Is County Form Still Relevant to Tests?

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

Is County Form Relevant to Tests?

 

May 28^th 2015

 
Yesterday there was a marvellous debate on the CricInfo County Cricket Live Blog about the England spin bowling situation. Different supporters pushed the case for their own county’s bowler. Just about the only thing that everyone was agreed upon was that Moeen Ali’s form with the ball is more than a little worrying and that “The Beard that is Feared” is threatening to become “The Bowler who is slapped to the Boundary”.

Spin bowling debates are nothing new to England fans. No one expected a post-Swann and post-Monty era to be easy. What to do about it is though becoming a major issue.

The Moeen situation exacerbates things. From being a #6 bat for which, by definition, his bowling was a bonus, Moeen is now playing at #8, which is a bowler’s slot. Contrariwise, he is now scoring runs. For some fans, if you are batting no higher than 8, the major consideration should to be to have the best possible spinner because runs are secondary to taking wickets.

An alternative point of view is to look at the Ashley Giles role: he was not a great spinner – although he was a lot better than his detractors suggested – but he was a specialist gulley fielder and averaged over 20 with the bat (20.89 over 54 Tests), with 4x50. Giles was a utility player in that he contributed wickets (2.6 per Test), useful runs (26 per Test) and catches (0.6 per Test), meaning that he was as valuable or more so to the team than Monty Panesar who was a better bowler, but a far inferior bat and fielder.

Right now, Moeen Ali is very much in the Ashley Giles role. The question is: is there a better spin option?

Many fans are frustrated with the way that Adil Rashid has been treated. He has now been on no less than four full tours and has barely played a match, let alone a Test. Despite respectable figures in the County game, it is evident that the captain does not trust him and nor did Peter Moores. Many fans would like to see Adil Rashid get a chance, just to see what he is capable of; others though think that he will prove to be simply too expensive and too ineffective at this level.

In theory, the #2 option is James Tredwell.  His problem though is that he rarely plays 4-day cricket now. Last season he was loaned out to Sussex where he took 12 wickets @ 43.2 in 5 matches to add to his 11 @ 38.7 in 4 matches for Kent, where Adam Riley is preferred to him. Hardly figures to strike fear into Michael Clarke, David Warner and Steve Smith.

If you want the leading English-qualified spin bowler in the 2015 season, a quick scan down the averages will find Simon Kerrigan of Lancashire. 20 wickets @ 26.1 and a career average of 28.3 surely make him the best option? The fact that, bar 2014, he has been high in the averages for several seasons reinforces his credentials. If you look for county form, is Simon Kerrigan not the obvious choice?

The fact is though that probably Simon Kerrigan is no more than sixth or seventh choice right now at very best. Probably, in the minds of the selectors, the pecking order is something like:

Moeen Ali, James Tredwell, Adil Rashid, Adam Riley, Zafir Ansari, Stephen Parry, Danny Briggs, Simon Kerrigan.

Quite possibly, even Scott Borthwick is up there ahead of Simon Kerrigan too, or even Samit Patel [note to that poor old Monty Panesar, who had a reasonable season in 2014, is nowhere on the list – his chances of a recall seem to be practically zero].

The problem for Simon Kerrigan is an obvious one: he had a difficult debut at The Oval in 2013 and his captain had no faith in him. The way that he was handled was pretty awful: after a single, poor spell, he was not allowed to bowl again. A sign of how far his stock has fallen is that Parry, Riley, Adil Rashid and Samit Patel were on the Lions tour to South Africa last Autumn, but no Simon Kerrigan. Zafir Ansari was also picked ahead of him for the game in Ireland.

For Simon Kerrigan, unless he can do something so utterly eye-catching that his claims can no longer be ignored, he is not even going to be mentioned when squads and tour parties are selected.

The suspicion is increasing that County form is now less important than ever in selection. To force your way into the England team you have to show sustained form for a long period (as Sam Robson and Adam Lyth did), or do something really eye-catching (Steve Finn went from net bowler for the Lions to a Test spot by sending down a brutal spell of bowling in the nets in the UAE in front of Andy Flower), or just be in the right place at the right time (as Mark Wood has been when a quick bowler was needed urgently).

As Nick Compton, Sam Robson, Ravi Bopara and Simon Kerrigan have found, once you lose your place, getting it back is almost impossible. However, if County cricket is to have relevance it has to produce England cricketers. Once you say that your form players are not good enough to step up, something is going badly wrong.

