Alastair Cook

South Africa vs England: Fourth Test, day four [Sticky – Other Posts Below]

thelegglance78 Comments

Providing the weather holds, South Africa ought to win the final Test of the series some point tomorrow afternoon.  For the match has been thoroughly one sided throughout and unless England somehow escape through their own endeavours, which is possible but unlikely, a draw seems most possible only with the help of a thunderstorm or two.

If that were to happen, then perhaps the finger could be pointed firmly at the home team’s captain and coaching staff, for the lack of urgency in building the lead in the second session and after tea was unusual to say the least.  It’s not exactly a matter of batting on too long, more that with a more positive mindset they would have been able to declare somewhat earlier.  Still, with three early wickets already taken South Africa would be disappointed if they failed to finish England off, so the point will probably be a moot one, but just occasionally, this conservatism comes back to haunt teams, as England found on a number of occasions, most notably in managing to lose a series in the Caribbean they dominated, but where sheer timidity cost them two Tests and one collapse ultimately the series.

Certainly South Africa’s reluctance to take risks was justified early on, for with Anderson taking two wickets in an over early on, there would have been some concern even though at 182 ahead for three wickets down, it was hardly disastrous; given the collapse in the last Test, perhaps it was forgivable.  But the lack of acceleration after lunch was less so, as by that point they were 254 runs ahead with four wickets down.  England probably weren’t too upset.  Between lunch and tea they only scored 102 runs in 30 overs, and after tea 65 runs in 15.2 overs – a small acceleration, but hardly putting their collective foot down.

By that point, and with England going through the motions to an even greater extent than they have in the Test is a whole – bowling wide of the off stump and wide of the leg stump in an effort to restrain the scoring and keep them out there, the Test really wasn’t going anywhere, except for a debate as to whether they were intending to let Bavuma score a century.  It was a touch peculiar, and suggested a side seriously lacking confidence, for there was no sign of an imminent declaration.

The rain break forced their hand and with a pretty nominal 382 required in 109 overs, England were left with just a draw to play for.  They didn’t exactly start very well.  Alex Hales did get one that kept a touch low, but that he hasn’t had a great series is plain.  As ever, it needs to be qualified that he’s hardly alone in not having a great series.  The radio report from Jonathan Agnew this evening highlighted that he’s averaged 17 across the Tests, and that is indeed not great.  Yet it is as striking as it always is that this point was followed with saying that Cook was the next to be dismissed, with no mention of him only averaging 23 in the series.

It is tiresome to have to keep writing this, but it does Cook no favours to be treated as the prodigal son all the time.  Yes, he has a very strong record behind him, and yes anyone can have a bad series.  But to specifically, repeatedly and consistently overlook when the chosen one doesn’t do well as though it is of no consequence is failing to properly scrutinise matters.  That does not mean for a second that Cook is or should be in any kind of danger of his place, for he had a decent 2015 after a disastrous 2013 and 2014 and has the fine career as evidence of his skill and ability.  But what it does mean is that he has had a bad series.  It happens.  It’s worth noting.  It’s worth mentioning.  It is something that when totally ignored draws attention to the disparity in treatment.  Sky have managed to skilfully ignore his poor series but still mention that he’s closing in on 10,000 Test runs.  That will be a fine achievement, and worthy of comment as the first England player to reach that mark – though another would probably have done so sooner had his career not been curtailed.  It is also true that he’s not had a great tour.  It is quite astounding how the media will go out of their way to ever mention these things.  Once again, it is not a case of criticising him heavily, querying his position, calling for his removal or any such thing, but it unquestionably is about highlighting how TMS can entirely ignore it, yet tweet a question as to whether Compton has convinced in this series with an average of 30.

For tomorrow, England do have a long batting line up, but assuming a full day’s play of 98 overs, pulling off a draw here would be an outstanding achievement.  Indeed, nigh on impossible though the target might be, with a middle order as attacking as England’s is, it would probably be more likely that England win rather than bat out a draw, and that’s very unlikely indeed.  And if South Africa do win the Test, then Scyld Berry’s point that it would have set up a fifth Test perfectly is ever more apposite.  It was meant to happen, for the ECB promised it would a few years ago. It didn’t.  And while the home team have to approve the scheduling, there has been a remarkable silence on the part of the ECB that their desire for five has been flouted.  Four Tests is at least an improvement on the dreadful three match series in 2012 that was blamed on the Olympics, but five is the best Test format for big series for very good reason – as previous England – South Africa encounters have demonstrated amply.  It’s not being wise after the event, plenty of people who love cricket were disappointed it wasn’t five before the series started.  Apparently, only India and Australia are deserving of this.  The Big Three who have accrued all the power and money to themselves, allowing five match series between themselves.  Try to contain your shock.

England’s repeated defeats in the final Test of a series, dead rubber or otherwise, is beginning to look careless.  Curiously, it isn’t so long ago that they suffered from losing the first Test of a tour consistently.  The series win is a fine achievement, and whether South Africa are quite the side they were doesn’t change that.  But if they do want to be the best side in the world, there’s plenty of work ahead of them yet.

Day Five discussion below.

 

South Africa vs England: 3rd Test day two

thelegglance62 Comments

In the world of Formula One racing it’s been said that in order to make the sport exciting, just add water.  And so it is with cricket, though adding water isn’t a great idea.  Instead, add a pitch that has some pace and bounce to it, where bowlers feel they are in with a chance, and good batsmen can play shots and score centuries if they play well.  Quite simply, it makes for better, more exciting cricket.  The trouble is, a surface like this tends to be exception rather than the norm, with a tendency towards slow, turgid pitches that can be nigh on guaranteed to last into a fifth day and thus make more money for grounds and boards.

It’s a quite astoundingly short sighted view, for endless slow pitches just make for boring cricket, as fast bowlers end up on their knees from the exertion of trying to extract something, while batsmen find playing shots difficult and merely accumulate.  The result is slow scoring, few wickets and a crowd who have either drifted off to sleep or haven’t bothered to turn up in the first place.

Of course, cricket needs to be played in all conditions, and home advantage should be just that.  And the domestic cricket played on the pitches the domestic structure creates informs the strengths of the home side.  Yet when Test cricket is in dire need of support from its boards – and the suspicion is they couldn’t care less about Test cricket because it doesn’t make them money – the refusal to comprehend what is right in front of them is part of the damage being done.  Of course, the disparity in incomes, both for players not from the Big Three countries, and their respective boards is the biggest factor in the current swathe of articles about the danger the game is in, but it’s not just that – or rather there’s a corollary point that’s related to it.

It all comes back to money and to power.  The crisis in Test cricket due to the land-grab by India, England and Australia has finally got the attention of at least some of the newspapers.  These are the papers who generally ignored the whole matter with the odd honourable exception who pointed out what the likely impact was.  Those terrible bloggers added their voices to the writers retaining their integrity and lambasted the others for their ignorance or lack of interest (or both in at least one case).  Perhaps we should be grateful they’ve noticed at all, certainly the British newspapers managed to pretend Death of a Gentleman didn’t exist.  And given the wider issue and the importance of it to a game we love, it is better late than never.  Just.  But if they have noticed the trouble Tests are in, they still haven’t joined up all the dots.  Chairman’s Pitches are part of the same equation; the players certainly don’t love them, on the few occasions they can be persuaded to venture a real opinion (the deliciously outspoken Moeen Ali apart ) the one thing they will loudly criticise are pitches that have nothing in them.

The ball is also part of that.  It really doesn’t matter whether the ball is a Duke, a Kookaburra or an SG, it just needs to last long enough to keep the bowlers in the game and not become a rag after 15 overs.  The pitch and the ball are clearly critical, and get those right and we at least have a sport that is worth watching.

The best, most exciting Test matches tend to be the ones that don’t go the distance.  In fact in some instances they are done and dusted in three days or even less, which is a disaster if that’s due to one-sidedness, thrilling if it’s a proper fight.  Nor is it about rapid scoring or wicket-taking per se, for a slow but tense passage of play can be the most exciting of all.  Test cricket might be considered the purist’s version of the sport, but the attractiveness of T20 stems partly from the fact there is plenty of action.  In Tests, cricket with uncertainty, whether with bat or ball, is very watchable cricket.  And very sellable cricket.  And very broadcastable cricket.  It’s not bloody complicated.

And so the groundsman at the Wanderers deserves immense credit; it’s not an exact science, and wickets can sometimes perform in a manner that leaves the ground staff tearing out their hair.  That’s a given, it can happen.  But the intent has to be there, as it is in Johannesburg and as it all too often isn’t in England.  And this is still trying to make use of home advantage, for a bouncy, pacy track is one where South Africa unquestionably fancy their chances of a win.  Not a thing wrong with that either, no matter how much certain hypocritical Australians might bleat about it.

