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.

Galle, day one

It should have been England’s day. Any time one loses the toss and promptly reduces one’s opponent to 15-3 should be a good day. And England did just that. Despite announcing that Samit Patel would play, but at number seven (I expected either Patel at six or Bresnan at seven, but not this) and then losing the toss and having to bowl, they took three quick wickets and put Sri Lanka under pressure. England let it slip badly at the end though. They seemed to just tire out. It was very hot in Galle, so there’s every chance that they did just that, but it was still disappointing and I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect better. England had a great opportunity to put their foot on the throat of Sri Lanka, but instead the home side finished on 289-8 and if England are in front at all, it is only just barely.

Sri Lanka actually provided most of the action today. England bowled pretty much as they always do at the start of the day: pretty tight, mostly outside off, full and swinging a bit. And this got wickets in the way it often does: the batsmen were impatient and played at balls they ought to have left. Sangakkara played a particularly unexpected flash outside off to his first ball, and Dilshan’s innings was Sehwag-esque in it’s horror. It was good bowling by England, but the fact that Sri Lanka had mostly thrown their wickets away was evident and Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera knuckled down. They played sensibly and Broad and Anderson could not bowl long spells in the heat.

This was where I think the flaws of England’s selection started to show. There’s a long way to go in the match, of course, and we have not seen Patel’s batting yet, but I do not think we needed three spinners. We started the match with the new ball swinging a bit and troubling the batsmen, but we had to bring the seamers off quickly in the heat and bring on spin. Panesar was good, but he rarely looked incisive, merely containing. Swann was the opposite: he bowled some magic balls and was unlucky not to get a wicket, but he also went at a considerable rate. Neither were what we needed with Sri Lanka at 30-3, we needed someone like Tim Bresnan or Steven Finn. I would have picked Bresnan to play and we know that he can pitch the ball up and nip it about. That is what was causing the batsmen problems, but instead we had to waste some of the new ball by bowling spin. Of course, Patel did take two wickets. The first one was a rank gift (most of the Sri Lankan wickets were), but the second one was a better bit of bowling. It was later in the day, after Herath had played very defensively against Swann and Panesar he tried to get some runs off Patel and was lbw missing a sweep. The fact that neither Monty or Swann got a wicket will make it look like a very good selection, but at least so far I think that is deceiving.

Still, things went well for England for most of the day. After that early burst, Sri Lanka needed a giant partnership to re-establish control of the match and there did not seem to be one forthcoming. All of their batsmen after Sangakkara made starts if not more, but Chandimal’s 27 was the highest. England never had a stranglehold on the match like they briefly did at the beginning, but they were comfortably on top and with Sri Lanka on 191-7 it looked like it would be a very good day. This was roughly when everything started to fall apart. Jimmy Anderson missed what should have been a comfortable caught and bowled when Jayawardene was on 90 and the Sri Lankan captain hit the next ball for six. Later Monty dropped him twice in successive overs. The first drop was pardonable, the ball clearly went right into the sun and Monty never really saw it. The second was horrendous though. It went straight up and despite having ample time to prepare he tried to change his catching position (from the so-called ‘English’ stance with the fingers pointed away from the body to the so-called ‘Australian’ style of fingers pointed back)* at the last second and shelled it.

Jayawardene played very, very well of course. After getting to his century he seemed determined to blast Sri Lanka to the highest score he could. He rotated the strike brilliantly to protect Herath and picked the gaps with an ease that seemed almost unfair. He did offer those two chances to the second new ball, but even by then England were already reeling a bit. He did fantastically well all afternoon to steady the ship and at the end he came very close to getting Sri Lanka back on level terms. It was a true captain’s innings and he deserves a massive amount of praise.

Anderson’s third wicket, a lovely inswinger to trap Other Jayawardene lbw, was the 252nd of his career. Which may seem like an odd one to mark (250 being the logical choice) but this was significant as it brings him level with the great Brian Statham for career wickets. Often I brush this off as a result of the large number of Tests played in this era, but Anderson has actually achieved this in three fewer Tests than Statham. (Though Statham does have the better average.) This is even more noteworthy considering the long lean patch Jimmy had earlier in his career. It was already clear that Jimmy was one of the best bowlers in the world right now, but given the fact that he has plenty of time left in his career he may be remembered as one of the best English bowlers of all time.

