Virender Morgan

Eoin Morgan gave a very… interesting interview to BBC Sport recently. He claims that there is no need for him to alter his technique in Tests because ‘[t]he mental game still stays the same. It’s worked for me in the past and hopefully it will continue to do so.’ That mental game has given him a Test match average of 30.43 with only two hundreds in 16 matches. Only the first of those hundreds, against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in 2010, was an important one in the innings either. To say that his mental technique has worked well when he has not significantly contributed to the side is ignorant, but to say that there is no need to chance his technique when there are clear flaws in it is beyond arrogant. It is into the realm of Virender Sehwag, the poster-boy of arrogant, overrated, flat track bullies. The last thing England need is our own Sehwag, KP is already close enough. It is a simple fact that is true of any player in any sport: if he can’t or won’t adjust to help the team then he ought not to play for the team. In this case he can go back to Middlesex, they’ve been promoted so he’ll have some decent attacks against which to practise, or he can go to the Ireland and/or the IPL and forget Tests altogether.

It is the last one which seems like the better route, both for him and the England team given the other quote he gave: ‘The Test series didn’t go quite as well as we’d hoped, but the one-day series has certainly made up for it.’ Really, Eoin? We were whitewashed in the subcontinent, threw our number one ranking into jeopardy and threw away any chance we had at being a properly dominant side for at least another five years, but a few ODI wins make up for that? If that is his attitude I don’t want him anywhere near any of the England sides, regardless of how good he theoretically is at limited overs matches. If he thinks ODIs are that important then he ought to go back to Ireland where he’ll get to play plenty of them without people asking questions about his Test form. We can’t have that kind of negative, complacent attitude infecting any of the young players who are coming up. It pains me to say this, but even Bopara would be better than Morgan now. It’s too late for this tour, but after England return from the UAE Morgan should never again be allowed to wear the Three Lions.

England win by 48 runs

The win makes it two in two for England’s women and this one was never in doubt. England’s top three of Edwards, Marsh and Taylor scored 33, 48 and 45 respectively and all at good rates to set up England’s total. The partnership of Edwards and Marsh was particularly impressive, as they went along at almost ten per over. Even after dismissing them in quick succession, the Kiwis never really found a way to contain the scoring. Taylor played another good innings whilst the batsmen farther down added nice cameos. New Zealand ended up using seven bowlers in the innings and all of them went for at least seven an over. I was hoping near the end of the innings that we could get up to 170, but the average completed first innings score in women’s T20 is only 126, so 166 was still more than handy.

New Zealand’s run chase was rather odd though. They started poorly, getting only two of the first over before Anya Shrubsole, heroine from the first match, delivered a wicket maiden. After four overs New Zealand found themselves 9-1 and already needing almost ten per over to win. That prompted the only period of the match in which they really looked like going for it. McGlashan in particular made a concerted effort to find the ropes and just about managed to keep the Kiwis in touch for a couple of overs. Once they powerplay ended though they went back to knocking the ball for singles. I can understand keeping wickets in hand for a late assault, but they waited far too late. They went over six overs after with only a solitary six (followed by a wicket) as the only boundary, after which they needed 12 per over to win. By the time they actually started an assault in the 15th over the rate required was over 13 and all they could do was slog. Seeing as they had to get a four off of almost everything they saw, it was not surprising that it didn’t come off and they lost four wickets in two overs. What was surprising was that after that they went back to hitting singles! Part of that was some very good containing bowling from England, of course, but when one’s side needs 17 per over to win there is no excuse for not trying to clear the infield. Only boundaries were going to be enough and they did not seem to be willing to take the risks to get them. They kept losing wickets anyway, however, and their final tally of 118 all out was fairly pathetic.

With England now 2-0 up and the Kiwis having looked pretty poor twice the series is there for the taking. New Zealand may be able to sneak a win, but I’m sticking with my original 4-1 prediction.

