Bijed
International Regular
I know stuff like this obviously comes up in the various match threads, but I thought it was worth having a dedicated thread for discussing the various members of the England teams across the various formats in terms of how they're doing, if they're going in the right direction etc. Also seems a good place to discuss selections and potential selections, a la the South African Selection thread.
Anyway, since it's tests we've got going on at the moment, I'll focus on the test side for now.
Core Players
Cook - Probably on the decline, but by no means a spent force yet. I had been hoping that his batting would see a bit of an uptick once he'd relinquished the captaincy, as I thought that last winter it was really starting to drag him down. It hasn't materialised yet, but then of course he's only played 2 tests since, so can't really go drawing any conclusions on this just yet. Still generally better than others we've had in the top 3 recently.
Root - Conversion obviously a historic problem, ideally the captaincy would provide that mental nudge to get him to buckle down and make it a thing of the past. The 190 was promising in this regard, and though he got out for 70-odd next test, even players with ATG conversion rates get out between 50-100 sometimes. Basically, we'll see - anyway he's still our best batsman by some margin. At the moment, it's probably more relevant how his captaincy shapes up - so far I'd say you can tell he's inexperienced, but he's not looked a fish out of water by any means.
Bairstow - Batting has dropped off a bit since his golden run a year ago, though he's still making regular contributions. He nearly always looks comfortable and in good touch, so he's not regressed to Bairstow Mk 1, but he is a bit of a Root-lite with regards to getting in then giving his wicket away. I've said it before, but this would ok (not ideal, but acceptable enough) if he was at seven, but if we're seeing him as our number 5 going forward he needs to start making big scores again, or even emulating his captain and getting out for 70-80 rather than 40-50 would be a step in the right direction. I accept that he's got a fair workload batting at 5 (which generally means coming in reasonably early with us) and keeping, which means that this kind of thing is an accepted risk, so it may be that we need to take another look at where he bats. OTOH, his keeping seems to have come on wonderfully, really pleased with him in this regard
Stokes - Not sure tbh. He's already put in some fantastic performance with bat and ball and won us matches, and I can accept that he's never going to be the champion of consistency, but for all that I'm not convinced he's really moving forwards as a test player. I'm certainly not saying drop him or anything like that, but I am getting a little frustrated with him. Batting - fine, he's a poor starter - lots of good batsmen are. Bowling - I don't expect him to take lots of wickets all the time, but when he's not he doesn't seem to start bowling some pretty poor stuff. Still does great things in the field.
Moeen - Still plenty of soft dismissals, but actually, given that a year ago it looked like he could well be one game away from being cast off, he turned things around really well. Doesn't excuse the sometimes rubbish ways he gets out in, of course. His bowling might be heading in the right direction too, which would be a huge plus for the team if so. In this regard he seems basically more consistent, but also better at keeping his head when he does send down a bad one or the batsman are going after him.
Broad - Hasn't been bowling at his best for a few tests, but he's not been awful. Obviously its not ok if this his is level from now on, but I really don't imagine that'd be the case. Batting, aside from the initially scratchy-as-hell but then quite good 57*, he's been as much a rabbit as he has for the past little while a. It's a shame, but Jimmy Adams showed that getting badly hit can permanently mess up much better batsmen than Stu, so I'm not expecting him to become particularly good again. When he's not being exposed though, it'd be nice if he put away some of the crap shots he gets himself out too, but I'm not expecting that to happen either.
Anderson - Has shown that he can be as excellent as ever, but realistically I think you'd have to be quite the optimist to think that this will be the case for anything longer than a year. I have been wrong about him before though.
Others
Jennings - Hard to say for me. I think he's definitely got the right temperament, and whilst he's admittedly got out to some very good bowling a times this series, I think it's a legitimate question as to whether he's up to it at test level. His century in India for me shows that he's not a no-hoper. If we stick with him, I can see him doing a job going forward, but not really setting the world on fire.
Ballance - Whilst I think people can still be prone to being too harsh on him, I think it's now looking pretty established that his test exploits are not going to match those in the County Championship.
Dawson - Not good enough at either discipline for me. If Moeen hadn't bowled well, I'd probably have looked at giving him another couple of tests, but at the moment I just don't think there's any reason for him to be in the team. I expect we'll see him again.
