Bizzare tactics, over-reliance on Joe Root and the road that lies ahead for this England side

We are just a few days away from the Boxing day Test match, Australia lead the series 2-0 and England are pushed against the wall. Frequent batting collapses, defensive mindset, uninspirational bowling efforts, the story of the two Tests have been similar so far.

Can the Englishmen dig deep and find a way to turn this around? Are we in for another Joe Root special - in the third Test? Will Ben Stokes find a way to break the cobwebs and find some form? We will find answers to all these questions in a short span of time but will this solve England’s batting long term woes?

In his post-match comments, Root stressed the need for his batters to be 'brave' in the middle. The word brave doesn't have the same connotations as it does in white-ball cricket. While brave in T20 cricket might mean playing aggressive aerial shots, but its essence is quite different in Test cricket. 

In Test cricket, it means scraping through tough periods, hanging in the middle, dead-batting the bowlers - ball after ball, and biding your time for scoring opportunities. Surviving through tough periods almost instructs the bowler that “right now is your time and I respect it but the tide will shift”. The current crop of England batters simply haven't displayed characteristics of batting for longer periods to show signs of being “brave”.

It will be an understatement to say that the England batting order heavily relies on Joe Root at the moment. The English captain has had a golden run in Test matches this year, amassing 1630 runs in 14 Test matches, including 6 centuries with an inhuman average of 62.69. To put this into a wider context, he now holds the record for most Test runs, in a calendar year by an Englishman. 

In addition to cementing Root as one of the best Test batsmen in the modern era, the runs also papered over England’s batting woes. Except for Root and Dawid Malan, all the other English batters average less than 29. More often than not, other players have failed to stand up and this has been a trend. In the ongoing Ashes series as well, the England skipper has found less to no support from his fellow batters.

Though the skipper bats at the coveted number four spot, like his contemporaries, he virtually opens the innings as he finds himself at the crease way sooner due to early wickets. In the two Ashes games so far, the scores read as 11-2, 61-2, 12-2, 48-2, when he came out to bat. Not once has the score surpassed the 50 run mark and the openers have failed to see off the first session of the play.

As an opener in a Test match, you are your team’s marathon man. You are not only responsible for scoring runs but are also tasked with seeing off one of the most difficult sessions of the play. If you fail to do your job, then the middle order gets exposed to the new ball too soon and it triggers batting collapses more often than not. 

If a team is not batting for longer periods, then the bowlers don’t get enough rest between the innings and it drains the potency right out of the bowling attack. This blunts the chance of taking twenty wickets in a match and teams end up on the wrong side of the results more often than not. Just a single win from the last 11 Tests, case in point. 

The presence of two inexperienced openers in the batting line-up at the moment is also reflective of England’s current batting woes. The game of Test cricket is not one where you give players chances and bleed them young. England has tried hard to fill in the void left by Alastair Cook since 2018 but to no good effect. Between Hameed and Burns, there are only 39 Test matches.

Rory Burns in particular has attracted a lot of criticism for England’s current batting predicament. It has not been without good cause. In the 10 matches this year, the left-handed opener has only managed 530 runs at a marginal average of just 27.89. This is not far from his career average of 30.93 in 31 matches. While the rest of the batting order will be under pressure as well a lot will depend upon how he starts.

Jog your memory back to the moments whenever a team staged a comeback after being down in a series. Back in 2012-2013, England toured India for a four-match test series and was one-nil down heading into the 2nd Test. They staged a remarkable comeback after that, winning two of the remaining three matches and forcing a draw in the last match, thus breaching the Indian fortress at home. 

India won their first series on the shores of Australia three years back when the series was levelled at one apiece after the first two tests. What is common between Alastair Cook of England in 2012 and Mayank Agarwal of India in 2018?

Both the batters though gave their teams the required starts and played the role of marathon man to perfection. Cook’s 270-ball-122 and Mayank’s 161-ball- 76, eased the pressure off the rest of the batting order and allowed them the space and flexibility to do their jobs better. These two innings set the tones for their respective series, where England and India came out victorious in foreign conditions. Will Burns find it in himself to prove us wrong and pull a Cook on this series? If not it will be high time that the England management accepts that there is a real dearth of quality long-form batting past Joe Root at the moment.

There are so many issues going around with England cricket at the moment, but the biggest question hovering around- why the domestic setup cannot produce a technically sound batter with some sense of handling red-ball. The problem in the ongoing Ashes is that England batters, barring their captain and to some extent, Malan, look clueless and don’t look capable enough to put the scoreboard pressure on the Aussies.

Now let’s rewind the clock back to the last time England won the Ashes series Down Under. We go way back to the 2010-11 series when the two sides were evenly matched on paper, but the batting depth separated both the teams on the field. Sir Alastair Cook toyed with the Australian bowlers for fun and amassed 766 runs and was amply supported by the likes of Jonathan Trott (445 runs) and KP (360 runs). The Three Lions went on to win the series 3-1 and the Australians were defeated in their own backyard after a long, long time.

Let me put forward an interesting fact. Since making 578 in the first Test match in Chennai in February, England have been dismissed 10 times for under 200 and their collective average stands at just 23.65 for the year 2021. Imagine if Root was out-of-form this year? Just imagine what would’ve happened to this under-par England side.

Contrast that with how the Aussies have produced classical Test match players who are suited to the needs of a five-day game. The prime example is Marnus Labuschagne, who was a concussion substitute nearly two years ago and since then has grabbed the opportunity with both hands and is now the number one batter in Test cricket.

The obvious problem with England is their desire to overhaul the white-ball setup at the expense of Test cricket. The red-ball game is the real deal and England have looked toothless and vulnerable in this format for a long time now. Change in mentality has to begin from the Boxing Day Test and the change has to start from the top of the order. Surely England has a better Test opener than Rory Burns? They need to provide someone like Jonny Bairstow a long run at the top of the order. Can England really rely on the duo of Burns and Hameed to steer them out of this precarious situation? It's highly doubtful!

The Three Lions have slipped to the seventh position in the World Championship table and they really need a miracle from somewhere to resurrect their campaign. Surely Root is the man, surely he is their best batter, but the others have to raise their hand and ask the skipper vehemently not to worry, and be eager to take the responsibility this time around. England need more batters like Joe Edward Root or else the pain will get worse for the year 2022 as well.

(Written by Anmol Ahuja)