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.

Too Much Quantity. Too Little Quality.

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Why have England’s players burnt out?

 

December 30^th 2013

 
 

A look at the statistics for 2013 offers some insight into why some of England’s players are struggling. The top two and three of the top five wicket-takers in Test cricket in 2013 are English. Why? Of front line bowlers, just seven have played ten or more Tests in 2013 (eight if you count Kane Williamson). It is no surprise then to find Stuart Broad, who has played all fourteen Tests for England in 2013, well ahead of his nearest rival, Jimmy Anderson, with 62 wickets to Anderson’s 52.

Just one bowler in the world has bowled more than 500 overs in Tests in 2013. No prizes for guessing whom: Jimmy Anderson’s 531 completed overs (38 per Test) put him more than fifty ahead of Stuart Broad. Peter Siddle, who has the persevering workhorse role in the Australian side is the only other bowler to have played in fourteen Tests in 2013 and the only other bowler to have passed 450 overs in the year, although with a far inferior strike rate to Broad or Anderson.

No prizes either for guessing who is the only other bowler to pass fifty wickets. Dale Steyn has played just nine Tests in the year and close to 200 overs fewer than Jimmy Anderson, but has quite stunning numbers: strike rate 42 (bettered only by Mitch Johnson and, more unexpectedly, Marlon Samuels, who has only bowled 40 overs all year, but has taken ten wickets); average 17.7; best figures, a stunning 6-8.

After Dale Steyn comes a name that few people would guess: Trent Boult has 46 wickets in 11 Tests at an average of 25.1 and strike rate of 56 – more than respectable numbers. Graeme Swann, with 43 wickets and a strike rate of 61 completes the top five, despite missing four Tests in 2013.

A little down the list, two names stand out. Ravi Ashwin is often regarded by Indian fans as a lower middle-order batsman who can bowl a little, but his 41 wickets in 7 Tests have come at an average of 22.5 and an amazing strike rate for a spinner of 52. Shane Shillingford though has played just six Tests in 2013 and looks unlikely to play in 2014. A look at his numbers shows what a crippling loss he will be for the West Indies: 36 wickets at 22.3, with a strike rate of 44 that is even better than Vernon Philander!

The list also shows the inequalities in the amount of cricket played by sides. While England and Australia have played 14 Tests, New Zealand 12, South Africa 9 and India 8, Sri Lanka have played just 3 Tests in 2013 and Bangladesh and Zimbabwe only 4. However, Robiul Islam’s 19 wickets at 22.1 for Bangladesh suggest that maybe, just maybe, they have found themselves the strike bowler that they need to start winning Tests against the medium-sized teams.

No prizes either for guessing the top run scorers in 2013. Michael Clarke’s late burst has pushed him past Ian Bell, the only two batsmen to pass 1000 runs in the year. The batsman of the year though surely is AP de Villiers with 933 runs at 77.8, with just 13 innings in 9 Tests.

A look at the top ten run scorers though shows the poor quality that the largest quantity of Test cricket has provided: Alistair Cook’s 916 runs (4^th in the list) scored at 33.9; Joe Root’s 862 (7^th) at 34.5; Shane Watson’s 810 (9^th) at 35.2. In contrast, Ross Taylor’s 866 runs have been made at 77.2 and Pujara, has an equally impressive 829 at 75.4. At the other end of the scale, Phil Hughes and Jonny Bairstow have an amazing 15 Tests between them in 2013 and both have more than 350 runs in the year at an average of just 27, while Jacques Kallis’s 309 runs have come at just 25.8 (the worst of all batsmen with at least 300 runs in Tests in 2013, apart from Stuart Broad), despite his century in his final innings before retirement.

Unconditional Surrender

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Without a fight

 

December 29^th 2013

 
 

At the start of the day there was a real chance that England could pull off a win. There were shadows around the ground of Dean Headley and Phil Tufnell and, why not? There were even thoughts of bustling Bob Willis charging in like a man possessed at Headingley. Australia’s top order has been shaky and you felt that one wicket could easily become three. Two edges went in quick succession to first slip and were floored and that was that. The first, you could argue, should have been attempted by Jonny Bairstow, but the captain went for it and got a hand to it. The second went straight in at a comfortable height and straight out. When that happened, you knew that the fight had gone. Jonny Bairstow did hold an edge soon after, but it was too little, too late. Shoulders had slumped. It was not going to happen.

