Geoffrey Boycott fired England, and in particular, their opener Zak Crawley and new-ball bowler Chris Woakes. So miffed was Boycott with Crawley that he wrote that “don’t think he can change or get better’ and also noted that the 36-year old Woakes is past his expiry date as a bowler.
“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,” Boycott wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
“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.”
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Boycott wrote that Crawley had seemingly changed his way in the first Test. “At Headingley, he played straight with the full face of the bat, left wide balls and let he bal come to him so he could keep his bat close to his pad.”
But he saw Crawley return to his old ways in the second Test. “The two shots he got out to at Edgbaston [in the second Test] 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.
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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.”
Boycott also had a pop at the bowler Woakes. “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.”
