Opening gambit. Plus: Baker's cooking

Somerset atop of Division One, um, belying their reputation for starting slowly.

I won't ask Matt if, uh, this could finally be their year.

Uh, in Division 2, Lancashire leading the way.

Um, James Anderson still going strong.

Um, slightly odds they play with four games played over the weekend, so we're sort of 2.5 rounds into the season.

Um, but the, the, the England bat off is where we're gonna go to first.

Um, this is, was always gonna be a topic, but, but sort of Zak Crawley's waning prospects, 60 runs, uh, in four innings so far.

Um, uh, w- we, we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, whether England could or should move on.

Um, it's looking increasingly likely that they, they will.

You know, that decision will also be almost be made for them.

Um, Matt, who, who are the main, um, contenders here at this stage?

Well, there's a long list, um, of candidates.

Tribe, McKinney, Gay, James Roux.

Um, I suppose the, the, I think the, the f- the first point to make as far as I'm concerned is I think pretty much whoever England pa- pick to open the batting this summer, I personally don't see an obvious standout candidate, um, among genuine or specialist openers.

Um, and, and fundamentally, I don't think anyone that they pick is likely to average, you know...

I, I think in all probability they probably average somewhere between 25 and 35.

I think if you, you know, if you look at, at, at a long history of England openers dating back to Andrew Strauss's retirement, um, you know, there's, there's 15 players who have opened 10 or more times for England in tests, nine of which have averaged between 25 and 32Um, your outliers being Cook, Root, and Duckett at the, the strong end, and Lees, Hameed, and Lyth at the poor end.

But, um, yeah, I, I think fundamentally any, any new player coming in from county cricket is unlikely to do far better than Zak Crawley.

Um, and that doesn't mean Crawley should play.

I think that, you know, the trade-off for Crawley was always meant to be that he'd, he'd sort of make up for his generally underwhelming record by performing in big series, and he, he hasn't done that in England's last 10 tests against India and Australia.

Um, and I think there is value in proving that his underperformance has some consequence, which Rob Key has spoken about.

Um, and clearly England feel like they've, they've gone too far in terms of being overly loyal to players.

But I do think we need to manage our expectations about, um, whoever comes in.

And I think fundamentally the, the, the question of whether England can beat, you know, New Zealand in the first instance will probably come down much more to whether Harry Brook and Joe Root have okay series or very good series rather than who they pick as the seventh-best batter.

Um, that doesn't mean that there's no value in, in talking about who that seventh-best batter is.