Ashwin, master of spin and Renaissance man

Can there ever have been a cricketer more driven, more demanding of himself and yet more giving than Ravichandran Ashwin? 

There are many who have been as single-minded and dedicated to the game but they tend to be overtaken by either a Boycottian/Pietersenesque sense of self-importance or become introspective 'Mr Crickets'. They take from the game much more than they ever give back. They may inspire devotion, loyalty and respect but never genuine love. How could they when there seems none in their cricketing hearts? Ashwin asks of himself and gives to us all.

He is a technician, an analyst, a psychologist, a conjurer,  a philosopher, a sage and a prophet. He is a soothsayer, a cricketing haruspex scouring the entrails of past victims for patterns and clues. It is not luck or coincidence that has brought 29 five-wicket hauls but destiny.

He sees spin bowling not as art or science but an expression of both. A Renaissance man.

He is a geometrist, a geometrophile if you will - a lover of angles. Crease position, arm height, cant of the wrist and seam, and all variations thereof. And what of the permitted 15 degrees of elbow straightening? Don't think he hasn't looked into that!

He is a physicist. A devotee of the laws of motion and mechanics. Run-up, arm speed, rotation, grip and flick. Faster, slower, higher, lower. Undetectable at release, unplayable at the crease. 'Natural variation' you say? Don't be so sure. 

He is a chemist. There is nothing random in the compounds he creates from these myriad elements. Nets are his laboratories with Bunsen burners as standard issue. 

And he is a prospector too, always on the lookout for a new element to add to the mix.

But most of all he is an artist, a craftsman. He may possess a box of tricks like no other but he employs them subtly with guile, finesse and reserve.  Like Shane Warne and other Masters of Spin before him, he probes and thinks his way through an over - six bullets primed to fire, or not. Sometimes holding back your best shot is the right strategy too, in Test cricket at least. But he can play the short game equally as well as the long one. Adaptability, another Ashwin trait.

The joy and fulfilment that Ashwin finds in the science and art of spin bowling should be spread throughout the world, it belongs to all of us. But countries outside the subcontinent (where the majority of criticism of the Chennai pitch has come from) have to be open enough to see it. The England camp has wisely refrained from even implying anything negative - 'challenging' was Joe Root's euphemistic description -  but they didn't actively endorsed it. How could they? Such a surface is anathema to them and deemed 'below average' rating under ECB pitch regulations which state that:

"Pitches should be prepared to provide an even contest between bat and ball and should allow all disciplines in the game to flourish."

Generously, those regulations do concede that:

" There is nothing wrong with a pitch that affords some degree of turn on the first day of a match though anything more than occasional unevenness of bounce at this stage of the match is not expected. It is to be expected that a pitch will turn steadily more as a match progresses, and it is recognised that a greater degree of unevenness of bounce may develop." 

However:

"In no circumstances should the pitch ‘explode’ / ‘go through the top’ though again, “how often” must be considered."

Yet these are the fields of dreams of future Ashwins and what feeds them nourishes us all. 

In the meantime England have a week to find some new answers to Ashwin's riddles. A good spin bowler is like a fine winemaker, a masterful one like a great Bordeaux vigneron. Ashwin has produced many great vintages of which Chateau Chennai '21 is just the latest. It will not be the last. Cheers!

Leach should relish Pant's challenge

I was curious to see commentators questioning Jack Leach's confidence following the brilliant and fearless attack on him by Rishahb Pant in the first innings at Chennai. Why? 

Any spinner worth his salt enjoys a batsman coming down the pitch with agressive intent (they are not quite so keen on the more selective and disruptive Pujara style approach). Furthermore everything was in Leach's favour: the pitch was turning, there was significant rough outside the left-handers off stump, India were under pressure and conceding runs didn't matter. You literally couldn't ask for a more perfect situation. If you don't enjoy bowling under those conditions then you are in the wrong job. 

Leach actually bowled quite well, his opponent simply batted better and earnt the luck that he needed to survive and prosper. Yes perhaps Leach could have been more accurate, hitting the footmarks a little more consistently, he could have varied his pace and line a touch more too, specifically throwing the ball wider and a little slower but overall he did little wrong. Pant won this time but he defied the odds to do so. If the two find themselves in the same situation repeatedly over the four Test match series then put your money on Leach. 

Vitally he received strong support from his captain. Root backed him right up to the point where Pant's wonderful eye began to shift the odds in India's favour. Bringing Leach back soon after Pant's departure showed his continued confidence in his number one spinner, essential given the inconsistency of Dom Bess. 

It seems Kohli has requested old fashioned 'bunsens' for the rest of the series. Leach should be licking his lips.

 

Australia '63 by Alan Ross (Book Review)

There are no punches pulled in the introduction to this tour diary, the author describes the series as one of the dullest and most disappointing that he has covered. It's an unconventional approach and one that you might have thought would send up the red flag of all publishing red flags. And yet such is the richness of the prose, the acuteness of the observation and the broadness of reference, that such trifles seem, well just that. 

Ross's earlier work, Australia '55 is considered the pinnacle of tour diaries but it must be said that the freshness of the subject matter and the quality of the cricket played in that series provided valuable assistance. Here Ross has fewer natural advantages at his disposal, but he still produces an emininently readable account which strays frequently and pleasantly but not excessively on to non-cricketing matters as he pounds the bitumen of the eastern and southern seaboards in an improbably reliable Morris Minor taking advantage of the long gaps between Tests. He elegantly savages Australian architecture of the time, quietly gushes at the new wave of antipodean painters and affectionately recounts a day in the company of the genial Arthur Mailey.

Much of Ross's match analysis reflects on the timidity of the batting. He attributes this to self-centredness on the part of the individuals concerned but also to a collective lack of urgency and positivity. He would not, I feel, have been a great fan of Dominic Sibley. The soreness of his disappointment is a recurring them, even if he finds some mitigation in postscripted reflections. Both sides possessed stellar names who would be or had been great but few were at their peak in 1963. An England side containing Cowdrey, Barrington, Graveney, Trueman and Statham could hardly be considered weak but only Trueman and Barrington produced performances to justify their reputation. In a series full of dull cricket, the showmanship of the Yorkshire fast bowler, something perhaps forgotten or overlooked by those of us who never saw him play, alone provided the author with moments of lighter entertainment and opportunities for gentle whimsy.

Our deepest disappointments are always reserved for those whom we regard most highly and Ross cannot have been alone in expecting that two teams captained by Richie Benaud and Ted Dexter would produce brighter, more enterprising cricket. But as Ross points out in his postscript (in typically Ross style he admits it was written some weeks later on a beach in Mexico!) there was then, and certainly is today, a tendency to view Benaud as a happy-go-lucky character willing to risk losing if it gave the chance of victory. Ross reminds us that Benaud was far more hard-nosed and pragmatic than that. 

These gentle realignments of popular theory are typical of a writer who whilst capable of tough criticism and trenchant views never loses sight of the player's perspective and the hidden stresses and strains which are so easily ignored or played down. He is never gratuitously harsh or mean-spirited, never sacrifices fairness for a killer line. A true polymath, his prose has the flow and rhythm of the poet, the curiosity, cultural awareness and nose for the off-beat fact of the best travel writers, whilst his eye for detail and keen analytical mind is that of a seasoned cricket journalist. 

They don't make cricket books like this any more. There are probably only a few who could write them and they simply don't have time; it was a slower, gentler era but in Ross' company never dull or ponderous.

The mischaracterisation of Jos Buttler

If there was any remaining doubt that Jos Buttler is an outstanding batsman, there should now be none. His expertly constructed 75, in partnership with Chris Woakes, was a innings of class, temperament and skill in a high pressure situation for both himself and the team. And yet. And yet.

Despite all the evidence of his ability Buttler remains something of an enigma.  Exactly what sort of batsman is he? I don't mean is he a limited-overs specialist or a true multi-format exponent, those labels are boring, over-simplistic and frankly the question has been done to death. I'm speaking more deeply, more spiritually. Who is the batsman known as Jos Buttler?

I pose the question because many of the criticisms of him seem to stem from a lazy misunderstanding and therefore mischaracterisation of the player. To understand the player, you must understand the man, or the woman. And in this case, the misunderstanding comes from a subconscious desire to squeeze Buttler into a mould, a very particular and indeed unique model, for which he just doesn't fit.

When it comes to selecting a keeper there is every evidence to suggest that selectors consider batting ability more important than keeping skill, once a certain minimum threshold has been passed. This is not a new thing, both Les Ames and Jim Parks in an English context benefited from such thinking, but what was once a choice has now become a rule. If you're not capable of batting at seven or above, you won't play. But this new orthodoxy doesn't stop there, there is an unspoken, but evidential trend, certainly in England, favouring keepers who can bat in a certain style. And it stems from one man.

Adam Gilchrist wasn't the first Australian keeper to wield the willow effectively. His immediate predecessor Ian Healy was more than capable, Wayne Phillips before him was accomplished and stylish  and Rod Marsh was distinctly useful. And it was not just in Australia: Jeffrey Dujon was a delightfully attractive strokeplayer; Farokh Engineer, Alan Knott and Jack Russell were unconventional but highly effective; whilst Rashid Latif and Moin Khan were more than useful. But Gilchrist set a new standard, one to which every international keeper, including Buttler, is now measured and which not one has yet reached.

