LEE PAYNE

Tag: stuart

  • My highlights of sport in 2023

    It’s hard to believe, but we are nearing the end of another year. Here are some of my highlights from watching sport in 2023.

    Football

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    This year has been one to forget for Norwich City. In fact, it’s been the club’s worst year since… well, last year. David Wagner was appointed as head coach in the first week of January, and I had a good deal of optimism about him, although I would have been optimistic about anyone after the horrors of Dean Smith. He started well, too, with a fitter squad banging in the goals – most notably in a 4-2 win at Coventry where they were 3-0 up after 18 minutes. Looking a good bet for the play-offs, the Canaries faded away badly, failing to win any of their last six games. The talisman that was Teemu Pukki played his final game for the club on the last day of the season at home to Blackpool; when he was substituted in the second half most of the crowd left well before the conclusion of the 1-0 defeat.

    A decent start to 2023-24 saw Norwich get three wins and a draw from their first four games (the draw being an incredible 4-4 at Southampton) but defeat at Rotherham and a serious injury to striker Josh Sargent set things on a negative course. Now, the club’s fans are divided, with occasional boos accompanying the frustrated sighs in the stands. Many want Wagner to be sacked, but the sporting director Stuart Webber has been the one to depart instead. Having announced that he would be leaving the club in June, there was a potential for him to remain in his post until March next year, but he left in November.

    Away from Norwich, Manchester City became only the second English club to win the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and the Champions League in the same season – although the other team to do it were their cross-city rivals United, back in 1999. Erling Haaland had been brought in to push City to the next level and boy, did he deliver. The Norwegian scored an incredible 36 league goals in his debut season. The celebrations after the 1-0 win against Inter Milan in the Champions League final were so raucous that Jack Grealish is probably still nursing his hangover.

    England’s women made it all the way to the final of the World Cup, just a year after so memorably winning the Euros on home soil. They were narrowly beaten by Spain in Sydney, but their victory was overshadowed somewhat by the controversy over the non-consensual kiss from the chief of the Spanish FA, Luis Rubiales, on the lips of captain Jenni Hermoso. So, after a month of showcasing the very best of the women’s game, all anybody could talk about was a creepy white bloke in a suit. Sigh.

    Cricket

    Photo by Patrick Case on Pexels.com

    England’s cricketers, fresh off the back of a 3-0 victory in Pakistan, started the year on the other side of the world, where they drew 1-1 with New Zealand. The “series” was the best advert yet for two-Test tours being banned – an epic finish in Wellington saw the hosts prevail by just one run. It was only the second time a Test match had been won by such a tight margin.

    By mid-June, the long-awaited Ashes were underway. England could have won both of the opening games, but Australia took a 2-0 lead to Headingley. Nathan Lyon and Pat Cummins stood tall to see Australia to their target at Edgbaston, then the tourists embarrassed themselves by throwing the stumps down to remove Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s, when everyone knew the ball was dead. Still, Ben Stokes almost pulled off a miracle. After that, Bazball well and truly came to the party. Only a day and a half of rain at Old Trafford prevented there being a decider at The Oval, but England made it 2-2 there anyway and saw Stuart Broad off into retirement on a high note. The Ashes are still with Australia, but having thrown away a 2-0 lead and still not won a Test series in England since 2001, we came out of it the better.

    The less said about the World Cup the better. England’s defence of their 2019 title was as unexpected as it was feeble – they lost to New Zealand, Afghanistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and Australia and finished 7th in the group stage. Their only victories came against Bangladesh, the Netherlands and a consolation win against Pakistan when both sides were already out. The hosts India won all nine of their group games and then the semi-final against New Zealand, only to lose to Australia in the final. The Aussies took home the World Cup for the 6th time. No one else has won it more than twice.

    Rugby Union

    Photo by Patrick Case on Pexels.com

    I have never been much of a rugby union fan, but I did enjoy watching the World Cup during September and October. The respect for the referee’s decisions from the players, and the clarity of the Touchline Match Official system, made a refreshing break from the vitriol and incompetence of football. England were unlucky to lose to the eventual champions South Africa in the semi-finals, though the quarter final between the Springboks and hosts France was the best game of rugby I have ever seen. Have a look at the highlights of that one below.

