Atherton and Hussain have been wagering a constant battle against Root; he is a better batsman than either of them; a better captain and a nicer bloke. Neither Atherton nor Hussain had to deal with covid bubbles nor the disruption it caused. They were full of envy and disrespect.Atherton never captained a winning series v Australia and nor did Hussain.
New England captain
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Root was a terrible captain
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He’s not a better captain than Hussain. None of what you’re saying makes their comments the least bit inaccurate and the notion that they do is the standpoint of a pillock.
A moron saying 10x10 = 100 doesn’t suddenly become wrong because he’s a moron. Atherton and Hussain not winning Ashes series’ as captains doesn’t make them wrong about Joe Root.
I don't think new skipper will fix much not unless they get a few new batsmen breaking through this english summer but at same time roots position was simply untenable no skipper from a major test side is surviving when you win just 1 out of 17 tests.
Think so which shows how sparse the leadership talent is.
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I don't think a allrounder that struggles to perform majority of the time is the right call for captain my self.
Averages 34 with the bat which is his main skill lol.
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Next England captain is pretty much in the same situation Hussain found himself when he got the job. The 1990s was a miserable decade for England with a lot of mediocre players being capped at test level while most of the more gifted players were inconsistent and/or curtailed by injuries. Michael Vaughan gets a lot of praise for his captaincy because of 2005 but I think Hussain as a captain did a lot of underrated work leading up to it by setting standards through his own hard-nosed way of playing.
Averages 34 with the bat and 32 with the ball, that is a good Test all rounder.
Do they even have anyone aside from Root who averages more than 30?
In any event they have nobody else who can captain so Stokes it is.
Might be a nicer bloke, a better batsman sure. Nasser Hussan is light years ahead of Root who was an awful captain. Atherton was nothing great as a captain but still better. Root is not a leader.
The tactical influence a captain can exert over a cricket match is overstated.
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Stokes really the only option given he and Root are the only ones guaranteed to be in the team in ten tests time.
Given the workload Stokes is under this has potential to go pretty pear shaped for him. England also have a pretty poor history when it comes to giving the skipper blazer to their talismanic figures - Botham, Flintoff and PIetersen.
England's batting is in such a bad state, I'm not sure it really matters who captains the team.... But then Stokes has usually been at his best when it's backs against the wall, so wouldn't shock me if he is a bit of a success in the role.
Given the workload Stokes is under this has potential to go pretty pear shaped for him. England also have a pretty poor history when it comes to giving the skipper blazer to their talismanic figures - Botham, Flintoff and PIetersen.
England's batting is in such a bad state, I'm not sure it really matters who captains the team.... But then Stokes has usually been at his best when it's backs against the wall, so wouldn't shock me if he is a bit of a success in the role.
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Struggles to perform the majority of the time?
How many times have you been dropped on your head? Actually, no, I’ve worked it out. It was you in the video wasn’t it? It was your head Stokes used to practice his panel beating.
Only a window licker from the most supreme level of window lickers could see an all rounder who not only has Stokes’ numbers for his career, but has spent the last 8 years scoring 4000 runs at 39 and taking 130 wickets at 29, and say ‘he struggles to perform the majority of the time.’
He has done that despite being England’s donkey work bowler and never getting the new ball, and being turned to more often than not because no one else can conjur anything. And with the bat he’s done it mostly coming in to repair the damage done by an incompetent top 4-5
You literally know nothing about cricket if you look at his numbers as an all rounder and that’s the conclusion you draw
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Hussain was to England what Allan Border was to australia (not to the same extent obviously he was inferior to border as a batsman and captain but he played the same role. Arrested the slide and got the line going upwards again)
- May 1, 2016
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Disagree.
A captain cannot polish a turd, but a captain can certainly prune a bush to make the roses grow.
Best strategy for test cricket - have batsmen who average 40+ And bowlers who average less than 28ish.
Root just jumped before he was pushed for not being able to polish a turd, and he’s not the first captain to do so. Agree you with you re: pruning a rose bush but cricket fans as a general place a disproportionate emphasis on captaincy.
You can have the funkiest, most ingenious field settings ever but if your bowlers are bowling pies then it doesn’t make one bit of difference.
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Root's real problem happened a good 4-6 years ago, when Broad/Anderson essentially admitted to the media that they did their own thing. If they admitted it to the media then, then guaranteed they were doing it prior to Root being made captain, and probably were doing it from Cook's time if not earlier.
Since that time, their form with the bat has plummeted, and while Anderson's form has improved with the ball it's been to the overall detriment of their bowling attack. Why? Because he's been both a crutch for them to lean on - no-one needs to step into the void if he's there - and a poisoned chalice for the captain to negotiate, because who's going to tell James Anderson what to do? And if you're not telling Anderson what to do, what's stopping Broad from putting his oar in? Broad has made it known multiple times when he's been dissatisfied with the leadership, for dropping him or for rotation. Now, you've two players in nigh open rebellion against the captain.
Then, you've James Anderson's early career petulance replicated in Jofra Archer's attitude towards Root. It's uncanny how similarly he behaves when being told to bowl in non-optimal conditions.
About the only players who looked happy to be there under Root was Woakes and Stokes. Bairstow always looks as though he's on the edge of punching someone, screaming "NO!!!" atop a pile of bodies holding his dead wife after he's smote his foes around him, or weeping; Butler looks as though someone stood on his foot; Rory Burns looks... like a typical insulated private schoolboy, and Malan not far from that either. And Leach looks like they walked into a pub, looked the first bloke over, moved on to the next one before reconsidering.
