Cricket

Ivo said:
Stupid by broad. Block, block, block then hit it straight down fielder's throat. Why not play normal and hit it along the ground into a gap, get a run or two and rotate the strike?? Don't understand why he's going for a six.
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I really don't think he, or the others are helped by Foakes scoring 6 off 47 here. It's just allowing bowlers to bring them down, and then tailenders panic and do something stupid.
 
catcherintherye said:
He's a fine player but looks all at sea at the moment. Other than Crawley (and Root) I'm really not sure many of these England batsman have got the right mindset currently to score runs. They just look like they are trying to survive. Against top players, that will never be enough.

I mean in fairness to Pope he's what, 23? He's playing some top bowlers, in difficult conditions. So there is some mitigation.
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Yeah I agree about the mindset. I'm not just talking about this series with Pope though, as I said, if you take out the South Africa tour (where he got 2 decent not outs) he averages somewhere around 25. That's just not good enough. He's clearly a massive talent but they have to work on his weaknesses, one of which is that tendency to completely misjudge balls which go on to bowl him, as he did today. He's been bowled 6 times so far in a short test career, that's a concern.
 
Lanolin said:
Yeah I agree about the mindset. I'm not just talking about this series with Pope though, as I said, if you take out the South Africa tour (where he got 2 decent not outs) he averages somewhere around 25. That's just not good enough. He's clearly a massive talent but they have to work on his weaknesses, one of which is that tendency to completely misjudge balls which go on to bowl him, as he did today. He's been bowled 6 times so far in a short test career, that's a concern.
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And just to add in, South Africa today are not the South Africa of 20 years ago. It's a bit of a gimme. Fine he still has to score the runs, but it's a bit of a gimme. He's also batting number 6, which while you won't be able to make "big" scores from that position, it is an easier slot to bat in.

There's a very credible case that Buttler is currently a better option as a batsman at 6 than him.

I'm not sure how many tests he's had. My rule tends to be I give younger players 15 matches, then have a look at where they are at. He must be getting close to that point now.

My concern is, he didn't look great against the swinging ball in the summer, and today he's looked all at sea against a spinning ball, so you start to wonder what are his ideal conditions? The dismissal today wasn't great, it's the dismissal of someone who doesn't know where his off stump is.
 

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