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England’s number eight crisis
By Jonathan Liew last year, at the end of November Leave a comment on this post
I like Ryan Sidebottom. He’s a smart bowler, a hard worker and a thoroughly nice man. He is not, however, a Test match number eight. There’s a very real prospect that England could find themselves this time next week 150-6, with Sidebottom, Hoggard, Panesar and Anderson to come. With Muralitharan wheeling away at one end and Malinga at the other. It’s frightening to contemplate.
Slagging off Duncan Fletcher is all the rage at the moment, but his emphasis on batting all the way down the order was one of the more commendable things he did for the England team. He understood that losing your last five wickets for peanuts hands the momentum to the opposing team, as well as undoing all the good work of the batsmen. It’s a lesson Peter Moores is in danger of ignoring by leaving both Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann out of the XI for the final warm-up game.
Your number eight has to bat. And while England don’t have a Pollock, Lee, Vettori or Vaas, the least they can do is shore things up a bit by playing Broad or Swann (both of whom, by the way, have earned a chance with the ball). In the long term, Flintoff might drop to seven. But for the moment, playing four number elevens in a place like Sri Lanka isn’t just unwise, it’s suicidal.
My choice would probably be Swann, with Anderson to miss out.
Tags: duncan-fletcher, england, england in sri lanka, graeme-swann, Peter-Moores, ryan-sidebottom, stuart-broad, tail enders |
4 Responses to “England’s number eight crisis”
November 25th, 2007 at 10.21 pm
November 26th, 2007 at 12.11 am
Hmph. One of the things I complained about whilst Duncan was still running the game was his refusal to pick bowlers on their (wait for it) bowling ability.
Remember the whole Monty vs Gilo debate this time last year?
Its a terrible cliche, but you have to take twenty wickets to win a Test match; you should pick your bowling attack on that point alone, not the twenty or so extra runs you might glean by playing a bowler who can bat a bit.
November 26th, 2007 at 6.34 am
I completely agree, Jonathan. Which is why Broad is such a good future prospect for England.
November 28th, 2007 at 7.11 pm
This is a longstanding feature of English cricket, along with batsmen whose bowling is probably worse than their great-aunts’.
Australia have nearly always had three #8s (and a genuine rabbit bringing up the rear), and rarely go into a Test without eight men who can bowl. South Africa likewise, and the Indians are coming along in this direction too.
I suspect our county coaches encourage over-specialisation - after all, if you’re going to spend dosh on an overseas player or three, may as well get your money’s worth with an all-rounder. However, the problem goes back into the mists of time - I suspect if you look at the lists of the top 100 all-time batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders there’d be far fewer Englishmen in the last list than either of the first two.
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