Dan Jones: Root of the problem is still there for England… Where is the support act?

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18 July 2017

The job of England Test captain is among the noblest in sport. But to take it on is a little like volunteering for a migraine. Two matches into his tenure, Joe Root has now experienced elation and the sensation of his head exploding in their sharpest forms.

First came a 211-run victory over South Africa at Lord’s, which suggested he and his England side would bound, Tiggerishly, through their first red-ball series of the summer.

Then England arrived at Trent Bridge and suffered a defeat by 340 runs, concluded yesterday, that was straight out of the old school. They were undone by obdurate opposition batting and thought-scrambling fast bowling on a pitch they feared because they could not trust. Collapse mentality set in and shots were played that should not have been considered, let alone attempted.

It was, to use an old phrase, damn unpretty. And all of a sudden, the four months until Brisbane on November 26 feel disquietingly short.

The pelters were flying long before the end of the Test, and to be sure some of the criticism that England have faced has been reactionary and harsh. They were second-best in the Second Test, no doubt. But they did not become a bad team overnight, any more than South Africa morphed from schoolboys in north London to titans in Nottingham. The truth is that England are where they are: a curate’s egg of a Test side. Good in parts.

Let’s deal with the good parts first. England have two world-class batsmen (Alastair Cook and Root), two very good all-rounders (Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali), a much-improved wicketkeeper (Jonny Bairstow) and a pair of opening bowlers in James Anderson and Stuart Broad who have taken 700 Test wickets in tandem and have a good year or so left together at the top.

The problem is that they do not have much else. Their change bowlers are okay, and the decision to play two spinners, inspired at Lord’s, looked more like a failure of imagination when repeated in the East Midlands.

Dean Elgar spoke on the weekend of ‘cracks’ in the England XI, but they are not so much cracks as holes. Gary Ballance’s recall to Test cricket has proven the old definition of insanity: doing the same things and expecting different results. Keaton Jennings, perversely, has done the opposite: apparently you can’t just convert an endless line of South African batsmen into Englishmen and hope that they all turn out to be Kevin Pietersen.

The line of tried-and-rejected opening partners for Alastair Cook is beginning to stretch out of sight, and it seems increasingly possible that when Cooky has his Cincinnatus moment and returns to his plough, England will be no closer to having found one.

Test cricket is hard enough with a full complement of players. To spend as long as England have without identifying a No2 and No3 begins to look rather carefree.

To be sure, Twenty20 cricket has not been upper-order Test batting’s friend. But England are scarcely alone in this regard: indeed, they have been slower to adapt to the T20 era than any other leading Test nation. Where have all the batsmen gone?

With the Ashes in Australia looming so close, England have to answer that question now or not at all. Either they stick with what they know and hope that they can back Jennings and Ballance to improve on the job, gambling that Haseeb Hameed returns to form in the meantime — or they go casting about again and give players like Surrey’s Mark Stoneman a shot, with only five Test matches remaining before the Ashes begin.

That is an uncomfortable decision to make, but make it they must, or Root’s first Ashes series as captain is going to feel a lot more like Trent Bridge than Lord’s. The problem defied Cook throughout his five years in charge of England’s Test side.

Root cannot allow it to dog him throughout his own, well-deserved time at the top.

The honeymoon, as they say, is over. Didn’t last long, did it? But hey, no one said being captain was going to be easy.

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Dan Jones: Root of the problem is still there for England… Where is the support act?

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