1) Don’t overreact, don’t under-react

England have won eight of their past 11 Tests. They have also won eight of their past 19. They are not as good as they thought they were after victory in Sri Lanka; they are not as bad as we think they are now. By demanding an instant fix to a complicated problem, many modern fans are demonstrating the same aversion to nuance and patience that they deplore in England’s batsmen. It’s important not to overreact, but nor should England under-react. Their top-order batting was in crisis even when they were hammering India and Sri Lanka last year, and all ideas should be discussed in an attempt to address it. Those ideas should all stay on the table until after the World Cup, England’s biggest priority this year, and the Ashes, which they should still win if the pitches are slow seamers. This summer will be the end of two important cycles, and of Trevor Bayliss’s time as coach. Then, not now, is the time to make major changes.

The Spin: sign up and get our weekly cricket email.

2) Pick a specialist top three

Lack of top order leaves England at sixes and sevens in West Indies | Vic Marks Read more

The idea of Jonny Bairstow as a punishing No 3 was seductive but early evidence suggests it was also fanciful, and that he will always be too loose for such an important role. England have modified the old Australian way of picking the best XI and then the captain; their version is to pick the best XI and then the batting order. It might now be beneficial to treat the top three as a separate, specialised team, with at least one and ideally two defensive batsmen, and people who bat in those positions for their counties. It shouldn’t matter if they are 30-something stopgaps such as David Steele in 1975. England don’t need another all-action hero; they need a bank clerk who can go to war. Picking a new No 3 would mean omitting a big name – or Ben Foakes, whose low profile and unquantifiable excellence leave him at risk of becoming a patsy – but on recent form no batsman in the side is undroppable. There are echoes of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s star-studded yet unbalanced England football team, which was so much less than the sum of its parts. As the former England spinner Robert Croft said on the BBC at the weekend, there is no point having a group of batsmen who are devastating at 220 for three if they are always coming in at 20 for three. One of the reasons England are at sixes and sevens so often is that they have too many sixes and sevens.

Quick guide England’s batting woes Show Hide Joe Root’s average by series since becoming captain 2017 57.62 South Africa 67.00 West Indies 2017-18 47.25 Australia 35.50 New Zealand 2018 39.00 Pakistan 35.44 India 2018-19 38.16 Sri Lanka 10.00 West Indies In the first year of his captaincy, Root reached 50 in 14 out of 25 innings. Since then he has done so in four innings out of 22 Selected England batting averages since the start of 2018 44.60 Chris Woakes 41.50 Ben Foakes 38.80 Jos Buttler 36.59 Joe Root 32.42 Sam Curran 29.87 Jonny Bairstow 26.82 Keaton Jennings 24.83 Ben Stokes 18.44 Moeen Ali Big numbers 32 – England have lost a wicket every 32 balls in the series; they have taken a West Indies wicket every 78 balls. 25 – Times England have been dismissed in less than 90 overs (ie a full day’s play) under Joe Root. 29.52 – England’s average runs per wicket under Joe Root, the lowest under any captain since Alec Stewart in the 1990s. Only one man has captained England in at least 20 Tests with a figure lower than that of Root’s team – Archie MacLaren from 1897 to 1909. Photograph: Ricardo Mazalán/AP

3) Consider a change of captain

When Michael Vaughan succeeded Nasser Hussain in 2003, England lost a world-class batsman and gained something even more precious: a world-class captain whose leadership was the single most important factor in England’s 2005 Ashes victory. The trade has not been quite so successful with Joe Root. England have swapped a world-class batsman for a good batsman and at best a decent captain. Root is averaging 42 as captain, as against 53 when he got the job, and in the past 12 months that average has dropped to 33. This is not to say he should be sacked as a knee-jerk reaction to two defeats. But nor should he be immune, especially if England lose the Ashes in the summer. There’s a strong argument that they would be a better side with Root averaging over 50, ideally at No 3, and somebody else in charge. The number of all‑rounders gives England the luxury of considering all options, however leftfield or risky, and that includes a specialist captain like Eoin Morgan. It would do serious damage to Root’s ego to become the first England captain to be sacked because of Test results since David Gower in 1989, but the ECB is not running a wellness centre. In the last couple of years, there has been too much treading on eggshells, and from afar it feels like merit has not always been the only consideration.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Root is averaging 42 as captain, as against 53 when he got the job. Photograph: Ricardo Mazalán/AP

4) Rehabilitate Haseeb Hameed

It’s still hard to fathom the decline of Haseeb Hameed, whose performances in India in 2016-17 were so precocious that Trevor Bayliss said the dressing room was “in awe” of him. Hameed’s coach in his breakthrough season at Lancashire was Ashley Giles, England’s new director of cricket and whose return to Warwickshire coincided with Hameed’s baffling slump. One of the first things in Giles’s in-tray should be to meet Hameed and try to understand why his form has collapsed, and to ensure he doesn’t feel like he has been cast adrift. All ideas, no matter how leftfield, should be discussed: a loan move, batting down the order, giving up all white-ball cricket, the England Lions captaincy, a personal batting coach such as Ricky Ponting. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs; Hameed is worth it. He has the most potential of any young batsman in England, even if that potential now feels as fragile as his little finger, and is the kind of defensive batsman England desperately need. There is no rush when he bats and there should be no rush in his rehabilitation. Even if he did not return to international cricket until 2021, he would still be just 24 years old – an age at which many people haven’t started their first Test career, never mind their second.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Haseeb Hameed plays a shot against India in Mohali in winter 2016. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

5) Change the domestic schedule

This one is simple, at least in theory: play the majority of county cricket in June, July and August so that batsmen have the opportunity to play longer innings on truer wickets. In reality, the schedule is geared towards white-ball cricket for the foreseeable future, and the England and Wales Cricket Board has a tough job finding a way for The Hundred and the Test hundred to coexist.