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.

 

England v Ireland: Only Test

Issues before the Ashes

July 27^th 2019

 

Ireland’s inaugural Test in England, only their third in total, was as brief and violent as predicted. Despite rain and a quite appalling overrate, it lasted under seven sessions and started and ended with a crazy clatter of wickets. The fact that the clatter of wickets saved England for the very real danger of an embarrassing defeat made it a face-saving relief.

For England, falling to 43-7 and then 85ao in well under a session to a good Second Division county seamer who is approaching retirement and who was never particularly close to a Test place even when at the height of his powers, caused much merriment in Australia. The fact that, at the same time, the batsmen of Australia were floundering desperately in their own match between the Australia and the Australia A squad, may have had something to do with their own enjoyment of seeing someone else struggling.

Kudos to Ireland. They have moulded a team of County pros, many of whom are not 1^st XI regulars into a side that gave England an almighty scare. Ireland have an ethos and a team spirit that does them great credit and they should be proud of their efforts. However, they should have closed-out the win and the fact that they did not will hurt. They will learn from this and, this winter, will get a new chance in Sri Lanka to get that maiden win.

The first thing that is obvious is that England’s switch from white-ball to red-ball mode has been difficult. An experimental top order. A middle order than has barely played a red-ball game all year. And an experimental attack that included two spinners – on a green-top – and a surfeit of all-rounders. All in all, England had a lot to play for and the struggles of the batsmen showed how desperately that they needed to re-acquaint themselves with the skills that the red ball requires. The fact that the innings barely lasted longer than a T20 and was less than half the length of a ODI innings, showed that the England batting problems are nowhere near resolved. The top order is fragile and the middle-order is hit and miss. You can see the Australian bowlers ripping through the batting. However, at the same time, there was a warning to the Australians. Here was an England attack shorn of Jimmy Anderson, Mark Wood, Joffra Archer and Ben Stokes, with a questioned Stuart Broad leading the attack, with a debutant as first change, that was able to defend 181 and win by a massive margin to boot.

While we wonder who will bat in the top 3, we also have to wonder how England will fit in their four injured or rested quicks. One assumes that Stone and Curran will make way but, even so, Anderson, Stokes and, presumably, Archer will come in and surely England will not play five seamers. It is possible that Archer will still not be regarded as fit enough for a Test but, even so, that is just delaying the inevitable problem.

The other big issue is what to do with Moeen Ali? He is so obviously out of sorts. At his best, batting at #8 and bowling as he can he provides a double-whammy of late order runs and abundant wickets against imprudent batsmen who feel that he is not a Test-class spinner. There is a real case for retaining Jack Leach in the playing XI, despite the fact that he had little to do at Lord’s and took some punishment in his first couple of overs: you always need the option, even if you think that a spinner will not be needed. Moeen needs a rest and a run-transfusion with his County and will, again, come back stronger.

Even if Jason Roy scored runs at #3 in the second innings, his nervous, fidgety initial efforts did not promise that he is the opener that England need. There is a strong body of opinion that, like Alex Hales, he should only bat in the middle order. There is an argument for playing him at #3, although he plays at #4 for Surrey. However, that #4 spot is reserved for Joe Root and it is where he bats best for England. Rory Burns is averaging little more than 22 after a decent run in the side (22.3 after 7 Tests) and surely cannot get many more chances. The betting must be that he will not last the Ashes, unless he makes a breakthrough very quickly. Similarly, Joe Denly, strangely picked with the somewhat bizarre idea that he could be as successful with his part-time spin as Moeen has been, has had just one significant knock in six innings, averages 24 and is struggling to get rid of the impression that he is not quite good enough with with bat or with ball at this level. In Denly’s case one wonders what he could have done without those wilderness years after his ODI debut in 2009. Denly is another who may well not be in the XI at the end of the Ashes unless he can find some steel soon.

What of the alternatives? Whatever the cynics say, there is talent there. England’s problem is to find a Boycott and a Tavaré to provide the cement to allow the stroke-players to build an innings.