Superficially Buttler and Gilchrist are similar - gifted strikers of the ball who excelled in one-day cricket but who had to bide their time to earn their Test spots. But that is where the similarity ends. You often here commentators speak of Buttler having 'licence', Gilchrist never needed such authorisation. He was a natural game-changer, whether that meant counter-attacking from a position of weakness (rarely) or delivering the coup de grâce to a flagging opposition (frequently). Where Gilchrist was instinctive and destructive, Buttler calculates and dismantles, where Gilchrist seemed carefree, Buttler always appears careworn. This is not a criticism of Buttler for it portrays a man who thinks and cares deeply, but it may affect his success - something he is well aware of, judging by the visual reminders with which he adorns his equipment. Perhaps he should write 'Gilly' on his bat handle instead - the meaning would be the same and television directors would be delighted. 

My point is that Gilchrist was a one-off. Over the course of a 100 Test innings at number seven, he averaged 47 with twelve hundreds at the frankly astonishing strike rate of 83. To put this in context, Brendon McCullum, a kindred spirit if ever there was one, scored at a rate of 63 in the same position (granted that it was only late in his career, after he gave up the gloves and assumed the captaincy, that McCullum gave full expression to his true self). Then there is Quinton de Kock who shares not only Gilchrist's left-handedness but his timing and flair. But even he only managed a strike rate of 70 batting at seven and he now bats in the top six, where he seems condemned to a never ending internal battle between team responsibility and his own more expansive instincts. Buttler's strike rate is 57.

If we absolutely must type-cast Buttler then it is to another master of white ball cricket that we should look. He most closely resembles MS Dhoni, a man so cool he could make a cucumber sweat, capable of strikes of enormous power and destructiveness but whose construction of an innings, particularly in one-day cricket always appeared calculated to the nth degree.

Likewise Buttler is not a particularly instinctive player, he thinks his way through an innings. And this is our misunderstanding. Where we see power, savagery and impudence, there is in fact strategy, guile and control. He doesn't play a reverse or a ramp on an impulse or because they look good but because he calculated it to be the right one in the situation. There is risk yes, but that lies in the execution and in that he has no fear. Talent and practice, particularly practice, much of it unseen and unrecognised, have seen to that. 

So the next time that we watch Buttler amble out to bat in that calm but intense way of his, let's not imagine the player we want him to be, but appreciate the one that he is.

Feeling is the Thing that Happens in 1000th of a Second by Christian Ryan (Book Review)

Most cricket books can probably be squeezed into one broad category or another but there are few that simply refuse to be pigeon-holed, Beyond a Boundary is an obvious example. Feeling is one of those outliers.

Christian Ryan doesn't search for any deeper meaning to the game or attempt to place it in a wider context. Instead he presents it from an entirely fresh perspective, a new light if you will, without flash or airbrush, where cloud cover doesn't affect swing but the colour, or lack of, of the image before us. Through months of conversations, Ryan disects a year of photography, the Ashes summer of 1975, by the outstanding Patrick Eager, the foremost cricketing photographer of his and perhaps any era.

I was first introduced to Eager's work at a young age through his collaborations with Alan Ross, pictorial accounts of eight international summers, seven English, one Australian. Through Eager's effortlessly atmospheric snaps and through Ross, the poet, with his  smooth, Bordeaux-rich prose, I became intoxicated with the game without even realising how. Flicking back through those pages again now, the reasons are clear.

Ryan has a different style to Ross, his is sharp and fresh, like a Chablis - you probably couldn't drink a lot of it, but every mouthful is worth savouring. And his approach here is simple enough: allow Eager to explain his process - the science, the technique, the gear; then show the reader, and remind the artist, of the art within.

Eager, in keeping with many at the pinnacle of their fields is reluctant to assign design to his most successful images with perhaps the exception his most famous one, that of Jeff Thomson, that envelops the front and back covers. He continually refers to luck as his greatest ally - just repeated cases of being in the right place at the right time. Ryan gently disuades him of such unjustified modesty. 

In fact it is unfair to say that Ryan doesn't look for deeper meaning and wider context, he does, but at the macro level. He forensically analyses each photo, diligently researches the stories behind them and gently jogs Eager's memory for the inside story as he goes. He also adds just enough details on the man and teases out sufficient personal reminicences to fill out the artist's character without the book ever feeling autobiographical or indeed biographical. It is a thin line, expertly trod.
 
Eager's success rate seems particularly remarkable given the technical limitations of the era. Most of the time he had one shot at getting the perfect image and then would have to wait until the following day to know whether he got it. Again this is where his plead of 'luck' falls flat, only an intimate knowledge not just of light, angles etc but of the game, the grounds and the players themselves could produce such gems so regularly.

My biggest gripe and it was an immediate one, was the size of the book itself. I had assumed a book centred around a selection of photographs, and especially one that retailed at 20 pounds, would be large enough to allow the reader to peruse the images without the aid of a magnifying glass. No doubt cost was at the heart of it, but unfortunately it does make this unusual but worthwhile project feel a little cheap, and neither Ryan's words nor Eager's many iconic images deserve that. 

Absolutely Foxed by Graeme Fowler (Book Review)

It is often said that meeting one's hero is best avoided. The clash of the imagined with the real is unlikely to be a confirmational experience. Well growing up Graeme Fowler was my cricketing hero. And aside from a hastily signed autograph on the boundary edge, I've never met him.  I've watched him bat hundreds of times and on each occasion I recall feeling trepidation rather than expectation. He was that kind of player. Fielding was a more relaxing experience, one could comfortably sit back and marvel at his energy and athleticism as he prowled the covers or skirted round the boundary in front of the Old Trafford pavillion. I then read and re-read his first book Fox on the Run until the binding cracked and the dust cover was reduced to shreds. And when he retired I listened to him on TMS and giggled away as he bantered engagingly with Aggers, Blowers and Johnners. But none of those encounters brought me any closer to knowing the man. Until now.

'Frank and honest', it's the classic byline for a sporting biography. Usually it just means being a bit rough and unrefined, the result of a ghost writer's quest for the subject's 'authentic voice'. Well this book is definitely frank and honest, painfully so at times but it is neither rough nor unrefined.

What emerges is a complex individual a world away from the carefree clown-like persona for which he is most commonly remembered and which to some extent he cultivated. Fowler is clearly a deep and original thinker and something of an amateur psychologist; an inspiring coach who knew what made young players tick. What is surprising, although it is not an uncommon phenomenon, is his inability or unwillingness to channel those people skills into his dealings with higher echelons of power.  His refusal to toe the line in the face of the inevitable politics and bureaucracy that pervades cricket as it does every other walk of life, could be seen as an admirable trait but ultimately it served him badly. There certainly seems to be little on which he doesn't hold a pretty strong and uncompromising view; a degree of self-righteousness that, being a sportsman, probably helped and hindered him in equal measure. Whether you end up liking Fowler (as opposed to just admiring him) at the end of the book, will depend on whether you agree with his world view.

All this is set against the essential premise of the book, a most worthy one, to raise awareness of mental health issues and the dangers, the signals, the triggers and the consequences of depression. It is here where he is at his most honest and self-aware. The book starts with this, quite deliberately "I felt it was important as it allowed people to interpret the other stuff knowing I'd had depression later in life". It's the right choice. Not only does it inform the other stuff, but it reminds one of just how little of their real selves sportspeople, particularly those in team sports, feel able to reveal. It may be a more caring, sympathetic environment now than when Fowler started his career, but it can still be a brutal mix of euphoric highs and terrifying lows.

The most interesting aspect concerns Fowler's time as Head at the Centre of Excellence in Durham.  As he now seems to have the book writing bug, he could do a lot worse than dedicate an entire one to this story. The centres of excellence, now spread  around the country, were based on his own original idea and on his Durham model. They ought to have been his defining legacy to the game. They broke the paradigm that said that a teenager, fresh out of school, has to choose between sport and education. It's an idea entrenched in football and rugby, and since the demise of Oxbridge as a serious option for academically inclined sportsmen, in cricket as well. The provided a pathway both for those passionate about their cricket but uncertain whether they were good enough, or those passionate about their studies but with talent to burn. Safeguarding their futures as he says.

And yet in 2014, the ECB decided that the model was too expensive and too exclusive. The centres of cricket remain but the pursuit of excellence, intensive and elitist as it must be, has been diluted and diminished. Unsurprisingly it was the trigger for one of Fowler's most severe bouts of depression, but it should depress us all. Ultimately his vision, despite its concrete successes, wasn't shared by those who mattered. A failure of higher managment surely but could a more politically astute operator have changed their minds? Maybe. But that's heroes for you, great for some things but not so great for others. They're human beings after all, and this one's not a bad one.

The Strange Death of English Leg Spin by Justin Parkinson (Book review)

I recently reviewed Twirlymen by Amol Rajan, a joyful, celebratory dance to the music of spin. Well almost entirely joyful. During the rare moments when Rajan wasn't being swept away by boyish enthusiasm, he also found time to offer the odd lament on cricket's greatest but most difficult art. Laments to opportunities not taken, not given or not recognised, to dreams dashed or unrealised, to promise unfulfilled or undeveloped, and to legacies lost or discarded.

That theme and in particular as it relates to English leg-spin (and chinaman bowlers) forms the central premise of this book. A story that begins brightly with a trickle of English (and Scottish) ingenuity and innovation, but which then goes south, literally, as first a stream of South Africans and then, a torrent of Australians take over. It is an extraordinary fact that only 5 wickets have been taken by English leg-spinners (Scott Borthwick 4, Mason Crane 1) in Ashes Tests since Bob Barber dismissed Graham McKenzie at Old Trafford in 1968.

