Cricket 2014

 

The Game that no one can Afford to Lose

 

July 25^th 2014

  

A lot is riding on the 3^rd Test that starts on Sunday. For England, a defeat would almost certainly condemn them to lose their third consecutive series: two down with two to play, there would be no way back. Even a draw would leave England needing to win the last two Tests to snatch the series. A summer that was supposed to give England two easy series wins to help recover from the winter, is turning into the kind of nightmare in which however much you run and however hard you struggle, you cannot escape your demons.

It is generally assumed that a new defeat, combined with personal failure, would condemn Alistair Cook. The fact that there is not a captaincy candidate in the side would be resolved by sending Cook back to Essex to make some county runs (although we tend to forget that he started the season with a blaze of runs for his county and it did not help) and bringing in a captain from outside to fill the temporary gap. Eoin Morgan is one possibility. It is probably too early for Joe Root, but it is not impossible that someone such as his county captain, Andrew Gale, could be brought in: 30 & 126* against Middlesex last time out suggest that he is in decent form and he is one of the few regular county captains who is a plausible selection for England.

However, if Alistair Cook falls, Peter Moores’ position will also be dramatically weakened. Incredible as it may seem, just a few months after the dawning of a new era for the side, with Cook and Moores in tandem setting things right, there is a growing feeling that Peter Moores’ second tenure as coach may be a lot shorter than his first and he is increasingly looking like a temporary appointment. Although Moores does not lead the side on the field, he has a huge input into tactics, team selection and overall strategy. It is an open secret that Alistair Cook looks on the coach to guide him in how to approach things in the field. England’s tactics this summer have looked poor and  some of the strategy, awful. While most of the fire has centred on the captain, the first whispers about the coach’s position have already started.

England’s sequence is now ten games without a win. Seven defeats and three draws in that run. We are getting back to some of the worse sequences of results in the history of the side. What is more alarming, England should probably have won all the Tests this summer, having built up strong positions time and again, but they have won none of them and lost two. Rather than improving, things are getting worse and the form of the senior players is uniformly alarming. The newcomers have come in and done their jobs, but have not been backed-up by the likes of Cook, Bell and Prior. Similarly, Plunkett, Jordan and Stokes have had their moments, but cannot get their hands on a newish ball, despite the fact that Broad and Anderson are not using it as effectively as they should. It is hard to understand why, on a hard, grassy pitch at Lords, Liam Plunkett was not given a short burst with the new ball, just to see what he could do, before returning to Broad.

Sunday will be a test of nerve. Common sense says that Broad should be rested and Jordan played in his place. There might also be a case for playing Chris Woakes instead of Anderson and giving the new ball to Jordan and Plunkett. There is no question that Broad needs to rest his knee and that Anderson just needs a break to re-charge his batteries (although the ICC hearing next week may well give him just that): will Peter Moores though have the nerve to make such a big call? This is a game that England must win and they will not do it with an exhausted new ball attack that is carrying injuries.

As Australia showed, things can turn round fast but, to do it, you need belief. Even in the middle of Australia’s horror run in 2012/13 though, Sri Lanka were mercilessly dispatched 3-0. Peter Moores cannot even point to a single win to suggest that he has the formula to set things right.