Everything's Fine (unless you're KP)

As usual, after England have done something few people expected them to, everyone's views on the topics of the moment appear to have changed. Ian Bell is a master batsman, and his place in the side can never be doubted again, while KP may be finished, owing to a combination of off-field distractions ('lack of hunger' some people call it) and dodgy technique.

This is rubbish. I've always liked Ian Bell, but, by Centurion, I'd started to doubt. Since then he's batted very well, and, most importantly, he did so in Cape Town under intense pressure, but more is needed for a lasting judgement to be made

KP will come good again. Don't worry, and, if you are, just dig out recordings of some of his finest innings for England (The Oval 2005 should do it). He might have been out cheaply a few times recently but he really can bat.

The only things everyone can agree on are that Paul Collingwood's one hell of a tough bugger, and for someone who can't really bat, Graham Onions has batted quite well in some difficult situations recently.

I hope he isn't required at the Wanderers, though.

Generosity of Spirit

I didn't see much of the first Test live. Work, pre-Christmas socializing and a trip to Plymouth for a local rugby argument took care of that. But then sheltering from the snow on Plymouth Hoe as de Villiers and Amla built South Africa's lead in slightly warmer conditions thousands of miles away had a certain attraction to it, and it'll certainly stick in the memory.

I was around for the denouement yesterday, though, and the main thing which stuck in my memory from that was Graeme Smith's decision to give Ntini the last over. While admiring Smith's generosity towards a fine man whose status as a cricketing icon for modern South Africa has been rightly pronounced all over the world's media these past few weeks, surely keeping the impressive Friedel de Wet on would have given South Africa a better chance of taking the one wicket they needed to complete an improbable win.

As it is, Ntini couldn't get past the middle of Graham Onions's bat, and, unless the South African selectors are as generous as Smith, that over may well be the last he ever bowls in Test cricket.

Steyn at one end and de Wet at the other in Durban? You wouldn't exactly be queing up to bat, even if you were in better form than Ian Bell and Alastair Cook.

Always There

I spent yesterday watching Somerset, with Justin Langer and Craig Kieswetter to the fore, build a decent total against Nottinghamshire on a typically easy Taunton track, but the Test was always there in the background, buzzing around like one of the many bees which spent the day alighting on the newly-planted flowers on Gimblett's Hill.

England did what they had to do and ended the day in a position of strength. Jimmy Anderson was truly superb, his control of swing as good if not better than anyone else currently operating in world cricket, and Graham Onions, who laid the foundations for England's success with his two early strikes, showed what a useful addition to the side he can be, especially in English conditions.

Weather permitting England will look to build today, but they need to take care; wickets can fall in bunches in Test cricket.

Just ask Australia.

Pear Shaped

Overall, the England selectors haven't come up with a bad series of selections ahead of the Ashes. There was no logical way to select Vaughan (so it's slightly surprising that they didn't), and, as I thought, Onions is a bit ahead of Harmison, although Ashington's finest has an opportunity to state his case at Worcester next week.

However, no announcement of this type is complete without a little bit of madness, and this time it came in the shape of Vikram Solanki. Someone obviously had the idea that the Lions side had to have at least three Worcestershire players in it to give the locals an incentive to turn up (and if that's true what does it say about the parochialism of county supporters?), and, while Steven Davies and Stephen Moore probably deserve to be there, does Solanki?

A decent, occasionally handsome, batsman, who's in good form. But someone whose unfulfilled ODI career is behind him and who is never, surely, going to play Test cricket. If they felt they really had to have another Worcestershire player then Moeen Ali would have been a better choice.

The only real point to Solanki's selection would seem to be to make Owais Shah aware - if he wasn't already - that his own short Test career is a thing of the past.

Suspension of Doubt

With the World T20 grabbing the headlines it's been easy to overlook the fact that the County Championship has been jogging along in the background for the last couple of weeks.

Durham are top, and both Steve Harmison and Graham Onions have been in the wickets. Patrick, at Line and Length, reflects on some of the questions which their successes pose.

I'm not sure that I agree with Patrick about Harmison being 'too soft' (although he really should be wary of saying things like that with the media around). However, doubts about the clarity of his mentality will never be far from the surface when an England team is about to be chosen and the doubts are perhaps stacked a little higher than the hopes these days.