And so this game has see-sawed, from South Africa throwing away a decent position on day one only to roar back with late runs, positively made, and then to leave England in trouble before Stokes and especially Root dragged England back into a position of parity.  We’re at the end of day two and we don’t know where this Test is going, except to say there will probably be a result.  This is perfect, this is Test cricket as it should be, where a cricket lover can’t take his or her eyes off the screen because something is going to happen.  You don’t know what, and you don’t know who – but something is.

The South African total of 313 is in that sweet spot where there is uncertainty as to whether it is a good one or not.  It’s one the home team will probably be fairly satisfied with, and has the notable record of being the highest Test total where no one has made a half century.  And when England were 22-2 and 91-4 they would have been ecstatic with it, and confident of a first innings lead of some size.  That this is now in question – and England really should reach parity at the least – is largely to do with one partnership that bounced along at seven an over.  Stokes of course was Stokes, a player who is lethally dangerous with the bat, and able to take a match away from the opposition in a session.  But Joe Root was the central figure, making his ninth Test century in a career that is rapidly flowering to be very special indeed.

Root has looked in form all series, making good contributions before getting out when set, to his clear frustration.  He’s now far enough into his career that we can start making proper judgements about him.  He’s had the poor run of form and come out the other side grinning – as he does a lot.  We may have someone truly special on our hands.  If he stays in any length of time on day three, South Africa are in trouble.  It’s quite striking how he seems to get to 30 without anyone noticing; he scores his runs at a fair lick without ever seeming to really attack; it’s his ability to find gaps for singles and twos that marks him out, for he doesn’t have an obviously rock solid technique defensively.  He can be caught on the crease, he can be lured into playing away from his body, and early on the slip cordon will be licking their lips.  But when he gets in, and when he gets going, he’s a joy to watch.

Alastair Cook was again caught down the legside cheaply.  It’s clearly an opposition tactic and a technical problem for him, where he is too far over to the offside and playing the ball outside the line of his body.  He has had a poor series with the bat to date.  Let’s be clear about this, batsmen can have poor series, they can be slightly out of sync with their movements and they can struggle somewhat.  You take the rough with the smooth and accept it happens.  With Cook it is what it always is, less about him having peaks and troughs, and more about his cheerleaders in the press refusing to ever acknowledge the chosen one has been anything other than magnificent.  Instead they will openly criticise other players who have done better across the series.  Some sympathy for Cook in this area is due, for this sacred cow approach is doing him a major disservice.  Acknowledging that a good player is having a rotten series doesn’t mean he’s not a good player.  It means he’s having a rotten series.  Try being honest and straightforward – it might be liberating.

A case in point resides with Compton, a player for whom there appears to be a queue formed in order to criticise him.  He made a slow start to his innings, and of course it suddenly because a topic for the usual suspects to mention it.  What is this?  Is playing yourself in suddenly unusual?  Isn’t this Test cricket, not a T20?  He got in, he got going, he scored runs – and then he got out.  He won’t be happy with the shot that led to his dismissal sure, but then the number of times a batsman is truly got out rather than bringing about his own downfall is rather few.  He’s done a mostly good job this series, and isn’t deserving of the scrutiny he’s receiving.

The hosts’ pace attack impressed too.  The absence of Steyn is giving the chance to some new, younger players.  Rabada looks a bowler of immense talent, and is a pleasure to watch, while Viljoen showed pace and hostility throughout, hurrying the England batsmen repeatedly.

Tomorrow is moving day.  It’s going to be fascinating.  Test cricket – it really can be good.

Day Three discussions below.

 

South Africa vs England: 2nd Test, day five and review

thelegglance96 Comments

If you were ever asked which side had the ability to score over 600 and then be nervously contemplating the possibility of defeat on the final day, the answer would be England. And not just this collection of England players either; it seems almost hard wired into the psyche of the national team to scare the bejesus out of their supporters, to cause unending fits of mirth amongst Australians and ensure journalists and bloggers head to Statsguru to see if the latest potential disaster has any kind of precedent over the last 140 years.

In truth, England were never quite on the edge on the final day, but they did certainly manage to make things difficult for themselves and interesting for everyone.   It’s been said before – the England cricket team do have a habit of making Test matches interesting, whether they like it or not.

As soon as South Africa had reached somewhere near parity, the pressure had transferred to England as the only side who could realistically lose, given the time remaining.  The clouds that eventually did for play created just enough for the bowlers to make it rather more challenging, but the pitch was still exceptional for a fifth day surface, and it was far more about the pressure England brought on themselves than anything else.  That is as it should be, for cricket is a mental game and Test cricket is the ultimate expression of it.  Human beings react under pressure, and sporting pressure is still pressure.

Thus it quite often happens this way, as the side batting third has little but time and the draw to play for, and the bowling side can give their all knowing they have but a slim possibility of winning, plus the guarantee of a limited time spent in the field.  Once in a while something remarkable happens, but not today.  Not quite.

Ben Stokes received the Man of the Match award and that was probably inevitable given his tour de force on the first two days, yet for the second match in a row it wasn’t entirely clear cut.  Amla’s double century probably had more impact on how the game concluded and was made knowing failure meant likely defeat, and with poor form over the last year.  Jonny Bairstow batted beautifully in the first innings and steadied the England ship with a disciplined and important knock second time around.

Somewhat astonishingly, Stokes received some criticism for his dismissal today.  It shouldn’t need saying, but apparently it does, getting caught on the boundary is the flipside of seeing him batter bowlers around the park; it remains an unending frustration that those who will happily cheer when the ball evades a fielder for four or six will berate a player if it instead goes into a pair of hands.  This really is how Stokes plays, and how Stokes should play.  Of course, saying such a thing is no longer allowed because…

Doubtless, Swann will shortly be saying that it was a joke, and that many people were taken in by it, but he has form for this kind of thing.  Only a few days ago he patronisingly expressed surprise that Simon Mann could make a pertinent point about spin bowling, only to catch himself when he realised how arrogant, supercilious and sneering it sounded.  Swann is also the man who expressed amazement that home ticket prices were so expensive, saying he thought they were only about £20.  To be so ignorant about those who were paying for his comfortable lifestyle beggars belief in the first place, to then dismiss any right they have to a view as well is indicative of his worldview – ungrateful, full of self-importance, smug and contemptuous.  The cheeky chappie routine wore thin long ago, as he reveals what he really thinks under the guise of it being banter.  He can think what he wants and he won’t read this.  The personal contempt is such that I couldn’t care less, we can form our view of him as the people who pay and paid his wages.

There is now a long break until the next Test, over a week, a rest period that England’s bowlers will certainly appreciate after so long in the field in this game.  South Africa have made fools of all those who wrote them off after the first Test and who gleefully anticipated England routinely flogging them for the remainder of the series.  Some hasty reassessments will undoubtedly be in order.  Steyn is rated as 50/50 for Johannesburg, while Philander has been ruled out of the series.  Kyle Abbott will also be fit as the hosts find themselves with rather more options in the bowling ranks.  Although any nonsense about “momentum” can be ignored, South Africa will certainly be feeling much better about themselves having finished this match on top.  As the Wanderers is also at altitude, England will have a contest on their hands.

South Africa will also have a new captain, with Hashim Amla resigning immediately following the game.  Perhaps the timing is something of a surprise, yet Amla clearly didn’t feel comfortable as captain and didn’t appear to be especially astute tactically, which may well be two sides of the same coin.  Whatever the reality of that, Amla spoke impressively after the game, and his assertion that he felt he could benefit the side more as a batsman than as a captain was both honourable  and quite probably true.

AB De Villiers takes over for the remainder of the series, perhaps ironically so given his less than subtle comments about his workload and the veiled threat to reduce his availability.  It could be a short term option, or it could be a means of locking him into the team – few would turn down the captaincy of their country when offered after all, but at least it should rule out him doing the wicketkeeping again.

For England after two Tests the form of the captain will be a slight concern.  He’s not got going at all this series.  It’s slight because it’s in the sense of a key player not yet having contributed and nothing more than that; he’s had a decent enough time with the bat overall in the last twelve months after all.  Yet it is a curiosity that there is an agreed silence about it in the cricketing press, while at the same time plenty of comment about Nick Compton, someone who failed to reach 40 for the first time in four innings earlier today, or Alex Hales, who scored 60 just one knock ago.  As so often, it’s less about Cook himself, and more about the way so many journalists place him on an untouchable pedestal.

