Since Andy Flower's departure as head coach of the Test side England have been looking to fill the void left by one of England's most successful coaches. Flower lead the side to three Ashes series victories and victory at the 2010 T20 World Cup.
With the desire to have the same coach over all three formats the bookies favourite, and most likely replacement, Ashley Giles will need to rebrand English cricket once again.
This appointment will not sit pretty with those favouring the shorter format of the game. He has had some success in ODIs, pushing India to the limit in the final of the Champions trophy on home soil. However, heavy defeats down under and a very passive style of play has seen criticism.
The brand of cricket England play in ODIs is passive and predictable. The aim is set the game up with England 170-3 after 35 overs and hope that either Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler or Ravi Bopara can get them up to the 300 mark. This is the tactic used on pitches that expansive teams such as India and South Africa look to score in excess of 350.
England's tactics work in English conditions. Green tops and grey skies mean that keeping wickets in hands against the swinging ball is crucial. Though, in flat pitches around the world, this tactic is not effective at all.
Ashley Giles needs to reassess this tactic because teams are often unable to restrict batting sides to scores lower than 300. This means making sure that the right personnel are batting in the right positions and that the style that they go at.
Before injury limited his match time at the 2011 World Cup, Kevin Pietersen opened the batting. This move signalled intent. Before the most recent series against Australia England's top four consisted of players regarded as Test top threes, rather than dynamic ball strikers. Cook, Bell, Trott and Root all have good stats but their strike rates are much to be desired.
Strike rates at: Bell 75, Cook 79, Trott 77, Root 78 is not quite good enough when these players take up a lot of the innings.
With Trott's illness causing him to take time away from the sport England have replaced him with Stokes at number three. Time will tell whether this will work, but what it does do is push Morgan down to five. You want you best players spending as much time at the crease as possible and with Morgan at five and Buttler and England's dynamic duo are expected to play catch up and do miraculous things every time they come to the crease, which is just not feasible.
England need to find a Shikhar Dhawan or Aaron Finch to open the batting with Cook in the near future, Bell at 32 does not have many years left in him. I like Root at three because he has opening experience and when he's set he can go through the gears, something that experts have heavily criticised English top order batsmen in the past.
Morgan has to go at four, this just needs to happen if England want to progress as a team. Bopara is in the side because of the medium pace option he brings and his potential but I think England need to decide now whether they want him in the side for the World Cup and if so he has until then to perform otherwise another option is needed.
Buttler then goes six, Stokes seven then Another all rounder at eight would bring a good balance to the England side. England are too obsessed with Morgan and Buttler being finishers and should look at the way that Australia set up their side. James Faulkner, Mitchell Johnson or Nathan Coulter - Nile can finish an innings allowing Glenn Maxwell to bat further up the batting order.
England need to be more dynamic with their batting in order to stop the stodgy or panic batting we have seen so far.
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