England win by six/nine wickets

Suddenly I’m writing the words ‘England win’ a lot. A couple of nights ago the women’s side won their first T20 by six wickets. It was rather closer than it ought to have been, Anya Shrubsole took 5-11 (all five bowled or lbw) in four overs as the Kiwis finished on 80-9. It was at this point that I made the in hindsight ill-advised comment ‘should be a straightforward chase’ on Twitter. Needless to say we got bogged down and after losing a few wickets were actually behind the rate for a time. For the Kiwis, Kate Broadmore at one point had figures of 2.2-2-0-1. Unlike Shrubsole, however, she couldn’t take more than that one wicket and Sarah Taylor hit a composed and unbeaten 31 off 34 to see England home with six wickets and 14 balls to spare. Never in doubt… The second match of the series is tonight/tomorrow morning and whilst New Zealand will take heart from their bowling display I’m tipping England to win again.

The far more surprising win was for the men’s side. If I had known before the tour that there would be 3-0 scorelines in both the Test and ODI series I would have assumed that we had won the Tests and been hammered in the ODIs. As it was, England turned in one of their most comprehensive ever ODI wins away from home. Only three times previously have England played top tier opposition away from home and chased down a target with more balls to spare than the 76 balls to spare that they had in this match. The most recent was against South Africa in November 2009 when England lost three wickets en route to 121 off 31.2 overs. England also won with 94 balls remaining at the MCG in January 1979, a 40-over ODI in which Geoffery Boycott scored an unbeaten 39 off 107 deliveries. England took just 28.2 overs to chase down the 102 they needed for victory and I’m sure the crowd went home thinking that they got their money’s worth. I think a case could be made that this was a more comprehensive victory than any of those, however. England looked today like they could easily have chased down another hundred runs. There were standout performances from Cook and Finn again, but KP was the real star. He looked today like the KP of old, a man bristling with intent and for once not likely to give his wicket away. Once he got into his stride the only thing that looked like it might stop him from reaching three figures was if England ran out of runs to chase. As it was, Cook’s dismissal meant that KP could get to an unbeaten 111, his joint highest ODI score.

This puts England in a very rare position for overseas ODI series. Excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the last time England won an overseas ODI series by two or more matches was a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand in 1992. If England can win the last match, it will be only the second time overseas and fifth time ever that England have won four or more matches in an ODI series.

England win by 20 runs

Only an ODI could be this close and still this dull. Pakistan needed 251 to win and yet never seemed to go for the runs until it was too late. They hung around, matched England’s score and matched the D/L par score for almost the entire innings, and apart from a brief blitz by Afridi in the last powerplay they never showed any real attacking intent. It was a match in which the result was not decided until a couple of overs before it ended and yet it was never gripping. There were 99 overs played and about ninety of them followed the ‘dull middle over’ pattern. If it had been a Test match it might have been thrilling, but as it was it was just waiting for something to actually happen.

Part of that was the England bowlers who were very good again, Finn turning in his second successive 4-34, but once again losing out on man of the match to his centurion captain. Jimmy Anderson, however, who I suggested should not play in ODIs took the vital wicket of Afridi in what turned out to be a wicket-maiden. I still say Jimmy should not play ODIs, or at least seldom play. My point about him needing to be fit and firing in Tests has not changed, but he showed today just how talented he is.

I always think that ODIs should be played before Tests in a tour as to do otherwise is often anticlimactic, as we saw with the series against India last summer and the Ashes before that, but I think England will be particularly ruing that the Tests came before the ODIs on this tour. England played Saeed Ajmal much better today, partly due to practise and partly due to the format demanding that they attack a bit more and not having men around the bat. If the ODIs had come first they would have got their practise in the less important matches and they might have learnt the value of positive play before now. I don’t think it will be changed in the near future, but it is something at which I think the ECB ought to look.

New Zealand v England preview

England will start a five T20 and three ODI series against New Zealand on Friday afternoon (Kiwi time anyway, 01.45 GMT, and a very reasonable 19.45 Thursday evening in my time zone). I’d say England are strong favourites. They go in both in very good form in the warmups (all three of which they won convincingly) and over the past year and a bit in general. Since the start of 2011 they have lost only four of 21 completed matches in both the fifty and twenty over formats, including beating New Zealand once in each at home last summer. Of course, the men’s team have shown clearly that winning at home is very different from winning on the road, but the difference in conditions between England and New Zealand will not be nearly as large as that between England and the UAE. To further boost England’s hopes, New Zealand come in to the series on the back of a very disappointing tour of Australia. They lost the T20 series 1-4, the one win being in a dead rubber, and they were crushed by nine wickets and 200 deliveries in the only ODI that was not washed out.

