New Zealand 443 and 241-6 dec. England 204 and 90-4.
The inquest begins here into England’s first test series defeat to New Zealand for fourteen years. Forget about any prospect of us surviving for the draw – it’s just too long to bat given the personnel available. You’ll be waking up tomorrow morning, checking your phone, and discovering that we’ve lost by at least 250 runs.
So how did it all go so badly wrong? It’s very difficult to put one’s finger on quite why we’ve been outplayed so comprehensively in two of the three tests – partly because most explanations quickly throw up a counter response.
In one sense, this tour has been a disaster from start (losing the warm up match), to finish. But in another, we would have won the second test had it not been for the rain – and if so, the dynamic for this third test would have been completely different.
The tone for the series was set at Dunedin, where both our batsmen and bowlers seemed rusty – inviting the obvious inference that our squad were underprepared, having played little meaningful cricket since December. The problem with that analysis, however, is not only that several of our test players performed well in the preceding one dayers, but that we’re now into the third match, and all the XI should by this point be operating at full capacity.
Have we simply lost form? That’s probably true of the bowlers, and for different reasons. Although Broad has bowled much better than he did in India, it would be stretching a point to suggest he’s back to 100% of the player he once was. Anderson is struggling either with an undisclosed fitness problem, or a mental weariness, or maybe both, while Finn has lost confidence. Monty has not bowled well, clearly, but he’s probably not been used in the most productive way – largely called upon to bowl defensively rather than take wickets.
It’s harder to argue, though, that the batsmen are collectively and signally out of form. Cook, Trott and Compton (twice) have all scored centuries; KP, Bell and Prior have all made major scores too. So why haven’t they batted more consistently, and why have they several times come violently undone at the hands of modest bowling on flat pitches? This is extremely difficult to explain.
Several pundits have suggested that Team England have been complacent about New Zealand, both during the tour and beforehand. From where we’re watching, far away, that’s hard to tell, but my hunch is that is not true, and the coaches and players have worked in as focused and determined a way as always. This is only Cook’s second series as captain, and someone as driven, down to earth, and meticulous as him is very unlikely to have taken anything for granted.
The most likely explanation, I’d venture, is also the most prosaic – that for no specific or particular reason, nothing England have done or tried has worked properly, and that this tour was always destined by the cricketing gods to be a nightmare for England. It was ill-starred from the moment they got off the plane. Cricket sometimes works like that, when inexplicably a good team plays badly or a bad team plays well, confounding all the predictions and the atmosphere of the build-up.
When it happens, it might just be that the chemistry is all wrong, and I suspect that has been a factor here – the England squad found themselves in a bad mood, and a fractious one, as soon as the first tour match began, and haven’t manage to ever shake it off. As a consequence, nothing has felt right or gone well.
All of this might sound like an excuse for poor performances, but professional cricketers don’t deliberately play badly, on purpose, just to annoy us. From what I’ve seen, our side have tried very hard to play well – it just hasn’t worked. And castigating them for sub-standard cricket doesn’t achieve anything if you can’t identify what the actual problem was.
One factor which perhaps hasn’t been fully appreciated is the way New Zealand have played, and especially their batting. The Kiwis often bat with confidence and tenacity in ODI cricket, and over the past few weeks they’ve managed to reproduce that spirit in the test cricket. I wonder if one reason for this – and the extent to which they’ve played with such freedom – is because they’ve felt they’ve had nothing to lose. Everyone expected them to fold against a strong England side, and expectations were so low the Black Caps probably figured they should just go out and play, try their luck, and see what happens. By contrast, our England side had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, which has proved inhibiting for the players, just as it did against the West Indies last spring.
As the full consequences of our impending defeat sink in over the next few days, there’ll be plenty more for us to unpick. But at least there’s one cause for solace – although it will end in grave embarassment for us all, this boring, frustrating, and thoroughly wretched test series will, at least, soon be over.
