Give England’s batsmen a break

I was on a stag weekend when I watched England’s dismal capitulation against Pakistan on Saturday. It didn’t quite ruin the occasion – when you go to a rugby match with a bloke dressed up in monkey costume, it’s kind of hard not to have a good time – but it did spark some pretty serious conversation about England’s depressing performance.

First of all, let me tell you a little something about the cast of characters involved in the discussion. There was me, a trio of grizzled club league cricketers who used to play for my university’s first XI, plus another old friend who used to captain Ealing and still turns out for Wiltshire now and again.

In my opinion, this is a pretty knowledgeable bunch of cricket fans; not the type of drunken oafs who shout ‘no ball’ every time Saeed Ajmal approaches the crease. Ok, we were drunk – it was a stag do, so what do you expect? – but we tried to be as objective as we could be in the circumstances.

After the initial shock of being bowled out for 70-odd had subsided, we went through the reasons identified by the media one by one.

Was it really lack of bottle? We really didn’t think so. This England team is mental toughness personified. In the cauldron of Australia, this bunch of players triumphed magnificently. Shrinking violets they are not.

So was it arrogance or complacency? Again, we decided this couldn’t be the case. This England team is possibly the best prepared international side in the world. It’s probably the most professional regime England have ever had.

So why did we lose? The obvious point, of course is that English batsmen can’t play spin. We couldn’t dismiss this one. However, we believe the reasons for this go a little deeper than many pundits have discussed.

Indeed, we came to the conclusion that, bearing in mind the recent history of this particular team and the unique circumstances they found themselves in, it was a miracle anyone thought we’d win this series in the first place.

Think back to the World Cup last year (the defeats to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for example). Think back to the recent ODI series in India. Whenever England face spinners in the subcontinent, our batsmen get bogged down and eventually panic. Yes, these were one day matches, but the same principles apply. It was foolish to expect anything else in test cricket, where captains can put fielders wherever they like (and focus on taking wickets rather than keeping the runs down).

We desperately needed someone to go out and attack on Saturday but we found it impossible. Is it any surprise given our recent form in ODIs on slow turning pitches? Our batsmen always freeze in these circumstances. It’s because we’re unable to read the spinners, and this generation of England batsmen are rubbish at dancing down the pitch and playing the ball on the half volley. It’s simply not in their DNA.

The reasons for this are clearly cultural. All of England’s batsmen grew up in English domestic cricket, where pitches are green, batsmen play almost exclusively on the front foot, and the normal diet of bowling is medium fast seamers. How many mystery spinners play in the Birmingham league for example?

And before you point out that half the England team was brought up in South Africa, inherent disadvantages still apply. In Biltong land batsmen usually play from the crease, hang on the back foot, and the usual diet of bowling consists of tearaway quicks with six fingers on each hand and an IQ of approximately sixty. Once again, quality spinners are about as common as Imran Tahir playing for the same first class team for more than two seasons.

Our overall conclusion, therefore, is that we should have seen this one coming – and we shouldn’t be too critical of our batsmen. Whenever India or Sri Lanka lose at Perth, we all shrug our shoulders and say ‘well, we all know Asian batsmen don’t like the ball whizzing around their ears’. So why should we berate the likes of Ian Bell when they get bamboozled by Ajmal on a bunsen?

What’s more, this crop of English batsmen have got it especially tough. In fact, it could be argued that it’s basically impossible for othodox Englishmen to thrive in the subcontinent these days …

When Nasser Hussain’s team played so well in Pakistan a decade ago, their strategy against the spinners was simple: either press forward as much as possible (with bat and pad close together) to nullify the spin, or sweep. The advent of the DRS has rendered this form of attack and defence futile. They’d all be out lbw in a matter of minutes.

These days batsmen have to play exclusively with the bat. This means that an outside edge to the slips or keeper is never far away. This was obviously on England’s mind at Abu Dhabi. The result? We fell into the trap of hanging on the back foot and trying to play the spinning ball off the pitch. And of course, when you don’t know which way it’s going to turn, you’re a sitting duck.

Basically, England’s batsmen had a hell of a task on their hands. On spinning pitches everything is now in favour of the bowler. It’s almost unfair. What’s more, the ICC now permits bowlers to chuck (and refuses to ban doosras that look blatantly illegal to the naked eye), so what chance have the likes of Bell actually got? About as much hope as Suresh Raina at Perth is the answer.

As far as I’m concerned, England have only got one option now. We simply must learn to move our feet and come down the pitch. Michael Clarke does this nearly every delivery if the ball’s spinning. The problem is, we’re not going to master this technique in the next week. Did you know that we didn’t score a single run in the arc between cover and wide mid-on in our second innings on Saturday?

However, even this plan is fraught with danger. If you don’t know which way it’s going to turn, you’re likely to be stumped. Unfortunately, that means a 0-3 whitewash is probably inevitable; unless, of course, Kamran Akmal earns a shock recall. We can always dream. Alternatively, has anyone got Mazhar Majeed’s number?

James Morgan

4 comments

  • One contributory factor not mentioned is pitch rules in the UK. If a wicket turns on day one and teams are bowled out by spinners the Home County is liable to be docked points and be fined. So English pitches are produced to be bland for three days and allow turn on the fourth day. Can you imagine an English County Match where two spinners are used before Lunch on day one. So our batsmen are now great at playing medium or fast bowling but get little practise against spinners on turning wickets. Years ago most Counties played two spinners who got through lots of overs as County games featured 110 overs a day and the quicks couldn’t bowl all day.

  • What I found strange was that there was not a massive amount of turn from the pitch and what spin there was tended to be quite slow. The bounce was good and even too. Therefore, I found it strange England struggled quite so much.

  • There was still more than enough turn to trouble the batsmen though – especially those from an English background. Furthermore, a lot of the wicket taking balls spun appreciably. The Swann wicket springs to mind. Yes, it wasn’t spitting left right and centre, but it was still a spinners pitch.

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