How many players are there in a cricket team? The simple answer, as you know, is 11 but when the team in question is England’s Test side, things are seldom simple. The true answer is anything from three to 15.
In the last Ashes series, Joe Root had only three players coming up with the sportsman’s favourite abstract noun – consistency. One of them was himself – five Tests, five 50s, Mr Reliable (If A Bit Frazzled). Another was Dawid Malan, superb on hard surfaces, as Ed Smith noted the other day when dropping him because of his travails in home Tests. The third was Mr Inevitable, Jimmy Anderson, who bowled the most overs, took the most wickets (17) and conceded only the fourth-most runs, giving Root some semblance of control.
Jonny Bairstow was at his best for one Test, as were Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook and Chris Woakes, plus James Vince and Mark Stoneman. And one was one more than poor Moeen Ali managed. The nature of Test cricket – a series of exams staged over 30 hours each – makes it hard for batsmen especially to be truly consistent, unless their name is Bradman. But this was flaky stuff from England, duly reflected in a 4-0 drubbing.
Their next big challenge is the one we see unfolding now, which could hardly be more different. Facing India, Test cricket’s top-ranked nation and, until now, its best travellers, England have fielded a team that is more like a squad. They have two wicketkeepers (three if you count Ollie Pope, who kept for England’s reserves last month) and five bowlers, all taking wickets for fun. The one with the worst average, Sam Curran on 24, is charging less for each wicket than Anderson did in Australia (27). The bowler who was not even needed at Lord’s, Adil Rashid, has the equal-best strike rate, shared with Chris Woakes, of a wicket every four overs. The fringe selections keep making off with man-of-the-match awards.
England also have plenty of batsmen, though they are not necessarily picked as such. And here lies an oddity, even by English standards. In their past three series – the defeat in New Zealand, the draw with Pakistan and now the half-rout of India – the top six batsmen (a full XI of them) have averaged 26, while the four men going in at No 7 have averaged 58. The top six, Rootishly, have not a single individual century between them; the No 7s have two, Bairstow’s punchy 101 at Christchurch and Woakes’s dreamy unbeaten 137 at Lord’s.
When collapses keep happening, as they have with England even en route to a 2-0 lead, the cry goes up for people who can stick around and play proper Test cricket. But the batsmen who have flourished since the Ashes have been the less adhesive ones. Of those who have played three Tests, the Englishmen with the highest averages – Woakes, Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Root and Curran – all have strike rates above 55 apart from Root (47). The top-order batsmen averaging below 30 – Malan, Cook, Ben Stokes, Keaton Jennings and Stoneman – all have strike rates under 47. Patience has not been a virtue.
All-rounders are supposed to be going out of fashion. The Aussies have not had a real one since Richie Benaud retired. South Africa, who used to have several, are down to only Vernon Philander, more of a bowler who bats. Bangladesh have a star, Shakib Al Hasan, but the only teams with all-rounders to spare are England and India, who may have blown this series by spurning Ravi Jadeja. By the classic yardstick – batting average minus bowling average – Jadeja is second only to Shakib in the world.
If England wrap up the series in the third Test at Trent Bridge, which starts on Saturday, it will give them breathing space to prepare for the turning pitches of Sri Lanka and West Indies. Their dismal form abroad is something Smith has been asked by Andrew Strauss to address. He now has several change bowlers who can bat, with Stokes, Woakes, Moeen and (when fit) Toby Roland-Jones joined by both Currans, Rashid and Dom Bess. The danger with a pack of all-rounders is that it becomes a drawer full of Swiss army knives, less useful than it looks. The bowlers’ batting can bail out the batters but it cannot replace them. Especially abroad.
All-rounders, coming to the crease late, seem to rely more on home support: their efforts ignite the crowd, who in turn pump up the players. Only 16 men in England’s history have a higher batting than bowling average abroad (with at least 20 wickets), and the only one to have come along since Ian Botham is Stokes, whose differential actually rises away from home. This is one more reason why he was badly missed in Australia. If England are to become better travellers, one or two of their bright young multitaskers will have to make themselves at home overseas.
