My Work
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 219
March 2021
Miller Matters
It now seems a long time ago that Douglas Miller sent me these notes during the first test at Chennai
In the last edition the Professor told us “that he rises at four and shivers under a blanket while watching the cricket from the subcontinent. I realise, of course, that it is possible to record the match and watch it later during the day but I feel sure no such lightweight supporters are numbered among Googlies readers”. I would like to take him to task because that is exactly what I do. It is surely not a requirement of readers that they should be mad. I rise at my normal hour, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and then go to the cricket. And each day I think how much more comfortable I am than the Professor. I also muse to myself that the lovely Judith is far too sensible to be sitting alongside her man on the sofa.
I think, too, of the Professor having to endure an ever-repeating selection of advertisements for Go Compare, Bet 365 and the rest, while I am able to fast forward past the lot, also treating Sir Alastair Cook and other pundits as optional fare. It is not all plain sailing, this recording business. The outcome at the end of the day’s play has to remain secret or all may be lost. Yet homing instincts seem built into my television set whereby I am taken straight to the action as it happens before I can reach the Planner with its carefully commissioned recordings. I encounter this hazard regardless of how my viewing ended the night before. I had thought myself safe in making Sky News my goodnight station, but the system somehow seems to know better. I try to shut it off without taking in a score – with no guarantee of success. Am I a victim of the modern cookie-oriented world in which some malign gremlin purports to know better than I how I wish to plan my life? What is it planning to sell me?
Lockdown otherwise works well for the recording tactic. However, one must guard against early opening of emails for fear of cheery sign offs. ‘Just finished watching the cricket - slightly disappointed by England's second innings………….’ Thus, one friend closes a message sent at what, for me, was still the morning session. The telephone, too, brings similar risks of early disclosure. It was a relief for once to know that a morning caller’s only interest was in drawing to my attention grants for loft insulation, while the chairman of the residents’ association mercifully left it until mid-afternoon before discussing the inadequacies of the service contract for the lift. ‘Pity about the evening session,’ he commented. ‘Not that bad’ I might have replied had I known that, even as we were talking, Rohit had fallen to Leach.
I write as we all await Day 5 at Chennai. I shall press the send button before they take the field with predictions that may prove prescient or comical. Will England win? Good question. The problem we face is that India’s batsmen are better than ours – Shubman Gill is more assured than any of our young ones – and we cannot match Ashwin as a bowler. Add to this that Archer is a waste of space unless bowling faster than Anderson, which he wasn’t today – nothing above 140. The prognosis is not good. We are in the dominant position because we won the toss and Root once again played out of his skin.
Should we have pressed on earlier? Was it not just too subtle purporting to plan for a still relatively hard ball at the start of the day? I fear it was, though we weekend club cricketers know little of the strains of a full day in the field in searing heat. Still, a world record chase should be beyond even Kohli and the rest on a turning pitch. So how will it end? I am going for the draw with Pujara batting long enough to snuff out hopes of an England victory and Pant reaching the crease too late to threaten a win for India – and a slogger of this kind should not succeed twice in the same mach. A tame draw in the end, then, with England’s chances looking forlorn by teatime and no repeat of the Cape Town Test at which, come to think of it, I last saw the Professor.
I couldn’t let Douglas get away with this and so I prompted him to supply a postscript
I must confess that I am a lousy predictor. As a keen follower of golf, I have an amazingly bad record for saying whether or not a 10 foot putt will drop. So it is just as well that I noticed early in life that bookmakers always appeared better shod than their clients.
This dodgy background as a fortune-teller, fortified by a passionate wish to avoid tempting fate, led me to a prediction that has proved well wide of the mark. I offer no excuses except to say that cricket is a game in which one marginal decision can swing the outcome of a match. Yet England’s win was more secure than that. In a match of generally excellent umpiring my (far from impartial) view was that Rahane was out. Yet it mattered not a jot as his off stump went cartwheeling next ball.
I forgo the humble pie in the joy of victory. How much did I get wrong? Well Pujara didn’t last long and Pant never challenged. I had not dared speak of Kohli, yet no batsman has put me more in mind of Bradman. Name dropping, and why not in these columns, in 2016 I was at Mumbai in the committee area of the pavilion courtesy of the late ML Apte, relishing England’s imminent supremacy. Having made 400, we had India 364 for 7. Match evenly poised? Well yes, and we were talking about how our openers should consolidate a promising position given that India would be batting last. Just one snag: that India score was to become 605 for 8 (Kohli 235, Jayant Yadav 104). England lost the match by an innings. Worse was to come at Chennai: England 477 (Moeen Ali 146), India 211 for 3, both Pujara and Kohli gone with but 31 between them and the pair at the crease labelled walking wickets. KL Rahul then made 199 (letting himself down with petulance at his dismissal) and Nair ended 303 not out. Liam Dawson – remember him? – 2 for 129. We lost by an innings again.
One learns to respect these Indians. I think of another Dawson - Richard, just 21 and playing his second Test – being despatched at will around the stadium at Ahmedabad by Sachin Tendulkar. These are painful memories and the scarring influences predictions. Surely, I reasoned, an attack built around Leach and Bess will struggle. How wrong one can be! On one other matter I may also have erred. Archer, it seems, can do a Woakes-like job without breaking sweat to bowl above 135 kph and still get occasional lift.
So where do we go from here? Laying optimism to one side, I suspect we shall struggle to win again. I hope with all my heart that I am wrong and that the Professor has more stirring deeds to applaud from beneath his blanket.
In and Within
The Professor has a lot to get off his chest
Well, I suppose it must have pleased some people. People, perhaps, for whom the length of an ODI runs right to the limit of their attention spans. Who think that shorter is better? That less cricket is better than more. But for the rest of us, the last Test was so poor as to verge on being pointless. In fact, the last two Test pitches have crossed the limit of what could reasonably be regarded as home advantage. There is a reason why groundsmen have, over the last couple of centuries, mown, watered, rolled, fertilised and generally spent a large proportion of their waking hours on the square preparing pitches for the game to be played on. But if the outcome of their labours is a pitch like that for the second Chennai Test then, frankly, why bother. Why not just put some stumps on the outfield and play there. As we all saw, the ball exploded off the surface from the first overs. Great eruptions of dust and dirt jumped off the ground where each ball pitched: not from “footmarks” – there weren’t any yet– but from a length on the stumps. I haven’t read of an apology or of any embarrassment but only that India scored runs on it – so there.
But we all know why India scored runs in that Test: they have gifted players, especially of spin bowling, and the English spinners were dreadful. So poor, that Bess, the first-choice spinner in South Africa, was unselectable for Ahmedabad. That we bowled dreadfully does not exonerate the pitch. The depressingly supine commentators were clearly too nervous or too much concerned for their jobs, to say what we could all see. There was a litany of pusillanimous euphemisms about the ability of the bowlers in getting the ball to turn and a steadfast refusal to describe what we were actually seeing. Just a couple of times the stance slipped and Butcher could not restrain himself from this collective cognitive dissonance (“That one just spat out of, err, the rubble”) but for the rest all was bland myopia.
