This cannot go on. England simply cannot continue to carry two players in the top three of their batting order.
Your top three sets the tone. It sets up the game. Sometimes it wins the game.
At the moment England’s just rolls over. The notion of the captain Joe Root batting at No 4 because it gives him some rest before he bats is utterly risible. The poor chap probably just readies himself in full protective equipment as soon as the openers leave the dressing room.
“Accusations that this team can only play one way looked valid in their cases
It is not quite as bad as one No 3 in the Glamorgan second XI, who used to wait by the gate to the outfield when the openers went out to bat, so miffed was he by the performances and attitude of one of them. But you get the gist.
The first thing to say is that Alastair Cook is utterly blameless in all of this. In making 42 here yesterday he looked as though he was batting on a different pitch. He was certainly in a different class. And he does have rather a lot of credit in the bank.
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But even he succumbed surprisingly, bounced out by Chris Morris, whose pace so stunned him that the ball had hit his gloves before he was halfway through his stroke. And this is one of the finest players of the short ball of this and most other generations.
It was a wonderful piece of bowling — as fine as the devastating away-swinging yorker with which he bowled Root — but it also raised questions as to whether even Cook is wearying of, and worrying about, the burden around him. Even he cannot bat for three men.
To pose the question as to whether Keaton Jennings is a Test opener is not cruel. It is one that the selectors will be asking themselves most earnestly over the next week, and it will probably be one that crosses Jennings’s mind too. He knows that he will have to work hard to ensure that his game is in some sort of order if he is selected.
Yes, he has a Test century behind him, in his very first innings in Mumbai, but even then he could have been dismissed for nought when he was dropped and it is a common view that opening the batting in India is one of the easier roads with which to begin the journey into Test cricket.
Bowled too often
Alastair Cook 18.6%
Gary Ballance 17.4%
Joe Root 6%
Haseeb Hameed 12.8%
Mark Stoneman 13%
But he has looked dreadful in this series. He is extremely stiff and upright in his stance and in his strokeplay. It means that his head is never over the ball and, when he does drive, it can be in the air — as it was for the two that he hit through cover off Vernon Philander here — and when he defends it is often not particularly solid.
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That was undoubtedly the case yesterday as he left a gaping gate open for Philander to snake a nip-backer through. An opening batsman can never be happy with granting such an easy passage to his stumps.
Good batsmen do not get bowled often, so the old professionals always used to aver. Admittedly, you cannot use your pads as much as you once could, but the point remains: protecting the timbers behind you must be the primary objective. Jennings gets bowled rather too often.
I expressed some sympathy in these pages yesterday for Liam Dawson and I have similar feelings for Gary Ballance. He, too, has been overpromoted. His recall made sense because he had scored so many runs, but it had to be at No 5, not No 3. You cannot demote him in the order now, only drop him for good, sadly, although injury may rule him out of the third Test anyway. He seems to be making all the same mistakes that he made last time around.
To trap him on the crease with feet stuck together is not exactly a fiendishly difficult task. Philander had the benefit of some low bounce in Nottingham but there was a certain inevitability to his dismissal of the left-handed No 3.
This is not a healthy situation for Root, who so backed Ballance. It pays not to take emotion into selection meetings.
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England had no chance of winning or saving this match but they did have a chance to bat with some pride and skill. Cook apart, they did neither. Some of the shots played in the middle order were harebrained. The balance between obdurate defence and acceptable positivity is tricky in these circumstances, but Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali will certainly not want to watch any video reviews of their innings.
Accusations that this team can play only one way looked valid in their cases. This is Test cricket. You need to think, not just thump.
What to do now, then? This England set-up likes to give a player one game too many rather than one too few, but it is surely time to revise that policy. The coaching staff must look into some players’ eyes and judge whether the fight is still worth fighting with them.
It can sometimes do a player more harm to be exposed again when he is clearly not at ease with his game. Jennings and Ballance are very different cases. Jennings can come again, Ballance surely cannot.
The Dawson experiment must end and maybe Jennings can drop down a place with Surrey’s Mark Stoneman coming in as opener, but changes must be made. As I said, this cannot go on.
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How they were dismissed
Keaton Jennings
Jennings left a huge gap between bat and pad. It was due to a combination of his being very upright, with his head nowhere near over the ball, and his desire to play the ball early and out ahead of his front pad. Once he had completed the shot, it did not look too bad, but it was too late. The gate had been left open.
Gary Ballance
Ballance was a little unlucky in that the ball from Vernon Philander kept low but he did not help himself by being so deep in his crease initially. When the ball hit him his front foot was barely outside the popping crease. He was also caught in the no-man’s land that is so often his downfall with his feet close together and his bat prodding out hopefully in front. Because Philander is not that quick, you should think about standing outside the popping crease because he is always looking to attack the stumps and you can mess with his lengths by standing further forward.