England v India: 5th Test, Days 1-2 - The Shuffled Pack Shows Its Bottle

 

England v India: 5^th Test, Days 1-2

The Shuffled Pack Shows Its Bottle

December 17^th 2016

Once again Alistair Cook has won the Toss, as he has in the previous two Tests. And at 21-2, barely forty minutes into the game, any England fan optimistic enough to have got out of bed, must have been watching from behind the sofa. It brings back memories of watching Doctor Who as a six year old: terrifying, but strangely compulsive viewing.

Jimmy Anderson has joined the growing casualty list. Some reports are suggesting that he may struggle even to be ready for the South Africa series in July. With Steve Finn and Gareth Batty considered expensive luxuries and Ben Duckett and Gary Ballance considered liabilities, the unavailability of Chris Woakes ensured that Jake Ball would keep his place. England must have breathed a sigh of relief that Stuart Broad was passed fit, even so, of necessity Liam Dawson became the most unlikely England debutant for years – even he must be wondering how it happened. Poor Gareth Batty though knows now that he will never play for England again. Of the XI who started in Bangladesh, four have fallen by the wayside. Of the XI who played the 1^st Test v India, two more have gone.  Could a re-shuffled England do any better?

Keaton Jennings is finding that Test cricket is unforgiving: two failures have followed his debut century, but then that has been the Jennings way this season, with him following a series of low scores with a huge innings. Do not be amazed if he scores a century or makes a duck in the second innings. More alarming, given the waffle about his captaincy, is Alistair Cook’s form. In India in 2012, he led the way with a series of massive scores. This winter, his scores have been 4, 12, 14, 59, 21, 130, 2, 54, 27, 12, 46, 18 and now 10. It has been decent, but England have needed more than decent to compensate for his lack of intuition as captain. At his best, Cook leads from the front and inspires and the team follow and that simply has not been happening.

Moeen Ali is another to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Many England fans continue to be outraged that he is considered worth selecting. Vilified for irresponsibility more than once in the series, he is finding that “Trott’s Fault” (the excuse for any calamity in past years) is in danger of morphing into “Moeen’s Fault”. Considered far and away England’s most threatening bowler after three Tests of the winter, he has now been eclipsed by Adil Rashid’s advance. To guarantee his place in the summer he may well need to score enough runs to be picked as a batsman. An awful, scratchy start had the fans calling for his head but, somehow, he survived, he gritted his way through and then thrived. Two centuries and two fifties have come this winter – four centuries in the year – so he is doing something right, but five single-figure scores and nothing else higher than 14 shows his early vulnerability. However, on this occasion, without his 146, England would have been in a sad mess yet again.

With England slipping from a positively cheering 253-3 to a depressing 321-7, those who predicted 340ao seemed to be in danger of being classed as sad optimists. Such has been the reliability of England’s tail that 19 runs from the last three wickets seemed to be more akin in optimism to Oliver asking for some more. Yet, wonder of wonders, a century partnership from Dawson and Rashid – hands up all those who predicted that one! – and England started to dream of 450, 480, even 500. As Stuart Broad got behind the ball and made his highest Test score for more than a year, yes, even 500 looked on. Somehow though he managed to run himself out running what should have been a reasonably comfortable three and hopes of 500 went with him. Even then, Jake Ball kept Dawson company for a while. 477 looked good, but then so did 400 in the 4^th Test and it was only good enough to ensure an innings defeat.

No praise can be high enough for Dawson’s debut 66*. He showed spine and gumption and managed to imbue the England tail with some too. We have been used to seeing India’s last three wickets pile on the pain but, to see England progress from 321-7 to 477ao seemed little short of a miracle. It is little and late, but the side has finally shown some bottle. England will now be hoping that Dawson is similarly successful in his day job. India have not scored quickly, but they have advanced with no discomfort, no alarms whatsoever. The lesson of days 1 & 2 has been that there is some life in the pitch for the first hour: England either use it or they will watch India rack up 600+ again and face a thoroughly unpleasant last day under pressure to save the game. Unlike India 2012, India 2016 do not offer a side the chance to escape. This Indian side is seriously good.

