I see.
England lost for the first time at Lord’s in a May test match, carrying on their inept displays from the winter tour to Australia and New Zealand.
A return to early season english conditions was meant to paper over the cracks of the Ashes shellacking and the loss in New Zealand. Ah yes, Lord’s in May against an unprepared Pakistan side, who can’t handle English conditions this time of year, what better way to say everything is OK.
Except it didn’t quite work out like that as England spectacularly failed against Pakistan in all aspects of the game, batting, bowling, fielding, team work, brains, thought, leadership, selection.
This Pakistan team are prepared, well prepared. Well managed. England meanwhile are poorly managed.
Bayliss has worked his stuff on the lesser games, the ODIs and T20s, in tests they are hopeless and there’s little chance of an upward swing, as the same mistakes are made over and over again, as his team try to play a limited over game in the test arena.
Split the coaching. Bayliss to the limited overs stuff and someone with an inkling of what the test game requires take charge of that side of the game.
Someone who can tell his batsmen to stop swinging at every ball and can tell his bowlers to stop bowling rubbish half trackers. Though who knows, maybe he does that and they just don’t listen, which should see him removed.
It has to be said Bayliss could be helped out by his selectors. When you can’t get a batsmen to stick around for any great length of time, especially the first innings, it’s not the greatest idea to pick a batsman just because he’s been slogging it around at the IPL. Oh yes he got a few in the second innings when the pressure was off because England were gonna lose anyway but he’s shown previously the longer form of the game is not for him and it’s doubtful that’ll change.
The fielding has got worse and worse under Bayliss. England regularly drop a number of catches per game, the slip cordon is a mess, chopping and changing, where no one knows if they should go for the ball or not.
Then there’s the bowling. Jimmy Anderson, The Burnley Bumpkin, the guy has 535 wickets, I tweeted the other day if he had a brain he’d have over 800, hell if he had half a brain he would have reached that number, with a full brain he’d be in four figures by now.
He sits there and watches the Pakistan bowlers, who aren’t used to these conditions and Lord’s, pitch the ball up and get wickets. He apparently needs Joe Root close by, mid on/off, to tell him how to bowl and what happens? He pitches it short. The bloke is educationally subnormal.
Michael Vaughan has finally come round to the fact that Anderson needs dropped, but he could really bringing himself to go the whole hog, so he had to include Broad. But it’s the only way you’ll get anything out of Anderson, he only performs these days when people start questioning his place in the side.
The others don’t offer up much better. We keep hearing how there needs to be more pace from the England bowlers, yet Abbas was taking wickets while not being lightning fast. Stokes thinks he needs to bowl faster and faster, so gets shorter and shorter and more useless. Wood, can you keep picking a bloke for a test here a test there because he can’t survive two tests? And Broad, well a dropping would just bring him down the notch or two needed.
Then maybe Root can captain the side without being deferential to players who are costing the team victories.