So, let’s do their work for them. The Chennai pitch was the worst I have ever seen. Not for a Test match or a county game… ever. For a club match, or a pub match or anything, anywhere. I’ve seen all those games being played on The Maidan in Mumbai on pitches that appear to be used day after day without a great deal of repair, games in side streets in Kolkata, games in car parks in Sri Lanka or Townships in South Africa, - nothing compares. Has any Googlies reader seen a worse pitch anywhere? I was sent a piece by Michael Atherton where he defended the pitch (after a fashion) by saying that it wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t – and nobody ever said it was. The issue was never danger, so why even mention it?
The issue was the surface. I thought Gavaskar’s comments were the most unctuous. There was seemingly little wrong with pitch: “you expect it to turn in India”, it was just that the English batsmen couldn’t play spin, moreover: “no one ever complains about green-tops in England”. Stepping aside from the childish tit-for-tat and the implied racial unfairness (and Gavaskar has form in this department – remember the accusation against Mike Procter), we all know that English batsmen are less able against spin than their counterparts, that does not make an exploding surface a good one or an acceptable one for any level of cricket. I wonder what Gavaskar, who has never been reticent of opinion, would have had to say when he walked out to bat for Edmonton, if he saw such a surface. How long would the groundsman have kept his job? As for the “green-tops”, they are, I suggest, approaching mythological status. I don’t think there has been one for an English Test since Rice and Hadley left Trent Bridge and Notts decided to invest in a lawnmower. English Test grounds need the revenue from five days. The only plain, straightforward remark I heard was from Jonathon Agnew who put the whole issue as succinctly as need be: “They might as well play on the beach”.
But I was happy to put this little spat of invective behind me and settle down at a more civilised time to see the game from the magnificent stadium of Ahmedabad on a pitch that looked much better. Oh dear. The stadium was, indeed, magnificent, but the pitch, perhaps because it was quicker, was even worse. One would hope that the victory in the third Test might be a pyrrhic one, that there would be such a comeback from the ICC that something approaching a Test strip would be prepared for future games. I doubt it is a hope that will be fulfilled. But is it worth playing a Test which lasts 140 overs rather than the designated 450? Is a match over, in effect, by “tea” on Day 2, a “test” of any sort? Other than the credulity of the public, of course. Does anybody benefit from a two-day Test, apart from the winning side that is – and those with short attention spans. And if winning is all there is, then, well…play on the beach.
This and That
It looks like another case of Tour Madness. The Ahmedabad track had to favour spin after the second test and so England go in with four seamers and one spinner. India opted predictably with 2 and 3. Why is Bess on the tour if he is not to play? Moeen’s departure always seemed odd after just one game. The real reason was revealed last week when he picked up a £700k contract at the IPL. Presumably, he had got the nod that he was being bought and so decided he wanted some time at home before going back to India for the serious stuff.
I don’t think that Root planned to bowl himself as a serious second spinner. He ran through all the seamers in spells first and clearly, they were expected to do the work. However, going forward, if he does become a front-line spinner the selection options change significantly. Perhaps they could even pick a proper wicketkeeper. Incidentally, it should be noted that England stretched their defeat out to session three on day 2 only as a result of their appallingly low over rate (11 overs an hour).
I never really thought of South Hampstead as a small ground when I played there. I suspect that the playing area was no bigger at Shepherds Bush. In those days a match would often take place without any sixes being hit and more than a couple would be very rare. I recently had my annual phone call with Bob Peach and he was bewailing the damage cost of balls sailing out of the ground. The insurers require high netting which costs around £50k and there is a high excess on all claims. The balls now frequently hit the roofs of neighbouring houses removing tiles (£500 a go) and also bounce off parked cars (depends on age make and model). Today’s young players are brought up on a diet of large bats and T20 and emulation, as always, is the order of the day.
In the T20 tournaments the sartorial style is now for drain pipe trousers which presumably have some elastic in the fabric mix to facilitate flexibility. Much mirth ensued in the commentary box (Graeme Swann) when Imran Tahir appeared in someone else’s pair which finished halfway down his calves. A baggier version still seems to be preferred, thankfully, for test cricket.
The afternoons during the latest round of Lockdown days have been occupied by the IPL, the LPL, Abu Dhabi T10 and now the PSL. I was a little surprised when George told me that he had been watching the Big Bash which he explained was being shown on BT Sport which he claimed he subscribed to in order to watch the rugby. He was singing the praises of James Vince who was second to Alex Hales in the list of run scorers in this competition. It turns out that only Babar Azam has scored more in this form of the game than these two in the last couple of years. All three of these have already made a significant contribution with the bat in the PSL.
With Hales, Vince, Joe Clarke and Kohler-Cadmore in fabulous T20 form it will be interesting to see whether any of them get selected for England. Present incumbents are not playing and Roy’s recent history is poor. We know that Morgan benefits from no practice but what about the rest?
I quickly got used to the ten over format in the Abu Dhabi T10 and found that the T20 matches seemed quite long afterwards…One of the fun aspects of the T10 was the pairings for opening the batting. The most incongruous was Gayle and Sterling. Gayle languid and effortless, Sterling all effort, puff and sweating. Gayle scored a record fastest 50 from 12 balls in an innings of 84 from 22 balls, only to have the feat equalled in the next match by Waseem Muhammad.
One of the pleasures of watching home test matches recently has been the absence of David Gower from the commentary teams. I assumed that he had retired back to his wine cellar. The absence of his inane comments and irritating chuckle were welcome. Imagine my surprise when he turned up as one of the commentary team for the PSL. He is still as dull as ever and cannot compete with the ebullience of Danny Morrison and Dominic Cork.
All of these competitions feature home grown players, youngsters and a limited number of overseas stars. It is a great learning scenario for all and the background staff are equally impressive. In the PSL the Karachi Kings have Andy Flower, Mushtaq Ahmed and Azhar Mahmood in the dugout. In general, there is much encouragement and support for each other. Except that is from Sarfaraz the former Pakistan captain and Quetta Gladiators captain. After each ball he berated and bollocked his bowlers and fielders as he pointed out their weaknesses and errors.
Leg Spinners hardly featured in the Abu Dhabi T10 but they continue to have a major presence in the T20 competitions. Qais Ahmed has impressed and the latest newcomer is Usman Qadir son of Abdul. The batsmen haven’t worked out his googly yet and so he is great fun to watch. It is noteworthy that neither India nor England have included a leg spinner in their test sides so far. A few years ago the finger spinners looked dead and now they dominate. Of course, the big difference at the international level is VRS which affects the way that the batsmen have to play them.
At Chittagong the West Indies beat Bangladesh by scoring 395 for 7 in the fourth innings. Debutants Kyle Mayers (210 not out) and Nkrumah Bonner ( 86) were the principal contributors. This was the fifth highest run chase in test history.
Australia have failed to qualify for the World test championship following the cancellation of their tour to South Africa. England join them as onlookers following their defeats in India.
