It’s The Hope (and the Brathwaite) That Kills You

We all wanted the Windies to put up a fight. I’m not sure we wanted them to actually beat us! But after two days at Headingley that’s exactly where we’re headed. Recent history tells us that whenever England get on top in a game they win big. But when the opposition get on top we lose by a similarly large margin. England haven’t been involved in a close test match for over a year.

It’s all incredibly unexpected and it’s hard to know how to respond. Whatever way you look at it, however, this has been one hell of a wakeup call. Even if England manage to pull themselves back into the game, and set the Windies a challenging 4th innings chase, questions should still be asked.

First of all we should say congratulations to Shai Hope and Kraigg Brathwaite. The opposition’s batsmen are allowed to play well from time to time (no matter how their team has struggled in the past) and the two Windies heroes certainly did that. Both of them played exceptional test innings – knuckling down when the ball was moving around in the morning and then cashing in when the sun came out later in the day. England’s batsmen could actually learn a hell of a lot from them.

On yesterday’s evidence, both Shai and Kraigg would walk into the England team. Brathwaite is just the sort of old school opener that traditionalists admire. He’s not pretty but he’s pretty effective. Hope on the other hand looks extraordinarily talented. He’s stylish, has plenty of time to play the ball, scores all around the wicket, and when he plays the pull shot off one leg it’s a little reminiscent of Brian Lara. I thought his innings was pure class.

Although poor captaincy let the batsmen off the hook at times – Root followed the ball with his slip placements, watching regulation edges fly through random gaps before immediately filling these gaps once the horse had bolted – England didn’t do an awful lot wrong. Yes, we bowled a little too short when the ball was swinging early on the second morning, but none of the bowlers were particularly terrible.

What this tells us – or perhaps I should say reminds us – is that England traditionally struggle to bowl sides out when the pitches are flat and it stops swinging. It’s been this way for years (and we’re not the only side to struggle with this problem of course).

When conditions favour the batsman a captain usually needs genuine pace or mystery spin to bowl sides out. England have neither. It has been a long time since we’ve had the former and I don’t think we’ve ever had the latter.

When the skies are grey, and Jimmy is making the ball talk, England’s attack looks as potent as any in the world. But when the sun is shining, and the ball has lost its shine, we frequently look a bit toothless.

Unfortunately, as occasional TFT writer Media Penguin reminded me on Twitter, the suns shines rather a lot in Australia. And the Kookaburra ball doesn’t swing for very long either.

James Morgan

11 comments

  • I am on one level pleased that West Indies are showing some fight. And a wake-up call now is better than in the Ashes. I know Tony Cozier rated Hope highly and he was a good judge. I imagine him sitting in cricket heaven with a smile and maybe a glass of rum and some ice cream.

  • Same patten. England win a Test easily and then think oh we are ok here. They did that with DA and then were rocked back to lose the next one so then concentrated a bit more. Beatbthe W. Indies easily, relax, easy pesy and look what happens. Complacency all the time

  • The most concerning thing for me is that 2 batsmen unfamiliar with English conditions on one of our most idiosyncratic grounds were able to show the mental strength and technique to bat sensibly hour after hour, even during the early period when conditions undoubtedly favoured the bowlers. No English batsmen has produced a test match style innings to rival this pair all summer. The bowling was decent, so the batsmen went into risk assessment mode, something we’re poor at, having so many instinctive stroke players. Even Root seems to lose concentration from time to time. If he and Stokes had been caught when they gave good chances we would have been in Queer Street.
    With all the resources at our disposal, telling us how to bat and bowl here, we have not adapted as well as an inexperienced team with an Aussie coach.
    We should take note and stop trying to drive good length balls, something that accounted for half our wickets in the first innings. It is note bad luck it’s bad technique and worse judgement. With such fine margins operating at this level we need to learn fast and stop the crass platitudes in post match interviews.

  • Try this: If we are going to have a hitter at 5, have the best which is Hales by far. Alternatively try Woakes at 5, who is all a better bat than Malan, and keep TRJ at 9. With this pitch not doing much, rather like Lords, he bowls fuller and might have been more effective. However the rather clueless selectors still haven’t solved nos 2 and 3, and time is running out.

  • Well done, the Windies.
    England’s concerns over nos. 2, 3 & 5 mean that they feel obliged to pick a team that bats all the way down to no.9 – Broad (since his blow on the head) and Anderson are both walking wickets – which is keeping out better bowlers (Leach, for example). And let us not forget that Root, for all his undoubted ability, has benefited considerably from being dropped early on in several test innings this season – the Aussies won’t be as accommodating.

  • Well, atleast a wake up call now is better than one during the ashes. Never ever take your opposition lightly, or as a former coach at my school used to say “You have always got to prepared with an axe, to kill the mosquito”.

    • On another note, Stokes has 3 demerit points already, and another one will see him banned for Antone match. You can be sure that the aussies are going to try and get him to do something stupid, he does seem incredibly easy to wind up.

  • Just a thought on five-day Test cricket, if the chairman of Yorkshire had his way we wouldn’t be playing this game today. I wonder if he’d like to donate the gate/bar receipts that he’ll receive today to a worthwhile caus

  • Clearly still big problems at 2,3 and 5. For West Indies. Seriously, that was a fab test match, and a big wake up call to England (also hopefully, a big boost for West Indies cricket). At least the Aussies have just lost in Bangladesh. And can we stop this nonsense about 4 day test matches? This is mainly about West Indies, because yesterday was their day. They have a young (in test experience terms) side, who played out of their skins at Headingley. Roach and Gabriel looked like proper opening bowlers (particularly first innings), Holder did an excellent support job, Brathwaite and Shai Hope were superb. Bring back the “rebel” players and the side can look like: Brathwaite, Gayle, Darren Bravo, S Hope, Samuels, Chase, Russell, Dowrich, Holder, Roach, Gabriel. That has a good balance, and looks competitive.

    • I’m not sure about Gayle in long-form cricket now he’s 37.

      Ditto Samuels at 36 – meaning he’s older than his test batting average.

      Russell’s still got a while to serve on his doping ban – and has played a “princely” 17 first class matches since his 2007 debut, with none in the last 3 years

      But adding Darren Bravo at 3 would make a fair improvement

  • An absolute cracker of a test match, initially i thought the windies might become to defensive to avoid defeat but the way hope and brath played was simply incredible… although there weren’t many contributions from the other batters so all is not well for them yet.

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