New Game, Same Result: Time To Rest Cook

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Different game, same result

 

January 12^th 2014

 

The change to coloured pyjamas and a completely different team, with only five survivors from the Melbourne Test, has changed nothing. One of the very few pieces of good news for England is the way that Chris Jordan seized his chance and bowled with some pace and aggression.

Alistair Cook failed to see out the first over. England were two down for very little. The scoring was arthritic: Australia managed to score at double the rate of England for the first eleven overs of their innings and England were barely above three an over for the first twelve, leaving the middle order to sort out the mess, as usual. Add to this the way that, when a chance was offered by the batsmen, more often than not it was not taken and one such drop cost England more than one hundred runs, you can see that Tests and ODIs are not so different after all.

England had a good spell around overs 28-33 when runs were coming at 6-7 per over. The run rate was threatening to reach the dizzy heights of 5-an-over. There was the chance of the sort of total of around 300 that even a misfiring attack can defend. And then, the runrate dropped back again and did not reach the high of over 33 again until the end of the 42^nd over. Even 86 from the last ten overs was not sufficient to rescue things. And this was with Australia playing their reserve attack. What will happen when Mitch Johnson starts to roar in does not bear thinking of.

A captain and a coach can only work with what they have, but you have to get the best out of the players that you have got. Steve Finn, one of the most lethal ODI bowlers in the world, is now no longer even considered good enough to pick and Cook and Root at the top of the order look so short of form and confidence that England are effectively giving Australia a two wicket start and batting with at least five fewer overs than the opposition. Root’s painful stay of 23 balls for 3 runs is symptomatic. Twelve months ago Joe Root was brim-full of confidence and runs; now he really looks to be benefiting more the opposition: one wonders why Clint McKay was not given a huge bollocking by his captain for removing him.

If that was not sufficient, after an expensive start with the ball, Boyd Rankin cramped up again and could not come back for a second spell, even when a tiny window was opened by two quick wickets.

For the second ODI, England need to consider seriously dropping Cook, Root and Rankin, Finn should come in, whatever, as should Tredwell and Eoin Morgan should take over the captaincy, with Michael Carberry opening.

A Chance For Players To Stake Their Claims

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

A lot to play for in the ODIs

 

January 11^th 2014

 

 

Tonight the ODI series starts, with England possibly having only four survivors from the side that lost the 5^th Test. For players such as Ravi Bopara, Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler these games take on a whole new significance, with middle order places available in the Test side. Chris Jordan will be hoping for a chance to push his name forward for a Test place in the Sri Lanka series, although Chris Woakes will hope to get the nod instead.

In the last three Ashes series the winner has always gone on to lose the ODIs but, now, with both sides so different to the Test teams, previous form in the Tests has little or nothing to do with this series. It is not even easy to guess what England’s starting XI will be. One of the biggest issues for England will be the question of whether or not Alistair Cook can settle his addled mind and out-think Michael Clarke. If, as in the Test series, it is Michael Clarke who makes all the correct tactical calls, this could be a further dose of pain for Alistair Cook and ratchet up the pressure on his captaincy still further.

Another Case Of England Mutual Assured Destruction?

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Let the blame game start

 

January 9^th 2014

 

The series is finished. The whitewash is complete. The mental disintegration has been accomplished: Graeme Swann has gone; Jonathon Trott is out for the foreseeable future; Monty Panesar’s international future is in grave doubt, as is Steve Finn’s; Joe Root and Matt Prior have been dropped; and Jonny Bairstow simply has not made the grade. However, all the talk is about Kevin Pietersen, supposed dressing room malcontent and gadfly in the Flower power regime. Whatever happened in 2012, it is obvious that it is not forgiven and even less is it forgotten. Being the top runscorer in the series (albeit with fewer than 300 runs at an average under 30) is not enough to compensate the fact that the face does not fit and that if he refuses to use his degenerative knee injury as an excuse to retire, he may be pushed anyway, accused of not playing for the team.

Andy Flower is playing for his professional life. From a peak in 2011 when it seemed that he could do no wrong and the fear that he might decide to go after this tour was real, things have gone horribly downhill:

• 3-0 whitewash in the UAE v Pakistan
• 1-1 in Sri Lanka where a win in the second Test broke a series of four consecutive defeats.
• Win 2-0 v West Indies in England
• 2-0 v South Africa in England (England could have won the 2^nd & 3^rd Tests but did not and was comprehensively outplayed overall)
• Win 2-1 v India (after the 1^st Test, England’s 2012 record stood at 7 defeats in 12 Tests)
• 0-0 v New Zealand with England lucky to save the series
• Win 2-0 v New Zealand in the return series
• Win 3-0 v Australia at home
• 5-0 whitewash in Australia

Nine series, 4 won, 3 lost (10 of the 11 Tests were lost in those series defeats), 2 drawn.

