Tag: Cricket

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Huffington Post (UK) Journalism Sport

England At The Ashes Look Like Deer Caught In Headlights

What was billed as a close Ashes series prior to the first Test at the Gabba in Brisbane has now been reduced to a one-horse race

After a day that saw Australia lose just one wicket and a relative Test rookie Mitch Marsh pile on an unbeaten 180, apart from the small matter of an unbeaten double century by Oz captain and the man of the moment Steven Smith, England assistant coach Paul Farbrace said, “We don’t have that extra pace and we haven’t got the highest quality of magical spin. We’ve got what we’ve got and we’ve had to work exceptionally hard”. An exaggerated version of the statement could well be, “We’ve got what we’ve got, we just have to learn to bat, bowl and field”.

Exaggerations are like that – outlandish. But they tend to convey the core import of a conversation.

England is not competing in the current Ashes, because England is “not playing”. The performances of its key stars, namely Alastair Cook, Joe Root, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, and Moeen Ali, can best be described by the reflexes of a deer caught in headlights. Make no mistake, that is not only half the English team, but the only half that is experienced enough to be leading a fight in a tough battle like an away Ashes series.

Alastair Cook, who played his 150th Test in Perth, has made a total of 83 runs in the six inningsat an average of 13.8 in the three matches so far. Captain Joe Root fared slightly better, scoring 175 at an average of 29. Amid a largely untested upper and middle half of the batting line up, these two fine batsmen were expected to lead the way for England. Lead they have not, scoring a grand total of 258 runs between them in the first three Tests.
Contrast the collective effort of the top English duo with Steven Smith alone’s 239 in the first innings of the third test, and you get the picture.

The bodies are toiling, the sweat is flowing, the shirts are getting dirty, but the brain just does not seem to be guiding them well.

At the other end, with Anderson, Broad, Voakes and Overton being different expressions of the same variety, the success of the English bowling depended a lot on the variety provided by their ‘number one spin bowler’, Moeen Ali. Alas, he fared just as bad as the batsmen mentioned earlier. In the six innings of the first three matches, Ali took a measly three wickets for 317 runs, at over 100 runs per wicket. In contrast, Australia’s number one spinner Nathan Lyon, till writing this piece, has taken 14 wickets for 347 runs at 24.7 runs apiece.

Clearly, the English team has not spoken with either the bat or the ball. Since ability cannot suddenly disappear overnight, it clearly seems to be a case of the heart not giving company to the body on the pitch.

Is it because of the controversy surrounding Ben Stoke’s exclusion from the Ashes party due to an altercation outside a Bristol nightclub in September, a little before the Ashes tour?

Did the incident during the early stages of the tour that involved England wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow greeting Australian opener Cameron Bancroft in a bar in Perth with what eventually was termed as “non-malicious meeting of heads” add to the psychological chaos? After all, it was considered weighty enough to lead to a midnight curfew being imposed on the squad.

And then, there was the bizarre one of England batsman Ben Duckett being suspended pending an internal investigation by the ECB after he was involved in an incident at the same bar, in which he is believed to have poured beer over the head of James Anderson.

There’s a lot going on in a captain’s mind already. He certainly can do without such ungainly distractions. Bairstow indeed accepted prior to the third test that the off-field incidents have let Root down.

This is not to pin all the blame for the performance on the field to those incidents. It is just to say that the English brains do not seem clutter-free enough to be facing the Oz challenge. The bodies are toiling, the sweat is flowing, the shirts are getting dirty, but the brain just does not seem to be guiding them well. They know who and where they are, they see the Aussies coming hard at them, but they are not able to react to it.

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Huffington Post (UK) Journalism Sport

The Two Things England Need to Do at Old Trafford

This sports journalism piece was first published on Huffington Post (UK) here.

The second Test between England and Pakistan beginning tomorrow (July 22) at Old Trafford has acquired a strange tension, which is vastly more intense and different from the buzz surrounding the crowd reaction to Mohammed Amir’s return to the stage where he had let the cricketing world down.

