The State of England Cricket.

Well - so much for winning The Ashes last summer. Reality has now kicked in as a poor England team lost 2 - 0 to Pakistan in the three test series. It is abundantly clear that we have not got a single spin bowler of quality in our entire nation - three were tried and all three were found wanting.The vast improvement in Cook's captaincy skills was insufficient to offset wretched batting by too many members of the somewhat ill-chosen squad. Pakistan outfielded England in all three matches and England are seemingly incapable of finding an opening batsmen to partner Cook.
We have reached a point where only Wood, Anderson, Broad, Root and the skipper are worthy of a place - ALL the others have let England down. On occasions, the batting was simply reckless. If you have the requisite skills but do not possess a test match temperament - then far better to pick a player with fewer skills who will do the basic things properly, day in and day out.
Maybe England will fare better in the ODIs and T20s in the coming weeks - but I doubt that they will. Watching our batsmen tumbling to Pakistan's spinners was like seeing rabbits caught in headlights. Our only hope is that batsmen in the One Day Squad, which will contain many different personnel, are going to be able to tame Pakistan's bowlers. I doubt that they possess the necessary skills. Pitches will naturally be prepared to suit the spinners. Sigh.