A record of P 30, W 10, D 8, L 12, with ten of the twelve defeats coming in just three series.

It is not impressive. Something has gone seriously wrong. What is more, when England lose, they are losing very badly indeed.

Against Sri Lanka and against India, England managed to turn around series that had started with a defeat. However, the turnaround against India came in that same Test where, in the second innings, Cook and Prior were probably just an hour away from saving the game on the final morning, after an epic partnership. Although eventually England lost by 9 wickets soon after lunch, the Indian bowling was being ground down, it can be argued that India would have been unlikely to risk a chase of a target of 180 in 45 or so overs. Similarly, against Sri Lanka, a first innings deficit was turned into a rather more nail-biting win than Sri Lanka could have imagined as, first, only 87 runs for the last two wickets allowed Sri Lanka to set a challenging target and then Trott and Prior threatened to reach it. In both cases, England started the fightback in the third innings of the match.

What made the Australian series predictable was the meek surrender in the 1^st Test, where the fightback never came. When the 2^nd Test started the same way, a 5-0 result looked inevitable. England-watchers know that, if the fightback does not come quickly, it will not come at all.

There will always be comparisons with 2006/07, but a closer parallel is probably 1958/59, when England also went to Australia as holders of the Ashes after three consecutive wins, with an apparently strong side, but lost 4-0. In 1958/59, the batting failed and the bowling was too one-dimensional: sound familiar? In contrast, after three days of the 2006 Adelaide Test it looked as if England were going to be fiercesome rivals to Australia. After two days of the Test there were even suggestions that England were burying the career of Glenn McGrath (0-107) and Shane Warne (1-167), who had come in for some terrible punishment as England ran up a massive total of 551-6d. However meekly England surrendered after that catastrophic fifth day collapse, no one can say that they had not shown themselves capable of competing for four glorious days. In this series there has been no such consolation.

Fans, even cricket writers, are split. Fine, knowledgeable pundits such as George Dobell argue that Andy Flower should take the blame and that his methods are no longer working. The huge defeats against Pakistan, South Africa and Australia suggest that when Plan A fails, there is no Plan B. However much you say that it is the players who have failed in the middle, not the coach, such an obvious flaw in the preparation as the lack of a Plan B has to be blamed on the management. No one argues that Andy Flower has been even better than Duncan Fletcher at his best in taking England to the top but, like Duncan Fletcher, when things have started to go wrong he has failed to adapt and to keep England there. There are plenty of suggestions that the very high degree of control and discipline of the Flower regime are beginning to grate on some of the players, who are beginning to feel the need for some breathing space.

Australia, famously, had a discipline and homework regime and that ended in tears. More than one of the players attribute the turnaround in Australian fortunes to the relaxed and fun atmosphere that Darren Lehmann has installed in place of Mickey Arthur’s more aesthetic methods.

Andy Flower has said that he wants to lead England back to success and is planting the blame for the problems firmly at the door of one or two troublemakers for upsetting the dressing room atmosphere, with rumours that he is trying the “either he goes, or I go” tactic that led to the Mutual Assured Destruction of Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen. The solution, apparently, is not a liberalisation of the regime, but the need for even greater control. There are already rumours that this is evolving into a power struggle with Paul Downton, a player who remembers the bad years of the ‘80s all too well. Maybe Hugh Morris knew what he was doing when he decided to get out now.

Not even Andy Flower can lay the blame with Kevin Pietersen for the squad taken to Australia having too many passengers and too many players who seemed like a good idea at the time: the blame for that lies firmly with the management. Neither was it the fault of Kevin Pietersen that the schedule that England agreed to was hardly ideal, with only a single two day game against what was little better than a School XI in an out of the way country outpost after the 1^st Test. And Kevin Pietersen is not to blame for the fact that Australia agreed to play strengthened squads in the warm-ups and then withdrew players and were allowed to do it, possibly because there was more than a suspicion that the ECB were not overkeen themselves to encourage counties to select credible sides against the Australian tourists in the summer and so were in no position to protest.