    Tennis

    Photo by Gonzalo Facello on Pexels.com

    Again, tennis isn’t one of my favourite sports but I do enjoy watching it now and again. Highlights from this year were Andy Murray, 36 years old and with a metal hip, battling through a number of five-set epics at the Australian Open in January and Carlos Alcaraz beating Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final.

  • David Wagner is Norwich City’s new manager – this is a watershed moment for the club

    The events of the last week will, I think, prove to be a watershed moment for Norwich City Football Club.

    Former Huddersfield manager David Wagner is the new man in charge of Norwich City

    The displeasure and the disconnect felt by the fans was not only about the club’s repeated inability to put up a fight in the Premier League. It was deeper than that. We felt like we were being taken for granted. The people in power had shut themselves away and lost touch with us. The head coach just didn’t seem to ‘get’ Norwich.

    I found myself in the unusual position of directly calling for the manager to be sacked. Norwich isn’t a club that is known for wielding the axe. A manager tends to be given enough – some might say more than enough – time to make their mark and see out a tough time. The end comes when a natural conclusion is reached.

    Only thirteen months into the job, however, Dean Smith had to go. Many were sceptical about his appointment in the first place. He would have had to hit the ground running to get those people on board. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn the atmosphere toxic.

    On the pitch, Smith failed. It is as simple as that. He was given the job to keep Norwich in the Premier League and they were relegated with a whimper, rock bottom. Then it was to get them straight back up. He left with the automatic promotion places a long way away.

    These players haven’t become bad all of a sudden. Several of them have won the Championship title twice with us before. It’s unrealistic to expect them to stroll to a third, but for that squad to be in mid table, looking average at best, is not good enough. Teemu Pukki is a striker with a proven record at this level who would be picked by any other team in the division, yet he is having a quiet season by his standards. Max Aarons had been touted for a lucrative move to some of the world’s biggest clubs, yet his form this season has seen him at times unable to get into the starting eleven. Marcelino Nunez arrived in the summer with a legion of fans in his native Chile, excited about their man showing the English game what he was capable of. He displayed his skill and flair early on but has gone off the boil as time has gone on. My only explanation for this is the way these players have been coached. Dean Smith (and his assistant, Craig “Shakey” Shakespeare) have taken good players and made them worse.

    The fans became bored of the ponderous, directionless style of play. As the situation came to a head, they would boo when the ball was played back to the centre halves or goalkeeper. We actually did a lot of playing out from the back under the much loved Daniel Farke, but it always felt like there was a purpose to it. We have memories of many beautiful goals, a culmination of tens of passes, to prove it. The football under Smith was too predictable, too easy to play against, too lacking in entertainment.

    When planning to write this, I looked up the records of Norwich’s previous managers and discovered that the percentage of games that we won under Smith (28.57%) was the worst for a permanent coach since the 27 game spell of Gary Megson (18.5%) in 1995-96.

    On the pitch, Smith was a write-off. He might be a ‘good bloke’ and a ‘good coach’ – the Aston Villa fans showered him with love when he first came to Norwich, but months down the line admitted that he didn’t really have a plan for a Villa side that didn’t have Jack Grealish in it. He will probably get another job soon (he has already been linked with the vacant position at Portsmouth) and enjoy some modest success. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy now he’s gone. Some managers fit a club and some don’t.

    The dull performances and bad results on the field made me refuse to go and watch our home games for two months. I saw the defeat to Luton on 18th October and didn’t return until the draw with Reading on 30th December, the first game after Smith’s sacking. But it wasn’t the actual football that hurt me the most.

    The relationship between a football club and its fans is special. Mess with it at your peril. It isn’t about eleven men or women trying to kick a ball into a net. Your football club represents your home. It represents you. For a lot of us, the team’s achievements are our achievements. We feel personal success when they do well.

    Norwich is special. The people of this fine city, this fine isolated city, are fiercely proud of it. That is reflected in the football club. We are a club that has always done things differently, where the fans have not been treated as customers but as the lifeblood of the whole thing.

    Daniel Farke completely got that. It might seem shallow, but the way he would always applaud every section of the stadium at the end of a game made us feel valued. I was never expecting Dean Smith to wave his arms around and give it the full “olé” to all four corners of Carrow Road, but the bloke never even came on the pitch. It was just a small sign that he was there to work with the players and not with us. He probably never saw it that way but that’s how it felt. That approach never had a long term future at Norwich City.

