New Zealand v England: 1st Test, Day 4 - The Clock Ticking for Cook and England, While a Bomb Explodes Under Australia

 

New Zealand v England: 1^st Test, Day 4

The Clock Ticking for Cook and England, While a Bomb Explodes Under Australia

March 25^th 2018

Despite the fact that only thirteen balls were possible on Day 3, the match situation had not really changed: Day 4 was simply a matter of how long New Zealand would bat before declaring and how many they would set England to avoid an innings defeat.

When you have only scored 58 in your first innings, to bat again needing 369 to avoid an innings defeat or, what is the same, to survive 145 overs, is the toughest of assignments. Assuming that they score at 3-an-over on the 5^th Day, England will not knock off the deficit until just 19 overs remain to play. That would mean effectively leaving New Zealand no more than 4 or 5 overs maximum to chase, if they are to avoid defeat.

However, after the events across in Cape Town, to see a match in which the only issue has been the battle between bat and ball, has been a refreshing change. And when Trent Boult produced a brilliant last over, just as England’s hopes were rising of mounting an astonishing 5^th Day escape, no one in the press conference afterwards asked him about what grade of sandpaper he recommends using to rough-up the ball.

Many things can be said of England, but the total lack of any threat posed by the England bowling in this Test shows that ball-tampering is not one of them. The biggest disappointment of the Test is to see how England’s much-vaunted seamers, who look so good in England, have been made to look so second-rate by the New Zealand seamers, who have been so superior.

Unfortunately, even if England do somehow escape, their questions about the side have scarcely been answered. Alistair Cook fell cheaply again. Scores of 5 & 2 are not going to answer the doubts that he has the appetite to continue to score big Test runs on a regular basis. Since the start of the winter tour he has only reached 50 twice, one of them in the Townsville knockabout, the other, his monumental 244* in Melbourne. In 11 of 17 innings he has reached double figures, yet he has rarely made it count. Runs last summer and runs at Melbourne have left him with plenty of credit in the bank, but the suspicion is growing that his international career may not have much longer to run.

Similarly, his opening partner, Mark Stoneman has also left the big question unanswered. This is his 9^th Test. After being one of only two batsmen to get into double figures in England’s sad first innings, he scored a gritty 50 here – his fourth in Tests – only to give it away immediately. Nothing can hide the fact that, despite 4x50 in Tests, his highest score is only 56, his Test average, 27 and his First Class average is only 35. One suspects that only a century in the 2^nd Test will save his career and that if either Nick Gubbins or Sam Robson starts the season well, one or other of them will open with Alistair Cook against Pakistan at Lord’s on May 24^th. With several rounds of Championship matches before that 1^st Test, there will be opportunities for a batsman to put down a marker.

With Stoneman and Root batting comfortably, England seemed to be starting to wriggle free. This looked like the opportunity that Stoneman had been waiting for to make a century and to settle arguments about his place. He was confident enough to reach his 50 with a big six, before giving it away in the most Vince-like fashion. Come May, he may live to rue that shot.

With James Vince apparently defenestrated, the second burning question was about Joe Root at 3. Could he make a success of it? A double-failure for Root in this Test, combined with a fit Ben Stokes, could just have seen James Vince make a comeback in the 2^nd Test. Root also reached his fifty just before the Close and looked increasingly comfortable until Trent Boult ratcheted-up his pace and hostility in his last two overs before the Close. It did not take Mensa-like intelligence to work out that if England reached the Close two-down with Root and Malan batting well, their chances of survival start to grow considerably.

Root fell for a two-card trick and, possibly, his own need to show that he would not retreat under any circumstances. When Boult hit his bottom hand a wicked blow with the fourth ball of the last over of the day, Root decided to bat on after treatment when a more pragmatic approach would have been to retire hurt. Had he done that, the umpires would have signalled the Close. Root though is tough enough to check out of hospital and come out to bat even when evidently in no fit state to do so. Glove back on. Take guard again. Wicked bouncer. Gloved to the ‘keeper. 94-1 and beginning to get out of the mire had become 132-3 and a renewed struggle to take the game even as far as Tea tomorrow.

Ben Stokes will have one ball of the over to survive from a fired-up Boult in the morning before he and Malan have to set about blunting the attack.

Escape is unlikely. It will need yet another big innings from Malan, supported by runs from Stokes, Bairstow, Moeen Ali and Woakes to pull it off. But then, hope springs eternal and that is why hundreds of thousands of fans will tune-in after midnight… just in case.

What to make though of events in South Africa?

When the series started it looked brutally one-sided. In the 1^st Test Australia were all over South Africa and looked set to win comfortably, as they had done in previous series in South Africa. The change in the 2^nd Test though was as big as it was unexpected. What set off the change was a series of controversial incidents, including on and off-field confrontations between players and then between players and crowd. As the series heated-up, the crowd became more and more hostile and suddenly the Australian team discovered that getting it back is nothing like as enjoyable as handing it out without fear of reprisal and have increasingly lost focus.

