I’ve got other cricketing fish to fry, so am going to park the OBO and sidle into the sunset. Here are today’s key links again. Bye!
Vic Marks has his say on the England captaincy:
This is the sort of crisis we like, one we can revel in, a sporting calamity but no more than that. Lives have not been ruined. No one has died. The options ahead, though hard to unravel, are not terrifying.
Three months ago, England’s cricket team was thrashed by a good Australian side and as a consequence the managing director and coach was sacked by the England and Wales Cricket Board’s Red Adair, Andrew Strauss, who belied his reputation for rock-solid pragmatism by sending the side off to the Caribbean without some of their best players – just to see what happened.
Now England have lost humiliatingly to West Indies, a moderate, spirited side nowhere near as good as Australia. Something must be done to hasten “the red-ball reset”. Fresh cliches may be required.
Much more here:
Paul Collingwood has a chat. He, like Root, would like to carry on:
I’ve enjoyed, I promise you, the last few weeks. I feel there’s been a really good response from the players. Of course there’ll be disappointment around this game. I want to make a difference and hopefully from inside the dressing-room there has been a change and if they decide they want to give me a job I’d certainly take it. But I’ve enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting to.
Time for a new captain, at least?
The only thing you do notice in that dressing-room is the team is together, they’re right behind Joe. All the players, all the management, and you can see Joe himself has still got the determination to take this team forward. The leadership doesn’t affect his batting, he’s still going out and scoring runs, and he’s desperate to make this team the best it can be, as simple as that.
“While we England fans are inevitably focusing on the team’s failings and Joe Root’s captaincy, we really should applaud the doughty spirit of the West Indies who clung on for dear life to two draws, large thanks to their captain Kraigg Braithwaite,” says Calum Fordham. “But lots of young players – chief amongst them Joshua Da Silva, Kyle Mayers, Alzarri Joseph and Jaden Seales - have contributed to this stunning victory in Grenada, breathing new life into Caribbean Test cricket, ably supported by the experience of Kemar Roach and Jason Holder.” Indeed.
Here’s some footage of that Joe Root interview. He is going nowhere (voluntarily, at least):
"We've definitely made big improvements"
— Cricket on BT Sport (@btsportcricket) March 27, 2022
Joe Root sees the positives and is determined to continue as Test captain. #WIvENG pic.twitter.com/U9ex2JrCYc
Kraigg Brathwaite raises the (rather underwhelming) Botham-Richards Trophy:
We had a camp before the series, we sat down and decided it was one of our best series at home, and we have to fight harm. We put in a lot of work, and from there it started. Every game, someone else raising their hand and doing a job. The effort was remarkable. I think we learned a lot from this series. Different periods where we saw we could do it. Yesterday was a remarkable day for us. I think it’s key to carry that forward, and just to keep building. We built a lot of blocks in this series and we have to continue. It’s easy to be happy with the series win and relax, but I don’t think we can relax.
Josh Da Silva is player of the match:
I dreamed of this, in my career to win one of these. Hopefully it’s not my last one, and many hundreds to come as well. It was quite challenging. I hold myself to high standards and I’ll give myself a poor for glovework in this match. I can always improve in all aspects of the game. It’s only just started. I’ve got a taste and hopefully it keeps coming.
Joe Root: I still want to captain this England team
“I think I made it quite clear, I’m very passionate about trying to take this team forward,” Joe Root says when asked about his future as captain. “I don’t think it’s ever in your hands completely, but I feel the group are very much behind me, we’re doing a lot of really good things, and we just need to turn that into results now.”
Other headlines from his brief interview with David Gower on BT Sport (he spoke a little too quickly for my typing, so I don’t have it all):
Obviously immediately it’s the frustration of how it’s finished. Because throughout the series I think we played some really good cricket. We grew in the first two games as a batting group, and then yesterday we really let ourselves down. We end up losing the series, when we played so much brilliant cricket. The frustration is yesterday we didn’t stand up well enough, after showing we’d made all this progress.
I thought the attitude throughout the whole thing has been brilliant, and that has to continue. There are so many good things we can take away from this. Of course we’ve come here to win and we’ve not and that’s disappointment. But we’ve got to keep doing the stuff we did so well in the first two games, and the start of this one. We will take things away from it, but it’s frustrating today having [lost].
The West Indies players do a lap of honour. In a high-pressure, series-deciding match they produced a spectacular tonking.
“I just noticed that Lees, Woakes, Leach and Mahmood were the only English players to face more than 100 balls across two innings,” writes Geoff Wignall. “I’m not a coach or selector, but that isn’t very good, is it?”
