England v Pakistan: 2nd Test Preview - And the Winners are… Keaton Jennings and Sam Curran!

 

England v Pakistan: 2^nd Test Preview

And the Winners are… Keaton Jennings and Sam Curran!

May 30^th 2018

With England needing a win to avoid yet another series defeat and controversy raging over selection and the team’s under-performances, a call from Trevor Bayliss is enough to send the heart racing… mainly with fear of being the latest fall guy.

The recipients of phone calls this week have been Keaton Jennings – widely predicted to replace Mark Stoneman – and, less expected, Sam Curran. Keaton Jennings had scored 536 runs at an average of 107 in his last six innings and, completely predictably, that run ended as soon as he had received the call to return him to the ranks. Sam Curran gets the call thanks to his good County Championship form with the ball, to an injury to Ben Stokes and to the fact that he is a left-armer and adds some variety to the attack.

There are many possibilities. Ben Stokes may yet play as a specialist bat: the fact that England can now call on the useful bowling of Jennings could tempt them to go down that route. There could be a straight swap of Stokes for Woakes. Jonny Bairstow could move up the order, allowing Joe Root to bat at his preferred position of #4. Dom Bess could make way on the grounds that a spinner rarely wins matches at Leeds, with Malan and Root offering a few overs of spin, if required. Michael Vaughan would even drop Stuart Broad.

What is clear is that few members of the squad can be sure of their place. The top 5 are not getting runs. England are too often 30-2 and 40-3 and if you do not put up 400 regularly, you are not going to win many Tests. That said, all too often over the winter and against Pakistan, the bowling lacked punch and, even more, lacked variety. As was said of David Gower’s attack in his first match as captain, when you have four right-arm, medium pace, seam and swing bowlers and a flat spinner, you can change the bowlers, you can change the ends, but you cannot change the bowling.

That Sam Curran is preferred to Jake Ball, to his brother Tom, or to Craig Overton is revealing: where there is a choice, youth gets the call. Even in Jennings v Stoneman, it is the younger man who has the benefit of the doubt.

Jake Ball’s record – just three wickets in four Tests – has counted against him, while Tom Curran is regarded as lacking the pace to be effective at this level. With Sam Curran in the squad, England can drop Mark Wood and still retain an attack with a bowler who is different. In fact, it is not impossible that both Woakes and Curran will play.

What to do with the batting is more of an issue. The batsmen are clearly lacking in confidence and making poor decisions. Despite his score at Lord’s, there are still questions about Alaistair Cook and that average opening partnership of 18 between Cook and Stoneman was certainly not all Stoneman’s fault. Can Keaton Jennings awaken the sleeping giant in his partner? That said, can Jennings cope with high-class seam bowling more successfully than he did against South Africa when, admittedly, desperately out of form?

Huge England totals have usually been made around big scores by Cook and Root, but neither is quite on song. That is heaping pressure on Stoneman/Jennings and Malan. Dawid Malan responded brilliantly in Australia, but cannot buy a run now and knows that this may be his last Test for a while unless he can make a score. However, Malan’s job would be much easier if he were to come in at 200-3 instead of 40-3. For that to be possible, Cook and Jennings need to put up opening partnerships of fifties and centuries. Similarly, Bairstow and Buttler, both attacking batsmen, will do better against tiring attacks than against fresh ones that are scenting blood after an early collapse.

While it is too much to hope for that the England XI will show radical changes – although the call-ups for Buttler, Curran and Jennings show that the mantra is no longer so clearly “more of the same” – we are already diverging substantially from the XI played in Brisbane and more changes can be expected on Friday. All in all, the playing XI is quite unpredictable.

England v Pakistan: 1st Test, Day 4 - So Much For The Great England Fightback

 

England v Pakistan: 1^st Test, Day 4

So Much For The Great England Fightback

May 27^th 2018

The first nine sessions of the match divided 8-1 to Pakistan. During the ninth, the Pakistan bowlers started to tire, the ball got soft and England briefly forgot their mediocrity complex. Old habits though are hard to break. Buttler and Bess needed to play themselves back in, see off the new ball and then to continue batting for at least an hour before either fell. That was the theory. The practice was that Jos Buttler failed even to see out the two overs before the new ball. Once he fell to the eighth ball of the morning, the end was always likely to come quickly, with the tail exposed to a new ball and Pakistan bowlers with their tails up. However, the end was horrific in its rapidity: 25 balls, 7 runs, with Dom Bess the last to fall. For years England have boasted of having one of the best tails in world cricket but, now, it seems to show minimal ability to stick around.

