The figures make for grim reading. England’s men’s cricket team, who were world champions in the 50 over format in 2019 and the 20 over version in 2022, have gone out of the Champions Trophy having lost all three of their games.
Brendon McCullum took over as coach of the white ball side in January hoping to bring with him some of the success he has enjoyed since becoming Test coach in 2022. At the time England were in dreadful form and his positivity and uncomplicated tactics transformed both results and the way in which they were achieved. The team beat India with a brilliant run chase at Edgbaston, whitewashed Pakistan in Pakistan and stopped the Aussies winning the Ashes on English soil.
It was hoped that McCullum’s arrival would give a boost to Jos Buttler’s squad, whose form had been indifferent to say the least. The 50 over World Cup was tamely surrendered in India in 2023 and last year they limped through to the semi-finals of the T20 tournament before being comfortably beaten by eventual champions India.
The Champions Trophy, while another ICC global event, is more of a money spinner for the game’s governing body than a tournament that is highly regarded by players and fans. This is the first time it has been staged since 2017, and exists to fill the gap where otherwise there would be no big international tournament.
This particular Champions Trophy has been something of a farce. Three of the matches have been washed out, which is too many in a tournament as short as this, and India’s refusal to travel to play in the land of their bitter rivals Pakistan has seen them enjoy what have been effectively home matches in Dubai. A ridiculous situation – India should have been told that they either play in Pakistan or don’t participate at all. Sri Lanka and the West Indies would have been more than willing to replace them.
So, it’s not as if England’s terrible performance in Pakistan will be worried about for long. But the fact is England are once again the laughing stock of world cricket after spending the last decade building an excellent reputation.
Buttler has resigned and the search for a new captain, most probably Harry Brook, has begun. England don’t play again in white ball cricket until May – it will be interesting to see what the team looks like by then.
England vs South Africa 1st Test (of 3) Lord’s, London 17th, 18th, 19th August 2022 Result: South Africa (326) beat England (165 & 149) by an innings and 12 runs
The latest issue of The Cricketer magazine was laying on the doormat when I got home from work on Friday. Its front cover asked the question: “Can the Proteas’ pace attack puncture Bazball?”. As I was unwrapping it, on my television the tall South African seamer Marco Jansen bowled James Anderson to seal a thumping win for the tourists inside three days. The early evidence would suggest the answer to that question is “yes”.
The first half of the English Test summer had been full of positivity. New captain Ben Stokes and new coach Brendon McCullum combined to instill a never-say-die attitude into the ailing red ball side, an aura of self-belief that carried England to four wins in a row. They benefited from New Zealand suffering from a lack of form and a spate of injuries – their best batter, Kane Williamson, is going through one of the worst patches of his career and their best bowler, Trent Boult, was wary having just taken part in a full-on season of the Indian Premier League. Colin de Grandhomme and Kyle Jamieson both succumbed to injury during the series and had to fly home. Yet, the Black Caps were in a position to win each of the three matches. At Lord’s, they had England on the ropes in the fourth innings but took the wickets of Stokes off a no ball, a reprieve that proved fatal. Then in Nottingham, a Jonny Bairstow inspired England powered to a final day chase that would previously have been seen as impossible. At Headingley, the home side were 55 for 6 in their first innings but were rescued by Bairstow and Jamie Overton.
It went down in the record books as a series whitewash, but closer inspection reveals a story that wasn’t so one-sided. India were also sent packing in the Test rescheduled from last year, at Edgbaston, though you wonder how. Rishabh Pant made a brilliant hundred on the first day, then on the second Stuart Broad was whacked for a record 35 off one over. India were on top for so much of the game but didn’t bowl well in the final innings and Bairstow and Joe Root made the chase look easy. England’s daring new approach to the Test format is undoubtedly exciting – they back themselves to play their natural games, never give up and when one falls short they believe they will always have someone who will step up. The media coined it Bazball, named after the Kiwi coach in the sunglasses with the beard who looked cooly on from the balcony. The squad and the management themselves hate the term. They feel it cheapens what they’re doing and is used on social media to poke fun at the England team when it doesn’t all go to plan.