In assessing how and why this happened, the author takes us on a familiar path through the main protagonists and innovators. En route he provides some welcome clarity on Bonsanquet's popularising rather than inventive relationship with the googly as well as suggesting a hidden, deeper meaning to the 'bosie' sobriquet. Despite admirably thorough research that brings out a few gems, one is still left with more questions than answers when it comes to the greatest of them all, SF Barnes - surely just as Barnes would wish it. I particularly enjoyed the speculative suggestion that Clarrie Grimmett, known for his attention to detail, employed fox terriers to retrieve the balls from his purpose built garden net because they were known for their high-energy level and low drool output!

As far as English wrist-spinners are concerned it has always been an uphill struggle. It is not enough that they must master the most difficult skill in the game, in which, as Ian Salisbury rightly notes, 'a centimetre wrong in your action can affect it by two yards at the other end', but they must also overcome an ingrained distrust of their art which has seemed to pass like contagion from captain to captain, era to era. It is hard not see in McLaren's reticence towards the admittedly erratic but dangerous Bosanquet and Hutton ( a leg spinner himself) and May's reluctance to utilise the myriad talents of Johnny Wardle, more than a hint of the risk averse tactics of the Strauss-Flower era. It is something of an irony that England's one international class wrist spinner, Adil Rashid, is born and raised in Yorkshire an area deemed by Hutton to be entirely unsuited, climatically, to such extravagant pursuits.

Instead English leggies have relied on the backing of deep thinkers such as Mike Brearley and Peter Roebuck and innovative risk-takers, such as Adam Hollioake who revived Ian Salisbury's career. Roebuck, speaking before the T20 revolution and way before England renaissance in the 50 over game, speculated that in a game where 400 was the new 250 leg-spin would be a risk worth taking. A point Rashid and others continue to prove.

Faced with such overwhelming negativity, it is no surprise that many such bowlers have headed for the Promised Land in search of love and understanding. In perhaps the most interesting and certainly original part of the book, Parkinson charts the progress of a number of young Englishmen sent to Australia to work with Terry Jenner, leg-spin guru and mentor to the Great One. The results were not, as if you need telling, messianic. Like Aubrey Faulkner, mentor to Ian Peebles, Jenner believed there was a right way, his way and a wrong way, all the others. In keeping with many of us who have spent years trying to perfect a simple leg-break, he saw Shane Warne not only as the perfect model but the only one. Unfortunately, and I could have told him this myself, this turned out to be completely folly. The result was a certain disillusionment for the characters concerned and undoubted disappointment for the ECB who had funded Jenner's work. But who knows, judging by Rashid's recent resurrection, perhaps it has a brought a greater appreciation and understanding as well. Dying maybe, but not dead yet.

Root at a crossroads

Just over a year ago, with the Ashes imminent, there was some sensible talk (amongst all the trash) about the battle of the captains. Joe Root was still relatively new to the job, and even if he seemed to take responsibility in his stride it was widely thought that he was yet to really stamp his personality on the side.  Steve Smith, his opposite number, was more established, with less focus on his actual captaincy skills but rather on just how England were going to get him out. At the time I mused that the captaincy issue was a smokescreen, yes Smith and Root was the key battle but not one that would be decided by a moment of Brearley-like inspiration or a quirky Vaughan-esque field setting. No, this would be a battle of runs, and for England to stand any chance they needed a whole stack. In particular they need at least 500 including a couple of meaningful centuries, from their one world class batsman, their captain.  Root finished with 378 runs and a top score of 83. Smith made 687 with 3 hundreds including a best of 239. Like the series itself, it was barely a contest. 

Since then it's fair to say that Root and Smith lives have taken different courses, certainly in the court of public opinion. Smith is still serving his 12 month ban for failing to prevent two idiots carrying out an act so stupid even Boris Johnson wouldn't have backed it; meanwhile Root is feted as a sort of cross between Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Russell Brand for failing to respond like an idiot to a crass, but off the cuff remark.

Like the captaincy argument, this is just another entertaining side-show.  Cricket hasn't changed since Smith was banned. It's still all about runs and wickets. And England are still as dependant on Root's runs as they ever were, possibly even more so; as will Australia be when Smith returns. Root can be as upstanding a member of society as he likes but if he doesn't start batting to his potential, then he is not doing his primary job - influencing matches and series from the start in the manner of a world class batsman. Second innings hundreds in dead rubbers are nice for the average but little good for the team.

There is some mitigation. With England's next best players currently consigned to the 6 and 7 slots, Root is in effect carrying the entire top 5. Clearly this is a lot to ask, probably too much. A couple of things could help him. Firstly another re-think of Jonny Bairstow's batting position. Having him at 5, possibly interchangeably with Ben Stokes depending on workload, would give the top order a solider look. Secondly, a recall for Ian Bell to bat at 3. He may not be the player he was but if he is properly motivated he is still streets ahead of the other options.

But the buck still stops with the captain. England don't need just the old Root back they need a new, improved version. Nasser Hussain reckons that he has another level in him. I agree, but to get there he needs to rethink his approach. There is a still a boyish carefreeness to his batting. It has  served him well at times and made him a delightful player to watch. He likes to score, to put bat to ball early on, and put pressure on opposition bowlers. And all done with a smile on his face.

Nevertheless Root's game, along with the majority of the world's batsman, has stagnated. Stuck in adolescence. Sure his range of attacking shots has grown thanks to the white ball stuff but in terms of building an innings he is still doing the same thing he was five years ago. Meanwhile their opponents have matured. Aided and abetted by video and statistical analysis and encouraged most recently by some sporting surfaces, bowlers have wised up. Just as batsman have forsaken patience, they have discovered its worth. A couple of boundaries is no longer due cause for a kick of the footholes or a volley of expletives. Captains are now increasingly happy to offer boundary protection (keeping the catchers but offering the single) in the knowledge that these cavaliers are unlikely or unable to change his game. As a result bowlers are more willing to play the waiting game. They've watched the videos, they've seen the stats, enough balls in a certain area and most batsmen, Root included, will give you a chance.

It was telling that before the Test series in the Caribbean Root stated that "you don't win games by batting long periods of time, you win games by scoring big runs". Now while it is possible to bat for long periods of time WITHOUT scoring big runs, it is, especially in the T20 era, rather improbable. And surely the longer you bat the better your chances of amassing those runs? It almost makes you feel that the entire basis of the strategy set out in Sri Lanka, to 'get the runs before they get you', was predicated more on the ability and mental capacity of the English batsmen than on the conditions and the bowlers they were set to face. That it worked was a happy coincidence but it is not and can never be a recipe for consistent Test match success.

Instead of poo-pooing the value of patience and restraint Root could do worse than to look at the example of Steve Waugh. Hard as it is believe, but when he first game on the international scene he was lauded for the freeness and range of his stroke play. But such freedom brought only limited success. Only when he decided to sure up his game, eschewing risk and instead waiting for the bad ball did his fortunes change. In 46 Tests up to December 1992, Waugh scored 2166 runs at an average 36. In the next 122 he made 8761 at 56.

Even Root's contemporaries and rivals (and fellow captains) have shown the value of abstinence.  Virat Kohli performance in the English summer past, was a model for any batsman facing such 'ego-burying' conditions. Even Smith himself, when confronted at Brisbane by a bowling strategy designed (by Root) solely to frustrate and restrict, refused to give it away and ultimately redirected and amplified that frustration back to bowler and captain. Root had a front row seat on both occasions but appears uninterested in the lessons.

Go back three years ago and you would have put Root on a par with Kohli and Kane Williamson with Smith slightly ahead. For the moment he has been left behind. Despite the boyish smile there is no lack of toughness, but does he have it in him to suppress his natural instincts and be what his team needs him to be - not just an accomplished competitor but a talented fighter.  Kohli would see it as a challenge, does he?

Jennings returns as England seek to avoid calypso collapso

Only three weeks ago I expressed concern that judging the progress of Joe Root's side would be  impossible if their next opponents reverted to the sort of spineless and inept performance which has been an all too regular feature of their Test cricket over recent years. I wish to offer an apology to readers, it was, admittedly, just a simple typo but a very misleading one. Of course I meant Jason Holder's side.

Holder sits this last game out, convicted and punished for negligently stretching the Antiguan massacre well beyond its natural death ( probably somewhere after Tea on Day 2) and in the process prolonging the suffering of England supporters already burdened by the stresses, strains and painful decision-making processes (rum punch or Wadadli? paddling pool or jet-ski?) that are part and parcel of watching cricket on tropical island paradises. I hope he is suitably ashamed.

Meanwhile Joe Root must be looking back fondly to those halcyon days before the Sri Lankan tour when the spectre of Alistair Cook still loomed large and questions were routinely raised as the Yorkshireman's 'ownership' of the side. Not any more. After the emphatic 3-0 victory, we all agreed: this was Root's team now. You're welcome Joe. Of course we may have slightly overestimated the Sri Lankans. They looked a poor side, possibly the weakest they have put out since their inaugural Test and yet their stock manages to drop even further every time England bat.

