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2017: England V South Africa & West Indies

Yep, remarkable player.

Averaging over 54.00 in Test Cricket and still only 26 years of age.

Could go on to break all records.

Shame he wasn't the first batsmen to score 2 double hundreds at Lords, pretty close though!
 
Wrapped that up nicely with a day to spare, and all credit to Moeen Ali with he's 10 wickets in the match.
 
SA 309-6 at the close of play today, Hopefully we can take the last wickets before lunch tomorrow & limit them to less than 400 runs, before going into bat.
 
England collapse & go from 143-3 to 205 all out, we've been very poor with the bat today.

At the end of play, SA are 75-1 & England are trailing by 205 runs.

I'm not holding out much hope for this game unless our bowlers produce something really special tomorrow.
 
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quite a few there basically not worth their place in the test team; but who to replace them with?

First cab off the rank will probably be Liam Livingstone. I haven't seem much of him but I'm not sure he's what England are after as he's another aggressive "it's the way I play" player who will have people muttering when he gets out playing a cross-batted shot when trying to save a test.

If not Livingstone then who? Jennings is only keeping Hameed's place warm, but Hammed can't buy a run this summer. He's not helped by the fixture schedule which has Lancs playing T20s at a time he needs to be playing red ball cricket.

Our own Tom Westley must be fairly high on the list. The knock on Westley was that he'd scored second division runs, but he's averaging over 50 this season in division 1. I think Westley is too loose to bat at 3 (Joe Root should really be batting there anyway) but might be a nice choice at 5. If Moeen was a left-arm bowler as well as a left-handed batsman then I think he'd have already been picked but instead Flower prefers Liam Dawson's slow left arm bowling to complement Moeen. Dan Lawrence is another option from Essex but I think this is too soon for him and Worcestershire's hugely talented Joe Clarke who's averaging over 50 this season and has a career fc average of 45.

Mark Stoneman seems to be the name on everyone's lips. He seems to have benefited from the exposure of moving counties which seems to somehow elevate players but I'm not convinced. Whilst he got off to a hot start (including a big hundred against Essex on a flat pitch) he's over 30 and has a career fc average under 35. I actually prefer his Surrey opening partner Rory Burns. Burns is a consistent performer who scores lots of 50s and has scored 1000 runs at 40 for the last couple of seasons and knows how to leave the ball (and against South Africa you need to leave the ball to wear down Philander, who lacks the stamina to be as effective later in the day). He just needs to learn how to go big - but then his last fc innings was a career best double-hundred last match...
 
England have lost 22 of the last 45 test matches. That's a defeat in every other test match.

Only 7 draws.

We really need to learn how to save a game, if we can't win it.
 
I would take out Ballance, Move Root to no.3 where he should be, bring in Westley, Rashid for Dawson? and as for Jennings, I have no idea who to replace as opener? Hameed? He has scored very little this season. a tough one.
 
i think the question is whether the players are or aren't good enough, or is it something in the wider culture of the team or coaching. If people keep coming in and failing there must be a problem that goes beyond there not being good enough players out there.
personally I think we're trying to fit three No 6s in and it's going wrong, not helped by picking the wrong players at 2 and 3.
I think Sam Robson and Mark Stoneman should have been the shouts to open as they are in form this season. Ballance fine, but at 3?
Moeen Ali should probably be picked at 5 as a batsman who bowls and judged on that basis then have an actual spinner and one less seam bowler. We have one too many.
Playing Dawson is wrong, he's a batsman who bowls. They wouldn't pick a batman who bowls seam to take the new ball, they shouldn't do effectively the same with a spinner
 
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