So far this series for England, the standout performers have been the discards, the unwanted and the damaged.  Ben Stokes was considered not good enough for the England World Cup team, and even when he had been in the side he had been batting at number eight – a decision that got a fair bit of support from the great and the good at the time; Jonny Bairstow has been in and out of the side in all formats; Nick Compton appeared to fall foul of the different personality selection criteria while Steven Finn was of course unselectable.  Add to that an opener whose technique was openly dismissed by the then coach and there’s a certain pattern.  To look on the positive side, it amounts to a tick for the new England coaching set up.

There are no reasons to be gloomy about England’s chances in the final two Tests.  South Africa had the better of the final two days in Cape Town, but the shock and surprise that exceptional players sometimes play well was amusing.  The bowlers did little wrong, the fielders dropped catches and fine batsmen cashed in.  That is allowed to happen.  When play starts at the Wanderers, all is reset.  Reading the runes based on today and yesterday is as daft as doing so based on the first Test and that went well for those who did it.  Perhaps it was because apart from Geoff Boycott, they all had Test averages under 45.

South Africa vs England: 2nd Test day four

thelegglance65 Comments

It is when a Test reaches this kind of stage that the thoughts of England supporters turn to the Test Which Must Not Be Mentioned.  As we go into the final day, only South Africa can win the game, a scenario that seemed unlikely to say the least as Stokes and Bairstow flogged the hosts’ bowling around Newlands a couple of days ago.

This was always going to be a possibility, given a surface that has shown no signs whatever of deterioration and has proved something of a batting paradise, and unlike one or two, for this particular blog it isn’t being wise after the event.  Of course, in reality the draw is by far the likeliest outcome, and for England to lose would represent an even worse calamity than The One That Didn’t Happen given both surface and the much more limited potency of the South African attack.  It is an amusing temptation to draw parallels, but they almost certainly aren’t going to be there.

And thus England should be able to comfortably bat out the final day, making the most of the batting practice.  Ideally, they will be able to take the same from it that South Africa have, the opportunity to play a couple of the batting line up into form, not least the captain.

The regrets will be there, England were astoundingly profligate in the field, dropping anything up to ten catches (depending who is counting) in the duration of the innings; some were tough, some were anything but.  One of the more peculiar truths of playing cricket is that dropping catches is…well, catching.  At the start of South Africa’s innings the question was whether England would create enough opportunities to take twenty wickets, to not be too far off that after the first innings, and without bowling South Africa out is quite something. A quick (and of course simplistic) totting up of what those drops cost comes to around 350 runs.   Amusing then that Stuart Broad ended the day charged with a Level One offence by the ICC for dissent, one wonders if it was directed at umpires or fielders.

If England had a slightly better day than yesterday – four wickets!  Four! – it still belonged to South Africa.  Hashim Amla duly completed his double century and Faf Du Plessis continued to provide sterling support.  What followed came completely out of the blue, as three wickets fell for ten runs including both set batsmen.  De Kock was skittish and won’t look back fondly on the shot that led to his dismissal, and with a deficit of still nearly 200, the England bowlers suddenly had a spring in their collective step.

Temba Bavuma has had a pretty terrible press this series, dismissed as being a quota player, derided for not being remotely good enough.  Of course, for English eyes it is the first time most will have seen him play, and given his travails in the first game, questions about that were reasonable enough.  Yet one game never has been sufficient to judge a player, particularly one unknown to the observer.  He didn’t look great, but a few keen watchers said he had talent.  Eleven years ago, similar aspersions were laid at the door of another South African batsman starting out, one who looked out of his depth at the highest level.  Perhaps people have heard of him – his name is Hashim Amla.

The one thing not to be is holier than thou over this; given the political element of the composition of the South African team the suspicion that better players are not going to be picked is always there, and Bavuma had hardly taken the world by storm in his first six Tests. For British observers though, he is nothing but a new player, and one who may or may not succeed – we rarely have the in depth knowledge to make assumptions about the ability of a particular player, and perhaps staying silent is the wiser course until the evidence is in place.  Plenty of people have been made to look stupid by Amla proving himself a wonderful cricketer, to risk it a second time is careless at best.

One innings doesn’t make a career, but the while the symbolism of Bavuma’s hundred is obvious, it was in itself a delightful innings, full of wonderful strokeplay.  Given the stick the England team gave him on his arrival at the crease and a slightly (but not dramatically) uncertain start, symbolism wasn’t required to take pleasure in seeing a young player ram the taunts back down English throats.

If nothing else, Bavuma’s innings lit up a day’s play of a Test that was limping towards a terminally dull conclusion.  Made off only 148 balls, it may not have had quite the brutality of Stokes, but it had style, dash and elegance.  It was, quite simply, a joy to watch.

Chris Morris deserves a word of praise as well; he had a difficult time of it with the ball, taking the brunt of Ben Stokes’ murderous assault, and for a young player on debut, it will have been a chastening experience.  Today was his day too, showing no little batting ability in making a fine 69.

England’s bowlers again didn’t do anything especially wrong, beaten by the pitch and the Kookaburra ball.  Indeed, the pitch has of course received the most criticism for being too batsman friendly, but a Duke ball might well have given the bowlers just enough for one side or the other to be able to force a result.  The pitch is only one element of the equation – although even then it would require England to have held their catches.

As far as the over-rate watch is concerned, once again the day finished with the 90 incomplete.  This time it was a solitary over short, and doubtless some will say that doesn’t matter, but the half hour additional has been invoked every day, and still the overs aren’t being completed.  In times past, this would not have mattered, as play would have continued until they were.  It was the TV broadcasters who objected to that, as late finishes played havoc with schedules.  The half hour leeway was intended to ensure all overs were bowled while still offering a definitive finishing time.  The match referee’s decision on over rates and any punishment following is not determined until the end of the match, but after four consecutive days of failing to meet their obligations, there is no excuse whatever for failing to take action.

Elsewhere today, news broke about a school match in India, where 15 year old Pranav Dhanawade shattered a century old record for the highest score in a competitive match, making a scarcely credible 1,009 in a game that redefines the term “one sided”.  It’s been interesting to follow the response to this, initially astonishment and no little awe, turning quite swiftly to criticism of the teachers for allowing it.

One final thing for now, although it is a subject which given the wider ramifications we will return to over the coming weeks and months.  The Lodha report in India on cricket governance in that country has taken something of an axe to the current BCCI structure.  What follows, whether that is court challenges or acceptance is something that will impact on cricket across the world.  What can be said, is that for the first time in a while, there is cause for a small degree of hope.  There’s a good summary on Cricinfo for those who wish to read a little more:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/story/957707.html

Day Five Comments Below

South Africa vs England: 2nd Test, day one

thelegglance115 Comments

One of the delights about Test cricket is how often the final hour of play proves pivotal, and makes the previous five hours seem pedestrian and unimportant in comparison.  It isn’t really like that of course, but day one is a set up day to begin with, and that final hour so often determines which side is the happier, almost irrespective of how things have gone up to that point.

For at drinks in the evening session, England were 224-5, not in trouble as such, but in severe danger of thoroughly wasting the opportunity of batting first.  Stokes and Bairstow’s thrilling counter-attack, particularly against the new ball, means that England will be reasonably content with their day’s work, though much more will be needed from them in the morning to turn it into a position of strength.

The day had largely been one of England players getting in and getting out.  Only Taylor was dismissed early; Cook was loose once again outside off stump, Hales caught in the slips again off a pretty decent ball, Compton nailed a pull straight to midwicket and Root played a rotten waft outside off stump.  If that seems overly harsh, individually it probably is.  Hales made his first Test fifty and batted extremely well, Root looked a million dollars and it was a surprise when he got out, and Compton played the number three role well again.  Yet for at least three of the top order to perish needlessly risked throwing away what could and should have been a position of dominance.  Sometimes these things just happen in the game of cricket, but it looked somewhat careless; the players will know that better than anyone – certainly Root looked about to explode as he left the field.

Compton himself has 179 runs in three innings since his recall, which ought to satisfy anyone.  Not withstanding his failure to go on from a start today, he is doing well.  Yet the pundits and commentators seem awfully quick to get on his back about his scoring rate. At lunch he was 3* off 27 balls, and it was a topic of conversation.  It is hardly unusual for a batsman to start that way, especially so in the run up to a break, and nor is it putting pressure on his batting partner at such a stage.  Given his struggles in the Test before he was dropped perhaps that is a legitimate topic of conversation, but the same thing kept cropping up throughout his innings, which was ultimately at the same strike rate as that well known blocker Alex Hales.    Nor is this a one off, given how Graeme Swann criticised Compton for slow play in the first Test, where Compton’s first innings knock was not only exactly what England needed, it went a fair way towards England winning the match.

