Staring at Cricketing Armageddon

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

Staring at Cricketing Armageddon

 

March 30^th 2015

 

Back in 2009, Peter Moores was coach, England were in a Kevin Pietersen crisis and everyone said that things would be okay in the end because we were only playing the West Indies and a 3-0 result at least was a given, however bad things looked.

That ended with the captain and the coach both being sacked just before the series. An emergency management team put in place for the Caribbean tour under the only minimally plausible captaincy option remaining, 51ao in the 2^nd innings of the 1^st Test and the series lost.

It sounds so familiar.

Through that series England struggled to bowl out sides with a seriously hobbled attack on featherbed pitches. Andrew Flintoff was rarely more than half fit. Jimmy Anderson and Steve Harmison had issues too. The attack suffered attrition to the point that, when trying to force victory on the last day of the 4^th Test, England had only two fully-fit bowlers  Of the bowlers, only Stuart Broad played all 5 Tests and England were reduced to calling up Danish bowler Amjad Khan, who arrived just in time to play with undistinguished results in the Final Test and has never threatened to be selected again.

This was the series though that enshrined Andrew Strauss’s reputation as a “defensive” captain when he refused to set the West Indies 180 to win in 80 overs on the last day of the final Test – on a pitch where both sides had passed 540 in their 1^st innings. With the help of a frantic century from Kevin Pietersen (102 in 92 balls), he set the West Indies a seemingly extremely generous 240 to win in 66 overs. The West Indies managed to collapse horribly from 80-3, but Ramdin’s 17* from 87 balls was just enough to hold on.

Of course, the denouement was that when the West Indies returned in May, they were well beaten. England hung on against all the odds in the 1^st Test in Cardiff and went on to win the Ashes quite comfortably and to consolidate Andrew Strauss as captain.

This time though things do not look so happy. Again England go to the Caribbean with a captain and as coach, Peter Moores, who could both be sacked at any moment. However, where in 2009 there was a five-Test tour and then the return series to bed-in a new management team here, both captain and coach go knowing that anything less than a convincing series will could see the team under new management, not for a return series against the West Indies but, instead, against a dangerous New Zealand side. And that the waiting Australians in the summer are going to be far less vulnerable than the 2009 Australians who had their own issues.

England face a nightmare sequence of opponents: West Indies (a), New Zealand (h), Australia (h), South Africa (a) and Pakistan (a). Even the most optimistic will only see two potential series victories there and some see a likely four or even five consecutive defeats. Two of these opponents whitewashed England in their last encounter and will be looking to repeat the dose. With England looking weaker and more unsettled now than at any time since 2007, there is a distinct prospect of four consecutive crippling defeats without a single win an any Test, let alone a series. Cricketing Armageddon for England looks all too possible.

While it is true that you would normally expect England to see off the West Indies and New Zealand without too much trouble, the experience of 2009 is a warning. If the West Indies get their nose in front early against a disorientated opponent, do not expect sporting pitches to allow a comeback.

England would do well also to remember that they were expected to see off Sri Lanka last spring without breaking a sweat, but were beaten and then were 1-0 down to India after two Tests. New Zealand, again in 2015 the warm-up for the Ashes, are on the crest of a wave right now and are always uncomfortable opponents. With their clever seam attack, they are not the sort of opposition that you want to face with a side short of confidence, although the struggles of the Black Cap batting line-up in the longer format to put winning totals on the board has long been their Achilles heel: 207, 68, 174 & 220 were the totals that they managed in 2013. Just once in New Zealand’s last two early season tours of England have they crossed 300 and since 2004 they have lost 7 of 8 Tests in England, with just a single fighting draw. However, as they say, that was then and this is now: their recent form is that they have won four of their last five Tests and have reached the World Cup Final to boot. Do not underrate them.

It is a far cry from 2013, when England had just beaten India unexpectedly in India, then whitewashed New Zealand and won the first two Ashes Tests to make it six wins in seven matches over three series. The Ashes series was closer than it looks on paper, but Australia’s chronic problems in all departments meant that they could never exploit an advantage, even when they had one. England were so close to beating Australia 4-0 when Michael Clarke, who probably believed that he had made what was little more than a face-saving, token declaration at Tea in response to England’s morning thrash for runs, saw things go horribly wrong. An assault by Kevin Pietersen took England to the brink of victory. When bad light and some time-wasting ended things, just 21 were needed off 4 overs with plenty of wickets in hand. Many fans have tried to re-write history to say that England were lucky to win that series, let alone to win by 3-0 and that it was Australia’s positive cricket that set up an exciting finish to the final Test, but that is being more than a little economical with truth.

