Well that was a proper battering. Lost by 9 wickets.
Top order failed twice with only one batsman (Maddy) passing fifty in either innings. Looks very fragile.
It's all very well having Rikki Clarke at 5, Tim Ambrose at 6, Botha at 7 and Woakes at 8 but if the top order fails, as it did here, then you risk exposing those batsmen to a newer ball earlier on and, as decent as they might be when the ball's old and there's already a decent total on the board, you don't want to have to rely on them to save you every time. They might do it once or twice, as they have this season, but they won't do it every time.
Ideally the lower order should be:
6 Troughton
7 Clarke
8 Ambrose
9 Woakes
We've lost two players to the Test squad but that shouldn't automatically mean everyone gets shunted two places up the order. We should have two replacement batsmen to come in. We need to play six specialist batters and in this game we went in with just four (if you include Westwood). Time for a rethink.
