England Slide Back Into An Avoidable Crisis

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

Back to Square One

 

September 1^st 2014

 

Alistair Cook must be wondering why he did not sit out this series as many people hoped that he would. Having ended the Test series with scores of 95, 70*, 17 and 79 in three victories, his position was impregnable as a captain and his batting form was returning. He had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by playing in the ODIs. Maybe he thought that, by playing and winning he would consolidate his position and consolidate his batting form, eliminating the calls for Eoin Morgan to take over. Instead, England are right back in crisis. Cook is being questioned again and his batting form is looking increasingly shaky once more. It is such an unnecessary crisis.

Alistair Cook has had 25 international innings for England this year. Just five times has he failed to reach double figures – and three of those were his first three innings of the year – but he has passed 50 just four times. That is 16 times in 25 innings that he has reached double figures, but failed to get past his bogey score of 44, at which he has now fallen three times this year. This is a symptom of the batsman’s mind not being right, either through exhaustion, or because it is not completely centred on the job.

England are looking totally clueless in this series, which is just what many fans feared would happen.

However, the problem is not just Alistair Cook. Ian Bell is also being questioned. He has had 27 international innings this year, averaging 34.5. Bell has not had such a bad summer, with 3x50 and a big century and a total of 7x50 and that century in his 27 innings since the New Year. However, a run of three low scores in the context of a losing side, has started speculation going again, particularly about his ODI role, due to concerns that he has not got a change of gear to accelerate the scoring. In an ideal side you need one steady batsman who the strokemakers can build around, a role that Jonathon Trott played with great success, but two accumulators in the top three is too many.

Ben Stokes was one of the successes of the Australian winter, but has just one score above 5 in his last 11 international innings. If he were taking wickets, you would forgive it – bat him at 9 and move on – but his last 10 innings for England (twice he was not even called on to bowl) have also produced just 8 wickets, five of them in the Lords Test.

At the same time, people are beginning to look at Eoin Morgan again. Before the season started there was a case for him getting the ODI captaincy and, possibly, even the Test captaincy, leading to some speculation that there could be a natural evolution in the side in the same way that Michael Vaughan’s ODI success ended Nasser Hussain’s Test captaincy. It could be that Alistair Cook has not been keen to rest from this series to avoid the risk of Morgan winning it and putting him under pressure but, despite a good summer for Middlesex, certainly his best for some years, Eoin Morgan is having a desperately poor summer for England.

Eoin Morgan started the year brilliantly in the ODIs against Australia, with 50, 106, 54, 33, 39 but, more to the point, despite that amazing run of scores, in 25 matches this year he has just 602 runs (average 25.1). Since the ODI series in Australia ended, he has done almost nothing of note, with just one fifty and, in fact, just that one score over 40, averaging 14.1 in the 20 matches since the ODI series in Australia ended.

Eoin Morgan has definitely not made a case for himself as far as taking over as England ODI captain is concerned. It could just be that the pressure of being England’s go-to batsman in the side for so long, the person who had to rescue situations time and again, is telling on him. Right now his place in the side is starting to look in danger, although it seems inconceivable that England could go to the World Cup without him.

In this series the main question is whether or not England can save anything from the wreckage. Cook and Hales have given England two solid starts, with partnerships of 54 and 82. The problem has been the collapse when the batsmen should normally be accelerating against the change bowlers. In both games, Hales has shaped well and then got tied down and got himself out trying to relieve the pressure. Today England were 82-0 after 17.5 overs and looking really good. The next 17.5 overs produced 67 runs and 6 wickets. One wicket is producing three or four, as the middle order struggles to work the bowling around. Some rather modest Indian spinners are being allowed to tie down batsmen who are scared to come out and attack them as they would in a Test. However, if Alex Hales can work out how to keep the scoreboard moving in overs 10-20 and get through his sticky patch, a murderous century looks to be there for the taking.

Although Steve Finn did not have a nightmare today, his pace was well down and he was comfortably the most expensive of the bowlers apart from Joe Root. The temptation would be to bring in Gurney and Ali for Finn and Stokes to give more variation in the bowling. There is a real case for bringing in Ballance for Bell.

Longer term, I might make James Taylor ODI captain and give him the rest of the winter and the World Cup. It probably will not happen, because a 4-0 defeat would just entrench Alistair Cook deeper in his bunker, but it would be a huge statement of intent for the future.