England left muddled by search for new sources of runs

Nick Compton and Gary Ballance were both overlooked for UAE but failings of others thrust them back into selectors’ gaze

Alex Hales is set to open the batting for England with Alastair Cook in South Africa (AP)

Since September no cricket has been played in England. It is what is known as the close season. But now the selectors feel sufficiently empowered to recall for the tour of South Africa two batsmen who have not played an innings since the squad was chosen for the current trip to the UAE.

This demonstrated the strength of the old adage that you are always a better player out of the side than in it. If it showed muddled thinking and the lack of a structured vision, the decisions could partly be explained by the lack of runs from too many positions in the England order.

Sometimes it has felt that the whole batting unit has become reliant solely on the contributions of Alastair Cook, the captain, and Joe Root, the vice-captain. Between them they have scored 2,645 of England’s 6,819 runs in 13 Test matches so far this year, some 37 per cent. On that basis, something perhaps had to give and the selectors have been persuaded that the recent losses against Pakistan, predictable but avoidable, were the last straw.

It has led them to make several big calls. They have dropped Ian Bell after 118 Tests, the last 37 of them in consecutive matches, and recalled Gary Ballance and Nick Compton. Neither Ballance nor Compton was deemed worthy enough for the tour to the UAE. The failings of others have thrust them back into the selectors’ gaze.

How strange it seems that the batting order which will take the field at Durban for the first Test against South Africa will be much different from that which regained the Ashes so resoundingly at Trent Bridge in August.

The top five will contain no Adam Lyth (already discarded for the UAE), no Jonny Bairstow, who has been demoted to seven where he has for now replaced Jos Buttler as the side’s wicketkeeper batsman, and now no Bell.

Moeen Ali, who came in for Lyth as Cook’s opening partner in the UAE, will drop down the order again, probably to No 8, where he may be frustrated but will be much more effective. It is as the side’s only specialist spinner that Moeen offers more cause for concern but the selectors rightly decided that they simply could not yet entrust Adil Rashid with that role.

After three Tests Rashid has been omitted and it is hoped that he will use the time well by playing in the Australian Big Bash competition by way of preparing for the World Twenty20 in India next March.

Cook’s new sidekick, the eighth since his long-time ally Andrew Strauss retired in 2012, is likely to be Alex Hales of Nottinghamshire, who has yet to play a Test. There is not much about Hales which suggests he can be a successful Test batsman but that has been said about plenty of others who are products of the modern game. With his fearless approach and fast hands he may be able to adapt.

There is a case for asking Compton to open, a place he perhaps should not have lost in 2013. Although he tends to be a one-paced batsman, he conveys an air of solidity. Compton, it was suggested, did not fit comfortably into the England dressing room at the time but that can be, and often is, the fault of the dressing room and not the player struggling to fit.

Looking at the composition of the squad, the selectors probably have in mind Cook, Hales and Compton as the top three. Compton made 1,123 Championship runs for Middlesex last season, batting throughout at No 3. Born in Durban, the grandson of the great England batsman Denis Compton, it will a moving experience for him should he go out to bat there in the opening Test on 26 December.

Ballance, who has already scored four Test hundreds from his 27 innings, was always likely to make his way back after being dropped during the Ashes series last summer. But this is sooner than he or the selectors could have expected given how obviously flummoxed he was and there can be no question of his batting in the top four.

Bell’s failure to make runs for most of this year has forced the selectors’ hand. The answer they have come up with might also indicate there is not a welter of young talent coming through in the England Lions. At 32, Compton is only a year younger than Bell.

The selectors might argue that to play South Africa away, at least some previous Test experience was preferable. But Bell has plenty of that and on England’s last tour there made one of the most splendid of his 22 Test hundreds – at Durban.

While they were about it, the selectors also dropped a fast bowler who was named in the first party and has not played a game and called up an uncapped fast bowler. In some quarters they might be considered as bold, in others an apprehension about what it is they want.

Liam Plunkett, who was in the UAE and did not play a match so therefore did nothing wrong, has now been left out. In comes Mark Footitt, who recently left Derbyshire for Surrey. Footitt is enviably quick and has gained much more control lately, as well as earning plaudits from Cook, the England captain.

He took 82 wickets last year and another 76 in 2015 and was the scourge of the Second Division in the Championship. Footitt may find roughing up Test batsmen a different proposition and if he has matured admirably, his selection is still a leap of faith.

The recall of Chris Woakes was to be expected. He is a player with many virtues, does most things by the book and does them well and under the radar. England might decide they need Footitt’s greater raw pace and the different trajectory that he offers as a left-armer, but Woakes will have plenty of support.

There are two warm-up matches to try to establish a new pecking order but England’s XI for Durban was probably in head of selectors James Whitaker’s mind as he named the party of 16. Though back in September he would not have had a clue.