4th Test

[Bath Hammer]

Looks like same old same again. We cannot prise out Smith & enough batsmen support him to reach a score that our flaky batting lineup cannot get near to apart from heroics from the like of Stokes. Our main hope to stay in the game will be for Roote to play the Smith role but I’m not sure he has it in him.

[Oldhasbeen]

Situation is dire, we'll do well to avoid defeat.
Broad appears to be the only bowler to turn up.

[Andy]

Well SNAFU is all I can say.  At least The Hundred will help improve our Test team.

[Bath Hammer]

I’ll be delighted & relieved to be proved wrong but I’ll Be amazed if our batting lineup gets beyond 200.

[Andy]

I’ll be delighted & relieved to be proved wrong but I’ll Be amazed if our batting lineup gets beyond 200.

For all the sniping on here, Burns is slowly becoming a Test opener. Maybe not a long term solution, but I suspect he may become the next England Test skipper...until Stokes has done his time.

[IlfordEagle]

At least Burns has shown resistance & durability now in 3 of the 4 Tests, I would suggest even Ally at his best wouldn't have managed this in all Tests, for Burns it is 2 or 3 Tests more than some of his colleagues, I think he has kind of solved one of the opening slots for now at least.

[Bath Hammer]

Better resistance but not enough particularly by Root who is amazingly still being spoken of as being in the same company as Smith, Kohli & the NZ skipper. On that placid pitch which was unhelpful to the bowlers we needed them both to survive overnight. We are now into the tail apart fromStokes on a good day.

[Valentines Park]

Burns is doing okay.

Roy was the weak link.

[Oldhasbeen]

I’ll be delighted & relieved to be proved wrong but I’ll Be amazed if our batting lineup gets beyond 200.

To  the surprise of both of use, we've scraped past 200 with "only" 5 wickets down. Roy got 20 more than I'd have backed him to get. And we've got that reliable Run Machine Joss Buttler to come! Cheer up!!
Success for England = avoiding follow-on and batting out until beyond lunch
Even if we manage to scrape a draw, we can't afford to carry Roy, Buttler & Denley. I've a bit of time for the latter as he does at least show some fight, but if he's a Test opener, I'm a Martian.

[nat]

You might be right about Buttler, Roy and Denly but they are up against 5 of the best fast bowlers in the world today. Could they make runs against other countries? Are there better options out there? Until we get our domestic structure right then we will continue to struggle in Test cricket.

[Oldhasbeen]

You might be right about Buttler, Roy and Denly but they are up against 5 of the best fast bowlers in the world today. Could they make runs against other countries? Are there better options out there? Until we get our domestic structure right then we will continue to struggle in Test cricket.

I agree that our domestic structure is pants, with no sign of it improving, and the Aussies attack would be challenge for whoever we pick.
But Denley as an opener, and having both Roy and a hopelessly out of form Buttler in our middle order seems pretty desperate to me. Buttler is the strangest pick, he's looked completely lost, I'd much rather have any of Pope, Malan or Foakes in the team.

Go on Joss, prove me wrong!!!

[Andy]

Well, no effort put into developing a Test team and this is the result. Overstretching the star players like Stokes and Root (who shouldn’t have been in the W/C) whilst lazily keeping with out of form players like Moeen and those who really have no appetite for proper cricket.

This is not a great Aussie side, but they’ve got good pace, they keep them fit (what is Silverwood doing?) and eventually they’ve stumbled upon good replacement bats.  Labusachange is not Langers type of player but grit and getting ones head down at county level pays off...wonder if ‘two brains’ Ed Smith has understood this fact?

[JasonP]

Well, no effort put into developing a Test team and this is the result. Overstretching the star players like Stokes and Root (who shouldn’t have been in the W/C) whilst lazily keeping with out of form players like Moeen and those who really have no appetite for proper cricket.

This is not a great Aussie side, but they’ve got good pace, they keep them fit (what is Silverwood doing?) and eventually they’ve stumbled upon good replacement bats.  Labusachange is not Langers type of player but grit and getting ones head down at county level pays off...wonder if ‘two brains’ Ed Smith has understood this fact?

We won the World Cup and Root was our leading run scorer.  Not quite sure why you think he shouldn't have been there.

The Aussie bowlers don't have good fitness records either.  Pattinson and Cummins in particular.  We have actually been unlucky their bowlers have stayed fit for the last two ashes series because they don't normally.

[Andy]

Well, no effort put into developing a Test team and this is the result. Overstretching the star players like Stokes and Root (who shouldn’t have been in the W/C) whilst lazily keeping with out of form players like Moeen and those who really have no appetite for proper cricket.

This is not a great Aussie side, but they’ve got good pace, they keep them fit (what is Silverwood doing?) and eventually they’ve stumbled upon good replacement bats.  Labusachange is not Langers type of player but grit and getting ones head down at county level pays off...wonder if ‘two brains’ Ed Smith has understood this fact?

We won the World Cup and Root was our leading run scorer.  Not quite sure why you think he shouldn't have been there.

The Aussie bowlers don't have good fitness records either.  Pattinson and Cummins in particular.  We have actually been unlucky their bowlers have stayed fit for the last two ashes series because they don't normally.

I’ll give you Root, although I suspect that he’d benefited from a rest before the Ashes.  I know that the Aussies have had fitness issues (to the extent that an Aussie journalist suggested we return to the back foot rule for no balls) but fact is that their bowlers stay fit for the important series whereas we’ve reverted to losing our best seamers when the crunch matches come.

Bad coaching? Bad actions? Poor preparation? Whatever it is, the excuses from Silverwood will be part of the whitewashing of this series. A series that wasn’t needed this year, but with The Hundred next year I guess it was shoehorned in order to avoid getting in the way of the next best thing in English cricket...

[Bath Hammer]

A table was produced showing how far Root is lagging behind the other 3 amigos. I’m wondering if he is actually still worthy of his ranking of 4th best now. I have no idea who our 5th best batsman in, if you take Stokes occasional antics out of the equation, but they are probably way down the rankings. Now, with Anderson in decline, we could slip back further as a test match force though I sense that standards have dropped generally.