Now that was an interesting summer of cricket but was it a successful one? In my opinion, the way to gauge a season is to look at the fortunes of the Test side.
England started the year with a tour of the West Indies which resulted in a disappointing 2-1 series defeat. What I believe didn’t help was that we had only two 2-day warm up matches. Realistically, how can any side expect to succeed when preparation is overlooked? The strength of the opposition also had to be questioned. In the first warm up game, eight opposition batsmen were allowed to bat twice. In the second warm up, England’s total included numbers 8 to 10 getting into the 40s. Both matches were won very comfortably but hardly tested our players.
Next up was the one-off Test against Ireland in July as a warm up for The Ashes. 85 all out in the first innings was hardly promising but was it really a surprise? 20 wickets fell on the first day. Joe Root was critical of what he called a substandard Lords pitch and then Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad created total carnage in Ireland’s second innings. Finally, throw in the inevitable hangover after the emotions of the CWC Final. Australia played a warm up match against their own A Team.
The scheduling of the CWC certainly did nothing to help in our Test Match preparations.
Then The Ashes finally started. The viewing public were presented with two spectacularly ordinary sides; the exception being Steve Smith. Undoubtedly, losing Jimmy Anderson after he bowled only 4 overs in the First Test didn’t help but it would be churlish to suggest that this was why we didn’t regain The Ashes. Only two completed innings throughout the series surpassed 400 and both scored by Australia. More than enough words have been written already by far more articulate writers than me regarding what happened in Leeds but it was certainly the most thrilling finish since Bob Willis in 1981 at the same venue.
Joffra Archer’s performances gave a lot of hope for the future. That said, I felt that he was overbowled on occasions. He has an extraordinary talent for being able to bowl extremely quickly. His workload really needs to be sympathetically managed. He can’t be expected to hurl down bombs in excess of 90mph if he is bowling in long spells.
Everyone has known for a long time that Trevor Bayliss would be walking away after the Conclusion of the summer. Who was going to replace him? Early noises suggested that Gary Kirsten was widely tipped to be the front runner. While this was happening, the squads for the forthcoming tour to New Zealand were announced. This should have flagged up to everybody that the appointment was going to be someone from within the existing management structure. The appointment of Chris Silverwood certainly raised a number of eyebrows around the country but not here in Essex. Silverwood was Head Coach at Chelmsford and was instrumental in Essex winning promotion to Division 1 of the County Championship in 2016. One year later, while Middlesex were being relegated (sorry Freddie), Essex won the County Championship for the first time in 25 years. No surprise that he took the opportunity to join the England set up in early 2018.
Time will tell if Silverwood’s appointment will be a success. One way for him to have a chance is for the ECB to take the County Championship seriously. The conclusion to the CC this year was ruined by the weather.
S.N. Don