Been There, (Not) Got The T-Shirt

As the Andrew Flintoff Farewell Tour gathers momentum (someone really should produce a T-shirt), it seems like a good time to ponder on a few questions which England's performance threw up.

Firstly, while we can see how well Freddie is coping with his rebellious body (and, God willing, he'll make it to The Oval, although you certainly wouldn't bet on it), what of KP?

In the latter stages of his second innings he was struggling to run, and you could sense Collingwood's frustration as he tried to up the scoring rate. This didn't, couldn't, happen until the superb Prior came in, following which Collingwood himself was the one struggling to keep up.

Furthermore, Pietersen's 44 in the second innings was among the scratchiest efforts of his entire England career, raising the question of whether his continued lack of fitness has begun to affect his form with the bat. For perhaps too long England have regarded him as indispensable - and, at his best, that's obviously what he is - but you've got to wonder how long it'll be before someone on the medical side of things starts to question the wisdom of repeated injections and simply advises him to stop playing.

And then, while Andrew Strauss's form with the bat over the last year has been as good as that of any opener in the world, his captaincy at Lord's, with a lead of more than 500 in the bank, was often disappointingly defensive. Outstandingly though Clarke and Haddin played on Sunday afternoon, their partnership was allowed to gather momentum by Strauss's insistence on placing men on the square boundaries on both sides of the wicket, seemingly relying on the batsmen becoming frustrated by the relative difficulty of hitting boundaries. While this might work in county cricket, it's hard to see it working on players with the technical rigour and nous of Clarke, Haddin, Ponting or Katich.

But this is, perhaps, churlish. The correct way to do things - and the best way of slowing the scoring rate - is to try to get people out, and Swann and the majestic, irresistible, Flintoff did a pretty good job of that yesterday morning.

It was an uplifting, almost moving, experience to be there, with the rapid finish allowing a reflective afternoon in one of London's best pubs and the welcome discovery that cricket was back on the front pages.

Happy days.

Leaving Nothing Behind

I've found it hard to get too concerned about the story which has been preoccupying the media these last few days, and which has only just been supplanted by the announcement of Andrew Flintoff's retirement from Test cricket.

England were clearly out of order in doing what they did, at least as far as the oft-quoted 'spirit of the game' is concerned (although, significantly, neither umpire appeared to say anything), and it's hardly surprising that Ponting told Bilal Shafayat where to go when he arrived in the middle on Sunday night. But his comments once the match had ended and the dust had settled were, in reality, relatively moderate, and it took the good old British press to turn a disagreement into a controversy.

Neither side can reasonably claim any moral high ground. England did what they did and Australia - as Nathan Hauritz admitted - would have done the same if they'd needed to. Anyone who has had the misfortune to read Duncan Fletcher's autobiography knows that he is never ever wrong about anything (at least in his own mind), but, when he starts sticking his oar in, you tend to feel that it's time to move on.

Which bring us to Flintoff, who, for once, has shown some timing and good sense in taking a decision which has come to seem inevitable as his Test career has blundered on in fits and starts over the past few years.

The valedictions can be saved for later; in the meantime, let's hope he makes it through the last four five-day games of his life.

One thing is certain: He won't be leaving anything behind in the dressing room.

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.

Nostalgia

I said something before this Test started about what ultimately mattered being what actually happened, not what people, seduced by rampant hype and nostalgia, thought might happen.

What has happened since then is that Australia have, unlike England, taken the fullest advantage of a pitch made for batting. Their patience and skill have emphasized the ineffectiveness of the England attack, and their desire to turn the screw today contrasted sharply with the desultory nature of some of the England fielding this morning, which looked like the product of a side that seemed to simply be playing out time until the inevitable rain came. Trouble was, the rain was late.

Whether they win or not - and with a full day's play tomorrow you wouldn't bet against it - Australia's intention, successfully accomplished, has been to lay down a marker to England for the rest of the series. To let them know that the West Indies are long gone and they're now facing a real cricket team.

You want nostalgia? We'll give you nostalgia. Nostalgia for 1989, 1993 or 2001.

Plus, win or draw, we'll see you later in the week on a ground where we haven't lost since before the Second World War, and where the doubts will all be yours.

Keeping on Coming

Test match days are long - at least six hours, or 90 overs, depending on who's counting - and so much always depends on which side's players show the most stamina.

