The England Cricket team are in a hole at the moment: inability to win; poor tactics and no spin option. Cook’s captaincy has come under great scrutiny over the past few months, but if you look at the current England team who else would you have as captain? Ian Bell is the only one who springs to mind but if he is captain material why has he not had it before now? Is Cook out of form? Yes! Is he still the right pick for captain? Yes! Does he need to go back to county cricket to get some form back and work on his game? Yes! But this comes back to England playing too much international cricket; the county teams hardly see their England internationals due to the high amount of cricket they are playing. If an International cricketer is out of form as Cook is they have no chance to go back to County Cricket and get their form back due to the high amount of International cricket being played, therefore where is Cook going to get his form back if he is not allowed to go back to County Cricket? The nets? He needs time to work on his batting, remember he is still a world-class batsman. Credit does goes to Cook at times for his field placements, for example the Pujara wicket in the first innings.
Moeen Ali is a big talking point in the team. If he is going to be in the team as a spinner England need to start using him actually as one as they did in the second innings yesterday, not just throw the ball to him for a couple of overs every now and again. Having said that there are definitely much better spinners out there in English Cricket: Danny Briggs; Simon Kerrigan and Scott Borthwick to name but a few. Is it not time we gave one of the young up-and-coming spinners a chance in the England Cricket team and just said to them “Show us what you can do” and give them 2-3 series to have a go and if it doesn’t work try another one? My choice would be Scott Borthwick. How many truly world-class legspinners have there been in the game? One of the only ones who springs to mind is Warne and he was truly world-class. If we can find a good legspinner is that not the way forward with Root bowling the odd over as well with his offspin? Whatever way the England selectors go they need to make a decision soon!
England’s bowling in the First Test against India did leave much to be desired at times. Where the idea for this short ball theory came from is beyond me, how the England management think it’s a good idea is baffling, only the great West Indies team have been able to bowl with this tactic and male it work and even then if they weren’t bowling at your head they were bowling at the stumps. England had no success in the 1st innings and really paid for it. If it hadn’t been for Jimmy Anderson’s and Joe Root’s heroics with the bat we could have been looking at another England loss due to their inability to both bat and bowl. It’s no secret that you take wickets by bowling full and at the stumps with the occasional short ball just to push the batsman back a bit. If England are going to start winning again they need to go back to bowling full and straight, aiming for the top of off stump then LBW, bowled and the outside edge all come into play.
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