Trevor Bayliss, the England head coach, has floated the idea of
promoting middle-order troika of Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali and Jonny
Bairstow in the batting line-up, in order to address the current batting
deficiency in the national Test side. The Alastair Cook-led team had to
share the spoils of the four-match Test series with Pakistan, during
which its brittle batting line-up came under the scanner.
"Moving
Stokes, Moeen and Bairstow up the order is one of the things I've been
thinking of and I'm sure the other selectors have thought along those
lines as well," Bayliss said on Monday (August 15).
"We
did give Moeen a go in the UAE a lot higher than the middle order and
it didn't quite work. But that's the issue: they score so many runs at
five, six and seven, do you risk them not scoring those if you put them a
bit higher? The way we've been going, putting them a bit higher is
definitely an option. It certainly worked with Joe Root going up to
three. That's high on the agenda, I would have thought," he added.
Bayliss
has also called on the players in the domestic circuit to step up and
prove their mettle by scoring runs in heaps to make it to the national
side, while also pointing out that some of them who've been earmarked as
future stars seem to have baulked under the pressure of expectation.
"There's
a month to go in the county season and there's a challenge out there
for some of those other guys to put their hand up and keep scoring runs.
There doesn't seem to be anyone crying out to be selected above anyone
else. There's a number of guys we've seen score some runs earlier this
season under a bit of scrutiny when their names are mentioned about the
possibility of getting into the team. Some of them have dropped off,"
Bayliss said.
Bayliss raised concerns after the
likes of Alex Hales, Gary Ballance, James Vince flattered to deceive
against Pakistan. The head coach believes Hales and Vince have had a
'decent run' in the national side in Tests, and reckons some 'tough
decisions' will be taken when the selectors meet next month.
"We're
still looking for consistent contributions from some of the middle
order. We're due to meet in about the second week of September to select
the Test and ODI squads for those winter series and there will be some
tough decisions to be made," Bayliss said.

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