It’s safe to say it didn’t go to plan this week. The series against South Africa had an oddly low key build up. It started six weeks after the India match ended, following a block of mostly disappointing white ball cricket and with the Hundred and the new football season in full swing. The first match was over so quickly that there is a chance some will not have noticed it. There had been plenty of chat in the days before the game, with South Africa captain Dean Elgar giving his opinion on Bazball (he’s not a fan) and Sam Billings giving his response. Billings had just captained an England Lions team (second string) to a big win over South Africa, in which they amassed 672 at nearly a run a ball. There was a bit of spice about the series not usually seen outside an Ashes. Elgar’s team had to back it up.
South Africa captain Dean Elgar
They did. All of England’s victories so far in the summer had come from chasing in the final innings, so Elgar turned the tables by putting Stokes’s men into bat on Wednesday morning. Then the mightily impressive South Africa pace bowlers got to work. Before long, England were 55 for 4 with both Root and Bairstow out for a combined 8 runs. The summer of 2022 has been characterised by very hot and dry weather, so naturally the first day of a Test match lasted just more than one session before it was abandoned due to heavy rain.
It didn’t take long for South Africa to wrap up the England innings on Thursday. All out for 165 in just 45 overs. Ollie Pope, with 73, was the only batter able to offer any resistance. Kagiso Rabada took 5-52. South Africa’s openers then demonstrated anti-Bazball, if you will, seeing off the new ball nicely and putting on 85 for the first wicket until Elgar was extremely unfortunate to deflect an innocuous Anderson delivery with his arm onto his stumps. His opening partner, Sarel Erwee, ground out 73 from 146 balls – by no means an attractive innings, but one that put his side in control. England should take note. All but two of the South Africans made it into double figures, compared to the four that got past single digits in the England innings. They were all out for 326 in the 90th over, 161 runs ahead.
Kagiso Rabada took 7 wickets in the match
Zak Crawley was the first to go, as usual, in what must surely be his final appearance for a while in the England side. They seem to have such confidence in him that it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he were to line up at Old Trafford on Thursday, but with form players waiting in the wings, I just cannot see how the Kent man can continue wasting a place in the batting order. After Crawley, it was a procession of England wickets as their innings lasted a mere 37.4 overs. Only a fifty partnership between Stokes and Stuart Broad delayed the inevitable. South Africa had won by an innings – they had not just beaten England, they had embarrassed them.
Let’s not pretend otherwise. For a team to be beaten by an innings within three days (don’t forget, the first day was largely washed out) – at home, especially – that’s bad. Lord’s will have to refund all the ticket holders for the weekend. Against the top teams, England have to realise that they are not always going to be able to assert their own style on the game. They are going to have to adapt to a situation, to play smart cricket. It was the lack of smart cricket that bothered me the most. It’s fine being ultra-positive, always setting attacking fields and playing the attacking shots, but at times the game demands that you think sensibly and do what is required to find a way back in. If that means keeping the flow of runs down for a while or blocking out a session, so be it. I’m all for the Bazball intention of having utter belief in your ability, but please use your brains. Oh, and drop Zak Crawley.
The second Test starts on Thursday 25th August, 11am at Old Trafford, Manchester.
England vs New Zealand 2nd Test (of 3) Trent Bridge, Nottingham 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th June 2022 Result: England (539 & 299-5) beat New Zealand (553 & 284) by 5 wickets
Jonny Bairstow’s astonishing century won the second Test for England
Sport is my strongest passion. My life is essentially a continuous festival of sport, and football and cricket are the headline acts. I love them both, but it might surprise some to learn that in the unlikely situation I was forced to sacrifice one to keep the other cricket would be my number one.
It’s not easy to argue cricket’s case in the face of a sport that dominates as football does. Governing body FIFA estimates that 4% of the world’s population are active players or referees, and 3.2 billion watched the 2018 World Cup on television. In Britain, it feels like someone you meet is more likely to be a football fan than not and it is often a safe bet to use a following of the game as an ice breaker.
Cricket is actually the second most popular sport in the world, though the numbers are boosted somewhat by its obsessed following in very large countries such as India and Pakistan. Here, it is not so common to come across a fellow cricket fan (even less so one in their twenties like me) and it at times feels like a passion – a guilty pleasure – to be kept a secret, fearful of hearing some nonsense about it being “boring”.
