It's just an opinion, not madness.

There are wicket keepers that batted higher than 5.

Take your point about the balance, though.

Its an interesting conundrum. Surely Jimmy and Stokes will return and Ball will go. But who else ? Finn could be useful at OT but if he is picked in place of a batsmen then we have 5 seamers and 1 less batsmen.

Personally I reckon the XI will be

Cook
Hales
Root
Vince
Ballance
Bairstow
Stokes
Woakes
Rashid
Broad
Anderson

Yes maybe madness is an over-reaction, but it just doesn't seem a sensibly balanced team to me

Thanks

I think I was feeling a bit sorry for Ball. I think he did very well and would be better than Finn. He's tall and quick, and I think it would be a shame to drop him.

I'm interested in the idea of balance in general when it comes to all-rounders, though. Does it matter too much if there are lots of all-rounders instead of pure batters? If they bat well, then they bat well, and they can be used primarily as batsmen, who can back up the bowling if necessary.

In the end having a bowler who would be superfluous, when you can have a specialist bat is surely not the way to go.

If we were to pick people on secondary abilities, I think I'd prefer catching ATM, all our tight losses over the last three years have had key dropped catches involved.

great minds think alike , those are the same changes i suggested earlier

So not only do great minds think alike. Us two do too

If only Boycott's granny were available for selection...

Why do you both want Joe at no3 though, it just doesn't work.

6 matches is a small sample size though and got 48 in the first innings far better than the 30/3 start.

Well yes, but it's not insignificant more than 1/8th of his innings the other matches he averaged well over 50 are quite a good sample size so why change it?

Well for one England need a better start and it is better for England to have the best players bat in the top order rather than new or lesser talented players taking 2 spots in the top 3.

England more likely to win having a strong top order than a weak top order and a strong middle order.

plus the lesser talented players are more likely to score from the older ball than facing the newer ball.
with compton failing at 3, England don't really have option barring borthwick and if he fails chances are they would have to go back to root anyway.
guessing they wanted Vince to get more than 4 test matches but with his technique he was never really going to score runs at 3 anyway so they probably thought moving Root to 3 was the best option in the long run.

i'm not as worried about where people bat as some

what real difference does it make between 3 and 4 when you could be in within an over batting in either position ?

its superstitious mumbo jumbo imo

Well we lost this match, Root didn't score runs which he may have,statistically proven, down the order.

Not superstitious at all when stats back it up, number 3 has long been considered a specialist position, sorry have I just made this up? Are you going to say openers are a superstitious position, too? After all they could be batting within an over or two of the middle-order.

openers are obviously an exception given they are guaranteed to be in facing the new ball

i really dont see what difference there is other than superstition between batting #3 and #4 as in either position you could be coming into the game in the first over or the 50th over

talent is what counts and in sport at that level they should be playing each ball on its merits anyway not thinking "oh no i am batting in the 3rd over where on average i usually wouldn't be batting til the 20th over so i am bound to fail today"

root was developed as an opening batsman and was intended to play in that position for england, are you really trying to say a converted opening batsman cant cope with batting at #3 ?

I'm saying there are many players that have viewed being number 3 and 4 as different, it's been throughout the annals of cricket, so to say it's superstitious is not at all correct, 4 will often not get the new ball, whilst 3 will almost certainly get it.

He of course can cope with batting at 3, but at the moment he's scoring at almost double down the order, so there is absolutely no reason whatsoever, that I can see, not to bat him down., It's just stupidly counter-intuitive not to do so.

just to add i just did a quick calculation of the average point he entered the game batting at #4 and it was in the 16th over and in almost half his innings batting at #4 he was at the crease within the first 10 overs

so he has still been facing the new ball even batting at #4, so what real difference should it make coming in at #3 ?

and yet he's still averaged less than half at 3, sport is mental more than physical at this level.

which agrees with my point its superstition rather than anything technical or about the state of the game

Umm, if you are making any mental reason whatsoever, which is about 95% of any sport as superstition then yes you're right, well done and let's hope Joe bats at 3 again and scores half as what he would do, coz he doesn't believe in silly superstition, or basic mathematical stats either, YAY.

you still haven't answered my question however that if in half his innings batting at #4 he is coming to bat within the first 10 overs then there should be no difference to his game whether he bats at #3 or #4

i just do not accept that the difference in what number he is on the scorecard should make such a difference by itself, and the sample size atm is far too small to make any real judgements whether its the right thing to do or not

he is meant to be one of the best three test batsmen in the world, if he cant adapt to moving one spot in the batting order without seeing a massive difference in his weight of runs then there is something wrong

edit : and btw 6 of those 10 innings he batted at #3 were back in 2013 away to australia on that terrible ashes tour, he is a far different player now than he was then

Cook not happy about the Pakistan celebrations afterwards..

Might be somebody being bitter or trying to use them as motivation for the next test?

I don't. I said this is the XI I reckon they will pick.

What did he say? In the interview I saw he didn't mention anything...