Well scrub my back with Molton Brown and call me Susan. What a morning! Once again, the cricketing gods laugh in the face of my pessimism.
I can’t start anywhere other than James Anderson. He turned the match on its head. There was nothing in the pitch at all, but Jimmy had other ideas. For England to pick up all those wickets in the morning session was remarkable. Sure, the Windies were compliant in their capitulation, and their penchant for the spectacular collapse is world renowned, but England bowled really well.
Scoring 140 odd was never going to be a challenge. The game was up. The Windies knew it and simply gave up. Then fate rubbed salt into their wounds when poor old Jason Holder turned his ankle and fell in a heap. It was a horrible injury. Let’s hope it isn’t as bad as it looked.
There was still time for a little drama of course. Jonathan Trott played a horrendous shot – the kind a regular opener would never normally play – and played on for zilch. At that point, I’m sure a few neurotic England fans feared the worst. They needn’t have. The Windies’ bowling was about as threatening as a rubber duck. Gary Ballance and Alastair Cook will never score easier test half-centuries.
So England head to Barbados with a handy one nil lead. The team is back to winning ways and Alastair has sent his critics packing. He averages 135 in his last two innings you know. I’m almost aroused.
I’ll leave you with a little statistic. Joe Root has been the top scorer on either side in seven of his 24 tests. He now has over two thousand test runs at an average of 57 with six hundreds. He has a good temperament, a pretty sound method, and all the shots. He also bowls a bit. There has been hype about young England batsmen in the past, but this time I think it might actually be warranted.
It will be interesting to see how Root’s career develops from here. England will need him at his best against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa or results could be brutal. We certainly can’t rely on our openers. Anyone who thinks a few runs against the eighth best team in the world, who were missing their best bowler, is either in love or deluding themselves.
India are the seventh best if you’re interested
James Morgan
@DoctorCopy
Cook
135 runs
514 minutes
332 balls
he certainly did drag england to victory – most people were asleep when it happened :0)
Agreed! The quick and yes, unexpected turnaround yesterday was surprising, despite the ability of WI to collapse. Anderson was magnificent with the ball and in the field, I do hope though that any thought of moving Root up the order to open is dismissed, also putting him forward too soon as FEC – let him carry on doing what he is doing so well – managing the middle order and providing impetus when required.
As for the opening pair – it’s sad, but probably true that the Trott experiment is not going to work. Our current captain (yes that one with all those recent 50’s, leading from the front etc etc) is still not a leader, nor a tactician – he captained adequately, no more. This includes the number of messages/trips off the field for ‘advice’ – you’re the Captain, make decisions!
Still a worry in the bowling attack, Broad, apart from one spell is either unfit or mentally shot (his batting even more of a worry), Moeen was rushed back from injury (recurring theme here) and the 3/4th seamers lack penetration, it may yet come in the case of Stokes, but as well as a pace/strike bowler, we need a seamer to lock the doors.
The glorification of this win in some areas of the media is truly laughable too, and the saddest thing is that although we recognise the need for change in leadership and management, this win will only further delay the necessary unless Graves truly has got some bottle.
I fear you are right.
Pretty satisfactory win – the good places looking good, the ordinary players looking, er, ordinary.
Still, a wins a win. Comfortably thrashing a heartless WI side rated no 8, who should be playing India next for the most spineless Test team award. Roll on Barbados and another shoeing!
So, a little bit of tinkering, and we are ready for our next home assignment, Zimbabwe at Lords and Leeds, and 5 Tests against Pakistan.
Oh, wait….
West Indies has had 4 innings so far and has had a different batsman make a century in every one of them. I’ve seen ‘heartless’ and ‘spineless’ from WI (and the ECB Select XI) recently and this wasn’t that.
Some thoughts on Joe Root:
Root is undoubtedly a Test class batsman but he is currently being compared with some pretty exalted company. This may turn out to be justified – but there are a few reasons to pause a while yet. Root’s record is based on heavy scoring against SL (in England), India and WI – the 6th, 7th and 8th ranked nations. He hasn’t yet faced the two best Test attacks in SA and Pakistan. Against the strongest attack he has faced, Australia, Root averages 33. He wasn’t helped by being moved up the order of course. However Australia found a definite strategy against Root that worked (drive him back then pitch up) and other sides either haven’t tried that or aren’t good enough to do it. Curiously Root didn’t hit a four on the off-side in front of square in his last innings which suggests West Indies fed his cut shot and his strength on the leg-side. That weakness may still be there and a combination like Morkel/Philander might exploit it. They might not of of course – my point is it’s too soon to tell. It would also be interesting to see a side really go for Root with some short stuff on a bouncy pitch – he hasn’t faced too much of that so far and can tend to hook in the air (eg Lord’s vs. India 2nd innings) plus his back trouble may make evasive action difficult (as happened to Atherton and Clarke).
A comparison with Steve Smith is interesting. Their records currently look quite similar although Smith is a year older. Smith could be said to have cashed in on some weak Indian bowling to puff up his average. However Smith has also averaged 40 on tours to SA and UAE against Pakistan. Those runs against Pakistan in alien conditions while Australia were being thrashed was when I was really converted about Smith. That’s what I’m waiting to see if Root can manage.