If you look at the County Championship now, after ten rounds, now in its run-in, there are three stand-out form players: Dom Sibley, Sam Northeast and the eternal enigma, Gary Ballance. Sibley and Northeast average well over 60, with 3x100 and 4x50 each in 9 matches. Sibley is just short of 1000 runs and has a strike rate of 41: just the qualities that England need. Adam Lyth is also beginning to recover the qualities that made him an England opener, but has shown a repeated inability to count past 95 so far this season: fix it and he may be looking at a possible recall. In Division 2 – and I *do not* advocate Division 2 runs as being any kind of adequate preparation for an Ashes Test, two names stand out, apart from Dawid Malan who, has the handicap of battering on the door of a musclebound England middle order and Ryan Higgins (England are mob-handed already with all-rounders): Hassan Azad of Leicestershire and Chris Dent of Gloucestershire, who has recovered his magic this season. Dent is probably the best opener in the country who has never been mentioned for England at any level… and far better than some who have played Tests, let alone for the Lions. Of the two, Hassan Azad will start interesting Division 1 sides and England if he keeps up his prolific season.

England are likely to go with the top 3 from Lord’s and hope that they come good, but not many people expect that top 3 to last more than half way through the series. One hopes that Dom Sibley will come in before it is too late.

 

West Indies v England, 3rd Test, In Retrospect: Was this the real England?

 

West Indies v England

3^rd Test, In Retrospect: Was this the real England?

February 17^th 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 3^rd 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
Keaton Jennings	65 balls/innings
Joe Root	60.3 balls/innings
Joe Denly	58.5 balls/innings
Jos Buttler	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 1^st Test, England were 44-4 from 16.2 overs. In the 2^nd 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.

 

West Indies v England, 3rd Test, Preview: Crocked England Ring the Changes

 

West Indies v England

3^rd Test, Preview: Crocked England Ring the Changes

February 8^th 2019

 

England are 2-0, facing a blackwash and in the midst of an injury crisis. Yes, it’s good to be back to normal on away tours. This business of winning was getting a bit boring.

Word is that, apart from Chris Woakes, Ben Foakes is also out of consideration for the 3^rd Test, while Ben Stokes is doubtful. As predicted, Keaton Jennings will make a remarkable return to the Test side, presumably allowing Joe Denly to drop down to his more accustomed #3 and Jonny Bairstow to bat at #5 and take the gloves. Sam Curran will make way for Mark Wood, unless Ben Stokes is unfit, in which case he will retain his place. Curran for Stokes is a little like the time in the 1980s when Derek Pringle had to fill in for Ian Botham: decent enough player, did his job in the side, but hardly a change to make the opposition quake with fear.

So, England will re-jig their top three… again, will re-jig the middle order… again and will re-jig the bowlers… again.

Thirty wickets in twelve Tests at an average of 41.7 and a strike rate of 76 are not figures to fill you with belief that Mark Wood will knock over the opposition. However, his career has been so disjointed by injuries that it is not easy to judge him fairly. What England want is someone capable of the faster ball that Shannon Gabriel has used to good effect, taking as many wickets at the other end as he has taken himself. On tricky surfaces, the extra few miles per hour on the ball make a huge difference and add uncertainty to the minds of the batsmen: England did not have anyone fast enough to make life difficult for the batsmen at Antigua and that is one reason why the West Indian batsmen could get away with playing and missing so much.

The West Indies are without Jason Holder. When any other captain gets suspended for over-rate violations – and, to get a suspension you have to be a serial offender – the cricketing world applauds and says “that will teach him”. Such though is the mood of self-flagellation in English cricket and the buoyancy in the West Indians that this sanction is being treated as “controversial”, “unjust” and “a mockery”. Yes, fair play. Even when your opponent breaks the rules, he should not be punished. Slow over rates cheat the fans and allow bowlers to stay on for longer spells. No one is demanding eighteen overs per hour, even if that over rate was standard up until relatively recently in cricket history (sides were expected to maintain eighteen and a half overs per hour in the County Championship until the 1980s), but twelve overs per hour is ludicrous. Even when the West Indians fielded a battery of quick bowlers who would run in almost from the boundary, it was unacceptable, with just one quick and three medium-pacers there is no justification for such a slow over-rate.

