Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
A genuine observation about Joe Root's promotion to number three though - I absolutely don't see the point in turning a strength into a potential weakness just so that you can fit other players into more natural positions for them. Root is the perfect example of that.
In the ideal Test team, he would bat at number five. He's a busy player; he likes to score quickly and has a tendency to push away from his body against the seamers because he likes to feel bat on ball. Doesn't like to leave the ball, and is also the team's best player of spin. He also has an average of nearly 70 batting in that position, despite most of those innings having come before what would notionally be considered his peak.
There is also supporting evidence in the fact that the further he gets away from his ideal number five position, the less success he has: at number four, he has an average of 51, in the top three that drops further to about 40. Promoting him to number three is the sort of desperate roll of the dice that shows a team's planning and analytics are up the spout: Root's value against a replacement number five is astronomical; his value against a replacement number three is not.
The compromise of batting him at number four is a decent one; it still gets somewhere near the best out of him (see: 2021) whilst allowing England to squeeze in another two middle-order players (currently Stokes and Bairstow) where they would otherwise only be able to fit one. Shunting him up to number three though - that's pretty iffy.
I don't have answers to who England can pick in order to solve any sort of Root-related balance problem, but it would be an interesting start to begin with picking the best players in their best positions and then filling in the gaps around them. Would probably look something like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Root
6. Stokes
7. Foakes
8.
9.
10. Broad
11. Anderson
... and quite how one builds a balanced team out of that I have no idea.
In the ideal Test team, he would bat at number five. He's a busy player; he likes to score quickly and has a tendency to push away from his body against the seamers because he likes to feel bat on ball. Doesn't like to leave the ball, and is also the team's best player of spin. He also has an average of nearly 70 batting in that position, despite most of those innings having come before what would notionally be considered his peak.
There is also supporting evidence in the fact that the further he gets away from his ideal number five position, the less success he has: at number four, he has an average of 51, in the top three that drops further to about 40. Promoting him to number three is the sort of desperate roll of the dice that shows a team's planning and analytics are up the spout: Root's value against a replacement number five is astronomical; his value against a replacement number three is not.
The compromise of batting him at number four is a decent one; it still gets somewhere near the best out of him (see: 2021) whilst allowing England to squeeze in another two middle-order players (currently Stokes and Bairstow) where they would otherwise only be able to fit one. Shunting him up to number three though - that's pretty iffy.
I don't have answers to who England can pick in order to solve any sort of Root-related balance problem, but it would be an interesting start to begin with picking the best players in their best positions and then filling in the gaps around them. Would probably look something like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Root
6. Stokes
7. Foakes
8.
9.
10. Broad
11. Anderson
... and quite how one builds a balanced team out of that I have no idea.
