What's going on with the English batting?

[Brad]

5/40 in the second innings of the Boxing Day test, the batting just looks so fragile. Root and Malan should be opening cos they are clearly the two best bats and you can't keep being 2/10 every game. However is there anyone else performing to replace batsman not making runs without pulling them from their T20 Big Bash teams?

[Ratch]

Too many slog-fest matches - they no longer know the meaning of Test matches.

[Brad]

7/61, complete capitulation on the cards. I don't think it's all T20 to blame, there's still plenty of cricket around and the majority of your test players aren't going to be in T20 squads. Whatever England do though there has to be some changes at the top of the order now.

[Nigel Bunker]

To quote the BBC website:

"In 2021, England have struggled in India during the winter, been beaten by New Zealand on home soil and have now endured a chastening Ashes series with two matches still to go.

Throughout the year, there has been discussion about red-ball cricket in England, and whether the model and times of the year it is played helps the Test team.

The County Championship is often played at the start of the season and the end, with the white-ball competitions - The Hundred, T20 Blast and One-Day Cup - played throughout the summer months.

Agnew said the scheduling is a "disaster" and the Championship should be moved back to "being the spine of the season rather than being shunted to the extremities".

Jonathan Trott, who scored 3,835 runs in 52 Tests, agreed on BT Sport, saying red-ball cricket is not prioritised in England and it has been "pushed to the side"."

 

And Steve Harmison said:

"Batters need to learn how to bat for six hours and there is only one batter in this team that is doing that consistently over a long period of time - that is Joe Root," Harmison said.

"It goes back to the basics and fundamentals of how you learn the game - Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head both came to England to play county cricket this summer.

"It is not first-class cricket that is the problem - it is how we play it and when we play it that is the problem. If that changes it gives us a little bit more of a chance of bridging the gap between playing at home and playing away and producing cricketers who have the concentration, skillset and ability to bat for six hours.

"We have to find a balance between red and white-ball cricket, not just with white-ball but with the commercial side of the game, I don't think we've seen red-ball cricket as bad as it is in his country since probably before I started playing in 2002."

[Neil.C]

As Boycott used to say "just stay in".

 

It can be boring to watch but it can win test matches.

[FalkeEins]

 

 ...four formidable (and successful) 4th innings run chases later and after two insipid years, England’s Test cricket team has erupted back into life under the stewardship of new coach Brendon McCullum and new captain Ben Stokes.

 

... 378 to beat India in the 4th innings!

 

Stokes said part of him had wanted the target to be 450, just to see if England could do it. As it was, at No. 6 he did not get a bat.  " Not even when riding after foxes have Englishmen ever hunted with such gusto..."  said the Sydney Morning Herald.   They are getting worried....

[noelh]

I suppose that particular headline has being used more than few times  over the years. I wouldn't so quick to write them off. 

 

On the other hand being Irish the idea of beating  England 'the auld enemy' whatever state their batting is in would  be sweet. This might be helped  by the recent upsurge of interest in  cricket here. Helped too by the increase of immigration from cricket loving former colonies to Ireland. Particularly India. 

Could  be interesting.