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.

The Umpire's Decision is Final (unless the umpire is Daryl Harper)

It's been a tricky and tedious week, with too much time spent trekking to and from work amid the snow and ice to allow me to see any of the live action from Cape Town.

I have, however, managed to catch each evening's retrospective on Sky, and found last night's especially entertaining, although that had nothing to do with anything the players did.

A theme which has occasionally surfaced here over the years - and something which I find genuinely mystifying and shocking - is the question of how on earth an umpire with such a record of utter incompetence as Daryl Harper has remained a member of the ICC Elite Umpires' Panel for as long as he has.

One of the few pundits who's consistently given Harper his due over the years is the inimitable Bob Willis, and, after the howlers of yesterday and the day before (both thankfully rendered insignificant by the UDRS), he was the usual model of splenetic restraint.

Delving into the depths of his vocabulary for a word rarely if ever heard before on a major sports programme, Willis appropriately described Harper as a 'nincompoop'.

Ramifications of Failure

With the dust having settled a bit I wonder if it's now possible to make any sense out of what happened at Kingsmead a few days ago.

Because of the ease with which England had built their lead I wasn't expecting South Africa to have too much trouble batting out time. The potential movement, for both Swann and the seamers, looked slow, the South African batting line-up looked experienced and capable, if just a little short with Morne Morkel at eight. Sitting on a sofa a few thousand miles away all looked fine and dandy.

It soon became clear, though, that things were far from fine. We had Amla offering an exemplary display of how not to drive at a big turning off-spinner, followed by Kallis, de Villiers and Duminy all temporarily forgetting that in seaming conditions it can often be just as dangerous to try too hard not to use your bat as it is to use it.

Kallis's decision not to play a stroke at a ball from Broad which, even if it hadn't moved, would have come very close to his off-stump, looked like an especially bizarre misjudgement. But why?

Well, the trite explanation (but also the correct one) is to say that the pressure got to them. When their team's unxepectedly up against it and their minds start to be infected by the negative ramifications of failure, players, even great ones, do very strange things.

But it seems to me that the current South African side are perhaps more susceptible to this type of collapse than many other teams of the past with whom they'd like to rank themselves. I do not feel that they yet have the depth of confidence that goes with a record of sustained achievement, nor the type of settled attack which instils confidence in their batsmen. It's surely unquestioned now that the sentimental, possibly politically-influenced, decision to play Ntini at Durban was wrong, and it heaped further pressure on a team that was more vulnerable to the type of bristling counter-attack which England came up with than they'd have liked us to have believed.

This is a good team, if you let it play. If you get in its face and do what it doesn't fancy, like trying to get people out with orthodox off-spin from the first ball you bowl, you've got a chance.

And Kallis - immensely experienced, technically-sound, but inclined to be a little too predictable, one-paced and cocksure - exemplifies their vulnerability to opponents who do what they least expect.

Whether, given their terrible post-isolation record there, England can do the same in Cape Town in the face of what's bound to be an intense South African backlash, remains to be seen.

As someone who spent the early days of 1996 in the shadow of Table Mountain and who still comes out in a muck sweat at the mere mention of the names of Dave Richardson and Paul Adams, I know what can happen out there on the Newlands acres.

We await Sunday morning with interest.

Recovering Composure

Watching England build with composure and patience against a one-man attack yesterday was a reasonable way to spend the time. Especially if you're just starting to emerge from a hideous bout of flu which has rendered your Christmas a complete non-event.

But then, with Cook and Bell having made good runs you're left to ponder (those elsewhere who know me as a defender of Bell may be amused by this) whether you've been giving them too hard a time.

Cook yes, Bell no. Cook merely reminded one of his main quality, and that which sets him apart from almost every other young English batsman you can think of. Patience. With that, a shedload of runs under his belt in Test cricket already (and he's only just 25) and some necessary technical work under way he'll be around for a while yet. No wonder Boycott likes him.

Ian Bell was poised, stylish and engaging late in the day, all the things he tends not to be when the fur is really flying. But, while his unbeaten fifty will have reminded a few people that technique isn't really the problem, his temperament, which is, is highly unlikely to be tested again in this game.

