England have just won the fourth Test match against Australia by four wickets. In a bizarre, low-scoring game at Melbourne that was completed inside two days they recorded their first Test win in Australia in 15 years. The pitch was freakish; this was the first Test match on Australian soil without an individual half-century for nearly a hundred years.
England recorded their first cricket Test win in Australia in 15 years
Set to score 175 in conditions which, to put it mildly, made batting extremely difficult, openers Zak Crawley (37 runs off 48 deliveries) and Ben Duckett (an even more quick-fire 34 off just 26) set the tone with aggressive ‘Bazball-style’ batting, scoring at over seven an over. Then Jacob Bethell became one of the game’s top scorers with 40 off 46. There was still time for a traditional England wobble as both Joe Root, England’s most experienced batsman, and captain Ben Stokes fell cheaply. But Harry Brook and Jamie Smith saw England over the line.
Unfortunately the five-match series is already lost – Australia won the first three Tests – but this consolation victory will give England a much needed morale boost before the fifth and final game which starts in Sydney on 4 January. England will be hugely relieved to have avoided the series whitewash which seemed to be on the cards. Australia, nevertheless, are probably favourites to win at Sydney and take the series 4-1.
It will soon be time for England to start planning for the future. To that end it’s worth noting that two relatively inexperienced players made important contributions in England’s victory. Bethell was playing only his fifth Test match and Tongue, who bowled superbly to take five wickets in Australia’s first innings, his eighth. Meanwhile Joe Root, who has played over 160 Test matches, failed again. At Brisbane he scored a magnificent 138 not out, but so far that has been his only significant innings in his eight attempts in the current series. For England’s most experienced batsman that is not good enough.
That century was Root’s first in his fourth Ashes series in Australia; given how much he usually contributes, his performances ‘down under’ have been distinctly underwhelming. Root will turn 39 during England’s next Ashes series in Australia. Is it realistic to expect him to do any better next time round? And if not, shouldn’t the selectors start to think about looking elsewhere? But Root is unlikely to be rotated; he has scored nearly 14,000 runs in Test cricket and is closing in on Sachin Tendulkar’s record (just under 16,000 runs).
England’s cricket selectors sometimes seem to value personal milestones and sentimentality more than the good of the team. In the past, astonishingly, their persistence with the same long-established players has even run to keeping them in the team when they were injured. In the summer of 2014 for example Matt Prior was picked as England’s wicketkeeper, despite his troublesome Achilles. After England lost the match he attributed dropping an important catch to his not being able to ‘move the way I needed to’. But it was suggested that Prior (‘A fantastic player for England’) had somehow earned the right to decide his own future – as if past achievements were more important than current merit.
In 2018, England stalwart Jonny Bairstow was selected as a specialist batsman even though he had just broken his finger. Bairstow scored six in the first innings and was out first ball in the second. The following year legendary fast bowler Jimmy Anderson was picked for the first match of an Ashes series even though he was recovering from injury and had had no time to prove his match fitness. After bowling just four overs on the first morning of the game, Anderson limped off injured and didn’t return. A bowler down, England lost that Test match by 251 runs.
Joe Root isn’t injured and hopefully he will score lots of runs in the fifth Test at Sydney, stay fit and go on to command selection for years to come. England should certainly keep his prodigious talent in the fold: no one should be banished to the outer darkness. But equally it’s clearly time to introduce new players and create an expanded pool of talent to replace the ‘closed shop’ currently in operation. When players’ past achievements cloud the selectors’ judgment, both team and fans are short changed.
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