In the aftermath, England went to Australia in great heart, with most pundits expecting them to win again but, in part due to some extremely poor selection decisions came back battered and mentally deeply scarred. Those scars are still clearly and deeply present. The tour ended several careers. This time England know that they are almost certain to be on the wrong end of a heavy defeat, barring a lot of help from the weather or some miracle. It is like the 1980s and the West Indians all over again.  While Australia received England burning with a sense of injustice and a desire for revenge, England seem to cower fearing another beating: there is no burning intent to turn things around.

Australia have seen players such as Steve Smith, Mitch Johnson and David Warner, who were formerly ridiculed, turn into incredibly dangerous opponents. Chris Rogers looks ageless. Shane Watson has fulfilled his potential. Michael Clarke has been re-born as captain. Brad Haddin no longer looks like a weak link living on borrowed time and the Australians will have to decide who to leave out of a seemingly endless array of fast bowlers. The only seeming weakness is in their spin attack, but even there Nathan Lyon looks far better than any English option bar possibly Moeen Ali who, somehow, despite being a non-specialist, continues to take good wickets, although one wonders for how long that happy situation will last.

While England still have a solid new ball attack in Broad and Anderson, both are getting close to the end of their careers and particularly Broad’s destructive days are getting fewer and further between. The temptation to drop Stuart Broad and to build for the future must be strong. Pacemen such as Liam Plunkett, Chris Jordan and Chris Woakes show promise, but all three need a big series – and soon – to break through and impose respect on opponents. Plunkett certainly needs to be trusted with the hard new ball if he is to fluster the Australians with his high pace and arguably, Jordan would also be a better option than Broad. Beyond them, things do not look so healthy. Bowlers such as Tymel Mills, Steve Finn, Boyd Rankin and Ajmal Shazad who, not long ago, looked like the future, are now looking very much like faded hopes who have never quite made it and have all dropped out of consideration. The same for spinners such as Monty Panesar – who looks unlikely to play much more at any level – Danny Briggs, Simon Kerrigan and Scott Borthwick (4 cheap wickets in his only Test). The best specialist spin bowling hope right now cannot even get a game for his (second division) county.

Only Ben Stokes, who is far from the consistency that England need in a Test #7 and front-line seam bowler and whose returns were so poor last year that it is unarguable that he did not rate a place in the World Cup squad on merit, offers something new, while Adil Rashid looks like a selection made more in hope than in conviction that he will spin out sides.

Stokes is an enigma. Since that 120 in the second innings at Perth, he has made 316 runs in 24 innings in all formats for England, at an average of just 14.4, including a sequence of 0, 5, 5, 4, 0, 4, 0, 0, 0, 23 & 2. Despite some sporadic fiery bowling performances, he has a total of just 4 wickets in his last 12 ODIs and T20s, although 4 Tests have brought 17 wickets. Stokes has a chance to get back into the Test side in the Caribbean and is the sort of character who could add some fire to a side that is doubting itself so much, but needs to perform to justify being selected. However, the suggestions that he would have changed England’s fortunes in the World Cup are more down to wishful thinking and to absence making the heart grow fonder than to any real evidence.

It is not impossible that if Jimmy Anderson were to be injured, England could go with an attack of Plunkett, Jordan, Woakes, Stokes and Moeen against Australia. It would not inspire terror, but is far from as bad as the nay-sayers would moan and is an attack that could only get better with experience and with responsibility. It is not even quite impossible that Moeen Ali himself could lead that England side out – he would be a popular and thinking choice for a side where born leaders do not abound. Given home conditions and the sort of helpful pitches that Australia supplied to their own attack in 2012/2013, Australia could just be made to fight hard to win: most fans would take that with open arms.

Coming back to the immediate future, if England lose in the Caribbean, it is hard to see how Alistair Cook could continue as captain and possibly even remain in the side, barring a huge series for him with the bat. Even with a win there, there is a feeling that he is being given the long, slow death and will go sometime this summer as the side slides to defeat and the approaching winter looks set to add more pain. A less conservative team would cast Cook and Broad loose now and cut their losses, rather than risk Cook going after bad results either in the Caribbean, or after the New Zealand series, which would give a new captain an almost impossible task to turn fortunes around against the toughest opponents of all. Cook could easily have been “rested”  for the West Indies tests to try a new skipper. Similarly, Peter Moores knows that with his ECB bosses under fire, he is the one easy change that they can make in response. Moores realises that the comments made by Colin Graves in advance of the Caribbean tour are aimed at him and not at the West Indians and are a clear warning that his position is in grave peril unless fortunes change… and quickly.

