England v India: 5th Test, Day 5 and Aftermath - Just When You Thought That It Could Not Get Worse…

 

England v India: 5^th Test, Day 5 and Aftermath

Just When You Thought That It Could Not Get Worse…

December 20^th 2016

Another day. Another extraordinary collapse. Another innings defeat. And made worse by another embarrassing cover-up. The sudden revelation that Jack Leach was ruled out of a call-up for India due to a suspect bowling action was suspiciously convenient in its timing.

You have to survive around 95 overs on a pitch so flat that 1248 runs have been scored for 17 wickets on the first four days, at a cost of 73 runs per wicket.

At Lunch, after 37 overs, almost 40% of the time that you need to survive to obtain what should be a simple draw, the score is 97-0 with both openers a boundary from their respective fifties. Jennings is batting sensibly and save from one missed chance and a handful of occasions when he was beaten, Cook was looking solid and unmoveable.

Up comes the century opening partnership, only the seventh that England have enjoyed in the last three years (each of the seven has been Alistair Cook with a different partner, showing just how much the job has passed from hand to hand like a grenade with a dodgy pin), although, surprisingly, it was the third of the winter tour.

Surely, not even England can make a mess of this?

Oh yes they can!

Once Cook fell, the team dutifully followed him to the dressing room. We have often begged Cook to show some leadership on this tour, but this was not what we meant by it.

103-0 to 129-4 on such an easy surface was shocking by any standards. Jennings was unlucky – he used his feet and skipped out, the ball hit his boot, lobbed up and popped off his bat back to the bowler – Cook, Root and Bairstow though simply played poor shots. Just when calm was needed after three quick wickets, Bairstow launched a leg side heave into orbit.

When you look for sensible, calm batting, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes are probably not the first two names on your list. Moeen has produced some spectacular innings this year and has had some spectacular brain fades. He has also shown himself to be the winner of the prize for the most nervous starter in the side: and even if he is not as nervous as he looks, a lot of England supporters most definitely are, watching him batting with the haunted look of a dedicated kamikaze on his second mission. However, you know that if he can get past those first  few overs and reach 20, there is a good chance of a decent score: during 2016 he has averaged a fifty every three innings and averages 46.9. Let’s put that in context: Alistair Cook averages 42.3 in 2016; Joe Root, 49.2; Jonny Bairstow, 58.8; and Ben Stokes, 45.2.

Looking at those numbers, you do wonder how England have lost a match this year and then you remember that Hales, Duckett, Hameed, Root and Jennings have all opened this year. Moeen Ali has batted at every position from #1 to #10 in just 3 years of Test cricket and, in the last 12 months, has batted once at #3, three times at #4, four times at #5, once at #6 (DNB), five times at #7, seven times at #8 and once at #9. It is hardly a show of stability. Joe Root is undoubtedly best at #4, but has opened once (in an injury crisis), played at #3 twelve times and at #4, just seven times. Poor form and injuries have not helped, but the constantly shifting batting order has left players unable to settle into a steady role and has caused at least some of the uncertainty that has led to players not knowing clearly enough what to do when there is a crisis.

Of course, you expect to have the occasional player dreadfully out of form and to lose a player or two but, finishing the tour with three players sent home injured and having four more that were essentially unselectable is a new low.

The decision to take Ballance was, on reflection, a dreadful error. It was fair enough to show faith in him, but now he averages 18.8 over his last 11 Tests, having averaged 62.4 for his first 11. He has been thoroughly rumbled by the bowlers and his confidence must be at rock bottom. Ben Duckett will also reflect that scoring easy runs against pop-gun Second Division attacks is no preparation for facing Test attacks, particularly attacks with skilful spinners. He passed 15 just once in his seven innings. Ravi Ashwin is unlikely to feature on his Christmas card list as he faced just 40 balls from him, scored 16 runs and was dismissed three times, each innings shorter than the one before. Duckett also fell to the spinners (Mehedi or Shakib) in all four innings in Bangladesh. By the time that he was dropped, the opposition knew that as soon as he faced a spinner, Duckett’s goose was well and truly cooked.

At different stages of the India series England lost the services of Broad, Anderson and Woakes, their three most effective bowlers over the last year. It meant Jake Ball, who had bowled so well in the Bangladesh ODIs, but seemed to have been lost by the baggage handlers at the airport after that last ODI, suddenly getting to play the final two Tests after weeks of inaction. However, even with such limited options available, there is no evidence that Steve Finn was ever in contention. Steve Finn ends the winter with the unenviable distinction of having played three times (including the Bangladesh warm-ups) and not taken a wicket in four innings with the ball. It is hard to see him playing Tests again in the near future.

The worst of the winter though was the chaotic handling of the spin bowlers. England knew that their spinners would be outbowled – the 1^st Test v India where Moeen and Adil Rashid instead out-bowled the Indian attack, proved to be just a mirage.

After the Bangladesh Tests, the report on the spinners would have read “#1, Moeen Ali; the rest, nowhere”. For three and a half Tests it seemed that “the Beard that is feared” was back with a vengeance. 17 wickets in 7 innings at 22.6. Then, suddenly, Alistair Cook stopped bowling him. Just 3 overs in the 2^nd innings at Visakhapatnam: when he finally got a bowl he broke the partnership that had finally taken the match away from England. He had the fewest overs of the six bowlers used at Mohali. When Alistair Cook remembered him again, he was not the same bowler, producing 3-410 in the last three Tests.

