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England count their blessings

Posted on | November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

The injury to Alastair Cook has been a blessing in disguise to the selectors who were rightly criticised for not taking a third opener on tour as the problem seems to have solved itself more by luck than good judgement.

Cook’s back problem gave them the opportunity to play Eoin Morgan in the middle order with Jonathan Trott moving up to partner Andrew Strauss and if Morgan scores well in the next three one-dayers England will have to seriously consider him for the first Test.

He’s ambitious and said after the T20s that he would like to get into the Test team and if he gets a couple of good scores they’re going to have trouble leaving him out even if Cook recovers.

Trott doesn’t seem to have a problem going in first or batting at number three unlike, for example, Rahul Dravid, who is magnificent at first wicket down but who just couldn’t cut it as an opener.

I’ve been saying for many months that much as I like Cook, his concentration, application and approach to the game are admirable but he has a problem with the straight ball. He puts his right foot, the front one, to the off side of the ball when it should be to the leg side. Because of that he plays around his front pad and if he misses it he’s leg before or bowled. I don’t know why he hasn’t solved it by now; either the coaches aren’t telling him or he’s not listening. Maybe he just can’t do it because I can’t believe that Andy Flower, England’s head coach and a very fine left hander himself, hasn’t told him about it. One of the benefits of this situation could be that there will be competition for places which is very healthy for English cricket.

The other problem for England is Adil Rashid. England took him to the West Indies last winter to gain experience without picking him for a Test and brought him here as the second spinner. He had Mushtaq Ahmed, the great Pakistan leg spinner, with him the whole time in the Caribbean and he’s with him in now South Africa. The big problem with Adil is that he’s too expensive. He’s got all the tricks and variations but he doesn’t have the most important thing of all, a stock ball. England are trying to fast track him but he just gets walloped. One over in the T20 cost 25 runs, three in the one-dayer at Centurion 27 runs. The captain just can’t set a field for him. The idea of getting a leg spinner who can bat and is good in the field is laudable but it’s no good if he can’t bowl his quota. Our coaches at Yorkshire have been telling England that he’s not ready for one day international cricket and that he needs to learn his trade. He’s been told time and time again that he needs to develop that stock ball and so far he just can’t do it. Shane Warne was not only a great spinner of the ball but he didn’t get hit a lot and kept the batsman under pressure. When Adil bowls there is no pressure at all. It is Yorkshire’s duty as a county club to develop cricketers for England but Adil is simply not ready.

It was a good performance by England at Centurion despite the fact South Africa made mistakes with their batting. A score of 250 was competitive but not good enough to put England under pressure.

Outside of Dale Steyn none of their bowlers would keep you awake at night. Paul Collingwood showed his experience and maturity and he’s a wonderful example for youngsters proving that you don’t have to be the most talented player in the team to succeed. You need some ability, obviously, but character is much more important. He makes the best of what he’s got, he’s not aesthetically pleasing, all bottom hand and shovels it into the leg side, but he’s effective if not beautiful and England would not do so well without him.

It was a thoroughly professional performance by the whole team with the exception of the captain dropping a couple of sitters against a South African side who look ordinary without Jacques Kallis. They just haven’t got anyone else like him and if he’s not fit for the Tests it will even things up a lot. England want to win one or two more of the one-dayers and then bring on the Test series.

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Comments

One Response to “England count their blessings”

  1. Cricket Betting Blog
    November 30th, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

    Couldn’t agree more with the comments about Cook. His problem with the lbw to the straight ball must be well known all round the cricketing world by now and surely England can’t afford a walking wicket like this in the forthcoming test series.

    I’m not suggesting England discard Cook as I still think he has a decent future as a test player, just if he carries on in the same form of late during the test series maybe take him out of the firing line for a while until he works through his technical problems.

    The fact that England didn’t add a third opener to the touring squad was in my opinion a farce, not only does it all but guarantee Cook his place in the side for the whole series, a message that can’t be healthy for the good of the team, but it also robs the captain of another option at number 3 if the position continues to be a problem.

    It looks like Trott will probably get the job as things stand, but the likes of Bell and Bopara couldn’t nail it down and there is no guarantee that Trott – despite his impressive run – will either.

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