A Great Test Match: New Zealand v England, 2nd Test, Basin Reserve, 24-28 February 2023

 

Scorecard

As Richie Benaud would have said, “Blundell; Tucker; Anderson the man to go”.

Thus ended the finest test match that most of us have seen, a contest that joins Sydney 1894, Headingley 1981 and Kolkota 2001 as the only test matches to be won by a team following on; and Adelaide 1993 in being won by one run. One match on two of cricket’s most exclusive lists.

I was there (the three best words that anyone can write about a great sporting fixture), for the whole match, but let us focus on the extraordinary fifth day.

It began with England needing 210 more for victory with nine wickets standing, a situation that we New Zealanders would have grabbed thankfully had it been offered a day in advance, but which had become disappointing after the home team lost its last five wickets for 28.

The man out at the end of the fourth day was Zak Crawley, bowled through a gap big enough for a basketball. As a man of Kent I am naturally pleased to see the old club have a presence in the England team, but supporters of every county can propose a player or two who would have averaged more than 27 had they been given 33 tests. I’ll start: Darren Stevens. “James Hildreth” sings out from the Quantocks and the Mendips, and so on.

Ollie Robinson is in the great tradition of Sussex nightwatchmen inspired by Robin Marlar, apocryphally out second ball for six. Robinson took a single off the first ball of the penultimate over of the fourth day, so exposing Duckett, then attempted to put the ball over the Museum Stand before the scheduled close.

It was therefore no surprise when, early on the final day, Robinson scythed one in the air, finding Michael Bracewell under it.

Bracewell had been from triumph to disaster and was now making the return journey. On the first day he took the best slip catch that the Basin has seen in a long time, stretched full length parallel to the ground, collecting the ball in his left hand at the second attempt to dismiss Duckett.

But on the fourth day, Bracewell became a national villain when he was run out after omitting the most basic of cricketing protocols: grounding his bat when completing a run. Only five more were added to the total before New Zealand were all out, which left Bracewell’s face on the wanted poster seeking the man responsible for England’s target being fifty or so fewer than it might have been. What is more, he knew that, as the only spinner in the team, he was carrying a nation’s expectations, despite having been a serious bowler for only a couple of years.

Michael Bracewell had a good day, in the end.

It was when Ben Duckett was out six runs later, flashing at one outside the off stump off Henry, that we took the first tentative shuffle towards the edge of our seats. These days, whenever an English batter gets out to a shot that has not been in the MCC Coaching Book since Gladstone was prime minister, cynics are inclined to point to the moral failings of what, for convenience, we will call Bazball. This despite McCullum being responsible for reviving England’s test team from the frightened, failed state it was in less than a year ago. In fact, England’s approach to the chase was pretty conventional.

Tom Blundell took the catch. Second-highest scorer in both innings here, he has conducted more rescue operations in the past year than the average lifeboat crew. For once, he came in with what appeared to be a decent score on the board, 297 for five, but take the deficit into account and it was 71 for five, so it was carry on as normal. In England’s second innings, Blundell stood up to the quick bowlers more than I have seen any keeper do, and he did it superbly, like Godfrey Evans standing up to Alec Bedser.

Blundell put on 158 with Kane Williamson. For much of his career, you looked at the scoreboard 45 minutes after Williamson has come in and saw that he had 35, but couldn’t remember how he got them. For the time being he has lost this ability to accumulate by stealth, and here it was more of a battle, but the longer it went on the more fluent he became on his way to 132. The memories that this match gave us.

On the boundary, Neil Wagner waited. He may have been wondering if this was his last day as a test cricketer. England’s new, aggressive mindset had cost him 311 runs from just 50 overs, the trademark Wagner short-pitched delivery more of a threat to spectators on the boundary than it was to the batters. He had lost a few kph, just enough to take the aces out of the pack that he used to perform his trick that kidded his victims that he was genuinely quick. He had become Boxer, the carthorse from Animal Farm, whose “work harder” solution to every problem could no longer defy the advancing years.