The bad news for England is that if their injury problems and form issues were not serious enough, to have a West Indian side nursing a new sense of injustice and out to settle a score is going to make the job of halting the Caribbean juggernaut even harder.

West Indies v England, 2nd Test, Day 3: Awful England Crash Again

 

West Indies v England

2nd Test, Day 3: Awful England Crash Again

February 2^nd 2019

 

The relative batting performance for England and the West Indies can be summed-up in one statistic:

·        Seven West Indian batsmen got a start in their first innings, of whom, only two failed to reach thirty.

·        Seven England batsmen got a start in their second innings, of whom, only one reached twenty.

In a low-scoring Test, in which batsmen never felt in, the ability to grind-out a 30, or a 40 was fundamental. No one on either side got very close to Moeen Ali’s first innings 60, but all seven West Indians who got a start, passed 20 and enough of them chipped-in with 30s and 40s to take them past 300 and a total worth 500 to 600 on a better pitch.

In the 1^st Test, you could think of plenty of excuses: not enough practice, unfamiliar conditions, players a little over-confident, the wrong playing XI picked on the day, misreading of the conditions, etc. They would be switched-on and ready for the 2^nd Test. In fact, the margin in the 2^nd Test was probably even bigger than in the 1^st.

Much has been made of the relative difference in pace between the two attacks. In fact, it was not as great as it might seem:

England	Average Speed	West Indies	Average Speed	Difference
Anderson	81.7	Roach	81.6	-0.1
Broad	83.5	Gabriel	87.7	+4.2
Stokes	84.3	Joseph	85.3	+1.0
Curran	78.8	Holder	78.0	-0.8

Anderson and Curran were both slightly faster on average than their West Indian opposite number. Stokes was a fraction slower than Alzarri Joseph. The big difference was that the England pace attack had no one to compare with the pace of Shannon Gabriel. Although Gabriel only bowled around twenty deliveries in the England second innings that were above 90mph, the menace was always there. In contrast, 88mph was the absolute limit for the England bowlers, even with an effort ball (Ben Stokes bowled a couple of deliveries a little above 88mph, without ever threatening 89mph). Knowing that a really quick ball could come, the batsmen would always be a little tentative above getting into line, in case a ball came that exploded in their face in the way that the ball did to Joe Root in the 1^st Test.

One criticism was that the England bowlers were bowling the wrong length and line. Stuart Broad, in particular, beat the bat on dozens of occasions. Was he bowling too short? Would bowling straighter have helped?

Unfortunately, data is not available for the England first innings, but we can compare the line and length of Stuart Broad in the West Indian first innings and Shannon Gabriel in the England second innings. The comparison is interesting:

 

Gabriel only bowled 9 deliveries that pitched closer than 6m from the stumps. Broad pitched many more deliveries well up. Gabriel’s average length was about 7m from the stumps; Broad’s about 6.5m. Gabriel’s greater pace justified his slightly shorter length, but there is no good reason to say that Stuart Broad was consistently too short.

What about line? Gabriel’s average line to the right-hander was around seventh stump. Broad’s shows more dispersion, but was, on average, almost identical, although around half his deliveries were on the fourth/fifth stump line that Gabriel left almost unexplored. Gabriel pitched just one ball on the stumps; Broad just nine, one of them a toe-crunching Yorker on middle-and-off to the left-hander.

