As Root steps down from the captaincy of the Test team who will replace him – Stokes is the only obvious candidate but will the strain of batting, bowling and captaining take its toll as it did on Botham and Flintoff?
And who should coach the team, with maybe a separate person for the white ball team.
And how do we accommodate red ball, white ball and The Hundred without compromising the Test match team for the upcoming series with New Zealand and South Africa?
English cricket
by 18 Comments
Stokes is the only candidate but I’d worry about it affecting his game.
The Hundred has made the schedule ridiculous and the County game is getting so marginalised. Seeing as this is where we grow Test players, that’s not good.
The ECB are so obsessed with making money (Sky/BT contract, The Hundred/T20 schedules) that they are neglecting the Test game. There is no depth to the squad, at all, and we are not developing Test batsmen, who can bat all day.
It’s going to be a rough few years.
Isnt he often unavailable through injury?
County game will disappear the way things are going. Dunno about elsewhere, but we’re usually rattling round Headingley at County Championship games.
Too much emphasis on the other competitions, so it’s bound to be at the detriment of the Test squad, but they are the only games where they can sell tickets, so there’s no easy answer. I hope they don’t give the captaincy to Stokes though. It’d be like killing the golden goose.
Has it not been a rough few years?
When you hear of people saying that Crawley is a candidate for VC, I wonder how that happened.
Broad?
there’d be no reviews left after his first over
True dat.
I bet Mike Brearley could still do a decent job, even if he is 80 next week. Stick him in as a non-bowling, not really batting no. 11, orchestrating on-field duties from first slip.
Watch some of the Championship feeds where Crawley, Sibley, Burns, Pope etc earned their reputation against bowling that just doesn’t prepare them for international class fast or spin bowling. You can blame The ECB if you want but the players, Counties, the coaches and their groundsmen must take a huge share of the blame for the generally poor standard of the four day game here. Lack of high quality bowlers from overseas doesn’t help either.
Really poor test management of players like Moeen, Bairstow and Buttler have lead to this current situation where there is really only Stokes as an option to be the next captain. It wouldn’t surprise me if Buttler was offered it but I think his eyes are firmly on the short form prizes now.
It’s a mess alright but to just blame the Hundred is so shortsighted. Our batters that have failed don’t go near white ball cricket. The successes learned against high class international bowling in the short form. Its a get out of jail card for those really responsible for improving an individual players technique and mentality.
Rob Key will be missed as a pundit by me, but is a good pick to oversee changes. He talks a lot of sense and I get the impression he will tell it like it is. Stokes will probably be captain – yes, the examples of Flintoff, Botham and other great all rounders will be a worry, but he is hugely respected by players.
In the old days a captain would be picked for their captaincy skills, but that was honed in the Championship and most England players hardly ever appear there now, so those skills aren’t developed. It has seemed that the best player simply gets the job, and in 5 day tests that is risky.
Not that you should extrapolate from a single data point, but I watched the session when he was in charge when Root was having stomach issues. The team seemed to have a little more zip and pep as they went about things.
Whether that was just because it was a new voice, or he is a good captain, who knows.
As an Australian I naturally enjoy watching English cricket in turmoil but here are my two cents worth anyway.
I don’t know if he has any experience, or what he’s like as a personality but I’d pick Jonny Bairstow as captain for two reasons. He’s selectable as a player and he has guts.
I don’t know if anyone here was able to watch it live but he made a brilliant century at the SCG in the Ashes just gone. During that knock he took a blow to the hand as nasty as any I’d ever seen. The ball struck him flush on the thumb which was sticking out from the handle, it looked like it could have snapped his digit clean off. God it looked bad and he was not only able to continue he made a ton. With that one knock he won me over for all time.
I was also impressed with his restraint in the same inning. He was in his 90’s, with an injured hand, with stumps approaching, and Marnus Labuschagne bowling his alleged leg spin, and he resisted the urge to smash him out of the ground. Now that is restraint!
Good call. Shame his dad wouldn’t be here to see it.
I agree. I fear captaincy may ruin Stokes’s game but I think Bairstow will rise to the challenge.
I do wonder at Rob Key’s appointment. I like him as a pundit and he ‘knows the game’ but is that what England need from a managing director? A coach yes, of course, but this is much bigger than that.
So many of the recent problems seem to be down to incompetent, cowardly management. From the mess of the domestic system (though the CC is starting entertainingly this year), to the drift and forever forward-planning of the Silverwood/Root years; from the mismanagement of spinners and other players like Bairstow, to the botched dropping of Anderson/Broad; from leaving a total power vacuum at the top post-ashes, to leaving Root to go away and work out for himself that time was up, it’s a catalogue of total incompetence.
I don’t envy Rob Key basically, but I hope he proves less one of the boys than he appears as a pundit.
A cautionary note from Scottish rugby. No, seriously.
There was a while we weren’t very good. Well, compared to now. It took 3 coaches and a number of years to get back to being any kind of competitive.
Frank Hadden came in and gave pride back to the players. There was a noticeable “playing for the shirt” that had been absent from the previous regime. Then we got stern Vern, and some real grit got added. Then we got Gregor, and we’re combining all those things, plus a bit of nice rugby to boot. That was a journey of a number of years.
England cricket may be in the same place.
But still winning only 2 out of 5 games most years in the 6 nations 😉 (and I know Wales only won one this year)