meninblue wrote:I am not impressed the way England have batted recently in the 3rd test. Run scoring is fine but many batsmen have fallen to very bad shot selection. Bad balls should be well left keeping bat away from line of the ball. England batsmen have tried to score runs off wicket taking balls. Some off them have played utterly rubbish shots to balls where no batsman can have control playing those Instead on such balls they tried to score runs which has led to easy wickets for Australia. Play on the merit of the ball - score 4's and 6's of bad balls rather than trying to score runs of very good ones.
Arthur Crabtree wrote:And my support of ENgland has been reawakened. I really lost interest when Cook was skipper, and that didn't change under Root. I like the way they play now, and their optimism, and accept it won't always work.
alfie wrote:Of course the critics of Bazball (I hate the term as much as DFM - and McCullum , by the way. But I fear we are stuck with it ) have been waiting behind the curtain ever since the early good results , ready to pile on as soon as anything went wrong. Another reason why this latest win was so important , as it might give them pause to reflect on whether their kneejerk criticisms should be dialled back and a bit more appreciation of the gains that have been made - however this particular series ends up
alfie wrote:I suppose one of the questions we might ask is whether Joe Root , the one batsman who is undeniably capable of batting all day , should be so keen to take on quite the level of risk he has in a couple of these matches ? With all those around him going hell for leather - and probably maximizing their chances by doing so , as per your analysis ; it might still be better for England if he held more to his personal "busy" but not outlandish batting style. (Doesn't have to abandon the "reverse scoop" altogether. But perhaps play a bit more to his strengths which generally have him scoring at a fair clip anyway)
Durhamfootman wrote: As far as agressive shot selection goes, I don't see that as part of the ethos. For me, Bazball (I hate the word, btw) is not about going mental at every opportunity, it's about not being afraid to go mental when it's the right thing to do. That's the way I see it anyway. I think the several test matches where Stokes came out swinging stupidly from the off was about letting everybody else off the leash rather than a demonstration of how to play. He doesn't do that so much now.... he's made the point
sussexpob wrote:Alex Hales and Buttler really stand out as players who tried to conform to an objective standard and approach, but both ended up batting to their own weaknesses and failing. And the question was never "lets see what Hales stroke making can do", it was always "can he block the ball as required". Arguably the purest hitter of the cricket ball I have ever seen in an England shirt, batting like a crap version of Mike Atherton.... did we expect it to work? If Hales was to fail, I wanted it to be in a blaze of glory, not lamely snicking off having never attempted to get out of gear 1. At least in the Bazzer/Stokes dressing room, we'd have found out what Hales A game had to offer.
sussexpob wrote:meninblue wrote:I am not impressed the way England have batted recently in the 3rd test. Run scoring is fine but many batsmen have fallen to very bad shot selection. Bad balls should be well left keeping bat away from line of the ball. England batsmen have tried to score runs off wicket taking balls. Some off them have played utterly rubbish shots to balls where no batsman can have control playing those Instead on such balls they tried to score runs which has led to easy wickets for Australia. Play on the merit of the ball - score 4's and 6's of bad balls rather than trying to score runs of very good ones.
It occurs to me watching England for many years, that they simply don't have that many players who can play each ball on its merit. Zak Crawley is the absolute zenith example.... within 50 balls of most innings, he will play at something outside offstump and edge it. So rather than bat out 50 balls going nowhere until that happens, the idea is simply in terms of efficiency, if he bats aggressively he might score some runs in the meantime, with the added bonus that when he is on the rampage going at SR80+, a fielding team will be far less inclined to have catchers waiting for that ball with his name on it.
For all that has been said in the last decade about England and why their batting fails, many people used to focus on their aggression and playing sloppy shots, but looking at players who have played more than a few innings..
Lees.... SR43
Dom SIbley----SR34
Dan Lawrence - SR53
Jason Roy .. SR58 (considering he was billed as an aggressive go play your shots option, not that high).
Rory Burns... SR43
Foakes....SR48
Hameed...SR32
Jennings....SR42
Malan...SR40
Westley...SR42
Stoneman ...SR44
Hales...SR43 (one of the fastest modern day LO hitters)
Vince....SR49
Buttler.... SR54!!!
Robson...SR44
And so on.....Out of that list, the only people who go over 3 an over are Buttler, who is England's quickest striking batsman ever (and only just), and Dan Lawrence. But both end up merely bang average, the rest are well below.
Actually, for top order batters, had Sibley and Hameed scored a 1000 runs, they would be in a shout for the lowest strike rates ever recorded in the history of test cricket. Only Mike Smith's SR of 30 comes below Hameed, and that is from an estimated figure that cant be verified, because it predates scorers actually computing many innings. Basically, for confirmed innings, these are two of the lowest, if not THE lowest top order specialists, ever to play the game.
So its never been a case of mentality or method. If anything, England went back to grinding cricket at snails pace, and what happened? They broke all time records for low averages of innings. The batters couldn't see off that many balls without errors. What Bazball has done is to appreciate that we simply don't have many cricketers who can bat a day. So bat a small part of the day, and try and score as many as possible.
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