The first Test of the Ashes begins on July 8th in Cardiff, and the England squad has just been announced. England have many new, young players and a new coach, in Trevor Bayliss. It’s a brave new England team, and amid the doom and gloom that has greeted English cricket over the last two or three years, a new generation of cricketers has emerged.
Let’s have a look at the England squad for the Ashes: Alistair Cook, Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Steven Finn, Adam Lyth, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Mark Wood.
First impression, it is a well balanced outfit, with strengths in all departments, and led by a new superstar in Ben Stokes. Ben Stokes is a remarkable cricketer. He is a part of a rare breed – a genuine all-rounder. A genuine top-order batsman who bowls fast – very fast.
Players like Ben Stokes are very rare in cricket, and I can’t remember the last time we had a genuine all-rounder like him. One has to go back to the days of Ian Botham and Imran Khan, as Ben Stokes is very much in their class. A young man who can turn the course of a match with the bat as well as with the ball.
And the great thing about him is that he has no #1 skill – he is as good a batsman as he is a bowler. Stokes is a serious, serious talent and it is hoped that he stays injury free and serves English cricket for a long time to come.
Stokes is not the only world class young talent England has. There is the consistent Joe Root, who is easily England’s #1 batsman today. Root has been a sensational performer for his team and has only gone from strength to strength in the few years he has spent at the highest level.
England have the brilliant Jos Butler – a natural talent, a young player who can be as devastating as Kevin Pietersen used to be on his day. And then, there is a serious pace of Mark Wood. Wood certainly created a great impression in the series against New Zealand. He is a young man in his early twenties, who is capable of bowling seriously quick. Australia won’t be the only team with firepower – England has it too, and plenty of it.
What the addition of this young talent has done is that it has removed a lot of responsibility from the shoulders of the big-4 of English cricket – captain Alastair Cook, veteran batsman Ian Bell, top bowler James Anderson and the enforcer, Stuart Broad. Now add the spin and batting ability of Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid into the mix, suddenly, we have something that resembles a serious Test side.
Yes, there are a plenty of weaknesses. Bell hasn’t really been in great form. In fact, the problems faced by Alastair Cook have caused most people to forget that Bell has been playing equally badly. But Cook has since got his groove back. Bell is still struggling for runs.
Also struggling for runs is Gary Ballance – who had a wonderful start to his Test career, but since then, bowlers have begun exploiting a serious technical flaw in his batting – his propensity to hold back in the batting crease. Against New Zealand, Balance never looked like scoring and he will be a liability against Australia if he doesn’t work out the technical glitches in his batting.
What is also quite clear is that while nobody seriously expects England to beat Australia and win the Ashes, the contest is likely to be a lot closer than most people imagined it would be just a couple of months ago. And entertaining Ashes is in prospect, and hopefully it will be the push that cricket in England so badly needs.
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