Edgbaston, day one three, WI 280-8

The good news was that we finally had some cricket today. The bad news is that the cricket itself made a result much less likely. It was a day that would not have been out of place in either of the first two matches. England were the better side and on top at stumps, but were also sloppy throughout and should have been on top by more. The West Indies were outplayed and whilst they did give some of their wickets away, they did not just capitulate.

It was already known that England were resting Anderson, but they sprung a slight surprise by resting Broad and thus letting Finn, Onions and Bresnan all bowl. As far as bowling went, this worked okay. All three took wickets and all looked good. Anderson, however, was missed in the slips, where Bell put down two of the three chances that went to him. To be fair to Bell, he is not usually a slip fielder, but it did raise the question of why it was Bell in the slips and not Baristow, who keeps wicket for Yorkshire.

On the whole, all three seamers bowled well. There was the surprise of Bresnan taking the new ball instead of Finn, who is more suited to it, but this was rectified by the time the second new ball was available. There was also the predictable five overs of Trott and Swann was largely ineffective on what is effectively a first day pitch. But the West Indies should have been bowled out and probably bowled out well before stumps. England seemed to lack a cutting edge, which has really been a bit of a problem all series. There were a total of three drops in the slips and twice an edge went through the vacant third slip. The carelessness in the field was annoying, but the negative field setting was worse. This is a three day Test and one which it is almost impossible for England to lose and yet there were only two slips in for the second new ball. It was absolutely pointless caution. Whilst this would not usually be surprising from Strauss, in this case he had at least given Finn a full slip cordon in the morning with the original ball, so why not with the second?

Restoring that ‘bite’ is something which England must do before the series against South Africa starts. If one looks back on the home series against India; there were a few chances that went down, but only a few and almost none that played a big part. I’m sure England did drop some chances in the Ashes before that, but none are at all memorable and I don’t think there were more than a couple. Even when we were losing in the UAE we held our chances more often than not. Putting down three in a day (and a few more earlier in the series) represents a troubling aberration. Although it would be disappointing, hopefully this is no more than a case of the players not being ‘up’ for an early season series against a weak team. We did see much the same against Sri Lanka last year. Whatever the problem is, it needs to be solved before the Series against South Africa.

The combination of sloppiness and negativity cost England the opportunity to put themselves into a great position. The West Indies batted decently, but still threw a few wickets away (Sammy, particularly, appeared to forget or disregard the batting lesson from the first two Tests) and were overmatched in any case. The fact that England could not take advantage is disappointing from the perspective of the match itself. The best chance to get a result was to only play three innings and the best chance for that to happen was for England to bowl the West Indies out for under 200 and get a big lead by the end of day four. Now it looks like England will not have time to do so and will have to look to skittle the West Indies on the last day and quickly chase it. It is much less likely and whilst it would be a bit harsh on England for anyone to expect them to win, they did have a chance and have made it much harder on themselves.

LV=CC week nine roundup

This was a week of firsts in the Championship as Lancashire recorded their first win in thrilling style and Derbyshire were beaten for the first time this season. Glamorgan had one of their best chances to register their first win of the season as well, but Leicestershire thwarted them in a manner very similar to Middlesex thwarting Lancashire last week. Northamptonshire were also able to hold on for a draw at Headingley despite being 45-5 at one point in their first innings. The results were:

Lancashire beat Durham by two wickets
Middlesex beat Sussex by ten wickets
Worcestershire drew with Somerset
Glamorgan drew with Leicestershire
Gloucestershire beat Derbyshire by seven wickets
Yorkshire drew with Northamptonshire

Lancashire’s victory has seen them jump to fifth in the table, though with a match in hand against most sides. Durham only got three bonus points (all bowling) from that match, but they bowled their overs so slowly they were deducted four points. Losing a point from the match means they are now 14 points behind eighth placed Worcs. With neither Notts or Warks playing this round, the top of the first division is unchanged with Notts on top by a single point. Warwickshire have only played six matches to Notts’ seven, however.

In the second division, Yorkshire just barely got enough points from their draw to stay ahead of Kent and in the promotion zone, whilst Derbyshire are still comfortably atop the table (a 28 point lead) despite their defeat. Glamorgan’s failure to defeat Leicestershire keeps them at the foot of the division and the only side yet to record a victory in the second tier.