Rivers of ink will be written about what happened and why. There are already calls for Andy Flower to go. The criticism last night of Alistair Cook’s occasionally bizarre decisions was manifest. Cook had two potential match-winners in the side: Stuart Broad and Monty Panesar, but seemed strangely reluctant to bowl either until it was too late. Joe Root got two short spells before Monty was even tried. To his credit, Joe Root did bowl one of the only four maidens of the innings, but the unwillingness to put on Monty early with a hard ball and just see what might happen was alarming. It is obvious that Alistair Cook has no faith in him and, if England play two spinners at Sydney, they will be Tredwell and Borthwick.

Andy Flower must take his share of blame for the dysfunctional squad. When you have three bowlers who you cannot risk playing, another who you do not want to play and two batsmen who you would prefer not to have to play in the team and *then* lose two vital players in mid-tour, you are in a mess.

While most people were happy to see Finn and Rankin in the squad and expected them to make a big impact – the reasoning behind picking them was good – there was a lot of scepticism about Chris Tremlett, who could not even hold down a regular place last season in a desperately poor Surrey side. Maybe the idea was to take him as a loyalty bonus in a large squad, with no plan to play him but, instead, to monitor his rehabilitation: if it was, the fact that he suddenly became a contender for the Test squad despite having the poorest returns of the three in the warm-ups, simply on the basis of net bowling, was a real cause for concern. It is true that England discovered Steve Finn on the basis of a net spell in the UAE, when Finn could not even get into the Lions team, leaping straight from net bowler to the Lions to Test bowler against Bangladesh. It is also true that Geoff Boycott “discovered” Carl Rackemann in the nets in 1977/78 (fancy some free dentistry, Geoff cobber?) but if you are picking your Test bowlers on their net form rather than middle form, something is seriously wrong.

Right now almost every place in the squad is up for grabs. Patience has almost run out for Michael Carberry, who started the tour with such a bang, but whose strokeless effort in the second innings had a lot to do with the collapse that followed. With Alistair Cook hitting the ball so sublimely, Carberry just needed to push singles and twos into gaps to pile the pressure on Australia by upping the run rate.

Carberry’s stats make interesting reading. In his five Tests he has totaled no less than 40 and no more than 74 runs per Test. Total consistency, but with the frustration of getting in and getting out time and again:

30, 34, 40, 0, 60, 14, 43, 31, 38, 12

302 runs at 30.2.

Nick Compton’s sequence was

9, 37, 29, 30*, 57, 9*, 3, 34, 0, 117, 100, 13, 2, 16, 15, 1, 7

479 runs at 31.9, aided by two not outs and a curiously similar start.

Apart from Carberry, Alistair Cook desperately needs some runs. Joe Root’s amazing international start has hit the buffers. Many question KP’s willingness to go on, even if his increasingly damaged knee permits it. It is hard to see Trott or Prior lining up against Sri Lanka next Spring, barring some extraordinary early season form. Swann has gone. Jonny Bairstow (average under 29 and, despite getting into double figures in his last nine innings, just two scores in them over 37) may have just the final Test left to avoid being discarded for good. Despite good form in the UAE and India when he bowled in tandem with Graeme Swann, Monty has gone backwards since 2007 and it is hard to see him playing another Test unless he can re-discover his golden touch at Essex. A lot of pundits would not pick Jimmy Anderson for Sydney and might not for Sri Lanka.

And Tim Bresnan, who has done exactly the job that he was picked for, including the figures of 18-6-24-2 in the first innings that took wickets at the other end for his teammates, is usually the first name on the team list to be greeted with cries of despair from England fans, wondering what he is in the side for. For the record, only Joe Root has a better economy rate for England in the series whereas, although his wickets have been relatively expensive (although less so than Anderson’s, Swann’s, Monty’s and Stokes’s), only Stuart Broad, Chris Tremlett and, by a fraction, Ben Stokes have a better strike rate for England.

Most people are suggesting that England need to shuffle the batting order and add some pace to the attack. Finn has more wickets on the tour at a better strike rate than Rankin, but Rankin’s far superior economy may win out, although Finn would be the most dangerous bowler… albeit, most likely to both sides. He needs to be handled with care in a five-man attack and asked to bowl very short spells, flat out. Whether Finn for Anderson would revive the menace in England’s attack is open to doubt: Broad, Stokes and even Anderson have touched 90mph and Finn is not an express bowler.

