COOK AND ROOT NEED SOME HELP
Dynamic duo are world class but it’s time for Bell to step up
England have become too reliant on alastair Cook and Joe Root for their runs. They are worldclass players — Root is back to no 1 in the rankings — and when they are at the crease everything about their game looks wonderful.
That’s why the other batsmen, and Ian Bell in particular, have to do more when England try to square their series against Pakistan in Sharjah, starting on Sunday.
Bell, with his age and experience, should be looking across at Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq and saying, ‘Right, what are they doing that I’m not?’
Scores of 40 or 50 might be just enough to keep him in the side but England need much more than that to win Tests in the conditions they are facing.
This series is a clash between an old-fashioned line-up in Pakistan and a newfangled one, if you like, in England’s.
Misbah’s team have picked their best six batsmen, a keeper who bats and their best four bowlers and they expect them to fire.
England, on the other hand, bat all the way down but their senior batsmen like Bell must not see someone as good as Mark Wood coming in at 10 and somehow feel that it is any less important for them to score big runs.
So the third Test is an important game for Bell, one that needs to see him taking full responsibility and not leaving the hard yards to Cook and Root again.
It is likely England will make only one change for this final Test. Jos Buttler has got such potential that I don’t want to leave him out but I think he is mentally shattered because the amount he’s had to work at his keeping to ensure he is good enough at Test level has taken a lot out of him. Buttler’s problems over the last year have come against left-arm quicks in Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Starc and now Wahab Riaz and spin — and that’s pretty much what he would get again in Sharjah. So, for now, I agree the gloves should go to Jonny Bairstow and James Taylor be brought in because he is a good player of spin who will score quickly enough and is a busy cricketer in the Root mould. Other than that it’s the same team for me.
The reason Moeen ali is opening is that England wanted to find a way to get two spinners into their side and keep their batting order deep, not because he might be the long-term answer to a long-standing problem.
He was always going to be a stopgap, and, while England are giving players proper opportunities in their roles, it would be a bit harsh to move Moeen again after just two games and look somewhere else.
adil Rashid is another who must have a proper run. He has shown a lot of character, not only in his innings that almost saved the second Test but also in the way he has bowled in difficult circumstances at the start of his Test career.
He couldn’t have had more wide-ranging emotions with both bat and ball in his two Tests so now he has to pick himself up, dust himself down and go again.
One thing you cannot doubt about the whole England side is their character and we saw it again on Monday, just as we have seen it throughout the bulk of the 10 days of Test cricket so far.
You have to remember Cook has lost two very important tosses and this is not the time to castigate anyone.
If it were not for half an hour’s bad light in the first game we would be sitting here with the teams at 1-1.
England have played a lot of good cricket, but, as Cook said after the second Test, the reason they lost in dubai was not down to Rashid’s shot or anything that happened on the last day. It was down to that collapse on the third morning.
It was always going to be very hard to recover from going from 206 for three to 242 all out and that is cricket in asian conditions. The same thing happened to Pakistan in abu dhabi and it almost cost them the first Test.
all is certainly not lost for England. Pakistan have a long tail starting with Wahab at eight, and as we saw in abu dhabi they certainly have a collapse in them. It could easily happen again in Sharjah.
The key for England is ideally to win the toss, because their spinners are not bowling at the best times so far, and then get those big runs in the first innings.
Then they have a chance, however flat the Sharjah pitch turns out to be.