The Shorter Wisden 2013 (48 page)

These appointments were devised partly to ensure that Flower, with a wife and three young children, could have some kind of home life again, and would thus stay in the job. It was a sign of a
confident management prepared to confront not just the gruelling reality of big-time cricket in the early 21st century, but what it might take to stay a few runs and wickets ahead of the pack.
Putting the theory into practice could prove another matter, but formulating it at all had been a bold first step.

Victory in India bordered on the miraculous, for England had been under perpetual siege from the moment they began the year as the world’s No. 1 Test side – a ranking reached via the
ICC’s endearingly arcane points system and officially bestowed by the award of a large mace. But the mace was an albatross by another name. Instead of carrying it aloft like the glorious
prize it was supposed to be, England found it throttling the life out of them. In the United Arab Emirates, they batted awfully against Pakistan. Two months later in Sri Lanka, previous mistakes
and lapses against slow bowling on slow pitches went initially unheeded, and they escaped with a 1–1 draw thanks to the first of Pietersen’s three breathtaking centuries in the year,
plus the wickets of Swann.

Brief respite at home against West Indies was followed by a loss to South Africa, who deservedly claimed the top ranking themselves. South Africa’s victory at The Oval (hosting the First
Test because Lord’s was used for the Olympic archery) was by an innings and 12 runs, yet it was more epic than that: they scored 637 for two and reduced to impotence an attack that imagined
themselves the most incisive in the world. The defeat was among England’s most shattering.

From late August on – but, for more acute observers, from long before – events in the dressing-room were dominated by the Pietersen saga. The subsequent attempts to draw a line under
an unseemly episode, indeed to airbrush it from history, failed to conceal its tawdriness, significance or sheer theatre. That Pietersen was England’s stellar cricketer was merely emphasised
during the weeks the saga rumbled on. It overshadowed the loss of both the South Africa series and the No. 1 ranking, the insipid defence of the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, and the squad
announcement for the tour of India, for which he was not originally selected.

It had been clear something was up when Pietersen suddenly announced his retirement from all limited-overs cricket at the end of May. Mutterings abounded that relations between him and Flower
were strained – and Flower certainly looked strained. A bleak hiatus was eventually reached at the end of the drawn Second Test with South Africa at Headingley, in which Pietersen had scored
the second of those three centuries. Clearly not about to let anything lie, he gave a press conference in which he discussed the difficulties of being him. He also floated the prospect that the
Third Test at Lord’s could be his last. Within a few days, it appeared his England career might already be at an end, after claims he had sent text messages disparaging Strauss to members of
the South African side. Nothing was ever proven, and much was denied, but Strauss’s uncharacteristically bruised reaction told its own story. Relations reached such a low ebb that Pietersen,
unwilling – or unable – to deny the allegations, was dropped, and a must-win match became about something else besides: the unity of the squad, the place of the individual in it, and
the old mantra that there is no “I” in team. It helped the selectors that Jonny Bairstow, his replacement, made 95 and 54.

England closed ranks, and tried their socks off, but South Africa were simply the better team. It was difficult to tell where Strauss’s mind was. But when he shouldered arms to a straight
ball from the estimable Vernon Philander at the start of a potentially fascinating run-chase, it was patently not on the proceedings at hand.

The precise nature of the negotiations which ensued between Pietersen and England will be revealed one day (and what different interpretations they may have). But the ECB went into
news-management, or rather news-blackout, mode. Perhaps it was a period when they were damned if they did speak and damned if they didn’t, but the growing tendency to avoid offering reasoned
answers to reasonable questions was one that threatened to sully relations with their faithful public. Throughout, it seemed possible Pietersen’s career was over, even while the feeling grew
that some senior players might have behaved differently towards him; Flower himself said the strange matter of the fake Twitter account, which poked fun at Pietersen, could have been handled
better.

At the end of the Test series, Strauss retired. True to form, he went with the utmost dignity. The Pietersen saga and his retirement were not connected – at least not directly – but
it was a huge shame that his announcement should be tarnished. He went, by the way, because he felt he was no longer scoring the necessary runs; two hundreds against West Indies had offered cause
for respite, but not genuine rejuvenation.

Pietersen had been signed up to commentate on the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka and, well though he fulfilled that task, it was clear England were missing him. After their elimination came the
beginnings of rapprochement. Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, and Pietersen gave a surreal press briefing in the bowels of a Colombo hotel, in which Clarke first used the phrase that came to embody
the whole shebang: Pietersen was to embark on “a process of reintegration”. Clarke was at his most sonorously grave: “In our society we believe that, when an individual
transgresses, and when the individual concerns recognises that and apologises, it is important that individual should be given a real opportunity to be reintegrated into our society. This principle
is an essential part of having civilised and sensible ethics.”

Whatever Pietersen was guilty of, this made it seem somewhat more than a bloke in a cricket team not getting on too well with some of the other blokes in a cricket team. A few days later, he
flew back to England from South Africa, where he had been playing in the Champions League with Delhi Daredevils. He had a chat with some of England’s other senior players, and it was all done
and dusted. He was added to the squad for India, and his limited-overs retirement rescinded.

His presence might have encouraged a semblance of optimism, though it can hardly have infused the team with unbridled confidence. From the first day in Dubai in January, when Pietersen was one
of several to fall cheaply to Saeed Ajmal, it had gone too wrong, for too long. Techniques which had coped enviably in Australia and England were suddenly and harshly exposed. England did not know
whether to stick or twist: they came out slugging, then tried to retrench. Nearly all the batsmen laboured. Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell, in their different ways, searched vainly for a trusted
scoring method. Trott came up with a fighting century in a lost cause at Galle, but was perhaps a victim of the incessant demands made of an international batsman.

