Slapdash England need to take a leaf out of Steve Waugh's book to have a hope of winning the Ashes Down Under
09/10/2024 01:24 PM
Steve Waugh was one of the great competitors. As Australia's captain he reckoned dead rubbers were cricket's biggest challenge – winning a game you don't need to being the truest test of a united and committed side.
England faced that challenge against Sri Lanka in the third Test and flunked it, getting well beaten in a match they were bossing after the first innings. No matter you might think, they had already won the series. But the result did count towards the World Test Championship where defeat by eight wickets pushed them from fourth to sixth place.
That lowly position in the table is due partly to penalty points incurred for tardy over-rates (almost twice as many as the next highest offender, Australia), something of an irony for a side who always seem in a hurry to get Tests done inside four days.
Except that I have some sympathy for England's frenetic approach, which is clearly exciting when it works. The fashion for back-to-back-to-back Tests is brutal, especially for the quicks (it's obvious that cricket administrators were never bowlers), so an extra day of unscheduled rest is probably welcome, win or lose.
Central contracts were introduced almost a quarter of a century ago to protect the best players from becoming fatigued in county cricket and for a while it worked. Now, though, they just get flogged by their country instead.
One reason for this is the game is poor at securing significant revenue streams other than broadcasting rights. Which means the only way to increase income is to offer more cricket to broadcasters – for which the leading players bear the burden as extra games and competitions like The Hundred get shoehorned into an ever-crowded calendar.
If these are some of the excuses for England's careless performance at the Oval, it was still a disrespectfully slapdash effort (towards opponents and spectators) despite the example set by stand-in captain, Ollie Pope, who led from the front with a first-innings hundred.
When Bazball came into being two seasons ago it was obvious thrills would be mixed with spills. But a reset, where considered thought seemed to have replaced reckless bravado, appeared to have occurred this summer where England de-risked situations in which advantages had already been won. It bore rich fruit, the team winning five Tests in a row albeit against weak and ill-prepared opponents.
They should have made it six. With a 62-run lead on first innings all they needed to do was bat for another 70 overs on a pitch offering little to the bowlers to gain a match-winning position. Instead they were bowled out for 156 in 34 overs in what Stuart Broad described as 'the worst batting performance of the Bazball era'.
Sri Lanka bowled better than they had all series, with Vishwa Fernando producing an outstanding spell of left-arm swing bowling that did for Joe Root and Harry Brook. Actually Brook's batting this last Test summed up England's mood.
Over the series Sri Lanka have worked out ways to frustrate him mostly by bowling wide of off-stump and packing the off-side field. Yet instead of knuckling down to beat their crafty plan, his response has been to bat as if in a hissy fit that somehow it is all a bit unfair.
Chasing 219 to win, the visitors out-Bazballed their hosts, scoring at over five an over, their centurion Pathum Nissanka a marvel of powerful yet considered strokeplay. England's tired bowlers, held together by Tubigrip and painkillers, could find nothing to stop him.
One of England's attack, the lanky 6ft 7in debutant Josh Hull, is so inexperienced he had little idea how to build pressure on batsmen.
Hull has a good action, though, and the ability to swing the ball, so has the potential to become something special if Jimmy Anderson can mould him into the left-arm equivalent of his old hunting partner Broad.
Experiments like Hull and Gus Atkinson, who had an exceptional summer taking 34 wickets in six Tests, are all about finding a bowling attack to win the Ashes in Australia in 15 months.
It might yet work out for England but until the team can show the fight and pride needed to win matches they don't need to, beating the Aussies on their home turf looks a hopeful fantasy.
T20 team moving on from casual beauty
England's failure to even make the final in defence of their T20 world title in June has caused several heads to roll. First out of the door was white-ball head coach, Matthew Mott, but a slew of big names followed, leaving a revamped England to play Australia today in Southampton.
Three of the biggest omissions are Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow and Chris Jordan, with Moeen, at 37, going as far as to announce his international retirement. Jos Buttler is also out injured, so Phil Salt will captain for three T20 internationals against Mitch Marsh's side.
Few can claim to wield such silky power when batting as Moeen. But I wonder whether the casual beauty with which he sprayed his shots perhaps flattered him. T20 cricket can confuse the best but a batting average of 21 (Moeen's for England) doesn't seem all that impressive when Bairstow's is nearly 30.
Moeen did strike 18 per cent of the balls he faced for four or six which is probably why he was picked; a boundary hitter who would, as a surprise tactic, occasionally bowl the first over of the PowerPlay.
England obviously believe they have better, more frequent strikers of a ball now in Jacob Bethell, Dan Mousley and Jordan Cox. We'll soon find out. Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa await.
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