2GS The Sunday Times November 28, 2021 19
duces players that can go on and play
for England, or break into franchise
teams. Last year was strange in that
we weren’t able to have a full season,
but even the five games I played, I felt
good again. The following winter,
getting the vice-captaincy, I started to
feel really settled. Thankfully, the
performances followed.”
Moores was party to Hameed’s
promotion, saying: “We think he’s got
a good tactical brain and speaks well
in front of the group.”
Technically, he also abandoned an
off-stump guard that had become in
vogue in county cricket and went
back to positioning himself more on
the leg side of the ball, thereby open-
ing up the off side.
This has had as much as anything to
do with the more expansive game he
exhibited when he was promoted to
open the batting alongside Burns in
the Tests at Leeds and the Oval, in
which he scored 68 and 63.
That came after another sizeable
bump in the road, when for the first
ball he faced on his England comeback
at Lord’s he played down the wrong
line and was bowled by Mohammed
Siraj. He scored only nine in the sec-
ond innings but batted for an hour,
and felt something shift for the better.
“That first innings was a bit of a blur
but the second innings I started to feel
more comfortable,” Hameed says. “It
was a very intense passage of play and
although I didn’t get the runs I would
have liked, and we ended up losing, I
still took confidence from that.”
He attributes the broader range of
strokes he displayed in the next two
Tests to natural evolution and physi-
cally bulking out now that he is 24 and
has spent several years working in the
gym. “You go into practice every day
trying to get better, and you might not
see the results straight away, but
when you’ve been away, out of a lot of
people’s eyes, and you come back, it’s
nice to hear them say I’ve expanded
my game. Hopefully my game is in a
better place.”
Joe Root, the England Test captain,
has noted the changes with apprecia-
tion. “We think of him physically
maturing, but his game has grown as
well. He’s added shots to what is a
very strong defence and has turned
himself into a brilliant player.
“He has a great understanding of
how he wants to score his runs and
how he wants to play the game.”
Now the big test looms.‘When you
had the
experiences
I had it is
only natural
to feel those
emotions...
but I wasn’t
giving up’
A finger injury
ended Hameed’s
first spell with
England, in 2016,
below, but he
made a strong
return against
India in
the summerMICHAEL STEELE2021
15 matches39.3 944 0
2016
16 matches49.9 1,198 4
2017
14 matches26.1 522 0
2018
11 matches9.4 170 0
2019
10 matches28.4 341 0
2020
5 matches38.9 272 1
THE RISE, FALL AND RISE OF HAMEED
First-class batting in England
Lancashire, 2015-19
Nottinghamshire, 2020-212015
4 matches42.8 257 0
Avg Runs Tons
If England come through first Test
unscathed, pressure will be on hosts
the second Test and Steven Finn,
though the leading wicket-taker in
the series, was deemed too expensive
for our game plan, we had Chris
Tremlett and Tim Bresnan, who
exceeded expectations.
There is a lot of talk about quick
bowlers being a prerequisite to win
down under but I’m not sure that is
as true as it once was. Most surfaces
there are drop-in, which makes them
similar. Perth and Brisbane boast the
most pace and bounce but not to the
extent they once did.
Eleven years ago, no one would
have described Anderson, Tremlett
and Bresnan as express but they were
all capable of hitting 85mph-plus (I
remember Bres hitting 88mph at one
point). More significantly, they were
able to make the ball do just enough
and bowl to a tight game plan.
The stats for that series show that
only twice did we bowl Australia out
for less than 250. In England you can
score 250 in the first innings and still
be in with a shout. In Australia, it’s
imperative that if you win the toss
and bat first you post a big score. In
2017-18, though we scored more than
300 in the first innings of all but one
Test, we still lost 4-0. It’s not enough
to have just one batsman score a ton.
You often need two, or that one man
going big — the importance of which
Graham Gooch thrashed into us.
As a bowling side, you need
options. Swann wasn’t a huge factor
in 2010-11 but when presented with a
turning wicket, runs on the board
and the chance to win a match on the
final day he did exactly that in
Adelaide. I’d be happier if Jack Leach
had had some time with the ball in
the summer. With Stokes giving
England a fifth bowling option,
however, I hope we see him at some
point and that he can play his part as
Swann did in our success.
