The Ashes are, I believe, gone. Australia will now beat us in this match and, just because they like doing it, beat us in the final one. That's what I believe. It's not throwing in the towel, it's just a sober assessment of the difference between the two teams. And this isn't even a vintage Aussie team. Far, far from it.
The English batsmen, especially, need to take a good long look in the mirror, and ask themselves some hard questions. Roy has been useless in this series, Denly's hardly better. But Root also needs to ask himself some questions. Only two or three years back I distinctly remember that he was being talked about in hushed tones in the media, as potentially one of the great openers (in the company of Kohli, Smith, etc.) Not even close. He is a man who sometimes gets useful 50s, which he can't convert into 100s. Burns has just about delivered.
We constantly rely on the get-out-of-jail of the middle order batsmen. They can't do it every time. Stokes performed heroics to virtually win Headingley single handed.
England have not once got to 400 in this series. In a proper five-day batting side, 400 should be considered as pretty good, no more. Most of the time, they haven't even made it to 300. So they're constantly putting themselves in difficulty, because they're facing a batsman who is in scorching form and who, alone, will put 100 (and beyond) metronomically on the board.
England came into this series as World Champions. They still are. In the one-day game, which they're good at. Well, that's nice.
Looking forward I think we need to replace Root as captain. He's a quality batsman but he's not a good captain. This winter will be tough as away to New Zealand and South Africa.
The question is who do you replace him with?
I’d give Stokes the captaincy, a winner with a winners mentality, as proven this season[/QUOTE
He's a bit of a wild card, but basically I agree. It just might be the making of him. It's a bit like making the jack-the-lad at school head prefect. It works surprisingly often.
Minimum requirement should be to save the follow on, but frankly if Stokes doesn't perform some more heroics then I am not optimistic.
Batting averages of the players who are not out in out first innings:-
We need another 98 runs to avoid the follow on, if Stokes goes early the average (67.09) of the remaining 5 players will just not do it.
- Stokes - 83.50
- Bairstow - 27.60
- Buttler - 9.16
- Acher - 11.33
- Broad - 11.00
- Leach - 8.00
There are six full sessions to go, if we bat 1.5 of them today and save the follow on then the Aussies will probably bat for one session giving us 3.5 to save the match on a wearing pitch.
How Buttler has retained his place is a complete mystery to me, he is a one day player and even then he is hit and miss.
No way, he's one of our few batsmen that gets consistent runsI’d give Stokes the captaincy, a winner with a winners mentality, as proven this season
We're screwed unless butler and stokes dig inSix down.
I think it’s probable that we’ll have to survive four sessions to salvage the draw.
The captain needs to be someone who will be a definite in the team for the next 2 years. Broad probably will be, New Zealand and South Africa aren't bad tours for him. There's no chance they could pick butler. He wouldn't be in the side if he wasn't mates with the selectors.Always find it Weird that when captaincy comes up Broad never gets a mention! He be my choice followed by Buttler.