PAINE BACKS SHAMED AUSSIES
TIM PAINE says Australia retain a lot of love for their returning banned trio of Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft. All three are set to be named in the tourists’ Ashes squad today and the Australia captain said: ‘Everyone is excited to have two of our loved team-mates back in, and Bangers (Bancroft) too. ‘Having all three adds not only to our team but knowledge of English conditions.’ A month ago, Bancroft would have been an outside bet for an international return but the Durham captain, who batted to an unbeaten 93 on a pitch Paine said was ‘bordering on dangerous’, has leapfrogged Joe Burns and Kurtis Patterson. Paine added: ‘I thought what it showed is Bangers’ toughness. The boys think he has a bit of a screw loose but he seems to enjoy getting hit on the body, it seems to make him bat better. He was superb.’ Warner scored 50 for Brad Haddin’s XI in their five-wicket defeat by Graeme Hick’s XI.
JonnY BAIRSToW began to talk about his father and welled up with tears. Then he mentioned Adil Rashid and did the same. Even the memory of fish and chip suppers as a young cricketer made him misty-eyed. Emotionally, he looked strung out. This was the morning after the Cricket World Cup final, arguably the most stressful day of Bairstow’s professional life.
or Monday last week, if you want to put a pin in it. So quite how Bairstow, or any member of that World Cup squad, found himself walking out at Lord’s again on Wednesday morning is a mystery. Somewhere between Dele Alli, unable to rise unassisted from a sunbed in Mykonos, and Bairstow, Jason Roy, Joe Root, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali sent into the field to crash and burn, initially, against Ireland, there is a middle ground.
England’s cricketers should have been nowhere near a match, maybe not even a formal training session, this week. nobody could have envisaged the precise circumstances of the World Cup win; exactly how much that group would be put through the wringer but no major tournament is going to be won without blood, sweat and tears.
As England were the prechampionship favourites, the final appearance on July 14 can’t have come as a surprise. Yet some bright spark still thought to slip in another Test match 10 days later — with a training camp at St George’s Park before that.
Even Graham Thorpe, England’s batting coach, appeared to question the wisdom of the schedule. ‘There aren’t too many sports where you win the World Cup and are playing a week later,’ he said. ‘ Some of the guys have been playing red-ball cricket, some haven’t.
‘For those who haven’t, it was a challenging mental examination coming off the World Cup. We have to accept some players are
in different headspaces from the others. That’s natural. But they were all asked if they wanted to play.’
Yes, and they are professional athletes, in some cases fighting for a place in an Ashes Test team, so they responded in the affirmative. That’s what good players do. Frank Lampard, whose appearance record at his peak was second to none, said that when Chelsea were playing their best under Jose Mourinho they never felt tired.
Some days, he recalled, they would win the early afternoon kick-off and if someone had told them to go again later that day, they would have been up for it. And no doubt that is true but it wouldn’t have been right or healthy. What a player feels outwardly and the reality of his physical or mental state can be very different.
Even for those who now rally and put in a good overall performance against Ireland, what difference does it make? Can it really be said to have improved their chances against Australia next week? True, there is a difference between red ball and white ball cricket but did Root really need a game against Ireland to remind him of that? Could it not have come back to him while clearing his mind of the World Cup on a beach somewhere?
In 2010, Fabio Capello lost England the World Cup before the tournament even started. Having never experienced one as an international manager before, he thought preparation should mirror a club pre-season — physically rigorous and demanding.
England’s players, however, had just finished an exhausting competitive club season. The last thing they needed was a boot camp. Maybe Capello did not trust his players off the leash in the Mediterranean. More likely, he just got it wrong. Either way, England’s preparation for that tournament and their isolation, once in South Africa, were entirely counter-productive.
Senior figures at the ECB now admit England’s path into the Cricket World Cup was wrong, too. They should not have played five one-day internationals, plus a T20 against Pakistan. The intention was to get the squad attuned to the white ball, 50-over game.
The reality was 17 matches between May 5 and July 14, many with intense mental pressure. It was too much and while it can be argued that the end justified the means, the ECB aren’t thinking
that. They believe england won the World Cup despite their elongated build-up, rather than because of it.
The same could be said of the Test against Ireland, no matter the Ashes outcome. If the idea was a gentle warm-up it was horribly ill-judged. once the wickets began falling, england were under significant strain. That Ireland were patronisingly offered only a four-day Test merely added to it. The world champions had everything to lose, and little to gain.
Professional sport looks fun and, for the most part, it is. yet the pressure around the elite end and elite athletes continues to grow. The cost of a losing Ashes tour no longer stops at results, there is a psychological toll, too.
Jonathan Trott was scarred by the back-to-back Ashes series of 2013-14 and returned home after the first Test. The intensity was too much. What has changed?
Well, that was the tour when england arrived with an 82-page booklet detailing 194 recipes and catering requirements. A heart surgeon can nip out and grab a cheese sandwich for lunch, if he wishes, but england’s cricketers must have lamb and pea kofta kebabs with mint yoghurt, or avocado, raw slaw and butterbeans. The message is that this is the most important work in the world. so vital that the normal life lived by the rest of the planet isn’t suitable.
No wonder, if a batsman’s form then starts failing, it feels as if the world is crashing down; as if his shortcomings are all that anyone is talking about; that this is a disgrace, a humiliation.
That series was the one Alastair Cook described as a war. over breakfast in the press room, on the day of the World Cup semi-final at edgbaston, Cook was adamant that he wouldn’t rather be out there. He said that’s how he knows he made the right call in retiring: that he didn’t envy the england players their quest to be world champions. He was done. He’d had enough. And that’s how england’s players appeared the morning after their greatest game. Not just bleary, or hung over. shattered. spent. They looked as if the best preparation for facing Australia on Thursday would be two weeks off. Then juxtapose the action at Lord’s this week with the photographs of Jofra Archer in Barbados. He was partying at an event called the Jouvert Morning JumpUp. Archer was dancing, and covered in paint — as was everybody — while his girlfriend twerked in front of him. No matter, but it’s a pity he’s carrying an injury. Almost alone among england’s World Cup winners, he seems to have found the perfect way to prepare for the Ashes.