England should consider opening with Dawid Malan: Geoffrey Boycott
Legendary batter Geoffrey Boycott said that England should contemplate changing their opening combination to have chance of making a comeback in the ongoing Ashes. The Three Lions have fallen 0-2 down in the five-match Test series after their crushing 275-run loss in the Day Night Adelaide Test. Prior to that, they also lost the Brisbane Test by nine wickets in a bit over four days.
Boycott was of the opinion that the Three Lions should give Dawid Malan a chance to open the batting since the current openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed have looked completely out of sorts. Burns and Hameed have scored a combined tally of 109 runs in the series with one duck apiece to their names.
It’s time we accepted our batsmen are not good enough, says Geoffrey Boycott
“England should consider opening with Dawid Malan. His technique of staying back, judging what to leave and playing straight is good. It is so important for team morale, and to achieve big totals, you should have successful opening bats. It’s time we accepted our batsmen are not good enough. The two openers are walking wickets and the Aussie bowlers are queuing up to get at them,” Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
Malan is currently England’s leading run-scorer in the series, having notched 188 runs at an average of 47 with two half-centuries to show for his efforts. Boycott was also of the opinion that England skipper Joe Root may have to sacrifice his favourite No.4 spot and bat at No.3 in order to solve the batting woes of the team.
“It’s not ideal but Joe Root at some stage may have to bat at three. He doesn’t like it and I agree it is not best asking your star batsman to move from his favourite number four spot. England have to do something different because they are not scoring enough runs to put Australia under any sort of scoreboard pressure,” he added.
Moreover, Boycott was critical of middle-order batter Ollie Pope for not making proper use of opportunities. Pope hasn’t looked at his best in the series as he has only scored 48 runs at an average of 12 with a top score of 35.
