Former captain Nasser Hussain was critical of England’s batting performance on the second day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s on Thursday. England were dismissed for 258 after Australia won the toss and elected to bowl first. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon all scalped three wickets each as England’s batsmen failed put up a decent performance once again in the five-match series. Calling for the need of a specialist batsman who can score consistent runs, Hussain said England batsmen aren’t giving proper attention to little details and that is the root cause for their downfall in the series so far.
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“It was the same old story from England,” Hussain wrote in his column for the Daily Mail. “How often have we seen batsman after batsman getting in and then out again leaving them needing some lower order runs to bail them out. They just looked really flimsy yet again”
“Only one person in this side is averaging in excess of 40 – Joe Root – and that tells you everything you need to know about the on-going batting problems of this England side.
“This was just a normal Test pitch that did a little bit and somehow England found themselves 138 for six. They do not help themselves either with their lack of attention to those little details that have to be right if you are to succeed at Test level,” he added.
Hussain also feels that Jason Roy is a special talent but his best position is in the middle-order in the longest format and not at the top. Roy made his Test debut against Ireland and ended up with scores of 5 and 72 while in the first Ashes Test he had scores of 10 and 28. He was dismissed for a third-ball duck in his fifth outing in Test cricket.
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“I still think opening the batting in a Test in England should be a specialist position yet someone like Jason Roy will probably only come off once in about 20 innings playing the way he does at the top of the order,” the former England captain said.
“He is obviously a special talent in white-ball cricket but at this level against the moving ball I maintain Roy’s best position in Test cricket is in the middle order.”
First Published:
Aug 16, 2019 14:43 IST
Source: HindustanTimes