England and their very English selection policy
As an avid England cricket fan and someone who has played the game and watched the game for over a decade now these past 6 weeks have been hard to take, especially after the heroics in the 2019 CWC. I could rant on and on forever about individual performances and maybe even rant on about predominantly poor decisions from our ‘prodigal hero’ Joe Root. But my biggest aberration throughout the series has been the strange selections that have been made throughout and the lack of ruthlessness from those in charge. I look at the news of an unchanged side for the 5th test at the Kia oval and see it as a missed opportunity, a missed opportunity to finally get things right and find a balance. For me there are only 4 players besides Joe Root who are indispensable to the team at the moment, those being Burns, Stokes, Broad and Archer. Some may argue Leach and Denly, but for me even those guys despite their valiant efforts in the previous two tests look vulnerable. I have had an issue for the last 3 or 4 years now with England seemingly letting players get away with substandard performances, which if you are Bangladesh or Afghanistan isn’t a problem, but considering England have the largest or maybe second largest pool of players to pick from, it shows to me a lack of initiative and also a lack of respect to the county game. For me the unchanged side being fielded at the Oval shows a massive lack of investment into the county game and further shows a lack of leadership qualities at the top level. These aren’t players who have struggled in just this series, Roy being the exception, but these are players who haven’t exactly set the game alight for a while now with the red ball. The likes of Roy, Bairstow, Buttler and yes Denly are players who are rated very highly and rightly so, but there comes a time when you have to give these players the opportunity to go and work on their game and come back. The 5th test at the Oval was the absolute perfect opportunity to say, right we’ll open with Sibley, we’ll bat Crawley at 3, push our best player back down to his best position and see what comes of it. My biggest reason for this is because I don’t actually see what difference it is going to make to the result of that test match, Roy might get some runs, Denly might get some runs, and even Buttler might get some runs, but are they people you could count on to win you that test match. NO. There are players in the county championship absolutely championing the red ball game scoring big hundreds, batting for long periods of time, but for what? To win the county championship for their team, I don’t think that is the main priority for any batsmen in county cricket and if it is then I am well and truly shocked. Look at Jonathan Trott for example, he took his county form into an ashes series and became a cult hero for England for a period of time. I’m not saying there’s another Cook, Trott or Pietersen out there, but show some balls England selectors. If a footballer has a bad 45 minutes they get took off at half time, Jason Roy had a shocking first two tests, pick someone else. It angers me because it comes across like England have no options, of course they do and they always will do. Look at Marnus Labuschagne, the first I’d really heard of the guy was making tons of runs in the county championship division 2, then he gets his chance for the Aussies and look at what he’s been doing, it’s not rocket science England.
The next thing that really got to me was the selection of Overton at Old Trafford, and yes, he came out of that game with real credit. But I take you back to the first innings of that test match, he was the 5th bowler to be brought into the attack, what confidence does that give someone who has apparently been selected to thrive in those conditions. It’s the same with Leach to an extent, he has been named the ‘wall’ for his batting heroics, for Christ’s sake England look at the bigger picture, our number 11 can bat a bit, let’s all sing from the rooftops… Again, I’ll say it I like Jack Leach and I prefer him to Moeen Ali as a bowling option, but let’s focus on what’s important. Graeme Swann got the occasional decent score, but did everybody rave about that? No. His bowling did the talking. If you asked me what my XI for the 5th test would be it would go as follows:
Burns
Sibley
Crawley
Root
Pope
Stokes
Bairstow (just)
Gregory
Archer
Broad
Leach
