Liam Livingstone had never quite lived up to his reputation from his early 20's but if he can stay fit his bowling and batting is ideal for White ball matches. So pleased that he can bat higher up the order so he can pace his innings even if it's still electric with his power hitting. At 31 he could still have 3 or 4 good years ahead of him.
Ideal for t20. I wouldn’t pick him in ODis. I would prefer him at 6 or 7 rather than 5. I suspect our best t20 XI is Salt, Buttler, Stokes, Brook, Smith, Bethell, Livingstone, Archer, Rashid, Wood , maybe Atkinson or maybe another spinner .
Don't disagree that this isn't, more or less, the best 11 players but I'm not sure about the balance especially with the question marks about Stokes - I've lost track of his retirement situation re white ball internationals (retired then not retired) and I'm not sure that he will play that many more anyway?
Which means that the side is at least one bowler short and that person has to be an all rounder because we can't have a tail that starts at 7. Equally, Bethell is very much a part time bowler (29 career wickets in 85 matches) meaning that we would still have just the 5 frontline bowlers with the addition of that one all rounder (imagine if Archer or Wood were to break down especially in an ODI) and I'm not sure that Brydon Carse is the man to do that specific job either.
Having Moeen Ali and/or an in form Sam Curran very much balanced our side though I think the latter might have become the analysts' victim meaning that his bowling has now been somewhat predictable. Our side is in a transitional state but it is something that should have happened in the year preceding the WC. Unfortunately, there were so few games in the calendar that we didn't have the matches that would afford us the opportunity to do so.
The Australian side that played us the other day had four seamers (Abbott, Hardie, Green and Stoinis), three spinners (Zampa, Connolly and Short) plus two other part time bowlers in the shape of David and Head). With all their players available, their side will look ridiculously strong and balanced too. Something like Head, Short (M), Marsh, Inglis, Maxwell, Stoinis, Green, Hardie, Cummins, Zampa, Hazlewood. That side leaves out the likes of Fraser-McGurk, Smith, Labuschagne, Johnson, Abbott, Ellis, Agar (Ashton), Connolly, Bartlett, Carey and Starc to name another 11. I'm not sure we have anywhere near that proven depth on the world stage.
Australia used 8 bowlers and apart from Carey, the keeper, only Marsh and Smith have still to bowl with 3 of the 5 wickets coming from non-frontline bowlers.
And there was me thinking that without Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins, Australia would struggle.
The pitch didn't offer much to the seamers to be fair. Their spinners bowled better than ours did but, equally, their batsmen didn't surrender to them in the way that ours did. No Australian ODI side has ever picked up nine wickets from spin before which rather says it all.
Blooming freezing wind sitting in the East Upper part of the Radcliffe Road stand today. By 6pm everyone was complaining about watching cricket in late September. Mind half of them were wearing shorts.
Comments
Otherwise probably never.
I almost forgive him for his haircut .
Almost
But not quite
That is one awful haircut.