The issue of mental of physical fitness of cricketers

It reminds me of a boxer, bleeding and gasping for breath, coming out for the twelfth round of a fifteen-round bout. He needs to stay on his feet, sway, duck, land the odd telling punch. He must survive.

That was England’s cricket team as they went in against West Indies at Chennai. Sure, there were fresh faces in James Hildreth, Chris Tremlett, Eoin Morgan and Luke Wright who had not been involved in all or most of the matches since the squad left home last year. 

But for all those who had been on the road in Australia and now Asia for so long, the exhaustion was creeping up on them — not just physical but the problem of retaining mental freshness.

Only someone who has lived for an extended period in hotels and with airport check-ins and cricket nets and exercises and matches can know how repetitive and numbing it can be. 

Off-spinner Graeme Swann may well have said, before the sensational 18-run victory over West Indies, that England needed ‘only’ to win four matches to become world champions, but how much do they really have left?

They valiantly won the Ashes in Australia over five crazy Tests, then endured a one-day series there (of dubious attraction, except financially) when they should really have been back at home recharging their strength and enthusiasm and reacquainting themselves with families and friends, away from the claustrophobic confines of team hotels and dressing-rooms.  

Their bizarre form in this World Cup can be fairly easily explained. The bulk of this fine England team has been milked almost dry by its employers, who should never have committed them to such a huge workload. It’s like the sweatshops and coalmines in Victorian times: if anyone drops, there are others in reserve.

There have been significant casualties. Kevin Pietersen and Stuart Broad recently went home with injuries, which brought disruption to the campaign. The batting order has been juggled, and the bowling attack adjusted, though why spin was all but overlooked in the Bangladesh match last week is puzzling.

Perhaps, the shrewd England team command foresaw the possible problems of a slippery ball in the dewy Chittagong night. Because he is so eloquent, Swann has emerged as the perennial team spokesman, and he apologised for letting rip at the umpire when forced to bowl under the floodlights with a bar of slippery soap that was masquerading as a cricket ball.

England lost that thriller. But there was some humour in the occasion. First, many of the unbelieving and disloyal Bangladesh fans streamed out of the stadium. 

Then, they came running back in as Shafiul Islam and Mahmudullah thrashed the home side to victory.  Those disbelievers were lucky to be readmitted, for one should never desert one’s team.

That’s not to deny, however, that many Englishfolk have been hard-pressed to maintain support for Andrew Strauss’s exhausted legion.

That magnificent Ashes series seems years ago already, and it was cruel that all concerned — players and supporters — were not permitted to linger and rejoice in the crushing Test victory over Australia for a fitting period before the next battles were entered into.

Since then, England immediately had to wade through that one-day series in Australia by way of a postscript, unsurprisingly losing six of the seven matches. And if it’s thought that Australia’s schedule, being identical to England’s to that point, was just as demanding, at least they were at home, whereas England were living in hotel rooms half-a-world from home for months on end.
Could England regroup for the World Cup? 

Well, we now know that they did manage to — up to a point.  Had they beaten the Netherlands, Ireland and Bangladesh and lost to India and South Africa, everyone would have nodded and said that was exactly what was expected. But what did they do? 

They staggered the world by losing to Ireland and, narrowly but against the odds, also to Bangladesh.  And they tied with India in one of the greatest limited-overs matches of this century, before strangling South Africa (World Cup favourites in many people’s estimation) by six runs at Chennai.

Who, then, would dare write England off? They may have got their team selections muddled at times, but now they have scraped through this make-or-break match back in Chennai against the West Indies.

It’s now possible, dare one say probable, that as in so many past situations, England will overcome their weariness and return to their most determined and dangerous.

Perhaps ‘dangerous’ is not exactly the right term, for they don’t have a Sehwag or Gayle (or Pietersen) any longer at the top of the order or a Shaun Tait to rip out stumps at just on 100 mph.

But they have some very skilled and experienced cricketers, not least their spinners. They simply have to find that reserve supply of oxygen and adrenaline that the best of fighters tap into when the urgent need arises.

Of course, England may yet be on the aircraft home come next week, for if there are two further upsets in the last of the Group B matches — Bangladesh vs South Africa and India vs West Indies — that would seal their fate. And in this extraordinary World Cup who would bet against it?

Should England make it to the quarterfinals, they will remain concerned at Jimmy Anderson’s loss of effectiveness, surely the result of exhaustion.

They have also seemed reluctant to bring in Chris Tremlett, the giant who was so potent in Australia, probably because of the docility of Asia’s pitches. At present, it’s the good old-fashioned bang-it-in fast-medium of Tim Bresnan that seems to be shaping as the backbone of the attack.

Swann — until and unless the ball converts into that dreaded bar of soap — must remain effective.  But left-armer Mike Yardy looked like a very average county bowler on his last World Cup outing, Tredwell grabbing his chance wonderfully well in that West Indies match. 

As so often, it’s the back-up bowling which is the major concern. Bopara? Collingwood? Wright? As the Australian dasher of the 1920s, Charlie Macartney, used to say: “Could play ‘em with a tram ticket!”  Macartney would be running out of tram tickets. 

Any team which cannot look with confidence at five bowlers in a 50-overs contest has worries. By contrast, England still seem to have a batting line-up capable of building adequate totals, or alternatively, to go after whatever they’ve been set.

Strauss has transformed himself into a forceful and valuable one-day player, as has the tenacious Trott. Ian Bell is another who has shown that Test cricket is not his only natural habitat.  He might even be the best choice to go in first with his captain.

Trott, for a time on Friday, batted like Sehwag.  But the ace in the pack is Eoin Morgan. For anyone who has not seen this Irish-born left-hander in his effortless full flight, I trust he will show his thrilling colours if given the further chance.

So there we are: English cricket’s symbolic boxer gets up from his stool once again, his coach having sloshed him with cold water and urged him for one more big effort. Win the quarterfinal (given the chance) and his reward is (wait for it) yet another gruelling contest in the semifinals, and eventually, early next month, a crack at the world title, something the Old Country has never enjoyed in 50-overs cricket.  Go, England, go!

And if there’s an omen somewhere in all this, their amazing victory over West Indies was by 18 runs, the same as in the Test match ‘Miracle at Headingley’ 30 years ago. From that point on, oblivious to tiredness or fear, they were unbeatable.

—David Frith’s latest book is FRITH ON CRICKET (Great Northern Books)