Looking ahead to the last round of fixtures before the T20 break: Notts and Warks will both be confident of victory facing Lancs and Durham respectively. Lancashire have now played well two weeks in a row, however, and Durham will be keen to come back from their agonising defeat. Durham’s hopes will be dented by the fact that Onions, the hero of their last match, is unlikely to take part due to being in the England squad for the Third Test. The second division features much of the same, with the top two teams playing the bottom two. Kent will thus likely need a victory against Hampshire to stay near the promotion zone.

England win by five wickets

I got the margin of victory off by one wicket. And that wicket fell with two runs to win. I’m kind of annoyed about that, but otherwise my thought last night that it would be tricky for England at first but ultimately comfortable was fairly accurate. Cook and Bell progressed serenely in a partnership of 132 for the fifth wicket that all but won England the match.

It was actually a pretty good, one might almost say ‘standard’, Test. Not particularly close, but not a blowout and a couple of sessions of negative bowling by England aside there was always something to watch. I don’t think either side will be too happy with the Test, however. England will be happy to have won, but did not ever seem to really play as well as they should and have a lot on which to work before the Trent Bridge Test on Friday. The West Indies overperformed, but if one had not expected them to be hammered one would probably not say they played particularly well, though it is a mark of how much they overperformed that one would also not say they played particularly poorly and certainly played as well as any average side would be expected to. They will also be disappointed to have lost.

As mentioned on a previous day, England’s bowling in this Test was at best average and at worst poor. Even with the standard caveats of good batting by Chanderpaul; a flat pitch and not a lot of swing, one would have to say that England need to improve. Jimmy was certainly off his best, despite bowling better than his figures suggested. Broad bowled well, but was rather flattered by his figures. Bresnan was simply poor and Swann did not get a chance to feature heavily, but managed to get the prize wicket of Chanderpaul as well as the important one of Bravo in the second innings. I think they will improve, however. One of the problems was that, as far as I know, none of them had more than one or two county matches in which to prepare. I think Jimmy especially needs more than the one match he got to really find his rhythm for the summer. The same, to a lesser extent, applies to Broad as well and although he was good in this Test I think he will be better in the next one. I think, however, that Bresnan needs some more time with Yorkshire. He has not looked quite the same since he returned from injury and I think he just needs more time in the middle with bat and ball. We have enough bowling depth to play Finn and/or Onions for the rest of this series. In hindsight (and this is not meant as a criticism because it was not as clear before the match) Onions should have played in this Test where the conditions would have been very well suited to him.

The West Indies need to work on their running between the wickets. A lot. They lost wickets in both innings to horrible mix-ups and could (arguably should) have had the Chanderpaul-Samuels partnership broken by one in the second innings. As important as that is, they also need to improve their batting in general. As mentioned above their performance was not in any way poor, but that does not mean that it does not need improvement. Especially in the first innings they still lost wickets to injudicious shots and the dismissal of Sammy in the second is almost cause enough to strip him of the captaincy. They did not collapse the way they could have (and did at home) and now their task is to build on that and improve. In the field they need to work on sustaining pressure. I never thought they were going to win today, but they did not put up much of a fight after dismissing KP. Even before then the field setting was odd (a problem we saw in Australia too) and there were always runs on offer. Despite losing two early wickets and being 57-4 (though one of those was a nightwatchman), England scored 121 runs in the morning session. It was a rate one would normally associate with well set batsman going effortlessly, not fighting through a difficult first hour. There was some poor bowling, only Roach was going really well, but a lot of very poor captaincy from Sammy. The field placing was terrible and the decision to bring the part time spinner on to bowl to Ian Bell was baffling.

Looking ahead to Trent Bridge, I think both teams ought to make changes. England should bring in one of Finn or Onions for Bresnan. Right now I would lean toward Finn, but that is without seeing the conditions. If it is a relatively quick wicket then I would certainly prefer Finn’s pace and bounce, though if it is slow then Onions’ ability to bowl at the stumps and move the ball in the air might be preferable. That should be the only change; whilst Bairstow only made 16, he did so comfortably and deserves another go. The West Indies must bring in a proper spinner this time. Samuels might buy a couple of wickets, but we already saw Bell take him apart. Shillingford will presumably replace one of the quicks and I suspect it will be Gabriel, as promising as the debutant looked. It is worth noting, however, that Roach appeared to have a slight ankle problem. There is also an outside chance that Edwards will be dropped after being wayward once again. It would be a gamble to ask Gabriel to lead the attack, however. The bowler who probably should be replaced is Sammy, but as the captain that will not happen.