By the same token, Adil Rashid, who Cook evidently did not trust with the ball at all in Bangladesh, suddenly became the bowler of choice. He was, as a result, over-bowled and, in consequence, lost his surprise effect: his economy rate soared, his strike rate sky-rocketed and his average with it. Adil Rashid was lost as an effective strike bowler by the end of the series and could no longer maintain his economy.

Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid might have done better with better support. Gareth Batty was picked mainly, it seemed, as a steady and reliable bowler to block up an end. However, with the Indian side full of right-handers, having two off-spinners was always likely to be a luxury and, in the end, he played just three of the seven Tests. The fact that, by the end of the series, an inexperienced debutant with a very modest red-ball record, who was not even the first-choice spinner for his county in 2016, was picked ahead of Gareth Batty when earlier in the series another debutant had been preferred to him, was an indication of his limitations. After a very weak last third of the county season, when his rivals for a tour spot comprehensively out-bowled him, his final Test record will stand at 9 Tests, 15 wickets @ 61.

Zafar Ansari  played three Tests and, after a nervous start, had his moments. His county form had probably not justified a call-up, but the selectors had picked him the previous winter only for a serious injury to rule him out of the tour. The suspicion was that he was taken to learn and to bring back his confidence after two major injuries that had seen him for the best part of eight months out of action, but he had to be press-ganged into action ahead of time due to the failings of others.

However, fans who  do follow the county game closely might just wonder: two spinners from Surrey in the Test squad? Surely their spin attack must be lethal? The truth is that Surrey have what is far from the most testing spin attack in county cricket and neither of the two most successful English-qualified spinners of 2016 were even on the tour.

Of course, that leads to the question that most fans had, which was “where was the stand-out spinner of 2016?” Middlesex fans would also point out that Ollie Rayner, who had been on the England radar a couple of years earlier, had a very fine season too, playing on much less friendly tracks than many of his rivals. Rayner had a particularly fine second half of the season and watchers marvelled at how he was thriving under the new Toss rule. It is at least arguable that, debutant or not, if a second off-spinner were needed in the squad, Rayner should have gone instead of Batty. What though of Jack Leach, who had almost single-handedly taken Somerset to the verge of the Championship title?

Leach went to the UAE with the Lions, played just one of the unofficial ODIs, but with lethal results and then was only very lightly bowled in the unofficial Test v Afghanistan. There was utter bewilderment that Dawson was preferred to him as a replacement for Ansari. Today though, it was announced that in post-season tests in the UK his action was found to be suspect and had had to be re-modelled and, because of that, he could not be considered for the Tests.

There are so many questions raised by this episode that suspicions have been raised. Why the suspiciously convenient timing? Why give the Press a good story about spin bowlers just as the series ends when the spinners taken on tour were being so criticised? Why was the fact that he was re-modelling his action kept quiet? Why could he play an unofficial Test, but not be considered as an injury replacement for England? Why is it that no questions had been raised about is action during the season? Why is the programme of testing of actions kept quiet if the ECB want to have the moral high ground in ensuring that bowling actions around the world are legal? Was this leak just to ensure that selectorial or management backs were covered in the light of the series defeat? Was Leach deliberately kept from bowling more with the Lions as he worked on his new action? (In which case, surely getting as much match practice as possible was desirable to iron-out any remaining kinks)

Some good judges have expressed their amazement at the results of the tests. Of course, one assumes that they are accurate but, usually, when an action is found to be out of limits, people have questioned it previously. Is it every delivery? Or is it just the occasional ball when he tried to do something different? Jack Leach himself has said that it was just a tiny change in his action. It smacks of some kind of bizarre cover-up when the logical thing was just to release the details when it happened and get on with playing.

Speaking of spin bowlers they, like any bowler, need to feel that they have the confidence of the captain to perform at their best. The suspicion must be that Alistair Cook’s lack of intuitive feel how to use his spinners best, how to balance attack and defence and how to coax the best out of them was a major factor in the decline in their performances towards the end of the India series.

What of Cook? Twist or stick. A major betting company offered evens that he would resign in the post-match press conference. He has not, but Michael Vaughan, captain less than ten years ago, expects him to resign. Nasser Hussain, captain before Vaughan, was savage in his criticism, as were two former captains of less recent vintage, Geoff Boycott and Bob Willis.

We have though given Cook up for dead so many times. In 2013 he was suffering a slump in batting and in results, with a series defeat to Sri Lanka and an unexpected Test loss to India following a 5-0 Ashes drubbing. Many pundits expected him to go, but he hung on and turned both the series and his form around. Whereas the disastrous tour of Australia ended the England career of so many members of the squad, Cook survived to lead the new side, born from the ashes of that obliteration. Previously, a miserable summer in England in 2010 (to follow a poor Ashes the previous summer) had many writing his obituary, before runs flooded back in Australia that winter.

Despite coming from a county with a long tradition of spin bowling, many of Alistair Cook’s problems stem from a lack of intuitive feel for how to handle spinners and to get the best from them. In his early years he had it simple: Graeme Swann gave control, economy and wickets and Monty Panesar was a live wire. Together, they were Smash and Grab, Lillian Thompson, … Sadly, Swann’s elbow was increasingly an issue until he realised during the fractious Ashes whitewash that he was no longer worth his place in the squad. Monty’s increasingly erratic behaviour coincided with a rapid downturn in form – the Final Test in India in 2012/13 was the start of a catastrophic slump that saw his last six Tests produce just 9 wickets at over 60. At a stroke, Alistair Cook had to make do with what was available and what was available was an elegant batsman who could bowl some (then, part-time) off spin: Moeen Ali. No one would deny that Moeen is still a work in progress and that his form can be erratic. It is well known though that Alistair Cook gets frustrated with his lack of control. More than anyone though, a spinner needs to feel that confidence that even if a batsman goes after him, he will not be consigned immediately to the outfield as a naughty boy. He needs the captain to set fields to give him a chance, not just be used to spell the seamers when nothing is happening for them (for years this was Ollie Rayner’s complaint at Middlesex). Alistair Cook has never had this intuitive empathy with his spinners that coaxes the best out of them. He is much more comfortable with seamers who give him control and wickets and is out of his depth in conditions which do not favour seamers, but in which his spinners cannot apply a straitjacket and that thus require a lot of thought and tactical nous.

