Yeah the replacement players have been terrible. Looks like t20 bench strength is not good.
I personally think it's strong relative to the other nations. They were just facing a reasonable side in their home conditions who seemed to be a lot more motivated than England. Some of England's more average performers only recently won the world t20 - Malan, Ali, Sam Curran, Woakes.
Take a list of those not playing in this series for various reasons - Hales, Root, Bairstow, Livingstone, Brook, Roy, Billings, Vince, Banton, Willey, Jacks, T Curran, Mills, Mahmood, Dawson. Bowling isn't great but there is plenty of batting depth- and that's without listing some of the uncapped t20 hacks like TKC, Joe Clarke, Adam Rossington, smeed etc who'd probably get a go for some of the weaker nations.
Ditto the ODI bench strength. Not sure who the next generation will be after the ODI world cup, if we assume that Roy, Bairstow, Malan, Root, Stokes and Buttler won't be involved in four years' time. Nor Moeen, although I don't really count him as a batsmen nowadays. It's hard to see Brook not being involved, and Jacks will probably get a run in the side, but other than them?
We've definitely been spoiled by this atg generation of ODI players and it's almost inevitable that the next generation won't match the world cup final xi top 6 of Bairstow, Roy, Root, Stokes, Morgan, Buttler. But that generation only got better by playing regularly (Root and Morgan apart everyone else had fairly modest starts to odi career iirc) and the current crop of guys beneath haven't exactly got much of a chance because of the strength of the first xi and the relentless schedule (and paradoxically the relative lack of 50 over cricket). Personally think Buttler and Root might just make 2027.
It will likely be tougher to find the well rounded ODI bats given the abundance of T20 leagues around the world but England won't be unique in having an issue here imo.
