Homeeditors pickJames Anderson’s unavailability a massive setback for England, but all is not lost
James Anderson’s unavailability a massive setback for England, but all is not lost
Even before England could set sail for India, a massive setback has been delivered to the men who just registered a hard-fought win in the first of their seven Tests in Asia on this sojourn. The absence of James Anderson due to a shoulder injury has severely dented the touring party’s hopes to repeat their… Continue reading James Anderson’s unavailability a massive setback for England, but all is not lost
Even before England could set sail for India, a massive setback has been delivered to the men who just registered a hard-fought win in the first of their seven Tests in Asia on this sojourn. The absence of James Anderson due to a shoulder injury has severely dented the touring party’s hopes to repeat their feat in India from 2012 and England will have to search deep into their pockets to pull off something which the veteran pacer promised. Anderson, who was the only difference between the two sides in MS Dhoni’s words when England toured India in 2012 and won the Test series, is expected to take part in the five-Test affair only in December, but what if it is too late?
Anderson’s absence for a major part of the series will be having a huge impact on England’s chances in the series, but then, he is surely not the only match-winner for the touring party. This English side which has been selected to tour India is a lot different from the one that emerged victorious in their previous trip and yet there is still not a lot for them to worry about. There are no heavy scorers in this side; even their captain and the best batsman in Test cricket, Alastair Cook, has been getting those centuries but big scores are rare. But there are performances, significant enough from someone or the other, which has been helping England winning Tests.
The recently-concluded first Test between England and Bangladesh at Chittagong comes across as the perfect example. In both the innings, England’s top-order failed, which raised the Bangladeshi hopes. But two different innings — 68 from Moeen Ali in the first essay and a brilliant 85 by Ben Stokes in the next — did the job for England. These performances show that England, who bat extremely deep across departments, cannot be written off from contests. And if England manage to conjure challenging totals in Test cricket, say around 300-350, they can challenge the Indians whose middle order has been extremely brittle even though they have managed a few victories in the last one year or so.
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Without Anderson, England are all but certain to be staring at some fruitless days on the field when Indian batsmen may pummel them into submission. England may have decked up their 16-member squad for the first Test against India with a lot of spinning options, but the quality which they had in 2012 — the combination of Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar — is still not there. Among the spin options that England have in their ranks, the most likely bowler to get wickets is Moeen Ali, who is not only skillful in setting up the batsmen but also is smart enough to bowl wicket-taking deliveries.
However, what England will severely lack is the expertise as well as experience of Anderson in such conditions and the workhorse that he has been. Anderson has perennially been England’s fall-back option whenever batsmen have done well against them, and the venerable bowler has either bowled tirelessly to achieve what his captain has wanted, or has provided them crucial breakthroughs. In his absence, the English seam attack could be terribly toothless, because one thing is certain, India will never prepare any sort of wicket which may backfire on them at any point in the game.
What England will also severely miss is the mastery which Anderson showed with the SG cricket ball the last time he played with it in India. Anderson’s reverse swing proved to be too much to handle for the inept Indian batsmen back then in 2012, and to top it off, the English spinners were also not giving the hosts any sort of breather. There have not been many overseas bowlers who have mastered the SG ball and made it move in the air the way Anderson has. Fortunately for India, this piece of art will not be seen at least in the starting stages of the five-Test series between Virat Kohli and Alastair Cook’s side.
Looking at the rest of the seam bowlers that England possess, Stokes and Chris Woakes can be backed more than the likes of Stuart Broad, Steven Finn and even Jake Ball. Barring Broad and Finn, none of the other England bowlers, including those in the spin department, have the experience of playing Test cricket in India. While the spinners may find the wickets helpful throughout the series, the fast bowlers may be in for some frustrating time. Maybe, taking a leaf out of Anderson’s book and revisiting the plans and methods that England had derived and applied to optimum use in the previous tour can be of some help.
However, to win Tests in India, England will need runs and no more they can continue depending on the likes of Cook and Joe Root to get the bulk of them. While Ben Duckett looks set to get an extended run of sorts at the opening slot, the others in Haseeb Hameed and Zafar Ansari may have to provide more assurance to the team management in order to break in. But neither of this takes care of the brittle middle-order which England have carried on for long. Even the presence of Gary Ballance — a fairly experienced cricketer having had tremendous success against India at home in the 2014 series — does not addresses the problem of lack of runs.
For England, it will be imperative that they learn from the mistakes committed by South Africa, New Zealand and even Australia, who all suffered heavy defeats in their previous tours. The Australians turned out to be a divided house when they were in India in 2013, the South Africans were outplayed in the mind-game, they kept falling to straight deliveries. And as far as New Zealand are concerned, none of their batsmen could muster enough runs to match India, let alone challenge them. Will England go down the same way or is there another surprise in store?
(Devarchit Varma is a senior writer with CricketCountry. He can be followed on Twitter @Devarchit)
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