England Cricket 2021 (excluding Ashes)

Chizz said:

Absolutely shocking performance.  But, I guess this is what is to be expected when the players don't get the chance to play low-standard, red ball cricket in July or August. 

That is what is to be expected when batsmen aren't technically good enough to play red ball cricket. When it's not "step and hit" in white ball and the wicket is a bit tricky they don't know what to do. If you have to play the majority of those red ball games in April and September you will never get to hone that technique because the likes of Darren Stevens will be King. Ask Tom Banton about that one - he averages 22.91 in FC cricket and has never hit a ton. In fact, he doesn't average 30 in any form of the game. Quite what he's done recently to justify playing for England I'm really not sure.

But how do you play yourself into form in T20? Very difficult to do so when you think you have to go out and smash the ball every innings. Occasionally doing that might still come off for Banton. That won't make him an England player though and at best he could become a franchise journeyman - in the Lanka Premier League in December he averaged 13.62 at a strike rate of 107.92 with a top score from eight innings of 30. By comparison, Chandimal, who averages almost 40 in Test cricket, scored 277 runs in the tournament at an average of 46.16 and strike rate of 150.54

Remember that phrase - "the revolving door" - because it could well become the tag that is applied to a lot of our white ball cricketers. Bowlers have got better in T20 because a batsman's strengths and scoring areas have been so analysed and plans can be made for many. Batsmen haven't and when we play a T20 where we fail to score off 73 balls you really have to question how the hell batsmen that are playing for their country do not have the skillset to score off more than 12 of the 20 overs.
 

171-8 off 20

That should be enough providing we bowl in the right areas