Trevor Bayliss held a crisis meeting with his England players on Sunday after a defeat by West Indies that he described as a “shock to the system”. The head coach, however, has also accepted his mantra of positivity may have led to a blurring of the lines between how the Test and one-day teams approach their batting.
In the aftermath of England’s 10-wicket loss here – a three-day mauling that once again highlighted the fragility of their lineup and saw the series lost with one to play – Bayliss set his players a series of questions to be ruminated on overnight by individuals, before sharing their answers at the team hotel 24 hours later.
England, perhaps expecting the slow, low pitches in the Caribbean on which the Lions were beaten 3-0 last year, have been blown away by a relentless four-man West Indies pace attack across two Tests, losing a wicket every 32 balls. Joe Root, the captain, has 40 runs to show from four innings and Jonny Bairstow is their leading scorer with 108 – less than half that of Jason Holder’s aggregate of 229 from No 8.
Joe Root’s average by series since becoming captain
2017
57.62 South Africa
67.00 West Indies
2017-18
47.25 Australia
35.50 New Zealand
2018
39.00 Pakistan
35.44 India
2018-19
38.16 Sri Lanka
10.00 West Indies
In the first year of his captaincy, Root reached 50 in 14 out of 25 innings. Since then he has done so in four innings out of 22
Selected England batting averages since the start of 2018
44.60 Chris Woakes
41.50 Ben Foakes
38.80 Jos Buttler
36.59 Joe Root
32.42 Sam Curran
29.87 Jonny Bairstow
26.82 Keaton Jennings
24.83 Ben Stokes
18.44 Moeen Ali
Big numbers
32 – England have lost a wicket every 32 balls in the series; they have taken a West Indies wicket every 78 balls.
25 – Times England have been dismissed in less than 90 overs (ie a full day’s play) under Joe Root.
29.52 – England’s average runs per wicket under Joe Root, the lowest under any captain since Alec Stewart in the 1990s. Only one man has captained England in at least 20 Tests with a figure lower than that of Root’s team – Archie MacLaren from 1897 to 1909.
The die almost felt cast at the end of day two in Antigua when Stuart Broad (admittedly no batsman these days) said England would need to “move the game on” in their second innings. The result was 132 all out in 42.1 overs, nearly half the time a largely shotless Darren Bravo alone spent grinding his way to 50 from 219 balls across 78.2 overs.
“We haven’t seemed to have the will to fight,” said Bayliss, under whom England have now lost 23 Tests, as many as they have won. “There’s been some very loose shots and other guys have been very tentative. It’s been one or the other with not a lot in between. And that’s the art of batting.”
One possible pivotal moment in Bayliss’s tenure came early after their 2015 victory over South Africa in Durban. Of the 639 runs made across their two innings, 350 came during the nine hours and 15 minutes that the obdurate Nick Compton, batting No 3, spent at the crease for scores of 85 and 49. And yet the head coach said afterwards he would prefer two of his top three to be “attacking-style” players.
He still maintains this is his ideal scenario and that “positive” cricket means getting the feet moving and the senses flowing, not recklessness. But an admission has now come that for all the conditions-based aggression witnessed in the recent win over Sri Lanka – and a one-day team that has soared to No 1 in a blaze of boundaries – it may have led to confusion in the ranks.
Bayliss said: “I haven’t changed. [Two of the top three being attacking players] would be the ultimate. If we haven’t got those players, then that’s not possible. If we’ve got to pick two or three guys that are more in that (defensive) vein, then so be it. That doesn’t mean we don’t keep looking for those players that are good enough to be able to go out and make good Test runs at a decent clip. Sometimes they might have to start off slowly, get through those tough periods. The longer they bat, the easier it is to score runs.
“[Positivity] could have been misinterpreted on the inside. We’ve got the one-day team that goes out and plays that way and sometimes I feel the message between one-day cricket and Test cricket gets muddled a little. But certainly within the [Test] team there hasn’t been a lack of saying “look, we’ve got to do the hard yards”. If they’re bowling well early and there’s a bit in the deck, get through that tough period.”
“ They are still coming to terms and trying to work out what is the best way to play Test cricket but in one-day cricket they are very confident in the way they go about it.”
With Root, Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali all boasting at least 50 Test caps apiece, it begs the question as to how long they need. Bayliss pointed to a glut of players ideally suited to No 6 - epitomised by the shoe-horning of Bairstow at No 3, for which “the jury is still out” - and a lack of pressure for places from the outside. But despite such issues the head coach fancies his team will still be favourites for this summer’s Ashes series.
Bayliss added: “We’re playing at home – I’d like to think so. We know it will be a full-on series but hopefully that inspires our guys to turn things around.
“It is a shock to the system when you lose anything. If it shocks them into doing something about it and trying and working out what they can do differently, so these type of collapses don’t happen, well then it will be a good thing in the long run. But you don’t have to motivate too many guys to be up for the Ashes.”