Next summer there are plenty of options: Chris Jordan, Tymal Miils, Chris Woakes could all make the step up. Graeme Onions is around. Woakes’s nervous start recalled Ian Botham’s debut in 1977 when his inaccurate swingers were ruthlessly picked off by Greg Chappell and it would be foolish to discard him, particularly as he came back well later. Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler, the Overtons and James Taylor are all waiting in the wings, not forgetting Scott Borthwick and Varun Chopra and, of course, Sam Robson, plus a chastened Simon Kerrigan who now knows how much he has to do to succeed at this level. It would only take one or two of these players to come through to transform the side completely.

A Comfortable England Win? (Spanish) April Fool!!!

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Another bad day, but 3-1 is clearly in sight

 

December 28^th 2013

 
 

In Spain, December 28^th is “the Day of the Innocent Saints” – the children slaughtered by Herod – and has become the Spanish April Fools Day. The Spanish tend to get taken in rather easily by news stories in European media on April 1^st, never realising the tradition of trying to fool viewers, listeners and readers as plausibly as possible, but go to town themselves on December 28^th.

Yesterday, the joke was on England.

If you went to bed at lunch in the Test, as many surely do, despite a rather poor bowling effort that allowed the last pair to score far more than they should, you would have gone with England’s lead past 100, with Michael Carberry at his most obdurate and with Alistair Cook stroking the ball like the Cook of 2010/11. You would have believed in Father Christmas, the tooth fairy and a seemingly inevitable England victory.

Despite a horrible post-lunch collapse from 65-0 and 86-1 to 87-4, KP, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow seemed to be righting the ship. It was 173-5 and a lead of 300 seemed likely. Bairstow was counter-attacking, his short, but violent innings including four boundaries, two of them maximums (should that not be maxima, declining our Latin correctly???) KP was playing sublimely. It made what followed, with the lower middle order and tail making Nathan Lyon look like a combination of the best of Shane Warne. Muttiah Muralitharan and Jim Laker bowling on a minefield. Panic set in and players who know how to bat and can bat well, surrendered.

Australia need 231 to win. In a low-scoring match they have to significantly better their first innings performance. Even though they have knocked off 30 of them, they are not very much better placed than in the equivalent stage of the first innings.

England should still win from here. However, there is still that phantom in the wardrobe of Australia showing that this is actually a good batting pitch and sailing to their target by Tea tomorrow with only one or two wickets down.

Victory in a dead rubber seems to split opinion: some say that it would just convince England that everything is right after all (you can turn this around and say that winning 4-0 or 5-0 would convince Australians that all is right with their cricket when it is most clearly not and this series win may be simply a one-off); others feel that to turn things round and get to 3-1, or even a 3-2 result would be a major statement of intent. There are plenty who are joking that it is a ten-match series and delicately poised at 3-3, provoking serious sense of humour failure in at least one cricket writer who has taken these claims seriously and aimed a major social media outburst at it. Winning a dead rubber is like kissing your sister: it is a comfort, but nothing like as good as the real thing. I stick by that. It will make England feel better. It will show them that they can compete. However, it will not hide the fact that they have been seriously second best when the chips were down.

Michael Clarke, England's Man Of The Match??

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

Bat first and win… however implausible?

 

December 27^th 2013

 
 

Many England supporters will have watched or listened to the collapse at the start of play that confirmed their worst nightmares and gone to bed, depressed. Those who stayed a while longer will have seen how Australia’s top order struggled before lunch and will have wondered if maybe, just maybe, 255 was a better score than it looked. What no one was prepared for was Australia to collapse in the evening like a card house, leaving England still 91 ahead, with just Nathan Lyon to accompany Brad Haddin, who continues to battle on.

Finally, through either trial and error, or just blind luck, England have found the ideal attack for a Test. The absence of Graeme Swann was irrelevant because a spinner was irrelevant: Monty Panesar bowled just 9 overs, albeit for only 18 runs. Anderson weaved his magic as he had at the start of last summer. Stuart Broad blasted out the tail with raw aggression. Tim Bresnan found reverse swing, took two vital wickets and conceded just 24 runs from 18 overs. And Ben Stokes continued to develop at a ridiculous rate, showing the sceptics such as me who doubted that he would be effective yet at this level, just how wrong we were.

