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England don’t have much time to stew on their hammering in the second Test at Edgbaston with the third Test getting under way at Lord’s this week.
Whatever decisions they make will have to be made quickly, and not look too much like panic even if in some cases they might actually be panic.
Here are five key decisions England have to make before Thursday…
The Lord’s pitch
The talk now is that England would like ‘more life’ in the pitch at Lord’s, to which the most obvious retort is ‘be nice to have bit more than two days’ notice’. The Bazball way has, generally, been to produce flat pitches for home Tests and bank on the ability of the ultra-aggressive batting unit to ‘put time back into the game’ with the speed of their scoring.
The problem with that approach right now is that India’s own batting line-up is proving more than capable of doing likewise, and perfectly happy to do so.
And with England’s inexperienced bowling attack looking alarmingly toothless against India’s top six once the new ball has been seen off, it’s possible that England might need something with a bit more in it rather than relying on batting collapses and huge fourth-innings chases.
And in truth it’s hard to make a compelling case that the pitch was a significant factor, despite Ben Stokes’ fairly laughable attempt to dismiss conditions at Edgbaston as subcontinent-like after a game in which India’s unheralded – mocked, even – Bumrah-less pace attack collected 18 of the 20 wickets between them and massively outbowled their England counterparts in largely unhelpful conditions.
England’s seam attack
England can also only ask when it comes to the pitch. It’s an indirect change. England do have the potential for an unusually dramatic but very possibly necessary decision of their own.
Wild a thought as it might be, England could feasibly name an entirely new frontline seam attack to be supported by Ben Stokes and the spinner.
Josh Tongue, Brydon Carse and Chris Woakes have shouldered a heavy workload in these first two Tests and, while all have had their moments, all have also looked way off it at various points. And never more so than in the second innings at Edgbaston.
Yet in their hastily named 16-man squad England do have potential replacements for all three. Sam Cook can do the Chris Woakes line-and-length job. Gus Atkinson is back in contention after injury and then there’s the genuine X-factor appeal of Jofra Archer.
It has been four years since Archer last played Test cricket. Picking him would represent a huge gamble with so little evidence to fall back on that he is ready for the physical demands of red-ball cricket – never mind Test cricket.
It’s up to you how you decide to mark the sheer length of time it has been since Archer played a Test. We have two. One, he missed the entire ‘Cinch’ era of England sponsorship, and two, his most recent day of Test cricket was the day Shane Warne foreshadowed Bazball by urging England to “tee off (not recklessly)” on Twitter. Which was then still actually called Twitter.
In a way, the toothlessness of England’s attack in Birmingham might just make a difficult decision more straightforward.
Cook might come in, Atkinson could return. But Archer must play. It’s a Hail Mary, but England have to find a way to trouble KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant, who have all looked disarmingly serene against England’s current attack for the most part.
England’s top six order
But the concern doesn’t end with the bowling, does it? For a team that is less than two weeks on from a famous victory and still 1-1 in the series, it really does all look like a horrible mess.
England’s top six were wretched at Edgbaston, with Harry Brook’s masterful 158 in the first innings the only innings of any note or permanence. Joe Root has rarely looked more vulnerable, Ben Stokes game appears completely shot against spin, and Ollie Pope has scored 38 runs and been dismissed four times since he walked off at the end of day two at Headingley 100 not out and the number three position apparently secure through the rest of this series and the Ashes.
Ben Duckett’s quiet Test here is of less immediate concern than Zak Crawley’s, but it’s suddenly once again a batting line-up riddled with uncertainty and long-term doubt where there appeared so little after Headingley.
Even with Brook’s 158, England’s top six managed a combined 310 runs between them across two innings at Edgbaston. Jamie Smith made 272 on his own.
While changes to the bowling line-up feel inevitable, the batters are likely to get another go. Twas ever thus.
One change England must surely at least think about is switching Smith and Stokes. The England captain may bristle at dropping to seven from his favourite spot at six, but it can be spun as a positive move to get Smith up the order while Stokes wrestles with captaincy and what is now once again very much a full all-rounder’s bowling burden.
It’s certainly one type of spin Stokes shouldn’t currently be too worried about, at least.
Smith has shown what he can do, and it’s now two years since Stokes – inspirational captain and gargantuan figure that he is – scored a Test century.
As an aside, if England do as expected go with an unchanged – at least in name if nor order – top seven then it will be the ninth Test match these seven have played together as a complete unit.
And that is already the same number of Tests as England’s 2010/11 Ashes-winning top seven of Strauss, Cook, Trott, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell, Prior played together. We need a sit down.
England’s No.1 spinner?
Shoaib Bashir is becoming a real problem for England. He contributes little in the field, less with the bat and is no longer even able to reliably hold up an end at all against high-class opposition.
We generally subscribe to the theory that wickets are wickets, but it’s also hard to avoid the nagging sensation that it’s not quite true with him. Has he actually got a batter out this series?
He’s taken eight wickets in the series, which is absolutely fine. Especially when you consider Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar currently have just three wickets between them.
But how many of Bashir’s wickets have been caught in the deep or stumped from batters trying to destroy him? It feels like it’s all of them. Those eight wickets have come at painful cost. No other bowler in this series has conceded 500 runs; Bashir has gone for 720 to leave his series average nudging 60, while also going at four an over.
There is no other specialist spinner in England’s seamer-dominated 16-man squad for Lord’s, so the decision is for now whether England require a specialist spinner at all.
With Stokes back bowling plenty of overs and Joe Root remaining a keen and capable part-time option, England might even decide they lose nothing by having an extra seamer. Especially if they really do want a Lord’s pitch with a bit more about it.
They certainly won’t weaken their fielding or lengthen their tail with an extra seam option, whoever it might be.
What about Jacob Bethell?
And then there’s the nuclear option. Take all the information from all the previous points and conclude that the way to address everything all at once is to throw in the gut-feel-and-vibes selection of Jacob Bethell, the batting phenom who has never scored an international hundred.
It still seems highly improbable England will switch out any of their current batters for Bethell, but what about bringing him in for Bashir? He and Root then take on the spin duties between them; again, on the evidence of the series so far it’s hard to argue this materially weakens England’s bowling attack.
You add a dynamic fielder and batter with destructive potential to the line-up. It is in many ways the most ridiculous option. It is in many of the self same ways the most Bazball option.
Even if it does mean someone having to have a conversation with Stokes about maybe dropping all the way down to number eight.
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The post Stokes demotion, unleashing Archer, Bethell for Bashir? Five big decisions for England ahead of third India Test appeared first on Cricket365.
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