Decision day is nigh for Vince and Stoneman
Batsmen will discover in the next 24 hours if they go on New Zealand tour, writes Nick Hoult
On the hottest day recorded in Sydney since 1939, the heat was on England’s batsmen, and two wilted under the pressure to be left worrying about their places on the tour to New Zealand.
Mark Stoneman and James Vince will learn over the next 24 hours if they will be granted more chances, with the selectors due to meet after this Test to pick the squad for the two-test series in New Zealand in March.
James Whitaker, the chairman of selectors, left Australia at the weekend but not before gathering the thoughts of Trevor Bayliss, the head coach, and captain Joe Root. Both are thought to want to be consistent and give Vince and Stoneman another chance in New Zealand, but Whitaker will consult with fellow selectors, Mick Newell and Angus Fraser, at home in England before the final meeting on Skype with Bayliss and Root.
Vince is more vulnerable because his innings are stuck on a repeating loop, with some good strokes before the inevitable disappointing shot when set. The loose nature of his dismissals makes his situation look worse than Stoneman’s, but the Surrey left-hander has been troubled by the short ball, a worry for any Test cricket opener. His duck brought his series average down to 25 while Vince’s is little better on 26.38.
“There is no doubt that James Vince needs to score more runs if he is going to play Test cricket for England,” Paul Farbrace, the assistant coach, said. “He’s shown some decent starts and glimpses. A few times you thought, ‘Crikey, this could be the innings’. But there comes a time when that has to stop and he scores hundreds.”
Stoneman was asked before this match what he felt was the biggest challenge in making the step up from the county game to Test level. “Unrelenting intensity” was his reply, and he looked exhausted as he walked off at the SCG yesterday.
Stoneman is typical of the team as a whole. He has not been blown away, just ground down by that “unrelenting intensity”.
He took one of the nastiest blows of the series when he was hit on the side of the head by a Josh Hazlewood bouncer in Perth, scored just four more runs in that innings and added 42 since then.
Worrying about the short ball has messed with his footwork, making him more vulnerable to the fuller ball outside off stump, which has been getting him out. He has faced 104 bouncers in this series, at an average pace of 88.8 mph, and been hit on the body or gloves 10 times. He has faced nothing like it before in 10 years as a professional.
This series has been played on flat, lifeless pitches, but could have been a lot worse if the groundsmen had given Darren Lehmann, the Australia coach, the kind of fast, bouncy surfaces he wanted.
Stoneman does play attractive shots and has wonderful timing. If he can work through this, his partnership with Alastair Cook could be successful as their styles contrast nicely.vince is seductive for coaches because he plays such attractive strokes with impeccable timing, but it is as if he was put on Earth to wind up Geoffrey Boycott with his loose dismissals. “You can make two videos of James Vince. On one, there are glorious shots, and he looks like a player made for Test cricket. On the other, his dismissals make it clear there is something wrong with his mindset,” said Boycott.
If Vince’s shot-playing talent could be blended with Cook’s mental strength and concentration, you would have the ultimate Test batsman. Vince has played Nathan Lyon the most comfortably of all England’s batsmen, but Pat Cummins sorted him out this time by mixing up his pace, almost nicking him off to slip four balls before he was caught off the edge by a juggling Steve Smith.
Once again, he had shown what Farbrace called “glimpses” but not enough substance.