England v Pakistan:
1st Test Preview
And the
Winner is… Dom Bess!
May 23rd 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.
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