A new challenge could revitalise Alastair Cook, wildcards in squads can help find the X-factor and the exits of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad must be staggered
Stuart Broad, Joe Root and Jimmy Anderson have some big decisions to make if England are to turn around their Ashes fortunes after the recent 4-0 hammering.
Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
1) Find a No3
The search for Alastair Cook’s opening partner has overshadowed an even greater need to fill the most important batting position of all. James Vince, for all his seductive talent, is the antonym of a Test No3. There will be more calls for Joe Root to move up, though few captains have had long-term success in that position – Ricky Ponting is a spectacular exception – and there’s a reason why Steve Smith and Virat Kohli bat No4. Dawid Malan has the temperament and adaptability, though exposing him to high-class new-ball bowling might kill the golden goose.
Should the chosen No3 struggle in New Zealand, England might consider moving Cook down the order for the summer series against Pakistan and India. It would give him the stimulation of a fresh challenge and England a bridge between the openers and the middle order. Haseeb Hameed or Keaton Jennings could then come in alongside Mark Stoneman. And if nothing else, it would be a creative way to end the search for Cook’s opening partner.
2)Pick a specialist spinner
Moeen Ali is a role model in need of a role. He was picked as a temporary solution to England’s spin-bowling problems in 2014 and is still doing the job. Unless England are to embrace a more flexible approach to selection, which would allow Moeen to be a priceless utility player whose role and selection would depend on conditions and confidence, they surely need to clarify his position. All things being equal, England should consider him as a batsman who bowls – even if that means he doesn’t make it into the first XI in New Zealand – and pick a specialist spinner.
The situation is complicated by the absence of a must-pick spinner and the wild fluctuations in Moeen’s performance levels: he was England’s best player last summer and their worst this winter. It also depends on other decisions. If Malan moves to No3, say, Moeen has a much greater chance of staying in the team as a middle-order batsman. For most of his Test career he has been an adorable but often insubstantial loose cannon down the order; a glorified bits-and-pieces player. It’s not his fault, but Moeen has become a symbol of a short-term thinking that probably needs to stop.
3) Prepare for life without Branderson
In the next few years England will lose two bowlers with around 1,000 Test wickets and a combined bowling IQ approaching 300. Though Jimmy Anderson is 35 and Stuart Broad 31, recent performances suggest it’s unlikely there will be four years between their retirements. Losing two great bowlers in quick succession can do untold damage, as Australia (Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne) and West Indies (Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh) found out. And while fast bowlers’ bodies do not give a solitary hoot about best-laid plans, England should at least try to stagger the retirements – and to prepare for them. That means giving Chris Woakes, Toby Roland-Jones and others as much experience as possible. With so many Test matches squashed together in the next two years, England might do well to think less of Anderson and Broad and more of Anderson or Broad.
4) Prioritise Test cricket
English Test cricket could really use a hug right now. It’s severely homesick, down in the dumps and, for the first time since it became a big brother on 5 January 1971 with the birth of one-day internationals, it’s not even the most popular sibling in the family. All anyone keeps talking about is how dynamic and successful the white‑ball twins have become.
It would have been naive of the England and Wales Cricket Board chiefs to think they could improve England’s one-day cricket so spectacularly without a knock-on effect on the Test team. Yet the extent and speed of that impact must have surprised them. There are a few potential solutions to consider, both short-term (specialist coaches for the red- and white-ball teams, even before Trevor Bayliss’s departure in 2019) and particularly long‑term (playing the County Championship at the height of summer on flatter pitches; using a Kookaburra ball; giving a long run in the side to potential stars such as Mason Crane, Hameed, Liam Livingstone and Sam Curran). But with the Ashes and the World Cup in 2019, it could be a while before Test cricket emerges from the shadow of its younger siblings.
5) Find an X-factor bowler
“Raw Pace and Mystery Spin” would be a good title for an existential play about a series of England captains tormented unto madness by recurring dreams of 82mph right-arm seamers. If England are to compete overseas they need to invest in some players with more transferable skills, whether it is the leg‑spin of Crane (or a high-class finger spinner such as Graeme Swann and Nathan Lyon), the pace of Mark Wood, Jamie Overton or Olly Stone, or even the left‑handedness of Sam Curran.
They could even have an unofficial quota system: every Test XI or squad would have to include at one least wildcard. It’s radical, and would invite ridicule; but then so does losing consecutive away series 4-0.
If England don’t do something to ensure the recent promises of long‑term change are more than idle new year’s resolutions, we will be having the same conversation in four years’ time.