Compton should of been in from the start on current form. I would still like to see him given a go for the India series. Although would feel for the lad as he has now not played a first class game for weeks.I'm all for giving players time but Crawley looks absolutely lost as an opener. Give an actual opener a chance.
what he said ^^Most enjoyable that has been, hurrah for proper cricket.
Not long to wait for the next fix, the Test v India starts on Friday, although they should have forfeited after refusing to play it last year.
Well, despite my misgivings about the way we are approaching test cricket - it has certainly worked in this series. And it has been pretty exciting as well.
I thought the Kiwis were pretty lacklustre though - let's see how the same approach works in the one off test v India on Friday.
Kiwis seemed a bowler short in every Test and relying too much on Boult. They lost de Grandhomme and Patel and Southee wasn’t the force of old.
Not that should retract from a very good first series for Stokes and England. Some of the old problems remain but England found ways to win or get out of trouble which they wouldn’t have done in previous years.
Work has yet to notice that my WFH days may, or may not, coincide with the Tests.
Rohit Sharma tested positive for Covid on Sunday so fingers crossed............................
Believe we're the first team in the history of Test cricket to successfully chase down 250+ three matches running.
Stunning effort. Now bring on India.....I suspect that their bowling will provide a sterner test. Bairstow may not be able to go medieval on them from ball one, the way he has been able to with NZ's undercooked attack.
Tbf, Boult and Southee are world class. The next rank of seam bowlers are all pretty good international bowlers as well. The spin options though...
Yeah Southee has been average at best. Think he returned 1-250 or so in the second test. Boult has been, on the whole, awesome.So I didn't see much of the series myself (was mostly on when I'm at work) - but from what I heard, Southee was looking like a shell of his usual self?
Certainly his stats suggested as much (9 wickets in the series at 59, and an economy rate of 4.3).