Elsewhere the obvious was reaffirmed. Ntini is finished, but Morne Morkel has the capacity to do some serious damage worldwide over the next few years if he can continue to bowl with the persistence, pace and aggression which he showed yesterday.

Can he back it up, though? It's a problem Bell and Cook know all about.

Closing Over

For me the most resonant news of the week has been the retirement from Test cricket of Shane Bond. A late developer with an injury-prone body to be sure, but one of those players with the priceless ability to lift his team beyond the ordinary by his mere presence.

New Zealand teams (and especially New Zealand bowling attacks) often appear samey and colourless. Not when Bond was around.

A Merry Christmas to all. See you for more of the same in 2010.

The Cult of Personality

From an England viewpoint the main thing which stood out from the game was again Graeme Swann. Finely crafted orthodox off-spin of the type thought to be on the way to extinction a year or two back and some typically effervescent batting, the product of his seemingly boundless confidence. As someone said, he's perhaps the best number nine currently operating in Test cricket and a player it's hard to believe has been playing at the highest level for barely a year.

By contrast Ian Bell and to a lesser extent Alastair Cook cut painful figures, with Bell in particular fast heading into Mark Ramprakash territory: an English batsman of substantial gifts but without the mental wherewithal to make anything of them.

Both may be put out of their misery soon, although it's hard to see how Cook can be adequately replaced from the existing squad, but a point worth pondering is the extent to which Swann's success is as much a product of his mentality as his ability.

Even when he's been doing well there's seemed to be a diffidence about Bell which will never stand anyone in good stead at Test level, and to watch an Alastair Cook interview is to be both confused and irritated by his bouncy inarticulacy and predictability.

Coming from someone who's never met either, these are value judgements, but consistent success in Test cricket owes a huge amount to personality. And if there's one thing Swann has in spades...

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.

Footwork is for Mortals

One of the best things (and there are many to choose from) about Virender Sehwag is that watching him can make you re-consider all that you ever knew about batting. For example, every coaching manual you'll ever read will emphasize the importance of footwork in batting, but is it really that important? Not for Viru.

Sehwag has often shown (and yesterday was surely his apogee) that all he needs is a bowler and a bat. Some of the greatest hand-eye co-ordination and bat speed ever known will do the rest, coupled with under-rated shot selection and defence, insatiable run-hunger and a sprinkling of luck.

In a marginally less astonishing way it's worked for others too. Some very similar qualities have always stood Marcus Trescothick in good stead, and there are others. Sadly I never saw him in the flesh but all the footage of Graeme Pollock I've ever seen gives the impression of someone who'd just stand there and hit the cover off the ball until the bowlers couldn't take any more.

As with all kinds of aspects of all kinds of games, the Greats make their own rules.

Capturing the Tension

With access to satellite TV and unlimited time it's been possible to watch a lot of cricket in the UK over the past week or two - India v Sri Lanka, Australia v West Indies, South Africa v England.

The New Zealand-Pakistan series is the odd one out. While there's probably a way of seeing it here I don't know how, and, well, I haven't lost any sleep about that as I have a life which I occasionally wish to lead. But the first Test in Dunedin was one of those games where it was possible to see from the scores just what a good contest it was. While the Kiwis ended up as worthy winners, the most significant aspect of the game in the long run was the brilliant debut of Umar Akmal, a player who, according to Osman Samiuddin, we're going to hear a lot more of.

This, from Iain O'Brien, captures the vibrancy and tension of the last day superbly from the viewpoint of a member of the victorious attack.

As Good As It Gets

After the first couple of days in Kanpur I was ready to join the chorus of anguish about the future of Test cricket in an age where pitches often seem only to come in various shades of dead. Today, though, we had a reminder that you can still make things happen pretty well anywhere if you bowl well enough. And the man who made it all happen was Kerala's finest.

Back in this blog's early days, in the summer of 2006, I wrote admiringly about Sreesanth's potential. But the volatility of his temperament and some injury issues hindered him to the point where, in the brave new Indian world of the ultra-fit Zaheer and the ultra-promising Ishant Sharma, he seemed little more than a dated afterthought, reduced to earning a crust on the county circuit with Warwickshire in a seemingly vain attempt to bowl himself back into contention for a place in his national team.