Morgan Matters
England's 2nd Test in India is likely to be their first game in front of spectators for more than a year. The 50,000 capacity stadium in Chennai could be allowed to accommodate 25,000 fans.
QPR in away win sensation! Yes and not just any old away win either as struggling Rs won 1-2 at promotion chasing Watford with goals from Austin and Adomah (who got the winner after 89 mins). Rs are now 7 points clear of the relegation places. However, the G told us nothing whatsoever about the match, which failed to get a mention even in the "round up"! However, Watford are featured, not because they contrived to lose to Rs, but because they have signed Bergkamp (son of Dennis) and Pochettino (son of Mauricio).
Anderson's "magic" over is getting a lot of attention in the G (and elsewhere) with J Root, A Bull and A Martin all saying how wonderful it was... shame it was bowled while I was still in bed really! England have now won all of their last 6 Tests away from home: 3 in SA, 2 in SL and 1 in India. J Root is now level with M Vaughan at the top of the most Test wins as England captain table with 26, A Strauss and A Cook are joint 3rd with 24.
Tanya Aldred in today's G says that "the wicket-keeping swap does, arguably diminish England's batting", but I have just looked at the latest career batting averages that I have available (Playfair 2019) and at that time Foakes's career batting average (40.64) was considerably better than Buttler's (32.79)... and I have pointed this out to the G. In the same issue, Simon Burnton has a long article on Graeme Fowler that quotes him saying "I went from scoring 200 for England to the Lancashire second XI".
E Smith says that A Hales could be back to training with the England limited overs squad this summer indicating he might be in line for a recall for the T20 WC in Oct.
I got back from the papershop this am just in time to watch the last ball of the Test, which was Moeen having a wild yahoo and being comfortably stumped as Eng lost by 317. England managed 134 a/o (A Patel 5-60). Moeen did not have such a bad match (6 and 43 with the bat and 4-128 and 4-98 with the ball) but he has chosen to miss the last 2 Tests to "get out of the bubble", dunno what that means exactly, but if I were trapped in a bubble, I suppose I would want to get out as well!
C Silverwood is insisting that Test cricket is Eng's priority despite the rotation policy and the suggestion that players could play in the IPL rather than the first Test v NZ this summer. Seven all-format Eng players have missed Tests this winter while E Morgan's side will be at full strength for the T20 series.
Rs had a surprising 2-1 win over 2nd place local rivals Brentford last night. The Bees went ahead on 30 mins, but Sam Field (72 mins) and Charlie Austin (76), both on loan from WBA, gave Rs an unexpected victory. Great to get a win, of course and a rise to 16th (especially against promotion chasing local rivals), but I would be slightly happier if our heroes were actually Rs players rather than loanees.
IPL: Moeen has been sold to Chennai for £700k, T Curran has gone to Delhi Capitals for £520k, D Malan to Punjab Kings for £150k, S Billings and L Livingstone have also been snapped up but we are not told who got them. P Stirling will make his debut for Islamabad United in the Pak Super League this Sunday, while M Wood has withdrawn from the PSL auction.
S Curran is out of the India Tests because there are no flights to take him to Ahmedabad, so he will go straight to the T20 and ODI location along with other limited overs players.
The March Cricketer tells us:
That C4 is getting many more viewers for their coverage of the India v England Test series than Sky were getting for their coverage of England's Tests in Sri Lanka.
Jimmy Harris is the new Chairman of the Professional Cricketers' Association, replacing Daryl Mitchell.
Sydney Thunder coach Shane Bond thinks that Alex Hales has been punished "way too much" for his use of recreational drugs and he topped the Big Bash run charts with 543 at a strike rate of 161.
In the second Test at Galle, England became the first team to take 10 wickets with seam bowling in the first innings and 10 wickets with spin in the second innings of a Test and in doing so they emulated their achievement in the final Ashes Test at the Oval in 2019 when they became the first team to dismiss the opposition twice in a Test with no bowlers who took wickets in the first innings taking wickets in the second. Kagiso Rabada became the fourth youngest bowler to take 200 Test wickets during SA's first Test v Pakistan at Karachi and he needed the third fewest balls to get there (8,154) behind Waqar Younis (7,725) and Dale Steyn (7,848).
Jos Buttler's stumping of Dilruwan Perera off Jack Leach in the first Test at Galle was his first in Test cricket after 114 catches in Tests, which puts him second behind Dave Richardson (SA) who took 119 catches before his first stumping in Tests.
The Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad is now the biggest cricket ground in the world with a capacity of 110,000, 10,000 more than the MCG.
Commentators: it has been interesting for me to listen for the first time to Graeme Swann on C4's TV Test coverage... I thought he was quite good. I expect I will soon read how common 2-day Tests are, but I think they must be quite rare? Yep! I have just looked at the Beeb's teletext and I can tell you that this was England's first defeat inside 2 days since 1921... 100 years ago! And it was the shortest Test in terms of balls bowled since 1935.
I do not think that England have had enough stick yet for picking such an inappropriate team: 4 seamers in India is ridiculous, isn't it? The seamers' figures were 27-13-79-1 and the spinners returned 33.2-6-102-9! I think Root takes most of the blame for this. Looking at the batting, Crawley made 53 in the match, Root 36 and Stokes 31 and nobody else made more than 20 (Foakes). Bairstow had a horrific match failing to get off the mark in either innings and he played some awful-looking shots as well. Pope managed double figures in the second innings but looked as bad as Bairstow to me.
England’s overseas record
Robin Brodhurst sent me this
England’s recent success in Galle caused many commentators to remark that England had won four Test matches overseas in a row, the first time that this had been achieved since 1957. It immediately made me go to my bookshelves to examine this record, and the resulting evening of exploration prompts this article. The initial claim is certainly true. Since 1918 England have only twice before managed four overseas victories in a row: 1928-29, winning the first 4 in Australia, and then 1955-57 over two different series, two against New Zealand in 1954-55, and two against South Africa in 1956-57. It is quite surprising to recall that England did not tour every winter in those days. The last time England did not tour at all between summers was the winter of 1975-76.
I went back as far as 1918 and divided the period into decades, and this produced the following figures
Decade
Tests played
Wins
Win Percentage
Draws
Draw percentage
1920s
25
8
32
4
16
1930s
37
12
32.4
17
45.7
1940s
15
2
13.3
8
53.3
1950s
36
11
30.55
15
41.6
1960s
46
7
15.2
34
73.9
1970s
48
16
33.3
19
39.5
1980s
46
7
15.2
21
45.6
1990s
51
9
17.65
18
35.2
2000s
59
17
28.8
20
33.8
2010s
58
16
27.58
12
20.6
Overall
421
105
24.9
159
37.7
Rather surprisingly the 1970s emerged with the best percentage of victories, but what is immediately apparent is the sheer increase in Tests being played.
Any series of figures also hides just as much as it shows. It was Disraeli who claimed “There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics!” Certainly, these hide quite a lot. For example, the overseas tours of the 1920s were only to Australia (3), one to South Africa and one to the West Indies, and of the 25 Tests played only four were draws. Matches in Australia were played out to a finish. The win percentage can be unduly affected by one series, and certainly the 1928-29 4-1 victory does rather counterbalance the 5-0 drubbing given by Australia in 1920-21. That series might have finished 5-0 to England bar a couple of injuries and some unfortunate umpiring decisions, and undoubtedly that side were amongst the strongest England have ever sent abroad, certainly in batting.
