World Test Championship Review: England — almost, but not quite.

That England stayed in contention to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) final deep into their tour to India is a testament to the quality of the players at their disposal. However, across the tournament England look like the fourth-best side; looking on as the classier outfits of India, Australia and New Zealand showed a bit more in the tank in all departments.

How it played out

This chart shows England’s first innings knocks during the WTC. The two defeat away in New Zealand were not counted in the overall tournament tally, but even without these matches England’s commitment to playing Test matches is unrivalled. They played 23 Tests in the WTC period; way more than any other side.

This five day fetish is commendable but ultimately means England have to win more regularly than anyone else in order to finish high up the table.

OK, so: England are absolutely all over the place in their first innings of the match. The made five scores under 200 and five scores over 450. Across all Tests, England went into the turn averaging a lead of just 25 — so, level for all intents.

This is a side that lacks consistency with the bat — even if with the ball they are more on the money. The restricted sides to less than 200 five times and gave up more than 450 only twice.

Given the vagaries with the bat, England’s strength across the WTC was in the performance of the bowling attack.

England’s batting is exciting, but in the wrong way

Let’s get one thing out of the way up front…

Joe Root is a world class batsman.

On the SFTV Cricket Fan Show, Tony has called him “the Andy Murray of cricket” and I agree with him. In another era — without Williamson, Kohli and Smith — he’d be seen as the unequivocally great player he truly is.

In WTC first innings, he averaged over 63 — top quadrant stuff. No other England batsman is within touching distance; his average is a good 15 runs higher than second-ranked Ollie Pope.

Pope’s average of 48 is touching on the top quadrant, as are good contributions from Ben Stokes and Zak Crawley, both also averaging above 40. Jos Buttler and Rory Burns average over 30 but then……..not much.

The more I look at this chart, the grimmer it seems. The bowlers offer very little first time out with the bat — though hats off to Mark Wood for at least not hanging about.

But: look to the bottom left and see all those top three batsmen sadly loitering there without. England’s problem — which leads to their flaky boom-and-bust totals — is the highly infrequent contributions from anyone batting in the top three in the first knock.

There have been 69 first knock top three innings for England during the WTC. Of these there have been just four centuries.

One of these — Crawley’s 267 versus Pakistan in Southampton in 2020 — accounts for a scarcely believable one-in-eight of all top three first innings runs scored by England in this period.

Across the WTC, England’s top three average 30.8 in the first knock — and things got worse as the tournament went on. Since Crawley’s magnum opus the average first innings score is 18.3. No team will get very far setting themselves up by being somewhere in the region of 55–3.

A key top order job is to blunt the new ball. This means batting long. England don’t.

Across the WTC the top three face, on average of 73 balls each. Again, taking the post-Crawley-score period, this drop to just 49 balls. The consequence is that Root has been coming in at number four having to face a pretty new ball, on average, just 98 balls– so: 16 overs — old. Root is making his contribution without the benefit of a top three dealing with the new ball, which makes it doubly-impressive.

This all feels fairly slanderous to Rory Burns, who ended the WTC with a tournament first knock average of just under 40. He scored 30% of the top three runs in 23% of the innings. Compare this to Dom Sibley (20% runs in 26% of the innings) so of the two who may be vying for one slot next summer, Burns’ return is the more impressive.

England have chopped and changed their top three throughout the WTC, which — despite the recent rotation policy — looks like a sign of weakness rather than strength. Burns has really done nothing wrong and Crawley has shown he has a big score in him (though excluding that knock he averaged just 27), but that still leaves a top three place up for grabs.

With Root batting at four and Stokes and Pope performing well at five and six with Buttler at an almost-insulting seven, the England middle order looks as good as anyone. But, absent a strong start, those boys are under regular pressure and that’s why England’s first innings total oscillate wildly.

The top three — possibly the number three berth — remains an issue for England. Without finding a solution the rest of the batting line up will find it difficult to deliver the performances their talent promises.

Bowling’s coming home

With the ball, England remain a class act. As the chart below shows, throughout the WTC Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad remain the best of a very good bunch.

I say very good: unlike the other top four WTC nations, England don’t trouble the very top right quadrant very much. Broad edges in (as does Ollie Stone, but with a very small sample).

Jimmy is ju-u-u-st out of that area; his strike rate of 51 is nearly there — and his standout economy makes him every bit as good as you think he is.

The younger quicks who play more often — Jofra Archer, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood — all fall the right side of the line in terms of economy and are edging towards the top quadrant. All take wickets at a better than average strike rate even if none of them quite manage to join Broad in the sub-50 club.

Nonetheless, this is an effective pace attack especially when you add Ben Stokes’ X-factor (see below). Sam Curran could do with working his way to being less expensive and a more regular wicket taker, though his left arm quick point of difference probably gives him more leeway than most.

