The future is looking bright for English cricket

Winning a Test series away from home has never been easy. Admittedly South Africa may be called a team in transition. But the same might be said of England.

After losing the First Test, England went into the second with the youngest and least experienced XI they have fielded for a long time. Dominic Sibley, Zac Crawley, Ollie Pope and Dom Bess hadn’t played a dozen Tests between them. Sam Curran has played more, but is still only twenty-one. Only four of the team in that game had made Test centuries: Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Stuart Broad – the last two only one each, and Broad’s was a long time ago. If by the end of the series England were in full command and looked much the better side, that wasn’t how it had appeared a few weeks previously.

The series victory should, for the time being anyway, have silenced the critics of Root’s captaincy. It has been pointed out that his win-loss record is actually quite good. Of course if, like many, you measure everything against Ashes series, it’s disappointing: a heavy defeat in Australia and a drawn series in England last summer. In mitigation one might remark that in Australia Root and England were without Ben Stokes, on account of his escapade in Bristol, while James Anderson was absent injured for all but the first hour of last summer’s series. Anderson’s record in England is so good over the last five years that it’s quite reasonable to suppose that England might have regained the Ashes if he had been fit to play in all five Tests. Then, memories being short and selective, Root’s critics seem to forget that he has a 4-1 series win against India, a series in which he out-captained Virat Kohli.

Looking ahead many are now ready to call time on Anderson and Broad, principally because we now have two genuine fast bowlers in Jofra Archer and Mark Wood. Well, maybe, but I suspect that at home in England Anderson and Broad are still needed. It may make sense to rest both for the series in Sri Lanka, but in England with the Dukes ball? Perhaps not.

In any case both Wood, who bowled splendidly in the last two Tests in South Africa, and Archer who did likewise against Australia in the summer have a record of injuries. How often will both be fit at the same time? Wood has become more effective after lengthening his run-up, apparently on Michael Holding’s advice. This set me remembering Frank Tyson, a bowler at least as fast as Wood and Archer, who did the opposite in Australia in 1954-5. Bowling off his original very long run, he took 1 for 160  in the First Test. Cutting it by a third, and bowling as fast as any Englishman except for Harold Larwood has done in Australia, he dominated the rest of the series, his best figures being at Melbourne where he took 7 for 27 as Australia were bowled out for 111.

Many of the pundits, qualified and unqualified ones alike, say that Root must not bowl Wood and Archer in spells longer than a few overs and manage their workload carefully. Maybe this is true. Things were different in the days of Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, each of whom frequently bowled 30 or 40 overs in an innings. At Lord’s in 1955 Statham bowled 29 consecutive overs against South Africa to take 7 for 39. What’s more between Tests they would bowl comparable spells for Yorkshire and Lancashire respectively. They might miss the occasional match with a strain or niggle, but I don’t recall either breaking down in first-class careers that lasted almost twenty years. Perhaps today’s fast bowlers are gym-fit, while Trueman and Statham were walking-and-running fit. As boys they probably walked to school instead of being ferried by Mum or Dad.

England may also at last have found an answer to their opening batsmen problem. Neither Sibley nor Rory Burns is the most elegant of players – both have an odd stance. But both seem to have a good temperament and the necessary quality of patience.  Neither, it’s true, delights the eye, as young Ollie Pope does. He is as charming at the wicket as Colin Cowdrey, David Gower and Ian Bell were. He would pass the Neville Cardus test: if you were in London and heard that he was 25 not out at lunch, would you hail a taxi and head for Lord’s or The Oval?

Now while the players amuse themselves with ODIs and T20, thoughts turn to the selection for the two Test series in what is usually the spinners’ paradise of Sri Lanka. Will Joe Denly keep his place at 3 despite not yet having scored a Test hundred? Well, perhaps he should, first because he has brought some solidity to the top order, and second because he is a good player of spin. At The Oval last summer he played Nathan Lyon better than anyone else when the ball was turning. So it would be harsh to discard him.

What of the wicket-keeper? White ball genius though he is, Jos Buttler’s future as a Test player is looking uncertain. Few doubt that Surrey’s Ben Foakes is a better keeper, especially to spin, and in far fewer Tests he has scored as many hundreds as Buttler – one each. Jonny Bairstow has scored more, though not for some time, and is at least as good a keeper as Buttler, one moreover who, like Godfrey Evans of long ago and Alan Knott, also quite some time back, brings enormous energy to the fielding side. Sri Lanka may be too soon for him, but if he plays some Championship matches for Yorkshire, the runs and centuries will probably start flowing again.

England will, thank goodness, play at least two spinners in Sri Lanka, possibly three. Young Dom Bess is the man in place, if only because his Somerset colleague, Jack Leach, fell ill. If Leach is fit, he must surely be picked. He bowled very well in Australia’s second innings at The Oval and has been the best England-qualified spinner in the Championship for the last three years. I hope Moeen Ali feels mentally ready to return to Test cricket. He is a very fine attacking spinner and of course when in form a delightful elegant batsman.

Finally there’s the question of Sam Curran, well, it’s a question for some, but not for me. They say he’s a bits and pieces cricketer. So what? The bits and pieces are very fine. They say his bowling isn’t fast enough to succeed in Test matches. Well, I guess he is quicker than Vernon Philander who has just concluded his Test career with more than 200 wickets at an average of 22. Young Curran moves the ball either way. His control of length and direction is steadily improving, and, most importantly, he troubles good batsmen and takes good wickets. As for his batting, he is indeed still short of big scores. It’s remarked that he hasn’t yet made a first-class hundred. True enough, but since he first played for England against India in 2018, he has played only a handful of county matches. His mentor at Surrey, Alec Stewart, says that all he needs is experience and to learn how to pace an innings. He has had little opportunity to learn that in Tests, considering the state of an England innings when he usually comes to the crease. But he has all the shots, just needs to be more judicious in their employment. Finally, he’s a joy to watch whether bowling or batting. All I would criticise is his fondness for wearing sun-glasses in the field. But that’s the complaint of an old fogey. England would be a duller team without him, and as for the occasional rashness of his batting, call it youthful exuberance. Anyway he’s as good – exciting if not yet reliable – as Ben Stokes was at the age of twenty-one, and is surely part of England’s future for years.

And that future is suddenly looking bright.