Ladies and Gentlemen. We have a deciding Test match on our hands. It’s all we could have hoped for pre-series. Are you looking forward to it?
This final match of the series could be a good old fashioned humdinger – although I expect much will depend on the fitness and general energy levels of the Windies fast bowlers. If Roach, Gabriel, and Joseph are raring to go then it could be another close contest. If, however, their morale is low and they’re collectively knackered after the second Test then it could be an easy ride for England. We shall see.
The big question is which bowlers England will select for the final XI. One could make a strong case for any three (or four) of Anderson, Broad, Archer, Wood, Woakes, and Curran. However, there’s a slight danger of overthinking this. In fact, I half suspect that England will overthink it themselves and end up leaving out a spinner (which would make me want to hurl my iMac out of the window).
Although much will depend on conditions, I think England should just keep it simple by selecting their three seamers with the greatest skill and pedigree. And that, for me at least, means Anderson, Broad, and Archer. The latter sneaks in because every side needs some genuine pace and his ceiling is sky high. Jofra will also have something to prove and apparently he’s been bowling absolutely rapidly in practice.
The potential curveball, however, is the fitness of Ben Stokes. He’ll certainly play as a batter but will he be able to turn his arm over too? Personally I suspect he’ll be fit to bowl if and when England are absolutely desperate for a wicket. But if he’s not really needed then Root won’t risk him. This seems like an entirely sensible strategy to me.
I’ll try to keep the blog updated the best I can over the next five days. However, sadly I probably won’t be able to produce daily reports this time. After a relatively quiet lockdown I’m now absolutely inundated with work. And, as a freelancer, I can’t really turn it down. However, please feel free to keep the discussion going in the comments.
You’ll also notice that our friends from Conversful have returned. See that little green icon in the bottom right hand corner of the page? This facility lets you start a realtime conversation with other readers on the site. We’ll see what the take-up is.
Enjoy the game everyone. Personally I’m expecting England to win. But we’ve been miserably wrong before!
James Morgan
What’s the money that rain ruins everything?
Aaargh, Bess not Leach. Bess is obviously one of those lucky so-and-so’s, like Butler, who is viewed as a “team player” so gets picked in spite of performance.
He was absolutely woeful last week.
Definitely a risky team selection. Butler, Woakes and Bess all need to show they can bat at test level
Bess needs to show that he can bowl…
No Crawley and Buttler at six makes the batting look fragile. Crawley should have been retained, and if England went for five bowlers Pope should have been given the gloves to go with his no six position. I would also have preferred Curran over Woakes in this setup for the extra variation that his left arm offers. The way to accommodate Buttler if that is absolute must (it is most definitely not in my opinion) would be rely on Bess, Archer, Broad and Anderson to do all the bowling and keep Buttler at seven.
They can’t risk a 4-man attack that includes Anderson. Good shout re Pope and the gloves to keep Crawley. Buttler’s contributing virtually nothing at present. I would have gone for Curran over Woakes, too. Can’t see the sense in 4 (5 including Stokes) right arm seamers. Curran is a brilliant partnership breaker and his left-arm angle presents a whole set of different problems for the batsmen.
From what we saw in the last test the Windies look a tired outfit and there for the taking.
I would have thought they might have wanted to give their bowlers more rest and bat first but looking at our batting it looks pretty shallow with pressure on Buttler and Pope. Without Crawley one assumes Root will be called upon to bat 3. Don’t understand this it undermines the new top order philosophy that’s been relatively successful recently in securing us decent first innings totals. To me Woakes is in to provide donkeywork cover for Stokes as he may only be fit enough for short spells. Hopefully he can make a contribution with the bat, as he may need to with our tail. Agree that Bess is a lucky boy following his less than impressive spells at Old Trafford on a wearing pitch. Looks another bits a pieces cricketer to me without the batting class of Moin.
Root at 3. Well your have thought they would have learned that doesn’t work. Run out I see already. No Crawley? Off so everyone bars a place higher. Butler, Woakes and Pope haven’t found much batting form yet, in Butler’s case hasn’t found it for 43 Tests but gets promoted to number 6. Bess and not Leach? Really, well the selectors never cease to amaze. Probably won’t matter anyway if the weather forecast is correct.
I’m absolutely incredulous over the team selection. I really worry about Silverwood and Root’s cricketing IQ. I know they’re the pros etc, and I’m just a supporter, but they seem to make schoolboy errors of judgement. I find it utterly baffling.
