*Official* West Indies Tour of England 2020

[Beamer]

Two quality bowling attacks Vs two highly questionable batting lineups.

I expect England to win with knowledge of home conditions and I think their batting is slightly better than ours, though there is really not much in it. If we do manage to scrape some runs together though I'd suggest England will be in trouble as this is easily our best set of bowlers for a long time.

 

[wpdavid]

Yep this top 4 is completely unproven rather than definitely bad.

Actually this is very reasonable. Perhaps not completely unproven, but it is early days and some of them may go on to have perfectly respectable test careers.

Pointing he finger at myself as much as anyone else, there is a tendency to assume that one batting line-up is superior to another because of one very good player; and ignoring the merits of the others.
It can also ignore the form of that player in a particular series; Gooch in 1989 being an obvious example, once you recognise that he was a complete dud in that series.

 

[ImpatientLime]

this must be the first time england have had the luxury of picking a pace attack from a fully fit archer, anderson, broad, wood and woakes.

 

[Flem274*]

yea nah i see where you're coming from pothas but i'd be shitting bricks if a bloke who averages 31 in fc was my first drop or #4 for a test match

i would almost consider promoting stokes to #4 just to break up the line of inexperienced and/or unproven at any professional level batsmen.

i think by and large england have done the best they can. i wouldn't be sending bairstow out to get castled by roach either. sibley surprised me in south africa so hopefully for england he and burns can be a decent pairing. i think england have learnt to stop throwing out adequate openers in the search for the next cook/strauss.

 

[Starfighter]

Burns + Sibley is certainly in the running for the ugliest ever opening combination.

 

[Howe_zat]

Burns + Sibley is certainly in the running for the ugliest ever opening combination.

Rory Burns and Dom Sibley could be one of the all-time great aesthetically displeasing opening partnerships

 

[vcs]

Can't be much uglier than Keaton Jennings.

 

[theegyptian]

Seems likely to be a bit of a lottery. No-ones played properly for months. Players missing from both sides. It's been very even between the two sides in test cricket in recent times. The strange circumstances of playing with no crowd.

Bookies have England strong favourites though. Windies at 13/2 or 6/1 to win the first test with most uk bookmakers. With the weather set fair, and no Joe Root it's definitely worth a 20p.

 

[Howe_zat]

All the players missing are batsmen so yeah, it's probably going to be low scoring and a bit random.

 

[Howe_zat]

No-one is saying it's a great top 4, but we are talking with taking our best player out, so I am pretty sure there are dozens of line-ups if you took say Gower out would be much more awful.

Look Denly's career is probably what it is, a bit meh,but the other three could turn out to be decent test cricketers, so not sure why we're going down this route, I actually prefer this line up with 4 average cricketers, then some of the ones we've had recently with 3 desperatly poor or out of form cricketers, and Joe root not in form. So I am going to say we have had a fair few worse top four line-ups in the last few years since Cook retired.

Yeah - as example a top four of Wayne Larkins, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain and Rob Bailey would have looked spectacularly crap on paper in the west indies in 1990, considering that Stewart and Hussain were both in a debut series.

It was quite crap in reality I expect, but at least Stewart and Hussain would go on to be capable test players.

 

[trundler]

Is Hetmyer really a big miss? Root makes it a totally different lineup though.

 

[JOJOXI]

Is Hetmyer really a big miss? Root makes it a totally different lineup though.

Hetmyer definetly not as big a miss as Root but definetly would prefer having him. Also depends on if WI go with 5 bowling options plus Chase or 4 plus Chase. If just the 4 plus Chase then that means Dowrich at 8, Holder at 7 and a gap at 5 or 6 depending on where Chase bats. That might be filled by Blackwood who has had success against England in the past but you would definetly prefer a Hetmyer there. If its Dowrich 6, Holder 7, Cornwall 8 then the 3 other pacers that means Chase at 5, Hope at 4 and Brooks at 3 and Hetmyer probably doesn't fit in unless there is an injury

 

[wpdavid]

Yeah - as example a top four of Wayne Larkins, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain and Rob Bailey would have looked spectacularly crap on paper in the west indies in 1990, considering that Stewart and Hussain were both in a debut series.

It was quite crap in reality I expect, but at least Stewart and Hussain would go on to be capable test players.

I did wonder about the matches in that series after Gooch had his hand broken, and obviously your point about Stewart and Hussain is well made. If I was going to be a pedant, I'd point about that Hussain didn't actually bat in the top 4 in those matches. Lamb batted at 4, followed by Robin Smith and then Hussain at 6. Perhaps it would be more accurate to suggest that this week's top 4 is one that our opponents will have been most confident about bowling to, rather than categorically the weakest. Time will tell, and I'm not totally lacking confidence that some of them will go on to have decent test carers.

As for the worst ever? I'm sticking with the top 4 in the side that was dismissed for 64 by NZ at the start of 1978.


EDIT
Here's an interesting fact. Looking at the scorecards for the 1990 series, I learnt that the WI side included four 'Sirs'. I knew about Viv Richards, but hadn't realised that Gordon Greenidge, Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose have also been knighted.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

I must admit I myself wasn't aware Greenidge had been knighted, knew of the others though

 

[the big bambino]

I agree with Flem that Burns and Denly aren't crap but you don't want them as your leading run scorers. It is as bad an English top order as I've seen though with hope for the future in Sibley, Pope and Zak. Normally you'd pick Anderson Broad and Archer as your top 3 - a bowling side has a good look about it with Archer potentially coming in as first change - but I think Woakes is a persuasive choice in home conditions. I don't know what their respective records are like at Southampton but I'd likely spell Broad for Woakes for this game. Wood is a good chance too but his fitness history is against him.

 

[GotSpin]

I really hope Roach picks up his next 5er

From cricinfo

March 20, 1994 was the last time a West Indies fast bowler reached the milestone of 200 Test wickets. Kemar Roach was five then, when Curtly Ambrose bowled Michael Atherton in Georgetown in the second Test of that 1994 series

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

bring it on already

 

[wpdavid]

I must admit I myself wasn't aware Greenidge had been knighted, knew of the others though

I thought the WI side of that era might be a record until I looked it up and saw how many of their players in the late 1950s and early 1960s had subsequently been knighted. Seven of them; the 3 Ws, Sobers, Hunte, Hall and Griffiths. No idea how many of them played in the same match, but must be more than four.

 

[weldone]

Gabriel has passed his fitness test.

 

[Adders]

Any Aussies here know how we can watch this series? I heard Foxtel (Kayo) aren't showing it? Any other options?