Cricket 2014
Same Old Failings
August 28th 2014
If you are an England fan, you will have come down to earth with a bump. If an Indian, maybe you think that things are not so bad after all. The match followed a strikingly similar pattern to the Indian warm-up match against Middlesex at Lords. India put in to bat in bowler-friendly conditions, looked completely at sea initially. The Test Match Special commentators were licking their lips at the prospect of an early finish in the same way that India’s early struggles in the warm-up at Lords made the decision to play eleven specialist batsmen look eminently sensible.
Against Middlesex, India were 35-2 after 8 overs and 55-3 after 15 and looking far from capable of coping with the conditions, or of setting a good total. A stand of 104 in 16.3 overs turned the match on its head. Middlesex eventually subsided against the spinners to 135.
Yesterday, after 10 overs, India were 26-2. Chris Woakes was on figures of 5-1-8-2. Would India reach 100? 150?
Jimmy Anderson’s 6th over went for 10 runs and suddenly India were away. That one over released the suffocating pressure that had built up. 38 runs came from the next 5 overs and India were up and away and sailing out of sight.
After 34 overs, India were 148-4 and looking at a score around 250 before the bowlers lost the plot completely. 57 came off one horrific 4-over spell from Woakes, Jordan and Anderon. Game over. India saw their chance, took it and destroyed England.
England were actually well ahead in the chase up to the end of the 14th over (63-3 against 52-2), but an inability to apply the acceleration that India had led to the regular loss of wickets and to the power-hitters in the middle order having to take outrageous chances in a futile attempt to break the shackles. The key time though was overs 15-18. Whereas India scored 29 runs in 4 overs, without losing a wicket and kick-starting their innings, England scored just 7. India’s innings never looked back, England’s was becalmed.
There was just one point at which England threatened to chase. From overs 26-30 England added 29 runs, accumulating steadily but then., critically, lost Morgan. When he went there was never a chance of a sting in the tail.
For England, the question is, where do they go from here? Compared to the first ODI in Australia there have been six changes: gone are Ballance, Bopara, Bresnan and Rankin. Bell has moved down from opening to #3 and Root from #3 to #4. Of course, no one could have predicted after the disastrous defeat at Lords in the 2nd Test that England would come back and win the next three matches by steadily increasing margins. Something similar may happen here, but you would bet against it. Were England to suffer another heavy defeat at Trent Bridge on Saturday, the suspicion is that all the positives of the Tests will be forgotten and that Alistair Cook will again be with his back to the wall and fending off the critics who are calling for his head. He has already reacted angrily to Graeme Swann’s suggestions that he should not be playing ODIs for England. Despite better form of late, his last 10 matches for England (3 ODIs and 7 Tests) have still produced a sequence of 1, 56, 17, 28, 17. 16, 5, 10, 22, 95, 70*, 17, 79 and 19. Just two single figure scores in 14 innings but, tellingly, he has fallen eight times between 10 and 28. Those are not the numbers of a man happy with his game: he is getting in and then getting out. And the angry reaction to Graeme Swann similarly suggests that his mind is nowhere near right: someone who is in a happier place would have come out yesterday and scored a century and ended the debate with the force of big runs off the bat without the need to make an angry rebuttal.
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