Endings

For year upon cricket year, Mark Boucher's scowling presence was synonymous with the South African side. The importance of his contributions varied but he was simply always there, and his team will, in the short term, be physically and psychologically diminished by his absence.

With his great friend Jacques Kallis, Boucher was one of the last two survivors of the Hansie Cronje era and an integral figure in the re-establishment of South African cricket in the years which followed his captain's fall. His qualities weren't showy, or elaborate, or refined, but they were genuine and vital: grit and bristling determination, allied to the valuable ability to take catches or make runs when the pressure was at its most intense.

The Lord's farewell will not be his; nor will 150 Tests or 1000 international dismissals. But these are personal and statistical milestones. For those who were around, the memories of his contribution to a fluctuating team in a changing era will take a very long time to fade.

Like Tatenda Taibu, his African keeping compatriot, who left the game in happier circumstances this week, he was a cricketer of resilience and some brilliance, even if, because he was lucky enough to have been born in 1976 rather than 1956, his career wasn't blighted by politics in the way that Taibu's was.

Limping out of an ODI in Durham probably wasn't how Brett Lee saw his international career ending either. With him, though, the memories are more vivid: the first time I can remember seeing him he was bowling to Mervyn Dillon on a Perth flier, his visceral speed awakening distant memories of Jeff Thomson. Scroll on a few years and he is bowling from the Pavilion End at Lord's in July 2005. At the start of his narrow-hipped run he leans forward like a sprinter before hurling himself at the crease with the smoothness of a thoroughbred. If anyone with fewer athletic gifts tried to do the same they would look clumsy and unbalanced, but Lee never does. Through the crease the sense of grace and incipient ball speed is so pronounced that people in the crowd find themselves catching their breath in with an involuntary sharpness that shocks them. Raw athleticism can do that to people.

A few weeks later he is bowling to Andrew Flintoff as England chase a modest target to win the Trent Bridge Test. Lee brings one back in at high pace to beat Flintoff's clumsy, defeated stroke, and the ball hits the top of the stumps. Lee spreads his arms to acclaim his triumph as England's hero of heroes shuffles off.

A few weeks later still in the greatest summer he is fielding on the boundary as England steadily bat his side out of game and series on the last day at The Oval. In the morning he has given everything, almost poleaxing Pietersen with one of the most fearsome deliveries anyone present has seen in years and also having him dropped at slip by Shane Warne. After lunch he has seen Pietersen repeatedly hit him over and through the leg side, leaving his fellow fast bowler, Shaun Tait, scrambling in the dirt at deep square leg.

From my vantage point high up in front of the gasholders, I can see that Lee is smiling and laughing with the crowd, even though the Ashes are slipping away. He has done the same for much of the summer, earning the respect of everyone for his warmth and humanity. It will be something he will never lose, even as his team declines.

He is everyone's favourite Australian.

When the Music Stops

Ricky Thomas Ponting is, in more ways than you can count, a typical Australian Test cricketer. Indeed, he embodies the emotional makeup of virtually any successful professional sportsman. He doesn't do sentiment, or regret, or wistfulness. Such feelings are the privilege of the retired player, who can afford to look back at his career in anger, sorrow or pride with the certain knowledge that it can't blunt the sharpness of the competitive response that's vital for survival at the highest level of the game.

But Ponting wouldn't be human if he didn't reflect a little on the way things have changed for Australia in recent times. This is a man who's played nearly all his career in a team without peer; for much of that time he has been its leader and its best batsman. Now, as the autumn of his own great career draws in, he finds himself in charge of a team which just can't do what it used to. He knows it, his team-mates know it, and now other teams know it too.

Ponting said back in the English summer that he was relishing the different challenges that captaining a lesser side presented. I've no doubt he meant what he said at the time, but that was before they were beaten by Pakistan at Headingley; their two recent defeats, the second ultimately comfortable, to India have nailed the coffin lid shut on the invincible years. The music has stopped, and Ponting is still holding the parcel. The only trouble is that he doesn't know what to do with it.

While the batting is still respectable, it is far, far more vulnerable than it ever used to be, and his attack is too dependent on a spinner he doesn't trust and a quickie so erratic that it would be a shock if he really trusted himself. For all the optimism, promise and doggedness of Watson, George and Hilfenhaus, they're just not good enough to carry an attack, especially in unfamiliar conditions. There are alternatives - Bollinger, Siddle, Lee, Smith - but nobody capable of intimidating opponents with their sheer excellence in the way that was second nature to Warne and McGrath.

