Time to show there is something worth salvaging in this ferociously mercurial England team

Joe Root's men stand on the brink of implosion, but there is time – just about – to put together five days of decent cricket in this second Test and prove their worth. England must step up to the mark

This second Test feels in many ways like England’s last chance for redemption (Getty)

- It’s a mess, ain’t it Sheriff?

- If it ain’t, it’ll do until a mess gets here.

Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men (2005)

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Six weeks ago, the Pakistan pace attack gathered at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore for a training camp ahead of their tour of Ireland and England.

There, bowling coach Azhar Mahmood showed them video clips of England being bowled out for 58 by New Zealand a few weeks earlier. The point he was trying to hammer home was that when the ball is moving around, there is little point in beating the bat off a length. You have to ask the batsman a question with every delivery.

The natural length for a fast bowler in most countries is around 7-8 metres from the batsman’s stumps. Azhar, a veteran of county cricket and a British citizen, knows as well as anyone that on English wickets, you have to drive your length forward, to six or even five-and-a-half metres. “It looks good on 7m, the ball moving around and beating the bat,” he said in an interview with ESPNCricinfo, “but you’re not getting the edges. You’re bowling the ball, but you’re not getting people out.”

Ahead of Friday’s second Test at Headingley, an irritated James Anderson balked at the suggestion that England’s fast bowlers had failed to bowl full enough in the first Test defeat at Lord’s. “Some people think they might know better than me,” he retorted, “but I’d like to think that after 15 years of playing Test cricket, I know which lengths to bowl on certain pitches.”

Anderson was right to highlight the wealth of experience at England’s disposal. Going into the Lord’s Test, England’s four seamers had between them a total of 166 matches and 648 Test wickets in English conditions. Pakistan’s had 10 matches and 42 wickets, all of them belonging to Mohammad Amir. Pakistan demolished England by nine wickets, which suggests that perhaps experience and preparation are two quite different things.

Pakistan don’t play a lot of Test cricket: six games last year, just four scheduled this year, of which Headingley will be the third. They don’t play another Test until Boxing Day. One consequence is that it makes them especially determined to make every performance count. The other is that it gives them plenty of time to work on their skills, work on their strategy, work on their teamwork. They left for London on 22 April, a full month before the first Test, which they have spent honing and tweaking, learning and grooving.

The pressure is on Joe Root and co to turn their fortunes around in the second Test (Getty)

By contrast, what were England’s players doing that day? Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler were in Jaipur playing for Rajasthan Royals. Mark Wood was twiddling his thumbs in Chennai, watching his Super Kings team-mates from the sidelines. Dom Bess was twelfth man for Somerset at Taunton. Alastair Cook was recovering from a hip injury. Joe Root, Stuart Broad, Anderson, Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan were all having a rest. How many of them, if any, were thinking about the first Test against Pakistan in a month’s time?

England talked in the week of the Lord’s Test about the intensity of their practice. But form isn’t something you can turn on and off like a tap. Especially when you’re as abjectly out of form as this England side seem to be. “Pakistan were a lot better prepared,” says their former coach Waqar Younis, another player who knows a thing or two about pitching the ball up in England. “We came early, played a few warm-up games. England did not have enough four-day cricket under their belts, not enough overs bowled by the bowlers.”

And so England arrive in Leeds with a little more cricket in their legs, but a few more doubts in their heads. Defeat at Headingley would see them drop to No7 in the world rankings, their lowest position for 15 years, which actually seems about right. Teams who are unable to win the most favourable of home conditions, against an opposition as raw and transitional as this, simply do not belong in the top tier of international cricket. Perhaps it’s something of a relief, in retrospect, that the ICC decided against creating a second division of Test cricket a couple of years ago. On current form, England would probably be in it.

Pakistan’s lengthy preparations have put them in good stead (Getty)

It is an open secret that England’s bowlers believe that the criticism being aimed at them would be better directed at the batsmen, who have now found themselves 100-4 or worse in nine of their last 10 Test matches. James Vince has been jettisoned, and now Mark Stoneman has followed him, replaced by Keaton Jennings in virtually identical circumstances to those in which Stoneman replaced Jennings last summer. Jennings claims to have worked on his technical issues since his last stint in the Test side, and the front pad that looked so leaden against South Africa last summer will certainly get a working over at the hands of Mohammad Abbas and Mohammad Amir.

On a broader level, though, you wonder whether England’s bowling and batting ills aren’t symptoms of the same general malaise: a basic lack of discipline; a squad assailed by instability and distractions; a culture in which it no longer feels like players are being challenged, stimulated or motivated.Wwhere a couple of days’ practice on the Nursery Ground is deemed sufficient preparation against an opposition who have been in rehearsals for six weeks.

A team without an identity, a strategy, a road-map. Where a lack of accountability meets a lack of job security, where the buck can always be passed, and yet where every player is, in some way or another, clinging on. You can shuffle things around: move that deckchair up to No3, give a debut to that promising young deckchair from Surrey, assign separate red and white-ball deckchairs in future. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that the entire vessel itself is heading in a downward direction. If it’s not a mess, then it will certainly do until the mess gets here.

James Anderson balked at the suggestion that England’s fast bowlers failed to bowl full enough in the first Test (Getty)

This, then, feels in many ways like England’s last chance. India, the world’s No1 Test side, arrive next, and if England are struggling to shift the likes of Asad Shafiq and Haris Sohail in May, you can imagine how they might fare against the Kohlis and Pujaras in August. Whatever happens at Leeds, you feel, England will now go into that series as second favourites.

But there is time – just about – to put together five days of decent cricket. For the batsmen to show some resolve and put a price on their wickets. For the bowlers to take a few risks. For Dom Bess to give it a tweak and show us his potential. For innings to be built. For catches to be taken. For this side to show us they are capable of learning. To prove to themselves – above all – that there is something in this ferociously mercurial team worth salvaging.