So how good is this England side?

A couple of questions to see if you've been paying attention. Firstly, which player hit a century from only 138 balls and took three wickets, both in the first innings of the same test against West Indies this summer? Secondly, which left arm finger spinner with a test average in the high thirties took 19 wickets in two tests against the current West Indies side? I'll give you 60 seconds to think about it.


Time's up, and you may have spotted that the answers to those questions are not Andrew Flintoff and Ashley Giles. Flintoff claimed a paltry two wickets in the first innings at Edgbaston, although his hundred only took 122 deliveries. Giles, of course, has only managed 18 wickets in the first two tests of this series. So who are the world-beaters that turned in these performances? Please step forward Mohammad Rafique of Bangladesh and Ray Price, previously of Zimbabwe. That was a cheap shot, wasn't it? We cannot just accept that England are winning, and winning well, so we have to make silly comparisons to show that our players are really not quite as good as those from the relegation zone of the test championship. And that's the trouble with comparisons - all too often they're meaningless.


Here are a few for you anyway. The last England side to match Vaughan's record of 8 wins out of 9 was Mike Brearley's team, who won 9 out of 10 (which you could extend to 11 out of 13) in 1978 & 1979. Just as the current side may do, that England side was so superior to its opponents that it found itself playing dead rubbers in three consecutive successful series (between then and Antigua, England had only twice been in that happy position). If Ashley Giles takes another three wickets, he will be the first English spinner to take 30 in a home summer since Derek Underwood in 1969. As for the batsmen, one more hundred will make this the most productive summer ever in terms of English centuries. And to cap it all, Michael Vaughan currently has the highest wins to tests percentage of any England captain (apart from Marcus Trescothick, who doesn't really count with just a single test to his name).


All of those are true, but what do they actually tell us? Let's try comparing the current team to Brearley's side that saw off Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia and India in 1978 & 1979. What a side they must have been, packed with household names like Boycott, Gower, Botham and Willis: and they beat Australia 5-1! Whereas the current lot have simply seen of a couple of sides that are so poor that beating them was inevitable, Brearley's team thrashed the old enemy in their own back yard. Only when Vaughan's side has retrieved the Ashes can we describe them as world-beaters, etc, etc. There is just one problem with that line of thought. It's complete tosh.


It's been a very long time since England have enjoyed a successful run against strong opposition. Brearley had the good fortune to take charge shortly before the Packer Affair and had the good sense to step down immediately before England were due to face the West Indies. As a result, most of his games were against sides that were temporarily weakened by players being suspended or who were just weak anyway. Some readers may not know that the 5-1 win was achieved against Australia's second XI. Before anyone gets too nostalgic about that England side, it's worth remembering that the Australian first XI whitewashed them twelve months later.


Go back another decade, and we find England unbeaten in 26 tests from 1968 to 1971. A great England side? Not really. Certainly very solid, but benefiting from Australian and West Indies sides in transition and South Africa being removed from the test arena. If you want to find a genuinely great England side, you need to go back to the 1950's when Hutton & May led sides that were brimful of exceptional talents and didn't lose a series from 1951 to 1958.


So where does all of this leave the current team? Some statistics may not tell us much. The rush of centuries this summer really does reflect bland pitches and equally bland visiting attacks as much it does the qualities of the home batsmen. Andrew Strauss' impressive arrival as a test player says much about his temperament and something of his quality, but no real conclusions can be drawn until he has faced South Africa and Australia over the next twelve months. So is it fair to say that the results are simply down to the quality of the opposition? Starting with the current series, the answer has to be "yes". Away from home, the record of the West Indies is so terrible that you wonder why they bother. Ignoring tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (where they almost lost last year), the last time they won a test away from home was at Edgbaston in 2000. Since then, they have been whitewashed by Australia, Pakistan & Sri Lanka and defeated 3-0 (out of four) by South Africa. This still takes some believing for those of us brought up on great West Indian teams of the 1970's and 1980's, but nowadays thrashing them hollow at home is a basic requirement for serious test sides.


