Rookies' chaotic education

Crusty old players reflecting on their careers often hark back to the first time they entered the altar of the senior team’s dressing room as an enduring memory and a defining moment in their cricket education.

When the three lads drafted into England’s line-up to try and help stave off – or possibly share the burden of culpability for – a five-nil Ashes whitewash reflect on their formative days, they will probably recall a learning environment more Summer Heights High than professional polytechnic.

It was a testament to the audacity as well as the innocence of youth that Gary Ballance, Scott Borthwick and Boyd Rankin – and especially series rookie Ben Stokes in just his fourth Test – were able to function at all as England’s disaster tour plumbed its lowest depth today.

Certainly they were prominent among the few in the England camp who, to defile Kipling’s exquisite poetry, were able to keep their heads while all around them were demonstrably proving theirs were elsewhere - although Ballance was fortunate to retain his in its original shape after being nutted fair on the emblem of his batting helmet by a ferocious Mitchell Johnson bouncer, a blow that required around 10 minutes to panel-beat the damaged safety item and almost as long to quell the ringing in his ears.

Certainly, when he received his cloth Test cap from skipper Alastair Cook a day earlier, Ballance held no suspicion that he would be sent from the England shed in a flurry of hastily fastened pad straps and perplexed, vacant stares as his top-order colleagues summarily disappeared without trace.

Having settled into his viewing chair at the start of this morning’s play with England resuming at 1-6, at worst he might have anticipated entering the Test stage an hour or two later with the lads in a spot of bother.

To find himself out there within half an hour, with the giant SCG scoreboard flashing 4-17 in his face as he squinted into the late morning sunlight and Australian new-ball pair Johnson and Ryan Harris rampant on a helpful pitch, was surely the antithesis of how he had visualised his first Test innings would start.

Not that it was the most diabolical scenario an English debutant has found himself facing in recent history.

Ex-skipper Michael Vaughan told cricket.com.au how he went to the crease for the first time in an England kit with his team 2-2 after two overs on the first morning against South Africa at Wanderers in 1999.

An over later it was 4-2 and the newbie was looking at the very real prospect his country might be bowled out for less than 10.

“In that situation, the dressing room is pure chaos,” Vaughan recalled today after England was finally bowled out for 155, a first-innings deficit of 171 that had blown out to 311 by stumps on day two.

“But in some ways the pressure comes off a bit.

“As a debutant, nobody expects you to succeed when the old hands have already failed, whereas if you come in with the score at 2-220 then batting’s obviously not too bad and you’re expected to play that way.”

Especially when the failure you’re following has been as complete and abject as today’s.

If England were to mount a belated, inconsequential rejoinder in the summer’s twilight, it was captain Alastair Cook, newly promoted No.3 Ian Bell and their most experienced batsman Kevin Pietersen who would surely have to take up the fight.

In total, that trio lasted just over an hour-and-a-half of batting – largely due to Bell’s painstaking innings of two that soaked up almost an hour – and contributed a total of 12 runs.

By comparison, and even allowing for the fact the ball was softer, the Australian bowlers wearier and the expectations considerably lower by the time they batted, the three Test rookies plus Stokes survived an aggregate of almost five hours and scored 79 – more than half England’s total. 

Add to that the fact that Rankin - described by even his most generous supporters as a true No.11 who generally carries a bat with him purely for show - scored more than any of his team’s top five, and another deflating day for the tourists is put into harsh perspective.

As the second-highest run-scorer and equal second-highest wicket-taker for his team this series, despite being the allrounder who wasn’t even in the XI for the first Test, Stokes emerges as the only England player to have his reputation enhanced by their Australian sojourn.

Ballance showed sufficient in his 93-minute knock to suggest he could develop into a Test player, while Borthwick is earmarked as a top-order batsman who bowls a few handy overs in much the same manner as Steve Smith does with increasing impact for Australia.

Rankin, unfortunately, is likely to go the way of ill-fated spinner Simon Kerrigan after a debut bookended by hamstring cramps and this evening’s bowling spell that contained a lot of something with a phonetic similarity to 'cramp'.

Even with a series batting average of 13 – superior to seven others who have played for England in this series – it’s unlikely he’ll be considered as an allrounder for any future duties.

But regardless of who’s next in line for a new cap, the character and appearance of the team England so confidently planned to field throughout this series is to be irrevocably changed.

“Clearly this team that has been so successful over a number of years has had its day,” former England captain Michael Atherton told cricket.com.au today. “Now we will see the England selectors move forward and make changes, and at this difficult time you tend to see what young cricketers are made of.”

They can’t realistically be made of less than today’s top order calamity.