Often it's not just about physical fortitude (though God knows you need that), but mental as well. The ability to take the knocks but retain your original level of focus and desire into the last session of the day.

Something I've liked about Peter Siddle ever since I first saw him has been his ability to just keep on coming, regardless of what type of day he's had. Today it wasn't great, but he was still bustling in late in the Cardiff afternoon and was rewarded with the late wickets of Prior and Flintoff, scalps which left honours all but even.

Kevin Pietersen, by contrast, didn't stay focused, and it cost him and his side. His misjudgements at Edgbaston and Kingston were, perhaps, debatable, but today there can be no argument. His moronic stroke was central in allowing Australia to sneak back into a day that was drifting away from them.

It's one thing having the strength to hang in there, but often it's opponents' weaknesses which give you the chance to show it.

Today, for Australia, was one such day.

Almost Time

These days, as a result of what happened in 2005, Ashes series played in England seem bigger than the game itself. As the commencement of battle gets ever closer you can't dip your toe into any branch of the written or broadcast media without coming across people's memories of that great series. And many of them, you suspect, are people who hadn't taken much interest in cricket before and haven't since. Especially during the summary decimation in late 2006 and early 2007 which now seems to have been airbrushed from the collective consciousness of English cricket in a manner of which an old-style totalitarian regime would have been proud.

It's good to have them along for the ride, but, after a while, you just don't want to read any more previews. People can talk for as long as they want about what might happen, what could happen, what should happen. In the end, though, all that matters is what does happen.

With the two sides looking evenly-matched there's every chance of another fine contest.

Let's get started.

Back in Contention

If your first-class career is still in its early stages and you're averaging nearly 70, scoring just 7 and 8 in a match must pull you up a bit short. All in all, it's unlikely that Phil Hughes's double failure at Worcester will have a serious effect on his confidence, but the manner of both his dismissals - caught close in dealing poorly with short balls - is sure to cause some interest among England's bowlers and some concern in the Australian camp.

The bowler who delivered both those balls, Steve Harmison, is another man in an interesting position. After a distinctly average winter it was assumed in some quarters that England's future lay without him, and this may still be the case. But with what he's done at Worcester you wouldn't be at all surprised to see his name at least in contention for a place in Wednesday's side, although, as Harmison himself has said, if England do play two spinners it's hard to see how he'll fit into the team.

Others, such as Graham Onions, would offer more consistency but less pace and hostility, but Harmison has laid a powerful marker down over the last few days at Worcester.

The trouble, as ever, is that no-one can be sure how he's going to bowl on any given day, but that might just be a risk worth taking.

Very Good

How good would England be if they had an opener of style, elegance, adroit footwork and finely crafted techinique who could take Australian bowling attacks apart, seemingly at will? And what if they could also keep wicket and were just twenty years old?

The answer is that they'd be very good. In fact, 'they' are very good.

Her name is Sarah Taylor.

Gift of Timing

With only one subject in town - for a couple of days at least - it's hard not to be repetitive and unoriginal when writing about the end of Michael Vaughan's career.

The first thing to say that is that it didn't come as a surprise. One of the hardest things in the world for a great sportsman to admit is that the past has gone and he has no chance of reclaiming it. But Vaughan is nothing if not decisive, and once he realised that his time in an England shirt had gone for good there was no earthly way he was going step back on to the county treadmill. The modern England captain's financial and spiritual comfort zone - the Sky commentary box - surely awaits, although, for no obvious reason, I think he might just do a little more with the rest of his life, even if it's only coaching.

Two personal memories, both of which I've mentioned here before:

His 197 against India at Trent Bridge in August 2002 was the first time he'd really loosened his shackles at international level and shown what he was capable of. I was there, and I still regard that Saturday afternoon as one of the most enjoyable of my cricket-watching life. No England batsman, except Vaughan himself, has batted with the same blend of dominance and elegance since.

The other is more impressionistic, but when Vaughan was in charge of England in the field everything seemed right with the world. Like Richard Hill, from another time and another sport, or Shivnarine Chanderpaul, you felt that that was what he was put on earth to do. He was no tactical genius, but there was a permanent air of assured command which led you to believe that if there was a particularly tough question, he would always find the answer.

By announcing his retirement during the relative lull between the end of the World Twenty20 and the resumption of the battle for the Ashes, Vaughan has shown that his gift for good timing hasn't completely deserted him.

