Moving Stokes and Moeen up the order part of Trevor Bayliss plans

In spite of a disappointing result in the final Test at The Oval, England coach Trevor Bayliss is certainly keen to take the positives away from the match. One of these positives includes the impressive batting performances of Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali. While Ben Stokes has been predominantly a middle-order batsman, Moeen Ali has been a batsman who has been an opener in the past. However, recent times has seen the England player be used as a specialist spinner.

“Moving Stokes, Moeen, and Bairstow up the order is one of the things I’ve been thinking of and I’m sure the other selectors have thought along those lines as well,” Bayliss said on Monday (August 15).

Speaking about batting higher up the order, Bayliss said that they had indeed experimented with Moeen Ali higher up the order. “We did give Moeen ago in the UAE a lot higher than the middle order and it didn’t quite work. But that’s the issue: they score so many runs at five, six and seven, do you risk them not scoring those if you put them a bit higher? The way we’ve been going, putting them a bit higher is definitely an option. It certainly worked with Joe Root going up to three. That’s high on the agenda, I would have thought,” he added.

Trevor Bayliss also added the importance of the county season, something that would certainly prove to be an important aspect of the squad selection. “There’s a month to go in the county season and there’s a challenge out there for some of those other guys to put their hand up and keep scoring runs. There doesn’t seem to be anyone crying out to be selected above anyone else. There’s a number of guys we’ve seen score some runs earlier this season under a bit of scrutiny when their names are mentioned about the possibility of getting into the team. Some of them have dropped off,” Bayliss said.

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With the likes of James Vince and Gary Ballance not making significant contributions in the middle order, Bayliss is starting to wonder if he needs to rethink his selection with the side. “We’re still looking for consistent contributions from some of the middle order. We’re due to meet in about the second week of September to select the Test and ODI squads for those winter series and there will be some tough decisions to be made,” Bayliss said.

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