I expect many to scoff at this, but I believe cricket is far from a boring sport and actually more exciting than football. You see, in football the sole aim of the game is to score a goal. Everyone watching is waiting to see a goal. Some will say they are interested in the tactical battle or the attractive passing style of play, but deep down they just want to see a goal. Even when a goalkeeper makes a great save, what the neutrals really wanted to see was a goal. Absolute goal fests in high level professional football are, however, very rare – that’s why they get talked about so much when they do come along – so in reality most football fans are disappointed and bored more often than not. People keep watching, keep turning up for each game because maybe, just maybe, the next one will be the one with all the goals in it.
Every ball of a cricket match is an event. It has lulls of course, every sport does, but it can’t possibly be boring in comparison to football because you could see the equivalent of a goal every few seconds. Each time the bowler approaches the crease, there is so much that can happen. Perhaps a wicket will be taken – stumps flying everywhere, a stunning catch – or maybe the batter will whack it out of the ground, or try a risky reverse sweep. No one has ever unironically enjoyed a 0-0 result in football, either, while in cricket a draw can sometimes be among the most thrilling things ever to happen in any sport.
Daryl Mitchell scored a century and a half century in the match but was on the losing side
With three distinct forms of cricket (four if you count the Hundred, which I don’t), the thrills come in many ways. The five day Test match is my favourite and the game that finished on Tuesday, with England winning at Trent Bridge, is one of the best I’ve seen in nearly twenty years as a fan.
A flat pitch and a small ground meant a total of 1,675 runs were scored, compared to 837 in the first Test at Lord’s last week. 249 boundaries were hit across the five days, a record for a Test match. New Zealand, missing their captain Kane Williamson because he tested positive for Covid on the eve of the match, made the most of being put into bat by racking up 553. Nine of the eleven batters made it into double figures, with Daryl Mitchell adding 190 to his century at Lord’s and Tom Blundell joining him with 106. On Saturday, many were saying that England had gone back to their old ways – they got the decision at the toss wrong, they didn’t bowl well, they were wasting reviews.
The new approach from the skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum is always to take the positive option, and England were certainly positive with the bat. Scoring more than 500 in the first innings will usually ensure that you don’t lose the Test, at least, but New Zealand remarkably found themselves beaten by five wickets with a whopping 22 overs unbowled on the last evening.
From Alex Lees starting to express himself as a Test opener with 67 and 44, to Ollie Pope’s long awaited second Test century, Joe Root continuing his astonishing run of form with 176 and Ben Stokes seeing England over the line with 75 off just 70 balls, it has been a series to savour for the batters.
Then there’s Jonny Bairstow. In my piece about the Lord’s Test, I was dropping Jonny for Trent Bridge and criticising his recent lack of red ball cricket. More fool me. Unleased, given licence to go full on white ball mode, he cracked one of the great Test innings. 136 off 92 balls makes it the second fastest century by an England batter in this form of the game and, though he nicked behind and wasn’t there at the end, he had certainly “broken the back of it” in his words. An extraordinary cricketer.
England complete a win that will live long in the memory
At the end of it, England have won a series for the first time in 18 months and go to Headingley for the last match full of confidence. For all the positives, Zak Crawley contributed only 4 runs in the game and Jack Leach sent down some very uninspiring spells of slow left arm bowling. So, will they be tempted into a change for Leeds? Here is who I would pick:
Alex Lees
Rory Burns/Ben Compton
Ollie Pope
Joe Root
Jonny Bairstow
Ben Stokes (c)
Ben Foakes (wk)
Stuart Broad
Matty Potts
James Anderson
Matt Parkinson
I maintain that there is still a Test match opener in Rory Burns, who scored a timely century for Surrey this week. Ben Compton is still in excellent form for Kent so should also be in with a shout. I expect them to stick with Crawley, mind. They might decide to rest one or both of Anderson and Broad, the veterans having played two in a row. Jamie Overton has been called into the squad. Matty Potts deserves another go. I completely understood the decision to stick with Jack Leach, who never got the chance to make an impact at Lord’s as he left with concussion after about an hour, but it just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever worry a batter. Parkinson should play in his place.
