Another fine mess

Oh, how the ECB love to outdo themselves. Not content with how badly the Kevin Pietersen saga has panned out over the past fifteen months, they went and made it even worse. And this happened in a week where the sacking of a coach was leaked to the media before the man himself was even told. It's the sort of thing that you can't make up - and yet at the same time it doesn't feel surprising. The ECB, with their exceptional talent for angering the fans, have managed to exceed even themselves.

So, Andrew Strauss was appointed as the new director of cricket, filling the spot recently vacated by Paul Downton. What Downton lacked, Strauss certainly had - that understanding of the modern game, the gravitas and respect that comes with playing 100 test matches and being a highly successful captain of the side. Was it a 'safe' option? Maybe. It any case it looked like another man appearing from the establishment, still with close relationships to several of the key ECB figures, staff, and players. Whilst I would call myself a fan of Strauss, as the man who led England to the top of the rankings and the Ashes wins in 2009 and 2010/11, I might have preferred someone a bit more detached from the whole set up. But that's not saying he won't do a good job, and I don't doubt that he can be the man to take England forward. Though he's already made a horrible start, helping a messier situation to become even messier.

First of all came the sacking of Peter Moores, a move perhaps suggesting Strauss may not quite be the company man first believed and a man not afraid to make the big decision. It's easy to see why he went, and I would say the right call was made - progress made in the test side last summer being masked by dismal ODI performances, the defeat in the final test against the West Indies putting the cherry on top of it all. He certainly has a talent for spotting players, something we've seen in both reigns as coach - bringing Swann and Sidebottom back from the wilderness to become key players in his first reign; giving Ballance the number three spot and bringing Buttler into the test team during his second stint. And yet there's always been this sense that he just doesn't connect with the public - all the coach speak and talk of the 'data' that comes back to haunt him, and the complaints of his coaching style seem often to resurface, even if not going as far as Pietersen's description of him as a 'human triple espresso'.

But whether or not you felt it was the right choice, the way it happened was another unedifying episode for the ECB - Moores coaching the team in Ireland whilst the press is telling the world he doesn't have a job. It's just disrespectful, a terrible way to treat someone, and this to a man just a year ago described as the 'outstanding coach of his generation'. Once again the ECB are left embarrassed - they made the decision to bring Moores back and a year later have sacked him again. The Pietersen drama in the background gave it all an eerie sense of deja vu.

Indeed, ultimately it comes back to Kevin Pietersen, as it always seems to do. The man is told to go back, score runs in the County Championship, and then he might be able to get back in contention. And he certainly did that in emphatic fashion - 355* for Surrey with a strike rate close to 90, playing like the Pietersen of old. Innings like that are what makes him such a special player - a player that people want to watch, a player that can turn matches around and strike fear into the opposition. Innings like his 158 at The Oval in 2005, like the 186 at Mumbai in 2012, like those centuries in South Africa that announced him on the world stage. Can you really blame anyone for wanting to see a player like that?

Well, it turns out that the ECB can. On the very same day, Pietersen's England career was all but ended once again. He's not explicitly 'banned', but told he won't at least be featuring this summer, so as good as. The ECB outdo themselves again. I just feel that, if they don't want to select him - then just don't select him, rather than making an announcement about it, holding a meeting to say so. He's a fan favourite, and by making this announcement the ECB are essentially sticking their middle finger up to a lot of them. Neither side has come off well in the whole saga over the past year or so, Pietersen's book certainly not doing his image any favours, but the ECB seemed determined to come off worst of all. They've shot themselves in the foot, except they've done it so many times now that there's barely any foot left to shoot.

The contradictions make it even worse. Strauss speaks of a 'massive trust issue' between the ECB and Pietersen, and then offers him an advisory role for the ODI team. Does that really make any sense? It's unsurprising, at least, that Pietersen declined the role. And lurking in the shadows remains 'textgate', the whole affair that saw relations between the two sour in 2012, something clearly still lingering when Strauss was caught on the microphone describing Pietersen as 'an absolute c***' just last year. How much of this 'trust issue' is a personal one? And is Strauss, indeed, not detached far enough from the current set up?

Regardless of whether or not Pietersen should be in the team, the way this whole thing has been managed - and that is going back to the sacking last year and beyond - has been a disgrace. Is a player ever really unmanageable, or is it just bad management? And even in choosing to move on without him, surely it could have been done so much better? Instead there's been a black cloud hovering around English cricket for over a year, not always at the forefront, but always lingering somewhere. It will only continue.

