England Cricket Summer 2020

kentaddick said:

thai malaysia addick said:

We look like a team in transition which makes selection difficult and puts pressure on batsmen particularly to succeed. The bigger question to me is whether we are prioritising the present or the future.

I think the transition is slightly less than it was last summer, at least the question is “who do we drop” when twelve months ago it was “who do we pick?”. Burns and sibley have nailed down the opening spots for a while now, sibley has to get a lot of credit for his weight loss as well this summer. Crawley is a class act that’s a natural reserve for them, we also have pope who looks like he’s going to be bell’s natural successor at 3 at some point in the future. 

The thing is wood looked unbelievable in South Africa, and we all know what archer can do, you can’t drop either of them, we need to get as much out of Anderson and broad as we can, so they pick themselves. We’re looking a lot lot stronger going forward than we did 12 months ago. 

North Lower Neil said:

Addick Addict said:

kentaddick said:

thai malaysia addick said:

We look like a team in transition which makes selection difficult and puts pressure on batsmen particularly to succeed. The bigger question to me is whether we are prioritising the present or the future.

I think the transition is slightly less than it was last summer, at least the question is “who do we drop” when twelve months ago it was “who do we pick?”. Burns and sibley have nailed down the opening spots for a while now, sibley has to get a lot of credit for his weight loss as well this summer. Crawley is a class act that’s a natural reserve for them, we also have pope who looks like he’s going to be bell’s natural successor at 3 at some point in the future. 

The thing is wood looked unbelievable in South Africa, and we all know what archer can do, you can’t drop either of them, we need to get as much out of Anderson and broad as we can, so they pick themselves. We’re looking a lot lot stronger going forward than we did 12 months ago. 

Zac Crawley has been regarded a talent throughout age group cricket at Kent and the one that the County always thought would make it as a pro. Although it does help when you are being shamelessly promoted by Rob Key (very good mate with his Dad, Terry) at every opportunity - Nasser and Atherton are constantly ribbing him on TV about it referring to Zac as "your boy". Zac's county average (31.95) does not reflect his talent but he is only 22 at the end of the day.

If there will be a test for him it will be the short stuff - although the likes of Collingwood believe that this is actually a strength of his - as the fact is that, at 6' 5'' it isn't as easy to get out of the way of a 90mph plus delivery as it would be for a Lara, Ponting or Tendulkar. In fact, I am struggling to think of too many current or past opening Test batsmen who are/were that tall and it will be interesting to see how he copes against the best fast bowling attacks in the world.    

Cook at 6'1", 6'2" or something is the only one that springs to mind.  As you say, majority of the most successful batsman are under 6ft I think.

kentaddick said:

Addick Addict said:

kentaddick said:

thai malaysia addick said:

We look like a team in transition which makes selection difficult and puts pressure on batsmen particularly to succeed. The bigger question to me is whether we are prioritising the present or the future.

I think the transition is slightly less than it was last summer, at least the question is “who do we drop” when twelve months ago it was “who do we pick?”. Burns and sibley have nailed down the opening spots for a while now, sibley has to get a lot of credit for his weight loss as well this summer. Crawley is a class act that’s a natural reserve for them, we also have pope who looks like he’s going to be bell’s natural successor at 3 at some point in the future. 

The thing is wood looked unbelievable in South Africa, and we all know what archer can do, you can’t drop either of them, we need to get as much out of Anderson and broad as we can, so they pick themselves. We’re looking a lot lot stronger going forward than we did 12 months ago. 

Zac Crawley has been regarded a talent throughout age group cricket at Kent and the one that the County always thought would make it as a pro. Although it does help when you are being shamelessly promoted by Rob Key (very good mate with his Dad, Terry) at every opportunity - Nasser and Atherton are constantly ribbing him on TV about it referring to Zac as "your boy". Zac's county average (31.95) does not reflect his talent but he is only 22 at the end of the day.

If there will be a test for him it will be the short stuff - although the likes of Collingwood believe that this is actually a strength of his - as the fact is that, at 6' 5'' it isn't as easy to get out of the way of a 90mph plus delivery as it would be for a Lara, Ponting or Tendulkar. In fact, I am struggling to think of too many current or past opening Test batsmen who are/were that tall and it will be interesting to see how he copes against the best fast bowling attacks in the world.    

Matt Hayden didn’t have much problem opening the batting - granted - they’re very different players. KP had little trouble with the short delivery. 

Career first class averages mean very little - many test cricketers career test average exceeds their first class average, it’s only natural as it obviously takes into account their first forays into the pro game.