Do Believe the Hype

I recently looked at some TV listings from the summer of 1994. The BBC were still covering Test cricket then and it seemed impossible to imagine anyone else doing so. The day in the autumn of 1998 when it was announced that the broadcasting rights for home Test matches had been awarded to Channel Four was still years away and everything bumbled along as it had since Bob Willis was a boy. It was the natural state of affairs.

On the morning of a Test match day coverage began at 10.55, usually just in time to see the umpires walk out. Every hour they would cut away to a news bulletin which was nearly always exactly the same as it had been an hour earlier. On many an occasion coverage was interrupted to allow other sporting events to be shown, the most memorable (for all the wrong reasons) being the time a minor horse race (to me all horse races are minor, but we'll leave my prejudices to one side) was deemed more important than the fact that Graham Gooch was 299 not out and about to score the first triple century in English Test cricket since 1965.

Now we have Sky. Coverage begins an hour before play starts to allow enough time for the revolving cast of ex-Test players to cogitate, to speculate, to fulminate and occasionally (with tongue firmly in cheek, for the party line demands that the day's play which is about to commence is sure to be the greatest day in the history of cricket), to reminisce.

Nothing is ever underhyped. Over-analysis is all. Occasionally, shafts of reality intrude.

This time, though, the start of the series has lived up to the advance billing, with much of what has happened being beyond prediction or rational assessment.

The sun shone and temperatures rose in a way which anyone who has lived through the last few British summers could have been forgiven for wondering would ever happen again. The tempo of the match soared and dipped like a swallow riding the breeze.

While England, ultimately victorious, still look the more versatile and experienced of the two sides, the game had the feel of the type of tight, resonant Ashes contest which was familiar down the years and decades which preceded Australia's era of dominance and the crash which followed. The feeling is that there is more, much more, to come.

For all Ian Bell's timely judgement, the mature Anderson's now-routine brilliance and the arguments over Stuart Broad and DRS, the game's most significant story may just have been Agar. People - understandably getting carried away - mentioned Sobers and Lara, but for me the most apposite comparison was with the young Yuvraj Singh, batting in the Champions Trophy in Kenya in 2000. Youth, flamboyance, a backlift for the gods and, with his maturity and vivacity, a stunning future. His bowling, with its loose-limbed echoes of Daniel Vettori, carries plenty of promise, but his batting is of a different hue. When Sobers made his Test debut for the West Indies against England at Sabina Park in early 1954 he batted at nine and bowled slow left-arm. Expect to see Agar much higher in Australia's order in the future.

As ever, as one career begins to flourish, another one, somewhere, comes to a conclusion, and, as Agar was settling in at Trent Bridge, Ricky Ponting was bringing the curtain down on his time in the game with an innings of 169 not out at The Oval. If Agar, with his fresh-faced teenage insouciance, represents the future of the Australian side, Ponting signifies its hard-nosed but peerlessly successful past. Jon Hotten, The Old Batsman, a writer with many of the qualities of Ponting's greatest days, described it in a way few could match.

We knew Ponting. We now know Agar. We know Anderson, and Bell, and Cook. We are in this for the long haul.

My train for London leaves at 6.52 on Thursday morning.

Fading Motivation

With time fading for England in the World Cup in a familiar manner, it's impossible to be certain about what's behind their rank inconsistency. However, as it can't be attributed to lack of technical ability, or, these days, to one-day international inexperience, I fall firmly within the camp which - as Simon Hughes exemplified in the Telegraph last week - puts the variable nature of their form down to the brutal and unforgiving nature of their recent itinerary.

You will never get any of them to admit it in public, but, for those players involved, the summit of their winter's achievements - in some cases of their entire careers - came in Sydney on 7th January. Perhaps uniquely now, Test cricket, especially against Australia, means more to the average English player (and follower), than a one-day international competition ever will, even if it's the World Cup. And if you've only spent a handful of days at home since the autumn, the type of iron motivation you need when the likes of Ireland and Bangladesh come gunning for you is going to be even harder to summon.

However, as both the Indian and South African games showed, even a weary and reduced team can produce the goods when it's really threatened, so, with one qualifying game to go, salvation and a passage to the quarters is well within their grasp.

Unlike Ireland, though, they might want to think about how they bowl to Kieron Pollard...

An Englishman in Nagpur

The shocking form of Jimmy Anderson and the more prolonged decline of Kevin Pietersen may be symptomatic of their reduced levels of desire, although it seems certain, at least in Pietersen's case, that there's something more complex going on. This is something to be examined at greater length another day.