Also not very good: England’s Test results over the last 12 months, here if you want to torture yourself.
Ali Martin will be beavering away on his laptop in Grenada, but there’s already a report of sorts here, and his will replace it in due course:
West Indies win by 10 wickets!
5th over: West Indies 28-0 (Brathwaite 18, Campbell 6) Woakes’ first delivery goes down the leg side and Foakes can’t gather it even with a full-length dive, so they run a bye. Brathwaite drives the next past mid-off for four to leave the home side two runs from victory, and a couple of balls later he tucks one to midwicket for a couple to wrap it up!
4th over: West Indies 21-0 (Brathwaite 14, Campbell 6) Brathwaite clips the first ball of the over off his pads and through midwicket for four, and the second wide of point for four more. After that he takes the rest of the over off. West Indies have 75% of their target.
3rd over: West Indies 13-0 (Brathwaite 6, Campbell 6) Another nice delivery from Woakes, just past Brathwaite’s edge. The West Indies captain still plunders five runs off the over. West Indies have 46% of their target.
For the 2nd time in four Tests, none of England's top 9 reached 40 in either innings (also in Hobart). They hadn't happened since June 2000, in 274 Tests, and only twice in 394 Tests since June 1988 (excluding two Tests in WI abandoned after a few overs). https://t.co/5w8GSzkrox
— Andy Zaltzman (@ZaltzCricket) March 27, 2022
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2nd over: West Indies 8-0 (Brathwaite 1, Campbell 6) Mahmood’s third delivery stays low and hits Campbell’s front pad. England review, but it’s an absolute hail mary - the ball was angled across the batsman and was already beyond the line of leg stump when it hit him. If there were six stumps it might still have missed them. Campbell carves the next ball he faces past point for four. West Indies have 29% of their target.
1st over: West Indies 2-0 (Brathwaite 1, Campbell 1) Chris Woakes, new ball bowler. The first delivery moves nicely away from Brathwaite, but a couple of singles follow. West Indies have 7% of their target already.
The players are out. Time to cross the Ts and dot the Is. “The press clippings make for sad read reading and the the writing is on the wall for Joe Root’s captaincy,” says Colum Fordham. “I thought Tim de Lisle’s analysis was masterly and made two intelligent suggestions for captains of the future: Broad or Morgan. I like the idea of a Brearley-like Morgan but he has got enough on his plate with captaining the ODI and T20 sides. So it has to be Stuart who will have to work on his appeals and use of DRS but has the fire in his belly and more tactical nous.”
A lot of people have emailed suggesting Moeen Ali is a possible captain. “I think a lot of his red ball retirement was because he could not be certain in being picked,” writes Mark Slater. “As captain he would not have that worry. He is enough of a front line bowler to understand how to use those specialists, and a batter to work that part of the team. He has proper captain experience, and appears thoughtful with a tactical brain.”
I really like Moeen, but he turns 35 in June and would probably be a single-summer appointment. I’m not sure there’s any obviously right answer to England’s captaincy question, though, and he may yet be the least wrong.
So now for the final chapter. Precisely how many stories are about to come to a close is unknown, but at the very least there is a match and a series to decide.
WICKET! Leach c Da Silva b Roach 4 (England 120 all out)
UltraEdge shows a feather touch, and West Indies celebrate! England’s innings is over, and West Indies must score 28 to win!
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West Indies are absolutely certain Leach has been caught behind here, and have sent it upstairs to check!
64th over: England 119-9 (Leach 4, Mahmood 2) Mahmood gets a leading edge that sends the ball spinning over his right shoulder and beyond the reach of any fielders, and England stretch their lead to 26.
Jack Leach has now faced the most balls for England in a men's Test from No 10 or lower (where data is known), so that's a positive.
— Elgan Evan Alderman (@WelshMinor) March 27, 2022
63rd over: England 117-9 (Leach 4, Mahmood 1) Roach comes on, to replace and takes the wicket with his first ball. And then nearly another! Leach plops the ball up to backward point, where Joseph collects the ball diving forward, but it bounced just before him! “About Stuart Broad ... Has anyone noticed that he is an almost 36 year old fast bowler?” asks Pete Salmon. “I know we have become incredibly used to Branderson ‘defying expectations’ – but expectations will win of course, and probably fairly soon.”
WICKET! Woakes c Holder b Roach 19 (England 116-9)
What a grab from Holder at leg slip! Woakes tucks this off his hip, and even with a leg slip in place it looks safe enough - but Holder throws out his right paw and holds it!
