4th Test England V Australia - Old Trafford

Not Ballance. He has proved to be not good enough.
Read my post above.
I'm not really bothered whether they give Ballance another go or not.
But as I said, he has a higher average than all our top 7 bar Root. But it's ok to keep giving them more games/time?
Buttler has got 1 hundred in 62 innings and it's still ok to pick him and hide him at 7?
Bairstow is an average w/k but is supposed to make up for it with runs but he hasn't got a decent score for a long time. In 2019 in 15 innings he is averaging 20 with 52 his highest score. Just two examples of a shambolic batting line up.
 
The likes of Northeast, Sibley and Foakes must wonder what the hell they need to do to get a decent chance in the team.
 
I sort of agree Tony but....
Is the cupboard bare?
How many openers have we tried since Strauss/ Cook retired?
Stoneman, Robson, Denley, Lyth andba whole host more ( tha Lancashire opener was one who looked pretty good before breaking his finger)
By all means try others but whether we will find the 3 or so batsmen we need)

I just think back to the late 90s. In our desperate attempts to put together a competent Test batting lineup, we tried the likes of Jason Gallian, Nick Knight, Steve James, Aftab Habib, Chris Adams, Darren Maddy...…..
Eventually we gave Trescothick and Vaughn a try. Neither of them had a blindingly impressive county resume, but someone amongst the selectors had seen them play, thought they had something - and they were right.

Then in the early 00s, when we were looking to replace Athers and Stewart, it was the likes of Ian Ward, Usman Afzaal, Rob Key, Anthony McGrath and Ed Smith himself - until we finally hit, in very quick succession, on Strauss, Bell & Pietersen (OK, he was a bit of a special case) and the greatest England Test team in recent memory was born.

Like we did then, we've got to keep giving new players a shot (and a genuine shot - probably five Test matches) until we finally find someone who can hack it.
 
I just think back to the late 90s. In our desperate attempts to put together a competent Test batting lineup, we tried the likes of Jason Gallian, Nick Knight, Steve James, Aftab Habib, Chris Adams, Darren Maddy...…..
Eventually we gave Trescothick and Vaughn a try. Neither of them had a blindingly impressive county resume, but someone amongst the selectors had seen them play, thought they had something - and they were right.

Then in the early 00s, when we were looking to replace Athers and Stewart, it was the likes of Ian Ward, Usman Afzaal, Rob Key, Anthony McGrath and Ed Smith himself - until we finally hit, in very quick succession, on Strauss, Bell & Pietersen (OK, he was a bit of a special case) and the greatest England Test team in recent memory was born.

Like we did then, we've got to keep giving new players a shot (and a genuine shot - probably five Test matches) until we finally find someone who can hack it.
How much influence does the England captain have when it comes to team selection? Sometimes I wonder if a dressing room can close ranks a little too much and it becomes very difficult for ‘outsiders’ to battle their way in.
 
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