One Englishman at the World Cup who certainly won't be struggling for motivation is Ian Gould. After a long career in the English county game, Gould failed to make an impression as a coach and said a while back that becoming a first-class umpire was the best thing he'd ever done. He's a sharp, proficient official with a businesslike but avuncular manner that seems to create a good rapport with all the players he comes into contact with.

Yesterday he was standing at square leg as Sachin Tendulkar sent one of the most sublime straight drives that even he has surely ever hit back past Morne Morkel to move from 14 to 18.

Even from the viewpoint of a gorgeous Spring morning in England, it would have been a privilege just to be at Nagpur. To be on the field and play a part, when your playing days are far behind you, must be just about as good as it gets.

All You Need to Know

Ricky Ponting comes to the crease. He has won the toss for his side and chosen to bat, but, in the first over of the match, they have already lost a wicket and are yet to score a single run.

Jimmy Anderson pitches the ball up, compelling Ponting to play forward. He does so, hurriedly, and the ball moves just enough to take the outside edge of his bat. Graeme Swann, at second slip, makes a difficult catch look profoundly easy.

This single delivery, one of 521 bowled in the day, tells you all you need to know about the relative strengths of the two sides.

God, England look good.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble

The news that Jimmy Anderson cracked a rib during England's 'boot camp' about a month ago was as depressing as it was belated.

It's about time the sainted Mr. Flower realised that:

A. There's no need for England to imitate what Australia do any more. Australia aren't very good.

B. Cricketers training for cricket by doing other sports they're no good at - football, boxing - tend to get injured. Best just to leave them playing cricket.

C. Players who've been playing and travelling together for months on end don't need to 'bond'. They need to bond with their friends and family instead.

D. If you do insist on cricketers fighting each other, think about matching people according to height and weight. According to a good source (Michael Vaughan) Anderson was boxing Chris Tremlett, who, for all his famed lack of aggression, is a huge bloke.

No wonder someone got hurt.

Go Back To What You First Thought Of. And Ignore It.

On balance, it's probably a good thing that I didn't write what I was thinking of writing before the Trent Bridge Test began, namely that Jimmy Anderson 'needed a big performance'. I've learnt from experience that the immutable Law of Sod as applied to blogging means that as soon as you write something like that it's rendered redundant by events which, in retrospect, have a terrible inevitability about them.

With this in mind, I won't be writing anything similar about Kevin Pietersen (for a week or two, anyway).

I'm not too sure about the Pakistan team, though. They, with bat and in the field at least, are really struggling. And I'm not sure that they're capable of proving me wrong.

Stick to What You're Good At

English cricketers like football. Indeed, there was a time a few years ago when it started to seem as though most of them liked it more than cricket. I remember one or two (Michael Vaughan was certainly one) giving the distinct impression that they were only playing cricket for a living because they weren't good enough at the game with a bigger ball. When Freddie Flintoff pointed out that his famous shirt-wheeling celebration in India in 2002 wasn't influenced by football celebrations because he wasn't all that interested in the game, it came as a refreshing change.

So far so harmless, but, like most people with half a brain, I can see that there's no valid reason for international cricketers to warm up by playing football. Injuries, whether serious or not, are an inevitable and demonstrable consequence (just ask Mark Wagh or Jimmy Anderson or Joe Denly), and, as Tuesday night's events at Old Trafford showed, international cricketers never want to put themselves in a position in which they can get injured. Sure, it may be less 'boring' than just running around the ground, but in the general scheme of things I can't see that as a problem. If any of the players had to step out of their bubble and do an ordinary job for a day or two they'd know all about boredom (although I, of course, love my job and am never bored (ha ha)).

I've ranted about this before, and it's clearly one of those subjects that brings the old colonel out in all of us, including Mike Atherton and, more satirically, The Old Batsman.

Strauss made some noises last night which indicated that England may start to re-consider, and it's about time they did, before someone's career is ended by a pre-match kickabout.

Best stick to what you're good at, lads (or something like that).

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.

Always in Control

I watched the latter stages of the Cardiff rearguard on the clubhouse television at the County Ground in Taunton. A relatively small, tense, occasionally ribald crowd counted the overs down until the draw which England never looked like getting or deserving had been achieved.

For me what stood out wasn't the iron will of Paul Collingwood - this is now a commonplace - or the unlikely straight-bat poise of Monty (aided by Ponting's strange use of his bowlers at the end), or the guts of Graeme Swann. It was Jimmy Anderson.