The 1930s is dominated by two tours to Australia, where although we lost the second tour, 1936-37, 3-2, we still won the first two Tests, and of course, the infamous 1932-3 series, won 4-1. The number of draws has increased to 17 out of 37. None of the 1920s tours went on to New Zealand, while the 1936-37 tour didn’t either. Only that of 1932-33 did, although despite their success in Australia they drew both matches. Two tours to the West Indies resulted in a single win in each tour, and three losses overall. The solitary tour to India, 1934-35, saw England win two and draw one. The two tours to South Africa were mainly composed of draws, eight out of ten matches, with a single win for each side.
The 1940s saw a war-weary England struggling to win anything, and on the three tours of what remained of that decade only two matches were won, on George Mann’s triumphant tour to South Africa in 1948-49. The 1950s, often seen as a triumphant decade for England, is more accurately seen as a decade where England’s deficiencies were hidden by dreadful wickets, some excellent batting and bowling in English conditions, sound captaincy, but above all by the relative decline in Australia. Staring with the famous victory in the final Test of the 1950-51 tour to Australia, England only once managed three victories (1954-55), two in New Zealand immediately afterwards, two in the West Indies, having gone two down, in 1953-54, and the first two in South Africa in 1956-57, managing to lose the last two in that series.
The 1960s saw the first large increase in overseas (and domestic) Tests played, a rise from 36 to 46, even though there was no tour in the winters of 1961-62 or 1966-67, and some senior players were still reluctant to tour to India or Pakistan (two tours, 1960-61 and 1963-64). It was also the decade that saw the introduction of the domestic twin tour summer in 1965. On what might be called the more serious tours we only ever managed a single victory – West Indies 1959-60 and 1967-68, Australia 1962-63 and 1965-66, South Africa 1964-65. While that managed to ensure three series wins, it led to a large number of draws, a total of 34 out of 46, including four series in which all the matches were drawn: Pakistan 1960-61, India 1963-64, New Zealand 1965-66 and Pakistan 1968-69. The percentage of overseas draws is very high. Remarkable to relate, although the West Indies were probably the dominant Test side in that decade, England managed to beat them at the beginning and end of the decade. However, it is not a period of much joy in English cricket, aside from Bob Barber at Sydney in 1965 and Derek Underwood at the Oval in 1968!
The 1970s appears on paper to be much better. England led at first by a pragmatic Yorkshireman who was reluctant to travel, then by a succession of short-term leaders, eventually stumbled onto Mike Brearley. His results were flattered by playing against a Packer-weakened Australia, which provides 5 of the 16 victories in the decade. The stand-out performance is probably Tony Greig’s tour to India, winning the first three matches in a row, but there were still 19 draws overall, and in six series we won only a single match, winning 5 series out of 12, of which two were in New Zealand at the end of Australian tours.
The 1980s appear equally bleak, with a win percentage as low as 15.2%. This is mainly explained by two tours to the West Indies which saw 8 defeats and two draws. There was still a plenitude of draws – 21 – and we still found it very difficult to win more than one Test in a series. This was only managed twice: Gower’s team to India in 1984-85, and Gatting’s to Australia in 1986-87. Hence the very low percentage win figure, matching that for the 1960s.
The 1990s sees only a marginal increase in the win percentage, up to 17.65%. Draws were down to 18. However, again the overwhelming impression is of England’s inability to do more than win a single match, particularly against the traditionally stronger teams, e.g., on three tours to the West Indies (1989-90, lost 3-1, 1993-94, lost 3-1, and 1997-98, lost 3-1) and two tours to Australia (1994-95, lost 3-1, and 1998-99, lost 3-1) as well as losing in Australia 3-0 in 1990-91 without a consolation win. Partly, of course, this simply reflects that England were up against extremely strong sides, while also being weak. However, the whole decade only saw overseas series wins against New Zealand (1991-92, 2-0, and 1996-97, 2-0), and included a dismal streak of 7 consecutive lost overseas Tests (India 1992-93, 3, Sri Lanka, 1992-3, 1, and West Indies 1993-94, 3).
The noughties saw the draw percentage remain roughly the same, while the number of Tests played increased again. While there were still series where England only managed a single win, there were at last signs that England could string together a couple of wins, even three in the West Indies in 2003-04, but Australia was still playing in a different league (2002-03, 4-1, and 2006-07, 5-0) on their own turf, putting the 2005 win in England into an even better perspective. The other high points were beating Sri Lanka 2-1 in 2000-01 after defeating Pakistan in the dark earlier that winter, surely the high point of Nasser Hussain’s captaincy, and winning a series in South Africa 2-1 in 2004-05, a triumph much overshadowed by that summer’s victory over Australia, but there were also poor performances, such as a 1-0 loss to the West Indies, with four draws, in 2008-09, which provided the kick-start to Andrew Strauss’ team to become the best in the world.
The most notable figure in the 2010s is the low figure of the draw percentage, lower even than the 1930s. Partly this is a reflection of the speed at which Test cricket is played today, possibly as a result of the revolution in the playing of one-day cricket. But one day cricket was being played in the 1960s and 1970s, although not at such a frenetic pace. It also explains the (misguided to my mind) call for Tests to be limited to four days. Some of those draws were remarkably exciting, with teams hanging on for a draw against the odds (South Africa, 2009-10) but there were also unfortunate signs of the old weaknesses to be seen: a run of 13 matches overseas without a win (India 2016-17, lost 4, drawn 1, Australia 2017-18, lost 4, drawn 1, New Zealand 2017-18, lost 1, drawn 1). The undoubted highlight was winning 3-1 in Australia in 2010-11, by possibly the best prepared team ever to go to there. While Australia was not as strong as on previous visits, this was an outstanding performance and showed what a strongly managed and captained team was really capable of. Contrast it to what happened on the next two tours, of 2013-14 and 2017-18, lost 5-0 and 4-0, and in particular compare their preparation.
Does all this show anything in particular? It really needs another similar chapter to look at other countries’ touring records to make a valid comparison. Certainly, it is true that in more recent times it has become much more difficult to win away from home, and that is even so having removed the factor of home umpires. It is often forgotten that Illingworth’s team of 1970-71 that won that series 2-0 did not win a single LBW decision in the whole 6 matches. I suspect that the players will need no reminding! I believe that it shows that England in the last two decades are performing reasonably well – above the overall average, but that the 1950s side were flattered by their figures. It also shows how dire were the 1960s, not just in their choice of clothes!