His bowling today comprised an alchemic mixture of reverse and conventional swing (sometimes, seemingly, with the same delivery), coupled with a quality of seam position rarely seen outside a coaching manual. The dismissals of Rangana Herath, bowled by a subtle away-swinger to the left-hander late in the first innings, and Dilshan, caught behind to begin Sri Lanka's follow-on slide, stood out, with the latter as good a piece of finely-honed seam-bowling as I've seen since Glenn McGrath, or even Richard Hadlee, retired.

In case anyone was in any doubt, today proved it. This is a man who can really, really, bowl.

Bottling It (and not bottling it)

The pros and cons of Paul Colingwood have been done to death in places such as this these past few years: Resilient batsman, handy seamer, truly exceptional fielder, but, equally, someone who, when out of form, can make the game look very difficult.

Which, in a sense, it is. It's hardly an original view to state that he doesn't possess the innate talent of the majority of his fellows, but I think it's a correct one. Of course, compared to the likes of me his talent is off the scale, but when you think about players like Mark Ramprakash, well, it's a different story.

Not for the first time, I found myself thinking yesterday about what would happen if you could bottle Collingwood's mental strength and imbue more fragile but more talented players like Ramprakash or Graeme Hick, with it.

Of course, you can't. In cricket, as in life, people are different. Colly will do to be going on with.

Where There's Life

Still convalescing after my encounter with the surgeon's knife early in the month (what's usually described as a 'minor' operation, although the immediate post-operative pain was anything but minor), I've had a bit of time this week to follow the first game of the India-Sri Lanka Test series, which was called off as a draw this morning once Sachin Tendulkar had reached his 43rd Test hundred.

It was a counter-intuitive affair; the type of Test which, on the face of it, you'd say was certain to drive another nail into the coffin which the likes of Peter Roebuck have been cobbling together for the five-day game recently: 426 plays 760 plays 412. Too many runs, too few wickets, everyone's bored.

Or perhaps not. Until the last day the scoring rate was excellent and there was a series of innings whose merits went well beyond mere accumulation; Rahul Dravid showing he can still mix it with the best in the world (like Mahela Jayawardene) for both strokeplay, and, of course, concentration, Gautam Gambhir emphasizing again how far he's come and how indispensable he now appears at the top of the Indian order, the one and only SRT, twenty years a Test player and counting, doing what he does best these days, building a ton without fuss in benign conditions and slamming the door shut in Sri Lanka's face. There were even a few people there to watch.

Well, I enjoyed it (even if nobody else did), and it'll do to be going on with, but we, and the Test game itself, will need more if it's to sustain itself into an uncertain future. Much is made of the fact that England's the only country left where Test grounds are routinely full, despite the insane cost of tickets, but it needs to be remembered that usually, in England, wickets fall.

But where there's life there's hope, and this game showed that India's ageing order still has plenty of life. The strands of hope, though, need to be supplemented by a strip with a bit more life in the next match at Green Park in Kanpur.

I'll not be holding my breath.

Half an Eye

Feeling like death warmed up after someone's cut your abdomen open and rearranged the contents (it's okay, the person responsible was a surgeon) isn't a great frame of mind in which to watch any game of cricket, but I managed to keep half an eye on yesterday's events while wondering about my immediate future on earth.

I always thought Suresh Raina was class, and the boy Tendulkar (as an English football manager would say), well, he's got something too.

I'm off for a good lie down. See you in a couple of weeks.

What We Have Lost

David Shepherd, who died yesterday, was a son of Devon.

Instow, in the north of the county, isn't an area that I know well, despite having lived in the county for nearly twenty years, although I have been to the sublime ground among the dunes where Shep learned his cricket, and have also visited the post office which used to be run by his mother and brother. From memory his brother served me, and his mother may have been around. Shep, of course (for it was late summer, 1993), was away umpiring, something he did as well, and with as light and sincere a touch, as anyone in the world in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century.

