***Official*** England in India 2016/17

[mackembhoy]

man you are massively overrating woakes batting

How can you overate someone who averages 37 with 9 tons when he has over 400 FC wickets

 

[Bijed]

Yes and No.

Of coarse it's a stretch to say that Woakes could be selected as a specialist batsmen, but on the other hand he has been a huge part of this lower middle order that keeps bailing us out of the ****. In fact I'd go as far as saying he's probably been the most consistent contributor. Batting 8 or 9 he doesn't get the chance to score the big scores that stand out, but he is always there with 20's, 30's or 40's that are getting Eng over the line to par scores......it's not been often that he has failed to do this in the last few months.

Not to marginalise Woakes' sterling contributions with the bat of late, but the fact that this is true is a pretty damning indictment of our recent batting.

 

[Tom Flint]

He was only out twice vs Bangladesh. Once for 46 and the other for 39. You could argue he was our batsmen of the series

 

[Bijed]

He was only out twice vs Bangladesh. Once for 46 and the other for 39. You could argue he was our batsmen of the series

Yup, not even that much of a stretch to say so imo. Looked the part as well as producing the goods (the full toss controversy aside) and his partnership with Rashid could have been matchwinning, had we not proceeded to make a bit of a mess of things from there on in.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

How can you overate someone who averages 37 with 9 tons when he has over 400 FC wickets

weldone is talking about his batting only and if you think he's good enough to play for England solely on batting then there's no argument to be made here

 

[mackembhoy]

weldone is talking about his batting only and if you think he's good enough to play for England solely on batting then there's no argument to be made here

He's averaging 40 with the bat and he's been Englands best bowler this year.

There is no argument to be had.

 

[Furball]

Some of England's top order has been so bad that actually Woakes might make the side on batting alone.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

He's averaging 40 with the bat and he's been Englands best bowler this year.

There is no argument to be had.

Okay we will talk about this at the middle of the series when he's getting dropped and that average when he finishes his career if you are still around.

 

[Adders]

Not to marginalise Woakes' sterling contributions with the bat of late, but the fact that this is true is a pretty damning indictment of our recent batting.

Yeah quite agree when talking about our top order, but I was talking specifically about our middle lower order.......which have been beyond excellent (last innings of last test excepted!!)

The likes of Bairstow, Stokes and Ali have got the plaudits with the big scores but for me Woakes has been the standout in terms of consistency.

Any talk of dropping him is absurd IMO.........especially to play 3 spinners.

 

[Bijed]

Yeah quite agree when talking about our top order, but I was talking specifically about our middle lower order.......which have been beyond excellent (last innings of last test excepted!!)

The likes of Bairstow, Stokes and Ali have got the plaudits with the big scores but for me Woakes has been the standout in terms of consistency.

Any talk of dropping him is absurd IMO.........especially to play 3 spinners.

Yeah, certainly can't complain about our batting from 6-8/9 over the last year or so, as has been said by so many others it's just annoying that we always need their runs to bail us out. Shame that when we actually managed a good start was the time they failed, but c'est la vie. As you say, Woakes' consistency has been highly commendable - I'd take a batsman like Woakes over a supposed 'match-winner' with a similar average like Stokes (not that I'd drop Stokes or anything). Fully agree that there's no way he should be dropped right now. Even if he's useless for the first couple of tests, drop him for the remainder of the series by all means but as far as I'm concerned he'd still be an automatic pick when the home summer rolls around.

 

[Zinzan]

Root has a cracking series and he moves ahead of both KW & Smith imo as the best bat around.

 

[marc71178]

Okay we will talk about this at the middle of the series when he's getting dropped and that average when he finishes his career if you are still around.

Ignoring the batting, I'm really not sure why you're convinced that Jake Ball is a better bowler then Woakes either

 

[Black_Warrior]

Its not fair to compare Root and Kohli in this series when Root will be facing Ashwin and Jadeja while Kohli will face Ali. To make it fair Root's performance should be compared to how Kohli fared when he was the away batsman in England and vice-versa Kohli should be compared to how Root done against India in England.

So Root needs to score more than 134 and average over 13.40 to outdo Kohli
Kohli needs to score more than 518 runs and average over 103.60.

I think this is the fairest and logical way to compare them.

Damn it. You ruined it

I was going to ask the all important question of who would end up with more runs in the series and win the Root vs Kohli war?

 

[Black_Warrior]

man you are massively overrating woakes batting

I think you are underrating his bowling. He was the best seamer in the England-Pakistan series by a mile. Dropping him should not be a conversation for now.

 

[Black_Warrior]

So guys, how much should India set England for the 4th innings here?

 

[Jarquis]

-150

Regardless of who wins the toss it'll probably be the third and last innings of the match when England bat for the second time

 

[Stace]

Damn it. You ruined it

I was going to ask the all important question of who would end up with more runs in the series and win the Root vs Kohli war?

Well at this halfway point Root is 384 runs ahead (and he has had 3 innings less), Kohli has only scored more then 309 runs in a series once (Root has 6 series scoring more then 339 runs ftr). I don't like Virat's chances here.

 

[Tom Flint]

I'm not sure what's more surprising, trump ahead in the election or a touring captain winning the toss in india

 

[Stace]

Yessss so excited for this first session, hope we don't lose more than 2 wickets.

 

[Howe_zat]

Watching Hameed bat straight away then.

England side Cook, Hameed, Root, Duckett, Moeen, Stokes, Bairstow, Woakes, Rashid, Ansari and Broad

Would have played another bowler over Ansari. Oh well. At least we won the toss.