The Times - UK (2022-01-13)

the times | Thursday January 13 2022 73

Sport

Billings, left, practises his wicketkeeping ahead of a likely Test debut while Root,

above, has still to score a century in an Ashes Test in Australia. Meanwhile, the

home side, below, have every reason to be cheerful with a 3-0 lead in the series

casualties of Ashes debacle

England’s 700th cap

There have been 95 one-Test wonders

for England in men's cricket, and only

87 with more than 40 appearances*

*Including Alan Jones but not Sam Billings

1

2-9

10-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

50-74

75-99

100-149

150+

95

106

54

26

17

36

19

12

3

331

Of the 700 men's Test cricketers, 600

were born in England, the other 100

from across the globe

India

Wales

South Africa

Australia

Scotland

Ireland

Barbados

Zimbabwe

Germany

Jamaica

New Zealand

Northern Ireland

Pakistan

St Vincent

Trinidad

Zambia

Denmark

Dominica

Guyana

Hong Kong

Italy

Kenya

Papau New Guinea

Peru

St Kitts

16

15

14

10

8 5 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Source: ESPNcricinfo

Sam Billings is set to become England's

700th Test cricketer tomorrow. That

includes Alan Jones, who was

retrospectively awarded cap 696 in

2020 after playing for England v Rest

of the World in 1970, which was not

recognised as a Test at the time

PHILIP BROWN/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES; STEVE BELL/GETTY IMAGES

Root must fix familiar

faults to ‘bang out’ first

century down under

T

alking publicly about how

you are going to score a

century is a dangerous

business. Most batsmen will

not stray anywhere near the

subject for fear of upsetting Mother

Cricket, thereby placing even more

pressure upon themselves in an

occupation already littered with

pitfalls and stresses, or indeed of

handing the opposition sledging

ammunition on a plate.

But recently a couple of England

batsmen have decided to do things

differently. Before the fourth Test, in

Sydney, Zak Crawley said: “I know

full well I can score a hundred here

this week and that’s what I’m looking

to do.” How the Australians lapped

that up. Nathan Lyon was all over it

every time he got anywhere near

Crawley out in the middle.

We can probably put that down to

youthful exuberance on Crawley’s

part, and in fairness the 23-year-old

very nearly walked the walk with his

superb second-innings 77, but

the case of the captain, Joe

Root, is more intriguing.

Before the third Test, in

Melbourne, this is what

Root said: “I’m

confident I can bang

out a hundred in these

conditions. I feel in a

really good place with

my batting. I know that’s

a brave thing to say but

that conversion rate this year,

it’s not been an issue at all.”

First, the conversion-rate issue.

Root has spent much of his career

dealing with that (he has 53 Test

fifties to 23 hundreds) and he gave his

most emphatic response yet in 2021

with six centuries in a remarkable

tally of 1,708 runs (at an average of 61)

in the calendar year, the third-best

effort of all time, behind Mohammad

Yousuf and Sir Vivian Richards.

But this tour is raising some of

those old questions, as Root, with

three fifties in the series, desperately

seeks his first century in Australia. In

13 Tests down under, Root has made

nine half-centuries, with an average

of 36.82. It is hardly shabby stuff, and

he is England’s leading runscorer in

this series (and of the Australians,

only Marnus Labuschagne has more,

and then it is only 286 to Root’s 277).

To criticise Root, one of England’s

greatest ever batsmen, is like finding

fault with a thread in the Bayeux

Tapestry, but it is an undeniable truth

that he has struggled with the extra

bounce yet again on this tour.

He knew what was coming. His

back-foot punches with a straight bat

and the slightly open-faced glides to

third man are risky options in

Australia. As he told The Guardian

before the tour: “Some of the areas I

score very freely in England, through

the off side with a straight bat, I’m

not sure that’s the best way to play

those conditions.”