Time to reflect on the fact that he'll be a long time gone, time also to think about a future without him.

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.

After Afridi

What more to say about Pakistan's triumph than to say that it was fully deserved and it showed again what a talent Shahid Afridi is and emphasized what a united and simplyinvolved Pakistan side can give to the world game.

As I said at the time of the terrorist attacks in Lahore in March, it's vital that the rest of the world cricket community stands by one of it's most important, but troubled, members.

There are strong rumours that they'll be playing neutral Tests in England (against Australia) next year and that's a start. I look forward to seeing some of their great fans back at Lord's sooner rather than later.

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.

Get Out of Jail Free

I try never to knowingly agree with anything Charlie Colvile says, so inevitably I have my doubts about the way he was dancing on South Africa's grave with such undisguised relish last night.

For what it's worth I don't think that they choked, merely that their standards had slipped slightly from where they'd been for most of the competition. I'm sure this had something to do with a heightened awareness of pressure on the part of the players and the winner-take-all nature of the contest, but it also reflected the effervescent quality of Pakistan's cricket.

On the day when his erstwhile associate Allen Stanford finally gave himself up to the authorities, Giles Clarke found himself presenting the match award to Shahid Afridi, but, while Afridi and Umar Gul were outstanding, the true highlight for me was the ease and coolness with which Shoaib Malik caught Jacques Kallis to practically terminate South Africa's chances.

In a format which tends to reward erratic brilliance at the expense of relentless competence, Pakistan always had a good chance of winning last night and they'll take that forward to Sunday, regardless of who they're playing.

Stanford, languishing in a cell somewhere in Virginia, probably won't be watching the West Indies take on Sri Lanka later, but I will.

Batting Without Boundaries

As I thought, last night's truncated game at the Oval could have gone either way. Ultimately it was no surprise that it went to the side with the batting line-up which was more suited to the game they were playing, and more fool me for forgetting about the priceless presence of Ronnie and Shiv in the Windies middle-order when I was writing them off the other day.

England's bowlers did a good job of getting them out of jail more than once in the competition, but there's only so far you can go when you have nobody below number four capable of playing with the type of fluency and power which should be a pre-requisite in the second half of a T20 innings. That England went from the eleventh over to the twentieth without a single boundary yesterday says it all.

Not that their selection helped. Why select a capable hitter like Graham Napier for the squad and then leave him on the bench throughout, especially, as yesterday, when Mascarenhas (who had hardly set the world on fire with the bat at Lord's on Sunday) didn't play either?

Games of Small Margins

Hell, that was good.

Whatever India's faults - and the strange decision to bat Jadeja at three really was a glaring one - England were superb, at least from the time their innings ended. At the break I felt as though they hadn't got enough runs after failing to capitalise on a good start, but they bowled to clear plans and fielded securely and often brilliantly to send their opponents packing. Sure, the ultimate margin of victory was narrow, but it felt much more comprehensive than that.

It was a wonderfully evocative evening all round; with the ground rammed, the time ticking on past 8.30 and the lights yet to take real effect, it reminded me of the sort of one-day cricket occasion that used to be commonplace at Lord's (with the 1975 World Cup Final the best example) but which has usually seemed lost for ever these past fifteen years or so.

And for someone brought up on the keeper's keeper, Bob Taylor, Foster's stumping was the most sublime piece of work I've seen from an English stumper since the autumn of Jack Russell's Gloucestershire career.

I'm concerned that England will find it very hard to reach the same heights today. The West Indies are in good nick and will fancy their chances of turning the tables on a side which has had the better of them ever since they arrived here in early May.

It feels like another game of small margins which could go either way.

Normal Service Restored

For years and years James Foster was ignored by England.

His artful stumping of Yuvraj tonight - a vital turning point in a pulsating game which England won well - was the time he finally re-emerged into the light, showcasing his talent and justifying his selection.

It's best not to underestimate the capriciousness of the England selectors but you have to feel that he'll be back to stay for a while, at least in one-day cricket.

And that feels right.

A Stroke with No Name

Just over a week into the World Twenty20 (it seems more like about three, simply because of the number of matches that have been played, rather than their inferior quality), certain themes are emerging.

Batting built on muscular power, but also, on occasion, on timing and innovation. While others have used it sparingly, Tillekeratne Dilshan has made an art out of the backward flick over the keeper's head, a stoke which, as yet, has no name.