The ill feeling, amazingly, has nothing to do with what happened on the pitch for a fluctuating four days, at the end of which Pakistan won by 75 tension runs. What got England’s goat was the visitors’ showmanship after the fall of the last English wicket, in front of thousands of English supporters. The reaction to the act from the host gallery was swift – especially from pacer Tim Bresnan and captain Alastair Cook, who said it would work as a motivation for his team.

But giving the post-match box-office fireworks a miss, one of the reasons why Alastair Cook & Co. lost was because they never believed they were going to lose the test – neither at the beginning of the match nor when they were given a target of 283 to chase in the fourth innings.

And there was a good reason for the confidence. They had just routed Sri Lanka in an easy series win. Add to it their impressive home record in tests this decade.

But they lost – to their own “naive batting”, as Cook put it, and Yasir Shah, in that order. Unless they make a few changes, the result could be repeated.

Play Yasir Positively; Play Seamers Aggressively

There is a difference between ‘going after’ a spinner and playing a spinner with the ‘best foot’. So, the case of Moeen Ali’s horrendous dart at Yasir and Gary Ballance jumping on the sides and getting bowled behind the legs are both prime examples of how not to play a spinner. Jonny Bairstow going to the back foot and getting bowled to a flipper by Yasir is also a form of going after the bowler – because the underlying assumption is that the batsman has got the bowler on the mat and that he can cut the bowler any time.

And yet, the idea is not the opposite – to try to block Yasir away. That was the other extreme that was tried by the English batsmen during the course of the match. Unfortunately for them, they found out that it can’t work for a period spread over 40 overs in an innings.

The best way to play a spinner, as any batting coach would tell you, is to rotate the strike. Yes, with many men around the bat, it isn’t always the easiest of things to do. But that’s when footwork comes into play – something that you ought to possess in a decent amount if you are deemed good enough by your country to face wrist or finger spinners from the Indian subcontinent. A decent footwork allows a batsman to move about the crease while, importantly, covering the stumps in such a way that LBW is taken out of the equation.

Pace bowlers need rhythm to succeed; spinners need that, and a lot of space.

Yasir aside, there is no need to give undue respect to the seam bowlers. If England has to succeed, the batsmen would have to tackle Pakistani pacers aggressively. It should not be impossible for a team that is more used to the mix of pace and swing than most Test-playing nations.

In other words, play Yasir positively and the Pakistani seamers even more so.

Unlock the Resources

James Anderson, who was the world’s number one Test bowler before Yasir Shah overtook him with his exploits at Lords, and Ben Stokes are expected to walk straight into the side after their time out due to injury – replacing Jacob Ball and Steven Finn respectively.

But England needs to bring Adil Rashid in for Moeen Ali – and not just for the ‘that’ shot by the latter in the second innings. Pakistan is filled with right-handers and therefore leggie Rashid offers a much better option than Moeen. Also, Rashid has the confidence of rattling the Pakistani batting line-up once, barely six months ago in Dubai. And he can bat a bit too.

On the other hand, with the pitch at Old Trafford traditionally being receptive to spin bowling, there is a case for playing both of them – at the expense of, perhaps, James Vince. In all honesty, it is a toss-up between Vince and Gary Ballance. But left-handed Ballance should be a better counter to the leg spin of Yasir. Also, he has a better record of the two.

But the most vital part of managing the above resources is the need to unlock – or unclutter – the resources.

Alex Hales, in all fairness, is not going to play for four sessions of a test match in this series. Give him the freedom to express himself without self-doubts about his role as an opener.

The same for Joe Root. He got so bogged down under the pressure of expectations after the departure of Cook in the second innings that it ultimately led to his dismissal. It’s time to remind him that he alone is not expected to win it for England.

