After almost six months of exclusively white ball cricket for England, and a decidedly lacklustre six months at that, it is time for the England Test team to once again grace our televisions. Well, some of our televisions. If subscribing to Sky Sports has been a severely limiting factor on who can or chooses to watch live English cricket nowadays, then this series being on TNT Sport (BT Sport rebranded) will restrict viewership even more.
The run up to this series has also seemed oddly muted. The ECB opted to have a ten-day training camp in Abu Dhabi rather than play full matches against teams in India itself. This decision has been justified by the England camp by suggesting that this allows the batters and bowlers more time actually practicing their skills as opposed to just two or four innings in a typical pre-series warm-up. Certainly there is (some) logic in this approach. Host countries are certainly not above using gamesmanship with touring team’s preparations, providing pitches and opponents totally unlike what awaits them in the series for example. At the same time, the majority of the squad won’t have played a full red ball game in six months and may lack ‘match sharpness’ at the beginning of this series.
Both teams have been affected by events at home, with Harry Brook and Virat Kohli leaving the series (at least temporarily) due to personal reasons. I agree (for once) with Jonathan Agnew that this represents a welcome change from the status quo in professional cricket. Decades ago, a cricketer would have been risking their entire career if they left mid-tour due to a family tragedy or the birth of their child. They would have been portrayed in the media as ‘soft’, ‘lacking fortitude’ and ‘weak’, and it would certainly hurt their future chances of selection.
Of course, this evolution within cricket isn’t really due to more enlightened people within teams and the media as much as it is about the shifting power dynamics in the game. Twenty years ago or more, cricketers were really not paid very much. They were dependent on being selected for the national team to pay their bills, often with minimal savings or investments. Governing boards and the often petty selectors would hold this over players even thinking about taking a break. Between both lucrative central contracts (thanks to increased TV rights values) and extensive T20 league opportunities, top cricketers are rarely in desperate need for a pay cheque. Kohli is presumably set for life at this point of his career, but even the relatively young Brook could be in a financial position where he never has to work again at the age of 24. Certainly if he is as frugal as the stereotypical Yorkshire resident is portrayed.
Brook’s omission paves the way for Ben Foakes to return to the side. It was always likely, I would say, given the likely pitch conditions England will face through the series. Foakes is one of the most impressive wicketkeepers in the world when at the stumps, and with the idea being mooted that they will play three spinners (plus Root) and one pace bowler in the first Test that will be a vital skill. At the same time, sources within the team were saying that it was possible Bairstow would have the gloves just a couple of weeks ago and it certainly wouldn’t be out of character for McCullum and Stokes to go with that approach again.
One entertaining aspect of Foakes’ return is the effusive praise he has received from his captain.
“[Ben Foakes] can not only do things other keepers can’t, but also make them look incredibly easy. […] He’s a very special talent behind there and having someone like that who can maybe take a 2%, 3% chance, that could be massive in the series.” – Ben Stokes
Yes. This is what we were saying eight months ago. If only Ben Stokes was Test captain then, he could have selected Foakes for the Ashes.
All of which brings us to what may become a significant controversy through the tour. Shoaib Bashir, a 20 year-old spinner who has played in just 6 first class matches and was named in the England squad for this series is not currently in India because his visa application has been delayed. The reason for this delay is simple: His parents were born in Pakistan. There is a separate visa application process for anyone with Pakistani parents where they have to provide extensive personal and financial details, and it typically takes at least 6 weeks (and often more) to be completed. Bashir’s selection was announced just over 6 weeks ago.
The singling out of a single England squad member due to their ethnicity on a tour has drawn some parallels with the Basil D’Oliveira affair in 1968. The attempt by the South African Apartheid government to prevent the ‘mixed-race’ D’Oliveira from entering the country as part of the England Test team led to the the tour being boycotted entirely. This is, for many reasons, unlikely to happen here.
Not unlike between players and selectors, the balance of power between nations has changed dramatically in the past two decades. India are now the financial superpower of cricket, in respect of both other boards and individual cricketers. The ECB revenues when India tours England are on a par with Ashes summers, which is one reason why this is a 5-Test series. They are also seeking funding for The Hundred from IPL team owners. If they upset the BCCI then they might only agree to a 2-Test tour in the next cycle, potentially costing the ECB over £100m. Players are presumably also mindful that anything they say in this situation could risk them being unofficially blacklisted by IPL teams and missing out on millions themselves.
Of course, these conflicts of interest are nothing new. In the 23 years England refused to tour Apartheid South Africa on moral grounds, a lot of English cricketers ignored the boycott primarily due to the large amounts of money on offer at the time. Graham Gooch, Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Gatting, Simon Hughes, John Emburey and Chris Broad amongst many others went there to play cricket. Ultimately, there is a fairly broad acceptance that most people (and organisations) have their price and Indian cricket is more than wealthy enough to pay it.