Let’s be clear about this – Compton played a perfectly normal innings for a number three.  If it’s going to referred to as “staccato” then do so for other players, not just him – there is an undercurrent of being desperate to criticise for the sake of it.

But the day belonged to Bairstow and Stokes.  Their unbroken partnership of 94 came off just 19.1 overs, but it was the new ball that they were particularly severe on, particularly Stokes.  At one stage they were scoring at 9 an over, as Amla scattered the field.  There’s something to really like about this England team, and it’s the way the younger players respond to adversity by looking to attack.  It isn’t always going to come off, and an understanding of what they’re trying to do is needed.  That means not slating a batsman who is caught on the boundary for example.  It’s high risk but a calculated risk and when it comes off it is both thrilling for the spectator and can completely change the direction of the match.  We cannot have it both ways here: we can’t praise players for taking the game by the scruff of the neck and then complain when they get out.  Stokes could have been caught in the slips on at least two occasions when the new ball was taken, and mistimed a couple of pulls as well.  Yet it doesn’t, or shouldn’t matter – it is a calculated assault that on this occasion worked.

Bairstow played largely the supporting role, but scored not much less quickly.  He’s been good this series with the bat, and looks a much more solid player defensively, which bodes well for the longer term.

The big plus for South Africa was the bowling of Kagiso Rabada.  He’s clearly raw, but has pace, and the priceless quality of hurrying the batsmen even when the speed gun doesn’t necessarily support that.  Joe Root was very late indeed on one attempted pull, and lucky to survive.  For such a young bowler his control was decent as well, certainly better than Chris Morris, who Stokes in particular took a considerable liking to.  Given the injury crisis afflicting South Africa’s frontline bowlers – and there were suspicions Morkel wasn’t entirely fit by the end of the day – this is a welcome sign of promise.

One other item of business from today: even with the extra half hour, only 87 overs were bowled.  This is entirely unacceptable, there were 23 overs of spin in the day, and failing to complete the scheduled allotment is inexcusable.  The ICC have shown no kind of inclination to clamp down on what is tantamount to stealing from the paying spectator.  Fines clearly don’t work, so there is a need to find what does.  Run penalties are sometimes mooted, but there is an understandable reluctance to allow over-rates to impact on the game itself.  Yet if there was a ten run penalty for each unbowled over, does anyone really think that South Africa would have failed to get 90 in?  They would have made sure of it.  Three overs may not seem worth becoming exercised over, but this happens sufficiently often for 85 overs in a day to be considered reasonable.

Enough is enough.  The players are showing disrespect to those who pay to watch them.

317-5 is anything but a decisive score; early wickets will leave England some way below what looks like a par score on this surface.  But the ball turned for Piedt, suggesting that by days four and five spin could be a weapon, especially since Moeen gives the ball rather more of a rip than his counterpart.  In order for that to matter, England will need 400+ to put pressure on the misfiring Proteas batting order.

On balance, England will be the happier team this evening, but that is based more on the way the last hour unfolded than the score itself.  Tomorrow is another day and while the first session will not dictate how the Test will unfold, if England win it then they should be in good shape to put South Africa under pressure.  For all the plaudits Stokes will rightfully receive, this game is quite finely balanced.

Elsewhere, tonight is the start of the Australia – West Indies annihilation at the SCG.  This is nothing but depressing, not because of Australian dominance, but the desperate fall of West Indies cricket.  No fan of the game can feel anything but sadness, anger and despair about it.

Day two discussion below.

 

Dubai Day 5 (and tales of heroism and error)

LordCanisLupus100 Comments

Dubai-City-Tour

130 for 3. It is set up with the odds in Pakistan’s favour, with two of the England batsmen capable of causing trouble for the hosts back in the hutch. Seven wickets to take and with memories of how rapidly they can go fresh from Saturday morning, the game looks to be up. But England have been resilient in the past decade and one can but hope that someone other than Root stands up to be counted. I wouldn’t rely on it, but let’s be hopeful.

You know, I could be forgiving of someone who didn’t give the impression as being so above the plebs, but in a piece dripping with his usual superiority, the inability to remember Pakistan’s first innings (and how memorable was the last over of Day 1) in a piece is, well, quite outstanding.

MIsbah hundred Cropped

Misbah missed twin hundreds, but Younus completed his, and this, of course brought out the “he is inexplicably excluded from the conversation over great players”. Well, you may have excluded him, and so do many other British cricket correspondents who last saw him play three and a half years ago, but those on here who watch cricket around the globe know of his brilliance. The winning innings in Sri Lanka being a fitting stamp of class that the experts almost revel in not paying attention to. Saying Younus Khan is unrecognised would be to label the same status on Hashim Amla, who we don’t see for every three years or so on the international circuit. I’m not quite sure what the blind spot is? All the while Asad Shafiq is having a jolly decent series too. He looks a nice little player in the bits I’d seen of him before, and I’ll be fascinated how he does in England this summer. The batting woes of 2010 may be a thing of the past.

I’ll be interested to see what the media make of Cook’s shot. Yes, he was injured – you only had to watch him run for that – but Cook can block and leave better than anyone in test cricket. He top edged a sweep to deep backward square, and there was barely a word of complaint against him. Bell, meanwhile, in Selfey’s piece is called careless for not getting his glove out of the way, while Moeen, rightly, is giving a telling-off for a waft outside off stump. I know people will say “oh no, it’s you having a go at Cook again” but it really isn’t. It’s other people being called out for brain farts, and our captain not. He’ll be excused due to an injury, but really? I was a bit miffed and wonder if any of you really were?

Also, I wish we didn’t do this. It makes us look like whingers.

That said, Cook needs to be fit for the next game. The selection policy, well sign-posted, was that Moeen was the man incumbent in the UAE and that if things went well, they’d consider him for South Africa, and if not, Alex Hales would get a go. There is a feeling out there that this was a mistake, and the worst thing that could possibly have happened would be Cook getting injured. If the captain can walk, he plays. But what if he can’t? Cook looked awful between the wickets, and while he couldn’t channel his inner Gordon Greenidge, he is still an important, no vital, part of this team when playing well. Again, no problems at all in saying that.

I do say that any thoughts of calling Joe Root the best all round player in the world were rather put to bed by another AB deVilliers masterclass in Mumbai, as the visitors destroyed the Indians and put Dhoni’s comments that it would be difficult to score rapidly in the last 10 overs under the new rules into context. Three centuries in the innings, the others by De Kock and Du Plessis, sent South Africa into the stratosphere. India never came close. De Villiers hit 11 sixes in his knock, while Du Plessis went into beast mode as his leg cramped up. England fans should circlet 12 February. We play them at the Wanderers. Hide behind the sofa.

Rain prevented play in Colombo. So all my comments yesterday roll forward to tomorrow.

All comments for Day 5, a morning when I’ll be in wall-to-wall meetings so keeping up to date is going to be tough, should be posted below.

I leave you with Newman….

The official line is that England have ‘no concerns’ about Cook and with five days before the final match in this three-Test series there is a little more time than usual in the packed international calendar for the captain to recover.

But it was painful enough to watch Cook bat let alone for the captain to actually do it as he hobbled his way through 22 balls before falling when his body restricted his attempt to execute his first sweep shot.

Day 5

LordCanisLupus85 Comments

After an almost two month hiatus it’s back to normal. We see the puritanical, pompous muppets firing at the blog and its commenters for the same old reasons. We ain’t cheering hard enough.

Some on here aren’t England fans, if they hadn’t noticed, and a lot of those who comment who are from these shores still feel betrayed. All the paeans to our glorious leader aren’t going to change that. If anything, they exacerbate matters. It’s really not that hard to understand if you try.

Instead we got a load of old twaddle and a promise that the chief muppet won’t comment on here. We can but hope. I offered him a genuine opportunity to write something on his blog about the achievement of Alastair Cook in becoming the highest non-Asian test run scorer in Asia, but he declined and gave me some links to his KP pieces? I’m as confused as I was before.

So, we come to Day 5. I saw something that said the draw was 20/1 on, and I think that’s generous. For England to have won, that lead needed to be 80 or 90 and perhaps have a little dart tonight. I don’t blame them for being cautious, and for grinding Pakistan into the dust of Abu Dhabi, not at all. This is a step up from the capitulations on good batting tracks at the Oval and Lord’s and a necessary one. Root, Bell, Stokes and to some extent Buttler got some batting time under their belts, but we needed a dasher to make a dasher’s hundred on a non-dasher’s pitch and I’m not going to stick forks in them for not doing so.