A look at the current First Class statistics is revealing. Of the five batsmen with 600+ runs after about a third of the season, four are England-qualified: James Hildreth, Alex Hales, Michael Carberry & Scott Borthwick. Of them, two are England rejects, one is a current player who cannot hold down a place in the ODI side, let alone challenge for a Test place and one is a player who never quite made it to the top. There are five bowlers, four of them England qualified, with more than 30 wickets: Chris Rushworth, James Harris, Liam Norwell and Matt Coles: the only one even remotely on the England radar is probably James Harris, although Matt Coles did have a Lions tour (that ended in him being disciplined). One of those names will probably only produce the reaction “Liam Who?” – actually he is a young Gloucestershire seamer, born in Dorset, who is making a big impact this season: maybe one to watch.

At present, there is a real chance that the Championship will pass to a three-Division structure with seven teams in each and a reduction from 16 games per season to 12. This would require three extra teams to enter, potentially Ireland, Scotland and a Minor County (perhaps Staffordshire, the 2014 Champions and one of the traditionally strongest of the Minor Counties). However, you can make a case for any number of sides such as a Combined Universities team, a Minor County, or even The Netherlands to be invited to be team #21. There is also the option that the ECB could decide to cut the First Class programme even more and to stick with 18 teams in six divisions of three, with no extra sides: that would cut the Championship programme to just 10 games.

They could even go for a hybrid solution where two divisions are kept, but a side only plays the nearest sides geographically home and away in a Championship of 10 or 12 matches (so, in a hypothetical 10-game Championship in Division 2, Kent would play Surrey and Essex twice and other sides once, Lancashire would play Derbyshire and Leicestershire twice, etc.) Some of the combinations make your head ache and would devalue the Championship even more.

The danger is, if England players are not released – those days seem now long passed – and the County Championship is cut back so far, it will become even less relevant to anything or to anyone. How much enthusiasm will Division 3 cricket generate in a side such as Leicestershire that is currently propping-up Division 2 and that has spent almost two and a half seasons waiting to win a game? Most likely Division 3 will become semi-professional and Division 3 players will leave the player pool of potential Test candidates completely. Talent will be concentrated in a highly competitive Division 1, but with so few games, how to distinguish a run of form from a batsman showing real sustained class that would prosper at Test level?

The biggest winners of such a re-structure would be likely to be Ireland, who would have an incentive to develop a First Class structure as a feeder to County Ireland that would, in turn, lead its push for Test status. If you were an Irish player, which would you prefer: a game against Namibia in an empty stadium, or the chance to play al Lords, The Oval, or Headingley in front of thousands of fans (and, yes, even County Championship matches do attract crowds that some lower-Division football sides would envy), against sides with near Test-level attacks?

England's Headingley 1981 Moment

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

For My Next Trick

 

May 26^th 2015

 

 

For three days the Obituary writers have been working on their drafts for Alistair Cook. England hopelessly off the pace, being brutally pushed around by a team that has only beaten them eight times in Test history and that has lost 7 of its last 8 Tests in England over three tours. The New Zealand new ball bowling was more incisive. The New Zealand batting was positive and brutal.

At 403-3 on Day 3, with New Zealand already ahead and then, again, at 470-5, with the lead growing and again two set batsmen at the crease you could only wonder about just how much this New Zealand side has progressed in the last few years on such limited resources. Most pundits thought that the last two days would turn into a fight to avoid an innings defeat. Even when the tail crumbled, it seemed too little too late: after all, apart from Ricky Ponting’s Australians, how many sides come back from a deficit of 134 in the first innings? When England fell to 25-2 in under 8 overs, the spectre of the match not going into a fifth day was all too real.

Occasionally though you get a moment that defies logic, or a player who suddenly turns things around so that the whole tenor of a game changes. At Headingley in 1981 it was Ian Botham who supplied the impulse and Bob Willis who took advantage, although it was actually Graeme Dilley who set up Botham’s fightback by starting to fling the bat with great effect to the tune of a murderous 56. Here it was Ben Stokes’s fastest hundred for England since Jessop in 1902 and, to boot, the fastest ever hundred at Lord’s. However, as Botham’s innings at Headingley would never have happened without Graeme Dilley’s knock, Ben Stokes’s would not have happened without Joe Root. While a gloriously revived Alistair Cook blocked-off one end, accumulating slowly, Joe Root started to counter-attack in a marvellous innings of 84. Root, with 98 and 84 missed out on a century twice in the match but, in both innings, was the heart of the England fightback from a desperate position.

