England vs New Zealand, First Test at Lords

First topic message reminder :

England: Cook (c), Compton, Trott, Bell, Root, Bairstow, Prior, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn.
NZ: Fulton, Rutherford, Williamson, Taylor, Brownlie, McCullum (c), BJ Watling, Southee, Wagner, Boult, Martin

England win the toss and will bat first

MSP I think my concern is that i believe root could be the opener..

Its not as though I am just saying compton should leave without a replacement- I think root should step up.

and in the middle i think taylor is the one that needs a second chance

Oh, and my view is that Root is an asset in the middle order. He is a calm head and his experience as an opener in county cricket will stand him in good stead against the second new ball.

I'd far rather have Compton opening and Root at 5/6 than Root opening and another youngster at 5/6.

mystiroakey wrote:MSP I think my concern is that i believe root could be the opener..

Its not as though I am just saying compton should leave without a replacement- I think root should step up.

and in the middle i think taylor is the one that needs a second chance

Agreed.

I think Root is fine where he is atm. Comptons doing alright, needs to turn these starts into scores, but hes seeing off the new ball at least. Already said I'd play Taylor before Bairstow for solidity in the middle but I doubt itll happen.

If I was to keep root in the middle I would bring him to 4 ahead of bell.

not because i think he deserves to be ahead of bell as a batsman(well i do but thats not my point)- just that i prefer the balance of keeping bell away from trott.

Bell can go at a decent rate, considering he had the flu throughout the game I'll let him off

in the end the end came too fast.....nz were blown away, and will regret the chance they blew.
They have to do something about their batting....and it seems mccullum will kep wkts to bring an additional batsman.
And Broad can now safely play for two more years.
well doneeng

Congrats to England, but you really need to look at how you start a test match, had you played a team stronger in the batting that test could eaily have been a loss.

Its pathetic Bilt.

Pathetic.

Biltong wrote:Congrats to England, but you really need to look at how you start a test match, had you played a team stronger in the batting that test could eaily have been a loss.

Fair observation and probably would have been a loss against quite a few other teams. The batting simply has to improve, we have always been a decent to excellent bowling side, but I can only really remember the period from the last Ashes to the end of 2011 where the batting was really dominant as well.

There is nothing to celebrate. Englands bar needs to be set higher.

SA wouldnt have been pleased with this and Bilt is right.

Hopefully this win will kick start us and if it does I allready feel sorry for the Kiwis..

The other thing England will have to watch is the overs bowled by Broad and Anderson,

Anderson bowled 35 overs
Broad bowled 32 overs
The rest only bowled 24 overs.

You don't want to over burden Broad and Anderson now with the Ashes coming up. I realise this was a case of killing off the NZ 2nd innings, but even when you look at the first innings, Anderson and Broad bowled 65% of the overs, you can't expect them to do that.

Well there wasnt many overs bowled so it isnt that material IMO..(65% of a low amount of overs compared 50% of loads- which is worse)

they just started off- did well and continued on..

They wont be overly tired after that ..

Not in a one off test I agree, but if Cook doesn't trust his other bowlers enough he could over work them throughout the series.

I didn't see the last innings, but Cook could have tested the others with a few overs just to see what happened.

At one stage NZ were 52/5 by memory, ideal time.

I think it was more of a case of not needing the others.

He still utilsed finn and he got a fair share of wickets. And swan wasnt needed!

If the sun had come out and NZ were holding onto there wickets yesterday I am sure swann would have been the most important bowler at the end

I expect Cook does trust his other bowlers, but you would have had to drag Broad and Anderson off yesterday.

I feel if a bowler is on a roll like that they should be kept on - they were both on fire and wanted those wickets: Broad to get his best ever figures, Anderson to add more to his tally on the way to becoming our highest ever wicket taker.

With England's batting still having serious questions about their ability to prevent spectacular middle order collapses as was the case in the first test at Lords, perhaps England could use South Africa's blueprint of playing a specialist batsman at number 8. To me this makes good sense as England have 3 tried and trusted world class bowlers in their team already so if they need a fourth bowler they can always use Trott or Root's bowling. A starting XI for the Headingley match that looks more solid in the batting is as follows:-

1 Compton
2 Cook
3 Trott
4 Bell
5 Root
6 Bairstow
7 Prior
8 Taylor (to play the Francois du Plessis type role)
9 Broad
10 Swann
11 Anderson

Well, I'm back from a weekend of rugby-watching and beer drinking in Dublin. What time does the 1st test start again?

Pete C (Kiwireddevil) wrote:Well, I'm back from a weekend of rugby-watching and beer drinking in Dublin. What time does the 1st test start again?

This coming Friday, but with the Kiwis automatically 1-0 down at the start!

gboycottnut wrote:With England's batting still having serious questions about their ability to prevent spectacular middle order collapses as was the case in the first test at Lords, perhaps England could use South Africa's blueprint of playing a specialist batsman at number 8. To me this makes good sense as England have 3 tried and trusted world class bowlers in their team already so if they need a fourth bowler they can always use Trott or Root's bowling. A starting XI for the Headingley match that looks more solid in the batting is as follows:-

1 Compton
2 Cook
3 Trott
4 Bell
5 Root
6 Bairstow
7 Prior
8 Taylor (to play the Francois du Plessis type role)
9 Broad
10 Swann
11 Anderson

What about Carberry for Swann? Headingley = Spinner's graveyard

VTR wrote:

gboycottnut wrote:With England's batting still having serious questions about their ability to prevent spectacular middle order collapses as was the case in the first test at Lords, perhaps England could use South Africa's blueprint of playing a specialist batsman at number 8. To me this makes good sense as England have 3 tried and trusted world class bowlers in their team already so if they need a fourth bowler they can always use Trott or Root's bowling. A starting XI for the Headingley match that looks more solid in the batting is as follows:-

1 Compton
2 Cook
3 Trott
4 Bell
5 Root
6 Bairstow
7 Prior
8 Taylor (to play the Francois du Plessis type role)
9 Broad
10 Swann
11 Anderson

What about Carberry for Swann? Headingley = Spinner's graveyard

Carberry is less of an attacking player than Taylor, and by putting him in at 7 or 8 in the batting order, it really does reduce the pressures on his shoulders at this stage of his international career.

gboycottnut wrote:With England's batting still having serious questions about their ability to prevent spectacular middle order collapses as was the case in the first test at Lords, perhaps England could use South Africa's blueprint of playing a specialist batsman at number 8. To me this makes good sense as England have 3 tried and trusted world class bowlers in their team already so if they need a fourth bowler they can always use Trott or Root's bowling. A starting XI for the Headingley match that looks more solid in the batting is as follows:-

1 Compton
2 Cook
3 Trott
4 Bell
5 Root
6 Bairstow
7 Prior
8 Taylor (to play the Francois du Plessis type role)
9 Broad
10 Swann
11 Anderson

As insightful as ever!. Interesting bit of information that Vernon Philander is picked as a specialist batsman!.