As for Cook, I’m afraid people who don’t want to understand aren’t going to be persuaded. Back in 2011, when Cook was piling on 294 in much the same way as he did in Abu Dhabi, even some of his staunchest allies complained that it was all a bit too self-serving. I thought that harsh in a game where time was absolutely no issue. I was egging him on to get 300. I’m a fan of triple hundreds. I love the quiz on Sporcle about test 300s, often forgetting Younus Khan, for instance! England haven’t had one since 1990. They haven’t had one away since the 1930s.

Times have changed. If this were Root, if this were Ali, if this were Bell, if this were Bairstow, if this were Stokes, I’d have loved to see 300. But it’s Cook. And I’m afraid I just don’t like him. So while I sit here and say it was an excellent innings, it has pulled England by their bootstraps to a position of total safety, and it is an innings no-one else in the England team of the past 20 years could have played, do I rejoice? No. We all know why, and I’m not going into it. To pretend that I’m joyless, or sour, is to miss the point. Was Cook’s innings a joyful one? No. No-one is going to re-watch it for its aesthetic beauty or languid strokes. You are going to sit back and go “that was some effort. What concentration. What ability” but there’s no joy there. He’s done a magnificent job. I just don’t like him. That’s it. In the same way our critics didn’t like someone else, but we’re not allowed to mention that, because we’re obsessed.

On to the pitch and the utter nonsense being spouted about “pitches like these will kill test cricket”. If every dull game at a World Cup football Finals would lead to these calls, then the internet would blow up. For every good Champions League tie, there are a load of god awful ones. I’ve been to nearly 1000 football matches. I’d say 20% have been shockers. You aren’t guaranteed great entertainment on any surface. Spare me, please.

This pitch is as skewed against bowlers as Trent Bridge was against batsmen this summer. But that doesn’t matter, because England win on the latter, and have a tendency not to on the former. In 2012, South Africa made 600+ for the loss of 2 wickets and Anderson, Broad, Swann et al looked no more likely to get a wicket than they did in Abu Dhabi. But as we got humped on that surface, nothing seemed to get mentioned. If chances were taken in this match, the game would be a fair way more advanced. They weren’t. I’m not saying this is a great wicket – it clearly isn’t – but spare me the “death of test” twaddle. England getting a draw here will be a very, very decent achievement.

If you watched the 2000/01 series in Pakistan we endured 14 days of toil, attritional cricket, lit up at the end by the drama of Karachi. In 2005/6 we saw Pakistan pile on runs and England fail to cope. In 2011/12, we saw a team all at sea against spin. England have piled on well over 500. It’s a very good base to prepare for the next game.

I know the last two months have been slow on here. That’s been because I’ve found more interesting things to do, work has been busy, I got a great trip to Johannesburg, had tons of home media issues to sort (seems to be almost there) and, well, I was knackered. I’m not sure I feel that energised now, but I’m sure as hell not going to be fed a pile of old cack by people who, as usual, wilfully misrepresent what we do here. I’m thrilled so many have returned for these test matches. We’re back to well over four figures a day again, and it’s terrific. TLG will be returning soon, the cricket will keep us going, and the media will make us howl.

Plus ca change, you vile lot. Plumbing the depths. They do make me chuckle.

Comments on Day 5 here. We’ll do a round-up at the end of proceedings. As always, you may not agree with me, but you can disagree here. I won’t take it from those who do it from the sidelines, and I will remain like that. It’s much easier when you are a contented person, and at the moment, life isn’t too bad at all.

UPDATE – Twitter is funny this morning. I mean rib-achingly funny.

The Ashes: A Review

thelegglance45 Comments

This Ashes series was crap.  Bloody awful, one of the worst seen in this country in many years.

There, I’ve said it.  It runs completely counter to the narrative that so much of the media have gone with, whereby for some it was comparable in its wonder to 2005, but sorry it was rubbish.  Not because England won, not for a moment, but because there were five Tests, none of which offered up a contest.

With hindsight, Cardiff was the best of them, and had anyone said after that game that it would prove to be the case, there would have been wringing of hands across the cricketing spectrum.  Yet England’s win by the margin of 169 runs proved to be the closest the sides would be, with every subsequent result being even wider.  Aside from arguably Edgbaston, where the feeling was very much after day one that England had it in the bag, even if the final scorecard didn’t quite reflect that, it’s the only one where the game was in any kind of balance after the first innings were completed.

That England won the series was a welcome surprise, but winning doesn’t mean it was a good series in itself.  The greatest Ashes series of them all is routinely named as 2005, and Australians are as quick to agree about that as the English, even though Australia lost.  Because that series was a slugfest between two teams who fought themselves to a standstill and didn’t give an inch.  This was a series where as soon as one side got on top, the other waved the white flag of surrender and looked to the next match – the lack of fight, the lack of discipline and the lack of gumption was shocking from both teams.  This isn’t good Test cricket, it’s a slaughter.  What made this series a bizarre curiosity was that the slaughter went in both directions, meaning that at the start of every Test the unknown was which team would be wielding the cleaver, and which would be the tethered goat.

Test cricket can be one of the most captivating sports there is, because the timescale involved in each match allows for ebbs and flows, for sides to recover and fight back.  Magnified over a full five match series, it can rise to the heights of the majestic.  Not every five Test series can begin to reach such exalted standards as the very best, and when one side outclasses the other then it can be something of a long haul, even for the victorious supporters, who tend to feel a slight dissatisfaction about the lack of uncertainty about the outcome, but given even a modicum of competition, it is fascinating.

And therein lies the problem.  3-2 looks like it was a good series at first glance, but sport is only ever compelling where there is competition, and in each match there was barely any.  Indeed only one of them had that air of competition beyond the first day.

All of which makes analysing the series somewhat problematic.  Did England win it or Australia lose it?  Given both sides showed quite exceptional levels of incompetence mixed in with occasional brilliance, drawing conclusions from a little over or under half a series means that a caveat must apply in each instance.

For England, only Root so much as managed a century (two of them) in the whole series.  His batting was so far ahead of the rest of the team that when he failed, so did the team as a whole.  To put it another way, only he could look back on it as a batsman with unalloyed pleasure.  His next test will be to see whether he can replicate this kind of run scoring away from home.  There’s no reason to assume he won’t, but at present he is a player in a rich run of form.  If he carries on in the two difficult tours ahead, then he might really begin to be considered the real deal.

Cook had a real mixed bag with the bat.  Two fifties only in itself is a pretty poor return in a normal series, though in this one only Bell and Root passed fifty more often than him.  Yet both fifties were in defeat, and the second of them rather irrelevant given the match situation.  It’s somewhat ironic that in advance of the series this writer was anything but alone in feeling that for England to win, Cook would have to have a fantastic series.  In reality, his contribution with the bat to victory was absolutely nil.  His captaincy in contrast was fine.  Not outstanding, but decent enough.  The problem with Cook is not with Cook himself, it is how the media respond to him.  Competent captaincy is most welcome, he acknowledged himself that he had learned and changed his approach, good on him.  But it is now at the point where such competence is lauded as being worthy of Brearley, and it’s total nonsense.  Cook had a slightly disappointing series with the bat but captained perfectly well.  It isn’t disloyal or anti-England to state reality and not join in the hagiography.  Cook seems immune from any kind of criticism from sections of the press, and it doesn’t do him any favours.

The one thing which is certainly in his favour batting wise is that although he didn’t get the runs, he looks technically much more sound than he did during his miserable run in 2013/14.  At that time his head was far too far across to the offside, which dragged his feet across to the offside, making him vulnerable to both the straight ball and the edge behind.  That particular failing has been corrected, and he appears much more secure in his technique.  To that extent, his quiet series can be put down to one of those things, but given the poor time he had of it previously, he does need to start scoring heavily again fairly soon.

His batting partner Lyth has probably seen his Test career come and go, and the pain etched on his face with his second innings dismissal tugged at the heartstrings.  England have developed a habit of losing openers not called Cook in the last few years, and both Compton and Carberry must feel considerable irritation that they weren’t persevered with, in the latter case in the face of far better bowling than any of the other hopefuls have had to cope with.

Ballance has responded well to being dropped mid series, and time in county cricket getting his game back in order might be just what he needs.  He has plenty of ability, and he’s hardly the first to suffer a difficult sophomore season.

