SIFTING THROUGH THE ASHES RUBBLE
With England having failed to regain the urn, our experts tackle the burning questions
IS ENGLAND’S BATTING THE BIGGEST PROBLEM?
NASSER HUSSAIN: Absolutely. There is no magic solution. And it’s exaggerated because there are top-quality attacks out there and the pitches are doing a bit. So we might have to cut them a bit of slack. I look at the next generation like Dominic Sibley and Zak Crawley and I don’t think they will necessarily be any better. Look at Tom Westley when he came in. With his technique he was always going to struggle in Test cricket. We are not producing top-order Test players.
PAUL NEWMAN: England’s Test batting has been scrambled over the last four years by the whiteball policy and coach Trevor Bayliss’s early suggestion that two of the top three had to be ‘positive’ players. But I wanted Jos Buttler back in the Test team and I could understand the Jason Roy experiment because all other potential openers had failed. The cupboard is pretty bare of ‘ old-fashioned’ batsmen at county level. That’s the biggest worry and it won’t get any better when the Hundred rides into town.
DAVID LLOYD: Yes. I suppose the likely lads would include Dawid Malan of Middlesex, who already has an Ashes hundred to his name. If they’re looking for an opener, there’s Crawley down at Kent and what about Ollie Pope, who has to bat at No 6, not No 4 where he was tried a couple of times last summer against India.
LAWRENCE BOOTH: I’d agree. England haven’t scored 400 in the first innings since December 2017, which is a shocking stat for a team with pretensions to return to the top of the Test rankings. Unfortunately, alternatives have not exactly formed an orderly queue.
Warwickshire’s Sibley looks steady, but England seem uncertain about his technique. Pope will almost certainly get another chance. Crawley and Joe Clarke have been touted, but the reality is county cricket is not set up to produce young batsmen capable of grinding out 120 in a day.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE BOWLING?
LLOYD: Jimmy Anderson can carry on for a little while yet. I know he’s been injured this summer, but he’s naturally fit. We’ve also got the likes of Olly Stone and Jofra Archer, although it was alarming to see how much his pace dropped at Old Trafford. Mark Wood can bowl quick but there’s an issue with injuries. I like the look of Lancashire fast bowler Saqib Mahmood, although he can be a bit fragile as well.
BOOTH: On paper, it’s less of a concern as the likes of Archer, Wood and Stone can all top 90mph. But England’s fitness record with the few genuinely fast bowlers they come across is poor. It’s why they’ve had to resort in this series to Craig Overton (inset below, right) who is never going to scare Australia. One of the problems with our bloated domestic set-up is that promising fast bowlers must slow down to avoid injury.
HUSSAIN: It would have been a big concern without the introduction of Archer. He has provided a huge lift. It shows how well he’s done that everyone was up in arms the first time he had a bad day and didn’t bowl 90mph. The key will be keeping them all fit as Australia have done with their attack this summer. Don’t write Anderson off just yet, and keep him and Broad going for as long as you can.
NEWMAN: Archer will be a superstar for the next 10 years and is the natural successor to Anderson as attack leader. But he did not come through the English system and more still has to be done to produce fast bowlers. If only we could keep the likes of Wood and Stone fit, the way Australia have done with Pat Cummins and James Pattinson at this crucial Ashes time, then we might not have much to worry about.
SHOULD JOE ROOT REMAIN AS CAPTAIN?
HUSSAIN: I think Joe should stay. His win record is pretty good but unfortunately his loss record is pretty bad. The failure in English Test cricket is not Joe Root, it’s not producing batsmen with a sound defensive technique. I can’t see how that’s Root’s fault. He’s never been a Mike Brearley type.
I think any loss of form has more to do with conditions and the quality of the bowling, coupled with being a little out of sync with his movements, rather than captaincy. I don’t see what we’d gain in sacking him now.
LLOYD: I’m fine with Root as captain, and the appointment of Ben Stokes as his vice- captain makes for a good mix. There are all sorts of captains out there — shouting and wave your arms around doesn’t automatically make you a good one. We also need to give Root the chance to bed in with whoever is the new coach.
NEWMAN: I think Root is an average captain who is not getting any better and that worries me. After much agonising I’d keep him. I just don’t see where we could go from here. There is no way you could give it to Ben Stokes without destroying him.
I like the cut of Rory Burns’ jib but he still hasn’t cemented his place. The only other possible solution is Stuart Broad as a short-term option. He has the cricketing brain and has been rejuvenated this year, easing concerns about his place.
But do fast bowlers make good captains? Leave Root be and make sure the next coach is much more pro- active in Test cricket.
BOOTH: At times, Root’s passivity has been a real worry. It’s been Stokes who has looked like the leader. But Stokes has too much else on his plate to assume the captaincy, Burns needs two or three years of solid run- scoring before he can be considered and Buttler is still trying to become a Test batsman.
There is no one else, so Root stays on — but with the proviso that he moves away from the conservative style of Alastair Cook and decides with Ashley Giles, once and for all, what style of cricket his Test team are going to play.
HOW WILL BAYLISS BE REMEMBERED AS COACH?
HUSSAIN: For doing the job Andrew Strauss asked him to. Strauss wanted someone who could turn our white-ball cricket around and that’s exactly what Bayliss has done with Eoin Morgan.
He helped win England a World Cup and he should be proud of that but his red-ball legacy will be limited. Just give the job to the best person, irrespective of nationality.
I like the passion of Justin Langer for Australia — I want someone with fire in their belly.
