The Ghosts Of 2009

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

Is he? Isn’t he?

 

December 14^th 2014

 

 

“England fans tend to be hyper-critical and unforgiving.” (November 23^rd)

“One wonders if Alistair Cook will survive as captain if England lose 7-0, or even 6-1, even if he starts to score some runs: how much patience do the selectors have with him? Possibly not much more.” (November 29^th)

“The question has been answered in the clearest possible way by the selectors. Alistair Cook is captain for the World Cup, so there is no point debating the issue more.” (December 8^th)

The series is gone now, with England 4-2 down with one match to play. Alistair Cook’s poor series continued with a pretty awful sixth match that suggested that his mind is frazzled.  Despite the fact that a month ago you would have got quite long odds on England keeping the series live into the sixth match and the denouement was expected long before it actually happened, the fans and experts are being as unforgiving as unusual. Five losses in the last six ODI series, including three in England, which has always been the place where even the best sides usually fail to win, is a dismal record. Calls for Alistair Cook to step down, or to be sacked if he refuses to, are now being joined by calls for Peter Moores to go. It could be that Peter Moores’s best chance of survival is to wield the axe, but there is almost more chance of him featuring in a repeat of 2009 and being the protagonist of a double change of captain and coach.

In 2009, Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen annihilated each other mutually is a blaze of heat and light, the lasting fallout of which may well have contributed to the latter’s recent exile. For England, despite an unpalatable defeat against the West Indies with a provisional management in the immediate aftermath of the conflagration, the end result of the change was the best period in their recent history, reaching #1 in the T20, Test and ODI rankings at different times, winning three consecutive Ashes series and England’s only ever global trophy.

The truth was that, although Peter Moores was forced to re-build in the face of mass retirements after the 2006/07 Ashes wipe-out, the England record during his reign was pretty awful and it was a surprise to many when he was re-appointed on Andy Flower’s resignation.

Peter Moores 2014, we were assured, was a more gentle and understanding coach who would work well with the players, but his start has not been a good one. The only bright point has been the comeback win against a totally disinterested India in the summer Test series. Apart from that, his record is almost exclusively one of defeats: Test defeat v Sri Lanka; ODI defeats home and away v Sri Lanka and at home v India; T20 defeat in the Caribbean and at home v Sri Lanka; only one win in the T20 World Cup and a defeat to The Netherlands to boot. The only series wins were in the Caribbean ODIs (having selected a team of T20 specialists), in a one-off ODI v Scotland (played effectively as a T20) and in a one-off T20 v India. The balance is poor and, with a tri series in Australia and the World Cup to come, plus Test series against Australia and South Africa, is likely to get even worse before it gets better. Right now, it is uncertain that anyone would offer odds on England to beat Australia next summer in any of the three formats and, despite England’s good record against South Africa since 2003, you would not bet much money on England winning there either.

The Moores-Cook combo is not producing results. Fans and pundits are getting increasingly restless and, just six days after apparently confirming that Alistair Cook will captain England in the World Cup, Peter Moores has come out and stated that his place in the final 15 for the tournament is not assured. This has created varied readings, although many experts are cautioning that Moores’s comments may not be all that they seem to be. With just the tri-series to come and with the stand-in captain Eoin Morgan’s place under some threat still, with just one significant score since returning from Australia, the chances of bedding in a new captain should the axe fall on Alistair Cook, are far from good. However, it is not as if there are no plausible candidates at all. Eoin Morgan can point still to the fact that the only real score that he has made since the Australian ODIs was as captain in Sri Lanka – would making him captain bring back his sparkling and devastating form? James Taylor has made a convincing case to play in the World Cup and is a successful captain at Nottinghamshire. And Joe Root is seen as a future England captain and is in sparkling form: starting him with the ODI captaincy would find out if he has what he needs to be England’s next Test captain in the same way that Michael Vaughan was initiated. However, asking a new captain to take up the job in a tough series in Australia that England are expected to lose badly is not the greatest way to build him up.

As Peter Moores has consistently backed Alistair Cook, changing captain now would also be a major admission of failure on his part and one that would only add to the calls for his short second period in charge to be terminated abruptly too. Something is going to give soon: either England start winning or the axe will fall and heads will roll. Invoking the ghost of 2009 may though be just what England need now.