With two days of the tour to go, we know that England will return home without a single point to their name, the first time this has been suffered. Rain is not forecast.
Even the pundits are at a loss to explain England’s dismal performances. You can take your pick of a shopful of possibilities. Here are some of mine:
Cricket’s place in the English Sporting Firmament
Since I first watched a game many decades ago, cricket has receded further and further into the background of English sporting interest. You may recall the story of the committee at which somebody allegedly shouted: “Eureka! A Hundred!” – and The Hundred was born. My question is: why was the committee called? How had the MCC, then the ECB reached the point where the English game needed to be rescued in so drastic and demeaning a fashion?
The Hundred may have saved the game financially for a limited period, but in every other respect it has been an unmitigated disaster. We need only glance at the difficulties England’s best batters have in building innings to see the unwanted consequences.
One general effect has been to reduce the number of youngsters entering the game and advancing to the top level. I’ve wondered before who of the current squad in Australia come from non cricket-playing families. A wild guess is one. One argument that is hard to counter is that the school-age game is now restricted to private schools.
In my time the number of schools playing the game regularly has reduced alarmingly. How many can afford to maintain a cricket ground, a curator, all the equipment and coaching needed? For the individual, simply getting kitted up is inordinately expensive. For the rest, clubs have to bear the brunt.
Just take a glance at news of new signings by the eighteen first-class men’s counties. The vast majority come in from overseas. Why?
Home Structures
Much has been made of the growth of professional contracts. England’s players were bound to profit from being able to concentrate on the game, rather than having to moonlight in another job to make ends meet.
But the indecision at the top of the game has been thoroughly damaging. It seems only like yesterday that women’s elite cricket was reorganised – for the umpteenth time – into regional franchises. They seemed to be working tolerably well, but no! It was found advisable to introduce yet another structure, a return from regions to counties, but only certain counties. They then set about signing up the best players from other unsuccessful counties. Do they reward them financially for all the hours of successful coaching they have put in? Ask Surrey CCC about the Kent players they have taken on.
We have yet to discover whether this latest adventure will prove any more successful than its chain of predecessors. What are the odds it will last longer than, say, the KSL (2016-2019)? Why are the authorities so uncertain of the most sensible step forward?
A Kaleidoscope of Formats
How are players meant to prosper when a season will offer them four conflicting formats? This is an evident nonsense. Nobody should be expected to thrive in the Hundred and a 4-day test side by side.
The current series
Few people gave England more than a hint of a chance. Perhaps the odd T20 or ODI, nothing more. It has of course turned out far worse.
Were players left at home who would have produced better results? You may be able to offer the odd name. I can’t. Were the right combinations selected for the three different formats? Probably not, but Jon Lewis’ approach has struck me as incompetent from an early stage.
To take one example alone, wicket-keeper. Amy Jones was and remains the obvious first choice. Who should be her number two? We still don’t know Lewis’ answer. He picked Bess Heath on several occasions, without ever making it plain to the public that she was the chosen one. Nor was she rotated into the XI to give her useful experience of top-level cricket. Was she selected simply because of her batting promise?
It’s hard to claim she is technically the second-best keeper available. Other nations might have encouraged Sarah Taylor to take on the task of advising the most promising candidates.
In the event Jones has found run-scoring harder than in the past. That has had its effect on team balance.
England’s supposed trump card was their spin bowling. Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn and Charlie Dean at their best looked unplayable. By the last match of the current tour neither Glenn nor Dean is playing, and critics line up to criticise Ecclestone, not for her bowling but her fitness. And her fielding has let her down badly..
How has this descent been allowed to happen? Blame is easy. pointing it in the right direction is much harder. I assume Lewis will be relieved of his responsibilities at the first diplomatic moment. And all his assistants?
We can’t dismiss the criticism that it’s harder to be dropped from the England side than to enter it. More specifically, Heather Knight has been the captain for nine years. It has often been difficult to know whether she or the head coach was choosing the team. All too often it was she who became the spokesperson with the media.
There is virtue in consistency. Some of the greatest sides – not only in cricket – have spent a long time together. But Lewis has appeared unwilling to give youth its chance. A glance at the career figures of some of England’s regulars points to the inconsistencies.