Wagner came on first change. Ollie Pope swotted his third ball to mid-wicket boundary, and it seemed we would have to look elsewhere for our hero today. Confidence buttressed, Pope saw four more runs coming from the last ball of the over and shaped to cut, but Wagner was telling the old joke again. It was on Pope a tad quicker and a smidgen straighter than he anticipated. Latham took a good catch at second slip. Eighty for four.

Joe Root and Harry Brook were now together, the most reliable Yorkshire combo since Aunt Betty and puddings. Their first-innings partnership of 302 for the fourth wicket was the best batting that any of us had seen for a long time. Brook made 186 from 176 balls with a low level of risk and a near-perfect match of shot to delivery. The perfection of his placement suggested that he could earn a living threading needles.

In comparison to Brook, anything that might be said about Root’s innings is at risk of damning him with faint praise. At any other time in England’s test cricket history we would say that four an over, mostly on the first day, was a remarkable rate of scoring. It was a perfectly judged innings, and had New Zealand lost on the third or fourth day, as many of us expected, we would have treasured the memory of this test match for the batting of Root and Brook alone.

Root nudged the ball towards the gap between third slip and gully and seemed to set off. Maybe he had forgotten that Blundell was standing up to Southee, ready to collect Bracewell’s throw. It was Brook’s call, but it must be hard to tell your hero “no”. He didn’t face a ball.

With 173 to get and five wickets standing, the game had become New Zealand’s to win, but the combination of Root at his best and Stokes, who loves a cocktail of tension and pressure, was as good as the cricket world could offer in this situation.

A contact who spent time in the press box told us that the English writers are calling Stokes “Brearley”, and not in a nice way. If this is so they should be ashamed, so much has Stokes done for cricket in general and England’s cricket in particular. One of the many narratives of the epic story of this test match was that both Stokes (knee) and Henry (back) were struggling with injuries and pain that should properly have seen them in the dressing room attached to a small iceberg.

The tension and bottled-up emotion of the next three hours was worthy of Le Carré at his best. Every ball came wrapped in hope and fear, the balance for the home supporters ebbing away from the former until it seemed all gone. Root, his judgement making Solomon look a dabbler in the art, took on the role of run chaser and proceeded at close to a run a ball. He was harsh on Bracewell in particular. Stokes, cast against type, was putting the emphasis on defence, ready to take over the guns if Root went down.  

Southee was most effective in keeping the scoring rate down, and his effervescent first-innings 73 was critical in reducing the lead. It will seem a surprising observation to say that a knock of 49 balls that contained five fours and six sixes shows us (and ideally Southee himself) what a dusting of contemplation can do. His shot selection was more spot-on than at any time since his debut 77 in a lost cause at Napier in 2008, for which I was also present.

I wanted Wagner back on earlier. Root and Stokes had been reasonably respectful of him at the start of their partnership, as if they had heard a particularly apposite sermon on the dangers of temptation. Bracewell bowled admirably, but was always dependent on a batter’s error to take a wicket, which did not succeed in doing.

We didn’t see Wagner in the attack again until the target was below 60, and it seemed that our chance had gone. So depressed was the general mood that some people who had left their city-centre offices at 80 for five were sufficiently desperate as to contemplate returning to them.

Perhaps the gloomy miasma reached and infected Stokes. He took the fourth ball of Wagner’s first over back to be an invitation to disrupt the traffic to the Mt Victoria tunnel, but, from somewhere, Wagner summoned that extra bit of pace and up in the air it went, landing safely in the hands of Latham at backward-square leg.

Astonishingly, Root fell for the same old trick in Wagner’s next over, except that this one did not get up as much. Had the shot gone as planned it would have broken the Museum Stand clock and Root would have had his second hundred of the match, but instead it lobbed gently to Bracewell at mid on.