Although England were expected to go down and Jos Buttler’s dismissal made it all but certain that they would, the manner of the capitulation was desperately disappointing. When Buttler fell, there were two ways of playing it: either for the tail-ender to block with everything that he had and seal up an end for Dom Bess; or to go down playing a few shots – who knows what the effect of a 20-ball 30 from Stuart Broad might have been? Instead, Wood and Broad – who got his first pair in Tests – were out poking tamely. Bess, at least, was bowled going for a shot when the cause was hopeless.

Chasing 64 to win, there was never any danger of a panic, even when Jimmy Anderson bowled Azar Ali. Dom Bess was brought on early and hit all around Lord’s and Pakistan cantered home.

Pakistan were superior in every department: they batted better, they bowled better, they fielded better, their tactics were better. As at Malahide, when a fightback threatened their grip on the game, they game back the next morning and nipped it in the bud. Embarrassing as it is to say it, Ireland gave them more problems that England did.

England cannot now win the series. In fact, they need to win the second Test to avoid losing it.

For Headingley, it is inconceivable that England can select the same XI. The absolute minimum is three changes. One assumes that Buttler and Bess as debutants, or virtual debutants, will be retained, as will Root, Stokes, Bairstow, Cook and Anderson.

However, the places of Stoneman, Malan and Wood look under severe threat. There is a theory that says that with back-to-back Tests, Stoneman must get both but then, why play him and then drop him for the India Tests? Even if Stoneman were to make a score at Headingley, we now know that he is not the answer. George Dobell, as wise a sage as any, points out that Stoneman has not been the same since being hit on the head in Australia. When you pick an opener who only averages 35 in a long First Class career, you are taking a risk. Even if that average was influenced by playing half his games at Chester-le-Street, it was worryingly low. Stoneman has shown some guts, has managed some good-looking 50s, but has shown an alarming inability to convert 20s into 40s, 30s into 50s and 50s into centuries. Cook and Stoneman have batted together in a lot of matches now and have simply not gelled, averaging only 18 as an opening pair (yes, it is the worse ever by an England pair).

England have two options:

·       Jonny Bairstow could be moved up to open – he did the job in an emergency capacity for Yorkshire once this season – and an extra batsman play in the middle order

Or

·       England’s man of the moment – Keaton Jennings could come in. The most radical solution would be to give Nick Gubbins a debut, play Jennings at #3 and move Joe Root back to his best position at #4.

Were both Gubbins and Jennings to come in, Dawid Malan would be sacrified, although his position needs to come under review now. He did great things in the Ashes, but he has run right out of form and his confidence looks shot. He needs a rest-cure and run transfusion with his county. Malan’s average has slipped down to 28 and will drop further unless he has a rest.

The other place that needs to change is probably Mark Wood. He has played the last two Tests and has been the quickest of the bowlers, but also the least accurate: too short and too wide. He needs overs under his belt and to get into a rhythm. Who replaces Wood is not a simple question. The trivial answer is Chris Woakes, but Wood was picked to provide extra pace and reverting to a fourth fast-medium seam and swing bowler would not be ideal, quite apart from the fact that his recent performances have been desperately disappointing. However, the priority has to be to save the series. Bowlers who may be mentioned will include Ben Coad, Steve Finn and James Harris: I would incline to Harris, but the temptation to see what Coad can do on his home ground is great. What England need though is a genuinely quick bowler: a Devon Malcolm, or a Norman Cowans, someone who can act as a shock bowler.

England v Pakistan: 1st Test, Day 3 - Headingley ’81, or Malahide ’18?

 

England v Pakistan: 1^st Test, Day 3

Headingley ’81, or Malahide ’18?

May 26^th 2018

Up until mid-afternoon today, Pakistan had done everything right and England had done everything wrong. Even with a man short, Pakistan were odds-on to win and seemed certain to do it in three days. England were in all kinds of strife. They had fallen from 91-2 to 110-6 in 38 catastrophic deliveries before Tea. Buttler and Bess survived the last three and a half overs until the interval but, after the way that the tail was blown away in the first innings, everything pointed to a rapid finish after the break.