From the UAE onwards, Bell rarely made Test runs away from home, which was odd – not only because they had flowed in the previous two years, but because of his renaissance as a one-day
opener in Pietersen’s absence (and did enough to retain his place in the 50-over side when Pietersen kissed and made up). That both Bell and Trott finished the year with hundreds at Nagpur
embodied England’s revival.

But neither could have played the innings Pietersen did. The last of his memorable treble came at Mumbai, complementing Cook’s wonderfully judged contribution. India’s spinners were
repelled, while England’s – Swann and the recalled Monty Panesar – took 19 wickets in a masterful exhibition of harnessing helpful conditions. This was the first time England
seemed properly to have learned from past misdemeanours. The sweep shot, both ally and enemy to them for a decade, yielded 59 runs in 44 balls; for India, it brought only 14 in ten. Yet in Nagpur,
where the pitch was slower, England realised it was no longer a judicious option.

The bowlers were magnificent. Their status was seriously challenged by South Africa’s hard-nosed batting, but Anderson passed 250 Test wickets early in the year, and Swann 200 at the end,
both passing marks set by great forebears: Anderson overhauled his fellow Lancashire seamer Brian Statham; Swann his fellow off-spinner Jim Laker.

In Matt Prior, England still had the best wicketkeeper-batsman in the world, which said much in an accomplished field. His commitment to the team cause could never be doubted, and his telephone
call to Pietersen at the height of the shambles was instrumental in bringing the sides together. England finished in good order. Doubts remained over Cook’s new long-term opening partner,
though Nick Compton – a newcomer with impeccable heritage – acquitted himself with abundant concentration in India. But seven different players were selected to bat at No. 6, and Joe
Root of Yorkshire, not yet 22, ended as the man in possession, evoking the thought he might soon be Cook’s opening partner.

In the middle of summer, a one-day series of five matches against Australia had gone almost unnoticed. Too much else was happening in cricket and beyond. And two Ashes series loomed in 2013.
Such casual disregard was unlikely to recur.

ENGLAND PLAYERS IN 2012

L
AWRENCE
B
OOTH

The following 30 players (there were 33 in 2011 and 27 in 2010) appeared for England in the calendar year 2012, when the team played 15 Tests, 15 one-day internationals and
14 Twenty20 internationals. All statistics refer to the full year, not the 2012 season.

No bigger compliment came Anderson’s way than Indian captain M. S. Dhoni’s assertion in December that he had been the difference between the sides during the Tests.
And if that underplayed – deliberately, perhaps – the role of England’s spinners, then neither was it idle praise. After a slow start to the series, Anderson undermined India at
Kolkata with reverse swing, then kept them subdued at Nagpur, where his spell on the third evening was full of heart, skill and athleticism. By then, he had removed Sachin Tendulkar an
unprecedented nine times, and he finished the year with 528 international wickets, equalling Ian Botham’s England record. Contrary to the stereotype, the tricky periods had come at home:
rested, to his annoyance, for the Edgbaston Test against West Indies, he was comfortably outbowled by Dale Steyn during the defeat by South Africa. But either side of the summer, he got to grips
with Asia, taking 30 wickets in nine Tests at under 27 apiece. It was a serious piece of rebranding – more career-redefining even than the 2010-11 Ashes.

Questions and answers popped up with indecent haste. The pace of Kemar Roach plainly unsettled him during his debut Test series, against West Indies, yet when Pietersen’s
absence gave him another chance, against a speedy South African attack at Lord’s, he batted with exciting assurance for 95 and 54. Then, in India, England didn’t entirely trust him
against spin: a stopgap selection with Bell on paternity leave, Bairstow fell on the stroke of a lunch break in his only innings, before slipping behind Root come Nagpur. He managed only one
50-over game all year and, after a promising start in Dubai, his Twenty20 form stalled too: in India in December, he was dropped. Any doubts appeared to surround not his talent, but the best way to
harness it.

Until he helped steer England to safety – and history – at Nagpur, Bell was heading for the worst of his eight full years as a Test batsman. Only at home against
West Indies had he flourished; otherwise, he was in danger of reverting to the infuriating pre-2010 model. An integral part of the batting meltdown against Pakistan, he failed to impose himself on
South Africa; and, for a while, his mindless first-baller at Ahmedabad, lofting to deep mid-off, looked like the epitome of English ineptitude against spin. But the class that had helped him
average 86 over the previous two years reasserted itself in the Fourth Test against India. Oddly, Bell’s unbeaten 116 there was more in keeping with his 50-over form. Refreshed by the
challenge of opening regularly for the first time in four years following Pietersen’s temporary retirement, he had sparkled in all three home series, taking a hundred off West Indies at
Southampton, then averaging 47 against Australia and 45 against South Africa. His fluency in blue made his Test travails the harder to fathom.

It had looked as if 2012 would be Bopara’s breakthrough, when he followed up a favourable impression in the UAE one-dayers with the most authoritative batting of his
career during the 4–0 win against Australia. And his busy medium-pacers were proving England’s most economical option. But his return to the Test side, at The Oval against South Africa,
was spoiled by two dozy shots, and personal problems ruled him out of the rest of the series. When he came back, for the 50-over matches, he looked like a caught-behind-in-waiting: an average of 91
against Australia now dipped against South Africa to five. His last-ditch selection at the World Twenty20 summed up England’s desperation: with the asking-rate mounting against Sri Lanka, he
scored one off six balls. It was all rather painful to witness.