England

England – select patient

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This would be the slogan of England under Trevor Bayliss if they went to a crappy marketing company and paid them a billion pounds for branding.

That’s how you do slogans these days. You make them grammatically jarring. That’s the old rope you get for your stacks of cash.

Here’s just a few recent examples we’ve spotted.

  • Live colourful – Bulmers
  • Drive confident – VW Polo
  • Breathe happy – Febreze
  • Play beautiful – Fifa 16
  • Find your happy – Rightmove

Great system, guys. Worth every penny.

In England’s case, the meaning behind the wrong words is Bayliss’s stated belief that you should always give a player one too many matches rather than one too few.

Just as well really. The fourth Test against South Africa has thus far been characterised by all the more marginal selections doing just about nothing to secure their places.

One wicket for Chris Woakes, 15 runs for Alex Hales, 19 runs for Nick Compton, 14 runs for James Taylor and a bunch of dropped catches by Jonny Bairstow. Just as well for their sakes that England select patient – although it would be nice if at least one of them did a bit of something in the second innings.

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15 comments

  1. I was about to leave a comment predicting Anderson will retire soon. Then he took a wicket.

    These two things are almost certainly related. I’m off to do a bit more negative thinking. You’re welcome.

    1. Not about the cricket! I always care about the cricket. I mean the individual performances. I’m not some sort of *monster*.

    2. Thing is, these are the guys who we’ll be building our team around in the near future, and (with only Compton over 30 out of them) possibly the not-so-near future as well. This is the highest quality “time in the middle” they’ll get for a while, and they’re wasting it.

      Apart from Woakes, to be fair, who is getting plenty of time in the middle.

  3. No blame on compton for yesterday’s dismissal and ill give him a pass for trying to win the last match with a six. When everyone else was fannying around.

  4. In NZ the labour party went into the last election with the slogan ‘vote positive.’ They ended up suffering their worst defeat in decades. So be warned ECB about any such wanton sloganeering.

  5. I don’t know which is worse – deliberately using an adjective where an adverb is required, or killing sheep with a field mortar for fun. It’s literally impossible to decide.

      1. I assume that your comment is the first half of a proper scientific experiment designed to answer the question. Report in when you’re back from the countryside.

      2. Sadly, my sheep mortar experiment this morning was confounded by some ghastly animal rights protesters from New Zealand, all wearing tee-shirts bearing the legend “Rescue ovis-like”. Matters are getting out of hand.

        Here is a short film of some earlier sheep experiments which Daisy and I conducted in April 2013, just after our reported visit Trent Bridge :

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQB4WOLI0A

        The sheep start appearing around 3:20 in this film – before that it is mostly daffodils, Ged and Daisy.

    2. The most interesting thing in Ged’s adventures with sheep was that the stone walls had no mortar. If you inspect most houses where the walls are build with mortar you will find that the sheep have been exterminated or are hiding.

  8. For me, the marginal selections are pretty straightforward – Hales and Woakes out, destined not play test cricket for quite some time if at all. Compton, Taylor and Bairstow in. All three have shown plenty of aptitude at times. We do need a better wicketkeeper though. Is it time to call for the Buttler? This doesn’t solve the opener problem, so I’m just going to leave this here and put it down to the effects flu and it being so unlikely to happen that no-one will ever be able to prove me wrong – could a certain hard-ball-hitting, things-happening-maker be given a go in that spot?

    1. Hales out. Compton up to open. Everyone shifts up. Next middle order cab off the rank comes in. Or I Ron Bell comes back.

      Woakes out. Finn in when fit. Wood/Jordan/Footit/Topley waiting in the wings.

      Moeen on borrowed time. Rashid on standby.

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