With 55 needed and three wickets left, the arrival of Stuart Broad at the crease was more likely to comfort the home, rather than the visiting, supporters. I recently re-read my unflattering view of Broad’s batting in the World Cup match between these teams in 2015, and thought it harsh (I compared his thinking to that of the local ovine population, to their benefit). Yet here he approached his task just as New Zealand were expecting and wanting, the only surprise being that it took him as long as nine balls to shovel a catch to deep third where, inevitably, Wagner was waiting. It needs to be said that it was a privilege to watch Broad and Anderson bowling together one last time in New Zealand.

Foakes and Leach were together with 43 needed and only Anderson to follow. Much of what happened in the remaining overs mystified me. I have never understood why, with two wickets left to win the game, a team would stop trying to get one of the incumbents out by conventional means, instead setting fielders on the boundary and relying on the batter making a mistake. But this, of all matches, is not in need of over-analysing.

Ben Foakes approached his task courageously and came so close to winning the game, yet amateur selectors continue to contemplate an England team without him. At the other end Jack Leach summoned the spirit of Headingley ’19 to give resolute support. The closer the target got, the bolder Foakes became. A pull to the mid-wicket boundary would have been caught by Bracewell, had he been on three metres further out. There was a no ball for three fielders behind square on the onside. Then were two successive fours off Wagner, the first of which might have decapitated umpire Tucker.

On and off the field, New Zealanders were struggling to hold their nerve as we counted the target down. Again, it appeared that all hope was lost. We were Tom Hanks, waiting to die on the raft in Castaway, all hope gone.

For the third time within the hour an English batter became over ambitious. With seven needed Foakes went for the big shot off Southee only to find the top edge. One of the best moments of spectating is when you follow a ball through the air and work out where it is going to fall. From my position high in the RA Vance Stand I could see that it would land about five metres inside the rope at fine leg, but that part of the boundary was obscured by television camera scaffolding, so I only at the last moment did I see Neil Wagner emerge, and throw himself towards the ball to take the catch. No possibility of drama on this day was omitted from its narrative.

In came Jimmy Anderson. Of course. That would be the story here, Anderson hitting the winning run. His clubbed four through mid on off Wagner to put England a single away from a tie supported this interpretation.

The next seven deliveries each encompassed the torment, guilt and despair of its own deadly sin. The fifth ball of Southee’s over was especially taxing as Leach made his only attempt to score in the over, stopped – just – by a diving Henry at mid on.

Then: Blundell; Tucker; Anderson the man to go, and it was done.

My Brooklyn correspondent, a man only a little younger than me, hurdled two chairs in the Long Room at the moment of victory. I myself leapt high in the air, several times, an expression of joy from which I had assumed myself to have retired in the late 1980s, but we all lost thirty years for a minute or two.

Strangers embraced, linked forever in a moment. One of the Basin regulars said that we would remember this day for the rest of our lives, and so we will. Given the choice between recalling this day and my own name, I will choose the former, with no hesitation at all.

Of all my days at the cricket, this was the best.

 

 

Three days at Hagley Park

New Zealand v England, Second Test, Hagley Oval, 30 March 2018

Scorecard

Here’s a tip. If you are in a taxi to the airport at 5 30 am, on no account tell your Chinese driver that you are going to the cricket. That way you will avoid passing the entire journey being interrogated on the differences between the game’s three formats. I fear that my powers of exposition were well below peak at that time of the day, a hapless witness, quickly broken down by a merciless prosecutor.

I was off to Christchurch for the first three days of the second test. As we flew over the central city, the effects of the devastation wrought by the 2011 earthquake remain clear to see. Substantial tracts of the CBD are levelled, with some buildings still to come down. We saw Lancaster Park, the home of Canterbury rugby and cricket for more than a century, now a desolate memorial, shortly to be demolished, including the massive Deans Stand, recently opened when the earthquake struck, with some seats that were never sat on by spectators.