I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect England to win the T20 series at least 4-1, perhaps even 5-0. England only lost one T20 last year and had the best run rate of any team in that time, seven runs per over. England have not had quite the same advantage in ODIs, winning seven of ten last year, but still look much the stronger side. They were not troubled in South Africa, winning all three matches by comfortable margins. England’s success in South Africa was based in large part on sizeable contributions from the top order, with the captain Charlotte Edwards and Lydia Greenway being the standout performers both in the T20s and ODIs. The bowling was very good too, however, the most they conceded in a single innings in 2011 was 235, though Australia probably would have gone past that at Perth had they not achieved their target. For a New Zealand side that struggled a bit with the bat in Australia, that is not good news. When one adds in the fact that the Kiwi bowlers had the worst ODI economy rate in women’s cricket in 2011, I can’t see them getting close to England in the series. Barring an intervention by the weather I’m predicting a 3-0 win for the tourists. Unfortunately there are not any Tests being played on the tour and disappointingly England have played only three since 2006, the most recent being in Australia a year ago.

The T20 matches will start at a very awkward hour in the UK, but it won’t be difficult to catch the start of the ODIs, which begin at 21.30 GMT. In any case it might be worth it to get/stay up. After the debacles the men’s side have had in the subcontinent and nearby areas it will be very nice to see what should be a comfortable win. Unfortunately, the first T20 won’t be on Sky Sports until after the New Zealand men’s T20 ends, about 03.30 GMT. (I’m not sure about the subsequent matches.) It’s rather frustrating seeing as the match that is being given priority is the one in which England are not playing, but even more irritating is the fact that there seems to be no radio coverage at all. Living in America, I don’t get Sky Sports at all so I will have to make do with Cricinfo’s rather minimalist ball-by-ball coverage. Hopefully the rest of you can enjoy it, however. Record it and watch it at a reasonable hour if nothing else.

England win by 130 runs

Up until very recently, the only thing that would be remarkable about that scoreline in a Test match would be the absence of ‘an innings and’ but for England it is an unusually good result for an ODI. The selection wasn’t quite what I had predicted before the match. I had suggested that Dernbach would play instead of Bresnan on the back of the performances in the warmup match, but England played neither of them, instead opting for Jimmy Anderson. This surprised me (not at the time, as I was asleep, but when I got up) as I had thought Jimmy had rather fallen out of favour during the last World Cup. I’m actually quite happy just to see Jimmy rested during the limited overs matches and saved for Tests; the last thing we need is a bowler of his calibre picking up an injury due to an ODI on which he is unlikely to have much of an impact. Anderson is a better bowler overall than Dernbach, however, so the selection makes sense from that standpoint. Jimmy actually did not fare that well, however; he only got six overs and did not take a wicket. He also went at four an over, which is not bad for an ODI, but Pakistan’s overall rate was only 3.7.

Finn, of course, was the pick of the bowlers with his analysis of 10-1-34-4. Those four were not cheap wickets either, they were the top four batsmen in Pakistan’s order. He blew them away to leave Paksitan at one point 40-4 and it was always going to be a struggle from there. Credit should also go to Graeme Swann, for his 7-3-19-2. He actually was the sixth bowler used (Bopara got an over) but he was instrumental in keeping Pakistan tied down as England turned the screw. Once again the batting was not particularly good, but they did enough today. Cook led from the front, something at which he has got rather good at doing in ODIs. His 137 off 142 was enough to win him Man of the Match, with which it is hard to argue. Especially after England’s batting woes in the Tests it was a much needed innings. He scored seven more than the entire Pakistan team and more than the rest of his teammates combined, which says a lot about how important his innings was. He also scored at nearly a run a ball, which should help suppress suggestions that he and Trott should not play in the same team. Each have perfectly respectable strike rates.

It should be noted that as it stands this is little more than a ‘feel-good’ win for England. The batting was still heavily reliant on one player and Finn’s early burst effectively ended the match, allowing the rest to play with the pressure off. Pakistan did not bat particularly well (though they hardly excelled in the Tests either) and England can probably expect them to come back. For now at least, England have a slight upper hand, nothing more.

