The cricket world has been agog at England’s frenetic style of play. The discussion misses the point that it is designed to cover up deep shortcomings.
The change was driven by England’s poor performance in the World Test Championship. The team recorded one win in 17 matches and no win across five successive Test series, a first in 145 years, including an emphatic 4-0 loss away to Australia in 2021/22 followed by a 10-wicket defeat and 1-0 series loss against a lowly rated West Indies side. Coach Chris Silverwood departed and Joe Root stepped down as captain.
Under new coach New Zealander Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, the team’s fortune underwent a remarkable volte face with England recording 11 wins and only 2 losses in its next 13 Tests. The formula was rapid scoring, chasing down significant fourth-innings targets and taking the opponent’s twenty wickets. Tactical decisions were often challenging, taking risks to force a result. It also included rebranding - the normally defensive role of a nightwatchman became the ‘nighthawk’, although no one is quite sure what that actually means.
But the success does not address fundamental issues. Most team sports revivals are built around changes in personnel. The English side is little changed.
The team has one outstanding batsman – the technically correct and run hungry Joe Root. The remainder are journeymen and promising if inconsistent talent. The aggression and T20 style shot making cannot mask deficiencies in footwork, ability to leave, crease occupation under difficult conditions or patience to build substantial innings game after game.
It has a talismanic all-rounder in Ben Stokes, who has repeatedly shown the ability to make telling contributions with bat and ball. Injury and age have meant that his influence is now sporadic. The best wicketkeeper Ben Foakes cannot be accommodated to allow the batting to be bolstered by Jonny Bairstow, whose run making and performance behind the stumps are subject to brain-fades and costly lapses.
The bowling relies on two aging workhorses – Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. Technique and experience cannot always make up the bodily shortcomings and drop-off in pace. The other favoured seam bowlers – Ollie Robinson, Matthew Potts, Chris Woakes and Josh Tongue – are handy in helpful conditions but less penetrative otherwise. With Jofra Archer and Olly Stone injured, there are no real fast bowlers to provide a cutting edge. Mark Wood has made some meaningful contributions but is fragile and mysteriously ignored when available for selection.
The fast bowling deficits are more palpable when England switches to Plan B – persistent short-pitched attack. Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden colourfully described Ollie Robinson's underwhelming less than 80 miles (130 kilometres) per hour barrages as “nude nuts”.
Jack Leach is an effective holding spinner. But a curious cast of slow bowlers – Liam Livingstone and Rehan Ahmed – are in support. The recall of Moeen Ali, capable of the odd magic ball but an average overall record, highlights a lack of spinning depth. It is not reassuring that Joe Root is frequently a major spin option.
The quality of talent reflects decades-long defects in the English cricket system, including a neglected county championship (the traditional developer of players), particular pitches, a surfeit of shorter form cricket, a tendency to cocoon centrally contracted players as well as race and admin issues.
Given its indifferent resources, England has sought to cover up weaknesses with an aggressive style of play. It is modelled on the 50-over or T20 game where England has enjoyed success. The logic is to make 300-400 runs in an innings quickly, then buy wickets with a mixture of traditional bowling and tempting liquorice all-sorts. In effect, England are following Chaucer’s words in The Knight's Tale: “to make virtue of necessity”.
The second element is distraction. The unusual approach is designed to confuse opponents and throw them off their own game as they focus on England’s often idiosyncratic efforts. It borrows from strategists like Niccolò Machiavelli and Carl von Clausewitz. As Sun Tzu put it his Art of War, “All warfare is based on deception”.
Success requires an opponent to succumb to the ploy. In its resurgence, England’s victories have come again modest opposition – New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ireland. Even its convincing defeat of India in a delayed fifth Test was against a reluctant, poorly acclimatised and underprepared opposition arriving after the IPL season.
Against World Test Champions Australia, the funky shots, strange declarations and odd bowling approaches supported by stranger field settings have not compensated for failures of basic skill. While occasionally discomforted – the defensive fields (first Test) and uncertain bowling and batting (second Test) – Australia have won playing largely conventional cricket.
The English team now discriminates between ‘victory’ and ‘the need to entertain’. But supporters demand victory especially over hated opponents. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, serious sport is “war minus the shooting”. Failure to achieve the hoped for results will create a new crisis.
As the Ashes series progresses, it will be interesting to see whether England change their playing style or double down further into kamikaze cricket theory. For opponents, the relevant maxim should be that attributed to Napoleon: “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.”
Feuilleton is historically a part of a European newspaper or magazine devoted to material designed to entertain the general reader. Extraneus, in Latin ‘an outsider’, is a former financier and author. A reasonable club cricketer, he took up a career in money markets because he wasn't good enough to be a professional cricketer, needed to make a living and no one offered him a job as a cricket commentator or allowed him to pursue his other passions.