Seeing how Dom Bess played initially as if he was facing hand grenades in a minefield, you would not have given him much hope of seeing out the time until Tea, let alone helping England into a fourth day. However, he had one thing going for him and that was guts. If you had to elect two players to save England, it would not have been a questioned slogger, with no red ball form at all in the last two years and a twenty-year-old debutant with only a handful of First Class games behind him.

The last time that Jos Buttler scored a First Class 50 was in Mumbai in December 2016. It is his only half century in twenty-seven innings, which also gives an idea just how little red-ball cricket he plays. Buttler is an enigma: he has incredible talent, he shows that when he plays in the IPL and when he plays in ODIs, but he struggles to convert it into any kind of consistency in the longer form. In eighteen Tests, he has 6x50, but a top score of 85 and an average of 31.4: almost the same as his average in First Class cricket, but far lower than his average in ODIs where he can play with more freedom. Dom Bess averages 25.4 with the bat in his fledgling First Class career, with 1x100 and 2x50.

Slowly, very slowly, Buttler and Bess gained confidence after Tea and started to counter-attack. It was the sort of situation where the stuntman is working without a safety net and the first slip spells the end of the performance. Lots of quick singles, lots of caution, but hitting the bad balls. Slowly, they brought down the deficit. Maybe England would not lose by an innings: a boundary from the increasingly confident Dom Bess, who no longer found the edge of the bat, but, instead, was middling the ball nicely, obliged Pakistan to bat again. Then, maybe Buttler could reach a fifty and, with it, make a point. Another boundary and the landmark was duly reached.

By now, the lead, though tiny, started to grow just swiftly enough for Pakistan – both players and fans – to get nervous. Then it was the hundred partnership. Then it was Dom Bess’s fourth First Class fifty and by far his most important. The bubble of hope started to grow. Maybe Buttler and Bess could make it to the Close. Maybe they could survive long enough to get some help from the rain promised on the last two days. Maybe they could even get far enough ahead for the always unstable Pakistan batting to implode in a chase.

If England need anything to give them hope it was the way that Pakistan panicked against Ireland at Malahide. Ireland were 157-6, 23 behind still and looking set for an innings defeat. The Kevin O’Brien scored a century. Stuart Thompson, fifty. Ireland entered the last day 139 ahead, with three wickets left and with hopes of making Pakistan sweat. Even though the innings ended quickly on the fifth morning, Pakistan found themselves 14-3, chasing 160 to win. Although Pakistan won, in the end, fairly comfortably, they showed how easily they can panic.

At the Close, England were just 56 ahead. Effectively 56-6 in a one-innings match. The new ball is two overs away. To have any hope of saving the match, Sir Geoffrey believes that England must bat through to Lunch tomorrow at least. To be brutally honest, even that would offer only the slimmest of hopes as it would imply a lead of only around 150. England will need a century from at least one of the not out batsmen, runs from other and a couple of significant scores from the last three. It is a tall order.

At Malahide, Ireland resisted, but lost in the end.

However, what no one dares to mention is that there is another precedent. Say it softly: Headingley 1981.

Just occasionally, all logic goes out to lunch and doesn’t come back. At Headingley, in 1981, England were in an even worse mess yet, somehow, contrived to win because the opposition panicked. Headingley was a rare and extraordinary event but, if you keep battling, just occasionally something like Headingley will happen and a game will be saved that should not be saved and, may even be won. It was a don that England acquired between 2009 and 2011 and trotted out at places as far afield as Cardiff, Durban, Cape Town and Brisbane. It is too long since we have seen England show this ability to hang on when a match seems lost, but it is sorely needed now.

The most likely result is that England will lose by 5 or 6 wickets, sometime tomorrow. If they do, it will be as if this evening’s partnership never happened but maybe, just maybe, they will show the self-belief to make something marvellous happen.

However, if Pakistan win. When Pakistan win, it will be no more than they have deserved in this match.

 

England v Pakistan: 1^st Test, Day 2

After Miserable Thursday, Awful Friday

May 25^th 2018

If you were an optimist, you would look at the close of play situation on Day 1 and see England still well ahead, with a chance to get right back into the game on the second morning. If luck and biorhythms were right, England could even squeeze out a small first innings lead. The alternative point of view is that the match and the series could be sailing away over the horizon by Tea.

