The first day of the Cape Town Test had a depressing air of familiarity about it for England as they suffered yet another lower middle order collapse.
After grafting hard for the first three quarters of the day, they collapsed from 185-4 and later 221-5 to 234-9 before Ollie Pope lifted England to 262-9 at the close with an unbeaten half-century.
Despite six of England’s top seven reaching at least 29, Pope was the only batsman to pass 50. Having won the toss and opting to bat on what appears to be a reasonably true surface, England look like they will yet again fail to score 400 in their first innings – something they have achieved just once since the beginning of 2018.
The current top seven have just seven Test centuries between them over the last two years, a period that accounts for 92 combined Test appearances. Using those figures, a member of England’s top seven currently scores a hundred in just 7.6 per cent of their innings.
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Although the youth of this England team should be taken into consideration – this Test is the first instance of England fielding an XI with four players aged 22 or under – and for all the obvious failings of the top seven, their collapse today was also a continuation of a worrying trend for England; the decline in runs from their lower order.
From the start of 2017 to the end of 2018, England’s sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th wicket partnerships were worth an average of 33.76, 27.80, 27.04, 21.45 and 14.80 runs respectively. Since the start of 2019, those numbers decline to 27.40, 17.13, 9.13, 20.36 and 11.30. So long a strength of England’s, those last five wickets are now worth on average 39.53 runs per innings less in 2019 than in the preceding two years. No one has scored a half-century for England batting from numbers 8-11 since the start of 2019. In the preceding 24 months, there were 12 from the same position.
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So far this winter, an argument can be made that England have had some sort of collapse every time they’ve batted. As well as their one today, England fell from 142-4 to 181 in the first innings at Centurion, 204-3 to 268 all out in the second innings at Centurion, 455-5 to 476 all out at Hamilton, 277-4 to 295-8 in the first innings at Mount Maunganui and 121-4 to 138-8 in the second innings at Mount Maunganui.
England’s long-term problems in the top seven continue to persist while England’s lower order appears increasingly malleable. A far from ideal combination.
