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McFaul
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Aye, Rory Burns was the one I was in about. Surprised he hasn’t been given a go before now based on his age and stats. Don’t know much about him but presumed he was younger than 27

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18 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

How many lives does he get before they realise he’s been found out at test level?

Well I think this is probably his last one if he does come in for Bairstow.

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Cook's retired from international cricket. Bit of sad end to an amazing career but it was on his own terms at least. I would've liked to have seen him maybe take the winter off and take it from there but I guess he's the best judge of where he's at

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His form for England hasn't been great for a while, with just the two double centuries and a load of low scores in between, so I don't think it's too much of a surprise.  Certainly glad to see a player who has done what he has for England walking instead of being pushed.

 

First thought is it's going to be a nightmare replacing him but as things stand, there's not that much to replace in his recent form.  I guess it gives Jennings a bit of a reprieve as I don't imagine the selectors will want to chance both openers for the winter.  Looking at this seasons averages Burns looks like he's the obvious choice to come in.  Beyond him there's not many players in either division who look like they're knocking down the door to get into the squad.

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Can't understand Burns not getting in already to be honest. He's about 40 runs short of making 1,000 FC runs for the 5th year running, he's been opening and he's averaging 60+ in the First Division this year. Haven't seen much of him bar the odd T/20 game and I can only assume the selectors fancied a few other batsmen and hoped they would come good but Burns seems such an obvious choice.

As an aside, I think a major issue for batsmen in the longer form of the game in terms of making the England team is that so much first class cricket is now squeezed into the beginning and end of the season. This means a lot of matches are played when pitches tend to be much more bowler-friendly in April/May. Then when you're looking for batsmen in form when the tests begin they've often played very little first class cricket recently due to one-day and T20 taking precedent. Then come September the season is all but over. Can't see it being addressed in a hurry because the ECB only seems to care about money.

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Been coming. He probably had an eye on the ashes but recognised his form was unlikely to sustain him till next year. Unbelievable batsman in his heyday. Shame he suffered from not having a reliable opening partner since Strauss. How we could do with players like those two and trott in the top three now - proper test batsman who could occupy the crease and provide a platform.  

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

Can't understand Burns not getting in already to be honest. He's about 40 runs short of making 1,000 FC runs for the 5th year running, he's been opening and he's averaging 60+ in the First Division this year. Haven't seen much of him bar the odd T/20 game and I can only assume the selectors fancied a few other batsmen and hoped they would come good but Burns seems such an obvious choice.

As an aside, I think a major issue for batsmen in the longer form of the game in terms of making the England team is that so much first class cricket is now squeezed into the beginning and end of the season. This means a lot of matches are played when pitches tend to be much more bowler-friendly in April/May. Then when you're looking for batsmen in form when the tests begin they've often played very little first class cricket recently due to one-day and T20 taking precedent. Then come September the season is all but over. Can't see it being addressed in a hurry because the ECB only seems to care about money.

Aye it seems obvious the first class game here is set up so poorly for helping to develop batsmen.  Mind you, I think there's not a great amount of top order batsmen kicking about around the world at the moment.  The Indians do well at home but have all struggled here apart from the one knock for Pujara.  Warner and Bancroft didn't exactly score boat loads in the Ashes.  Markram was doing well for South Africa but was pretty ordinary at Durham (admittedly at the start of the season when the pitches were awful for batsmen.  Curran is currently 43rd ranked test batsman in the world!

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Curran looks quality and batted so correctly but he’s another middle order batsman / all rounder. He might end up as a proper batsman but I hope they don’t try and play him too high up the order before he’s ready just because of the lack of specialist batsmen 

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A lot of people in comments sections of articles on  Cook saying he’s not in the same class as the top 5 leading run scorers in test cricket. That might be true in terms of technique but he’s the only one of them who has chalked up 12k runs as an opener. Are there any other openers out there who value their wicket and will grind out runs in the same way? England have lots of flashy stroke makers but it would be good if we could unearth a player in the same mould. Perhaps Burns is that player 

 

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i agree. unbelievable mental strength and character to build his test career when he's only really got two main scoring shots - the pull and the square cut. other than that he was happy to nudge and nurdle it for ones and twos and wait for the bad ball in one of his scoring areas to put away. he must have been so annoying to bowl at in his pomp, his ability to leave the ball and not get frustrated if he went over after over without a boundary. we have players today with all the shots, who will struggle to get half the number of runs cook managed because they've been brought up on T20 and don't have the discipline to graft for runs in test cricket. 

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2 hours ago, Dr Gloom said:

A lot of people in comments sections of articles on  Cook saying he’s not in the same class as the top 5 leading run scorers in test cricket. That might be true in terms of technique but he’s the only one of them who has chalked up 12k runs as an opener. Are there any other openers out there who value their wicket and will grind out runs in the same way? England have lots of flashy stroke makers but it would be good if we could unearth a player in the same mould. Perhaps Burns is that player 

 

I'd point out that none of those are as good as Lara or Viv Richards.

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looks like jennings will go on the winter tours then, which seems like a stay of execution to me. i'm not convinced by him at all, but then i suppose they don't want to go into the winter with two openers with zero experience. 

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6 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

looks like jennings will go on the winter tours then, which seems like a stay of execution to me. i'm not convinced by him at all, but then i suppose they don't want to go into the winter with two openers with zero experience. 

Thing is, while they didn't exactly look great, most of the batsmen that have been recently discarded by England have looked better than Jennings.

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