The plan has been to bowl tightly and make the batsmen commit errors. Unfortunately, the Australians have not cooperated and the batsmen have not got the runs to pressurise them. England’s highest first innings score of the series looked far from enough but, as so often in this series, the experts have completely misread the pitch which, it has become obvious, is a very hard one to bat on unless the batsman has an incredible boredom threshold. The England attack kept to a plan and the Australians duly threw away their wickets. A relatively healthy 110-3 became a decidedly anemic 164-9.

While Brad Haddin is still there, Australia will hope to keep the deficit below 50. Stuart Broad though will have three balls at Nathan Lyon and will hope to end the innings with them, having taken two wickets in his last four balls.

Once again, the side that has batted first has dominated the Test (at least, so far). If England were to win, maybe Michael Clarke should be their man of the match for putting England in?

Batting Problems Continue

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

New England, old problem

 

December 26^th 2013

 

There are times when it is nice to be away from Internet coverage. A few days away, isolated from the world have helped to forget about the “tour from hell”. The fact that the 3^rd Test and with it the Ashes as a theoretically competitive series ended well before Christmas and then had a dead period until Boxing Day has helped. For the older England fans, brought up in an era when success of any kind was a collectors’ item, the epithet “tour from hell” was used so often that it began to lack all meaning: none of us have missed them and finding England in the middle of what was a recurring nightmare in the ‘80s and ‘90s has been an unpleasant surprise.
 

A fractious tour took on a new ratchet up of pressure with the retirement of Graeme Swann from all cricket before Christmas. Criticism has rained down on him. It was well known that he was not expected to get through to the 2015 Ashes but, to retire mid-tour was a shock. However, Swann is no one’s fool. As in 2010, the Australians have set out to attack him and neutralise him. Then though, the batsmen made enough runs that he always had a long rest between bowling efforts. Here, he has rarely had the luxury and, even his supposed rest, has usually seen him coming out to bat in a crisis against an angry attack. The elbow that has been operated on twice could not last him much longer anyway and he has a boy, Wilf, who he dotes on and, being away so much, is missing growing up. Undoubtedly Andy Flower has had a word in his ear and told him that he was not going to be picked for the last two Tests and Graeme Swann has seen that it was time to turn the page on his career.
 

Much has been made of the dearth of spinners to replace Swann. The Australians see Simon Kerrigan as a figure of fun in much the same way that a lot of people saw Shane Warne as a figure of fun after his first Test. That was a mistake and Simon Kerrigan may well make them pay in the way that Shane Warne did. There are also plenty of useful young spinners around. Maybe none is worth an England place right now, but how many people would have said that Graeme Swann would be a great spinner when he was 25? He had had one disastrous tour of South Africa that had convinced Duncan Fletcher that he was an immature crybaby who would not fit in England’s plans. In the meantime though, Monty Panesar has an unexpected chance to revive his England career. When Monty burst onto the scene in 2006 as a 25 year old with hardly any First Class experience it looked as if the sky was the limit for him. He was popular with the fans and front page news. Now, he knows that he has been lucky to get a chance. He also knows that he may not be an automatic choice for Sydney, even in the absence of Swann.

England have called up Scott Borthwick and James Tredwell. Borthwick is an anomaly: a spinner and a leggie at that, who has flourished in Chester-le-Street’s green, seaming surfaces. His stats do not look great, but he has to contend with a pitch that is not exactly a spinners paradise for his home games. Tredwell had a miserable season with the captaincy at Kent proving to be an insuperable burden. However, his second half of the season showed a considerable upturn and, playing ODIs to rest Swann, he showed that he is a not inconsiderable bowler. Tredwell’s returns for England have been better than Swann’s in the last year or so. The selectors have decided to leave Kerrigan with the Lions to mature a bit and have ignored the talents of Danny Briggs: the pool is by no means as empty as some might say.

The final team showed no surprises: Broad was fit; Panesar replaced Swann (the brave move would have been to go with Borthwick, who has been playing Club cricket in Australia and would have offered something different with the ball, plus a lot more in the field and with the bat) and Jonny Bairstow took the gloves from Matt Prior. With Prior so down the move was inevitable, but it is asking a huge amount of Bairstow to come in like this – he has played very little and is very much a back-up ‘keeper.

