Oh, dear. In the aftermath of a 4-0 mauling at the hands of Australia – and let’s not forget it was just one wicket from being a 5-0 whitewash – everyone connected to England seems to be in agreement: Something Must Be Done. Never mind that the Aussies were able to field some of the best seam bowlers in the world, and that Boland and Khawaja showed how to channel home advantage and pitch knowledge to devastating effect. One poor month and we have to Rip It Up and Start Again.
Sack the captain? Restructure the management and coaching team? Shift then focus from ODIs to Tests? Abolish the County Championship? Restrict England’s opponents to Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Ireland? Yeah, the last one should boost the confidence of the ECB by improving the win:loss ratio but perhaps the cracks in quality require a little more than a layer of crepe paper.
So, should Joe Root go? If we learn anything from the past twelve months it is that Root is by a million miles England’s best batter. In fifteen matches during 2021 he accumulated over 1,700 runs, more than three times the second highest. Only one other player, Rory Burns, made a century, to which we can now add Jonny Bairstow. So the batting line-up has to be constructed around him. He may not be the most astute captain in history but even the likes of Steve Waugh, Clive Lloyd, MS Dhoni and Stephen Fleming would struggle to turn the current England squad into contenders for the ICC World Test title.
Tinker with the backroom set-up? I confess I can’t keep up with the intricacies of coaching different formats and skills, let alone all the physios, analysis and managers. Cricket is a different sport from England. Strategies and selection for matches scheduled to last five days are necessarily different for those taking barely five minutes, so I appreciate the need to expand the resources accordingly if the budget allows. England can claim considerable success. They are world 50-over champions and stand top of the ICC T20 rankings, after all. It wasn’t that long ago that they were the cream of the Test format, too, but I feel that it is no coincidence that the rise in white-ball performance has come at the expense of red-ball results.
I know I’m an old fogey but I do despair that most of our best cricketers are pigeon-holed into the two formats. Joe Root could be our best run-scorer on all three fronts; he is that good. Fellow Yorkshireman Bairstow and, potentially, Joe Clarke, are similar all-rounders, albeit not in the same league. Ben Stokes has also demonstrated how to successfully take a one-day mindset and strokeplay into the five-day game, but he is not always in the right mental state. Archer, Robinson, Woakes, Craig Overton and Wood each have the skills to take wickets and keep the scoring rate down as required by the respective formats, and James Anderson is proving remarkably resilient to the ravages of time, wrapped up on cotton wool for the Tests. Did Stuart Broad need the same treatment Down Under, rested (or dropped?) for the Brisbane opener? Probably not, but it’s easy to be wise after the event. After all, his 2021 bowling average was only just below 40, and 12 wickets in 13 innings isn’t a world-class return.
Jonathan Agnew is also leading the movement to abolish the County Championship, cut the number of teams and slash the amount of red-ball domestic cricket in order to arrest the decline in Tests, and in Ashes series, in particular. I have considerable respect for Agnew but I do wonder how reducing the available gene pool and re-introducing three-day matches is the best way of preparing for five-day fixtures. You may as well load the batting with Twenty20 specialists like Billings, Buttler, Livingstone, Crane, the Currans et al. At least, you’ll get a Test result, but I wouldn’t book a ticket for days 3, 4 or 5!
Pundits have been quick to excuse The Hundred as a factor in England’s poor 2021 Test record. Er, why? I know one summer tournament cannot be held entirely responsible. However, if the ECB is determined to push ahead with a format nobody else in the world is doing, relegating first-class and 50-over cricket to the margins of the summer season, how on earth can they expect young fans to embrace the more traditional formats and become the Ashes series performers of the future? It’s ludicrous! Then there is the myopic obsession with the Ashes. Yes, it’s the most enduring rivalry in the sport, which should be celebrated. However, if we had beaten NZ, India and Pakistan but lost 2-3 in Australia the critics would have been almost as vociferous.
Ultimately, countries go through peaks and troughs. In the past few decades, when the same county structure was producing or developing the likes of Cook, Root, Pietersen, Flintoff, Anderson, Buttler, Swann, Bell and Taylor, everything in the garden was rosy. In the domestic summer, all three formats were respected, however much I slag off T20. We also had a quality line-up in all three, challenging for global silverware and the Ashes, at least on home turf. No fast bowler would tremble at the sight of Burns, Hameed, Malan, Crawley, Billings and Pope taking guard, but is the answer really to deprive them of competitive red-ball practice sacrificed at the altar of Friday night hit-and-hope stuff?
I
don’t have the answers. However, if the ECB insists on putting finances ahead
of developing true cricketing skills, then go ahead. Just please stop moaning
when results in matches requiring such skills don’t go their way.