So where does Root go from here? Well you would have thought the calming effects of the rum punch would have been a good starting point but whilst some of his teammates have taken this option Root has headed back to the sanctuary of the nets to iron out some footwork issues. To each their own. And maybe he's right. Certainly England's current problems would be eased if their one world class batsman, started performing like one. How effective would have Australia, India or New Zealand have been in recent years if Smith, Kohli or Williamson had performed as spasmodically as he has?

It is true that India might choose to nuance their answer by pointing to their triumph Down Under and to the seminal role played not by Kohli but the pertinacious and indefatigable number 3, Cheteshwar Pujara or "Steve" as they call him in Yorkshire. "Geoffrey" might have been a more appropriate moniker. Certainly not Jonny.

The brief and frankly desperate hope that Bairstow might prove to be the long term replacement to Jonathan Trott, seems now as ridiculous in practise as it always did in theory. It might have made sense if the English middle order was itself a balanced mix of stroke players and accumulators but it is not. 'Go hard' seems to be their default plan; if that doesn't work they go to their back up plan: 'go harder'. We can rightly ask, demand even, that such talented strokemakers display better shot selection and situational awareness, but to ask them to fundamentally change how they play would be self-defeating (as is in danger of happening with Ben Stokes). Even the great West Indies side of the 80's recognised that too much calypso risked too much collapso. They had Greenidge, they had Richards, they had Lloyd but they also had Gomes. Where is England's Larry? Or Steve? Or Geoffrey even?

It was, I thought, somewhat ironic or indeed telling that Keaton Jennings was dropped after he and Rory Burns had put together one of the longest opening stands by an English opening partnership in some time in the second innings in Barbados. Jennings gutsed it out for almost 30 overs scoring a Brathwaite-like 14. He didn't look good, he never exuded permanence but he stuck in. How different the number three role might have looked to Joe Root (still England's best option in that position) if even this had been a regular event. Instead, and perhaps not unreasonably, the selectors focused on the method of Jennings' dismissal - a horrible stiff legged drive which once again suggested a technique modelled on the Test Match board game. Nevertheless it seemed an odd moment make the change, particularly with the sparsity of options available. Jennings' place went to Joe Denly a top-order player but one whose primary success has come in T20. It showed.

Whatever the reasons and they are numerous, England simply aren't developing players with the application or technique that is required. What they would give for a player of Shai Hope's class at number three, or even someone with Kraigg Brathwaite's selfless restraint and resilience at the top. Now with only pride to play for and with little other choice, Jennings has been restored for the Final Test with Denly dropping down a spot and Bairstow retaking the gloves (and a more suitable batting position). But what odds on any of this top three facing Australia in August? Time for a rum punch I think.

Twirlymen by Amol Rajan (Book Review)

As someone who shared his shattered dream of a career amongst the 'twirlymen', I can easily relate Amol Rajan's almost obsessive enthusiasm for his subject. And whilst this book succeeds in its primary mission to inform and enlighten, it is the author's endless and unrequited passion for the tweaks, twirls and mystery of spin bowling that is its real feature.

The book charts the history of cricket's innovators: those who looked at a little red ball and thought "what if?". It is no surprise then that the annals of spin bowling encompass so many original thinkers and unusual personalities. In fact such are the fascinating, complex and frankly eccentric characters which make up the spin brethren, that this book would work well enough as series of separate biographies. The contrasting styles and personas of spin partnerships from O'Reilly and Grimmett to Ramadhin and Valentine, Bedi and Chandresekharar, and even Edmonds and Emburey are particularly enjoyable. The wide-range of interviews provide a rich source of evidential anecdote.

From a technical perspective the author provides a valuable service in debunking the claims of Dooland, Bosanquet and Saqlain to the flipper, googly and doosra respectively. Each, he establishes, were being bowled several decades earlier at the very least. Indeed he cites W.G. Grace as an early exponent of a flipper type delivery. None of this detracts from his rightful admiration for Shane Warne's ability to invent a new delivery or two prior to every Ashes battle. Deception is after all, an essential part of the twirlyman's armoury.

Although he makes efforts to bring along the uninitiated through some useful diagrams explaining the various deliveries it is to the already converted that this book's appeal really lies. He pulls few punches and is particularly forthright on the subject of Muttiah Muralidaran whilst taking Gideon Haigh to task for his rubbishing of  the humble off-spinner.

Whilst the author's enthusiasm is mostly endearing, too often it overflows into wide-eyed, childlike excitability at the cost of reasoned analysis. In particular, for a seemingly discerning chap it is disappointing to see him fall head first into one of the diseases of modern media. Just as an overbowled googly loses its impact, so too do superlatives when used excessively.

He reserves astonishing praise for a couple of left-arm spinners. The recently retired Rangana Herath was certainly a gifted and canny bowler who also bowled an interesting carrom ball early in his career, but to describe him as 'scintillating' is really pushing it; meanwhile Daniel Vettori, a fine bowler but of essentially simple method, is described as 'brilliant'. In a book which features Grace, Barnes, O'Reilly and Warne, such high praise ought to have been less liberally assigned. It's a small quibble but one that grates from quite early on.

Published eight years ago, the book has aged well. Perhaps too well. Of the new breed of twirlymen only the endlessly curious and imaginative Ravi Ashwin would now warrant serious mention. Mystery spinners may have enjoyed a renaissance in the T20 era, but it has also shown up the limitations of that format as a means of developing genuinely great bowlers possessing the control and subtlety to match their many variations. We still await the next exponent to whom the moniker 'brilliant' could justifiably be applied. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Improving England still stuck on opening question

There is always something slightly odd and unsatisfying about English cricketing winters that rather than encompassing Christmas and New Year are divided by them. Perhaps they should be called Autumn and Winter tours. They feel disparate, unconnected entities. By mid-January memories of the pre-Christmas series seem as distant as the last mince pie, at least that is how it feels as a watcher. One would imagine the players see it quite differently. Christmas at home is a rare and precious gift for an established England Test cricketer; it is a chance to exit the bubble, to relax with family and friends, and maybe to reflect on the year's successes and failures, or often just to try and forget.

I doubt though that a Test series in the sub-continent has ever been the subject of a New Year's toast (usually more the drowning of sorrows), but even accounting for Sri Lanka's historic weakness, the 3-0 whitewash was a genuine cause for celebration, a triumph, particularly in the Root household. The England captain at last appears to have taken command of his ship, one with an increasingly impressive armoury. His side now has seven wins in nine test matches and only one defeat in the last eight.

Above all it was the clarity of purpose displayed in Sri Lanka that impressed the most, exemplified by a simple plan of controlled (mostly) aggression and personnel capable, and indeed ideally suited, to carrying it out ruthlessly. It is one of the marks of a successful team, no matter what sport, that each player knows his role and is comfortable with the responsibility it brings.  The question remains can Root (and Bayliss, for praise should be shared when things go right just as should criticism when they go wrong) construct similarly effective plans for the greater challenges that lie ahead. The Caribbean, marks the next challenge, against another struggling side and on what are expected to be similarly slow and low pitches. It ought to be a straightforward assignment for a team aiming to be the best in the world and possessing one of the great new ball partnerships, a bevy of impressive all-rounders, three international class wicketkeepers and and one world class batsman. There is however, one critical area in which it currently falls way short of the mark - the opening partnership. 

Of the present incumbents let's look first at Keaton Jennings. What did we know about him before the Sri Lanka series? That he had character, grit, determination and that he was a pretty good player of spin bowling with a clear game plan that had already proved effective in Test cricket on the sub-continent. And what do know now? That he is a very good player of spin bowling, with a game plan that continues to be effective on the sub-continent. The questions about Jennings are all about his technique against seam bowling. This series did nothing to assuage those concerns, indeed it actually reinforced them.

Dawid Malan was dropped last summer, following a successful Ashes winter, with Smith observing that his technique may be better suited to overseas conditions. In Malan's case Smith was referring to the bouncier pitches of Australia and South Africa, but couldn't the exact same analysis be used for Jennings only for the opposite conditions?  Currently I would say the chances of him starting the Ashes series are no more than 60%, with the likelihood of him being there at the end considerably lower. Reknowned for his toughness he will itching to silence such doubts. Runs against a more than useful West Indian seam attack of Gabriel, Roach and Holder, Duke's ball in hand, would be a good start.

Rory Burns may be slightly securer in his position. Sri Lanka was hardly a personal triumph but he did apparently sail through the 'right stuff ' test of which so much store now seems put, assimilating himself into the squad as seamlessly as a 20-over old Kookaburra. But having convinced Ed Smith to overlook his slightly idiosyncratic technique and to focus on his runs instead, he now needs to deliver. 1319 runs in 13 Championship cricket last year, nearly 400 more than his nearest rival, is solid money in the bank but first-class runs are like a new car, they look great in the showroom but plunge in value the moment they hit the road.  He needs a Test score and soon.

The matter becomes even more crucial when one looks at the batting to come. Joe Root was reluctant to continue in the number 3 spot, not because he feared the occasions when he would be out there at 11.01 rather than 110-1 but because the former case had become the rule rather than the exception. The latest sacrificial lamb, Jonny Bairstow, is far less well equipped than Root to deal with the former but even better suited to capitalise on the latter. With a succession of strokemakers packing the middle/lower order, a solid opening partnership would be transformational to this side.

Opportunities aplenty then, with significant rewards too. There is, however, one possible scenario which concerns me: that the West Indies turn in a string of performances as insipid as Sri Lanka's and England coast to victory on the back of their new found cohesiveness and strength in depth, but without answering the opening question. With no more Test cricket until July and with just the 4-day match against Ireland before the Ashes, it is not a problem that can wait to be fixed. Just another reason to pray for a West Indian resurgence.
. 

