England v India: 3rd ODI, Dorabelle Believe

 

England v India: 3^rd ODI

Dorabelle Believe

January 22^nd 2017

It has taken a long time coming. A win in an international on this tour, although not, as some have stated falsely, the first win of the tour (England did win the first 50-over warm-up against India A). It has been a tough tour, first in the Tests and then in the ODIs as a very strong Indian side has consistently produced that bit of magic that turns an even contest into a one-sided one. England have competed in the Tests (their average first innings score was 390 – the previous winter South Africa’s was 150, albeit on more difficult pitches). In the first two ODIs England had threatened to win both games, but fell just short.

In this series England have scored 350-7, 366-8 and 321-8. They have shown the cynics that the matches would not be a series of mismatches, with England’s batsmen floundering helplessly against the Indian spinners. Instead the matches have turned on small moments: one or two big overs, India taking a key wicket at a key moment while England could not. The differences between the two teams have been small.

It was a phenomenal effort from both teams to amass 637 runs on a pitch on which India must have hoped to limit England to 220 with their “A Game” and probably not much more than 260 with their “B Game”. It took fourteen deliveries at the start for a batsman to lay bat on ball, as deliveries bounced and hooped around. Right from the start if the bowler landed the ball on the right spot it was well-nigh unplayable. It was a situation in which England could so easily have slipped to 30-3 and left the game almost over when it had barely started. Despite that, Jason Roy and Sam Billings rode their luck, hit the bad balls when they came and generally punished India for not quite being on their game.

Even when a batsman fell – and armchair critics foamed at the mouth at some of the dismissals – someone else came in and stepped up to the mark. After an England wicket fell to a poor stroke, one particular critic explained to all on one particular forum that batting properly was not rocket science. Having the advantage of actually being a rocket scientist, I can say that if batting were as easy as the armchair critics believe, I would be an international batsman too and not a rocket scientist. Batting is all about making the correct decision in the 0.6-0.8s between the moment that the ball leaves the bowler’s hand and the moment that it reaches the bat. The bowler is trying to get you to make the wrong choice in guiding the sweet spot of the bat (which is at a different point for each bat) to its encounter with the ball. Pressure. The crowd. All are trying to make you make the wrong decision. The greatest batsmen are able to make the highest percentage of correct decisions and adapt best to all the variables that affect how the ball reaches and leaves the bat.

Batting (and international cricket in general) is very similar to rocket science in many respects. You have a battery of highly-trained individuals, each with their own tasks, trying to work together as a team, making a series of highly-pressurised split-second decisions and trying to get every one right. Get a decision wrong and the results are disastrous and, sometimes, catastrophic. A small error at a critical juncture can lose you your mission (in cricket, read “match”, “tournament”, “series”, …), cost a huge amount of money, cost you your job and be mercilessly replayed time and again in slow motion for an audience of millions on the evening news. The fact is that the armchair critics can watch time and again in slow motion and without pressure, while the poor beggar in the middle has to do it at full speed in a split second with no second viewing.

Television and Internet are becoming merciless. When Jason Roy was out, the talk was not that he had scored 65 from 56 balls and given England yet another fast start (his scores on the tour have been 62, 25, 73, 82 and 65), it was of him “giving it away”, of “Joe Root Syndrome” (50s not becoming destructive centuries). Roy has taken England away at 6-an-over for the first twenty overs in each game, setting the platform for the middle order.

When India finally got the ball (and the front foot) in the right place – getting Jonny Bairstow with a sucker punch only to find that you have gone well over the line was sloppy – suddenly batting looked much harder, especially with turn on offer as well as extravagant movement for the seamers. England can feel indebted to Ben Stokes’s resurgence as a limited-overs player now that he has a set role in the side at #6 and Chris Woakes’s injection of self-belief when almost everyone questioned why he kept getting chances. To get to 321 when they were 246-6 with only 7 overs to go was a superb effort. Even when there is a mid-innings squelch, more often than not the lower middle order helps to set things right.

Today was one of those days when the finishers hung around. This is what lost England the 2^nd ODI: while India had an established batsman at the crease at the death, England’s fell a few overs earlier, robbing the innings of critical momentum and taking maybe twenty runs off the total compared with what it might have been. To add 73 in 39 balls of bombardment from Woakes and Stokes set a total that England knew that they could defend. It also gave England the vital factor of momentum.

