ROOT GETS A REALITY CHECK
Skipper was sublime but do England have the spinners to win big Tests ahead?
AS the third day of England’s jampacked Test year took shape in Galle, the suspicion grew that two men will be pivotal to their chances in Sri Lanka and India over the coming weeks: Joe Root and Jeetan Patel.
Root needs no introduction, and by the time he was last out for a magnificent 228, the blood and guts of England’s first-innings 421, the Sri Lankans must have wished his New Year’s resolutions had not included a desire to improve his shaky conversion-rate.
To their credit, they recognised greatness when they saw it, to a man bumping fists with a player who had kept them out in the heat and humidity for nearly eight hours — and spent much of it sweeping their spinners in the general direction of the Indian Ocean.
If Root can successfully reapply for membership of Test match batting’s Fab Four — and rub shoulders once more with New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, India’s Virat Kohli and Australia’s Steve Smith — then England may not be overwhelmed once the first of four Tests against India gets under way at Chennai on February 5.
Patel’s influence on England’s Asian winter will be less direct, but scarcely less vital. As spin-bowling coach, it is his task to get the best out of Jack Leach, Dom Bess and, at some point, Moeen Ali. On the evidence of the third afternoon in Galle, i t will not be straightforward.
By gifting Bess the cheapest of five-fors on Thursday and stumbling to 135 all out, Sri Lanka’s batsmen may have muddied the waters. Now, faced with a deficit of 286, they set about providing a different perspective on the merits of Leach and Bess.
Leach partly made up for a mediocre day with a beauty to have Kusal Mendis — who had avoided the ignominy of a record-equalling five successive Test ducks — caught behind for 15 shortly before stumps. But Sri Lanka closed on 156 for two, having restored a little dignity, if still trailing by 130.
With the pitch offering turn, and deliveries routinely disturbing the surface, the watchword was accuracy. But Leach and Bess managed only four maidens between them in 33 overs, and served up the kind of freebies you might expect from a l eggie, not a pai r of f i ngerspinners.
Stuart Broad, by contrast, had figures of 8-6-3-0, while England’s only wicket before Leach’s late breakthrough came from the left-arm seam of Sam Curran, who persuaded Kusal Perera to slash a wide long hop to Leach at deep backward point for 62. That ended an untroubled opening stand with Lahiru Thirimanne of 101.
Rustiness i s understandable. Cricket now operates in a bubble, which can do funny things to body and mind, and Leach had not played a Test since November 2019. But it was hard to imagine Kohli tuning in and fretting over what he saw.
Leach had actually bowled better in the first innings, when he was as unflattered by figures of one for 55 as Bess was flattered by five for 30. But Patel, who won 24 Test caps for New Zealand and turned himself into county cricket’s leading spinner at Warwickshire, must now find a way of coaxing the pair through the challenges ahead.
It said much that Thirimanne, without a Test hundred in seven years and going into this game with an average of 22, walked off with an unbeaten 76 — though he was badly dropped by Dom Sibley in the gully off Curran on 51.
The return to England’s bubble of Moeen Ali after 13 days of Covid self-isolation felt symbolic. He is unlikely to be ready for Friday’s second Test, but will enter the reckoning for Chennai. And yet he has not played a Test since August 2019, and has a bowling average in India of almost 65. There are no easy answers. At least Root had given his spinners the cushion they needed. While wickets tumbled at the other end — from 372 for four, England lost their last six for 49 — he set about turning his overnight 168 i nto a formidable doublehundred.
Among England captains, he alone has now made two, following his 226 at Hamilton 14 months ago. Among England batsmen, his overall Test tally of four is behind only Walter Hammond’s seven and Alastair Cook’s five.
And of the six Englishmen to have scored more than his 8,051 Test runs, none has done so at a higher average than Root’s 49. For the time being, he is breathing rarefied air again.
Central to his dismantling of Sri Lanka’s spinners was his use of the sweep, which he employed over 50 times according to CricViz, the most in a Test innings by any batsman since such records began 15 years ago.
Seventy per cent of Root’s runs came on the leg side, and he brought up his 200 with another blow through midwicket. He celebrated by acknowledging not just his team-mates, but also the only England fan in Galle, who was looking down in admiration from the ramparts of the old Dutch fort.
Rob Lewis, a web designer from Sunbury-on-Thames, had arrived in Sri Lanka last March to cheer on England. When the pandemic cut short that tour, he remained on the island, finding work as a DJ under the pseudonym ‘Randy Caddick’.
He was treated to what the pundits queued up to call a‘ masterclass’ from Root—its value highlighted by the fragility of England’s lower order: of the 17 runs made by the last five, 11 came from the bat of Stuart Broad, mysteriously demoted to last man after averaging 41 in the summer.
Thanks to the captain, England were still in prime position to win the first of their 17 Tests in 2021.
But the performance of his spinners may have given him food for thought.
‘YOU CAN’T DROP THOSE AGAINST KOHLI OR SMITH’