This summer has given us some clues why the West Indies record away from home is so dire. Although their top five are probably as good as England's, their ability to collapse after a decent start remains second to none. Their fold from 172 for 3 to 203 for 8 at Lord's was bad enough, given the threat of rain that might have saved them if they'd stuck around. But their performance in both innings at Edgbaston - losing their last seven wickets for 39 and 50 - was just ludicrous. No test side can afford to do that and if they could only stiffen up this aspect of their game, they might not lose as many as they currently do. It doesn't help that Ridley Jacobs can't buy a score at the moment, but the selectors haven't been clever. Dwayne Bravo is a talented player with some serious potential, but putting a 20 year old all rounder with a first class batting average of 33 at number 6 in his first couple of tests was always asking for trouble. And so it has proved. Despite being in a position to save each of the first two tests, the lack of any sort of contribution from their lower order in three innings out of four has handed the games to England on a plate. Of course it hasn't helped that their bowling, as in South Africa, has been horrible but that was always a possibility.


If beating the West Indies at home is no real indicator of England's progress, winning in the Caribbean is another matter. Even since the retirement of Ambrose & Walsh, they have seen off India (which is more than England could manage) and Sri Lanka. No visiting team has ever won a series there 3-0: even Australia lost one test on their most recent tour. Whatever the failings of the West Indies side, Harmison and co achieved something unique in that series. If it were as easy as some would have us believe, then other sides would have beaten us to it. As for New Zealand, they may not win many tests, but they lose even less (5 out of their last 22, to be exact). If you want to find the last time they lost a series, then you have to go back over three years when South Africa saw them off 2-0. And they just don't do whitewashes, even without Shane Bond (which they generally have been). That is why England's performance in the first part of this summer was so impressive. It may be tempting to trash the opposition when they've lost all three, but, in this case, it simply won't wash.


From this observer's viewpoint, the pleasing thing about the current side is that they are achieving beyond the sum of their parts, and there have been too many occasions when the reverse has been true. That isn't to say that England don't possess a number of good players, but no serious observer could argue that they are jam packed with world-class performers. Not the least enjoyable aspects of the recent wins have been the contributions from Matthew Hoggard and Ashley Giles. Lara's comments about England having no "Plan B" if Harmison didn't come off were unwise, but not many of us would have disagreed with him three weeks ago. Of course, the idea of Stephen Harmison as England's "Plan A" would itself have looked rather silly last year, but that's another story. Hoggard's performances against New Zealand were, for the most part, so innocuous that many of us felt he should be replaced for the current series so that Anderson or another young quick could be bedded into the side before the bigger challenges ahead. Giles, of course, would have seen "innocuous" as something to aspire to given his level of performance for much of the last few years - he averaged 60 in all home tests before 2004 - and you couldn't read the papers without coming across some expert opining that he should make way for, well, just about anyone really.


England's success this year has, for the most part, been achieved because the ability of Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff and Giles to bowl sides out (with occasionally significant contributions from Simon Jones). Obviously the batsmen have played their part, but without the cutting edge provided by these guys we would have seen a series of bore-draws this summer and may well have lost the series in the Caribbean. All of them have had spells (in some cases long spells) when they were struggling to make an impact, but, when fit, they have nearly always been picked. And that, for me, is the key factor. Given the huge number of injuries in 2002 and 2003, it's easy to miss just how consistent the selectors have been. If that sounds strange check the records since 2001/02 and work out how many times Hoggard, Flintoff and Giles have not been picked when fit. Whilst you're at it, carry out the same exercise for Jones and Harmison since their debuts in 2002. Not very many, is it?


Praising selectors is never the most fashionable of activities, but Duncan Fletcher and his team deserve huge credit for spotting players who are made of the right stuff and sticking with them. Perhaps we should bear that in mind next time we see Simon Jones or James Anderson having an off day and wondering what on earth the selectors are up to. The clear evidence of the last three years is that, at least where the test side is concerned (and we'll leave the one day side for another time), they know exactly what they are doing. In the meantime, let's just hold hands and pray that they stay fit over the next 12 months. Who know? We might even have a proper contest next summer.









Posted by David