England in decline by not adding up to sum of their parts

Root, right, may take over a team that appears to be stagnating

DANISH SIDDIQUI/REUTERS

It began on a high with an impressive victory in South Africa, stuttered in the second innings of the Durham Test, when Sri Lanka’s batsmen were given an easy ride, faltered against Pakistan, when both Tests in London were lost, and began to spiral out of control in Dhaka. Mumbai and Madras will go down in the annals of horrific England defeats. A common thread was that when the pitches were flat, with no lateral movement in the air or off the seam, so were England.

The debutants? James Vince, Jake Ball, Ben Duckett, Zafar Ansari, Haseeb Hameed, Keaton Jennings and Liam Dawson were an eclectic bunch. At the start of the year, only Vince would have been thought of as a likely candidate for promotion, underlining how fluid and unpredictable the Test team has become. The others were a long way off the radar, their eventual selections a combination of the meritocratic and idiosyncratic. County cricket remains an important springboard for those with ambition and livelihoods can be transformed in an instant.

Two of them — Jennings and Hameed — have a good chance of enjoying long Test careers; Ball will push for a permanent place next summer, having nudged ahead of Steven Finn, who finished the year a sorrowful figure, trudging around India carrying drinks; Duckett will certainly prosper in one-day cricket, and if he sets his mind to Tests, has a decent chance of succeeding. Ansari and Dawson will be hindered by the balance of the team, which is seam orientated, and Vince will look back with regret at a massive missed opportunity.

The emergence of Hameed was one of the bright points of a dark winter

SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP

Some players have come and gone and may not be seen again in Tests. Nick Compton and Alex Hales began the year either side of Alastair Cook in the batting order; the former’s international days are done, the latter will be limited now to one-day cricket. Gary Ballance must fear for future opportunities — the captaincy of Yorkshire beckons — and Gareth Batty, the oddest selection of the period, will look back on the year with some bemusement. The loss to the game of James Taylor, who had to retire because of a serious heart condition, was the saddest development of all.

The year belonged to Jonny Bairstow, transformed after his maiden hundred at Cape Town. Before 2016 he was another player struggling to make his mark at international level, for ever carrying drinks and scorned as a flapper behind the stumps. In Madras he fell 12 runs short of scoring more runs in a calendar year than Michael Vaughan, who holds the record with 1,481 in 2002, having already taken more dismissals than any other wicketkeeper. He had a fine year.

Chris Woakes was the other who made the leap from county to international class, from the fringes of the team to the core. As with Bairstow, he enjoyed a breakthrough Test when he took 11 wickets against Pakistan at Lord’s. Until then, his bowling had lacked a little devil. Now, he is regarded as England’s quickest bowler and is a first-choice pick in a four-seamer attack.

Woakes’s emergence has come at a time when England must turn their attention to life without the opening combination that has carried them for so long. James Anderson put in the best bowling performance of the year, when, in admittedly fruity conditions at Headingley, he took a combined ten for 45 in the match against Sri Lanka. This may be remembered as his last great performance in England colours, because since then his body has let him down. Mark Wood was badly missed in India and will hopefully enjoy an injury-free 2017.

Joe Root’s double hundred at Old Trafford against Pakistan was the innings of the year, shortly after he moved to No 3. At a time when there is uncertainty about how to blend attack and defence, that was a template of a perfect Test innings. Two things make it likely that he will start 2017 back at No 4: the emergence of Jennings and Hameed, meaning that England are likely to play three openers through the summer and into the Ashes, and Root’s almost certain elevation to the captaincy. With fatherhood beckoning, too, he will have a lot on his plate next year.

For Test cricket, the news was mixed. The key series, against South Africa, Pakistan and India were competitive, enjoyable and played on pitches that, generally, offered a fair balance between bat and ball. The shorter series against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh summed up the problems with a calendar that is crammed to bursting. Virat Kohli’s commitment to excellence in the long form of the game struck an optimistic note for the future.

Cook reached 10,000 Test runs in front of an almost empty ground in Durham

RICHARD SELLERS/PA

When the matches had the feeling of a special event — the annual New Year Test at Newlands, for example, and the first Test in Mumbai for three years — they were well attended. Elsewhere, there were some pitiful crowds: when Cook became the first England batsman to score 10,000 Test runs, this landmark moment was celebrated in a near empty ground in Durham. Seventeen Tests is clearly too many.

The year began with a captain’s resignation, when Hashim Amla stepped down after the Cape Town Test. Will the new year bring the curtain down on Cook’s time in charge? In all likelihood it will, but while a new captain may bring renewed energy and vigour, he will not be able to magically summon up a world-class spinner. Still, with home series against South Africa and West Indies and then the Ashes, spin shortcomings can be put to one side for the moment.

This time next year, England will have just completed the third Test in Perth. What will the team be? A best guess: Cook, Hameed, Jennings, Root, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Woakes, Anderson, Broad. Familiar names that need to address what, this year, became familiar failings.