The middle orders of both sides have performed poorly.  Bell seemed to either have a relative feast or total famine, but in the context of the others, those three fifties represent a reasonable return.  There is a real question mark now over his future.  With the exception of the pleasure that was evident from his contribution at his home ground, he has cut an unhappy, if not a detached figure for a little while.  Some with a poor grasp of grammar might have described it as “disinterested” even.  If that is to be Bell’s last appearance in an England shirt, as seems possible from his comment about deciding his future in a couple of weeks, then it’s a loss to England, and one that smacks of carelessness.  He still has much to offer, and he’s only 33.

Bairstow and Stokes both did OK on occasion, and in the first instance deserves persevering with.  In the second, Stokes tended to show the difficulty faced by so many all rounders over the years of trying to get both disciplines functioning at the same time.  He is a player of immense promise, and at the stage of his career he is at, his ability to bowl wonderful spells as well as play match changing innings is as much as should be expected of him.

The same could be said for Buttler, who after coming into the side as someone who had batting talent but whose keeping needed a lot of work, proceeded to turn that on its head by keeping extremely well throughout (the legside catches standing back were good, the one standing up was outstanding) and being barely able to score a run.  His final innings of the series did appear to show a degree of learning from experience, and in itself that’s a promising sign.  The improvement in his wicketkeeping too implies a player willing to learn.

The final member of the middle order, albeit one who batted as low as nine when a nightwatchman was employed was Moeen Ali.  Like with Bell over the years, there is a predisposition to be both frustrated by him and to make excuses for him.  He is simply unutterably gorgeous to watch; his strokeplay is entirely reminiscent of Gower, and when his batting is flowing, there are few players in world cricket more enjoyable to witness.  His position in the batting order often meant he had to go for his shots at the end of an innings, and that’s probably the best way for him to bat, as his technique isn’t a tight one.  Of course, in his case there is a problem, which is that his primary role in this team is as a bowler – something that may be considered unfair on him.  He didn’t do badly in the series overall, looking back at previous posts in advance of the series, his final average of 45 with the ball was even a prediction for being considered adequate.  There are two issues here though, firstly that he was comprehensively outbowled by Nathan Lyon, and secondly England’s refusal to pick Adil Rashid, seemingly under any circumstances.

It’s doubtful there is a much better finger spinner in English cricket, and having gone with Moeen, he should receive sufficient faith for him to continue working on his game.  He will get better.  However, it is becoming ever more difficult to see a justification for Rashid’s continuing exclusion, and even harder to see why so many of the press are so dead set against him.  Moeen was tried out as being far from the finished product, and given time to develop.  Rashid seems to be expected to be a hundred Test veteran on debut.  Surely he will get his chance in the UAE, and long overdue.

Of all the bowlers, Broad was the clear stand out.  Given his record over the last few years, he’s in serious danger of being consistently underrated.  Barely a series goes by without demands for him to be dropped, yet he’s one of England’s most consistent performers with the ball, even without the stunning spell of 8-15 at Trent Bridge which was truly wonderful.  He even did well in the horror tour of Australia last time.  When he’s not bowling through injury, he’s a serious threat to any side in world cricket.  As long as he’s told to pitch the bloody thing up.

Anderson will most of all benefit from the break enforced by injury.  That he was even considered for the fifth Test is concerning.  He’s an exceptionally fit athlete, and could go on for several more years yet, if properly looked after.

The return of Steven Finn has to be the most welcome sight in the England team.  He’s still not back at the pace he was, no matter how much he tries to deny it.  Perhaps the confidence gained from being an integral part of the attack will allow him to up that pace, because a bowler of that height consistently bowling high eighties is going to be a difficult proposition anywhere.  What happened to him in the past is a matter of deep frustration, but looking forward he is still young, still taking wickets at a truly remarkable strike rate and needs to be allowed to just bowl.  If England have changed one thing in regard to their approach to him, then let it be to focus on his wicket taking ability, not how many runs an over he goes for.

Mark Wood is something of a conundrum.  He clearly has a lot of talent, but his injury record isn’t a good one, and there have to be concerns about managing him properly.  Australia did point the way there with Ryan Harris, who they wrapped in cotton wool and as a result got at least two more years out of him than anyone could have hoped for, including him.  Seam bowlers are almost always carrying some kind of injury, so it isn’t a matter of plucking him out of the team at the first sign of trouble, but it is one of ensuring he doesn’t suffer a major injury.

For Australia, this is the end of an era for many of the squad.  Harris finally succumbed to his troublesome body before it even began, and perhaps more than anything that proved to be the ultimate difference between the sides.  He has been an outstandingly good bowler who had an Indian summer to his career.  When he broke down in the 2010/11 series, the sadness was the feeling that would be it, a career over before it had even begun.  He may not have played 80 Tests, but he played a lot more than he had any right to, given his physical problems.

Australia’s top three all had decent enough series, with the proviso that like everyone else, when they were bad, they were very, very bad.  Chris Rogers was outstanding throughout, and probably wishes he could have played his whole Test career against England.  Oh hang, on he more or less did.   Warner in contrast made lots of contributions without ever going on to get a big score.  It means that his figures are decent enough, but lack a match changing or match winning innings.

Smith had a similar series to Bell in some ways, the difference being that when he did get in, he went on to a very big score indeed.  His idiosyncratic technique makes this quite likely, and with him it’s a matter of accepting that, and knowing that when he does get in, he is going to seriously hurt the opposition.  His batting went a fair way to winning two Tests, focusing on his troubles in the other three is somewhat harsh.

Clarke’s retirement at the end of the series broke the last link with the great Australian side of the first decade of this century.  He had a poor series, without question, but very few players call it a day in a blaze of glory, not least because of the need for team mates to do their bit to provide the correct result.  McGrath, Warne et al managed it when they whitewashed England, but that truly great side is an exception.  Few decide to retire because they’ve been playing so well, and Nasser Hussain’s beautifully timed retirement winning a Test match and series with a superb century simply shows he had a sense of timing with his career that wasn’t always present with his batting.

England gave Clarke a guard of honour, and predictably enough (and more than welcome) the English crowd gave him a standing ovation on his approach to the crease.  Sometimes English crowds make you feel quite proud of them.  Clarke deserves it.  He’s been a terrific player, a terrific captain, and for those of us lucky enough not to be Australian, he was our leader in cricket too in the most tragic of circumstances.  His honesty in the face of defeat, and refusal to hide behind platitudes also marked him out.  It has been nothing short of a privilege to watch him play, and to leave the game of cricket having made a positive contribution is as good a cricketing epitaph as there can be.  To lose him in the same week as the peerless Kumar Sangakkara is undoubtedly a blow to the game, and the ICC could do worse than listen to what they say about the future of cricket.  And pigs might fly.

Just like England’s, Australia’s middle order had a woeful time of it.  Ironically enough that failing was just as prevalent in the 5-0 last time, but they were bailed out repeatedly by the lower order.  Not this time, though Johnson and Starc had their moments with the bat.  The jettisoning of Watson was possibly premature, his trials with the lbw law are hardly new, and at Cardiff he was the recipient of a couple of decisions that were fairly questionable, particularly the first innings one.  His replacements didn’t do any better, although his career is now probably at an end, distinguished by being one of the great unfulfilled talents.

Voges made a late bid to extend his Test career, Mitchell Marsh shows a lot of promise as a true all rounder given that bowling was thought to be his weaker discipline (he didn’t bat well), Shaun Marsh showed again – and probably for the final time – that he simply isn’t quite good enough at the very highest level and Brad Haddin also reached the end of the road.  The manner of the conclusion to his Test career seemed to cause some discord in the Australian camp amongst the senior players.  It’s a difficult one.  His batting and keeping had both deteriorated to the point his place should have been in jeopardy even if it wasn’t.  Perhaps it should just be put down to being one of those terribly unfortunate instances where they were faced with two wrong choices, and went for the better cricketing one.

Peter Nevill looks a decent enough replacement anyway, although he didn’t contribute with the bat too much more than the rest of that middle order.  His first class batting record is a very good one though, and he looks a perfectly competent gloveman.

Of the bowlers, given the loss of Harris, Siddle did seem the obvious replacement.  With hindsight.  It is all too easy to look at his performance in the final Test and say he should have been there all along, but there weren’t many calls for him to be in the side at the expense of anyone else, and in advance it was felt that Johnson and Starc’s pace would be more than good enough for England anyway.  Both were intermittently major threats, and the rest of the time expensive.   Ironically enough, it was Josh Hazlewood who made way for Siddle, despite having a better record than either of them, and for reasons hard to fathom bore the brunt of the criticism of the seam bowling selection that saw Siddle called up.