In that side you have 3 debutants and one player who wasn’t given anywhere near the sort of chance I feel he deserved, and what would this bring to the team? Maybe it’d bring absolutely nothing of note, but would it freshen us up? I think yes, and I also think it would put competitive pressure on those who are maybe not consistently achieving to tough it out a bit. The loss of Anderson and the cataclysmic performances from Smith have been the major differences in the series on the whole, but that’s done with now. So, England should move on, and invest in other people who are putting the hard yards in to be noticed, what does a player have to do these days to get a bit of limelight? Gregory is one who for years now has been excelling at Somerset, both with the bat and ball, but has never got anywhere near the England side, why? And its not as if there are any real stalwarts in the England team anymore, you can sort of understand Australia persisting with Warner, considering his overall record, but England persisting with Jason Roy just about sums everything up. I’ll be the first to admit I wanted him to open in the first test, but as soon as the frailties and defensive floors were realised it should have been curtains for him. Then you’ve got Sibley and Crawley making massive strides for their respective counties and not even getting to watch from the side-lines. Think of all the great debutants England have had over the years, why are they so scared? The major thing that worries me is that Anderson and Broad aren’t going to go on forever and then there will be two things to worry about. It doesn’t matter how good Archer is or has been he is one man, and for this moment in time as far as skillsets go, he is not close to Anderson. He has time on his side but England certainly don’t. And again, if England are running scared of fielding new players and causing a stir, there’s a certain Ian Bell who has been in tremendous form and has seen it all before… One of the most technically gifted players ever to hold a bat for England seemingly left in the lurch, maybe it’s because he’s too old? Because of course everyone knows that batsmen get worse as they get older, everyone knows that once they get past 30 their careers over, no its bullshit and it’s so hard for me to see the obvious and for it to just be cast aside by the selectors.
Now I will jump on the fence for a while and speak some home truths about English cricket, that Australian bowling attack is out of this world, for me they have 5 or 6 bowlers who are all in the top 10 in world cricket. So, this was always going to be a tough series for that reason. But I look at it and think to myself, first of all that they can count there selves quite lucky that they have 4 quick bowlers all of similar ages all fighting for competition. England have Anderson and Broad, throw Archer into the shake up and it suddenly looks quite devastating, but then there’s always a boring fourth option. Woakes, fantastic bowler, fantastic cricketer on the whole even, but a boring option… Sam Curran will have his time and when he learns to bowl a stock ball he will be a successful cricket for England. Overton looked good in patches but apart from the ball to Labuschagne, a beauty by the way, did he really scream ‘wicket-taker?’ I am not saying there are bowlers out there who will come into the test side and take buckets of wickets, but show a bit of ingenuity. Then I move on to my final point for this section that age old rather irritating argument that crops up all the time in English cricket now, are we too focused on limited-overs cricket? This for me is the most stupid and downright ridiculous argument ever to have transpired in cricket. My reason for this? Cricket in its most basic form is a battle between bowler and batter, with the fielders helping out when needed. That is cricket, nothing more and nothing less, on a bad wicket the batsman is battling with the pitch, on a good wicket the bowler tries to force mistakes. The game is being overcomplicated by so-called experts, there are differences in approach to the 3 formats of the game of course there are, but these differences are not that vast that it causes a player to have to totally change their game. But, like always the pressure is in their heads, because of these ‘experts’ suggesting so. Test cricket is harder, more challenging, a battle of the mind, but these are professional sportsmen, I bet Roger Federer is at least half decent on a squash court. Whatever the difference and however hard the adaptation between the different formats is, these professionals should be able to deal with it. To finish this rant off I conclude with a simple and concise message, to the england selectors, just to be more adventurous, make selections and if they fail go again. But don’t keep fielding the same players over and over again if they are beginning to look vulnerable, and this goes for everybody on that team. It is not a question of loyalty, or else Ian Bell would still be in the side, similarly it is not a question of form, because there are players out of form. This is a case of making the England team a competitive side to be a part of, if 11 players are guaranteed a place the next time they play, where is the incentive to do their best? We have tons of brilliant cricketers and the 11 chosen for the 5th test are brilliant in their own rights but have they all justified retaining their place, some definitely have, some are questionable and some need to be replaced whether it be permanently or just for that final test.
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