Back in May the chances of England going through the summer without being beaten in any of their series were about the same as the leader of the opposition sporting a beard. Yet as the two teams return to Manchester on Sunday for the final international match of the season an England victory against Australia will mean that no series has been lost against two of the better sides on the international circuit.
Paul Farbrace, forever happy to chat, bubbling with enthusiasm and a vital midwife in England’s resurgence, admitted as much after the three-wicket victory at Headingley on Friday. “If at the start of the summer somebody said we would draw the New Zealand Tests, beat them in the one-dayers, win the Ashes and go into the last one-day game at Old Trafford locked at 2-2 we would have snapped their hands off and probably walked away saying: ‘Whatever they are drinking, I’ll have a pint of that.’”
Against the odds England have managed to put smiles on a lot of faces this summer – so, too, has the leader of the opposition but that’s another story – but Farbrace gives us a proper perspective of the team’s goals.
“I know people have said they want England players with a smile on their face, playing this positive cricket, but the most important thing for any national team, in any sport, is winning. Before the last game against New Zealand at the Riverside people were saying it didn’t matter whether we won or lost because we were playing this really nice style of cricket. It matters hugely.
“That game at the Riverside was absolutely pivotal for us in terms of the players believing they can win tight games. To win a match like that and chase down 300 on Friday gives you huge confidence. We want to win on Sunday and we want to play well but I would take a scrappy win. Teams develop quickly when they are winning.”
Suddenly, England are the favourites to win. They enjoyed playing at Old Trafford on Tuesday, where their spin twins out-bowled their rivals, a rare scenario since the retirement of Graeme Swann. The Australians are weary – with some justification. Remember that they were touring the Caribbean for six weeks before landing on these shores.
Steve Smith could not quite hide that weariness after the Headingley defeat. “We wanted to finish the series there to give us some respite,” he said. “Now it’s a final in Manchester and we have a quite good record in finals.” But there was no disguising a slightly glazed look in his eyes.
Smith will probably be a very good captain of Australia but he could do with a break; his team are hanging on by their fingernails. They felt compelled to rest their best bowler Mitchell Starc at Headingley; at Old Trafford they may feel obliged to wheel him out one more time. Of the non-Test players only Pat Cummins, genuinely fast, and Glenn Maxwell, who was sensational with the bat and in the field in Leeds, have really invigorated the team.
By contrast Eoin Morgan, after resting for almost a month, an inspired decision, looks as fresh as a daisy. Now, despite that terrible World Cup campaign, he is the undisputed leader of the pack. And he is scoring runs.
“The one thing Morgs has done – and he did it again at Headingley – is that he goes out and plays in the way he asks the team to play,” Farbrace said. “It’s all very well saying we want to attack and play positively but when he goes out and does it others think: ‘Crikey, it really is OK to play that way.’ So not only does he speak well but he leads well in the way he plays the game.”
Perhaps Morgan still has Test ambitions but Farbrace opened up the possibility of players having a different perspective on their career paths. In the past the ultimate goal has always been to play Test cricket. That may be changing in line with Andrew Strauss’s determination to overhaul England’s one-day cricket.
“It might just be,” Farbrace said, “that for the first time it’s OK to be seen as a specialist one-day-player and you have not got to be always pushing to play Test cricket. Now I’m not saying that Morgs won’t play Test cricket for England again. But at the moment he is playing just one-day cricket and the freshness he brings into the series is working really well.”
The vibrancy of this England team is helping Strauss’s ambition to give greater emphasis to the one-day game. It does seem to matter who wins at Old Trafford and there will be a full house to witness the outcome.
