This is a fit and dedicated England team, forever gym-bound, with barely a centimetre of spare flesh to be found. They are driven but maybe not completely mad. It is hot in Dhaka, hotter than Chittagong and more humid; thunderstorms are forecast and when the players turned up to the Sher-e-Bangla stadium to prepare for the second Test, which starts on Friday, sanity seemed to be prevailing. The routine game of football was shelved.
Instead the preparation began with a rigorous fielding session, an area of the game that Trevor Bayliss will never downgrade. He has some outstanding fielders in his squad (like Ben Stokes, inevitably) and some ordinary ones (like Adil Rashid). But they all have to get better.
In a sense this is the least of Bayliss’s worries as England seek to maintain their 100% record against Bangladesh. The fielding was more than adequate in Chittagong. However, Bayliss needs runs from the top four; he needs greater control from his three spinners and he would probably like to know what is his best team.
Off they all trooped to the nets behind the concrete stands of the stadium and England’s latest opening pair, Alastair Cook and Ben Duckett, were first in. Both were confronted by spin bowlers rather than pacemen from the start, which makes perfect sense since this is what may well greet them on Friday – if Cook is lucky enough to win another toss.
The balance of England’s side will remain the same. The pitch in Dhaka was soon covered up under a hessian carpet, but not before we could glimpse a dry, cracked surface lacking a single blade of live grass. The assumption is the ball will turn but no one is quite sure when. In the past, the ball has seldom spun from the first morning here as it did in Chittagong. But Bangladesh are more ambitious now.
So England will continue with three spinners in their team. One of them will be Moeen Ali, who is also the No5 batsman. Another is almost certain to be Zafar Ansari, who is expected to come into the side for his maiden Test match at the expense of Gareth Batty or Rashid. The cod psychologists can conclude that the omission of Batty will have a negligible effect on the old boy who looks so thrilled to be here, but it might provide a significant dent to the confidence of Rashid. But this cannot be a good criterion for selecting any side.
Being dropped should be regarded as no more than an occupational hazard by an international cricketer, which triggers greater resolve rather than misery and self-doubt. The cricketing argument points to retaining Batty if the ball is going to spin excessively from the start, but to stick with Rashid if the pitch is flatter. However the expectation is that Batty will be left out come what may.
Taking the long-term view, the case for Ansari is strong. My suspicion is neither Bayliss nor Cook has ever seen him bowl in a match with a red ball. They desperately need some information before arriving in India.
When the team gets there they will be confronted by a very strong Indian batting lineup, which is likely to contain nine right-handers and two left-handers. On turning pitches it is generally far more difficult to play the ball spinning away from the bat. Hence England need a functioning left-armer. Last time they had Monty Panesar; this time it could be Ansari, which might prompt a sharp intake of breath. But a man who has just completed a 40,000-word thesis on post-1960s American history, while fulfilling his duties as a professional cricketer, probably likes a challenge.
England’s off-spinners were less effective against right-handed batsmen in Chittagong. Moeen, in particular, was twice the threat against left-handed batsmen, who accounted for all of his five wickets in the first Test. By contrast he was the most vulnerable of the English bowlers against the right-handers, which was demonstrated most vividly by Sabbir Rahman. If the ball keeps spinning so much Moeen needs to improve his ability to bowl around the wicket to right-handers since it is so important out here to keep the lbw option open and the outside edge a possibility.
So there will be an element of experimentation in England’s bowling lineup. There has been no hullaballoo about the prospect of Stuart Broad’s 100th Test because we expect him to be rotated. Steven Finn, who made his England debut in Bangladesh six years ago, will probably replace Broad rather than Jake Ball.
One or two of the batsmen, most notably Gary Ballance, will be fortunate to keep their place. There is surely a case for giving both Haseeb Hameed and Jos Buttler an outing before India since later in the tour it will be even harder for a batsman to be tossed into a Test at short notice and without any time in the middle. A canny bowler has the chance to ease himself into a Test when rusty but one mistake is all it takes for a batsman.
However, such a reshuffle has been resisted. At the nets Hameed and Buttler were the last batsmen to have a knock, which is never a good sign. And then what did they all do? They took to the outfield for a game of football. To paraphrase dear old Fred Trueman: “Who’d have thought it?”