In this series, England had one chance. In the 1^st Test an earlier declaration would have given England a real opportunity to spring a surprise win and for the England spinners to receive a huge boost to their confidence. However, as the series progressed, Cook’s at times bizarre handling of the spinners seemed more designed to destroy confidence. It may be that the very long spells that Ansari and Dawson received were conditioned by the criticism that had been meted out on him for his destructive handling of Simon Kerrigan back in 2013, after which the unfortunate bowler has never been the same again but, tactically, they made little sense. How Moeen Ali went from taking 17 cheap wickets in the first three and a half Tests of the winter to being an afterthought who was a shadow of his former self, is one of the mysteries of Alistair Cooks captaincy career. All kinds of theories were advanced such as undisclosed injuries to explain why Moeen was suddenly surplus to requirements.

You sense that Andrew Strauss or Michael Vaughan would have seized that early chance to put England 1-0 up in the series and would have understood that there was little or no danger that India would have chased even 250 on the final afternoon had the declaration come shortly before Lunch, as it needed to. Almost certainly the series would still have been lost – that fright seemed to spark India into action – but I would take a large bet that England would not have lost the remaining four Tests and probably not even lost three of them had that chance been taken.

Speaking of chances, the estimate after the Final Test was that missed chances had cost England around 300 runs just in that one innings alone (heaven only knows how many more through the series). That was the difference between being competitive in the match and losing badly. India also missed chances, for example, Alistair Cook was missed early in the century opening stand, but more chances always came afterwards, so the Indian misses were never critical for their chances. In contrast, whenever an Indian batsman had a let-off, he seemed to take advantage and make England pay very dearly for it. Five of the six highest scores in the series were made by Indian batsmen and all the scores of over 150 were by Indians. In centuries, the score was 9-6 to India, so England were far from outclassed in that sense, but four of those nine Indian centuries were converted into daddy hundreds. Six times an England player passed 75, without going on to a century; only two Indians missed out. Whether they were chances to force a result, chances in the field, or chances to go on to make a decisive score, India were just consistently more ruthless.  It is not the captain’s fault that chances are dropped, but when there is a general laxity and defeatist air around a side, it is more likely that chances will go begging and that is down to the captain. It is the captain who has to ensure that the team is pumped and primed for every session, that heads do not drop when things start to go wrong and that a fair proportion even of the half-chances get taken.

England really have very few options. Since he made his debut, Joe Root has had the label “FEC” – Future England Captain – tattooed (metaphorically) on his forehead. Established wisdom is though that the intention is for him to take over for the summer of 2018, after next winter’s Ashes tour. There is a fear that his runs are so important to the side that the burden of having the captaincy too is just too great a risk to take in Australia. There seems though little alternative to Root. Stuart Broad has had the captaincy in the short form and lost it: his time has gone. Jos Buttler has deputised for Eoin Morgan in ODIs with some real success, but is not even guaranteed his place in the Test side, especially after Hameed returns, assuming that Keaton Jennings also has to be accommodated in the final XI.  Interestingly, England seem to be covering their bets somewhat, as Jennings captained the Lions in the UAE, will captain them in Sri Lanka and is captain of the North to play the South in the season-opener in the UAE. Is he being prepared as an alternative to Joe Root, or maybe to spell Joe Root in the future so that Root can take some, less important series off and thus ease his burden?

Either way, England face a critical decision. It is possible that Alistair Cook could limp on until the end of the Ashes in 2017/18, but it is just as possible that a heavy defeat to South Africa in the summer could see him resign anyway in mid-summer, pushing the side into crisis and giving Joe Root little time to bed in. Does the ECB back Cook – there has been a rush to get behind him and offer support but, as Sir Humphrey Appleby said, “you have to get behind someone to stab them in the back”? Or do they go with a stop-gap captain, maybe on a series by series basis? Or do they take the plunge with Joe Root now? England’s chances in Australia may hang on making the correct call.

England v India: 5th Test, Days 3-4 - Magnificent India Pile On The Agony

 

England v India: 5^th Test, Days 3-4

Magnificent India Pile On The Agony

December 19^th 2016

England have conceded their largest ever total in a Test. On just 22 occasions in Test history has a side conceded more than 700 runs in an innings: this was the seventh highest ever total in a Test. Some consolation for England is that only two of the six higher totals produced a positive result.

In the words of Bill Murray, “it’s Groundhog Day…” (Deep Sigh) “… again.”

This match has taken on a deeply familiar pattern. England win the Toss and put up a reasonable, but not exceptional score. India then bat and put that score into context. And then England go into the last day just hoping to somehow avoid an innings defeat. Here, the situation is less hopeless than it was at Mumbai, as the declaration came right at the end of the day and England’s openers survived comfortably the five overs to return in the morning and the pitch is definitely more friendly.

