The International Cricket Thread

[Steve67]

What an absolute mess.  The sooner this Key/Bazball crap ends, the better.  I appreciate they aren't directly responsible for Stokes and Atkinson doing what they did but they are in charge of what's been a very ordinary last few years and clearly, the players lack respect for their authority.  We've gone backwards with them in charge and, yes, we have no natural progression for the captaincy.   

[PaulWinch again]

I think they’ve made mistakes but if you look at their time in totality we definitely have not gone backwards. We’re better than we were when they took over. What they haven’t managed to do is get over the line to win the really big series when opportunities have arisen.

[Steve67]

I couldn't agree with you less PWA.  We have an ageing side, our selectors have only just started watching county cricket, we don't beat the really good sides. There is so much about this set up that is poor. We are further behind Australia than we have been for years.  The problems may lie with Rob Key and his lack of experience, which may or may not get better, but we are a poor side.

[paul_e]

I do think people are getting carried away with a narrative on Brook. Yes he makes some decisions that don’t pan out, but to call his Test career underwhelming is a setting a very high bar. 36 Tests, 10 hundreds and 16 fifties at an average of 54. He’s one of the best around.

He's been set as the face of all the bad things about Bazball so any failure from him get pounced on by some people (not anyone on here, I mean journalists, ex-players, etc) and it creates this myth that he's somehow on thin ice or undeserving of his place, which is objectively wrong, especially when he's played during a period where the top 3 have repeatedly failed to see of the new ball and him and Root have been exposed.

[PaulWinch again]

I couldn't agree with you less PWA.  We have an ageing side, our selectors have only just started watching county cricket, we don't beat the really good sides. There is so much about this set up that is poor. We are further behind Australia than we have been for years.  The problems may lie with Rob Key and his lack of experience, which may or may not get better, but we are a poor side.

I just don’t think that’s true. Look at where we were when they took over. We were evidently worse than we are now. We are also trying to move past two of the greatest bowlers in English history and one of the best performing all rounders. We’re not really that far off Australia, I suspect we’ll see that next summer. In Brook, Bethell, Smith we have batters who can be at the top of the game for years - both Rew’s might join that list two. There are lots of good bowlers, and some really exciting ones coming through.

Now don’t get me wrong there are some obvious issues and they have made lots of mistakes. Most notably of late, misreading what they needed in their bowling group in Australia. But also an issue with spotting the key moments in games. There is much they could do better, but it’s also not the car crash ruin it’s being presented as.

[paul_e]

Aging side is just straight up wrong, the first test had 4 players in their 30s, that's a pretty youthful team by England standards. Dealing with what was an aging side is behind most of the difficulties and they've done a decent job of it.