England's Tour of Australia - Ashes, ODIs and T20s 13/14

I would agree that England could do with bringing in some new faces but does not seem to be very much knocking on the door at the moment. Despite the very disappointing performance in Oz, I would also be against the wholesale dismantling of what has been a very successful team up until this series.

Long term replacements are already required for Swann, Trott and possibly Prior with a number of candidates are in contention for the third seemers place for me that is probably enough changes for 2014, IMHO.

Good post Jack. I agree three players need replacing at least the three mentioned by Jack plus Bresnan and I would be taking a long hard look at Anderson in the Summer. He certainly will be playing for his place. I would move Bell in to number three Pietersen at four he just about done enough to keep going with and Root at Five with Stokes at six that looks a decent top order.

I would have a look at Kiewswetter as my wicket keeper bat. Bairstow not the answer and my pace attack would be Broad no. 8 Onions no 9 Finn/Anderson dependent on form 10 and Panesar ( there aint a better spinner) Borthwick and Tredwell no where near.

I am also concerned about the captaincy issue I think its had a massive effect on Cook. I would relieve him of the ODI's and give it to Bell see how he does as a possible replacement. Broad has shown he is a poor captain in his time with the T20's

We need to work on a core of about 18 players who can play within this structure. We have only one summer and a winter before we face the Aussies again in England so the work needs to start now.

This has been a dismal tour for England caused by a number of factors..
The first concern I would highlight is that the top seven in the batting order have not scored enough runs either individually or as a unit. This, however has been the case for most of 2013 even going as far back as the tour of New Zealand which was the first stage where my level of concern was raised.
This Ashes tour has been dominated by self inflicted dismissals due to either poor shot selection, poor technique, lack of foot movement, or an endless desire to waft at balls outside off stump.
And then we reach 8,9,10,Jack who have been psychologically crippled by Mitchell Johnson.
Either he gets them out with his raw pace or they get themselves out by playing daft shots at the other end.
He seems to have had a dual effect. Fill the tail enders with dread at one end and stupidity at the other.
The last recognised batsman who ends up having to bat with the tail is now faced with a difficult problem as Pietersen found out in Melbourne. His answer was to hit out because his confidence in the tail end was nil.
Some months back I seem to remember Dale Steyn of South Africa decimating England's tail end either himself or through the trepidation at facing him.
Against many teams the wagging tail has been a bail out mechanism for the failings of the top seven.
Johnson has removed this and the effect has been devastating.

Of course it would be churlish of me not to give credit to the Australian captain Clarke.
His tactics have been spot on.
Find all the favoured shots and scoring areas of every England batsmen and promptly block them all off giving them nowhere to go.
Bowl the correct line and length all day long, slow the scoring rate to snail pace and wait for batsman after batsman to lose patience and get himself out or for an unplayable ball to do the job instead.
The Aussie bowlers have executed their skills well and the field settings have been masterly from Clarke.
Then once the tail enders emerge its time for Johnson to create his usual mayhem and a bunch of wickets to fall in no time at all.

The batting is the primary area of concern but certainly not the only one.
The line and length of England's bowling has been inconsistent and their inability to polish off the Australian tail has been made more noticeable precisely because the England tail has been so consistently demolished.
In the second innings of these tests the destruction of the England bowling has at times been merciless. Admittedly the bowlers were trying to repair damage done by the failings of their batsmen but nonetheless the utter distain shown to the England bowling has, at times been frightening.
However once again Australia have to be given credit.
It was obvious that above all other bowlers that the intent was to target Swann.
They were intent on dictating terms to Swann and not allowing him to tie up an end.
They realized that he was the key component and gave Cook some control. They set about removing that safety harness in just the same way Johnson had removed the wagging tail safety harness.
Little did they or we know that Swann would retire after the third test but that is another debate for another day.

And then there is the endless multitude of dropped catches that is indicative of confidence being shot to pieces and broken spirit.
Missed opportunity after missed opportunity as the bowler realizes the batsman has been given an extra life and the wicket effectively has to be taken twice.

In essence this series to me has seemed to be a battle between two contrasting teams and captains.
Australia, hell bent on winning every game by the biggest possible margin.
Focussed on dismantling every England strength and exposing every weakness to the full. Prepared, fired up, merciless, calculated and ruthless to the last.
England, ill prepared, lacking in any sort of plans to stop the opposition dictating terms, low on confidence and spirit, lacking in imagination.
High on error, low on imagination. Heads dropping at a rate only superceded by the rate at which their wickets were being tossed away.