To win, India needed the breaks to fall their way. England certainly made things ruinously hard for themselves at times. First ball of the innings Chris Woakes bowled a vicious lifter, Rahane gloved it cleanly to Jos Buttler… and no one appealed. How did India reply? The last two balls of the over sailed to the boundary for a six and a four. Willey  bowled a fine over and removed Rahane: would India be cautious? Not a bit of it! Kohli’s response to a superb delivery from Woakes was to hammer the next two balls for boundaries. It seemed that the Indian tactic was to intimidate. Willey bowled a nine-ball over with three wides and then walked off holding his shoulder.

India were either playing and missing or hammering boundaries. There was no concept of “safety first”. Even when Jake Ball dropped Kohli India the frenetic activity did not reduce. India seemed to be betting on everything falling their way and England cracking, but with the Required Run Rate rising steadily, he who chances his arm will inevitably run out of luck in the end. England needed to stay calm and play to a plan, which was what they did, despite being a bowler short and with Pandya and Jadhav putting a century stand and seeming to provide a case of dejá vú. With Morgan forced to bring back Stokes for the slog and Indian fans gloating in memory, first Pandya then Jadeja took one risk too many. Ashwin came and went. Suddenly things were level again when India must have thought that the match was won with something to spare. 27 required from 18 balls. 23 required from 12. 16 from the last 6 and Jadhav on 80* on strike? The match still provided twists and turns, but showed how much Woakes and England have grown. Ten taken from the first two balls of Woakes’s over. Six needed from four. Surely India’s game? Dot ball. Dot ball. Six needed from two. Jadhav swings. Billings takes the catch and Woakes finishes with another dot for good measure.

In a pressure finish, with cool heads needed, England showed just how much progress they have made. The side are far from the finished article, but can compete with the best now. It is only a consolation win, but any win in India is hard-earned.

When Harry Houdini died he had promised to try to contact his adored wife from beyond the grave. To ensure that she was not conned by a fake, he gave his wife a phrase that he would use in any message from the beyond: “Dorabelle believe”. Houdini might well have approved of the escape engineered by England when it seemed that another victory had slipped their grasp but, instead of directing his message at his wife, he might well instead direct it at England’s fickle fans “just believe”. This side will win some and lose some, but have come so far since the last World Cup.

England v India: ODIs - Defeat Does Not Remove The Positives

 

England v India: ODIs

Defeat Does Not Remove The Positives

January 18^th 2017

To look at the grumbling from fans you would think that the England set-up is in total meltdown. In the 1^st ODI India were set 351 to win and made them with some comfort: the first time that England has made over 331 and lost.

You can paraphrase it by saying in a Bob Dylan-esque way “the times they is a-changing”. Although it was a good effort to make 350 after a mid-innings squelch and the pundits claimed that the score was a bit above par, it denies the change in the nature of the game in recent years. 350, on a small ground with a flat pitch was no better than a par score these days. There was wholesale condemnation of England’s bowling effort, but I don't think that India would have defended a total either had they batted first.

You need to do no more than to look at the recent Tests to see just how much the game is changing: Bangladesh scored 595-8d in their first innings and LOST; Australia set Pakistan 486 to win a Test and just scraped home when it appeared that Pakistan were almost there. Fifteen times a side has scored 500+ in the first innings of a Test and lost and eight of those occasions have been in the last 14 years. Sooner or later that record chase in the fourth innings of a Test is going to be shattered and a side will be set 450, or even 500 and will win.

Getting back to the ODIs, I suspect that we will see both sides struggling to defend 330+ during the series. Things are just so ridiculously weighted now against the bowlers. It may well be that unless India decide to resort to a vicious turner that we will see that a side setting 380 will have real problems to defend that total. The old adage of winning 50% of ODIs with a score of 260 is now so hopelessly outdated as to be a museum piece: sides may still win matches setting 240 or 250, but it will be thanks to a difficult pitch.

Crowds now expect run-fests against totally neutered bowlers. 250 in a T20 has been made no less than six times: it is only a matter of time before we see a side make 300 in a T20. 400 in a 50-over match has happened so many times that it is now barely newsworthy and 500 is going to happen soon, after all, the record is Surrey’s 496-4 in 2007. If there are not sixes galore, the fans think that they have been cheated.

