Reset Postponed: England Hesitate to Fashion New Self in In-Between Series

Earlier this month, a 16-man squad was announced for England Men’s three-match series against Pakistan. The inflated number of players, more appropriate for a touring party than a truncated late-summer home series, offered a tentative sketch towards the team’s new era.  The New Zealand defeats provided little more than an elaboration on all of the flaws of the Bazball regime that had been made perfectly clear before. The botched backing and then firing of Brendon McCullum, meanwhile, has placed the status of these three games in limbo, with Stephen Fleming not taking up his new role until September. It has fallen to Marcus Trescothick, Marcus North, Joe Root, and, according to North, the “very much involved” Fleming himself to sift through the wreckage of this team, to determine what is salvageable from Late Bazball. 

It is hard to remember what the England test team looked like before McCullum, biceps popping and shades gleaming, first slouched on the balcony. He and Stokes leave behind a raw and disoriented team, one emerging from a good dream turned bad. England Cricket feels like a man waking from a nap who doesn’t know the time, or where his phone is, or where he is. The selection of Joe Root as captain is an admission of defeat, the recognition that the supernoval talent of Harry Brook doesn’t yet come in a form that will thrive as an all-format statesman. The two of them, along with Ben Duckett, will anchor a callow batting lineup. In the absence of Jacob Bethell, Jordan Cox will be in at first drop, having made his debut earlier this summer. Cox should have made his debut two years earlier on a tour of New Zealand but was denied by a broken thumb. A franchise gunslinger who pops his chest and sports a ginger mullet, Cox has made only one red ball appearance for Essex this year, in which he bludgeoned an imperious run-a-ball double tonne. Though he has been around the squad for a while, he will be attempting to build a test career in a Post-Baz zone, and Fleming will be watching his performance in the first two matches with interest. 

It is a big series too for Emilio Gay, whose solid but unspectacular efforts were largely overlooked in all the bluster of the New Zealand series. Two half-centuries, one on a Lord’s snakepit on debut, were encouraging, but there is a feeling that he may not receive the ironclad backing that Zak Crawley once was treated to. A departure from the sunk-cost fatalism that granted the Kent opener 64 tests at an average hovering around 31 is expected, but Gay will hope that a strong performance in this series may well be enough to make him a linchpin of the Fleming era. 

The recall of Dan Lawrence is the result of an improvisational response to Stokes’ retirement. Lawrence has been selected for his complexly delivered part-time off breaks, and will be joined by four seamers in non-spinning conditions. His reappearance is cause to rejoice. Lawrence is an odd fish, all elbows and wrists at the crease, a player who offers bulk runs at domestic level from his homespun technique. His last test efforts came mystifyingly at the top of the order two summers ago against Sri Lanka, but six should be a better post for this charismatic darter to show his talents and boost what has been a stop-start international career. He comes in on the back of five County Championship centuries for Surrey earlier this summer. Where spin is required, it seems likely that Sam Curran will be picked as an allrounder at 7, with Shoaib Bashir included. Curran has been talked up rather a lot recently. Marcus North ventured “he’s someone that we really value highly”, who could provide “a certain balance”. Expected to come in for the third test, Curran will resume his test career after a five year hiatus. He is a combative cricketer, who grunts when he releases his left-arm medium and scowls when he clears the boundary rope. He may represent the vibe blueprint of the post-Baz era, where sage nodding and mental health chats are usurped by cross little men running around with dour purpose. 

This week will offer more clues, but the team now appears to be a half-born thing, stumbling around in a hangover from another era, groping towards a new way forward. England watchers familiar with the sight of batting orders rolled over by Mohammad Abbas’ fiendishly probing lines and lengths have serious cause for concern. It is a squad, however, full of promising players with points to prove, backed up by a fast-bowling attack that is formidable in home conditions. They have an opportunity to forge the future of this team.