Time to unleash the Jonny

Two nil down and facing the prospect of a second successive away whitewash, whilst once again being both out batted and out bowled (save for James Anderson) by Australia, it’s clear that something needs to change for England in the Ashes.

Given the injuries to Toby Roland-Jones, Steven Finn and Mark Wood, the travails of England’s bowling arguably couldn’t be helped but England’s batting problems are arguably harder to explain away beyond the simple point that the quality doesn’t exist. When only four of your batting picks average 40+ in first class cricket (and you clearly don’t trust one of them in Gary Ballance), you can’t expect the personnel to average much more in Test Cricket and thus put up sufficient scores to win games. Which then brings us to the question that England ought to be asking of themselves as they seek to get back into this series: Do we need to pick Bairstow purely as a batsman?

The reality is that for anyone who has followed County Cricket over the last four years, Bairstow is a giant in terms of domestic batsmen. His returns for Yorkshire dwarf anyone else in the County game including some hugely big names. Over the last three years his form has been nigh on ridiculous whenever he’s stepped back into the County ranks, topping the averages with an average of 82 and a century percentage of 35% (plus a healthy conversion rate). The below table highlights the leading run scorers over the last three years in County Cricket (minimum innings 20) and Bairstow averages over 15 more per innings than his closest rival.

Batsmen (Min 20 inns)	Inns	Runs	Ave	SR	50s	100s	Conv	Cent%
JM Bairstow	20	1649	82.45	0.79	5	7	1.40	35.00%
AG Prince	22	1478	67.18	0.68	5	5	1.00	22.73%
AN Cook	22	1445	65.68	0.53	4	6	1.50	27.27%
KC Sangakkara	54	3400	62.96	0.67	10	14	1.40	25.93%
SA Northeast	61	3522	57.74	0.64	16	9	0.56	14.75%
RN ten Doeschate	49	2648	54.04	0.67	17	5	0.29	10.20%
AC Voges	24	1241	51.71	0.53	8	2	0.25	8.33%
BM Duckett	59	2988	50.64	0.77	10	11	1.10	18.64%
JWA Taylor	20	991	49.55	0.57	5	2	0.40	10.00%
LS Livingstone	33	1618	49.03	0.58	9	4	0.44	12.12%
S van Zyl	21	1023	48.71	0.52	4	2	0.50	9.52%
AD Hales	30	1459	48.63	0.66	4	4	1.00	13.33%
AN Petersen	43	1995	46.40	0.62	7	6	0.86	13.95%
MJ Cosgrove	76	3484	45.84	0.64	15	11	0.73	14.47%
RJ Burns	70	3204	45.77	0.51	20	5	0.25	7.14%
WL Madsen	65	2974	45.75	0.55	14	9	0.64	13.85%
T Westley	56	2560	45.71	0.54	13	6	0.46	10.71%
CDJ Dent	71	3199	45.06	0.50	20	8	0.40	11.27%
JL Denly	65	2921	44.94	0.55	16	7	0.44	10.77%
GJ Bailey	20	894	44.70	0.59	5	3	0.60	15.00%

He also had one of the great County seasons in recent years in 2015 (though second only to Sangakkara’s epic 2017 in terms of recent efforts) as the below table of top 10 highest County season averages (min 8 matches) indicates:

Player	Mat	Runs	Ave	Year
KC Sangakkara	10	1491	106.5	2017
MR Ramprakash	14	2211	105.28	2006
MR Ramprakash	15	2026	101.3	2007
NRD Compton	11	1191	99.25	2012
NV Knight	10	1520	95	2002
DJ Hussey	12	1219	93.76	2007
JM Bairstow	9	1108	92.33	2015
SG Law	16	1820	91	2003
MR Ramprakash	11	1350	90	2009
MEK Hussey	14	1697	89.31	2003

And of the active England eligible players (if we ignore the bloke the ECB ask us to) he is the only one with a 50+ average in County Cricket (min 20 innings).

Batsmen (min 20 inns)	Sum of Runs	Ave
KP Pietersen	5031	59.89
JM Bairstow	5937	51.63
LS Livingstone	1618	49.03
ME Trescothick	13729	48.51
AN Cook	6465	47.54
GS Ballance	5396	47.33
JE Root	2679	47.00
NLJ Browne	3831	44.03
BM Duckett	3748	43.58
JM Clarke	2656	43.54
RJ Burns	5711	42.30
DW Lawrence	2072	42.29
IR Bell	8174	42.13
RS Bopara	8844	41.52
NRT Gubbins	2317	41.38
JC Hildreth	13344	41.19
H Hameed	1968	41.00
CT Steel	899	40.86
WL Madsen	8602	40.58
NRD Compton	9186	40.47

So, as we can see. of all the options available to England in terms of batsman to bring in, no-one even comes close to matching Bairstow in terms of output. If this scenario feels familiar, it’s probably because it mirrors the same such debates England were having in the mid 90’s about Alec Stewart and the wicket-keeper position.

Which then brings us on to what are the downsides?