Smith also makes an interesting comparison concerning place in the batting order. The English reaction seems to be Root is successful at No.5 so leave him there (despite the fact he keeps getting stranded by running out of partners). Smith was successful at No.5 but that didn’t stop his promotion to No.4 in the Test team (and No.3 in ODIs). Some serious thought ought to go into Root and Bell swapping places (Bell has a better record at No.5 averaging 48 to 38 at No.4). England too easily revert to ‘never change a winning team’ conservatism but when a team is winning is just the moment to make it better.
Can’t argue with any of that Simon
It’s actually more like “never change a team, whether it’s winning or losing”.
Australia didn’t find a tactic. They simply just have the best fast bowlers who know how to bowl to ANY batsmen.
Only an Englishman could want to pick apart an excellent young batsmens career.
Enjoy him, and will him to find a way against world class bowling.
Neil, after the home Ashes in 2013,were you saying that Australia had the best fast bowlers or revelling in a series win? In truth, after Lords, Root found it increasingly hard to buy a run and was dismantled in Australia to the extent he was dropped. The home series this year are a riveting prospect, given how well he handled NZ and Au in the World Cup.
Yes Ryan Harris. Best bowler in either side.
Agreed – even when he had two balls to score 2 runs, Cook blocked. Luckily Ballance had not been completely bored watching his partner at the crease and hit the winning runs. Can we imagine Cook against the two Mitchell’s when the Australians come?
lamb to the slaughter…
What have we learnt from this series and apologies for the negativity:
Cook is only interested in Cook. His batting is a demonstration of self indulgence and a personal agenda. Still can’t lead or set tactics
Trott – wrongly given the chance ahead of Lyth but must be given chance now. As with spin below,such a decision is a slap in the face of county cricket.
Middle order – score runs against poor attacks – challenge will be set this summer so will reserve any over-excitement for now.
No 6 – Moores/Cook determined to ruin Stokes by yoyo-ing him up/down the order. Bringing in Mo smacked of unnecessary desperation. Will stokes make it as a batting 6 and 4th seamer? We’ll prob never know. More chance than Mo who I fear will end up being not good enough at either discipline.
Seam bowling- Cook will destroy Jimmy this year by overworking him. Broad is seemingly incapable of bowling more than one spell per series but appears undroppable. Jordan doesn’t have the consistency at the moment. The attacks is crying out for pace and wouldn’t it be great if at the end of this series we’d learnt whether Plunk/wood looked capable of providing this.
Spin – picking Tred removes any motivation for an aspiring county cricketer that a 2nd XI cricketer can be picked. some variety needed.
As people say a win is a win but struggling to take any positives from defeating a below average side.
Ps as we know the ECB loves it’s inconsistency no better demonstrated by the request for KP to go and score county runs at the same time as players like Lyth, Rash and Plunk have performed at this level but are ignored for people “whose face fits”
Positives:
1) Forcing a win on a pudding is always an achievement.
2) Jimmy tilted the match with 2nd innings new ball no. 2.
3) Broad’s spell in the 1st innings was excellent.
4) Rooteh struck yet again.
5) GazBal struck yet again.
6) Mo cleaned up the last 2 wickets in the 2nd innings very quickly.
7) Cook scored two half-centuries in the same match(!).
Negatives:
1) Seamers took far too long to get stuck into the opposition and force clusters of wickets in both innings. They clearly know how to do it, so why aren’t they doing it from the word “go”?
2) Top order batted far too slowly in the 1st innings, very nearly costing us the match.
3) Trott. What is he even doing in the squad? Why play a former no. 3 out of position ahead of a fresh specialist batsman who is 6-7 years younger and has the potential to give England years of quality at the top of the order?
4) Moeen. Off and on with the ball; panicked and ran himself out for a duck with the bat.
5) Stokes. Showed arrogance, and with no justification, seeing how he ended with 8 runs and no wickets to his name.
6) Jordan. 2 wickets in 2 innings. Not enough.
7) Run-outs. As Bob Willis rightly said, these have no place in Test cricket.
Is Joe Root the new Graeme Hick? He’s certainly fantastic against mediocre teams on flat decks.
No.
Did Hick play a single test innings in as uninhibited manner as Root ?
Of course he has it all to prove against the best attacks in the world, but I know which way I would be betting.
And to think there were people calling for Trott to replace Ballance @ 3…!
Average 67.93
Absolutely !
Right now, the determination to hang on to Trott until he comes good (or not) is stopping England blood a new specialist opener… probably resulting in Lyth make his debut when we’re really up against it.
Vaughan, for one, doubts that Trott has the correct technique to succeed as an opener.
Alex Hales, remember him?
I notice that he’s scoring quite a few runs… not that performance in county cricket counts for much with the selectors, on current evidence.
Vaughan and co were firmly on the Hales bandwagon last year, I think it’s now called the Lyth bandwagon
Opening and batting 3 is much of a muchness. If you can do one well, you can generally do the other.
The worry for any Eng no.2 or 3, is not that it is an adaptable position, it is the reality of being subservient to the spoiled child of a leader… unless you make him look good, you’re gone!
I have said this before – but surely we need to have at least ONE stroke-playing batsman in the top three?
Exciting ODI squad for the Ireland match. Mostly new, young players.
Of course, England would never have done it if the Ireland ODI hadn’t clashed with the end of the Windies Test series.