Unconditional Surrender

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Without a fight

 

December 29^th 2013

 
 

At the start of the day there was a real chance that England could pull off a win. There were shadows around the ground of Dean Headley and Phil Tufnell and, why not? There were even thoughts of bustling Bob Willis charging in like a man possessed at Headingley. Australia’s top order has been shaky and you felt that one wicket could easily become three. Two edges went in quick succession to first slip and were floored and that was that. The first, you could argue, should have been attempted by Jonny Bairstow, but the captain went for it and got a hand to it. The second went straight in at a comfortable height and straight out. When that happened, you knew that the fight had gone. Jonny Bairstow did hold an edge soon after, but it was too little, too late. Shoulders had slumped. It was not going to happen.

Rivers of ink will be written about what happened and why. There are already calls for Andy Flower to go. The criticism last night of Alistair Cook’s occasionally bizarre decisions was manifest. Cook had two potential match-winners in the side: Stuart Broad and Monty Panesar, but seemed strangely reluctant to bowl either until it was too late. Joe Root got two short spells before Monty was even tried. To his credit, Joe Root did bowl one of the only four maidens of the innings, but the unwillingness to put on Monty early with a hard ball and just see what might happen was alarming. It is obvious that Alistair Cook has no faith in him and, if England play two spinners at Sydney, they will be Tredwell and Borthwick.

Andy Flower must take his share of blame for the dysfunctional squad. When you have three bowlers who you cannot risk playing, another who you do not want to play and two batsmen who you would prefer not to have to play in the team and *then* lose two vital players in mid-tour, you are in a mess.

While most people were happy to see Finn and Rankin in the squad and expected them to make a big impact – the reasoning behind picking them was good – there was a lot of scepticism about Chris Tremlett, who could not even hold down a regular place last season in a desperately poor Surrey side. Maybe the idea was to take him as a loyalty bonus in a large squad, with no plan to play him but, instead, to monitor his rehabilitation: if it was, the fact that he suddenly became a contender for the Test squad despite having the poorest returns of the three in the warm-ups, simply on the basis of net bowling, was a real cause for concern. It is true that England discovered Steve Finn on the basis of a net spell in the UAE, when Finn could not even get into the Lions team, leaping straight from net bowler to the Lions to Test bowler against Bangladesh. It is also true that Geoff Boycott “discovered” Carl Rackemann in the nets in 1977/78 (fancy some free dentistry, Geoff cobber?) but if you are picking your Test bowlers on their net form rather than middle form, something is seriously wrong.

Right now almost every place in the squad is up for grabs. Patience has almost run out for Michael Carberry, who started the tour with such a bang, but whose strokeless effort in the second innings had a lot to do with the collapse that followed. With Alistair Cook hitting the ball so sublimely, Carberry just needed to push singles and twos into gaps to pile the pressure on Australia by upping the run rate.

Carberry’s stats make interesting reading. In his five Tests he has totaled no less than 40 and no more than 74 runs per Test. Total consistency, but with the frustration of getting in and getting out time and again:

30, 34, 40, 0, 60, 14, 43, 31, 38, 12

302 runs at 30.2.

Nick Compton’s sequence was

9, 37, 29, 30*, 57, 9*, 3, 34, 0, 117, 100, 13, 2, 16, 15, 1, 7

479 runs at 31.9, aided by two not outs and a curiously similar start.

Apart from Carberry, Alistair Cook desperately needs some runs. Joe Root’s amazing international start has hit the buffers. Many question KP’s willingness to go on, even if his increasingly damaged knee permits it. It is hard to see Trott or Prior lining up against Sri Lanka next Spring, barring some extraordinary early season form. Swann has gone. Jonny Bairstow (average under 29 and, despite getting into double figures in his last nine innings, just two scores in them over 37) may have just the final Test left to avoid being discarded for good. Despite good form in the UAE and India when he bowled in tandem with Graeme Swann, Monty has gone backwards since 2007 and it is hard to see him playing another Test unless he can re-discover his golden touch at Essex. A lot of pundits would not pick Jimmy Anderson for Sydney and might not for Sri Lanka.

And Tim Bresnan, who has done exactly the job that he was picked for, including the figures of 18-6-24-2 in the first innings that took wickets at the other end for his teammates, is usually the first name on the team list to be greeted with cries of despair from England fans, wondering what he is in the side for. For the record, only Joe Root has a better economy rate for England in the series whereas, although his wickets have been relatively expensive (although less so than Anderson’s, Swann’s, Monty’s and Stokes’s), only Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett and, by a fraction, Ben Stokes have a better strike rate for England.

Most people are suggesting that England need to shuffle the batting order and add some pace to the attack. Finn has more wickets on the tour at a better strike rate than Rankin, but Rankin’s far superior economy may win out, although Finn would be the most dangerous bowler… albeit, most likely to both sides. He needs to be handled with care in a five-man attack and asked to bowl very short spells, flat out. Whether Finn for Anderson would revive the menace in England’s attack is open to doubt: Broad, Stokes and even Anderson have touched 90mph and Finn is not an express bowler.

Next summer there are plenty of options: Chris Jordan, Tymal Miils, Chris Woakes could all make the step up. Graeme Onions is around. Woakes’s nervous start recalled Ian Botham’s debut in 1977 when his inaccurate swingers were ruthlessly picked off by Greg Chappell and it would be foolish to discard him, particularly as he came back well later. Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler, the Overtons and James Taylor are all waiting in the wings, not forgetting Scott Borthwick and Varun Chopra and, of course, Sam Robson, plus a chastened Simon Kerrigan who now knows how much he has to do to succeed at this level. It would only take one or two of these players to come through to transform the side completely.