England’s busiest year of Test cricket finished with a bang. Just not the type they were after.
A 423-run defeat to New Zealand was England’s third-heaviest loss in Test cricket history. But somehow, only their second-heaviest loss of the year after a 434-run reverse against India in February.
This is how his team plays. Maximum risk. Maximum reward. When you bat at a million miles an hour to give yourself as much time as possible to take 20 wickets, the reverse is you also give the opposition more time to rack up the runs if you’ve failed with the bat yourself. England got bundled for 143 in 35 overs in Hamilton. Which gave the Black Caps as much time as they wanted to bat on and on and on. The result was New Zealand were able to set England a notional 658 to win. The highest successful chase in Test history is 418.
And when it all comes out in the wash, after 17 Tests in 2024, England have won nine and lost eight. The England men’s Test cricket team. Achieving mediocrity in style.
So with a blockbuster 2025 ahead, featuring a home series against India and a trip down under for the Ashes, is this team better than it was 12 months ago and what questions do they have to answer before India arrive in June?
To the first point. Yes. Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes have successfully regenerated this side which now, as a squad rather than necessarily any one starting XI, is deeper and stronger.
“I think so,” McCullum answered when quizzed if he felt England were better placed than they were back in January, namechecking the emergence of Brydon Carse, Gus Atkinson, Jacob Bethell and Jamie Smith in the process.
On both sides of the ledger, England’s batting and bowling depths have improved. With the addition of Carse and Atkinson, combined with the expected/hoped for returns of Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, England have successfully built the “battery” of fast bowlers they’ve been hoping for after years of trying. With the expectation being that the heavy hitters will rotate throughout the summer and beyond.
“If we are honest through the workload at the back of this game we saw our speeds dip a bit,” McCullum reflected. “And that is something we need to be aware of… and something we will work on.”
Meanwhile, in the batting, if the top seven here remain fit, the return of Jamie Smith will mean it will either be a big name, likely Ollie Pope, or newbie Bethell, who misses out. And it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be Bethell, who was considered an extreme selection before the series having never batted at three in first-class cricket. With whom England are now besotted.
“Nice player, ain’t he?” was McCullum’s summation of the arrival on the scene of the 21-year-old. “He’s been outstanding. I’ve been so impressed with him.”
Compare this language with how McCullum talks about Pope and the contrast is stark.
“They are good decisions to have to make,” McCullum said of Pope vs Bethell at No 3. Kicking the can down the road. England next play a Test in May, leaving plenty of time for a batter to roll an ankle walking up the stairs and solve all selection problems in one.
Nevertheless, Pope will be aware of his relative lack of support. McCullum speaks in superlatives, and to his teammates Zak Crawley and Shoaib Bashir, both of whom had exceptionally difficult tours, McCullum gave his full support.
Crawley is “still a huge member of the side” who has “got our full confidence”; while England will “keep investing in Bashir because we think his upside is significant and it’ll work out nicely”.
Both of them, so long as they perform adequately against India, will be on the plane to Australia. So too will Pope, but whether he will be in the XI is another question. Pope has been England’s utility man this year. He has captained, vice-captained, kept wicket, opened, batted three and batted at six. The pressure is on him, but if England owe anyone a favour and a bit of extra rope. It is him.
The final piece of the puzzle for the year ahead for England is whether Stokes will be capable of performing a full role as an all-rounder. After bowling 23 overs on day one, the most he had ever bowled in a day across his entire career, Stokes suffered a recurrence of a left hamstring injury that he initially suffered in August. Stokes had beasted himself in order to recover in time for the Test series against Pakistan and had said ahead of the third Test in Hamilton that he was finally back to feeling his best.
“It’s just sod’s law, the first time in a while I feel like I’m young again, something happens,” Stokes said after the match.
“I ain’t holding back,” he added about whether he’d consider lightening his workloads in Test matches to come. Stokes fully intends to take on 2025 as a full all-rounder, whether his body allows him to will be another question.
“There are times when I’ll probably have to remind him he’s not as young as what he used to be,” said McCullum about his captain’s determination to get the ball in hand.
“But I also don’t want to ever take that flair away from him, because I genuinely think that is what makes him tick. If you try to chisel off any rough edges of those types of mavericks, you end up with a vanilla product and no one wants that. We want Ben Stokes being the maverick that he is.”
The era of Stokes and McCullum will be defined by these two upcoming series and it is anyone’s guess how they will turn out. But one thing we do know, it’ll be fun along the way.
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