***Official*** England Tour of the West Indies: December 2023

[Chin Music]

It's only meaningless because of England's performance in the world cup.

Surely it was arranged as an attempted money spinner for the West Indies to play against the previous champions and a team that most expected to at least compete in India - as they had not been there.

I would have said that it was a 'thanks' to Windies after they agreed to tour England in 2020 during Covid. I can see that there is more context for Windies who are trying to rebuild.

 

[Silver Silva]

I would have said that it was a 'thanks' to Windies after they agreed to tour England in 2020 during Covid. I can see that there is more context for Windies who are trying to rebuild.

I don't feel it's meaningless, this is the series that Buttler needs to prove he can take England forward ..I feel more bad results in this series will contribute to him getting sacked as odi captain

 

[Chin Music]

I don't feel it's meaningless, this is the series that Buttler needs to prove he can take England forward ..I feel more bad results in this series will contribute to him getting sacked as odi captain

I will confess I wanted him gone after the WC. There was a bit of General Meltchett like behaviour where after the SA game, he still put the opposition into bat on a few occasions when he won the toss. Utterly brainless for me.

 

[GIMH]

Where to start with this one?

Buttler - The man looks utterly lost both with the bat and as a leader. Why did he not bowl Jacks, was it too obvious? Why not give the gloves to Salt and take one responsibility off him. Alternatively, let Crawley skipper. Juts looks like he needs a break.
Curran - Surely we're done with him in ODI's now.
Rehan and Atkinson - At least a couple of good signs from these two.

Mott - It's becoming obvious that any old fool could've coached that Aussie Women's Team and that Lanning was probably the biggest influence anyway. We seem to be going backwards under his coaching and are making some glaring mistakes on strategy. This tour could be his last if he doesn't turn it around.

I suppose they want to bed Salt in as a batsman first before throwing him the gloves. Wouldn’t be surprised if he takes them from Jos in due course though.

Agree with most of what you’ve said. I’m not sure I’d say ‘never’ to Sam but for the time being I don’t think he’s worth his place in the squad. This is the time to try other things so let’s give the greener players a go. The sooner the better given the paucity of 50 over cricket they’ll play next summer.

 

[Nintendo]

Curran isn't good enough to bowl more than 5 overs a game and isn't useful enough with the bat to come in at 7. Always been the issue with him.

 

[carinder]

Curran isn't good enough to bowl more than 5 overs a game and isn't useful enough with the bat to come in at 7. Always been the issue with him.

but who knew because 5 over a game need bit more they need to change rules

 

[Molehill]

Curran isn't good enough to bowl more than 5 overs a game and isn't useful enough with the bat to come in at 7. Always been the issue with him.

To be fair, he batted 8 yesterday and he's a decent 8. What he should not be doing is opening the bowling nor having to rely on getting 10 overs out of him.

India and Australia showed in the World Cup (like we didn't already know) that you need Test quality wicket takers in ODI's, not bits and pieces T20 players.

 

[Owzat]

Curran isn't good enough to bowl more than 5 overs a game and isn't useful enough with the bat to come in at 7. Always been the issue with him.

*4 overs, his T20 record is good as his number of games in IPL for an England cricketer (of sorts) would show, my issue is he's not that good of a bowler and his batting not nearly solid enough that he fits anywhere in the order - he's no 7-8 batsman for this format and no 9-10 bowler

I've maintained for a long while you should be picking your best 3-4 batsmen and 3-4 best bowlers first, regardless of format and then fill in the spaces according to where they would bat/bowl

Obviously some consideration would need to be made as you can hardly pick 4 best bowlers if 10-J batsmen, unless you are India of course but it's hardly ever clear cut with England in terms of "best" bowlers so bundle together and eg Topley would get in as about one standout bowler, Archer on the injury list, and the rest much of a muchness

 

[Nintendo]

*4 overs, his T20 record is good as his number of games in IPL for an England cricketer (of sorts) would show, my issue is he's not that good of a bowler and his batting not nearly solid enough that he fits anywhere in the order - he's no 7-8 batsman for this format and no 9-10 bowler

I've maintained for a long while you should be picking your best 3-4 batsmen and 3-4 best bowlers first, regardless of format and then fill in the spaces according to where they would bat/bowl

Obviously some consideration would need to be made as you can hardly pick 4 best bowlers if 10-J batsmen, unless you are India of course but it's hardly ever clear cut with England in terms of "best" bowlers so bundle together and eg Topley would get in as about one standout bowler, Archer on the injury list, and the rest much of a muchness

Have you looked at his IPL numbers? He averages 35 @ nearly 10 an over from 46 games, and last season averaged 49 and went at 10's. He's not been much better in t20I aside from that one WC in AUS, although he's been pretty good for surrey and his hundred franchise if memory serves?

 

[Andyhere]

There must be somebody in England who can bowl.

Jofra archer can, oh nevermind - he gets injured for a year in exchange of one spell

 

[Owzat]

Have you looked at his IPL numbers? He averages 35 @ nearly 10 an over from 46 games, and last season averaged 49 and went at 10's. He's not been much better in t20I aside from that one WC in AUS, although he's been pretty good for surrey and his hundred franchise if memory serves?

he has decent T20i figures, my point wasn't "he is awesome in IPL" just given the IPL doens't bother much with England players to play that many games he must be rated in that format

 

[Owzat]

Jofra archer can, oh nevermind - he gets injured for a year in exchange of one spell

Topley can, oh nevermind - he gets injured all the time!

there probably are, England just seem to pick either the ones with reputations exceed output or crocks - or both!

can't say as I'd have been looking at any that played yesterday bar Ahmed

 

[Molehill]

*4 overs, his T20 record is good as his number of games in IPL for an England cricketer (of sorts) would show, my issue is he's not that good of a bowler and his batting not nearly solid enough that he fits anywhere in the order - he's no 7-8 batsman for this format and no 9-10 bowler

I think that's the one thing he is. He's a very useful number 8 who can clear the boundary.

