West Indies v England
3rd Test, In Retrospect: Was this the
real England?
February 17th 2019
The script was for an England side that always been chasing the game on
this tour and that was in a fair degree of chaos, to stumble to a third defeat,
bringing back shades of the ‘80s.
For the 3rd Test there was yet another case of “all change”.
The tour started with Anderson and Curran sharing the new ball and ended with
England accepting that Anderson and Broad were the best pairing still. The fact
that Anderson is already in his late thirties and could retire at any time and
that Stuart Broad, although skilled, is clearly not the force that he was three
of four years ago, shows just how unsuccessful England have been at finding adequate
replacements. On this tour, Chris Woakes has been injured, although his form
away from home has never shown the advances that his home form has and Ollie
Stone was sent home injured, so neither got a chance to show what they could do.
The inevitable conclusion though from what we have seen of Ben Stokes and Sam
Curran is that the former is probably an excellent fourth seamer and the latter
no better than fifth seamer away from home.
When, in three Tests, you play three different top threes, you know that
you have problems. England’s decision to take just two specialist openers, both
of whom were uncertain of their places, was probably conditioned by knowing
that they would have almost no cricket outside the Tests for an extra opener,
but it was rather like trying to cross the high-wire in a gale, without a
safety net. That there are not many obvious candidates who have not been tried
and that the Lions are having another poor tour, could also have conditioned the
“cross your fingers and hope for the best” strategy.
At least there was some degree of logic to the Burns/Jennings/Denley
configuration. By playing two specialist openers, Denly could play in his own,
specialist position at #3. That meant that Moeen Ali and Jonny Bairstow could
go back to the middle order, where they are undoubtedly more likely to score
runs. Given that England’s strength in recent times has been the ability to hit
back when the opposition have fired-out out three or four wickets cheaply, playing
to that strength seemed at least, to be sensible.
The third Test, which I had to follow as best as I could from a meeting
in the USA (sneaking glances at the score during the talks), provided a mixture
of “more of the same” and big surprises. While the fans have, in general, been
quite tolerant of Rory Burns’ hesitant start, the opprobrium for Keaton
Jennings has been almost universal. However, England’s first innings provided a
hint of just why the tour management were actually right to persist with both. Although
the first wicket partnership was only 30, Burns and Jennings saw off the new
ball and the new ball attack. Instead of being 30-3 from eight overs, England
were 30-0 from 16, there were overs in the legs of Roach and Gabriel, who both
ended up bowling a lot of overs in the innings and the match and the openers had done the first part of their
job at least.
Although Keaton Jennings fell, eventually,
in the habitual way, driving without due care and attention, one detail of his
tour has escaped the notice of his critics. Although there is a glaring lack of
sufficiency in the “Runs” column against his name – 62 runs at 15.5 is most
definitely insufficient – people have not looked at another column that is
frequently ignored. When the critics were crying-out for batsmen to forget
swinging the bat and just hang in there and tire the bowlers, who were the England
batsmen who batted for most balls per innings during the series? The answer is
surprising!
|
Ben Stokes
|
66 balls/innings
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Keaton Jennings
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65 balls/innings
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Joe Root
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60.3 balls/innings
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Joe Denly
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58.5 balls/innings
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Jos Buttler
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58 balls/innings
|
Although Jennings failed to capitalise, he was seeing-off the new ball.
As has been pointed out, rarely does he fail to get a start but, once “in” does
not stay in.
In the 1st Test, England were 44-4 from 16.2 overs. In the 2nd
Test, it was 34-3 from 15.1 overs. Here, although the runs were coming in a
trickle, crucially, the wickets were still intact. It was the thirty-third over
when Rory Burns fell. For the first time in the series, Jos Buttler and Ben
Stokes were coming in against an attack that was no longer fresh. It allowed
the counter-attack to flourish. In the second innings it was even clearer: when
Jennings fell, to leave England 73-2, it was the twenty-eighth over, the attack
was a bowler short and Roach and Gabriel had each bowled more than thirty overs
in the match already. For the first time in the series, England’s attacking
middle order were coming up against tired bowlers who were not having things
all their own way.
Although, in terms of runs, the total from the top three of 159 in the
Test is far short of what England wanted, the 196 and 220 balls respectively
that they survived in the two innings took up a total of just two minutes short
of nine hours of play and helped to grind down the bowlers and make possible
the match-winning contributions of Root, Buttler and Stokes further down the
order. In a sense, England have got a sniff of the answer to their top-three conundrum.
Of the top three, Burns averages 25 after twelve innings; Jennings averages
25.2 after thirty-two; and Denly 28 from four. None of them have made a solid
case to play against Ireland, but there is just enough to suggest that Denly
may be the #3 to play against Australia, making a success of the role and, if
Burns gets runs against Ireland, he will get the full series. The biggest doubt
is Jennings. While most fans and, to be fair, most of the pundits, think that
he is unlikely to play against Australia, were he to make runs early in the
season and other potential rivals, not, you can see why the tour management
refuses to rule out Jennings continuing. Forget Denly as an all-rounder. At
this level he is always going to bowl after Joe Root and mainly as a
partnership-breaker, or to hurry-on the new ball but, just maybe, he can make a
decent fist of batting at 3: even if he does not make big runs, to have someone
in the Chris Tavaré role of blocking an end and tiring the bowlers, is a first
step.
The other difference in this Test was the support bowling. After the
initial thrust by Anderson and Broad was seen off, the openers had set a solid
platform and England’s 277ao was looking well short of par, the change bowling
changed the match. Not for the first time it was Moeen who made the breakthough
but, this time, the support at the other end kept the pressure on when Moeen
followed-up with a second, quick wicket. Maybe Mark Wood will never have such
success again, but this time he was fit, he was eager and he was firing and, at
least in the first innings, he was faster than Shannon Gabriel. Moeen picked
the lock and then Mark Wood kicked the door down: his spell was 8-2-37-4, in
sharp contrast to the rather gentle offerings of Sam Curran over the winter.
When he came off, having racked his speed up to almost 95mph, the score was now
107-7 and England only had to wrap-up the tail, which they did. Despite the
efforts of Shane Dowrich to steady the ship, once Broad knocked him over before
he could do any great damage, Moeen and Mark Wood knocked-over the last two
wickets in quick time.
With Toby Roland-Jones back bowling in the nets, if Mark Wood can stay
fit, the Australians may find the England attack more hostile than they were
expecting. Who knows though if Toblerone will get back to his best? Who knows
if Mark Wood can stay fit? It is two very big ifs, but, like the top 3, there
is just a hint that the answers may be coming.
Of course, this was a dead rubber. The West Indies were without their
inspirational captain (and his stand-in was no better on over-rate) and their
out cricket was flat and they lost one of their attack, injured. It is easy to
write this off as a meaningless win. However, England’s rise to Ashes success
in 2005 started with a “meaningless win” in a dead rubber in the 2002/03 Ashes.
If the lessons have been learnt. If the right conclusions are drawn, momentum
can grow quickly. The Australians have their problems too and are not the
supermen of yesteryear… at least, not at the moment. It may look oh so
different come September, but then, it might not. Back in 1989 Australia came
to England having, in general, had much the worst of their matches against
England through the ‘80s. The feeling was that England, most likely, would win the
series and hold on to the Ashes. It ended 4-0 to Australia, with only the
weather stopping them from winning the two, drawn Tests and England used 26
players over the six matches including, famously, their “eighteenth choice fast
bowler” in the midst of a massive, late-series injury crisis.
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