Capello out…

Fabio Capello has fairly surprisingly resigned as the England manager after meeting with the FA today. I had nothing against Capello’s tactics (the problem was that the players weren’t performing) and I prefer to see a manager given ample time to get settled before deciding he is not the right fit. That said, I am glad that he is gone, because I think his backing of Terry made him untenable. I strongly dislike Terry. Regardless of whether or not it’s true that he racially abused Ferdinand, Terry is a very sleazy character. For him to be the public face of the England football team speaks very poorly of the sport. (Though there are quite a few other things that do so more effectively.) I don’t think someone like Terry would ever have been allowed to captain the England cricket team. (Compare Terry to Strauss for a moment.) It is the fact that Capello could still support Terry as captain that made him unsuitable for the job as manager, and hopefully he would have been sacked if he had tried to stay on.

It does bring up the question of who will replace him. Redknapp is the odds-on favourite as he meets the main requirement of being English at a time immediately after a foreigner was in charge. He’s also done a very good job at Spurs, and I think he would do well for England. It would be a blow for Spurs, however and honestly I think Redknapp has a much better chance of success at White Hart Lane than Wembley. The second favourite is Stuart Pearce, who is managing the U-21 side and will apparently manage the friendly against Holland. I think I would prefer Pearce to Redknapp for the long term. Partly because Tottenham are the only team I like left in the title race, but also because Pearce will have seen quite a few of the players already and have some experience in getting them to play together as a unit, which is one of the things that seems to have been problematic England in the past.

Six Nations thoughts

I was preoccupied by the Test match, but I watched the two of the first three Six Nations matches at the weekend. I already talked a bit on the Armchair Selector about the Scotland v England match, but I don’t think I emphasised how lacklustre England still looked. It didn’t really surprise me, given the number of new faces in the side, but they did not fill me with confidence. The defence especially looked patchy and were fortunate to concede only six points. It was a poor match from both sides, however, and not a particularly entertaining one. Both sides will need to improve in order to finish high in the table.

The other match I watched was Ireland v Wales. After the meetings at the World Cup and last year’s Six Nations it looked before the match like it could be the best fixture of the entire of the tournament and will certainly take some beating. As disappointed as Ireland will be to have lost, Wales were probably the deserved victors. The did not quite dominate play, I thought, but they looked more fluid and better organised. Had they been on the losing side I think they would have been just as disappointed overall, albeit with a less singular cause. With Wales hosting France later in the tournament, this win should put them clear favourites for the title.

The match I did not watch was France v Italy. (There was cricket on and I only have so many hours in a day.) France won, which is no surprise, though I heard that Italy played better than they have in the past. Italy may have a decent chance to spring an upset this year; they host England and Scotland both of whom look to be amongst the weaker teams in the tournament. Next Saturday is Italy v England and France v Ireland, with Wales v Scotland on Sunday. I’m tipping England to win against Italy, but they will not find it straightforward, France to beat Ireland in a reasonably good match and Wales to overcome Scotland fairly easily.

Pakistan v England review and player marks

There’s not much more to say about how England performed in this series. No batsman scored a hundred and only Matt Prior averaged over 30 in the series. England were not just poor with the bat, but historically awful. The only series of three or more matches in which England have averaged lower than the 19.06 they did in the UAE was the 1888 Ashes. From that perspective, it’s amazing to think that we definitely ought to have wont he second Test and maybe even the third. It’s hard to know which is more surprising: that the bowlers kept us in the match after the batsmen had failed so badly or that the batsmen threw away such good positions. I’ve compiled marks out of ten for each of the players:

Pakistan
Misbah-ul-Haq* – 7/10
It was only a mediocre series with the bat from the Pakistan captain, but such was the nature of the series that his average of 36 was still fifth highest. More importantly for Pakistan is that he led the side well. It didn’t seem to take a lot to beat England’s batsmen, but he did not give them very many openings with his bowling changes and field placings.

Mohammad Hafeez – 6/10
Only one score of note with the bat, 88 in the first match, but he made it into double figures each of his other innings as well. His main contribution was with the ball, spinning it early in the innings. He took five wickets at 16 apiece, including the wicket of Cook on the first morning that started the rot for England.

Taufeeq Umar – 3/10
Passed fifty in the first Test, but was dismissed cheaply by Swann and Anderson in the next two. Victim of some good bowling, but did not look assured and did not defend well.