Strange XIs
Steve Thompson seemed to have some form of delirium following his Covid vaccination and came up with this Strange XI in his sick bed:
CRW
BAS
BTF
IJLT
APEK
PW
GRD
VJM
JMP
JAS
JMB
Steve assures me that he has now recovered and is appropriately immune.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 219
March 2021
Miller Matters
It now seems a long time ago that Douglas Miller sent me these notes during the first test at Chennai
In the last edition the Professor told us “that he rises at four and shivers under a blanket while watching the cricket from the subcontinent. I realise, of course, that it is possible to record the match and watch it later during the day but I feel sure no such lightweight supporters are numbered among Googlies readers”. I would like to take him to task because that is exactly what I do. It is surely not a requirement of readers that they should be mad. I rise at my normal hour, enjoy a leisurely breakfast and then go to the cricket. And each day I think how much more comfortable I am than the Professor. I also muse to myself that the lovely Judith is far too sensible to be sitting alongside her man on the sofa.
I think, too, of the Professor having to endure an ever-repeating selection of advertisements for Go Compare, Bet 365 and the rest, while I am able to fast forward past the lot, also treating Sir Alastair Cook and other pundits as optional fare. It is not all plain sailing, this recording business. The outcome at the end of the day’s play has to remain secret or all may be lost. Yet homing instincts seem built into my television set whereby I am taken straight to the action as it happens before I can reach the Planner with its carefully commissioned recordings. I encounter this hazard regardless of how my viewing ended the night before. I had thought myself safe in making Sky News my goodnight station, but the system somehow seems to know better. I try to shut it off without taking in a score – with no guarantee of success. Am I a victim of the modern cookie-oriented world in which some malign gremlin purports to know better than I how I wish to plan my life? What is it planning to sell me?
Lockdown otherwise works well for the recording tactic. However, one must guard against early opening of emails for fear of cheery sign offs. ‘Just finished watching the cricket - slightly disappointed by England's second innings………….’ Thus, one friend closes a message sent at what, for me, was still the morning session. The telephone, too, brings similar risks of early disclosure. It was a relief for once to know that a morning caller’s only interest was in drawing to my attention grants for loft insulation, while the chairman of the residents’ association mercifully left it until mid-afternoon before discussing the inadequacies of the service contract for the lift. ‘Pity about the evening session,’ he commented. ‘Not that bad’ I might have replied had I known that, even as we were talking, Rohit had fallen to Leach.
I write as we all await Day 5 at Chennai. I shall press the send button before they take the field with predictions that may prove prescient or comical. Will England win? Good question. The problem we face is that India’s batsmen are better than ours – Shubman Gill is more assured than any of our young ones – and we cannot match Ashwin as a bowler. Add to this that Archer is a waste of space unless bowling faster than Anderson, which he wasn’t today – nothing above 140. The prognosis is not good. We are in the dominant position because we won the toss and Root once again played out of his skin.
Should we have pressed on earlier? Was it not just too subtle purporting to plan for a still relatively hard ball at the start of the day? I fear it was, though we weekend club cricketers know little of the strains of a full day in the field in searing heat. Still, a world record chase should be beyond even Kohli and the rest on a turning pitch. So how will it end? I am going for the draw with Pujara batting long enough to snuff out hopes of an England victory and Pant reaching the crease too late to threaten a win for India – and a slogger of this kind should not succeed twice in the same mach. A tame draw in the end, then, with England’s chances looking forlorn by teatime and no repeat of the Cape Town Test at which, come to think of it, I last saw the Professor.
I couldn’t let Douglas get away with this and so I prompted him to supply a postscript
I must confess that I am a lousy predictor. As a keen follower of golf, I have an amazingly bad record for saying whether or not a 10 foot putt will drop. So it is just as well that I noticed early in life that bookmakers always appeared better shod than their clients.
This dodgy background as a fortune-teller, fortified by a passionate wish to avoid tempting fate, led me to a prediction that has proved well wide of the mark. I offer no excuses except to say that cricket is a game in which one marginal decision can swing the outcome of a match. Yet England’s win was more secure than that. In a match of generally excellent umpiring my (far from impartial) view was that Rahane was out. Yet it mattered not a jot as his off stump went cartwheeling next ball.
I forgo the humble pie in the joy of victory. How much did I get wrong? Well Pujara didn’t last long and Pant never challenged. I had not dared speak of Kohli, yet no batsman has put me more in mind of Bradman. Name dropping, and why not in these columns, in 2016 I was at Mumbai in the committee area of the pavilion courtesy of the late ML Apte, relishing England’s imminent supremacy. Having made 400, we had India 364 for 7. Match evenly poised? Well yes, and we were talking about how our openers should consolidate a promising position given that India would be batting last. Just one snag: that India score was to become 605 for 8 (Kohli 235, Jayant Yadav 104). England lost the match by an innings. Worse was to come at Chennai: England 477 (Moeen Ali 146), India 211 for 3, both Pujara and Kohli gone with but 31 between them and the pair at the crease labelled walking wickets. KL Rahul then made 199 (letting himself down with petulance at his dismissal) and Nair ended 303 not out. Liam Dawson – remember him? – 2 for 129. We lost by an innings again.
One learns to respect these Indians. I think of another Dawson - Richard, just 21 and playing his second Test – being despatched at will around the stadium at Ahmedabad by Sachin Tendulkar. These are painful memories and the scarring influences predictions. Surely, I reasoned, an attack built around Leach and Bess will struggle. How wrong one can be! On one other matter I may also have erred. Archer, it seems, can do a Woakes-like job without breaking sweat to bowl above 135 kph and still get occasional lift.
So where do we go from here? Laying optimism to one side, I suspect we shall struggle to win again. I hope with all my heart that I am wrong and that the Professor has more stirring deeds to applaud from beneath his blanket.
In and Within
The Professor has a lot to get off his chest
Well, I suppose it must have pleased some people. People, perhaps, for whom the length of an ODI runs right to the limit of their attention spans. Who think that shorter is better? That less cricket is better than more. But for the rest of us, the last Test was so poor as to verge on being pointless. In fact, the last two Test pitches have crossed the limit of what could reasonably be regarded as home advantage. There is a reason why groundsmen have, over the last couple of centuries, mown, watered, rolled, fertilised and generally spent a large proportion of their waking hours on the square preparing pitches for the game to be played on. But if the outcome of their labours is a pitch like that for the second Chennai Test then, frankly, why bother. Why not just put some stumps on the outfield and play there. As we all saw, the ball exploded off the surface from the first overs. Great eruptions of dust and dirt jumped off the ground where each ball pitched: not from “footmarks” – there weren’t any yet– but from a length on the stumps. I haven’t read of an apology or of any embarrassment but only that India scored runs on it – so there.
But we all know why India scored runs in that Test: they have gifted players, especially of spin bowling, and the English spinners were dreadful. So poor, that Bess, the first-choice spinner in South Africa, was unselectable for Ahmedabad. That we bowled dreadfully does not exonerate the pitch. The depressingly supine commentators were clearly too nervous or too much concerned for their jobs, to say what we could all see. There was a litany of pusillanimous euphemisms about the ability of the bowlers in getting the ball to turn and a steadfast refusal to describe what we were actually seeing. Just a couple of times the stance slipped and Butcher could not restrain himself from this collective cognitive dissonance (“That one just spat out of, err, the rubble”) but for the rest all was bland myopia.