It did not quite happen that way. At Tea it was 227-5 and England were, just about hanging on. There was a chance that the lead could be kept to reasonable proportions. Pakistan’s tail was, we were told, fragile. At 246-5 Babar Azam received a sickening blow and retired hurt, exposing the tail – it turns out that the ball from Ben Stokes has broken his wrist; his tour is over and one can only send him sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery – and even then England could not exploit their opening, fortunate and undeserved as it was.

At the Close, it was 350-8. Effectively 350-9. The lead is 166. And England will need a score northwards of 400 to make a game of this.

There were three factors:

1.     Some very determined Pakistan batting. Their side has risen to the challenge in the way that no one anticipated.

2.     Some sloppy England bowling. Too often too short and misdirected.

3.     Some poor fielding. Five chances went down, three of them would normally be taken at this level. In contrast, Pakistan themselves missed almost nothing.

In Australia, Joe Root won praise for being prepared to try new things and to adapt to situations. Here, the plan was less clear. Fielding positions shuffled. Players found themselves changing from one specialist position to another. There was an air of lack of thought, improvising, disorganisation, poor use of resources. His captaincy seems to be getting less certain and less imaginative with time, not more.

There is also an air of frustration among the fans. There is a feeling of opprobrium, a suggestion that too many of this side have had too many chances, while others have reached the end of their useful career at this level. Right now, if you asked the average angry, opinionated fan, he or she would probably give only 3 or 4 names as certainties for the 2^nd Test (Root, Stokes, Bairstow and, possibly, Cook).

The problem with such a massive clear-out is that there is no quick fix. If you decide to drop your entire attack, you cannot guarantee that what will replace them will not struggle even more at this level. What makes things even less clear is that fact that most of the pitches so far have been seam-friendly. The top wicket-takers of the season so far in Division 1 are: Jake Ball, Ben Coad, Joe Leach and Tom Bailey. There have been calls for Jake Ball to be called-up, but he has played four Tests already and has just three wickets to his name at a strike rate over 200. Ben Coad is an interesting one. His record is superb. He looks like a likely England bowler of the near future, but he is a very typical English bowler of low-80s pace. You can talk all you like about Glenn McGrath and Terry Alderman, who were both high-70s/low-80s, but they were inhumanly accurate and consistent: for every McGrath, you have one hundred Graeme Gooches – similar pace, useful as a partnership breaker, but not the bowler who you would want necessarily to take the new ball at the Gabba. Joe Leach is an honest county pro – he will take wickets and run through a brick wall for you, but he is no Dennis Lillee. And Tom Bailey is in his seventh First Class season and has played just 37 matches – he has not even been a 1^st XI regular until recently.

Of the top four wicket-takers in the averages, I suspect that Ben Coad may well get a game sometime this summer: if you do not give him a chance, you will never know and Jake Ball will be mentioned in despatches, but neither looks, at the moment, like the man to replace Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad, long-term.

Similarly, the batting. Keaton Jennings has a Test century to his name and has runs suddenly, like a dog has fleas. Nick Gubbins at Middlesex is running into some form too: one of the many theories around when Haseeb Hameed made his wonderful debut was that maybe he would open, with Jennings at #3: you can think of a scenario where you might want to put Gubbins in for Stoneman and have Jennings at #3, with Joe Root back at #4. However, there are not many batsmen screaming out for inclusion, although Ollie Pope seems to be testing his vocal chords.

The most curious situation is with spin bowling. There have been plenty of comments about England’s chopping and changing and, apparently, picking a name at random for these Tests. It is depressing. These are the fans who only follow the game occasionally, normally when England are at home and doing badly, but their opinions on social media make good headlines in an atmosphere of “sack the lot!!!”

Right now, England are seeing the prospect of entering a golden age of spin bowling. There is a generation that includes Mason Crane, Jack Leach, Dom Bess and Amar Virdi who look as promising as anyone since Monty Panesar burst unexpectedly on the scene in 2005. All are young. They are inexperienced, but with plenty of bowling on helpful pitches, they will develop. England have been unfortunate that first Crane, then Leach have had serious injuries and needed to be replaced. Dom Bess is not even a Somerset regular at the moment due to the nature of early-season pitches! He has taken just one wicket so far this county season and has been asked to make a debut on a pretty blameless Lord’s pitch in conditions in which even legends such as Abdul Qadir, Muttiah Muralitharan or Shane Warne might struggle to make inroads. Bess has shown energy, he has bowled with variation and flight and has seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly. And Joe Root had one of his better moments last night when he brought Bess on against the tail to see if he could get a debut wicket.

