How English cricket has been hampered by repeated changes in personnel

Prior was somewhat England’s answer to the world after Adam Gilchrist

Hardly a week after he qualified for the senior England team – there existed eligibility criteria of age 22 then – Kieswetter represented England in an ODI in Bangladesh. For a while, he seemed to be the then coach Andy Flower’s right call for top order bashing and also got a hundred in his third ODI in the England shirt.

Only days later, it was the turn of the other gloveman, the gallant Sussex wicket keeper-batsman Matt Prior who succumbed to an Achilles injury which he got operated upon after the Lord’s Test against India last year.

He said, after what proved to be his final outing in international colours that he was out on a “break” from cricket; and while he walked back to the pavilion on his last dismissal, former opener Michael Atherton was not reluctant in stating that he feared it was “the end of a very good England career”.

Prior’s job was often to accelerate right from when he took guard – he did that both as opener as well as a middle order bat – and was somewhat England’s answer to the world after Adam Gilchrist, the most successful wicket-keeper batsman of the modern era, retired in 2008.

And despite all his attacking instincts, his last international century remains the most memorable – he bailed England out of jail with little support from number eleven Panesar against New Zealand in Wellington in 2013.

Besides accumulating more than 5,000 runs across formats, Prior snatched 256 dismissals behind the stumps in Tests, behind only Alan Knott for his country. Three Ashes victories and a rise to the number one position with the England team remain great achievements for Prior.

Replacements for them all had been found and England looked a settled unit despite their inconsistent run stretching throughout 2015 and spilling into the New Year as well. The likes of Cook, Joe Root, James Anderson and Stuart Broad dictated terms in victories both home and away; Stokes and Steven Finn chipped in with crucial additions to add to the efforts of the quartet.

James Taylor was forced to retire due to serious heart condition

But only days after England were runners-up in the World T20 in India, emerged news that rocked the cricket world – the squib James Taylor was driven to further vacate a spot in the middle order. A sporadic heart disease – ARVC (arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy) – cunningly killed Taylor’s dreams of gaining great success as an aspiring crucial member of the England set up.

Quiet contributions from the bat as well as at the vital silly point position in South Africa in 2015-16 kept him in the shadows of the more mesmerising Root and Stokes, though he got to play only 5 more Tests four years after bursting onto the Test scene.

Taylor retired at 26, two years younger to Trott while the latter first represented England in Tests and one to his first captain Strauss, leaving behind him merely 27 ODIs and 7 Tests of experience at the international level.

When England recalled him into the eleven for the first time since 2012, Taylor answered the call by collecting a patient 76 on a spin-friendly Sharjah wicket against the subtle Pakistan spinners in 2015; in England’s very next Test – on a more lively Durban deck late that year – South Africa’s fearsome pace attack could do little to stop Taylor from hitting a crucial 70 in the first innings.

His only ODI hundred came against Australia at Old Trafford in 2015, where a 101 lay the foundation for an England comeback into the five-match series, while he was denied triple figures in an ODI playing the same opposition in Melbourne earlier in the year in the 2015 World Cup, where a debatable decision meant Taylor was left unbeaten on 98.

His abilities were recognised at a raw age when he was awarded the Cricket Writers’ Club Young Player of the Year award in 2009 while still not twenty. His county Nottinghamshire honoured him with the captaincy in limited-overs cricket not long ago in 2014, while he was also England’s ODI captain against Ireland in a washed-out game when regular skipper Eoin Morgan was on leave.

It was Taylor who was chosen to act as skipper when Morgan had fallen victim to Mitchell Starc’s bouncer at the same venue where Taylor’s solitary international century came – it was two matches later, though.

Possible replacements

Competition for filling up this one slot in the whites, however, remains healthy. Ian Bell, the only surviving winner of the 2005 Ashes to have represented England up to 2015, will fancy his chances of regaining the selectors’ attention, as Gary Ballance misses out on an opportunity to try and squeeze back into an inexperienced England line-up.

Bell has already got a 174 for Warwickshire against Hampshire even though, two pre-season hundreds – one against Lancashire in a two-day friendly in Dubai and another in a first-class match versus MCC in Abu Dhabi – has kicked off the summer well for the left-handed Ballance, with seven awaiting Tests in the home season against Sri Lanka and Pakistan combined.

Somebody or the other out of the above seven retired – one opener and spinner each, three middle order batsmen and two wicketkeepers – as soon as England seemed relaxed on a perfect combination.

But an interesting choice will be that of the opening batsman at Headingley against Sri Lanka, the first Test of the home summer. Cook, the leader, will surely be there, but not only will the hosts require Taylor’s replacement, but also someone responsible enough to step into their former colleague Strauss’ shoes.