Should we just play our ODI side in Tests?

Well, perhaps with Broad and Anderson in place of a couple of the bowlers?

I’ve half jokingly suggested it before, but given we’re being rolled for 200 on a regular basis in the longer form and yet racking up 400 plus when restricted to 50 overs, I really am starting to think that if we send the same batsmen out with pretty much the same approach, they would actually get higher scores than the current Test line-up.

I know, the red ball swings more, there’s more close fielders etc... but opposition captains would soon be crapping themselves and putting men back on the boundary when Roy, Hales and Bairstow launched a new ball onslaught. Root’s then there to steady the ship, Morgan has lots of experience, then it’s largely the Test engine room anyway with Stokes, Woakes and Ali. Even if we got say 300 all out in 50 overs it would still be an improvement! The Test side is caught between two approaches, and we don’t have the players, aside from Cook on occasions, to go the other way and play the traditional long game. We’ve tried enough specialist top order men and they haven’t cut it, so how about throwing the rule book out of the window?

I wouldn't put too much weight on your current form given the opposition.

Well, we’ve beaten much better sides than this injury and sandpaper-depleted Aussie one over the past couple of years. Must be around 75% win rate in that time.

Mrs Barnaby fires off.....yet another Tory roob. A Kardashian?

I either need a translation, or are you suggesting Nat Joyce (I googled) to open for Oz in Tests?

beamer wrote:Well, perhaps with Broad and Anderson in place of a couple of the bowlers?

I’ve half jokingly suggested it before, but given we’re being rolled for 200 on a regular basis in the longer form and yet racking up 400 plus when restricted to 50 overs, I really am starting to think that if we send the same batsmen out with pretty much the same approach, they would actually get higher scores than the current Test line-up.

I know, the red ball swings more, there’s more close fielders etc... but opposition captains would soon be crapping themselves and putting men back on the boundary when Roy, Hales and Bairstow launched a new ball onslaught. Root’s then there to steady the ship, Morgan has lots of experience, then it’s largely the Test engine room anyway with Stokes, Woakes and Ali. Even if we got say 300 all out in 50 overs it would still be an improvement! The Test side is caught between two approaches, and we don’t have the players, aside from Cook on occasions, to go the other way and play the traditional long game. We’ve tried enough specialist top order men and they haven’t cut it, so how about throwing the rule book out of the window?

The question and solution - however tongue-in-cheek - present itself, obviously.

I wouldn't, personally ...

The ODI team is currently (- in the last match, that is -) on a big roll. But it's a bit 'hit and miss'. Literally.

I'm not saying the ODI team is not now a decent team, which - after the shambles in Scotland, even at the end of the batting, as well as more obviously in the bowling - edged past an Australia A team in the first ODI and has gone onwards and upwards from there in two further matches.

But it's not necessarily guaranteed consistent high performance. ... They could still get bowled out for 220 next match, I fear. (Even if a bit less likely than usual, with the wind apparently firmly in their sails.)

But Roy and Hales especially seem a bit hit or bust. Morgan & Buttler also, to an extent. And as for Billings ... *cough*.

Of course, same problem is true of the Test team, as you indicate. Especially when the #3 spot quandary goes on like a festering sore, and it's rare two openers make a score at the same time. There's a 'crumble factor' underlying the top order, for sure. Sometimes with a domino effect down to about 7. ~>

But I'm not sure 'hitting out' is the answer. It's not Stick Cricket. The England Test team has been there, and done that. Smeared, crashed and slashed the ball to all parts of their stumps.

Hales 11 Tests, av 27, for example. (Of course, given the right mindset and role, a correct assessment of risks & rewards in specific instances, Hales might yet come back, and might succeed.)

I think it's right to say the shorter format is concentrating the minds of the England batsman very well at the moment. The responsibility is not so great on any one batsman to try to build a long innings and a ton - as long as you make a decent total most of the time, and quickly enough... which is a double task the current team has currently cracked more often than not.

And freed of the long burden, when the initial approach comes off, they've become increasingly likely to go on for a few more overs and add another 50-60.

A parallel of sorts:

People have often asked, if T20 sides nowadays can regularly score 150-200, why can't ODIs team regularly score (pro rata) 375-500? England did that yesterday, but why is it not the norm? (Without going into how crap you might think Aus A may be, and how superb England currently may be. Such things can change, quite quickly.)

Well, obviously, wickets. You have the same 10 wickets in both short formats. The strategy/tactic is that a batsman can take more risks in 20 overs than 50 overs. There are others who may at a pinch, in a pinch, take your place on occasions you fail in T20.

