Pie_C

You pretty much just said what I said but used far fewer words to do it!

I simply do not understand why people blame out batsmen for this 'debacle', the batsmen we have are pretty much the same batsmen we're had for some time, and they are capable, the only difference is that they're now exposed because of the poor bowling.

In the past the excellence of our bowling was sufficient to 'cover up' the deficiencies in our batting by bowling opposition sides our for totals our own batsmen could achieve fairly easily, now our bowling is 'toothless' it's exposing weaknesses in what was otherwise a pretty solid batting unit.

You don't win Test Matches with batsmen, you win them with bowlers, you save Test Matches with batsmen.

Uh oh, the old WK debate!

Personally I'm still a fan of Geriant Jones, I know a lot of people aren't but he would still be my choice as gloveman and it's interesting that Prior is another in the same mould as Jones, a batting keeper.

In the same way as I was happy to see Jones given an extended run in the side, I also feel Prior should be given an extended run as well, I think it's a little unfair to judge him so early on, he has promise and potential, the big question is whether he can realise it or not and he should at least be given a reasonable run to show what he can do. If he's not improved in a years time or he's still making the same mistakes then someone else needs to be given a chance, but at the moment it's too early in my opinion.

The only person I didn't want to see take the WK gloves was Read as I simply don't feel he's good enough at Test level as a batsman, and nothing I saw of him made me want to change my mind on that either, regardless of how good he was as a gloveman and his excellence with the gloves never made up for his deficiencies as a batsman.

Modern Test sides require a batting keeper, or someone to contribute runs at No7 and Read simply wasn't good enough as a batsman to bat at No7.

I don't want to reignite the Keeper debate, these are my views on it and I don't see them changing anytime soon!

In any case, England have much bigger things to worry about at the moment than the WK position and the first thing they need to do is get rid of Bopara and replace him with another specialist bowler, once they have the balance of the bowling right and improve their fielding they should start competing again.

People argued (may not have been here) that England should play 4 specialist bowlers and 7 batsmen when Flintoff isn't available - it's been shown time and time again that it simply doesn't work on the international stage (unless you're Australia, or playing a vastly weaker side than you are) and this Sri Lanka series is yet another example of how it just doesn't work.

When the hell will they learn?