HIGHS & LOWS OF A CRAZY SUMMER
Four countries, three formats, 18 matches, but no fans….
It has been the most extraordinary men’s international cricket season.
england have played 18 matches against the odds and remained unbeaten in all formats until australia dramatically snatched the one- day series from them on Wednesday night.
here cricket correspondent Paul newman looks back at the winners and losers from cricket’s first — and hopefully last — summer behind closed doors.
WINNERS THE OLD FIRM
engLand began the summer determined to rotate their seam bowlers with an eye on building an attack that can prosper in all conditions and compete in australia. But stuart Broad and Jimmy anderson had other ideas.
Broad gave the most explosive interview of the summer after being left out of the first test but when West indies won it was back to the old firm — and Broad backed up his words by producing the best form of his career to reach 500 wickets.
anderson also made his point after ‘one bad game’ led to false rumours of his impending retirement and produced the biggest moment of the summer on a wet day in southampton when he took his 600th test wicket. they remain masters but was it myopic to allow them both to play in five of the six tests? We will only know if we avoid another ashes inquest in 18 months.
A STAR IS BORN
theRe were plenty of mutterings when Zak Crawley was given his chance on the back of a firstclass average of 30 for Kent but the selectors knew what they were doing. Crawley smashed 267 against Pakistan and, along with ollie Pope, is the golden future of england’s test batting. two more who could join them are dan Lawrence and James Bracey, who could put pressure on openers Rory Burns and dom sibley.
THE ECB
as england coach Chris silverwood said yesterday: ‘in april i was thinking, “how can we get this on?” so to play a full schedule and take part in some fantastic games is nothing short of exceptional.’ it was achieved thanks to the painstaking detail of steve elworthy and his eCB team and made possible by the hard work of hampshire and Lancashire, who put in place incredibly wellorganised, hyper- strict environments (even your correspondent had to have five Covid tests this summer just to be allowed in). and so effective has it been that there has not been a single positive test among all involved.
LOSERS NO MORE HEROES?
tWo key members of the england World Cup squad that made history last year ended the season with question marks over their 50- over futures.
Moeen ali lost his test place last year and now finds himself on the outside in one-day cricket even on the worn turning pitches we saw at old trafford. he faces a fight to save his international career.
Jason Roy, too, has something to ponder after making 49 runs in six innings. Could there be an alternative opener emerging for the next World Cup in tom Banton? the somerset man was this week bizarrely criticised by John Cleese for putting the iPL before his county’s appearance in next week’s Bob Willis trophy final but he will be making plenty of positive headlines in the years ahead.
THE IPL CREW
it Might seem harsh to brand the nine england players who yesterday flew to dubai for this year’s indian Premier League — Banton, Moeen, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, tom and sam Curran, eoin Morgan, Jofra archer and Chris Jordan — as ‘losers’ but they left with something of a warning from their coach.
‘ it’s their decision,’ said silverwood. ‘i have encouraged them to keep talking to us and we’ll keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn out.’
Clearly it is still not old-fashioned to expect country to come first and now we can only hope there will be enough cricket this winter for england to have to worry about burn-out and workloads and more bubbles.