The alternative: a comfortable 2-0 or 3-0 win in the Caribbean, followed by the heavy defeat of New Zealand and a close Ashes series, with the captain in prime form, seems just too preposterous to contemplate right now. Under the current management it is simply not going to happen.

Final England World Cup Thoughts And An Eye To The Future

 

 

Cricket World Cup 2015

 

Anatomy of Another Embarrassment II

And looking Forward

 

March 22^nd 2015

 

The sad part of England’s World Cup campaign is that so many of the criticisms are ultimately unfair. England took a good side, packed with talent to the World Cup. Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan, James Taylor, Alex Hales and Jos Buttler are all batsmen who can dismantle an attack. They are not poor players, or defensive batsmen who are locked in the 1960s: they are world class players and have shown it. However, after a dreadful pounding in their first two games, the team went into its shell and could not find the way out. The campaign stumbled from bad to worse with players losing confidence even when faced with inferior opposition. The fact that the captain could not even buy a run did not help. In Sri Lanka in November England had been competitive, even though they lost. In the Tri-series, England had beaten India twice and ran Australia close in one of their three encounters: in the World Cup Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka annihilated England – the games were as one-sided as any in the tournament and players with shattered confidence just could not pull themselves together for the Bangladesh game.

The sense of crisis in the side has returned after briefly disappearing last summer. The selectors have three Tests in the West Indies to find a combination that works before first New Zealand and then Australia come baying for blood. A 7-0 overall result would not be unexpected unless rain saves England in one or more of the Tests.

The side for the Caribbean reflects the uncertainty. Sam Robson has joined Nick Compton, Joe Root and Michael Carberry as openers who England have tried and rejected. Root has the satisfaction of at least still being in the side, albeit in the middle order. For Robson, whose late summer nightmare continued on the Lions tour, the chances are that his opportunity has been and gone. Nick Compton has gone back to Lords in the hope of getting back in the frame and is evidently still somewhere in the thoughts because he is in the MCC side in Abu Dhabi, opening alongside Alistair Cook and as captain to boot (Nick Compton will be relieved that the headlines will be of Cook’s 6-ball 3, rather than his own first ball duck). The latest winner of the poisoned ticket of opening with Alistair Cook is Adam Lyth of Yorshire, although the selectors have recalled Jonathon Trott who could, potentially, open alongside Cook or even conceivably, instead of him if Cook’s travails continue.

Previously a tour of the Caribbean was where you experimented desperately, hoping to find someone capable of stopping the oncoming tide more effectively than King Canute had one thousand years previously. Now, it is where you play a few up-and-coming players to ease them gently into Test cricket.

The Caribbean Test squad is interesting for those who stay from the World Cup team and those who come back.

·         New: Adam Lyth, Adil Rashid and Mark Wood.

The inclusion of Lyth was widely predicted. Many pundits expected a straight shootout with Sam Robson for the opening spot – it is obvious that Robson’s struggles on the Lions tour have altered those plans.

The inclusion of Adil Rashid was not expected. Rashid has toured several times with England without ever being seriously in contention. Once appearing to be the brightest talent in English cricket, he appeared to have lost his way completely before a good all-round season in 2014.

Mark Wood is possibly an even bigger surprise: he is yet another of the seemingly inexhaustible Durham factory of fast-medium seamers. Ominously though, Martin Emerson, the resident BBC commentator for Durham, says that he will do well “if he can keep himself fit”.

 

·         Recalled: Jonathon Trott, Ben Stokes, Jonathon Bairstow, Liam Plunkett and Alistair Cook

The recall of Trott is a risk. There is no doubt that the Australians will not be gentle with him. Will his health stand up to the rigours of an Ashes series? If he is up to it there is no doubt that his return will strengthen the England team and add some steel.

Ben Stokes will be thinking how things change. After a dreadful run in 2014 with scores of 0, 0, 0, 23, 2, 33*, 16, DNB, 6 and 11 wickets @40.8 there really were no grounds to select him, but runs and wickets in the Big Bash and with the Lions and the failures of others have made him look, once again, like a great all-rounder of mythical powers. Was his relative success in the 2012/13 Ashes just a flash in the pan, or is he the real deal? He needs to deliver more regularly.