For me the outcome of the Ashes series still appears magnificently uncertain. Home advantage will tell, and, as everyone knows, Australians are never beaten. England's batting is a concern, but they will have seen nothing whatever to worry them over the past two weeks.

For every uncertainty, though, there is a certainty. While today's outstanding innings was Cheteshwar Pujara's first fifty for India, it sure as hell won't be his last.

Everyone's Favourite Australian

For all his 310 Test wickets, Brett Lee was a bowler who never quite fulfilled his potential. For, as a younger bowler, he had most everything needed to cut a swathe through the world's batting: the athletic, innately rhythmical action, the searing pace, and, in the right conditions, the ability to do unusual things with the ball. He probably should have been the next great Australian fast bowling hero, but the consistent excellence of McGrath and Gillespie, together with the later litany of injuries which has finished his Test career, cost him some of the plaudits which should have been his.

From an English viewpoint memories of Lee will always centre on 2005. Tearing in from the Pavilion End on the first afternoon at Lord's after Australia had been bowled out cheaply, vainly attempting to win the closest of matches at Edgbaston, nailing Flintoff as England's chase faltered at Trent Bridge and terrorising Pietersen on the last day at The Oval in a spell which touched heights of pace and aggression unseen on an English ground since the days when the West Indies pace attack stalked the earth.

And then there was the fact that he always seemed to be smiling, his demeanour embodying a warmth, sincerity and quiet charisma which I think made him as popular in England as any Australian cricketer in the thirty-plus years that I've been watching the game. Many Australian cricketers have achieved grudging respect in this country, but this was something different.

When it comes to genuine pace, two bowlers from the past twenty years or so stand out in the tableau of the mind: Lee and Shoaib Akhtar. With Shoaib never likely to recapture his best form, it'll be good to have Lee around for a while longer in the limited-overs arena, where he has often done his best work.

The incessantly demanding modern game mitigates against fast bowling excellence. As time passes, bowlers like Lee are going to become rarer and rarer. And, where they do break through, they surely won't smile as much.

Enjoy him while you can.

Nicely Poised

With the last-day Edgbaston stalemate starting to fade from the memory and eyes turning to Headingley via the current (very shaky) state of Andrew Flintoff's fitness, the Ashes series looks nicely poised. England are ahead on points and look the more potent side, at least as far as bowling in helpful conditions is concerned. However, as more than one person elsewhere has pointed out, when the ball isn't doing a lot, Australia have the batsmen to cash in big, something exemplified by North and the sublimely orthodox Clarke on Monday.

With the ball Australia don't quite have it and it remains to be seen whether they have the faith in Lee's fitness or Clark's ability to make the changes they surely need.

As Matthew Hoggard helpfully reminded people on the radio here in the UK last night, the Headingley pitch isn't the seamers' paradise it once was, and The Oval is never anything other than a batsman's track (although it will reward you if you bowl well on it), so taking another forty England wickets over the next couple of weeks isn't going to prove easy.

If you want to see them try to do it, it may be worth going along to here, where you can get a voucher which'll entitle you to 5% off Ashes tickets bought here.

Mind you, having seen some of the prices people are charging, you'll need it.

Looking Forward

One side which, on the basis of its recent performances, would find it very hard to be arrogant would be the West Indies. But this is a form of the game which they can play, and, more importantly, they really want to play.

It might not lead to much, but if you wanted to view the ball sailing off Chris Gayle's bat and into the road outside The Oval as a metaphor for their chances in the competition, you could easily be forgiven for doing so.

Whatever happens - and I found Brett Lee's customary sportsmanship in the face of Gayle's assault as attractive as any of Gayle's shots - I think this is going to be a great couple of weeks for the game.

Crisis Mentality

I haven't been posting much since the English international season ended in August. It's partly been a product of the desire to do other things after more than two years of crazed writing, partly because there didn't seem to be that much happening, and partly as a result of the type of existential crisis which any blogger can face if he (or indeed she) isn't getting many comments.

However, I'm back, and so too is Test cricket, with Australia and India, both of whom seem as though they might be on the edge of their very own existentialist crisis, gearing up for what promises to be an excellent four Test series.