Cricket was in the process of moving the domestic game to Hagley Park before the earthquake. After it, plans were expanded so that it could accommodate internationals as well. It reminds me of Mote Park, Maidstone, also a tree-lined ground with a grass bank around much of the boundary, set in one corner of a large park (and with rugby pitches adjacent).

My seat was in the temporary stand that was divided into sections named after notable Canterbury cricketers: Congdon, Dowling, Hastings, Pollard, Murdoch, Hockley. The latter two are former captains of the national women’s team, and both have been fine additions to the New Zealand Sky commentary team this season, particularly Hockley, who has a good line in punchy astuteness. The choice of Vic Pollard may have been a gaffe, given that the test embraced Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Pollard wouldn’t play on any Sunday for religious reasons.

England were put in by Williamson, in the hope of exploiting some early greenness. Cook got a cracker from Boult early on, swinging late to take his off stump. His footwork was a little laggardly—perhaps a season on Strictly Come Dancing is what he needs—but it was the quality of the bowling that exposed it. As the technology has become more forensic, analysis has tended to explain dismissals in terms of flawed batting. Alistair McGowan once did a sketch as Alan Hansen in which he explained some of football’s greatest goals purely in terms of defensive error. Sometimes the bowling is simply better.

James Vince gave us another of his butterfly innings, beautiful but brief. Joe Root’s innings was similar but a bit longer, and classier. His bat seemed to have nothing but middle until he lost concentration and was bowled by Southee. Malan got a testing delivery first ball before his feet were moving, then Stoneham became the third wicket to fall with only one run added. His was one of those curious innings where it might have been better for his reputation had he got out early, the auto-navigator determinedly directing him away from his comfort zone throughout.   

Ben Stokes batted as he had at the ODI in Wellington, and as he lives life in general these days, with caution suppressing his natural instincts, until just after lunch he gave it away with a legside flick caught behind, a popular way of getting out in this series.

Stuart Broad batted as if being No 8 was a responsibility that he wanted to divest himself of as soon as possible, which brought in Mark Wood, returning to the test team for Overton, to support Jonny Bairstow. New Zealand followed the irritating practice of trying to get Bairstow off strike and Wood on it. What’s more, this continued well beyond the point when it became clear that Wood was striking the ball well and there was a case for doing it the other way round. I still don’t understand why, when you only have two or three wickets to take, you would stop trying to get one batsman out.

Bairstow was superb. He has been England’s best batsman on the New Zealand tour. His innings started in retrenchment then moved to accumulation then attack. He moved up through the gears as smoothly as Lewis Hamilton and reached his century early on the second morning.

It didn’t help that New Zealand’s DRS challenges had both been frittered away by the 34^th over. For a young man whose reputation is built upon rationality and common sense, the way Kane Williamson’s eyes light up at the chance of a punt on the lamest of nags in this respect is odd.

As has been widely advertised, all the first innings wickets for both sides fell to the opening bowlers. This series has provided an opportunity to see the finest pair of opening bowlers that both these teams have had. Of course, Richard Hadlee was New Zealand’s best quicker bowler and he was well-supported, most notably by Ewen Chatfield, but Graham Gooch was not over-hyperbolic when he described New Zealand’s attack in the Hadlee era as World XI at one end and Ilford Seconds at the other.

Trueman and Statham will be a popular alternative for England. Both were probably better bowlers than Anderson and Broad as individuals, but didn’t bowl as a combination as often as people think. They took the new ball together in every test of only two series: South Africa at home in 1960 and Australia away in 1962/3. Of course, if Trueman had been picked as often as Trueman thought he should have been, it would have been many more. Conversely, had the selectorial conventions of the fifties and sixties still been in place, Anderson and Broad would not have played so much. Then, it was very unusual to pick more than two quick bowlers, plus an all-rounder. The definition of “quick” was looser too, embracing the likes of Derek Shackleton, an upright, shopping-basket-on-the-handlebars type of bowler (this definition of “quick” is still in use in Kent—see Stevens, D).

