Nasser Hussain and DK take a deep dive into England’s squad to face Sri Lanka 🧐🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

38 for two and it's raining so we've got a delay we're actually going to switch codes and gender now because hav managed to get DK's thoughts on this or indeed NASA because he's had his sabatical after his exertions in the hundred early on because he's been away England have announced the test Squad of course and there's a couple of change in it because of injury and also there's some shifting focus and role for Dan Lawrence so this is the squad in full Atkinson is here today actually and we believe he might play this evening bashier Brook Jordan Cox gets his first call up into to the men's test side he gave a great interview with us the other day at Lords Ducket Lawrence I'll come back to him Pope pots root Smith Lawrence Stone makes a return to the squad after all those injuries that he has had Pennington unfortunately has a hamstring injury so he's out Chris wokes and Mark Wood but I want to focus on Dan Lawrence because with Zack Crawley's broken finger he said Ben Stoke said to me the other day on interview he's going to open do you like that what sort of challenge is it well it is a a specialist role you'd think but you never know with this management setup they're not so worried about the role they're worried about the type of cricketer and Dan Lawrence fits that type of crigger perfectly he is attacking he counterattacks and we've seen Ben ducky Ben ducky obviously had done it a little bit for kns but really Ben Ducket was a little bit of a throwin the dark of can he open an international cricket can someone who doesn't leave a cricket ball outside off stump as a left-hander you'll know Butch will know in test match cricket in England against the Dukes ball can they be successful in England and he has been so they see the type of player Dan Lawrence as that's the type we want and you see in the whole Squad there they've moved up someone to open who's an attacking player they've brought in someone in Jordan Cox who himself yesterday said I thought I was near the white ball side not so much near the test ball test side and olle stone again fits the brand they don't want a medium Dober they want someone with Pace to come in and that's exactly what they've got with stone so it's the brand and style more than just the role individual names how do you see the challenge for Dan lawrenson top of the order Duke ball I've been someone who's been part of middle order and then asked to open especially I did it in England and it's the most challenging and I'm Don Dan Lawrence has grown up in England so it's slightly different but it is as he said a specialist position but the one thing is if you are a top order batter a lot of the times you end up playing the new ball and in England as we all know in the start of the summer the pitch is obviously very much in favor of fast Bowlers so at times you tend to bat a lot more with the your ball and it's not something that he would be new to but a couple of things that happened one when the seventh or eighth Wicket Falls you're on the field you already start thinking about your batting if you're a number three number four you don't think as much but if you're an opener you're just thinking okay if these two wickets go I need to go inside pad up I have enough time for a shower maybe not you're calculating all of those things and those are new things to you and if you haven't done that those are feelings that you need to go through apart from the fact that you need to go you need to take on the Bowling the current England team doesn't do anything as to what's been the norm so far they try and break Norms if possible so I think Dan Lawrence has been part of SX and he's done so well but here has his opportunity to do something that the England team believes he can do he was there as a backup player even in India and guess what he was practicing bowling throughout the series that I saw him the batting obviously happened before G maybe but during the game all he was doing because there were murmur that he could be sh he could be given an opportunity as a bowler because he could obviously Bowl off spin with a very different to most others but taking everything into consideration you have to say in international cricket the way things are looked at skill is more in at a premium than positions and England team has been the front runner to deal with that because whoever they've broughten be Zack Ry be Ben Ducket anybody has been fitting a certain method which suits their mentality and it's been good to watch the results probably is always there for us to debate about but they have set in stone the way they want to do it and I think Dan Lawrence fits that mold well Stokes could have done it and then Lawrence could have bed in a more usual position I asked Ben that when we spoke me and a spoke to him the other day and he said no I'll wait for the ball to go soft thanks very much I'll stay down the order and he's got to bowl and cap he's got lot his play we did it pretty well at Edge Baston yeah that was a oneoff run Chase they didn't want to go back the next day we know what Stokes melum and the rest like they wanted to finish that evening that's why he went up the order and it was a license for him and it was good to see because he has had a little Baron run with the bat but the way he's bowling and Captain I prefer him in that middle order the other people could have been someone like Keaton Jennings I've often thought that Keaton Jennings uh after that first time as a test match cricketer has gone away looked at his game every time I see him he looks a good player um he's got a lot of runs against Stokes is Durham side when Stokes has been playing even this year um so I think he's a good player and he's somewhere down the line should come again I didn't see him going too far back and going to someone who you know blocks it maybe a sibl here or you know Le or someone like that I always felt they would go with a a much more positive option really I like Jordan Cox um I've seen