England
Ben Stokes: 57 runs at 14.3; seven wickets at 21.9
Retires when he is England’s best bowler, England’s best captain and one, seemingly unreachable recently, century away from being worth his place as a batter alone. But, as he acknowledged in his interviews, when the air goes out of the balloon, it deflates very quickly indeed – as anyone who has ever retired from any job will tell you..
He, with typical generosity, bowled just seven overs on the adjudged “Unsatisfactory” pitch at Lord’s, but put his back into it at Trent Bridge, delivering jaffa after jaffa at a strong pace, the ball hitting the cracks hard and jagging up and down and side to side. He deserved more.
So much of his captaincy (notwithstanding that strange chaotic denouement thrashing about in Notitngham) has been about instilling belief, loving the work and inspiring the best in others. If his own belief is wavering, if he no longer loves his work and he can’t get the best out of himself, it’s probably time to go before the great character of English cricket these last 20 years turns into a caricature. Grade B-
Ben Duckett: 246 runs at 41.0; two catches
Back home at Trent Bridge (and granted a life), he looked at ease playing his natural game pulling and slashing square and driving through the covers. He wasn’t quite back to his best, but it was enough to give him England’s only century of the series and, too briefly, the hope of repeating the heist of 2022 on this ground. The fact that he failed only once in his six knocks in the series can find a place in both credit and debit columns: He didn’t expose Joe Root to the new ball, but he didn’t push on often enough either. Grade B
Emilio Gay: 139 runs at 23.2; six catches
His fielding, whilst not perfect, did lift the standard and that was very much required after the Ashes debacle.
He looked the part at the crease, unflustered by the hullabaloo of Test cricket and possessing a lovely cover drive and plenty of scoring options without the recklessness that seeks to play one to every ball. The analysts will be examining that fourth and fifth stump defence and there’s certainly work to do on it if he is to establish himself long term. He should keep his place for the second half of the Test season, but he might need a score if he is to hold it for South Africa in the winter. Grade B-
Jacob Bethell: 103 runs at 17.2; four wickets at 23.3; five catches
Is anyone coaching him? In full flow, his conception and execution of attacking strokes has a touch of the Goweresque, but he doesn’t get into that zone often enough. Undone by poor shot selection and, especially, a propensity to play outside his eyeline, he only once reached his happy place, in the Third Test, and it was at that point we witnessed what all the fuss was about.
He has passed 40 just twice in his last 12 innings, which is not sustainable for a number three. England did persist with Zak Crawley, whose strengths and faults were similar – the question is whether they were right or wrong to do so.
He chipped in with handy wickets without ever suggesting he could be more than a partnership breaker ball in hand and he caught better than most. Grade C
Joe Root: 171 runs at 28.5; one wicket at 44.0; two catches
Hey Joe, where you going with the bat in your hand?
To play for England has been the answer for 14 years, but two poor matches with the bat and a shocker as captain in between (albeit with significant mitigation) might have him looking for new replies sooner than we might have thought this time last year.
He can expect his front pad to be ruthlessly targeted by seamers with the keeper pinning him to his crease until he solves the LBW problem – and that is what it is. A few long sessions on the bowling machine beckon. Grade C
Harry Brook: 217 runs at 36.2; no wicket; six catches
How do you solve a problem like No Fear? Some, and in growing numbers, would indeed describe the future of English batting as a flibbertigibbet; a will-o’-the-wisp; a clown.
The tide is turning, even the staunchest defenders of his wildly attacking approach accepting that there is a time and a place, or more accurately, a better balance between putting the pressure back on the opposition and loading it on to your teammates, as you sky yet another to the man posted for that very shot.
That he leaves too many runs on the field is indisputable; whether he will continue to leave matches, series, perhaps even a career on the field, is now a matter for reasoned debate. Grade B-
Jamie Smith: 101 runs at 25.3; seven catches
He seems to have developed the knack (as figures for missed chances reveal) of unshowy, slightly awkward, competence behind the stumps, punctuated by relatively rare, but high profile errors. But, as when Springfield decided on their monorail, there’s no turning the vocal lobby for Ben Foakes’s return that will now grow under a new captain.
He eventually found some form with the bat, but the cause had already been lost when he ran out Joe Root, though the victim bore some contributory negligence in that. In retrospect, it might have been wiser asking him to sit the series out, take his paternity leave and rediscover his early season form with Surrey, where he would have been keeping wicket. Grade C-
James Rew: 39 runs at 19.5; three catches
Graham Gooch debuted with a pair – things don’t always go to plan the first time. That said, the man long trailed (by me and plenty more) as a Test keeper looked naive and nervous throughout his debut, a little frenetic with the bat and too grabby with the gloves. He’ll come back better for the blooding – probably. Grade C-
Jordan Cox: 52 runs at 26.0; one catch
After so many false starts, he got one and was then told to bat one above Jofra in a team which one might describe as experimental (well, Dr Frankenstein might). Showed that bit of extra time at the crease which speaks to the class he’ll need when he returns to the fold – as he surely will. Grade B-
Gus Atkinson: 60 runs at 15; ten wickets at 16.8
He lacks the box office appeal of an out and out speedster and has the kind of temperament that gives little away if it’s all going his way or if it all isn’t. That leads him to being underrated because he’s a very fine bowler indeed, disciplined in his lines and lengths, tight into the batter from the first ball. If there’s something in the wicket – as there was at Lord’s – he finds it.