The biggest difference though was between Kemar Roach and Jimmy Anderson:

Anderson’s grouping to the right-hander was extraordinary, his deliveries landing in a box 4 metres long and about 4 stumps wide. The further up he pitched, the closer to the stumps the ball landed, making the batsman play. Roach tended to go much wider of off, tempting the batsman to have a go. In contrast, to the left-hander, Roach bowled more balls in line and was slightly tighter around off stump, with not a single ball down leg. In contrast about a third of Anderson’s deliveries to the left-hander were down the leg side, effectively eliminating LBW and bowled as modes of dismissal: in fact, around a third of his deliveries to the left-hander showed exactly the same tight grouping as he showed to the right-hander but, now, they were the wrong side of the stumps. This was the biggest single difference between the respective New Ball bowlers.

However, overall, there was not a huge difference between Anderson and Broad on one side and Roach and Gabriel on the other: Gabriel was that bit faster and could produce the 90+mph effort ball that was beyond Broad and Anderson’s line to the left-handers was significantly untidier, but there were not the abysmal differences in bowling between the two attacks that some critics perceived.

The big difference between the sides on a difficult pitch was:

(a)    Taking the chances that were offered. England missed too many.

and

(b)   The West Indian batsmen were far more determined to hang in there in difficult conditions and not to give it away. The West Indian batsmen sold their wickets at the highest possible price.

For the 3^rd Test, at Gros Islet, England are hoping for a better pitch because they have seen that, on pitches with life, the West Indians have a big advantage. It would be astonishing if the groundsman did not serve up another spicy pitch, with the West Indians going for the throat. That said, is there anything that England can do to give themselves a better chance?

Denly had two low scores and his one Test has produced 23 runs, compared to the 31 of Jennings. Neither has exactly covered himself with glory. It would be hard to drop Denly and bring back Jennings… and pretty unjustifiable. There might though just possibly be a reason to play both Jennings and Denly, with Denly opening and Jennings slotting-in at #3, where many pundits suspect that he may do better, long-term, although it would be better to go with Burns and Jennings opening and Denly in his accustomed place at #3. While Jennings has not exactly been full of runs, part of the opener’s job is to see off the opening bowlers and get the shine off the ball. That Jennings did do: he faced as many balls in his two innings in the 1^st Test, as Buttler, Foakes or Moeen Ali have in the two Tests combined and not many fewer than Bairstow and Stokes.

One reason to play Jennings would be if there is a second, attacking spinner, because his specialist fielding at Short Leg at least partly compensates a lack of runs. That would be if the selectors went with Jack Leach instead of Sam Curran. Curran is going at almost 4-an-over and has taken just a single wicket in 42 overs of generally quite innocuous seam and, although third in the batting averages thanks to a Not Out, has managed just 50 runs. One suspects that Jack Leach would be a much better foil to Moeen Ali than Adil Rashid, would offer more wicket-taking threat than Sam Curran and, even if he slightly lengthens the tail, that tail has hardly wagged so far in the series anyway, with the last three wickets falling for one run in the first innings and fourteen in the second, having fallen for sixteen and eighteen in the 1^st Test. Overall, Leach is likely to add far more value in total than Curran.

With Ollie Stone withdrawn from the tour and Chris Woakes injured, the Leach for Curran swap is the only one feasible in the attack. Who though might make way to allow Burns, Jennings and Denly to make up the top 3? Jos Buttler’s 55 runs in 4 innings, while not exactly any worse than his colleagues, is certainly no better and it looks as if his hands have been generously spread by some errant kiwi with what was, for my generation, termed “Britain’s favourite butter”. He is also batting at least one and possibly two places too high at #5 If Buttler were to make way, Jonny Bairstow would go back to #5, where he would be likely to make more runs and we would, at least, have a top five of specialists, batting in their specialist position, rather than a mixture of batsmen out of position.

So, although it would make some fans splutter over their morning toast, the following XI would do no worse than the two sides selected so far:

Burns

Jennings

Denly

Root

Bairstow

Stokes

Foakes

Moeen

Broad

Leach

Anderson

West Indies v England, 2nd Test, Day 2: Blackwash Incoming!