But he did have a plan. “It’s about

managing certain lengths and finding

a way to get on top of the ball,” he

said. Root likes to feel ball on bat,

often playing at deliveries that others

would instinctively leave, but his first-

innings dismissal at Sydney, edging

Scott Boland to second slip for a duck,

was disappointing. It was a ball

pitched short of a length but of a line

outside off stump where it is often

hard to decide whether to play a

back-foot punch (with a straight bat)

or cut (with a horizontal bat). Early in

an innings that is a ball to leave.

Root’s decision-making in his 24 in

the second innings was better, even

though to his first ball from the tall

Cameron Green, who has caused him

many problems — not only with the

ball, because Green’s huge reach when

fielding at a fine gully has stopped a

lot of Root’s usual runs down to third

man — he played a very similar shot

to the one that had brought his first-

innings demise, but the bounce had

gone out of the pitch a little, so he

could stay on top of the ball.

The key to that shot is that you

must be in a position where the hands

are close to the body, otherwise you

are better off leaving the ball or

reverting to horizontal-bat

shots, as Root did in the

second innings, cutting

Mitchell Starc for four

and, when Pat

Cummins went even

shorter, pulling him to

the boundary.

Root has been caught

behind or in the slips in

all of his eight innings in

this series (thus why he has

been batting in the nets with a

fourth stump in place to sharpen his

judgment in that area), but his

second-innings dismissal at Sydney

was a culpable mistake, to a ball from

Boland which he had to play.

With another pink-ball Test

looming, it is worth remembering that

Root and Dawid Malan were

England’s stand-out performers in the

previous one in Adelaide, indeed they

were so in the first two Tests of the

series, but Malan has regressed since

his 82 and 80 in those games. He has

made 41 runs in his past five innings.

Malan has been becalmed — with

21 runs from 135 balls in the past two

Tests — especially against the off spin

of Lyon, who duped him in the

second innings at Sydney with a short

ball that skidded on to bowl him. He

also succumbed rather too easily to

Green’s barrage of short stuff in the

first innings, gloving to a leg slip.

Options at No 3 are hardly

plentiful, but Malan, 34, will be

acutely aware that he has averaged

only 28.63 in the six Tests since his

return to the team last summer. He

needs a score in Hobart, and England

need Root to bang out that hundred.

41.6

Percentage of England’s

runs scored by Joe Root

and Dawid Malan in the

first two Tests. In the

third and fourth Tests,

that dropped to

15.1 per cent

Captain’s back-foot

punches and glides to

third man are

risky shots in

Australia, writes

Steve James

Langer under scrutiny despite success

teams out because we’ve been trying to
make sure from a mental wellbeing
point of view everyone is looked after
properly, because of the schedule we’ve
dealt with over two years.”
Quite how far this endorsement
reflects widely held views within the
team and how far it reflects a desire to
be supportive and respectful before the
series is over, is hard to say. The position
of Silverwood’s opposite number, Justin
Langer, is also under scrutiny in Austra-
lia, which is remarkable given that Aus-
tralia have just won the World T20 and
the Ashes under his stewardship.
Whenever anyone within the Aus-
tralian camp has been asked for their
thoughts on Langer, they have de-
murred, saying the question would be
tackled at the end of the series. Austra-

lia’s players have chafed at Langer’s

overly assertive methods from time to

time. After a number of reports of

player unrest, Langer was noticeably

more laid-back in Dubai during the

World T20 and the Ashes. Ironically, it

is the kind of intensity and drive Langer

epitomises that England are lacking.

When asked whether his team

needed to win this week to save Silver-

wood’s job, Root said: “We just need to

win this week anyway to instil a bit of

pride back. We have to take the next

step as a team.”

A win would certainly ease the pres-

sure on Root, given the paucity of alter-

natives and the backing he enjoys from

ECB. It is highly unlikely it will be

enough to save Silverwood’s job, de-

spite his captain’s loyalty and support.

Weather forecast

Tomorrow

22C Light cloud and a

moderate breeze

Saturday

24C Thundery showers and a

gentle breeze

Sunday

22C Sunny intervals and a

moderate breeze

Monday

22C Sunshine, moderate

breeze and low chance of rain

Tuesday

18C Light cloud and a

moderate breeze