Yes it's a bunsen, but when your bowling strength is with your seamers rather than your spinners, surely England be better off with a more experienced and conventional attack?
The spinners are just cannon fodder anyway, would the likes of Robinson, Woakes, Sam Curran etc be any worse?
Do we really need FOUR spinners in the team?
It's like a football team picking 4 strikers because none of them score enough goals.
Poor captaincy, if that is allowed to be said of Stokes. Also using your debutant spinner first up wasn't the wisest either. Kerrigan vibes.
I would like to think that the way Hartley is now treated will be a bit different to the way Kerrigan was - the latter bowled 8 overs out of more than 150 bowled, never to be seen again. If you are going to pick someone to bowl because you think that he is good enough then you have to bowl them. The issue goes far deeper, though, for the reasons I've suggested previously - we are picking two spinners with 58 FC wickets between them. Look at what happened to Swann - he made his debut at the age of 20 and then didn't re-appear until he was 27 but by that time he knew his game and became one of our best all time spinners. I very much doubt that either Hartley or Rehan do know their game.
Yes it's a bunsen, but when your bowling strength is with your seamers rather than your spinners, surely England be better off with a more experienced and conventional attack?
The spinners are just cannon fodder anyway, would the likes of Robinson, Woakes, Sam Curran etc be any worse?
Do we really need FOUR spinners in the team?
It's like a football team picking 4 strikers because none of them score enough goals.
As you and Canters have intimated, had Dawson been picked it would have strengthened the batting but, in addition, we could have got away then with Leach and Dawson plus Root and two seamers. Because we didn't know how Rehan and Harltey were likely to perform under pressure we've thrown as many at the wall as we can get away with. This is what Rob Key had to say on the situation:
"If he's not going to play then I don't think it's high on his agenda to be going as essentially a replacement bowler.
“We also feel, for the style of bowling, someone like Hartley, we bet that he will be a real handful out there and you’ve got Leach to lead the attack with the ball.
“You almost have to disregard what’s happened in county cricket, because it’s a very different style of bowling.
“It’s about trying to work out who’s going to be the best players for what we’re coming up against, and that’s where we’ve ended up.”
They have probably 3 of the top 4 spinners in the world (Ashwin, Lyon, Jadeja, Axar) and we do not. That's the glaring difference which is an absolute mountain to climb. India probably have 3 or 4 spinners that don't even get a look in that are better than all of our options (Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzi Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi) i'm probably missing others too.
This isn't a Pope series, anyone could tell that. Jennings or Bohannon would absolutely and obviously score more runs than him. But he's the darling of English cricket for some unaccountable reason
Yes it's a bunsen, but when your bowling strength is with your seamers rather than your spinners, surely England be better off with a more experienced and conventional attack?
The spinners are just cannon fodder anyway, would the likes of Robinson, Woakes, Sam Curran etc be any worse?
Do we really need FOUR spinners in the team?
It's like a football team picking 4 strikers because none of them score enough goals.
As you and Canters have intimated, had Dawson been picked it would have strengthened the batting but, in addition, we could have got away then with Leach and Dawson plus Root and two seamers. Because we didn't know how Rehan and Harltey were likely to perform under pressure we've thrown as many at the wall as we can get away with. This is what Rob Key had to say on the situation:
"If he's not going to play then I don't think it's high on his agenda to be going as essentially a replacement bowler.
“We also feel, for the style of bowling, someone like Hartley, we bet that he will be a real handful out there and you’ve got Leach to lead the attack with the ball.
“You almost have to disregard what’s happened in county cricket, because it’s a very different style of bowling.
“It’s about trying to work out who’s going to be the best players for what we’re coming up against, and that’s where we’ve ended up.”
Rob Key was a very popular and insightful skipper and to his credit he was always prepared to be unorthodox but I really don't think the same thinking works for selection, especially when the likes of Hartley and Ahmed don't have any bowling behind them.
Well…..that didn’t take long did it! First day of the first test and already the writing is on the wall and painfully plain to see. This team are woefully inferior in the bowing department. The batting is slightly nearer to parity but with India’s top class spinning attack, playing in home conditions, the cards are so heavily stacked against us to be already looking at the likelihood of a significantly heavy series loss.
Not sure how long I’m going to have recording and play back stamina for a 76 year old. 🤨
Hope this isn't a sign of things to come for the First XI
At stumps on first day
England Lions 152 all out off 52.4 India A 150-0 off 32.0
India A 493 all out off 111.1 overs. The bowling figures make interesting reading given what went on today. Potts with 6 wickets and Carse with 3 as opposed to 0-128 at 5.56 an over from Callum Parkinson!
Thursday. Though it might be worth waiting until the 3rd Test to start watching, as by then England will have had their 2 "warmup games"... and be 2-0 down.
I said this a couple of days ago, as while England are clearly inferior to India in Indian conditions (especially with spin friendly pitches designed to ensure India win), we really don't help ourselves with the lack of preparation. I expect us to be more attuned to the conditions by the 3rd Test, though by that stage the mental impact of losing badly will probably nullify any advantage anyway.
Comments
14th over.
Is this a 50 over match or a 20/20 ?
It's like a football team picking 4 strikers because none of them score enough goals.
"If he's not going to play then I don't think it's high on his agenda to be going as essentially a replacement bowler.
“We also feel, for the style of bowling, someone like Hartley, we bet that he will be a real handful out there and you’ve got Leach to lead the attack with the ball.
“You almost have to disregard what’s happened in county cricket, because it’s a very different style of bowling.
“It’s about trying to work out who’s going to be the best players for what we’re coming up against, and that’s where we’ve ended up.”
First day of the first test and already the writing is on the wall and painfully plain to see.
This team are woefully inferior in the bowing department.
The batting is slightly nearer to parity but with India’s top class spinning attack, playing in home conditions, the cards are so heavily stacked against us to be already looking at the likelihood of a significantly heavy series loss.
Potts 30.1-3-125-6
Carse 25-7-81-3
Lawes 15-3-51-0
Parkinson 23-1-128-0
Price 12-0-71-1
Mousley 6-0-21-0