At the same time, English cricket has been rocked by multiple discrimination scandals in recent years which makes the ECB’s response in this matter more critical than ever. It is easy for the ECB to pay for photo shoots and T-shirts proclaiming their principles and moral foundations, or a few token payments to schemes intended to improve equity within the sport. The senior players can talk about how inclusive the dressing room culture is nowadays in the England camp. One of their teammates is being openly and blatantly discriminated against, and they appear (at least publicly) to be doing nothing. This is the impression that people will take away from this. The ECB says a lot of the right things, but does nothing when it is time to act.
Bashir’s absence will have a tangible effect on the England Test team and perhaps this series. He was the only full-time off-spinner included in the squad, with Leach, Ahmed and Hartley all spinning the ball the other way. He has triple the first team experience Rehan Ahmed had when he made his Test debut, and it’s certainly not unrealistic that Bashir would have been selected if available. In that sense, the Indian Government’s application of their stringent immigration laws has materially affected the outcome on the field.
Perhaps the result of this series should be marked by an asterisk to note that England were prevented from selecting their first choice team?
If you have any comments about the post, the match, or anything else please leave them below.
Being Outside Cricket 
Was it not “reasonably foreseeable” that a player known to be of Pakistani heritage might be seen as “different” by India, given historic tensions between the two nations? What were the ECB thinking?
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Only the ECB can answer what they were thinking or what they attempted to do.
Pakistan allows dual citizenship. Hence Bashir would have to explicitly give up Pakistani citizenship, I suppose ?
Otoh, the security clearance authority would be the home minister who happens to be … the father of the BCCI secretary
So in this case, it would clearly be if they (bcci/india/ecb) wanted to make it happen, then they would have made ot happen. I wonder if ECB will be open on what is the communication between all 3 parties.
It is possible that Bashir’s visa could be deliberately delayed but I am not sure what would be the motivation of bcci/india govt in such a scenario.
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Cricketing morality has always been flexible. At the same time as South Africa was banned from Test cricket, there were numerous South Africans plying their trade around the world with no backlash from administrators or their fellow players – Kepler Wessels (in UK and Aust-he even played Tests for Aust), Barry Richards, Mike Proctor, Peter Kristen, Ken McEwan
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The difference being, that Richards, Proctor, Kirsten, etc were private individuals, plying their trade as professional sportsmen, whereas Apartheid was a national governmental policy imposed on all persons within the Republic of South Africa.
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Indeed, flexible morality. A team made up of Richards, Proctor, Kristen etc would not be permitted to play in the UK but, as individuals, they could
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Except, as none of those players had ever expressed a view that supported the Apartheid regime, and played alongside black players – Richards with Gordon Greenidge at Hampshire e.g. – there was nothing to even suggest that they held racist views.
Not a moral flexibility, just not attributing the beliefs of a government to all its citizens, and crediting them with independence of thought. Inncocent until proven guilty.
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And then there’s the Robin Jackman affair, where the Guyanese government cancelled a Test match because the English squad contained Robin Jackman, an Englishman with a South African wife, who had played in the Currie Cup and coached in the townships.
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The Gleneagles Agreement, at face value should have led to bans on cricketers from South Africa playing in the County Championship, Sheffield Shield and Test teams. But it did not. Flexible morality, isn’t it?
“In the Gleneagles Agreement, in 1977, Commonwealth presidents and prime ministers agreed, as part of their support for the international campaign against apartheid, to discourage contact and competition between their sportsmen and sporting organisations, teams, or individuals from South Africa”
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I’m not sure this is terribly logical to me. I can understand a blanket ban on going TO a regime like South Africa, including for individuals. But why ban individuals FROM there unless they are known supporters of apartheid?
If you apply that to a current-day situation, it seems reasonable to me to ban Afghanistan from international cricket because of their wilful failure to recognise that becoming a Full Member requires supporting the provision of opportunity for all sportspeople in your country, not just the male ones. But I don’t see why that means that, say, Rashid Khan shouldn’t be allowed to play in the Blast.
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I guess that was why there were so few occasions when authorities applied or tried to apply the letter of the agreement. I suspect it would not have withstood legal challenge. It was an instrument of morality – look how good we are. And most authorities interpreted it with flexibility
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One aspect of the new-style way of preparing for the test series that deserves more comment than it has, is that had England been in India for much longer than the 72 hours they actually were before the match started, then the Bashir situation would have come to a head much sooner and would have had more chance of being sorted out in a way that enabled him to be available for selection.
Generally, this incident makes my blood boil. It’s happening routinely now–to Khawaja on the last Australia tour, to Mahmood on the last England Lions tour, to the entire Pakistan team in the WC (one of many ways in which the last WC was a disgusting travesty of cricket in relation to Pakistan).