But you may set off a route to 140 all out in 20-odd overs if you go at it the same way in 50 overs. Or at least be 80-5 after 15, and then be reduced to a dot fest while working out how to repair the damage.

It's not just the maths - 2 overs as opposed to 5 overs per wicket, so to speak.

It's the mindset - the awareness of responsibility that informs (affects) the batsmen's approach.

Best energy use may be different too, to an extent, e.g. batting just 10 vs 25-30 overs. But it's more mental.

And I think there is a sort of parallel there between ODIs and Tests - if you see what I mean.


So what's the best solution to the riddle of Tests?

Certainly get the right personnel! This has been a riddle in the Test batting. Almost anyone who's been stuck in at 3, for example - blocking, swashbuckling like hell, or various points between the two - has failed there more often than succeeded. But there have been some poor selections since it started to go wrong with Trott.

Coaching (effective, i.e. also not overcoaching), strategy, and mental approach:

Whoever bats in Tests, has to have the right mental apparatus, apart from at least adequate technique.

It's not obvious that's been the case, most of the time. I don't know why Bayliss struggles to exert any obvious (positive) influence in Tests - or is it not Bayliss, is it others in the grand retinue of coaches and advisers or are they consultants - is it that the batsmen are still overcoached, undercoached, wrongly coached - if so, by whom?

You'd have to be there.

Captaincy.

Root shows some good signs - he's prepared to be more adventurous than predecessors (not hard, perhaps). But he's still pretty new to the job. I'm not blaming him for anything. But I'm not sure he has the happy knack of making the team and individuals tick over 5 days, the way Morgan (for example) has and can over a short format. Maybe he'll get there (Root), but there's some happy formula missing, you'd think. Maybe that's back to coaching, again? Mixed messages?

Cumulative effects.

For all inconsistency in performance (maybe some inconsistency is normal in cricket, and (say) Australia's golden era of McGrath, Warner, Hayden, Langer, Ponting & Gilchrist was the oddity), success breeds success. Failure incubates fear.

Obviously, you could be right. Go shit or bust, and it couldn't be much worse than being trapped in a cycle of crumble.

But again, that has been tried more than once ...

I feel the problem is partly bad luck. Hameed played on with a broken hand, and it seems he's been (to an extent) broken since. He was ideally suited and ideally placed to be one of England's new openers. Or so it seemed.

Stoneman looked a fair bet. His weakness in the pull and hook was brutally exposed down under, and he seems to have gone to pieces too. Even before the latest unfortunate development of some personal/family nature.

Vince. Well, if someone shut him in a room with no communications for a week, told him ODIs were now being played in whites, and convinced him generally he was going out to bat in a ODI before he went out to bat in a Test, maybe he'd have a better blend, a clearer, less banjaxed head, and adapt better (see above, "parallel"). But as it is, ...?

Malan might feed off others' success at 5 - but he's been pushed further up, and is now scavenging off others' failure.


So my answer is: ..... open with Willey and Bairstow ... true eyes, clear resolute minds. Maybe even coaching wouldn't wreck that. ... ...

Or more seriously: don't clog the minds of players, might try R Burns or even Bell-Drummond, but with a feng-shui approach. Prepared well enough on e.g. how the opposition bowlers like to bowl, and what your team is looking for, but still with enough mental capacity left to treat each ball on its merits, and apply their county skills, as best they can.

The “success breeds success” statement is one argument for transposing the one-day side into the longer game...

Yes, Hales averages 27 in Tests. At a strike rate of 44, lower than that of Alastair Cook. He was playing with the handbrake on, and that’s not his game. It’s not that the current Test side are playing short form cricket. They’re playing Bob Cunis cricket, i.e. neither one thing nor the other. Trying to play the long game then losing patience or finding technique lets them down. If we don’t have Test standard top three batsmen then just send the JAMODI boys out to give it some humpty, as Beefy would say. We might still be four down by lunch, but we’d have 150 plus on the board.

Or you'll be 4 for 15 ...

lardbucket wrote:Or you'll be 4 for 15 ...

Well, we sometimes are anyway with the current lot.

Maybe it's simpler - and staring us in the face.

Just bring back I. Ron Cubbard.

Well, if the Belf had shown any sort of form over the last couple of years, he would definitely have got a recall at some point. A solitary Div 2 century a couple of weeks ago is a long way from making a statement... I half expected him to call it a day in the county game after a pretty disastrous previous season for him and the team.

Roy isn't having a bad series for a hit and miss player.

taipan wrote:Roy isn't having a bad series for a hit and miss player.

In form he’s unstoppable, but just as capable of having 7 innings in a row where he doesn’t reach 30. Let’s hope that isn’t next summer.