A strong manager would say “we screwed up – X, Y and Z seemed like a good idea at the time, but I got it wrong”. Admission of guilt and a promise to do better next time. That though is not exactly the line that is being taken. What is happening is a lot of infighting that will only weaken the team still further. The beneficiaries may be a Sri Lankan side who are proving difficult opponents for Pakistan and whose skilful seamers could just prove a handful when they arrive in June. Asian fans are already joking that it will be a major shock result if England manage to win that series.

Yes, Things Could Get Even Worse

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

And worse still

 

January 5^th 2014

 
 

Rarely in my memory, save perhaps some 1990s tours of India, have England been so utterly outplayed and uncompetitive. Part of the problem was the quality of the Australian attack. Never has it been so well demonstrated that one player can change a side. Last summer Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle laboured hard, but with little support and this stopped Australia from exploiting breakthroughs; in this series they were supported by an unrecognisable Mitch Johnson. The fact that he sustained his hostility for five Tests was the difference between the two sides.

However, other major differences were Brad Haddin and the captaincy. Michael Clarke never let things slip. England had, I believe, just one century partnership in the whole series because Michael Clarke never let things get out of hand. With Alistair Cook, you got the feeling that he would try Plan A; if that didn’t work, he would try Plan A; and if *that* didn’t work, revert to headless chicken mode.

A lot of people wondered about the defensive fields and bowling two spells of Joe Root at Melbourne before giving Monty Panesar, however out of sorts, a try. Yesterday though, with the match already long gone, he bowled Kevin Pietersen, who has spent the series isolated in the outfield, before trying Scott Borthwick. At that stage, with the seamers going for plenty of runs and showing no threat at all, you wondered why he did not try bowling Pietersen and Borthwick together for a few overs, just to try something different. When Borthwick finally came on, he bowled some absolute jaffas as well as some utter dross, but almost immediately got rid of both Haddin and Rogers.

The late wicket of Harris allowed Scott Borthwick to top the England Test bowling averages. He will bowl better and get figures a lot worse than 3-33, but the Australian pledge to end his career after one Test was spectacularly unfulfilled: so much so that Michael Vaughan was suggesting that Root and Borthwick share the spin duties in the summer, with Root helping to protect Borthwick during his apprenticeship. Mind you, Michael Vaughan also suggested that Middlesex’s Ollie Rayner might well be worth considering in the summer, which suggests that a spot of sunstroke might have been coming on.

Alistair Cook seems to struggle to conjure something up in the way that Nasser Hussein, or Michael Vaughan or Andrew Strauss could when things are going wrong and has difficulty to think out of the box and try something different.

When Andrew Strauss got the captaincy, it was by default because there was no one else. However, if he had received it in 2006, England would never has been whitewashed in the 2007/07 Ashes: they would have lost, yes, but with more dignity and Strauss would never have lost that Adelaide Test. Right now, were Alistair Cook to resign, the only conceivable replacements are Ian Bell and Stuart Broad. Broad has had the T20 captaincy and is one of the few definites for the summer. Some people would protest that he is too stroppy, but the young Nasser Hussein was every bit as much a bad boy (probably even more so), but the captaincy matured him in a way that few could have imagined. My worry would be that the load of bowling all-rounder and captain would be too much for Stuart Broad. Whether Ian Bell has any captaincy experience or the nous to make a success of it, I have no idea. Whatever way you look at it, Cook’s batting form has gone and, unlike Mike Brearley, his captaincy is not good enough for him to be picked for that alone.

For what it is worth, Alistair Cook finished sixth in the England batting averages, with 24.6, not very far ahead of Stuart Broad.

You Think That It Cannot Get Worse...

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

And it gets worse

 

January 4^th 2014

 
 

Little over half an hour into the morning session an innings defeat inside two days looked an odds-on bet. A pitch that looked totally innocuous for the England attack, looked unplayable for the Australians. A total well under 100 looked likely and with it, a humiliating follow-on when the follow on target was just 127. In the end, some slogging from Broad and Rankin against the change bowlers saved the follow on. It was hard to avoid thinking that Michael Clarke wanted to avoid the need to take a decision. As soon as the stand became annoying, back came Mitch Johnson and immediately brought an end to proceedings.

What have England learnt? There are various things:

·         The inadequacies of the side can no longer be ignored. Neither the batting nor the bowling are competitive.

·         Boyd Rankin looks like a fourth seamer at  best, with neither the pace nor the accuracy nor, for that matter, the guile to defeat the best.

·         A genuinely fast, 90mph+, bowler is a must.

·         Jonny Bairstow is not good enough either as a wicket-keeper or as a batsman.

·         Alistair Cook seems to struggle for ideas when under pressure.

