James Vince did the hard work but gave his innings away in a worryingly familiar manner. He is running out of chances to prove his worth
George Dobell at Edgbaston06-Aug-2016The reaction said it all. James Vince stood frozen in horror after steering one to slip. He knew he needed a score here. He knew his career could depend upon it.Instead, after three hours of resistance, he had been drawn into a familiar error. Seduced into feeling at one angled across him against the new ball, he had edged to second slip for the second time in the match and the third time in the series. Like a former smoker who can’t resist, the habit he had tried to cut out had done for him once more. The slow trudge off the pitch, head shaking in dismay and disappointment, spoke volumes.But if this was a familiar end, it was not an entirely familiar innings. It felt like a step forward. It wasn’t just the score – 42 equalled his best Test effort so far – but the maturity he demonstrated in steering England away from trouble after the loss of Alastair Cook and Alex Hales. He had left more deliveries, he played a little straighter and he picked his aggressive strokes more selectively. Not too many batsmen are dropped after contributing 81 runs in a game. Not under this regime, anyway.There had been some nervous moments along the way, though. On 22, Vince was beaten as he attempted to drive one from Sohail Khan that left him just a touch and, on 23, he pushed at one from the same bowler and was fortunate to see the ball bounce just in front of Mohammad Hafeez at slip. On a quicker wicket – and that is just about every wicket – it would have been a chance.This wicket is unusually slow. While it is not easy to score quickly – it is, in truth, a pretty disappointing wicket which does nothing to sustain the viability of Test cricket – it is the sort of wicket on which dislodging batsmen is tough.That is when bowlers even attempt to dismiss them. But, while Vince was at the crease, Pakistan instead concentrated on damage limitation and attempted to frustrate the England batsmen into making errors as they sought to accelerate the run-rate. Vince faced just one delivery from seamers in his entire innings that would have hit the stumps. That’s one delivery out of 65. So, it’s hardly surprising he managed to survive for longer; they were hardly blowing to dismiss him. And Vince, for all the runs he has scored, is the only man in England’s top seven not to have made a half-century in the match.All of which leaves England’s selectors with a tricky decision. They have invested heavily in Vince and they may well feel they could see signs of progress here. He clearly has time to play the ball and a wide range of strokes. The raw talent is pretty obvious.But at the same time, Trevor Bayliss has said several times that batsmen will be judged not by how they make their runs but by how many runs they make. Vince has now been given six Tests and nine innings. How would other leading contenders – the likes of James Hildreth, Scott Borthwick or Ben Duckett – fare if given such a run? Is it unrealistic to expect them to have supplied at least a half-century? A generation of former players – the likes of Paul Parker, Alan Jones, Alan Wells and Paul Terry among them – could only dream of such opportunities.Comparisons with more modern players are no more enlightening. While Sam Robson and Adam Lyth were given 11 and 13 Test innings respectively before they were dropped, both men registered centuries in their second Tests. Such early success naturally extended their run.We are getting to the stage, too, where Vince’s issue may become mental as much as technical. The analysts working with the England teams over recent years have conducted research into the importance of players performing well early in their international career. Their conclusions, unsurprisingly, suggested that it becomes disproportionately more difficult to succeed if the early memories and associations of the England environment are not positive.Vince appears admirably calm at the crease and can only benefit for the backing he has received from the management. But it is only human nature that, with every setback, his self-confidence ebbs a little more. He is up against a fine attack in this series, for sure, but he will rarely play on more batsman-friendly wickets. It is probably provocative to point out that Vince’s average over his first six Tests – 23.44 – is more than 10 lower than Kevin Pietersen in his final six – 33.83 – but it might also be illustrative of the suspicion that selection is not always entirely on merit.Vince has the great advantage over the likes of Wells, Terry and, yes, Pietersen, that he is playing in a relatively successful side. For that reason, his struggles can be overlooked and the investment period can be lengthened. He hasn’t, by any means, looked completely out of his depth and the continuity of selection policy remains, even taken to an extreme, far better than the alternative extreme.But by persisting with him at this stage, the selectors are also denying themselves the opportunity to look at other players. They are denying themselves the chance to see how Adil Rashid could perform as a second spinner or to see how a left-arm spinning all-rounder could manage ahead of the seven Tests England play in Asia before Christmas. They are denying themselves the chance to see how a specialist wicketkeeper could be assimilated within the team or giving another batsman a chance to gain some experience ahead of the winter tours.But in order to experiment, the selectors first have to start coming to some conclusions. Their failure to do so with Vince is starting to look, not so much consistent, but soft.
