The England Opening Batsmen slots may be a huge mess and still needs fixing, but Zak Crawley played well during England’s 2nd innings spell on 77 a few days ago in Sydney as he deserves to keep his spot for Hobart and go from there to make up regular numbers like this one. However, Haseeb Hameed is the ultimate disappointment after he was given so many chances through four Test matches down under and was taken down too easily by the Australian bowlers which clearly shows he has to go.
I would have liked to gamble on Jos Buttler in his place by giving the gloves away as he knows how to get off the mark with a few blocks + range of dynamic strikes, but he had to go home over a broken finger. Rory Burns will take over Hameed where he also didn’t do well in the first two Tests, but he did score 34 in England’s 2nd innings at Adelaide Oval just before he was dropped & deserves a recall with Crawley that would hopefully turn out well than the previous opening pairs.
As said earlier, Buttler had to go home over a broken finger that gives Ollie Pope a recall this time in his place as the Wicket Keeper. He made a whopping four catches behind the stumps even though he was a sub fielder for Buttler last week in Sydney, now the runs may still be required but at least Pope will have the other half responsibilities and try to get the Aussies out with his gloves on.
And the rest remains unchanged with David Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes & Jonny Bairstow in the batting department; The same goes with the bowling through Mark Wood, Jack Leach, Stuart Broad and James Anderson plus Stokes included as a fast-bowling all-rounder.
It’s only the final Test to just stick with the full squad England sent out to Australia beforehand, then come back home and look out for not just a couple of opening batsmen but also frontline seamers to back Broad and Anderson up.