But then, since the leading boards and so many of the leading players these days are so terminally self-obsessed and greedy, then it would be a bit much to expect even the faintest whimper. The poor brave dears might lose their lucrative IPL deals!
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The ECB must have known (based on recent history) that there was likely to be a problem with Bashir getting a visa. I know nothing about the visa aplication process but the side was named about 6 weeks ago so surely that was enough time to sort it out.
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It is possible that Bashir’s visa was one reason for the warmup schedule. If the ECB had been told that Bashir’s visa would take 6 weeks to process, then he wouldn’t have been available for any of those games if it was in India.
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If that’s the case, Danny–and it’s highly unlikely that it is: it was being reported as long ago as July that England would probably prepare for the series outside India–then that’s the height of incomepetence. They could simply have selected the squad two weeks earlier…or two months, given that the last red-ball cricket any of these players played was on Sept 29th!
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As far as anything is certain in life, being born in Pakistan, Bashir’s visa was deliberately delayed, per official policy (even leaving aside the vagaries of VTS or HCI staff, the comments of Venkatesh Prasad are particularly outrageous nonetheless, if at all HCI do the same with even people with OCI / PAN cards to a greater or lesser degree)
Against that, even since the 2008 attacks, the US and others including the UK have maintained fairly strong pressure on India not to go to war with Pakistan. With international aid positively still benefitting programs in India as opposed to the GOI, all the while Indian cricket funds the international game, this situation is likely to continue.
(Having said all that, Bashir could become good, given the limited evidence so far. I doubt how far England will trust them outside Indian tours).
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I thought 246 was a pretty good score and then India batted. But England have had bad sessions / days in the field under Stokes before and then hit back hard the next day so fingers crossed. I suspect Root may be doing a lot of bowling today.
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If you are not Ashwin or Lyon and you insist on bowling slow at Test Match level. Either focus on metronomic reliability with fractional adjustments – to be fair I think Leach did really well after the injuries – or throw in variations, round farmers, leg breaks whatever like Joe Root
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A knee injury to Jack Leach! What does the medical team do other than destroy bowlers?
It’s time we put pressure on the support staff. Those poor bowlers had no answers today against the second line Indian batters. Ajar was so so comfortable
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Oh shoot… I just read the press release
“He’s got another night to rest it. He’s a tough bloke and he’ll be raring to go,” Patel said. “He’s never going to shirk the responsibility of the job he has, but it’s about being smart as well. We’ve got four Tests to go and another innings at the back end of this game. We need a key man like Jack.”
Bye bye our only proper spin bowler
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This could be all over today so that will give Leach extra time to recover.
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That did not age well but happy to be so wrong
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Liam Dawson may not have ripped through the Indian batting line up but I reckon he could have kept things tighter than Ahmed and Hartley.
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Pope! Should have played Jacks
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So many possible what ifs from this game regarding how we might have done better. One more seamer, a different spinner, less of a deficit and a bigger 2nd innings lead. Unless another 100 or so tomorrow it is likely academic. Pleased to see Pope show his potential. Has a fine record at 3 under Stokes/ McCullum regardless of his stat padding v Ireland last year.
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Any comments about the outcome in Brisbane?
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Wonderful! Two gripping, close tests won by the visiting underdogs.
And an amazing performance by Joseph, given that the day before it looked like he’d be out for several weeks. He looks quite a prospect. I think if I was one of the two or three county coaches still looking for a seam bowler who doesn’t need also to be a no. 8 batter–one of whom originally hails from the Caribbean–, then I might be looking up his agent’s number. If he has one–maybe he’s played so few f-c games that he doesn’t..:-)
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Much too late to this conversation. Hello again everybody. Two comments:
1. It is hard for me to generate much outrage about India’s visa policies when the UK’s are so outrageous. A personal example, I invited a Senegalese friend who lives and works in France to visit me. Her visa application was refused because, amoung other ludicrous reasons, the Home Secretary thought that without a permanent job contract, there was reason to think that she might not return to France at the end of the holiday. (she was employed during term time to work in a school). The risk her being so objectively miniscule, we have to attribute the belief that one more Black person than is absolutely necessary is so awful that everything possible must be done to avoid it. It is not just the little people. I’m told that even premier league football clubs have visa applications refused for young players that they want to bring into their youth teams. What utter nonsense
2. Whatever the actual Gleneagles agreement, the idea that individuals from an apartheid regime should be made pariahs simply for being from the country under control of that regime is abhorrent. By all means boycott the sporting and cultural intuitions of that place and those who give succour to them, but an individual? They can’t be made responsible for the politics of the collective just by being born into that collective.
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