Many of England’s critics, including the editor of this platform, have blamed everyone from Chris Silverwood to the ECB itself for our Test team’s failings in recent times. But are we being too harsh? After all, it’s extremely hard to beat India away from home. It always has been. And surely there’s no shame in losing to New Zealand, who are a very fine side, with key players like Stokes missing? Today new writer Robert Meakings states the case for the defence …
Much has been made of England’s rest and rotation policy; however, it would be short-sighted to blame their recent defeat to New Zealand on selection. Stokes, Archer and Foakes are injured, while Butler, Woakes, Bairstow, Moen Ali and Sam Curran have recently returned from the IPL and not played first-class cricket for a number of months. Asking them to play would’ve been unfair and disrespectful to Test cricket and New Zealand.
Chris Silverwood is trying to build a traditional Test match squad, built around patience, control and resilience. Against New Zealand, England played the best side they had available. Broad and Anderson played in both Test matches, as did their fastest bowler in Mark Wood. Ollie Robinson, who has been one of the best bowlers on the county circuit for the last couple of years fully deserved his opportunity and when he was unavailable for the second Test, he was replaced by Ollie Stone, the next best in line who has impressed in his short Test career.
Arguably Jack Leach should have played a part in the series, but it would have made no difference. England were outplayed in all departments by a superior New Zealand side who are setting the standard for Test match cricket with relentless bowling, mature batting and faultless catching, accompanied by a large helping of leadership and team spirit.
The challenge for England is to regroup, learn and move forwards. Silverwood now has soul control over the selection and coaching of the team, and over the course of the upcoming India series he has the opportunity to put his mark on the side and develop a squad of players capable of regaining the Ashes in Australia.
England must improve their game management and win the big moments of matches. This will undoubtedly require some changes to the team with the key return of Stokes and Butler, who bring genuine international quality and experience into the group. This is not 1999 all over again and I am backing England to beat India comfortably and arrive in Australia with a squad of players all capable of performing at the highest level.
Robert Meakings
The problem is the batting. The bowlers performed well against NZ and put us in a good position in the second test. None of the names mentioned in this article have an impressive test batting average. Jos Buttler’s 34 average and mediocre keeping isn’t the answer nor Bairstow – although he is the better keeper. England need top order batsmen who can play long test match innings. The game in England is built around t20 and the h******d which is the root (no pun intended) of the problem.
I suppose I agree with the general point – selection isn’t to blame. The ECB are to blame for creating conditions that favour pantomime cricket over developing strong first class techniques.
“Chris Silverwood is trying to build a traditional Test match squad, built around patience, control and resilience.”
Well, based on our batting performance at Edgbaston he’s not making much of a fist of it !
Yes they were outplayed in all departments by a far superior side. But I really don’t think Butler, Ali or Bairstow would have made much, if any difference. Stokes can be a game changer, but batting average is 36 and he hardly bowls any more, which is a major worry in the balance of the side. But he can change his game to suit the match situation which is a lot more than our top 7 could do in the last game. Root has a mind fog about Woakes who hasn’t played a Test in a year. From a side full of middle/lower order all rounders we’ve got none. Sam Curran should have played and Leach which would have offered a left arm option and a front line spinner. NZ’s part time spinner took wickets. You don’t go into a Test with no spinner and 4 seamers, that’s really basic stuff.
Someone on this site said the other day that players need proper career development, they do. Tom Currans career for example has gone down the toilet since he went on the hit and giggle circuit, even his one day bowling has left him.
But until the current structure of English Cricket is restructured and refocused little will change. And I don’t see a pleathora of other countries players resting for weeks on end. You won’t get better with your feet up.
“players need proper career development, they do. Tom Currans career for example has gone down the toilet since he went on the hit and giggle circuit”.
That is proper career development in this brave new cricketing world.
The article rather blithely excused certain players being missing because they were injured without asking how and why they got injured. As for picking players straight from the IPL and lacking red-ball practise being disrespectful, does anyone remember that NZ’s IPL players had three days between the end of the IPL and the First Test on their last tour in 2015? Would we really have rathered they left out McCullum, Southee and Boult (and possibly Williamson – not sure if he was in the IPL back then) on grounds of supposed “respect”? I also don’t recall the English media feeling that fact de-valued the win and instead it was all “new era” and “everything the ECB’s done is now justified”.
Dear Doug,
Love your comment about not going into a test with no spinner. I generally agree
with this comment. However, noted in the current WTC that New Zealand are playing
without a front line spinner.
Technically NZ dont have a spinner even when Santner is selected … He’s a white-ball expert, for red ball he seems to be there as a batter
The lack of a spinner might be a bit different in NZ’s case, they have De Grandhomme to do that role of low run rate, tie up an end stuff. And they are blessed with a varied attack, so less need for that variation?
Ideal to have one, dont get me wrong, but lucky to be able to make do without easier than other teams?
I went to my first cricket match alone in 1947 to see Surrey play Middlesex at the Oval, at the age of 10, travelling 15 miles from Purley to the Oval in a tram. My pocket money was 2/6d a week and I spent it all that day…and had 1d change. In addition to travel costs and getting in the ground, I bought a score card and a cushion to sit on the hard benches plus the luxury of an ice cream! In those days, The counties (17) played 28 3 day games and Dennis Compton scored 3,816 runs and hit 18 tons in 1947! That was first class cricket then. (I saw one of his tons against South Africa at Lord’s, scored between lunch and tea!)
