06/07 was worse for me personally, and that second test in Adelaide was a big part of it. I’d managed to get a few people at work interested in the cricket during the 2005 summer. We had a bit of a tough time of it in the winter tour to Asia, but we did pretty well the summer of 2006, beating Pakistan, and the tour to Australia was full of hope, memories of 2005 fresh in my mind. And we got obliterated.
The tour of 13/14 just didn’t have the same impact for me, although it was just as rubbish, and ended as many careers. Looking back over the stats for that tour, though, it was bloody awful.
The gods of cricket are very demanding on dedication to the task.
A couple of seasons ago our club side was playing the grand final.
They were the stand-out team of the competition and were virtually unbackable favourites.
But they lost the toss and got caught on a weather affected sub-standard pitch and were soon 5-20 off just 10 overs.
To relieve the tension the two opening bats started to walk around the ground. After the lap the team was still 5 down so they decided they had to keep walking.
4 hours later the score was 260 and they had completed over 60 laps and were totally shagged when the 6th wicket fell.
They won the game in a canter by rolling the opposition for 75.
In the Club’s roll call of legends the walkers are ranked almost as high as the guys who had the partnership.
You just knew - we had a Test series that would have 25 days play, potentially 13,500 deliveries - and the poms were looking at their plane tickets home after one ball.
Here we go. Final session of the day, looking relatively good with only 4 down and Mo and Stokes looking secure enough, then Mo gives his wicket away, Stokes plays a weak shot, Dawson goes to the googly and suddenly it’s 7 down.
To be fair, I was expecting them to be all out shortly after lunch. And it’s a hard job. But it is their job. And once the wobble starts, it tends to accelerate.
They’re in the gravity well at the minute - being sucked into the bottom of it.
Watching these wickets though: some of them are good bowling but Mo gives it away, Stokes plays a soft shot, Jennings plays a poor shot, Root simply misses a sweep and gets trapped plumb in front. As ever, culpable in their own downfall.
They’ve somehow got to try and get through an hour here. Buttler absolutely critical. India should just keep him off strike as much as possible.
Not the first swift collapse this winter either. Remember against Bangladesh, we were 0 down at tea on Day 3 and chasing 270 or so. We didn’t get to Day 4.
I don’t even know how much I want us to get the draw.
Of course it would be good if Buttler and Broad can show some grit and hang on. But it would add the faintest of glosses to the overall result, and not one that’s really deserved. With the result that people - i.e. selectors and management - would have an excuse to shy away from giving themselves the long hard look they desperately need. “Well, it was India away, always tricky on the subcontinent, two draws is a pretty good return when you think about it. If the players had shown a little more character in the middle it would have been fine.” Etc. etc.
Whereas if we lose there will be that little bit less room to hide, and the questions asked will be that little bit sharper.
Well, they survived long enough for me to get up and check, but not much longer. That final collapse, from 192/4 to 207 all out, just puts the icing on a cake of crap, and doesn’t exactly back up my earlier arguments that England has progressed as a batting unit.
Nasser Hussein has a piece in the Mail saying that England are good when the ball is swinging, but not otherwise. Not only can our (non-spin) bowlers not cope without it, but neither can our batsmen - they’re comfortable against it, but not on turners or low and slow pitches.
I think it’s fair, if not the whole story. I’ve always had that niggle in particular about Anderson - amazing when he can get the ball hooping about, but lacking a plan B when it doesn’t. Hadn’t thought about it in terms of the batsmen though - and this series has shown up that they can be very one-dimensional.
I was initially angry at England’s collapse this morning, but to be honest I think it’s harsh to criticise their performance in this particular match too much. Yes, some of the batsmen in the first innings could have gone on to bigger totals and put the game out of India’s reach, but after that, India batted superbly. Then in the third innings, what have England got to play for? They’re thousands of miles from home just before Christmas with nothing to play for, their minds have gone. Having said that, they are professionals and it is a little disappointing.
I’ve just recalled a bit of TMS commentary I caught over the weekend, I think from Aggers, when India were something like 152/3 - it was along the lines of “well, with those two wickets, at least England have, you would think, removed the chance of India going on to a really big total and winning the game”. I thought he was right, to be fair, but he must be hoping not too many others remember it!
I’m not normally a fan of ousting the captain as a means of change, but in this case it’s probably justified, as per Cumbrian’s earlier analysis - not to mention his consistently shocking over rates, which are now beyond taking the piss. The only problem is, is Root ready, and will it kill his batting average?
There’s a list posted on Reddit this morning showing (from Sky, by the graphics) a list of England batting collapses for the past couple of years. A fair number of top order collapses, rescued at the time (although not shown in the pic) by lower order batting from the likes of Stokes and Bairstow.
Coming from a land where selection seems focussed on having better flat track bullies (to wit the appointment of Graeme Hick as batting coach), with all the confidence of a sea-going tadpoles when the ball bends in the air of off the pitch, it would seen the Australian line-up has one dimension less again.