England's number one spinner is...?

The fortunes of the two leading candidates for the title of England's best spinner could have hardly have shifted more techtonically over the past week. One now stands proud on terra firma, 9 for 134 in the bag, a beard once again to be feared. The other appears to be cast adrift like a polar bear on a shrinking iceberg, also unshorn but forlorn.

So it's Moeen then, yep? Hmm, short article this one.

Well, except, no. It's absolutely not as simple as that. This is Test cricket, so it's complex and there are multiple variables.

Firstly let's look at the statistics. Now they're not definitive, even Ed Smith doesn't think that, but they can inform and in Moeen's case they enlighten.

Firstly they show a bowler far more successful on the pitches of England than abroad. At home he has take 91 wickets @ 31 with a strike rate of 50. Abroad, encompassing the varied conditions of the sub-continent (including UAE), Australia and South Africa, and of New Zealand, he has 51 wickets at 52 with a strike rate just shy of 100.

Speaking immediately after the last game, Nasser Hussain in response to this article's burning question, came out in favour of Moeen but with one proviso "number one in England".

So that's caveat number one. But pardon me Nas, I think there's even more to it than that.

Secondly, and not unusually for a spinner, Moeen's figures are superior in his opponent's second innings and far superior in the fourth innings of the match. What is striking is the discrepancy. From first innings to last his average drops from 56 to 50, 35 to 21.51. The latter figure is impressive, the former disquieting.

His economy rate is also informative. A rate of 3.77 and 3.2 in the the third and fourth innings of the match are not low but also not terribly significant. Those innings are about taking wickets, and as we have seen above Moeen does that pretty well. More instructive are his figures for the first two innings where he averages 3.98 and 3.5 respectively. Herein lies the weakest part of Moeen's game, he simply has not shown the control, or as yet the guile, to be effective on hard, true, flat wickets. And by effective, I mean offering his captain control.

We saw this most notably in Australia in the winter, but that was not an isolated incident. Batsmen bat differently in the first innings of the game, there is less or at least different pressure, it is psychologically easier to take on a spinner and hit him out of the attack when you don't have the established match situation to consider. When the attack has come, Moeen has rarely been able to respond. As a result, he has been consistently unable to perform the job that Graeme Swann did for a number of years - bowl tightly, pick up important wickets but most importantly tie up one end and allowing the captain to rotate seamers from the other. With Moeen in the side, the quicker bowlers must be pick up his slack. Of course to be fair we should note that Graeme Swann bowled as part of a four man attack rather than the five that Moeen would operate in today, and thus there is less slack to pick up but nevertheless Moeen's role and effectiveness is more limited. 

So that's candidate No.1 Moeen Ali - a leading candidate on spinning pitches in England. Evidence of ability to get good players out, and a potential match winner on fourth/fifth day pitches.

Speaking of limited roles, Adil Rashid. Brought back into the side on the basis of one-day performances (to be now known as Buttlering) he has at times, cast a lonely figure shuttling from fine leg to fine leg (Trotting), forever on the periphery of the action. But to judge his value, we must first understand the context of his selection. Rashid was picked as part of a five not a four man attack, he was not being asked, nor expected to bowl many first innings overs, nor to keep things tight when he did bowl. What he was expected to do was to take wickets, not necessarily a hatful, but important wickets at important times, and to turn the ball on pitches where a finger spinner would not.

If his current role appears at times to be nothing more than that of a high-class partnership breaker then that is not his fault. That, along with rolling over the tail, was essentially what he was picked to be. And, judged by this criteria, he has enjoyed some success. Summoned by Joe Root to remove the stubborn Ishant Sharma at a critical and tense moment at Edgbaston, Rashid did so expertly. On a Trent Bridge pitch offering little turn to the conventional spinner, and with the world's best batsman approaching a hundred, Root turned to Rashid. Kohli was soon on his way. This may be cherry picking, but Rashid's selection is a very particular one, unlike Mooen he can't so easily be judged by strike rates or averages. He must instead be judged by how well he performs the role he is asked to take on.

A last point on Rashid. He may have been picked to perform a very specific task in English conditions, but we only have to go back two winters for evidence of his ability to handle a far more complete role. In India he comprehensively outbowled Moeen Ali, taking 23 wickets at 37 compared to Moeen's 10 at 64. And the figures don't tell the whole story. Rashid began that series uncertainly but by the end cut a far more assured figure, one who at last seemed to believe he belonged in the Test arena. Poor and naive selection last winter denied him the opportunity to build on that success and surely was a decisive factor in his decision, however misguided, to focus solely on white ball cricket this year. Nevertheless, if Moeen is the number one in England, should Rashid not have a similar claim on the sub-continent at least? 

So that's candidate number 2, Adil Rashid - a limited value selection in England but will turn the ball on anything. He has the outstanding record of all the candidates on sub-continental pitches.

Lastly there is, Jack Leach, the unproven classicist. It is possible that had Leach not fractured a thumb in early May, both ruling himself out of the Pakistan series and leaving him short of bowling prior to this current Indian series, this entire spinning debate could been rendered mute. Prior to that injury, Leach was a shoo-in for the spinner's spot for the Pakistan series, his place taken by Dom Bess who performed admirably, particularly with the bat, but who does not yet merit close consideration here. Leach was the man in possession. A competent if unspectacular performance in his debut in New Zealand gave rise to hope that here, finally, was a bowler capable of filling Swann's shoes. One can only tell so much from the performance in one game but an economy rate of 2.21 is significantly lower than what Moeen or Rashid can generally achieve. A rate of 2.66 in all first class also points to Leach as bowler who can offer a captain control.

But Leach is unproven. Can he prove to be to Joe Root what Swann was to Strauss and Cook, a provider of first innings control with wicket-taking potential and a second innings threat?  The promise is there, but the evidence is not.

So that's candidate number 3, Jack Leach - unproven but promising. Has shown control and wicket taking ability at county level, did nothing to disprove this reputation on his Test debut. 

So there we have it, three candidates each with different strengths and weaknesses. One a proven match winner at Test level; one with special skills and good record in the sub-continent; another, perhaps the most complete, but as yet untested.

My conclusion is, unsurprisingly, that there is no clear winner. Moeen currently holds the upper hand but pitch conditions should still be an important consideration. In the short term I foresee more horses for courses selecting from Ed Smith both on this particular issue and generally. On flat pitches in England, logic might dictate Leach or Rashid as the best option. On turning pitches perhaps Moeen and Leach. Abroad, Rashid deserves greater consideration and in the sub-continent with Moeen likely to bat in the top 6 there is the option to play all three. A lot will depend on Leach's development, if he can prove himself to be that multifaceted Swann-like spinner then it will benefit the team and I think Moeen but not Rashid. The productivity of Moeen Ali's batting will also play a part. If he can justify selection on the basis of that particular string of his bow, then the decision making changes again. Once again Rashid, in England, would be the most likely casualty.

Oh and one finally thought on all this - my wasn't Graeme Swann a good bowler!

Alastair Cook - a tangible great and an intangible loss

Had Alastair Cook retired five years ago the loss to England would have been very different than it is today. It would still have been very significant, but it would have been more tangible.

Back then he was at the centre of everything - scoring runs, taking catches and providing dependable if not hugely imaginative leadership. There was Trott and Bell and Pietersen and Prior and Swann and Anderson and Broad, it was a fine side with a solid back bone of experience, but it was on Cook's axis that the team revolved. Remember India in 2012? KP's brilliant hundred in Mumbai, maybe his best, maybe one of THE best, and Swann and Panesar outbowling the Indians in their own backyard. Well that epic series victory was founded firmly and squarely on three outstanding if not instantly memorable captain's centuries. The first, in the face of almost certain defeat, was a defiant statement not only that his team still had the fight for the contest but they had the skill to win it. How quickly we can forgot. We really should not.

We also forget how great players force opponents to modify their strategies and tactics. For years Cook feasted on bowlers who could land the ball in the right spot five balls an over, but who would then either drop one a little wide and get scythed to the point boundary or, frustrated by the batsman's judgement outside off stump, would be drawn into delivering something a little straighter, only to see the ball clipped with minimal effort but maximum efficiency to the mid-wicket fence. Cook may only possess three shots (or four if you count the leave) but when he played them as well as he did (particularly the fourth) it seemed more than enough.

But faced with this conundrum bowlers have smartened up. They have embraced Cook's mantra and like an Aikido grandmaster are now using his great strength against him. On his second Ashes tour in 2010-11, the Aussies fed him a veritable feast of short and wide stuff on which he gorged handsomely and in record fashion. Since then he has found it tougher, as more disciplined bowlers probe relentlessly on a full length outside off stump. Patience was always Cook's game but now there are two players playing and the bowler holds most of the cards.

In response Cook's game has not unravelled but he has been unable to find a consistent answer to these new questions. On helpful surfaces and particularly against right arm bowlers such as Ishant Sharma and Morne Morkel who move the ball away from around the wicket he has looked a little lost. Whether it is, as Graham Gooch suggests, that the appetite to improve has finally left him (and frankly after 160 matches who can blame him) or that he has the lost the hope that he can improve, only he knows. Whichever it is, he has earnt the right to keep that truth to himself.

