Bijed
International Regular
Ok, so in the past 2 weeks or so, the English cricket team has done the following:
1. Won the World Cup
2. Come worryingly close to losing a test match to Ireland, with our many shortcomings in that format being pretty ruthlessly exposed in the process
I am firmly of the opinion that our advancement in ODIs has come directly at the expense of consistence and performance in test matches and appreciate that a renewed push for improvement in tests would probably mean sacrificing some of this limited-overs improvement. I also think that this would be completely worth it and I reckon that Travor Bayliss' departure being planned so far in advance means that this is probably the view of the ECB, but I'd like to hear people's arguments to the contrary.
The second thrust of this thread is: how do England go about improving in test matches? I appreciate that a): no problems can be fixed overnight; and b): we are inherently limited by the apparent paucity of test-standard batsmen out there. Hopefully whoever our new coach is will be far more focussed on tests (and actually pay attention to the County Championship) but other than that, what changes to either the England set up, or the domestic game, would people want to see (if any, and they can be highly specific or much broader).
One highly specific (and possibly controversial) change I would suggest would be to drop Root and/or Bairstow from the ODI team. I know this would be massively to the detriment of the ODI side, but I feel that a large part of their weaknesses in tests (not Root's recent form slump, more his issues with conversion and manner of some dismissals; and Bairstow's huge problem with balls coming back in to him - apparently he averages 6 against deliveries aimed at the stumps (can't remember what time period this was over)) have emerged over changes to their technique/mindset which have made them better in ODIs, but notably worse at tests. In an ideal world, players of their ability would be better at transferring their skills between formats, but life isn't that straightforward and as they ought to be our two key batsmen in tests, all things considered, I genuinely think we might need to make a tough call of this nature. Equally, of course, they could make adjustments to their technique/approach to improve their test performances and remain in the ODI team if we're willing to accept a drop-off from them in that format, which I reckon would be pretty much inevitable.
1. Won the World Cup
2. Come worryingly close to losing a test match to Ireland, with our many shortcomings in that format being pretty ruthlessly exposed in the process
I am firmly of the opinion that our advancement in ODIs has come directly at the expense of consistence and performance in test matches and appreciate that a renewed push for improvement in tests would probably mean sacrificing some of this limited-overs improvement. I also think that this would be completely worth it and I reckon that Travor Bayliss' departure being planned so far in advance means that this is probably the view of the ECB, but I'd like to hear people's arguments to the contrary.
The second thrust of this thread is: how do England go about improving in test matches? I appreciate that a): no problems can be fixed overnight; and b): we are inherently limited by the apparent paucity of test-standard batsmen out there. Hopefully whoever our new coach is will be far more focussed on tests (and actually pay attention to the County Championship) but other than that, what changes to either the England set up, or the domestic game, would people want to see (if any, and they can be highly specific or much broader).
One highly specific (and possibly controversial) change I would suggest would be to drop Root and/or Bairstow from the ODI team. I know this would be massively to the detriment of the ODI side, but I feel that a large part of their weaknesses in tests (not Root's recent form slump, more his issues with conversion and manner of some dismissals; and Bairstow's huge problem with balls coming back in to him - apparently he averages 6 against deliveries aimed at the stumps (can't remember what time period this was over)) have emerged over changes to their technique/mindset which have made them better in ODIs, but notably worse at tests. In an ideal world, players of their ability would be better at transferring their skills between formats, but life isn't that straightforward and as they ought to be our two key batsmen in tests, all things considered, I genuinely think we might need to make a tough call of this nature. Equally, of course, they could make adjustments to their technique/approach to improve their test performances and remain in the ODI team if we're willing to accept a drop-off from them in that format, which I reckon would be pretty much inevitable.
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