Chris Waters: Gary Ballance made a scapegoat for Ashes fiasco

IT is the unfortunate lot of the provincial sports writer that any attempt to promote or defend a local player runs the risk of looking like bias.
Gary Ballance: Dropped without having played.Gary Ballance: Dropped without having played.
Gary Ballance: Dropped without having played.

If, as the cricket correspondent of The Yorkshire Post, I was to suggest, for example, that Yorkshire’s Adil Rashid should have played more than 10 Test matches and has been badly treated by England down the years, the response might be: “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

Ditto if I suggested that Yorkshire’s Adam Lyth is at least the equal of the current England opening batsman Mark Stoneman, if not better in my opinion, and that Yorkshire’s Liam Plunkett should also have been handed more Test opportunities.

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Impartiality is – and should be – the middle name of any sports writer, but I nevertheless feel on somewhat safer ground in contending that Yorkshire’s Gary Ballance has been made a scapegoat for England’s Ashes defeat, the batsman having been dropped for the forthcoming tour to New Zealand despite not having played a single Test in the series against Australia.

England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope  during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope  during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.
England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.

The reality is obvious to one and all, and was perhaps best summed up by former Australia batsman Dean Jones, who tweeted after England announced a largely unchanged 16-man squad to take on the Kiwis: “That’s hilarious. Gary Ballance didn’t even play a bloody game! So it’s his fault. Too funny.”

Yet, incredibly, despite their repeated and collective failure in the Ashes, England’s batting line-up is set to remain unchanged for the two-Test series that starts in Auckland on March 22, with perhaps only minor tinkerings to the order itself that would be the equivalent of rearranging the Titanic’s deckchairs.

Stoneman survives after averaging 25 in the five Tests against Australia, his highest score in eight Test appearances a mere 56 (at least Lyth managed a hundred in his seven outings before the axe fell).

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James Vince survives after averaging 26 against Australia, his Test record now standing at 454 runs from 20 innings at an average of just 22.

Picture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael RichardsonPicture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael Richardson
Picture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael Richardson

To say that Vince is fortunate is an understatement; he was lucky to make the Ashes tour in the first place, let alone keep his place after failing to perform.

The Hampshire batsman has enjoyed so many lives that he is practically living proof of reincarnation.

The only problem is that Vince keeps coming back as someone who looks a million dollars at the crease only to keep getting out in infuriating ways, teasing spectators with glorious cover drives before the inevitable sorry demise.

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Ballance, who is more of an exponent of nudges and nurdles than glorious cover drives, is a different sort of player and hardly so fortunate.

England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope  during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope  during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.
England's Liam Plunkett celebrates taking the wicket of West Indies' Shai Hope during the Third Royal London ODI at Bristol County Ground.

Although his average of 37 from 23 Tests has dipped from the high peaks of his early career, when he was the third-fastest England batsman to 1,000 Test runs behind Herbert Sutcliffe and Len Hutton, that is still 15 runs more than Vince is averaging, 10 more than Stoneman and even four more than Dawid Malan, who was arguably England’s best batsman on the Ashes tour.

It is also two runs more than Ben Stokes is averaging and only two less than Jonny Bairstow averages, which puts it into even more favourable context.

Yet Ballance, who could not even get a look-in as England crashed to a 4-0 defeat Down Under, carrying the drinks just as Rashid had done so often in the past, has been made a fall guy, along with pace bowlers Jake Ball and Tom Curran, who have also been dropped.

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Some might say that Ballance should not have been in the Ashes squad at all, and they are perfectly entitled to that view.

Picture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael RichardsonPicture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael Richardson
Picture by John Clifton/SWpix.com - 26/07/2017 - Cricket - NatWest T20 Blast - Yorkshire Vikings v Durham Jets - Headingley Cricket Ground, Leeds, England - Adil Rashid of Yorkshire celebrates taking the wicket of Michael Richardson

After all, Ballance did not pull up trees on his latest England recall last summer before breaking a finger, but he did score 951 County Championship runs for Yorkshire at 67, the second-best average in the First Division of those who took regular part in the tournament.

Vince, in contrast, averaged 32 from the same number of matches as Ballance (12), while Liam Livingstone – called up for the New Zealand tour in place of Ballance – averaged 47 in 11 games for Lancashire.

Although the 24-year-old Livingstone is an exciting talent, Ballance would be entitled to feel aggrieved – not least because the saturated international schedule restricted him to just three innings in the practice games in Australia, when he made 51, 1 and 45 not out.

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Dropping Ballance was the easy option, in my view, wrapped in the convenient cloak of: “Let’s have a closer look at Livingstone”.

It smacks of weak, behind-the-sofa-type management that does not want to look the Ashes horror film squarely in the eye.

It is the sort of move that you might expect from a regime that has invested too much hope in Vince to give up without an increasingly desperate fight, one in which selectorial credibility is clearly on the line.

It is the sort of move, too, that you might expect from a regime that is apparently not strong enough to insist that Joe Root bats at No 3, where Vince has offered nothing except to expedite Root’s arrival at No 4, or to drop Moeen Ali altogether (179 runs in the Ashes at 19 to go with five wickets at 115) and Stuart Broad (11 wickets in the Ashes at 47).

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As with Rashid, it might be difficult for Ballance to come again as a Test player – at least in the foreseeable future. Barring injury, it is difficult to see a way back for him at present, with the selectors perhaps more likely to look elsewhere if Vince and Stoneman fail in New Zealand.

At 28, Ballance should still have his best years in front of him, and although he has the support of close friend Root, which many feel helped to earn him his recall in the first place, he may need a change of coach and/or selectors to win back his spot.

Coach Trevor Bayliss is stepping down after next year’s Ashes (some will feel that he should have been stood down anyway after the series just ended) and a different man may have different ideas.

The good news for Yorkshire, of course, is that they are the biggest beneficiaries of Ballance’s treatment.

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Had he reclaimed and cemented his international place this winter, they would have lost not only their captain but also a key performer from a batting line-up that has not fired collectively for quite some time.

Take Ballance out of a top-order already deprived of Root and Bairstow, and it is akin to the Halle Orchestra taking to the stage without a conductor, a pianist and a first violin.

England’s loss is Yorkshire’s gain, but Ballance’s frustration will be no less pronounced as he ponders the vagaries of a selection strategy that is far too consistent overall – just not in his case.

Complicating the world of sport...

ACCORDING to a recent YouGuv survey, cricket is the third-most boring sport behind golf and American football.

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Sorry, I’m not having that – what about extreme ironing? – but it is, perhaps, the most head-spinningly complex.

We have got Test/first-class cricket, 50-over cricket, T20 cricket, T10 cricket, red balls, white balls, pink balls, a County Championship with one division of eight teams and another of 10, a profusion of franchise tournaments and international fixtures, Lions games, winter training camps, pre-tour training camps, day/night contests, video technology used in some cases but not others, constant tinkering to rules and regulations, unfathomable domestic schedules, and so on.

In fact, it is now almost impossible to follow the game properly without a combined degree in maths, geography, business studies and patience.

At least football, for all its faults, is straightforward by comparison; I always know, for example, that my beloved Lincoln City will be kicking off at 3.00 somewhere on a Saturday afternoon and that our star players – not an oxymoron, I assure you – will be available and not taking part in some franchise five-a-side tournament in Skegness.

Boring, no; complicated, yes. If cricket is to be indicted, then let it be done fairly.