Over the years the Australian team has based much of its success on the idea that visiting teams should be abused as much as possible on and off the field. This has included the request from Darren Lehmann for the public to target Stuart Broad and to make his life hell. While, of course, neither coach nor players can control barracking and abuse from the crowd, nor such tactics as setting off the fire alarm in the visiting team’s hotel during the night, or waking players with early morning telephone calls requesting radio interviews, nor have they done anything to condemn such behaviour. They regard it as part of the hospitality service to be offered to visiting teams, while crude, on-field, personal abuse is regarded as necessary to play the game in the right spirit.

When Darren Lehmann said that the abuse that his players were receiving had “crossed the line” there was a certain irony to his comments given what many players have received from Australian players and crowds without censure. As one broadcaster and writer on the English game pointed out, “the line” seemed to be positioned wherever was most convenient for Australian interests at any given time.

What this series – and others – has shown is that when a side refuses to be intimidated by Australian aggression and starts to give it back, the Australians lose focus and can disintegrate themselves.

However, do we really want world cricket to turn into a contest to see which set of players and its fans can be most yobbish? England can smirk, but they themselves have been involved in some distasteful incidents in the past.

There are many alarming aspects of the latest incident. All sides push the limits when they can. All sides resort, at least occasionally, to tactics that are dubious or are gamesmanship. And all sides do like their home support to give them a hand. And, of course, it is different when they are on the receiving end rather than handing it out. Not all sides though sit down and have an open, tour management discussion on how best to cheat when things are not working on the field. And yes, it was cheating when other sides have done it and it is cheating when Australia do it too.

There are still many aspects of what happened that are unclear. Surely neither Cameron Bancroft nor the captain seriously believed that no camera would pick up their attempts to rough-up the ball.  How believable is the story that it was some dirty sticky tape that had been used on the ball? Plenty of people watching the images saw something that looked much more like sandpaper, which would surely be far more effective anyway than some dirty sticky tape. Have the players actually come clean even now? How much did Darren Lehmann know and have to do with the plan?

As in the case of Watergate, the original crime was not such a bad one – the umpires did not even change the ball, considering that its state had not been altered – but the clumsy and incompetent cover-up made it infinitely worse. Bancroft’s comic attempts to hide the evidence and willingness to lie to the umpires when challenged, made things far worse than if he had come straight out and confessed. The intention was to damage the ball, even if the execution owed more to Monty Python than to Professor James Moriaty. And, of course, video has come to light of Cameron Bancroft apparently doing something underhand in the dressing room during the Ashes series, meaning that he is now marked with previous.

As a Gloucestershire supporter, I am very glad that Mr Bancroft will not be representing my county this summer and I know that other Gloucestershire fans feel the same. The fall-out is only starting. Bancroft has signed with Somerset, who have put out a statement to the effect that the decision on his contract is under review. Certainly, if Bancroft were to come to Somerset, his reputation would precede him and would be a major on and off-field distraction. Bancroft’s position in the Australian side is far from secure (despite runs in this Test, his average is hovering just over 30 after 8 Tests) – hence perhaps his willingness to play along – and it would be easy to drop him on the pretext of not scoring enough runs.

There are loud calls for Steve Smith to be stripped of the captaincy. Probity as captain of your national team is important: Mike Atherton got away with it, probably because he had a reputation as a decent person and captain who had made a bad mistake, but Keith Fletcher, Mike Gatting and Andrew Flintoff, quite rightly, did not and Ian Botham’s off-field antics ensured that he was never given a second chance. However, there are rumours that Cricket Australia are so horrified by the negative publicity generated by the whole affair and the fact that it was so pre-meditated, that they are considering life bans for Smith and Warner. As a legendary South African captain of the end of the 20^th Century found out: you cheat, you get caught, you face the consequences. Not too many Boards are willing to overlook such matters in the face of public opinion.

In the English language the word “cheat”, or an accusation of cheating, has huge emotional consequences and the word has been used a lot to describe what happened. In the infamous Shakoor Rana incident with Mike Gatting, the trigger was the umpire observing Gatting move a fielder behind square, where the batsman could not see the change, stopping play (no “dead ball” call though) and, telling Gatting that he was a cheat (the English version) or, in the umpire’s version, “you are making unfair play”. The word “cheat” inflaming passions to the point that Gatting snapped.

If Smith and Warner do go, it will be a massive blow to the Australian side, but would be a huge PR coup, showing that after all, Australians do want to win by fair means and not foul. It also remains to be seen if Darren Lehmann can ride out this storm: his position would become very difficult.

The remainder of the South African tour is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, anyway. How do you recover from an issue of this kind? And let us not forget that Australia tour England this summer for an ODI series and that Smith and Warner (and conceivably, Bancroft) would form part of that touring squad.