4th Match - Australia v England

[CricAddict]

Has buttler ever opened in ODI Cricket? I generally don't like the idea of buttler, root and duckett all being top 3. Root and duckett are England's only good players of spin, and buttlers the only guy besides them who I trust to score adequately in the middle overs vs spin without block and slogging inconsistently. With that line-up your walking into every game knowing you can't lose more than 1 wicket in the powerplay and putting way too much pressure on the top 3. Your going to end up not capitalising on the powerplay, which England can't afford to do with the state of there bowling.

If you really want to get funky like that you could promote brook to 3? We saw he can't open leading into last WC and he can't bat middle order consistently because of his issues vs wrist spin (strikes at 60 vs leg spin over his first 20 balls in ODI; Way too easy to just bowl a leggie to him and build pressure).

If you put brook at 3 he can hopefully walk in around the ~4th over when the ball stops swinging. At that point the field isn't spread so he can get into his innings, and the bad balls from the spinner he usually hits to the sweeper are now a boundary. Also means root can keep do his middle over engine room stuff at 4, which has worked recently.

I think talking about England's batting misses the bigger issue, which is there bowling. You can rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic all you want in regards to the batting, but it's not gonna matter with the state of England's bowling. They bowl well in the PP and rashid is good in the middle. That's it. They suck at the death and teams know they can just milk rashid and target the other end in the middle.

Look at the Australia game. England used the powerplay well. Duckett and root gave them a good platform at the 30 over mark, then duckett and jofra got them 350 despite some hiccups (Harry Brook vs Leg spin). They probably left 20 runs out there between 35 and 45 which Australia didn't, but they still did above par for two of the three major phases of the game. If your bowling is half competent that should be enough.

Focusing on the batting misses the bigger issue. England's batting has to be near perfect to make up for the bowling.

Buttler is one of the best bats of this line-up imo and probably coming too low to get a century and lift up the score. Lack of a good all-rounder is also affecting the balance. All the bowlers are okayish bats at 8 or 9 but need someone to own 7.

But I agree with you on most of the above including that bowling is the main issue and mentioned about it as well in my posts. I hope they can get Rehan in alongside Rashid which can also help him before he takes up the lead role after Rashid retires.

 

[Molehill]

Yeah, I had to laugh about whoever it was suggesting that the problem in this match was the bloke who scored 165 off 143 balls, apparently he should've been nearer 200. No, him and Root set it up perfectly for the power hitters to arrive with 20 overs to go. Unfortunately, they could only muster 40 runs between them at worse than a run a ball. However, they scored a total that had only been chased down 8 times previously in the history of ODI's. Whether this was a flat pitch or not, the bowlers were given enough to defend, that they didn't in the end come close to it is on them.

Strategies were all wrong, execution even worse. As Wood found out, a 90mph ball slightly offline finds its way to the boundary much faster. It's an attack that lacks variation and skill. I don't even blame the bowlers that much, they're largely doing what they're renowned for. The blame should go on the selection of such a one dimensional attack. Buttler's only options were part time spinners (Livingstone seems to think he's better than this, but he's hardly suggesting otherwise) and more pace. It was hardly a surprise when it failed.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Sadly hard to be optimistic about England's ODI team right now. Hope they randomly get good for the tournament, but no signs to suggest they will.

Update: they did not randomly get good for the tournament.