Just over a year ago, New Zealand sportingly set England 273 to win from about 75 overs at Lord’s. There were no World Test Championship points on the line in that series, so not much to lose. They didn’t go for it, and trundled to 170 for 3 and a draw. It’s incredible how much things have changed. 299 in 72 overs is a stiff ask, and at 93 for 4 even I would have been inclined to shut up shop and take the draw, but this England side are afraid of nothing. That last day needs to be seen to be believed, so I’ve put the highlights video below.
England vs New Zealand 1st Test (of 3) Lord’s, London 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th June 2022 Result: England (141 & 279-5) beat New Zealand (132 & 285) by 5 wickets
I’ve looked it up. There were 281 days between England’s men completing an innings victory over India at Headingley on 28th August last year and scoring the winning runs to beat New Zealand at Lord’s yesterday. That forty week gap between Test wins was without doubt far too long for a nation that loves this form of the game as much as we do. It had included a third disastrous Ashes tour on the bounce, the well-intentioned but ultimately ludicrous decision to drop James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and the departure of the captain, the coach and the managing director.
Joe Root was the player of the match
It was fitting that Joe Root was the one to get England home. To say he is now able to play freely, unburdened by the responsibility of being captain, isn’t quite right. He was still the best batter in the team when he was leading it. At Lord’s, however, the smile was definitely wider and the shoulders a little lighter. His 115 not out to see England safely to their target of 277 was masterful and it was great to see him enjoying being out there. Root is a special one, who we will not truly appreciate until he is no longer there. He would walk into any previous England side and be one of the first names in a World XI of current male Test players. Surprisingly, this was his first fourth innings century, but it also got him to the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. Only thirteen others have ever reached that number and at the age of just 31 he could well have more than anyone else by the time he calls it a day.
England got the bowling attack exactly right. Regardless of their age, Anderson and Broad are two of the best there have ever been and simply had to play. Anderson will always get wickets and won’t go for many runs, either. Broad is capable of incredible spells in which it feels as if he turns a match on its head all by himself, as we saw on the third morning when one of his overs brought about three wickets that meant New Zealand went from being in a very strong position to blowing the door open for England.
Stuart Broad got England back into the match with an inspired spell on the third morning
Had it not been for the staggering number of injuries currently hampering England’s pace bowlers (they have no fewer than six currently unavailable), Matty Potts probably wouldn’t have been in contention for the squad, let alone making his Test debut. I like the attitude from new coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes to give a young man in good form a go and he repaid them with seven wickets. I feel like I’ve seen enough of Craig Overton, the other contender for a place in the side this week, for now. Potts must surely play in the second match at Trent Bridge.
The unfortunate Jack Leach was withdrawn from the game early on its first morning when he landed heavily attempting to stop the ball getting to the boundary and subsequently showing signs of concussion. The relatively recent addition of concussion substitutes meant that England were able to replace him with someone who could play a full part and they called upon Matt Parkinson, the leg spinner, who had to make his way from Manchester to London. Many had been calling for Parkinson to play in the match anyway, so for them the sight of ‘Parky’ being awarded his Test cap was welcome and overdue. He had been taken to the Caribbean but bafflingly left out, carrying the drinks while the bowling attack toiled. His first and so far only Test wicket was that of Tim Southee to bring New Zealand’s second innings to an end, but in a match dominated by the seamers little can be read into that. He simply has to be given another chance in Nottingham.
The batting order is still a deep concern. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley opened, as they did in the Caribbean, but Lees is in danger of falling into the trope of looking good but not scoring many runs. His second innings 20 was, according to Michael Vaughan on the BBC coverage, the best runs he’d seen him make for England so far but then he made a terrible decision to leave a Kyle Jamieson delivery that thumped into his stumps and left him looking foolish. Crawley, we’re always being told, has so much talent, and he does – that 267 against Pakistan two years ago and the hundred he made on the West Indies tour earlier this year are proof of that. He’s not been consistent enough, though, and has a James Vinceian tendency to get out the same way all the time (caught behind or in the slips trying a flashy drive). His average is under 30. It seems incredible that England haven’t found the right opening partnership since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook.
