England are the undisputed champions of Test Match cricket ......... in their own back yard! Just ask India, the team that are currently ranked number 1 by the ICC and who finished on the wrong side of a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of England this summer. However, India are not alone in their failure, none of the current Test playing nations have won their most recent series to played in our green and pleasant lands with only Pakistan and New Zealand escaping with draws albeit from disappointingly short 2 game series.
England's winning formula at home is simple - hand the Duke ball over to Anderson and Broad who between them have 997 Test Match wickets and alongside a supporting cast in favourable conditions, they are always likely to knock sides over cheaply. There have been some decent batsmen along the way but in all honesty of the current crop only Joe Root can be considered a world class operator and even he is flattering to deceive at present.
Juxtaposition England's away form and you can see how one dimensional their success in recent years has been. Their last series win away from home came almost 3 years ago in South Africa. In fact since the last time England did become the outright best team in the ICC rankings in 2011 they have only won 2 series played away from home, including that victory against South Africa in 2015/16. That is a pretty dreadful record for a side with the undoubted talent not to mention the resources available to it that England have. This winter's tours against Sri Lanka (ranked 6 in the world) and The West Indies (ranked 8th in the world) represent an excellent opportunity to reverse those fortunes. Sri Lanka after their golden period during the 1990's and early 21st Century have been in steady decline since, with the West Indies having been in a similar slump for about a decade longer. Both sides face as many problems off the field as they face on them suggesting that England have a real chance of securing back to back away wins for the first time since 2001 when they beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
<grammarly-btn>So how can England go about achieving this success and what needs to change from side that has been so successful in English conditions?
Be brave with Broad
On paper at least you would have thought it was crazy to be talking about dropping England's all-time 2nd highest wicket taker and one half of the most successful new ball bowling duo that there has ever been in Test Match cricket. However, delving into the stats a little more closely will show that Broad is the archetypal one-dimensional bowler for England and just the type of player that has held them back from achieving more in foreign conditions during recent times. He has only 3 wickets to show from his 2 Tests played in Sri Lanka, a record that is mirrored by his performances across the sub-continent as a whole (as shown below)
I have read reports in the papers that Broad should be selected because at the very least he can hold up an end and keep things tight. Given that the above shows he has an economy rate of over 3 an over in the sub-continent compared to 2.97 as a career average those assertions seemed to be unfounded.
Broad's modus operandi is to bowl back of a length, bang it in, hit the seam and look for a little bit of movement off the pitch and through the air. This won't work in Sri Lanka, it has never worked in Sri Lanka and as long as I live I doubt it will ever work. Successful seam bowlers (and they've had a few) to come out of Sri Lanka have needed either express pace, reverse swing or a very unique action in order to claim wickets at a decent rate. Broad has none of these qualities and as such should not be considered for selection for the first game starting next Tuesday.
So who should start ahead of Broad in the 1st Test?
Chris Woakes - If you think that Broad's record away from home isn't great then Woakes' is absolutely terrible! He has a career average of 32 and strike rate of 63 having played 26 games across a variety of conditions. However, away from home that average rises to 61 and the strike rate to 120. In other words, he is half the bowler when playing outside of England. I think that Geoffrey Boycott said it best when he described his performance in the recent Ashes series as "buffet bowling". It was very much help yourself and the Aussies ensured they kept coming back for more! He lead the ODI bowling well but can he perform in the Tests? I'm not convinced!
Sam Curran - what a fantastic summer it was for England's latest cricketing hero. As a Surrey fan, I knew this kid had some fight in him and he didn't take a backward step all series against a much vaunted India batting line-up. He doesn't possess express pace but he does offer something a little different with his left-arm seamers and that variation may ultimately tip the balance in his favour. He opens the bowling for his county and plays the majority of games at the Oval, one of the most placid pitches in the country so he is no stranger to getting batsmen out in conditions that don't favour him. England left him out for 1 Test against India this summer which they lost. Will they make the same mistake again?
Ollie Stone - The quickest of England's squad to tour Sri Lanka this winter is the uncapped Ollie Stone. We saw in the ODI games that he certainly has the ability to hurry up a few batsmen and get them jumping around the crease. Other than that I can't honestly say I've watched very much of him in red ball cricket. If he is selected you feel that he will be used as a battering ram within the attack. Short spells of 4 or 5 overs per session where he is asked to run in and bowl at full pace with the simple instructions of sticking it up the batsman's nose. It's an option and one that could be successful if Stone can adapt to the rigors of Test Match cricket.
