England make the wrong call in axing Woakes for decider

Roland-jones returns to face revived West Indies Holder calls yesterday’s decision ‘a surprise’

A summer scoreline of 5-2 would make a satisfactory start for Joe Root as England’s Test captain. It would mean he has won his first two Test series, against a flagging South Africa but a rejuvenating West Indies, and his team would fly to Australia at the end of next month in heartening shape.

A scoreline of 4-3, however, would encourage the belief that England are too flawed and vulnerable to beat Australia. For England would have lost their first Test series at home to West Indies since 1988, and it would be the tourists’ captain Jason Holder who would look out over the Lord’s square – with its patchy autumnal growths – and claim to be the lord of the rings.

In cool weather with plenty of cloud around, and on a greenish pitch, the most probable outcome of this deciding Test is a lowishscoring match, dominated by seam, which ends in an England victory. This was also the prediction for Headingley, however, and it did not turn out that way, because Holder’s West Indies, for all their inexperience, were more disciplined in batting and bowling than England.

For England to drop Chris Woakes was, Holder said, “a surprise” – and he implied a pleasant one. Surely England’s best XI for a dog-fight in the first September Test at Lord’s has to include Woakes, who took 11 wickets for 102 against Pakistan in his last Lord’s Test; who found his rhythm again when he sorted out his footholds for his final spell in the Headingley Test; who bowled well enough to take three wickets in his first two overs of the T20 final last Saturday; and who has the distinction, in a team of all-rounders, of being the only one with a higher batting than bowling average.

And it is not at the expense of Toby Roland-jones that Woakes should be included. Both should play, along with James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

These are the four to dismiss West Indies twice by exploiting the extreme inconsistency in their batting line-up, for while Kraigg Brathwaite has defended imperturbably, Shai Hope has batted masterfully, and Jermaine Blackwood has hit eccentrically yet effectively, none of the others in West Indies’s top seven has passed 30 in this series.

In Australia this quartet should form England’s first-choice pace attack, with Mark Wood and Jake Ball also in the squad. They would be supplemented by Ben Stokes and by Moeen Ali, who, being an off-spinner, cannot be realistically expected to take more than a dozen wickets in the next Ashes series as his type has historically never prospered in Australia.

Stokes might have a field day this week, as any pace bowler might in conditions very different from those at Lord’s in high summer.

But the basic point will remain when England arrive in Australia: that Stokes should no longer be the fourth seamer. The vice-captain should concentrate on his batting, partly because he can become supremely good at it, partly to spare his left knee, and partly because England have so few batting options – though Haseeb Hameed put up his 20-year-old hand to bat all day for Lancashire against the championship leaders Essex, in his style of last season, to show there is hope for the future.

When West Indies chased 322 off 96 overs at Headingley, Stokes bowled only five overs for 25 runs. In his past three Tests he has taken three wickets. In his past eight Tests, since the Mohali Test in India when he was over-bowled, he has taken 11 wickets. This is not the strike-rate required of a fourth seamer. Hence, in Australia, he should bat at five, with Jonny Bairstow at six, Moeen at seven and Woakes at eight. The pace bowlers can then bowl flat-out in short bursts, and England would not depend on Moeen keeping it tight.

Root has repeated that he is wedded to No4. It has to be admitted though that a No3 who makes a 50 in every Test – as Root has done for his past 12 Tests to equal AB de Villiers’s world record – would be some asset. This leaves Tom Westley and Dawid Malan to fight it out for the No 3 position along with Keaton Jennings and Hameed.

This week England cannot afford to waste the new ball as they did on the last afternoon at Headingley, and to bowl with such ill-discipline. Anderson’s energies were used up keeping West Indies quiet and he was spent when he took the second ball. Broad has not been either so economical or penetrative as usual (18 wickets at 34), which has put added weight on the third seamer, not to mention Stokes as fourth.

West Indies, however, rose to the occasion in Leeds and now have a chance of winning two Tests in an away series (other than Bangladesh) for the first time in over 20 years. Their discipline stems from the seven Barbadians – including Brathwaite and Hope – in their XI, all well-educated, conscientious, and bent on reviving West Indies cricket under Holder. When combined with the flair of the Jamaican Blackwood and the speed of the Trinidadian Shannon Gabriel, it became a potent mixture.