Despite Windies loss, England have actually performed better
Keeping up with the ever-transient, shape-shifting assortment of bodies that is the England batting order has not been easy of late. Since the start of their home series against India, 11 Tests ago, England have used 13 players in top seven, excluding nightwatchmen.
Alastair Cook’s retirement has contributed to one of the spots at the top of the order being available, but the number of players used — not to mention the fact that eight of those 13 batsmen have batted in more than one position in the order — represents a high turnover of personnel in such a short time.
On the face of it, the constant attempts to find the right formula with their lineup have contributed to England’s struggle with the bat. Their top seven average 29.30, the third worst among Test nations in that period, ahead of only Sri Lanka and West Indies. However, using Cricviz’s Wicket Probability Model, where the probability of a specific delivery resulting in a wicket is calculated, we can see England have actually been performing better than it might look at first glance.
SCORING MORE RUNS
By aggregating that data across the period from the start of England’s series against India, we can see that Joe Root’s side is actually scoring more runs per wicket than the model expects them to. In other words, England are exceeding expectations, based on the conditions they have played in and the quality of the bowling they have faced.
Of course one could argue that there is always room for improvement and, perhaps with a more settled side, England would have registered a batting average even higher than expected. But the fact remains that despite the changes in personnel and what could generously be described as a fluid batting order, England have found a way to win eight of their last 11 Tests, across a variety of conditions at home and abroad.
It should also be noted that, of the 13 batsmen that England have used in this period, only Dawid Malan and Ollie Pope have failed to register at least one 50+ score. Malan played just one Test of the India series before being dropped, while Pope featured twice but is young enough and talented enough to get another chance sooner rather than later.
The problem has been not that the batsmen picked are incapable of making scores in Test cricket. Rather they haven’t been doing it with enough consistency or regularity. In the 11 Tests since the start of the India series, England have only twice had more than two players pass fifty in the same innings. The runs have been spread too thinly and as a result, they’ve been unable to post a total higher than the 423 they put on in the second innings at the Oval against India.
Perhaps this is the area hurting England. The very best teams have had settled batting lineups made up of players who know their roles. The comfort of a batsman knowing which position he’ll be batting in has intangible benefits. It seems an obvious thing to say, but the fewer players who have to learn their role on the spot, the better.
In the second innings of the third Test in St Lucia, England finally put some runs on the board. They passed 300 for the first time in seven innings, thus avoiding their worst run for 18 years in terms of failing to reach that particular milestone. Joe Root scored a hundred and all seemed rosy in the garden once again.
Root’s hundred was the third slowest of his Test career and he scored a boundary off just 4.44% of the balls faced — the lowest boundary percentage of any of his 16 centuries. It was an innings that raised questions about England’s approach in Tests. They won in Sri Lanka with an ultra-aggressive method that helped to negate the threat of turning pitches but perhaps those tactics they deployed to such great effect cannot be executed in all conditions or against all bowling attacks.
ROTATING STRIKE
What England, and Root in particular, did well during recent innings was rotating the strike and keep the scoreboard moving without taking unnecessary risk. The visitors played a rotating shot to 31% of the balls they faced, the highest percentage since their last innings in Sri Lanka.
It was a case of a balance needed to be struck between attack and defence. They were able to find it during the Lanka tour and, for the first time on the tour, England came close to finding it during the last innings in St Lucia. It was not perfect and they are struggling to put all their pieces in the right places, but it was a step in the right direction and it meant England could end the Test series on a high.