The International Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

Root as captain is not a great call and an indictment of planning.

[Villan For Life]

Root as captain is not a great call and an indictment of planning.

Unfortunately there’s no credible alternative.

If Brook continues as white ball captain then I can see someone like Bethell becoming England captain in about 18 months time.

[tomd2103]

Root as captain is not a great call and an indictment of planning.

Unfortunately there’s no credible alternative.

If Brook continues as white ball captain then I can see someone like Bethell becoming England captain in about 18 months time.

Pretty happy with the appointment of Flemimg.  Fine player, excellent captain and been a good coach.  I do think the fact he is going to have a close working relationship with McCullum was probably a factor in his appointment, as they are rumoured to be pretty close (though it wouldn't surprise me if McCullum left to do the T20 /100 circuit after the next lot of white ball games).

Joe Root as skipper is very uninspiring given his past record and the little reminder earlier in the summer, but I full accept there weren't really many other alternatives.

[olaftab]

Root as captain is not a great call and an indictment of planning.

Indeed. He’s a wonderful batsman but a clueless cricket captain. I suppose it illustrates the porosity of current England Test cricketers.

[cdbearsfan]

They seem to have gone from having about half a dozen feasible test captains to having none very quickly. I wouldn't be amazed if they beat Pakistan, but not confident at all for South Africa away, the anniversary test or the Ashes.

[Villan For Life]

Root’s captaincy first time around wasn’t quite as bad as is being suggested. Yes he only had one victory in his final seventeen tests but that’s not much different from Ben Stokes’ record over the last 18 months.

Root’s captaincy also included the Covid tests played in secure bio bubbles at Manchester and Southampton, that must have been really hard on all of the players but particularly the captain.

All England captains are measured on their performance in the Ashes and there’s not many that can claim they succeeded against the Aussies, including Root and Stokes.

It’s not an ideal appointment but it is the logical one, for now.

[Richard]

As a stop gap its fine, they dont seem to think Brook is capable and I'd agree. Bethell might be one day but he needs to nail down his test place first.

[PaulWinch again]

I think it’s probably more they think Brook is doing a good job with the white ball team and probably don’t want to throw that up in the air too.

[paul_e]

Root is a very timid captain, he keeps things very safe with his bowling plans and fielding setup and that got exposed badly towards the end of his run when we started having some very big totals posted against us. That's exactly why they pushed things so hard the other way with McCullum and Stokes and had huge success in the short term because we were suddenly bowling like we were in a rush.

We need to find someone a little more in the middle of the 2 to be aggressive in the field and want to keep the game moving but who can also temper that flame a little when we're batting.

[dcdavecollett]

Another problem is that the cares of the captaincy might take something away from Root's batting improvement since he lost the job.