On top of that, England will have to fight fire with fire when it comes to expressing it on the field. Get into the Ashes mindset and give it back to the opponent. Most English players would be able to do more push-ups than their Pakistani counterparts. Let it show in the middle.

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Huffington Post (UK) Journalism

English Cricket is Losing the Plot

The article first appeared on The Huffington Post (UK) here

It would have been okay if it were just about losing a test match to India at Lords Cricket Ground after 28 years. What should worry the mandarins of the game in its country of birth, however, is the complete lack of purpose and direction of the current team.

Saddled with a captain who is trying to stay put on a slippery slope, the current English team represents everything opposite to the adrenaline-pumping romance of the ‘class of 2005’ that beat the mighty Australians – in what was clearly the best Ashes series of this century, and one of the best series played between any two teams of all times.

Is Moeen Ali the best spinner that England has got – in a series involving the master players of spin no less? If yes, then they might as well play with no spinners, at least against India. But then, he is actually a batsman too. So, is he a middle-order batsman who can either single-handedly save or win the match for England?

And Ben Stokes? If he were into playing cards, three ducks together might have been a good dig. Or, wait; is he in the team for his bowling? Some say he can be a poor man’s Paul Collingwood. Is that the vision?

Similarly, was Michael Atherton right in saying that “a significant English career might have come to an end”, when Matt Prior departed after playing that rather aimless pull shot – of a ball way outside the off stump? Atherton didn’t even mention the 36 byes that Prior let slip through and about his gloves. Did the ECB anticipate such a development so early in the series?

At the beginning of the series, only the ECB and God knew the answers to all of those questions. Now, only God knows.

The point is not about the performance of those two. It may not even be about the approach of ECB towards filling those key slots. Because it would be safe to assume that the English board would not have any reason to go for these players but for the belief that that’s the best it has got.

That, I’m afraid, is the scarier part. There are three more tests to go. Senior pros like Anderson, Broad and Bell – and who knows, even Cook – can still crank up a notch and win something for the team.

But that would merely be putting a blanket over the less than adequate other half portion of the team.

How did things come to such a pass so drastically soon? Wasn’t this the number 1 test team till very recently?

There are either no easy answers or many obvious answers to every crisis question.

English cricket is not sure what it considers cricket! Though England won a T20 World Cup, it neither celebrated it (contrast it with the mind-numbing excess after India’s victory in the inaugural T20 WC), nor built upon it. The lesser said the better about its approach towards the 50-over version of the game. People here in India believe that England does not even want to play the shorter version. And no, the feeling has got nothing to do with the clash of boards about IPL.

But test cricket is its thing. And yet, it is letting itself down on that front too – primarily because of abysmal handling of players. So while a precocious talent like Pietersen is out “because of attitude problems”, players have been leaving the game because of psychological stress. No offence meant, but ask an Indian player what pressure is. Or closer home to English cricketers, ask what Wayne Rooney, John Terry feel like.

We are not even talking about the abrupt retirements of Strauss and Swann.

Where is the player management?

The immediate task for England is simple – do not allow India to win any more tests in the series, and win at least one for itself. However, the bigger challenge would be to prepare a team that wears its heart on its sleeve – just like in 2005. With or without import of talent from South Africa.

Unless Jim Laker would forever be proved correct for his words, “The aim of English cricket is, in fact, mainly to beat Australia.” In that case, be ready for MS Dhoni and his men heap further misery on this English team in the tests ahead.

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Huffington Post (UK) Journalism

Hat-Trick Boy Stuart Broad Brings England Right Back

A little after Rahul Dravid reached his 34th test hundred on the second day of the India-England test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, Alan Wilkins expressed his gentle displeasure to fellow commentator Ravi Shastri about the nickname ‘Wall’ given to the Indian batsman. “A wall can be brought down”, he argued – thereby implying that Rahul Dravid can’t be.

