17 man Squad
Root ©
Hameed
Burns
Crawley
Buttler
Pope
Malan
Bairstow
Lawrence
Robinson
Woakes C
C Overton
Bess
Anderson
Broad
Wood
Leach
England management after 4-0 loss in Australia last time. ‘ we need to select bowlers for conditions and didn’t have a bowling attack that could take 20 wickets consistently on Australian pitches that don’t swing’
Last series bowlers : Anderson, Broad, Woakes, Overton, T Curran, Moeen, Crane … fastest bowler low 80’s, spin from all rounder and baby leggy
This series : Anderson , Broad,Woakes, Robinson, Overton, Leach, Wood, Bess … one fast bowler who can’t play back to backs … a group of low 80’s bowlers … one spinner in Leach who they chose to drop and not play earlier this year and Bess a baby offy.
Glad they learnt the lesson from previous series defeats lol
^^ The word from the England camp is they have an accurate seam bowling group, but will that be as accurate on Australian soil ? In fairness, injuries to Archer, Stone & Stokes have depleted our pace options. We aren't exactly blessed with 90+ mph bowlers, & pace without accuracy will still go the distance. That said they're know about this issue long for some time, & have missed a couple of opportunities to blood at least one pace bowler. I liked the look of Carse this summer, he bowls high 80's & was worth having a look at. Australia isn't the best place to make your debut, but the way I see it is we've nothing to lose. Even Stone, who was destined to tour, has been left out of the XI on a number of occasions, with England playing both Broad & Anderson. Soon enough, they will both retire, there's no forward planning, Woakes is injury prone, & we'll end up with 2 inexperienced new ball bowlers, if we're not careful.
This squad looks like the weakest to tour Australia for many years.
Carse was worth a look, Saqib is a high 80’s bowler who can move the ball too. Even Garton bowls a heavy ball and is a strapping lad to give a left arm option.
I just don’t see England frustrating Smith and Labushagne (sorry for spelling) into getting out regularly.
Could be a 5-0 whitewash for the Aussies if we are not bowling effectively and exploiting those conditions early on.
Lack of variety in the England bowling department and a weak batting order prone to collapses against the Australian bowling line up spells trouble. First test at the Gabba is key.
Lose that and it could end up 5-0 to Australia.
Avoid defeat there then you never know.
But it looks a very tall order.
I would agree winning at the Gabba could be key to whether we can pull off something special. I'd say this series could be quite a eye opener for some and very much a difficult.
If I have one cricticism of the squad named, I don't think we have a good blend of experience and youth like we have done in the past, that probably could be another one of our biggest undoings, but I certainly do think this possibly will be the last time we'll see Anderson and Broad spearheading our attack abroad. I can't see either wanting to tour abroad again, should this tour go badly. Let's all hope the series goes it's full distance without any outside circumstances dictating the outcome otherwise.
Only 2 batters have more than 3 hundreds, Root and Bairstow and only Root averages over 40, which used to be a minimum for international batters. It isn’t a recipe for winning matches let alone an away Ashes series. Pope and Hameed have potential, but the rest we’ve seen fail too often.
Positive news for England, as Stokes has been cleared fit, & added to the Test Squad.
I would make Australia favourites, but by a slim margin! Stokes inclusion has improved England's chances considerably though!! Very powerful squad on paper England are bringing down under! Not sure how Hameed will go (maybe the one question mark before the first ball is bowled - and Burns can be hot or freezing. The bowling unit looks solid enough, with only the spin squad with any doubts (however small) surrounding it for me! I am making the assumption that Broad/Anderson will remain upright through 5 high intensity tests. Quite compact too in terms of time between each one??