England (and Wales) gloom, doom and recriminations thread

[TheJediBrah]

Yeah if it is Bairstow then he has a point. He's probably the fittest and most athletic bloke in the side, I don't think anyone else can hold a candle to him in terms of how much area he can cover in the outfield.

He stores pure ATP in his man-breasts for explosive energy

 

[theegyptian]

At the end of the day the batsman has to be their own best coach, and know their own game. Pope keeps chopping and changing. Doesn't reflect greatly on himself or the coaches. Most of the coaches were down with covid after the third test? so maybe it was around then Pope couldn't find any help.

List of English players at the PSL starting in a week or so for you. credit to

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1483431363940425742

Expert preparation for the the West Indies test tour in March for the likes of Parkinson, Mahmood, Brook, Livingstone, Vince, Lawrence who are likely in contention for that tour. Will Smeed a promising young bat too, already getting franchise opportunities having not played fc cricket. I don't begrudge these players the opportunities on the T20 gravy train. These players benefiting massively from England being out of season whilst the rest of the world being in season. It isn't good for the test side though.

 

[cnerd123]

The success of the ODI and T20 sides is proof enough that it really shouldn't take that much to cobble together six talented long-form batsmen. The idea that limited overs and Test batsmanship are mutually exclusive seems a uniquely English delusion born of snobbishness against "hit and giggle cricket"; the fact is that cricket, regardless of format, is a skill based game and it's way way easier to teach a batsman who already has the "very good at hitting fast moving leather object with wooden stick" bit down pat the nuances of long format batting than the other way around, especially if the innate drive to represent England at the highest level is still as powerful a motivator as it once was.

There is something to this, but it does take a significant amount of work and coaching to adapt natural ball-striking talent to the demands of Test cricket, especially in the current era which is so bowler friendly. When County cricket is unable to replicate the conditions or challenges that these batters will face at Test level, and when the standard of coaching available to them isn't good enough, then the only option really is to learn on the job. And that's what we're seeing with the likes of Butler and Bairstow.

It must get even harder when the player is still playing ODIs and T20Is, as they have to keep adapting between formats, so it's good to see England try and separate the two squads. But looks like all the talented white-ball batters will remain as white ball specialists, while they dig up the likes of Burns and Sibley and try to get them to become Test players.

 

[Line and Length]

The ECB have announced Novak Djokovic as their new batting coach. While acknowledging he didn't have a cricket background, they noted it took Australia two weeks to get him out.

 

[Spikey]

that seems unlikely

 

[Spark]

There is something to this, but it does take a significant amount of work and coaching to adapt natural ball-striking talent to the demands of Test cricket, especially in the current era which is so bowler friendly. When County cricket is unable to replicate the conditions or challenges that these batters will face at Test level, and when the standard of coaching available to them isn't good enough, then the only option really is to learn on the job. And that's what we're seeing with the likes of Butler and Bairstow.

It must get even harder when the player is still playing ODIs and T20Is, as they have to keep adapting between formats, so it's good to see England try and separate the two squads. But looks like all the talented white-ball batters will remain as white ball specialists, while they dig up the likes of Burns and Sibley and try to get them to become Test players.

I mean I'm not disputing that there's a coaching issue, if anything I'm saying the coaching issue is even more pronounced.

A good example would be to say if you put Rishabh Pant (or indeed Jasprit Bumrah) into the English system. Can you imagine how that would have worked out? Instead of going "holy ****, this guy is a generational talent, we need to basically let him do what he wants 90% of the time whilst gently encouraging him to lose some of his more intemperate parts of his game and working hard on his technique", you'd absolutely get a legion of county coaches and gammon journos saying that he's basically disrespecting the game by trying to bat how he does and turning him into a bloke that averages 30 and strikes at 50. That's a system issue and a coaching issue born from the misguided belief that seems to pervade the entirety of English cricket that there's "white ball cricket" and then there's "proper cricket" and the two have essentially nothing in common.

 

[Blenkinsop]

I think that may be the issue with Jos Buttler. It was notable in the Ashes series that the one really good innings he played was in a situation where it was completely obvious what he had to do (ie. block at all costs). Every other time he came in, it was usually something like 80-4 and he seemed uncertain as to whether to build an innings slowly or go immediately on the counter-attack. If he'd been clearly told to commit to one or the other perhaps he'd have come off.