Spin bowling, for years the Achilles Heel of the England side, is the one area where the future looks bright. England will undoubtedly take young three spinners to Sri Lanka and this moment they look likely to be Leach, Bess and, possibly Virdi, with Crane, Moeen Ali and Liam Dawson missing out.

However, that it the future and the problem is today. England look dispirited, out of ideas and resigned to defeat.

Today will be the day when two of three players may seal their fate, as England try to save the series, when it is only on its third day of a possible ten.

England v Pakistan: 1st Test, Day 1 - Here We Go Again

 

England v Pakistan: 1^st Test, Day 1

Here We Go Again

May 24^th 2018

It is as if the last four years had never happened. Return from a disastrous Australasian winter. Asian opponents in May. Easy wins. The health of the England team is rosy.

So much for the theory.

As in 2014, when the guests in May were Sri Lanka, a very inexperienced Pakistan was expected to provide a gentle re-introduction to Test cricket for the England side and restore some battered confidence. Of course, the practice was that, despite the efforts of Moeen Ali and Jimmy Anderson with the bat, England were defeated for the first time on home soil by Sri Lanka and the crisis simply got worse. Had India not suddenly and mysteriously imploded later that summer, the situation might have reached quite catastrophic levels.

The 2013/14 Ashes series ended several careers. In particular, Jonathon Trott, Graeme Swann and Kevin Pietersen. The 2017/18 tour of Australia and New Zealand may well be the last time that we see Moeen Ali in England colours, while a host of fringe players have decided to restrict themselves to white-ball cricket. The 1^st Test saw just one debutant for England – and that injury-enforced – but the impression is that James Vince has played his last Test and that a couple of others may join him on the sidelines after this series. In particular, the development of Jack Leach and Dom Bess makes one wonder about the chances of Liam Dawson and Mason Crane as spinners and Mark Stoneman may have just said good-bye to his place too.

Grey day. Pitch with a little green, but fundamentally, a good surface. The pundits thought that it was a day to win the Toss, see off a difficult first hour or so and then make hay as the conditions eased and early moisture left the surface. Having seen the Pakistan struggles against a skilful, but far from lethal Irish attack on a seaming surface, many people expected Joe Root to insert if he won the Toss, hoping to bowl out Pakistan quickly with his rejuvenated new ball attack. The opposing school of thought was to bat on the first day and take advantage of the pitch at its best, put up 400+ and use scoreboard pressure. Either way, it might not be a bad Toss to lose.

Of course, these theories rely on the players themselves to perform. If they do not, you look a proper Charlie.

The torrent of opprobrium for Joe Root has been awful. Hello Charlie Root! He saw his batting order fail miserably and then the new ball bowlers were totally incapable of bowling the right line and length in reply. And, to make things worse, the captain himself was convicted of dangerous driving and fell cheaply.

If you are Mark Stoneman and have yet to make 30 yet this season, the last thing that you need is to receive a fine delivery. However, just as James Vince has made his signature move the prod outside off, guiding the ball to the slips or gulley, Mark Stoneman’s has been to leave his feet rooted to the crease until he finally gets the right ball. Credit to Mohammad Abbas for a wonderful, inswinging delivery. Not so much to Mark Stoneman for not making a better effort to deal with it. Eight innings of the season gone and Mark Stoneman has 119 runs, with a top score of 29. Contrast that with Keaton Jennings who, despite a very dodgy start himself to his season (lest we forget) has 636 runs in all competitions in England this spring, with 3x100 and 2x50.

Unless Mark Stoneman can make a big score in the second innings, one wonders if he will even get the 2^nd Test of this series.

Of course, the skipper was far from blameless. He came in at #3, willing to make a big statement. Hasan Ali offered him a ball outside off and he aimed an uncontrolled drive. 33-2 was not the sort of start that England wanted and it got worse when Dawid Malan got another fine ball that he could not control. It was 43-3 and all those predictions that the first hour would be difficult were coming true. However, at the other end, another of the patients who has been in intensive care was doing okay, thank you. Alistair Cook has been written off so many times and, like Lazarus, he keeps coming back to life, although you know that he is going to try the Lazarus trick once too often in the end. In partnership with Jonny Bairstow he set about re-building the innings. Together, they brought up the hundred and seemed to have things set in their proper context. Faheem Ashraf bowled one from wide of the crease, the ball evaded the inside edge and crashed into Jonny Bairstow’s stumps.