And what of the team, of English cricket, in the post-Cook era. Sad to say the runs and catches of recent times will be all too easily replaced but what of those intangibles, the things we, the public, are too far away to clearly see and that they, the players, are too close to fully appreciate: the experience, the calmness, the stubbornness, the dedication, the stamina and the will to succeed over and over again.

They say we never know what we have until it's gone. But in Alastair Cook's case it seems like we really do know and that it is an awful lot. Really how much more could there be? I guess we are about to find out.

England benefit from 'mental integration' but Root's runs remain the key

There are 10 wicket defeats and 10 wicket defeats. They can be chastening, demoralising and even humiliating. England's defeat in Brisbane was not of that order. Disappointing yes, concerning sure, but not more than that, not really.

There is no comparison with the defeat at the Gabba four years ago. Then, they were shaken by the Australian agression, this time they appear merely stirred. Four years ago they were accused of being 'weak' this time focus is on their supposed agression. In Australia this probably counts as progress. England won't care too much. They have done the right thing: in public they have responded cautiously but firmly; in private they appear to have stiffened their resolve and re-whetted their appetite for the battles ahead. A sort of 'mental integration' if you like.

A further silver lining is that the squad has faced fewer cricketing questions than it might have expected following a heavy Ashes defeat. The form of Alisdair Cook has largely escaped comment, the fitness of Mooen Ali likewise (and the wisdom of the initial squad selection). There is also legitimate cause for concern regarding the change bowling. And then there is the biggest issue and the biggest difference between the sides: the runs being produced by their best players and respective captains.

Joe Root's batting is symptomatic of his team: attractive and free flowing but ultimately short of runs. Only twice in eight Tests this year have they passed 400, both times Root made hundreds and both resulted in wins. A first innings total in excess of 400 may not be necessary to win Test matches in England but it makes it a lot easier. In Australia it is almost essential. The template is there, England's three wins in 2010-11 all had their foundations in opening totals in excess of 500.

Cook made 700 runs in that series and is here again, but he is not the player he was then. It is now Root's responsibilty, both as captain and leading player to play Cook's role. It is not as an inventive, imaginative captain that he will win this series but as a world class batsman. He must be the focal point, as Steve Smith has become for Australia, and allow the lesser players (be it in ability or experience) to play around him. Cook can probably be relied on come good at some stage, Jonny Bairstow too, but anything less than 500 runs and at least two centuries from its captain and this English side simply do not stand a chance. 

Stoneman must accelerate where Carberry stalled

For England cricketers there is nothing tougher. Playing and travelling on the subcontinent may still have its moments, but for intensity and hostility nothing beats an Ashes tour. If anything it has got harder. Gone are the leisurely trips up country ostensibly to  'spread the game' but really to escape, to spend some time in quiet reflection, consolidation or recuperation away from direct spotlight. Now those games have gone and the spotlight is everywhere; social media points its searchlights into every nook and cranny of their lives.

But these are professionals. They don't do difficulties, only challenges; if they see a wall or a barrier its merely an invitation to jump over it or run through it. It is why they do what they do and why the best of them thrive under such conditions. It's all about character you see.

Given all this, one might imagine that any personal success, even only relative success, on an Ashes tour would stand a fellow in good stead, for his future career and all that. A casual observer might think that, so might a so-called expert. But sometimes it doesn't quite work out like that. Just ask Michael Carberry.

On the 2013-14 tour, Carberry scored 281 runs in 10 innings. As raw statistics they are not going to impress anyone and certainly not our casual observer. But context is everything, or at least it should be. If he was not a shining light, or a beacon of hope, Carberry was at least a token symbol of resistance on that miserable expedition. He fought hard at Brisbane and was still fighting at Sydney. Had other shown the same resolve, well it would probably still have been 5-0 actually, but you get my point..

It wasn't just Carberry's mental strength. He left the ball better than any of his colleagues, better than Cook, Root or Bell. In doing so he faced more balls than any other English batsman. No one spent more time on the front line. It is true that he did get tied down from time to time, and would have been deeply disappointed not to have cashed in on a number of good starts but he was hardly alone in that. Not once did he look out of his depth, not once did he look overawed in the face of the unrelenting onslaught. We shouldn't forget, not only were Johnson and Harris fast, agressive and nasty they were startling accurate too, especially Johnson. If you got through them Siddle, Lyon and Watson were parsimonious in the extreme. There was no respite.

And what was his reward for a winter dodging 90mph bullets? Well firstly he was dropped from the  squad for the 50 over and T20 series to follow. A decision which must have been hard to take given his 63 had secured England's only win in the home series four months earlier. But it got far worse. When the selectors convened to pick the Test side for the following summer, Carberry was nowhere to be seen. They had seen what he could do and decided to move on.

It was cruel certainly but more than that it just seemed damned unfair. Not perhaps in the Larwoodian echelons of selectorial betrayals but not entirely removed from it either. Were the selectors right? For once the raw statistics don't lie. Alastair Cook's latest opening partner Mark Stoneman is his nineth since Carberry. In four years.

Stoneman may actually be the most promising prospect since Carberry to partner Cook. Like Carberry he has courage and skill, hopefully he has more luck.

Forget batsmen and bowlers, England must find their best eleven

Edgbaston was a game and a finish that satisifed only the most partisan and the most short sighted.  England were ruthless (which is to their credit as they have not always been so) but the West Indies were so utterly toothless that any satisfaction was blinkingly ephemeral.

 Over the past thirty years there has been no sadder sight than the seemingly endless decline of Caribbean cricket. This was another sorry chapter. Just when you think they have reached rock bottom someone comes along with a shovel and proves otherwise. The announcement of their rebranding - no longer West Indies, simply Windies (or is it WIndies?)  - seemed as desperate as it was apt. Where there was fight there is now only flight; where once there was great substance there now seems only hot air.

 While no doubt sympathetic to the West Indian plight (Windian??) one small group who will been equally exasperated by the Birmingham stroll are the England selectors. With only this short three match series before they must pick an Ashes squad and with at least three batting places to fill they must have been desperately hoping that this First Test would bring some clarity and insight. Unfortunately as an academy of learning Edgbaston was more Do-The-Boys' Hall than Warwick University.

 As a result (and how England batsmen from the 1980's would laugh or cry at this) the failure of Mark Stoneman, Tom Westley and Dawid Malan, to prove themselves, has cemented their places for these final two Tests. Simply more data is needed. Each now has a golden opportunity at Headingley tomorrow to secure their positions for the winter (for a Test hundred is always a Test hundred) and yet each in their own way has as much to prove.

 Of Mark Stoneman, nothing can yet be judged, having received a ball of which even Malcolm Marshall would have been proud. Stoneman by name, he at least looked light and nimble in comparison to the statuesque Keeton Jennings.

 Tom Westley is an altogether more difficult nut to crack. He falls into the category of a number of recent players that have "looked the part" without ever convincingly playing it. Stylistically there is something of John Crawley, although a little less elegant in my view and certainly not in the same class in the playing of spin. Westley's tendency to hit balls on a fourth stump line through mid-on has already led to his downfall on several occasions and this, along with a tendency to play loosely at wider length balls (in the manner of James Vince) will  have been noted Down Under. As Mike Atherton has pointed out, with the Australian sure to target him in this area, he will need to employ the cut shot effectively.

 Meanwhile Dawid Malan's 68 merely takes him past Go and with it the right to receive two more Test caps. You can give him credit for surviving the second new ball as it swung compliantly under the lights but a closer examination would show that he only actually faced 21 balls from pace bowlers under these most testing conditions. So only a small credit and one quickly cancelled out by his failure to cash in fully the following day. Malan, unlike Westley, is at least on upward curve as Headlingley approaches.

 There is however, a very strong possibility that these issues will not be resolved in the next two games. Perhaps one of the three will make an unanswerable case, but any more than that is surely wishful thinking. On this basis the selectors' should already be working on Plan B. Only in my view Plan B should really be Plan A; and Plan A means picking your best eleven players. Carrying one player into an Ashes series is unwise, more than that is suicidal.

 In an ideal world this would mean choosing the five best batsman followed by Stokes, Bairstow and Ali and three other bowlers.But in England's case the aformentioned Stokes, Bairstow and arguably Ali are also amongst those five best batsmen. On the hard, bouncy Australian wickets Stokes is in the top three with Bairstow close behind. The fact that we don't have five other international class batsman need not be a weakness, picking substandard ones would be.

 Continuing the best XI principle and the option of Chris Woakes, who made his England debut at number 6, would strengthen this middle order yet further. Do the selectors believe that Dawid Malan is likely to make substantially more runs than Chris Woakes? Enough to offset Woakes' all-round value? If they do then he should play. I have my doubts though. If they decide otherwise the selection suddenly becomes a little simpler. And simpler becomes almost straightforward if Mark Stoneman were to nail down the opening position and prove a reliable partner to Alistair Cook because  this would surely encourage Joe Root to return to his best position of number 3.

 Ian Chappell argues that it is the best place to bat because you can establish the pattern of play. In his view it is best suited to a skilled stroke maker capable of launching a counter attack, rather than "the technically sound player who fights his way out of trouble after an early loss".  But there is a caveat - a player must be mentally prepared to face the second ball of the innings "otherwise number 3 isn't for you". Root has all these attributes, however there is a big difference between being mentally prepared to face the newest ball and it being a matter of course. Nevertheless with Root back at 3, Stokes at 5 and Woakes at 8, suddenly it is a side with few weak links and many strong ones. Westley and Malan or even Ballance (for balance) would now be fighting it out for one spot instead of two.

