BIG TEST AHEAD FOR COOK’S MEN
Derek Pringle: Pressure is all on England
Usually it is the hosts who feel most pressure during a Test series, the expectation being that they must cash in on home advantage or be forever tarnished with ignominy. But England have an unblemished record against Bangladesh, having won all eight Tests between them home and away, a record they will want to uphold when the first one begins in Chittagong next week.
Alastair Cook, now back in England for the birth of his second child, is expected to return in time to captain and open the batting, but nature does not run to England and Wales Cricket Board timetables. Unless Mrs Cook is to be induced, there is the possibility that England may have Joe Root as captain and two debutants, Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett, a rookie opening partnership that cannot have happened many times for England except at the dawn of Test cricket or after World Wars and Rebel tours.
If that is the bold option, the more likely one, if Cook is unavoidably detained in England, is that Gary Ballance or even Moeen Ali will be promoted to open with Hameed. Duckett has been opening for his county Northamptonshire and enjoyed a fine season there, but it is not his preferred position. Both Ballance and Moeen have done it before, without great distinction it must be added, but it would be a one-off with Cook guaranteed to play in the second Test in Dhaka.
Test matches are usually won by bowlers and in Asia by spinners. England have several who go by that description, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Gareth Batty and Zafar Ansari, though none stands out as an obvious match-winner.
That is not to say none will emerge as one, but for most that is a hope rather than an expectation.
You imagine, assuming the pitch is prepared true to form, that two of the quartet will play and that those two would probably be Moeen and Rashid.
The pair have featured large in England’s white-ball cricket of late and have gelled reasonably well. Any symbiosis with the red ball has yet to emerge, at least in the three Tests in which they have performed together, against Pakistan a year ago in the United Arab Emirates.
Given that conditions there were thought to favour them, neither bowler flourished in a losing cause – Moeen taking nine wickets at 48.66 (six runs worse than his career average) and Rashid eight wickets at 69.5, five in just one innings.
Those involved with England will tell you Rashid has since become a more confident performer after stints in the Big Bash and a burgeoning role in England’s white-ball formats. And yet the niggling suspicion remains that when batsmen are not under pressure of time, as they are in white-ball cricket, Rashid does not create the necessary tension to force them into error.
Gareth Batty, 38, is England’s most savvy spinner who offers a surer version of Moeen – which is off-breaks without the devilry of a doosra, though Batty lacks Moeen’s class with the bat.
He also suffers from Trevor Bayliss – England’s head coach – not having seen much of him in county cricket, a fault attributable to neither.Which makes any impression he or Ansari can make on the Australian, in the nets or in the two warm-up games to come, very important.
One way England are said to be looking at the spinner problem is to play Moeen as a top-five batsman who may help out with the ball if required.That way, two of Batty, Rashid and Ansari could also be fitted in, which would give England three spin options in the match (four if you count Root).
Having three spinners will court accusations of trying to make up for lack of quality through quantity, but they will not be short on seam bowling should they take that route.
The other conundrum faced by Bayliss and whoever is captain (Cook or his deputy Root), lies over which seamers to play, especially now that James Anderson and MarkWood have withdrawn through injury.
Stuart Broad would lead the pace attack with Chris Woakes as his most likely deputy alongside third seamer Ben Stokes. But do England opt for Steven Finn or Jake Ball, Anderson’s replacement, to join them (Wood having not yet been formally replaced)?
With his high action, Ball has certainly impressed during the one-day series. It would have been easy for Bayliss and Jos Buttler to return to Finn, the devil they know, rather than Ball for the one-dayers, but they went with a man showing that thrilling and rapid improvement which occurs only to a sainted few when confronted by conditions outside their comfort zone.
Ball’s five wickets on his 50-over international debut were a case in point, as he cleverly exploited the cut and extra bounce in Dhaka to win England the game.
The opening Test against England will be Bangladesh’s 94th since winning Test status 16 years ago.
Of those, they have won seven (five of those against Zimbabwe, two against West Indies), lost 71 and drawn 15, a record, given they compete well in white ball formats, that should be much better.
The Bangladesh side England will face next week, or at least the top order, will mostly resemble the one seen in the one-day series.
What is likely to differ is the bowling attack, with the wily Mashrafe Mortaza available for limited-overs cricket only these days.
To that end, Jubair Hossain , a young leg-spinner, could be one of the beneficiaries, though much will depend on whether a draw represents a triumph for the home side, in which case pitches will be dead, or whether they feel a ‘big’ scalp is long overdue, in which case the pitches might turn sharply.
Let us hope, for the sake of an interesting series, it is the latter.
Possible England side: Cook (capt if not detained), Hameed, Root, Ali, Stokes, Bairstow,Woakes, Rashid, Batty, Broad, Ball
The other conundrum faced by Bayliss and whoever is captain lies with which seamers to play now that Anderson and Wood have withdrawn