So, let’s do their work for them. The Chennai pitch was the worst I have ever seen. Not for a Test match or a county game… ever. For a club match, or a pub match or anything, anywhere. I’ve seen all those games being played on The Maidan in Mumbai on pitches that appear to be used day after day without a great deal of repair, games in side streets in Kolkata, games in car parks in Sri Lanka or Townships in South Africa, - nothing compares. Has any Googlies reader seen a worse pitch anywhere? I was sent a piece by Michael Atherton where he defended the pitch (after a fashion) by saying that it wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t – and nobody ever said it was. The issue was never danger, so why even mention it?
The issue was the surface. I thought Gavaskar’s comments were the most unctuous. There was seemingly little wrong with pitch: “you expect it to turn in India”, it was just that the English batsmen couldn’t play spin, moreover: “no one ever complains about green-tops in England”. Stepping aside from the childish tit-for-tat and the implied racial unfairness (and Gavaskar has form in this department – remember the accusation against Mike Procter), we all know that English batsmen are less able against spin than their counterparts, that does not make an exploding surface a good one or an acceptable one for any level of cricket. I wonder what Gavaskar, who has never been reticent of opinion, would have had to say when he walked out to bat for Edmonton, if he saw such a surface. How long would the groundsman have kept his job? As for the “green-tops”, they are, I suggest, approaching mythological status. I don’t think there has been one for an English Test since Rice and Hadley left Trent Bridge and Notts decided to invest in a lawnmower. English Test grounds need the revenue from five days. The only plain, straightforward remark I heard was from Jonathon Agnew who put the whole issue as succinctly as need be: “They might as well play on the beach”.
But I was happy to put this little spat of invective behind me and settle down at a more civilised time to see the game from the magnificent stadium of Ahmedabad on a pitch that looked much better. Oh dear. The stadium was, indeed, magnificent, but the pitch, perhaps because it was quicker, was even worse. One would hope that the victory in the third Test might be a pyrrhic one, that there would be such a comeback from the ICC that something approaching a Test strip would be prepared for future games. I doubt it is a hope that will be fulfilled. But is it worth playing a Test which lasts 140 overs rather than the designated 450? Is a match over, in effect, by “tea” on Day 2, a “test” of any sort? Other than the credulity of the public, of course. Does anybody benefit from a two-day Test, apart from the winning side that is – and those with short attention spans. And if winning is all there is, then, well…play on the beach.
This and That
It looks like another case of Tour Madness. The Ahmedabad track had to favour spin after the second test and so England go in with four seamers and one spinner. India opted predictably with 2 and 3. Why is Bess on the tour if he is not to play? Moeen’s departure always seemed odd after just one game. The real reason was revealed last week when he picked up a £700k contract at the IPL. Presumably, he had got the nod that he was being bought and so decided he wanted some time at home before going back to India for the serious stuff.
I don’t think that Root planned to bowl himself as a serious second spinner. He ran through all the seamers in spells first and clearly, they were expected to do the work. However, going forward, if he does become a front-line spinner the selection options change significantly. Perhaps they could even pick a proper wicketkeeper. Incidentally, it should be noted that England stretched their defeat out to session three on day 2 only as a result of their appallingly low over rate (11 overs an hour).
I never really thought of South Hampstead as a small ground when I played there. I suspect that the playing area was no bigger at Shepherds Bush. In those days a match would often take place without any sixes being hit and more than a couple would be very rare. I recently had my annual phone call with Bob Peach and he was bewailing the damage cost of balls sailing out of the ground. The insurers require high netting which costs around £50k and there is a high excess on all claims. The balls now frequently hit the roofs of neighbouring houses removing tiles (£500 a go) and also bounce off parked cars (depends on age make and model). Today’s young players are brought up on a diet of large bats and T20 and emulation, as always, is the order of the day.
In the T20 tournaments the sartorial style is now for drain pipe trousers which presumably have some elastic in the fabric mix to facilitate flexibility. Much mirth ensued in the commentary box (Graeme Swann) when Imran Tahir appeared in someone else’s pair which finished halfway down his calves. A baggier version still seems to be preferred, thankfully, for test cricket.
The afternoons during the latest round of Lockdown days have been occupied by the IPL, the LPL, Abu Dhabi T10 and now the PSL. I was a little surprised when George told me that he had been watching the Big Bash which he explained was being shown on BT Sport which he claimed he subscribed to in order to watch the rugby. He was singing the praises of James Vince who was second to Alex Hales in the list of run scorers in this competition. It turns out that only Babar Azam has scored more in this form of the game than these two in the last couple of years. All three of these have already made a significant contribution with the bat in the PSL.
With Hales, Vince, Joe Clarke and Kohler-Cadmore in fabulous T20 form it will be interesting to see whether any of them get selected for England. Present incumbents are not playing and Roy’s recent history is poor. We know that Morgan benefits from no practice but what about the rest?
I quickly got used to the ten over format in the Abu Dhabi T10 and found that the T20 matches seemed quite long afterwards…One of the fun aspects of the T10 was the pairings for opening the batting. The most incongruous was Gayle and Sterling. Gayle languid and effortless, Sterling all effort, puff and sweating. Gayle scored a record fastest 50 from 12 balls in an innings of 84 from 22 balls, only to have the feat equalled in the next match by Waseem Muhammad.
One of the pleasures of watching home test matches recently has been the absence of David Gower from the commentary teams. I assumed that he had retired back to his wine cellar. The absence of his inane comments and irritating chuckle were welcome. Imagine my surprise when he turned up as one of the commentary team for the PSL. He is still as dull as ever and cannot compete with the ebullience of Danny Morrison and Dominic Cork.
All of these competitions feature home grown players, youngsters and a limited number of overseas stars. It is a great learning scenario for all and the background staff are equally impressive. In the PSL the Karachi Kings have Andy Flower, Mushtaq Ahmed and Azhar Mahmood in the dugout. In general, there is much encouragement and support for each other. Except that is from Sarfaraz the former Pakistan captain and Quetta Gladiators captain. After each ball he berated and bollocked his bowlers and fielders as he pointed out their weaknesses and errors.
Leg Spinners hardly featured in the Abu Dhabi T10 but they continue to have a major presence in the T20 competitions. Qais Ahmed has impressed and the latest newcomer is Usman Qadir son of Abdul. The batsmen haven’t worked out his googly yet and so he is great fun to watch. It is noteworthy that neither India nor England have included a leg spinner in their test sides so far. A few years ago the finger spinners looked dead and now they dominate. Of course, the big difference at the international level is VRS which affects the way that the batsmen have to play them.
At Chittagong the West Indies beat Bangladesh by scoring 395 for 7 in the fourth innings. Debutants Kyle Mayers (210 not out) and Nkrumah Bonner ( 86) were the principal contributors. This was the fifth highest run chase in test history.
Australia have failed to qualify for the World test championship following the cancellation of their tour to South Africa. England join them as onlookers following their defeats in India.
