Resurgent England hitting heady heights
Will Macpherson looks at the many positives after England’s impressive ODI series win in Bangladesh
England will head to India in January with a rather different looking side to the one that has just beaten Bangladesh. Joe Root walks in, so too Alex Hales, while Eoin Morgan will be back as captain. Jason Roy, who missed the final game with a quad injury, will return, and though Mark Wood has been ruled out, there are still options.
But that will most certainly not be a reflection of the side’s performance in Bangladesh, which ranks as a hugely impressive win by a group of players short on experience.
The emergence of Jake Ball, Ben Duckett and Sam Billings as quality operators, and Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes as leaders of real substance, made this a profitable tour, to the extent that assistant coach Paul Farbrace saw the absentees as a boon.
“There are huge positives,” he said. “In the end, it was probably a good thing that some didn’t come. When you think about it, in the third ODI four of the top six don’t regularly play, and chased down a very tricky score.
“We felt we were very capable of getting it, but it did take some decent batting to get there. To win, but win it with a few different players, as well as the off-field experience, that can only be good.”
Victory over Bangladesh means more than it once did, a point that is beyond question, and one that Farbrace was keen to hammer home. Beyond beating England at the last two World Cups, they had felled South Africa, Pakistan and India on their way to a run of six straight series wins at home. They are vastly experienced and settled too; England went into the final ODI with a total of 338 caps, while Bangladesh had four with upwards of 158, and another with 130. Throw in the alien conditions, the most partisan crowds in cricket, and the security rigmarole, and England’s efforts look even more impressive.
“The handshakes at the end were very enjoyable,” said Farbrace.
“They are a good side. When you win against teams you always say they’re a good side, and before you play you talk them up, but they really are a good side.
“This is a tough place to come – the wickets stick and stop, the crowds are only cheering one team. It used to be a series where you rotated and rested your players, but not anymore.”
England rested and rotated just one player, Root. Their other absentees were out of their control. On the batting front, Billings and Duckett have skipped ahead of Jonny Bairstow and James Vince, who endured a frustrating series, as understudies to the senior batsmen. Vince, for some time next opener in, looks set for a spell back at Hampshire.
“His case is a teaser,” said Farbrace. “There are times you think this is the innings, and a lot of us feel that one innings and he’ll be off and running.
“As a character he’s the right fit, he’s got a good cricket brain. It’s frustrating for him and us that he’s getting 30s and 40s, because we genuinely think he is one innings away.
“He could have done with a big score on this trip. He knows he has got in and got out, some to good balls, some to loose shots.
“At this stage, with people having to come back, he looks an obvious one to miss out from the XI in India, but I don’t think we have seen the end of him in international cricket.”
Billings and Duckett, on the other hand, thrived, but the ascension of Buttler and Stokes was perhaps the most heartening aspect of the trip. After outstanding performances in the opening game, they found themselves in scrapes in the second, but recovered their composure for the decider. On a tour such as this, where the leaders’ role is as much statesman as tactician, both excelled.
Of Buttler, Farbrace said: “He doesn’t say a great deal, but when he does, people listen. The cricket challenge is only one side… It was a great learning experience for him.
“The emotional side of it he has found quite tough, and selection is tough too. You go from being one of the lads with mates in the team, to knocking on their door and saying you’re not playing tomorrow.
“I don’t think you could get a tougher series to start off with as captain, because there has been as much said about off the field stuff as on the field. And that includes a couple of spats.”
Buttler’s own assessment (“we played really well, but with room for improvement as well”) was probably about right. England’s bowling remains a work in progress, as does their batting on Sub-continental pitches and their ability to control their emotions. But on their journey to the Champions Trophy – when they will meet Bangladesh again – and the 2019 World Cup, for the development of depth and emergence of new leaders, this short tour may come to be seen as a vital staging post.
This is a tough place to come – the wickets stick and stop, the crowds are only cheering one team Paul Farbrace