So what is the answer.
Well thats the other bad news, it is not entirely evident that in the short term at least that there is an answer.
If Cook goes as captain who replaces him?
There are compelling arguments against every other England player doing so on the grounds of leadership experience, temperament or even the merits of them being in the side in the first place.
If and when Anderson calls it a day do we have a replacement of the same skill and quality?
If Prior calls it a day the same question arises despite his poor form this year.
Form is temporary, class is permanent.
Now that Swann has retired do we have a replacement who can take the amount of wickets that he has taken in his test career at the sort of economy at which he has taken them?
If we drop Carberry who has shown signs of retreating into his shell through not going on to make big scores and and the ensuing fear of losing his place in just the same fashion as Nick Compton then do we go back to Compton or try to find someone else.
Or do we promote Root back to opening which has already been shelved as an idea once already.
If we drop Pietersen is that not dumping the most gifted player England has?
A man with 21 test centuries and an excellent test average.
Just how do you replace that?
Yes he does get himself out but you tell me an England batsman that doesn't!!!
He is by no means the only guilty party in this regard.

The problems are severe, the solutions not obvious and the prospects for the future uncertain at best.

^ Well put Snookered. Some difficult questions and as you allude to no obvious answers. I agree with SSG that Monty is by far the best out and out spinner although he is hardly likely to help in the tail enders making runs department.

Giving debuts in Ashes series isn't ideal.If Borthwick get the nod it could be Simon Kerrigan all over again.
I've been calling for Carberry to get a go for years,but he has to bat more like he does in ODi cricket,otherwise he has to go.This Summer I'd like to see Varun Chopra,or Sam Robson open,which would be fun having an Aussie in our side for the next Ashes Series.
Just as a one-off for Sydney why not pair up Cook & KP to open,they were a big hit when they last did it in ODI's & it would prevent KP from chucking his wicket away when he's running out of partners.This would allow Ballance a go,he has the game for Test Match cricket.
The bowling's a problem,Finn is still the future,not at his best but has always had the ability to take wickets so worth a gamble even if the pitch wont really suit him.

For the final test I would probably make two changes and I would make one slightly longer term change.

I would rest Broad and bring in Finn.
The reason for this is that after the test series I would drop Cook from the one day series and take him out of the firing line altogether. Broad would then take over as captain for the ODIs and 20/20s.
Ideally I would not want to risk Broad getting injured with the series already gone and would save him for the limited overs stuff and take the opportunity to rest his mind and body a bit.
Cook for me is showing signs of strain and bewilderment.
He needs a clean break for a while imo.

I would also rest Joe Root for the final test and bring in Gary Ballance to bat at five wuth Bell moving up to three.
Root seems a little bit all over the shop at the minute and could do with a bit of time to clear his head before the limited overs stuff starts.

Get rid of Pietersen , he's a waste of time .
It's always about him .He's supposed to be the top batsman ,where'sthe match winning /saving innings ?
Pannesar is a joke ,always has been .
Has for the England "tail" being psychologically damaged by Johnson ? It's the whole team who are shit scared of him .Jesus! , they would never have played 1st class cricket in the pre-helmet era .
They're ALL scared of Johnson and they're ALL still worrying about facing him when the mediocre bowlers are on .
The bowling in this series has been 40-50% effective .The batting has been 90% INEFFECTIVE !

(30-12-2013 05:46 )mickster Wrote:  They're ALL scared of Johnson

Pietersen has told other (lower order) batsman on several occasions that he's happy to take the strike against Johnson, so Pietersen for one isn't scared. Bell has gone through 4 matches in this series without losing his wicket to Johnson, so he won't be scared either. Carberry has only been out to Johnson once. By the way, Johnson isn't as fast as Brett Lee was for Australia.

Of course the England players are not scared of johnson, at least half of the current team played against him on the last tour down under when we won 3-1. The simple truth is most of our top order batsmen have been playing poorly for the last 12 months and it was left to the bowlers to get the team out of trouble. If it was not for Ian Bells outstanding contribution in the last series we would probably have lost it. Cook, Trott, Pieterson, and Prior have been seriously short of runs, add to that the inexperience of Root, Bairstow and Carberry and we were asking for trouble.

Sounds as if Flower is going to ride it out & has backed Cook.He also mentioned that he would have liked Swann to have played out the whole series.