England head coach Trevor Bayliss wants English cricketers to perform well in the upcoming county season. The 55-years old said the first few matches of the upcoming county season will be very important.
Though England won the both ODI series in Australia and New Zealand, they failed to clinch at least one Test victory during both tours.
England began with the five-match Ashes Test series in Australia where they lost by the 4-0 margin. However, England won the 5-match ODI series in Australia by the 1-4 margin while they failed to reach the final of the T20I tri-series where England participated with the co-hosts Australia and New Zealand.
Also read: Eoin Morgan is hopeful that cricket will restrain its value after the bans imposed
Later, England won another ODI series (5-match ODI series) in New Zealand by the 2-3 margin but lost the 2-match Test series by the 1-0 margin. However, England was very close to winning the recently concluded second Test against New Zealand at Christchurch but failed to achieve that at the end.
Bayliss hugely disappointed with the batsmen’s efforts during those Test series. Among the English batsmen, only skipper Joe Root had the batting average over 40 at the end of the Trans-Tasman tour.
Former English Test and ODI skipper Alastair Cook mostly disappointed with the bat. Apart from his 244* runs knock against Australia at Melbourne, he had not even the 40+ knock in any Test innings. His series of runs in those Test tour were 2, 7, 37, 16, 7, 14, 244*, 39, 10, 5, 2, 2 and 14.
Also read: Alastair Cook – The Dried Out River of Runs
The English county season will begin on April 13. England coach Bayliss said that the early matches are very important in this season.
He said on that, “Those early matches back home, I think, will mean a lot. There are chances available (for selection) – if you’re scoring a lot of runs and taking a lot of wickets, you’re going to be very close.
“(But) I don’t think there’s anyone at home putting their hand up at the moment and saying come and pick me.
“The same questions are still there but I’m not sure there are better players out of the team at the moment. So who do we replace them with?
“There are some young players on the cusp but I guess this is a call-out to the guys in county cricket – the first few matches of the season are very important.”
England’s next series will be the home Test series against Pakistan. It will be the 2-match Test series which will begin on May 24.
