Ashes 2017/18: Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!

 

Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring!

November 10^th 2017

To read the headlines in the sporting press there would seem to be little point in England turning up for the 1^st Test in just under two weeks. It is all redolent of a previous tour when Martin Johnson famously summed-up the warm-ups with the phrase:

England have just three problems: they can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.

Of course, the first day of that series ended 198-2 and England won a comfortable series victory. Fixating so much on England’s problems, no one looked at Australia’s.

Of course, we have been here before. England went to Australia in 2013 on the back of a 3-0 home Ashes win, lost the initiative at the end of the series, particularly in the ODIs and fell apart. Poor selections, poor planning and some downright bad luck played their part, as did an astonishing run of form from Mitch Johnson, who had probably never in his career strung together such a devastating string of performances. England were not the only sufferers: in ten Tests over three series v Sri Lanka, England and South Africa in a 16 month period punctuated by a serious injury, Mitch Johnson took 68 wickets at 16.6. It was England’s misfortune to meet him at the height of his powers – his next five series, the last of his career, saw him take 49 wickets at 33.9 and conform to his stereotype of “occasionally devastating, frequently innocuous”.

The BBC has a particularly devastating exposé of the events behind the scenes in the 2013/14 Ashes, but even it barely scratches the surface. The plan to hit Australia with three tall fast bowlers backfired spectacularly. The selectors were apparently unaware that Chris Tremlett was still feeling his way back from serious injury and a shadow of his former self. Boyd Rankin was never fit on that tour and even so had to play a Test. And Steve Finn got the yips so badly that it would have been kinder to send him home. However, the selectors were not to blame for Graeme Swann suffering career-ending injury, Jonathon Trott’s stress-induced illness (although there were signs that all was not well months beforehand) and Monty Panesar starting to suffer the problems that have derailed his career.

The 2017/18 Ashes touring party has convinced no one. Batting positions #1, #3 and #5 have produced the sort of action normally seen in comedy films when a hand grenade without a pin is passed from hand to hand. While Mark Stoneman has given some signs of being able to cope as a Test opener, his record is modest and he owes his position more to the failings of others. Dawid Malan at #5 was a surprise pick in the summer Tests: again, he has played a couple of decent innings, but is yet to convince. And the “battle” to bat at #3 between James Vince and Gary Ballance sees two batsmen, tried, tested and discarded, in a shoot-out in which the bullet is as likely to hit the batsman’s own foot as it is to hit the opposition gunslinger.

There is no Ben Stokes for well-known reasons and that unbalances the attack and the middle-order. Steve Finn has already been sent home, injured. Moeen has not yet bowled a ball in anger. Jake Ball, who looked set to play in the 1^st Test has sprained an ankle. And injuries ruled out Mark Wood, Toby Roland-Jones and a string of other likely bowlers, while one of the few players to come home from Australia with any credit in 2014 – Chris Jordan – is now out of favour and appears forgotten.

Add to all this that, against a couple of pretty weak attacks, Alistair Cook is yet to make a score and appears to be batting with a stick of rhubarb and there have already been several collapses in just three innings and it is not surprising that the Australian fans and press are shaking with laughter. The opening shots from the bowling attack hardly inspired fear either. Two months without a bowl in the middle has left some of the bowlers logically a little rusty. Stuart Broad looked particularly out of sorts and Chris Woakes’s opening overs were pretty rusty, but that is why you schedule warm-up games. The aim is to have Broad, Woakes and Jimmy Anderson fit and firing at Brisbane on November 23^rd, not at Perth on the first day of the tour. Win or draw that Brisbane Test and suddenly the momentum of the series will change.

Already there are some small signs that suggest that maybe things are not so bad after all. No batsman has yet scored a century, but there have been two near misses. Mark Stoneman has 3x50 in three innings. Six batsmen have registered a fifty, while Malan already has two in three innings and Jonny Bairstow has only been dismissed once so far in three innings.

Of the attack, Jimmy Anderson looks in superb form. His 7 wickets have so far cost under 10 each. Chris Woakes  has run through the Cricket Australia XI top order and wild cards Crane and Overton, who both probably expected to spend two months carrying drinks, have also taken wickets and shown some promising form. And, before his injury, Jake Ball’s accuracy and economy were very impressive.

Australia’s first-choice attack looks fearsome, but the reserves are thin and much depends Pat Cummins, whose injury record is horrific. There are also questions about at least two places in the top seven. At the same time, Australia’s median innings total in the last two years is just 243. There have been eight completed innings totals under 200, not all of them away from home either. Innings totals of 85 and 161 against South Africa in Hobart and a struggle to reach a target of 187 against New Zealand speak of frailties no less real than England’s, as do a series of abject performances in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

You can certainly argue that the 1^st Test will decide the series. If Australia win easily, the cracks in their own side will be forgotten and those in England’s team – one highly respected writer already calls them “beleaguered” – may quickly widen to chasms. In contrast, a solid England draw would send a powerful message and help to knit the team together in adversity. If the top order can oblige Pat Cummins to come back for a third and a fourth spell, the lower order will find it much easier to add the tail-end runs that are so often the difference between victory and defeat.

Expectations of England, as in 1986, are miserably low: that may be no bad thing because the opposition will expect to win easily – if they do not, the pressure in the series will shift quickly.