Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
Haven't England won 10 of their last 14?

The declaration meant a result was possible. There were 6 overs left, with the tail and then it is a new day, Root has to get in again. The big mistakes are Anderson is so undercooked, Bairstow too. There isn't a front line spinner to step in for Leach, and not taking the new ball was mental.

Also, on Bairstow. He is a world class batter and I'm pretty sure that's the worst he's ever kept.
Disagree about the declaration, Root hit something like fourteen off the over before the declaration, so six overs of him playing like that might have seen something like fifty scored. A result would have been possible if they’d batted on as it was only the firSt day. I’m not arguing against Bazball, but there are consequences to playing it - you win games you shouldn’t have, but we’re now starting to see that you lose games you shouldn’t.

There’s also consequences to picking Bairstow as wicketkeeper (someone said on Test Match Special that it’s a few years since Bairstow has played as a test wicketkeeper and that his body shape had changed in that time - they weren’t surprised that his wicket keeping, which was never top class, had declined).

My point is that the whole Bazball thing seems doomed to failure to me because as soon as things start to go wrong, there’ll be influential people within the game down on it like a ton of bricks saying I told you so - even if England come back and win the Ashes playing like they have been for the past year, I can’t see it becoming the norm in test cricket in the future (if test cricket has a future).