Broad and Anderson were far too good for the New Zealand top order on the second morning. It was 36 for five just after lunch. Williamson was the fifth, following the fashion by flicking down the legside. He has had another fine season, but has got out to shots he shouldn’t have more often than a player that good has the right to.

BJ Watling is the most underestimated player in world cricket, probably because he plays tests only, and New Zealand play so few of those. Here is a player who has twice participated in world-record-breaking test partnerships for the seventh wicket, and another of 200-plus. By definition, large partnerships this low down the order begin in adversity. He is to a broken innings what Mary Portas is to a failing shop.

Here he had an unlikely ally in Colin de Grandhomme. Regular readers will know that, much as I enjoy de Grandhomme’s cavalier batting in shorter forms, I haven’t seen him as a test all-rounder. Now he played a roundhead innings, the type of which I did not think him capable. What a pleasure to be proved wrong. He was offered plenty of temptation early on, mostly in the form of short stuff from Mark Wood. He took it on, hooking three fours in the second over he faced, but with judicious selection of balls that he could keep down. England would have done better to test him with full-length deliveries on off stump.

De Grandhomme’s 72 was his best test innings. Unlike his hundred at the Basin against he West Indies in December, it was made in adversity and took more than double the number of deliveries of that innings. He and Watling put on 142 for the sixth wicket, a record for New Zealand against England.

There was an impatience about Root’s captaincy that was to be even more evident later in the closing overs of the match. Graeme Swann was reported as complaining that Root meddled too much with Jack Leach’s fields, an impediment to the bowler settling (though Leach looked a genuine test spinner). The England captain is a one-man Flat Earth Society in terms of the inexhaustible number of questionable theories that he has.

Southee came in with a considerable England lead still in prospect. Ten years ago, almost to the day, Southee slogged his way to an unbeaten 77 as New Zealand went down in the final test of the series, in Napier. That remains his highest test score and it might have been the worst thing that could have happened to his batting as has tried to emulate it almost every time he has gone to the crease.

So it began here, as if Southee was in a private contest with Broad to see who could be the most reckless No 8 in cricket. He began the third day with a six off the third ball (which should have a double value for interrupting Jerusalem—see below) but these days he runs a basic risk assessment over the delivery before deciding whether of not to slog. The six, I learn from CricInfo, took him into the top twenty of the six-hitting list for tests for all countries, the Arthur Wellard of our age.

Southee went for 50, leaving Wagner and Boult to stage an anarchic last-wicket partnership (there is no other kind of any significant duration) of 39, including Wagner’s emulation of Botham’s no-look hooked six of Old Trafford ’81. From 36 for five, the deficit had been reduced to an insignficant 29.

Alistair Cook went early, caught behind off Boult. It has been denied since, but when he walked off, was it for the last time as a test batsman? Might he think, as he tends the young lambs, that he has nothing more to prove?

Stoneman was somewhat more convincing than he had been in the first innings, but only somewhat. He was dropped twice before giving it away on 60 with a slash to one of Southee’s worst deliveries.

I had written note after his first innings that if Vince were ever to make a test century, it would be a fine, pretty thing that I would like to see. When he, predictably, unleashed a silky off drive third ball, the general feeling was that it was the start of an exquisite 18, or a gorgeous 23. But there was less beauty and more application today, as Vince made his way to 76 before, yes, nicking to slip. Same ending, but more chapters.

I had left for the airport to return to Wellington shortly before Vince’s dismissal, so followed the rest of the game on TV and the internet, including the heart-health challenge of the last hour of the last day. The partnership between Wagner—pleased to have found a new way to irritate the opposition—and Sodhi kept England at bay. New Zealand taking the test series (though that isn’t a word that should really be used for two matches) while England had the ODIs was a fair reflection of the strength of the teams.

