BAnd Stokes and Brendon McCullum have brought a clear, aggressive mindset to England in the last three years, an approach that has been extremely positive, releases the players and has brought a lot of excitement. But if they have decided to concentrate on winning games and entertaining the audience, and choosing not to play for a draw or to concentrate on individual milestones, this does not mean that everyone has done that. Centuries are still important for players. Sometimes a draw is a positive result.
What we saw from England when India initially refused to accept the draw on Sunday, was a combination of natural disappointment – they had dominated the game, played so much good cricket, to force the benefit and make the last test a dead rubber – genuine fatigue and a little cultural insensitivity. Certain situations are viewed differently all over the world.
Do you remember the Jonny Bairstow incident at Lord’s during the Ashes of Ravi Ashwin from 2023 Jos Buttler to the non-triker in the 2019 IPL? The way those things were viewed in the UK and abroad was very different. I know that most teams from my time would have run away in County Cricket, even if they had a few batters who approached for centuries, but in international cricket it is different – centuries mean more.
In 2008 I played for Surrey against Somerset in the County Championship in Taunton. The wicket was very flat, one day was completely rained and the game was in a draw where I was about 190. The players started shaking hands, but Justin longer, the Australian opener who at the time was the Somerset captain, everyone stopped and said: “We will stay – we will continue – we will get further – we get a point or he will get a double hundred.”
The match ended a few minutes later when I reached 200. Justin had recognized, although I played for the opposition, there was a milestone that a batter had worked hard to earn.
It is not as if the English completely ignore individual performance. In the same test we were happy to celebrate Joe Root’s when he became the second highest test Run scorer. Graham Magic, Alastair Cook and Jimmy Anderson have spoken about their pride in reaching milestones. I hope and expect that if a young English player was looking for their first test century 90, their captain would be aware of that moment. To achieve that is a huge thing in someone’s life, there is no guarantee that they will be in that situation again, and the confidence that it gives them can be huge.
Some comments recorded on the stump microphone did not reflect well on England. They played some beautiful cricket and dominated the game, but that petulance seems to have overshadowed it. I hope that the end has taught them a few important lessons, about respecting the cultures of other teams and the ambitions of other players and the real value of a draw.
McCullum and Stokes may not be interested in it, but in a series of five tests between two even matched teams there are probably times when one of them has to fight to save a game and a draw becomes a result to be celebrated. It brings me back to England and South Africa in 1998, when Angus Fraser Allan Donald blocked in the last for a draw when we were fully surpassed to keep the score at 0-1. We were enormously stimulated by that result and then won the last two tests to take the series.
The game still lives for the last game on Thursday. All pitches have been quite flat, but the signature on the oval, especially at a domestic level, is a good wicket with some grass still on it. Gus Atkinson has not played much lately, but there is a strong argument to bring it in. He has to get a little extra movement on his home country.
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England will have to decide the composition of their attack, not only on the basis of the quality of their bowlers, but on their vulnerability and how they deal with fatigue. People of my generation have difficulty understanding why, if someone is suitable for playing, you wouldn’t play him. This is a huge game, against huge opponents, with the series on the line. The idea of resting and rotating fit players is a mystery to me: they have bent a lot of overs, but there is a game to win. The big question is the captain because England cannot afford that Stokes will go bankrupt. So their three sailors must be bankers, they can be trusted to bow a lot of overs.
At Old Trafford, the lack of penetration of Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse, especially when the ball was hard and there was a bit of uneven bumper, was surprising. Liam Dawson was neat, but I thought he would cause a few more problems.
Beyond Stokes and Root were the two who appear with credit Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley. India has never recovered from the way the openers attacked them. They are a few that lives at the sword and die at the sword, but we saw how difficult it was to bowl for them and how even very good teams have difficulty preventing them from scoring as soon as they slide into gear. People jump very quickly about their failures, but we also have to enjoy their successes.
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