The ball will almost certainly swing more at Trent Bridge than it did at Lord’s and it will be interesting to see if the West Indies can continue their fight. I may have mentioned it already, but in 2007 the West Indies batted very well at Lord’s before rain intervened. They then went to Headingley and lost by an innings and 283 runs, though there were some extenuating circumstances. I think the next Test will be more of a challenge for them than this one was; England will have likely improved and the conditions will be tougher. Weather permitting, England can expect to win. Whether the West Indies can make another good Test of it will tell us a lot about the nature of their improvement.

Eng v WI, Lord’s, day one: WI 243-9

There were two talking points today before play had even started: England’s team selection and Strauss’ decision to bowl first after winning his first toss in four matches. Whilst I understand the decision to play Bresnan, I would not have done so. He is a good bowler and he adds quite a bit to the side, but I don’t think this was the best occasion for him. The conditions actually most suited Graham Onions and I think Steven Finn would have added some very nice variation to the attack. Purely looking at the bowling, both would probably have been better selections, In a way, I think Bresnan’s main qualification is almost his batting. I can certainly see the argument for using batting skill as a tie-breaker of sorts for bowlers, but with Stuart Broad already in the side along with six batsmen and Matt Prior it is rather superfluous. With Bresnan in the side, we comfortably bat down to nine with Swann at ten. That sounds like an argument in favour of Bresnan, of course, and fact that we can bat so deep without seriously compromising our bowling is definitely a good thing. We have seen lower order partnerships either save us or break the back of the opposition many times before. Against the West Indies, however, it’s probably excessive. In my mind, the benefit of playing a stronger bowler is greater than the benefit of extra batting that is probably extraneous anyway. I’d have gone for Finn.

I do, however, agree with Strauss’ decision to bowl first. The pitch is pretty flat, but there was some moisture in it, there was some cloud cover and there was already a strong indication that the West Indies were not going to play a spinner. The Lord’s pitch has been known to actually get better as the match goes on as well, so there was almost nothing to lose by bowling and an opportunity to see if the West Indies would implode.

The Windies did not do so and it is a credit to them. Jimmy Anderson certainly did not make it easy, but the Windies showed some proper application this time and England had to work for a lot of the wickets. The only times we saw the Windies to which we are used was when Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Darren Bravo found themselves at the same end, glaring at each other. It was Shiv’s fault, but Bravo was the man out. Shiv is a great player, but he has had accusations of selfishness levelled at him before and I think we saw a bit of that today. Not only did he make sure he was not the one to pay for his failed calling, he exposed Fidel Edwards in the last over of the day. Edwards did not make it to stumps.

There was also some discussion during the day of Chris Gayle and how much the West Indies theoretically miss him. One would get the impression from listening to people that he would be scoring a century by lunch and keeping the West Indies in the match single-handed. In fact, he only averages 36 in England with one century in 21 innings. In his last six Tests in England he has only passed fifty twice and last time he played at Lord’s he made 28 and nought against an attack that was not as good as the current one. The subject of where he ought to be playing is one for it’s own post, but there is no reason to suspect that the West Indies would be substantially better off in this Test or on this tour with him in the side.

I don’t think the West Indies were particularly poor today. Certainly it was not like what we frequently saw from them against Australia. At the same time, England did not look quite at their best, particularly in the morning session. All the same, England are in the stronger position overnight and deservedly so. They may not have been at their best, but they did play the better cricket over the course of the day. Anderson looked lethal, though that’s nothing unusual, and Broad came back from a poor morning to blow away most of the tail with a combination of fortune and some brilliant deliveries. Today was a case of a very good side playing a fairly poor one. Given how it went, one shudders to think what will happen when England find their stride or the West Indies slip back into their old routine.

England v West Indies preview

The West Indies come to England fresh from a disappointing 0-2 defeat at home to Australia. They only performed passably well even at the best of times during that series and were frequently dire. Despite England’s recent woes in the subcontinent and similar regions, they are a side who have lost only two Tests at home since the start of 2009 and are still number one in the world. It is fair to say that if the Windies are going to come close in this series, they will have to perform far, far better than they did at home.

