cook
Jennings (Stoneman needs a break).
Malan (looked terrible but he has scored runs this season).
Root (Back to 4)
Bairstow (Captain)
Stokes
Buttler (WK- He scored 50 so he won't be dropped, but I'd rather have Foakes long-term).
Bess (I'm really not convinced by his bowling, but he'll do until Leach is recovered).
SEAM- I have no idea on this one, and I don't think anyone does. Who has the best county record this season? Doesn't matter how slow he is, Philander and Kallis were plenty successful- but must be different to Broad and Anderson. Economical.
Broad
Anderson
More than anything, we need to learn to stick with players. So many players have scored 100s for England lately (even in India) and have then been dropped and ruined by coaching. I get that in this instant-gratification world that isn't natural, but we need to.
This list of names should haunt us, because these are all players we have ultimately failed in developing properly. Ballance (4 100s, 7 50s, 37.50), Hameed (3 50s, 82 in India, 43.00), Jennings (112 in India), Robson and so on.
England's management have made so many poor decisions lately that it is hard to know where to start- but that is my blueprint for right now.
Author
Topic: England Test Series vs Pakistan (Read 60522 times)