·         Even the younger players like Joe Root are getting burnt out. Root has gone from being the young revelation of the side, to being a nervous wreck whose feet are encased in concrete. The high-intensity regime, where every aspect of the players’ lives is controlled is taking its toll.

There has been a “don’t blame the bowlers” attitude through this tour, but this match has shown more clearly than any other that the bowling, Stuart Broad apart, has been insipid. On a pitch that the Australians, even the friendly-paced Peter Siddle, made look impossible, the England bowlers rarely looked dangerous. Ben Stokes has had a good match, but he was somewhat flattered by his figures and averages a modest 35 with the bat and 33 with the ball in the series. That this makes him England’s outstanding performer shows how poorly the rest have played. KP is the only other batman to average over 30 and Stuart Broad is the only bowler to average under 30.

Australia have won in the same way that England did last summer. Even when their top order has failed – and it has in almost every Test – the last five wickets have rescued the situation. England have not had an enforcer to clean up the tail whereas, last summer, the situation was reversed: England scored bucketloads of runs with the tail, while Australia’s usually folded. In this series, the England tail has barely scored a run and, if someone has started to prove a nuisance, Johnson or Harris has been summoned to restore order quickly.

Once again, in the second innings, the top four fell cheaply: at 91-4 England just had an opening to restore some dignity, but that door has been slammed shut… again. The end will almost certainly come today and, if it does not, it will only be because Michael Clarke has batted on into the afternoon until the lead has surpassed all reason.

Yet Another Manic Day

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Frenetic

 

January 3^rd 2014

 

 

You can just imagine an England supporter in the crowd watching the action last night and, summarising what he saw with a dry “cricket’s a funny old game”. Undoubtedly, an Australian fan overhearing would launch into thirty seconds of abuse, finishing with “well it ain’t ******* well meant to be!”

For the first time since Nagpur Test that opened the 2006 series in India (a winter that saw England lose no fewer than six players to injury), England have three debutants. That side, which had Cook, Blackwell and Monty making their debut, fell just short of victory, aided by 60 & 104* from Cook and famously drew the series in extremis with victory in the 3^rd Test. For this game the changes were not unlike those for the Oval Test: two new bowlers, one of them a spinner, both players who would scarcely have imagined two weeks before that they would be in the Test side. After an awful start to the tour, Gary Ballance, in contrast, was extremely close to making his debut at Perth until England re-thought the balance of their side the previous day. There were plenty of pundits who would have played Ballance at the Oval.

As expected, Monty Panesar was dropped. And to compound it, a statement was released soon after play started that made clear that he was fit and available. Many people now speculate that his international career is over, which has been a tragic waste. While Essex have given him a chance to re-build his career next season there is also the possibility that he will go down the Sajid Mahmood (another Essex signing) route. Monty compensated for his lack of athleticism with fun, hard work and sharp bowling skills; with the first two gone and the third having waned a lot in the last year, he is a luxury in the side and, when you are 4-0 down, you cannot afford them. While many people were unhappy with Scott Borthwick as his replacement, he is young, undoubtedly skilled and is developing into a fine bat, so his bowling is a bonus in this Test.

Many expected Tim Bresnan to be dropped, despite his efforts at Melbourne. He will play a fair amount for Yorkshire early season and no one will be surprised if he is back in the side next summer, bowling with renewed vigour. Someone had to move over for big Boyd Rankin and Tim Bresnan is nothing if not a gentleman.

Gary Ballance’s debut came, to the surprise of many, at the expense of Joe Root and not of Michael Carberry. Root has been struggling since he was moved up the order when Nick Compton was dropped, as many predicted he would. Ballance and Root are flatmates and have gone through the Yorkshire system together, so this must have been tough for both to swallow, but Root needs a break to work on his game a little and get his feet moving again to allow him to play with freedom. As Carberry had more runs in the first four Tests than anyone other than KP and more than the captain, it would have been a gift to the critics for him to be dropped, but there is a feeling that this is his last chance to make a major score.

After that, the report card sounds pretty familiar. The Australian top order struggled again and were 97-5 just after lunch (Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander must be licking their lips in anticipation). George Bailey failed again. And Brad Haddin was waiting…

Once again Haddin rescued Australia – he is expected to retire after this Test, so Australia will almost certainly go to South Africa without the security of his rescue acts – in company of Steve Smith, who looked all at sea initially, but gritted it out. When Boyd Rankin pulled up with a hamstring problem after only eight overs in which he had added some menace to the attack and Scott Borthwick was duly attacked violently, things looked grim, especially as Smith and Haddin then went after Ben Stokes too.

