England Cricket Summer 2020

Not sure I'd have Root AND Malan in the side, as you only need one "proper" batsman to play the anchor role. Banton or Bairstow at 3 for me, as you want that explosiveness in the power play

killerandflash said:

Not sure I'd have Root AND Malan in the side, as you only need one "proper" batsman to play the anchor role. Banton or Bairstow at 3 for me, as you want that explosiveness in the power play

Not sure I agree, Malan is more than capable of giving it a bit of a whack. Either way, having Bairstow above Root hardly weakens the team anyway. 

Lincsaddick said:

killerandflash said:

Ian Bell is retiring after Warks' final Bob Willis match

perhaps the last of a type, a classic, coaching manual stance and method allied to a lot of talent .. in the top 10 of England test run scorers, a relatively unsung and underrated batsman .. I hope he has a happy retirement

Top scored with 50 in their first innings, so nice that he goes out with a few runs

Leuth said:

Bell was a good player who had one truly great Ashes where he more or less won it for us on his own (maybe Broad helped) 

I'd agree with that. Up until that point he was an immensely frustrating player. If he came in at 100-2 he'd look a world beater, stroking the ball around and scoring runs at ease, but if he came in at 20-2 we'd inevitably be 30-3.

That Ashes series he seemed to have sorted that out, he had a couple of properly gutsy innings where he turned games around almost single-handedly. But he soon reverted to type unfortunately after that series.

So he will be looked back on as a supremely talented players, stylish and easy on the eye whilst batting, but who didn't totally fulfil his potential.

Ali is probably in the team for one or more of the following reasons: 

• We keep winning when he plays (we have lost one of the last five games in which he's played) 
• He scores very, very rapidly (this year his strike rate in T20Is is 157.4, better than everyone else in the team except Morgan) 
• He's the best off-spinner we have that plays T20Is (of the 19 right-arm slow bowlers we have fielded, ever, Ali has the third-best record, behind Swann (retired) and Rashid (in the team)) 
• If he plays in the next match and we win, he will be the off-spinner in the World's number one T20I team
• England's best-ever one day captain is a good judge and keeps picking him 

blackpool72 said:

Chizz said:

Ali is probably in the team for one or more of the following reasons: 

• We keep winning when he plays (we have lost one of the last five games in which he's played) 
• He scores very, very rapidly (this year his strike rate in T20Is is 157.4, better than everyone else in the team except Morgan) 
• He's the best off-spinner we have that plays T20Is (of the 19 right-arm slow bowlers we have fielded, ever, Ali has the third-best record, behind Swann (retired) and Rashid (in the team)) 
• If he plays in the next match and we win, he will be the off-spinner in the World's number one T20I team
• England's best-ever one day captain is a good judge and keeps picking him 

Are you his agent and how much is he paying you ?

They're just facts.  But I will declare an interest: I enjoy watching him succeed. 

kentaddick said:

118 test matches at approx 42 and almost 8,000 test runs in the bank and "didn't fulfil his potential", bloody hell.

Yes, because too often he didn't get the runs when it really mattered. We can all agree he was fantastic to watch when in full flow, but other than that Ashes series name another series where he really stepped up and won games for us? You can with Cook, with Trott, with Root, and Stokes and even Buttler, but it's difficult with Bell.

For all his talent, there is always the nagging doubt he couldn't get the ugly runs, survive when we really needed him to stick around. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I've heard plenty of pundits says the same when he fell out of the England squad. We're all intelligent enough here to know it's not just about how many runs you get, it's when you get them that is often decisive.

So I stand by my earlier statement, he had possibly the best technique of any England batsman of the era, but very few decisive, match changing innings. If he had fulfilled his potential, then why was he dropped by England 5 years ago and never recalled despite numerous batting lineup problems? The answer is that he wouldn't solve the problem, that he'd be another batsmen that go in, but failed to get a big score when it really mattered. Test batsmen often peak in their early 30s, that's when Bell got dropped, at what should have been his peak, but couldn't attain.

England replace Morgan and Buttler with Denly and Billings

A great chance for Billings to play a substantial innings, 12 overs to bat

I hope Denly gets more than the final 4 over manic slog

Hmmm I'm not convinced that Smith didn't catch that boundary with the tip of his heel. Not like the cheating prick would ever fess up to it anyway

Addick Addict said:

Denly would have been given that bat by his sponsor so it's only fit and proper that he uses all of it!

Taking the Aussie bowlers apart with 3 glorious boundaries 

England look like a team missing a few players and who've already won the series.