Battle Of The Big Gloves

The 3 B's Buttler, Bairstow and Billings but who should the gloves go to?

We've all heard recently about who the discussion entailing who the gloves should go to. Its been announced that Lancashire player Buttler will be taking his stance behind the wickets for the T20 side. The big hitter Bairstow will plant his feet firmly behind the stumps during England's Test games. And Finally new kid on the block Billings will be taking the gloves during the One Day Internationals.

However should this be the case? A few years ago many people believed that Bairstow wasn't pulling his weight, however that all changed and now we're spoiled for choice. I think its now inevitable that Buttler is and should be our T20 wicket keeper. But the real controversy comes with the ODI gloves.

Looking at the most recently played ODI's against Ireland, it was said that Bairstow wasn't best pleased that Billings had the gloves in the first game. However Jonny went on to take Billings's place in the second game scoring 72* from 44 balls, clearing the ropes 10 times, with 7 4's and 3 6's. 

Does this prove the point that if we were to pick out of the two we should be picking Bairstow as our man as hes producing the runs and being successful behind the stumps.

Bairstow has now played 25 matches taking 16 catches and 2 stumpings. But then looking at Billings's statistics he has played 11 matches, taking 11 catches and 0 stumpings for England. Hes about on par with Bairstow having played less than half of the games the Jonny has but taking 50% of the amount of catches that Bairstow has but... the Kent player isn't producing consistent runs, with an average of 27.33.

Has Sam just not had enough time to prove himself into the side yet or do you think the ECB have decided to give Billings a few opportunities recently because they believe he has the potential to become a more promising wicket keeper than Bairstow. So instead slowly pushing out Bairstow of the role to purely be a big hitting middle order batsmen and test keeper,

Should Billings just be there purely to get a few big shots in? Should Bairstow be content with just being the test keeper ? 

You decide

Joe Root To Stem The England Test Team

But will holding the England in place prove too much for the cheeky chappy as he faces the axe from the England T20 Squad.

The Yorkshireman seemed to be an easy choice for the board to be the next test skipper even at the young age of 26. After playing 53 matches, scoring a total of 4,594 runs with an average of 52.80 and now coming into his own with the ball, surely Root is the answer to allow England to climb up from 4th in the ICC rankings.

However will Root have a price to pat as it seems that England want to ease the recently crowned captain from the 20 over side, so he can focus on his new role. This is not the only reason why... The board seem to think that he doesn't have the same ability to clear the rope as some of the other big hitters in the side.

With the World ICC T20 tournament still a hefty 3 years away the viking is still determind to fight for his spot in the short format of the game.

" I will continue to look to improve that side of my cricket. There are definitely areas I will continue to work on in terms of power and clearing the ropes"

" But over a relatively short international career I've found ways of adapting and developing different ways of scoring runs quickly. I don't see why I won't be able to do that in the future as well."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-4488812/England-s-Joe-Root-ready-fight-Twenty20-place.html

So what do we think? Should the future legend concentrate on his captaincy, as stress has proven too much for many a captain of the years, or is he the bright future for all formats of the game.