The 3rd Test defeat against India was not only disappointing from an England fan's perspective but also all too familiar. I posted a stat in one of my blogs reviewing the 2nd day's play in the 3rd Test in which I revealed that England had lost their first 4 wickets for 100 or less in 30 of their last 61 innings. By the time the match had finished that stat had risen to 31 out of 62 innings - a nice even 50%. So where is it going wrong for England? Why can't we find a solid top 5 batsmen who can lay the sort of foundation that would allow the all-rounders coming in after them to flourish?
As with all teams in all sports, there will be successful periods and golden generations that are impossible to maintain indefinitely. Perhaps in England we took a few of our recent top order players for granted and didn't realise how good they were until they'd gone. However, the likes of Trescothick, Strauss, Vaughan, Trott, Bell and Pietersen have been out of the reckoning for some time now and while England have replaced them with a few quality players it seems that many of them have at best stagnated over the past few years. Furthermore, there has been a general failing to successfully integrate new batsmen into the mix with no young players able to really stick their hands up and stake a claim to be a player that England can bank on for the foreseeable future.
Head Coach Trevor Baylis and his assistant Paul Farbrace are failing to get the best out of the players at their disposal and even worse may be responsible for the decline of some of the talent England do have. Let's start by looking at the numbers before suggesting where the issues may lie.
Batsmen that debuted before May 2015
Alastair Cook - Some might say that Cook is past his best and that may very well be the case but let's not forget the man is still only 33 years of age. For me the question is more whether he still possess the same drive and desire to succeed that once made him the best opening batsman in the World.
The above stats are also warped by 2 double centuries that he has hit in the past 12 months against the West Indies and Australia. Take those innings out of the equation and his average would be under 30 for the majority of the Baylis/Farbrace era. Cook's golden period for England came under Andy Flower who also had Cook's mentor and England great Graham Gooch as his batting coach. Flower & Gooch demanded disciplined batting and "big daddy" hundreds from their top order whereas the Baylis/Farbrace regime is far more relaxed in their approach.
Joe Root - England's current Captain has won the bulk of his 72 caps under Baylis and Farbrace. There is no doubt that he is England's best player but he is quickly falling behind the pantheon of current Test batsmen including Steve Smith, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson.
What is perhaps most worrying about Root's performances over the past few years is his failure to convert his 50's into big match winning hundreds. This stat is perfectly illustrated in the fact that since 2016 he has won just 1 MoM award compared to the 5 he won in the same number of Tests prior to then. Cricket is a team sport but you'd expect your best players to be able to play match defining innings on a more regular basis than that. Duncan Fletcher had excellent working relationships with captains Hussain & Vaughan while Andy Flower enjoyed a successful partnership with Strauss. Root and Baylis have had at best mixed fortunes and I feel that young inexperienced Root could benefit from a coach who has more to say around the dressing room than it appears Baylis does.
Jonny Bairstow - From a pure numbers point of view Bairstow does show an improvement under Baylis and Farbrace. However, he wasn't initially in their team and only got a chance in the side after Gary Ballance (another player whose numbers and career have decreased since 2016) was dropped.
Indeed, it was Bairstow himself who having been dropped in 2013 returned to Yorkshire and completely re-modelled his technique, the current English coaches had nothing to do with it. Furthermore, and sorry to labour a point that I've made in several reason blogs, but I still feel that Bairstow's talent is not being fully utiliesed in this current England side - another failing of the coaches and captain.
Batsmen brought in since Baylis & Farbrace took over
The list is long and undistinguished. Why is it that none of these batsmen have managed to go on and forge a successful Test career to date? Are they all below standard players or are they being picked at the wrong time, played in the wrong position and man managed in the wrong way?
In over 3 years the players that have been brought in to the side under Baylis and Farbrace have scored just 2 centuries! Only Haseeb Hameed can boast an average above 30 and his domestic form since returning from the injury that cut short the promising start to his Test career is so poor that he can't even get a game for bottom of the table Lancashire. It looks likely that Jennings, Vince and Pope will play in the 4th Test against India. These are career defining opportunities for the players themselves and the team at large.
Where does the problem lie?
Baylis was appointed to the job in the summer of 2015 on the back of England's poor showing at the World Cup earlier that year. England exited cricket's showpiece tournament as a laughing stock, playing a brand of white ball cricket that was out of date and ineffective in the modern, T20 era. As such, the search to replace then coach Peter Moores was very much focused on a set-up that would be able to deliver success in 20 & 50 over cricket. Undoubtedly England have achieved this and will go into next year's World Cup in England as the number 1 ranked ODI team and favourites to win on home soil. However, the individual stats above and England's win percentage as whole under Baylis in Test match cricket suggest that the success in white ball cricket has come at the detriment of red ball cricket. Is it unfair to expect that England succeed in both forms or is it more the case that Baylis is a white ball specialist and does not have the skill set to lead England to sustained success in the Test format?
For me one of the most worrying aspects of the current set-up is that they have little to no knowledge of the domestic game. Baylis had never played or coached in this country prior to his appointment in 2015. Even last year when there was clamour for Mark Stoneman to be selected to open the batting, Baylis (2 years into his contract) openly admitted that he'd never seen Stoneman bat! With Stoneman having played over 150 first class games across a career spanning 10 years at that point, it was a remarkable comment for an England head coach to have made. Baylis's lack of knowledge of the English game is also in stark contrast to his more successful predecessors. Duncan Fletcher, while becoming the first foreigner to coach England, had spent years coaching Glamorgan. He immediately brought the likes of Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan, 2 players with fairly mediocre domestic records, into his side based on his first hand knowledge of their temperament and technique. Similarly Andy Flower had spent time playing and coaching in England as well as serving as Peter Moores assistant before he was handed the top job. Even Moores himself, while not having a great Test record can at least claim to have been the man who recalled Graeme Swann to the Test side, made Matt Prior into a high calibre keeper batsman and established Anderson and Broad as England's most successful new ball pairing of all time. To date the current set-up has not been able to bring a single player through from county cricket and establish them at the top-level.
Indeed, chances are that Baylis will never establish the next generation. His contract is up after the World Cup and it has already been stated that he will not be renewing it. Is a lame duck coach really likely to be able to re-invigorate England's Test team? I don't mean to question the man's integrity, I'm sure he is fulfilling his contract but from a psychological perspective, both he and the players under him now know that the success of the last 4 years will be judged on whether England are lifting the World Cup in 10 months time and very little else. What happens after that point, who England should appoint to replace Baylis and what the coaching, management and selection set-up should look like in general are all questions for another blog. Needless to say that changes will need to be made to arrest England's current Test slump.
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