*Official* England in South Africa 2019/20

[Spark]

This is bizarre. Why do England's batsmen keep jumping across the crease and then fiddling around like this?

The point of the Steve Smith movement across the crease is that he leaves the ball.

 

[SeamUp]

Yes I prefer it as a development squad rather than a second 15 squad, especially for away tours.

Take Vince and Malan.

a) They're had plenty of experience of foreign conditions in both lions and the full England side.
b) at the start of the winter they had limited chances of a recall to the test side.
c) they'd make much more money playing t20 around the world rather than lions cricket.
d) they are better bats than lawrence, bracey, northeast etc. The current batting is very inexperienced, bringing in another rookie bat would be a strategic error imo

They guys in the lions squad need the cricket more than Vince and Malan.

The lions setup has been failing for a while now anyway. The batsman who go into it often struggle afterwards and don't reach the test side. The bowlers are often injured. Guys like Rory Burns who put in consistent (but not spectacular figures) at county level are ignored for year after year by the lions (even when the full team is lacking opening bats), then they skip the lions all together and go straight into the test side. Whilst guys like Joe Clarke have year after year of lions cricket and seem to come out worse with flawed techniques. Last 5 years of lions cricket has been really bad. Least this winter they've cut down some of the cricket.

It seems to be going in circles. These guys that got good opportunities and having to come back. I know it should be encouraged but there has just been so many that it amazes me that the ECB haven't acknowledged the issues with the domestic 4-day game.

How many came back and failed again ? Ballance, Jennings, Vince - I guess Dawid deserves another go.

But sometimes principle/hard work should be encouraged. How much does the player want to play test cricket for England again and how can they get better by not being involved with the Lions ? The Lions set-up may be failing younger cricketers because not enough experience is around them ?

 

[Tom Flint]

Verns length is perfect.
I am talking about his bowling btw

 

[wpdavid]

Like I keep saying, there must be a serious issue with the way FC batting is coached in England. This seems far too common amongst the talented bats England clearly have.

First Class cricket is something of an oxymoron in England. D2 is clearly anything but, and quite a bit of D1 is pretty ordinary. Certainly no sort of preparation for test match cricket.

 

[StephenZA]

First Class cricket is something of an oxymoron in England. D2 is clearly anything but, and quite a bit of D1 is pretty ordinary. Certainly no sort of preparation for test match cricket.

It is interesting to hear everybody talk about this. Because this continues to be a point of discussion in the SA selection thread. And I've heard some similar things for the Aus FC... but that overall seems better. And apparently the Indian FC competition has turned into IPL tryouts... so no FC crickets seems immune.

 

[Pothas]

 

[SeamUp]

WOW

 

[Spark]

Haha, oh dear.

 

[wpdavid]

It is interesting to hear everybody talk about this. Because this continues to be a point of discussion in the SA selection thread. And I've heard some similar things for the Aus FC... but that overall seems better. And apparently the Indian FC competition has turned into IPL tryouts... so no FC crickets seems immune.

I don't know much about the SA set-up beyond a few bits I read about franchise vs regional teams. Either way, there seems to be a sensible number of sides providing a sound basis to produce good players. Likewise Australia with their system. This probably isn't the place to offer a lengthy explanation of why the English system is such a disaster. Anyway, nine down.

 

[ImpatientLime]

thanks for coming stuart

 

[Spark]

I literally haven't seen that before. Truly we have reached peak Broad batting with that one.

 

[ajdude]

pope must be wondering why he bothered. buttler started the rot, didn’t give a ****

 

[theegyptian]

This is bizarre. Why do England's batsmen keep jumping across the crease and then fiddling around like this?

The point of the Steve Smith movement across the crease is that he leaves the ball.

I think like most struggling teams they just seem confused. The batting, bowling and captaincy tactics seem to change from match to match, innings to innings.
They have so many ideas in their minds that they don't come up with coherant strategies. It doesn't help that quite a few of them are never really going to be good enough, so they are looking for solutions that they are never going to find.

 

[Neptune]

 

[OverratedSanity]

Ijaz Ahmed-esque dismissal from broad.

 

[wpdavid]

Bowling will probably just about see them through as it usually does at home. Will lose games though for sure.

It will be interesting to see how long Broad and Anderson keep going if we are slaughtered 3 or 4 nil out here. Even trickier times ahead if one or both of them do call it a day.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

So for the summer we can say
Burns
??
??
Root
Stokes
Pope
??
Curran
??
??
Archer

Yes we could pick Broad and Anderson but may as well be looking to phase one out as long term it won't help us. Stokes will bowl less anyway in the future. The rest are either not good enough or in Leach's case unwell. Presume he will return and in Sri Lanka we will have Jennings, Foakes and 3 spinners playing.

 

[wpdavid]

Apparently Broad's test batting average over the last two years is 8.

 

[MW1304]

I think like most struggling teams they just seem confused. The batting, bowling and captaincy tactics seem to change from match to match, innings to innings.
They have so many ideas in their minds that they don't come up with coherant strategies. It doesn't help that quite a few of them are never really going to be good enough, so they are looking for solutions that they are never going to find.

I was just thinking the same thing. They seem to come into every game with a different approach. There's no obvious plan or philosophy to the whole thing, which is why the batting order changes all the time, and the same personnel just get swapped about, in and out of the team. One series it's a bold new approach of playing without fear like the one-day side, the next it's patient, old-fashioned Test cricket. But it's almost never the correct approach for the correct time.

It's the long-term version of following the ball with your field placements, they just follow each game based on where they've gone wrong previously without a long-term plan. You would have thought a new coaching setup would have changed some of this but this winter doesn't reflect that. That may just be a product of the off-the-field chaos tbf, which has been somewhat out of their control. Maybe we won't get a true sense of this until the home summer.

 

[Tom Flint]

So for the summer we can say
Burns
??
??
Root
Stokes
Pope
??
Curran
??
??
Archer

Yes we could pick Broad and Anderson but may as well be looking to phase one out as long term it won't help us. Stokes will bowl less anyway in the future. The rest are either not good enough or in Leach's case unwell. Presume he will return and in Sri Lanka we will have Jennings, Foakes and 3 spinners playing.

Why is Curran a certainty?