David vs. Goliath: England’s Misery Down-Under

We all know about the famous story about a battle between David and Goliath from the Holy Bible. Goliath is a tall well-built warrior who knows all the tricks and trades of one-on-one warfare while David on the other hand is a small Shepherd boy who is oblivious to the styles of warfare. When they battle against each other, Goliath takes David too lightly and ends up losing to an inexperienced Shepherd boy. Apparently, the recently concluded Australian tour has proved to be a similar war for the English Team where the Goliath (England) lost 12 out of the 13 matches (5 Tests, 5 ODIs and 3 T20s) they played across all the 3 formats against David (Australia).

England entered this tour as favorites and after demolishing the Australians at home just 2 months before the commencement of this tour, all odds were in the favor of Ashes retention despite playing away from home. But what followed turned English cricket upside down. The core of their batting line-up failed to deliver while their lethal bowling attack looked harmless throughout the tour.

The return of their premier batsman, Jonathan Trott citing stress issues, pushed their campaign on the back foot and the coup de grace was laid upon them when the spine of their bowling attack Graeme Swann retired from cricket mid-tour. Currently, ECB has sacked the team director Andy Flower and is looking for a replacement. Probably, the easiest thing to do when your team is under-performing, but is this an apt move?

Andy Flower had been with the English team for a very long time and had played an important role in the recent triumphs of this team. The most important of them all was England being crowned Numero Uno in Tests in August 2011. The retired Zimbabwean wicket keeper batsman is known to be a tactician when it comes to coaching and his skills off the field were lauded by the cricket experts. Beating India in India in 2012 was another big feat entailed by Andy Flower. His sacking after just one unsuccessful tour is a horrendous one, and hints towards ECB’s strategy to save face in the media rather than tackling a bad phase valiantly.

From ECB’s self defensive move to sack Andy Flower (the person behind building a strong England team), let’s move on to the abysmal performance of the current players that should alarm the selectors as the ODI World Cup is just a year away and is going to be played at a place where they have just lost everything, without even putting up a fight.

The problem begins with their top order, where on one hand they have Alastair Cook, who is one of the greatest batsmen England has produced in recent times and is known around the world for his solid technique and temperament and on the other hand they are yet to find an opener who complements Cook and remains stable in the team. But with even Cook out of form, the top order is completely weak.

Since the retirement of Andrew Strauss, England tried many batsmen at the top of the order and none of them have actually made their mark. Nick Compton showed a bit of promise with his ability to stay on the wicket but his inability to cash that much amount of time into runs led to his ouster from the team. They tried Joe Root, touted as the future of English Cricket, at the top and he performed well but his requirement in the middle order paved way for Michael Carberry who is currently opening for England and failed to impress.

Since Trott pulled out of the team, the batting line up looked more vulnerable than before as their experienced players went out of form at the same time. Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Matt Prior all have failed during this tour and this has been a major reason for the downfall of this Goliath. Ian Bell still showed some signs of form while the other batsmen just hung onto the reputation of a pompous giant.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad together proved very lethal for England’s opponents, but their docile bowling down under, especially Anderson’s lackluster show turned the tour into a lop-sided affair in Australia’s favor. With Swann retiring, the onus of this attack was on these two only as the spot for the 3rd fast bowler has always been unstable among Bresnan, Tremlett and Finn. But when the main bowlers fail to provide wickets for your team, there’s little one can expect from the other bowlers.

This vulnerability inside the English team provided an opportunity for the Aussie players to exploit them and regain the Ashes. The moral blow which was struck on the face of England was the one from which they never recovered and ended up losing the entire tour completely.

Some versions of the David and Goliath story say that Goliath was a giant because of serious medical conditions and thus was weaker than David on the battle field. May be if we analyze England Team which we have named as Goliath, was suffering from an ailing opening spot, an out of form middle order, disarrayed bowling attack and lack of self-belief, and so Goliath was severely debilitated even before the battle had begun.

The main batsmen of this line-up are in dire-straits now, they have to play more and more of domestic cricket to regain their form and start scoring at the international level, because their loss in the ODI series raises more doubts about their contention for the 2015 world cup.

The measures taken by ECB, I would reiterate myself from above, are not apt and Andy Flower who has done so much for England Cricket should have given more opportunities to bring this team back on its feet but they were anyhow embarrassed because this Goliath had lost to David.