Another Near-Miss In Antigua

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

England’s Antigua Blank

 

April 18^th 2015

 

When you have a side 189-6 chasing a world record score, with the new ball due next over and 50 overs of play to go, you would normally bank on winning, especially when the side in front has a reputation for being fragile. However, Antigua is a bogey island for England. It has seen three of the greatest Test innings of all time and all for the West Indies. Nine Tests played by England in Antigua have a balance of six draws and three heavy defeats. They have also provided some wonderful games and this one was no exception, with another tense finish.

Both Tests at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium have been drawn now – most notoriously the 2009 match that was abandoned after just ten balls due to a dangerous pitch and now this match, in which three of the four innings passed 300 and the odd one out finished only just short.

England have also played 7 Tests at the Antigua Recreation Ground where, famously, the prisoners from the local jail used to prepare the pitch. Of those, three have been lost – all by huge margins… two innings defeats in 1990 and 1998 and a defeat by 240 runs in 1986 (Viv Richards 110* in 58 balls) – and four drawn. The last four matches between West Indies and England in Antigua have all been drawn. 

·         England went close in 2009 when Powell and Edwards held out for 10 overs at the end for a draw chasing an absurd 503 to win.

·         In 2004 England won the first three Tests before Brian Charles Lara ended the England career of Gareth Batty, who had eye-watering figures of 52-4-185-2 as Lara scored his 400.

·         In 1994 England had the West Indies 12-2 before Brian Lara scored 375. Big hundreds in reply by Mike Atherton and Robin Smith saw England bowled out for 593 at Tea on Day 5 (!!) to gain parity.

·         And, in 1981, a fighting century from Geoff Boycott saved England from an innings defeat. Boycott later recounted how one of the prisoner-groundsmen came up to him before the match and, to his astonishment said “Mr Boycott, I’m a big fan of yours. I’ll roll you a good, good pitch and next time you come back I’ll roll you a good one again. I’m in for life.” With typical aplomb Sir Geoffrey replied that he obviously was not in prison for an unpaid parking ticket!

In 2009 England were blamed for a delayed declaration and for dalliance before lunch on the 4^th day. Only 104 runs were scored in a fairly relaxed manner in the first session when almost everyone expected a slog and a declaration perhaps as much half an hour before lunch. What the media, centred on the arrest of Sir Allen Stanford the previous day, were unaware was the parlous state of the England attack. Andrew Flintoff was more seriously injured than people thought and would bowl just a small number of overs at reduced pace. Steve Harmison was too ill to take the new ball, but even then bowled more overs than  Stuart Broad and Andrew Strauss was left just three fit bowlers for four and a half sessions of bowling, so his reluctance to declare earlier was somewhat understandable. When Andrew Strauss needed fresh and fit bowlers to break the last wicket partnership, the attack was on its knees.

Here too you could doubt the wisdom of setting such a huge target as 438. Successful fourth innings chases of 380+ are so rare as to be collectors’ items and no one in their right mind could see the young West Indies side setting a new Test record chase, twenty more than they had chased in 128.5 overs in 2003, against Australia. Alistair Cook will remember Antigua 2009 as it was his cautious 50 at the top of the innings that helped set up the declaration. Yet so low are expectations that some (presumably) England supporters even predicted that the West Indies would waltz to the target with plenty to spare.

The fickleness of fans is illustrated by the fact that two Tests after setting the West Indies 503 to win and seeing them bat out almost 130 overs, Andrew Strauss was condemned for not setting them 180 to win in almost a full day in the final Test. That fickleness is just as present now. The England side has been widely condemned and half the players are in the firing line.

First, the good news. Having been played out of form and close to a slump by the selectors, Gary Ballance is back to his red ball form of last summer. With Joe Root and Ian Bell showing fine form, two decent innings from Ben Stokes in the match and a good second innings fifty from Jos Buttler, from #3 to #7 England look solid.

However, the bad news is that Jonathon Trott has added 0 and 4 to his 2 and 0 in the warm-ups with St. Kitts, looking totally out of place as an opener. Trott came into this tour in sublime form, having finished last season with 104 v Durham, followed by 6, 79*, 211*, 0 & 53 for the Lions in January, but the Caribbean has been less kind to him. A pre-season tour with Warwickshire and the England tour, against frequently friendly bowling, have brought scores of 12, 1, 72, 2, 0, 0 & 4.  With the New Zealand Tests and the Ashes looming and having seen England make two awful starts in this Test (34-3 and 52-3), the pressure to play Adam Lyth in the 2^nd Test is intense.

Lyth has been a victim of the pre-set plan to play Trott out of position as an opener, with a single innings of 23 on this tour. However, he scored 113 and 46* for Yorkshire v the MCC just three weeks ago, as well as a 54* against Middlesex in the warm-up for that game. Lyth is in the form of his life.

Jonathon Trott is a class act and there is a temptation to stick with him in the belief that he will come good. Unfortunately, his opening partner is also an issue. Alistair Cook is not in bad form as such – he has reached double figures in 9 of his last 12 innings – the problem is that in just one of them, against the friendliest possible bowling in St Kitts, has he passed 34. Scores of 3 & 5 v Yorkshire (while Lyth scored 113 & 46*) and then 11 & 13 in the Test have ratcheted up the pressure another notch. Cook feels that there is a section of the cricket establishment who wants him out and sees the loss of the ODI captaincy as part of the campaign. Unfortunately, his best course to quieten the whispering is to score runs and the runs are not coming.

