Cricket 2014
The England Crash-Dive Continues
March 16th 2014
Having shown some signs of better
things to come in the Caribbean ODIs, England’s T20 series was an unmitigated
disaster. Having no Joe Root can be spun as a blessing – he will get his first
decent break from cricket in a year and a half as his thumb heals, but the loss
of Stuart Broad to the sort of injury that generally can only be cured with
months of rest and then Ben Stokes to a self-inflicted blow, hardly reduces the
feeling of crisis in English cricket. It is all so different from the situation
just seven months ago.
Stokes’s ill-judged decision to take
out his frustration on a door will, hopefully, reduce some of the hype about
him. Since his 70 in the 3rd ODI v Australia, his scores have been
0, 5, 5, 4, 0, 4, 0. He has added 3-43, 0-36, DNB, 0-13, 0-21, 0-30 & DNB
to his scores, with batsmen finding easy pickings as the first flush of success
against Australia faded away. It all adds to the feeling that, although he has
talent, he has a huge amount of work to do to become a top-rate all-rounder.
And, first of all, he needs to find some discipline.
Had Broad and Stokes been available,
Chris Jordan would surely not have got a game. As it was, he has added to his
burgeoning reputation. T20 is a format where you can bat for six balls and bowl
six balls and be hailed as a hero. It definitely rewards style over substance
and quantity over quality. However, Jordan’s brief and violent innings turned a
total that was too small to challenge the West Indies power into one that was
just big enough and his ability to knock over batsmen was demonstrated again,
quite apart from taking a brilliant catch. Just why he was not in the Test
squad, particularly when England were struggling to find bowlers is a question
even the selectors are probably asking themselves. Quite possibly his selection
would have not made a blind bit of difference, but you do wonder if his athleticism
and ability to bowl at over 90mph might have been improvement over Chris
Tremlett’s gentle medium pace and Boyd Rankin’s lameness. Surely the selectors
have to give him a chance against Sri Lanka if he shows any kind of early-season
county form.
Although Hales, Bopara, Bresnan, Lumb
and Buttler all had one significant score, no England batsman managed to sum
more than 85 runs in the series. No one had the sort of run of form that
allowed the side to build big totals around him. And a measure of the bowling
is the fact that Ravi Bopara took as many wickets as the next two highest
wicket-takers combined. Time and again it was Ravi Bopara, jointly with James
Tredwell, who had to bring the situation back under control after a fast West
Indian start. After the economy rate of 5.1 for Bopara and Tredwell, the next
best was 8.2 for the debutant, Steve Parry and 9.5 for Jade Dernbach, who was
nothing like as bad as he had been in Australia. In contrast, Wright, Stokes,
Bresnan and Broad came out with the eye-watering combined figures of
13.5-0-163-3. Ravi Bopara comes in for some fairly vicious criticism from
England fans, much of it unjustified. In this series he has justified, once
again, his place in the side as one of the most reliable members.
One player who England are unlikely
to use in Bangladesh is Luke Wright. Whatever his success in the Big Bash, a
sequence of scores of 9, 0, 8, 1, 0, 0 and 7* cannot be ignored, especially
when combined with minimally used bowling. However, with one or two ifs and
buts, England’s T20 squad seems to be sorting itself out. Moeen Ali did not
have a great tour of the Caribbean but his potential and ability to bowl useful
spells of spin cannot be ignored. Probably ten of the places in the side are
pretty well decided: Hales, Lumb, Morgan, Bopara, Buttler, Ali, Broad (if fit),
Jordan, Parry and Tredwell are givens, with Jade Dernbach likely to be the
tenth. The final place is probably between Bresnan, Bell and Woakes, with Bresnan
likely to start favourite. It is not a great side, but it is not as bad a team
as many will try to make out and, if the breaks fall the right way, could spring
a surprise or two.
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