History, or at least recent history, is against them. They have not won an overseas Test somewhere other than Bangladesh since the Boxing Day Test in South Africa in 2007. The last time they won a Test in England was at Edgbaston in 2000; since then they have lost 12 and only managed to draw two. Their coach, Ottis Gibson, said that his hope for the Lord’s Test was to take it into a fifth day this time. This was in reference to their defeat inside three days at the home of cricket in 2009. That hope may be a bit optimistic. They have selected a squad which on paper appears to be slightly weaker than the one which lost to Australia and they have started the tour by losing to the Lions by ten wickets. In truth, they did well to make it that close. The Lions, boasting England’s third choice bowling attack, bowled the West Indies out for 147 in the first innings and went on to post a lead of 196. The Windies did come back a bit in the second innings, however.

Their performance against the Lions shows the fact that their batting almost begins and ends with Shivnarine Chanderpaul. He is a true great, but we have already seen that one great cannot carry a poor side. The rest of them have talent, and we saw some of that in the first innings of the first Test against Australia, but they are also very prone to give their wickets away (as we saw in the rest of that series). The West Indies will be facing arguably the best pace attack in the world in very friendly conditions. It is a far cry from the flat pitches and weak attacks on the subcontinent, or even the turning ones pitches from the recent series in the Caribbean. They occasionally performed well in those places, but even then were prone to collapses. Even if they were to cut out all the mistakes that have plagued them recently I think they will find the going very difficult and they are up against an attack that thrives on coaxing batsmen into errors. Last year India failed to pass 300 in four Tests; the Windies have only three and I would not be at all surprised to see the same result.

They will clearly need something from their bowlers. Unfortunately, their best performers at home were probably the spinners and despite England’s struggles against turn over the winter, they are unlikely to be more than a supplement in England. A lot will rest on their pace attack. Again there is some talent, but of what would appear to be their first choice attack (Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy) only Roach has a bowling average under 30. They may cause some damage in friendly conditions, but these are home conditions for England’s batsmen and they put a pair of similar attacks to the sword last summer. Given that their batsmen already liable to give them a mountain to climb, I think it will be a tough ask for the West Indies bowlers.

England are strong favourites, but do go in under a bit of pressure after the disappointing winter. There is a strong sense that nothing less than three emphatic wins will do. As mentioned above, however, they have lost only twice at home in twenty Tests under Strauss and Flower. (They’ve won 14 of those Tests.) Most of the side have scored runs in the Championship already (no easy feat) with Cook the only exception and he has not had a lot of opportunities. As already mentioned, Bairstow looks like he will be batting at six. After the struggles of the winter, the batsmen do seem to have found some form and should present a formidable opposition to the Windies. The biggest hope will be that Strauss can get some big runs and ease the (insane) questions about his place in the side. He has a pair of decent scores in the Championship already, including an unbeaten 43 in Middlesex’s last match, and I do not see any reason why he could not push on from there.

England will probably be playing either Finn or Bresnan as a third seamer, though Onions is also in the squad. Whoever is picked will have an excellent opportunity to nail down the spot for the series against South Africa, but that’s assuming whoever it is (I’m guessing Finn) gets much of a bowl. Jimmy Anderson finished the series in Sri Lanka looking like the best bowler in the world and Stuart Broad had been in excellent form in the UAE before picking up an injury. They have both, especially Jimmy, shown themselves to be formidable weapons in all conditions and in May in England against a side prone to collapse I expect them to take bags of wickets. Swann will also be useful, he always is, but I doubt he will have an opportunity to do much more than chip in with a few wickets.

I can’t see the West Indies winning a Test. I said before the Australia series that I thought they had a chance to steal one from that series, but they could not and England are a much different proposition. I’ve already mentioned that at Lord’s in 2009 they lost before stumps on the third day. At Durham in 2007 the entire first day and quite a bit of the second day was lost to rain, but England still won comfortably. England are now a much better side than they were in either 2007 or 2009, whilst the Windies are arguably worse. Unless it rains non-stop for three days during one of the Tests I can see no other result than a 3-0 whitewash for England.

