Faded Grandeur

If you were thinking about rating the most picturesque arenas in world cricket, Gloucestershire's County Ground, in the mundane suburbs of northern Bristol, would come well down anyone's list. No Cathedral spire to enhance the view, few trees to provide shade from the sun, and, on a warm Tuesday in late June, with the schools still in and the new age of austerity well under way, a scattering of spectators for the second day of a County Championship Division Two game between the home county and Middlesex. An atmosphere heavy with the pervasive air of long faded grandeur, aptly exemplified by the names - undeniably glorious but oh so old - used to distinguish different parts of the ground: Grace, Jessop, Hammond.

Twenty years ago, when a team containing Gatting, Haynes, Ramprakash, Emburey and Tufnell used to dominate the county game, I'd follow Middlesex around the country. The hot summer of 1990 saw me watch them at Derby, at The Oval, at Uxbridge on a killing day when the temperature was nudging thirty degrees by ten in the morning and Jimmy Cook batted long, and, finally, as autumn drew in, winning the title at Hove. A few months later I moved to Devon, and, after some transitional years when I held a torch for the Seaxes, settled for life in the outer at Taunton.

There are still times, though, when you feel like going back.

But the county game has changed for ever and the gap between the two divisions has long since started to bite. At Bristol the county's current side, an uneasy mixture of bitter experience and callow youth, struggled through the day with an insipid combination of bland bowling and often shoddy fielding as two exiled Kiwis, Hamish Marshall and James Franklin, and an under-rated Englishman, Alex Gidman, put them to the sword. In the mid-afternoon heat, with the game rapidly going away from his side, I found myself wondering about the thoughts of Owais Shah; less than a year ago a member of the England side, and now reduced to this.

When we left the game wasn't over, but the next afternoon saw it to a close, Gloucestershire - a moderate side themselves, in truth - winning by ten wickets and condemning Middlesex to the bottom of the table.

Despite some signs of promise in the limited over game, one of the heroes of 1990, Angus Fraser, now the county's Director of Cricket, has a job of work harder than many of his thankless Test spells on his hands if he is to restore the club to its former eminence.

It was that type of day. Throughout the escapist netherworld that is the English county game the resounding echoes of former glories are a commonplace.

Sometimes, though, they resonate just as loudly on the pitch as in the stands.

What a Waste

The omission of Owais Shah from England's one-day squad last week has been quietly bugging me ever since. I had the feeling at the time that I should write something about it, but I wasn't quite sure what, as, where Shah's concerned, I can see both sides. The outstandingly innovative batting, but also the scarily erratic running and sloppy fielding.

Now Rob Smyth has done the job for me.

Some of Smyth's praise is a little too effusive for me, but the central point - that Shah has been very poorly treated by a succession of England regimes - is well made and unarguable.

The classic - and terminally wasteful - English approach of focusing on what someone can't do rather than what they can is at work here, and the feeling you're left with is that with a bit more trust Shah may have blosommed a bit more often and run with a bit more assurance.

ODI centuries by English players have been as rare as hen's teeth since Marcus Trescothick retired, and with a recent hundred under his belt Shah would, perhaps, have proved harder to drop.

He may be reflecting on those missing two runs at Centurion for a very long time.

Eccentric Class

When Darren of The Commentary Position asked me for my Champions Trophy predictions, I didn't hesitate to suggest that England would lose all three of their group games.

Fortunately I was completely, and predictably, wrong, and relished the sight of Shah, Collingwood and the hitherto underestimated Eoin Morgan putting South Africa to the sword yesterday.

It remains to be seen where Colly's Test career goes from here, while Shah's appears finished and Morgan's hasn't started, but in the one-day arena all showed yesterday that they're likely to remain vital cogs in the England 'machine' (not sure that's the right term, really) for a while to come.

With people starting to mutter about his place - and with some of his fielding and running how can you not? - Shah's timely reminder of his huge if somewhat eccentric class was especially welcome. He may often give the impression of a man who's trying to make something which he finds easy look difficult, but he really can bat. While the way in which he started to go into his shell as his hundred approached betrayed the continuing uncertainty of his mentality, 98 made with that degree of dominance and style isn't bad to be going on with, as long as he continues to try to improve his work in the field.

As for the wider reasons for England's resurgence, well, it helps that they're not playing Australia and they're not playing at home. After a long series of defeats a change of opposition usually helps, even if, on paper at least, they're just as good as the last side you faced. And, while the vast majority of England's one-day history has been as barren as the Gobi Desert, their brief periods of plenty - the 1992 World Cup, the 1997 Sharjah tournament, the 2007 Commonwealth Bank Series - have often come away from the capricious conditions and fevered media of home.

