Frustrating England Lose The Lead In Jamaica

After watching England over the past three days and a session into the fourth day, I have become extremely frustrated with the captaincy of Strauss, and the performance of the team.

To begin with, England are becoming too reliant of KP. Everyone in world cricket now knows, get Pietersen and you have effectively got the whole team out.

If it werent for KP, Freddie and Prior, England would have been completely embarassed.

The tail again hasn't "wagged", we just capitulate under the pressure.

Everyone is talking about getting Ian Bell out of the team. I do feel he needs a break from the International game following his dismissal just before lunch on day four, however, he is certainly not the only one.

As I have said in previous articles, I feel Alastair Cook seriously needs to look at himself. His scores of four and nought have not set the team up in the way it needs to be.

It has become a usual pattern, being two or three wickets down with very few runs on the board.

It seems to me that England need another opener and a genuine No. 3, which Owais Shah isn't! This may have to mean Pietersen has to bat at three in order to accomodate Shah as he seems the only one good enough to score runs quickly without getting out.

Whilst the West Indies were batting, I was very frustrated with the negative field placings to lower order batsmen, and also the bowling.

I don't believe Monty was given enough credit for the way he bowled, he passed the edge numerous times, but with the pitch extremely slow, he isn't going to trouble the likes of Gayle.

Also, it seems the bowlers have forgotten that you are allowed to bowl at the stumps. It seemed the bowlers were just looking for edges to the fielders behind the wicket. A yorker wouldn't have gone down well with the tailenders. But instead they persisted outside off-stump with deliveries that were quite obviously too good for them.

With Panesar bowling to 10 and 11, Strauss had three men out and only three around the bat. Tailenders don't respond well to pressure so what do we do, not put them under any.

It will now be interesting to see how England do, considering Pietersen has just been bowled whilst I am writing this article!