Well done England, but where have you been?

Well played England, terrific effort, but the big question is: why did you wait so long to compete? Why did you wait until you were 3-0 down and the Ashes gone before starting to bat and bowl properly? The answer is simple — too many senior figures played below their best. My impression was that they were not really up for the challenge. They lacked intensity and commitment in the early Test matches. They thought they could just turn up and play like they do in England and everything would be all right. There seems to be a comfort zone, with some players thinking they are automatic selections. Everyone likes each other, there is a good team spirit, but, to me, sportsmen play best ‘on the edge’, when they are not sure if they are in the team. Playing sport is not like a 9-5 job. You have to perform every single day. Each match is everything. There are great rewards for top sportsmen, financial and the public adulation. With it comes no security: you are only as good as your last performance. I am sure the players and the coaching staff will disagree with my comments. Fine. But explain to me and all the England supporters out here why so many guys did not perform well in the first three Test matches. People only started to perform once the Ashes were lost. They faced criticism from everywhere, for their on-field and off-field performances, and there was talk of dropping players such as Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali. Until this Melbourne Test, Cook, Joe Root, Broad, Moeen, Chris Woakes and, even, James Anderson, apart from the session under the lights in Adelaide, all rightly came in for criticism. Suddenly, once there was talk of losing his place, Broad bowled superbly in the first innings on a flat Melbourne pitch. He was faster, more committed and looked like the old bowler we know. Anderson had more devil and more zip and bowled fuller than at any other stage in the series. Broad admitted before the Melbourne Test the ball was not coming out of his hand right. He said his wrist release was wrong. So why did he not work at it and improve it before the first Test in Brisbane? Surely he should have known in the nets and the warm-up matches what was wrong, especially at his age and having played more than 100 Tests. England have plenty of coaches, plus analysts who film everything. It should not have taken two months, three Test losses, poor bowling figures, plus talk of dropping him, before he solved the problem. This is the Ashes. For three Test matches, Cook’s footwork was caught on the crease, or behind the crease, and sometimes he played towards cover with half a bat showing. In this Test match, right from the word go, he got his foot forward to the fuller balls, bent his front knee so the weight of his body came forward and got his head over the ball. You could see the full face of the bat meeting the ball. .For the first time in the series, he drove the ball back past the bowler for boundaries. To his credit, he must have done some work on his technique between Tests. He was possibly helped by a pitch on the slow side, so he could get forward and not be concerned about short balls bouncing and coming on to him quickly. It was a terrific effort to solve his footwork and play so straight, but why did it take so long? Root has played a couple of good innings but his batting has been fraught with poor shots. He has tried too quickly to be aggressive at the start of his innings. In the first innings at Adelaide, he drove at a wide ball and was caught at third slip. At Perth, when we were trying to save the game, he drove at Nathan Lyon’s first ball, which was very wide, and was caught at slip. It was difficult to know what was going on in his head. I suspect his concentration has been affected by captaincy demands on and off the field. In the modern game, there are so many media interviews for the captain without him also having to front up and explain off-field incidents involving Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Duckett as well. It saps a captain’s energy and takes up too much of his time. The hardest thing for a captain in the modern era is being able to answer all the media interviews, plus the cricket needs of the team, while, above all, making time for your own batting. His batting is vital to England’s fortunes, so he needs to practise and have personal time for himself to wind down and put his thinking cap on. Sometimes, captains spend too much energy and time on everyone else and do not leave enough ‘me-time’. Moeen’s bowling and batting have been totally ineffective. We now have a batsman and occasional leg-spinner, Dawid Malan, bowling more overs than him, which is a ridiculous state of affairs. I suspect England have got away with Moeen being a batsman who bowls a bit in home series because our quality seamers do most of the bowling and take most of the wickets with the Duke ball on pitches more receptive to swing and seam. England like Moeen’s late-order batting, with Stokes and Bairstow, as protection for their vulnerable top five batsmen, but he is not making any runs, and that should not be allowed to go on. We need to find a quality spinner for home and abroad Tests. Moeen has not been able to take wickets, cause problems for batsmen or keep the runs down. He was fairly ineffective in India, he has been non-existent in Australia and spin will be required in Sri Lanka next winter. If the senior players do not perform, you have no chance..— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2017

Well done England, but where have you been?

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