Nathan Lyon too had a good series, and showed what he is – a very fine orthodox finger spinner.  He’s every bit the equal of Graeme Swann, and perhaps at long last Australia will be content with their lot in the spinning department rather than harking back to the days of Warne.

Given how the series unfolded, in this one perhaps more than any other, it can be said that 3-2 was a fair result.  Three times England hammered Australia, twice Australia hammered England.  If there was a sixth Test, it could have gone either way, probably with a hammering.

The England players will rightly look back on the achievement with great pleasure, for they were the underdogs in the eyes of everyone.  The win is there to be enjoyed, but these are two teams who are very much at the crossroads.  Australia will largely need a new one, and will have to spend quite some time rebuilding and finding the right combinations.  England are at least playing a much more positive style of cricket, but they look a deeply flawed side at this stage.  There are plenty of players in that side in the early stages of their careers, and there will be ups and downs in their own performances.  What is more worrying is the collective implosions they seem so prone to.  They have two very difficult tours ahead, and as a young side may well rise to the challenge.  But they are going to have to, because otherwise they are in trouble.

This wasn’t an especially enjoyable series.  When third day tickets become something of a risky purchase not through it being a poor pitch, but because either of the sides are incapable of lasting that long, then there is both something wrong with them, and something extremely wrong with the series.  Some of the batting was genuinely second rate, in shot selection and execution.  It is to be hoped this is something of an aberration, because more of the same is going to pall very quickly.  Recent history around the world suggests winning away is becoming ever more rare, in which case England will face both the next 9 months and the next Ashes series with considerable trepidation.

The most damning indictment of this Ashes series is that the two Test version against New Zealand offered far more entertainment, far more sporting hazard, far more tension that anything the five subsequent games did.  England won, and to that extent it was great.  But Test cricket supporters have always had one eye on the team and one eye on the wider game.  The game itself in this series was dreadfully poor.  Pointing to the other eye and ignoring that is simply refusing to see evil.

@BlueEarthMngmnt

Reflections

thelegglance137 Comments

It took as little time as anticipated for England to wrap up the fourth Test, and with it the series and the Ashes.  It has been an extraordinary win, all the more so for being so unexpected.  Yet in that sense it isn’t quite so different to last time, when Australia won 5-0, a result no one (apart from Glenn McGrath, who always forecasts that) expected either.

England are rightly celebrating, they thoroughly deserve to as well.  With the exception of Lords, which looks ever more peculiar in retrospect, they have battered Australia.  England did something in response to that defeat that much of the media failed to, which was to accept the pinch and move on.  England’s resilience following that hammering is something that they can rightly take pride in, and is the sign of a good team, or at least one that might become a good team.

Yet the danger in responding to this victory is in being wise after the event.  It isn’t vindication of the last two years because England didn’t play how they’d played over the last two years.  Cook is to be thoroughly praised for his captaincy because he didn’t captain the side how he’d done so up to this point.  That isn’t proof that those backing him as captain previously were right in any way, but it is a recognition that for whatever reason, he seems to have dramatically improved – something those supporting him didn’t demand he do.   And that is a fascinating development.  Cook was dreadful in Australia, he was worse against Sri Lanka, desperate against India, and a disaster as one day captain before his more than slightly hamfisted sacking.  In his interview after the game’s conclusion, he acknowledged that, admitting to being stubborn (not necessarily a bad thing), and to having made an effort to be more proactive and positive in this series.

Trevor Bayliss too chose his words carefully, saying that Cook had been excellent in this series, with a fairly clear implication when talking about how this had been done that he didn’t think he had been previously.  And that is about right – the only rational way to to respond to any situation is to adapt a view as the facts change.  Cook has been really good as skipper this series, and it is immensely to his credit that he has been prepared to take input from outside and learn.  After having been captain in the same rather plodding and defensive manner for quite a long time, that is perhaps the most welcome and unexpected development.  Being wise after the event means refusing to admit that no one saw this coming – and no one did.

Bayliss himself had come into the England set up at the start of this series, but he wasn’t present for the New Zealand one, which gave the first hint at Cook’s England adopting a different approach.  It was such a sudden switch after the West Indies series and the miserable World Cup that the removal of Peter Moores would seem to point to that being the major change.   Yet it is probably a little more than that – Moores’ style of coaching was similar to Andy Flower’s in one area, that it was prescriptive, with the coach directing the team rather than the captain.  That was seen time and again where England would come in after a session, and resume with entirely different tactics – the captain was the cipher for a coach telling them what to do.

The appointment of Bayliss, and the retention of Farbrace, indicated that this type of coach was not how Strauss saw the best interests of England – and that decision was a wise one.  Whatever anyone thought of Cook’s captaincy, it was frustrating to see him not actually captain the side himself.   It is therefore a possibility that the change in coaching set up allowed Cook for the first time to captain the side how he wanted to.  England have been the only side where the coach has been given such power, and Bayliss and Farbrace are more in the Fletcher model, where the coach stands in the background to support the players and the captain runs the team.

It’s no coincidence that England players have quickly felt the freedom to back their own ability under this kind of structure, nor that the previously rigid set up limited that freedom.  Playing without fear is an easy thing to say, but it requires a system where players aren’t berated for their failures.  England under Moores and Flower certainly had success, but the team became ever more hidebound, negative and restricted, terrified of making a mistake – and it was that attitude that Australia pounced on in 2013/14.

Equally, the early season series against New Zealand may have acted as the dropping of the scales in front of English eyes; if that is the case, then England may well owe a debt of gratitude to Brendon McCullum, though perhaps Australia would have been equally well advised to have had a chat to Kane Williamson about how to play the moving ball.  The one day series too, with England playing scintillating cricket, showed a break with the shambles of the past, in intent if nothing else – which is why no one greatly cared if England lost that final match, they were far too wowed by the style of play.  The point is that it is easy to blame Moores, but he was simply continuing an approach that he himself started and Andy Flower continued.  It worked for a while too, but signs of problems were there long before the implosion in Australia if only some had paid attention to those pointing them out.

The hardest part of coaching is being able to keep out of the way.  Bayliss, when responding to questions about Cook’s captaincy, demurred at the idea he’d given instructions, saying all he had done was to offer options, and it was up to Cook to then choose – and that he chose wisely.

What happens next is the key, because harder challenges lie ahead, in the UAE and South Africa.  At the start of this series the feeling was that this would be Cook’s last as captain – the appointment of Root as his deputy and the end of cycle feel about Ashes series indicated that win or lose, it might be time to move on.  The nature of England’s win has changed that somewhat, though Cook may still feel that he could go out on a high by doing so. Yet the change is that he now can choose himself, rather than circumstances dictating.  It isn’t the win that has done that, it’s the way England won, and the way he himself led the side.  Let’s make no bones about it – it was quite impressive, and all the more so for being so unexpected.

There has been a clear shift in so many other ways too.  The England players made a point of going around the ground after each win and meeting the supporters, posing for selfies, signing autographs.  The interviews have been much more open and honest – all things that have been areas of deep criticism for the England of the last 18 months and beyond.  There is not a chance of the ECB ever apologising for anything that they’ve done, but this at least is a start and a move in the right direction.  Whether it is mere lip service or something more, is down to the ECB.

One of the most striking things about this England side is the clear joie de vivre that the young players have brought to the team.  There has been a changing of the guard in many ways beyond the obvious, a recognition that in order to get the best out of them, letting them free to do their thing is the way to do it.  Stokes, Root, Moeen and Wood have been the most evident examples, and even the grumpy old curmudgeons like Broad (OK, that’s a touch unfair on him) and Anderson have bought into it.  The England dressing room appears a much better place to be than it has been for quite a long time.  The idea that this win is a put down of all those who have been calling for exactly this is somewhat bizarre.  This is not the England team approach that received so much criticism.  It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that one particular player would have thrived in such an environment, given it is exactly what he wanted to see in the first place.

Certainly Joe Root has benefitted, and has gone to number one in the Test player rankings as a result.  It may be that it is a purple patch of form and nothing more, but there are signs that he may be becoming a genuinely fantastic batsman.  He scores so quickly, without apparent effort.  Technically, he is getting out to the ball much better than he did when he was dropped in Australia, where he hung back in the crease.  His weight distribution now comes forward into the ball, hence the glorious drives – but more than anything, his approach is one where he is first and foremost looking to score runs.  This too is an expression of a change of mentality in the side, and one in which he’s thriving.  That England now have a set up that is seeking to get the best from their players rather than berate them and keep them in line, amazingly enough seems to work.

