It was not so long ago – after the first Lord’s Test of the summer, when Pakistan defeated England by nine wickets – that several sages were quick to start suggesting immediate replacements for Trevor Bayliss as the coach of England’s Test team.
They felt able to conclude Bayliss was somehow a fine one-day coach but useless in the Test arena. This was the cutest of arguments somehow differentiating the qualities Bayliss can offer by the colour of the ball in play. It was mostly convenient, headline-making nonsense triggered by England’s poor run in Test cricket.
Now England have won three Tests in a row, headlines trumpeting Lazarus Bayliss, who has by some means rediscovered the dressing room, have not been prevalent. One of the wonderful complications of cricket is that the worth of a coach remains hard to pin down. The coach is not omnipotent and cannot be held entirely responsible for results. Cricket is not football. When England win the players not the coach get the plaudits and Bayliss would be the last man to quarrel with that.
However, he notices more than he lets on and that includes the criticisms and this helps to explain his remarks that he would like England to play all their home Test cricket in conditions akin to those at Lord’s over the past few days. Give England’s bowlers a purple Duke ball and some hovering cloud cover and they are in clover. England know how to win in these conditions, while some visiting teams feel suddenly impotent, which appears to be the case among India’s batsmen.
Bayliss’s yearning for a string of victories is natural especially given all the criticism he received earlier in the summer. That is what he is employed to deliver. However there is an element of short-termism here. Perhaps the ideal from an England perspective should be more of the same at Trent Bridge, where the ball traditionally swings around, so that England can seal the series against India. After which it might be beneficial, given the winter itinerary in Sri Lanka and West Indies, for the team to play on drier, more spin‑friendly surfaces. In fact that is a little more likely to be the case at the Ageas Bowl and the Oval, the venues for the last two Tests of the summer.
Moreover when taking an Olympian stance, as we like to do in our columns, it would benefit the game if we were treated to more nail-biting contests, such as the first Test at Edgbaston, rather than the steam-rollering on show at Lord’s in a match that lasted just over 170 overs, which constitutes just under two days’ play without weather interruptions.
On the field, at least, India are in a terrible mess compared with England. They lost a crucial toss at Lord’s, after which their batsmen were in disarray, their confidence shredded by Jimmy Anderson and his fellow bowlers who clinically exploited the conditions and the devious properties of the Duke ball. Too much depends on their captain, Virat Kohli, who kept his team in the game at Edgbaston but whose back is now rebelling. India’s plight is so severe and their other batsmen so hapless that whatever the condition of his back he will have to play at Trent Bridge, which is what he intends to do.
At Lord’s India were hindered by the toss of the coin but they also contrived to hamper themselves. Ignoring the likely conditions and indulging in the type of wish fulfilment that led England to select Mason Crane in their Ashes squad last winter, they included their inexperienced wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, whose career has been emphatically hampered by his Lord’s experience. Kuldeep bowled poorly in conditions that ill-suited him. Umesh Yadav or even Ravi Jadeja, whose qualities are so readily ignored overseas, would have been better options.
So it is England who head to Nottingham eagerly. There was much talk of rotation in this series and that could still happen in the final two Tests but there is no tongue sufficiently honeyed that it could persuade Anderson or Stuart Broad it would be beneficial for one of them to have a rest in the next Test.
Chris Woakes is suddenly undroppable. Amid all his run scoring it was the calmness and correctness of his defensive play that caught the eye. Moreover, until Broad’s intervention on Sunday from the Pavilion End, Woakes was easily identified as England’s second most dangerous bowler at Lord’s such was the movement in the air he achieved. Sam Curran’s zest for Test cricket remains undimmed.
However, India are not the only team with much to consider; there are complications for England as well but they are primarily off the field.