Jonathon Bairstow is almost the forgotten man. No longer a regular, he remains in the side as the reserve ‘keeper and batsman. He has not played since the Sydney Test, getting in and getting out time and again against New Zealand and Australia in 2013 and 2014 and never quite breaking through.

Liam Plunkett only played four Tests last summer, but 18 wickets, a maiden Test 50 and some high pace suggest that, after a decent tour with the Lions, he probably should have gone to the World Cup because he would have added something different to the attack. His fans will hope that, like Steve Harmison in 2005, he will break through in the Caribbean after a similar roller-coaster career.

Time is running out for Alistair Cook. Having resuscitated last summer, playing on in the ODIs has tightened the noose again and a failure on his return in Abu Dhabi will not ease the pressure. A poor series in the Caribbean and the pressure to change captain for the summer will become overwhelming.

·         Retained: Gary Ballance, Joe Root, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Chris Jordan & James Tredwell.

When your only specialist spinner played just 4 matches for his Division 2 county, taking 11 wickets @ 38.7 and finishing 9^th in his county bowling averages, you know that you have problems. He will not win you a Test, but he might tie up an end… you hope. Many fans will wonder why Simon Kerrigan was not given another chance.

After the World Cup almost all of the retained players have question marks against them. There are serious doubts about Broad and Anderson as a strike force. Ian Bell’s annus mirablis of 2012 looks far behind – his 3x50 in the World Cup have been heavily criticised as being runs when they did not matter while his returns against the big sides were poor. Gary Ballance burst on the scene last summer in the Tests, but struggled during the winter. Chris Jordan ranges from brilliant to mediocre according to the day and Joe Root was remarkably anonymous most of the time.

·         Miss out: Steve Finn, Sam Robson, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, …

Moeen and Chris Woakes were injured during the World Cup, although Moeen may yet play some part in the Test series.

It is hard to see Steve Finn playing for England again in the near future. The World Cup has shown that he was brought back far too soon and his confidence has taken another massive jolt. He needs possibly two seasons in county cricket to re-invent himself and decide whether he wants pace, or accuracy – in the World Cup he gave neither.

Similarly, Sam Robson knows that his chances of a return are slim at best. A strong Lions tour could have saved him. A century in a non-First Class match to start the tour was followed by 1, 41, 5 & 0. Thanks very much. Don’t call us, we’ll call you (but probably not).

England know that they have to win the series in the West Indies big. Anything less than 2-0 will leave England in crisis going into the toughest Test year that the side has had for many, many years. In contrast, convincing wins against the West Indies and New Zealand would put the side in much better heart to face Australia. For several of the side it may be a question of winning or seeing their England career end.

Anatomy of Another Embarassment

 

 

Cricket World Cup 2015

 

Anatomy of Another Embarassment I

 

March 12^th 2015

 

You have to feel for Eoin Morgan. Given the captaincy with England in disarray, only weeks before the World Cup, there was always a danger that he would be overwhelmed by the task. When he was appointed I wrote of the options facing the selectors:

“Had it been Joe Root then the endless speculation about Alistair Cook losing the Test captaincy too would have started afresh. Had it been James Taylor, fans would have been stunned by a really adventurous move. Morgan is the steady move: he was the regular stand-in already and was captain for England’s only ODI series win for eighteen months. That said, the calls for Morgan himself to be dropped have got louder and louder over the last year so, unless the captaincy sparks a glorious revival in him, it may only be a short-term appointment.”

After a bright start, with fans and press praising his pro-active captaincy, things have gone very, very pear-shaped and ended with England’s ignominious exit from the World Cup. 

Asking Eoin Morgan to captain while struggling with his own form was always a risk. After a brilliant series in Australia last winter, with runs flowing like a river in flood, the last year has been a disaster: 28 matches, 491 runs at 18.8. Even the two matches when he has scored runs – 62 v Sri Lanka in the 4^th ODI and 121 v Australia in the first match of the tri-series – led to heavy defeats. A series of scores since the start of the winter of 1, 62, 5, 0, 4, 121, DNB, 0, 2, 0, 0, 17, 46 (v Scotland), 27 and 0 is a pretty desperate one. It is 92 runs in his last 8 innings, exactly half of them against the lowest-ranked team in the World Cup.