 

West Indies v England

2nd Test, Day 2: Blackwash Incoming!

February 1^st 2019

 

Having seen John Campbell survive three false shots in one over yesterday evening, any one of which could have led to his dismissal then, in the next over, play and miss five times, today Stuart Broad saw him reprieved on review (catch by Root at 2^nd Slip), saw Keaton Jennings just miss out on a brilliant catch at Square Leg and saw Jos Buttler make a horrible hash of a dolly at 3^rd Slip, followed by a top edge that dropped safe in his next over. Then Campbell top-edged just out of reach of a chasing Jonny Bairstow. Poor Broad must have been wondering just what he has done wrong. And all the while the score mounted. However, it was also true enough that had Broad pitched a yard further up, he might have conceded more runs, but could have converted a dozen deliveries into wickets. Off came Broad. On came Stokes and, almost immediately, Campbell played the same shot to Buttler, now at 2^nd slip, only for him to hold on this time. Broad’s thoughts must have been unprintable. However, with just a single wicket falling before Lunch, things were looking increasingly black for England. Buttler’s drop was the ninety-seventh catch dropped off Stuart Broad in his Test career: Jos Buttler would make it ninety-eight soon after the new ball was taken after Tea.

It was a day when a batting side could be forgiven for falling to 77ao. It was also a day when taking chances was critical: England had the most awful luck – two decisions overturned (correctly) on review, balls flying just out of reach of fielders, delivery after delivery passing a groping outside edge – but also missed critical chances... the two drops by Buttler and one by Rory Burns. By one count, Stuart Broad could have taken as many as eighteen wickets between balls that beat the batsmen all ends up, edges that just evaded fielders and dropped catches. It did not take long for the feeling to pervade play that this was just not England’s day. And, all the time, John Campbell rode his luck and refused to give it away. It was a lesson in batting for England. This has been one of the biggest differences between the sides: the West Indian batsmen have gritted it out, ignored the near misses - the count was 103 "plays and misses" - and got on with it, while the English batsmen have either fallen to the first chance that they offered, or survived one and then, given it away.

The match situation at the start of the day was that whichever side won the day would win the match. West Indies have won the day clearly and are in pole position to seal the match and the series. England’s only slight hope is to knock over the tail quickly – although there are few signs of that happening – and that one of the top five makes a century. With a lead of 150, which means scoring 250+, the side batting last will have a tremendously tough task. Batting last is going to be very, very tough. It is hard though to avoid the feeling that England will need to do something very special to avoid a 3-0 blackwash as a prelude to the Ashes.

 

West Indies v England, 2nd Test, Day 1: Batsmen Struggle on a Difficult Pitch

 

West Indies v England

2nd Test, Day 1: Batsmen Struggle on a Difficult Pitch

January 31^st 2019

 

When, in the first session of a Test match you see some balls explode from a good length and others scuttle through at ankle height, you know that you have a result pitch on your hands. Either England have an unexpected chance to level the series, or the West Indians feel so confident about what they have seen so far that they think that a 3-0 series whitewash is on.

There is always some edge to series between the West Indies and England. Back in the 1980s, to obtain what they called a series blackwash against England, the old colonial master, supporter of the South African Apartheid regime and the perceived centre of racial prejudice and injustice, was the greatest desire of any West Indian: it was the one series result that really mattered. The fact that before the last two tours there have been some rather tactless comments about the weakness of the West Indian team, has done nothing to assuage the desire to give England a good kicking. It has translated into the local batsmen showing the sort of guts and determination that must make past coaches wonder what they were doing wrong and the bowlers playing with a fire that evokes the attacks of yesteryear. The arrival of the England players on their shores has convinced players who were capable of flashes of brilliance, to get their heads down and play to the best of their ability for an entire match. For those of a certain age, used to see rampaging Barbadians, Antiguans, Jamaicans, Guyanans and their kin trampling all comers, it is an evocation of their youth and an age when you could only sit and watch in awe how England sides were mercilessly blown away.