In the Test we had a novelty act. Sadly, it ended in an all too familiar fashion. When Michael Clarke won the toss and put England in and then Cook and Carberry set a base without too much fuss and nothing much happened for the bowlers, Australia must have feared the worst. Rather than run through the top order with quick wickets, they reverted to English tactics: cut out the runs and just bowl dry. At 96-1 and 176-3, it could have happened for England. They were, once again, close to seizing the initiative, the strike bowlers tiring. However, we saw, once again, something that has been the bane of England’s batting in this series: the top seven all reached double figures, but only KP passed Michael Carberry’s 38. And Michael Carberry himself was the only other batsman to reach thirty. Carberry’s series of scores is getting seriously annoying. Yet another solid thirty. Yet another start, but only one fifty in nine Test innings. You now know how his innings will go: get to thirty, look as solid as a rock and then fall unexpectedly just when you think that he must go on to make a century. Unless he can break this sequence with a big score (and, even then, centuries in consecutive Tests did not save Nick Compton) the selectors will look elsewhere next summer.

Three wickets and a scoring rate in the last session that would have had old Ebenezer Scrooge  purring with joy and England are back in the pits again, faster than you can say “Nigel Mansell”. KP is hanging in there for 67 and Tim Bresnan, promoted above Stuart Broad, is showing himself to be as solid and brave as ever, but the fear is that 176-3 could well be 240ao very rapidly tomorrow morning. For England, nothing less than 300 is acceptable and 330 would be better, although probably unattainable from here.

England need KP to add to his centuries and to farm the strike and for Tim Bresnan to play with the skill and determination that gave him a Test batting average of over 40 in the early stages of his career. The first forty minutes will be vital: get through them and the ball will be starting to age a little and batting will get easier, which could just set up KP to let loose for a while; lose a wicket quickly and the tail will be exposed to a rested attack and a still relatively new ball.

If you are an optimist, you see KP racing past a century, backed by the tail, before Monty exploits the big turn that Nathan Lyon was finding even early on, to put Australia under some real pressure tomorrow. The fear though for most fans is that the alternative scenario is far more realistic: England may just fold quickly in the morning and see Australia in the lead with only two or three wickets down by the Close. Those first forty minutes of the morning will set the tone for the day: if England were to win them, we might just see the start of a revival.

Post-Test Reflections: Time To Change

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

England outfought

 

December 18^th 2013

 
 

If you want a weird Ashes statistic that sums up how the series has gone, England’s average 1^st innings score in the current Ashes series is 186; their average 2^nd innings score is 281. Australia’s average 1^st innings score so far is 417. Put runs on the board and strangle England to death in the first innings; even though England will do a lot better second time around, it is still nowhere near enough. Why though England should score around one hundred runs more in the second innings is anyone’s guess.

The wise old heads said back last June that there was very little that Darren Lehman could do in the summer series, but that he would be a more serious threat in the winter. What very few people imagined is that he would be so effective. Undoubtedly England have suffered from some overconfidence and have been caught cold, but Australia have had a plan and stuck to it. They have been helped by two particular pieces of luck: while Michael Clarke’s form was not such a shock, the reincarnation of Mitch Johnson as a devastating, accurate, fast bowler though, is. Mitch Johnson has been capable of devastating spells, or games, but has never sustained it through a series the way that he has here. Last summer England’s middle order and tail covered up for the loss of top-order wickets and the Australians had no one to blast out that tail and recover control. Here, the situation has been reversed. England’s tired bowlers have been unable to remove the Australian tail quickly, while the Australian attack has blown away the England tail time and again.

This is a decent Australian side but, by no means a great one. This series win may also be a one-off. Rogers, Haddin, Harris and even Clarke are right at the end of their careers: a single injury could finish any of them. It is likely than none will still be in the side in twelve months’ time. Johnson blows hot and cold and could, like Steve Harmison in 2004, just be going through a period of grace that he will never again manage. However, it is a side that is providing England with more problems than they can cope with.

Twitterer Fred Boycott, who some suspect to be David Lloyd, broke the habit of a lifetime by coming up with a suggested team for 4th Test that did not consist of twelve Yorkshiremen, most of whom are not even on tour. His suggested XI makes interesting reading: Cook, Carberry, Root, Bell, Ballance, Bairstow, Stokes, Bresnan, Finn, Tremlett, Panesar. If it is a joke, it is a particularly thought-provoking one, because it is not difficult to find arguments to support this particular XI. One argument against it is that the attack is not particularly penetrating, but then Anderson, Broad and Swann have not been particularly penetrating and, if Steve Finn proves expensive, there is a mix of containing and more attacking bowlers to support him. Finn could bowl short, attacking spells, flat out, just concentrating on intimidating and taking wickets. The series is lost, it is time to try something new and hope that Alistair Cook can also win the toss.