New Zealand v England: 1st Test Preview - Rehabilitation, or Further Humiliation?

 

New Zealand v England: 1^st Test Preview

Rehabilitation, or Further Humiliation?

March 21^st 2018

I have left this Blog fallow for two months. To be honest, the constant grind of yet more white-ball matches all got a bit too much. And, England reverted to type, winning the first and last matches of their T20 segment, in both cases, meaningless victories (one, a big win in a warm-up, the other too little, too late), before what was admittedly a cracker of a ODI series, with New Zealand where, against all logic, England, who are supposed to be vulnerable in low-scoring games and invincible in high-scoring ones, lost the two games in which the bat dominated and won the three in which the ball was king (at least, it was king when New Zealand were batting). Nothing to get very excited about there.

The two warm-ups for the Tests have been the McDonalds Happy Meal of cuisine: not even a Quarter Pounder to get your teeth into… two, two day games in which both sides would bat for 90 overs, no matter how many wickets they lost. It resulted in some slightly unusual scorecards – e.g. New Zealand XI, 287-13 – and Glenn Phillips failing both as an opener and as a #13 bat, but little else. Almost everyone got a bat, although James Vince, bless him, might be wishing that he had not, as his two innings have placed his name firmly on the list of endangered species… as a Test player, at least.

England have been left with a couple of fine conundra:

·       First – Can Ben Stokes play as a 4^th seamer? He has not bowled since the ODIs, having finished them with some back stiffness (as I have also had some for the last week, I can vouch for the fact that it is not funny). If he cannot, everything indicates that he will play as a specialist bat at #5, which moves everyone else down one place, but also means that an extra bowler is needed.

·       Second – What to do about #3?

England have many options. Some will make James Vince more nervous than others.

If an extra bowler is needed, Mark Wood and Craig Overton are the likely options. Mark Wood played in the first game, Craig Overton in the second. It is fair to say that Anderson and Wood were pretty devastating with the new ball, but that 30-5 and 103-6, became 357-7 and Mark Wood’s figures, by then, were looking a lot less impressive. In the second game, Craig Overton did what Craig Overton does: had a decent bowl, took a wicket, but did not look like running through the opposition, although he kept things tight. However, if either plays, a batsman will need to be sacrificed and that is most likely to be James Vince, with Dawid Malan likely to be pitched in at #3, as Ben Stokes will have taken his own regular spot.

Even if Ben Stokes can bowl – and the indications are that he will be able to – James Vince still cannot relax, because there is a case for replacing him with the impressive Liam Livingstone, who made the highest score for England in either game. However, a measure of just how bad the things were in the Unofficial Tests that the Lions played in the Caribbean is that his scores of 21, 1, 0 & 48 have marked him as one of the relatively successful batsmen in that train wreck. There was even a further option and that was playing Mason Crane, until he had to be sent home injured. Whatever the concerns about Moeen Ali’s form and confidence, which were to a degree alleviated in the second game, playing Mason Crane’s stand-in stuntman, Jack Leach, is not an option.

Whoever is selected – and careers are on the line, particularly in the case of Stoneman and Vince – New Zealand are going to be a formidable test at home. The gloomier predictions are that the series could be lost 2-0. The New Zealand pace attack is formidable in their own conditions and, in terms of depth, reckoned by many to be the best attack that New Zealand has every fielded. The series will be decided by which batting line-up is best able to resist the devastation that the opposition bowling attack can cause. For England, to have a top three who have struggled for runs, pitted against an attack willing to test them to the limit, is not a happy thought. It will be sink or swim but, if it is “swim”, at least no one will be able to suggest that Wagner, Boult and Southee have not been a real test for the batsmen and that they have scored easy runs against a popgun attack.

Alistair Cook has, apart from one big innings, struggled this winter. Mark Stoneman makes defiant fifties, but not enough of them, and has got out soon after reaching fifty each time. And, poor James Vince, makes pretty fifteens, twenties and, sometimes, thirties and then gets out in identikit fashion almost every time.

The feeling is that Alistair Cook’s double century in the 4^th Test should have re-ignited his appetite both for runs and for Test cricket. However, another poor series would undoubtedly start the speculation again. Cook is one of those players who either looks as if he could score tons of runs batting with a stick of rhubarb… or looks as if he *IS* batting with a stick of rhubarb. For one of the modern greats he has had a lot of dreadful runs of form. You only hope that whatever pep-talk Alice, his in-house guru and psychologist has given him over Christmas and the New Year, it has been brutally effective.

No one, bar a few air-heads, should want a player to fail. England fans – and maybe the management too – would be forgiven though for wanting James Vince to define himself one way of the other. He has two Test fifties – good, fighting ones too – but that is only one per ten Test innings: not enough. His last ten matches over three different formats, have been indicative of the enigma that is the Vince Phenomenon. Eleven innings, just two single-figure scores, but out between 10 and 26 no fewer than six times and no innings higher than 45. He gets in, looks world class and then gets out. Nick Compton knows that even two centuries in a series against New Zealand offers no career security, but one begins to hope that he will either be brilliant, ending the talk about his place for a few Tests at least, or incompetent, so that he can be dropped with no guilty feelings. What no one wants is for him to get, say, three starts and a “small” fifty, which will prove nothing one way or the other. The feeling though is that he is very lucky to be in New Zealand and is unlikely to figure in the summer series.

Mark Stoneman is in both a slightly better and a slightly worse situation. Better, because over the winter he has so far scored 5x50 and 1x100, although only two of the 50s have come in Tests. There is no question that Mark Stoneman can grit out brave runs. The bad news is that he has got out immediately after reaching 50 each time that he has done it in Tests. Worse, while no one can agree over a convincing replacement for James Vince, there is a queue of players lining-up behind Mark Stoneman. Nick Gubbins is scoring big runs pre-season. Sam Robson had a prolific start to the 2017 season. Keaton Jennings has shown that he can score Test runs and is Lions captain. And Haseeb Hameed is beginning to show some signs that he may finally be getting back a little form.

There are plenty of other sub-plots: how will Stuart Broad respond to the double challenge of being on 399 wickets and not getting the new ball? Will we see the Chris Woakes of last summer, or the Chris Woakes of the Ashes? Will Moeen Ali re-affirm his position after a poor Ashes series? Can Joe Root start turning 50s into centuries? Which set of bowlers will come out on top? And, not, but not least, how will New Zealand react to the pressure of being favourites for the series?