Cricket: why can’t England defend?

“What a mess,” said Paul Newman in the Daily Mail. Just two Tests into the “brave new world” of Joe Root’s captaincy, England are in a real “pickle”. In the second Test against South Africa, at Trent Bridge, they suffered a “crushing”, 340run defeat. Having been set an unattainable target of 474 runs, they had no chance of winning; they could only hope to get a draw by batting to the end of the fifth day. Instead, they just collapsed, mustering a mere 133 runs. They have now lost six of their last eight Tests – and this “shameful” defeat, to a South Africa side that looked “down and out” after the first Test, is a new low.

England can play fearsome attacking cricket, said Jonathan Liew in The Daily Telegraph. When it comes to defending, however, they have “very little clue”. Under their coach, Trevor Bayliss, they have been encouraged to bash the ball whenever they can. And that “cavalier” approach leaves them “utterly unprepared” for situations when they find themselves on the back foot. No wonder they have drawn just one of their last 19 home Tests: they are “a two-dimensional team in a three-dimensional game”.

In each of their innings at Trent Bridge, England lasted about 50 overs, said George Dobell on Espncricinfo – the length of an innings in a one-day international. How telling. It’s in white-ball cricket that most of the players feel comfortable; in Tests, over five days, they’re all at sea. An Australian who had never previously coached in England, Bayliss knows little about county cricket, so he’s incapable of selecting players who will thrive in this format. Just look at England’s batting order, said Steve James in The Times. Two of the first three players to bat, Keaton Jennings and Gary Ballance, simply aren’t up to the job: Jennings has averaged a “dreadful” 11 runs per inning; Ballance, with 21 runs, hasn’t fared much better. A team’s top-three plays a crucial role: England can scarcely afford to “carry” one player there, let alone two. “This cannot go on.”