The Devon cricket community is a small, tightly-knit, proud one. Proud of its team's regular triumphs in the English Minor Counties competitions over the last twenty years; proud of the achievements of such men as Chris Read, who, despite the vicissitudes of his England career, remains one of the outstanding county cricketers of his time; proud of Shep, a modest county artisan who never troubled the attentions of the national selectors but later proved himself an umpire of world renown.

Even after he left the world stage I used to see Shep around. At Exmouth, watching Devon play on the day the umpiring world hit the buffers; most recently, in the spring of 2008, at a memorial service in Tiverton for one of the unsung heroes of Devon cricket.

At the time I noticed that he'd lost a lot of weight, something which I naively put down to a post-umpiring fitness regime. I later learned from the grapevine that he was a very ill man.

Which brings us to today. As Simon Taufel, who knows more about umpiring, and Shep, than I ever could, said:

'A true gentleman, a kind spirit and a great bloke'.

Every Cloud?

I've often written about how closely I've followed Marcus Trescothick's career.

I saw his maiden century at Bath in 1994 and I've seen him make thousands of runs for Somerset since, along with a good few for England.

Like everyone with any heart at all I was saddened, but hardly all that surprised, by the news last night that he was returning early from India.

But I can't help thinking that there might be one good side to it all.

Next time the England batting is failing and everyone is saying Mark Ramprakash should be recalled, perhaps no-one will suggest that England should try to tempt Marcus out of retirement.

For the last time. It will never happen. Leave him to the county circuit where he can do what he's good at for many more years.

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.

Jekyll and Hyde

As the fallout from England's first winter selection begins to gather, I thought this, by Mike Selvey, was a typically thoughtful appreciation of Harmison, whose career at Test level now looks dead and gone.

Selvey may be partially right in that England may end up missing Harmison in South Africa more than they now expect, but what they'll miss will be more the wistfully-recalled Harmy of blessed memory (Kingston, 2004) than the arrhythmic, Jekyll and Hyde trundler of too many recent encounters.

Elsewhere, I can't disagree too much with the selection of Steve Davies, but that of Luke Wright and the bypassing of Joe Denly look dubious.

If there's one thing Alastair Cook needs now it's not promotion (to the ODI squad) but competition.

Photo Opportunity

Regular readers will notice that the photo at the top of the page has changed.

Courtesy of Getty Images we have Tom Shaw's magnificent picture of the moment the final day of the Ashes turned.

To my mind it's one of the finest cricket photographs taken in recent years.

Enjoy.

End of the Beginning? Or...

What by now has the feeling of a routine piece in The Independent about Monty, by David Lloyd (no, not that one).

I hadn't been aware until now that he was going to play domestic cricket in South Africa this winter and it'll be interesting to see how he gets on. With the way his form and confidence dwindled last season you wouldn't bet on him doing great things. It may be that a change of scenery, team and opposition do him good, but, given his obvious diffidence and the difficulty he's found in adapting his game to changing challenges in the past, he may well find things tough.

In cricket, as in life, circumstances can change quickly, and, at 27, time is still on Monty's side, but, with nothing in his armoury apart from his bowling, it's sure to be a difficult road back.

What happens for him in South Africa will go a long way towards deciding whether or not his batting at Cardiff in July is destined to be the last act of his Test career or merely the end of the first act.

Leaving It All Behind

The slightly ridiculous (and erroneously-named) ICC marketing vehicle that is the Champions Trophy has only flitted in and out of my consciousness over the past couple of weeks. I've got too much else going on in my life and too little interest in endless ODIs for things to be any different.

Besides, as the British autumn draws in it's nice just to leave cricket behind for a while. It'll be back soon enough.

In the end, for England, normal service was resumed as they were hampered by their age-old failings in the field and were once again taken apart by Ponting and Watson, who's starting to look a bit more than a makeshift opener, an impression he confirmed in yesterday's final win over New Zealand.

The only memorable (and surprising) aspect for me was that I managed to predict the winning side.

Success, of a kind. But a bit like one of those strange periods when England win a few one-day internationals, it can't last.