Bowling founded on old-fashioned principles - the straightness and reliability of Umar Gul - but also the variety and disguise of Ajantha Mendis.

Fielding which, on the ground, has sometimes appeared vulnerable under pressure (aren't we all?), but, with the ball in the air, has often touched rare heights. In the last week alone we've seen utterly superb catches from Kyle Coetzer, David Warner, Lendl Simmons, and probably the best of all yesterday from good old Shahid Afridi.

The crowds have been brilliant - large, vibrant, noisy and partisan.

Heading into the competition's final week, South Africa look favourites. Their batting has an air of solidity about it which you feel that their main rivals, Sri Lanka, can't quite match, as well as fielding that marries reliability and brilliance, and bowling which has just enough of what's required in all areas. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have Murali and Mendis, who on his day could run through anyone, although he only has four overs in which to do it.

India and Pakistan - especially after yesterday - can't be discounted. England, New Zealand and Ireland probably can, leaving West Indies as the team which nobody can be sure about. Their wonderful victory over India on Friday night, inspired by the rare talent and competitive energy of the islands' greatest recent product, Dwayne Bravo, showed what they're capable of. The suspicion is that if neither Gayle nor Bravo fires in a big game the rest will be left with too much to do and that, when the pressure is on, their fielding simply won't hold together.

It's been great so far. The slightly worrying thing, perhaps, is that this feels like the future, and Test cricket, even between England and Australia, is going to appear very slow by comparison when it returns next month, although probably none the worse for that.

The game's future can wait for another day. England and India do battle at Lord's this afternoon at 5.30 and I'll be watching.

Looking Forward

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

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

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

Dangerous State of Mind

England have been losing one-day matches of varying shades, to varying opponents, for almost as long as I've been alive.

There are always a range of causes (or excuses) for this - too much cricket, too little cricket, too much exposure to the wrong sort of cricket, too little to the right sort, poor technique, lack of application, too much confidence, too little confidence.

One unwelcome characteristic which the typical English professional cricketer has always seemed to me to have in bucketloads is the ability to look down on people who they don't consider to be as good as them; people who play 'club' or even worse, 'village' cricket. Amateurs. Like the Dutch.

True to form I think England took the Dutch lightly on Friday, with their clumsy team selection giving the game away. Why on earth have Robert Key (and an out-of form Robert Key at that), a specialist opener in all forms of the game, batting at six when what was needed down the order was someone who could blast the ball out of the park, such as Dimi Mascarenhas (whom I would favour as he's done it before at international level) or Graham Napier? And why was Rashid playing? He's not a regular in his county's Twenty20 side and I'm sure that in the long term his best forms of the game are likely to prove to be the longer ones.

The answers lie in the fact that England were - perhaps only subconsciously, but that doesn't alter the argument - treating their game against Holland as another warm-up match, a sideshow and a prelude to the matches that really mattered.

It's a dangerous state of mind to get into as it can sap the will to win and affect players' techniques and decision-making, and England, of all one-day teams, ought to be immune to it

Now, if they don't win today, there won't be any more matches.

Recipe for Disaster

It's early on the morning after the evening before and I'm off out, so there's no time for too much detailed analysis of that.

Suffice to say that it's one of the oldest truisms of international cricket that when England are playing one-day cricket they're capable of losing to anyone. Throw in the type of complacent attitude which the English professional cricketer specializes in (and which my post yesterday lunchtime mirrored) and a great all-round effort from the Dutch and you have a recipe for disaster.

A Bang or a Whimper

With or without Andrew Symonds, I've been looking forward to the World Twenty20, which starts, possibly with less than a bang, in about three hours' time.

English cricket always does this. By tradition the season here always used to splutter into life with a range of matches between counties and universities which meant nothing to anyone other than the participants (and little enough to many of them). Now, for the first game of a landmark international competition, the home side are playing, wait for it, the Netherlands (or Holland if you prefer).

Okay, they're trusty old ICC Associates with a decent, if low-key cricket tradition, but surely the start of the event would have more impact if England were playing another Test nation in the tournament opener. The reaction of the average 'man in the street' (in so far as he knows anything at all about cricket) will probably run along the lines of 'Holland?' 'Do they play cricket?'.

All of which is not, of course, to say that an England victory is guaranteed.

But it bloody well ought to be.

Coming In From The Cold

A nice quote from Fidel Edwards at the top of the page.