Australia's issues in the spin department are well-known: with Warne and MacGill firmly consigned to the past, one wouldn't much like to be in the shoes of Jason Krejza or Cameron White over the next few weeks, although, as any Somerset fan will tell you, White could well biff some good runs to make up for any wickets he fails to take. And the lack of either of the two leggies in turn puts additional pressure on the occupants of the seam-bowling berths - sure, Lee, Clark and (possibly) Johnson are big enough to cope, but in India? Well, it'll be a good deal tougher than at home, that's for sure.

With the bat the onus will be on Hayden, Ponting, Clarke and Hussey. Their stats are great (as is the power of understatement), but you just never know; Hayden is getting old, Ponting's never made a run in India, Clarke's been ill and Hussey surely has to have a run of failures sometime. Which could mean that it'll be down to Brad Haddin to chip away further down and prove that he's just a little bit worthy of Gilchrist's mantle.

India, despite defeat in their last series, look slightly more settled and, with home advantage, should be narrow favourites. Although, with Ganguly becoming the first of the middle order to jump ship, it remains to be seen whether his decision is an inspiration or a hindrance, both to him and his colleagues. With the ball I reckon that Kumble and Bhajji will fancy their chances, as will Ishant and Zaheer.

So, for the first time this winter, it'll be a worryingly early start with Charlie Colvile, Ian Ward or whoever else Sky put up. And even if the dreaded Colvile is there,the cricket promises to be great.

But one thing worries the hell out of me. Will anybody be watching at the ground?

Throwback

A day's Test cricket yesterday, in two very different parts of the world, which was, in many ways, a throwback to earlier times. On the one hand you had a previously unconsidered Kiwi seamer (no offence, Mr.O'Brien) making life difficult for England (with obvious assistance from his captain) after England's own insipid efforts in the field had matched the slackness of the Kiwis' running. England were also pasted all over the field by a young batsman of unmistakeable promise and class; it's hard to believe now that only a few months ago good New Zealand judges were wondering whether Ross Taylor was going to be any more than a one-day player.

On the other, in Kingston, you had everything going off: Shiv Chanderpaul gets knocked unconscious by a Brett Lee bouncer but gets up to record yet another century and then watches from the field as Edwards and Powell leave Australia rocking at a close score of 17 for 4.

So, just like old times. England struggling, West Indies fast bowlers creating mayhem and reverse swing the king. For all the brilliance of Taylor and Chanderpaul's heroics (how many batsmen have ever sold their wicket more dearly?), the highlight of the day for me was the delivery from Brett Lee which shattered Daren Powell's stumps as the West Indian innings declined.

At about 90 miles an hour it started to reverse in the last third of its flight before torpedoing Powell's middle and leg stumps. Far better players than Powell would have stood no chance at all, and for an instant I felt as though I was right back in the 1990s, with Waqar Younis persecuting a range of helpless England batsmen (Graeme Hick at Lord's, 1996, came to mind immediately).

Bloody magnificent.

Exemplary

While the live issue of the week is the World Twenty20, I can't offer much in the way of comment as I've seen hardly any of it. The only exception was the conclusion of Zimbabwe's successful run-chase against Australia a few days ago and what came after it, when Brett Lee once more enhanced his reputation as the cricket world's greatest sportsman by smiling broadly and shaking the hands of each of the Zimbabwe players in turn with what looked, from my perspective, like genuine sincerity and warmth.

While it's easier to take defeat when your team gives the impression that it's yet to really embrace twenty over cricket, Lee's approach is exemplary and charismatic.

I'm looking forward to seeing him back on the cricket grounds of England in 2009 already.

Pace Like Fire

With New Zealand progressing smoothly to the semis at South Africa's expense and England facing the future with uncertainty (Should Fletcher stay or go? Who will be dropped from the Test team to accommodate Vaughan?), it is Shaun Tait who's made the most vivid impression on me these past few days.

I can always remember where and when I saw the best fast bowlers of the past couple of cricketing generations for the first time:

Waqar Younis at Uxbridge, 1990, Shoaib in the World Cup at Bristol, May 1999, Brett Lee at Perth, December 2000. All typifying the sort of raw speed which makes you suck in your breath and wonder (but not too hard) what it's like to face bowling like that from 22 yards away with a stick of wood in your hand.

