England's inability to handle pressure a greater worry than their batting
Before the start of play on Day 5 at The Oval, England seemed in high spirits and had established a position where eking out a draw seemed the bare minimum. Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns had blunted India’s new-ball attack in the final session on Day 4 and had begun the day just as confidently.
In the process, they became the only English opening partnership to register two hundred-run stands in Test cricket since 2013. Fair to say then that England had their tails up and looked capable of mounting an improbable fourth-innings heist.
Just as Burns brought up his fifty and the 100-run partnership, though, it fell apart for England. So much so that Burns was dismissed on the next ball he faced and Dawid Malan, who has rarely looked flustered during the series, ran himself out just before Lunch.
All of a sudden, England had invited the Indians onto them and as things transpired, that would prove to be the decisive tilting scale. Not just because the Men In Blue are arguably one of the greatest exponents of grinding the opposition into submission post unlikely openings, but also because England seem to have developed a habit of crumbling under pressure.
Over the past few years, England’s batting problems have been well-documented. To an extent, they’ve been quite publicized since the mid and late 2010s. The presence of Sir Alastair Cook and Joe Root meant that those cracks were papered over quite often.
Now, though, with Root waging a lone battle almost every time he walks out to bat, things have assumed worrying proportions because well, the only thing that has become as common as a sunny day in the English summer is England handling pressure.
In the winter, when the Three Lions toured Sri Lanka, they were put under the cosh a little. However, with the Islanders lacking any coherence themselves, England were able to tide over it and come away with a 2-0 series triumph.
Even in that rubber, there were instances where England folded like a pack of cards. Remember the 1st Test where Root had amassed a spectacular double ton and ensured that England reached 372 for the loss of four wickets? Well, that was followed by a monumental collapse as England were eventually skittled out for 421.
A game later, something similar transpired when England were shot out for 344, despite finding themselves comfortably placed at 333/6. To be fair to them, they only won that game because Sri Lanka were just as woeful (if not more) as the Islanders produced a wretched 126-run batting display second time out.
The actual can of worms, though, was opened up in the series against India, where England, rather remarkably, had fashioned a 1-0 lead. However, the 1st Test was played in the backdrop of the Indians enjoying unparalleled success in Australia, meaning that there was hardly any pressure on England.
When the fortunes swung a match later, and when India were hunting like a pack of wolves, England simply couldn’t do enough to withstand it. Root, in sync with the law of averages, failed and the rest of the batters promptly followed suit.
As far as the Ahmedabad leg of that tour is concerned, England perhaps might not want to rekindle those ghosts where they kept playing for the turn and kept getting beaten by Axar Patel’s darts.
At the time, plenty remarked that England’s rest and rotation policy was to blame and that they would’ve put up a much better fight had they had their full complement of players available. The bare fact still was that England had unraveled spectacularly in the winter, especially when push came to shove.
A little more recently against New Zealand, England met a similar fate. This, though, was arguably more damning, for it occurred on British shores. During the 1st Test, the Three Lions purposely deflected any sort of pressure by not opting for a fourth-innings run-chase altogether.
In the 2nd match, they weren’t as lucky, meaning that the Kiwis ripped through England’s batting unit and propelled themselves to an astonishing series victory – a victory that happened despite the Black Caps fielding a relatively second-string side.
During the home rubber against India, those traits have come to the fore unerringly too. While they were annihilated inside 60 overs at Lord’s, despite only beginning their batting innings after Lunch on Day 5, they lost the plot under similar circumstances at The Oval.
Interestingly, those two games have sandwiched a resounding display at Headingley, where India’s shoddiness in the first innings had paved the way for England to dominate and not feel any kind of pressure, especially as India pushed the self-destruct button.
England have crumbled under pressure lately
If these collapses are looked at in isolation, they seem even more alarming. At Chennai in February 2021, England were bowled out for 134 (first innings) and 164 (second innings). At Ahmedabad, their four scores read 112, 81, 205 and 135 (in that order) – scores hardly befitting of a side hoping to reclaim the perch of the World Test Championship table.
Against New Zealand, England were bundled out for 122 in the second innings at Edgbaston – something that left their bowlers powerless as the Kiwis hunted down a meagre target of 38.
Thus, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Three Lions’ indiscretions revolve around the brittleness of their batting unit. Yet, for a team that has struggled so often recently and in so many different conditions, it seems that their famed bowling attack, which has been much more effective than its batting counterpart, has also been found wanting.
At The Oval, despite the pitch not assisting the bowlers as much as it did on Day 1, England and Root’s captaincy left a lot to be desired. The decision-making was all over the place and on a track where the hosts needed control from their spinners, they decided to bowl their pacers into the ground.
Though that decision is pretty difficult, considering Chris Woakes and James Anderson form a part of the fast-bowling battery, it simply needed more conviction on England’s part to not allow India to run away with the match.
Anderson, Craig Overton, Ollie Robinson and Woakes were guilty too, for they felt the pressure and couldn’t really extract anything from a benign surface – a theory that Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Umesh Yadav tore to shreds just a day later.
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Anderson, in particular has a middling record in the fourth innings since the start of 2018. When solely talking about his outings in the second team innings over the past couple of years, the numbers take a turn for the worse, with Anderson averaging 49.66 and taking a wicket every 128 balls.
Usually, whenever England find themselves in such a pickle, a certain Ben Stokes morphs into their Guardian Angel. Not just with the bat, like he famously did at Headingley in 2019, but also with the ball.
If numbers are looked at, Stokes has the second best fourth-innings average (18.42) and the best strike rate of any Englishman (minimum 100 overs) since 2018. Incidentally, England have two more bowlers in that particular list, with Jack Leach and Stuart Broad averaging 18.12 and 19.92, respectively. None of them played at The Oval, by the way.
Most tellingly though, Stokes seems to boast the gift of turning up when it really matters, whether it be that knock at Headingley or the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup final. Simply put, he is arguably England’s greatest clutch player and now that he is not in the mix, the Three Lions are floundering when the pressure and stakes have been amped up.
However, for a country of England’s ilk, which has long prided itself on its ability to produce Test cricketers, it seems incredibly absurd that the absence of one player (despite it being Stokes) seems to have had such a drastic effect.
Remember, Stokes was a part of the side that faced India, meaning that this could well be a more deep-rooted problem than England might appreciate. Or, in blunter terms, a mental obstacle that they need to overcome at all costs. In fact, their inability to handle pressure is perhaps an aspect that is not allowing England to fulfil the potential at their disposal.
Hence, as things stand, it seems an even greater concern than their batting. And if something is more worrying than the shambolic nature of their batting, that narrates a story in itself!