Cook last scored a century against New Zealand at Leeds on May 26^th 2013, when Nick Compton (remember him?) was his opening partner and England last won an away Test on December 17^th 2012.

Since that Leeds century, Cook has reached 50 no less than nine times (more times than he has made single-figure scores – 8), passing the 70s just once. He is scoring runs consistently, but something is inhibiting him from going on to make big scores. It is hard to believe that it is not the captaincy.

At North Sound, Cook looked good, got into double figures in both innings… and got out: bowled by Roach off an inside edge in the first innings and edged to gulley from a wide delivery by Taylor in the second.

With the captain struggling, do you play a debutant in the 2^nd Test, however much you worry about Jonathon Trott? The answer will say much about how determined the management are to turn things around. Geoff Boycott thinks that they will take a conservative approach and play Jonathon Trott again. The risk is that another failure for Trott would give Lyth just one Test maximum to bed in before the summer Tests, if he has to take over. The suspicion is that the selectors have decided that Trott will open in the Ashes almost irrespective of what happens and are hoping against hope that he will come good. It is the sort of policy that will be lauded to the skies if it comes good, but will look incredibly stupid if it fails.

The other big decision that faces the selectors is the make-up of the bowling attack. There is no shortage of opprobrium from the fans. Moeen Ali is on his way to join the squad, but bowled just 11 wicketless overs in his County Championship try-out against Yorkshire: not enough surely to show that he is match fit to bowl 40+ overs in a Test.

If Moeen goes straight into the side, one option is a straight swap with James Tredwell. This could lead to Jos Buttler batting as low as 8. No one sees Tredwell as a match-winner in Tests: he played just 4 matches for Kent last season, taking a handful of expensive wickets after an even worse season in 2013. Such was his situation that he was loaned-out for one-day cricket last year.

After his first innings 4-47, a decision to drop him would have looked incredibly harsh but, with England pressing in the second innings and turn available, 40-14-93-1 showed plenty of economy, but insufficient threat. Only the lack of a viable alternative seems likely to ensure his place in the 2^nd Test.

Opinion is sharply divided. Some fans would play Adil Rashid despite the fact that he will deliver a four-ball most overs. Incredibly, this is his fourth England tour after South Africa in 2009/10, India in 2010 (when it was explicitly stated that he would not be considered), the 2011 World Cup and now the Caribbean, plus two Lions tours. Adil Rashid spins the ball the other way and is a more natural complement to an off-spinner and is a decent bat. Word though is, once again, that he has not impressed on this tour and many expected him to be released when Moeen was called-up. Just why he is not released to play for Yorkshire if he is not to play in the Tests is anyone’s guess.

Stuart Broad has come in for intense criticism. He averaged low-80s in both innings, with his speed dropping to high 70s for a significant part of the first innings. Despite a Test 150, he is now batting at 10 and there is an argument that Jimmy Anderson too should come in ahead of him now. At Test level Stuart Broad had a good 2014: of fast bowlers, only Mitch Johnson, Jimmy Anderson, Dale Steyn and, marginally, Tim Southee and Morne Morkel took as many wickets at a better average. However, poor limited-overs form has put him under severe pressure from unforgiving fans who have forgotten rapidly that he managed a match-winning 6-25 v India last summer. Again, the suspicion is that his body, ravaged with injury, is telling him that enough is enough: he can put in good spells, as he did in this Test, but he finds it hard to sustain the effort over five hard days.

Likewise, despite his amazing catch and first innings runs, Chris Jordan is being condemned by many fans as simply not good enough. In his favour he did bowl consecutive deliveries at over 90mph as England strove for a breakthrough after lunch and, in both innings, only James Tredwell was more economical of the front line bowlers, although there is a suspicion that he bowls within himself to attain control when, at times, you would like him to make the extra effort and bowl flat out.

Similarly, 0-64 and 0-50 has done nothing to convince that Ben Stokes can be considered a front-line bowler at this level. This is his fourth consecutive match for England without taking a wicket, a combined 0-199: his last international wicket was against India on September 5^th. He too is caught between the two stools of bowling flat out for wickets and keeping things tight, ultimately achieving neither.

The result was an England attack where Alistair Cook could change the bowlers, could change their ends, could change the fields, but could not change the bowling on a pitch where something different was needed.

An idea of what England were up against from the pitch is given by the last over from Jimmy Anderson. Two balls on a good length got up to half stump height. Two, back of a length, reached two-thirds of stump height. It is not that he was not making an effort, three of the balls were between 84 and 85mph and the other delivered at 89mph. The situation cried out for something different, but England’s fastest bowler was in the pavilion and looks unlikely to play any part in the Test series.

If Liam Plunkett is not to play, either Ben Stokes or Chris Jordan has to be told to slip the leash and step up their pace, even if it is at the cost of conceding more runs.

With the 2^nd Test being played at Grenada, there is a strong argument to bring in Lyth, Moeen and Plunkett. Seam is likely to dominate spin, so Moeen Ali’s load will most likely not be so great, while the extra pace of Plunkett would at least give an extra option.

With Alistair Cook a naturally conservative captain, having a conservative coach is not ideal. One of the few pieces of real imagination that Peter Moores has shown was to call up Ryan Sidebottom back in 2007. The feeling is that the side is unlikely to change for the 2^nd Test unless Moeen Ali comes in for James Tredwell, taking a calculated risk on his fitness to bowl long spells if necessary. If Moeen Ali shows up well in the nets expect him to play, otherwise the XI is likely to be unchanged.