The bowlers too have performed admirably.  Broad has been underrated for quite a while; yet his record in recent years has been very good, even in the Ashes meltdown of 2013/14 where he along with Stokes was pretty much the only player who could hold his head up high; the biggest issue with him is when England insisted on playing him through injury.  He is now number two in the bowling rankings, with Anderson just behind him.  Yet those two are a known quantity, what is welcome is seeing how the support bowlers have performed.  They’ve not always got the results that might mark them out as being special, but they have shown immense promise.  Stokes blows hot and cold, as young players tend to do, Wood looks like he has pace and the ability to move the ball.  They have potential, if correctly managed.  As for Finn, one fine match and one quiet one is fine as long as he continues the upward trajectory.  He too is indicative of a different approach from the England side, allowing him to bowl rather than micro-managing him.  Again, it is to be greatly welcomed, and with a degree of luck, the results should follow, and the pace return.

All of the others contributed.  Lyth may not have had a great series to date, but the way he set about the small target at Edgbaston extinguished Australian hopes early, while his catching was very good.  He won’t be content with his series, and nor should he be, the Oval may signal a last chance for him, but he has had an effect on the outcome.  Bell batted superbly at Edgbaston but has had a quiet series outside of that.  The jury remains out for Bairstow, but he did bat well at Trent Bridge, while Buttler has had a poor series with the bat, but kept extremely well.

And Moeen, well Moeen has bowled just about adequately, but batted very well indeed.  Which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given he’s a batsman first and foremost.  Two spinners will be needed in the UAE, and while Moeen might well be the best off spinner England have (depending on whether Panesar can continue his rehabilitation), the Oval could well be the opportunity to introduce Adil Rashid.

For Australia, the big news was the announcement of Michael Clarke’s retirement.  At many times he has been a prophet not honoured in his own land, but the warmth of the reception he got from the Nottingham crowd showed the esteem in which he is held.  He has had a year of unimagined highs and tragic lows, and perhaps that finally proved too much for him, in which case that would be completely understandable.  He has been a fantastic player and an often inspirational captain.  But over the last year, what he proved more than anything else was that he was a leader with whom few could compare.  When Phillip Hughes was tragically killed, Clarke managed to speak not just for a nation in shock, but the whole cricketing world.  He became everyone’s captain, one who all who have picked up a bat would have followed to the ends of the earth.  In terrible circumstances, he stood tall.

Sport is cruel, and doesn’t often allow fairytale endings.  But Clarke will undoubtedly receive a standing ovation on both his last visits to the crease in international cricket, and few England supporters would begrudge him a century if the cricketing gods were to smile just once more on this supremely talented player.  There is so much more that can be said about him, but one must defer to Jarrod Kimber, whose article captured it perfectly.  It is outstanding:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/content/story/908005.html

In this series, Clarke himself was a paradigm for the batting woes of his team.  Apart from Chris Rogers, and to some extent David Warner, they all struggled.  Steve Smith had one fabulous Test, but apart from that looked horrifically out of form, demonstrating how quickly confidence can turn to despair in a batsman.  The middle order has had a calamitous series, with only Adam Voges’ unbeaten half century in heavy defeat offering up any kind of contribution.  He did enough to save his career for a further Test, but beyond that, given his age, he may not have much further to go.

Rogers will finish at the Oval, and with Clarke going too, plus Haddin’s and Watson’s careers being likely over, there will be major changes to the Australian team after this series.  Shaun Marsh has yet to look a Test cricketer, and is 32, while Mitchell Johnson absolutely is a Test cricketer but is nearly 34.   And perhaps that was always likely to be the case even if they had won.  Right at the start of this series, this blog made the argument that you never know if it is one tour too many until it actually happens.  This has indeed turned out to be one tour too many, yet although that possibility was acknowledged pre-series, there wasn’t much in the way of evidence that it would happen, more a feeling that there was the potential for it, and nothing stronger than that.

With so many players likely to move on, the management of that shift is going to be critical.  The reason for including Johnson in the above list is that it would be criminal to lose him at the same time as all that experience elsewhere.  He is bowling quickly and well, and has shown little sign of age catching up with him.

The home summer coming up for them comprises New Zealand and the West Indies.  It’s going to be a tough first half for a new team.  The blow of losing Ryan Harris on the eve of the series perhaps did more than anything to wreck the plans for a last hurrah for the older generation.

For England, it has the potential to be a firm base from which to build.  The talent has always been there, it’s how it was harnessed, and the reality is that it was harnessed extremely badly for much of the preceding 18 months.  That they have managed to get a basic grip on it now is to the credit of all those behind it.  But it doesn’t excuse those 18 months, and it certainly doesn’t excuse the ECB for their wider failings.  If used properly from here, they could genuinely reclaim their position in the hearts of all England fans, but it would be a mistake to think this Ashes win will do it and make everything in the garden rosy.  Cricket in this country is in trouble.  Cricket in the world is in trouble.  The alignment of England’s undoubtedly rousing victory with the release of Death of a Gentleman makes it foolish to believe that this solves everything, because it doesn’t.  But it could be a first step used wisely.  The doubt is whether that wisdom exists, that it will be used as a smokescreen to cover all the other issues that exist.  England have won, but those Outside Cricket have been merely waved at from the ivory towers.

For now, let us appreciate the return of the urn, and the efforts of an England team who have surpassed expectations.  For a Sunday, that is more than enough.  But the wider issues will not go away.

@BlueEarthMngmnt

Ashes 2nd Test: Day 2 review

thelegglance36 Comments
P1060682
Ballance is bowled by Johnson – look closely and you will see a bail in mid-air….

Now what was I saying about all those who piled in to complain about the pitch after one day?  In the Australian press it was all about England doctoring the surface, which apparently means creating one that Australia rack up a huge score on, and then rip through the England top order.  Indeed, it was wryly amusing to hear Stuart Broad imply that the surface very much aided Australia and not England.  Spin on both sides.

Meantime, the English press went big on the idea that it was a nailed on draw, that the groundsman should be shot and that it was impossible to get wickets on.  The old adage that you shouldn’t judge a pitch until both teams have batted on it is as true as it ever was.  Australia have bowled superbly on it, and have put themselves in prime position to square the series.

There did seem to be a little bit more in it today, but it remains excellent for batting, as Australia demonstrated all too well in their innings. Steve Smith led the way with 215, and as fabulous as that innings was, it was curiously less assertive than normal, and slightly more sketchy than at his best.  Which if anything should cause serious alarm in the England dressing room.  For Chris Rogers, it’s quite possible that his 173 is his last innings at a ground where he has served Middlesex so well.  If so, it’s quite a way to finish.

From there, the scorecard looks like Australia fell away somewhat, which is a good example of a scorecard not conveying a match situation.  Australia were pushing on and trying to score quickly.  Slow surfaces are often quite hard to score rapidly on, and the wickets fell at regular intervals.

England’s reply was a shambles.  As has been pointed out England keep finding themselves three down for very little, and sooner or later Joe Root wasn’t going to bail them out.  Adam Lyth’s poke at a wide ball was fairly typical of what often happens when a team has been in the field for the best part of two days, but it doesn’t make it any better a shot.  Ballance was again undone by a full ball, and while it is good to keep faith with a player, it’s at the point now where he’s not going to get anything else, so transparent are his difficulties.  He needs to work this out and fast.

Bell too was undone by a full ball, and once again this has become a notable weakness in his game.  Any player can be beaten by a full swinging ball, but not time and again. As for Root, he failed today.  It’s going to happen sometimes. From there, Cook and Stokes batted extremely well.  Broad again made a rather telling slip in the post play interview saying that it looked much better when England batted in a more disciplined way.  The implication of that was fairly clear.

There’s no reason whatever England can’t continue to bat that way, this remains a very easy paced, very flat surface. The trouble is that having lost four cheap wickets, they are 481 runs behind.  It is a huge ask for them to even reach the follow on point, no matter how flat the pitch might be. About the only positive they have is that they have frontline batsmen down to number eight in the form of Moeen Ali.  But to even get to within 200 runs, more than one player has to score a century.  All hopes really rest on Cook going very big and batting through.  It’s a big ask, but it’s what’s necessary.

England have got themselves in a horrible hole, and have been completely outplayed in the first two days.  The reality of their plight is that they can’t afford to lose so much as a single session if they want to get out of this one.  1-1 seems almost inevitable given the time left. @BlueEarthMngmnt