 

[Spark]

I think that may be the issue with Jos Buttler. It was notable in the Ashes series that the one really good innings he played was in a situation where it was completely obvious what he had to do (ie. block at all costs). Every other time he came in, it was usually something like 80-4 and he seemed uncertain as to whether to build an innings slowly or go immediately on the counter-attack. If he'd been clearly told to commit to one or the other perhaps he'd have come off.

Honestly the first innings at Brisbane should have been the template for his whole series and I thought we were going to finally see the "real" Buttler on the back of it, but instead he didn't do anything at all. Put him in India's set up or Australia's under Cummins and you can guarantee that they're telling him to stuff "batting properly", just whack it if it's in his arc.

 

[mackembhoy]

Only 3 of 14 championship games to be played in June/July. Non in August.

Not that I expected anything to change.

But still just funny after all the words said in the last week or two about the county game.

 

[ImpatientLime]

whilst its far from ideal, the idea that hosting games in august is gonna be the end of green tops is utter nonsense. every one of the 18 teams is stacked with wobbly seamers. they aren't going to start rolling out flatties that will neuter all of their best wicket takers.

 

[Spark]

I mean England had this problem at least somewhat solved 10 years ago: they had a massive, sprawling support structure built around the high performance facility at Loughborough and a robust Lions system, exactly so they could fill the yawning gap between Tests and county cricket and get talented cricketers the best coaching and high-level exposure ASAP. But apparently Ashley Giles and Silverwood, in their infinite wisdom, gutted that whole system, so...

But yeah the pitches are a fundamental problem, as they have been for every nation which has experimented with FC greentops at some stage.

 

[Apex Predator]

Vince
Crawley
Root
Bairstow
Stokes
Billings (wk)
Woakes
Robinson
Broad/Anderson
Wood
Bess

 

[TheJediBrah]

I mean I'm not disputing that there's a coaching issue, if anything I'm saying the coaching issue is even more pronounced.

A good example would be to say if you put Rishabh Pant (or indeed Jasprit Bumrah) into the English system. Can you imagine how that would have worked out? Instead of going "holy ****, this guy is a generational talent, we need to basically let him do what he wants 90% of the time whilst gently encouraging him to lose some of his more intemperate parts of his game and working hard on his technique", you'd absolutely get a legion of county coaches and gammon journos saying that he's basically disrespecting the game by trying to bat how he does and turning him into a bloke that averages 30 and strikes at 50. That's a system issue and a coaching issue born from the misguided belief that seems to pervade the entirety of English cricket that there's "white ball cricket" and then there's "proper cricket" and the two have essentially nothing in common.

Probably be pretty happy to turn Bumrah into a 30-averaging Test batsman

 

[CricAddict]

Probably be pretty happy to turn Bumrah into a 30-averaging Test batsman

I know you did it for fun TJB and sorry to spoil it but Spark is semantically right there. There are no brackets in the second one

 

[TheJediBrah]

Semantically right is the best type of right

 

[Line and Length]

Billy was at school this morning when the teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living.

All the normal answers came out, fireman, policeman, salesman, chippy, plumber, captain of industry, etc.

However, Billy was being uncharacteristically quiet and so the teacher asked him about his father.

"My father is an exotic dancer in a gay club and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes if an offer is really good, he'll go out with a man, rent a cheap hotel room and let them sleep with him."

The teacher quickly set the other children some work and took little Billy aside to ask him if that was really true.

"No", said Billy. "He actually plays cricket for England, but I was just too embarrassed to say."

 

[honestbharani]

I love how a loss to Windies is just so expected that this thread is not even dug up by the English supporters.

 

[social]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1508691594647511040

 

[andruid]

One series win in 54 years. And yet somehow England keep returning to these islands with the same blind optimism, embarking on this assignment with the same baseless expectation, leaving with the same sense of prickled outrage

West Indies deserve better than supporting role in England melodrama | Jonathan Liew

As the finger of blame jabs in all directions, England are hampered above all by a misguided sense of exceptionalism

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Not sure about that. The West Indies are in a fairly modest period in their history and the England performance was truly dire. There is an expectation amongst England followers that we should be able to produce a team at least half of which are somewhere near Test standard. The fact that we can't at least needs looking into, but not due to a sense of entitlement or to belittle the West Indies.