England v Pakistan
ODIs
Arise Sir
Donald Hales
August 31st
2016
A summer
that threatened to end as a damp squib from England’s point of view, has
re-ignited after guttering and fading. Three years ago England took a 3-1 Ashes
lead against Australia: they lost the Final Test, the ODI series that followed, the five
Tests in Australia, all but one of the ODIs, the series to Sri Lanka and went
down in the series against India before finally reviving. A sad, dispirited
defeat in the Final Test to a suddenly revived Pakistan, led by a suddenly revived Yasir Shah,
raised at least the spectre of that scenario. Yasir Shah, who had spent two and
a half Tests looking totally inoffensive and seeming the least of England’s
worries, thundered back with 5-71 and made England look clueless again. A drawn
series was a tribute to Pakistan’s capacity to come back from the abyss and
England’s incapacity to close out series. On the balance of play, it was
deserved, with each side totally dominating two Tests. As a spectacle though,
it was dispiriting.
At the end
of the Test series most fans looked at the England side and called time on
James Vince’s career. A large majority felt that Gary Ballance had not
justified his recall – to be fair, his county form did not justify it. And an
increasing number of fans thought that the faith that the selectors had shown
in Alex Hales had not been justified.
Poor Alex
Hales. Equalled the England record with five consecutive 50s in the ODIs in South
Africa after being written-off. Came back with three scores in the 80s and 90s
in the Tests against Sri Lanka without making those last few runs that would
have silenced the doubters. And has had three consecutive low scores in his
last three ODIs. One feed-backer put it succinctly: “he’s shown that he is not
good enough in any format”.
Cricket fans
are a fickle lot. Their memories are short. Their gratitude is parsimonious.
And a player is only as good as his last match. In T20 Hales was ranked as the
#1 batsman in the world for a time and has top scores of 94, 99 and 116* - the
first English T20 century. A relatively lean run in T20 (no 50 since 2014) has
seen his contributions forgotten.
Three low
scores in his last three ODIs have seen calls for him to be dropped in all
formats. The suggestion is utterly bizarre. You do not become a poor player
overnight and Alex Hales had, in his eight ODIs of the year up to the end of
June, scored 520 runs in 8 innings with 4x50 and 2x100.
The nature
of limited-overs cricket is that you will sometimes have failures and runs of
low scores. And sometimes you will just have a brainstorm and do something
really stupid. To come back though from being pilloried, from looking totally
out of sorts and make a murderous 171 in 122 balls at very least shows
character.
Hales’s
sequence in ODIs in 2016 is something that even Sir Donald Bradman would be
proud of:
57, 99, 65,
50, 112, 4, 133*, 0, 7, 14, 171
That is a
small matter of 712 runs in 10 completed innings at a strike rate of 101.7. If
that is not good enough, long live mediocrity!
When a
player such as Joe Root has to act as sheet anchor because he is only scoring
at a run-a-ball you know that great things are possible. We wanted to know what
England could do batting first and now we know. The highest score in an ODI and
some fairly eye-watering bowling figures. Only the fact that the last two overs
unaccountably brought just 15 runs when the previous five had gone for 77 saved
Pakistan from being the first side to concede 450 and 460 was definitely on
with two overs to go.
The headline
figure was the10-0-110-0 of Wahab Riaz, but Pakistan’s combined fifth bowler
(Yasir Shah, Azhar Ali and Shoaib Malik) was actually more expensive
(10-0-112-0).
Jos Buttler,
who has looked short of match practice in the first two games, came good with
the fastest 50 for England in ODIs and could have reached a century. What no
one noticed is that Eoin Morgan was close to equalling the record: he was 42*
from 20 balls and just two hits away from equalling Jos Buttler’s 22-ball 50.
33*, 68 & 57* is a big revival of fortunes for him.
If Pakistan
had been sensible they could have at very least scared the target. Until the
end of the 20th over they had only once, very briefly at the start
of the chase been behind and had been as much as 21 runs ahead of England at
the same stage. The difference was that Pakistan panicked and, instead of
accepting the odd over with only 3 or 4 runs scored, lost wickets regularly
trying to force the scoring. At 106-3 after 15 overs they were 20 ahead of
England at the same stage; within eight balls though that had become 108-5…
game over!
England’s
extraordinary ODI revival continues despite the ICC table saying that they
are still only a mid-table team. The sceptics, who say that England have not
yet beaten anyone of any quality must, at very least, be getting nervous. The
suggestions that England are no different to the sad side of the last World Cup
are getting harder and harder to justify. And, for Pakistan, the danger of
having to qualify for the next World Cup is getting greater with every defeat.
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