 

[GIMH]

To be fair, he batted 8 yesterday and he's a decent 8. What he should not be doing is opening the bowling nor having to rely on getting 10 overs out of him.

India and Australia showed in the World Cup (like we didn't already know) that you need Test quality wicket takers in ODI's, not bits and pieces T20 players.

We won the World Cup with a different attack to our core Test one at the time. Plunkett was never up to much in Tests and nor was Rashid. I think it’s an oversimplification to say this.

The issues for me are we lack bowlers who can bowl in multiple phases and, as a subset of the above problem, we’re fairly poor at the death.

Our first choice Test attack is what, Anderson, Woakes, Wood/Robinson? Wood went the distance in the WC, Anderson hasn’t picked a white ball up in a decade. Woakes is probably still in our best ODI XI but not likely to make the next WC. Etc.

Maybe the next breed, Tongue, Potts, Atkinson etc, can do it across multiple formats. But really we just need good one day bowlers. How good they are or aren’t in Tests and T20 is not really the point for me.

 

[Molehill]

We won the World Cup with a different attack to our core Test one at the time. Plunkett was never up to much in Tests and nor was Rashid. I think it’s an oversimplification to say this.

The issues for me are we lack bowlers who can bowl in multiple phases and, as a subset of the above problem, we’re fairly poor at the death.

Our first choice Test attack is what, Anderson, Woakes, Wood/Robinson? Wood went the distance in the WC, Anderson hasn’t picked a white ball up in a decade. Woakes is probably still in our best ODI XI but not likely to make the next WC. Etc.

Maybe the next breed, Tongue, Potts, Atkinson etc, can do it across multiple formats. But really we just need good one day bowlers. How good they are or aren’t in Tests and T20 is not really the point for me.

I think the difference was Woakes/Archer with the new ball who are both clearly of a high Test standard, especially in England. Then you had Wood who could pick up wickets in the middle overs before the one specialist in Plunkett who carved out a niche role for himself. It was a high class attack, 3 of whom were Test quality.

What we know is that Curran is not Test standard, Carse almost certainly not either. Atkinson may yet develop along with Tongue and Potts. These are the guys I want to see playing ODI's. Good Test bowlers are good ODI bowlers - a reminder that Anderson is our leading ODI wicket taker (Broad 4th) despite not having bowled in it since about 2015.

Australia won the World Cup Final because their high class seam attack took wickets.

 

[GIMH]

I think the difference was Woakes/Archer with the new ball who are both clearly of a high Test standard, especially in England. Then you had Wood who could pick up wickets in the middle overs before the one specialist in Plunkett who carved out a niche role for himself. It was a high class attack, 3 of whom were Test quality.

What we know is that Curran is not Test standard, Carse almost certainly not either. Atkinson may yet develop along with Tongue and Potts. These are the guys I want to see playing ODI's. Good Test bowlers are good ODI bowlers - a reminder that Anderson is our leading ODI wicket taker (Broad 4th) despite not having bowled in it since about 2015.

Australia won the World Cup Final because their high class seam attack took wickets.

I broadly agree with the sentiment but think it comes back to the point being that we need good ODI bowlers. Jimmy was always decent in ODIs, but you can’t deny that when we were **** in ODIs (well, before October!) it usually coincided with us playing our Test attack. I mean remember how useless Hoggard was for example, with a white ball.

Australia have high class bowlers who are good across the formats. That being said Cummins had a great knockout stage but most Aussies on here wanted him out the team earlier on. On the flip side, Starc is not going to be remembered as a top drawer red ball bowler. But he’s one of the absolute white ball greats.

I mean I’m sure you’re not clamouring for Ollie Robinson in the side, or are you?

We need a better attack. If that comes from the Test side then so be it but we shouldn’t fall down the old trap.

 

[Molehill]

I broadly agree with the sentiment but think it comes back to the point being that we need good ODI bowlers. Jimmy was always decent in ODIs, but you can’t deny that when we were **** in ODIs (well, before October!) it usually coincided with us playing our Test attack. I mean remember how useless Hoggard was for example, with a white ball.

Australia have high class bowlers who are good across the formats. That being said Cummins had a great knockout stage but most Aussies on here wanted him out the team earlier on. On the flip side, Starc is not going to be remembered as a top drawer red ball bowler. But he’s one of the absolute white ball greats.

I mean I’m sure you’re not clamouring for Ollie Robinson in the side, or are you?

We need a better attack. If that comes from the Test side then so be it but we shouldn’t fall down the old trap.

The chance of Robinson staying fit long enough for an ODI seems pretty remote. But he's a similar bowler to Hazlewood who seems to have worked out ODI's. It's not a stupid idea, but it's clearly not going to happen.

Starc has 333 Test wickets at 28, he's not exactly going to be remembered as red ball useless either.

It will be interesting to see which bowler comes forward out of say Potts or Turner - one from the CC/Test team and the other very much from limited overs.

I wonder who the last English bowling debutant was in ODI's who had more List A wickets than FC or T20? That could be Turner....having said that, 10 wickets in 3 FC matches at 10.5 suggest he's got a future there too.

 

[GIMH]

All fair points but prior to this summer's Ashes I would have remembered Starc as a useless red ball bowler purely based on @Shady Slim logic

 

[Burgey]

The Year of England Not Winning Things may end on a new low for them here.

 

[ImpatientLime]

you would 100% try robinson in odis at this stage as he is clearly light years ahead of every seamer out on tour in the caribbean right now.