The loss of Jofra Archer obviously
deprives England of one pace option
but it’s not fatal. And what about if
Australia lose one of their strike
bowlers? In every series I lost to
them, their bowling unit went almost
unchanged. Good for them but if one
of Cummins, Josh Hazlewood or
Mitchell Starc is injured, what have
they got in reserve? As I said, there
are so many questions for both.having more than four sessions to do
so. In the next match, the decider in
Brisbane a week later, they allowed
their opponents to chase down 328
on the final day. Remember also that
this was Australia’s last experience of
Test cricket. England have played ten
Tests since then. Hand the Aussies an
easy win next month, however, and
the confidence will be surging
through their collective system
quicker than blood at Castle Dracula.
The worry for England is that of
those ten Tests, against India and
New Zealand, they lost six and won
two, and were up against it in the two
draws. There are as many if not more
question marks over their form and
selection, which is what makes this
series fascinating or worrying,
depending on your perspective.
When we won in 2010-11, we had
experience and form in our favour.
The top seven were the same
throughout and we all, with the
exception of Trott, had played at
least 50 Tests. James Anderson,
Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann
were also at the top of their game but
when Broad went home injured afterBrisbane, November 21, 2013. I had
just got back to the team hotel after
the first day of the Ashes and bumped
into Mark Nicholas in the lift.
Australia were 132 for six at one point
before Brad Haddin and Mitchell
Johnson helped get them to 273 for
eight. With England having won the
Ashes 3-0 in the English summer,
Mark said how good it was for the
series that we hadn’t rolled them
over for 200 and reasserted our
dominance.
I begged to differ. In fact, I couldn’t
believe what I was hearing. This
wasn’t simply about wanting to bowl
your opponents out for as few runs as
possible; it was also because, on my
third tour, I understood the dynamics
of an Ashes series in Australia. You
have to start well. You don’t have to
win in Brisbane but you must not lose
and if you have your foot on
Australia’s throat, as we did early in
the piece, then it pays to keep it there
before the role of aggressor and
victim can be reversed.
Sure enough, when Johnson got
the ball the next day, he was part of a
team with renewed vigour (and
bowling for a captain, Michael
Clarke, who knew exactly how to
rotate and set fields for him). He took
nine wickets in the match. After that
first Test defeat, we all knew it would
be a long tour if we couldn’t stop the
momentum in the second Test at
Adelaide. We didn’t and the rest was
history as we lost 5-0 to a Johnson-
inspired Australia.
“Don’t lose” is therefore my best
advice to England before the first Test
in Brisbane. If England can get
through the Gabba unscathed we
could have a fantastic series ahead of
us. We have been beaten comfortably
in every Ashes series in Australia this
century bar one, and that was in
2010-11 when we drew the opener at
the Gabba, despite a first-innings
deficit of 221 runs. From then on the
pressure was on the hosts.
There has never been a better time
to put pressure on Australia because
the departure of Tim Paine as captain
and his subsequent withdrawal from
the Test squad is the kind of external
noise that a team does not need going
into such an important series.
There has been speculation that
Paine's absence will make Australia
stronger. It’s possible that his
replacement, whether it’s Alex Carey
or Josh Inglis, may be a better
wicketkeeper-batsman but the
removal of an established captain, in
such circumstances, is a distraction
that can only unsettle the team
dynamic. Remember how disruptive
all the fuss was about whether Ben
Stokes would or wouldn’t tour in
2017, or Jonathan Trott flying home in- Nor do we know how Pat
Cummins's limited captaincy
experience will withstand a series.
We know from the series against
India last winter that this Australia
side, even at full strength, is
susceptible to pressure. In the third
Test in Sydney, in January, they failed
to bowl India out to win, despite
Cummins’s inexperience as a captain could be exposed over five matches
Alastair Cook
WALSH ON
VAUGHAN
To read our chief
sportswriter’s column on
the former England captain’s
latest comments on Yorkshire
and the Azeem Rafiq
controversy, turn to
SPORT, PAGE 28