Zak Crawley so often looks the part but needs more consistent runs
Ollie Pope is another batter with undoubted talent. I have fond memories of his hundred in Johannesburg against South Africa, an innings that made him look every inch the Test player. He was brought into this match, however, as a number three – a position he’d never previously played in. Another couple of disappointing scores will not have helped to get certain sections of the public off his back.
This is something I have noticed with the England team of late. Whenever they dismiss a team cheaply, some fans will laud the excellent bowling. If an England batter should be out for a low score, however, it is always because they are not good enough and should be dropped. I was watching the run chase on television and thought that Crawley and Pope – Pope in particular – lost their wickets to brilliant pieces of bowling that they could have done little to prevent. The reaction online was that both were useless and pathetic. I wonder how many of these commenters had actually seen the dismissals at all, or whether they were just waiting to see the fall of their wickets so they could criticise them.
The next questionable member of the England top order was Jonny Bairstow. He had actually been one of the team’s form players this year, with a century in Sydney and Antigua, but had played no red ball cricket since the Caribbean tour because he’d been at the IPL. It was clear he hadn’t been able to switch his mindset away from the short forms, as a couple of scatty innings saw him bowled both times for not very many. One of the explanations often offered for why England seem to stick to the same underperforming batting line up is that there is no one else waiting in the wings. The early part of the county season has shown this to be untrue, with impressive performances from Harry Brook, Ben Compton and Josh Bohannon giving them genuine options. With the batting once again being spared its blushes by Root and Stokes, it feels like an opportunity was missed to give someone new a go at Lord’s.
On a happier note, Ben Foakes showed exactly why I’ve been calling for him to be in the side for years. As much as I love Jos Buttler, he just isn’t a Test match cricketer and through his immaculate wicket keeping and digging in to support Root in the run chase hopefully Foakes has cemented his place for the foreseeable future.
Ben Foakes provided perfect support for Root to see England to victory
All things considered, this would be the team I would pick for the second Test:
Alex Lees
Zak Crawley
Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes (c)
Ben Foakes (wk)
Matty Potts
Stuart Broad
James Anderson
Matt Parkinson
I think Lees is worth persisting with. I was thinking of replacing Crawley with Compton, but feel there was enough in his performance at Lord’s to give him another go. Dawid Malan is a name that hasn’t been mentioned much recently but he was harshly dropped after the Ashes tour, where he was actually one of England’s better batters. Brook is in amazing form and deserves to play ahead of Bairstow. Parkinson needs another go, even if Leach is fit. The rest of the side are assured of their places.
In fact, it’s highly unlikely that England will make any changes. As the old saying goes, ‘you don’t change a winning team’. What a pleasure it is to be positive about the England Test team again, to be writing about a win. In some ways we’ve learned very little – we’re still not sure about the top order, we know that Root is class and that Anderson and Broad are still the best – but in others we’ve learned a lot. Setting the summer up with a victory could be huge for this new England team. Let’s hope they can follow it up at Trent Bridge next week.
Broadcasting is another great interest of mine and it was nice to see Sky Sports back, showing their first live England Test since last September after a winter of BT Sport exclusivity. The commentary team has changed a lot since last year. Michael Holding has retired, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd has left, Rob Key is now the England men’s managing director of cricket and there was of course the tragic and untimely death of the great Shane Warne. Sky dedicated the whole Test to the Australian legend and his name was never far from anyone’s lips. The TV commentary box at Lord’s has been renamed after him and on the first morning the ribbon was cut live on the coverage. They also used the lunch breaks to show a documentary about Warne. 23 overs into the first day’s play there was an applause for him, a moving moment in which everyone on the field lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to commemorate an icon gone too soon.
When the Australian Mel Jones resumed commentating after the applause, it was with an emotional break in her voice that was shared by everyone. Jones was part of the commentary team alongside fellow Aussie Mark Taylor (great insight), Kiwi Simon Doull, England white ball captain Eoin Morgan and the stalwarts Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and Ian Ward. Even with Mark Butcher going down with Covid before the match, the Sky team is still the best in the business. Holding and Lloyd were the subject of another documentary, Voices of Summer, narrated by the brilliant Charles Colvile. I urge you to watch it, which if you can do here:
LEE PAYNE 