The squad to face New Zealand has created opportunities for players to press their international claims beyond this summerA packed international summer starts on Wednesday with the first of two Tests against New Zealand, and from then on England face a brutal schedule across all three formats running through to the Twenty20 World Cup and the Ashes. It’s not just the sheer quantity of games or the quality of the opposition that makes this summer exciting: the ECB has shown in its squad selection that it is going to look after its three-format players, and what that means is opportunity for others. Related: England’s Ollie Robinson pledges to ‘get in New Zealand faces’ in first Test Related: Tim Southee: ‘New...
England last combined the role of head coach and sole selector in the 1990s – it will be fascinating to see how it plays outChris Silverwood has preferred to keep a low profile during his time as England’s head coach but by now taking on the additional job of sole selector, and thus approaching something more commonly found in football and rugby, the spotlight will get a notch or two brighter.In a year when the stated aims are clear – add the T20 World Cup to the trophy cabinet and regain the Ashes – the question of who is responsible for what has certainly been simplified. Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, respective captains of the Test and white-ball teams, remain...
Smith was not a total success but his knack for spotting talent will shape England for the best part of the next decadeSo Ed Smith has lost one of his many slashes. His potted CV now reads author / broadcaster / academic / Test cricketer, but not national selector. He still has more of the things than Fabio Lanzoni did when they gave him the Slashie award for being the best actor / model in the Zoolander movie.England haven’t just moved on from Smith, but the whole role of head selector, which has been scrapped and the job passed on to the head coach, Chris Silverwood, and his two captains, Joe Root and Eoin Morgan. Which seems a simpler way...
The Test series defeat to India came in extreme conditions and Joe Root’s side can bounce back this summerAmid all the despair about England’s heavy defeat in the Test series in India, it is important to keep some perspective: before the tour started almost everyone I spoke to was predicting a 4-0 defeat and, though it was in the end only a little less one-sided than that, Joe Root’s side avoided a whitewash and managed to pull off one of their best away results in recent years.India’s record at home is incredible and they came into the series full of confidence after winning in Australia; England had an inexperienced batting lineup, particularly against spin, and badly needed a top-level, ready-to-go...
The wicketkeeper-batsman’s ever-changing Test role has not offered him the best chance to flourish in the longest formatOne summer, when he was 16 years old, carefree and on the very verge of life itself, Jonny Bairstow and a few of his friends went on a surfing holiday to Cornwall. One evening, he tells us in his autobiography, A Clear Blue Sky, they were sitting blissfully on the beach in Newquay when someone asked what everyone’s father did for a living. Bairstow explained in an even voice that his own father had died some years earlier. There was an awkward silence. And then someone laughed: a cruel, disbelieving, illogical laugh. Feeling the tears welling inside him, shaking with rage and embarrassment...