South Africa v England: Fourth Test, Renaissance, or Mirage

South Africa v England: Fourth Test

Renaissance, or Mirage

January 24^th 2020

While not as bad as in the worst phases of the ‘80s and ‘90s, recent times have not been good for England. Since beating Sri Lanka 3-0 in Winter 2018/19, their record is:

L L W W L D W L W L D L W W

A win-loss record of 6-6 disguises an unexpected defeat in the Caribbean, a struggle to beat Ireland (including a shambolic fist innings collapse), a lucky series draw against Australia and defeat in New Zealand. Not to mention a shambolic start against a South African side on a long losing streak.

England are very much in a transitional phase. They are have had a sample of life without Jimmy Anderson, (Sir) Alastair Cook is long gone and few of the side could be sure of their places before the series. Five of the XI that started the Ashes in August are missing and two more have changed their position in the batting order. Whereas, before, the search was for one opener, over the last two years it has been for two. The #3 slot has passed from hand to hand like a grenade with a dodgy pin. At least one middle-order slot has been open for as long as anyone can remember. And, for one reason or another, England’s spin options have dropped like flies: in Sri Lanka in 2018, Jack Leach, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid took 48 wickets between them in 3 Tests; none of them is available in South Africa and, potentially, none will be available for selection for Sri Lanka.

Sam Curran, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope are still just 21. Dominic Bess is 22. Jofra Archer and Dom Sibley, 24. This is a very young England side. It is also an England side that has been fortunate enough to catch a South African team in a tail spin. In normal series, a side that was so pole-axed by poor preparation, poor form and a Norovirus epidemic, would never have been able to come back after a crushing 1^st Test defeat. This series though seems to resemble some of the Ashes series of the 1990s, in which an over-confident visiting Australia would be ambushed in the 1^st Test, in typical English conditions, before waking up and sweeping all before them.

While there is no guarantee that it is, genuinely a sign of better times, Zak Crawley and Dom Sibley have managed back-to-back 50+ opening stands for the first time since the halcyon days of Cook and Compton in 2009. With Rory Burns out injured – and doubtful for Sri Lanka – Zak Crawley, who was expected to spend his winter giving the bowlers net practice, has had to step in as opener. From looking frankly out of his depth initially, Crawley has grown in confidence, as his sequence of scores – 1, 4, 25, 44, 66 – has shown. It is no guarantee of runs against Australia or India, but suggests that he is learning. Similarly, Dom Sibley’s first five Test innings produced just 71 runs, despite 247 balls of defiance. The next four have produced 247 runs, in 575 balls. He has been sealing one end and allowing the batsman at the other end to play with more freedom.

Plan “A” for Sri Lanka was for Keaton Jennings to come back, given his record of success in Asia and to partner Sibley, with Crawley missing out. In fact, there was a real possibility that Jennings could have come straight in for Burns in the 3^rd Test. In the end, Crawley did just enough to encourage the selectors to keep their trust in him. In fact, Crawley has equalled the Test record, of setting a Test-best score in his first five innings; the last batsmen to manage this feat were Harold Larwood and Ian Peebles, back in 1928. He will have to go some to extend the record to six consecutive innings, but has done enough to suggest that Joe Denly may be the batsman at risk when Rory Burns comes back. While Denly can point to 6x50 and to being dismissed in single figures just three times in twenty-five Test innings, his inability to convert starts into scores has left him with an average of just over 30. He has not broken through. While he has turned-in some useful spells of leg spin, the original idea that he could play as an all-rounder has been shown to be far too ambitious. It could be that the Sri Lanka series starts with Jennings, Sibley and Crawley filling the top three slots and Denly not even sure of figuring as first batting reserve.

It is no time to start jumping up and down and shouting “hurrah!!” A dreadful lesson in over-optimism with first steps comes from the last series in India. In that series, Alastair Cook formed such a successful partnership, first with Haseeb Hameed (who scored 31, 82, 13, 25, 9 & 59*) and then with Keaton Jennings (112, 0, 1 & 54), that it looked as if England had two openers for the next decade or more [lest we forget, England lost that series 4-0, with one draw]. Hameed first broke his hand and then had an operation to fix his breathing and has been a shadow of himself ever since. Although his 2019 season ended with 159* for Lancashire 2^nd XI, it was one of the few innings over 20 that he has produced in the last two seasons and was not enough to save him from being released in September. He will start 2020 with Nottinghamshire, knowing that his cricketing career is on the line. Similarly, Keaton Jennings has had some patches of almost miraculous batting form in County cricket but, despite two Test centuries, has just one other 50 and an average of only 25 in Test cricket.

However, with Rory Burns making a decent fist of opening in Tests and Dom Sibley seemingly growing into the role, it looks as if there is a chance that the search for two openers may be coming to an end. With Denly batting at #3, Joe Root has been able to move back to his preferred place at #4. Ben Stokes is growing into a #5 batsman who bowls a few, testing overs when needed and Ollie Pope has 61*, 3, 135* and 22* against South Africa, after a breakthrough 75 in the 2^nd Test in New Zealand. After a difficult start in Tests, Ollie Pope has taken his chance and looks like a genuine Test player.

Given that South Africa seem to be declining rapidly in this series and that the opposition over the next eight months is relatively weak – Sri Lanka away and then the West Indies and the mercurial, capricious Pakistan at home – there is a chance for players such as Pope and Crawley to bed in.