Hagley Park is a wonderful venue for tests. There should be a game there and at the Basin every year, with remaining games divided between Hamilton, Mt Maunganui (both of which have lights), and Dunedin. No more tests in the empty greyness of Eden Park, thanks.

I have recently read John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee, Citizen Clem. He begins each chapter with a quotation from a work that influenced Attlee at the period the chapter describes. That on Attlee’s early years as an MP (he was elected in 1922) opens with a familiar poem that outlines a determination to build a new, better, society out of the suffering brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Attlee quoted it in his 1920 work The Social Worker, which was both an early textbook on that unjustly derided vocation and a statement of political belief.

Hard to think that it is the same verses as those subjected to daily torture by the Barmy Army after the first ball of each day. In fairness, Jerusalem had become a patriotic vehicle by Attlee’s time, but after the First World War, its expression of an intent to make the country a better place out of the suffering was still understood. Not an ounce of this remains in the accusatory manner in which it was delivered in Christchurch. Presumably, the reference to dark satanic Mills is thought to be to the former New Zealand seamer. If any of Blake’s original intent was understood, the same people who sing the song in the morning wouldn’t pick on security guards doing their job on or close to the minimum wage in the afternoon.

New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

New Zealand v England, World Cup, 20 February 2015, the Cake Tin

The other day Corey Anderson said that the New Zealand team was a “juggernaut”, which in Britain describes a large truck. That makes England the rabbit transfixed by the headlights, unable to evade the inevitable squashing.

It was sheer joy at the Cake Tin yesterday. For a start, it was sweltering, a word we use sparingly in Wellington. My Khandallah correspondent, who has spent her life under the scorching sun of the upper North Island, passed the first two hours charting the approach of the shade towards our seats.

And I saw the best one-day bowling that I have ever seen; the most spectacular innings I have ever seen; and captaincy so rich in innovation and imagination that it moved me.

McCullum’s field-setting was worth the price of admission. He makes Mike Brearley—who once stationed a helmet at short extra cover—appear cautious and unresourceful by comparison.

The New Zealand captain is in the process of rewriting the one-day captaincy manual. There were three close catchers, then four, then five, then—for Morgan—six. It was breath-taking. McCullum rejects orthodoxy as if it were carrying the plague. His strategy is to restrict scoring by taking wickets. Ross Taylor could play for another 20 years if he can stand at first slip all innings.

McCullum’s conception of cricket’s possibilities is different and exciting. If all captains would commit to attack as he does, all fears about the future of 50-over cricket would be allayed. My Life in Cricket Scorecards is no musician, but watching Brendon McCullum lead a cricket team must be what it would have been like watching von Karajan at his peak conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. A little louder from the piccolos, a second gully. Slightly slower cellos, third man move squarer.

Regular wickets kept the pressure on England in the first part of the innings. Eoin Morgan looked as scratchy as a flea-ridden tabby, but is a good player who could relocate his form at any moment. At 104 for three, Morgan and Joe Root seemed to be close to restoring parity. Who would have guessed then that the game had fewer than 20 overs left to run?

They were a bit slow, mainly thanks to a miserly spell of six overs for 17 runs from Daniel Vettori, who reminded me of Derek Underwood. This was partly because Vettori is a highly skilled and very clever slow left-armer, but also because the batsmen were playing his reputation as much as his bowling. Time and time again I saw batsmen retreat into caution against Underwood because of the years they had spent watching the consequences of failure. Joe Root and his generation cannot remember a time when Vettori was anything other than a one-day tourniquet and it shows in their approach.

England appeared to have decided to play Vettori out, but Morgan’s resolve broke and he went for the big straight shot. My correspondent and myself had a perfect view of the ball coming towards us. It appeared to be about to pitch safe just short of the long-on boundary. But Adam Milne lengthened his last couple of strides before leaping full length, taking the ball in two hands in mid-air and landing safely. That was the moment the game turned on.

