Sir Ian Botham: England must look to youth after Ashes tie with Australia

Sir Ian Botham says England should seem into their Test team to bed in some young talent as they build for the future and plan for the Ashes time.
Later clinching a win in the fifth and final Test at The Oval england attracted the summer’s Ashes series, but Australia retain the urn together with the 2-2 tie.
Botham considers the result is a fair reflection on the series, including that Steve Smith and his staggering 774 runs for the series has shown the gap between both sides.
“Things swung from that first Test at Edgbaston,” said Botham. “Australia were 122-8 and built those ventures with the tailenders.
“Steve Smith was magnificent. And he has been the standout for the entire series.
“I actually said, if he does not fail today, he’s not human. He did fail [scoring 23] however he’s been amazing.
“If you take a close have a look at the two sides, batting was an issue for the two, particularly the top purchase. Ben Stokes was the exception for England along with Steve Smith for Australia.
“I feel the speed attack of Australia was outstanding. They’ve played better cricket than people.
“But England are at a fairly good place normally, they simply require a bit of fine tuning.
“With the bowling, we’re in a similar position to Australia, we have got lots of young talent coming but England need to look at the batting line-up.
“Are they really likely to look at younger players, which I believe that they should do? It’s a couple of years till we are back in Australia for the Ashes – you’ll wish to have so now is the time to start looking at this.
“In New Zealand, it is a great opportunity to experiment, have a look and see what these young men can do. Zac Crawley, players like this, who everyone has been talking about.”
In wonderful his partner David Gower’s closing stints as broadcasters to get Sky Sports after 25 years of support botham spoke, and he represented on his time behind the mike.
“It has really been enjoyable,” he added. “It was the start of Sky and I mentioned at the time,’what exactly are we going to do? Where are we going to go for this?’
“They said, we would like to bring the sport to the living room of the people at home watching. I believe we’ve got close to that.
“It has been a terrific trip. Time to move on, there’s young blood available. But it has been wonderful; the areas of the world we have seen, the matches we’ve seen and the players who have surfaced.”

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