England Test squad

England have named a 13-man squad for the first Test against the West Indies starting this Thursday. Predictably, Bopara and Patel have missed out. In their place come Jonny Bairstow and Graham Onions. I’m quite pleased with this squad; I’d be pretty happy with almost any realistic XI that could be picked from this. Bairstow, as I said the other day, probably deserves the call-up and I am always happy to see Onions in the squad.

I suspect that Bairstow will get the nod at number six with probably Finn being the third seamer. This series looks like it will be a good one in which to test out the young batsman and Finn has had a very impressive winter and deserves another chance to show what he can do at the highest level. The ongoing ‘problem’ for England is that there are currently no fewer than three different people who probably deserve an extended chance as third seamer. This is one of the reasons why I would still like to see Prior at six and Bresnan at seven and Finn at eleven. Strauss and Flower seem set against that, however. With that in mind, hopefully Bairstow will have a productive series and secure the number six spot for the near future.

LV=CC week three roundup

Unfortunately, this was a very rain hit round of matches. Out of eight matches played in both divisions, only two had positive results. Despite this, some of the draws were quite close run things and we were treated to a handful of very tense finishes. The eight matches, with summaries thereof at the end of the post, were:

Warwickshire beat Lancashire by five wickets
Middlesex drew with Durham
Nottinghamshire drew with Somerset
Surrey drew with Worcestershire
Derbyshire drew with Leicestershire
Hampshire beat Glamorgan by two wickets
Kent drew with Gloucestershire
Yorkshire drew with Essex

Warwickshire’s second successive dramatic win puts them top of the Division One table, whilst Derbyshire’s survival keeps them in that spot in the second tier. It’s still probably too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but it is worth noting that none of Durham, Lancashire or Yorkshire have won a match yet. I was far from alone in predicting those three to finish at or near the top of their respective divisions and it will be interesting to see how they go from here. Derbyshire also looked far from impressive in their match and it will be interesting to see if their good start was due to favourable opposition.

There were many very good performances this week, but my player of the week this week is Warwickshire’s Rikki Clarke. His innings pained me greatly, but coming in at 81-7 and scoring 140 is very impressive. Given how close the match turned out, if he had scored even twenty or thirty fewer it might have made a difference to the result.

Warwickshire‘s win over Lancashire was a fairly exciting match and not a little bit gutting. It and the ramifications thereof are worth a separate bog post which I will write tomorrow. Meantime, credit must go to Rikki Clarke and Darren Maddy for excellent innings each and a match-winning partnership together.

Middlesex‘s match at Lord’s was most notable for the return of Andrew Strauss to his county as he looked to bat himself into some form. He faced the first ball of the match after Durham won the toss and bowled. It was not until the next day, however, as rain prevented any play on day one. Strauss might have wished it would keep raining: Onions nipped one back in and knocked back the England captain’s off stump. Onions did his Test hopes no harm with an additional nine wickets in the match and whilst Strauss will no doubt be disappointed with his return, he can take solace in the fact that the rest of his batsmen only managed 336 runs between them in both innings. There was, fortunately, an exciting ending to this match. Rain had interrupted the early part of Durham’s chase of 130 to win, but left them 16 overs to get another 122. Happily, they went for it. They lost six wickets en route too, but there too few overs for a proper climax and the match was drawn.

At first glance, it is not too surprising that Nottinghamshire and Somerset combined to score four centuries, one of them a double and three of them unbeaten, in a drawn match at Trent Bridge. They probably have on paper the two strongest batting lineups in the country. The devil is in the deatils, however, and only one side was even in this match. The ten batsmen who were out in Notts’ first innings scored 41 runs between them. The top-score amongst those was ten. Which makes the unbeaten 104 by Chris Read all the more remarkable in comparison. It was still not close to enough, however, as Arul Suppiah scored 124, Nick Compton made an unbeaten 204, and James Hildreth chipped in with 102*. Somerset declared on 445-2, a first innings lead of 283. Notts showed some more fight in the second innings, however, and the intervention of rain meant that Somerset did not get the win that they deserved.

Bowling dominated Worcestershire‘s trip to the Oval. Surrey were bowled out for 140 in the first innings as Alan Richardson took 6-47, but Stuart Meaker returned the favour with 6-39 at Worcs only made 119 in reply. Despite being reduced to 59-5, a solid 79 from Rory Hamilton-Brown helped Surrey set Worcs a tricky 246 to win. The Oval pitch reverted to it’s stereotype, however, and when the rain came at 94-1 it probably denied Worcs a victory instead of Surrey.