Wood - I expected more, basically, and I imagine he has more to offer than we've seen these past couple of weeks. But right now he's terrible and should go.
Anyway, since it's tests we've got going on at the moment, I'll focus on the test side for now.
Core Players
Cook - Probably on the decline, but by no means a spent force yet. I had been hoping that his batting would see a bit of an uptick once he'd relinquished the captaincy, as I thought that last winter it was really starting to drag him down. It hasn't materialised yet, but then of course he's only played 2 tests since, so can't really go drawing any conclusions on this just yet. Still generally better than others we've had in the top 3 recently.
Root - Conversion obviously a historic problem, ideally the captaincy would provide that mental nudge to get him to buckle down and make it a thing of the past. The 190 was promising in this regard, and though he got out for 70-odd next test, even players with ATG conversion rates get out between 50-100 sometimes. Basically, we'll see - anyway he's still our best batsman by some margin. At the moment, it's probably more relevant how his captaincy shapes up - so far I'd say you can tell he's inexperienced, but he's not looked a fish out of water by any means.
Bairstow - Batting has dropped off a bit since his golden run a year ago, though he's still making regular contributions. He nearly always looks comfortable and in good touch, so he's not regressed to Bairstow Mk 1, but he is a bit of a Root-lite with regards to getting in then giving his wicket away. I've said it before, but this would ok (not ideal, but acceptable enough) if he was at seven, but if we're seeing him as our number 5 going forward he needs to start making big scores again, or even emulating his captain and getting out for 70-80 rather than 40-50 would be a step in the right direction. I accept that he's got a fair workload batting at 5 (which generally means coming in reasonably early with us) and keeping, which means that this kind of thing is an accepted risk, so it may be that we need to take another look at where he bats. OTOH, his keeping seems to have come on wonderfully, really pleased with him in this regard
Stokes - Not sure tbh. He's already put in some fantastic performance with bat and ball and won us matches, and I can accept that he's never going to be the champion of consistency, but for all that I'm not convinced he's really moving forwards as a test player. I'm certainly not saying drop him or anything like that, but I am getting a little frustrated with him. Batting - fine, he's a poor starter - lots of good batsmen are. Bowling - I don't expect him to take lots of wickets all the time, but when he's not he doesn't seem to start bowling some pretty poor stuff. Still does great things in the field.
Moeen - Still plenty of soft dismissals, but actually, given that a year ago it looked like he could well be one game away from being cast off, he turned things around really well. Doesn't excuse the sometimes rubbish ways he gets out in, of course. His bowling might be heading in the right direction too, which would be a huge plus for the team if so. In this regard he seems basically more consistent, but also better at keeping his head when he does send down a bad one or the batsman are going after him.
Broad - Hasn't been bowling at his best for a few tests, but he's not been awful. Obviously its not ok if this his is level from now on, but I really don't imagine that'd be the case. Batting, aside from the initially scratchy-as-hell but then quite good 57*, he's been as much a rabbit as he has for the past little while a. It's a shame, but Jimmy Adams showed that getting badly hit can permanently mess up much better batsmen than Stu, so I'm not expecting him to become particularly good again. When he's not being exposed though, it'd be nice if he put away some of the crap shots he gets himself out too, but I'm not expecting that to happen either.
Anderson - Has shown that he can be as excellent as ever, but realistically I think you'd have to be quite the optimist to think that this will be the case for anything longer than a year. I have been wrong about him before though.
Others
Jennings - Hard to say for me. I think he's definitely got the right temperament, and whilst he's admittedly got out to some very good bowling a times this series, I think it's a legitimate question as to whether he's up to it at test level. His century in India for me shows that he's not a no-hoper. If we stick with him, I can see him doing a job going forward, but not really setting the world on fire.
Ballance - Whilst I think people can still be prone to being too harsh on him, I think it's now looking pretty established that his test exploits are not going to match those in the County Championship.
Dawson - Not good enough at either discipline for me. If Moeen hadn't bowled well, I'd probably have looked at giving him another couple of tests, but at the moment I just don't think there's any reason for him to be in the team. I expect we'll see him again.
Wood - I expected more, basically, and I imagine he has more to offer than we've seen these past couple of weeks. But right now he's terrible and should go.
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