McCullum struck with the certainty of a lioness stalking a wounded wildebeest. Southee was brought on at once and immediately bowled Taylor with an outswinger so beautiful that Mark Antony would have spurned Cleopatra to kiss it.

Of course, other captains might have brought back their strike bowler against a new batsman, but fewer would have resisted the temptation to save some of that bowler’s overs for the death. They would have settled for 210 for eight. Only McCullum would have also bowled his other strike bowler out at the same time. 123 all out.

Seven wickets fell for nineteen runs. As an overseer of collapses Peter Moores could arrange a job swap with the Greek finance minister. Joe Root barely faced a ball during these overs, an example of the lack of intelligence that characterised England’s day.

Tim Southee was brilliant. Seven for 33 was the best performance for New Zealand in ODIs. His control of the ball and use of the crease could not have been bettered by Alderman, or even Hadlee. Four of the seven were bowled, all with a graze of the off stump (love the flashing bails by the way). The swing was not huge, but with such precision it did not have to be.

There was no doubt that McCullum would go after the bowling. His name and “steady accumulation” are antonyms. But the ferocity and accomplishment was beyond prediction, best recorded in his scoring sequence: 160044444016404606666401W. It was slugging not slogging, the quickest fifty in World Cup history (previous holder: B McCullum). As in every other aspect of the game, McCullum incinerates the text book and does it his way.

Anderson, Finn and Broad are seasoned international bowlers, but the experience of having an opening batsman rampaging down the pitch in the first overs appeared new to them. There was no plan. They didn’t know what to do.

The four consecutive sixes were off Steve Finn in an arc between cover and long off. One worries for Finn for whom, even more than most bowlers, confidence is the glue that holds his game together. Half an hour in the public stocks would have been no more humiliating.

On a desperate day for England, one member of the team deserves special mention. A woolly resident of any field in New Zealand selected at random would have brought more brainpower to the game than Stuart Broad managed. Who knows why, coming in at 110 for seven, he thought that the best way to deal with Southee (five for 28) was to try to belt him over long on? His first ball to McCullum fed the batsman’s signature lofted cut, and the rest of the over allowed the New Zealand captain to set off flying. That Broad should finish the game with a high-wide bouncer that flew over Buttler’s head to the boundary was somehow fitting.

I can barely express how much I enjoyed this game. New Zealand pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. England gloriously hopeless. Just when you think that cricket has given you all it can along comes Brendon McCullum who says “let’s make it a little bit better”. 

The Case for a Specialist Captain

It has to be acknowledged that My Life in Cricket Scorecards is not renowned for its topicality. Match reports appear weeks after the matches they describe have been played. Events of significance pass by without comment or acknowledgement. My considered views on the great issues of the time—Packer, Bodyline, whether Dr Grace is a true amateur—remain in formulation. I’ll get back to you any year soon.

But I have an idea. It is about the England captaincy. The ECB has let it be known that Alastair Cook will remain as England captain despite England’s five-nil loss in the Ashes. The patient is well, the post mortem superfluous. At the SCG over the past few days Cook has appeared hollowed out, bewildered by the situation, one of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.

I was put in mind of David Gower in 1989, a similar series which began with England as favourites and ended in a drubbing. By midway through the fifth Test, at Trent Bridge, England found themselves three-nil down and following on 347 behind. Captain Gower suddenly seized the moment and promoted himself to open, brushing aside young Martyn Moxon who had come all the way from Leeds for that very purpose. Gower was bowled by Geoff Lawson for five.

The same degree of desperation to do something, anything, however ill-advised, was evident in Cook’s batting at Sydney. In the first innings he padded up to be lbw and in the second flailed away uncharacteristically and briefly. It is fortunate that England’s next Test is not until mid June, against Sri Lanka. This gives Cook (who should be excused the pointless ODI/T20 visit to the Caribbean next month, and who is not involved in the T20 World Cup) time to recover his equilibrium and enthusiasm (Gower was omitted completely from West Indies tour that followed the ’89 debacle).