Leicestershire dominated the derby in Derby, putting on 324 in the first innings against the hosts including 105 each from Ramnaresh Sarwan and Joshua Cobb. Unfortunately for the prospects of a result, it took them over two days to do so. When Derbyshire just managed to avoid the follow-on it seemed to seal the fate of the match and even a third innings declaration did not threaten to bring about a result.

Hampshire went to Glamorgan for what turned out to be the best match of the round. It was notable in the first innings for the return of the tactical declaration: Glamorgan skipper Mark Wallace declared with his side on 103-9 late on the first day to try to get a Hants wicket before the close. It worked as Wallace’s opposite number departed for just three. From there Hampshire slipped to 156 all out the next day and a century for Ben Wright gave Glamorgan a real chance at their first win of the season. Hampshire needed 204 to win and by stumps on day three they were 112 for four. Cue the rain. For a very long time it looked as though the teams would not even get on the pitch on the fourth day. When they did, however, it was just barely in time and Hampshire won by just two wickets off of the penultimate ball.

Will Gidman had another good match for Gloucestershire at Canterbury, scoring 56 in the first innings and then taking 5-43 in Kent‘s reply. Gloucestershire had a first innings lead of 105, but like in the rest of the country rain had taken time out of the match and Will’s brother Alex took too long in declaring on the last day. Kent were asked to chase a nominal 363, but only 38 overs were ultimately possible and they were comfortably able to draw the match.

Yorkshire were also unable to play on the first day of their match against Essex at Headingley. When they did get on the park, 126 from Phil Jaques saw them at one point reach 184-2. The subsequent collapse quite spectacularly saw them finish 246 all out. It was still a decent total and only Ravi Bopara, as already mentioned, resisted for Essex. It did not leave the White Rose with much of a first innings lead, however, and with time already lost in the match the only way to get a result was for Yorkshire to dramatically collapse again and when that failed to happen it was always going to be a draw.

Abu Dhabi preview

In about nine hours, England will start a match that might be considered ‘must-win’ for the first time since the final Test of the 2009 Ashes. England have not actually trailed in a series since the 51 all out debacle in the West Indies three years ago, and have only played a Test at 1-1 twice. Both of those were against Australia and both were famous victories. Unfortunately for England, they might find themselves in a situation more closely related to that of the West Indies, where three shirtfronts stymied the attempted comeback. It will be interesting to see how England cope with the pressure now; one of their greatest strengths in the last few years has been winning early and keeping the pressure off. They have coped admirably in the few times when there has been real pressure on them, however, and I am backing them to do the same here.

England will be without the services of Chris Tremlett after he had a recurrence of his back/side problems that kept him out for the latter half of the summer. Whilst it’s a disappointment for him, I think it’s no bad thing for England; I suggested that he ought to be dropped anyway and I was far from alone. There have been conflicting reports on who is going to take his place. I’ve heard some say that Onions is the front runner, whilst others have said it’s a late choice between Finn and Monty based on the conditions. It’s no secret that I’ve backed Onions for a few months now, so I’m hoping he gets the nod. I would not at all be disappointed to see Finn though. He’s a good bowler and tends to take a lot of wickets, I just think Onions is better suited to the conditions.

The batting looks likely to be unchanged, though I don’t think anyone thought that England would make any alterations without being forced by injury to do so. It will be Strauss and Cook’s 100th opening partnership, though they have not bee very prolific over the past year. On a flat deck this may be a good opportunity for them to bring the landmark up in some style, though the first session of the match has not been kind to batsmen in the previous two Tests. England will probably bat first no matter what. I expect Strauss to back himself and his fellows to make runs, but Pakistan have a history of inserting opponents so either way we should see Strauss and Cook walk out to the middle first up. If they can survive the first hour or two they should be able to book in for bed and breakfast, as they say. If they can give the bowlers something at which to bowl I definitely think they can put themselves in a position to win the match. Even on a flat deck it will be hard for Pakistan to amass a huge total; this probably going to be the same English attack that only conceded 550 in two innings on the Adelaide road a year ago. Pakistan can bat better than Australia, but I think they’ll still struggle to get to 400.