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61st over: England 116-8 (Woakes 19, Leach 4) Joseph tests Leach with a bit of short stuff, and also with a pretty smart yorker. Leach deals with everything thrown at him. Andrew Benton suggests we “see how Jofra Archer goes for one series”. See how he goes where? To hospital for scans on his latest elbow injury?
“Strauss has done a good thing by keeping Root for this series - Root kept everything going during covid so deserves some respect for that despite poor results, and you can see that Strauss and Collingwood are giving him one more chance, and letting him, broadly, decide when to go. After this Test would be good,” he writes. “But the batsmen have really got a lot to answer for - giving their wickets away and batting without intelligence isn’t something that Root can change unless the batsmen want to, and they are clearly happy trundling along batting like losers.”
60th over: England 116-8 (Woakes 19, Leach 4) Mayers hasn’t produced much magic this morning, but he’s racking up the maiden overs.
59th over: England 116-8 (Woakes 19, Leach 4) The other popular vote in my captaincy poll is: anyone but Root. “Surely the right answer is: Anyone But Root,” writes Adrian Goldman. “Could anyone do worse? It may well be, looking at the batting, that there aren’t enough good batsmen to be competitive in the Test arena, but the results have been less than the sum of the constituent parts for as long as he has been captain.”
NOT OUT!
The ball popped up off Woakes’s thigh pad, went nowhere near either bat or glove, and Woakes will bat on!
Updated
WICKET! Or is it?
Woakes is given out caught by short leg, but reviews instantly!
58th over: England 114-8 (Woakes 18, Leach 3) Another maiden over, this from Mayers. Some early leaders have emerged in my completely unscientific captaincy micro-poll:
- Stuart Broad (with a clear lead)
- Rory Burns
- Eoin Morgan
- Tom Abell
Also mentioned: Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali and Harry Maguire (“Such a move would improve both England teams (well, neither would be worse),” says Julian Scott Yeomans.).
58th over: England 114-8 (Woakes 18, Leach 3) A maiden over from Alzarri Joseph.
57th over: England 114-8 (Woakes 18, Leach 3) Woakes starts Mayers’ over with another lovely cover drive, and this one reaches the rope (just). “How long do you reckon we’ll have to wait until the book revealing all the sordid details about this winter’s tours comes out?” wonders Matthew Lawrenson. “I think five years, when enough players have retired and administrators have moved on to feel comfortable dishing the dirt and filth on those in charge.” I’m not sure there’ll be much appetite. Do you think anyone really wants to read 80,000 words (or thereabouts) about England’s cricketing winter of 2021-22?
56th over: England 109-8 (Woakes 14, Leach 3) Several people have emailed in with their choice of replacement captain, but let’s do this properly. Email me with the subject line: “My captain: [insert name here]” and I’ll collate. Possible options:
- Still Joe Root
- Ben Stokes
- Stuart Broad
- Jos Buttler
- Eoin Morgan
- Sam Billings
But feel free to suggest any current English male professional cricketer. Genuine possible captains only, please, otherwise we all know that Darren Stevens wins by a landslide
55th over: England 109-8 (Woakes 13, Leach 3) A nice cover drive from Woakes for three, and Leach gets a couple similarly. “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” writes Ian Mills. “When the batters fail we drop the bowlers, when the batters and bowlers fail we sack the captain. What next?” Well England keep changing things until such time as it isn’t obvious that something has to change.
Updated
54th over: England 104-8 (Woakes 10, Leach 1) Jayden Seales starts the day, and with a single Woakes’s becomes the seventh England innings of the match to reach double figures. Meanwhile, in never rains but pours news, there’s this:
Mark Wood has been under the knife this weekend - a fragment of bone and some scar tissue removed from his elbow. No fixed date on a return but could be circa 4-6 weeks, starting with limited overs cricket
— Ali Martin (@Cricket_Ali) March 27, 2022
“As fashionable as it seems to be to kick a man when he is down, I am not sure any captain past or present would have made a success of this group of players, this attack of mediocre seam combined with pretty but ineffective spin and a batting line up with one class batsman,” writes Andrew Moore. “We just simply do not have very good players at the moment.
“Root has to take responsibility ultimately and it is a job that should be time limited given every captain ends up broken by it. I also think we should temper our expectations for the next couple of years and not climb into the team with every defeat. A change of captain may result in marginal improvement, I expect a change in coach of the right one should deliver more, but the game is not currently set up to for England Test success. We are back to the 80s and 90s where every victory should be riotously celebrated.”
It’s true that England haven’t got a lot right in recent years, that coaching and selection issues have had a significant impact, and the debate about future captaincy demonstrates the dearth of players of genuine international quality and strong character. Root’s a good and popular guy and a brilliant batter - I don’t think any of the people I quoted below want to bring him down - quite the opposite, they fear that it is the captaincy that might do so.
