The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

The Sunday Times May 29, 2022 21

No doubt Crawley

and Pope will

appreciate this

backing of youth,

but their first

assignment could

hardly be tougher

three averaging 43.98; since January

1, 2021 that figure has fallen to 23.00,

admittedly in conditions that are

harder for scoring — pitches, DRS and

right-arm seamers attacking left-

handed batsmen from round the

wicket all acting to dampen scoring.

The enormous number of batsmen

tried in the top three by England

since 2013 (28, compared with only

14 in the previous ten years) has not

simply been due to a decline in

quality. There has also been

something of a culture war as to the

type of players that should be used.

Trevor Bayliss wanted what he

called “dynamic” cricketers, and got

his way when Jason Roy opened the

batting in the 2019 Ashes, but by this

winter the crease-occupiers were

back in the shape of Haseeb Hameed

and Lees. That is now expected to

change again (even if, for the

moment, Lees survives). McCullum

has said that he wants England to

play an entertaining style, though

not, he insists, “cavalier”.

ENGLAND’S TOP THREE

LIKELY STARTING XIs

New Zealand Tom Latham,

Will Young, Kane Williamson

(captain), Devon Conway, Daryl

Mitchell, Colin de Grandhomme

or Rachin Ravindra, Tom Blundell,

Neil Wagner, Kyle Jamieson, Matt

Henry, Tim Southee

England Zak Crawley, Alex

Lees, Ollie Pope, Joe Root,

Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes

(captain), Ben Foakes, Craig

Overton or Matthew Potts,

Stuart Broad, Jack Leach,

James Anderson

Ye ar s ( Te s t s) 2011-12 (23) 2013-14 (22) 2015-16 (31) 2017-18 (24) 2019-20 (21)

Hundreds 14 10 10 5 5

Combined avge 43.98 36.04 36.05 29.71 34.25

Players used

in Top 3

711131212

Lees has attracted less attention

because less is expected of him, but if

Crawley and Pope score runs freely it

would allow him to do what comes

naturally, which is occupy the crease.

He just about did enough in the West

Indies, and has scored enough runs

in the early championship rounds for

Durham, to merit his retention, but

he probably has these three Tests,

and no more, to make a case to

remain part of the Stokes era.

Lees, 29, has actually started the

season the strongest of the three,

averaging 76.42 compared with

Pope’s 69.50 and Crawley’s 30.20.

Considering how much heavy scoring

has been going on, Crawley’s returns

are particularly disappointing,

though he made a pair of half-

centuries in his most recent game.

It is hardly an overstatement to

say that England’s long-term success

depends on finding foundation-

layers. After all, not many good Test

side have started with three turkeys.

A cornerstone of the team that Andy

Flower steered to No 1 in the world

was the runs scored by Andrew

Strauss, Alastair Cook and Jonathan

Trott, and it is a lack of stability that

has made it so hard to put together

winning sequences since then.

Only in the summer of 2014, when

Cook opened with Sam Robson,

followed by Gary Ballance, has

England’s top three stayed the same

throughout a season, home or away.

Throughout the calendar years of

2011-12, the Strauss-Cook-Trott axis

was instrumental in England’s top

pressures created by bubble life

during Covid and an international

fixture calendar that was going to

take its toll on those who played

both red and white-ball cricket.

Increasingly, it looked too clever by

half. Ultimately, it failed on all counts.

As a Test nation we are not like

Liverpool or Manchester City in the

Premier League, who can rotate their

starting XI without losing any

potency. We are a team who have

slipped to sixth in the Test rankings.

The building blocks for success

in red-ball cricket are the same

now as they have been for nearly all

the best sides: five batsmen at the

top, an all-rounder and a

wicketkeeper who can bat in the

middle, followed by a spinner and

three seamers. Let’s start with that

format and pick the best. Worry

about next month next month.

ON TV

THURSDAY

England v New

Zealand

11am Sky Sports

Main Event

or bad day in the field then switch

off from it all when he returns to

the team hotel. As captain, that

does not apply. You are always in

captaincy mode, and if you don’t

find the mental and emotional

levers to control that, it becomes

very draining.

Fortunately Stokes already has

those life lessons from events on and

off the pitch, which should give him

the resources to cope. He also has

good people watching his back. I like

Rob Key, the managing director of

England men’s cricket, and the Test

head coach, Brendon McCullum, as

cricket people. That all three are new

to their positions doesn’t worry me —

they have little in the way of baggage.