But what if he doesn’t? If the burden of the captaincy neutralises Cook as a batsman? If he is not actually a decent captain? Nobody is suggesting that the defeat was down to tactical errors in the field, though a number of commentators have questioned his understanding of the needs of his bowlers in terms of the fields he sets them. There is no question that the tempo of England’s cricket has slowed since he took over. In their now vulnerable position England need a captain who will make the best of the resources available, nuture the fresh talent and inspire the troops. It is not clear that Cook is this man.

Of course Cook, along with almost every other international captain these days, has the disadvantage of not having had the opportunity to learn to be a captain before assuming the role. Until twenty years ago it was unusual for the England captain not to be (or have been) a county captain. Mike Atherton was the first modern exception to this rule. Since the expansion of England’s international programme in 2000 international players have had little opportunity (though that may not be the word they would use) to play county cricket, so the captain will almost inevitably lack experience in the role.

This disadvantages the incumbent, but also means that there are no proven captains in the team ready to take over. Part of the reason for sticking with Cook appears to be the lack of an appropriate successor.

Stuart Broad seems to be the most popular alternative. That would involve overcoming the widely held prejudice against fast bowlers being captains, one that I have to say I share (two words: Bob Willis). Broad does seem too volatile to be captain. For a start, the DRS referrals would be used up in the first 20 minutes of every innings.

Ian Bell, for reasons unexplained, is not seen as captaincy material. Michael Vaughan has called for Kevin Pietersen to be made vice-captain: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/10550821/Ashes-2013-14-Kevin-Pietersen-must-be-made-England-vice-captain-to-confront-yes-men.html. It is a surprisingly persuasive piece, but it would be like recalling Trotsky from Mexico. Andy Flower would almost certainly prefer the deft application of an ice pick. Prior and Trott are both out of consideration, so Cook it is. Unless…

Ask “who are the best England captains over the past fifty years?” and a debate about the respective merits of Mike Brearley and Raymond Illingworth should ensue. Both were specialist captains who would not have played nearly as many Tests as they did had they not been captain. Tony Lewis, Keith Fletcher, Mike Denness and, ludicrously, Chris Cowdrey were other, less successful, specialist captains of England.

The option of picking a captain from outside the squad, or the central contract system should at least be considered. Who would the contenders be? People who follow the county game more closely than I am able to these days will have their own ideas, but a look through the list of current county captains throws up three contenders.

Paul Collingwood led Durham to the County Championship last year. He has a distinguished international record and has learned more about captaincy since being unimpressive in the role in ODIs a few years ago (though he did lead the winning T20 England side in 2010). Collingwood would not have credibility with the players from the start, unlike other candidates who would have to earn it. His batting has deteriorated; he averaged under 30 for Durham in 2013. But he would still be one of the best fielders and could still produce nuggets of innings from No 7.

Rob Key resumes the Kent captaincy in 2014 after a season’s sabbatical. He has the reputation as one of the county game’s best skippers, is well-liked and is the same cosy shape as Darren Lehmann, the coach who has put the fun back into the Australians. Key is still batting well and could contribute usefully at No 6.

James Foster remains one of the finest wicketkeepers around and averaged in the mid-30s last season. He would fill a Prior-shaped hole in the team (by the way, why is it widely assumed that Prior should return after two shocking series; it’s very odd?). Foster has captained Essex for four years and deserves to have more caps to his name, though I would like to know more about how good a leader people think he is.

If they stick with Cook, another option is to ask Essex to permit him to be captain in the Championship for the five or six games that the England players could play before the international season begins, thanks to the absurdly early start to the domestic season.

A rushed decision into reappointment would be foolish; there is a rare gap of five months in England’s Test schedule providing the opportunity for considered decisions about captain and coach.