As England crumble, their critics find voice

With Pakistan having finished the series on a high with a memorable win at The Oval, the English are bound to be a fuming lot at the moment. England were expected to steamroll an inconsistent Pakistan. Instead, their debacle at The Oval is bound to send the the hosts scurrying to the drawing board. And as is always the case when a supposedly superior host nation fails to beat a seeming inferior touring party, the connoisseurs begin murmuring in the background. But as the events unfolded in the fourth Test and the game began titling in the favour of the tourists, the connoisseurs and commentators started twitching in their chairs.

Legendary English opening batsmen and commentator Geoffrey Boycott was the first to break loose. And he didn’t even wait until the game concluded. He fired his salvo on the third day itself and his targets were the misfiring Alex Hales and James Vince. The latter hasn’t scored a half-century from 11 Test innings and was caught at cover off the third ball he faced. And that was just the fodder that Mr. Boycott craved for. “"Vince's shot was unbelievable," Boycott told BBC. "He's playing for his career because he's had these tiny cameos of 20 and 30 (and) we're all saying 'can't you bat any longer?'. And what does he do?... It was the most stupidest shot you could imagine.”

Having opened the innings for England through his international career, Boycott has been a vocal advocate of batting to suit the situation. "The length wasn't right, the shot wasn't right, the situation demanded that he play differently and carefully.That wasn't good enough”, bayed a livid Boycott. He then went on the predict that Vince wasn’t going to last long. “For me, that's the end of his Test match career. You can't carry on like that.”

Having taken care of Vince, Boycott now traded his guns on Alex Hales, the English opener. Now Hales has enjoyed some amount of success while opening with Alastair Cook in 11 Tests and has stroked five half-centuries, including a 94 against Sri Lanka at Lord’s in June. That said, an average of under 30 from 21 innings is just not impressive for someone like a Boycott, who has high expectations from the present crop of English openers.

"I've always said he's not going to be a great opening bat, he's not even going to be a good one," Boycott said. “For me, he's not an opener. I don't care what his mates say, what his friends say, if he's family's listening, I know he can play because I've seen him in one-day (cricket) (But) he is not a quality opening batsmen.”

Boycott has been critical of the English middle order while calling the trio of Hales, Vince and Gary Ballance as “wobbly”. He wasn’t going to spare the English captain Cook either as he criticised the skipper’s tactics of not employing James Anderson and allowing the tourists to build a match winning 214 run first-innings lead.

The critics will now keep a close eye on the English side as they take on a resurgent Pakistan in three ODIs later this month. A lackluster show there and Boycott is bound to be up in arms again and would perhaps even be tempted to draw comparisons with his fabled grandmother.

Now that is bound to take evoke an uneasy chuckle in the English ranks for sure.