England v India: 4th Test, Day 5 - Blown Away

 

England v India: 4^th Test, Day 5

Blown Away

December 12^th 2016

For all the brave talk that England had plenty of batting left and that a lead of 120 might make things interesting, the reality was brutally different. The last 4 wickets resisted just 48 balls on the final morning. When a batsman as talented as Jos Buttler finishes 6*, you know that there has barely been even token resistance by the tail.

From 180-4 and looking set to post some sort of target, possibly even a challenging one, 6 wickets fell for 15 runs in 73 balls. It is not a collapse that England will look back on with any pride. It is not even their worst collapse of the winter. In terms of the fall of the last 5 wickets, it was only the third worst collapse of the winter: a horrifically bad statistic.

The decision to play four seamers has been widely criticised, but who would have played in Jake Ball’s place, had the side been picked again with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight? Apart from the injured Stuart Broad, the options were: Batty, Dawson, Finn, Duckett and Ballance. Steve Finn is a seamer and one struggling for form so, discounted. Duckett is a good one-day batsman, who has made runs in the Second Division, which is no preparation for playing a side unbeaten at home in four years 14, 15, 7, 56, 13, 5, 0 and looking hopelessly at sea against spin seems to have ruled him out. Ballance averages 18.8 in his last 11 Tests and has been well and truly found out in Test cricket; to pick him largely on the basis of one innings against Pakistan, was no kindness as his confidence must be close to zero. Dawson is a rookie with just a handful of ODIs and  T20s to his name and was felt to be too big a risk. And Gareth Batty’s Test record is now 15 wickets @ 61 in 9 Tests: the bizarre logic of picking a 39 year old bowler who had run right out of form in the last month and a half of the season, cruelly exposed. His last 7 First Class matches since the start of August have produced combined match figures of 10-521. Undoubtedly, the selectors hoped that he would be as inspired a pick as Shaun Udal had been in 2006, but his end of season form (the last third of the season) was totally overshadowed by other bowlers such as Leach, Rayner and Crane while, in 2005, Shaun Udal had topped the Hampshire bowling averages, finishing well ahead of one Shane Warne.

After the match, Alistair Cook made some comments that sounded like an admission that it is time for Joe Root to take over from him. However, we have written Cook’s obituary before – most notably in 2014 – and he has come back from the dead. With one Test to go in the winter, there are no more games until July 6^th 2017, when England play South Africa at Lord’s. Many things may happen before then. There is then a helter-skelter of cricket with a Test series against West Indies that goes well into September (the final ODI is on September 29^th!) and then a tour of Australia.

However, another defeat in the final Test, especially if combined with other, external factors (will Jimmy Anderson want to tour Australia again? If so, when will he call it a day?) might just sway his judgement. Cook has since played down his remarks, but only he knows how much longer he wishes to continue. A further factor though, with Joe Root playing Tests, ODIs and T20 is to ask how much he needs the added burden of captaining a faltering side to be thrust on him. How much is too much for him? Do we want to find out?

Barring the 1st Test, India have been utterly irresistible in this Test series. Most pundits expected England to be hammered and have not been disapointed in their prediction. After the Bangladesh series, plenty suggested that England would be fortunate to avoid a 5-0 defeat: they have been proved right. To win, England had to play at 100% and India had to be overconfident and off-colour, as they were in that 1st Test; that match though was just the wake-up call that India needed and it has led them to putting in as dominant a performance as any series in the 1990s when whitewash followed whitewash in India and England's performances in Asia became a figure of ridicule.

England v Bangladesh: A Batty Selection?

 

England v Bangladesh

A Batty Selection?

September 16^th  2016

Rumour has it that the England selectors, never ones to duck controversy have picked Haseeb Hameed, Gareth Batty and Ben Duckett for Bangladesh.

The selection of Hameed is a good one: where better to blood only the second teenager to play for England since the controversial pick of Brian Close in 1949? He will come into the side in a series where the scrutiny will be less intense and the level of opposition somewhat friendlier than in Australia or South Africa.