Also, England just lost a one-day series 6-1. As another classy eccentric, Bob Dylan, once said, 'when you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose'.

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.

Walking Wisden

It took England from 1969 to 2000 to win back the Wisden Trophy, a prize which, for much of that time, seemed to have passed permanently into the hands of the West Indies. It's taken just a further eight and a half years and four series for it to be lost again, a result which would barely have been foreseen a year ago but which points accurately to where the two sides find themselves in the early months of 2009.

Despite the subsequent conservatism of their approach, West Indies just about deserved to win, if only because, in Jamaica, they were the only side to strike a conclusive blow against the pattern of batting domination which defined the series. What is more, there are clear signs that they're finally achieving levels of fitness, discipline and steel which have eluded them ever since their great years ended in the mid-nineties. For this there's little doubting the influence of the two Australians, John Dyson and especially Brendan Nash, whose gritty ballast in the lower middle-order has been an utterly vital element in their improvement. Then, of course, you have the fact that the players so obviously want to play for their captain, you have Sarwan achieving sustained excellence for the first time, you have Shiv just doing what he always does and you have Denesh Ramdin growing into his international shoes in a way no young West Indian keeper has done in living memory.

England continue to look like a side failing to add up to the sum of its parts. The bowling acked penetration, some of the decision making (especially around the Antigua second innings) was clumsy and destructive, the number three position, with Shah conspicuously failing to take his overdue opportunity, remains unfilled. Strauss, with the bat, was brilliant, Pietersen was Pietersen and Graeme Swann showed the type of wit and competitiveness which will stand him in good stead as he goes forward, for the time being, as his country's number one spinner.

England will have an excellent opportunity to regain the Wisden Trophy again within a few months, but, with Australia rediscovering their poise in South Africa, a much sterner battle is sure to follow.

A Touch of Irony

As England set themselves up for what should develop into a huge total today, comfortably the most enjoyable part for me was watching Owais Shah. Denied a proper opportunity to display his qualities at Test level under successive coaches, Shah batted with the spiky assertiveness of someone who was keen to make up for lost time. However, someone could have done to have told him that he didn't necessarily have to try to reach his century by the close of play; if they had he might not have run himself out in such a clumsy manner and could still be there today with power to add.

That said, he's surely assured now of a place in the side for the rest of the series, and, with a bit of luck and a following sea breeze, some really big runs could follow.

Meanwhile, at the other end, his captain was playing what was probably his best attacking innings for England, and, in the manner of the usual tone of English media discourse, it only falls for me to declare that the slide to 51 all out can be safely forgotten and all in the garden is rosy once more.

In fact, bring on the Australians...

You Couldn't Make It Up

I'm still at work but I gather that over in Antigua the proverbial is hitting the fan - and will be for a long time to come. And there I was looking forward to an evening's cricket on the telly...

Someone who'll probably be even more disappointed than me is Owais Shah. Finally selected to make a return to Test cricket, and the game doesn't even go ahead.

It'll be interesting to see how this one develops, especially the suggestion (genuine or complete fantasy, who knows?) that Sir Allen Stanford may be asked for the loan of his ground.

All in All...

Unusual things have a tendency to happen at Sabina Park during England-West Indies Tests; Patrick Patterson producing some of the fastest bowling in history in 1986, the match abandoned on the first morning in 1998, Steve Harmison, at his short-lived peak (anyone remember that?) ripping through the West Indies in 2004, and now, in 2009, England dismissed for 51 by a combination of pace and spin on the Kingston killing ground and fortunate to get that.

England currently look a rudderless and unhappy side and one that, crucially, has come to depend far too much on Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. When, as happened on Saturday, Pietersen's off-stump is uprooted by a brilliant delivery when he's barely off the mark, a collapse of house-of-cards proportions, is, well, on the cards.

Absolutely nothing, however, should be taken away from the West Indies, who finally seem to be recovering some consistent competitiveness under the unifying leadership of Chris Gayle and the coaching of John Dyson, and for whom Jerome Taylor produced a spell fit to compare with anything seen from any of his illustrious predecessors.

Taylor's abrupt termination of Matt Prior's innings with a fast off-cutter wasn't just a classic display of fast-bowling technique, it was an event which, just for a moment, seemed to recapture and exemplify the lost essence of Caribbean cricket: Taylor bowls, Prior's off-stump disappears towards fine leg, Taylor leaps in the air and the Kingston crowd goes wild in the type of distinctively West Indian way some people probably wondered if they'd ever see again. As more than one person has said over recent years, international cricket needs a decent West Indies side for all kinds of reasons, and Saturday was, if not quite the foundation for world domination, at least another brick in the wall.

