IF BEEFY COULD BE A BLOCKER, YOUR LOT CAN, JOE...
Now that Joe Root has had the chance to digest the criticism aimed at his side’s batting in the fiasco at Trent Bridge by Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan, this might be a good time for the new England captain to summon up the spirit of two other famous predecessors, namely Iron Mike and Iron Bottom.
For the record, this is what Vaughan, who has known Root since the young pup first appeared at his Sheffield Collegiate club a decade ago, had to say about England’s second innings in the second Test of the Investec series against South Africa, a capitulation so witless, spineless and soulless that supporters who had turned up on the final day hopeful of a long overdue great escape merely drifted away at its premature ending in stunned silence.
“The England batting has been appalling,” Vaughan told listeners to Test Match Special. “Maybe it’s a lack of respect about what the game is. They look like they are playing a T20 game. They have this approach of attack, attack, and there’s no thought or feeling of seeing off a bowler or wearing a team down.”
Root responded afterwards by insisting: “That’s very unfair. I can’t believe he’s actually said that.”
Believe it, Joe, and believe this, too, from Hussain, on Sky: “There’s a role for someone to value their wicket and say, ‘over my dead body’. If people bowl well acknowledge it, don’t say, ‘we’re trying to play a positive brand of cricket’. A score of 133 all out (in 44.2 overs) is a rubbish brand. They are not showing a steely side.”
Nor are they showing the quality that earned Michael Atherton the nickname by which the best pace bowlers of his generation came to respect him as highly as his teammates, and which Root and his would do well to tap into now.
The mantra coming from the England camp in the immediate aftermath of their defeat by 340 runs was that this was the moment to look forward with positive thoughts to the next match, starting at the Oval on Thursday, and so they should.
But many will feel the first thing they should have done was look back at film of the crime against Test batsmanship they had just perpetrated, in anger, in a darkened room and until the penny dropped that spectators who pay large sums of money to watch them battle, scrap and fight deserve better than a feeble capitulation.
And the next piece of footage should have been that of Atherton’s epic of concentration, focus and sheer bloodyminded resistance which stands as a monument to his career and by which, the call of ECB chief executive Tom Harrison for style over substance notwithstanding, all their future efforts should be judged.
When, on December 3, 1996, Atherton walked to the crease in the bull ring of
Afterwards the great all-rounder was to claim his concentration was helped by having to bat through a stonking hangover
the Wanderers ground, Johannesburg, to begin England’s second innings of the second Test, the equation was as simple as it appeared impossible.
Against a South Africa attack featuring Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Brian McMillan and on a cracked pitch, facing a purely nominal victory target of 479, his side needed to bat for five sessions and four overs to save the match.
More precisely, Atherton himself had to bat for five sessions and four overs.
Ten hours and 43 minutes later, he received the handshake of opposing skipper Hansie Cronje signalling he had done it, surviving 492 balls and scoring 185 not out in the process.
Ray Illingworth, the England supremo with whom the Lancastrian enjoyed an occasionally strained and sometimes just plain terrible relationship, called it “one of the great innings of all time”.
Indisputably, it was the fourth longest innings played by an Englishman, while at the other end, over 277 minutes, Jack Russell made the most picturesquely ugly 29 in cricket history, from 235 balls, many of which he played with his backside.
Nor did Atherton restrict himself exclusively to blocking because he knew that attack, when appropriate, would indeed be a justifiable form of defence.
So, for instance, the delivery after having been dropped by Gary Kirsten at short leg on 99 off Donald, he pivoted beautifully to hook the next one to the deep backward square leg boundary for four to bring up his century and reach 4,000 runs in Test cricket.
Furthermore, after having survived everything the Proteas could throw at him, he then saw off Ian Botham in their Cane rum and coke challenge that went into the small hours. Which brings us to Beefy, or, as many Indians pronounced his name when they first read it, Mr Iron Bottom.
For while Atherton’s tremendous effort was entirely in keeping with his and most other people’s idea of the kind of player he was, the innings Botham produced to help save the fifth Test against Pakistan at the Oval in 1987 was exactly the opposite.
This time, after conceding 708 to Imran Khan’s team batting first, England’s first innings 232 meant they had to bat for a day and half to avoid their second loss of the series. Mike Gatting led the way with his unbeaten 150 from 302 deliveries, but, at the other end, Botham scored 51 not out in a barely-believable 209 balls. Afterwards, the great all-rounder was to claim his concentration was helped by having to bat through a stonking hangover.
But whatever was behind it, David Field, writing in Wisden put the innings into its rightful context: “Botham, batting with immense responsibility, denied the attacking principles on which his game had been founded for ten years by refusing to commit the slightest indiscretion.
“He joined the fight 45 minutes before lunch until the grim, necessary job was completed at 5.25 pm.”
Let us not forget that in recent times England supporters have cheered just as loudly for some of The Great Escapes like those fought by Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar against the 2009 Aussies, or Graham Onions on the 2010 tour to South Africa, twice, or Monty and Matt Prior against the Kiwis in 2013.
On a point of possible interest, among the many charges used to justify Kevin Pietersen’s sacking after the last Ashes tour was that of irresponsible batting.
And on another, perhaps those who invite sympathy for England’s batsmen over the clear confusion caused by so much white-ball cricket could explain how on earth Hashim Amla, one of the successes of this year’s IPL, manages to cope.
For now, however, I humbly offer this note to Root and all his batsmen as they seek to repair the damage done to them at Trent Bridge: if, when the need arises, Beefy can set himself to block the living caca out of it, there really is no earthly why you shouldn’t bust a gut to do so, too.