Morgan Matters
England's 2nd Test in India is likely to be their first game in front of spectators for more than a year. The 50,000 capacity stadium in Chennai could be allowed to accommodate 25,000 fans.
QPR in away win sensation! Yes and not just any old away win either as struggling Rs won 1-2 at promotion chasing Watford with goals from Austin and Adomah (who got the winner after 89 mins). Rs are now 7 points clear of the relegation places. However, the G told us nothing whatsoever about the match, which failed to get a mention even in the "round up"! However, Watford are featured, not because they contrived to lose to Rs, but because they have signed Bergkamp (son of Dennis) and Pochettino (son of Mauricio).
Anderson's "magic" over is getting a lot of attention in the G (and elsewhere) with J Root, A Bull and A Martin all saying how wonderful it was... shame it was bowled while I was still in bed really! England have now won all of their last 6 Tests away from home: 3 in SA, 2 in SL and 1 in India. J Root is now level with M Vaughan at the top of the most Test wins as England captain table with 26, A Strauss and A Cook are joint 3rd with 24.
Tanya Aldred in today's G says that "the wicket-keeping swap does, arguably diminish England's batting", but I have just looked at the latest career batting averages that I have available (Playfair 2019) and at that time Foakes's career batting average (40.64) was considerably better than Buttler's (32.79)... and I have pointed this out to the G. In the same issue, Simon Burnton has a long article on Graeme Fowler that quotes him saying "I went from scoring 200 for England to the Lancashire second XI".
E Smith says that A Hales could be back to training with the England limited overs squad this summer indicating he might be in line for a recall for the T20 WC in Oct.
I got back from the papershop this am just in time to watch the last ball of the Test, which was Moeen having a wild yahoo and being comfortably stumped as Eng lost by 317. England managed 134 a/o (A Patel 5-60). Moeen did not have such a bad match (6 and 43 with the bat and 4-128 and 4-98 with the ball) but he has chosen to miss the last 2 Tests to "get out of the bubble", dunno what that means exactly, but if I were trapped in a bubble, I suppose I would want to get out as well!
C Silverwood is insisting that Test cricket is Eng's priority despite the rotation policy and the suggestion that players could play in the IPL rather than the first Test v NZ this summer. Seven all-format Eng players have missed Tests this winter while E Morgan's side will be at full strength for the T20 series.
Rs had a surprising 2-1 win over 2nd place local rivals Brentford last night. The Bees went ahead on 30 mins, but Sam Field (72 mins) and Charlie Austin (76), both on loan from WBA, gave Rs an unexpected victory. Great to get a win, of course and a rise to 16th (especially against promotion chasing local rivals), but I would be slightly happier if our heroes were actually Rs players rather than loanees.
IPL: Moeen has been sold to Chennai for £700k, T Curran has gone to Delhi Capitals for £520k, D Malan to Punjab Kings for £150k, S Billings and L Livingstone have also been snapped up but we are not told who got them. P Stirling will make his debut for Islamabad United in the Pak Super League this Sunday, while M Wood has withdrawn from the PSL auction.
S Curran is out of the India Tests because there are no flights to take him to Ahmedabad, so he will go straight to the T20 and ODI location along with other limited overs players.
The March Cricketer tells us:
That C4 is getting many more viewers for their coverage of the India v England Test series than Sky were getting for their coverage of England's Tests in Sri Lanka.
Jimmy Harris is the new Chairman of the Professional Cricketers' Association, replacing Daryl Mitchell.
Sydney Thunder coach Shane Bond thinks that Alex Hales has been punished "way too much" for his use of recreational drugs and he topped the Big Bash run charts with 543 at a strike rate of 161.
In the second Test at Galle, England became the first team to take 10 wickets with seam bowling in the first innings and 10 wickets with spin in the second innings of a Test and in doing so they emulated their achievement in the final Ashes Test at the Oval in 2019 when they became the first team to dismiss the opposition twice in a Test with no bowlers who took wickets in the first innings taking wickets in the second. Kagiso Rabada became the fourth youngest bowler to take 200 Test wickets during SA's first Test v Pakistan at Karachi and he needed the third fewest balls to get there (8,154) behind Waqar Younis (7,725) and Dale Steyn (7,848).
Jos Buttler's stumping of Dilruwan Perera off Jack Leach in the first Test at Galle was his first in Test cricket after 114 catches in Tests, which puts him second behind Dave Richardson (SA) who took 119 catches before his first stumping in Tests.
The Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad is now the biggest cricket ground in the world with a capacity of 110,000, 10,000 more than the MCG.
Commentators: it has been interesting for me to listen for the first time to Graeme Swann on C4's TV Test coverage... I thought he was quite good. I expect I will soon read how common 2-day Tests are, but I think they must be quite rare? Yep! I have just looked at the Beeb's teletext and I can tell you that this was England's first defeat inside 2 days since 1921... 100 years ago! And it was the shortest Test in terms of balls bowled since 1935.
I do not think that England have had enough stick yet for picking such an inappropriate team: 4 seamers in India is ridiculous, isn't it? The seamers' figures were 27-13-79-1 and the spinners returned 33.2-6-102-9! I think Root takes most of the blame for this. Looking at the batting, Crawley made 53 in the match, Root 36 and Stokes 31 and nobody else made more than 20 (Foakes). Bairstow had a horrific match failing to get off the mark in either innings and he played some awful-looking shots as well. Pope managed double figures in the second innings but looked as bad as Bairstow to me.
England’s overseas record
Robin Brodhurst sent me this
England’s recent success in Galle caused many commentators to remark that England had won four Test matches overseas in a row, the first time that this had been achieved since 1957. It immediately made me go to my bookshelves to examine this record, and the resulting evening of exploration prompts this article. The initial claim is certainly true. Since 1918 England have only twice before managed four overseas victories in a row: 1928-29, winning the first 4 in Australia, and then 1955-57 over two different series, two against New Zealand in 1954-55, and two against South Africa in 1956-57. It is quite surprising to recall that England did not tour every winter in those days. The last time England did not tour at all between summers was the winter of 1975-76.
I went back as far as 1918 and divided the period into decades, and this produced the following figures
Decade
Tests played
Wins
Win Percentage
Draws
Draw percentage
1920s
25
8
32
4
16
1930s
37
12
32.4
17
45.7
1940s
15
2
13.3
8
53.3
1950s
36
11
30.55
15
41.6
1960s
46
7
15.2
34
73.9
1970s
48
16
33.3
19
39.5
1980s
46
7
15.2
21
45.6
1990s
51
9
17.65
18
35.2
2000s
59
17
28.8
20
33.8
2010s
58
16
27.58
12
20.6
Overall
421
105
24.9
159
37.7
Rather surprisingly the 1970s emerged with the best percentage of victories, but what is immediately apparent is the sheer increase in Tests being played.