That's not a good changeroom to be a part of. That doesn't make for a good training setup, and doesn't make a relaxed zone to work through the problems that will be exposed at test level.
But then, the post you replied to wasn't really about the English team, but about captaincy. If Root wanted to be a captain, the very second Broad/Anderson began to ignore him he should've put his foot down. None of this "I'm bowling what I'm bowling, if you don't like it take me off or don't pick me!" He should've put his foot down. If they couldn't be brought to heel, they're a cancer on the team that needs to be excised. You toe the line, you opt in, you are either one of us or you're out. Being part of the team has its privileges, but never forget that you need the team to choose you to be a part of them and that's their choice, not yours to negotiate.
The whole thing has the feel of Root being a weak captain, subservient to the management and the coaching.
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Pat Cummins says hi.
See I would argue Root’s real problem was that he couldn’t find a batsman apart from himself to average more than 30.
Pat Cummins is the best bowler in the world.
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Watch the West Indies series again.
Yes he clearly has a ******* awful squad at his disposal.
With everyone on deck he has:
- a world class but injury prone all rounder
- himself
- two fantastic home conditions bowlers who are average away but offer some control if nothing else
- an express pace quick who tries his guts out but can’t string a series together
- a good home conditions third seamer who is utterly hopeless away and is handy at best with the bat
- a spinner who is capable of control and little else
- another express quick who hasn’t played in 12 months and Carries way too much expectation when he does play
- a keeper batsman who simply can’t play test cricket
- another couple of bowlers who are, quite simply, absolutely s**t. Craig Overton I’m looking at you.
- a batsman who is courageous and combative and dangerous but technically flawed
- a group of 6-7 other batsmen who aren’t test standard.
So straight away Root is pretty limited with how well he can do as a captain. No one is going to dominate with that line up.
But nor do they have to be that bad. Root can stop the rot of picking Woakes overseas. If he does have to pick he or Overton he can structure field placings around them and stop expecting them to actually get wickets with skill. There’s a whole bunch of different approaches he could take that are different to his current ‘try nothing and hope it works’ approach
- May 1, 2016
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The ideas are linked.
Bairstow's recalcitrence as far as coaching goes is fairly well known; he's spent his entire career as a professional arguing with coaches that he knew best how he played. Stokes is the best all rounder in the world, sure; do they need the best all rounder in the world more than they need a second bat to average above 40? Burns is someone you drop the second he ceases being effective, such are the unavoidable issues with his technique.
Look at the players they've turned over in the last 5 seasons. There are a myriad of players who could've made a go of it were there a little more thought and/or a little more umph from the captain insistent on playing his team his way. James Vince is a player who a captain like Border or Lloyd would've knuckled right the * down and produced for, and so is Malan. Moeen Ali is, without a doubt, the worst case of player management and development that I have ever seen; the bloke could've bat anywhere in the top 5 for England's test side or been a test level offie, and at the end of his career he's genuinely neither of these things despite all the talent in the world.
Butler, on the other hand, appears weighed down by the sheer responsibility of being the only one who's willing to support the captain. He's genuinely the best natural strokemaker in that XI; why in heaven's name is he trying to be Jeffrey Boycott whenever he walks out to bat for England? It isn't a case of him needing to rescue an innings; he isn't ******* good at it. You bat how you've always bat, and you be yourself; he doesn't need to be Watling and McCullum both. He has to make runs like an upper order bat and keep wicket and support the captain; small wonder he loses concentration at important times. But then, why is Foakes not playing as a superior keeper and a defensive bat, if that's what they want???
A better captain would've informed the selectors, these are the players I want. These are who I want to work with, these are the people who can work with me. I will argue in favour of them, but ultimately we're a committee of selectors. Then, they'd instill a more rigid system of roles; Ben, sorry mate, but we've plenty of bowlers, you're learning how to play offies even if it kills me. Joss, I'm going to sit you down with a sports psych and get you believing in yourself the way I believe you can do it. Mo, I don't care what you do, you're only doing one thing for the next six years!!!
And Jimmy and Broady, you have two choices; either you both pull your heads in and behave like the adults you are, or I'm going to * you both off faster than either of you can blink. I will not tolerate what you've done in and to this team any longer. If you are asked a question about selection, your answer is, "I defer to the captain." You do not offer an opinion. You do not play to the naivety of the audience. You want a career, to play in my team? You play by my rules.
That would go some of the distance to fixing their setup. Stronger leadership six years ago means that the hard cliff that is coming for them inside the next few years doesn't hit them; that they didn't have that leadership means that they're almost certainly ****ed the second Root, Anderson, Broad and/or Stokes all retire within 5 summers of each other, without a valid replacement.
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I definitely agree with a lot of this.
My biggest criticism with that approach to each of them though is that the two observations you’ve made of Buttler and Bairstow, while correct, directly contradict one another. Buttler is trying to be everything to everyone and shouldn’t, Bairstow is trying to be himself and shouldn’t, and when one sees the other being managed the way that suits him but not the other guy that would cause some issues.
Buttler SHOULD play naturally BUT, the only keeper batsman that could ever get away with always playing naturally was Gilchrist because his game was so good that even when things were tough he could destroy an opponent. QDK was the next best at doing it but even he failed a lot.
Buttler isn’t as good as either of them so he NEEDS to have another method for when it’s 5-80 and the ball is doing plenty.
I tend to think Anderson is entitled to a bit of free reign because he’s a smarter cricketer than Broad and less inclined to let his emotions dictate his game plan. He’s a tactically sound bowler and USUALLY, not always but usually, his way is the right way. I don’t think the same about Broad.
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