Even if light is appearing from 1-6 in the line-up, 7-11 is still far from clear. Word has it that neither Stuart Broad, nor Jimmy Anderson will go to Sri Lanka. The selectors have run out of patience with Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler has done little to convince this winter, despite getting a series of starts. With spin likely to be used a lot in Sri Lanka, it could be that the selectors will be trying to locate Ben Foakes’ telephone number, having presumably erased it from their mobiles by accident.

In theory, the fast bowling resources are, like the spin resources, rich. Jofra Archer and Mark Wood form a potential new ball pairing to make any side jump around.  Sam Curran and Chris Woakes have shown a lot of capability and, with Ben Stokes as the joker in the pack, England can play a strong seam attack, especially in home conditions, without calling on Broad or Anderson. Sadly though, Joe Root’s handling of Joffra Archer has been poor and the result has been him missing three consecutive Tests through injury and playing when only half-fit on other occasions. Archer has been used as a workhorse, rather than as a shock-bowler. The lesson seems to have been learnt with Mark Wood, but it is still to be seen if he can play consecutive Tests without breaking down. Similarly, there are doubts about the capability of Chris Woakes and Sam Curran to deliver consistently away from England. Curran adds variety to the attack, but there is a suspicion that, at his pace, he needs the new ball to be a threat if there is no help in the conditions. There is some justifiable frustration with Chris Woakes that his 22 wickets at 54.9 away, are in stark contrast to 70 wickets at 23.5 at home; in English conditions, Woakes is a demon bowler, away from home, all too often he is cannon-fodder. Similarly, he averages 19.3 with the bat in 14 away Tests, but almost double – 35.2 – in 19 Tests at home.

What of the spinners? In 2018 in Sri Lanka it was Jack Leach, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali. Adil Rashid has stopped playing First Class cricket. Moeen has taken an indefinite break from the game. And Jack Leach has serious medical issues. Leach suffers from Crohn, a degenerative disease of the digestive system that is worsened by stress and which makes him more susceptible to illness. Over the winter, the combination of Crohn and Norovirus has weakened him so badly that one wonders if he will be fit to go to Sri Lanka in March.

The loss of Moeen Ali has been as tragic as it has been unnecessary. Despite a very respectable Test record, particularly in England, where he averages 35.0 with the bat and 32.5 with the ball, he feels that he has been used as the scapegoat whenever things have gone wrong. He has batted in every position down to #9 in Tests and has rarely had a stable, defined role in the side. The result has been a burn-out that leaves severe doubt as when he will play Tests again, having not played since an unhappy outing in the 1^st Ashes Test. Lest we forget what we are missing, in his previous three series, he had taken 12 wickets in two Tests v India, 14 in three Tests v Sri Lanka and 14 in three Tests against the West Indies. But, as his bowling enjoyed success, the fun went out of his batting to the point that his last seventeen Tests have produced just two fifties and a top score of 60. A Test batting average that was stable around 35 for a year in 2016/17, has dropped to 29. At the same time, his bowling average has dropped from 42 to 37.

Adil Rashid is another sad case. He was identified as a future star early and first toured with England in 2008, but did not make a Test debut until 2015. Of his nineteen Tests, eighteen have been against Asian sides. In white ball cricket, he is frequently the go-to bowler, who is thrown the ball when a desperate situation has to be recovered but, in Tests, he is a shadow of the player who could easily have slotted-in at #3 in 2010 and formed a dangerous spin-partnership with Graeme Swann: in that season, he scored his runs at 45.8 and took 57 wickets at 31.3. Seldom though can a player with ten First Class centuries have been asked to bat regularly as low as #10 in Tests. There is a strong suspicion that his talents have be wasted by England, his bowling mistrusted and misused and the player himself, dreadfully mishandled. It has all ended with him signing a white-ball-only contract with Yorkshire and, having bowled while injured during England’s World Cup triumph, needing an operation to repair the damage. Will Adil Rashid play another Test for England? One suspects not: the cynics will snort that he should never have played a Test in the first place, but they miss the point.

The result is that, while Dom Bess will certainly go to Sri Lanka, who will partner him is totally uncertain. Matt Parkinson is in South Africa for experience, but is, most definitely, not ready to play Tests (he played just four Division 2 games for Lancashire in 2019). Just as England turned to the almost unknown Monty Panesar in 2005, there is a real prospect that another be-turbaned player – Amar Virdi – who is just 21, may get an unexpected Test debut. However, Bess, Virdi and, if he makes himself available, Moeen, are all off-break bowlers, making it imperative that England move heaven and earth to get Jack Leach fit and to keep him healthy and thus have someone to turn the ball the other way.

Spinners who have been tried by England in recent years, such as Mason Crane and Liam Dawson have fallen away: the former was, by far, the more successful of the two in 2019, with 10 wickets at 54, while the latter took just 5 at 108. Picking either would be a move of desperation.

Where England are lucky is that a series against a struggling South Africa is followed by one against Sri Lanka side that has lost the core of experienced players that have carried it for years and then, by an early-season series against a West Indian side that does not enjoy that time of year in England.

Young players who have shown a glimpse of the future in South Africa will have a chance to consolidate their position before the much sterner Test that Pakistan will present, assuming that they are up for the challenge. If England cannot at least compete strongly in Sri Lanka and see off the West Indians, the gains in South Africa will soon be forgotten and any, small chance that England can cut the gap to Australia and India in the ICC World Test Championship table will disappear: a measure of just how difficult that task will be, is that, even if Australia do not score another point in the next few months, England need to win their next five Tests to get ahead of them in the table.

England are a long, long way behind India and Australia. And, in Winter 2020/21, the challenge will be to go to India and do better than the 4-0 defeat last time. That tour will be the measure of progress made.