Who would replace Lewis? Can we rely on the discernment of ECB officials to make a more successful choice? It seems doubtful. Mark Robinson was deposed after an unsuccessful joust for the Ashes, but he was more successful than the current incumbent. The ECB turned to an Australian, Lisa Keightley, to restore their fortunes. She proved not a whit more successful.
The Basics
Score runs, take wickets, catch catches. All very simple. Yet the England squad has failed to reach minimum standards in all three skills.
We hear very little about the coaches whose job it is to present an XI at the top of its form. There is the technical aspect: how to build a long innings; how to bowl with economy and penetration; how to field to save runs and accept catches.
Then there is the psychological approach: how to instil confidence in each player, that she knows she can producing optimum results at every turn. The current coaches have most certainly failed in both.
Their simplest excuse would be that the players don’t possess the talent to produce better results. But their performances in other series prove the opposite.
Fitness
This has been a favourite weapon aimed at the England team and staff. When the topic threatened to overwhelm the tour, Lewis was moved to present a counter-argument. His response: fitness is not a factor in England’s performance. The people charged with the post-tour review will come to their own conclusions.
But this was a feature that few could have imagined capturing the headlines. As the women’s game has advanced in leaps and bounds, so fitness has obviously helped lead the way.
Team Structures
This brings us to one of the consistently fascinating mysteries of the game: the ideal make-up of an Eleven. In limited-overs cricket some decisions are removed from the selectors: there have to be at least five bowlers.
Then the balance between batters and bowlers; then types of bowler. For a few years now England has been blessed with quality spinners. Yet in the current test only Sophie Ecclestone has been picked. Kate Cross’ regretted absence may be partly to blame. The nearest equivalent to her was deemed to be Ryana Macdonald-Gay, one of the few young bowlers able to keep a decent line. It is a concern that so few others compete with her. Whatever their talents, their overs contain too many loose deliveries to test the best opponents.
So the attack consisted of the two Laurens, RMG and NSB. Just one spinner!
Beyond the test, it has often seemed as though Lewis and his advisers were unsure of the optimum choice of spin-bowlers. Now it might be all three of Ecclestone, Glenn and Dean; now only two of them. Then there remained the difficulty of establishing a reserve line-up. Especially for Ecclestone. Leading contestants were Linsey Smith and the Scot, Kirstie Gordon.
When Smith was chosen, her openings seemed too limited for her to relax and produce her best. As if she knew everything depended on great results.
Heather Knight’s decision to give herself an over on the second day of the test was all the proof we needed of the total confusion Lewis’ selection policy.
Beyond all these considerations lay the monster of the Hundred. Batters are offered vast sums of money for hitting every ball for six. Bowlers are merely slaves, charged with sending up deliveries that can be hit for maximums over boundaries placed conveniently close.
One central consequence is that batters are not practised in building long innings.
The call has come for the return of more frequent test matches. That would require more multi-day cricket at national level and a more professional approach: players freed from the need to earn their keep with alternative employment. That has been the practice in men’s cricket for a century and a half – though disfigured by the split between amateurs (Gentlemen) and professionals (Players). That system lasted right through till 1963. The MCC has a lot to answer for.
The Test
Test matches carry that term for a good reason: they are the ultimate trial for a cricketer. England have (by the end of the second day) been totally outplayed in all three disciplines.
They were rolled over on the first day, only the reliable Nat Sciver-Brunt reaching as far as 50. In the field one dropped catch after another helped Australia on their way to a mammoth score.
There have always been bowlers who show their scorn for fielders who drop catches off their bowling. But when they are guilty themselves? England put seven chances down. Nobody knows for sure why this illness is so contagious. One brilliant catch early on tends to lead to others. The reverse is equally true. Who is the England fielding coach?
One strange effect of England’s quick dismissal on the first day was the tightness of their bowling in Australia’s reply. In the first 22 overs, England produced eight maidens. Australia had no need to hasten; they were ahead of the game. Their commanding score of 422-5 came at a modest 3.5 per over.
But then, England’s first innings had unravelled so fast that they couldn’t reach a snail-like 2.5 per over.
Just contrast that with any Hundred match you have seen, and you will spot the chasm that separates the two formats.
Knight was one of many requesting 5-day tests (not 4-day) and series of at least three matches. Where do those pious hopes lie now?
What are the chances the post-tour review will be made available for public consumption? Who will accept the blame for the travesty the series has proved to be?