The worry for England will be a high scoring draw that will cost them a chance to win the series. Strauss is an inherently defensive captain and we saw him failing to force the issue a couple of times during the series against Sri Lanka in the summer. The rain, which was the biggest factor in those draws, will not come into play this time, but Strauss still must attack more than he usually does. England can lay down a marker by winning this series, but to do that they need to go all out to win this Test.

What changes should England make?

Very few, I think. The devil’s in the details, of course, otherwise this would just be a Tweet and not a full blog post. As I wrote yesterday, England’s problems were with the batting, but I don’t think any radical changes need to be made. It would be very out of character for either Strauss or Flower to make panic changes and I think that’s a good thing. It was one of the (many, many) differences between England and Australia a year ago that England only made one change that was not forced by injury. That said, the one change to drop Finn for Bresnan was a very successful one.

If England do want to make changes to the top six, one of the problems they face is that there is a surprising lack of batting depth in the squad. The only full time batsman in reserve is Ravi Bopara, though wicket-keeper Steve Davies has a first class average over 40. For all that I said about Eoin Morgan on the first and third days of the Test, I think to replace him with Bopara would be extremely foolish. Bopara has all the same problems that Morgan does, but he’s had several years now to in which to potentially overcome them and has failed to do so. Given that Morgan can play spin well (even if he does then get himself out) it seems incredibly unlikely that Bopara would represent an improvement. It would be possible to have Davies keep wicket and play Prior as a specialist batsman, but that would be gambling that Davies can out-bat Morgan and out-keep Prior. It’s possible that he could do both, but it is a big risk. If might be interesting to see how such a tactic plays out next time England have a dead rubber (hopefully not before June), but doing so in a vital Test would be ill-advised.

That does not mean that Morgan’s place is secure, however. There were many suggestions before the match that England play a fifth bowler in his place and his, and England’s, poor performance will only increase those calls. I’m still inclined to agree, although I don’t like the idea of shoring up a good bowling attack at the expense of a misfiring batting order. England’s top five, with the possible exception of KP, are better than they showed in Dubai and I think they ought to be backed to score runs on flat decks. In any case, the bowlers still showed an ability to score runs effectively so even without Bresnan a sixth batsman seems unnecessary. The bowlers were fantastic in difficult conditions, they restricted Pakistan to 338 all out on what still looked like a 400 wicket. If it had been in the first innings of the match instead of the second England would have been considered on top. That does not mean that another attacking option would go amiss, however. There were times, especially as the tail added over fifty on the third morning but also during the 100+ opening partnership, that a different type of bowler would have been very handy.

Even if England do not drop Morgan, I think Tremlett should be left out. (‘Rested’ if need be.) He was the least effective bowler for England; his tall bang-it-in style is not suited to the slow pitches. During the second morning Nasser Hussain was suggesting that he needed to pitch the ball up and try to skid if off the surface more. This is true, but it also describes very well the bowling of Graham Onions. He is a wicket-to-wicket bowler not too dissimilar to Junaid Khan who had great success against Sri Lanka. If England had him or Finn (who is also similar, but I don’t think as skiddy) in the attack in the first Test it would not have changed the result, but I think Pakistan would not have made as many runs as Strauss would have had something different at which to throw at their batsmen. I would definitely play at least one of them in Abu Dhabi. I would not play Monty, however. He performed very well in the warmup match, but I still don’t see him as an attacking option. I could be wrong of course, but especially in a four man attack I would prefer a fast bowler.

An interesting idea would be to drop KP for an extra bowler. He can take the match away from the opposition on his best day (see 202* at Lord’s) but more often he proves Boycott’s ‘not got a lot between the ears’ analysis correct. To drop him for a match may give his ego the kick it needs to make sure he comes out in the third Test and makes a couple of big scores. There’s no guarantee that he won’t come out in the second Test and make big scores, but I do not want to rely on him. It would be a brave move by England to drop him, but they have shown an ability to be brave before. My XI for the second Test is: Strauss*, Cook, Trott, Bell, Morgan, Prior†, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn, Onions. It gives an extra bowling option and is still not much of a tail. As far as what will happen (the above being only what I want to happen) the only change I would think likely would be to replace Tremlett with Finn, which I do think would be an improvement. I would prefer Onions, but Finn is above him in the pecking order and England like to stick to that.