And the papers had a full report on every game. The season started on or around 1st May. And still we had problems with the selectors and beating Australia! Players chosen to pay for England abroad would travel by boat and be away from home for several months at a time. It was a hard life being a professional cricketer and badly paid compared to now. TV? If you wanted to watch cricket you went to the match. The first time I saw cricket on TV was the famous Oval match 1n1953 when we won the Ashes for the first time since 1933. On a girl friends’ black and white 12″ TV.
So things have changed since then. The county championship which I followed avidly is now debased . I have no idea how much it would cost my grandson at age 10 to go to the Oval if he lived in Purley, but I do know he would not be allowed to go there and back on his own!
The only thing I have to say about the actual post apart from reminiscing, is that criticism of the selectors about the wicket keeper in the last test in allowing Butler not to play is unfair. They cannot be blamed for Foakes being injured. They could have asked Pope to keep wicket and brought in Leach.
Ron
Great stuff Ron. Simpler times and generally preferable to a lot today. Actually I would have played Billings, chiefly to keep wicket, because Bracey is barely 2nd Eleven standard and can’t bat by the look of it. But certainly Leach yes. Anderson had a very ordinary game by his standards, and I do begin to wonder what he is trying to prove. Anyhow England did say that they would not be playing him and Broad together in the same Test, the idea being to blood new bowlers. However they’ve lost the best one already for being a naughty teenager – Robinson. Wonder what Dennis Compton would have said!
There is no shame in losing to a better team, but failing even to attempt to win when offered a chance by a declaration is unforgiveable.
Sorry Robert, can’t agree with that assessment. This test batting line up is the weakest we’ve put out in my living memory. How you can suggest that a team who struggles to bat a full day can beat the team who on merit are playing in the world test championship is beyond me.
Where is the development of this squad coming from when our batting coach says that playing in The Hundred is going to help them. Until the county championship is resurrected as a priority the technical deficiencies endemic in white ball where you go hard at the ball because there are no close fielders. This is going to dominate proceedings for the up and comings for the foreseeable future.
Silverwood has little personal experience of test cricket and has made some strange selections in recent times. Going into a 5 day match without a recognised spinner is asking for trouble. When you have the pace of Wood, the seam of Broad and the swing of Anderson what is Stone going to add? You need a slow bowler as much to give the seamers respite as to get wickets. Leach can bowl long pretty accurate spells, Root and Lawrence are non starters here, with 4 balls every over. Of course he would have made a difference.
I think we can make too much of a coach’s personal experience as a player. Duncan Fletcher never played test cricket and didn’t make too bad a fist of being a national coach!
What Fletcher did was before players were being channeled into white ball. The county championship was still the season’s priority. Things have changed markedly on the coaching front since the 2015 World Cup debacle. Even the likes of Thorpe, a great test batsman, are making pro white ball comments that were inconceivable in Fletchers day.
“Butler, Woakes, Bairstow, Moen Ali and Sam Curran have recently returned from the IPL…”
That’s been mentioned a lot – but Boult, Williamson, Jamieson, Santner also were at IPL and played in the Tests.
Interesting to see how inept the much vaunted Indian batting line up proved against New Zealand this week, in conditions better than we faced for batting. Certainly New Zealand had the advantage of a warm up series here but as in the winter the Indian batting generally didn’t look much better then ours. Even Kohli produced a shocker as bad as Crawley’s in the 2nd innings. A nothing shot to a ball he should have left. Pant was a predicable joke, flailing away watever the circumstances. The white ball disease is global.
I basically agree with the author. A comment I previously posted, but still relevant;
Our batting was poor against New Zealand.
In all honesty our batting has been poor for a few years, always prone to a collapse.
Silverwood came along with IMO a refreshing approach of reverting to old school methods of batting long, openers blunting new ball, etc. Last year in 9 Tests we posted scores of 583, 3 X +400 (including a 499/9), 3 X +300 and no completed innings sub 200. Which I believe was really encouraging, especially as it combined with the emergence of Pope and Crawley – two young bats of quality.
Then this year despite rotation, Covid, bubble fatigue, etc. on typical spin friendly sub-continent wickets we posted first innings totals of 421,344 and 578 – winning all three matches. Then the nature of the wickets changed and we got spun out, I am not really complaining but any wicket where Root can take 5-8 is perhaps not a usual surface? So we got rolled over by the No.1 ranked team in conditions to suit them and alien to us, it happens. We then drew and lost Test matches to the No.2 ranked team whilst missing players (due to IPL, injury, rotation, etc.) that balance our team – the likes of Stokes/Woakes/Ali/Buttler/Foakes/Bairstow strengthen the batting whilst allowing 5 bowling options.
I think the point I am trying ineloquently to make is “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” – we were going in the right direction with our batting last year and have been undone by some exceptional unusual circumstances.
A team of
Burns
Sibley
Crawley
Root
Stokes
Pope
Buttler/Foakes (my choice, but I doubt he’ll play again)/Bairstow
Woakes
Leach
Wood (Archer when fit)
Broad/Anderson
Would be very competitive against India this summer.