The ups and downs of England

Why has it gone so wrong for England in the West Indies? What has happened to the team that had won 8 of their last 9 test matches?

I thought I’d have a quick look at possible factors in terms of what changed in between Sri Lanka and Barbados/what was done wrong/what was a bit unlucky etc.

Firstly, the obvious and most important is the positive - West Indies have just strung together their best two tests for who knows how long. They’ve been almost unflinchingly skilful and assiduous. This is not as much of a surprise as some people are saying. There have been significant signs of improvement under Jason Holder for years. Holder himself was recently injured, which affected the team badly. He came back on top form – he is a top class all-rounder (his bowling has improved beyond measure recently) and a fine leader. A crop of underperforming talented batsmen have applied themselves well, and they have, for the first time in forever, an attack of 4 quicks which at least pays lip service to the great West Indies teams of old.

But what of England?

First of all, what happened relating to English cricket between November and January that may have affected the team’s performance? You can take some of these with as much of a pinch of salt as you wish.

•       Ashley Giles was appointed England’s Director of Cricket, and said immediately there would be less football as warm-up under his tenure. Look, I don’t want to be too speculative or condemnatory here, I liked the King of Spain when he was a player, but this appointment rung alarm bells and they were almost immediately confirmed. He failed as an England coach, and this is a step up but not a coaching role, but he immediately indicated that he was going to be hands-on in a really joyless way. If I was Jos Buttler/Sam Curran, brought in to play with a bit of youthful abandon and joie de vivre, I’d just think “Fun’s over, Mr Health and Safety’s in charge.” Even the much-criticised injury to Jonny Bairstow, let’s not forget, brought about several propitious outcomes in Sri Lanka – Foakes in the team, three spinners without question, Bairstow coming back fired up at 3.
•       Joe Root had a dreadful time in the BBL. Really terrible. Must have seemed a good idea, to have a bit of fun and get into form in Australia’s super fun T20 competition. But Root was out of touch there in a way I’ve never seen before, and looked thoroughly fucked off. He was on the same team as Buttler, who started on great form, but a bit less as it went on. Root is by far England’s best batsman – if he’s failing and out of form, not even getting those frustrating 50s, that’s pretty significant.
• .     Alastair Cook was knighted – look, I don’t think this made any different, but Alastair Cook being knighted was some bullshit wasn’t it?

OK, let’s get to the preparation, selection and performance. There are a few things to consider. There were mistakes made, sure, but there’s also a degree of luck involved.

Ed Smith’s (and Root and Bayliss) selection before this series has been excellent – uncommonly inspired in most cases. I’d argue that the selections for this series, though they have clearly not worked and can retrospectively be criticised severely, were logical and consistent enough.

Firstly, Rashid – a selection that clearly didn’t work. I am the biggest Rashid fan imaginable, but, going into the test, even I was struggling to make the case for his inclusion. That doesn’t it mean it was a wholly bad selection, though.

Here’s my take on it – Ed Smith, having seen Rashid is a mishandled player who could potentially contribute significantly to test success when used correctly, had been thoroughly vindicated. Rash had made several useful under-the-radar contributions with bat and ball, culminating in his best ever test bowling spell, a 5-for in the last test before this one, in Sri Lanka.

His selection as a gut-pick was working, his contribution as a game-changer could just about be valued above Leach and Broad. What’s more, what we didn’t know was that he was due to go home for the birth of his second child before the second test. Perhaps Smith reasoned that picking Rashid on a 50/50 for this match was a sign of trust (so the player, having just acquired test confidence didn’t feel dropped) which would be rewarded. It wasn’t. His performance in the match looks wretched. Even having said all that, Rashid actually bowled pretty tidily on the first day with no reward, and England did not lose the match because of their bowling in the first innings.

In terms of the other selections, I think lots of things contributed to it being a very difficult call. Leach, Foakes, Curran, Rashid have all contributed excellently in very recent tests – Broad and Woakes haven’t. However, in the brief warm-up, Woakes and Broad clearly showed form and made their case.

Yet, let’s not forget, England have, rightly, been heavily criticised in recent years for their mundane four-right-arm-seamers attack. Smith has, rightly, been moving away from that in general. Now, everyone can say, with the benefit of hindsight “we should have had the four up and down right armers”, but Curran has taken to test cricket so well, was it really the right thing to leave him out?

It is also an odd thing, as Alastair Cook pointed out, that Foakes’ huge success has added to the selectorial headache – playing Bairstow, Buttler and Foakes took away another slot which could have gone to a bowler.

England’s recent resurgence was not built on getting the traditional things right – England were still failing at the top of the order, and generally not scoring enough runs. England had got back into the welcome habit of surging ahead at the crux point of the game – being just about in it at halfway, and then winning the 3^rd and 4^th innings. That’s how they won 3 of the India games and a couple of the Sri Lanka games. It wasn’t a cakewalk, it relied on hanging in there, and lots of batters and bowlers making valuable contributions at the right time.

In these first two tests in the West Indies, the top order failed too badly and the lower order didn’t save them, so England simply weren’t in the game at halfway. Root, Buttler and Stokes haven’t managed anything with the bat – that has mattered more than anything to do with bowling.

In truth, it’s been a combination of factors – I don’t think it exposes anything fundamentally wrong which wasn’t already known about the players or the selection process. West Indies hit the ground running for the series – they have their best bowling attack for years and their batsmen dug in to a pretty unexpected level. Smith may learn a little about choosing a more conservative selection in certain circumstances, but I think there was an acceptable logic to how these teams were chosen.