Wednesday 30 January 2019 13:59, UK
Rob Key looks at why England keep collapsing, explains how attack rather than defence could be the way to prevent future capitulations, and assesses the ways county cricket can better prepare batsmen for Test cricket...
The truth of it is that you've got to give a lot of credit to the Windies, Kemar Roach in particular, because I look back at that batting collapse in Barbados and I can't think of too many bad shots.
If you go wicket by wicket: Rory Burns was unlucky, Keaton Jennings played a poor shot, Jonny Bairstow was unlucky, it came off his elbow, Joe Root's lbw - they never look spectacular but that was a good bit of bowling from Jason Holder. You go through it and from the frontline batsmen there weren't many terrible shots.
Conditions were pretty tough and what you need is some to come and try and throw a few counter-punches, sooner than Sam Curran coming in at No 9. Throughout the summer, Curran was so valuable to this side with his batting and what he has done is come in and played shots.
We did a thing on the TV coverage the other day on Ben Stokes and over his last 11 Test matches, his strike rate has gone from 63.77 to 45.43. If I was Root, I would be reminding Ben of his knock against New Zealand at Lord's, when Paul Farbrace told him that he would be batting at six on a green seamer and he went out and scored 92 at almost a run a ball.
Now you see him scoring less than half the runs in the same number of balls. I know it is tough at times and in Sri Lanka it was spinning, and you can't always score as quickly, but I would like to see Stokes back to his counter-attacking best. That is one of the things I would be saying as a captain.
That isn't blaming Stokes for the collapse at all, I just think that he is almost trying too hard when actually when Stokes is on top of his game, looking to smash you round the park, there is no-one better in the world at that.
I almost don't care if he gets out playing the worst shot in the history of cricket. I wouldn't care because he is capable of doing something extraordinary.
The similarities between him and Adam Gilchrist were very fair when he got the double hundred against South Africa and I want to see him get back to that. Let the rest adapt, let Root, Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler adapt their games, let him go out and look to do something incredible.
During a collapse, the batsmen who have been and gone probably feel the momentum more than the batsman going in. You're the most optimistic you can ever be when you walk out to bat, then you find yourself walking back wishing you'd done something else.
What it actually needs, and I'd imagine Joe Root is good at this, is someone to go up and says 'we're going in and before we know it, we're getting a good ball, somebody go in and at least go down swinging!'
That is a tough thing to do because all we ever hear is about how Twenty20 cricket has ruined batsmen, no-one knows how to bat for long periods of time now and everyone needs to look at Cheteshwar Pujara and how he bats.
That might be the case but there is no point in Root, Stokes, Buttler or whoever trying to bat like Pujara, they've got to play their own way and try and flip the momentum. But that is so hard to do because conditions aren't easy for batsmen at the moment across the planet.
So often these things come back to the domestic game and I don't think county cricket is doing everything it can to help produce top-level batsmen.
The best surface in the country is at The Oval. You can ask any batsman in the country and good bowlers like The Oval as well because it has a bit of bounce too. And who has produced the most cricketers for England of late? Surrey.
Yes, they've got an excellent set-up but they also play on a proper wicket, that's why Rory Burns gets runs, Ollie Pope has been around but you also have to know how to bowl to get wickets there so they produce bowlers as well.
Put it this way, our first-class cricket would be in a much better place if every surface was more like The Oval - it spins there too.
The things that have been done in county cricket - toss rules, no heavy roller - to try and help out first-class cricket, have helped in some ways and hindered in others. First-class cricket now is more intense than it ever was with the pressure on being in the first division and staying there.
That has really added to the intensity but, at the same time, there are not a lot of games that go four days. The result has become so crucial that actually it's become a fast-food version of first-class cricket where 15 or 20 wickets go down on the first day, then again the second day and it's done on the third.
I imagine most umpires book themselves in for a game of golf on the fourth day of every championship game!
That's not hard to change but there has to be a will to do it. I think county cricket is producing some seriously talented cricketers yet they're not having the opportunity to learn the longest form of the game because we're cheating the system a little bit.
Somehow, you've got to put a premium on the surfaces that they're playing on, The Oval should be rewarded for the surface they produce, which I'm sure they are in some way. But the problem is, when it comes down to it the first four or five rounds of the County Championship season are so early that it is near impossible.
I'd imagine if you look at the scores on the Sky Sports app on the first day of the season, in most games there will be five wickets down by lunch and that's not what you want. Then five or six games in, you feeling like you're just trying to claw it back as a batsman.
I have said that I'd like to see Jason Roy open the batting for England and the response is always, "well he doesn't even do that for Surrey!" I would argue that if you're playing in county cricket at most places, that doesn't prepare you for Test cricket anyway.
That Roy opens the batting in 50-over cricket against international bowlers on a good surface is probably better preparation than a lot of people are getting in county cricket at the moment.
As for the second Test in Antigua, I would have Joe Denly in there now for Jennings. Otherwise I'm quite happy with who is in there at three, four, five and six. I might swap Stokes and Buttler around, especially with the amount that Stokes is having to bowl at the moment.
The game is simple at times, pick five frontline batsmen, have an all-rounder at six, wicketkeeper at seven and then you pick your best four bowlers for the surface.
Watch day one of the second Test between Windies and England, in Antigua, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event from 1.30pm on Thursday.
You can also follow over-by-over commentary and in-play clips on our rolling blog on skysports.com and the Sky Sports app.
