Is time up for Anderson and Broad?
perform at Lord’s. They had a bowling unit that worked together both in morning prep and out in the middle. They bowled a length that encouraged the opposing batsmen to come forward on an English pitch in May. If you are patient and keep doing that, you will create chances.
Their fielding unit was agile, looked desperate to touch the ball, backed each other up and held some good catches. Again, basic cricket. When they had bat in hand, the ball was still doing quite a lot – very different conditions to what they are used to in the United Arab Emirates. What did they do? They left the ball, waiting for the right delivery to score off, and played it late, under their eyes.
England did the complete opposite. With bat in hand they went chasing the ball, trying to score at 31⁄2 runs an over. When they got the ball in hand, they bowled short, changed tactics too soon and were not prepared to be patient.
Their fielding unit was all over the place, dropping balls and with constant personnel changes in different positions. Cook was at short leg, then it was Root; Anderson was at third slip, then first slip. There was no continuity from England to make you believe they are well coached.
The worry for England is that in their last 30 tests they have been a 100 or less for four wickets 25 times in 53 innings. So England are 100-4 pretty much 50 per cent of the time, which is amazing with the talent in that team.
This England team want to be a cool, aggressive, attacking side. But they have to go back to basics and be difficult to beat.
Joe chased the game a bit with his tactics. I made many mistakes trying to be funky but in English conditions you can be boring and stick to basics because with the Dukes ball in England, there will always be something to work with.
Personnel changes in the batting do not matter. We have had players coming and going for three years. It has gone beyond just changing the opening batsman. It will not make any difference unless we change the mindset of the whole group.
Iwatched the Al Jazeera documentary Cricket’s Match Fixers and it was very sad to see the sport dragged through yet another fixing scandal. It cannot be brushed aside. The England and Wales Cricket Board and International Cricket Council have to investigate everything. It seems outrageous and I was flabbergasted to hear England mentioned in a fixing scandal but it would be wrong if the boards did not look into it.
I am sure England are innocent and they deserve to have their names cleared publicly if that is the case. We cannot have the mentality that we are happy to moralise or throw the book at nations that have been caught up in fixing in the past.
What concerns me is that whatever the fixer predicted would happen in two matches came true. That is amazing when you think of the number of uncontrollables in a 10-over session in a test match. For it to happen on two occasions to the letter – according to the TV producers, at least – is proof we cannot just laugh it off. I believe the best way to stop it is to set the precedent and ban someone for life if they are involved in fixing.