Certainly, the bowling attack has mutated from one which contained mostly experienced bowlers capable of exerting control – Anderson (economy rate 2.65 per over from the start of the Stokes-McCullum period), Broad (3.43), Woakes (3.04), Robinson (2.86), Leach (3.37) – to one without the hundreds of wickets’ worth of Test and first-class experience, who have taken wickets at good strike rates, but conceded runs much faster (Atkinson 3.76, Carse 3.72, Tongue 4.07, Bashir 3.78). Archer, in his four recent Tests, has conceded 3.16 per over, but the other front-line seamers have been unable to provide prolonged control. England are, I think, a less flexible and multidimensional bowling side than they were in the earlier Bazball period, understandable given that they have lost the skills and wisdom of England’s two leading Test wicket-takers, plus, more recently, Woakes and Wood.
