Hindsight is a wonderful thing …
As I recall we lost an underwhelming 50 over series against South Africa in late January 2023. Perhaps (with hindsight) an early indicator that we were not the 50 over team we used to be! Fear not, we have 9 months to prepare.
The test team headed to New Zealand fresh off the back of a serious upturn in form and style. The first test was very much business as usual, but a very exciting second test went to the black caps by the barest of margins. We couldn’t possibly be cross, they played with style and entertained us before both sides celebrated over a beer. Scratch a little deeper and perhaps enforcing the follow on was a mistake, but lets be honest we love Ben and Baz, this is light years away from the previous bilge we watched over the preceding years.
March arrives and we play a mixture of 50 over and T20 V Bangladesh. I honestly can’t remember who won, but it was just what we needed from what I recall Jos and Motty saying.
April and May are remarkable, a search on cric info confirms that England had not a single match in any format across that full two month period. Wonderful, we can prepare properly for the Ashes with a good run of first class cricket and/or rest as required.
June and “test” cricket is back … sort of. Whilst Steve Smith and Marnus warm up in county cricket we play a test nation with a bowling attack that is weaker than most division 2 county sides. Their one real threat, Josh Little, is rested.
Strangely Mark Wood and one or two others are missing, strange I say because some of them did not play the New Zealand series so have had 4 months rest. Nonetheless the batsmen fill their boots against Ireland and the Ashes are all but won in the press box.
Before the month of June concludes, we are 2 –0 down in the Ashes. The unlucky Jack Leach was injured before the first game and Moeen is resurrected. On top of that we have still seen no sign of Mark Wood or Chris Woakes … Ollie Pope is now injured after being forced to field with a dislocated shoulder and Jonny Bairstow is shelling catches left, right and centre (after a very serious injury lay off) whilst the world’s best keeper watches on from the sidelines.
It’s hope that kills you! To their credit there is an emphatic and enthralling bounce back in the month of July where we have rammed in 3 tests in an almost marathon like 15 days of concurrent cricket. The weather in Manchester probably did rob us of a 3-2 series win, although there were a lot of chances to avoid being 2-0 down!
Hindsight, I think I mentioned, is a wonderful thing. Perhaps if Foakes has kept in the first two tests we’d have taken more chances, Jonny would’ve been match ready a month later just when Ollie Pope became injured. Perhaps Wood and Woakes from the first test …
Anyway, the popularity of test cricket soared again and whilst we were unlucky with the weather, so were Australia with the injury to the infuriating Nathon Lyon. A draw was probably a fair result, Stuart Broad had the classy ending he deserved and we saw Zak Crawley announce himself as the player we know he can be.
On a serious note, England must reverse this trend of having hard fought home Ashes series that are draws or narrow wins and then getting obliterated in Oz. This Australia team were decent but far from great. To come back from 2-0 down was impressive, to be 2-0 down was very poor!
August – probably the premier month of the English season is upon us and … yeah you guessed it we play one T20 international on the penultimate day of the month. Okay, I know its all about The Hundred, but really no tests? And why a T20 when you are about to go to a 50 over world cup (as defending champions)?
September and we gear up for the 50 over world cup (in India) with 3 more T20’s in England. Before getting serious with 7 ODI’s against New Zealand and Ireland … in England.
October and we defend the world cup successfully.
November I wake up and the World Cup is actually still going on. 11 days into the second month of the World Cup and England are no longer in the World Cup, turns out we were not that well prepared or lead or well anything. Probably not helped by having an Ashes series before … oh hang on Australia managed to win the thing and were the away Ashes team.
Rob Key dropped that ball for the first time with the very odd contract announcement mid tournament. Actually he probably dropped it pre-tournament with squad announcements and re-announcements but he has got much more right than wrong so far in his tenure.
As we roll into December we have a huge test series to prepare for in India in January 2024. The obvious preparation is 3 ODI’s and 5 T20’s in the Caribbean.
The skipper has finally been under the knife, let’s hope he is fit for the India tests. Overall we have a range of very good players with the likes of Pope and Leach hopefully ready to return. Rob Key, Ben Stokes and Baz are all good men … as the inimitable Ronan Keating said “Life is a rollercoaster, Just gotta ride it” – strap in in for another year of fun with the boys in 2024.