It’s always a bit hard to know where a match stands after the first day of the series (unless the batting side is skittled for 100, which is usually pretty clear) and with England batting second this is not an exception. If one offered England 289-8 immediately after losing the toss they would have accepted. If one made the same offer after Sri Lanka were reduced to 15-3, I expect they would have declined. Tomorrow will mostly be a day for England’s batting. The pith is flat and Sri Lanka’s attack is not particularly threatening and a big score should be on the cards. There is turn, however, and if their mental daemons resurface Sri Lanka could find themselves very well placed. England have lost the chance to bat with the pressure off, however, and Strauss and Cook must get the innings off to a good start. I expect they will still be batting at stumps, whether both on 150* or following-on I’m not sure, however.

*This is actually one of the few technical aspects of cricket of which I actually have some knowledge and I have always preferred having the fingers point backward. By getting one’s head under the ball, it’s apparent motion becomes almost non-existent and it is much easier to track the ball into the hands. The alternative method – fingers out, catching near the stomach – means that one has to follow the ball and make any last minute corrections as it passes in front of one’s face at upwards of 30m/s. That is rather harder, at least for a very high catch.

Anyone but Bopara

England start their quest for redemption in Galle on 26 March. They’ve made a good start though, the selectors have shown some ruthlessness and dropped Eoin Morgan from the squad after his abject performance on the pitch in the UAE. (And possibly his nonchalance off the pitch.) James Tredwell was the surprise replacement for him in the squad, with Samit Patel also being added, but it’s not a sure thing that either of them will replace Morgan in the final XI.

The obvious candidate is probably Ravi Bopara. Depressingly, I think he’s also the most likely replacement, despite the fact that he has only ever scored runs against the West Indies. The fact that Bopara is even in the squad baffles me. He has been in and out of the side since 2007 and in that time his overall numbers are 553 runs at 34.56. Those are probably reason enough to be dropped, but when one throws out the 355 runs he made in three matches against the West Indies his average drops to an inexcusable 15.23 with a high score of 44*. Forty-four. By contrast, if one applies the same criteria to Graeme Swann he still averages 17.63 with a high score of 85. Even James Anderson averages 12.89 against teams other than the Windies! The excuse usually given for this is that Bopara can bowl a bit too. That’s technically true, but his bowling is actually worse than his batting: he has one career wicket for the cost of 212 runs.

Fortunately for England there are options apart from Bopara. Samit Patel, whilst still not as fit as I think Flower would like him to be, has put in a lot of work recently and has made it clear that his ambition is to play in the Test side. Whilst I don’t think he is a long-term solution, he may be useful in the two Tests in Sri Lanka as a spinner who can bat reasonably well. Graeme Swann already fills this role to an extent, but there is a case for letting Patel have a go at Test level. There isn’t anyone in the side who is demonstrably a better batsman than Patel (except Tim Bresnan, more on whom below) and whilst I don’t think he can bat to an acceptable standard in Tests, he has done enough that it might be worth giving him a go and finding out for sure.

I still, however, think the best option is Tim Bresnan. He’s a very good bowler anyway and will probably do well on a slower pitch. More than that though, he averages 45 in Test matches. Even if he were to slot straight in at number six and not bowl at all he would probably be the best batsman available. As it is, if he plays it will probably be at seven with Prior at six. That is still a perfectly good option. That would mean that England would still have a very solid 1-7 (and actually a more reliable number six than we have had in quite some time) and with Broad and Swann still effectively bat down to number nine. That would not, however, leave a place for Steven Finn who has been pushing hard for one. Right now, I don’t think that could be avoided, but a good batting performance from Bresnan might see the selectors stick with him at number six in the summer. It’s very, very unlikely of course, but if that did happen it would open up a place for Finn. Since that is so unlikely, however, it might be worth playing Bresnan in the first match and Finn in the second and let them effectively go head to head to see who gets the nod in May. The caveat to that is that playing Finn would lengthen England’s tail.

It’s an interesting decision to make, and whilst I fear they will go with the wrong one (Bopara), Flower has done a very good job and I have a fair bit of faith in him.