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England needs to readjust quickly

It remains to be seen what happens should England bat first, writes Geoff Boycott

— Photo: K.R. Deepak

NEED OF THE HOUR: Kevin Pietersen will have to promote himself or Andrew Flintoff to No. 3 for England’s top order to fire.

The cry has gone up — ‘bring in Monty Panesar!’ as though all England’s woes will be taken care of as soon as their best spinner sets foot in India. Trouble is, I don’t think England’s current nightmare run in India is attributable to any one thing. In other words, whether Monty is in the team or not — and I don’t think he will be, frankly, because he’s not much help either with the bat or on the field — England need to do a few other things right.

Obviously, they think they can change something by calling in the off-spinner Graeme Swann, who also bats a bit. That may help a little, but one bowler will not turn things around overnight. The trouble with this English attack is that it is made for English pitches, where the ball seams and swings and does a lot. In sub-continent conditions, where the ball hardly even rises to stump height, and the ball goes soft quite quickly, the Harmison-Flintoff combination will prove ineffective unless it innovates.

Only way out

Basically, that involves bowling line and length, not seam and swing. They have to bowl straighter and fuller, and introduce variations in pace. And above all, they have to get rid of all hints of width and shortness. I know it is bloody difficult but they will have to do it, because that’s the only way they can keep a destroyer like Yuvraj Singh quiet.

Indeed, they have to find a way to get Yuvraj out, or he’ll kill them. Like Andrew Symonds, he has to be kept to a tight line, and you just can’t bowl on both sides of the wicket to him. And England did just that with India on 29/3 at Indore, for which there are no excuses. They ought to have remembered how poorly Yuvraj performed against the moving ball when he came to Yorkshire as an overseas player, so much so that we had to drop him. But on Indian pitches, he is a fearsome attacker, particularly because England haven’t bowled the right line to him. The only hope now is to deny him the bad balls and hope he makes mistakes.

Fantastic striker, but…

He does not have a great defence, which is part of the reason he was unsuccessful in Yorkshire, but Indian pitches are different, as I say, and Yuvraj is a fantastic striker of the ball.

Even so, I have my reservations about whether he can take Sourav Ganguly’s place in the one-day batting order, for the simple reason that Sourav was fantastic up front, while Yuvraj is a destroyer, not an opener, so you lose some flexibility in the line-up.

Talking about mistakes, it amazes me that England continue to send in their lesser players like Matt Prior, Ian Bell, and Owais Shah at the top, so that by the time Flintoff or Paul Collingwood or Kevin Pietersen walk in, the asking rate is already soaring.

There is too much pressure to score as well as retain wickets, and it defies reason that England will at least not send in Flintoff at number three, if Pietersen will not come in that early. Players like Prior like the ball coming on to them as it does in England, but that won’t always happen in India.

Of course, it remains to be seen what happens should England bat first tomorrow, because India aren’t great chasers.

England are not a bad one-day side, they’ve just beaten South Africa 4-0, but they have to readjust quickly.

Gameplan

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