India Arrive With Real Options Of Winning

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

And The Indians Arrive…

 

June 26^th 2014

 

There is no respite on the international calendar. No sooner has one series ended does another tour start. The Indians are at Grace Road for the start of their tour. No longer one of the upcoming venues of English cricket, Grace Road which, in its 1980s heyday, hosted ODIs and would have been many people’s choice if a new Test venue had to be found, is not what it was and the fortunes of Leicestershire – now perennial wooden spoon candidates – have fallen with it.

India want the warm-ups to have some intensity and many fans will back them in that. What is the interest in seeing a touring side play a third-string side, stripped of its stars? Apart from cheating the paying public who do still tend to flock to these games, it is simply a discourtesy to the touring team and invites retribution later. It is also a reflection of the lack of interest that these games have to the players. Twenty years ago, a five-for or a century against the tourists was a sure-fire way of putting your name in the frame for a Test call; now, performances against the tourists count for almost nothing. Players do not have the incentive to turn out to be noticed and most of the bigger names get “rested”, sometimes in the guise of protecting minor injuries that don’t seem to impede them come the Friday night T20.

India will have seen England’s struggles to finish off a spirited Sri Lankan side and see an unexpected opportunity to take something from the series. Whitewashed 4-0 on their last tour, this was seen as an easy series for England to rehabilitate. Now, there is every possibility that England could lose it if the Indians forger their typical siege mentality when on a tour of England and concentrate on their cricket, especially with the canny Duncan Fletcher managing them. England are vulnerable. They have lost the habit of winning matches and have lost the habit of turning round difficult situations. It has been lost on no one that at Lords Sri Lanka held out for a full day while, at Headingley, England were unable to hold out for very slightly longer, mainly due to an abysmal collapse against the new ball.

Fortunes can be turned around quickly. Australia were a disorganised rabble in 2012 and 2013, with a record of defeats little better than England’s and a captain questioned and crippled by a degenerating injury. A change of coach seemed to make little difference as the series in England ended in a heavy defeat yet, under the surface, something was happening and many wise heads were saying that the return series would be much tougher.  For Australia, a regime change and the recovery of a 90mph bowler were all that they needed to turn the tables. The management has changed and England have found a 94mph bowler, but have given him two fairly lifeless surfaces to work with. It is hard to imagine that Australia would have negated their biggest weapon by offering him a pitch that largely neutralised him.

For England, the captaincy question has been largely settled for now. The captain is not for resigning. The big guns of the establishment are backing him and, to a large degree, influential figures in the media are giving him a sympathetic hearing. The antics of a few airheads whose way of showing their loyalty is to hope that England lose so that they can get rid of their pet hate players has, more than anything, worked in Cook’s favour. This has been a distressing phenomenon in British sport for some years now. It was particularly prevalent before the Olympic Games, with a significant minority leaping gleefully on any negative news story and predicting disaster anywhere where they could get a hearing. Some “fans” genuinely want England to lose and Alistair Cook to fail to further their private agenda.

Another piece of not so unexpected news is that, with two weeks before the 1^st Test against India, Alistair Cook will not play for Essex against Gloucestershire on Sunday. Division 2 runs are no guarantee of Test runs – Alistair Cook knows that better than most, having run up 386 runs @ 77, with two centuries in his five innings for Essex this season – but it would have given him a chance to get some middle time and some confidence. However, the Essex Chairman says that rest and time with him family will serve him better and that is quite possibly true, as there will be no press and no fans following his every move on the farm in darkest Essex.

Alistair Cook may yet decide that, on reflection, he needs a break from the pressure of the captaincy. That seems unlikely now. It seems almost certain that, barring injury, he will lead England at Trent Bridge. When he does, let’s all hope that it works out well, both for him and for the side. He is the captain. Let’s back him. 1.2 billion Indians will be hoping that England do badly, let’s not swell that number with misguided ideas that it is the best thing for the team for them to fail.