Why England’s timid, deficient batters are simply not good enough

It is time England accepted our batters are not good enough. The openers are walking wickets and the Aussie bowlers are queuing up to get at them.

England fans compliment Rory Burns for his determination and strength of character but that cannot make up for an awful technique. He just looks ugly with his feet and arms all over the place. His front foot goes forward before the bowler delivers the ball, before he can judge the length. When it is short, there is a panic of arms and legs with the body chest on to try to block the ball. When he does play forward, he often gets his foot on the wrong side of the ball, which makes him have to play around and across his front pad. It is hard to be consistent with all those problems.

Opening the batting against good bowlers with a new ball is the toughest place to bat in Test cricket. That is why so many guys want to bat down the order. Having a good technique is necessary and can be a priceless asset that gives an opener the best chance of success.

Haseeb Hameed looks OK at the crease, but his technique is too simplistic. He plays forward and back in a straight line, which is fine, but an opener has to be able to adjust and go with the swing or off the pitch seam movement. You just cannot bat in straight lines all the time.

Haseeb is a limited batter who can only score in certain areas. That is OK up to a point and he can do a bit of good with his stickability. But opening, you will occasionally get unplayable deliveries, so you cannot give your wicket away to innocuous balls like in the first innings, when he chipped it to mid-on.

I hope I am wrong, but he looks a bit timid and overawed by the situation.

Ollie Pope, Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed.Credit: AP

England should consider opening with Dawid Malan. His technique of staying back, judging what to leave and playing straight is good. It is so important for team morale and to achieve big totals that you have successful opening bats.

It is not ideal, but Joe Root at some stage may have to bat at three. He does not like it and I agree it is not best asking your star batter to move from his favourite No. 4 spot. In the short term, with this England batting line-up, it may be a question of needs must.

England have to do something different because they are not scoring enough runs to put Australia under any sort of scoreboard pressure.

Too much has been expected of Ben Stokes. Enough said.

How can you be young, talented, have a good technique and still keep failing? Ask Ollie Pope, who is making a mess of his opportunities. He has scored only 48 runs in four innings. But, most importantly, he has edged one good ball and got himself out three times to poor strokes or poor judgment. That is not good enough at this level. Stop it. How many times have I said: make the bowlers bowl you out with good balls. England cannot keep waiting for the penny to drop in Pope’s head. If he does not learn, he will have to go.

Jos Buttler is an enigma. People love his attacking batting in white-ball cricket so make excuses and forgive his bad days. In Adelaide, his wicketkeeping was poor, dropping three regulation catches. Catching a couple does not offset the ones he drops. Wicketkeepers have a big pair of gloves and are supposed to catch the ball, plus they are judged not on how many catches they take, but on how many they drop. The confidence of the bowlers can go up or down depending on whether they have confidence that the keeper will take the catches.

The problem is so many people are seduced by his fantastic one-day strokes and will overlook his mistakes. Liking him or his batting does not help the team. He has to keep better. His Test batting blows hot and cold, and he does not do enough against top bowlers in pressure situations.

Scoring runs when you lose easily does not count for me. It is about making runs to help your team win or save a Test match. So far, he has done neither.

England keep selecting Chris Woakes for his late-order runs to help their fragile batting. Did his runs in Adelaide affect the winning or losing of the Test? No. His few runs cannot offset his lack of wicket-taking ability abroad.

In English conditions, Woakes is an excellent bowler, a very good all-rounder - but his record abroad on flatter batting pitches is poor. In this Test, he bowled 37 overs, taking one wicket for 149 runs. If he was trying to hit the middle of the Aussie bats then he succeeded! A good ball or two followed by an easily hittable ball lets the pressure off the batters. As a batter on good pitches, you are queuing up to face him because you know you will get a “run ball” shortly. Stop selecting him to protect England’s batters.

England need to pick bowlers to take 20 wickets and the batters have to do better.

Telegraph, London

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