 

This was England's Headingley 1981 moment. Will it produce such a glorious turnaround in fortunes as that one did?

Back in 2012, Australia found a desperate, prodding Root who had been promoted to open when clearly not ready for it technically. This Joe Root is definitely a different proposition; he looks set to put attacks to the sword for years to come. Root though, just set the stage for Ben Stokes to follow up his first innings 92. By the time he had departed, 26.3 overs later, New Zealand were in full retreat and the momentum in the game had changed irreversibly.

Even a strategic collapse on the last morning worked in England’s favour. If Alistair Cook had had to make a declaration it would, inevitably, had come shortly before lunch and would have been necessarily conservative: no one would have forgiven Alistair Cook for losing a match that should have been safe, especially in a two-match series. Instead, 429-6 became 478ao in just 11 overs. New Zealand certainly had a sniff if they got a good start, but that was probably their undoing: when batting for a draw should have been easy, the New Zealand approach was to chase the runs even when 8-down and heading for a heavy defeat. Any thoughts of winning should have been ended when they were 0-2 after 7 balls and then 12-3 in the 6^th over. While Jimmy Anderson made the initial breakthrough, Stuart Broad steamed in and did what this detractors say that he never does: decapitate the innings with the new ball.

From then on it was a matter of keeping up the pressure. Even so, there was a possibility that New Zealand could frustrate the bowlers, but then it was Alistair Cook’s day, every bowling change seemed to work: with Williamson and Watling re-building and, at the same time, keeping the required run rate well under control, there was a danger that the situation could slip out of England’s control. With nothing match happening after lunch, Ben Stokes was given a fairly new ball and instructions to let it go fast. Nine balls without conceding a run and then, after two absolute jaffas to set up Kane Williamson, an outside edge and into the safe hands of Joe Root. Next ball, McCullum was bowled and you sensed that it was all over provided that England maintained their focus.

Incredibly, Watling and Corey Anderson kept attacking and the hundred partnership came in 136 balls. At this stage New Zealand were still thinking of winning and, in doing so, giving the bowlers a chance. In such circumstances it is just a matter of when the mistake comes. At 168-5 New Zealand were getting back to parity; at 174-7 an end was open. Even then, Tim Southee kept hitting as if he wanted to knock off the runs quickly and get out for a celebratory drink before the crowds arrived.

Even with the last pair at the wicket and play deep into the last hour, the calypso cricket continued when some serious blocking was indicated: how many times in this situation do you see the last man caught at third man from an attacking stroke? Positive cricket is one thing, but New Zealand seemed incapable of coming out of IPL mode to save a Test that should never have been lost. It was brainless.

This Test has produced a host of astonishing numbers and comparisons:

·         The highest aggregate in a Test in which all 40 wickets have fallen since 1930.

·         This was only the 14^th time that a side has scored 500 in the 1^st innings of a Test and lost.

·         This was the 10^th highest losing 1^st innings score and the highest ever by New Zealand.

·         Remarkably, seven of the 14 instances of a side scoring 500 in the 1^st innings and losing have come since December 2003, two of them in consecutive Tests in 2006.

·         Previously, New Zealand’s highest losing 1^st innings score had been 433 v Australia at Christchurch in 2005.

·         This was the fifth time that England had conceded 500 in the 1^st innings and won (although one of the these was the famous forfeited Test).

·         In the 2006 Pakistan series, Pakistan scored 538 in the 1^st innings at Headingley and 504 in the 1^st innings at The Oval and lost both matches.

Certainly, Ben Stokes looks a different player since moving up to #6 and a better bowler with Paul Farbrace giving him a clearly defined role to bowl quickly. And Alistair Cook looks a better captain with a more balanced attack and is scoring runs for fun again.

However, not all is well. The top order failed twice in the Test, falling to 25-2 in both innings (and, in the 1^st innings, to 30-4). Adam Lyth managed just 7 and 12 and now has just two more innings to “bed in” before the Ashes. Moeen Ali does not look like a strike bowler at the moment, although his last four Test innings have been 58, 8, 58 & 43, allaying some concerns about his batting. And the bowling attack looked singularly toothless for long periods as New Zealand accumulated on Day 2 and early in Day 3.