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Getting the best out of their spin bowlers
While it's perhaps no big surprise that England's seamers are more effective in English conditions than anywhere else in the world it could be considered slightly odd that their spinners remain so unsuccessful on the turning pitches of the sub-continent. In recent years, Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali have been England's first choice pairing in conditions which require the selection of more than 1 spinner. Neither though has managed to dominate a game or series to the extent that England have required them to in order to seal that all allusive win. On the contrary, in recent years they have had to watch on while the slow bowlers of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have shown them how it is done.
Sri Lanka are likely to produce turning pitches in this series both as a result of having too few quality fast bowling options of their own and the fact that England's batsmen are unlikely to enjoy slow, spinning surfaces. The battle then will be for Moeen, Rashid and possibly Jack Leach to match if not better the return of their Sri Lankan counterparts. Having an off-spinner, a leg-spinner and a left-armer provide England with a nice amount variety and Baylis and Farbrace who have both had time coaching in Sri Lanka should have an inside track on which combination of spinners to pick depending on the pitch. If, as seems likely, the 1st Test is played on a "bunsen burner" then there is every chance that England will play all 3 spinners. I am particularly keen to see what Jack Leach can achieve for England and I am going to make the bold prediction that if he is given the chance he will out bowl both Rashid & Moeen in this 3 Test series.
<grammarly-btn>For his part, Leach is used to playing on turning pitches having been the chief benefactor of Somerset's decision in 2016 to create spinning wickets. As a result, Leach is used to having the expectation of taking wickets and winning matches for his county, something that Moeen & Rashid have both struggled with when presented with the opportunity to do so.
For all 3 confidence will be a key factor. If England can start well and get their spinners into the game quickly then I feel confident that they can out-spin Sri Lanka in this series, particularly considering that Ragana Herath will retire after the first game. Equally important to their confidence and the overall success of these tours will be the way that Joe Root captains his spinners including the kind of fields he is willing to give his slow bowlers. Much like my initial critique of the England side, Root's captaincy is fairly limited in its scope and he has not to date shown the nous to win in conditions that don't favour his England side. Have he, the coaches and the senior players made firm plans for how to get the most out of their slow bowling options? In England, as we saw this summer, Rashid was something of a luxury pick for the side and even went one game (the 2nd Test) without bowling a ball or getting a bat. Root will need to have his spinners at the forefront of his mind this winter if England are to get a result as opposed to viewing them as plan E, once plans A-D have all failed.
Balancing the team
From what we hear from the England camp it seems likely that Root will continue to bat at 4 for England as he did for the last 1 and a half matches of the India series. This is excellent news and it seems that both he and the management team have finally come to the decision which I have been arguing for over the last 7 months! However, the question still remains who else will be picked and how will the team be balanced?
Jonny Bairstow remains a doubt both in regards his fitness and his form. Since breaking a finger against India in the 3rd Test he has played 10 innings for England across all formats and scored just 97 runs. His head both in a psychological and technical sense seems to be in the wrong place and from his recent performances it seems he is more interested in pouting about the possibility of losing the wicket keepers gloves, a change I have been arguing for since before his injury, than he is just getting on and doing his best for the team. I have heard rumblings from within the camp that Bairstow very much has the ear of the captain and if he wishes to keep wicket then he will be given that opportunity.
For me, I think it would be a blessing in disguise if he weren't fit to play in the 1st Test and would allow England to consider other options at the number 5 birth. The likely candidates to replace Bairstow would be either Ollie Pope or Joe Denly. My guess is that if Denly does play we may yet see Moeen moved again, this time down to number 5 to accommodate Denly at number 3. The advantage of having Denly in the team would not just be his occasional wrist spin which England surely can't take seriously as a weapon at Test Match level but also the fact that if things go poorly with Jennings or Burns then Denly could be ready to step up to an opening birth.
The only other alternative would be to play an additional bowler, for example, Chris Woakes who could add depth to both disciplines. However, that would leave England with potentially 6 frontline bowlers + Ben Stokes and begs the question if 5 bowlers + Stokes can't get the job done then what makes them think that a 7th option would fair any better?
Given the above, my starting 11 for the 1st Test would be as follows
- Burns
- Jennings
- Denly
- Root
- Moeen
- Stokes
- Buttler
- Curran
- Rashid
- Leach
- Anderson
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