Any series of figures also hides just as much as it shows. It was Disraeli who claimed “There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics!” Certainly, these hide quite a lot. For example, the overseas tours of the 1920s were only to Australia (3), one to South Africa and one to the West Indies, and of the 25 Tests played only four were draws. Matches in Australia were played out to a finish. The win percentage can be unduly affected by one series, and certainly the 1928-29 4-1 victory does rather counterbalance the 5-0 drubbing given by Australia in 1920-21. That series might have finished 5-0 to England bar a couple of injuries and some unfortunate umpiring decisions, and undoubtedly that side were amongst the strongest England have ever sent abroad, certainly in batting.
The 1930s is dominated by two tours to Australia, where although we lost the second tour, 1936-37, 3-2, we still won the first two Tests, and of course, the infamous 1932-3 series, won 4-1. The number of draws has increased to 17 out of 37. None of the 1920s tours went on to New Zealand, while the 1936-37 tour didn’t either. Only that of 1932-33 did, although despite their success in Australia they drew both matches. Two tours to the West Indies resulted in a single win in each tour, and three losses overall. The solitary tour to India, 1934-35, saw England win two and draw one. The two tours to South Africa were mainly composed of draws, eight out of ten matches, with a single win for each side.
The 1940s saw a war-weary England struggling to win anything, and on the three tours of what remained of that decade only two matches were won, on George Mann’s triumphant tour to South Africa in 1948-49. The 1950s, often seen as a triumphant decade for England, is more accurately seen as a decade where England’s deficiencies were hidden by dreadful wickets, some excellent batting and bowling in English conditions, sound captaincy, but above all by the relative decline in Australia. Staring with the famous victory in the final Test of the 1950-51 tour to Australia, England only once managed three victories (1954-55), two in New Zealand immediately afterwards, two in the West Indies, having gone two down, in 1953-54, and the first two in South Africa in 1956-57, managing to lose the last two in that series.
The 1960s saw the first large increase in overseas (and domestic) Tests played, a rise from 36 to 46, even though there was no tour in the winters of 1961-62 or 1966-67, and some senior players were still reluctant to tour to India or Pakistan (two tours, 1960-61 and 1963-64). It was also the decade that saw the introduction of the domestic twin tour summer in 1965. On what might be called the more serious tours we only ever managed a single victory – West Indies 1959-60 and 1967-68, Australia 1962-63 and 1965-66, South Africa 1964-65. While that managed to ensure three series wins, it led to a large number of draws, a total of 34 out of 46, including four series in which all the matches were drawn: Pakistan 1960-61, India 1963-64, New Zealand 1965-66 and Pakistan 1968-69. The percentage of overseas draws is very high. Remarkable to relate, although the West Indies were probably the dominant Test side in that decade, England managed to beat them at the beginning and end of the decade. However, it is not a period of much joy in English cricket, aside from Bob Barber at Sydney in 1965 and Derek Underwood at the Oval in 1968!
The 1970s appears on paper to be much better. England led at first by a pragmatic Yorkshireman who was reluctant to travel, then by a succession of short-term leaders, eventually stumbled onto Mike Brearley. His results were flattered by playing against a Packer-weakened Australia, which provides 5 of the 16 victories in the decade. The stand-out performance is probably Tony Greig’s tour to India, winning the first three matches in a row, but there were still 19 draws overall, and in six series we won only a single match, winning 5 series out of 12, of which two were in New Zealand at the end of Australian tours.
The 1980s appear equally bleak, with a win percentage as low as 15.2%. This is mainly explained by two tours to the West Indies which saw 8 defeats and two draws. There was still a plenitude of draws – 21 – and we still found it very difficult to win more than one Test in a series. This was only managed twice: Gower’s team to India in 1984-85, and Gatting’s to Australia in 1986-87. Hence the very low percentage win figure, matching that for the 1960s.
The 1990s sees only a marginal increase in the win percentage, up to 17.65%. Draws were down to 18. However, again the overwhelming impression is of England’s inability to do more than win a single match, particularly against the traditionally stronger teams, e.g., on three tours to the West Indies (1989-90, lost 3-1, 1993-94, lost 3-1, and 1997-98, lost 3-1) and two tours to Australia (1994-95, lost 3-1, and 1998-99, lost 3-1) as well as losing in Australia 3-0 in 1990-91 without a consolation win. Partly, of course, this simply reflects that England were up against extremely strong sides, while also being weak. However, the whole decade only saw overseas series wins against New Zealand (1991-92, 2-0, and 1996-97, 2-0), and included a dismal streak of 7 consecutive lost overseas Tests (India 1992-93, 3, Sri Lanka, 1992-3, 1, and West Indies 1993-94, 3).
The noughties saw the draw percentage remain roughly the same, while the number of Tests played increased again. While there were still series where England only managed a single win, there were at last signs that England could string together a couple of wins, even three in the West Indies in 2003-04, but Australia was still playing in a different league (2002-03, 4-1, and 2006-07, 5-0) on their own turf, putting the 2005 win in England into an even better perspective. The other high points were beating Sri Lanka 2-1 in 2000-01 after defeating Pakistan in the dark earlier that winter, surely the high point of Nasser Hussain’s captaincy, and winning a series in South Africa 2-1 in 2004-05, a triumph much overshadowed by that summer’s victory over Australia, but there were also poor performances, such as a 1-0 loss to the West Indies, with four draws, in 2008-09, which provided the kick-start to Andrew Strauss’ team to become the best in the world.
The most notable figure in the 2010s is the low figure of the draw percentage, lower even than the 1930s. Partly this is a reflection of the speed at which Test cricket is played today, possibly as a result of the revolution in the playing of one-day cricket. But one day cricket was being played in the 1960s and 1970s, although not at such a frenetic pace. It also explains the (misguided to my mind) call for Tests to be limited to four days. Some of those draws were remarkably exciting, with teams hanging on for a draw against the odds (South Africa, 2009-10) but there were also unfortunate signs of the old weaknesses to be seen: a run of 13 matches overseas without a win (India 2016-17, lost 4, drawn 1, Australia 2017-18, lost 4, drawn 1, New Zealand 2017-18, lost 1, drawn 1). The undoubted highlight was winning 3-1 in Australia in 2010-11, by possibly the best prepared team ever to go to there. While Australia was not as strong as on previous visits, this was an outstanding performance and showed what a strongly managed and captained team was really capable of. Contrast it to what happened on the next two tours, of 2013-14 and 2017-18, lost 5-0 and 4-0, and in particular compare their preparation.
Does all this show anything in particular? It really needs another similar chapter to look at other countries’ touring records to make a valid comparison. Certainly, it is true that in more recent times it has become much more difficult to win away from home, and that is even so having removed the factor of home umpires. It is often forgotten that Illingworth’s team of 1970-71 that won that series 2-0 did not win a single LBW decision in the whole 6 matches. I suspect that the players will need no reminding! I believe that it shows that England in the last two decades are performing reasonably well – above the overall average, but that the 1950s side were flattered by their figures. It also shows how dire were the 1960s, not just in their choice of clothes!
Strange XIs
Steve Thompson seemed to have some form of delirium following his Covid vaccination and came up with this Strange XI in his sick bed:
CRW
BAS
BTF
IJLT
APEK
PW
GRD
VJM
JMP
JAS
JMB
Steve assures me that he has now recovered and is appropriately immune.
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