Today Mark Cohen discusses England’s habit of dropping crucial slip catches. He argues that consistency of personnel is the solution to our cordon woes … The cancellation of the fifth and final test at Old Trafford has robbed England of the opportunity to right a number of wrongs from a second Monday defeat of the summer. Captain Joe Root has often resembled Atlas in shouldering the middle order for much of this summer. England’s failures with the bat may continue to bear the brunt...
I’ll start things off with a question. If the ECB bigwigs can pay themselves more than £2million in bonuses for setting up The Hundred, should they fine themselves a similar amount for England’s failure to win either one of their two home Test series for the first time since 2001? Unless Joe Root’s team win at Old Trafford in the fifth Test, it will be the first time we’ve lost both home series since the doldrums decade of the 1990s. Sadly, however, accountability never seems to be a two...
To coin a phrase, a week is a long time in cricket. Just tell that to Joe Root. As he did the obligatory post-match media duties on the Headingley outfield on Saturday, with his bowlers having just reduced India from 215-2 to 278 all out, Root probably wondered if events at Lords had taken place in an alternate universe. In that alternate universe, Mohammad Shami played the square cut like Kapil Dev and Ollie Robinson was physically unable to bowl an off stump line. In that alternate universe...
Following my lament earlier in the week, Mark Cohen puts a slightly different spin on England’s current predicament… So Dawid Malan is the latest recall to be called back off the white ball wagon and thrust straight into the test match arena. The announcement of England’s squad for the third test at Headingley brought with it a welcome back for the former Middlesex captain to the international fold, ahead of a likely return to the starting eleven next Wednesday. This has come with...
I didn’t watch England’s loss to India in the second Test. Regular readers of this blog will know the reasons why. Let’s just say that English cricket and I have issues at the moment. Big issues. The problem is, a bit like England’s cricketers themselves, that I just can’t win. I generally wish our players well but I realise that any success they have simply papers over the cracks and gives the disingenuous suits currently ruining English cricket a longer stay of...
New writer Isaac Rawcliffe has some thoughts on England’s squad for the 1st Test against India. What do you make of the names selected? England have announced a 17 man squad for the first Test against India and there are some notable exclusions as well as one very notable inclusion. The squad reads as follows: Joe Root (capt), James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Ollie...