The inquest awaits

Well, if you watch this match, you could certainly never call test cricket boring. Day one saw a captain score his first century in two years, battling whilst his team struggled; day two witnessed an extraordinary 18 wickets fall across three innings; day three saw ten more fall, and what could be a tense run chase turn into a comfortable, and heartwarming, victory. There was no need for day four.

Watching day two, you might be forgiven for thinking that it might not need a big total to beat the West Indies. It was wickets galore, one coming every four and a half overs on average. England, hoping to take their overnight score of 240/7 past the 300 mark, swiftly fell to 257 all out. The West Indies were all out inside 50 overs for 189, a total that itself would have been much less if it wasn't for Jermaine Blackwood's counterattacking 85 from just 88 balls. All England could do in response was fall apart - an innings where they should have been trying to build a big lead instead crumbling away to 39/5 before the close of play. Wickets tumbled everywhere. You couldn't miss a ball.

All England could really do on day three was go for the attack. Jos Buttler (35*) and Ben Stokes (32) briefly combined to take England's score past 100 and their lead close to 200. It wasn't much, but they at least had a chance, a sniff at a win. Wickets fell in pairs for the West Indies, but there were partnerships in between, something England could only dream of in their second innings. A fifth wicket partnership of 108 between Darren Bravo (82) and Blackwood (47*) sealed the deal, turning what could easily have been a nervy chase into a comfortable victory. A rare win over England, and a series drawn. It was hard not to be happy for them, as much as it hurt for England.

As seems all too often to be the case, England finish another series with serious questions to be asked. On a pitch like this, the most glaring issue was spin. Whether it was due to a lack of bowling since coming back from injury, or the start of a second year dip, Moeen Ali seriously underperformed as a frontline spinner. He became the unexpected hero of England's summer last year, but now there is an expectation for him to do well, and on a pitch crying out for someone to spin to victory, he just couldn't find his length. Joe Root did a bit better, but he still falls under the category of 'batsmen who can chip in some overs'. And all the while, Adil Rashid was sitting on the sidelines. If England weren't going to play him on a pitch like this, would he ever get a chance?

But it wasn't the spinners' fault that West Indies were chasing a score under 200. The West Indies' bowlers won the game on day two when they took England down to 39/5. Jerome Taylor was brilliant in both innings, with Holder and Permaul also taking three each in England's second. But England's batting was certainly also sub-par. They just went into their shells too easily, and the West Indies were rampant. As England went into the series, typically it was the short ball that would cause them the most problems. Now it just looks like any ball. It's hard to see what the batting coach, Mark Ramprakash, has been doing. The New Zealand and Australia bowlers must be rubbing their hands with glee in anticipation of this summer.

I still firmly believe there is good in this side. There is definitely that 'core' of young players who I expect to see in the team for years to come, and players with the potential to offer England a lot in the future. Jos Buttler could be an England great, and really I'd like to see him higher in the order - number eight simply looks too low. I always think there's something about Chris Jordan, and his fielding has been sublime in this series - one handed slip catches are now no surprise. Ben Stokes is starting to settle again in the team, though there's still a sense that he's looking for a role - in this match he batted at number seven and only bowled seven overs.

There's definitely promise there, so what's the problem? The spotlight must fall on the management again, and not just of the team - of the whole coaching structure of English cricket. Why do fast bowlers so often get injured or lose a bit of their zip as soon as they get involved in the set up? Why are our spinners not progressing beyond 'promising', not being trusted to be given a place in the side? Why are players sent on tour with seemingly no chance of being picked to play? And the biggest focus should be on the head coach, Peter Moores. For all their faults, England are ranked third in the world, and failed to beat the team ranked eighth. There have been signs of progress, but there have also been test series defeats to Sri Lanka and the West Indies, a nightmarish display against India at Lord's, and a simply horrific World Cup campaign. Can he justify his position as coach? Jason Gillespie waits in the wings, increasingly looking like the heir apparent.

Colin Graves takes over as ECB chairman on May 15th. He's already said that there should be serious questions asked if England fail to beat a 'mediocre' West Indies team. We'll wait to see what the future holds.

