Off-target attack shows folly of white-ball prep
Hlack of red-ball games leaves Wood, Curran and Moeen with bad habits, and undoing efforts of Robinson and Anderson
The depth of red-ball batting, or lack of it, has long been the hot topic as far as England’s Test team are concerned. The fear of what white-ball cricket might do, or is already doing, to batting techniques and temperaments is the primary concern.
These are very real fears. However, there is another, less immediately obvious problem which is creeping up on this England team. It does not manifest itself in more daring shot-selection, or a more dashing strike rate, that we see put paid to many a batter’s hopes.
Instead, in England’s bowlers, those with markedly more whiteball mileage than red in their legs recently, the patience and perseverance required to confront the best at Test level has disappeared.
Day one at Lord’s was a prime example. Under leaden skies and a start delayed less by rain and more a damp drizzle in the air, England won the toss and inserted India. Neither side shone with their batting in the first Test and India’s captain, Virat Kohli, was quick to say he would have done the same.
England’s start was a promising one; it was a big day for Ollie Robinson, opening the bowling for the first time in the enforced absence of the injured Stuart Broad. Robinson looked at home, as he has done throughout his short Test career to date.
If it is possible to directly exchange tokens of maturity in life off the field for those on it, then Robinson has found that method.
A five-for in the last Test, and unafraid to bowl consistently on the margin of a good length and full, Robinson partnered James Anderson capably. They both swung it out, then in, and on occasion the offcutter that nipped back devilishly off the seam.
While Robinson’s lines later erred, his lengths never did, pitching more than 90 per cent on a good, difficult length.
They were repelled, however, by impressive, even record-breaking, top-order batting.
India’s experience at the top of the order – the average age of their top five is 32 – used patience and partnerships to wrest control, and then dominance. Anderson tried to use all 39 years of his own experience in return, and for a brief spell after lunch did so effectively, prizing the first two of just three wickets for the day in the space of four overs.
Where Anderson persevered, trusting his action, his consistency, his persistent probing to wrestle a wicket, Robinson’s inexperience started to show. The Sussex seamer fell into the bad habits of England’s supporting bowlers, trying too much too soon. Whenever things started to go against England’s bowlers, the response was markedly different between these two attacking cohorts. Where Anderson, and for the most part Robinson, trusted their stock balls, Sam Curran, Mark Wood and Moeen Ali – with far more whiteball experience of late than red – chopped and changed.
Not working over the wicket? Let’s go around. Don’t like the angle of release? Try it a bit wider. Full balls not getting the movement we want? Bang it in short. Plan A was hardly given a chance before it fell away to plans C, D and E.
There is a reason that the most accomplished Test seamers often have the most metronomic of actions, bowling the most consistent of lengths – the Glenn Mcgraths, Angus Frasers and Richard Hadlees of old. Add Josh Hazlewood for the modern touch too, a bowler to whom Robinson has often been compared of late. Bowling consistently can be a disadvantage in the one-day game, creating a predictability a limited-overs match can ill afford. Robinson’s approach, his discipline, and his surprising maturity, has been helped by not playing a huge amount of white-ball cricket. He keeps it simple, and it works. Where the Robinson-anderson duo shouldered the majority of overs, they conceded the least runs. Both had an economy rate hovering around two per over, Robinson in fact the superior of the two, while Curran, Wood and Moeen could not keep it under threes. Between the three support bowlers, they mustered just three maidens in their 47 overs. Robinson and Anderson found 11 in 43, seven of those to the former. Moeen may be in full confidence coming from the Hundred, Wood may be a key pillar of England’s white-ball attack, and Curran may be a hot commodity in the Indian Premier League. But Robinson has Kohli’s wicket, and it did not come from anything fancy. The county grind: it works.