0England v New ZealandEngland vs New Zealand: Second Test, Day 2

First off a great big cherry bun with extra icing con­grat­u­la­tions to my fel­low York­shire lad Joe Root for his maid­en cen­tury. Joe – who even went to the same school as me and my fel­low author of this web­site (King Ecg­berts in Shef­field) – simply oozes class. Bar­ring injury he’s going to be an Eng­land fix­ture for many years to come.

But Joe aside there has to be con­cern at the form, or lack there­of, of the Eng­land top order. And ques­tions need to be raised for a team with designs on the World num­ber one test ranking.

Nick Compton might have a genet­ic his­tory to die for – but at just a few weeks shy of his 30th birth­day he’s hardly a spring chick­en and is lack­ing in form. Doubts remain for me that he has the world class abil­ity required at the very top of the order. There are plenty of oth­er options out there too. Hampshire’s Mike Car­berry is reg­u­larly men­tioned and is per­haps at the head of the queue (although at 32 he is already into his fourth dec­ade). But the nat­ur­al option would appear to push Root up to open. He’s a nat­ur­al open­er and has the self-assur­ance and, most import­antly, sheer class to occupy the most import­ant bat­ting spot in the order.

We then look at the rest of the bat­ting line-up. Cook isn’t in the best of nick but will redis­cov­er his form. He is too good a play­er to be held back in the 20s and 30s for much longer. Trott is the same. KP will hope­fully be back in time for the Ashes and Root’s place would seem assured. Bair­stow has also had a very good series so far and Eng­land should stick with him – espe­cially as, with a bit of work with the gloves, he could be the long-term replace­ment behind the sticks for Prior.

There is one clear omis­sion from the list above. Ian Bell. I hear time and time again that Bell has the best tech­nique of all the Eng­land bats­men. Per­haps so (although when Pieterson is in the mood no one comes close to him in the Eng­land camp) but per­son­ally I’ve nev­er felt Bell has ever quite belonged in the Eng­land line up. He’s rarely there when it really mat­ters and always seems one good score away from being dropped (and OK usu­ally goes out and gets the big score just in the nick of time). When Bell came to the crease today with Eng­land wob­bling I nev­er thought he would be the one to res­cue the team. A nice 30 or even a 40 yes. Per­haps even a 50. But I did not have the con­fid­ence he would go out and get the cen­tury Eng­land required and that was duly delivered by Root with able sup­port from Bair­stow. Eng­land needed Bell and he didn’t quite deliver.

Per­haps I am being harsh on Bell – but I prom­ise you this isn’t a decision based on two fairly poor games. It’s been through­out his Eng­land career that I have had my doubts and if the rest of the top order aren’t fir­ing on all cyl­in­ders Eng­land can’t afford to carry any passengers.

 

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