Clearly he's been working hard on his batting - he's always had ability but suffered through never having served a long county apprenticeship - but the key to what happened yesterday is the increased assertiveness which he's developed as a result of the way in which his bowling has come on over the last year. Despite the circumstances he always looked in control, and, in retrospect, you could find yourself thinking that the outcome was never in doubt.

England go to Lord's level and I'll be there. I doubt if Monty will, but what he was involved in yesterday will be a memory he can fall back on in times to come.

Let's hope it helps him to rediscover some of what his bowling's lost.

Jimmy Jimmy

Whatever happens at The Oval - and with some decent breaks in the weekend weather they ought to win - the post mortems on England's home Test season will soon be under way.

There'll be a few ticks in the minus column but one definite plus has to be the form and consistency shown by James Anderson, who finally, finally, seems to be growing into his role as an international seam bowler.

His over to, and dismissal of, Graeme Smith this evening was a beautiful example of how far he's come. While always a natural swinger of the ball, for a long time Anderson only seemed capable of moving it in one direction, and his effectiveness was further reduced by his regular failure to maintain a consistent line, length and seam position. Here, though, we had him setting up Smith with a series of away-swingers to the left-hander before nailing him stone dead lbw with an inswinger which Smith, having been moved across his stumps by the earlier deliveries, was powerless to resist.

A check of the replay revealed that the position of the ball's seam was perfect; in an age of reverse swing, this was the conventional article at its good old-fashioned deadly best.

For Anderson it seems as though the years of flitting in and out of the side and travelling the world in search of a regular game are over, and, with his improved batting and brilliant fielding, he's starting to look, whisper it, like someone who really belongs in the side.

For a bowler of his type India and the West Indies this winter will prove tough assignments, but he's now sure to be there, and I, for one, will be happy to see him.

Calling The Shots (Badly)

I was chatting to my mate Alan over breakfast in Worcester last weekend and we decided that Steve Harmison's Test career was probably over. We also still had our doubts about Jimmy Anderson, and I favoured a return to Matthew Hoggard.

Since then Harmison's taken a hat-trick and a six-for, and Anderson...well, you know what he's been up to.

On this basis I'd like to predict the demise of both Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood, in the certain knowledge that they'll both hold their places in the side for the first Test against South Africa and then cream the Proteas all over Lord's.

You never know...

Unchanged?

While England deserve plenty of credit for what was a creditable comeback, and, ultimately, a comfortable victory, the questions raised by Tim over at Third Umpire yesterday largely remain. While they saw England to victory soundly enough towards the end yesterday, the form of Bell and especially Collingwood continues to give cause for concern and there are bowling issues that need addressing as well.

I'd be inclined to stick with the batting line-up as it is for Nottingham, with the hope that Bell (the player with more potential than anyone else in the side, in my view) can make some runs when the heat's on. Colly probably just about deserves another go as well, although Ravi Bopara increases the pressure on him with every run he makes in what's been an excellent start to the season.

With regard to the bowling, I'm losing patience with Anderson's inconsistency and would go back to Matthew Hoggard (if fit) or give Tremlett (who did little wrong against India last summer) a go.

I'll be very surprised, though, if England don't go in with a completely unchanged side again.

Predictable

Well, Andrew Flintoff's side strain meant that that the England selectors had a slightly easier job than they would have done. I myself felt that Flintoff ought to be left with Lancashire until the South Africa series, and, while he was clearly bowling very well, his total lack of runs with the bat confirmed my view, and I suspect that some of the panel shared this opinion.

So, the team for Lord's is a fairly predictable one, with both Jimmy Anderson and Matthew Hoggard named, and I wouldn't be surprised if they both play, although, if the exceptional weather continues, conditions might favour Monty a bit more.

Wickets Falling

The sun's shining but wickets are still falling all over the country. Lancashire are bowled out for 140, with Durham's Mark Davies, a bowler who has had fitness issues throughout his career but who takes wickets by the bucketload when he's fit, taking 7 for 33. In reply, Lancashire skittle Durham for 114, with Jimmy Anderson and Freddie Flintoff each taking four wickets.

At Taunton, Somerset are shot out for 126 and Hampshire pass their total with ease, KP making a rapid ton.

James Hildreth is out, second ball, for 0.

