Withstanding Late Pressure Is Something You Just Can't Teach

Derek Pringle reflects on tense finales of Tests gone by and explains the rollercoaster of emotions experienced to lead your team home

Nothing beats the drama of a close-run Test match as England’s one-wicket win over Australia at Headingley last week so thrillingly revealed. But is there an art, or science, to winning an arsenipper like that and can teams actually plan for it?

Let’s look at the decision-making of both teams on that last day after the early wicket of Joe Root lifted the Aussies’ expectations of an Ashesretaining win. To get England’s captain before the second new ball, which was due in a few overs time, would have raised morale among England’s opponents though that would have tailed off when the new ball yielded nothing and Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow put on 87 for the fifth wicket.

At that point, which came just after lunch, Tim Paine had his two steadiest bowlers for the conditions operating, Josh Hazlewood and offspinner Nathan Lyon. Between them, they managed to create a little pressure bubble by drying up the prelunch scoring-rate to the point where Bairstow had scored just four in six overs.

While that might not seem like a major shift in the overall pressure dynamics of the situation it forced Bairstow into playing a speculative shot against a ball better left alone. The result was a catch to a grateful Marnus Labuschagne at second slip.

At this point, England needed 114 runs and Australia five wickets. Jos Buttler, dangerous, but low on runs, arrived at the crease. Paine sticks with the same bowlers, who operate the same plan. They keep it tight, especially against Buttler, whose confidence they don’t want to bolster with an early boundary. They succeed, too, Buttler having made one off nine balls when a mix-up with Stokes sees him run out by Travis Head.