    Daniel Farke always showed his appreciation for the Norwich fans

    Smith didn’t seem to like us and his uninspiring press conferences didn’t help either. I became resentful. I didn’t want to look down from the Barclay and see him on the touchline as the face of my club. I used my platform, a column once a month in the Eastern Daily Press, to say the club needed a new manager. I did it twice, actually, and the second time I was stronger. Strong enough that I wondered if they would print it without toning it down. To their credit they did. I obviously had no part to play in Smith leaving, the tide was already going that way, but a week after the second column he was sacked. I could look at my club with optimism again.

    The most pleasing thing, for me, was something that the sporting director Stuart Webber said in an interview with Sky Sports on Monday:

    “I’ve been here for six years. I’ve had a great time here, a great fanbase with great numbers that turn up. But I probably didn’t appreciate quite how important that connection between the head coach and the fanbase until it wasn’t there. 

    I’d only known that with Daniel (Farke). We finished 14th in the first season but ultimately the fans wanted to believe in him because the fans had that connection. 

    It’s not about having a happy clapper that walks on to the pitch to keep the fans happy because that doesn’t work if there’s no substance behind his work. 

    We as a football club have to be aware that it’s important we get someone that really understands the community, the fanbase because it’s a little bit unique in that respect.” 

    — Stuart Webber

    It seems that, at last, the penny may have dropped. It is not enough to just bring in a manager with strong footballing credentials, they have to be able to connect with the fans.

    A shiver went down my spine when I heard the names of Steve Bruce and Chris Wilder mentioned. Two men I certainly don’t want leading my club. But it would appear that they were only rumours, and rumours that were always wide of the mark.

    In the end, Webber has returned to someone he has worked with before. Someone he has had success with before. Someone born in Germany. Someone who has previously managed Borussia Dortmund’s reserve team.

    Alas, it’s not a stunning return for Daniel Farke. It’s actually a friend of his and his predecessor in that Dortmund job. It’s David Wagner.

    Wagner is best known in this country for his time in charge of Huddersfield Town, where he led them to a surprise Premier League promotion via the play-offs in 2017 and then, even more impressively, kept them there with a successful battle against relegation. It was the first time Huddersfield had been in the top flight since 1972. He left in the January of Huddersfield’s second Premier League season with the club eight points adrift of safety, but he remains well liked for his achievements in West Yorkshire and for the Gegenpressing style of play he implemented.

    In Wagner, Norwich have a manager in place who is hungry for success after a couple of short spells at Schalke and Swiss side Young Boys. He is likely to have a clear plan for how he wants his team to play, and that plan is likely to have Pukki licking his lips. He will also have the backing of the fans.

    This feels right. It feels like it might work. We might just have the manager we need. And if out of all of this we have a hierarchy that will never again underestimate the importance of the fans to Norwich City, these are good times indeed.

  • A winning start: what I learned from the Lord’s Test

    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:

    1. Alex Lees
    2. Zak Crawley
    3. Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
    4. Joe Root
    5. Harry Brook
    6. Ben Stokes (c)
    7. Ben Foakes (wk)
    8. Matty Potts
    9. Stuart Broad
    10. James Anderson
    11. 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:

  • Aston Villa!? Norwich City are taking a risk selling Emi Buendia

    On Saturday, the news broke that Emi Buendia would be sold by Norwich City.

    Less than a month after the end of the season, they were no longer rumours. My first reaction was disappointment. I was desperate for Norwich to keep their most creative player, believing him to be crucial to our hopes of staying in the Premier League.

    My second reaction was surprise at his destination. This brilliant, skillful, tenacious midfielder with most of his career still ahead of him. One of the best players Norwich have ever had, one who can make things happen and do things that other players just can’t. One who has just made it into the Argentina squad for the first time, surely to hang around for a long time to come. His new club? Aston Villa.

    I felt sure that, with Premier League football now on offer at Carrow Road, were Buendia to leave it would be to a club in a European competition. When Arsenal (who will not play in any of the three European competitions next season) were touted as his next club, I said he could do better than them – and I meant it.

    Buendia is rough around the edges, not the complete package by any means. He can win games on his own but if he’s having an off day he can quickly get frustrated. When that happens, he can be a bit of a passenger. Also, he tends to be so much better than his opponents that the only way they can stop him is by kicking him around the pitch. Occasionally, Buendia will react to this harsh treatment and more than once got himself sent off.