Not Losing Sleep

It was rarely easy to see enough of the England-New Zealand series - most of the action took place in the middle of the night here in the UK, and I just can't handle cricket-related sleep deprivation the way I used to - but I saw enough to know that it was an occasionally captivating contest between two relatively mediocre sides. However, the suspicion remains that New Zealand, certainly at Hamilton, played above themselves, while England, at Hamilton and early on in both Wellington and Napier, did just the opposite. Certainly, if England were as good a side as they'd like to think they are (and are probably capable of being) they would have won all three matches without having to lose too much sleep themselves.

In the short term England can congratulate themselves on the way they bowled after the landmark decision to dispense with Hoggard and Harmison was taken. As I've written many times before, Stuart Broad's potential is as outstanding as it is obvious, Sidebottom's resurrection has been remarkable and Monty, despite some shaky days earlier in the winter, still has everything he looked to have in 2006. He needs a bit more - notably in the flight department - but that will come. Anderson, consistent only in his utter inconsistency, remains a problem, and, if anyone's going to allow Hoggard back in it'll be him.

Their batting, despite the multiple late advances in Napier, was often disappointing. Vaughan was poor, Cook underwhelming, Strauss lucky to be there. Pietersen and Bell were largely below their best, although, as his enigmatic career continues to frustate those of us who can't help admiring him, it remains hard to tell what Bell's best really is. The eternally-reassuring Collingwood was often excellent, but he needs to find his way to three figures rather than two. With Broad at eight to extend the tail, he may stand a better chance of doing so in the future.

With Ambrose it's still much too early to tell. He'll start the home series against New Zealand as the man in possession, but let's see where we are when both the Kiwis and the Proteas have come and gone.

For New Zealand, despite the emergence of Taylor and Southee, things look increasingly gloomy. With Fleming's name added to the long list of players they've lost over the last year, their spring trip to these shores is likely to prove a difficult assignment.

These were two sides who were more evenly matched than they ought to have been, and the series was all the better for it. However, if England, with home advantage, don't pull away from New Zealand with ease over here, some serious, and worrying, questions will have to be asked.

Bloody Stupid

So, after a solid day's batting, England are in the box seat and should wrap up a victory in Wellington over the next couple of days.

But then comes the news that James Anderson has injured his ankle 'playing football' and is doubtful for the rest of the game.

News like this makes me come over all Fred Trueman. Why the hell do modern players persist in warming up and warming down by playing football and touch rugby when there are numerous examples of players being injured while doing so, in some cases (Mark Wagh) leading to them missing entire seasons?

I just don't know what's going off out there...

Streak Bowler

Two days gone at the Basin Reserve and England, unusually, hold all the aces. However, I'm not going to say anything at all about Tim Ambrose, as:

1. I haven't seen enough live action over the two Tests so far (most of it taking place when I need to sleep) to make any sort of judgement about his keeping.

AND

2. Although he made an excellent ton I seem to remember a keeper called Prior doing the same less than a year ago and what's he doing now?

I'm going to reserve judgement, but the early signs are good; if nothing else he seems a bit less fond of the sound of his own sledging than Prior and that can't be bad.

Jimmy Anderson is different. Everybody's known what he's been capable of since a certain day at Newlands in March 2003, but all the evidence is that he remains a streak bowler. Capable of lacerating any batting line-up when the force is with him but depressingly tame and ineffectual when it's not. After the naive and counter-productive decision to let him bowl himself into form in the New Zealand State Championship, he's hit the ground running this time, his confidence probably bolstered a bit by the fact that he'd been chosen ahead of two far more experienced bowlers on merit.

We've been this way before - most recently in the second half of last summer - and Anderson's challenge now, as usual, is to maintain his form and his place in the side.

Andrew Miller, who has the great advantage over me of actually being there, sums things up well here.

Not the IPL

Two cracking ODIs in the last couple of days, all or some of which have found their way on to my television screen. As always, the utter mastery of Kumar Sangakkara (well on the way to establishing himself as the greatest batsman Sri Lanka has produced) and the more fragile genius of Yuvraj stood out yesterday, with India eventually coming out on top in Adelaide.

Today England and New Zealand fought each other to a standstill in their tie at McLean Park in Napier, with Jamie How's 139 and the brilliant fielding of James Anderson (the best of any England bowler I've ever seen) the icing on a particularly rich cake.

With the current incessant talk about the IPL, these games were a timely reminder that notable events still sometimes occur on the field of play, and in games where the sides get fifty overs to bat rather than a mere twenty.