Not everything was gloomy for the debutant. Despite some nerves that saw his length suffer and some rough treatment, Scott Borthwick also bowled some very fine deliveries and kept his nerve, earning his first Test wicket when Mitch Johnson launched one haymaker too many. This did not look like Simon Kerrigan Mk II, or even Bruce McGain – Borthwick looks like he will make an impact, if he is treated correctly. That means getting some protection, having plenty of sympathetic treatment and persisting with him even if his first match is disappointing. While his bowling effort can by no stretch of the imagination be described as good, it was not the disaster that many had predicted and some England fans had even hoped… there is some steel there and we may just see it in the next few days.

Borthwick is being treated with the same sort of scepticism that has greeted Ben Stokes in this series. After a century and now figures of 6-99, Ben Stokes though has announced himself in a big way and looks a certain starter next summer. He is still too high at six in the order, but without him England would not be able to play a five-bowler attack. In this Test they would have been in desperate straits without the extra seamer as, bizzarely, Boyd Rankin came back for one delivery and pulled up again but, apparently, he will be fit to bowl in the second innings so, whatever it is that ails him, it is not serious. Ideally, England would like to be able to play a wicket keeper at six, Stokes at seven and Borthwick at eight, with Broad at nine. This would allow some flexibility to pick the number ten and jack to suit the situation and give a potentially very potent lower middle order.

Knocking over Australia for 326 is not a disaster, but England need to find some fire in their bellies with the bat and need to be positive, but not reckless. Push the singles, rotate the strike, mess with the bowlers’ lines and keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Last Chance Saloon

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Last Chance

 

January 2^nd 2014

 

England’s last chance to salvage something from this tour begins tonight. From the end of this Test until the visit of the Sri Lankans in May, there is only limited overs cricket: first in Australia, then in the Caribbean and then, on this utterly unforgiving treadmill, the World T20 in Bangladesh. It starts with its preliminary rounds in which the likes of Afghanistan, Ireland and Nepal will be hoping to ambush Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and reach the main tournament at their expense.

There are suggestions that Monty Panesar has a calf injury that may discount him from the starting XI,  although rumour has it that Scott Borthwick was likely to replace him anyway, so Monty’s injury may be convenient to avoid the need to drop him. Borthwick is an interesting choice, a young Durham legspinner who bowled a lot of overs in 2013 with modest results but, whose batting developed enormously. Those who remember the chastening debut of Simon Kerrigan and, way back in 2000, Chris Schofield, will hope that, if dropped into this deepest of deep ends, his start is more like Richard Dawson than theirs. Sadly, Dawson lost form and confidence, but not before coming out of tours to Australia and India with some real credit. Young spinners are famously vulnerable. While a 23 year old seamer can usually hit back and defend himself, a 23 year old spinner is very much an apprentice and easily damaged. Schofield, Swann and Kerrigan are three examples of spinners who had the ability, but not the maturity to use it when picked young. Graeme Swann came back successfully eight years later and, at around the same time, Chris Schofield famously, if briefly, returned to England colours before fading away again. Others though, never come back, as spinner after Australian spinner has found in the years since Shane Warne retired.

England fans are deeply divided about Borthwick’s selection. Some see it as a desperation move that could see him treated even more harshly than Kerrigan was. Others as a bold pick that might pay dividends. For Borthwick it is important that Alistair Cook wins the toss and bats and that he gets some runs in a good England total to allow him to take the field and bowl with some confidence.

There are suggestions that in a final throw of the dice Boyd Rankin may finally get his Test debut on the grounds of being the least bad of the tall, fast bowlers and that Gary Ballance may replace Michael Carberry. Although Ballance was born in Zimbabwe and thus will be a gift to the critics, he was educated and learnt his cricket in England. Many fans though would like to see Carberry given the chance to see out the series and have one more chance to make a major score although, to do it, he needs to steer a course between recklessness and shotlessness, having swung from one extreme to the other over the first four Tests. Carberry is just one major score from making his breakthrough. With no tour scheduled next winter, as the World Cup starts in February 2015, a big score from him would settle the opener’s spot until summer 2015 and give some stability to the side. Who makes way for Boyd Rankin is anyone’s guess: it could be that Jimmy Anderson is rested or, possibly, it could be Tim Bresnan. The selectors may worry that the new ball could be wasted and thus want the option of Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson rather than have to give the new ball to either Stokes or Bresnan if Rankin misfires.

Whatever happens, the rebuilding exercise for the 2015 Test summer starts here.