Sunday’s events in Colombo were a cruel reminder that you haven’t captained England until you’ve had to explain away an inept performance against spin in Asia. Presumably there’s a clause somewhere in the contract.
In that respect, Stuart Broad deserved full marks for ingenuity. He said England’s ‘error’ was to have ‘lost early wickets’, because ‘spinners always enjoy bowling to new batsmen’.
He was half-right: England’s other error – and a rather more grievous one – was to make the returning Harbhajan Singh and the generally underwhelming Piyush Chawla look like the old Harbhajan Singh and the generally unhittable Anil Kumble.
Same old problems: Piyush Chawla highlighted England's inability to deal with spin bowling More from Lawrence Booth... THE TOP SPIN: It was a thrilling win but England can't bat away concerns over plodding top order 20/05/13 THE TOP SPIN: Prior's award is a deserved reward for being England's Mr Selfless 14/05/13 THE TOP SPIN: Australia will want to summon up the spirit of '89 but England should leave it well alone 30/04/13 The Top Spin: Weather warning for England's spinners - Is this a golden era for Swann and Panesar? 23/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Compton goes back to the future to show that cricket's past and present can form a solid partnership 16/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Let's hope there's a happy medium pace between slow turn of county game and 90mph barrage from the IPL 08/04/13 THE TOP SPIN: Hunted England wear haunted look as eyes of the world see them struggle in New Zealand 25/03/13 The Top Spin: It's the end of an era as throwback Blackwell calls it a day (and ensures he will be a permanent one-cap wonder) 19/03/13 The Top Spin: England slow out of the blocks again... but second innings shows they've nipped it in the bud 12/03/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVETheir combined match figures of 8-3-25-6 should be pinned to England’s dressing-room wall alongside a note reading: ‘Must not aim across the line.’
The reality of Twenty20 cricket is that batsmen are always coming and going, and plenty of them will start their innings against spinners. If Alex Hales’s first-over wipe against Irfan Pathan registered low on the nous-ometer, then it could hardly be blamed for what followed as an entire middle order departed to cross-batted premeditations. At least Graeme Swann, stumped for a duck, perished trying to hit down the ground.
For all the progress England repeatedly tell us they’ve made against spin bowling, days like this really do make you wonder.
The evidence of the last 12 months suggests that England’s batsmen need more time than most to adjust their game to Asian tracks. Last October, their only win of a disastrous limited-overs tour of India came during a one-off Twenty20 game in Kolkata at the end of the 5-0 one-day whitewash.
In the UAE earlier this year, they partially – but only partially – made up for a 3-0 defeat by Pakistan the Tests (Saeed Ajmal 24 wickets at 14, Abdur Rehman 19 at 16) with a 4-0 victory in the ODIs. Even then, they allowed Ajmal to claim 5 for 43 in the first game.
And in the subsequent short tour of Sri Lanka, it was apparently necessary to go through the purgatory of Galle – where they lost 12 wickets to the steady left-arm spin of Rangana Herath – before they worked out not to sweep straight balls. It helped too, of course, that Kevin Pietersen unwrapped one of his special gifts.
Back to his best: Harbhajan Singh showed his old form against EnglandNow, they are at it again. Because it’s not as if the panicky surrender to Harbhajan and Chawla came from nowhere. During last week’s warm-up game against Pakistan, they allowed that man Ajmal to take 4 for 14 as they slumped to 111 all out. It was only the skill of their own bowlers that saved the day.
England are aware of the problem; they’d have to be pretty dim not to be. The National Cricket Academy at Loughborough provides all manner of gadgetry designed to allow batsmen to hone their skills against spin. Andy Flower, Graham Gooch and Graham Thorpe – the three coaches England and England Lions batsmen turn to for advice – were all outstanding players of slow bowling. And English county tracks are generally getting slower and lower.
Stump: Graeme Swann tried to play down the ground, but was eventually stumpedBut wet summers, a preponderance of medium-pacers and a cultural resistance to leaving the crease have combined to lessen both the impact of English spinners and the capacity of their batsmen to play them. On Sunday in Colombo, they were not even unpicked on a bunsen, which made the refusal to hit down the ground all the more mystifying.
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And this is where we get to the good news, or possibly the less bad news. England’s three Super Eight games will be in Pallekele, where the seamers ought to have more of a role – this may explain why they played Tim Bresnan in the dead game against India. And the only Asian team they will come up against will be Sri Lanka – so no Ajmal, no Mohammad Hafeez, no Shahid Afridi, no Harbhajan and no Chawla.
England will also downplay the significance the collapse against India ahead of their four-Test series there starting in November, when only Eoin Morgan and Jonny Bairstow of Sunday’s batsmen can possibly feature in the top six.
But stop me if you’ve heard this kind of argument before. England have gone past the stage where they should be clutching at straws. At some point, Broad will discover that the first step towards a resolution is to admit a problem exists in the first place.
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WASMixed messagesSo how exactly do the England selectors tell a player these days that he’s on the plane? We only ask because Joe Root and Nick Compton muddied the waters at last week’s Cricket Writers’ Club dinner in London.
Both men were interviewed on stage after winning awards, and Root – the CWC’s Young Cricketer of the Year – was asked whether he had heard from the selectors ahead of the following day’s announcement of the Test squad for India. ‘I’ve had a call,’ he said. ‘But I can’t tell you whether I’m in or not.’
Into the squad: Joe Root and Nick Compton (below) were both winners at the PCA Awards and then made the England Test squad
Not long after, with hacks scrambling to tell their desks that, yes, Root must be in, Compton arrived to collect the inaugural William Hill County Championship Cricketer of the Year prize.
Had his phone rung? ‘Not yet,’ he quipped. ‘But it’s on vibrate.’ Either the ECB have become so wary of squads being leaked that they are not even telling the players, or the players have absorbed their nuclear-secrets approach to this strange game of cat and mouse.
KP, LOLYet more evidence last week of the shaky advice Kevin Pietersen has been receiving in recent months when an ill-advised press release following his entirely predictable absence from the India Test squad was headed with the words ‘Kevin Pietersen, MBE’. If there was any moment to avoid accusations of self-importance, this was surely it.
Bad advice: Kevin Pietersen was ill advised with the style of his statement The man who gave eccentric recluses a good nameThere was bonhomie all round at the Professional Cricketers’ Association dinner last week when the former Surrey groundsman Bill Gordon was called onto the stage to collect his ECB Special Award for the half-century he devoted to tending pitches at The Oval.
Gordon was branded an ‘eccentric recluse’ by Australian journalists furious that he wouldn’t talk to them after their side were skittled for 160 in the Ashes decider of 2009 (on the same pitch, England made 332 and 373 for 9).
And it’s fair to say his interview with David Gower was not the epitome of talkativeness. But for years The Oval was home to the truest pitches in the country. If Gordon’s award happens to irritate a couple of conspiracy theorists, so much the better.
Irish eyes aren’t smilingStrong stuff from Ireland’s Trent Johnston, who has railed against the popular designation of his side as ‘minnows’ and claimed certain teams are steering clear of playing them.
‘Why don't Bangladesh and Zimbabwe want to play us?’ he asked. ‘I know why: because they're scared that we'll beat them and that we'll go above them in the rankings.
I know that for a fact.’ Really? We need to know!
More... England in a spin as Colombo capitulation gives India momentum heading into Super Eights Crisis? What crisis? Broad dismisses spin struggles as England collapse Hopes rise for Pietersen return after productive meeting with ECB chiefs No egos in our team, insists captain Cook as KP furore shows no sign of ending