At the same time, to make his job harder, he has been given a hamstrung side riven with strange tactical decisions. James Taylor was doing very well at #3, so he was dropped down to #6 in the World Cup. Alex Hales played three matches in Sri Lanka and the warm-up against Pakistan, but was dropped for Gary Ballance in the World Cup. Critics would point to the fact that Hales has not been a success: 153 runs in 8 ODIs, but that still gives him an average marginally superior to his captain over the last year. More importantly, Hales is a player who has shown, albeit in T20, that he can go berserk and destroy a bowling attack: Hales was an attacking move – 15 overs in partnership with Moeen Ali could have set up a winning total against any attack in the world. Instead, the selectors took a settled side that was beginning to show signs of gelling and tinkered with it for the first game of the World Cup. In came “safe option” Ballance who, after a promising start to his ODI career, has stalled badly. Ballance has only passed 10 in one of his last eight and two of his last ten ODI innings. Short of cricket – he had had just one “slap and giggle” innings since September in a 15-a-side warm-up – he came up against first Australia and then New Zealand, the two class attacks of the World Cup, which was no way to find form and confidence. Ballance should have made way for Hales in the critical game v Sri Lanka. What better opponent than the one against which he scored England’s first T20 century to unleash Hales? He is just one innings away from making his breakthrough and pity Afghanistan if he decides that it should be against them.

The bowling attack is another case of chronic mismanagement. Chris Woakes has taken the new ball all winter with some success so, of course, he should be relieved of that responsibility in the World Cup. It is true that Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson have been as good a new ball pair as any in the world, but neither had played in months and both are still feeling their way back. The feeling must be that two disastrous tours of Australia have been one too many for Jimmy Anderson: I can see him retiring from ODIs after the World Cup and from all international cricket by the end of the summer.

Stuart Broad is another player under pressure. He admits that his nerve has gone with the bat. Although still capable of useful cameos, there has not been a 50 in any format since the 1^st Ashes Test in summer 2013. After 26 wickets in the six Tests last summer, the winter has been less kind: 8 wickets in 10 ODIs and some painful poundings at the hands of various batsmen. The public are on his case. Actively disliked by many fans of other teams due to his abrasiveness and frequent brushes with authority, he has never been a favourite of the English fans either who have rarely given him the credit that he deserves. Troubled by multiple injuries, he is not going to continue playing all formats of the game. If he is to continue to be an effective Test bowler he will probably need to retire from ODIs and T20. There is a danger that he may be pushed into retiring in all formats too.

England have taken a punt on Steve Finn this winter. On paper, returns of 5-71 and 3-26 in the World Cup look pretty good, especially when combined with a 5-33 and a 3-36 v India in the tri-series. You then look closer and see that the 5-71 owed a lot to a hat-trick from the last three balls of the innings after a fearful pummelling and that all three wickets were from catches in the deep. The 3-26 was against an over-matched Scotland, who still pushed England far closer than even the most pessimistic English fans had feared. While Woakes and particularly Broad were bowling deliveries that passed 90mph against Sri Lanka, Steve Finn was well under and for a good part of his spell cruising in the low-80s. Finn is no longer the attacking weapon that he was, aggressive and bowling regularly at over 90mph. However, England have persisted with him as they did with Jade Dernbach, hoping that he would click and he has not; at least, not consistently. Probably he should have been replaced with Jordan after the New Zealand game, although there was a case for playing Tredwell, despite – or maybe due to the fielding restrictions.

Jimmy Anderson lost his way so completely in 2004 that it was four years before he was ready to return – an unwanted exile blamed on the coaching that he had received. Steve Finn is young enough that he can afford two seasons in county cricket to re-invent himself and still have several years at the top level, but he needs to go back to Middlesex, play day in, day out and get back his pace and bounce.

So, to add to his personal troubles with the bat, Eoin Morgan has laboured with an iffy attack in which the most reliable control bowler was usually his non-specialist spinner, Moeen Ali, without the safety valve of being able to bowl 4 or 5 overs of dobbers from Ravi Bopara if one of the seamers got punished. This despite the fact that in the last year or so Bopara was often England’s most economical bowler and rarely proved expensive. Eoin Morgan needed options, but could change the names, he could change the ends but, in the absence of a specialist spinner, a left arm seamer, or an express quick, could not change the bowling.

In a few hours England face their final game and a potential final humiliation. On a pitch expected to offer pace and bounce they will come up against a 90+mph bowler who wants to make a name for himself. The odds are that even a wounded and demotivated England will be far too good for Afghanistan, but there is a nice parallelism in that the only side that either England or Afghanistan have beaten in this World Cup has been Scotland: England’s win was somewhat the more convincing of the two, but the Afghans see a chance to take a historic scalp and England look ready to be taken.

A big win may buy Peter Moores and Eoin Morgan some time. A defeat will surely see the end of at least the latter and potentially of both. The damage though has been done.