There, the comfort ends. We were told that the pitch was so slow that if India tried to accelerate, wickets would tumble. India scored 143 from the last 20 overs of their innings as Nair and Jadeja absolutely marmalised the bowling. Not since the days of the great Australian side of the ‘90s and ‘00s has an England attack been treated with such utter, patronising contempt.

However easy the pitch – and this one has produced a triple century, two centuries (one a 199 and the other, a 146) and six, fifties, three of them from #8 or #9 in the order – one has seen time and time again that a side cannot just suspend its competitivity completely for a session, allowing the opposition to score at will and then come out and bat for its life. England will need to bat for a minimum of 95 overs and you can be sure that if there is any hope of forcing a win, India will bowl far more than the minimum 90 overs on the last day. England will more likely not get into the lead until deep into the last hour, which will bring back memories of Cardiff 2009. And, remembering Cardiff 2009, how much England could do with Monty Panesar, fit and on form, although his reward for that sterling effort with the bat was to be dropped because he was already struggling in his day job: Monty’s last six Tests, over three series, produced just 9 wickets at 61 each.

Tomorrow will be the last day of the series. Two weary sides will take a break. India will hope to stir their heroes into one, last stunning performance. The England team, riven with injury problems and poor form to key players, will be thinking of the flight home and seeing their families for Christmas. There is though, plenty to play for. For India, 4-0 will tighten their hold on #1 in the Test rankings and serve to further humiliate their former colonial master. England know that 3-0 sounds a lot better than 4-0, it will break the sequence of defeats (now 5 in the last 7 Tests) and will also break the sequence of Final Test defeats that has gone on now since India visited England in 2014.

If England do save the Test tomorrow, they would prefer it to be saved well, not with 9 wickets down and the last pair at the wicket. There are positives from the series, but they need a strong performance on the last day to keep them positive. The batting and the courage of Haseeb Hameed makes one think that England finally have an opener to serve them for years. Keaton Jennings did enough in his debut innings (and, more surprisingly, with the ball today) to suggest that he will be a key player in the side, maybe even in the Graeme Gooch mould of being a major bat, able to bat in the upper middle order as well as open and who could also do a holding job with the ball when England were in difficulties. However, scores of 112, 0, 1 and, so far, 9* could indicate one, lucky, early big innings (like Lyth, Robson, etc.) rather than the future of English batting. More than anyone, Jennings needs to finish the series with a big innings and with a big opening partnership to show that he is not just a flash in the pan.

Moeen Ali started the series as far and away the No. 1 England spinner. Now that role is far from obvious after taking just 10 wickets at 65. Two centuries and a fifty in the series look pretty good, but his other five innings have produced just 24 runs. Moeen will probably be hoping that he will not need to bat but, if he does, he will hope for a fifty-plus score and not another failure. It is fanciful to say that his success or failure in the series will be judged on this innings but, to end on a high will do him no harm. And what of Alistair Cook? His batting has not been as mercurial as it was in 2012 (he is averaging a tad under 36), his captaincy has been criticised (often with much justification) and his future is subject to more and more speculation, with Trevor Bayliss the latest to suggest that he may decide that enough is enough. Would another surrender tomorrow convince him to give up the captaincy?

India have been brilliant. Do England have the guts to keep the series score fairly respectable?

Meanwhile, across the Indian Ocean, in Australia, the most extraordinary Test for years has just ended. At 67-8 shortly before the Close of the second day, chasing Australia’s first innings total of 429, you would have been forgiven for expecting an innings defeat on the third day. In fact, chasing 490 to win, Pakistan got themselves into a position that with just 41 needed to win and two, set batsmen at the crease, they were probably at that time, even narrow favourites. In the end, just when Steve Smith must have been wondering if his name would go into the record books as the captain who failed to defend a target of 490, Mitch Starc pulled Australian chestnuts out of the fire. It was a stunning finish to an enthralling match.

England v India: 5th Test, Days 1-2 - The Shuffled Pack Shows Its Bottle

 

England v India: 5^th Test, Days 1-2

The Shuffled Pack Shows Its Bottle

December 17^th 2016

Once again Alistair Cook has won the Toss, as he has in the previous two Tests. And at 21-2, barely forty minutes into the game, any England fan optimistic enough to have got out of bed, must have been watching from behind the sofa. It brings back memories of watching Doctor Who as a six year old: terrifying, but strangely compulsive viewing.

Jimmy Anderson has joined the growing casualty list. Some reports are suggesting that he may struggle even to be ready for the South Africa series in July. With Steve Finn and Gareth Batty considered expensive luxuries and Ben Duckett and Gary Ballance considered liabilities, the unavailability of Chris Woakes ensured that Jake Ball would keep his place. England must have breathed a sigh of relief that Stuart Broad was passed fit, even so, of necessity Liam Dawson became the most unlikely England debutant for years – even he must be wondering how it happened. Poor Gareth Batty though knows now that he will never play for England again. Of the XI who started in Bangladesh, four have fallen by the wayside. Of the XI who played the 1^st Test v India, two more have gone.  Could a re-shuffled England do any better?

Keaton Jennings is finding that Test cricket is unforgiving: two failures have followed his debut century, but then that has been the Jennings way this season, with him following a series of low scores with a huge innings. Do not be amazed if he scores a century or makes a duck in the second innings. More alarming, given the waffle about his captaincy, is Alistair Cook’s form. In India in 2012, he led the way with a series of massive scores. This winter, his scores have been 4, 12, 14, 59, 21, 130, 2, 54, 27, 12, 46, 18 and now 10. It has been decent, but England have needed more than decent to compensate for his lack of intuition as captain. At his best, Cook leads from the front and inspires and the team follow and that simply has not been happening.

