It makes me bloody cross that Agnew and Selvey were pretty much calling for Chris Read's head this morning.
OK... he got out. And yup it was a bad shot. Definitely the only bad shot by an England player on this wonderfully successful tour.
On the otherhand there has been more pressure heaped on that one England cricketer than all the rest of the entire team for about the last three years.
He finally gets to go to Australia as number one 'keeper and in the first Test, when his understudy has done NOTHING at all to impress, he's out on his ear. Then after the second Test he plays a practice match and outscores his rival by 59 runs, (making 59) and yet he's still out on his ear.
Finally after the selectors see the light and the series is lost he gets to replace the charlatan with the gloves of lead. And is second top scorer in the charade that is England's second innings. And in the final Test when at last he gets to bat with the skipper (he who presumably vetoed his inclusion for the first three Tests, he who doesn't think he can cut it, he who is immensely piffed off at not getting to bat with his mate Geraint) and he fails.
And "Oh-my-God this guy is appalling."
Read should have at least a year of no pressure, like Geraint the 6011ocks has had. A year of, "well mate, not to worry, there's nobody else out there at all, the job is yours for as long as you want it."
Naturally enough his batting would improve. Besides there are no frightening attacks to play against for a couple of seasons, he should be able to hike up his average accordingly, and Agnew and Selvey would look pretty stupid.
But when alls said and done, if our batsman could actually take it upon themselves to score a couple of LARGE centuries each, we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not our lower order could bat, because we'd be declaring with scores of 550 odd for four. (A
nd still losing like we did in the second Test).
