The Cricket Thread 2016

[MoetVillan]

I agree.  At the risk of sounding like Boycott though, I think too many matches this year has not helped

[Chris Smith]

I agree.  At the risk of sounding like Boycott though, I think too many matches this year has not helped

If they had played all those matches in England it would have been a different story but take them out of their comfort zone and this is the result.

[aev]

I agree.  At the risk of sounding like Boycott though, I think too many matches this year has not helped

If they had played all those matches in England it would have been a different story but take them out of their comfort zone and this is the result.

Excellent piece on Cricinfo by George Dobell talks about this.

[PaulWinch again]

Vaughan's assessment was pretty accurate, it wasn't that far off a whitewash. Some of these collapses, alongside the one in Bangladesh, are the worst I've seen. There was no grit, technique or brains used in lots of the dismissals.

If you look across the year as a whole, it started well in South Africa but since then we've been very poor. We've also lost every single final Test of a series under Bayliss haven't we?

[Villan For Life]

We've looked inept with the bat in this series and lack application. At times some of them have lacked technique. Add in the mental fragility and you have a recipe for disaster.

[OzVilla]

Out batted, out bowled, out fielded, out thought and out captained. Throw in some mental fragility of losing from positions sides should never lose from and it's been easily our worst series sice the Ashes humiliation in 13/14.

Maybe it's time for Cook to just concentrate on his batting (not that Root's been scoring many runs) but we need to be bolder when we get the chance. After we surrendered the initiative in the first test it's been one way traffic.

[Steve67]

It's time for change and I think Andy Strauss will deliver. I think he'll look at all aspects of the last 12 months or so. I don't think he's the type to make knee jerk decisions but will look at the positions of Cook and Bayliss.  Piss poor performance again today.

[Steve67]

I'm a Worcestershire fan. Why are we not signing players? Does anyone else out there think that Bumpy has taken us as far as he's likely to? Genuinely interested in opinions.

[paul_e]

It's time for change and I think Andy Strauss will deliver. I think he'll look at all aspects of the last 12 months or so. I don't think he's the type to make knee jerk decisions but will look at the positions of Cook and Bayliss.  Piss poor performance again today.

I think changing Cook is a better idea than changing Bayliss.  We need to take our chances and really pressure teams, Cook is only really willing to do that when Jimmy and Broad are bowling, everyone else gets a containing field which just slows the game down and lets players find their form, particularly when we have spinners on, Cook seems completely unwilling to set an attacking field for Ali or Rashid.

[Steve67]

I think you're right Paul.  Keeping Bayliss is a better bet than Cook. Hopefully Root won't buckle under the additional pressure if he gets the captaincy.  We are very close to being a very good side, need a replacement for Anderson soon I guess but we have good quality in the likes of Stokes and Broad.

[paul_e]

I think you're right Paul.  Keeping Bayliss is a better bet than Cook. Hopefully Root won't buckle under the additional pressure if he gets the captaincy.  We are very close to being a very good side, need a replacement for Anderson soon I guess but we have good quality in the likes of Stokes and Broad.

Woakes needs to be worked with for that, he had a superb season at home but looked like he'd been overused by the time we got to India and then struggled on flat pitches.  He's improved massively over the last 2 years though so he needs to be kept in the mix.

[PaulWinch again]

Bayliss should be kept, I don't think there should be any real debate about that at the moment.

[tomd2103]

Bayliss should be kept, I don't think there should be any real debate about that at the moment.

Agree, but this was a proper hiding, the sort we haven't really seen since tours of Australia and the West Indies in the 80's and 90's.  For a while now, we haven't really seen application in the batting when the going gets tough.  There doesn't seem to be the collective will to dig in when times get tough and collapses are happening on a pretty frequent basis now.

[UK Redsox]

On a tour where they knew that the seamers wouldn't be used much and any spells would have been short, maybe England should have taken a risk on Tymal Mills

[Villan For Life]

On a tour where they knew that the seamers wouldn't be used much and any spells would have been short, maybe England should have taken a risk on Tymal Mills

Mills has a back condition which means he can only bowl in short bursts so he only plays T20 cricket. He doesn't play any other form of the game.