DESMOND DECADE OF Speedster can choose his
ANDERSON BACK BUT ALI STILL OUT
ENGLAND rolled out the ‘welcome back’ mat to Jimmy Anderson yesterday but then surprisingly revealed they don’t know when Moeen Ali will be mentally ready to return to Test action.
Premier fast bowler Anderson, 37, was included in the squad for the four-Test campaign in South Africa after proving his fitness to give Joe Root’s side a much-needed lift. He has recovered sufficiently from the calf injury which ended his Ashes campaign prematurely.
But he has impressed during pre-tour camps in Potchefstroom and Cape Town and will aim to use the forthcoming warm-up games to sharpen him up for the opening clash with the Proteas on Boxing Day.
National selector Ed Smith said: “Jimmy has been in South Africa where we wanted to give him the perfect preparation for the tour ahead.
“The medical reports have been encouraging and it is hoped he will play a full part on the tour.”
But England have failed to persuade Ali to step back into the spotlight despite Smith, Joe Root and James Taylor all having heart-to-heart chats with the spinner to try to convince him to get back on the Test field.
Smith said: “We respect his decision but we hope he will return sooner rather than later. At this stage we don’t know when he will return to Test cricket.”
IF THE Ashes were a breeze for Jofra Archer, then the Test series in New Zealand was a perfect storm.
The spearhead of England’s attack was blunted by a combination of dead wickets and comedy dropped catches.
He toiled for 82 overs and took just two wickets at a cost of more than 100.
As an introduction to the harsh realities of Test cricket after his heroics this summer, it was brutal.
And a reminder of just how tough the longest format can be.
So could a few more experiences like this New Zealand tour see him cut short his Test career?
Desmond Haynes – his Barbadian – certainly believes possible.
Haynes played 116 Tests for the West Indies, bowing out at Bridgetown on his home island against England in 1994. But he would be surprised if the paceman, 24, gets anywhere near that number.
Particularly given the kind of sums he can attract playing T20 cricket around the globe.
Haynes (right) said: “Because he’s good enough to be contracted for all three formats of the game – is he looking to play Tests for 10 years? I don’t know.
“Is he going to do a Jimmy Anderson and get all those wickets? If he plays for the next five years and stays fit, then the amount of money he could make means he might not want to extend his Test career. There is
BOB WILLIS would never admit it but he was an unlikely influence behind one of England’s greatest Ashes performances 34 years after his day of days at Headingley in 1981. During the 2015 series against Australia Andrew Strauss, the England director of cricket, invited Bob, who died on Wednesday aged 70, to have dinner with the bowlers two days before the Trent Bridge Test match.
It was part of Strauss’s initiative to remind the current players that the fellow that’s so much franchise cricket being played, he won’t ever be short of offers to play.
“Why would you bowl 40 overs in a match when you can bowl four in a game and get paid more?”
It’s a good point, although Archer himself has always insisted that he wanted to test himself at the very top.
It’s a challenge he came through with flying colours in the Ashes.
But one he found considerably harder in New Zealand as England slumped to a 1-0 series defeat.
Archer took 22 wickets in the drawn series against the Aussies but bowled 156 overs in an exhausting summer.
He would have had to have bowled his full quota of overs in 39 T20 matches to match that figure.
Last month, Archer was named as one of the retained players for Rajasthan Royals in the 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL), alongside Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes.
His commitments with England, though, may cut short his involvement in other competitions in the coming years.
England’s tour to South Africa over Christmas and the new year already means he won’t be playing for the Hobart Hurricanes in this year’s Big Bash in Australia.
Joe Root, meanwhile, will want him to bounce back quickly from his Kiwi setback. After a year that has seen England blokes in the commentary box used to play a bit of cricket as well.
At the time Bob and I were collaborating on his column in The People which meant talking to him on a Saturday to get his lowdown on how the games were going.
The Nottingham Test was going brilliantly for England and Bob was cock-a-hoop.
On the first morning they had bowled the Aussies out for 60 and I suggested to him he must have given the
quick bowlers some tips over the steaks.
“No, they had it all worked out,” he said. “I did choose some decent red wine but Stuart Broad and I were the only ones drinking it.”
Broad took 8-15, eclipsing Bob’s 8-43 at Leeds in 1981, but Mark Wood and Steven Finn, two of the nondrinkers, only got a couple of wickets between them.
In the modern days of isotonic drinks and sports science perhaps there is a lesson there.
When you work with a sportsman or sportswoman on a column you soon work out who the good ones are.