Certainly, New Zealand let England off the hook three times in the Test and batted in a remarkably cavalier fashion when they should have been able to save the Test had they buckled down. It is hard to imagine that Australia will be so accommodating. However, it was a remarkable win. In the morning a disgruntled fan told CricInfo that the difference between a mediocre side and a good side was that the latter sees an opportunity and seizes it, suggesting that England would let the game slide into an aimless draw instead of going out to win: no one can say that England did not seize theirs.

The sides move to Headingley on Friday with England guaranteed at least a shared series. Five days ago that would have seemed like riches beyond belief.

A Day That Offers Some Hope

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

Hope, But England Make Their Supporters Suffer

 

May 21^st 2015

 

If patrons tuned in to the Test match expecting to suffer, they were not disappointed. New Zealand resent being no more than a warm-up act for their big brother over the Tasman Sea and are keen to score a few brownie points themselves. England wanted to show that change had come and that the closed shop had disappeared: Jordan was sent back to Hove where, hopefully he will be allowed to turn out for Sussex and Mark Wood became the latest in the production line of Durham quicks to win a cap.

When all the pundits were saying that the winner of the toss had to bat, Brendon McCullum had no doubts. He felt that England were there for the taking and that if he took on the top order head-on, it would crumble.

Win toss. Bowl. Behead.

For 43 balls it seemed that perhaps the new England opening combo would restore some sanity to the office. Not a chance. Good ball from Southee. Fine edge. Thanks very much Adam. You have three more innings before the Australian arrive.

29 balls later it was 30-4. Ballance. Cook. Bell. Thanks for turning up, guys.

It was scant consolation that Lyth and Bell got very good balls. We knew that New Zealand had a good attack and that very good balls should not be a great surprise. And given that the fans regularly castigate the England attack for bowling low-80s, there was not a 90mph ball in sight. In fact, there was barely an 85mph ball in sight and Corey Anderson, after making a point with a few 80mph deliveries, settled down to mid-70s pace. If it had been Stuart Broad and Chris Jordan you would have heard the blood vessels of the fans popping with righteous indignation.

Barely two weeks ago England got into this kind of mess against the West Indies and sank without trace. Today, something unexpected happened: Brendon McCullum kept on attacking and runs started to flow. Resistance turned into a full-scale counter-offensive and the counter-offensive threatened to become a rout. Thirty-two overs. One hundred and sixty-one runs. Bowlers being taken apart as fours and sixes flowed. On came the Antipodean answer to Moeen Ali. Ben Stokes showed his elegant leave so as not to throw it away with a century just two hits away. Unfortunately though, the leave would have been much better against a ball that was not quite so straight.

Joe Root was still there and looked a banker to go on to a century. If the Australians think that they are going to meet the nervous, prodding figure of 2013, so much the better because they are in for a nasty surprise. On 98 he went for the cut that would take him to his century, feathered an edge and departed. Since the start of last summer he has: 200*, 15, 13, 31, 154*, 13, 66, 3, 56, 77, 149*, 83, 59, 182*, 33, 1, & 98. That is some serious scoring.

That left two batsmen with questions against them to capitalise. Jos Buttler’s figures for England are excellent, but his protection of the tail in the Caribbean was totally clueless and, arguably, lost England the 3^rd Test given that an extra 20 runs eked out in each innings might have changed the result. Moeen Ali has played 9 Tests and averages just over 30, with 1x100 and 2x50. Given his bowling last summer that has been quite sufficient, but 6-208 in the Caribbean and an array of buffet bowling required something more from the bat. At his best, Moeen is a rich man’s Ashley Giles: a better bowling average, a better batting average, a more imposing figure and capable of scoring centuries. Today, in partnership with Jos Buttler, Moeen batted with increasing confidence.

Buttler went to the last ball of the day and Moeen will now have to shepherd the tail as skilfully as he did at Headingley last year when he was two balls from saving a Test that looked like a lost cause.

At 354-7 England know that they need to get to 400. And then the attack has to be as skilful with the new ball as New Zealand’s was. However, there is very little batting left and the challenge will test every atom of Moeen Ali’s skill. However, as a statement of intent, the riposte to the New Zealand challenge has been a fine one and holds out hope that the summer may be less traumatic than we feared.

The Longest Year Begins

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

England’s Toughest Year Begins

 

May 20^th 2015

 

If the series in the Caribbean was a potential banana skin, the New Zealand series that starts in the morning is more of a potential minefield.