Moeen Ali is another to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Many England fans continue to be outraged that he is considered worth selecting. Vilified for irresponsibility more than once in the series, he is finding that “Trott’s Fault” (the excuse for any calamity in past years) is in danger of morphing into “Moeen’s Fault”. Considered far and away England’s most threatening bowler after three Tests of the winter, he has now been eclipsed by Adil Rashid’s advance. To guarantee his place in the summer he may well need to score enough runs to be picked as a batsman. An awful, scratchy start had the fans calling for his head but, somehow, he survived, he gritted his way through and then thrived. Two centuries and two fifties have come this winter – four centuries in the year – so he is doing something right, but five single-figure scores and nothing else higher than 14 shows his early vulnerability. However, on this occasion, without his 146, England would have been in a sad mess yet again.

With England slipping from a positively cheering 253-3 to a depressing 321-7, those who predicted 340ao seemed to be in danger of being classed as sad optimists. Such has been the reliability of England’s tail that 19 runs from the last three wickets seemed to be more akin in optimism to Oliver asking for some more. Yet, wonder of wonders, a century partnership from Dawson and Rashid – hands up all those who predicted that one! – and England started to dream of 450, 480, even 500. As Stuart Broad got behind the ball and made his highest Test score for more than a year, yes, even 500 looked on. Somehow though he managed to run himself out running what should have been a reasonably comfortable three and hopes of 500 went with him. Even then, Jake Ball kept Dawson company for a while. 477 looked good, but then so did 400 in the 4^th Test and it was only good enough to ensure an innings defeat.

No praise can be high enough for Dawson’s debut 66*. He showed spine and gumption and managed to imbue the England tail with some too. We have been used to seeing India’s last three wickets pile on the pain but, to see England progress from 321-7 to 477ao seemed little short of a miracle. It is little and late, but the side has finally shown some bottle. England will now be hoping that Dawson is similarly successful in his day job. India have not scored quickly, but they have advanced with no discomfort, no alarms whatsoever. The lesson of days 1 & 2 has been that there is some life in the pitch for the first hour: England either use it or they will watch India rack up 600+ again and face a thoroughly unpleasant last day under pressure to save the game. Unlike India 2012, India 2016 do not offer a side the chance to escape. This Indian side is seriously good.

England v India: 4th Test, Day 5 - Blown Away

 

England v India: 4^th Test, Day 5

Blown Away

December 12^th 2016

For all the brave talk that England had plenty of batting left and that a lead of 120 might make things interesting, the reality was brutally different. The last 4 wickets resisted just 48 balls on the final morning. When a batsman as talented as Jos Buttler finishes 6*, you know that there has barely been even token resistance by the tail.

From 180-4 and looking set to post some sort of target, possibly even a challenging one, 6 wickets fell for 15 runs in 73 balls. It is not a collapse that England will look back on with any pride. It is not even their worst collapse of the winter. In terms of the fall of the last 5 wickets, it was only the third worst collapse of the winter: a horrifically bad statistic.

The decision to play four seamers has been widely criticised, but who would have played in Jake Ball’s place, had the side been picked again with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight? Apart from the injured Stuart Broad, the options were: Batty, Dawson, Finn, Duckett and Ballance. Steve Finn is a seamer and one struggling for form so, discounted. Duckett is a good one-day batsman, who has made runs in the Second Division, which is no preparation for playing a side unbeaten at home in four years 14, 15, 7, 56, 13, 5, 0 and looking hopelessly at sea against spin seems to have ruled him out. Ballance averages 18.8 in his last 11 Tests and has been well and truly found out in Test cricket; to pick him largely on the basis of one innings against Pakistan, was no kindness as his confidence must be close to zero. Dawson is a rookie with just a handful of ODIs and  T20s to his name and was felt to be too big a risk. And Gareth Batty’s Test record is now 15 wickets @ 61 in 9 Tests: the bizarre logic of picking a 39 year old bowler who had run right out of form in the last month and a half of the season, cruelly exposed. His last 7 First Class matches since the start of August have produced combined match figures of 10-521. Undoubtedly, the selectors hoped that he would be as inspired a pick as Shaun Udal had been in 2006, but his end of season form (the last third of the season) was totally overshadowed by other bowlers such as Leach, Rayner and Crane while, in 2005, Shaun Udal had topped the Hampshire bowling averages, finishing well ahead of one Shane Warne.

After the match, Alistair Cook made some comments that sounded like an admission that it is time for Joe Root to take over from him. However, we have written Cook’s obituary before – most notably in 2014 – and he has come back from the dead. With one Test to go in the winter, there are no more games until July 6^th 2017, when England play South Africa at Lord’s. Many things may happen before then. There is then a helter-skelter of cricket with a Test series against West Indies that goes well into September (the final ODI is on September 29^th!) and then a tour of Australia.

However, another defeat in the final Test, especially if combined with other, external factors (will Jimmy Anderson want to tour Australia again? If so, when will he call it a day?) might just sway his judgement. Cook has since played down his remarks, but only he knows how much longer he wishes to continue. A further factor though, with Joe Root playing Tests, ODIs and T20 is to ask how much he needs the added burden of captaining a faltering side to be thrust on him. How much is too much for him? Do we want to find out?

