It used to be that England cricket teams started badly, especially overseas. Now it seems they fade away instead – the swingeing defeat to New Zealand at Hamilton being the fourth time they have lost the final match of a series this year.
Not that this one altered the overall result, which went England’s way 2-1. But two formidable opponents, India next summer followed by Australia in the antipodes during the winter, will have taken note of the team’s near total collapse in New Zealand, the third Test of that series and the 17th England have played in 2024.
That averages out at a Test every 21.4 days, which sounds doable until you realise each series is bunched together back-to-back with little recovery time between each match.
Tired bodies and tired minds are the bane of every sports team but to be frazzled by the third match, the third time it has occurred in 12 months, is worrying given the two big series coming up are the best of five.
It was Steve Waugh, captain of arguably the greatest Australia side in history, who pointed out the extra challenge for series winners was to also win the final Test when it’s a dead rubber – the accusation being that victorious teams always took their foot off the gas or had one eye on the flight home.
Waugh was a tough, steely eyed cricketer not given over to nostalgia. Indeed, he was so sick of Australia losing the final Test of Ashes series they had already won that in 2001, when captain, he played with a torn calf muscle at the Oval just to prove a point, making a match-winning 157 in the process.
Graham Gooch did something similar (at least in making a hundred) when Essex beat Derbyshire in 1992 in the penultimate game of the season. Already champions, Essex played as if demob happy in their first innings being dismissed for 96.
But a rallying call from Gooch, to justify our champions status, saw us chase down the 442 needed to win on a wearing pitch against a team whose attack included Ian Bishop and Devon Malcolm.
Not a man given to cheap words Gooch proclaimed it the team’s greatest win of the season, battling not only a motivated opponent but that most powerful of mind forces, irrelevance. Basically we didn’t need to win save for personal pride, which when roused won out.
Waugh would have approved. He saw it as an invidious weakness for a team to lose a match they didn’t need to win, especially if they did so as softly as England have done in Hamilton.
But he was part of a generation of Australian cricketers who were ‘ruthless,’ a word Ben Stokes claims England have banned from the dressing room as a distraction. Instead, Stokes claims his team aim to win every game and just because they don’t doesn’t hinge on whether they were ruthless or not.
To forbid such words sounds silly to me. Top-level sport is ruthless in every aspect; from the exacting standards to selection calls to despatching opponents. To pretend otherwise is a denial of the competitive spirit which, let’s face it, is what most of us play or watch sport to embrace.
Despite the dreadful finales in Pakistan (which cost them the series) and New Zealand, England have discovered much to help their cause going forward. Jacob Bethell looks a talented prospect not only with bat but also as a left-arm spinner, while Brydon Carse is that captain’s dream: a bowler who will go through brick walls for the team but still poses a threat to opponents.
As for Harry Brook there are no limits to what he might achieve but only if he ignores his captain and adds a ruthless streak to his batting, even if he must call it by another name.
Equally there are a few problems. Stokes, such a driving force in the team, is becoming increasingly injury prone, a strained hamstring the latest problem. Like Waugh, his team need him for all sorts of reasons but especially the balance his all-round skills bring. It will not be the same if he plays only as a batter though he didn’t even do that in the last innings of the winter, being absent injured.
Then there is Zak Crawley, though before him Ollie Pope was the concern until he got some runs batting down the order in New Zealand. If you bat at the limits of risk as Crawley does, success will probably be elusive more often than not.
The trouble is he doesn’t have the defensive technique or mindset to grind out a score to reboot his confidence. Bethell’s emergence and Jamie Smith’s impending return places him under pressure, though with no Test cricket now for England until June there will be no immediate reckoning.
As the team enjoy Christmas at home the rest of us will continue to scratch our heads trying to work out their ongoing philosophy under Stokes and Brendon McCullum. Entertainment, certainly, though batting collapses as in Rawalpindi (112) and in Hamilton (143) stretch the definition.
Also, perverse decisions like dropping Carse in Pakistan and not bowling off-spinner Shoaib Bashir for an innings-and-a-half in this Test, when spin was a threat, still feature. It is almost as if the wish is to handicap the team by setting them a ‘let’s see if you can win from here’ challenge.
It is not captaincy by whim but it does still feel experimental with the feast or famine results continuing to keep everyone on their toes.
MORE: Brendon McCullum admits England star has given him ‘selection headache’
MORE: BBC commentator apologises for calling Indian cricket star a ‘primate’
MORE: Ben Stokes suffers fresh injury blow as England face heavy final Test defeat against New Zealand