Firstly Bairstow himself doesn’t want to do it and is committed to keeping for England, which is understandable given his keeping improvements over the last two years and the obvious kick he gets from being the focal point in this team. Yet there is a point where England management need to intervene and point out that to truly fulfil his potential greatness as a batsman and help England where their need is greatest, Bairstow ought to drop the gloves. Few wicket-keeper batsmen thrive in Test cricket if their top order cannot post scores (see Quinton De Kock for South Africa this summer gone). England need Bairstow the batsman to make this happen. Plus, unlike for England in the 90s, England have a mean batsman in Ben Foakes as their backup keeper. He may potentially be the best keeper in the world, but he also averages 40+ himself over the last three years in County Cricket.

Secondly, Bairstow’s Test form as a batsman alone is patchy. Which is a fair point

Grouping	Span	Mat	Runs	HS	Bat Av	100	Wkts	BBI	Bowl Av	5	Ct	St
Keeper	2013-2017	30	2179	167*	44.46	3	–	–	–	–	113	7
Not Keeper	2012-2015	17	753	95	28.96	0	–	–	–	–	10	0

Yet Jason Gillespie in 2015 remarked that a key part of his form turnaround was based on allowing Bairstow to dictate his technique and avoiding confusion in his approach.

In reality, given these considerations, the likeliest option available is a move up the order to 5 enabling Bairstow to keep and bat higher up the order (as he does very well for Yorkshire). Yet few keepers in Test history have combined excellent top to middle order batting, particularly in a struggling team, which suggests Bairstow could always be slightly compromised by two roles.

Ultimately given the situation in the series, although there are risks and England will be reluctant to disrupt their fielding and batting by changing their keeper halfway through an Ashes series, desperate times call for desperate measures. With quality batsmen lacking, England should be thinking hard about giving one of their best ones  every chance to shine.

Postscript – Mark Butcher eloquently states the case for this move here. It’s worth a listen. 

The Ashes: a captain’s reckoning

If Alastair Cook and Michael Clarke want to understand just how the Ashes can redefine a captain’s legacy, then they needn’t travel far. The Oval, in fact, would be a good place to start – at the door of Ricky Ponting, whose reputation as a captain suffered so greatly as the loser of two Ashes’ series to the English that it tends to overshadow the fine work he did as a leader of a fine Australian team and leading some of the finest cricketers of any generation. Yet that is what the Ashes can do, make or break captains.

One senses that Michael Clarke was aware of that fact, when he opted to tackle the issue head-on in his press conference, summising: “I’ve read it will make or break my reputation as a captain. Personally, I don’t feel like that.”

He may not, but as the great Vince Lombardi opined: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.

The history of the great and good of English and Australian captains have been shaped by the Ashes. Allan Border’s reputation as a captain is forever forged by the “Mr Grumpy” persona which emerged during his team’s all-conquering 1989 tour. Or could an Englishman name any other opponent which the great Len Hutton or Ray Illingworth defeated in a series, yet the Ashes remain indelibly linked to their name and their successes in those series are writ large in their reputation.

Or consider a recent example – Andrew Strauss. The former England captain, who has entered retirement with his reputation as a leader of high standing still intact, has largely found his greatness built upon the back of his statesman-esque turns in two Ashes series, whilst ignoring the fact that he couldn’t topple the best Test team in the world and found himself at loggerheads with his finest batsman. If the assessment of Strauss’ captaincy is a little harsh in pointing out the (few) wrongs, it only goes show how Ashes success can overshadow all flaws, however small, and forge reputations.

Yet while reputations can be made, they can easily be broken. Nasser Hussain’s captaincy career was fortunate to survive that call on the first day in 2003, and while his tenacity and tactical nous as captain were seldom disputed, his misfortune in coming up against a rampant Australian team means he may never quite get the respect afforded to his predecessors, nor too Michael Atherton, a respected captain of England, but one whose career could never quite conquer the Everest that was winning the urn. Then consider Kim Hughes, a young man, a young captain, but one for whom the Ashes and Ian Botham would haunt quite remarkably and whose repute as a player and as a leader, is forever associated with those events of 1981.

What history tells us is that both Clarke and Cook should be wary of what the Ashes may bring. Both are new to this (ignoring Clarke’s one Test in 2010), and both will soon realise that if playing in the Ashes is very different to every other Test match, captaining in one is a whole different matter altogether.

Clarke, unlike Cook, has had time to forge a considerable reputation as a captain – a sparky, exciting, aggressive captain perhaps like his mate Shane Warne could have been, he has been a bastion of excellence in Australia’s era of ordinary, and at times singlehandedly kept them standing. But Australian’s love winners, and Clarke has yet to prove definitively that his method can bring them victories and that he can make this team a winning one.

He is hardly helped by having a team weakened considerably with the departures of Mike Hussey and Ricky Ponting, but nor has some of the disciplinary issues dogging Australia’s tour of India and now of England, been a positive reflection of the man management within the camp. Cricket Australian may have believed it was Micky Arthur who was at fault, but it is hard to imagine such matters occurring so damagingly on the watch of a Border or a Waugh.