Bopara and Shah

I haven't been posting much recently, for which apologies. Something to do with spending time rearranging my house, standing on a freezing touchline watching thirty public schoolboys attempt - and largely fail - to play rugby and toasting the past cricket season over several pints of Otter and some food with some mates from my club.

During the past few days, when I've been in, I've had the first India-Pakistan Test on, but never managed to watch much of it, which meant that I was left with a pretty sketchy idea of what went on. It was good to see Munaf back, even if he didn't pull up any trees, and there was penetration with ball and bat from Kumble, Laxman, Ganguly and Jaffer. India looked worthy winners of a tight contest, which augurs well for the rest of the rubber.

England, meanwhile, continue an uneasy build-up to their first Test in Sri Lanka, with the most interesting sub-plot for me being the contest between Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara for the final batting place. While seeing the merits of both, I always felt that Bopara was likely to nudge in front because of his youth and ability to bowl (if not his 'bowling ability'). Having scored 47 to Shah's 26 today and taken two wickets with the new ball after Harmison and Anderson went lame, you have to feel that the deal is all but done, however high Moores' regard for Shah.

Ravi seems sure to be there, but who (apart from Hoggard and Broad, the most nailed-on debutant for years) will do the rest of the bowling?

A Quiet Classic

In a quiet way, the first Test between England and India at Lord's was a classic. Or at least it looked like that to an English follower starved of competitive Test cricket for most of the summer. The unique brilliance of Shivnarine Chanderpaul can only take a series so far, and it was good to see England back in a battle. A battle in which they won most of the minor skirmishes and very nearly the whole damn thing.

There's simply no getting away from the fact that England look a more positive, united and vibrant team whenever they're led on to the field by Michael Vaughan. And, with the skipper himself refreshed as a result of his extended injury layoff and showing the type of judgement, command and tactical acumen which used to be second nature, they're even better. With a series of bowlers who can all hit the cut strip with regularity and move the ball at will in their different ways, they're better still.

With those bases covered, all you need is runs. They were largely provided by a watchful, often hesitant but deserving Andrew Strauss, the renewed elegance of Michael Vaughan, and Kevin Pietersen, who, in typical fashion, progressed through the gears to the point of total command after lunch on Sunday.

England's bowlers performed with relaxed penetration. It's no more than you expect from Sidebottom and Panesar now, but it was great to see Jimmy Anderson deliver his most complete performance in an England shirt and Chris Tremlett, whose unexpected selection ahead of Stuart Broad almost had me choking on my hotel breakfast on the first morning, justified his place and dropped a few hints for the future.

India started poorly with the ball in favourable conditions on Thursday but turned things around after Friday morning's monsoon. Zaheer hinted at his Worcester form, Sreesanth ran in hard and gained a few rewards from Steve Bucknor, and RP Singh looked like a bit of a find. Runs were harder to come by though, with only Karthik and Dhoni, in the second innings, really doing themselves justice. Dravid was unusually anonymous (but will surely come back fighting), Tendulkar lacked authority (and the jury is out on whether he can find it again), Ganguly flashed with bat and mouth but never suggested permanence, and Laxman's footwork and demeanour looked a bit too diffident for his own good.

England deserved to win and were unlucky not to get the chance to finish the job, although, if they could have stirred themselves to bowl their overs a bit more quickly yesterday morning they'd probably have wrapped the game up way before the rain came. I see from Cricinfo that the otherwise admirable Peter Moores is trying to justify England's slow over-rate by reference to the need for meticulous field-placing. That's as maybe, but they could do a lot better by cutting out their latest piece of modish fielding nonsense which appears to be to throw the ball to the wicket-keeper from anywhere on the field, regardless of whether there's any point to it. If the batsman hits the ball to mid-off and is not attempting a run, then why doesn't the mid-off fielder just throw the ball straight back to the bowler, rather than hurling it to Matt Prior and then getting it back about thirty seconds later via one of the slips (usually Strauss)? Talking of which, I don't think one of the slips (usually Strauss at Lord's again) needs to polish the ball on his backside until his trousers are virtually worn away after every ball. Fifteen overs an hour should be relatively straightforward whoever's bowling, and might show that the players have given some thought to the fact that people have actually paid money to watch them play and have the right to expect to see ninety overs in a day.

India look to be going in the right direction with the ball but will need more runs from all parts of the order if they're going to threaten England at Nottingham and The Oval. And it's up to SRT to show that reports of his imminent demise are greatly exaggerated.