If only he’d said, “It’s half-eleven Ben. You know what these rugger-buggers are like. I’ve a dodgy stream of the new Jackass movie lined up and an Uber five minutes away. Let’s go eh?” Grade B+
Ollie Robinson: 30 runs at 15.0; seven wickets at 11.0
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but when he was on the field, he was pure class. But he wasn’t there long enough.
Made an explosive return the Test team at Lord’s with three wickets in his first over, the product of both knowing exactly where and how to land the ball and having the control to do so. He would play as many Tests as he likes were substitutes allowed in at the coach’s discretion. They’re not – and he won’t. Grade A-
Jofra Archer: 25 runs at 6.25; 11 wickets at 22.8
The fact that he keeps hitting batters shows just how hard he is to play, the line tricky to escape, the length tricky to pick up and the action giving no time for a batter to get a read for their trigger movements. Worked very hard for his captain, especially when asked to go to a bouncer attack, but, as is the case for a man who can bowl at 90mph, criticism will come his way because he isn’t up there for every ball.
With better support in the field and if he had played at Lord’s those figures would be considerably more impressive. Grade A-
Matthew Fisher: 50 runs at 50.0; five wickets at 24.0
He let nobody down, but he’s very much the ‘let nobody down’ kind of cricketer these days, years on from his time as a teenage prodigy. He took his wickets on his home ground and even chipped in with some runs (another call back to his early days as a pro) but nobody was clamouring for his retention at Trent Bridge, which probably tells its own story. Grade B+
Josh Tongue: 20 runs at 4.0; eight wickets at 49.9; one catch
That release point (at 11 o’clock) allows him, like Ben Stokes, to arrow the ball into the batter and then jump it away off the pitch. But, in this series, the wickets that have always justified the runs conceded from a propensity to bowl both sides of the wicket and too short, did not come and the cons far outweighed the pros in something of a wake-up call. Figures of 3-161 (The Oval) and 0-150 (Trent Bridge) will lose far more Test matches than they draw or win.
Prior to the series, he had plenty of bowling in the county championship, so he should not have been undercooked and, to be fair, wasn’t. Perhaps the edges and the DRSes will go his way against Pakistan later this summer. Grade C
Sonny Baker: four runs at 4.0; three wickets at 53.7
An engaging debutant who looks and plays like a 17 year old promoted to the Saturday Firsts after a good showing for the Sunday Invitational XI in a couple of friendlies. The 10,000 hours practice hypothesis for elite sport is, as I understand, no longer in vogue, but he looks like he’s had barely 100 and in need of 9,900 more. Grade D
Shoaib Bashir: 14 runs at 14.0; three wickets at 49.0; one catch
He can still get good batters out when set, which is a valuable asset, but the cost is excessive, his economy rate of pushing four an over across 21 Tests, remaining stubbornly high. His bounce is his best asset and it’s that lift that discomforts the best. Very much a Ben Stokes pick and with Australian pitches no longer in mind, his future under a new captain looks far from certain. Grade C-
New Zealand
Tom Latham: 189 runs at 31.5; three catches
He won the toss in the decider, got the call right to bat and helped put on 319 for the first wicket. He didn’t do a whole lot more on the field, but worked very effectively off it to deal with the shock retirement of his predecessor, the chaos engulfing the England team and numerous injuries to key players leaving him with a barely functional XI of walking wounded to accept the Crowe-Thorpe Trophy at Nottingham.
Not every effective leader demands the limelight and few have demonstrated that truism better than the gritty Kiwi in coming back from 1-0 down to win 1-2 up. Grade A-
Devon Conway: 224 runs at 37.3
If you’re going to play one innings of substance in a series, deliver it opening in the first innings of the deciding Test. Five years on from his remarkable debut 200 at Lord’s, he’s very much a known quantity, but his experience lends weight to a well-balanced batting unit so much more serious than their opposite numbers. Grade B
Kane Williamson: 18 runs at 9.0; two catches
His generation’s icon of New Zealand cricket backed into retirement after two failures on a pitch unworthy of his talent. An exemplar of how to get the most out of yourself and your team with supreme grace and style. Grade C-
Henry Nicholls: 197 runs at 49.3
No Kane? No problem.
One nil down in the series, you’re invited to step into the number three slot replacing your country’s best batter after a double collapse at Lord’s in which only one of your top six colleagues reached double figures. He answered the call with a second innings 121 that took the game away from England completely.