LLOYD: Strauss brought Bayliss in to get the white-ball team right, which he’s done. He was old-school and phlegmatic and didn’t say a lot. But when he did speak, my guess is you’d sit up and take notice. It would be nice to have an English coach and the two obvious candidates are Chris Silverwood and Pa u l Collingwood. Silverwood’s won the championship with Essex and is now the bowling coach. The question is whether he can make the step up. Collingwood is well respected. I’d have thought Ottis Gibson would be in the mix, too.
BOOTH: He was brought in to win the World Cup and the transformation of the white-ball team over the last four years is one of the great stories in English cricket history. If Morgan deserves the most credit for that, Bayliss was smart enough to let him get on with the job.
But the Test team have plateaued horribly and Bayliss has often looked as passive as Root. That’s why the new coach needs to be strong and a tactician. Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming would
be perfect, but he’s happy dipping in to franchise cricket.
NEWMAN: Bayliss will forever have a special place in english cricketing hearts for winning the World Cup. He will not be rated as highly as Andy Flower or Duncan Fletcher but it was mission accomplished. Trevor will tell you he actually prefers red-ball coaching but our Test cricket has stagnated under him after a good start. I would go down the splitcoaching route but Ashley Giles doesn’t want to do that so we will see who he comes up with.
HOW WORRYING IS STATE OF OUR TEST CRICKET?
LLOYD: What we’re seeing from the Test team is a mirror of county cricket. It’s hard to change the side for The oval, because what are we basing it on? There’s hardly been any four-day cricket of late. If we’re serious about building a team capable of winning in Australia, we have to play less cricket. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face — three divisions of six, 10 games each and play at the height of summer. That way, the cream will rise to the top.
HUSSAIN: england had not lost the Ashes at home since 2001. They play good cricket at home and Tests are sold out so it’s not all gloom. And players like Root, Stokes, Anderson and Broad are among the best red-ball cricketers we’ve ever had. The main concern is a batting line-up that is always 10 for two or 20 for three. How we got in a position where Roy is opening is beyond me. But it can be remedied.
BOOTH: It’s down to the way the domestic season is set up: four-day cricket, the bedrock of our Test team, is treated with contempt by the administrators. england’s only hope of regaining the Ashes in Australia is to make sure the fast bowlers are all fit. And that will need careful management.
NEWMAN: I can understand why Strauss prioritised the World Cup and the final was a fitting end to that policy. But england were always gambling with this Ashes series by doing that. All energies will now go back into getting our Test cricket back to where it should be. The domestic programme still marginalises first-class cricket.
CAN KEY MEN KEEP PLAYING ALL FORMATS?
BOOTH: We should play less cricket, but we won’t. And we shouldn’t stop players going to the IPL, partly because it will alienate them, as it did with Kevin Pietersen, and partly because it secures their financial future. Why Root keeps wanting to crack the 20-over game when he’s got so much else on his plate is beyond me. The management will keep having to make the best of the poor hand dealt them and rest players from the occasional series. LLOYD: The IPL is here to stay, because it’s an earner for the players. The madness starts in our domestic scheduling, where they go from a fortnight of T20 Blast straight into a fourday game and then back to the Blast. How are players supposed to prepare? We have to get the balance right between resting, preparing and performing. And that’s crucial for the fast bowlers.
HUSSAIN: I look at someone like Virat Kohli and the work and commitments he has. He seems to be able to cope with it all. england will just have to rest their best assets when they think it is necessary. And you hope the best players and their management get the balance right between maximising opportunities and being fit and fresh enough to play for england. The days of banning people from the IPL have gone.
NEWMAN: I still don’t like our best players being made available for competitions like the IPL and Big Bash and having to miss england matches. Root is the perfect example. He should not be playing T20 cricket — not franchise or even international T20. He has enough on his plate without that and has seen his Test game fall behind his world- class contemporaries. Players say the IPL improves their game. Maybe. But england reached the last World T20 final in India with a team that had barely any IPL experience.
WHAT’S YOUR TEAM FOR NEXT ASHES IN 2021-22?
HUSSAIN: What we most need now is for the captain, coach and national selector to all sing from the same hymn sheet because I’m not sure they are. There appears some tension. That is one for Giles to address when he’s appointing the next coach. I’d suck it up for a week then get into the long-term planning with redball cricket. That can’t happen between back-to-back Tests.
The first 2021 Test in Brisbane? Very hard to say at this stage but in Root and Stokes you have two world-class Test cricketers who will still be around. And get the bowlers with real pace — such as Lancashire’s Mahmood — fit to peak in the next Ashes.
NEWMAN: Brisbane in two years? england have to make sure Archer, Stone and Wood, if his body hasn’t given up by then, are all fit and firing. The best batting prospect in the country is Somerset’s Tom Banton — but in whiteball cricket, not red, which is where we came in.
LLOYD: In terms of a team for Brisbane, it’s not easy, but here’s one possibility for the start of the next Ashes series: Rory Burns, Zak Crawley, joe Clarke, joe Root (capt), Ben Stokes, ollie Pope, jonny Bairstow (wkt), Moeen Ali, jofra Archer, Saqib Mahmood/ Dillon Pennington, olly Stone.
BOOTH: I’d consider some fresh blood for the two-Test series in New Zealand later this year. Brisbane: Burns ( capt), Crawley, Root, Stokes, Buttler, Pope, Foakes (wkt), Moeen Ali, Woakes, Archer, Stone.