Even then things seemed to be settling down again. Cook got his fifty, Ben Stokes played himself in sensibly before unleashing a massive six. There seemed every chance of a score around 350 that looked likely to be a winning total. Instead, England provided the sort of pusillanimous collapse that was embarrassing in its scope. 149-4 became 184ao and the Pakistan team could not believe their luck. The lower order were awful. Pakistan were inspired. They bowled like demons, caught everything and England had no answers.

England needed a devastating response but, instead, the bowling has been dreadfully off-colour. Stuart Broad has looked a new man in the early season, quicker, more accurate, more consistent and Jimmy Anderson was bowled into the ground in Australia because he often was the only one who had the batsmen under control. To back them up, we had Ben Stokes, back to full fitness and a full run-up and Mark Wood, with his extra pace. Unfortunately, when the bowlers got their line right, the length was too short and vice-versa. Mark Wook averaged high 80s, which was what England wanted and sent down one ball at over 90mph, but one feed-backer talked about his “probing thirteenth stump line”, which more or less summed it up: it is not just about pace, it is quality pace. Broad did get an early wicket but, after it, there never seemed any danger of a Pakistan collapse. England needed Pakistan 40-4 at the Close and no worse than 50-3 but, instead, it is 50-1 and, unless England have a really good first session, the match may be almost over by Tea on the second day. It seems all too familiar from the 1^st Test in New Zealand: in a 2-match series, a poor start means that the series may be lost before it has even properly started.

The biggest cheer of the day was reserved for the penultimate over of the day. On came Dom Bess to a huge ovation, which must have made him feel pretty good. Five really nice deliveries, with flight, drift and air. The last was a little short and went to the boundary, but enough there to suggest that if he gets into some rhythm he may make the batsmen think a bit. One would like to think that he will have his maiden Test wicket before Lunch on Day 2.

Which Pakistan were going to turn up at Lord’s? It was the tiger.

England though, do not look like tiger hunters.

England v Pakistan: 1st Test Preview - And the Winner is… Dom Bess!

 

England v Pakistan: 1^st Test Preview

And the Winner is… Dom Bess!

May 23^rd 2018

First: an apology… I never did wrap up the New Zealand series. Disappointment at the outcome – when you take wickets with the first two balls of the day and it is all downhill from there, it takes some effort to dredge up the effort to write. New Zealand held out comfortably for the draw and took the series. England were not good enough. New Zealand were good value for their win and deserved it thoroughly.

Then, a heavy schedule at work was followed by being signed-up by the View from the Outfield website to report on County cricket – if you don’t know View from the Outfield, you can find it at viewfromtheoutfield.com: it is well worth a read – which is taking two or three hours out of many of my evenings.

Another season, another series. Pakistan are the warm-up act for the summer’s main series against India, with an ODI series against Australia sandwiched in between. For England, this summer bears a depressing similarity to 2014, when England played after a 5-0 defeat in Australia, then lost for the first time at home to Sri Lanka and were being thoroughly outplayed by India before Moeen Ali went from being “Moeen Who??” to being “the beard that is feared”.

There is an irony in the fact that, having been a fixture in the England side for four years since his Lord’s debut against Sri Lanka in 2014, Moeen was almost certainly not even mentioned by the selectors for this Test. In India and Australia over the last two winters, England have given debuts to Liam Dawson, Zafir Ansari, Mason Crane and Jack Leach. Ansari has retired. Liam Dawson’s star has faded to the extent that he is unlikely to play another Test. Crane is just coming back from serious injury and now it is the turn of Jack Leach, who took Mason Crane’s place in New Zealand when Crane was injured, to have a serious injury himself.

While short-sighted curmudgeons have been moaning about playing on “the beach at Taunton”, England are seeing it pay dividends. Jack Leach was one of the few successes on the Lion’s tour to the Caribbean and his spin-twin, Dom Bess, also came out of that tour with great credit with a maiden century (in the post-Lions, Champion county match) and wickets. He may have played only sixteen First Class matches and he may not be a regular in the Somerset side but, when he plays, he has often been lethal. Twenty years old and averaging four wickets per match in his short career, astute followers of the county game have known for a year that his Test match debut was just a matter of time: most people expected to be against Sri Lanka in the Autumn but, the attrition rate of spinners means that he will get an early chance to impress. Lest we forget, Alf Valentine had only played TWO First Class matches before he set about destroying the England batting in 1950.