Barring the 1st Test, India have been utterly irresistible in this Test series. Most pundits expected England to be hammered and have not been disapointed in their prediction. After the Bangladesh series, plenty suggested that England would be fortunate to avoid a 5-0 defeat: they have been proved right. To win, England had to play at 100% and India had to be overconfident and off-colour, as they were in that 1st Test; that match though was just the wake-up call that India needed and it has led them to putting in as dominant a performance as any series in the 1990s when whitewash followed whitewash in India and England's performances in Asia became a figure of ridicule.

England v India: 4th Test, Days 1-4, Irresistible India

 

England v India: 4^th Test, Days 1-4

Irresistible India

December 11^th 2016

The smart money is on India wrapping-up the 4^th Test and the series before Lunch tomorrow. This Test has been chastening as the previous two, with India riding roughshod over an England side that was often brave and fought hard much of the time, but that just did not seem to have the ideas or the ability to turn things around. One of the key moments of the Test may be when Cook was off for a time on Day 3 and Joe Root took over, immediately putting himself on to bowl with India in complete control at 305-4 and picking up Patel and Ashwin in four balls. For a few minutes, England were right back in the game. If England end up losing 4-0, the whispers that Joe Root might make a better captain, may well become much louder, citing just that incident.

Sadly, the “what comes next” was as predictable as ever: another quick wicket and England could have been looking at a precious first innings lead, but India just motored off into the distance. A partnership of 57 between Kohli and Jadeja was bad news. One of 241 for the eighth wicket between Kohli and Yadav was a humiliation. All through the series India’s unheralded bottom four have scored runs in abundance, turning even positions into totally one-sided ones. In contrast, England’s lower order, most with First Class centuries and ample batting pedigree, has not managed to reach a 40, let alone the century of Yadav or the 90 of Jadeja. While the Indian tail makes hay, the England tail look, all too often, like rabbits in the headlights.

If England had eked-out a lead of even 20, the third innings would have been nicely set up. England would have set a target of some sort and a target gives hope. However, when you spend 78 overs bowling at the bottom four and 65 bowling at 9, 10, Jack, any remaining spirit  of resistance that you may have had is totally crushed.

Keaton Jennings will reflect on the role of luck. On the first morning he offered a difficult chance from the tenth ball that he had faced in Test cricket: difficult, but India have taken more difficult ones during the series. The chance was missed and Jennings became just the third England batsman to make a century on his first day of Test cricket. In the second innings he was unfortunate to get a superb delivery from Kumar, first ball that he had faced, which did what England’s four seamers had totally failed to do: hooping in-swing. Jennings was trapped in front and, although he would have survived a review if he had been given not out originally, thanks to two reds and an umpire’s call, he was dead in the water. It was another of those decisions that shows that however much DRS has evened the playing field, luck still plays its part. Jennings could have been lucky, been given the benefit of the doubt and survived on review but it would have been ridiculously unlucky for the bowler. Debut century in the first innings. Golden duck in the second. How the wheel turns.

Jenning’s first innings showed what we already knew about him: if he gets a start, he will go on, implacably, to make a big score. It is a useful talent to have, although it may subject him to opprobrium from the fans if he strings together three or four low scores consecutively: just a couple of failures and those glowing appraisals of the first day that England now have a potential have a top four  (Cook, Hameed, Jennings, Root) that will serve them for years, will be subject to a cruel revisionist hindsight. Those who follow county cricket should know though that Jennings can string together several failures but, when he gets in, he does score big and he allows others to bat around him to build match-winnings totals.

Even though Cook and Root suggested solidity, what was to come was entirely predictable. You suspend all competitivity for a day in the field and find that turning it back on with the bat becomes a massive task. Once Cook fell, Moeen’s winter, which started so well, took another turn for the worse. Not helped by being shuttled up and down the order, his 117 in the 1^st Test has been followed by 1, 2, 16, 5, 50 and 0, with his first innings dismissal here being widely condemned for provoking the collapse that followed. The old fan cry of “Trott’s Fault!!!” every time there is a batting collapse is now morphing into “Moeen’s Fault!!!”

When you need 231 to make the opposition bat again on a pitch that is giving the opposition bowlers a help that your own never had, a start of 49-3 is the last thing that you need. What happened next? Events followed a depressingly familiar pattern. Root and Bairstow batted brilliantly. The Indian bowling and fielding started the get ragged as the partnership mounted. We entered the last hour of the day with the optimists thinking that if they were still together after an hour in the morning India might just have an uncomfortable afternoon. Suddenly, Yadav got a ball through Joe Root and pinned him back against the stumps. In no time at all, 141-3 and hope became 182-6 and “game over”. Once again hope built and the last hour of play killed it. Yes, England have Buttler, Woakes and Adil Rashid to partner Bairstow but, in reality, Bairstow will need to push on to a century and at least one of his partners make a fifty for England to have a chance to escape. The pundits do not expect the game to get as far as Lunch on Day 5 and we have no real reason to hope that things will turn out otherwise. Whereas now we are getting to expect that one of the Indian lower order will flog the attack, England’s supposedly more accomplished batsman suggest no such threat.

India are showing that they are formidable warriors at home, led by the amazing contribution of Virat Kohli: 40, 49*, 167, 81, 62, 6* & 235. In the same way, Ravi Ashwin, who finished the 1^st Test with match figures of 3-230 and a bowling average against England of over 50, has come roaring back with 5-67, 3-52, 1-43, 3-81, 6-112 and (to date) 2-49 and has subjugated England. After a 1^st Test that England largely controlled, there has hardly been a day won by England since. Before the series the pundits talked of 5-0. 4-0 is looking an increasing inevitable result as the Indian juggernaut flattens England’s challenge. Kohli and Ashwin are carrying all before them and giving their team and their fans the belief that they are unstoppable.

