1) Hameed
2) Cook
3) Root
4) Lawrence/Clarke
5) Malan
6) Bairstow
7) Stokes
8) Woakes
9) Broad
10) Anderson
11) Leach
Stoneman and Vince with test batting averages of 27 and 23 and Moeen Ali with a test batting average of 32 and test bowling average of 40 after 49 tests are 3 of the worst cricket players I have ever seen play for England and have no right to make the team for the Newzealand series.
Hameed with a test average just shy of 44 should have never been dropped - only opener to excel with Cook since Strauss retired and should come back in the side. Would be an awful decision to persist with an Opener who averages 27 and leave out someone who has shown his capabilities in test cricket and lets face it there is no other opener in the county set up making a claim for a starting spot.
In the middle order there are not many batsman staking a claim for a place in the side. Dan Lawrence(20) and Joe Clarke(21) are the obvious candidates. Both have already appeared in over 40 county championship matches despite being only 20 and 21 and respectively average 42 and 43 in first class cricket. Another option is Liam Livingstone who despite not making his first class debut until he was 22 has a first class average just shy of 50 and could potentially be a great player for England.
I would either bring in Leach or Bess in place of Moeen. Bess at 20 has already taken 49 first class wickets in 12 matches at 22 apiece and Leach has taken 116 county championship 1st division wickets in the past 2 seasons and surely deserves a chance in the side to show what he can do.
England Team for NZ series
posted on 27/1/18
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 27/1/18
Moeen did far worse in India. His batting gone to pot so shouldn't play.
posted on 27/1/18
comment by Bennythedip - Living The Dream (U9359)
posted 6 minutes ago
Moeen did far worse in India. His batting gone to pot so shouldn't play.
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So had Cooks until that big innings in the tests
posted on 27/1/18
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 27/1/18
I doubt if Root will move up the order. Other top batsmen-captains bat at 4 such as Smith. Let's say Vince doesn't impress in NZ and Stoneman is OK, Hameed is someone who might come into the top 3. Or there might be others such as Jennings or Robson.
Rashid seems to be viewed as a one-day bowler - and he gets picked often enough for those matches. If Moeen doesn't come back to form there are specialist spinners who might be looked at such as Crane and Leach.
posted on 27/1/18
Good win. Can’t imagine how we would have performed if we made basic selections correct and had some practice ahead of the test series. The SL tour as a whole was waste of time should have come here.
In any case this series was quite tough for batting. 100% sure the aus series next will be batsmen friendly.
posted on 28/1/18
Terrible shot from Morgan.. But then again hes allowed to do it..I mean whos gonna tell him off?. He just doesn't care one bit.. After next years world cup when England fail. Morgan will leave and make millions all around the world playing 20/20..
There aren't many ppl I despise but Eoin Morgan is one of them. He struts about while failing dozens of times. I know the stats aren't to bad for him over the last 2 years. But stats can lie. when it comes to consistently preforming.. hes got lots of runs in 1 innings and failed in the rest of the series..
posted on 29/1/18
Morgan is a good leader and I think he's the right sort of personality for this team. Yes, he's not a consistent run scorer like Root but he does have a calm head and is capable of explosive batting. If we required something like 12-15 runs from the final over of a match to win, I'd back him more than most others in this team to score them.
He's influential although he did let us down in the T20 world cup final with Stokes. Stokes was obviously going for Yorkers and after getting the first one wrong, Morgan should have calmed him down and got him to mix it up rather than letting him bowl 3 more straight in the slot.
posted on 29/1/18
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 29/1/18
Exactly. Liverpoolwhoelse, I can't understand why certain players wind you up so much. You use to have a dig at Stokes all the time, you bashed Woakes the other day because he did well with the bat and not you're having a go at Morgan.
The team has an aggressive approach now, adopted from the way B Mac got NZ playing in all forms of the game. They are encouraged to put pressure back on the fielding side by playing expansive cricket shots even if we're 3/4/5 down for not many. It can be frustrating when it doesn't quite pay off although I'd say we did a bloody good job the other day getting to 196 after being 8/5. However 19 wins in our last 22 games shows how good we are now.
We're winning far more games this way rather than being pragmatic in the days when Cook was captain.