    The talent is undoubtedly there, however, and I am convinced he will reach the very top. Which is why I am rather surprised that he has chosen mid-table Villa, and their not exactly inspiring manager, as the next step in his career. Having said that, I wish him every success (apart from when he plays against us) and I am grateful for the three years we had him.

    From Norwich’s point of view, Buendia’s sale has come relatively early in the summer and the club have plenty of time to invest the transfer fee in new players to replace him. It’s a sizeable fee, too. City have an irritating policy of labelling all of their transfer dealings as ‘undisclosed’ fees, but Aston Villa are reportedly paying an initial £33m with another £5m potentially coming if certain, though unspecified, performance criteria are met. Should he move from Villa to the big club I expected him to in the first place, Norwich will benefit once again from a 10% sell-on fee.

    This makes the 24-year-old comfortably Norwich’s biggest sale. Until 2018, the club had never sold a player for £20m or more. They have since sold three – James Maddison to Leicester, Ben Godfrey to Everton and now Buendia. In an interview with the BBC last week, sporting director Stuart Webber said that if the club sold one of their top players the figure is ‘probably going to start with a number three in front of it’ and ‘we’re really relaxed on that front’. He has been true to his word.

    It is reassuring that this doesn’t appear to have come as a shock to the people in power at Carrow Road. While I was hoping they would stick their heels in, refuse to sell Buendia and build the team around him to take on the Premier League – like Villa did with Jack Grealish – the relaxed response from Webber suggests that new faces are already being lined up. I thought it would be worth our while spending a fair bit convincing Buendia to stay for just one more season, and that it would be much easier to replace Max Aarons if the club needed a big sale. For the size of the fee, we could potentially buy three players to replace the one we have sold. Speaking of Grealish, I imagine Villa must be expecting to sell him this summer now and have bought Buendia to take his place.

    I do think Norwich have taken a risk in selling their star man. Buendia created an incredible number of chances in the Premier League last time, considering he was in the side that finished bottom. It will be difficult to find someone with as much creativity in midfield as him. It’s hard for me not to believe that our chances of staying up next season have taken a hit. However, if we’ve learned one thing in the four years since Webber and Farke took over, it’s that they know what they are doing and to question their judgement often leaves you looking a fool.

  • Talking points from England’s brilliant win in the second Test

    England beat the West Indies by 113 runs in the second Test at Old Trafford

    The first international cricket played since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has not disappointed. The Test series between England and the West Indies is level at 1-1 going into the final match on Friday after the home side completed a superb 113 run win today. Here are a few talking points I’ve found from the second Test.

    First innings runs were key

    England were bowled out for 204 in their first innings in the first Test at the Rose Bowl, a match they went on to lose by 4 wickets. They arrived at Old Trafford knowing they needed to post a bigger total and they did so, amassing 469-9 before declaring on the second evening. It was slow going – they took 162 overs to score those runs and Dom Sibley’s 120 came from 372 balls, the third slowest ever by an England batsman in a home Test. I have read a few pieces criticising Sibley for batting too slowly – frankly, that’s ridiculous. England have been crying out for a solid opening batsman ever since the retirement of Alastair Cook and now they’ve got one we must not start moaning at him. Remember, they tried to turn limited overs opener Jason Roy into a Test batsman last summer and the experiment was a total failure. The value of building a big first innings total cannot be overestimated, no matter how slowly it comes.

    Dom Sibley batted for more than nine hours in scoring his first innings century

    Stokes just gets better and better

    What a cricketer Ben Stokes is. We already knew that after last year – England would not have won the World Cup without his innings in the final and he batted them to a quite simply miraculous victory in the Ashes Test at Headingley. The way he has resurrected his career since that incident in Bristol could have so easily killed it has been incredible, and how lucky we are that we haven’t lost a player of his calibre.

    Ben Stokes was the man of the match

    In the first innings Stokes scored 176, but said he was ‘more buzzing’ to have faced 300 balls in his innings because ‘it’s something I never thought I would be capable of doing’. In the second innings, when England were looking for quick runs to set up a winning position, Stokes was sent in as opener and cracked 78 off just 57 balls. Later in the day, after fielding a ball on the boundary off his own bowling at one point, he took the crucial wicket of Jermaine Blackwood on the stroke of Tea – just as the West Indies looked like they might be settling in for the draw. Stokes is quite simply indispensable.