 There also remains one bowling spot left alongside Broad, Anderson, Stokes, Woakes and Ali in what would be a six man attack. It is often said that six is too many, if they duplicate yes, but not if they complement. In Mark Wood, Mason Crane (or why not still Adil Rashid?) they have the option to include someone who can do something a bit different.

 One issue that still needs clarifying is Moeen Ali's role. The first or second spinner question is misleading. His all-round ability means that he will always play, therefore he is by definition the first spinner. Where Ali falls short, and the selectors were not wrong to highlight this, is when the pitch starts out flat. If there is help for the seamers, his first innings workload should be light, and if it turns from the start then he has the attributes to threaten all but the very finest players of spin. But if there is nothing much doing (as will often be the case in Australia after twenty overs with the Kookaburra ball) he lacks the control to to tie down an end, as Graeme Swann was often able to do.

  At Lord's against South Africa the selectors strayed from the 'best XI' principle in picking Liam Dawson, succumbing in my view to the overly normative assumption that the containing role must fall to a slow bowler. In a five man attack maybe but with six, it need not be the case. Chris Woakes (not fit for the Lord's game to be fair to the selectors) would be equally capable. Fitness permitting, he should be be back in the team this week, bringing England in the process another step closer to that best XI.

 Overall, there is much to play for over these last two Tests, both for individuals and for the English team. For the West Indies it is all about pride.    

A Last English Summer by Duncan Hamilton (Book Review)

In cricket, seemingly nothing ever stays the same. The times are always a changin' and seldom, so goes the prevailing view, is it for the better. From the Golden Age to Bodyline to Packer, from run rates to over rates to the Old Lie itself - the 'spirit of the game', cricket has been forever heading on a one way journey straight to hell.

Duncan Hamilton's particular snapshot in time is the 2009 English season. Unashamedly invoking the spirit of J.B. Priestley's English Journey and the style and substance of Geoffrey Moorhouse's The Best Loved Game (chosen, incidentally, by Michael Atherton as his favourite cricket book), he guides us on what feels like a valedictory tour around England (and Wales), from Lord's to Ramsbottom, from Headingley to Hambledon, from Cardiff to Canterbury.

Hamilton is an unapologetic traditionalist, taught to love the game by his grandfather over leisurely summers days at Trent Bridge in the late 1960's.  To Cardus, Nottingham was a 'lotus land' where the score was always 360 for 2. It is no less special to Hamilton whose prose may be a slightly darker shade of violet and more resistant to hyperbole but who is a no less eloquent, honest or heart-felt observer. Whilst his recurring themes may claw with some readers, they merely resonated with this one.

At Trent Bridge, he eavesdrops on a debate over the number of overs bowled in the previous season by the somewhat injury prone Ryan Sidebottom.  On cue, a Playfair Annual, still the essential companion for any self respecting country cricket watcher, is produced. The issue is resolved but self-righteousness and disbelief pervade. It is a scene so familiar as to be almost cliche. At Old Trafford in the late 80's the "three bores", as we came to refer them, frequently (and with disturbing precision for a 25,000 seater ground)  installed themselves and their reference libraries directly behind my father and me in the Ladies' Stand driving us to seat-shuffling distraction with their curmudgeonly chit chat whilst simultaneously enveloping us in cigar smoke. Looking back now with older, hopefully wiser eyes, I wonder whether they too were not simply in mourning for their own halycon days when Brian Statham bowled unchanged from the Stretford End and the opposition were always 36 for 4. Even now it only takes one whiff of a cigar to transport me back to those carefree, oh so innocent times.

The author's major gripe, unsurprisingly, is with the rise and rise of T20. His argument, and it is a strong one, Is that T20 is simply an inferior game, not simply a pared down version of the first class one but one stripped of the qualities that make cricket great.

He takes particular issue with its brashness and superficiality in general and the IPL in particular with its music, gimmicks and incessant, screeching commentary. There is an element of chicken and egg in all this though. Is T20 a mere reflection of today's Snapchat society or have we as a society been simply reprogrammed by modern media to accept that instantaneous, unthinking gratification is the reward most worth seeking?

Despite his disquiet Hamilton never descends into mean-spiritedness, a trap into which other 'traditionalists' like Michael Henderson frequently fall. He writes with sadness rather than bitterness on the changing shape of the English summer and the future of the first class game. However, as he rightly points out much the same arguments were being made when the 40 over Players' League started up in the late 60's. It was supposed to be the beginning of the end but instead it improved standards particularly in fielding and raised the incomes of struggling counties. Sounds familiar? Lessons from history need not always be warnings.

Sometimes though, lessons are simply just not learnt. In mid-May, the author visits Durham as England face the West Indies. For financial reasons the Test series has been crammed into a fixture list bloated by the World T20 Cup which will begin in early June. Unsurprisingly the crowd is pitiful, the lowest in recent memory. Prior to the game, the then West Indies captain Chris Gayle comments that he "wouldn't be so sad" if Test cricket died. The two events sit in uncomfortable juxtaposition.  The author ponders how such scheduling could have come about.

Far worse, however, has been the failure to learn from such mistakes. Another poorly conceived and even more poorly attended Test match in May 2016 exacerbated Durham's already dire financial situation. Cruelly, the 2013 champions started the 2017 season consigned to the second division, punished for their financial failings with relegation and a 40 point penalty.

There are also sobering reminders of tragedy's shadowy presence over cricketing life.  At Worcester, Phillip Hughes, battles with form and footwork on his first Ashes tour whilst at Colwyn Bay, Tom Maynard, cocksuredly predicts and delivers a spectacular hundred. Both exceptional talents, both now gone. Meanwhile at Scarborough, James Taylor plays a stylish cameo for England Under 19s, blissfully and perhaps thankfully unaware of the congenital heart problem that will end a promising international career seven years later.

Hamilton has rightly avoided disrupting the natural flow of the text with too many statistics and instead the book ends with an annexe of approximately 60 pages encompassing almost every conceivable fact and figure along with pen portraits which follow up on the fortunes of the book's  key protagonists. It's questionable whether such detail adds much to the work as a whole and indeed when contrasted with the mellowness of the previous pages this chunk of raw data feels particularly rough, like being awoken from soothing dream by a hotel fire alarm.

I first read this book back in 2010, it was good then but time has given it an extra dimension. Beautifully written and sympathetically observed, it stands and will continue to stand as an historical piece, just as Moorhouse's did for 1978, proving once again just how quickly things can change and yet how much they stay the same. As Cardus once mused " the golden age is always well behind us; we catch sight of it with young eyes when we see what we want to. ."

Timing's right for Bell's return

Ahmedabad, November 2012. Kevin Pietersen lurches forward to the left arm spin of Pragyan Ojha, bat and pad divorced and estranged. He's beaten in the flight and his hands grope for the ball like a drunkard searching for a candle in a blackout. But it's to no avail - the ball beats the outside edge and he's comprehensively bowled.

His dismissal leaves England in real trouble, tottering at 69 for 4 in reply to India's 521. Alistair Cook is still there but the next partnership will be crucial, it may even decide the game. Fortunately replacing Pietersen is a man with more than 5000 test runs, a man possessed with an unnatural degree of talent and a consumate player of orthodox spin. We are in safe hands.

His first ball is a slow, floated delivery. There's a chassis down the pitch, a full swing of the bat and the ball floats gently into the hands of mid off.  Ian Bell c Tendulkar b Ojha 0.  Horrid. Not ugly, never ugly, just horrid.

For many such dismissals will always define Bell. Soft and self-inflicted, seemingly proving that deep down he just isn't made of the right stuff. It's nonsense of course. This is a man who now has almost 8000 )Test runs and 22 hundreds. Only Cook and Pietersen have more. This is the man who almost single-handedly ensured that England won back the Ashes in 2013. You don't do that by being soft. Of course when you stop scoring runs as well (Bell averages less than 30 and is without a hundred since those 2013 Ashes) then you are in trouble. The decision to drop him following the 2014 series in the UAE was tough and I would argue mistaken given the weakness of the alternative candidates, but hardly unfair.

Ironically he now stands on the cusp of an unexpected comeback in part because of a succession of 'soft' failures by what we might call his aesthetic successor, James Vince. Currently England's top order is hopelessly shaky. Alex Hales and Gary Ballance have done little to settle doubts about their long term suitability although it is likely that at least one will survive to tour this winter. In this context the return of Bell seems essential, he might not be in the greatest form but it is not form that this top order is lacking. It is class.


If nothing else, Bell's return should immediately relieve some of the pressure that has piled up on Cook and Joe Root. Despite decent looking figures neither will be entirely happy with their summer's work with promising starts too often failing to result in match changing scores (and dare I say it one or two rather flaccid dismissals too), But these are clinical, pragmatic reasons. Important for selectors, irrelevant for cricket lovers. I just want to see Bell back. For me, for you, for the game. We should all want him back.  In these power obsessed day where bats have sides rather than edges there is a special joy in witnessing a player defined not by muscles but by grace and timing. Like so many things you don't appreciate it until it is gone. I know I didn't. This time I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it.

