Chris Woakes is past his sell-by date and Zak Crawley has learnt nothing
Nobody wants to see wholesale changes or chopping and changing all the time but when guys have had lots of chances and not really done it then it is time to freshen up. It is counter productive to keep the same guys in the team when they are past their sell-by date or not doing enough.
Look at Chris Woakes. His pace is dropping as you would expect as a seamer gets older. He has never been a wicket-taker abroad, where his record is poor. He is good – or has been good – on English pitches, and his batting has been handy at times as a safety valve when others have failed. His job should not be to shore up bad batting. Batsmen are there to score runs and bowlers need to take wickets.
Woakes has been a good cricketer but not a master craftsman like James Anderson, who took buckets full of wickets home and away consistently. Woakes also has a poor record in Australia that is highly unlikely to change at the age of 36.
Just when you think the penny has dropped for Zak Crawley he resorts to his old bad ways. At Headingley he played straight with the full face of the bat, left wide balls and let the ball come to him so he could keep his bat close to his pad.
5️⃣0️⃣ up for Zak Crawley 🏴👏 pic.twitter.com/aE4PayvXPV
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 24, 2025
The two shots he got out to at Edgbaston were awful. In the first innings his feet got stuck in cement, neither forward nor back, and then he wafted at the ball to be caught at slip.
Second innings he batted on off stump and drove at a well pitched up ball two feet wide. He did not need to play it. He was on nought, had been fielding for five sessions, and his legs were tired so should have been thinking about surviving that evening.
A NIGHTMARE start for England as Zak Crawley falls for a duck! 😬 pic.twitter.com/L8ziKPGt8i
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) July 5, 2025
I don't think he can change or get better. Batting is in the head and the brain dictates how you approach batting: what shots you attempt, what balls you leave. His faults in technique and thinking are ingrained. A leopard doesn't change his spots, or maybe Zak does not want to change. He should be approaching his best years but in 56 Tests he has learned nothing. One sparkling innings and numerous failures, with an average of 31, is not good enough.
Rob Key, the director of cricket, the head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes should have been thinking ahead and before the season told Jacob Bethell not to play in the IPL and ask Warwickshire if they would help England by playing him as an opener in Championship matches. Give him a little experience of that position and then pick him in the England team. I have first hand experience of such a situation.
In 1963 as an uncapped player for Yorkshire I batted in the lower middle order and was doing well. I had given up my job in the civil service and I had no salary, only a match fee if I played. If I didn't get selected I had no money. In July that year my captain, Brian Close, waited for me after breakfast at the Salisbury Hotel in Scarborough. Brian said he wanted me to open. I was not keen on facing the new ball and wanted to stay batting down the order, so he said I had two choices: I could open or not play.
I finished the season as an opener and within five weeks of the next season I was opening the innings for England against Australia at Trent Bridge. Sometimes others see something in you that you don't.
Stokes' poor form with bat
It is not helping England that Stokes is in such poor form with the bat. When he is playing well he is a dynamic, match-winning batsman. He can thump seam or spin to all parts of the ground. We have seen him do it magnificently.
But he does have a problem on a wearing pitch when the ball turns and occasionally jumps. Left handers have always had to contend with the bowlers' rough late in a match. Ben defends on the back foot very chest on which makes it harder to adjust if the ball turns or spits at him.
Plus because he is a fabulous hitter of the ball he doesn't have the soft or relaxed hands to let the ball come to him and go with the spin. The great batsman like Joe Root, who play the turning ball well, are usually sideways on, stay back and wait for the ball and are able to manoeuvre their hands. What makes it much harder for Ben at the moment is he has had very little match batting so is short of runs and a touch of confidence.
I do not wish to be critical of Stokes's decision to bowl first because he has had quite a bit of success putting sides into bat but in Birmingham he was hoisted on his own petard. I hope losing this Test will help him think twice in future.
It would be foolish if he was just bloody minded and said I am always going to put teams into bat. Nobody gets every decision right but it is a smart person who learns from his mistakes.
I have always believed you should make your decision at the toss based on the conditions at the time, not second guessing the opposition or what the weather forecast is. If the pitch is free of grass and no moisture then bat and if you can bat the opposition out of the game all the better. Then from a commanding position you dictate the match. India did exactly that.
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