Inevitably, McCullum and Stokes

will be asked about what their style

will be, either in terms of leadership

or for the team as a whole. I never

liked the question. You find yourself

coming out with descriptors to the

media and then find those phrases

act as a millstone around your neck.

When I first took on the role I spent a

long time working on what I would

say in my team talks, often writing it

down. The result is that I probably

sounded a little robotic and not

authentic enough. The best style is

always the one that comes most

naturally to the situation in hand.

I think Stokes will find McCullum

a good sounding board here. I

remember Tim Southee, one of the

team’s best bowlers in the period in

which McCullum led New Zealand,

talking about how he had once

sledged an opponent and found it

came so unnaturally to him that it

almost upset his ability to perform.

I think he and the rest of that side

have admitted that it took them a

couple of years to find their identity,

but when they did it was playing

hard, but playing with a smile. No ball

was ever a dead one — they sprinted

after it until the moment it reached

the boundary rope. In all honesty,

they probably weren’t good enough

individually to embrace any attitude

other than ultimate commitment. As

it happens, this is exactly where

England now find themselves.

Of those who will line up at Lord’s

on Thursday, I would like to see one

of the two uncapped players get their

chance. Harry Brook scored a

century for Yorkshire against Essex

Kane Williamson, New

Zealand’s captain, fell

for a nine-ball duck

against a First-Class

Counties XI in what

will be his only outing

before the Test series

against England.

Williamson, below,

joined this four-

day match

late after

finishing

with the

Indian

Premier

League and

then flying

back to New

Zealand for the birth

of his second child.

He was the victim of

a terrific delivery from

Jamie Porter, bowling

on his home ground at

Chelmsford, that lifted

and took the outside

edge to first slip.

Williamson’s wicket

was only one incident

in a dramatic start to

the third day, in which

the touring team lost

six wickets in the first

49 balls, five of them

to Porter, who also

secured leg-before

verdicts against Will

Young, Tom Blundell

and Devon Conway.

When Colin de

Grandhomme

played a ball

defensively

down into

the

ground

only for it

to bounce

back into the

stumps, Porter

had figures of five

for six from 25 balls.

He was well

supported with the

new ball by the 21-

year-old Ben Gibbon,

who made his County

Championship debut

for Worcestershire this

month. Gibbon had

Tom Latham caught in

the cordon for four.

The New Zealanders

recovered to 148, to

give the Counties XI

4½ sessions to score

264. But whatever
     the outcome, New
     Zealand will be a little
     concerned about how
     they are shaping up.
     Several other key
     players besides
     Williamson have got
     here late for various
     reasons, mainly IPL-
     related. Conway, who
     is slated to bat No 4 in
     the Tests, fell for single
     figures in both innings,
     as did Blundell, the
     wicketkeeper.
     When the Counties
     XI batted, it was an
     opportunity for Tim
     Southee and Neil
     Wagner to have their
     first meaningful bowl
     of the tour. Both
     looked in good
     rhythm but went
     wicketless in their
     early spells against
     Dom Sibley and
     Ben Compton.

PORTER BAGS FIVE AS WILLIAMSON AND

FELLOW NEW ZEALAND BATSMEN STRUGGLE

ENGLAND’S TEST RECORD AGAINST NEW ZEALAND

Wickets Average 5-wkts

In England Overall Test records at Lord’s

110 24.57 7

95 27.96 2

17 32.52 1

4 20.50 0

20 25.65 2

12 22.33 1

7 32.00 0

3 37.66 0

Bowler (Tests)

J Anderson (25)

S Broad (24)

B Stokes (7)

J Leach (2)

T Southee (4)

T Boult (2)

N Wagner (2)

K Jamieson (1)

At Lord’s

England

wins

8

NZ wins

1

9

Drawn

England

wins

30

NZ wins

6

20

Drawn

this month and what stood out from

that innings was the way he played

Simon Harmer. He was not afraid to

play what some would have viewed

as high-risk shots against the form

spinner in the County Championship

for the past five years. Durham’s

Matthew Potts, meanwhile, has

improved hugely in recent seasons,

hits the pitch hard, and, like Brook,

has form coming into the game. He

has clearly impressed Stokes, his

county colleague.

Whoever is picked, it should be the

XI that the selectors believe are the

best available. In the past couple of

years, we seem to have lost sight of

this. I know the rest and rotation

policy was initiated with good

intentions — either to have the best

squad likely to win an Ashes down

under fit and firing when that came

around in the winter, or to ease the

Stokes and Cook

after victory in the

first Test against

New Zealand in

2015, when Stokes

hit 101 off only 92

balls in his second-

innings century

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