Very true, and somehow not surprising coming from one of the modern West Indian players who nearly always looks up for it, unlike some of his fellows.

Not that it explains what he's got against Jimmy Anderson.

Wasted Gifts

I last saw Chris Lewis on a cricket field about five years ago, in a club game in Derbyshire. If he'd made more of his ability he could still have been playing county cricket at the time; instead, because of his other great talent, that of wasting his gifts, he was scratching a living as a jobbing pro, increasingly intolerant of the failings of others.

In terms of pure talent there's no doubt in my mind that Lewis could have been a really significant force in international cricket, but, given his clear temperamental failings and the fact that he played all his international cricket in a desperately weak England set-up, it's hardly a surprise that he didn't. To succeed as an England player in the nineties, you needed a bit more than just ability.

Lewis always seemed to be talking about himself in the third person and saying what he was going to do, but, when the chips were down, he rarely, if ever, delivered. To me he seemed to be someone who, deep down, lacked confidence as much as he appeared on the surface to have a surfeit of it.

Now he has at least six and a half years at Her Majesty's Pleasure to reflect on his career and the poor decisions which have left him where he is today. One can but hope that he sorts himself out and comes out able to make the type of contribution to the world at large that could once have been his for the taking.

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.

A Degree in People

I generally like reading Mike Brearley's columns in The Observer. His intellect, experience and knowledge are unquestionable, although he's never particularly impressed me as a prose stylist.

Yesterday's piece, here, was something else.

For a start I liked and agreed with the points he was making about Alastair Cook, a player who's come to be taken for granted remarkably early in his career and who embodies a lot of old-fashioned batting virtues which can be hard to find these days. And then there's the style, which carries echoes of my favourite old-school cricket writer, the late Alan Ross.

Less for More

With a lot of sorting out to do after my holiday, I'm a bit late posting about Chris Gayle's comments about the future of Test cricket.

Despite some of the predictable howls of outrage and the fact that I love Test cricket, I didn't see a great deal to get upset about. He's entitled to his opinions and there are always going to be professional sportsmen who don't share the views of those who watch them (by no means all of whom can disagree or Test grounds all over the world would be full).

To Gayle, it would appear, the fact that you can earn more by doing less is all that matters, and why shouldn't it? Those of us in more mundane jobs wouldn't hesitate if we were given the chance to work less and earn more, so why should a jobbing cricketer be any different?

Of course, if you were the West Indies board you'd have more than the odd doubt about whether Gayle's the right man to captain your Test side, and the team's performances in the last two games won't have done much to dispel those.

As a Test captain Gayle must be living on borrowed time, but I don't think he deserves castigation for holding what is a perfectly defensible view.

There's plenty of evidence that Gayle's in a minority among his fellow internationals, so there isn't too much to lose sleep over.

For the time being.

Selection Issues

The England selectors' decision to recall Ian Bell and Ryan Sidebottom to the squad for the Durham Test seemed a bit odd, and it doesn't seem likely that either will play.

Bell's made one ton in the Championship and one in the Friends Provident, but, as ever, has mixed in a few abortive starts. Sidebottom has bowled a fair number of overs and taken a few wickets.

Both, though, need more than they've produced so far. Bell requires more and more runs, Sidebottom needs to remain fully fit well into July and be taking consistent wickets to come back into consideration, although, with the suspicion being that a little more experience may be wanted against Australia, he may just be back sooner rather than later.

A player who's already been selected in the England squad for the World Twenty20 and who may start to show his hand elsewhere before too long is Middlesex's young Irishman Eoin Morgan. When I got back from Scotland on Monday morning I slumped on my sofa and watched him destroy Kent with a tremendous display of ingenuity and power and it didn't surprise me at all. I first saw him play at Bath in 2006 and he immediately looked like a classy operator.

While another Middlesex Irishman, Ed Joyce, seemed to me to be poorly treated and prematurely discarded by England, one's feeling - and hope - is that Morgan may be around a lot longer.

Fair Bet

I spent most of last week in a wind and rainswept Isle of Skye, returning home via the highlands and Edinburgh, where the weather was slightly better. With all this said, it was still a very enjoyable trip but one which didn't really lend itself to keeping in close touch with what was going on in the cricket world.