For England the only way forward is a shuffle of the cards and a redoubling of effort before Antigua, although, with the priceless confidence they'll have derived from Kingston, the West Indies won't come any easier.

At least, at last, Bell will go. If not, Shah will be entitled to simply pack up and go home while sticking two fingers up at the whole bloody lot of them.

The Traditional English Art of Crap Selection

According to Stephen Brenkley in The Independent, it seems as though there's still not much chance of Owais Shah getting an opportunity to replace Ian Bell anytime soon.

Well, I've always been a strong admirer of Bell, but there comes a time when things have to stop - and that time was passed a while back.

'But this really cannot go on'.

Wanna bet?

Off the Rocks

Of course, the other thing that unequivocally went right for England was the return to form of Paul Collingwood, who seems to be making a habit of rescuing his career just at the point when it seems to have hit the rocks. We should, of course, no longer be surprised. The tougher the situation, the better he tends to play.

Which is far more than can be said for Ian Bell, a batsman whom I've had a lot of faith in (perhaps too much ), but who's stretched it to breaking point. Owais Shah deserves an opportunity in Mohali, but, somehow, I'll be surprised if he gets it.

Shah's Time

After what happened in Mumbai yesterday, which is bound to cast a shadow - and very possibly curtail - England's tour, it seems a bit passe to bang on about the inadequacies of English selection, but it's an easy target, so why not? With England posting a decent total but still losing at a canter yesterday, you were left wondering what on earth Alastair Cook was doing there, but, more specifically, what has Owais Shah done to deserve such consistently inconsistent treatment?

Having made 72 at number three in Bangalore (to add to his 58 in Indore earlier in the series), Shah was again shunted down to six, from which position he made a coruscating 66* in support of Pietersen's century. With everyone rightly adamant that England need more ODI centuries, and Collingwood once more in awful form, it seems illogical that Shah hasn't been trusted with a higher position in the order throughout the series.

Shah has been an international since 2001 but his career at the top level has taken a long time to mature. His fielding was initially a real weakness and is often ponderous still, while his right-hand dominated technique is hardly a thing of beauty and can tend to detract from his very real qualities of class, confidence and aggression.

All the evidence was that Duncan Fletcher didn't trust him, but Moores and his selectors have at least seemed happy to give him a run in the side, and Pietersen, as an attacking batsman of genius, recognizes him as a kindred spirit.

With just two Tests behind him (an impressive Mumbai debut in 2006 and a nerve-ridden one-off against the West Indies at Lord's in 2007), now increasingly appears to be the time to look again at Shah's credentials in the longer game, and I fervently hope he gets the opportunity to show what he can do.

Whether that opportunity comes in India before Christmas remains to be seen.

Autumn Questions

Travelling back from London on the train late yesterday afternoon, with the sky darkening and the wind getting up after a truly sublime weekend's weather, it was hard to avoid the feeling that autumn was setting in. Of course, another sign that time's moving on is the fact that the English first-class season's over (and congratulations to Durham, by the way) and tour parties are being announced.

There were few surprises in the England squads; I was pleased to see Shah selected ahead of Bopara (and Swann of Rashid), and it had already been leaked to the media that Vaughan, despite his renewed central contract, was set to be 'rested'. James Foster was, of course, completely ignored. This was predictable, but still hugely disappointing. While, on balance, it looks fair enough to give Matt Prior (much the best batsman of the available keepers) another chance, should we not be looking beyond Ambrose for an alternative?

A few years ago Chris Read was in a similar position, but he at least got another chance (even if it was against the coach's better judgement) before being jettisoned for good. It seems very much as though Foster, not seen in England colours since 2002 and an immeasurably better keeper than he was then, isn't even going to get that. Foster's made the standard noises about going back to his county and working hard, and I'm sure he will, but the signs are that none of it will ever do any good.

By contrast, the news that Vaughan isn't going looks like a brief triumph for common sense, although it still seems as though the likes of Geoff Miller (whose opinion matters) and Darren Gough (whose doesn't, frankly) feel that it's only a matter of time before normal service is resumed.

But why? Might there not at least be a chance - which nobody seems prepared to admit - that Vaughan, rising 34 and with a chronic injury history, is past it as a batsman and isn't coming back?

Progress Report

When I started writing this blog, two years ago today, England weren't very good at one-day cricket. Little has changed. Despite some illusory indications of progress in the second half of 2007, the way in which the New Zealand series ended last Saturday carried more than a hint of the type of confusion and inadequacy which have historically been England's closest bedfellows.

