Winning streaks and need for speed – England are emulating 2005 model

“I coach cricket teams to win,” the former England head coach Duncan Fletcher once wrote. “All the deep thinking about the game, all that planning, the meetings, the one-on-ones, the worry, the problems of dealing with the media, the inadvertent ignoring of my wife because my mind is wandering to how to get a certain batsman out in the next game; all that and much, much more is done for one sole reason — to win cricket matches.”
Now, Fletcher and the present head coach, Brendon McCullum, are very different characters (McCullum doesn’t seem to worry about very much at all) and therefore very different coaches. That may seem a very obvious ambition to state, but both these foreign coaches took over when England simply weren’t very good at winning Test matches.
Fletcher arrived in 1999 when England were bottom of what was then called the Wisden World Championship, below even Zimbabwe in the rankings of the then nine Test-match playing sides. McCullum entered when England had won only one Test in the previous 17.
Fletcher’s influence was not as immediate as McCullum’s: Fletcher took five Tests to find the winning feeling, while McCullum won his first four in charge and indeed 11 of his first 13. But by 2004 Fletcher had moulded a side who won eight Tests on the trot, breaking the record of seven previously achieved way back between 1885 to 1888, and again between 1928 to 1929.
Could McCullum’s team equal or break that record this year? It is sometimes easy to forget that this England have won only four Tests on the bounce, with two more to come against Sri Lanka and then a series to follow in Pakistan, where they won 3-0 last time out.
Yes, the standard of opposition this summer has already been very justifiably called into question, but in 2004 England (ranked third in the world at the start of the summer, as England are now) beat West Indies (ranked eighth, as they are now) four times and New Zealand (ranked fifth, compared to Sri Lanka’s seventh now) three times, before taking the record with the mighty scalp of the second-ranked South Africa in Port Elizabeth that winter.
That was the England side that then helped to produce one of the greatest series of all time in the 2005 Ashes. And that was obviously a much better England side than now, even if Ben Stokes (although it would be some choice between him and Andrew Flintoff), Joe Root (instead of Ian Bell), Jamie Smith (ahead of Geraint Jones) would get into it.
There is an argument for Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson too, in battle with Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, with Atkinson averaging only 19 after taking 26 wickets in his first four Tests. Although Simon Jones, with 18 wickets at 21 in 2005, would be a shoo-in — as would be a top three of Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan. Kevin Pietersen would be at five, although Harry Brook may alter that thinking in time. If you were being really cheeky you could select James Anderson from the present lot, as he did, of course, play one Test this summer.
For ever focusing upon the Ashes can be tedious and unfair, but this England side, who face a much stiffer task than the 2005 side simply because they have to travel away in 2025-26 (and England have not won a Test in 15 attempts down under), have made no secret of doing so.
Fletcher’s side were doing the same, and were a little miffed that the progress being made during that record-breaking run was not fully appreciated. This team may say the same because they are undoubtedly progressing and evolving. Since McCullum and Stokes took over, the side is now shaping up very differently. Think of those who have gone for a variety of reasons: Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Anderson, Jack Leach and Ollie Robinson.
The need for speed in the bowling attack is a constant between the two teams. When the first national academy intake was being discussed for the 2001-02 winter in Adelaide, Fletcher, in some irritation at the reasoning of the other selectors, said, “I don’t care who else you take, but Harmison and [Simon] Jones have to go.”
You can imagine that Fletcher would have loved the summons to Josh Hull this week, rather delighting in the fuss he knew it may cause. He still reminds me of the time he was raving about Vaughan when we (Glamorgan) were playing up at Yorkshire in 1999 and Fletcher had already been appointed England coach to start that winter.
Vaughan made few runs in the match, but Fletcher had watched him batting in the nets and liked what he saw. “It will be a disgrace if you pick that Vaughan for the winter,” I said, thinking rather more about myself and a possible recall rather than the bigger picture that Fletcher was seeing so clearly.
With the selections of the likes of Smith, Shoaib Bashir and Atkinson, McCullum, Rob Key and the others have been seeing that bigger picture pretty well too, but the side is also winning along the way. Winning should never be taken for granted, especially when it comes to England’s Test cricketers. There have been way too many periods in the past when it has been an almost impossible task.
Thank you to The Cricketer’s George Dobell for the tip, but let’s take the career of the late Graham Dilley, who was an explosive fast bowler, albeit with a quirky action. He played 41 Tests, but only two of them resulted in victories, and one of those was the famous Ian Botham-inspired Ashes Test at Headingley in 1981. By way of comparison, Atkinson stands at four wins from four. These are good times.