West Indies vs England 2019: 4 things we learnt from the Test series

#2 England’s top-order woes continue

Keaton Jennings' struggles underlined England's top-order woes

England have been winning lots of matches and series lately. But the problem they have constantly endured in the last year and a half is the fragility of their top-order.

The number of times England have lost their first four or five wickets with less than or just over 100 runs on the board since the beginning of 2018 is incredible.

Their series win against India was in large part due to the resistance of their lower order, as was their historic triumph in Sri Lanka. The likes of Jos Buttler, Sam Curran and Chris Woakes have bailed them out of tricky situations numerous times.

It was clear that the luck was going to run out at some stage for the team and it did in this series. The West Indian pacers didn’t let the lower order rescue the team this time and put the boot in to steal the match.

There are very serious issues that still remain unsolved for the Englishmen. The openers aren’t delivering. While Rory Burns seems to have done enough to retain his place, Keaton Jennings is certainly on his way out. Joe Denly’s success in the last game has given England hope that he could partner with Burns for opening the innings.

But that would leave the no. 3 position vacant, and filling it has been a major headache. Jonny Bairstow couldn’t do much in this series and getting bowled so often has raised doubts about his technique.

The one overarching issue that is afflicting the whole team is their inability to battle it out in tough situations. The whole line-up seems unable to play in the old-fashioned dogged manner which Test cricket requires at times.

Nick Compton, who was in the English team till 2016, has attributed it to the desire to play aggressively at all times, a strategy that has been traced back to their coach Trevor Bayliss by some experts.

As long as England are unable to play for long durations and their batsmen can’t score ‘daddy hundreds,’ as Graham Gooch called them, their problems would remain.