This top six now looks like a proper Test batting line-up
At last, the penny seems to have dropped for England that to win Tests, they need to drop white-ball habits
There is no doubt that 2019 has been a great year for English cricket but a poor one for the Test team. They lost to an average West Indies side in February, were bowled out for 80 by Ireland and only just scraped a win in that game. They then became the first England team not to win a home Ashes series since 2001.
Now they are in New Zealand to play two Tests against a very good side and I think this series will be tougher than the one against South Africa later in the winter.
New Zealand are a strong, disciplined unit and very good in their own conditions. Kane Williamson is capable of replicating what Steve Smith did to England last summer and Trent Boult can rip through any batting line-up with a weak mentality.
What gives me encouragement is the fact there were signs of recovery at the end of the summer. In the last two Ashes Tests, the penny finally dropped. England realised playing the aggressive, entertaining way does not win big series and certainly will not win you the Ashes in Australia.
This England team have been blown away too often on day one or two of a Test match. On the occasions when they stay in the contest, you always fancy them to win. But the mentality has to be to stay in the scrap for a few rounds. With the talent they have in the ranks they will always create a knockout blow if they stay in the contest. But you cannot beat teams such as New Zealand if you are always trying to make up for a bad start to the game. Ben Stokes’s heroics at Headingley were freakish. They were bowled out in that game for 67 and it should have cost them the match (and with it any chance they had of regaining the Ashes).
Ability has never been an issue with England in Test cricket. They have talent in abundance but what has been absent is application when batting.
True, the bowling attack has lacked pace and penetration away from home using the Kookaburra ball but the reason they have not competed consistently is the lack of big firstinnings totals.
The brains have not been trained to make big scores and they have now tried to address that by going back to picking a more traditional, Test-style batting line-up.
In recent years, they gambled by selecting more aggressive, hardhitting batsmen who had been successful in one-day cricket in the hope of unearthing the next David Warner. I can understand why they did that but it has failed.
They realised during the Ashes series that they had to change and in the final two matches they did show more patience and batted to wear down the bowlers.
That has to be the way they play Test cricket from now on. The Test squad they have selected for this series should help. Rory Burns and Dominic Sibley are old-fashioned, hard-working batsmen. Joe Denly still has a lot to prove at three but it allows Joe Root to bat at four, his best position, with Ben Stokes at five and Ollie Pope at six. That top six now looks like a proper Test batting order to me. They are a group of players who wake up every morning dreaming of scoring runs in Test cricket, rather than thinking about the white-ball game.
Denly can be expansive and he has to watch that, but Sibley, Burns and Pope should see this as a chance to establish themselves in England colours as high-class, Test batsmen. If they do that and consistently make big scores over the next couple of years, then England have a chance in Australia.
The challenge now for this batting unit is to commit over the next two years to playing that disciplined way, batting for 130 overs and seeing off bowlers such as Boult.
For the first 30 overs it is not about scoring runs; it is about making sure you do not gift any wickets. With the Kookaburra ball in hand, England might have to gamble a bit more because the shine goes off it quickly. They might have to bowl fuller, be more aggressive with fields and lengths and accept they will concede runs. When the ball becomes softer they can go back to the old school, disciplined way of bowling and wearing batsmen down with dots.
But it is about making those big totals with the bat, otherwise no amount of gambling with the new ball will enable you to win consistently away from home.
I like the fact Sibley has a strong track record of scoring runs going right back to his schoolboy days. He mirrors Alastair Cook in that respect.
He scored a double century against Yorkshire as a 17-year-old and it is in his DNA to score hundreds, which showed when he made a century in his first England innings last week.
He is not pretty to watch but I do not care about that. I just want someone who can occupy the crease, grind down the opposition and have a strong enough character to handle criticism of his technique but also learn to hone it. Burns copped some stick for his technique last summer but he worked it out and was rewarded. I hope Sibley is the same.
The most important thing is method and confidence in your own game. As long as Sibley trusts his own method he will be fine. The flamboyant, ultra-aggressive shot player has a part to play but to win Tests you need resilience and at times be happy to be boring. Five-day Test matches allow you the time to wear down the opposition so use that time to your advantage.
For some reason, this series does not count towards the World Test Championship but it is an important couple of games. It is a chance for new players to grab their opportunity and the appointment of a new coach in Chris Silverwood should create a spark in older players who have a point to prove to him. It should be the start of a new approach to Test cricket.
With the talent they have, they will always create a knockout blow if they can stay in the contest