Jordan Cox quite a bit because he played for felsteed school uh and my two boys used to play against him quite a bit and he used to as a young boy I he was way above anything that I ever saw he just smashed he was like from The Mark ramper cash school boy era of being that good and and you know better than everyone else and he went to Kent and he's now back at Essex um recently had like an appendix or something so he was still struggling with yeah still get taped up for yeah so but he's a real talent real attacking positive runs in Championship Cricket already this season for Essex uh he looks a real talent I like that selection okay I'll tell you having worked with the England Lions recently it's a big challenge being a pathway player right now if you're part of the Lions set up because there is a type of cricket that you play and somewhere in the back of your mind you know the type of Cricket the England cricket team is playing right now especially the test format you're brought up doing a certain way for your county wherever you are but you know you need to change that a bit if you want to be part of this English setup I can give you a few names Le Josh banan all of these guys are stuck in that rut they don't know whether they need to change up the way they play or stick to what they're doing and score enough to put a name put their name up for selection it is a catch 22 situation for them they try to do something different to what they've been doing they fail they're not going to be there but if they want to get into the England team the message is loud and clear we expect certain type of players imagine your Keaton Jennings the last England tour was to England he's done really well they got 100 in the first game and had a very good series had a decent start in the championship games as well but here the opportunities come for another opener to get in Dan Lawrence a middle order batsman Jordan Cox not Katon Jennings not Alex Le if you in their shoes it's a pretty hard place to be right now because how selection was before to what it is today is very different so do you think they've got that wrong England not at all I feel the way the modern game is it is what it is you need to adapt which basically means if you want to play for England right now you need to do the you need to do things the way they expect you to do or be okay doing it your way but probably not end up playing for England because I've seen a couple of guys especially the Josh ban and Le they want to make a mark in T20 and white ball Cricket as well but it's still for them to change things up mentally there's a block it's not that easy but that's the challenge for them not so much for the bowlers for bowlers it's more just Pace but with batters the whole way you're brought upon and how you bat needs to change if you want to be part of the current English setup so what was your advice to them what can you say to them in those situations well at that point of time the the challenges that I faced were basically making them understand how it is done in India terms of run scoring in terms of playing spin but the biggest question that was kept asking is do you think we need to change and my answer was yes if you want to be part of a white ball setup if you want to get into the 100 comp that we're sitting right here speaking about then there are subtle little changes that you need to embrace for you to take your batting to the next level with that you will see failure but that shouldn't bring you down you need to have the resilience and the belief to say I will do it and I will make a change but if you're unsure about it then there's no point going down that direction because it takes you nowhere and the flips side of that is I I like in decision makers in leaders I like stubbornness I like and I mean that in a nice word that sometimes stubborn can be used against you but I love the stubbornness of this regime we want players who attack you know I did that interview with Stokes 18 months ago would Alistar cook or Michael Affton get in your England side two of England's greatest ever players nope not interested they wouldn't because they don't fit our style you know pace bowling we are looking for quick Fast Pace Bowlers Jimmy Anderson they could have easily played him all summer you know gone down the emotional Avenue of Jimmy Anderson our greatest ever bowler nope we're going to move on and look what ainson has done you know so I like the stubbornness in them this is what we're going to do so easy to be swayed in any direction any path you're going on there's always a cab off a rank there's always a paper a pundit saying go for this lad there's always the stats when actually if you have a direction and a stubbornness and you stick with that I think people actually admire you more and I admire key Stokes and McCullum for for sticking to their guns basically the one thing that I would like them to do and I think they're doing it especially key is to get the message across to all the lads who are in the pathway system the line setup that there is a way a Tempo that we want you to play to if you want to be part of the setup make an honest effort at trying to play it that way if you not then don't expect to be picked irrespective of the number of runs that has been scored and it's pretty much out there showy bashid he was sent from Sor back to go and play from literally he was moved on because he wasn't used here and he is their front line spinner today because they have a vision which is the ash is coming around and they feel a tall off spinner can make a difference so they have broken nms consistently and with that you need to produce results as well I think the last couple of series hasn't gone their way I'm not including West Indies there that was I don't think that's the challenge that they look forward to they're not great on the world championship table but they've said very clearly that's not something that they're looking at but this ashes will determine if this method is right if this method is there for the others to follow as well if you want to to be part of the setup