England suffer series defeat to the Windies

England cricket hit one of its biggest lows in recent years, as they suffered a humbling series defeat to the West Indies. The win is also of severe significance for the Windies, as it is their first series victory over a major Test-playing nation since 2012 – where they inflicted defeated upon New Zealand.

England facing batting woes

England had disastrously lost the first test by an emphatic 381 runs. The second test was lost by a 10 wicket margin. Across all four innings, England achieved three half centuries with a highest individual score of 84 by Rory Burns.

With the build up and excitement beginning to grow ahead of this summer’s Ashes series, England were expected to complete a series whitewash against the Windies who are currently 8th in the ICC Test rankings. Yet, the defeat has raised further questions into England’s batting ability, as they will come up against much more frightening attacks in the near future.

England legend Bob Willis has spotlighted England’s higher order batsmen as the issue, claiming that ‘Joe Root in this line-up looks like he has any sort of defensive technique at all’. With England now synonymous with batting collapses, often finding themselves at positions of 100-6 or 80-7, they have never replaced Alistair Cook as an opener, or Kevin Pietersen at number four.

Build up continues to the Ashes

Whilst Australia continue to go through their own difficulties, this defeat as left the Barmy Army feeling very concerned about this summer’s series. Defeat to Australia is one thing, defeat at home to Australia is completely unfathomable.

Joe Root is facing serious questions coming into the series, with upper order failing, an ageing bowling attack and question marks over his own leadership skills and batting ability. With the third and final match against the Windies being their last test match before the Ashes begins, Root will be relying on the large amount of ODIs he has coming up to help put together a team strong enough to take on the Aussies.

Winning the 2019 World Cup, would very much do that.

Featured Image Credit: “Lords” (CC BY 2.0) by HerryLawford