I hope the loss to Sri Lanka serves as a wake-up call for the tougher Tests that lie in wait. There is no way they will get away with playing like this against or Australia.
England had a strong Test summer of regeneration but they finished with a very disappointing defeat at The Oval.
The intensity and concentration in the big moments were missing this week. It was all a bit flimsy, cocky even. They took the mickey out of the game. The answer in Test cricket’s hottest moments cannot always be attack, attack, attack. This was too far though. There is so much talent around Root in the batting line-up, even with Zak Crawley and Ben Stokes injured. But they cannot rely on one player.In Smith and Harry Brook, they have two young players who can become as reliable as Root. The rest are just dangerous players, and as a unit the batting line-up seems to believe that the more the ball swings, the harder they should go. That normally works for someone like Ben Duckett, but Brook needs to wise up.
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