England v
Pakistan: 1st Test, Day 4
So Much For
The Great England Fightback
May 27th 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.
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