On paper, it should be a massacre. New Zealand’s Test record in England is abysmal: they did not win a Test in England until Lance Cairns’s heroics at Headingley in 1983 and have only won 2 of the 16 series played in England: those of 1986 and 1999. Of the last 12 series between the two countries, home and away, New Zealand have won one and lost 8, with just four Test wins in 36 Tests. Their last 3 visits to England have produced an eye-watering 7 defeats and a single draw.

However, this New Zealand side looks more like the Richard Hadlee inspired sides that won consecutive series in 1983/84 and in 1986, both times 1-0, first in New Zealand and then in England. Led by Brendon McCullum, the side has made a merit of scarce playing resources and gets results far beyond expectations.

If proof were needed of New Zealand’s fighting qualities, their match against Worcestershire produced a barely credible win when it appeared that Worcestershire were galloping towards an easy victory.

Add to that the fact that Martin Guptill, so often a walking wicket in Tests, is in supreme form and that the New Zealand attack looks ideally suited to English conditions and you have an opponent that is at very least, dangerous. Put against it is an England side that has lost three of its last four series, that has no coach, a debutant opener and that has four of the five components of its bowling attack heavily questioned.

The buzz is that Mark Wood may play, probably instead of Chris Jordan. If he does, it will mark a relaxing of the conservatism in selection that has so frustrated fans. Whether or not it will be enough to stave off a series defeat remains to be seen.

My heart says that England should win the series with something to spare. My head says that 1-1 may end up being a good result.

The ECB Takes Aim And Consistently Shoots Its Own Foot

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

The ECB Shoots from the Hip… Again!

 

May 17^th 2015

 

Shooting from the hip is good form in Westerns. The good guy moves with lightning speed to gun down the baddie and bring peace to the saloon. The ECB has shown its own sharpness with a six-shooter over the last couple of weeks. However, when you shoot from the hip, good style is to remove the gun from its holster first. This is the bit which the ECB is somehow failing to master.

And all evidence suggests that the waiting Australians are falling over themselves with laughter as the ECB manages to handle each situation worse than the one before.

It is not just the Australians. A New Zealand side that was rather expecting to be sacrificial victims are seeing an unexpected opportunity to validate their improving Test ranking and at least draw the series that starts on Thursday.

Alistair Cook went after the ODI series in Sri Lanka. His ODI place was increasingly shaky and the impression was that his stereotyped captaincy was not ideal. Step forward Eoin Morgan who, after a decent start, has gone into an increasingly steep nose dive. There is no guarantee that he will keep the ODI captaincy.

Paul Downton went after the World Cup. No one seemed to know what his role was. No one seemed to know what responsibilities he had. Fans of my age remember Paul Downton as Alan Knott’s successor with the gloves at Kent: the wunderkind who displaced David Bairstow from the England side in 1981 after only a handful of games and turned out to be a courageous bat, willing to take on any challenge. Here though the almost unanimous opinion is that he was totally out of his depth.

Paul Downton has been replaced by Andrew Strauss. Strauss was an underrated captain – often brilliant – who took England to #1. Often unfairly criticised as a defensive captain, Strauss did what Michael Vaughan had not be able to do and made the England side one to fear. Even before Andrew Strauss’s appointment had become official, news that Peter Moores had been sacked was leaked. Then came the news that he was to have a meeting with Kevin Pietersen after play on Monday.

KP is not one to make life easy for anyone. “Play First Class cricket” he was told. “Score some runs and we’ll see how things stand”. 170 against Oxford MCCU in a non-FC match was followed by 19, 53*, 32 & 8*. Nothing there to make Andrew Strauss modify his script. Modest returns against Glamorgan and Essex. The day of the meeting, Surrey were struggling at 241-6 against Leicestershire and depending on KP to obtain a first innings lead of any kind. The much-improved Leicestershire kept chipping away. Suddenly though all hell broke loose. KP added 240 for the last two wickets with Tremlett and Dunn, finishing with 355*. Not a bad presentation card you would think to the new England supremo.

“Sorry Kev, we don’t trust you. No Tests for you, but you can be our ODI advisor, if you want”. If this was Andrew Strauss’s own script he managed to make himself look rather foolish. If it wasn’t, one wonders why he allowed himself to be manipulated this way. Presumably KP’s advice is more trustworthy than his batting.