Onions is the coming man, having bowled well against the inept West Indians, but, more importantly, having carried on taking wickets since. I have a feeling that he's probably a little ahead of Harmison in the running just now.

Elsewhere, while it seems perverse to invoke the example of a Twenty20 tournament when selecting a Test team, the fact that Adil Rashid generally showed up well, coupled with the fact that Panesar continues to struggle for his county, means that the Yorkshireman is surely the front-runner to partner Graeme Swann if England do decide to play two spinners in Cardiff.

The Art of Swing

In a few months' time, even in a few weeks, the England-West Indies Test series which has just concluded will probably have been forgotten by all but those who saw some of the action live. The weather's been cold, the crowds mediocre, the cricket crushingly one-sided.

But it has had its uses. It's emphasized how, even allowing for the fact that they were playing away, England should never have lost the series in the Caribbean to a side that's far inferior. However, a combination of early complacency and poor decision-making saw to that.

It's also shown how, if their form can be maintained, England have the makings of a bowling attack which will at least cause the odd furrowed brow in Australian ranks. Stuart Broad, all aggression and thoughtfulness, continues to improve and will do so well beyond this summer. Swann offers a decent spin option and plenty more in terms of fielding, batting and spirit. Onions (as a few people have said, just the tiniest bit reminiscent of Glenn McGrath) shows plenty to work with, while Tim Bresnan, who belatedly got into the wickets yesterday, looks likely to stick around the selectors' thoughts, if not in their first choice eleven. With Freddie and Monty also hopefully coming back into contention, form and fitness permitting, things look okay.

I deliberately haven't mentioned Jimmy Anderson, who now shows all the signs of finally growing into the bowler he looked like being when he took those wickets in Cape Town all those years ago. Okay, knocking over the likes of Taylor and Benn in yesterday's conditions was like flattening skittles with a lead weight, but this was a display of artfully controlled swing bowling the like of which we've seldom seen in recent years, other than from Anderson himself. The conditions are unlikely to suit him as much later in the summer but if he can produce similar form when the Australians are here he could do some serious damage.

Test Squad Thoughts

In general I'm happy to go along with what most people have said about the England squad for the first Test. It certainly carries Andy Flower's stamp, and I'm pleased to see Tim Bresnan and Graham Onions given a go. Onions certainly looked the part while bowling out Somerset yesterday.

Ravi Bopara also deserves his start at No.3 - Bell and Vaughan need to do more (in Vaughan's case much more) and Shah, sadly, didn't look the part in the West Indies.

I'm not sure how much I'm going to hear about the game as I'm heading off to Scotland on holiday tomorrow morning and should be somewhere on the Isle of Skye by the time it starts next Wednesday, but I'll try to stay in touch.

I'll be blogging again in mid-May.

Hampshire Hammered

It was good to see Durham, the newest English first-class county, and one which brings through more than its fair share of good young players in this era of reliance on Kolpak players, win their first major trophy with a hammering of Hampshire in the final of the Friends Provident Trophy at Lord's.

You wouldn't want to single out anyone in particular, but Shiv Chanderpaul was his usual one-day self - taciturn, enterprising, fluent, often brilliant - and another West Indian veteran, Ottis Gibson, really set the victory up when he took wickets with the first two balls of the Hampshire innings in the Saturday afternoon gloom.

The local heroes included Paul Collingwood, Liam Plunkett, Neil Killeen and Graham Onions, all of whom have been around for a while and have received their share of recognition at one level or another. And then there was the young wicket-keeper batsman Phil Mustard, who set their innings on its way with a belligerent top-order 49 and then kept excellently as the screw was turned in the field.

It was also great to watch and listen to the interviews which Gibson gave to Sky and TMS before play this morning; full of personal reminiscences about growing up in Barbados, Malcolm Marshall, what happened to West Indies cricket and his feeling of needing to go on proving himself because he never made a go of international cricket.

Quite a guy, quite a club.

Attrition

An interesting article in The Times by Christopher Martin-Jenkins, arguing that no other country currently has as much young seam bowling talent as England.

I like Plunkett (but he's still got plenty to do); Anderson, when fit, looks to be getting back to where he was a few years ago; Mahmood continues to look unconvincing to me and I've hardly seen Onions. I have, however, seen plenty of Stuart Broad, who could be the best of the lot.

CMJ may be right, but, given the historic attrition rate among young English seamers, it'll be interesting to see where all these bowlers are in five years' time.