England hindered themselves straight off the bat on this
West Indies tour with their selection in the first test. Granted it can happen
that you misread a pitch. England certainly did but even so their team selection
was weird. If they thought it was going to be a slow turner selecting Rashid as
the second spinner, rather than Leach, was misguided given Rashid has basically
been used for bowling at the tail, and Root seems unwilling to trust him. An
attack of Anderson, Curran, Stokes, Ali and Rashid just put too much emphasis
on Anderson and Stokes, two guys you really want to be looking after.
Olly Stone was injured before the tests got underway which
was a shame given he would have been useful on a lot of these wickets getting
bounce and movement. He hits the pitch hard and would have found the up and
down bounce more than Anderson and Curran did. He probably wouldn't have played though judging by the team selections. It still feels like a missed
opportunity to have not played him in that final test in Sri Lanka, especially
when you consider that Broad, who did play in SL, was then dropped for the
first test in the West Indies.
The return of Keaton Jennings for the third test was a cruel
gesture by the England management. After being dropped after the first test, he
and they surely thought his tour was over. He spent most of the time in the second
test substitute fielding at short leg, and it possibly wasn’t until a couple of
days before the third test that he would have became an option for selection. There
would have been very little time to work on his game, or to attune his mind to the task ahead. Why was he considered for
selection? Probably because they no longer wanted to bat Bairstow at 3, and
Root was once again reluctant to move up to 3 – and so they stuck a guy who was
struggling back in to open. Too often Root has moved others to make his life
easier. As captain, and the best player it makes sense to a degree to make him
happy, and it’s his prerogative as captain to make that decision. Still using Balance
at 3 (who bats below Root at Yorkshire), Ali at 3, Stokes at 3, Pope at 4,
bringing Jennings back; none of these things were likely to be successes.
Whilst most would appreciate the chance of playing for England and be accepting
of the opportunity, many of these haven’t been given the best chance of
success.
Bairstow looked particularly cheery this game having got his
way back batting at his favoured 7. 3 tests of decent success and he’s dropped back
down. Really you must ask what was the point? It’s tough putting the team
together with the lack of top order options but the team selection over this series
was especially troubling.
