England's horror start begs questions about preparation and purpose

JAMES COYNE AT TRENT BRIDGE: England are in trouble already just one day into the five-Test series, with only Joe Root mustering an answer to an excellent India attack

Trent Bridge (first day of five): England 183, India 21-0 - India trail by 162 runs with 10 first-innings wickets remaining

Scorecard

After some weeks of entrenched opinions and identikit PR spiel, this was a day for letting the cricket do the talking. And, such are the current priorities in the English game, no one can honestly be surprised that it was something of a cry for help. 

Perhaps it’s for the best that Nasser Hussain was assigned to The Hundred rather than this Test match at Trent Bridge, because some of his analysis for Sky would have been withering. But, for all the strong words spoken by the broadcasters, the truth is they cannot be divorced from the debate, as it is their enthusiasm for endless white-ball cricket which is feeding into the problems in England’s Test game. 

It’s not as if England weren’t trying. Early on, at least, their batsmen were set up and got out by persistent and high-class swing and seam bowling, especially from Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah. As for the well-grassed, gently seaming pitch, it’s almost as if England punched the co-ordinates in the DeLorean back to this very same spot in 1985. 

The slower-burn moments in play invited the inevitable comparisons with The Hundred. It took 15 minutes for England to score their first run, 25 minutes for Dom Sibley to nudge his, and 34 minutes for the first boundary – a beautifully crunched cover-driven half-volley by Zak Crawley, as it happens. 

By lunch, Sibley had nurdled his way to 18 not out – as Andrew Samson was quick to inform us, the lowest haul by an England opener in a complete pre-lunch session since Chris Smith at Karachi in 1983/84. 

All this should not really be used as a stick to beat them (or Test cricket) with, as they were doing their best to battle through difficult conditions. For many of us, there was just as much fascination to be had about Bumrah dragging the batsmen across and then spearing it in, or Shami hitting pads or finding edges off a much fuller length than he has tended to bowl in the past. 

And if you were patient enough to wait for it, you were rewarded with some truly masterful batting from Joe Root.

^{Virat Kohli celebrate an England wicket}

We are in an era when the job of England Test captain seems to be about everything apart from the cricket. Even more so right now, when the introduction of The Hundred has led to a historically low share of column inches and bandwidth devoted to previewing what is supposedly the summer's marquee Test series. 

Before today it barely registered out there that Root was about to become England’s all-time leading run-scorer across all formats – a landmark moment in his country’s cricket. 

At the same time, Root is almost expected to give his views on social issues – if he wishes to do so, then all power to him as far as I’m concerned – and such is the intensity of the England schedule in bio-bubble environments that he had to utter the words “I just want my friend to be okay”, when it became clear Ben Stokes was not going to play in this series due to the burnout. 

For all the modern addition to backroom staffs, the job of England captain always has been, and always will be, about managing human beings; indeed England captains were once chosen for overseas tours on the basis of their diplomatic capabilities in the Commonwealth. It’s just that the themes have changed. 

But, given all the other issues he has to grapple with, we shouldn’t be surprised when Root goes through a trough. After touching the heights in Sri Lanka and the start of the India tour, he has been worn down to the extent that this 64 today was his first fifty in 12 Test innings. 

Perhaps, with all that’s been going on, it is just a pleasure to be out in the middle with bat in hand. It must be the one place where cricketers can leave all the other worries behind. 

And thank goodness for Root's gorgeous cover drives, as without him England would be out of the Test match already. 

But, once his partner Jonny Bairstow was beaten by one that cut back in from the superb Shami, England collapsed meekly from 138 for 3 to 183 all out. There were four ducks in among it all, the most painful of them Jos Buttler’s 18-ball battle. 

Blaming the players would be too simplistic – although ask me again if certain ones choose to squeeze in matches in the rearranged IPL. Right now it’s impossible for the ECB to argue that they are giving their Test team the best platform to succeed. 

Such is Root’s class – and impressive mental focus – he was able to rise above all the background stuff. Crawley – after 11 months of damage to the glittering reputation earned from his 267 against Pakistan – also looked pretty good, until he feathered one from Mohammed Siraj that clipped both bat and pad. 

^{It was a difficult day for England at Trent Bridge}

For most of the others, it was a case of feeling their way in (and out) against probably the world’s best pace attack, who have spent the last few weeks focusing on nothing else. 

The bare facts are these: there has been no County Championship match since July 15, and even in that first tranche of conference season some of these players played no part at all. The two all-format players in the top seven, Bairstow and Buttler, have not faced a red ball since February and March respectively, on England’s tour of India. Yes, the reasons for that are complicated, but those are the facts. 

If all that matters at the start of the series, it will matter even more as it drags on, as the wounds inflicted by India’s excellent bowlers are opened up time and again. Where does a batsman go for match practice, for rhythm, or for escape? It won’t be to the County Championship: the next round starts on August 30. 

Contrast this with the way India have prepared for this series. They lost the World Test Championship final to New Zealand six weeks ago. Instead of flying home en masse or joining the one-day series in Sri Lanka, this group of players took the first three weeks off, hiking in the Lake District or with their bucket and spade at Perranporth, before reconvening in Durham for three weeks of inter-squad practice. 

You can quibble with India’s allergy to tour games – just the one warm-up match hastily arranged against a County Select XI – but no one can argue that Virat Kohli isn’t pouring every ounce of his working life into turning India into the world’s best Test unit. 

The pleasure for them, when they achieve it, will be sweet. But if England, one of the other two financial powerhouses in the game, continue to choose to direct resources away from what is the most difficult format – not to mention still the most lucrative one in terms of their broadcasting deal – then historians won’t judge India’s achievement quite so highly. 

Amid all the more extreme views either way on The Hundred, there are plenty of us out there who are happy to accept that a new competition, outside of county teams, was needed to help lure newcomers to the game. 

What we cannot accept is that it is done at the expense of England’s Test cricket, so that when those newcomers are ripe to be won over by the richest and most subtle format of sport ever conceived, what they discover isn’t half as inspiring as it ought to be.