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We’ve always wondered how an England team could win in India. Winning in Australia always seemed impossible because of how good they were and because a squad on a long tour always seemed to unravel like the stitching in our rucksack. Winning in India seemed equally impossible, but for different reasons.
England are at least familiar with the true pitches and bouncers of Australia, but in India Test cricket seems almost like a different sport. The challenge is similar to when you first play cricket with a proper cricket ball after years of tennis ball slogging. We don’t mean in the sense that it’s suddenly more dangerous, just that you’re suddenly confronted with a ball that doesn’t behave anything like you expected. It doesn’t bounce. It turns corners. It just feels all wrong.
This experience is probably worst for the batsmen, but England’s bowlers tend to feel lost as well, particularly the quicks.
The rich
For all the losses, England’s bowling away from home has actually been quite magnificent this year. Here are the figures. This is even more impressive when you consider that for the most part the batsmen have been spodding everything up with grim inevitability. It’s been like building a large, teetering Lego tower with an unhinged Airedale Terrier bounding around the room. It takes spectacular professionalism/autism to pick up the bricks and recommence construction.
We’re currently questioning whether a couple of England’s quicker bowlers are still what they’re cracked up to be, but the fact remains that throughout 2012, England have managed to field four wicket-taking bowlers. That’s not really been possible in places like India and Sri Lanka before. England normally have one or two bowlers who seem like they might possibly threaten for a bit of the time and then a couple of support acts – either good bowlers who aren’t well-suited to the conditions, or county cricket makeweights who are.
In years gone by, England would have been delighted to have played Test series in the UAE, Sri Lanka and India with their spinner having returned figures as good as Monty Panesar’s (33 wickets at 26.03). In 1992, England toured India and fielded four spinners of whom Graeme Hick was far and away the most successful. In 2001, they toured with Ashley Giles as the first spinner and Richard Dawson as the second.
In 2012, Monty’s the second spinner. Graeme Swann has taken 49 wickets at 24.00 and then there’s Jimmy Anderson transcending conditions as a bonus. What riches.
India’s batting was worse than in the past, but that was at least partly down to the fact that England’s bowling was better. It had to be.
The femmer
England haven’t won in India through the team performance that’s sometimes being described this week. They won by making up for their shortcomings in other ways. The batting’s been femmer all year and that’s been a constant threat. It’s been the ‘but’ or ‘however’ even when they’ve appeared to be in positions of strength.
Against Pakistan, England’s batsmen seemed to be more keen to lose the series than the bowlers were to win it. Things weren’t much better in Sri Lanka, although KP saved the day.
It then seemed to be the same again in India, but somehow they found a way. Alastair Cook’s performance was so blisteringly exceptional that the only logical thing to do is ignore it and focus on the journeymen.
The journeymen
Nick Compton should have been embarrassed to be at the crease with Cook, but despite scoring at one run an over, he carried on regardless. He gave other players confidence that they wouldn’t be dismissed and a decent opportunity to size up the pitch. He did a really underwhelming job that was actually very important and we do hope he makes some serious runs in New Zealand.
Ian Bell was almost entirely pointless until his final innings of the tour. We take for granted that it was an easy pitch on which to survive and many feel it’s typical of Bell that he should cash in when the going’s easy, but cashing in is one of the major aspects of modern Test batting. You have to shrug off a prolonged run of incompetence and make runs when they’re needed – which they were.
Jonathan Trott is also taken for granted. His innings at Nagpur was similar to Bell’s, although he did make 87 in the previous match. He has actually made more runs away from home than anyone bar Alastair Cook this year.
Fourth on that list is Matt Prior, who hasn’t earned a single headline and who has also had to keep wicket. He might just be our favourite.
Conclusion
The Ashes win in Australia was a masterpiece of planning and execution. The series win in India was a masterpiece of bumbling through, doing as much of the job as you can with the few fantastic, top-of-the-range tools you do possess, before completing the work using an old spoon and a rusty hammer.
Femmer?
We were wondering whether this post would ever get a comment. We’ll be honest, we’re a bit disappointed that’s the only thing that’s warranted comment.
Yes, femmer. England’s batting has been a bit femmer.
Ah, Danish slang.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/femmer
I’d say the series wins in Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 2000-01 were more impressive, given the depths England had been plumbing leading up to them and the strength of the opposition. Once England picked a close approximation of the right side, they beat an Indian team that just doesn’t seem very interested.
There were some striking and relevant depths plumbed in the lead-up to this series, but we’re not necessarily disagreeing with you by saying that.
We consider it Viking slang.
In all fairness, if I were Swannesanderoad, I’d have been livid about how appalling batting turned what should have been 2-1 in the UAE into 3-0. In fact, I’m not, and I still am.
That’s 0-3. Obviously.
Hopefully this series teaches the BCCI that they need to have some bouncy tracks and breed some pacers too. India’s only plan was to play eleven spinners and choke England. When they were suddenly confronted with an English side that showed competence against spin, they really had no Plan B.
Heres hoping that the series teaches the BCCI a lot more than that. They need more lessons than a kindergardner
A child gardener?
My infant landscaper never needed lessons.
Are you suggesting that Matt Prior is one of the rusty hammers? He might be a general purpose, Leatherman type tool rather than a super specialist big growling chainsaw,but he is still top of the range.
This calls for a special post likening every cricketer to a handyman tool. Or rather, likening every handyman tool to a cricketer.
I suspect it would quickly descend into “Blankedy Blank is a Tool”. I’ll kick off with Ravi Shastri.
Haven’t we been through all this “femmer” definition / is it Danish / is it Viking / is it Northern stuff before?
It felt like Groundhog Day reading the comments on this thread.
KC uses the slightly obscure adjective, “femmer”, from time to time. That’s his choice of adjective. (Wouldn’t have been mine). But that’s fine. Get over it, people.
It may be because KC has been hearing “femmer” since he was a child. It’s a favourite adjective of his aunt, whose family come from the north east.
Stop revealing the mechanisms behind the magic!
It’s Anglish and Jutish. The Angles came from Schleswig-Holstein and settled all along the east coast from The Forth to East Anglia (obviously). Much of the dialect of the North East comes from Anglish. The Jutes came from Jutland (obviously) and settled in Kent. I don’t know if the word has become part of the vernacular of Kent. During this period Lancashire and Cheshire remained steadfastly Celtish, so the word required could be meata, brisg, or possibly even fregus.
Those of us who continue to resist the erosion of our language and culture by bloody Danes must make a stand. I’m thinking of starting a new political party – the United Kingdom Independence from Bloody Danes Party. We will NOT bow down to a misguided multiculturalism being forced on us by Geordies and Kentishmen, people who cravenly surrendered their own heritage at the first sign of hordes of murderous Vikings slaughtering them all to death. On the assumption that we are looking for a job butchering villagers up and down the coast, they come over here, taking our jobs…
My mate was pitching for a web design contract and was really confident he’d get it. When he didn’t, he asked why and it turned out they’d given the work to a bloody Jute. When they’re willing to work for so much less, what can honest hard-working folk do?
According to Melvyn Bragg (a “must be true” second only to “Ifound it on Wikipedia”), the first word of non Germanic origin in Churchill’s “we will fight them on the beaches” speech was the last word, ” surrender” which is French. Not entirely relevant I realise, but never pass up an oportunity to be glib and francophobic.
Mechanisms?…
…magic???…
Surely not delusions of adequacy from you, KC, of all people.
I guess that’s what happens when you make the dreadful mistake of letting your mum anywhere near your web site.