Pakistan v England preview

The warmup matches are over and now it’s only four days until the first Test between England and Pakistan in Dubai. England have started the tour positively by winning both of the warmup matches, but there have been still been some clear weaknesses, especially in the middle order batting. It may be because they are having trouble adapting to the pitch, or it could just be rust because England have not played cricket for a while. We’ll know more as the series goes on.

The biggest positive from the two warmups for England must be the bowling. Even though Bresnan hasn’t been able to overcome his elbow injury, Finn, Tremlett, Onions and even Monty have put in good performances to stake their claims to replace him. Monty actually had the best figures from that quartet, taking 8-103 in the second warmup. I doubt England will play two spinners, especially in a four man attack, but Monty has made a strong case for inclusion, probably at the expense of Morgan. Tremlett and Onions are almost neck and neck after taking 4-62 and 4-90 in the second warmup, both of which are better than Finn’s match analysis in the first warmup. Finn is probably still the front-runner, it would have taken an exceptional performance by his competitors to overcome that, but Strauss and Flower can be comfortable in the knowledge that there are replacements available if he struggles. Given the gruelling conditions likely to confront England, I would be very surprised if they did not intentionally rotate some of the bowlers anyway.

The batting for England is more of a concern. Strauss, Cook and Trott have all made runs at some point during the first two warmups, but KP, Bell and Morgan averaged 12.9 between them with a top score of 39. This is troubling, but I don’t think it is a disaster. Ian Bell is a very talented player and has had considerable success in the past against Pakistan. He averages 68.8 against them, albeit ‘only’ 52.16 outside of England. Given his skill and history it is very likely that he will come good. KP and Morgan are more uncertain. KP can be a mercurial player, but he was in form last summer. Given that the pitches will favour batsmen one might think that he will find the going to be relatively easy, but he has struggled in his career in the subcontinent. In his career in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka he averages just 34.6, though he averaged over 80 in two matches in Bangladesh. Eoin Morgan is untried at the highest level, and has never played in a Test outside England, but his technique is said to be good against spin. He has a very inventive style of strokeplay, but he has not yet scored the runs to establish himself as a long term Test candidate. How he fares in this series could tell us quite a bit about if he is a Test batsman or not. Even if KP and Morgan do struggle it is unlikely to be fatal for England. Four firing batsmen can usually carry two out of form ones and when adds Prior and Broad to the mix England’s batting still looks excellent.

For Pakistan, this is their first series against top opposition since they played South Africa in November of 2010. They have won six of their subsequent ten Tests, but drew both matches in that series. Both their bowlers and batsmen performed exceptionally in 2011; their top six averaged just under fifty with the bat and their bowlers averaged under 27 with the ball. Four of their batsmen averaged over 45 last year, and two of those averaged well over fifty, whilst all of their regular bowlers averaged under 30. The caveat to this is that the best team they played was Sri Lanka, and they still almost lost one of those matches. Furthermore, they have recalled Wahab Riaz for this series despite his averaging over 40 last year.

Pakistan have played fairly defensive minded cricket in their last few Tests. It probably cost them a win against Sri Lanka, but may serve them well against England. Whilst England have bowled brilliantly recently, one of their big advantages has been their ability to induce poor shots by choking off scoring. With Pakistan playing cautiously anyway they may not be as susceptible to that tactic, which could in turn make life very difficult for England’s bowlers. At the same time, with Cook and Trott digging in for England it could make it very hard for Pakistan to win. (As well as making the play slow to a crawl, which no one wants.)

Whilst Pakistan are playing well and know the conditions well, I think England are simply a better side. Even if Morgan and KP do not fire we still have six players solid batsmen in the side and a very talented, well drilled and utterly relentless bowling attack. In many ways it doesn’t really matter who replaces Bresnan, England are still going to have an exceptional attack with no real weak point. Going back to the last Ashes they have had 12 Tests in which they have choked the life out of some of the most famous and accomplished batsmen, with only Dravid and Hussey managing to defy them. I think England may still need a Test to get properly acclimatised, but will come back well after that. From what we’ve seen in the warmups I think they can bowl Pakistan out twice and will win the series 2-0.