A World Cup Disaster

England won their second game of the World Cup today, but their only reward was a plane ride home. Their World Cup campaign has been nothing short of a disaster, and once again we're left having to pick up the pieces at the end of a series. With every tournament comes the same story, repeating itself again and again.

So much went wrong that it's difficult to know where to begin. In the media there are some blaming the players, some blaming the coaching staff. Really, they're all to blame. The players haven't put in the performances that they have the ability to do. And the management have been far from inspiring. So here's me trying to put into some words the many areas where this tournament went wrong for England.

The signs were there from the start. Confusion, panic. England played their warm up series against India with their full World Cup squad, playing Bopara in the side and Taylor up at number three, and Chris Woakes opening the bowling rather than Stuart Broad. For the first match this suddenly changed. Sure, Bopara's performances weren't really justifying his place in the side, but all it did was give an image of confusion and fear to their first opponents, Australia. England had months of preparation, playing nothing but ODI cricket in the build up to the cup, and still managed to go into their first match not knowing their best eleven. Was this in part a legacy of their demolition at the hands of Mitchell Johnson the previous winter? Well this time it was a different group of players and mostly a different Mitchell, but Australia still inflicted the damage. One match down and England were already battered and bruised, the tone of the cup was set. It was only going to get worse when they faced New Zealand in the next match.

I feel like I've written a lot on this blog about the experienced players letting England down. It happened again here, with the bat and with the ball. Ian Bell continued with his cardinal sin of never going on and making the big score after making a start. His stats don't look bad on the face of it: an average of 52.40, England's top scorer with 262 runs from six innings. But it doesn't tell the full story: three fifties, no centuries; a strike rate of 77; England team totals of 231, 123, 260 - and even on the two occasions they made it to 300 they should have got far more. And, with Bell getting himself in, he should have got the big score that could have made that difference. Instead he took up time at the crease with not enough end result. Though at least he got runs: Morgan made 90 runs across five innings, and half of those came in one innings. Both now have uncertain futures in the England side: Bell may well not play ODIs again, whilst Morgan's form over the past year and even further back as not been good enough to deserve a place. I thought captaincy might spur him back to his best, but after a century in the first game of the tri-series, he's been as bad as ever.

And it's a similar story with the bowlers. James Anderson averaged 49, Stuart Broad 63.50. Those two bowlers with the most experience, supposed to be leading the attack, could only take nine wickets between them. It was, admittedly, a struggle all round for the bowlers - and perhaps the biggest casualty of all was Steven Finn. Finn is another whose stats don't look bad on the surface - England's leading wicket taker with an average of 25, and a hat trick to boot - but these just don't tell the real story. He's been in and out of the side more times than you'd think possible, and it looks like another spell out of the team is going to come again. He's just not the bowler he could be, and who knows when he will.

But it's just as much a matter of mentality. The modern game has left England behind. Players full of creativity at their counties look stunted on the international stage, thinking too much about the numbers and 'par scores' rather than focusing on the game in front of them. There is no such thing as a 'par score' any more, and this World Cup has shown that as scores well in excess of 300, 350 have been scored like never before. But from England and Peter Moores we get statements like 'we’ll have to look at the data' when they fail to chase down 275. Stop playing to the numbers and let the players express themselves and enjoy their cricket, then they might score the runs they're capable of. Stop thinking of 300 as being a good score, why not dream big and go for at least fifty more?

Somehow we went into this tournament with a fraction of hope. But it should have been more than a fraction. The Ashes were moved, we got a solid, ODI-only schedule in the months leading up to the tournament - and then this happened. Our aim became just to reach the quarter finals. And we didn't even do that. George Dobell has put this into better words than I can, writing after the defeat to Sri Lanka:

The Ashes were moved for that? England have built for four years for that? They have played six months of nothing but ODI cricket for that? Players and coaches were sacked in the hope of reaching a quarter-final? Never in the history of England cricket has the bar been set so low.

It sums up a lot of my thoughts really. We have a home World Cup in 2019, and we have to give ourselves a chance. Does this mean a change in management? Quite possibly. Certainly there'll be a change in personnel for the team, questionable futures lying ahead for many and with others waiting in the wings for their chance in the side. There is a core of good young players in the team, who with four years extra experience, should be able to pose a threat. What we don't want is a repeat of this time round - a year out and a large chunk of the team disappears, for many reasons, and a change in captain on the eve of the tournament. The rebuilding stage starts again. It. Must. Be. Better.