While for Cook, it is a different matter. His reputation as a captain is in it’s relative infancy, and while he appears to be akin to his predecessor, Strauss, in being a man who puts great store in patience and plans without great innovations. He appears to be well respected, capable of leading the way with word but mainly by deed in letting his bat do the talking, yet on the field his method has yet to show the spark of genius which inhabits Clarke’s captaincy modus operandi. And such an approach can, if it doesn’t yield results, can quickly cause the critics to turn. More importantly, unlike Clarke, Cook’s must also cope with that great captaincy killer – expectation. He is succeeding a serial Ashes winner, with a team which is clearly fancied as the favourites by the fans, the pundits and the bookmakers (who normally know better than most), and yet if the wins do not come as many expect, then the pressure inevitably will grow on a young captain with an awful lot to lose.

The reality for both is that the next 10 Test matches will do more to forge their reputation as a captain than any other they play for the rest of their career – Michael Clarke, winning captain of the Frank Worrell trophy, doesn’t quite have the same ring as Michael Clarke, winning captain of the Ashes. Given the limited lifespan of current international captains, it is not inconceivable that come the next Ashes series in 2015, both England and Australia could have new captains in post.

Thus for both, the next 10 matches become even more critical. Whatever the outcome, one man will win, and the other will lose, and their reputations could well be determined by the Ashes, a captain’s great reckoner.

Phil Hughes: Hope, Hype and the Slow Death

By any stretch of the imagination, Australia’s tour of India has been bad. A constant diet of bad batting, bad bowling, bad decisions and perhaps worst of all, bad luck. The latest case was Phil Hughes’ dismissal on the final day – an untypically poor decision from Aleem Dar to a ball which, according to the replay, was going down the legside. When things go against you, they really do go against you.

For a man whose previous five scores had been four single figures and a scratchy 19, this was some respite, but he remains a man under seemingly endless pressure and playing like it as well. In an underperforming team, Hughes’ failings have been highlighted mercilessly despite the travails of his other more established colleagues (Clarke apart).

It wasn’t supposed to be like this for him. Just four years ago, Hughes was not so much setting the Test Cricket scene alight as erupting like a firework upon it, becoming the youngest batsmen ever to score two centuries in a Test match against a rampant South African attack containing Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel in only your second appearance will do that.

Just then, when the world was at his feet, the words of Neil D’Costa, Hughes’ mentor, who said “I’ll tell you this; this kid will go all the way”, appeared prescient. An Australian team, lacking a quality young batsman since Michael Clarke burst on to the scene, appeared to have found their era’s Don Bradman, Doug Walters or even Victor Trumper, young Australian’s who achieved extraordinary things.

Unfortunately for Hughes and Australia, history will record something very different. England refused to buy the hype and bounced him out of Test Cricket and put a severe dent in his reputation, and bar the occasional cameo there has been nothing quite to match the giddy heights of his debut. Not so much a Bradman, Walters or Trumper, he appears to be akin to David Hookes – a prolific run-scorer in domestic competitions but one who himself admitted that he struggled technically to cope with the rigorous demands of Test cricket.

But while Hughes’ travails in international cricket remain unrelenting, the question is rather whether Australian cricket can really afford to give up on him.

Domestically Hughes, with the second highest average in Sheffield Shield cricket (behind one Ricky Ponting), has had a prolific season. Bar old heads Ponting and perennial run-scorer Chris Rogers, only Mark Cosgrove and Alex Doolan as potential competitors in first class cricket have performed as well – one unselectable for spurious reasons, the other as yet inexperienced. Nor has his probable replacement, Usman Khawaja, performed as capably. If first class cricket, so often the previous indicator of Test readiness in Australia, is anything to go by then Hughes should by any definition be up for selection.

He almost seems symbolic, symbolic of a system which is failing in its duty to prepare Australia’s players adequately for Test Cricket through an insufficiently demanding domestic competition. Symbolic of a system which glorifies it’s young players too quickly without providing them with time to develop (remember Khawaja-mania?) and a cricketing setup which appears to look unkindly on its players operating their own form of preparation – hence D’Costa’s stinging rebuke against Cricket Australia’s refusal to permit him a one-on-one session with his young protégé.

The truth is that Hughes is what he is, a capable young player who at the age of 24 has the potential to iron out the technical flaws that are holding his game back. He is younger than Mark Waugh, Darren Lehmann and Mike Hussey were when they had scored their third Test Century yet still remains apparently on the cusp of being drummed out of Test cricket for the third time in his young career.

He appears to be a victim of his own success, a prisoner of the heightened expectations which greeted his initial triumphs in Test cricket and the reputation it brought with it. While Waugh, Lehmann and Hussey honed their game in first class cricket, Hughes has been promoted and talked up in international cricket – finding himself having to learn in an environment that is as unforgiving as they come. Little surprise he always bears the look of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And if Hughes does ultimately fail, Australia have some hard questions to ask themselves. A young player of almost prodigious talent is finding his career strangled by the weight of expectation placed upon him and the realisation that he is not the player he was heralded to be. It has been this reputation which has built his international career, but it could also be the burden which breaks it too.