Tim at Third Umpire has produced some typically succinct summaries of the players involved and I agree with most of what he says. Of the players he's more critical of I feel that Wright and Bopara are worth persisting with in the long term but they may both benefit from a bit more time in county cricket, especially Wright. Ambrose must be jettisoned (although he deserves, and will get, further chances in Test cricket), and Shah must surely climb the order. Broad's a given, and I always did like Graeme Swann.

While the story in Test cricket is a little more encouraging I think England are going to be tested to the limit by South Africa over the next couple of months, and I'm very dubious about their ability to cope. In fact, I won't be at all surprised if they get a bit of a hammering.

Round in Circles

I always enjoy listening to what Mike Selvey has to say, and I remember him warning on TMS, very soon after Matt Prior's debut century for England against the West Indies at Lord's last May, that it would be a good idea for everyone to wait and see how good his keeping was before deciding that England's wicket-keeping problems - in response to which the selectors have been going round in circles ever since Alec Stewart retired - had been solved.

Wise words, because, less than a year on, the England selectors have decided that, however well he's batted, Prior's keeping simply isn't good enough to keep him in the side and he's been dropped completely from the England side to tour New Zealand.

It's fair enough with me - I dislike Prior's cliched on-field hardman persona - and I suspect that Ryan Sidebottom, who, used to the support of Chris Read's superior keeping, finally blew his top at Prior in Sri Lanka, won't be losing any sleep either.

As to his replacements, well, it's no real surprise, given his Sussex background, to see Tim Ambrose in there, but James Foster has once again been very unlucky, and, with Phil Mustard also in the party it's certain that England will go into their crucial series in New Zealand next month with a Test match greenhorn wearing the keeper's gloves. A big ask for either of them, I reckon.

Elsewhere in the party Andrew Strauss returns, if only in the hope that his proven record of scoring Test centuries and taking slip catches will shore up two of the areas in which England were most vulnerable in Sri Lanka. He's fortunate to be there, though, having played no cricket since his omission from the Sri Lankan squad, and, to me, a probable and unwelcome knock-on effect of Strauss's return will be to ensure that the harshly-treated Owais Shah will still find it very hard to get into the side despite the dropping of Ravi Bopara.

From a parochial viewpoint it was good to see James Hildreth's selection in the 'England Lions' squad to take part in the Duleep Trophy, and it was also good to see Panesar's inclusion, as any bowling in favourable conditions, however different they are from those he'll encounter in New Zealand, will stand him in good stead. But Mike Yardy as captain?

Not sure about that, but then he too, plays for Sussex. Enough said.

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?

Time to Move On

It's that time of the English autumn when there's nothing much going on in this country (apart from the announcement of the odd touring side) and little enough elsewhere in the cricket world (apart from what seem like endless ODIs on the sub-continent). This being the case, the past week seemed like a good time to let things slide a bit on the blog and see what else life has to offer; last weekend I took myself off to Derby to visit my parents and managed to get out into the Derbyshire Dales, where the weather was gorgeous and the scenery equally beautiful.

A few things got through, though, including the fact that Andrew Strauss had been left out of the England Test team to tour Sri Lanka, but Mark Ramprakash hadn't, as was widely predicted, been recalled.

Strauss had appeared to be living on borrowed time for a bit too long. In fact he's never appeared quite the same since his old mate Marcus left the stage. A batsman trying to operate outside his comfort zone and play too many shots, but also a player ground down by the way in which the world's best bowlers had homed in on and exposed his weaknesses. In the age of trial by DVD it's like that, and, when the England selectors are looking for a way to get a couple of extra batsmen into the team, you're going to be in trouble if you've got no major runs behind you for more than a year.

As an admirer of both Shah and Bopara I'm happy with the decision; Strauss, even at 30, is easily young enough and good enough to come again.

Nobody admires Ramprakash more than me but a recall at 38 for someone with a proven record of total mediocrity in Test cricket? No thanks. He's better now than he ever was, they say. Well, maybe. But he was pretty damn good as a Middlesex player in 1995 and he couldn't score a run for England then, so why should it be any different now? No, Shah or Bopara could score just as many runs in Sri Lanka as Ramprakash might, and it will be far more significant for England's future if they do.

Ramprakash is perhaps the greatest 'might have been' in post-war English cricket, but, sadly, that's where he's destined to stay. Time to move on.

