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

Sir Ian Botham says England must seem in their Test team to bed in a few young talent as they build to the future and strategy for the Ashes time.
Australia retain the urn with the 2-2 tie, although after clinching a 135-run triumph in the fifth and final Test at The Oval england attracted that summer’s Ashes series.
Botham believes the final outcome is a fair reflection on the show, adding that his 774 along with Steve Smith runs for the show has shown the difference between both sides.
“Things swung from that very first Test at Edgbaston,” said Botham. “Australia were 122-8 and then built those ventures with the tailenders.
“Steve Smith was magnificent. And he’s been the standout for the entire series.
“I really stated, if he doesn’t fail now, he’s not human. He did, by his standards, fail [scoring 23] but he’s been quite wonderful.
“If you take a look at the two sides, batting was an issue for both, especially the top order. Ben Stokes has been the exception for England along with Steve Smith for Australia.
“I feel that the speed attack of Australia was superb. They’ve played better cricket than people.
“But England are in a pretty great place typically, they simply require a little bit of fine tuning.
“With the bowling, we’re in a similar position for Australia, we have got a lot of young talent coming through but England need to look at the batting line-up.
“Are they really going to look at younger players, which I believe they ought to do? It’s a couple of years until we’re back to the Ashes – and – you are going to wish to have so now’s the time.
“In New Zealand, it’s a wonderful opportunity to experiment, take a look and see exactly what these young guys can do. Zac Crawleyplayers like that, who everyone was talking about.”
Botham was speaking in amazing his partner David Gower’s final stints as broadcasters to get Sky Sports after 25 decades of support, and he represented fondly on his time behind the mike.
“It’s been fun,” he added. “It had been the beginning of Sky and that I stated at the time,’what are we going to perform? Where are we going to proceed for this?’
“They said, we would like to bring the game into the living room of those people at home viewing. I believe we have got fairly close to that.
“It has been a terrific trip. There’s young blood on the market time to move on. But it’s been fantastic; the areas of the world we have seen, the games we have seen along with the players that have surfaced.”

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