Salt and Brook conjure miracle win but doubts about selection and approach persist
Cameron Ponsonby16-Dec-2023Failure is an orphan, but success belongs to Phil Salt and Harry Brook, as an innings of a lifetime from Salt, and a Tarantino level cameo from Brook, gave England a dramatic and much-needed victory.England needed this. Yes, the idea is that they’re a new team here to learn as much as win. But lose five out of six for your local five-a-side team and you might be giving the WhatsApp call for next week a miss, let alone if you’re an international athlete with a career and a dream on the line.Publicly, the message was that morale was still high and that a group of great mates were sticking together. But privately, it was that a group of great mates were sticking together, but feeling the heat.Related
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“It is a big boost and it shows our words have weight behind them,” Salt said in the moments after his maiden T20 hundred had helped get England over the line. “There is no sports team in the world that is happy with losing games. It is tough out here. We’ve been under the gun a little bit but they are a hell of a side, the West Indies, they have some players and the way they hit the ball is incredible. With the series in the balance today to come out and play the way we did I am over the moon.”With England needing 29 off nine balls, the match was as good as finished, with Salt’s final act lumping a six over long-off before taking a single out to deep midwicket. The equation was 22 off 7, with the reins handed over to Brook, who at the time was on 6 off 1.Brook took a single of the final ball of the penultimate over to leave 21 needed off the last for victory. A figure that has only been achieved once before in the history of T20I cricket. “We can talk about what I did,” Salt said. “But what Brooky did was probably more important.”Five balls later and England had won, as Brook hit two balls over the rope and one out of the stadium. As the last ball of the match sailed over deep third for six, Brook held his arms aloft in victory and Salt came charging towards him leaping not once, but twice. An initial outburst of emotion that simply wasn’t enough to capture the joy of the moment. Two lads, out in the middle, winning a cricket match for England.”There is no more special feeling than walking off a ground in an England shirt, winning the game,” Salt said. “Jos said that in the dressing room after the last game and we were looking for someone to put their hands up and do that in this series. I am pleased it’s me, but I am more pleased with the win.”This can, and should, be celebrated as a sporting achievement in isolation. A jaw-dropping display of batting that should be allowed to wash over lovers of the game without getting into the weeds of what’s next or what’s come before it.Salt drives through the covers during the powerplay•Associated PressBut that England’s turnaround relied on two batting miracles, one on the Damascus scale of things in Salt’s innings, the other of hitting a run of green lights in a row in Brook’s, is the perfect summary of where this team is. A group with incredible individual talent that has been underperforming.It would be harsh to look for the negatives in victory, but just as teams can dismiss defeats as a failure of result not process, so too can victories be criticised as a failure of process not result.Regardless of how it finished, this fixture saw a third change in balance for England, let alone XI, in as many matches.In match one, the barrage of Bridgetown prompted England to swap Ben Duckett out for the extra bowling option in Moeen Ali. And when that didn’t work, England abandoned their batting deep blueprint in favour of bringing in Gus Atkinson and Reece Topley for Rehan Ahmed and Chris Woakes. Batting heavy, then bowling heavy, and then a preference for seam over spin.England started this tour with Sam Curran at No. 8 and Atkinson at 11 in the ODIs. In the last 48 hours, Curran has batted No. 4 and Atkinson has been listed at 8.”I feel like the make-up of the side we have put out in each match has been spot on,” Salt said in response. “There are always going to be different make-ups for different surfaces, no two wickets are the same so it is up to the coaches.”Nevertheless, England have prided themselves for years on the mantra of giving players one too many chances rather than one too few. A policy that prompted Salt earlier this tour to say that at one point he felt he “could do anything and still not get in the team”.The new era has preached that same patience, so would Duckett not feel in his rights to feel bemused that he was removed after one match? Does Atkinson, having been brought in and conceded 33 runs in two overs, fear for his spot on Tuesday? And what of Curran? Who opened the bowling in the first game, bowled first change in the second and fourth change here.Everyone knows that you can’t read too much into a single T20 result because we are told as much by the players and coaches who know the game better than the rest of us. But if this tour is as much a learning exercise for the World Cup as it is a pursuit of victory in isolation, then what A Levels are we leaving with if England are changing every game?Far from a team bereft of ideas, England, even in victory, appear to be a team with too many. With the move to spin-heavy Trinidad set to require even more. Trust the process, not the result, is what we’re always told. Unfortunately for England, it isn’t quite clear what that is.