Think I somewhat agree about uncovered wickets and fast bowlers getting fewer injuries on such a surface, but I also think that they bowled more overs because they bowled many more overs coming up. If you emerge from a cotton-wool upbringing as quick at twenty, it comes as a huge shock facing better batsmen and being expected to bowl quicker and for longer. You breakdown because you strain to do something you aren't used to doing.
Mahmood struck me as an obvious choice, Liam Livingstone couldn't have done much more to put himself in front of the selectors, but one of the forgotten elements to our failure seems to be an amateur element to man-management. We seem to run on the lines of Pateley Bridge Third XI. Bairstow whinges he doesn't want to open, He wants to be a keeper too, like Buttler who currently gets the job. The captain wants a quiet life and no moans over the cucumber sandwiches so we try to make everyone happy. Bairstow should be told if he wants to play he is an opening batsman and he will never be a test class wicket keeper whilst he has a hole in his bottom, likewise Buttler should be told that he is our potentially destructive No6 batsman so long as he forgets about wicketkeeping. Equally somebody has to point out to Burns that nobody else in world cricket bats like him for a reason and that's why we are sending him home to re-learn the game he was taught! This isn't Sunday afternoon village cricket where everyone does what they want, these are Test matches, you are representing your country, you follow orders, you listen to your captain and you keep fighting however tough it gets.
England heads drop as often as Buttler catches. You know if Root and Malan get out, there is going to be a batting collapse. The batsman heading to the crease should be thinking he has a great opportunity. Instead he's convinced he's toast. Similarly our current crop of spinners come on to bowl thinking they might keep the batsman in check. Nathan Lyons isn't actually that brilliant a bowler, but he is always convinced he's about to get a wicket, and so he does. Young Parkinson, also appears to have a bit of that in him .... despite not quite looking the part. And why would we have taken Dom Bess along when he's been having trouble pitching the ball?
The sad thing is thay needn't have played these two tests at all. We could easily have written all this stuff before they even arrived. as JJamez I think pointed out, this isn't the benefit of hindsight. This is almost universal foresight that no one listened to until it became hindsight.
Mahmood struck me as an obvious choice, Liam Livingstone couldn't have done much more to put himself in front of the selectors, but one of the forgotten elements to our failure seems to be an amateur element to man-management. We seem to run on the lines of Pateley Bridge Third XI. Bairstow whinges he doesn't want to open, He wants to be a keeper too, like Buttler who currently gets the job. The captain wants a quiet life and no moans over the cucumber sandwiches so we try to make everyone happy. Bairstow should be told if he wants to play he is an opening batsman and he will never be a test class wicket keeper whilst he has a hole in his bottom, likewise Buttler should be told that he is our potentially destructive No6 batsman so long as he forgets about wicketkeeping. Equally somebody has to point out to Burns that nobody else in world cricket bats like him for a reason and that's why we are sending him home to re-learn the game he was taught! This isn't Sunday afternoon village cricket where everyone does what they want, these are Test matches, you are representing your country, you follow orders, you listen to your captain and you keep fighting however tough it gets.
England heads drop as often as Buttler catches. You know if Root and Malan get out, there is going to be a batting collapse. The batsman heading to the crease should be thinking he has a great opportunity. Instead he's convinced he's toast. Similarly our current crop of spinners come on to bowl thinking they might keep the batsman in check. Nathan Lyons isn't actually that brilliant a bowler, but he is always convinced he's about to get a wicket, and so he does. Young Parkinson, also appears to have a bit of that in him .... despite not quite looking the part. And why would we have taken Dom Bess along when he's been having trouble pitching the ball?
The sad thing is thay needn't have played these two tests at all. We could easily have written all this stuff before they even arrived. as JJamez I think pointed out, this isn't the benefit of hindsight. This is almost universal foresight that no one listened to until it became hindsight.