The England puzzle, and the case for/against Sammy

Darren Sammy: he's a Star Trek character, he's not
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The dust is settling on England's fascinating, and, until Colombo's belated redemption, spectacularly unsuccessful Test winter. And that dust is confused. Very confused. Is it covering a landmark underachievement, or an unfortunate blip? Has 2011-12 shown how vulnerable this supposedly world-leading England side is, and how the weaknesses in it had been camouflaged by an unprecedented collective burst of form and some fractured, sub-standard opposition; or has it strangely proved, as suggested by my World Cricket Podcast compadre Daniel Norcross, quite how good they are?

They were, after all, not far from winning four Tests out of five despite having batted for most of the winter like a long-forgotten salad in an abandoned fridge, and they bowled persistently superbly (statistically far better than in 2000-01, when they returned from Asia with two series victories). As soon as the batsmen for the first time applied themselves correctly, they waltzed to a resounding victory. Albeit that the sound that resounded was the echo of the words, "Where the hell was that in the Gulf in January?" rebounding back from outer space.

So many questions remain to be answered. Which was the batting blip – the first four Tests or the last one? Will the Pakistan whitewash remain a scar on this excellent England team's record, or will it prove to be an open wound in which the maggots of doubt have laid out their towels for an interesting year's sunbathing ahead?

Your witness, history. Get back to us in nine months' time with some supporting evidence from (a) this summer's series against an increasingly-determined-but-almost-entirely-unacquainted-with-early-season-English-conditions West Indies, and a probably-should-be-No. 1-side-in-the-Test-world-if-only-they-didn't -keep-tanking-one-nil-series-leads South Africa, and (b) the four Tests in India at the end of the year.

Personally, my expectation is that England will beat West Indies comfortably, draw 1-1 with South Africa, and win narrowly in India, guided by their freshly printed multi-volume Encyclopaedia Of Lessons Learned, which they are no doubt busy scribbling down from their failures this winter.

However, my expectation was that they would win in the UAE against Pakistan, and they managed to avoid doing that in some style, in much the same way that the Titanic managed to avoid overshooting America on its maiden voyage.

And, just as they had not faced high-class spin for a lengthy period before subsiding to Ajmal and Rehman, so they will not have faced the calibre of swing bowling they can expect from Steyn and Philander since Amir and Asif brilliantly hooped them to distraction two years ago before. Just as facing Xavier Doherty in Brisbane, or Mishra and Raina at The Oval, was not ideal preparation for encountering Pakistan's crafty tweakmen in the Gulf, so seeing off Lakmal and Prasad in Colombo, statistically one of cricket history's least penetrating new-ball attacks (their career figures suggesting they offered the incision of an ice scalpel in a sub-Saharan operating theatre), will not have honed England ideally for the South African pace and swing barrage. As preparation for that task, it was about as appropriate as Neil Armstrong training for his rocket trip to the moon by hanging a cantaloupe melon from his bedroom ceiling, saying "5-4-3-2-1-blast-off" and throwing a dart at it.

Luckily, Strauss and his men have time and the West Indies series in which to reactivate their facing-swing-bowling heads. And hope that they work better than they did in 2010. And that England's bowlers continue to provide the grip and penetration of a Viagra-addled boa constrictor, as they have done consistently for the last two years.