It could all end in tears – England have tried spinner after spinner since the decline and fall of Swann and Monty – but remember that Nathan Lyon was the thirteenth spinner to be tried by Australia in a short space of time and he seems to have done okay.  There are plenty of cricketing reasons to believe that, come this Autumn, in Leach and Bess, England will take to Sri Lanka their most potent spin combination since 2011.

Do not expect miracles from Dom Bess. He has taken just one wicket so far this season on the seam-friendly pitches, as Somerset have relied so far on pace, but this game will be about his temperament and readiness. Bess will play, as England have already stated that he will provide the variety in a seam-heavy attack.

For England there are many questions:

·       Has Alistair Cook still got the hunger to score big runs? In 2017 he was scoring runs for fun for Essex before the Tests. In 2018, he has managed 84, 0, 26, 37 and 66. After a pretty dreadful winter, there is enough there to show that he is getting some form back but, will it last into the Pakistan Tests?

·       Mark Stoneman is lucky to hold his place. He scored 4x50 during the winter and bettered his best Test score three times, falling in single-figures just twice in seven Tests, but still has not passed 60. Can he make a definitive contribution and seal his place? He has reached 20 four times in seven innings this season for Surrey, but has yet to reach 30. In contrast, Keaton Jennings is on a run of 109, 126, 136, 73 and 69 for Lancashire. If Jennings can maintain this prolific form, it will be hard to ignore him.

·       What about Joe Root at #3? He prefers to bat at 4. It is well-chronicled that it is a long time since Root has converted a 50 into a century: he has been scoring 50s a-plenty, but the difference between the two sides in Australia was often the relative contributions of the captains. Can Root score big runs at #3 and improve his conversion statistics?

·       Is Ben Stokes ready for Tests again? We already know that he will miss one of the Tests against India as his charge for affray will come up in Bristol Crown Court, where he faces a possible sentence of three years in prison. How distracted is he by what is coming up and by the media circus that will follow him?

·       What about Jos Buttler? He will bat at 7 with a licence to play with freedom. However, he played just one red-ball game in 2017 and has struggled to adapt to Tests. Can he harness his incredible talents in Tests? His form, opening, in the IPL has been extraordinary, but that is a very different problem to batting in a Test.

·       Which way will England jump with the fourth seamer: Chris Woakes or Mark Wood? Woakes was bitterly disappointing in Australia and Mark Wood can hardly say that he seized his opportunity in New Zealand with both hands. Can either cut it long-term at Test level?

·       And, the $64000 question: how long have Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson got left? Anderson was masterful in Australia and Stuart Broad looks to be back to his best, but England know that Anderson is on borrowed time and Broad may have only two years left in him at this level, even if his form continues to justify his place.

Last time Pakistan toured England, they shared the series, celebrated wins with press-ups. They also became #1 in the ICC Test rankings to boot. Now they are #7 having barely won a match since. They beat Ireland, but not after Tim Murtagh and Kevin O’Brien gave them an almighty scare (in the end they were relieved to scramble over the line) and have been depressingly badly treated with the warm-ups, by having games against the hapless Northants and a weak Leicestershire: as preparation goes for a Test series the ECB should be embarrassed and ashamed by their lack of generosity as hosts.

It is quite likely that just four of the eleven players who faced England at Lord’s less than two years ago will be in the Pakistan XI. Like England, they desperately need a strong showing for their own credibility. Pakistan are mercurial: perhaps the most naturally talented cricketers in the world, they get too easily distracted by what they see as on and off-the-field conspiracies and, as a result, disintegrate far too easily. Just as England have to learn to cope with pitches taking big turn in India and the UAE, India and Pakistan have to learn to cope with a tinge of green in the pitch in England without screaming “foul!!” Cricket is intended to be played on grass and, in a wet and humid country, grass tends to grow green.

The bad news for England is that even a 2-0 series win – which seems to be totally implausible – will barely gain any ranking points: England need to win 1-0 even to stand still. Pakistan will remember what Sri Lanka did in 2014 and know that England are vulnerable and that there are questions against the name of almost every player in the XI; the Pakistanis will be only too happy to deepen the England crisis and are quite capable of doing it if they can retain their focus.