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.

Hope, hubris and Haddin

Well another Ashes series is here and England is a buzz with a strange feeling. A sort of cautious, whispered hope. Gallows humour has been temporarily suspended and across the land the first sprouts of belief are peeking through the cracks in sun-baked outfields. No one speaks it out loud of course, instead they exchange nods, knowing winks and half-raised eyebrows. But the meaning is all too clear "maybe we do have a chance after all".

But on what great feats do we base this new found slither of confidence? A strong World Cup performance? Ah, okay, well some pretty convincing Test series wins then surely? Right, I see, so basically this new found belief is based on a drawn two match series with the Kiwis and a 3-2 victory in the after party hit and giggle. Oh if only blind optimism was an Olympic sport!

You think I'm unfair. That's understandable, it really is. The thing is we don't come at this from the same perspective. I'm guessing that eighteen months ago you didn't spend seven weeks of your life trekking (not literally, there were planes involved) from one stiflingly hot antipodean mega stadium to the next, watching the same dismal, depressing show play out time after time after time after time. Well I did and frankly I haven't recovered. And to be honest I'm not sure that I'm going to.

You know what made it worse? It all started off pretty well. Just before lunch Stuart Broad directed a short ball into Michael Clarke's ribs looking to exploit a weakness exposed in England a few months earlier. The Brisbane heat seemed to have done little to help the back problem deemed to be the root of Clarke's discomfort and he fended the ball straight into Ian Bell's hands at short leg. Australia 74 for 3. Teetering.

It was Broad's third wicket of a morning in which he had seemed energised as seldom before, spurred on no doubt by sustained personal abuse that must have shocked him, not for its content or vociferousness but for how widely it was taken up. When you have pre-teenage children joining their parents and thirty odd thousand other people in chanting "Broad is a wanker" you really have to wonder about a society.

Giddy in my English superiority, both moral and cricketing, I took to Twitter. "it's gone rather quiet at the Gabba" I drooled. It was my first tweet of the series. Also my last...

Hubris, you say? Haddin, I reply.

Australia struggled on to 132 for six but then everything changed. Mitchell Johnson joined his keeper, a partnership of 112 ensued, and a below par total morphed into a more than respectable one.  This became the unbreakable, inevitable pattern of the series from first match to last. Johnson may have ripped away English nerve and confidence but it was Haddin who sapped our hopes. Bloody Haddin. Five times he walked to the crease and five times he walked off having doubled the first innings total (give or take a couple of runs in Melbourne). It didn't even help that you knew what was coming. When Broad removed George Bailey just before lunch on the first day at Sydney (oh George how we miss you!), the Aussies stood 97-5. I knew better, of course I did, but I just couldn't help it. So I hoped, I willed, I prayed. "You've taken so much, just give us this one little something".

Close of Play - Australia 326, England 8-1. Bloody Haddin.

Do you understand better now? You see I'm just not ready for your kind of hopeful objectivity. I don't care that Haddin's only averaging 18 in Tests in the last year. I'm not interested that since he arrived Lyon has been carted by just about every batsman he's bowled at. It matters not a jot to me that Australia haven't won a series in England for fourteen years. And it is most certainly not relevant that their best bowler has just announced his immediate retirement.

I know you don't agree but trust me, it's better for everyone like this.