New Delhi, Aug 22 (IANS) Former English cricketer Mark Butcher has warned against breaking the fast-bowling quartet to fill in all-rounder Sam Curran. Since the retirement of Test captain and iconic all-rounder Ben Stokes, England face a major challenge of roping in the personnel who can fill in his all-round role, even to some extent without distracting the combination.
Curran, who was recently ruled out of the rest of the English summer, was mooted as an ideal replacement for the retired Stokes. However, Butcher has warned that it should not happen at the expense of breaking the fast-bowling combination of Ollie Robinson, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson.
“You know, in terms of a quartet, they’ve got a lot of bases covered in terms of all the different skills you might need for all different surfaces,” Butcher said, as quoted by Wisden. “So, you wouldn’t want to break that up necessarily by changing that quartet to bring in somebody like Sam Curran to bolster the batting, but then you weaken the bowling to bring in a spinner who’s unlikely to take you an eight-fer and blow a tail away.”
The speedsters starred in the first of the three Tests against Pakistan in Leeds, paving the way for an innings and 103-run win. The former Test cricketer instead suggested bringing in a spinner who can bat at No.7 without disrupting the fast bowlers to follow.
“I think four seamers should always be the plan A. I mean, that’s how we perform at our best. I think that, you know, they need to look elsewhere outside of Shoaib Bashir, and we’ve had this conversation before in terms of a spin bowling allrounder, somebody that can bat at seven or eight and be the spinner. That I think is the only way you get a specialist spin bowler into the lineup is if they hold a bat and they’re not batting at 11,” Butcher added.
This would leave England with some choices to make. Their No.1 Test spinner Shoaib Bashir is not a No.7 batter, and he generally plays whenever the Three Lions add on a spinner. England would then look up to Dan Lawrence, who bats in the middle-order and provides occasional off-spin. Will Jacks is another option, but he missed out on a place in the squad for the first two Pakistan Tests to Lawrence. Jacks is unlikely to be fit for the third Test, as a statement from the ECB stated that England “will monitor his recovery and assess availability ahead of the Sri Lanka (white ball) series”, which will take place in September.
–IANS
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