Some of the England picks have been debatable (four seamers here was in response to the calls to play to the strengths of the squad and not to play a spinner just for the sake of it if you do not have one worth his place, but the pitch has done nothing for them). The choice of support spinners for Moeen and Adil Rashid has been somewhat sui generis. With Monty Panesar seemingly in a downward spiral out of the game (this season he has had three First Class outings for Northants with negligible success and has played most of his cricket at club level, with occasional 2^nd XI and Minor County games), the one spinner that most people agree is probably the best available – Jack Leach – is in the UAE with the Lions, while Liam Dawson, at least at present a far inferior bowler, soaks up the atmosphere in India. If Dawson is not to be trusted to play a Test, why not have Leach in India to bowl in the nets and get used to the atmosphere as England have done in the past with Adil Rashid? Jack Leach could have been in India learning, getting the feel of the atmosphere around the squad and preparing the batsmen for the challenge that faces them.

In the end though, the Indian attack has simply been far superior in the conditions. There has been no need to load the conditions in their favour. None of the pitches has been vicious. India have just been capable of getting far more out of them than England and their batsmen have negated the opposition attack far better than England’s.

England v India: 4th Test Haseeb Hameed’s Misfortune Could be Keaton Jenning’s Lucky Break

 

England v India: 4^th Test

Haseeb Hameed’s Misfortune Could be Keaton Jenning’s Lucky Break

November 30^th 2016

It is at least arguable that had England played Haseeb Hameed in Bangladesh they would have won the series. As it is, they have unearthed a gem. Scores of 21, 82, 13, 25, 9 & 59* in the first three Tests fail to measure his impact.

A score of 25 in the second innings at Visakhapatnam looks like a modest contribution, but it took up 50 overs of self-denial, inducing pure frustration in India as England tried to conjure a draw from the wreckage of a wretched performance. Hameed’s dismissal started the slide to defeat when India were beginning to look increasingly ragged and frustrated. Greater still though was his second innings effort at Mohali. Batting with a broken hand. Unable to grip the bat properly, he marshalled a recovery from 107-6 to 236ao. Ultimately both efforts were in vain, but both deserved so much better.

Hameed is on the iron bird to England to get a titanium plate put in his hand and, by all accounts, almost had to be ordered home, as he wanted to play the last two Tests. Unable to field, it would have been impractical, but it showed spirit.

No one doubts that Hameed will return to take his place as an opener for England next summer. He looks to have made the opening slot his own when he is fit again.

For now though, a replacement is needed. Already there had been hysterical calls to send out Sam Billings as the best available player of spin, but England’s problems go much deeper. India are not just providing a trial by spin: India’s pace attack is providing hostile and dangerous and is getting at least as much out of the pitches as England’s. England have tried Duckett, Root and Hameed as Cook’s partner at different times this winter. Root has done the job and was a good stand-in at Mohali, but right now he is a more natural #4 and it is where he is going to score the most runs. You can talk about using Root, Moeen, Duckett, or even Billings to stand-in as opener for the last two Tests, but they need a specialist.

With the Lions squad in the UAE one would think that the matter is simple. Unfortunately, unlike previous winters when they have had a heavy schedule of matches, the Lions tour this winter is more of a camp. The match programme only starts on December 1^st with four 50-over matches against the UAE and Afghanistan: hardly the most challenging opposition. With the 4^th Test starting on December 8^th, any replacement may get to play the first two games in the UAE, but no more, as preparation for two Tests against a rampant India.

While there were calls for Nick Gubbins of Middlesex to be called-up, over the summer Keaton Jennings just did that little bit better and showed a happy knack of making good scores into big ones: 7 centuries, including two doubles, testify to that, as do his First Class scores at the end of the season: 14, 0, 27, 45, 21, 0, 33, 171*, 40, 8, 201*, 11, 1, 25. When Jennings gets in, he scores big, but it can be feast or famine. Gubbins, in contrast, has been more consistent over 2016 and has more fifties, but fewer hundreds.

All-in-all though, Jennings was the right choice, if only to reward him for prolific form in Division 1 in a club in turmoil and for setting out his stall with Durham and England. With Jennings likely to play most of his cricket in Division 2 in 2017, if he were passed-over here, it is likely that his chance would be gone, at least until Durham return to Division 1. Of course, Jennings’s selection comes at a price: he is the latest in a long line of players born in South Africa to throw in their stall with England. It has left England open to the criticism, launched many times over the last few decades, that it is a team of mercenaries. There is something insidious about this in its purest manifestation of seeing how the picking of a multicultural team to represent a multicultural society causes so much offense to so many people.

England’s second and less expected replacement, is Liam Dawson. Dawson is very much seen as a player for the future and is being developed as part of a long-term plan. It turns out that Zafar Ansari’s injury problems are far worse than was revealed and he will, unexpectedly to most, leave India too before the 4^th Test.

England have got in a bit of a bind here. The top two spinners in the country are Jack Leach and Ollie Rayner. Jack Leach is young and Chris Rogers, his county captain, mindful of what his compatriots did to Simon Kerrigan, does not think that he is ready for Tests. He would though be the like-for-like pick, as a Slow Left-Armer. Ollie Rayner, in contrast, is more experienced, more mature now and ready, but would be a third off-spinner when Moeen Ali is already being criminally underbowled at times. There is a very highly rated Slow Left-Armer at Middlesex in Ravi Patel, but he has hardly played for two seasons and, although still on the radar, is unlikely to advance his career future at Lord’s in the near future.

