70 steps forward: How England fared during their Test summer
International cricket was back again with England’s Test series against the Windies and all that familiar drama and chaos returned back to the fore. However, once normalcy was back, it was easier to spot all the mistakes and errors in the midst of a few players who broke through during the summer.
20 steps forward
Crawley-Pope partnership gives rise to new English middle-order
Before the summer, if you had suggested that the duo of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope would become the first-choice middle-order batsmen for England, I would have called you ‘too optimistic.’ As optimistic as the English management, who looked no further than these two and backed them to become the face of England’s new-age middle-order - and rightly so. In a round of the experiment, Joe Root dropped Zak Crawley to accommodate the all-rounder Chris Woakes.
However, towards the end of the Test summer, Crawley’s daddy double hundred clearly showed Root and co that he is the first choice. Pope, too, in six Tests, scored 215 runs, at an average of 26.87. Yes, there is room for improvement but England can proudly say that they are fixing every gap, one at a time.
Joe Root’s captaincy and handling Jofra Archer
Jofra Archer is that feisty character the English team lacked for a long long time after Freddie Flintoff took a leave from the sport. While he immediately proved to be England’s missing link in the longest format, his diminishing returns soon brought about a familiar problem for the Three Lions. On top of that, regular injuries to the right-arm pacer curbed his instinctive bowling before the English summer, with the blame falling on Joe Root and his captaincy.
All of that, however, was quashed this summer and Root can proudly say that he has fixed one part of that problem by utilising the pacer properly. Adequate rest in between matches and proper rotation of the bowlers allowed the pacer to be effective whenever he was brought into the attack. A well-needed solution to one of England’s cursed troubles of the past!
Test cricket heisted by ECB
At a time where we could not imagine live sports, there was ECB with their audacious plan of bringing back live cricketing action, rather in a sporting bio-secure bubble. At first, it looked like they can’t be serious about it, bringing back cricket in such a short time but they pulled it off, starting from the pitch to the playing conditions and safety. Incidentally, the organisation which pulled it all off in spectacular fashion would be once again in action, for the BCCI to safely host the IPL. So in all terms, thanks to ECB for showing the world that bio-secure bubble can save us all from boring highlights!
Chris Woakes’ punt
When Jofra Archer, Mark Wood and James Anderson were picked for the very first Test of the summer, it looked like Chris Woakes’ chances might be bleak. However, Woakes returned in the very second Test instead of James Anderson and never looked back ever since, being a regular feature of Root’s Test setup this summer.
In the five matches this summer, he was right amongst the wickets, picking up 17 wickets at an average of 20.47. Not quite Broad-like but, nevertheless, his contributions with the bat, including the match-winning knock in the first Test against Pakistan, will all go down as positives.
Dom Bess’ experience
ECB must be very relieved when they did not go back to Moeen Ali, the man who they started against Australia in the 2019 Ashes. In between Moeen Ali and Dom Bess now, the management tried their hands with Jack Leach, an experiment that worked really well for the Three Lions. However, after Leach’s injury and sickness-prone period, the management decided to go with Dominic Bess, which worked out quite well, although he didn't get much time with the ball.
In the very little bowling time that he got during the summer, Bess’ influence was great, putting out the long steps with edges and opportunities flying out to the keeper. With the bat, too, Bess has been involved in plenty of partnerships this summer, more or less establishing himself as a front-runner in the sub-continent.
Squad across different formats
It wasn’t the first time in International cricket that we saw two different squads, one team playing in the span of just one day. Australia played a T20I series against Sri Lanka while they were playing a Test match next day against India. In a similar lookout, here, England fielded two different teams, against Ireland and West Indies, all during the same time frame. But more importantly, what it taught all of us is that England can field a completely different squad for the Tests and the ODIs without making compromises. Sam Billings, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes can all exist without being multi-format players.
10 steps behind
Old guards Stuart Broad and James Anderson together
Well in poetic terms, it is quite beautiful and scintillating to watch the pair in full flow but imagine the Three Lions are trying to build a future out of these two, aged 34 and 38. That quite doesn’t make the same sense right? Whatever happened to rotating the bowlers, none of it worked this summer, at least for Broad and Anderson.
While Broad missed the summer's first Test, Anderson missed the second and that was it - both of them since then played every game together in the same lineup. Are they really going to pick this squad for the 2021 Ashes Down Under? Well, if they are indeed planning to, all the best to them!
Jos ‘Butterfingers’ Buttler
Not the candy, this is Jos the 'Butterfingers' Buttler who managed to shock the entire world with his so-called ‘keeping.’ While Ben Foakes was warming the bench for the longest term, Buttler was there in the English setup, struggling game after game. Towards the end of the series against Pakistan, his batting definitely was a stand-out, no doubts about it, but his keeping?
The less I talk about it, the better, with Buttlerfingers behind the wicket, dropping catches and missing stumps every now and then. So much so he even dared to throw away Anderson’s 600th Test wicket. As England’s first-choice keeper, Buttler hasn’t set quite the right example this summer.
An end to Joe Denly
While England gladly opened a new chapter with Zak Crawley, they burned down the pages of Joe Denly and his struggle in the English whites. Every time you watched Denly, you would feel the pain internally, with his struggle in the middle. However, the trouble was done and dusted - forever.
In eight Tests in his career, Crawley has scored 581 runs, including his best First-Class score of 267, which came in the drawn Test against Pakistan. More importantly than that, his technique against spin, especially against Yasir Shah, was top-notch, which was one of Denly’s failures during his time with the England cricket team.
Bad light stops play
An age-old problem still continuing in the new age cricket, Bad light stops play yet again in England. While there was no real solution to the English weather, there was certainly a possible solution to the bad light - start the day early or just play day-night Tests, where bad light will never be a factor. Did we lose an entire Test purely on the back of bad lights? No, but we lost a considerable part of the action which did not give us a result either in the second or the third Test between Pakistan and England, which was on course to give us a thriller.
You may never know, the tourists might have picked up a win in the second Test if not for the combination of rain and bad light but this is England, and it is high time that they bring about a solution for it.
Mark Wood-less Test career
Let’s talk about it: Mark Wood’s Test career has been rather a tale of two stories - one etched in away conditions and one poorly written at home. At home, the pacer was destined to be part of this new English bowling attack in the first Test at the Rose Bowl, but what transpired was rather unfortunate! The pacer, after picking up two wickets against West Indies, was reduced to warming the bench, where he would then go on to spend the rest of his summer.
For some, the bench might be a blessing in disguise but for Wood, it was the right time to sharpen his skills. Even the best of knives do need some sharpening but for Wood, there wasn’t any of that happening during the summer before England's illustrious plans for 2021 Ashes Down Under.
Final score: 70 steps forward
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