Ben Duckett would be a more controversial pick. At face value, Ben Duckett and  Keaton Jennings look to have similar records: 3^rd and top run-scorers in the country in First Class cricket in 2016.

	Duckett	Jennings
Number of runs in 2016	1338	1576
Average	58.2	68.5
Centuries	4	7
50s	5	3
Top score	282*	221*
Team	Northamptonshire	Durham

Duckett was born in Kent, is a wicket-keeper and is in prolific recent form: 26, 6, 80, 185, 208, 12*, 5 & 70 in his last four Championship matches.

Jennings was born in Johannesburg, captained South Africa U19s in England in 2011 and then emigrated to the UK and served his qualification. His four games since the summer break have brought him 21, 0, 22, 171*, 40, 8, 201*, 11.

Both have made runs in struggling sides in which they have held together the batting. The difference is that where Duckett has made his runs in the relatively relaxed cricket of Division 2, Jennings has done it in Division 1 against far stronger attacks and with the handicap of playing half his games on the seamer-friendly pitch at Chester-le-Street.

It could well be that Duckett is going as cover for Jonny Bairstow on a tour where he may only get one day of cricket (the chances are that he will share the gloves in one of the two, two-day warm-up games and maybe get an innings), so the selectors feel that picking Jennings will be a waste of a batsman: or perhaps having another South African who has jumped ship in the squad is a jump too far. However, seven centuries in a First Class season does not broke much argument and one wonders what more Jennings has to do to get a chance.

Where selection is likely to be really controversial is in the spinners. Most pundits expect Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid to go and to be joined by one or two additional spinners. It is believed that Gareth Batty will be one and, possibly, Zafar Ansari or Liam Dawson.

While the Batty selection looked plausible two months ago, right now it will be seen as more evidence that playing for Surrey seems to imbue a player with mystical powers in the minds of the selectors.

Gareth Batty played the last of his 7 Tests in 2005 when Ashley Giles was injured and Batty replaced him for the pre-Ashes, Bangladesh series. 11 Test wickets at 66.6 will not strike fear into many Asian batsmen. In fact, after taking five wickets in his second Test match, in Sri Lanka, figures of 0-59, 1-47, 0-137, 2-185 and 1-44 convinced the selectors that he would never take enough wickets at this level.

Who are the top English-qualified spinners over the 2016 season?

	Wickets	Average
Jack Leach	61	23.4
Ollie Rayner	50	22.0
Gareth Batty	41	32.3
Simon Kerrigan	34	36.4
Adil Rashid	32	33.8

To find Zafar Ansari and Liam Dawson we have to go down the list a fair way:

·        Ansari, 22 wickets at 31.4

·        Dawson, 15 wickets at 46.8

Zafar Ansari missed the early part of the season after the serious injury that wrecked his end to 2015 and stopped him from making his Test debut in the UAE. If he was good enough in September 2015, one can understand that he is good enough now and an opening batsman to boot, covering a second, vital squad position. Dawson though has been outshone by the 19-year-old Hampshire leggie, Mason Crane and his 31 wickets at 40.7. It is Crane, not Dawson, who has been the #1 Hampshire spinner, as reflected by bowling one hundred more overs in just about the same number of games.

Where the comparison starkest is in recent form. Who is really bowling well NOW?

Let us have a look at the recent games, after the Championship’s slightly illogical summer break

	Games	Wickets-runs	Recent average
Ollie Rayner	4	24-414	17.3
Jack Leach	5	29-594	20.5
Liam Dawson	3	11-323	29.4
Zafar Ansari	3	7-219	31.3
Gareth Batty	5	6-342	57.0

Enough said? Dawson, Ansari and Batty together sum, in 11 games, the same number of wickets that Ollie Rayner has taken in his last 4 and a lot fewer than Jack Leach has taken in his last 5. If form means anything, go for the 25 year old Leach, or the 30 year old Rayner, not for a man who will be 39 when the 1^st Test starts and who is right at the end of his career.