England’s cricket captains are spoiled for choice

It’s like old times in cricket, very old times. When it comes to selecting their attack, Ed Smith, James Taylor, Chris Silverwood and Joe Root are spoiled for choice. The question is who to leave out?

Except for occasional matches, it hasn’t been like this in the selectors’ lifetimes. You have to go back to the 1950s for a time when there was a comparable crop. When England regained The Ashes at The Oval in 1953, the bowlers were Alec Bedser, Fred Trueman, Trevor Bailey, Jim Laker and Tony Lock. Bedser took 39 wickets in that series, his last against Australia. Eighteen months or so later when England retained The Ashes at Adelaide by taking an unassailable 3-1 lead, the bowlers were Frank Tyson, Brian Statham, Trevor Bailey, Bob Appleyard and Johnny Wardle. Trueman, Laker and Lock who between them had taken 15 Australian wickets at The Oval weren’t even on the tour. Bedser was but played only one Test.

Frank Tyson, probably as fast as anyone who has played for England, had a short career – 17 Tests, 76 wickets at 18.56. So, on account of illness, did Bob Appleyard, who bowled off-spin at a near medium pace: 9 Tests, 31 wickets at 17.87. Johnny Wardle’s first-class career also ended prematurely in the late summer of 1958 when he fell out with Yorkshire (as many others have done) gave his name to some critical articles in the Daily Mail, and the MCC withdrew its invitation to tour Australia that winter. So, Wardle finished with 28 Tests and 102 wickets at 20.39. All the others in the two Ashes-winning Tests had longer careers at the top.

It’s a different world now of course. There are many more Test matches than there were in the Fifties and Sixties. Jimmy Anderson has played 152 before this weekend’s at Old Trafford; that’s twenty-five more than Trueman and Statham combined. His longevity is remarkable, as is Stuart Broad’s. On the other hand, Trueman and Statham would bowl hundreds of overs in the County Championship every year. Anderson and Broad rarely play for their County teams.

Back then the uncovered pitches of the Fifties gave opportunities which spinners today don’t enjoy. Nowadays we think spinners pretty good if their wickets cost less than 30 on average. A slow bowler going at that rate would have had a very short Test career in the Fifties when there was anyway more competition than there is now. In some respects, today’s spinners have it tough: pitches rarely favour them, bats are heavier, boundaries are usually shorter. The introduction of DRS means that umpires are much more ready to respond favourably to an appeal for lbw. Derek Underwood, the finest English spinner since Laker, Lock and Wardle, once remarked that in a season when he took more than a hundred first-class wickets, only three were lbw. “You had to be hitting the middle of the middle stump to get a decision in your favour,” he said. An exaggeration perhaps, but only a small one.

Bowlers, as we have always been told, win matches. Fair enough. You usually have to take 20 wickets to win a Test. In the three victorious Ashes series – 1953 to 1956 – England only made a total of 400 once in Manchester, 1956. The same match in which Laker took 19 wickets. There was a good many batting failures, but the bowlers came good more often than not, though rain ensured there were more drawn Tests than is usual now.

So, back to the present and Ed Smith’s cornucopia. He has seven pace bowlers in his squad for this unusual Test season, all of whom have proved effective. Anderson and Broad invite-only two questions: first, which is the more remarkable – their longevity or their skill? Second, is there evidence that either is in decline? Broad, on the evidence of last summer, the winter series in South Africa and last week’s Old Trafford match, is bowling better than he was a few years ago.

If there is more doubt about Anderson it is because after years free of injury there are signs that his body is beginning to let him down, he has been missing matches. But, if he is fit, is there anyone more likely in English conditions to take five wickets in an innings?

Bowlers can lose their snap almost overnight. That happened to Alec Bedser, even, it might be argued, to Fred Trueman. Trueman was marvellous against a great West Indian side in 1963, only quite good against Australia the following summer.

If Anderson has reached that point, Chris Woakes, excellent in England, ordinary abroad, hasn’t. He was very good in the first Old Trafford Test.

We come to the two really fast men, Jofra Archer and Mark Wood. There’s a temptation to always want one in the team, but both played at the Ageas Bowl where we lost and neither at Old Trafford where we won. There’s a view that Wood is more dangerous abroad; he was excellent in South Africa. Archer has had his off-the-field trouble, but any opposition batsman would be happy to see his name missing from the team-sheet.

Then there is young Sam Curran. I have a lot of time for him. His figures aren’t remarkable, but he moves the ball both ways and has the invaluable habit of dismissing top-order batsmen, even when they are set. In the winter Quinton de Kock was South Africa’s most dangerous batsman, young Sam got him out three times when he was galloping along. At Old Trafford, his second-innings dismissal of Sharmarh Brooks effectively ended West Indian resistance.

Finally, there is Ben Stokes with no question-mark after his name.

But it’s hard to choose from the other six, only three of who are likely to play unless England, sadly, opt for no specialist spinner. Surely, they won’t and either Dom Bess or Jack Leach will be in the XI, with Moeen Ali gone (for the moment) but not forgotten.

It will have been a tough call for the match not yet underway as I write this and will be just as tough for the three Tests against Pakistan which follow. Head-scratching days for the selectors, but they should count themselves as lucky as England’s selectors were in the Fifties. The problem may be perplexing, but it’s an awful lot better to be wondering who you should leave out this time than scanning the horizon asking who the hell you can put in.