Tackle Pakistan first, the Ashes later
Tim de Lisle
July 11, 2006
When a new player enters the England dressing-room - a near-weekly event this year - he is issued with certain things. Shirts, sweaters, caps, hats, a helmet, a busy schedule of practice and PR, endless branded training kit, and (surely) a manual containing the approved answers to every question he might be asked by the media. It's a dream come true. They've got a lot of good players. He always gives 110 per cent. I'd be lying if I said there weren't a few nerves. Nobody drops catches on purpose. That's just press talk. We mustn't get ahead of ourselves.
Cliches have their uses and the one England need most right now is the last one. They HAVE been getting ahead of themselves. Ashes fever has set in way ahead of schedule. Michael Vaughan has already been ruled out, but hasn't been stood down as captain, so in effect the captain has already been chosen for whenever Vaughan returns - which is bizarre, even for a captain as gifted as he is. No sooner had Vaughan's bad news emerged from the ECB than Ashley Giles popped up to say he would be fit for the Ashes, as if anyone can tell when he hasn't played for nine months. There are some foolish presumptions built into these pronouncements.
We the media are as much to blame as anyone. Except perhaps the fans. The Ashes has so much history - both ancient and modern, going back 124 years but never more gripping than last summer - that England fans tend to downplay Test series against other countries. Sport is unforgiving towards anyone who is not living in the moment, and look what has happened to England since the epic drama of 2005: two drawn series (one creditable, one careless), a sobering 2-0 defeat, and nothing but mediocrity in the one-day game.
The 2-0 defeat was at the hands of Pakistan, and here they are again, giving England what could be the perfect prelude to the Ashes - as long as they don't see it that way. They have to treat it as a major contest in its own right. And it is: Pakistan are the only team not to have lost a Test series in England in the past decade. Up to 1987, Pakistan had never won a Test series in England; since then, they haven't lost one. They have had some flaky moments elsewhere, but in England it is as if the steel instilled in them by Imran Khan and Javed Miandad has never left.
England's sick list could have wrecked this series as a contest, but the injury gods have now decided to be more even-handed. If England are missing their superb old-ball attack of Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones, Pakistan are without a formidable new-ball one, Shoaib Akhtar and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. On paper, it looks like a run-fest. England's batsmen have handled visiting seamers well for several years, so if they can see off Danish Kaneria, they should be good for a few 400s.
Pakistan's top order is even stronger, with three batsmen in the top eight of the LG ratings - Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf. Inzy will be the prize trophy but the two Ys need to be separated early: over the past four years, their partnerships have averaged 106, which is more than Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting (85) or Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar (83). And England are seriously considering going in with attack consisting of an off-colour Steve Harmison, a rusty, stitched-up Matthew Hoggard and two rookies in Liam Plunkett and Monty Panesar. The human firework known as Shahid Afridi could find himself coming in at 400 for 4.
Behind Afridi come Kamran Akmal (if fit) and Abdul Razzaq, who look a bit more dangerous than their projected opposite numbers, Ian Bell, Geraint Jones and Plunkett. Bell is back on trial, Jones is right out of sorts, and both are neat right-handers who stay legside and keep the slips interested. Pakistan will have a third edge on the captaincy front, unless Andrew Strauss finds the instant authority that eluded him in the recent one-dayers. England are going to need those big scores.
Ideally, these will come from Marcus Trescothick and Kevin Pietersen, the only dashers left in a line-up shorn of Vaughan and Flintoff. Alastair Cook and Bell should make as many runs as the two missing captains, but they won't get them nearly as fast, or with the same impact on the mood of the match. Just as in India, England may end up regarding a drawn series as a bit of a triumph.
Tim de Lisle is a former editor of Wisden and now edits www.timdelisle.com© Cricinfo
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Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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