Where does English Test Cricket go from here?

Skylined.94

Collingwood certainly had that fighting spirit that the England squad lacked during the Ashes, he'll be a good influence on the side and particularly on the young lads such as Root, Stokes, Woakes and Ballance.

kryogen

KP and The Big Cheese (:)) having a tit for tat and Swann providing the reasonable opinion on it?

Strange goings on

Rjd2

Different format but Giles has done little to inspire in this world cup, picked tried and tested failure bowlers in conditions they were going to die in and picked Bell because he is a Warwick lad. [/cynic] :pac:

Joss needs to sharpen his wicket keeping as well, although would be nice for hales to try and improve his 4 day game, Warner's overwhelming success has proven bashers can be game changers in this format.

Gillespy

Giles never had a full squad and then it was dewy.

Rjd2

Couple of games into the county season, it looks like Finn and Jordan will have a shoot out for the 3rd seamer position, both have started well, Finn has been expensive but at least he is taking bundles of wickets.

Robson scored big as well so unless Chopra does something remarkable in the next few county games he will open with Cook.

Not sure about the middle order, Morgan at the moment is probably ahead of Ballance as he scored some runs this week and he ignored the IPL which at least should get him some brownie points with the ECB.

Buttler has not played yet, and despite Prior missing the last game due to injury his century in Sussexs first county game means he in the driving seat for the wicket keeper position. Bairstow injured for a few months so no chance for him.

Spinner?

No clue what they can do here, is Ali good enough to play as a spinning all rounder? Borthwicks batting is not a problem but is he really a frontline spinner anymore?

Dozen Wicked Words

Good news imo, Giles has missed out on England job, ECB have gone for Peter Moores again with current Sri Lanka coach Paul Farbrace as his assistant. Look like an excellent team on paper, but have their work cut out with current form of the players.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/10775544/England-cricket-teams-new-head-coach-is-Peter-Moores-with-current-Sri-Lanka-coach-Paul-Farbrace-as-his-assistant.html

booth70

Whatever little hope that KP harboured of a comeback has now been officially crushed once and for all

Not sure what Moores will bring back to an English set up from which he was fired a few years ago but anybody is better than Giles:D

booth70

.....and that is end of Trott's career I reckon

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/737793.html

Boring player to watch....England will miss his solidity at the top

Rjd2

Its a so-so appointment, not exactly a zillion other alternatives to be fair. They should have done it before the start of the county season, as it leaves Lancashire in a bit of a pickle.

Buttler moved to them as well to work with Moores as well, not played yet for them.:P

y0ssar1an22

Feel bad for Trott, very unfortunate. Hope he gets back/better.

I wonder was there a clause in the contract for prospective coaches that said KP would not be coming back? What would have happened if they appointed a coach, who then proceeded to select KP?

Beasty

y0ssar1an22 wrote: »

I wonder was there a clause in the contract for prospective coaches that said KP would not be coming back?

Employment contracts do not work that way. They can be couched in a way that gives the coach final say on certain matters, but I'm pretty certain it would be restraint of trade (and contrary to EU law) to stop a named individual from being picked

Davei141

I know this is probably off topic but very much England related, does anyone find it very hypocritical that all the media and English players have been so quick to issue get well soon's to Trott? Maybe if both treated him better than the complete rubbish that was thrown his way from every lazy pundit.

The English team treated him like a lepper, i'll always remember the footage of sky showing Trott coming in from third man and trying to chat in between overs and being completely blanked. Do you think they would have done that to Swann, Anderson or Broad? Not a hope. The guy dealt with the pressure of the pinnacle of cricket on top of being constantly abused in the press and by his own teammates, no wonder something had to give.

Gillespy

That was pretty harmless to be far. Bumble does that kind of stuff. He took an age to take guard but again anything said about it was harmless. The Sky commentators are big fans of Trott, always quick defend his strike rate in both test and odi and know he played a huge part in their period of success.

