‘Daisy’ To Miss First Test

When Jimmy Anderson was struggling for consistency in his younger years, he developed the nickname Daisy: some ‘days-he’ does and some ‘days-he’ doesn’t. I hope the nickname doesn’t make a comeback in the twilight of his career: some ‘days-he’ plays and some ‘days-he’ doesn’t.

After missing the last two Ashes tests last summer, Jimmy has now been ruled out of the first test against the Cricketboks. It’s a massive blow to England’s chances in my opinion. The experts expect it to swing when the action starts on Boxing Day. And nobody swings the ball quite like our Daisy.

With several of England’s batsmen likely to struggle against better quality opposition, our bowlers need to take as many cheap wickets as possible. England’s best chance of success is to get dragged into a kind of shoot-out. Now our top gun will be missing.

Rumour has it that Chris Woakes will play in Jimmy’s absence. Don’t all groan at once. I suppose Woakes is the most similar option in terms of style, although it’s not exactly like-for-like. Woakes is a little more orthodox, and perhaps even a shade quicker than Jimmy at this stage of his career, but he clearly lacks Anderson’s skill and experience.

England therefore look likely to field the following attack: Broad, Finn, Woakes, Stokes and Moeen. I’m sorry, but that attack doesn’t get my Christmas juices flowing at all. Broad is obviously a good bowler (although he can be a tad innocuous if he’s out of rhythm and down on pace), but Finn can be fragile and Woakes rarely worries top-class batsmen. I expect that Stokes be actually be our most aggressive bowler in the absence of Mark Wood. Moeen will do a job (if he’s having one of his better days) but I doubt even his biggest supporters expect him to repeat the six wicket haul he took against Cricket Boks A.

It’s all a bit disappointing really. Everything had been going so well. There were runs for all our top six batmen in the warm-up games and the bowlers were strutting their stuff to. However, losing Anderson is a big psychological blow – even if his record in South Africa isn’t particularly good. Look how much the Aussies missed Ryan Harris in the summer and how much Pakistan missed Yasir Shah in the first test. It always gives the opposition a lift when the leader of the attack is missing.

Although Broad blew away the Aussies at Trent Bridge on a pitch made-to-order, we mustn’t forget that England were dismal at The Oval and got punished accordingly. Anderson has a canny knack of exploiting batsmen’s technical weaknesses, and I was expecting him to knock over South Africa’s flimsy top order with relative ease. I’m a lot less confident now. Finn still isn’t as consistent as he should be. He tends to be at this best when the wickets have good pace and carry. Swing isn’t necessarily his ally.

Of course, many of us were hoping that Mark Footitt might get a game. I think this is unlikely now. For Footitt to play, one senses that England would need to feel very confident in their other seamers. Selecting something of a loose cannon is probably a risk too far now that Anderson is missing.

I imagine Woakes will play because he’s seen as the safer pair of hands. Sigh. At least his presence lengthens the batting though. England’s fragile line-up will need all the runs it can muster. Woakes probably has just as much ability with the blade as the lesser of our so called ‘specialist’ batsmen. He’s a decent player.

How much do you think Anderson absence will hurt England? Is Woakes the right man to replace him? And do you think I’m being overly negative? For all of England’s weaknesses, let’s not forget that the Cricket Boks have their fair share of flaws too. And some of them are as a wide as the Oribi Gorge.

James Morgan

PS Happy christmas everyone! Have a great time.