England 0 1 New Zealand player ratings for the Test series
almost 4 years in The guardian
It was a fantastic series for Devon Conway, Tom Latham and New Zealand’s bowlers, but Joe Root had a shocker
By Gary Naylor for the 99.94 Cricket Blog
Joe Root: 97 runs at an average of 24; one wicket at 99; one catchDid anything go right for him? With the “resting” policy yielding a shallow pool of talent and experience from which to pick his XI (and one can only imagine how he felt watching Sam Curran, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali et al hit-and-giggle for their counties), he made things worse with poor selections, schoolboyish field setting and little to suggest that there were plans for bowlers to attack batsmen or batsmen to build innings. That he settled for a draw in the first Test might be excusable, but he never showed any commitment to engineer a position from which a chase could be launched. His own players, his opponents and England fans drew the obvious conclusion that he didn’t really rate the team he had chosen – perhaps the second Test gave him the bittersweet satisfaction of being proved right. At No4, he batted well below his usual level and couldn’t catch … a cold. The appalling over rate added a minus suffix to his rating. Grade: E- Continue reading...
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