Azhar Ali – 9/10
Overcame an indifferent start to the series to finish top of the averages thanks to a match winning 157 in the final Test. He also scored a crucial (and possibly also match winning) 68 in the second Test and showed considerable maturity throughout.

Younis Khan – 6/10
A high score of 127 in a series where only one other batsman made it to three figures would seem to require more than six points out of ten, but he only scored 66 runs in the other four innings in the series. His high score before that knock had been 37 in the opening Test, and that had been ignominiously ended when he was lbw to Jonathan Trott.

Asad Shafiq – 5/10
A very creditable series for a batsman from whom little was expected. He passed 40 in three of the five innings in which he batted, but had difficulty going on and his top score was only 58.

Adnan Akmal† – 4/10
In rating the latest Akmal’s performance it is important to compare him with other wicket-keepers, not just his infamous brother. He did a reasonable job with the gloves, but appealed every time the ball hit the pads. (Though I will concede that a lot of them were out.) Had a hilarious drop early in England’s third Test run chase, but it cost them little. Poor series with the bat, but better than most were expecting.

Abdur Rehman – 9/10
A fantastic series for the left arm spinner, he finished only behind Ajmal in the series wicket tally and was the main destroyer in England’s second and third Test collapses.

Umar Gul – 8/10
Very quietly had a brilliant series. All of the headlines were about England woes against spin and with the effectiveness of Ajmal and Rehman he only needed to bowl 74 overs in the series. In those 74 overs he took 11 wickets at 22.27 and with a strike rate second only to Ajmal.

Saeed Ajmal – 10/10
Came off a brilliant 2011 and could not have made a better start to 2012. England could not read his variations and never got over the mess he made of them in the first innings of the series. Bell in particular looked all at sea facing him. Deserved man of the series.

Aizaz Cheema- 1/10
Only played in the first and third Tests, but was hardly needed. Bowled only 27 overs and took one wicket for 70 runs. Scored 0* in each of his three innings with the bat.

Junaid Khan – 0/10
Sadly, never really showed up. His biggest contribution to the second Test was a terrible drop in the deep with Prior batting in the first innings. Took 0-33 off eight overs in the first innings, did not bowl in the second.

England
Andrew Strauss* – 6/10
Led from the front with a good 56 in the last Test, but that was the high point as he struggled to get onto the front foot the entire series. He used his bowlers to good effect and did a good job keeping spirits up when England were in the field.

Alastair Cook – 5/10
Could not replicate his form from the summer, though he came closest of any English batsman to score a century this series. His soft dismissal in the first innings of the first Test set the tone for the series and he fell cheaply to start the disastrous run chase in the second Test too.

Jonathan Trott – 5/10
Second in England’s batting averages, but needless to say he still had a poor series. Made a good 74 in the second Test, but had an untimely illness in the second and could not meaningfully contribute to the run chase.

Kevin Pietersen – 1/10
Not merely a poor series from KP, but an abysmal one. He threw his wicket away more often than not, his efforts in the second innings of the first Test deserving special criticism. He finally started to find some form in the third Test, but still could not master the trick of hitting the ball with the bat when defending.

Ian Bell – 1/10
Poor Ian. Only once did he look like he could pick the variations from Ajmal and when he did he was trapped by Gul instead. His dismissal in the third Test run chase was one of the worst one will ever see, the very picture of a batsman out of form. From a man who came into the series on the back of an imperious 200 against India, it was rather a shock.

Eoin Morgan – 1/10
Eoin Morgan was supposed to be the man who would play spin. Supposedly his unorthodox style and ability to score quickly and to all parts of the field were going to be invaluable against spin. Instead he consistently threw his wicket away to the spinners. Just for a change in the last Test he threw his wicket away to Gul instead, but the entire series clearly showed up a dearth of application.

Matt Prior† – 7/10
England’s best batsman, plus another good series with the gloves (though he did not have a huge amount to do behind the stumps). He started the series with an unbeaten 70 as England collapsed and finished it with an unbeaten 49. His form dipped in between, but he was one of only two batsmen to get into double figures in the second Test run chase.

Stuart Broad – 9/10
Put in an absolutely amazing effort in the series. He was the pick of the English bowlers with 13 wickets at just over 20 and put England into excellent positions in the second and third Tests. He was more than handy with the bat as well, averaging more than KP, Bell and Morgan and scoring more in one innings (58* in the first innings of the second Test) than Bell did in the series.

