England Collapses And Small Totals: Getting Worse?

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

The England Collapsathon

 

July 15^th 2014

 

Over the last year England have faced a long list of dismal collapses. Sometimes, as in the 1^st Test at Trent Bridge, the end result has been massaged by tail-end runs. Others, as in Australia, the tail faded away in the collapse. There is an impression though that the big totals that win matches have been missing for some time. Let us look at England scores for completed innings. The last 3 years seems a good time span because it takes us back to mid-2011 and what is considered to be the apogee of the England side when, briefly, it held the #1 Test ranking in the ICC table.

In the last three years England have had 58 innings in which the innings has been completed: i.e. they have been all out, or have declared, thus eliminating token innings at the end of a game and occasions when small targets have been reached. In that time, they have put up 500 five times, winning four and drawing one of the games involved. Four of the five totals of 500+ were in 2011 or 2012.  There have also been nine totals of 400-499 (four giving wins, four draws and one a defeat), six of them in 2011 or 2012. In other words, just four times in 2013 or 2014 have England passed 400, all the matches ending in draws compared to ten, 400+ totals in from mid-2011 to the end of 2012.

At the same time, thirteen times have England failed to reach 200. Every one of those game was lost, bar the game in Dunedin where a full day was lost to rain at the start of the game. Seven of the thirteen sub-200 total have been in 2013 or 2014.

What this means, as we are 6 months into 2014 (so the last three years split neatly, half in 2011 and 2012, half in 2013 and 2014), is that England are making sub-200 totals just as frequently now as previously – with such a total almost guaranteeing defeat, but the big 400+ totals that almost guarantee wins have almost dried up in the last 18 months. The two big scores that England have made recently have both come on feather bed, pudding surfaces, where batsmen with a high boredom threshold have thrived and, even then, one of the two big scores depended on tail-end runs.

The batting unit that has been playing this summer has changed radically from the start of the Australia series: gone are Carberry, Trott and KP who batted at #2, #3 and #4. In are Robson, Ballance and Moeen Ali. Similarly, Joe Root has only played in the second half of the period of three years in question (his debut coming at the end of 2012). The only batsmen who have been consistently in the team through the entire period since mid-2011 have been Cook, Bell and Prior.

One theory that has been raised is that the England top seven is so battle-scarred by the winter Ashes series that their confidence is at rock bottom. In some cases this is undoubtedly true but, with three of the top seven new faces, you have to assume that the problem is contagious, which it might well be: when your captain is struggling and the opening partnerships are small, #3 and #4 are usually coming in with the side in trouble. Of England’s top seven, there are only three senior players and if one of more of them fails, it puts a big burden on the inexperienced members of the side to rescue the situation.

A look at parterships for the top two wickets suggests that top-order failure is genuinely over-pressurising the players in the middle order.

Since January 1^st 2013, of 34 opening partnerships for England, 11 have been in single figures. Just 5 have been of 50+ and no century opening partnership since Compton and Cook put on 231 to rescue the team in Dunedin in March 2013. England have not registered a 50 partnership for the 1^st wicket since their second innings at Melbourne in December (nine innings without a 50 opening partnership). It is a pretty horrific sequence. England’s #3 and even the #4 have been playing almost as an opening batsman, coming in regularly against the new ball.

England’s second wicket partnerships have not been much to shout about either, but have been much better than the opening stands: again, 11 single figure partnerships, but also four century stands (it is not a great surprise to England-watchers that Nick Compton features in both the best 1^st and the best 2^nd wicket partnership since the start of 2013) and 11 partnerships of 50+. However, tellingly, 15 times – almost half of all innings – England’s second wicket has fallen with fewer than 50 runs on the board, but only seven times have England passed 100 with just a single wicket down and in a really good position.

If one regards reaching 100-2 as a solid start, England have managed to achieve it just 15 times in 34 innings. No less than seven times since January 1^st 2013, the third wicket has gone down with 50 or fewer on the board: yet only once, curiously, in the Ashes whitewash, while four of the seven cases were in the 3-0 win last summer. In other words, England’s starts in Australia were not as bad as one might think, the major problem last winter was that the middle-order recoveries that got the side out of trouble were not coming because the Australians exploited the top-order struggles to roll over the middle and lower order cheaply.

Just twice in seven attempts this year have England got past 100 with just two wickets down: 14-3, 57-3, 74-3, 69-3, 278-3, 50-3, 154-3 has been the sequence but, possibly, there are signs that it is going the right way, as there is a distinct upward trend in the scores, possibly helped by friendlier attacks… and pitches; however, if this combination helps restore some confidence to the top order, England will not be complaining.

However, England will not be able to lay solid foundations for big totals until the captain begins to fire again. Sam Robson has made a decent start to his Test career and is suggesting solidity, with 230 runs from his first five Test innings and Gary Ballance is averaging almost 50 at #3, but Alistair Cook has just 97 runs from 7 innings in 2014, with a top score of 28, compared to an average of 33.9 and a top score of 130 in 2013. This is one problem that, unfortunately, comes straight from the top. The evidence also suggests that his slump is getting worse, not better and, while it continues, England’s middle-order will be exposed to the new or newish ball far too often, which is something that good attacks will exploit brutally.