England’s test cricket needs an identity, there have been a few attempts and numerous reviews and resets. Identity is perhaps somewhat like culture, you can aspire to have it, you can broadcast that you have it, but actually you only ever really achieve it if you live it. Then it speaks for itself.
The current trend, in the press and media, is to group Key, Stokes and McCullum into the bold and aggressive category and assume that is the identity of the test team. Herein lies the first problem. Test cricket never has been about being just one thing or the other. The reason it is the best form of the game is that it requires you to play the situation (batsman, bowler, captain) and not be a master of only one approach.
The selections of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope in the top three point towards an aggressive approach. Both have incredible talent and timing, neither have yet shown the temperament or game awareness to play the situation.
Yet the bowling attack of Anderson, Broad, Overton and Leach is quite the opposite, it smacks of conservatism and a fear of run rate.
Strike rate of batsmen is often quoted, Pope, Crawley and Harry Brook score at well above 50 runs per 100 balls in first class cricket. Yet with bowlers it is often economy rate that is considered. Both of these measurements have a use, but are essentially an output of limited overs cricket.
Runs and wickets are currency, and both disciplines require the ability to attack and defend within the context of the overall game situation. A better measurement for a bowler would be strike rate. If your bowlers are taking a wicket at a strike rate of 50 or less then you will not often bowl more than 83 overs in an innings.
Turning to the batting, the opposition players who stick in my memory over recent years (since October 2019) are; Rohit, Brathwaite, Labuschagne, Smith, Watling – not one of whom has scored at over 50 runs per 100 balls. They have all batted long periods of time setting innings up and draining the fielding side.
Warwickshire’s Sam Hain and the remodelled Dom Sibley both score more sedately than many of their peers at closer to 40 runs per 100 ball. Much like the days when Cook, Strauss and Trott laid the platform, they have the composure and self-awareness at age 26 to provide a platform for those to come after them such as Root, Lawrence, Stokes and Bairstow.
Many good judges were surprised that Matt Parkinson and Jamie Overton did not make the test squad. A leg spinner with 126 wickets striking every 53 balls is a once in a generation talent!
Jamie Overton is genuinely fast. He is at last genuinely fit and at the age of 28 has a maturity about him. He now has 200 first class wickets, striking every 52 balls and (as is often quoted about Craig) he is an excellent fielder and useful batsmen as well as being of good character.
Batting for a long period of time has many uses, primarily runs but also scoreboard pressure and rest for the bowlers. The mantra of ‘putting pressure back on the bowlers’ is fine, if applied judiciously. ‘Bowling dry’ is something that has crept in as ‘plan A’ and that is misplaced. Set fields to encourage your bowlers to take wickets.
Turn the plan upside down! Select bowlers on wickets and strike rates & select batman on volume of runs and 100’s then your identity will emerge, that of a side that wins through application of skills at the right time under pressure.
As Nasser said, “I nearly picked Rob Key up on this the other day, he talked about brand of cricket. He wants England to play a positive one. I think England fans and myself want to see England play a winning brand of cricket, however that’s done, go out and start winning Test matches.”