Two points (a) England’s batting is its weakness and the bowling is our strength. So why drop a batsman and play an extra bowler? It’s beyond illogical. (b) The weather suggests this will be a short 3-day game. So again why do we need this many bowlers? What’s really required is extra batting. The 5th bowlers will hardly have the opportunity to turn his arm over.
Basically I really have no idea what they’re thinking. It’s just bizarre.
I guess this is why Mr Ed and co approved their appointments. They needed to be suitably funky.
For me it wasn’t funky at all–just one of the conundrums any team gets if their star all-rounder goes lame. You’re a bit “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. They’d also have been roundly criticised if they’d played four bowlers and one of them had torn a hamstring ten overs into the game, leaving (say) Archer and Anderson as England’s only two seamers. Given all the flak they’ve been getting about overbowling Archer in particular, I can understand it.
It also comes against the backdrop having scored almost 500 last game against basically the same, but less tired bowling attack, of which the player they dropped batted all of one ball.
The fact remains we’re going into the next test, a match we’ve got to win, with 5 front line bowlers and Root, who is forced to bat in a position he has openly admitted he doesn’t like, a youngster who’s struggling for runs at 5, a wicket keeper with no test pedigree at 6, a used to be decent run getter whose now dried up at 7, a new bits and pieces boy at 8 and a nine, ten, jack with no recent runs between them. If that doesn’t inspire the Windies nothing will. It puts a huge and unnecessary pressure on the top order. Also if Stokes isn’t fit to bowl then he’s not 100% fit to bat and that’s a balanced selection?
I thought it was quite straightforward – they have to take 20 wickets and couldn’t guarantee any overs out of Stokes so decided to play the extra bowler. WIthout Stokes bowling they were either going to be short of bowling or short of batting by picking the extra bowler. Buttler at 6 and Woakes at 7 was a gamble but possibly worth taking. No point in scoring 500 and not being able to bowl them out.
If we get off to a bad start and lose 2 or 3 wickets in the 1st session it’s unlikely we’ll make enough runs to put their vulnerable batting under enough pressure to force a win.
Getting a decent 1st innings score is so important in test cricket and something we’ve started to come to terms with in recent times by using a proper no.3 and Root at his preferred no.4. This Windies attack is pretty decent and unlikely to let us off the hook if they get the upper hand, so it’s more than just a gamble to drop that extra batsman. To me it’s wreckless.
I think you’re rather over-egging this Marc–especially since you’re writing with the benefit of hindsight, where we know that not only did that batting line-up post almost 500 in the second test effectively without Crawley, but scored almost 600 for twelve wickets in the third having been in precisely the situation that you were worrying about: two wickets down for not a whole lot in the first session. And three of the highest four scores were from the batrsmen you were worrying about, either playing out of position or generally.
However decent the WI attack, it was also clear that they were very tired and that Holder had telegraphed fairly unsubtly before the match that he was unlikely to rotate his seamers (it now seems to be being reported that Joseph was replaced because he was carrying a niggle).
I agree, though, that the change didn’t have to involve Root batting at three, since he’s obviously not keen on it. Stokes could have batted there given that he was playing as a specialist batsman.
“Are you looking forward to it?”
No.
Buttler Has now cemented his place for the next 10 years. Poor Ben Foakes might as well try to get a passport for NZ or another country f he wants to play International cricket.
Hey, New Zealand is for the South Africans. Seriously, New Zealand could field a South Africa born XI in a few years and be more competitive than South Africa itself. A better bet would be say the West Indies.
Well the tail starts at 7. As James says why on earth play six bowlers? We’ll be lucky to get 300.
Well well done Stuart Broad, put my 300 forecast down the drain!
Surrey CEO Richard Gould speaking today:
“If we’re not back to normal next summer, the structure, not just of our sport but all sports, will need to change.”
It should have been pretty obvious that sports couldn’t carry a second year like this one – but we now have someone who should know on the record with an explicit statement of what’s at stake.
In other news the government want to put your taxes up to pay for social care of the elderly – after just having found trillions for the banks.
“If you only have three countries making money by playing Tests in England, India and Australia, what’s the final outcome? A three-team Test championship? A three-team World Cup? They will be standing alone if we are not careful”.
Let’s see if the UK cricket media who adore Jason Holder when it comes to vacuous BLM gestures support him in English cricket giving up some cash (Holder wants 20% of home series’ revenues to go to the visiting team).
Holder’s statement might be somewhat over-optimistic in that he envisages any sort of Test championship and I’m not as confident about the medium-term strength of Australia’s finances as he seems to be.
Excellent, keep it up for good work and give your readers an opportunity to get involved. I really appreciate you and best of luck for your future. Thanks.
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