It may be that Liam Dawson is the best of a poor set of choices but, with Alistair Cook’s well-known lack of confidence in spinners, putting an inexperienced spinner who is not even first choice for his county (the even younger leg-spinner, Mason Crane, has usurped his role as first-choice spinner for Hampshire), into the Test team, may not be a rip-roaring success.

England v India: 2nd & 3rd Tests: Paying the Price for Timidity

 

England v India: 2^nd & 3^rd Tests

Paying the Price for Timidity

November 29^th 2016

The 1^st Test ended on a high. England dominated. They looked the stronger side. India were poor. But for a timid declaration, England would surely have won.

It looked too good it be true. And it was…

India were able to take the positives of having held out for a draw in a match that they could well have lost and have never since surrendered the initiative. I had the great fortune to miss most of the 2^nd Test on a trip. It was a good, old-fashioned, made-in-England, massive foul-up. The pitch was nothing like as difficult as predicted, as Cook and Hameed showed in the second innings, but England paid for a couple of disastrously sloppy sessions.

In both innings, India were wobbling – 22-2 and 17-2 – and allowed to recover. At 248-2 soon after Tea on the first day you knew already that only an Indian collapse of epic proportions could save the match for England. The collapse duly happened, but from a platform of 317-4 after the first day: it meant that the match, realistically, was gone. Even after making a slightly sub-standard score in reply – 300 would have been about par for England – there was still just a chance if India could be rolled-over cheaply second time around. Broad and Anderson gave England a fighting chance with their new ball burst, but could not follow through. This being England, it is the hope that kills: even after the stand of 77 between Rahane and Kohli should have made the match safe, Broad and Adil Rashid so nearly dragged England back into contention by inducing another Indian collapse that stopped just short of a full-up panic.

Many fans would not have played Stuart Broad this winter thinking that he would be totally ineffective, but he has bowled his heart out and 8-211 in the three Tests that he has played over the winter has been scant reward, particularly as he bowled through a serious injury that may yet end his tour and suffered considerable pain in this Test. Similarly, after the Bangladesh Tests many people thought that Adil Rashid’s Test career might be over but, suddenly, he has flourished. In his first four Tests he took 11 wickets at 60.8; in his last four he has 22 wickets at 27.8. A decidedly depressing 117-3 became 162-9 and hope was threatening to re-kindle. The et tu Brute moment though was the last wicket partnership that did serious damage to Adil Rashid’s bowling figures and killed-off any lingering chance of a phoenix-like recovery.

India have refused to be killed off throughout the series. Simple as that.

The nominal England chase just demonstrated it. 75-0 after 50 overs. Hameed and Cook coping superbly and the Indian attack wilting visibly. The Close was in sight. Going into the last day with all wickets intact, England would have had real hopes of escaping with the draw. Suddenly it was 87-2 with both openers out and you knew that the match had gone. 75-0 became 115-6. Batsmen played like lemmings fooling around with hand-grenades in a minefield.

3^rd Test? More of the same. Win what was expected to be a critical Toss. Bat. And have a sub-standard first session. Even then, England should have crossed the psychological barrier of 300. It would have given them a real chance. No matter. Stokes and Adil Rashid (him again), engineered a magnificent fight-back with the ball. At 204-6, England hoped for a lead of 40-50. At 301-7, they hoped to limit the damage. India’s last 4 wickets though more than doubled the score. It was horrific. Catches went down. Chances were missed. England surrendered. And, through this, Moeen Ali, England’s most threatening-looking bowler for much of the winter, as in the 2^nd Test, watch most of the action from the outfield, as he had in the second innings of the previous Test. Why? Who knows? Was he injured and unable to bowl? Apparently not!

After a promising start to the series, England’s cup of woe has started to overflow.

·         Hameed has gone home injured. Needs an operation.

·         Stuart Broad has left into to rehabilitate in the hope that he may be able to return for the 4^th Test. If he does not, it looks like the iron bird home.

·         Chris Woakes is under assessment and in danger of possibly having to leave the tour (cracked thumb).

·         Gary Ballance is in desperate form and almost un-selectable.

·         Ditto Ben Duckett.

·         Zafar Ansari’s promising start has been shown to be a mirage. He is looking increasingly out of his depth.

·         Gareth Batty’s selection has been shown to be well-intentioned, but misguided.

And, despite having six players either too out of form or too injured to be considered, England have two players (Finn and Ball) who Air India apparently lost in transit. Jake Ball’s family must be thinking of reporting him to police as a missing person. Right now, his best chance of playing a Test must be as a specialist bat, so stretched are resources in that department.

When you are 134 behind, to slip to 107-6 is the last thing you need. England bat deep, but it is India’s tail that is wagging in this series. First Root and Hameed and then Hameed and Woakes initiated partnerships that threatened to turn things around, but it was not quite happening. Even Hameed and Anderson started to build a partnership. Hameed's courage deserved so much better support. If any one of his partners had batted on for just half an hour longer, India might have started to fray, but each time a wicket fell just before England could start to think seriously about getting back into the game.

A chase of 180 might just have been interesting, 103 was not.

Chris Woakes showed what was possible, cracked bone and muscular issues notwithstanding, by removing Vijay with his fifth ball, but when you have so few runs to play with, even if the opposition were to slip to 17-4, realistically, they are always going to scrape over the line and India are so much better than that.

India are now 2-0 up. England are struggling both against the Indian pace attack and their spinners and Ravi Ashwin’s travails against England in the past are becoming a distant memory.

Add in an injury crisis  and issues of form and confidence and England are in a mess.