England's conversion problem - time to take a leaf out of Australia's book

Australia’s test series against Pakistan kicks off this Sunday in the UAE. A traditionally difficult place to tour with stifling heat and dry, turning pitches, they look to be severe underdogs going into the series despite a strong performance against Pakistan A in their warm up game. While looking at the scorecard, there was one thing that struck me, three batsmen faced over 200 balls. This may sound silly, but an often-used tactic to ensure all batsman get time in the middle is to retire players, yet Mitchell Marsh constructed a mammoth 162 from 298 balls.

This prompted me to do some research into previous warm up games, and how England prepare for overseas series. Converting 50s into 100s has long been a problem for England, with under 20% of fifty-plus scores going on to make centuries, and any cricket fan will appreciate the issues Joe Root has had in recent times. On tours to places like Australia and India, 50s don’t win you games and it is partially down to issues with preparation.

When looking back on England’s warm up fixtures for recent tours I found countless examples of lacklustre retirements. During our own tour of the UAE in 2015/16, Joe Root retired on 59 in the first warm up game, while Ian Bell retired on 53 in the following fixture. How does this effectively prepare a player to bat for a long period of time? In conditions as hostile as the UAE it would make far more sense to take the Australian approach and have players acclimatise to building long innings, particularly two vital batsmen such as Bell and Root.

The pattern continues further during England’s tour of Bangladesh and India in 2016. In the final warm up game both Haseeb Hameed and Ben Duckett were retired on 57 and 60 respectively, Duckett only facing 63 balls in his innings. For two players who were new potential openers, what better way to boost confidence than to allow them to score a hundred? While it would naturally hinder opportunities for batsmen lower down the order, runs at the top of the order have consistently been England’s problem for the last few years.

At a time when England will be looking to improve their truly shocking conversion ratio during a long winter of touring, they should take a leaf out of Australia’s book by allowing players to make big runs during warm up games. For new players like Burns, Pope and even Denly, scoring big runs in the tour matches prior to the Sri Lanka series would provide invaluable confidence to help them settle into the England team and adjust to conditions.

While of course my theory requires a batsman to go out and make a hundred, which is no easy feat in subcontinental conditions, I can only hope that when we line up against the Sri Lanka Board XI in two warm ups games we don’t see 50 and out retirements, but England practising the art of building long innings. England will only stand a chance in the test series if they can master batting long periods of time and converting 50s into big hundreds, and taking note of Australia’s approach may be the best way to go about that.