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.
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Overstepping the mark: DRS must go farther

It may have gone through more updates and revision than Windows but the current version of the referral system (DRS) shows little sign of having ironed out the bugs of its earlier editions. Like space travel, our ambitions for the technology continue to outweigh what it can currently supply. That is, of course, if you consider a world where every decision is guaranteed 100% correct to be an utopian rather than Orwellian one.

The Indian cricket board last week announced that it would not accept the use of the referral system in any bilateral series in the foreseeable future. (It will, however, be forced to accept it during the forthcoming world cup.) The BCCI stated quite plainly that it doesn't trust the accuracy of the technology. The Ashes series just finished, hardly disproved this point but it did provide compelling evidence for its extension in one particular area.

To my mind the value of having no-balls reviewed was proved beyond question, with two wicket-taking deliveries voided for overstepping.  I have mentioned previously that line decisions are technologies' bread and butter, the logic of using it for no-balls is obvious and undeniable. So why do we continue to adopt such a half-baked approach? Are we really to believe that the only two deliveries in the entire series where an umpire was unsure as to where the front foot landed were those that took wickets. Of course not.  You can't blame the on field umpires. Mitchell Johnson's radar was typically askew when he argued "If the umpires know it's a no-ball I think they should call it, instead of waiting to call it," Well I guess they would have if they were sure Mitch...

The fact is, umpires are in no position to make an accurate judgment - they are often stood two or three metres back from the stumps (at the request of the bowler no doubt) and besides which they have more important things to do.  I also wouldn't criticise them for not making more referrals, over rates are funereal enough as it is. Instead full responsibility should be given to the third umpire to review each delivery. There may not have been many tight finishes in this particular series, but one doesn't have to go too far back to recall matches won or lost by the odd run. 34 no-balls were called during this past series. But how many more went unpunished?

Bringing back distant memories of Perth, Johnson did eventually find his line and length when adding "  "I suppose it's not a bad thing, but it can be frustrating. I suppose you've just got to get your foot behind the line." Well, yeah.

Missing Fred

Maybe England did miss Andrew Flintoff. And maybe they didn’t. The disease that afflicted the batting and bowling ranks at Headingley appeared so contagious that it seems impossible to imagine that he too wouldn’t have succumbed. Had that happened, England may well have lost their trump card - on the back of his wicketless performance at Edgbaston it would have added to Ricky Ponting's suggestion that he was on a downward spiral. Instead Flintoff's aura remains intact, perhaps even enhanced by his absence. Surely they wouldn't haven't have lost like that if he had played they will say. As it stands the Australians do still fear him, and the return of a fit (relatively), motivated and possibly even rather angry Fred (if the report from Michael Atherton in The Times today is anything to go by) can be the boost that England desperately need.

By the end of Saturday’s play the team looked bereft of ideas, confidence and hope. But not only will England have an undoubtedly stronger team when they take to field a week on Thursday, Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower will also have vital ammunition for the almost equally important media battle that will take place in those intervening ten days. They will be able to argue, without stretching credulity unnecessarily, that not only will England have a stronger team than at Headingley but that Fred is desperate to bow out on a high note and that the rest of the team is equally determined that he should do so.

The series has all been about momentum. Momentum has been achieved not through thrilling victories but through stoic resistance at Cardiff and Edgbaston. First England and then Australia seemed to take immense heart both from the spirit and fight that their respective batsman showed and from the lack of killer instinct displayed by the respective bowling attacks. Australia may justifiably lay claim to having all the momentum going into the decider, but with some careful spin England may, over the next week and half, create some momentum of their own.

It was another ‘Fred’, a fast bowler of an earlier vintage from the other side of the Pennines, who was more truly missed at Headingley. Fred Trueman would have nodded approvingly at Peter Siddle’s well directed hostility at the England lower order. But he would have approved even more though of Stuart Clark’s probing line and length (in the first innings), giving nowt away, waiting for the batsmen to make mistakes. Not old fashioned, but classic (for is was as effective on Thursday as it ever has been) Headingley bowling.

But that is not why he was missed. It was when it was England’s turn to bowl. By the end of his life Trueman had become something of a caricature of himself, his refrain on Test Match Special that ‘I don’t know what’s going off out there’ reflecting a man ill at ease with the changing times, in a way that Richie Benaud, a man of similar vintage, has never been. It rather diminished him in the eyes of the public particularly those who had never seen him in full flow or in colour (black and white making bowlers look much slower of course...).

It would probably have amused him to have looked down on Headingley on Friday evening and again on Saturday and to hear his familiar refrain or a modern, possibly less polite version, being uttered by just about ever supporter whether in the ground, watching on TV or listening on TMS. Fred Trueman impersonators, one and all of us. He was particularly missed because no professional broadcaster, came close to approximating Fred's studied disbelief. Honourable mention though to Ian Botham, whose capacity for over-simplification continues to amaze and who thus struck a suitably bewildered figure as England continued to pepper the middle of the Headingley pitch in search of goodness knows what.Whilst still to develop the levels of curmudgeoness necessary for a proper Trueman homage, he has the ability and as Sky seem unlikely ever to fire him he has plenty of time to work on it. Or not.

A final thought on this thread. I read this week that following his retirement, Graeme Hick is looking to do some television or radio commentating. Both Trueman and Botham were famous for total self-belief something which made them great cricketers but dreadful commentators. On this basis, could we be about to witness the birth of a new broadcasting legend?