Anyway, the players are out. Let’s get this done.
“I don’t get Trescothick’s ‘one bad day’ comment and Eddie Jones’s definition of progress either for that matter,” writes Tom. “If it’s so great why don’t Australia do it? I hope the new captain can make a break with this doublethink and bring some traditional virtues like winning matches to the party.”
Here, for those who haven’t seen it, is what Marcus Trescothick said yesterday:
It’s all gone wrong, yes. We’ve had a really bad day and we’re really disappointed. But it’s easy over the course of what we’ve had over the winter to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We believe as coaching staff and players in that dressing room that we’ve made strides as a team over the course of the Test matches we’ve had here.
We’ve had one bad day today and over the course of the series this is the first bad day we’ve had. Day one in Antigua we had a challenging day but fought back really well and then in Barbados we were really strong and controlled most of the game.
Today it’s gone wrong, but it’s one bad day among 13 other days. We’ve been better than that over the course of the series but we’ve not turned up and made it work as we have done in previous games. We didn’t stand up on the pressure moments when it was going down to the wire.
A poem! Sent in by John Starbuck:
So farewell then, Joe Root.
As a captain you
Had the brain of a newt.
Here’s hoping the next one
May not be as cute
When we need a skipper
Who’s more of a brute.
Hello world!
Surely the last day of England’s winter, and as if actually having to play in it wasn’t depressing enough this was what they woke up to this morning. Read it and weep - you probably won’t have been the only one:
Tim de Lisle in the Observer
Joe Root, world-class batsman, has one great misfortune: he has to play under Joe Root, third-class captain. He’s a timid selector, a hopeless reader of a pitch and a terrible tactician. He may come from Yorkshire, but he’s the diametric opposite of Ray Illingworth, Len Hutton or Michael Vaughan – not canny, not calculating, unable to mould his team into more than the sum of their parts. He’s not the conductor of the orchestra: he’s the first violin.
Michael Vaughan on BT Sport:
Joe Root is frazzled. I think you can tell that from both dismissals - today’s was a tired shot. I fear this could be his last Test as captain. You can see in his face that this could be the end for him. Let’s face it too - he’s won one of his last 17 Tests. That’s not a great ratio. I’m a bit worried about the captain. He wasn’t imaginative enough. You’ve got to be creating things and I didn’t see enough of that. I can see an England captain who looks drained. If he feels that way, it’s best if he is just a batter.
Mike Atherton in the Sunday Times:
You would not have known, given the complete absence of intensity from England, that the series was at stake and it was no surprise that four wickets fell to the new ball. What a horrible day. The tumble of wickets to the medium pace of Kyle Mayers - whose figures if not his bowling were Curtly Ambrose-like - and the run out of Ben Foakes in the final session summed up the calamitous nature of it. After it, Joe Root sat with his head in his hands, the pretty words of the previous few weeks sounding increasingly ludicrous.
Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph:
It has been three sapping weeks for everyone in this series, but Root looked tired in an an additional way: he was not enjoying his job any more; he had given up hope of curing the familiar failings of young players; and he had had enough. Always until now on the cricket field Root had smiled his impish smile and conveyed the enthusiasm of a boy. But as Joshua da Silva’s innings wore on and on, and the challenge of regenerating a moderate England team appeared ever more onerous, the animation drained from Root’s face, to be replaced by the exhaustion of a man who had done his turn ... A quiet April day, I suspect, will be punctuated by a statement that Root has decided to step down.
Paul Newman in the Mail on Sunday:
Joe Root wafted at a wide and innocuous ball from a journeyman turned matchwinner of a seamer in Kyle Mayers and steered it inexorably to slip. It was the shot of an exhausted captain beaten into the ground not just by West Indies but the demands of a job that has increasingly become too much for him. The shot of a good man and brilliant batsman who must surely know his captaincy race is run. This was a desperate third day of the final Test. As bad as it can possibly get for an England team routinely used to defeat and humiliation during their last five miserable Test series without victory. And with only one Test win in their last 17 games. Unless England’s tailenders pull off a miracle even greater than Headingley 2019 - and at 103 for eight at the close, just 10 ahead, don’t hold your breath - Root cannot possibly survive this.
Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times:
Had England won here, the mass overhaul of the team and the deselections of James Anderson and Stuart Broad after the humbling in Australia could be justified. But defeat here will leave Root owning those decisions as well as a string of series defeats. Arguing, as he has frequently done, that he is the best man for the job, is all well and good but the evidence of this shambolic third day’s play suggested otherwise.
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