    Write off Broad at your peril

    Stuart Broad was dropped for the first Test at the Rose Bowl, the first time that had happened to him in a home Test for eight years. The 34-year-old said he was ‘frustrated, angry and gutted’ to have been left out, so when he was brought back at Old Trafford while James Anderson and Mark Wood were rested he was determined to prove a point. On the fourth afternoon, with the draw the most likely result, Broad took 3 wickets for one run with the new ball to turn the game in England’s favour. He took 3-42 in the second innings. His powers are certainly not waning and he is now just nine away from 400 Test wickets.

    Stuart Broad is closing in on 400 Test wickets

    Who do England pick for the third Test?

    The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the English cricket season to include six Test in seven weeks, and the third Test against the West Indies starts in just four days’ time. Do England go with the same eleven, adhering to the old adage that you ‘never change a winning team’? Or are there decisions to be made?

    The batting line up was impressive in the second match, putting a big total on the board in the first innings and being versatile enough to whack 129 in just 19 overs in the second. In Rory Burns and Sibley they have two solid openers, Zak Crawley looks a decent prospect at number three although he is still finding his feet, Ollie Pope is a fantastic young talent and they are all supported by the experienced heads of Stokes and the captain Joe Root, who returned for the second match having missed the first to be at the birth of his daughter.

    The England team and the selectors clearly love having Jos Buttler around, but he just doesn’t seem good enough with the bat in Test cricket to warrant a place in the side. Especially not when a top keeper and perfectly good batsman in Ben Foakes is waiting in the wings. Buttler is a magnificent player in the shorter formats but he still only has one Test century to his name in 43 matches. He was given the perfect opportunity to go full on One Day mode in the second innings as he was sent in to open with Stokes but played on for 0. It won’t happen but I’d pick Foakes ahead of him.

    England may be tempted to bring back Jofra Archer for the decider

    It would seem like insanity to drop Broad again so the question is whether Chris Woakes, Sam Curran or indeed both make way for Anderson, Wood or Jofra Archer. Archer would have played in the second match had he not breached the bio-secure protocols that have enabled this series to take place at all by popping home to Sussex before arriving in Manchester. His pace would no doubt have caused problems to the West Indies batsmen, and England may be tempted to bring him in.

    All in all, this was a superb Test victory for England and one of the most entertaining final days you could ever wish to see. With the whole of Saturday washed out by rain, the home side have done brilliantly well to force a positive result and it feels like they may now have the momentum heading into the third match, which will decide the winners of the Wisden Trophy.

  • This is how England could win back the Ashes

    Craig Overton was the last man out at Old Trafford as Australia retained the Ashes

    Australia arrived in England as holders of the Ashes urn and will leave with it still in their possession. Taking the last of the eight wickets they needed to win on the final day of the Old Trafford Test saw them go 2-1 up in what has been a thrilling series with one match left to play.

    The England team captained by Andrew Strauss in 2010-11 was the last visiting side to claim the urn. Should they avoid defeat at The Oval, Australia will have won an Ashes series in England for the first time since 2001 and in doing so inflict England’s first defeat in any home Test series since 2014.

    This is how England can go about winning the Ashes back next time.

    Read the rest of this article on Read Cricket.

  • What England can take from the Sri Lanka Tests

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    England beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in the Test series

    England have become only the third team ever to go to Sri Lanka and whitewash them in a Test series. They may not have their great players any more, such as Mahela Jayawardene or Kumar Sangakkara, but Sri Lanka remain a very difficult opponent in their own conditions. They beat South Africa 2-0 in a Test series back in July, thrashing the Proteas in both matches, so it is without a doubt a fine effort from Joe Root’s team. Here I have picked out five key things for England to take away from the tour.

    Openers

    Rory Burns was the popular choice to succeed Alastair Cook at the top of the order, but he leaves Sri Lanka with only one half century to his name. Burns is probably best suited to facing pace bowling, which there was precious little of in this series. He needs to be given the chance to show what he can do in the Caribbean, and I can see him opening the batting in next summer’s Ashes.

