by bigfluffylemon » Thu Aug 25, 2022 10:45 pm
Well, well. It's not often that a decision to bat first can be criticised as plainly wrong (that's usually reserved, fairly or not, for captains who chose to bowl first), but you've got to say this was one time where the adage of 'weigh up the conditions, then bat first' was wrong. If South Africa got in among England in those conditions you'd think the scores could easily be reversed.
Of course, England have to make a decent start count tomorrow, and probably gave South Africa more runs than they should have with the bizarre insistence on bowling short to tail enders, even on a day where the ball has been doing all sorts and they got the top order out by line, length and movement (you'd think if that's good enough for a number 3, it's also good enough for a number 9).
Like others, I remain baffled by the chopping and changing of bowlers when the batting fails. It seems that it's acceptable to change bowlers around for tactical reasons - horses for courses picks, if you will - but rarely do you see a batter come into the side because they are considered particularly good in certain conditions or against a certain style of attack. You do see it very occasionally when 'spin specialists' are picked to play in India (Australia have had reasonable success picking Khawaja in that role, for example - the less said about England's attempts with Jennings the better), but in general batters are supposed to be able to adapt to all conditions, all attacks. We throw around the pejorative 'flat track bully', but there is a skill in having the patience to accumulate big runs when the ball isn't doing much, a skill the likes of Cook and Vaughan had, but most of England's current line-up (save Root) lacks - they get bored, start throwing the bat around and make a mistake. Yes, it's easier to make 200 on a flat deck in Asian than in May at Trent Bridge, but it's still not easy to have the application to make 200 in a test match, or everyone would be doing it. Why not accept that some of England's batters will be better suited to grind when the ball is moving, and others are better at cashing in when the ball does less?