Having handled the Peter Moores sacking so abysmally badly, the KP re-sacking seems to have been handled even worse. In different polls in Internet the pro-KP margin has been around 90-10% in favour of him being considered for selection.

When the Test side was selected for Thursday’s 1^st Test Jonathon Trott’s retirement meant that there was really no choice other to go with Adam Lyth as opener. Fine, but he has neither played for England in the Caribbean nor for Yorkshire in the County Championship save for a couple of token innings: great preparation for a Test series. Liam Plunkett and Adil Rashid, both of whom could and possibly should have played in the 3^rd Test v the West Indies have been dropped. The former has only himself to blame as a missed training session led to him being dropped from Yorkshire’s game before the side was selected. The latter took 8-118 for Yorkshire v Hampshire. With Moeen Ali still struggling, people will ask what Adil Rashid has to do.

The England XI is likely to be unchanged apart from the introduction of Lyth but some interest has been added by Mark Wood’s addition to the squad. Also unwanted on voyage in the Caribbean he is close to a Test debut. However, Caveat Emptor, he is very injury-prone. However, a decent debut v Ireland in what little play was possible followed by a strong game for Durham against Nottinghamshire with six wickets and an innings of 66 make him an interesting alternative to Ben Stokes should he get the nod.

The problem for England is that there is no feeling of stability and very little of progress. New Zealand’s tour form has not been anything to fear – they are currently making very heavy weather of a Worcestershire side tipped by most for relegation – but then neither has England’s. New Zealand would love to take advantage and their recent Test form has seen them start to rise rapidly up the Test rankings.

Ian Chapple thinks that Alistair Cook will not survive the summer as captain. He fights for survival over 10 rounds in 2015: the 3 in the Caribbean were unexpectedly shared, he needs to land some solid punches in these next two if he is to have any hope in the rest of the contest.

You Make Mistakes and You Pay...

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

Let the Blood-letting Begin!

 

May 4^th 2015

 
The young West Indian side, shorn of its stars, was just hungrier. When they were 124-7 in the first innings, still 133 behind, they should have been dead and buried. Instead, the tail did what England’s tail singularly failed to do and, with some judicious attacking, put on 65 invaluable runs. In contrast, England’s last three wickets managed 17 and 28 in their two innings. The tail should not be held responsible for the failings of the specialists, but England’s has been particularly poor in this series, even when a major batsman was still around. The sight of Jos Buttler 3* in the first innings, with 9, 10, Jack having faced more balls than him, was bewildering. In the second innings Jimmy Anderson was facing the first four balls of an over and then taking a single before the inevitable happened to the first ball of another over.

Where the series was lost was in a stunning West Indian fightback late on Day 1 and on Day 2. At 189-4 with Cook and Moeen Ali batting confidently, 350 was the minimum that England should have aspired to. Then Ben Stokes came in and started to play the sort of innings that England needed from him. The loss of Stokes and then Cook in the last four overs of the day started a catastrophic sequence of events. 233-5 to 257ao in 64 balls was pretty awful. Even then, Jimmy Anderson’s 6-for threatened to recover the situation until Jermain Blackwood, who has been the big West Indian discovery of the series, brought them back into the match. When a lead of over one hundred looked to be a given, the final lead of 68 was a disappointment and quick wickets gave the West Indians an initiative that they never lost. The wisdom of giving the new ball bowlers a one wicket start was never more in question than here where one wicket quickly became two as Cook fell too.

Similarly, the wisdom of depending on a non-specialist spinner, especially one coming back from injury who had hardly bowled for several weeks, was called into question by figures of 1-56 and 1-54 at 5-an-over on a pitch where quick scoring was difficult, was manifest. England got away with it in the 2^nd Test, but here Moeen Ali’s bowling was a gift to the batsmen, as it had been for much of the time in the 2^nd Test. Maybe James Tredwell and Adil Rashid would have been even worse, but you can bet that both will be seen as devastating spinners of near-mystical powers as the inquest continues. A measure of how things have changed is that Monty Panesar is not even in the Essex side in this round of matches: when he cannot even make a place his own in a modest Second Division attack, early season or not, you would think that his chances of playing at top level again are just about zero.