He also effected (at 34 years of age) an extraordinary run out of Joe Root on the last day to extinguish any hopes England fans may have harboured. Grade A-
Rachin Ravindra: 218 runs at 36.3; no wicket ; one catch
The future of New Zealand batting was almost comically inept in the field throughout the series and not much better with the bat at times, but improved steadily until showing his class in a brilliant 96 in the second innings of the Third Test. Not only did that knock on a deteriorating surface tire England’s attack, it allowed Daryl Mitchell to be strokeless, if not bruiseless for long periods, as he worked out a way to score. Grade B+
Daryl Mitchell: 235 runs at 47.0; nine catches
Another who improved over the series as he crawled towards finding a technique that worked on pitches more spicy than he had seen previously in England.
At Trent Bridge, he arrived at the crease to see his team three down with a lead of 135, the match very much in the balance. He was hit continually and painfully but always got in right behind the next ball and with no question of asking a replacement to get started in the middle while he received treatment in the dressing room. He left undefeated on 100 with the lead 372, job most definitely done. England’s heads had gone and soon too, the series. Grade A
Tom Blundell: 123 runs at 20.5; nine catches
The tactic (and skilful execution) of standing up to bowling regardless of its pace discombobulated England’s best again – had they not worked on this since Alex Carey did the same thing Down Under? Blundell didn’t score the same volume of runs he scored last time he was here and his keeping was not immaculate, but the threat of what he might do paralysed Bazballers, stumped (not stumped) by Blundball. Grade A-
Glenn Phillips: 181 runs at 60.3; two catches
Usually a description like ‘wholehearted trier’ is a backhanded compliment for an elite sports star, the ‘…but not really that good’ left unsaid. Well, in his two Tests, the Kiwis’ wholehearted trier was very good indeed, working out a way to score runs on the Lord’s minefield and then again on a very different strip at The Oval. Such was his excellence with the bat that he didn’t need to bowl. Grade A
Mitchell Santner: four runs at 2.0; two wickets at 56.5; one catch
The near veteran all-rounder looked very rusty indeed when answering the call for the Third Test. With nearly 300 international appearances under his belt, he found enough to ensure that he could pull his weight in a threadbare attack. Grade B-
Nathan Smith: 68 runs at 11.3; 16 wickets at 23.0; three catches
A revelation. Much quicker than the bits and pieces player some of us expected and with the nous to pick the right imaginary handkerchief on the pitch to hit and the skill to keep doing it, ball after ball. Ally those qualities to a technically perfect presentation of the seam to surfaces that sometimes grabbed and sometimes skidded and the fitness to run in with no flagging in effort all fday every day, and he was the standout for the Player of the Series Award (NZ). Grade A
Kyle Jamieson: 91 runs at 30.3; 10 wickets at 24.2; two catches
Like Phillips, he worked out a way to make runs, albeit slogging, which was a bit disappointing for those of us who once thought he had the talent to be the next Jacob Oram. On his return to Test cricket, he might have been protecting his back a little, but he still hit the deck hard and caused set batters real problems. Grade A-
Matt Henry: six runs at 1.5; 12 wickets at 13.3; one catch
Somewhat hors de combat at Lord’s after a back spasm, but showed all the nous and class that county cricket followers have come to expect at The Oval where he was much too good for England’s callow XI. He bowls like he has not just the next ball nor even the next over in mind, but the whole spell, like a grandmaster building a position. A craftsman and a rebuke to anyone who claims that you can’t take Test wickets at 80-84mph. Grade A-
Zak Foulkes: six runs at 6.0; six wickets at 14.5
In sports teams, there’s always somebody saying that they’ll be ready if the call comes. But it takes a certain kind of self-belief to do it, especially as a concussion substitute in a Test match.
Foulkes stepped in for the stricken Blair Tickner in the Third Test and, despite a quirky action, hit his lines and lengths and picked up Stokes and Brook twice each and Jacob Bethell who still looked a bit concussed himself by the impact of his captain’s retirement. Grade A-
Will O’Rourke: 20 runs at 5.0; 10 wickets at 25.6
Despite owning the features of one of Alastair Cook’s teenage choirboy contemporaries, he seldom cracks a smile, presumably playing up to the archetype of the mean fast bowler. He needn’t bother with the anti-histrionics though as his height and pace will trouble batters around the world for years to come – if he plays enough Test cricket. Grade B+
Blair Tickner: four runs at no average; no wicket
Bravely tried to continue after a concussive blow, but was wisely withdrawn, especially in that heat. Grade N/A
Ben Sears: 19 runs at 19.0; one wicket at 85.0
He got first innings centurion, Ben Duckett, with a brute of a lifter just when he was threatening to vindicate England’s fourth evening, fourth innings mayhem, Earlier he had shown excellent blokeishness in returning to the crease with a bad finger to get Mitchell through to his century. Grade C