Sadly, these people do not know what they are missing. Some of the greatest, tensest  ODIs of all-time have been low-scoring affairs on very difficult pitches. One game that I particularly recall was the last group match in the 1979 World Cup (yes, cricket was played that long ago). England scored 165-9 from 60 overs, powered by Graeme Gooch’s 33 from 90 balls (yes, you read that right), eventually recovering from 118-8. In reply, Pakistan sank to 34-6 before Asif Iqbal made the only 50 of the match and the Pakistan tail all chipped-in. At 145-8 it seemed that Pakistan would snatch an amazing comeback win, with England’s seamers bowled out and Phil Edmonds surplus to requirements for most of the game. A desperate Mike Brearley turned to his secret weapon – Geoff Boycott (who had been warned that he might need to bowl a few overs in the tournament) – who then proceeded to come on and mop-up the tail. 5-0-14-2 and one of the greatest, tensest ODIs in history was done. There is nothing better than a low-scoring game on a difficult pitch where every single at the death is a story and batsmen have to out-think bowlers rather than simply bully them. We are in danger of losing the gem that is a low-scoring thriller. Now, 165-9 would be considered no more than a decent score in a T20, let alone a 60-over match.

Failing to defend 350 in an ODI is not so unexpected these days. It does not indicate an ODI side in crisis, as some catastrophists would like to make out. England lost because they did not make enough runs after a mid-innings wobble and, unlike India, they did not have a set batsman in at the death. Eoin Morgan felt that his side should have  made 380 and he was right.

Fans though will see those four consecutive defeats in the Tests and a defeat in one of the warm-ups, followed up by an ODI defeat and see a major crisis at all levels of the game. It is the nature of England fans to be natural pessimists and to talk down their side even when they are winning (“yes, but we are only winning against poor opposition”). There is though a big difference between the current ODI side – brilliant, but still a little erratic, barely 18 months into its new regime – and the Test side. The ODI side will occasionally have a brain-fade and lose a game, but I can see them chasing-down 380 if India are good enough to set it. The Test side is going through a massive crisis of confidence that may not be unrelated to the vicissitudes of its captain.

After the Australian disaster, England had the year from hell with six consecutive series that they were favourites to lose (but ended up losing just one of them): sometimes it just takes one player, or one tweak to change things around. After the 5-0 in Australia a couple of players went, a couple came in and the side looked so much better for it.

If you look at the last year, there is actually quite a lot of good news around the Test side. Hameed and Jennings look like the real deal. Chris Woakes has come on by leaps and bounds and is suggesting that an Anderson-less future (does anyone really think that he will go to Australia?) may not be as dark as predicted. Moeen Ali has started to score bags of runs and has been bowling much better (until Cook messed with his mind in India), Stokes has developed into a fine all-rounder, Jonny Bairstow has broken though. Jos Buttler may just be getting the hang of Tests, etc. The problem is that we are not getting eleven players all performing at once. Bangladesh and India both saw some wonderful individual efforts, but nothing that was the equivalent of the "eight-man shove" in rugby, with everyone pushing together.

It could be that all the side needs is a refreshed captain who has had a six-month break from the pressures of captaincy and a few pep-talks from his in-house psychologist: wife Alice. Or, it could be that Alistair Cook will go and that fortunes will only change with a new captain.

The suspicion is that the longer that this one plays out, the less likely it is that Alistair Cook will resign. It suits the ECB more for Joe Root to be kept away from the job until 2018 when they feel that he will be more prepared for the pressures: it is a high-risk strategy that could blow up their faces should South Africa administer a severe defeat this summer, even if the shock news that AB de Villiers will not tour England must have evened things up a little. As former opening partners, there is much mutual respect between Cook and Andrew Strauss and it is quite certain that Strauss will not sack Cook unless put in a wholly unsustainable position. It is also well-known that Cook is stubborn, does not resign, that his inclination is usually to hang on and try and turn things around (particularly after a chat with Alice), as was shown by his unwillingness to relinquish the ODI captaincy even long after his position had become untenable.

Right now the action moves to Cuttack. If England win the Toss and chase, do not put it past them to give India a surprise or two. The question is whether or not to tweak the side. Recently though, management has tended to accept that the odd game will be lost and to show faith. Faith, Hope and Charity. If England show faith in their XI from Pune they will hope that India show some charity. Strangely, India’s concerns mirror England’s: their top-order failed at Pune and their leading spinner was ineffective and costly. India got away with it in Pune thanks to a couple of special innings, but they may not get away with such charity twice.