And yet, if you were to be in India these days, you would have thought that it is neither victory in the series nor the safeguarding of the No. 1 Test team status, but the 100th international century by Sachin Tendulkar is all that matters to Indians. Unfortunately, it may well be true in some sections of the so-called cricket-literate nation.

But Rahul Dravid, just as VVS Laxman, is used to being in the shadow of Tendulkar. In fact, he would rather not have any other way; just as India would rather not have any other man at the crease when the chips are down, than the ‘Wall’ himself. (Sorry Alan, but I guess it’s tad too late in the day to change the nickname. If you wish, he is known as ‘Jammy’ within the team.)

After yesterday’s late counter-attack by Stuart Broad with the bat and the first-ball wicket of Abhinav Mukund by James Anderson, the test match seemed evenly poised at stumps last evening. However, as has happened many a times in the last decade, Laxman and Dravid the steadied the ship and started taking the game away from England this morning – till Laxman perished behind the stumps on a Bresnan beauty.

But while the crowd favourite Sachin came and went early, along with Suresh Raina, Dravid stayed well at the crease and went ahead to score yet another important century for the team.

And yet, the highlight of the day was to come later in the day. In a maniacal period of about 20 minutes, India lost 5 wickets for mere 8 runs. After getting Yuvraj Singh caught behind in the 85th over of the Indian innings, England’s man of the moment Stuart Broad wrecked havoc with a deserving-yet-dubious (owing to Harbhajan being wrongly given out) hat-trick in the 88th over. After bowling two dots, Broad got Indian skipper MS Dhoni caught in the slips on the 3rd ball, caught Harbhajan Singh LBW on the 4rth ball and bowled Praveen Kumar on the 5th, before bringing some sanity to the proceedings with a dot ball.

It was the kind of over that could potentially change the complexion of the whole test match. It certainly changed Dravid’s composure, as in the very next over, he got caught at the third man of Bresnan, while trying to do a Sehwag while upper-cutting a rather innocuous ball. He made 117, typically fighting runs.

A little later, Broad completed his demolition job by getting Ishant Sharma caught by Ian Bell. Broad finished the day with scintillating figures of 6 for 46! Add to that the fact that he was the top scorer with the bat too. Yesterday, he had remarked that he felt good answering the critics. After today, he might have to search hard for critics.

To put things into perspective, this was not only Broad’s personal best bowling figures and the 10th best ever by an English bowler against India, but also the first hat-trick against India by an English bowler! The most recent performance of such impact by and English bowler against India was 21 years, by Ian Botham in 1980. Now that the great all-rounder’s protégé Andrew Flintoff has retired, should England already consider Stuart Broad the next Ian Botham? Hmmm!

On the other side of the crease, after looking like building a substantial lead during the 128-run partnership between Dravid and Yuvraj, India ended with just 288, enjoying a lead of 67 runs. However, it is a low-scoring match and the pitch and conditions are still favouring swing bowlers. So, 67-run lead might prove to be a handy one – especially in the light of the fact that injured Jonnathan Trott not likely to bat. He had injured his shoulder while trying to stop a ball today.

Sure enough, the lead started looking handy almost immediately after the England 2nd innings began. Alistair Cook continued his extraordinarily poor run at the crease, as he got out on 5, caught by Yuvraj at point on an Ishant Sharma ball, which he was trying to play towards mid-wicket!

When the frantic day finally ended, Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell were at the crease, with England still 43 runs behind India.

It is going to be difficult to wait till tomorrow!

Score at Stumps on the 2nd Day:

England 1st Innings: 221 all out (Stuart Broad 64, Andrew Strauss 32; Praveen Kumar 3/45, Ishant Sharma 3/66, S Sreesanth 3/77)
India 1st Innings: 288 (Rahul Dravid 150, Yuvraj Singh 62, VVS Laxman 54; Stuart Broad 6/46, Tim Bresnan 2/48)
England 2nd Innings: 24/1 (Andrew Strauss 6*, Ian Bell 9*; Ishant Sharma 1/9)