Further Exposure

ODIs, World Cups and international Twenty20 competitions may come and go with his participation questioned or absent, but, as soon as the ball's red, the kit's white and the game lasts a maximum of five days, Jacques Kallis clicks into gear. His twin centuries in South Africa's first Test win in Karachi took him to 26 in Test cricket, and, whatever the desultory nature of his strike-rate (around 43, Cricinfo tells me), his average and the sheer technical impregnability of his batting mark him down as one of the finest batsmen in the world today. I can understand the questions (and the fact that his highest Test score remains below 200 tells part of the story), but, for sheer weight of runs, where would South Africa be without him?

I've waxed lyrical about Kallis before, but I've had fewer opportunities to write about successful England one-day sides. Yesterday's victory in the second ODI at Dambulla was hugely impressive, even if it may have been predicated on some Sri Lankan complacency. But then, if you'd played England goodness knows how many times in limited-over cricket in the last twenty years or so and steamrollered them repeatedly, you'd probably be complacent too.

Ryan Sidebottom fired in his customary new-ball spell from left-arm over and Graeme Swann showed the type of technical ability, competitiveness and temperamental solidity which completely justified his selection (and raised questions about his extended absence under Fletcher) and should see him back on the island for the Tests before Christmas, while Owais Shah continued to cement his grip on the tricky number six position. When Shah was growing up in the Middlesex side his chief problem appeared, as with many young players, to be knowing which of his many shots to play and when to play them. Almost 29, he seems to have all that taped now, and, while his right-hand dominant technique will never be a thing of beauty, his deep well of innate talent should ensure that he stays around the side for a while. Tests are a different matter, but he sure ain't doing his chances of further exposure any harm.

The Long Road Back

The omissions and inclusions in the latest list of centrally-contracted England players were predictable, but I was heartened and pleased by the return to the ODI side of Graeme Swann, who hasn't had so much as a sniff of a place in the squad since he went to South Africa around the turn of the millennium and was thought to have upset Duncan Fletcher with his insouciant attitude.

At age-group level in England Swann was one of the more talented players of his generation and a member, alongside Owais Shah and Robert Key (and a few other county journeymen like Stephen Peters) of the side which won the under-19 World Cup in early 1998. Later that year he made a sparkling start to his career with Northants -I particularly remember innings of 92 and 111 from number eight in a losing cause at Leicester - and, when he was called up to the England side at the end of the decade, his future looked assured. Somehow, though, it never really happened. The years since have seen him falter at Northampton, move to Nottingham, struggle to make a consistent impression in the first-class game but develop into a dangerous operator in limited-overs cricket with both bat and ball, and retain the enthusiasm and humour which made him stand out back then.

He's another example of the type of player - like Ryan Sidebottom - who would never have found a way back into 'Team England' under Fletcher's dogmatic stewardship, and the resurrection of players like this is as good a retrospective argument for Fletcher's replacement with Peter Moores as I've found. And it was instructive to hear Swann himself say last night that Sidebottom's recall and the success that followed it was one of the main things which gave him hope that he too could find a way back.

And now, with the England ODI side finally looking like it could be moving in the right direction, is a pretty good time to return. With Panesar's continuing inability to reproduce his Test form and Swann's batting and fielding potential, a longer-term place in the side could be well within reach of a player who seems to have been around for a very long time but is only 28.

I hope he makes it.

3-3

The last week has seen the one-day series swing back in the direction of India, and today's epic game saw to it that they'll go into Saturday's concluding game at Lord's at 3-3.

I was working all day and so only got to see the last few overs live, but that was enough to make it clear that it had been an exceptional day in the September sunshine on a typically run-filled Oval track.

Notwithstanding Tendulkar's blistering 94, which rolled back the years like nothing else we've seen from him this summer, it was a day for the youngsters - or at least those still trying to make their way in the international game - Luke Wright, Owais Shah and Dimitri Mascarenhas for England, Robin Uthappa for India. The first three, with power and placement, took England to the type of total that would once have appeared unassailable, while the last, regaining his place in the side with Dravid's assistance, applied the coup de grace just as the odds seemed to be running inexorably in England's favour.

Like many people I had my doubts about the duration of the series before it started, but with six games down and Lord's to come (and how many times will the 2002 NatWest Series final be mentioned over the next few days?) seven matches suddenly seems about right.

Bring on Saturday.

Today's News

With only four overs possible at Taunton today, my attention was drawn to events at Chelmsford, where the three day game between England Lions and India ended in a predictable draw.

Whle India can take plenty from Tendulkar's 171 - and valuable contributions from Yuvraj, Dhoni and Karthik - the profligacy of their bowlers will worry them as they go to Lord's.

From an England (and Middlesex) standpoint it was good to see Andrew Strauss and Owais Shah pass fifty, although only one will be back at their home ground come Thursday, unlike Stuart Broad, who heads in the direction of a probable first Test cap with a five-for under his belt.