Similarly, England have made a firm commitment to playing Jos Buttler in all formats as an attacking batsman who can do a job with the gloves. However, when Jermaine Blackwood had a rush of blood to a decent Moeen Ali ball, he missed it completely, the stumping chance went begging and the match went with it. Had that chance been taken England would probably still have won. Buttler has only played 6 Tests and averages 62 (with 3x50), so he is doing the job with the bat, but he is still a work in progress with the gloves and in tactical awareness in batting with the tail. At 24 he will only get better in both departments (Rod Marsh and Alec Stewart are just two wicket-keepers who were roundly criticised as being a liability with the gloves early in their international careers, but who turned out alright), but he is a long-term commitment.

Alistair Cook is questioning the wisdom of Colin Graves’s remarks prior to the series. In fact, with sterner Tests to come, he should have welcomed having a fired-up West Indies to test his side. What he knows now is that the side is not as good as he thought and that cannot afford to carry two or three passengers. Players whose contributions will be scrutinised include: Jonathon Trott, who scored 59 in one innings and totalled just 13 in his other five; Ben Stokes, who contributed 3 wickets at 85, although his batting was consistent; and Moeen Ali, who scored 58 in the first innings here and only 8 runs in his other three innings; Chris Jordan will also know that he could do better than 6 wickets at 43 and 55 runs. England could cope with one misfiring bowler, but to have Stokes and Moeen Ali both struggling to create threat and Chris Jordan only bowling well in patches was a huge burden. There are also the usual complaints about Stuart Broad: his 10 wickets were more than Jordan and Stokes combined, but the fact that his nerve has gone completely as a batsman means that it is now just a matter of when he gets a straight ball.

The Stokes/Jordan conundrum is an important question of balance. Had England had Stokes’s batting and Jordan’s bowling combined in one player they would have been well content. Instead, all too often it was Jordan’s batting and Stokes’s bowling and that simply was not sufficient. The balance of the side was wrong, with too much being demanded of non-specialists. Suddenly Adil Rashid is looking like a great spinner (he is not, but is a more regular bowler than Moeen), but the biggest flaw was not to try Liam Plunkett’s 90mph missiles which, on the Barbados pitch, could well have been the difference between winning and losing.

England are not a bad side, but one really bad day has been costly in the series. If you are very, very good you can afford a bad session, or a bad day: England are not so good as to be able to do it and have learnt the lesson the hard way against a side that fought hard and has shown that the future need not be bleak for Caribbean cricket.

After the 2nd Test and then the Cook century, it seemed that the pressure was completely off Alistair Cook and lifting from Peter Moores’s shoulders. Now, it is right back on again. Peter Moores cannot afford England to have a poor series against New Zealand. Nor, for that matter, can Alistair Cook the captain, even if Alistair Cook the opening batsman has had a fine series, with a century and two fifties.

Spare a Thought For Jonathon Trott

 

 

Ashes 2015

 

Spare a Thought for Jonathon Trott

 

May 2^nd 2015

 

Right now, after his third duck in five innings, Jonathon Trott is probably feeling as wretched as a human being can feel. He has already had two breaks from cricket due to stress-related illness and right now must be wondering why he chose to come back.

A lot of fans, probably the majority, feared that this would happen and what the consequences would be for him if it did. Trott, must feel that he has let down his team-mates and the country. For a few, brief hours in the 2^nd Test, as England were compiling their first century opening partnership since the 2013 series in New Zealand, it looked as if the experiment might just come gloriously right. However, Trott’s dismissal not long after reaching fifty meant that the fairy-tale ending of a comeback century was not to be.

George Dobell, wise as ever, suggests that Trott’s courage in risking failure to bat out of position, despite his illness, was his finest moment. He might well be right.

Right now Jonathon Trott does not need criticism: he needs understanding and sympathy.

What is evident is that a new opener will take over in England for the New Zealand Tests. Probably it will be Adam Lyth, but there is a large minority who would like to see Alex Hales after his sensational start to the season.

In the Test the suspicion is that England have let slip a real opportunity to kill the series. The delight of Alistair Cook’s painstaking century – at one point he had just 82 runs from 77 overs – was tempered by first him running out Moeen Ali when his partner looked set for a century of his own and then to lose concentration immediately on reaching his century and to get out with the last ball of the day. At 189-4 England were in a strong position, but the needless loss of Moeen and then the fall of Stokes and Cook just before the Close has put a dampener on things.

The suggestion is that the surface is breaking up already and that 300 might just be a pretty good total to defend. To reach it though England will need Jos Buttler and Chris Jordan to bat for their lives and for Stuart Broad to show the courage against fast bowling that he has been lacking after his horrific blow in the face last summer.