Tail End Toughness Gives England An Unlikely Escape Route

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

When you are low on confidence and out of luck…

 

July 12^th 2014

 

Two debatable decisions, one of them appearing to be particularly bad, a side with its confidence at rock bottom and opponents who want revenge. It is a recipe for disaster and led to the latest episode of the on-going train wreck that is the sequence of England performances over the last 9 months.

All logic stated that if two Indian tail-enders with no pretensions to bat could put on a century partnership, England should be able to sail up to 500+ and be able to put some pressure in India on the last day. On a dead wicket the follow-on was not even a vague possibility until, when Robson and Ballance had put England in a really strong position, the fall of six wickets for 68 after lunch left the follow-on a very real possibility and fans and pundits scratching their heads. How do you break this cycle of lack of confidence bringing a collapse that leads to defeat, that mines confidence even more?

The cycle started last year when England played on too many poor pitches that led to key players (particularly Cook, Root and Trott) struggling against the new ball and losing form and confidence. Helped by a Mitch Johnson unrecognisable from previous encounters, Australia preyed on that lack of confidence and left several players a shadow of their former selves. Joe Root in particular, is not the confident batsman that he was but, at least, he remains as tough as teak: he looked all at sea and a walking wicket yesterday, but battled through as others fell and remained at the Close, organising the tail, closing on an unexpected century.

Unexpected? He was 50* when Plunkett fell and, with Jimmy Anderson one of those in the tail whose confidence has suffered worse from the pounding in Australia, did not look likely to get much further. Root though is now 78*, Jimmy Anderson is batting splendidly well and the pair have followed the 78 added by Broad and Root and the 18 by Plunkett and Root, with an unbroken partnership of 54 so far. If Anderson were to see Root through to his century – Anderson is already approaching his Test highest score of 34 – England would be in a position that, were they to bowl out India for no more than 250, could even engineer an unlikely win.

The bottom line though is that enough time has been taken out of the game by England’s tail to make a draw the most likely result. MS Dhoni is not famed for his adventure and is unlikely to take huge risks to set England a tempting target. With every run that comes off the Indian lead, the eventual declaration will have to come later and England will have less time to survive.

The perfect situation for England is to add another 30 or so runs in the morning. Apart from giving confidence to the side, it will force India to make the running if they have any interest in winning and that is not a situation that they are particularly confortable with.