England’s spinners have — wait for it…… done a more-than-decent job in the WTC.

Jack Leach and Dom Bess have done the majority of the work, supplemented by Joe Root and a little bit of Moeen Ali. Bess was the more economical of the duopoly, whilst Leach has a better strike rate, by ten balls (60 to 70). So there’s not much between them as spinners and they gave a good account of themselves across the WTC.

So repeat after me: England did not underperform because of their spinners; it wasn’t Dom Bess’ fault.

Got that?

Of course, if England did unearth a mystery spinner, that wouldn’t go amiss. Not very likely with the county championship pushed more and more into the lush spring — where county captains know they’ll get more out of a military medium pacer than a callow spinner — and the chilly autumn.

Perhaps Somerset, who produced Bess and Leach and play on the spin-friendly ‘Ciderbad’ pitch in Taunton, can find another one?

England under-19 all-rounder Lewis Goldsworthy maybe? Yet to make his county championship debut though he got some T20 exposure in 2020: clearly a long way to go yet, and a lot more experience to accrue. And I’m not sure he really counts as a mystery spinner either.

Away from the turning beds of Taunton, England look more likely to go for one of the winter drinks carriers of Lancashire’s Matt Parkinson, Hampshire’s Mason Crane or Surrey’s Amar Virdi.

Parky and Crane are both 24 year old leg spinners; Crane earning a Test cap (away, in the Ashes) in January 2018 very early — too early — in his career. Of the two, Parkinson has the better first class average, 62 wickets at 25.22 in 20 matches, compared to the more experienced Crane who has 96 wickets at 45.16 in 42 games.

Virdi’s experience is more similar to Parkinson, having made 28 first class appearances. He’s taken an impressive 91 wickets at 28.08. What may count against him is that he’s an off spinner and England have a young, capable offie in Dom Bess and they don’t have an established leg spinner — or at least not one they can select for Test cricket (hi there, Adil).

None of these three have yet shown much with the bat either. So replacing the decent spinners — who have picked up valuable experience over the last few years — with these likely next-cabs-on-the-rank looks like a risky move.

On their side is that they were all around the squad for a prolonged period this winter so maybe one of them stood out in the team environment and is closer to a cap than the raw numbers suggest.

The Everything Man — a look at Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes has had a very good WTC. His batting average (across all innings) is over 46; his bowling average was 29.47 — a 17 run differential towards batting is a good all round performance indeed.

With the bat, the WTC has been redemptive for Stokes. Looking at his rolling 10 innings first knock average across his career, Stokes came into the WTC at his lowest ebb, averaging just 24 (marked by the dotted line).

By the end of the WTC his rolling 10 innings average was back above 50 — where the very best reside.

With the ball, Stokes’ WTC bowling average of 29 was powered by his bowling in the second half of the match. First go round he took 16 wickets at 40; second time out is was 20 wickets at 21. This mirrors his whole career, where his second go with the ball has returned a lower average than the first.

He’s always been a regular wicket taker. In the first third of his career, he took 52 wickets at an average of 39; taking a wicket every 66 balls. A good start but he got better: in the next chunk of his career, he took 57 wickets at an average of 27, now taking a wicket every 53 balls. These rates have carried on into the latest portion of his career where he’s taken a further 54 wickets at 28, a wicket every 52 balls.

So he’s a guy who is taking wickets at under thirty and is scoring close to fifty in his first knock. Add to that both his iconic contributions at the business end of a match and his wonderful fielding: that’s some contribution from one player.

This makes Stokes, for me, the premier all-rounder in the world today.

Overall

England have had a good, if not spectacular, WTC. They kept in the hunt for the final until the end but ultimately finishing fourth feels about right.

They are too inconsistent with the bat in the first innings and will need to get more from their top three. I’d say ‘on a more regular basis’ but, most recently, the contributions have been poor so getting something would be a start.

Burns should have the most credit in the bank, followed by Crawley — so unless Sibley starts to score more consistently there’s at least one top three berth up for grabs in the near future.

England’s talented middle order contributes well, but they have to stop coming in before lunch on the first day if they are going to have match- and series-defining moments more often.

With the ball, England are very good. Anderson and Broad keep rolling along, but the battery of younger pace men all had a fine WTC too. In the spin department, Leach and Bess were more than respectable. Don’t believe the narrative, even in India England — and England’s spinners — were pretty good with the ball.

England, then, are a very good side. They are capable of greatness and culpable of madness, often in the same Test match. They have the key pieces in place to be an excellent, well-rounded team — if they can find a stable top order who can provide a reliable platform then they might just be in business in the years to come.

Next article: Australia.

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