Graeme Swann – 8/10
Rather unexpectedly found himself as the second spinner when Monty returned to the side, but still performed admirably. He finished with 13 and an almost identical strike rate to Broad, but conceded about sixty more runs. As usual, he was most effective against left-handers

Jimmy Anderson – 8/10
Took a bit of a back seat to Broad, but certainly did not embarrass himself. He was very unlucky to end up with only nine wickets, but bowled a very tight, probing line throughout.

Monty Panesar – 9/10
England sprung a surprise by playing two spinners in Abu Dhabi, and Monty took the opportunity superbly. He took 6-62 in the second innings to set up what should have been a very straightforward run chase. He was the only English bowler to take five wickets in a match in the series and he did so twice, picking up 14 in all.

Chris Tremlett – 0/10
Only played in the first Test and only had a chance to bowl in the first innings. He took 0-53, never looked particularly threatening and was dropped in favour of Monty.

Despite the poor performance of England in the series, I would not make wholesale changes for Sri Lanka. It is worth remembering that we did come up against some very good bowlers in conditions which suited them. KP and Bell averaged over 70 and over 100 last year, respectively, so to suggest that they be dropped over one poor series is very, very harsh. Similarly, Andrew Strauss has not been in the best of form with the bat, but he is easily the best leader of the side. Cook showed in the ODIs in India that he is not ready for the captaincy yet, and I would certainly not want to entrust Broad with it as I would want some England to still have reviews left after the first over. In any case, Strauss was the best of the full time batsmen in the third Test.

A change I would make is that I would drop Morgan.He has shown in this series that he is not a Test batsman. That is not to say that he will never be one, but he was brought into the side on the back of limited overs performances and I think a season playing first class cricket will do his temperament no end of good. In his place I would play Tim Bresnan, assuming he is fit (which seems likely). Whilst it seems odd to suggest playing one fewer batsman after the struggles in the UAE, Bres has a Test batting average of 45. Not only is this very reasonable on its own, it is actually 15 runs higher than Morgan averages. It’s good enough that I would pick him as a batsman over Mogan and Bopara even if he did not bowl a single ball.

That is the only change I would make, however, the other batsmen have good enough records that they certainly deserve another chance against the weaker Sri Lankan bowling and Monty has easily done enough to stay in the starting XI. It’s been a poor series, but these players will be strongly motivated to put that behind them and play well in Sri Lanka.

Dubai, third Test, day three

England have not yet lost. It’s more of a cruelty than anything else, however. Pakistan collapsed abruptly to some sharp spin in the evening session to leave England a very improbable target of 324 to win. England made it to stumps on 36-0.

The highlight of the day, the match, and maybe the series, was Azhar Ali. He scored a fantastic 150, the highest individual score of the series and a fantastic demonstration of how to bat on a pitch like this. He seldom took any undue risks, but scored when he had the opportunity to do so and rotated the strike well. It took over nine hours and demonstrated the utmost maturity and patience of which we have seen too little in Test cricket recently. It was an innings of Cook-esque brilliance and without it England’s target would be looking a lot more gettable. It may well be that he has hit a match winning knock for his country in a match and series were almost all of the batsman have failed and he thoroughly deserves every bit of praise he gets.

Pakistan lost their last seven wickets for only 34 runs and lost them to some sharp spin from Monty (who bagged another five-fer) and Swann, so I don’t think England will score another 288 runs and win the Test. Stranger things have happened, of course, and our batting did look a bit better in the first innings, but it is unlikely. England need a good foundation from this pair, but I fear they will need to put on about 200 to make England favourites as it’s not uncommon for a team for team to get off to a good start in a run chase and then collapse to a big defeat. (England chasing 400+ at Lord’s in 2005 is a good example.) For England to win the match they will have to bat out of their skins on a pitch that is now turning sharply. They won’t quite need their highest score in the series, which is 327, but they will need someone to step up and score a century in the same way that Ali did for Pakistan. It is a batting order which we know can score runs and if they manage to knock these off it will be a famous victory. By definition, however, famous victories are quite rare; more likely is that they will get close enough to make us optimistic and then lose anyway. Like I said: it’s cruel.