England in India: Brendon McCullum’s challenge clear after mauling in Mumbai

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

England in India: Brendon McCullum’s challenge clear after mauling in Mumbai

The only blessing from Abhishek’s assault is that it distracted from England’s main issue throughout this series.

They look no closer to solving a spin conundrum that has dogged the Test team, Heather Knight’s Ashes pursuit and even an Under-19 World Cup campaign.

Across these five matches, they lost 29 wickets at an average of 14.20 average to India’s tweakers, losing a wicket every 11 ******.

The result has been an England batting line-up that looked a batter light throughout.

Phil Salt and Ben Duckett are yet to gel like Duckett and Crawley, Buttler faded after a bright start, while Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell had their most difficult series to date in an England shirt.

Overton bowled well at the death at times and has been a fearsome lower-order hitter in certain conditions in recent years. A number seven in India below a shaky top six he is not.

The result is predictable – calls for Joe Root’s T20 return have grown louder.

Many will argue every band needs a drummer, someone to hold the tune while the others do their thing.

Root, though, has a lower T20 strike-rate than all of the batters in England’s current squad. Is he a T20 batter for the Gen Z age and does the Yorkshireman have more immediate red-ball priorities?

If England are to go back to their T20 past, they could do worse than recall Tom Banton.

The Somerset batter has scored two centuries and two more fifties during a stint the ILT20 this winter, while Abhishek can better his current strike-rate against spin.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#England #India #Brendon #McCullums #challenge #clear #mauling #Mumbai

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up