It’s been like this for a long time

Since Cook and Strauss we’ve not had a great opening partnership and so many have been tried. Burns has done enough to retain his place but Sibley is hit and miss.

The rest of the batting line up in this test is mediocre. Crawley has looked like a walking wicket for a while, Root not at his imperial best, Pope looks good but has brain fades, Lawrence did well in the first innings but doesn’t always fill me with confidence and Bracey looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Stokes will make a difference when he returns and potentially Buttler (though he’s hot and miss in tests), but aside from that the cupboard is fairly bare. Malan did quite well last time in Australia and has got big runs re entry in the county championship, so they may give him a go at 3.

The bowling isn’t as strong as it once was but in better Nick. Basically until we can regularly get 400 plus in the first innings we’ll continue to struggle to win a lot of test matches. At present 300 always looks a stretch

Posted By: Sellbydave, Jun 12, 16:11:26