The first Test against New Zealand seemed to be played in fast forward, and since England sealed victory on day four at Lord’s the cricket world has just carried on in the same vein. An often wild match ending with the MCC rushing out a statement reacting to criticism of the pitch would be one of the more memorable events of an ordinary summer, but this time it was practically forgotten within 48 hours.
Celebrating England players threw the England and Wales Cricket Board into crisis, and the week between Tests ended up being so unusual that the shock retirement of one of the great players of the past two decades almost went unnoticed. Ten days ago it looked like England had hit upon a lineup that could stay pretty settled through the summer. Now they have made at least four changes for their next game.
Ben Stokes has become the big story, and particularly having heard Brendon McCullum speak on Monday of his concerns for his captain I certainly have some sympathy for everyone involved. If England win a Test the players are entitled to go out and celebrate, but also there has to be an off switch. There’s a famous quote from Vince Lombardi, the American football coach of the 1960s, that always stuck with me: “Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader.” It seems really relevant to this situation.
Stokes is an inspirational cricketer and a great captain, very empathetic with his players, someone who has learned the hard way how difficult it is to live in the spotlight and perform on such a public stage. One reason people love him is because he’s human, he’s fallible. He isn’t perfect, and isn’t expected to be.
But a curfew is a sign that people are not trusted to behave the right way. A captain or coach wants to be able to treat the people around them like grownups, satisfied they have the judgment and sense of responsibility to make good decisions for themselves. So for a curfew to have been introduced is bad news. Of course for the captain himself to break it would seem to undermine the whole thing, but clearly there is a lot that we still do not know.
We will see if he comes back as captain, and for now I think a short‑term suspension is the right response. He has a lot of credit in the bank and is such a likable guy. Some may find it hard to forget that he backed the curfew and then broke it, but I hope and believe that everyone has the compassion to move past that if it comes to it.
The ECB’s response was good, which is a contrast to the way it handled a similar incident involving Harry Brook over the winter. It was dealt with quickly, a suspension was imposed and the case passed to the Cricket Regulator, as it had to be. And the right choice was made in appointing Joe Root as interim captain rather than Brook: as a leader, standards and values are so important and, though he kept the captaincy of the white-ball team after the winter, Brook has to prove he deserves that responsibility.
And I’m glad that Root has got another chance: I felt sorry for him when he was captain, with so much responsibility on his shoulders and the balance of the team not quite there. There was a terrible run of results, and it wore him down. Now I think he’s in a better place as a person, and he’ll be very relaxed about it.
While one of Test cricket’s “Fab Four” finds himself stepping up, another has stepped down. Kane Williamson didn’t fully explain what made him decide, in a really unusual move, to retire from all international cricket mid‑series, but over the next two games he will be missed not just by New Zealand’s fans but by all lovers of the game.
I practised a little bit with him last summer when he came over to play for Middlesex and he is such a delightful guy, so talented, and along with Root, Steve Smith and Virat Kohli one of the great players of the past decade, someone who really shows the art of batting: playing the ball late, timing it, finding gaps, concentration. The first time I came across him he was a very young man, playing for Gloucestershire exactly 15 years ago while I was at Surrey. After the game he came up and asked if we could have a chat about batting. I was so taken aback by his politeness, his inquisitiveness, his desire to talk about the elements of batting in general and in English conditions specifically. That attitude has taken him a long way, and he has had a career to be proud of.
Ultimately only he will know if he was still motivated and had that desire to embrace the challenges the game throws at you. Perhaps he felt a bit off the pace in the first Test, when he scored zero and 18. I hope it wasn’t that, because it was a game when almost everyone looked a bit lost. I was at Lord’s on the fourth morning, watching Josh Tongue, who’s a big unit, getting the ball to climb up and hit the batter on the gloves with one delivery before the next shot along the ground. It is that uneven bounce that is the killer, and turns the game into a bit of a lottery.
After two-day Tests during the Ashes in Perth and Melbourne it’s a concern that we’ve seen, across the past year in particular, so many poor surfaces in a format that relies as a product on an even balance between bat and ball. I was at Middlesex when there was a relaying programme at Lord’s in the mid-1990s: they did three at a time, because it takes three years for them to bed in, but when we played on the relayed wickets they were superb. So it will take time, but they will get there again. In the meantime we have to hope the surface at the Oval is a bit better: after the past week we’ve probably all had enough unpredictability.