The thought was that, with a better balanced side and the advantage of the 1^st Test to give players hard practice and a kick up the backside, the second Test would see reaction. Within half an hour of the start, Keaton Jennings must have been thinking that he had got the better part of the deal when Joe Denly was picked ahead of him (Jennings though can expect to play an important part as the hand injury to Ben Foakes means that he is in his specialist Short Leg position where he can change the match with a single reaction catch). The score advanced at a veritable crawl. After 10 overs, England were 17-2 and Joe Denly’s dismissal evoked fond memories of the solidity of Keaton Jennings against pace: Denly found a way to get the worst ball of the morning through to the keeper. While Denly’s form with Kent has often been brilliant in recent seasons, it has been in Division 2 and the doubts that surfaced in Sri Lanka, where his lack of form obliged England to change their plans, are continuing. Denly’s sequence in red-ball games for England this winter has been 25, 0, DNB, 12 & 6 and, with the ball, 1-48, 0-43 (from 5 overs!) and 1-26. Seven games with Sydney Sixers brought a single wicket in the five innings in which he bowled and scores of 13, 1, 14, 12, 11, 10 & 76*. In other words, he has not been in prime batting form and has been given reportedly just these two Tests to seal his place, playing out of position in the batting order. No one doubts his character and talent, but it has been a tough task to come in and turn things around. In particular, it has been suggested that he needs 200 runs in a maximum of four innings to ensure that he will play next summer against Ireland and Australia: that sort of form would have challenged even Sir Geoffrey in his prime on this type of surface. Denley’s Test debut lasted 23 painful balls but, by then, he had already seen Burns depart.

With the innings sinking and occasional balls doing alarming things, patience seemed not to be working. Burns, Denly, Root (who got a brute) and Buttler managed a grand total of 18 runs from 68 balls. Jonny Bairstow though decided that the best way to fight fire was slash and burn and, for a time, it worked. He has scored 52 of 78 on the board before the inevitable happened and he just missed a straight one. Finally, at 93-6, Moeen and Foakes, two players who feared for their places in this match, came together. Moeen looked about as secure as a cat on a hot tin roof, but kept missing the wicket-taking balls until, suddenly, the timing was back and he started to blaze away as if it were a Thursday afternoon at Worcester against a second-string Gloucestershire attack. Ben Foakes accumulated and the game started to look so much easier again. An hour more of this and you wondered if the West Indians might crack but, instead, when that elusive century was there for the taking, Moeen went tamely, an end was open and 178-6 became 187ao.

This was the sort of pitch on which an attack that used the surface well might expect to bowl a side out cheaply. It was not the sort of surface where Jimmy Anderson would be unplayable, but you could sniff a 6-20 sort of performance if Stuart Broad was up for it, which he was. Ball after ball passed the edge, thudded into the pad, produced a false shot. In a single over Broad had three deliveries that, on another day, would have produced wickets. Another over produced five false shots from Campbell but, critically, no wicket. The first eight overs saw Anderson with figures of 4-1-4-0 and Broad, 4-2-4-0. Somehow the openers survived the first thrust and, with the change bowlers on, batting became a little easier, if still a painful crawl. However, the West Indians were doing what they have failed to do so often in the last decade: fight their way through a difficult spell. This West Indian side has been a revelation.

At 30-0 after 21 overs, at the Close, the West Indians are on top, but you have to feel that one early wicket could become three or four. Stuart Broad will be back in the morning after a rest, feeling that figures thus far of 7-2-10-0 are a brutal injustice. He has a point to prove, particularly as the ball was passed from him to the youngster who usurped him in the side.

Day 2 will, most likely decide the series. The side that wins the day, will win the Test. If it is the West Indies, the series is over. If it is England, the game at Gros Islet will become a decider. But, hold! If it is 2-0 going into the 3^rd Test, England will be facing their first blackwash since the 1980s. That would be quite something.