Talking Cricket: Bowlers mask over England’s batting shortfalls

The old adage that cricket is “a batsman’s game” took a beating also as severe as the one dished out to the Australians themselves in this Ashes series. But it mustn’t be forgotten that Australia’s struggles with the bat only just masked those of England.

The English bowlers, on the other hand, have been irresistible. One of the most encouraging aspects has been the long list of candidates ready to step in, unlike with the batting line-up where there aren’t many thumping the door down demanding their chance.

This imbalance in the production line isn’t a freak occurrence and if you look to the source it’s worryingly a trend in the purest form of the game that looks set to continue.

An injury to Mark Wood saw Steven Finn make an exhilarating return in the third Test. With doubts over Wood going into the fourth Test, and with Jimmy Anderson injured, Mark Footitt and Liam Plunkett were the two picked from a long list of bowling candidates.

In contrast, Adam Lyth leads a much shorter list of names to open the batting, while eventually replacing Ian Bell at three looks like it will require some thought. We mustn’t also forget that, ahead of a trip to face Pakistan on turning tracks in the UAE, the spin department also remains painfully short.

The answer to all of this is quite clear and it comes from the breeding ground - the County Championship. But the solution is not so apparent.

In years gone by, the likes of Joel Garner and Wayne Daniel would regularly terrify the domestic game with their pace while even in the not too distant past Courtney Walsh, Waqar Younis and Allan Donald were unleashing ferocious thunderbolts on opposing counties.

Sadly, with the increased international schedule the hardest type of player to recruit into our domestic game is a top quality fast bowler and as a result the development of our batsman is suffering.

Lyth has been a fantastic opener for Yorkshire but has looked out of his depth in the test arena, as did his teammate at Headingley, Gary Ballance, before he was axed from the England side. This was all against an Aussie attack who themselves haven’t hit the heights expected of them, but have, at times, given England plenty to think about.

In the defence both batsmen, they have rarely faced anything like this pace in the domestic game and they need time, which may not be afforded, to acclimatise to the dramatic increase in intensity of the step up in level to test cricket.

More pertinent perhaps is that with so many Championship games played on green and damp pitches in the early part of the summer, the conditions are weighed heavily against the batsman.

How do you encourage youngsters breaking into the top orders across the country to knuckle and construct their innings and techniques? Particularly more so when many of their seniors leave the field early in the campaigns having felt the need to throw caution to the wind because a ball with their name on it was never far away.

In contrast, young bowlers are benefiting from being given the freedom to express themselves in the congested Championship schedule of the early months of the season.

This argument has long been made by the spinners as well that they are unable to hone their skills on drier tracks with so much of the first class season completed by the end of June.

Spare a thought for the batsman, though, because this is now becoming their bane too and it is affecting the production line of Test-ready options with the bat.

Undoubtedly the rise of Twenty20 cricket has added to the demise of a batsman’s application and ability to bat for long periods under sustained pressure. But when the first-class format itself is not offering a level playing field then where will the basics be developed?

Much like this Ashes series, the entertainment value as wickets tumble and batsmen are blown away by irresistible seam and swing bowling is now not uncommon on the county circuit. Perhaps a little assistance is required in the scheduling across the summer to even out the balance between bat and ball.