ONE-DAY MINDSET IS CREATING PANIC WHEN GOING GETS TOUGH
Derek Pringle suggests that the play-without-fear credo does not work in a nuanced contest such as a Test match
After a bad game, at least from England’s perspective, comes the blame game – the finger-pointing exercise directed at any number of targets depending on one’s perspective.
So far, some have blamed the coach, Trevor Bayliss, for being overly fixated on white-ball cricket, while others have reproached county cricket for not providing a robust enough challenge to would-be internationals.
To my mind both of those seem wide of the mark. After all, there was plenty of experience within England’s side and I’ve never been one to blame coaches without strong cause having spent most of my professional career in teams that never had any.
Let’s begin, then, with the most glaring of England’s shortcomings at Trent Bridge – their failure to bat 100 overs across both their innings combined. Such a calamity would be understandable in the era of uncovered pitches, provided there was bad weather around, but not on a pitch South Africa’s batsmen managed to occupy for 210 overs.
There are those, though I am not a staunch member of their club, who feel England did not bowl well enough on the opening day, when the ball moved about in the air and off the pitch. As a rule of thumb, most teams would settle for dismissing an opponent for 335 especially after that opponent had won the toss and batted first. But that needs to be qualified by the fact that neither James Anderson or Stuart Broad were at their very best while Mark Wood and Liam Dawson still seem short of true Test match quality.
But if the bowlers had a slightly off-day it was not as wretched as England’s batting, which provided as much resistance to some penetrative bowling as a tea towel in a typhoon. In the first innings, the only significant scores were Joe Root, who made 78 and Jonny Bairstow with 45. Nobody else seemed able to cope with the pressure exerted by Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel, the first with his accuracy and wobbling seam, the second with his pace and awkward bounce.
Together, they seemed to sap England’s collective confidence enough for others, like left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj and support pace bowler Chris Morris – neither of them anything special – to also flourish. To lose five of your wickets to them suggests unduly wanton cricket.
The minds of players, especially those in the rarefied bubble of an England team, can be puzzling things at the best of times though more so when under duress.While most are experienced enough to know what certain situations demand, there is a neediness to know they can be exonerated if they fail. Hence,“the play without fear” credo that allows them to be bold in white-ball cricket without consequence – a permission, in other words, to go hell for leather without pause to the downside of their actions.
It is an attitude that is not even binary in its choices, which can make it toxic in a nuanced format like Test cricket where there is as much grey as black and white. It may be a simplistic analysis, but all Philander and Morkel seemingly had to do at Trent Bridge, for panic to set in and gung-ho batting to take over, was to beat the bat a few times and peg England back with a handful of dot balls.
If you look at the bowling figures of the two sides in the first innings, both Broad and Anderson conceded fewer runs per over than Philander and Morkel. The difference was that Hashim Amla and Philander, who scored a handy 54, soaked them up whereas for England, only Bairstow looked intent on occupation rather than all-out aggression.
It would be wrong to blame white-ball cricket for all England’s batting ills in the second Test, but there is a smoking gun.
In order to guarantee plenty of runs in the shorter formats pitches are made flat to offer zilch for the bowlers; boundaries are brought in; and the white ball, whether by accident or design, does ‘sweet FA’. Batsmen can therefore be aggressive and hit through the line with impunity largely safe in the knowledge that only changes of pace, but not sideways movement, are likely to inconvenience them.
Red-ball cricket is different. Skilful practitioner can swing the ball in the air while those who hit the seam can also get it to move laterally: Test match pitches being built to last five days and therefore having more grass and moisture in them (at least to start with) than surfaces prepared for one-day cricket.
To cope with that you need a defensive technique rather than a neutral hitting position and a good eye.
It may seem simplistic but all Philander and Morkel seemingly had to do for gung-ho batting to take over was to beat the bat a few times
Soft hands, decisive footwork and the underrated skill of shot selection are crucial to coping when bowlers are all over you on a pitch giving them more help than on one-day strips.
Indeed, that used to be the primary skill of batting until boundary hitting became so addictive to modern players and their audiences.
It probably didn’t help England, either, to have so many left-handers facing a bowler like Philander. No more than medium-fast in pace (78-82mph), Philander probes a tight off-stump line with that awkward, fullish length that you really need to play off the front foot. Trouble is most left-handers, and this from years of facing many more rightarm bowlers than left and the angle they give, prefer to hang back in their crease and score off the back foot mostly with cut shots backward of point.
There are exceptions to this like Matthew Hayden and, to a degree, Ben Stokes but for the others Philander, five of whose six wickets at Trent Bridge were left-handers, forces them out of their comfort zone.
Finally, what is it about the lack of fight England seem to have when they go behind in a Test? Although strong front-runners, they seem to view any attempt to right a losing cause as a waste of energy – adopting a ‘let’s move on to the next match’ kind of attitude that some teams used to have in county cricket when the season comprised 24 three-day matches.
Wherever the main fault lies, eight defeats in England’s last 13 Tests, with just one draw, is not becoming for a team that has upwards of £20m lavished on it every year. For that price, robustness should be a given.