This is just such brain dead cricket! Bairstow, Ali and woakes all pathetic dismissals! 13 dropped catches!? 0 fight in this team
Two years ago it was abundantly clear that we had a team, bar one player, that could not bat in Test matches. There was much gnashing of teeth about the fact the short form game had become complete King and we'd lost all our Test match talent as a result.
The master stroke of the current approach is we've sort of accepted that - you can't develop Test batsmen over night. Instead, we've essentially asked 11 players to play One Day when batting, and backed that up by bowling for wickets and trying to ensure every game is a win or loss situation - no hanging on for draws or wasting time building scores. That has made us competitive again- because other teams will not risk joining in when they have built Test teams.
If we went back to Test batting, or took our foot off the peddle a little on the One Day approach, we'd have been skittled in our innings. We'd probably have faced as many balls but been out for 120-150, because the Aussie bowlers are pretty good and our batsmen do not have the technique to survive. By pushing on, you make the bowler think about their game more, you introduce doubt.
Essentially, we've turned the worst batting Test team (maybe bar the Windies) into one that can get close to the best. We have retained a fairly good bowling attack, so the two combine to make this series almost a toss-up, almost. The Aussies are still a lot better than us, so will have an innings here and there that they just get too much for us, or an innings here and there where they outsmart the one day batting.
Maybe in a year or two, a couple of hybrid batsmen develop - able to be more Root when needed.
How many of our batsmen have 40+ averages, two? If we can get a couple more of those mixed in, then you can have the ability to go at five, but maybe settle in from time to time when it's needed to stretch an innings out.