    Keaton Jennings might have considered himself fortunate to be on the tour but there was a logic to his selection. He is actually a very competent player of spin, and he showed that in his century in the second innings in Galle. Jennings is much maligned and clearly has a weakness against seam bowling, so it’s hard to tell whether he’ll be lining up against Australia next year. What is not in doubt, though, is his fielding ability – some of the catches he took at short leg over the three Tests were nothing short of ridiculous.

    Number 3

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    Jonny Bairstow made a statement with his century in Colombo

    England have not had a settled number 3 in the batting order since the retirement of Jonathan Trott, and it remains a problem position for them. I suppose this links in with how fragile the openers have been, as the next man in has had to do a lot of the early work. They used three different batsmen in the role in the three Tests – Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow. Moeen just doesn’t seem to be up to it, Stokes was only given the one chance, but Bairstow made the most of his opportunity with a hundred in Colombo.

    He might not even have been picked for the match if Sam Curran had been fit, but the Yorkshireman was clearly determined to make a point after slipping out of the side following his ankle injury. The injury, picked up during a game of football, prompted a lot of moaning about cricketers warming up in such a way. The fact is, Bairstow could have turned his ankle over anywhere – walking down the stairs in the team hotel, for example. Football is a good way of loosening up the muscles and getting the blood flowing, and the players love it. Personally, I think a lot of the complaints had a snobbish air to them. A lot of people don’t want the gentleman cricketers playing such a common game. There has also been the frankly ridiculous argument that ‘you never see footballers warming up with a game of cricket’. Well, if cricket was a proven way to prepare the body for exercise, you may well have done.

    Whether Bairstow is England’s number 3 going forward is not clear. He may just have been so set on scoring big runs in the third Test that he would have made them wherever he batted in the order. I do think he will be in the position in the West Indies, and this may have to be his new role in the team now it looks like he won’t be getting the wicketkeeping gloves back.

    Wicketkeeper

    Ben Foakes was the best thing about the tour for England. He had been on the fringes of the team for a while, without ever breaking into it. Having not even been in the squad when it was initially announced, few would have expected him to end up the leading run scorer in the series. But he started off superbly in Galle with a debut century, showing the top order how to bat, and has made wicketkeeping a thing of beauty with his flawless glovework. Sorry Jonny, but England have found their wicketkeeper. Foakes has been widely regarded as the best gloveman in the country for a while now, and in the year he was a county champion with Surrey things are certainly going well for him.

    Adil Rashid

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    Adil Rashid took career best figures in Colombo but is a luxury bowler

    England played three spinners in every Test in the series, and it is hard to imagine them doing that anywhere other than the subcontinent. Moeen Ali, Jack Leach and Adil Rashid all had major roles to play, bowling the vast majority of the overs and taking nearly all the wickets. Moeen found a happy knack of getting regular wickets, and was vital in the second innings in Galle to seal the win for England when it looked like Sri Lanka had a chance. Leach is a very tidy bowler, and took his maiden five wicket haul in the second Test. He also seems to love every second of playing for England, pretty much to the point of not being able to stop smiling, which is great to see. Rashid bowled the fewest overs of the three spinners, and goes for a lot more runs than the other two, but he showed his worth with a five-for in Colombo which enabled England to take control of the match.

    Rashid looks the most likely to miss out when conditions necessitate more seamers in the side. He is something of a luxury spinner, who will bowl the occasional unplayable delivery but will leak runs in the meantime. Moeen will probably be in the side more often than not, as he will nearly always take wickets and England like players who can do a bit of everything. Leach looks like he could well be the long term spinner in the side, the kind of go-to bowler that Graeme Swann was. His ability to keep it tight and hold up an end will be very useful.

    Anderson and Broad

    While the Sri Lanka tour has been very successful, it has taught us nothing about how England will deal with life after Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. Anderson played in the first two Tests and took just the one wicket – not unexpected in a country with conditions that so favour spin bowling. Broad came in for the last match and bowled only 14 wicketless overs. Many saw the Colombo Test as the opportunity to give Ollie Stone a go, with the series already won and the pressure off. There was an argument for this, but it’s hard to see what knowledge of Stone we would have gained from playing him in such difficult conditions. Decisions will have to be made sooner rather than later as Anderson and Broad head towards retirement but I am really not sure Sri Lanka was ever going to be the place to find solutions.