Mystery Spinner: The Life and Death of an Extraordinary Cricketer by Gideon Haigh (Book review)

I've been reading and collecting cricket books for more than thirty years. My first was "Kiwis and Indians" a pictorial account of the 1983 season, the photos of Patrick Eager complemented by Alan Ross' pithy commentary. It's a big dog-eared now but I still know it word for word, picture for picture. It will always remain my favourite because it was there beside me as I was discovering the game - at the boundary's edge at my local club, on my favourite seat in the Ladies' stand at Old Trafford, in front of the television set on a Thursday morning in the height of summer and next to the radio smuggled into my bed on a winter's night.

When I was seven, cricket was simply wonderful - the best and only important thing in the world. But then I started to grow up and I realised that it was much more (and of course much less) than that. Even today I'm still discovering the depths of its richness, its complexity, its subtleness and its occasional brutality. Of course first hand experiences, playing and watching, have been the greatest influences but alongside throughout have been my books. Not all have been great, although many have been, but very few have failed to enhance in some way or other my love of this silly old game.

This is one of those books. If you haven't read it then hopefully it might persuade you to do so, if you have read it then maybe it'll inspire to re-read as I have just done. 

cheers

EuroNic

...................................................................................

Hubris. It can be a mortal enemy. Like a parasite, it finds us at our weakest moment and silently, insiduously latches on. It bides its time, waits for us to lower our guard, and then it strikes.

And our weakest moment? When we dare to hope, we dare to aspire, we dare to dream. When we do so we leave reason to the wind and embark on a glorious, epic journey where there are no boundaries except the limits of our own imagination.

Jack Iverson knew all this better than most. From the moment he first flicked a cricket ball in earnest  he felt hubris' shadow at his back, stalking him, taunting him. "Go on Jack", it said, just you dare to believe.

But he never did. Despite his obvious talent, unique and precocious, he wouldn't, he couldn't. Not even when selected for the Australian Test team for the first time, alongside nine of Bradman's '48 'Invincibles' did he let his guard down. He never aspired beyond the current game, always convinced he was going to be "found out" once and for all. His threat to "give the game away" became a ritual in the face of the slightest set back. One can only imagine how long he would have survived in today's world. For there would be no sneaking away at the end of a day's play for a solitary bite to eat at a local greasy spoon, as he did on his Test debut.

And herein lay another of Jack's problems: he wasn't a cricketer at all. He was wasn't even a bowler really. The extraordinary flicking action produced by a superhumanly strong middle finger, was a result of years of practice with a ping pong ball. He had merely adapted a supreme talent to a new format. True he was both metronomic and deadly. Able to land a viciously spinning ball on a sixpence seemingly at will. Leave it there and one has in mind another Shane Warne. But infuriatingly for his captains and captivatingly for us, there was one thing missing, one crucial element that talent could never replace.

Virtually every cricketing source that Haigh interviewed confirms the same thing - poor Jack was entirely lacking for a 'cricketing brain'. He had no idea about field placings, no concept of bowling strategy and no eye for batsman's strengths or weaknesses.

It has always been a pet peev of mine, the lazy, catch-all use by cricket commentators of the word 'inexperience' to explain an error.  Whilst Test cricket may be well-named and undoubtedly asks more questions of a player than any other form of the game, it is still essentially the same one that they have been playing for over a decade in most cases.

Well, almost all Test cricketers. Jack Iverson had been playing regular cricket for approximately four years when he made his debut at the age of 35. In Jack's case and in his defence, he really didn't know better.

Ultimately hubris did get him but not in the Shakespearean way. Jack stood strong to the end, but his mind buckled under the weight of his own self-restraint. His star burnt brilliantly bright but more briefly than it should have. Self-doubt (coupled with a noble but perhaps exaggerated sense of familial responsibility) cost him a Test career that many felt had not peaked (had he toured England in 1953 many experts thought him likely to be unplayable on the soft, uncovered wickets); and it may ulitmately have contributed to his premature death.

Gideon Haigh guides us through this compelling but inspiring tragedy with guile, skill but most importantly with empathy and genuine compassion. Because for all his 'strong, silent type' persona Jack was a sensitive soul.

Of course the book is also beautifully written, forensically researched (as it needed to be because for Jack was a tough man to track down) and the story flows wonderfully. Even the title is perfect for a man who remained an enigma until the very end.

The only real quibble I have is the amount of time spent putting Jack's particular skill in its historical context. A whole, rather long chapter in the middle of the book is dedicated to bowling innovators through time. Some background is useful but the length seemed unnecessary and, if I am honest, led this reader to indulge in spot of page flicking. For one thing, there are many books which cover these details better and more comprehensively but secondly and, and perhaps this is something of a back handed compliment, it takes us away from Jack for far too long.

As if to illustrate the point, Haigh finally seeks refuge in that slimmest of libraries "cricketing fiction" in an attempt to find a figure and a story to match Jack's. Unsurprisingly he does not suceed. Mystery spinner indeed.

Trescothick can provide the template for Hales to open up

It's not just that May in England is too early for serious cricket watching, it's that it's far too early, uncivilised really. All right I grant you there may be the odd early cricket riser who's been up since April, probably awoken by some unholy racket coming from India but that's hardly a worthy reference point is it??

If there are still vestiges of cherry blossom on the trees, football and rugby on the back pages and  Eurovision jingles in our heads, then it's too soon. It still seems like pre-season. My visual constitution is simply not ready to digest anything more taxing than a couple of championship entrees, a few bites of limited overs stuff and a maybe an ODI snack. (I yearn to be magically transported back into that wondrous twilight zone that was the Benson and Hedges Cup group stage. This, I will acknowledge, is probably just me though.)

Nevertheless the first repast of the Test summer will be served up this morning at Headingley, a ground admittedly more dog's dinner than royal banquet. Ridiculous "point system" aside, there is much to play for particularly for two of England's top three, Alex Hales and Nick Compton neither of whom is close to offering convincing proof that they are right persons for their positions.

Compton's issues have been discussed at great length without anyone really identifying what the problem is. Too intense? Not chummy enough? Lackadaisical in the field? An unfitting face? Apparently he's changed, relaxed, mellowed. And yet the doubts remain. Long term he seems unlikely to keep his place. In the short term, however, a remedy is available: runs, lots of them.

Hales' difficulties may be easier to qualify but more difficult to solve. He suffers from a similar problem to that which afflicted another one-day expert Jos Buttler: the inability to know whether to stick or to twist. Should he just play his natural attacking game or allow it to be tempered by the conditions, the quality of bowlers and the match situation? Ask five people and you would get five different answers. Graeme Fowler, the former England opener, referred to a similar dilemma as the  "England Player Syndrome" whereby a player comes into the Test side having scored a bucket of runs in county cricket. He then immediately goes about changing the way he plays, the method that got him selected in the first place, in order to bat as he thinks a Test player should. Self-evidently it is a recipe for disaster.

Adaptation, as Darwin has shown, is the very essence of a survival strategy. At the same time the role of a Test match opener has changed (or been adapted) as well. Opening bowlers must earn respect where once it was all but given. Even thirty years ago the mere sight of Test match opening bowler with a new cherry was enough to ensure a degree of deference. Not any more.  Players like Michael Slater and more recently David Warner, Virender Sehwag and Chris Gayle have redefined the job description.

Not all of these dashers make good models for Hales to follow. Gayle and Sehwag "see ball - hit ball" approach is based on enormous talent, but also aided by largely benign pitches and the prevalence of the batsman friendly Kookaburra ball.  Unsurprisingly neither has enjoyed great success in England.

Warner's approach is a better one. His lightening progression from T20 specialist to Test opener without having played a single first class match was not a simply an inspired selectorial hunch. They saw that his powerful striking had its roots in a sound technique and a decent sense for the location of his off stump. His weakness, such as it is, lies in the field of "shot selection" - lofting the spinner with a man placed back, manufacturing pull shots off good length balls. A Test average of 50 suggests there are worse faults.

By far the best model for Hales is the man England have been trying to replace for almost ten years, Marcus Trescothick. Known for his pulverising cover drives and brutal slog sweeps, he was far from the traditional English Test opening batsman in the manner of Boycott, Atherton or Cook. He was, and remains, the most statuesque of openers - not through being tall and elegant but because his feet always seem cast in stone. The simple technique worked though as did the equally simple approach of playing the ball on its merit. If it was a half volley it got spanked, whether it was the first ball of the innings or the last ball of the day. Once 'in' he also latched on to the anything with width, scything it through gully and point. But when high quality bowlers put the squeeze on in helpful conditions he also had the discipline, temperament and patience to stick it out.  None more so than on his Test debut against the West Indies at Old Trafford in 1995, where he went an hour without scoring, doggedly seeing off a typically testing spell from the parsimonious duo of Ambrose and Walsh. He ended up making 66, scoring more freely from the less challenging fare offered by Franklyn Rose and Mervyn Dillon.

So far Hales' has failed to show that he is the man to fill Trescothick's boots. It really doesn't seem to be a technique thing, in fact he looks a lot more solid than he did a couple of years ago when those in-duckers were causing him such problems. And yet in South Africa he fell to a succession of heavy handed but indeterminate pushes outside off stump.  There are those who would suggest the fault was in his half-heartedness. Neither one thing or the other. If you going to flash.. etc. Well it's a theory and may indeed be a good approach for someone like Ben Stokes, but for an opener more discriminating judgement is required.

 I have my doubts as to whether Hales has what it takes to make these improvements but nevertheless he remains a gamble worth taking for this Sri Lankan series. For the rewards of a fast start, as Trescothick and now Warner have showed, can be rich and long lasting.