So it was when I returned from work on Friday to see Shaun Tait ripping out the heart of the Irish batting in Barbados.

If he can get his fluctuating line and length sorted Australia have an interesting and possibly deadly prospect to help their attack adjust to life after McGrath and Warne.

Strange Days Indeed

It was hard to decide which was the stranger and more welcome sight at Hamilton the other night - New Zealand, with Craig McMillan back to his bristlingly confident best in their middle-order, cleaning up Australia for the third time in a row, or Merv Hughes and John Buchanan watching them do it. Both looked studiedly unemotional about it but you wouldn't mind betting that their thoughts weren't a million miles from 'just how many runs do we have to make to win a game against this side?'. 148 at Wellington? Well, you couldn't expect to win with that. But their 336 at Eden Park and 346 at Seddon Park ought really to have been winning totals and would surely have been so in about 98% of the ODIs Australia have played in living memory. Which, as many people have already said, must mean that there's something been going pretty seriously wrong with their bowling.

Okay, for the West Indies they have McGrath and hopefully Lee to return, with Ponting, Gilchrist and Clarke to further bolster the batting. But McGrath's gone round the park on more than one occasion recently and Lee's fitness may well be suspect even if he makes the plane to the Caribbean. Which leaves the likes of the idiosyncratic Brad Hogg, the hot-and-cold Nathan Bracken, the raw and over-estimated Mitchell Johnson, and Shane Watson (really a batsman who can turn his arm over and none too well at that) to carry the attack. Of course, with the peerless Punter and Gilly back you have to feel that runs won't be a problem and the confidence lost in New Zealand will start to return just with their presence. But totals, however big, have to be defended, and, when bowling first, sides have to be restricted. All the signs are that this could continue to be a big issue for Australia, and it's made even more so by the fact that teams all around the world will have witnessed what New Zealand, and, before them, England, have done to Australia over the past few weeks and they'll all fancy a piece of the action themselves.

It's a trite observation to make, but defeats and confidence have a symbiotic relationship; the confidence of sides that suffer defeats goes down, while that of the sides which inflict them goes up.

The World Cup has started to look a whole lot more interesting over the last few weeks - partly because it now appears to be a more open competition and partly because it'll be instructive to see how Australia respond to circumstances which are as alien to them as winning one-day competitions is to England.

My own feeling is that Australia will - as Australian teams always do - take some beating once the business end of the World Cup comes around, but every other major ODI playing country will have their own reasons for optimism.

No Frills

Well, even allowing for their ridiculous team selection (and I'm sure you can guess what I'm referring to), it wasn't a bad day for England. In fact, in the context of the way things have generally been going so far, it was a good one. Especially for one player.

The first time I really paid any attention to Paul Collingwood was during my first - and so far only - visit to the Riverside, in September 2001. Durham were playing Worcestershire and I caught the back end of a Collingwood century. He'd made his ODI debut for England earlier that summer but hadn't achieved much and I wasn't really sure what to make of him. What was clear, however, was how much affection he was held in by the Durham faithful, whose shouts of 'well played Colly' echoed around the broad acres of the new ground.

Of course, I now know a whole lot more about him, as do an increasing number of the world's bowling attacks. And I must hold my hands up and say that as recently as last summer I still had doubts that he was a player of Test quality (with the bat - his peerless fielding is another thing entirely), but those have all gone now. Similarly, before Brisbane I would have joined the ranks of the critics who felt that Pietersen, and not Collingwood, ought to be England's number four.

But then again, what do I know? Steve Waugh always liked the look of him and he, as much as anybody, knows that you don't get any marks for style in Test cricket. With characteristic level-headedness Colly's moved on instantly from his self-destructive dismissal on 96 at the Gabba and made an assured 98* on the first day in Adelaide, which will hopefully be converted into his first Ashes century tomorrow morning. Then he has to go on.

As for the others, neither Strauss nor Cook has properly found his feet yet. This time Strauss looked to be undone by the pitch and Cook by an intense spell of seam bowling from Stuart Clark. Bell was typically sound and was just starting to move up a gear when he skied a return catch to Brett Lee. Pietersen was Pietersen. Hyper-confident, more than a little unorthodox but touched with genius to a greater extent than any England batsman since…well, who? David Gower?

And if we're making historical comparisons, who was the last England player with a similar combination of no-frills technique and ironclad temperament to Collingwood? My money's on David Steele.