‘Tough decisions’ to be made on top order

Trevor Bayliss has challenged batsmen in county cricket to seize their opportunity over the last few weeks of the domestic season and demand selection for England’s touring teams.

Bayliss, accepting that England’s top-order batting has been a recurring weakness in recent times, hinted that changes were likely after a summer in which James Vince played all seven Tests without recording a half-century and a series against Pakistan in which Alex Hales averaged just 18.12. Gary Ballance, too, may require a strong finish to the season to ensure himself of a spot in the Test squad.

“Hales and Vince have definitely had a decent run at it.,” Bayliss said. “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.

“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.”

But while Bayliss offered an incentive to county batsman, he also suggested that the gap between domestic and international cricket had grown to such an extent that performances in the County Championship might not be an especially accurate gauge of a player’s likely success at the higher level.

With that in mind, he …

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