There used to be a saying in county cricket: a quick game’s a good game. You’d hear it from the old pros who sensed a poor wicket or a downpour, because it meant they would get more time off. Well, England and Australia have certainly adhered to that saying.
There’s another one you hear a lot in cricket these days: there’s a ball with your name on it. It frees batters up, takes the pressure off, and allows them to run down the wicket, to play scoops and ramps, in the belief that they have to be proactive because there’s a good ball round the corner. Modern batters don’t want to trust their defence and, if the world’s best players have that mindset – you hear it a lot from this England setup – you’re going to get a lot of unnecessary dismissals, leading to accelerated matches. That’s what we saw in the fourth Test, exacerbated by an unsatisfactory pitch.
In Perth at the start of the series England blew a match-winning position to lose the game inside two days, and in Melbourne it was Australia’s turn. Brendon McCullum likes to talk about running towards the danger, and at the MCG his team flew towards it. As the game ended I was really not sure what I had just witnessed – how much had they improved on their previous performances, and how much had Australia allowed complacency to creep in with the series won?
Either way, I was reminded of a few Ashes series that I had been involved in, in which England ended up in the kind of position they found themselves after three games of this one, with the urn lost but pride still to play for. I can tell you we were all scrapping for our lives and I was pleased to see a side full of determination and competitive spirit and delighted that they were rewarded with a victory.
But there were some disappointments along the way. In particular I was frustrated to see Jacob Bethell thrown in at No 3. Obviously my opinions have been shaped by my own experiences and in my career I was elevated up the order when I was very young – but there was a method to it. I had opened in school cricket and at second XI level, but there was no way they were going to throw me into the first team at the top of the order so they put me in initially at No 6, and gave me a chance to adjust to the standard I was dealing with.
They did everything they could to help me succeed and find my feet, and I feel England have done the opposite with Bethell. He’s very highly rated, plays quick bowlers well and has a good temperament, but he is also young and inexperienced. As he walked out 15 balls into England’s first innings, it felt like a really tough ask. People will counter that Test cricket is tough, and you have to grab your opportunities whenever they come along. But if the selectors have faith in a young player they should be doing everything they can to help them succeed, and though Bethell may well thrive at No 3 it will be in spite of not because of them.
In that second innings, as England chased down a small total, we saw the best of Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett as an opening partnership, enjoying the clarity that comes with having a target to chase and being told to set the tone. Bethell came in (at No 4 due to Brydon Carse’s surprise elevation) and looked assured, with a good range of shots, and seems calm at the crease – a contrast with some of his predecessors at No 3 – which on a wicket like that is not easy.
But the greatest bonus from that game was Josh Tongue. He looks to be the big success story of the talent ID system under Rob Key. He just does the basics brilliantly well: a simple run-up then delivering the ball from a high release point just past the perpendicular, which makes it really hard for a right-hander to line him up.
Brydon Carse deserves credit for coming back after the punishment he’s taken in this series, when he’s bowled all over the place and gone round the park, and for rediscovering what a good length is, the length where the batter is thinking about coming forward but the ball is full enough to threaten the top of the stumps. Especially with Gus Atkinson getting injured, those were big positives for England.
It looks like Matt Potts will come in for the last game, a player with a reputation as a very hard worker, very fit, conscientious about his cricket. But his lack of match practice makes an already difficult ask even harder. Let’s hope he can learn from watching Pat Cummins in Adelaide, returning after a lengthy period of not bowling in matches and hitting his straps very quickly.
If I were David Saker, England’s bowling coach, I would be wanting to know what Australia did to help Cummins bounce back with no match practice – though obviously their captain is a proven world-class performer with a massive resource of experience to draw on. Hopefully Potts can be relied upon to run in and bowl that fuller, top-of-the-stumps length.
After winning in Melbourne, Ben Stokes referred to the brilliant job the management, coaches and support staff had done to help the team shake off the narrative around their trip to Noosa and concentrate on cricket. Well, we can admire that to a degree, but it’s tinged with the knowledge that this was a situation of their own making. There’s no one else to blame here.
The players were told, in the middle of the biggest series of their lives, to let their hair down and enjoy a lads’ trip by the sea, and the negative headlines that followed were in effect written by England’s coaches and management. The whole thing was very hard to comprehend. So great, England won at the MCG despite a lot of bad press, but it was a mess entirely of their own making.
And so we move to Sydney, and a chance to end this often bewildering and disappointing tour on a high. The destiny of the urn has been decided, but when it comes to the future of this England setup and those responsible for it, it’s all to play for.