Davei141

I don't think it was harmless, do you really think that behaviour would happen to any other senior player? (Well maybe Broad for moaning about not reviewing the obvious of non-wickets). And that's only the behaviour we have seen on field. Bit disingenuous saying the Sky commentators are huge fans and quick to defend him, every time he gets out for a lowish score they seem to, without fail, have a segment talking about his slow run rate and there is always one or two pundits who love putting the boot in too. Botham isn't a fan of slow players. On the whole i think the Sky pundits are a joy to watch though but the whole thing got up my nose so to speak.

djimi

I have to say that from watching Sky I cant say I have noticed anything particularly over the top in terms of the coverage or abuse that Trott ever recieved. They might have criticized him from time to time, but no more than any other player that I could see, and ultimately they are there to discuss players and if there is an issue then they will highlight it. As Gillespy said, Trott has been a big part of Englands success in recent years, the lad has a test average well over 46 and has played some huge innings for England; I dont see what anyone would have to gain by abusing him in the media.

I also cant say I noticed too many issues with his teammates, but I might not have been observing that closely! There does seem to be a bit of a clique in that England team; Cook, Broad, Anderson, Swann etc do seem to be very chummy and at times it felt like it was a group of them captaining games, but whether this meant that others were being deliberately excluded I cant say.

Davei141

But even when he had a average of over 50 and got out for say 30 from 60 they would inevitably bring up the run rate as a topic of discussion. This is even when Trott was bang in form, no other player would get that kind of scrutiny. I would definitely agree with the clique comment, it very much seems like that. And we all know what happens when you are not one of the clique.

djimi

His strike rate is a funny one. To look at him you would think that he scores more slowly than those around him, but looking at the stats, his strike rate of 47.39 is only marginally worse than Bell (49.29) and Strauss (48.91), and is actually better than Cook (46.99). He did seem to get bogged down at times, and I think that was when his scoring rate got called into question. But then, Cook has also come in for that sort of criticism throughout his career (a lot more than Trott would have done Id say); its not something that I would say is necessarily unique to Trott.

Davei141

You are right that Cook did get it, but I don't remember too many segments where he was the main topic of the discussion constantly, it seemed every time Trott got out early he was fair game. I know they have to fill a lot of air time but bringing up the same lazy topics like S/R (In Test match cricket, not ODI, Trott and Cook are not ODI players at all). Like you said Strauss and Bell had a similar strike rate and never once did you hear people complain, maybe it is because they are popular. Cook isn't that popular and Trott is very unpopular, so they were easy targets.

y0ssar1an22

It will be interesting to see how they fair against SL. In the last number of years they have lost the core of their team...Strauss,Trott, KP, Prior (?), Swann, along with number 6 and a 3rd seamer being an issue for years.
That just leaves Cooke, Bell, Anderson, Broad and possibly Prior.

djimi

I think England are going to have to accept that the next couple of years are going to be a period of transition; a lot of the old guard are gone, there is a new (well, returning!) coach, and there will be a lot of new faces in the squad. Its going to be a case of picking players and sticking by them to see what they are really capable of at test level; for me this means having Root opening, giving players like Ballance, Stokes, Morgan (hopefully) etc an extended run in the side, and trying not to kneejerk with selections based on one of two results/performances (something that England were guilty of for a long time, and it was noticeable that the more settled the side became the more success they had).

Gillespy

What's the deal with the Sri Lankans and the IPL and coming to England for the tests? I seem to recall the last time they were in England some of them left it very late to come to England or am I remembering that wrong.

Rjd2

Gillespy wrote: »

What's the deal with the Sri Lankans and the IPL and coming to England for the tests? I seem to recall the last time they were in England some of them left it very late to come to England or am I remembering that wrong.

Only Malinga and Perera in the IPL, neither are playing test cricket. Nobody else picked up.

I think the IPL is over before the test series.

Rjd2

y0ssar1an22 wrote: »

It will be interesting to see how they fair against SL. In the last number of years they have lost the core of their team...Strauss,Trott, KP, Prior (?), Swann, along with number 6 and a 3rd seamer being an issue for years.
That just leaves Cooke, Bell, Anderson, Broad and possibly Prior.

Lanka have no bowlers in test cricket bar Herath who will they will just nurdle all over the place.

The rest will be slaughtered. England should win the series comfortably enough.

Dozen Wicked Words

Ashley Giles has stood down as an England selector. I don't think he was ever going to carry on once he was let go as coach, Mick Newell has replaced him.