Joe hasn’t tossed the game away like I did...

OVER the past 48 hours I have heard plenty of comparisons between Joe Root’s decision to field in Adelaide and my fateful one to do the same thing in Brisbane 15 years ago. This is somewhat harsh on Root. I made my decision under blue skies in fine weather and within half an hour knew I had got it completely wrong, while he was faced with a cool, cloudy day with the prospect of rain. He also had the knowledge that, in the previous two day-night Tests at Adelaide, the team batting first had ended up losing. So let us not jump to conclusions too soon about Root’s decision. What can be said, however, is that we both had similar mindsets and worries as captains. He will have been aware, as I was, that we had slightly one-dimensional attacks and so were looking for potential assistance in the conditions. Like me, he may have found he was looking for things that weren’t there. And what any discussion over the toss should not be allowed to mask is some England shortcomings, not just in how they bowled during the first innings but in more underlying factors as well. Root was let down by his new-ball bowlers, with Jimmy Anderson (below), Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes bowling too short, and they were given a lesson in the right lengths to bowl when England had that awkward passage of batting at the end of the day. Over the last two or three years our new-ball bowling has, as a rule, been too short. Anderson and Broad do not like being driven, so they tend to bowl back of a length when, in Australia, they need to be fuller. In England, they will bowl the tail out fairly quickly with a ball that is 60 overs old but that will not happen in Australia and we cannot say there were no warnings about the problem of dislodging the hosts’ lower order. Many people will remember the displays of Mitchell Johnson on the last tour but less often recalled are the times we had them 150 for five and Brad Haddin combined with the tail to hit them out of trouble. We have not really learned from our mistakes and there are no bowlers with that extra bit of pace to offer something different — it is a glaring shortcoming of English cricket. Is Mark Wood properly fit? Where is Liam Plunkett, who plays little first-class cricket for Yorkshire? What happened to the progression of Steve Finn? The Indians have really focused on getting fast bowlers coming through the ranks and have unearthed some serious talent but we have not done the same. I thought Craig Overton did fine but he does not present the batsmen with much of a different challenge to Jake Ball. What I cannot see is England going into Perth with the same make-up of a bowling attack and they may have to look to the Lions squad to see if there are reinforcements. The selectors could say we have the best available playing already but, if so, we need to look at why there are so few other options to turn to.