While taking refuge from a storm of biblical proportions on Wednesday afternoon I did manage to hear some of the TMS coverage of Ravi Bopara's hundred and catch a few brief highlights on TV. I was pleased; as regular readers will know I've always had a good feeling about Bopara, not just because of his obvious talent but also because he's generally seemed to have the gumption and confidence which Ian Bell (probably his superior in terms of ability and technique) so obviously seems to lack.

Bopara had a very tough baptism in Test cricket in Sri Lanka towards the end of 2007 but, ever since I saw him make a well-judged, patient 85 in an Essex defeat at Worcester last June I thought he had the makings of a good upper-order Test batsman. With Vaughan struggling for form and fitness, Shah discarded (and chronically out of form) and Bell still biding his time, he looks a fair bet to start the Ashes series at number three.

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.

Too Good

When the mild 'controversy' blew up a while ago about counties signing Australians in advance of this summer's Ashes series, I didn't make any comment, mainly because I wasn't really sure what I thought. On the one hand it certainly wasn't going to work in England's favour, but on the other it's hard to castigate the counties too much as they have trophies to win and no absolute necessity to consider the Test team when they decide who to employ, even if many would argue that there's a strong moral obligation to do so.

As many people said, it highlighted the differences between English and Australian cricketing culture. The idea of states employing overseas players has never really caught on in Oz, and there wouldn't be a cat in hell's chance of anyone doing what Middlesex and Kent have done in advance of an Ashes series, even if there was a surfeit of players with the required ability. But England is different, and there are many people involved with counties (especially, in my experience, supporters) who appear to care very little about the England team so long as their own county is doing well.

What I'm trying to say here is that Middlesex's employment of Phil Hughes didn't tell us anything we didn't know before.

Of course, the main argument against it was that Hughes' exposure to early-season English conditions for the first time would help him to settle and improve his technique before the Ashes, but the evidence provided by his performances in South Africa and for Middlesex so far are that it doesn't matter. He's simply too good.

With a first-class average well above sixty, two centuries in his second Test and now a couple of tons in his first two games for his new county, it looks increasingly as though Australia have uncovered another 'once-in-a-generation player', and one who could haunt England for the next decade.

By the time he's finished with us the fact that he once played for Middlesex may be long-forgotten.

Making a Ton

I've just enjoyably wasted half an hour looking at 'Tom Redfern's' blog Get a Hundred, which Patrick Kidd mentioned on Line and Length a week or two ago.

'Tom' (the name is apparently a very well-chosen alias*) has been blogging and 'vlogging' (posting videos) about his efforts to score a century for a couple of seasons now.

It's something I can identify with although I've never even scored a fifty and have largely given up hope of doing so now. From the videos 'Tom' looks pretty handy and if he was playing at my level the hundred would be his for the taking.

* Tom Redfern was the non-striker (and last man out) when AEJ Collins completed his innings of 628 not out in a house match at Clifton College in Bristol in 1899, the highest recorded innings in an organised cricket match anywhere in the history of the sport.

Art for Art's Sake

Another player whose international career seems firmly in the twilight zone now is Michael Vaughan, and it was very interesting to read here about his first forays into the world of modern art.

My impression of the finished works is that they're quite original, if somewhat stereotyped, and sadly too expensive for me.

What was even more interesting to me, though, were Vaughan's words, quoted at the end of the Cricinfo piece:

'So far all I've done is chronicle my own career, but this summer I'm hoping Straussy lifts the Ashes in August, and I can ring him and say 'Come on, let's do a five piece collection of your great moments from the series.'

These plainly reveal that Vaughan doesn't expect to be there himself. Given the fact that he hardly ever makes any runs these days, perhaps he's only being realistic, but it's one of the oldest truisms in sport (and often in life) that if you don't really believe you're going to do something, you aren't going to do it.

The King is Dead...?

Twenty20 Hindsight

The news that Andrew Flintoff had sustained yet another injury, while disappointing, didn't really come as a surprise. With Flintoff we passed that point some time ago, and the strong suspicion is that his body has also gone well past the point where he - or we - can rely on it holding itself together when it's most needed.

Of course, in hindsight, perhaps he shouldn't have been playing in the IPL at all, and, as we know, the mainstream media in this country specialises in pillorying people with the advantage of unvarnished 20:20 hindsight, so the fact that he's in South Africa at all has been receiving plenty of negative coverage.

Strangely I didn't notice many people complaining beforehand, and, as somebody said, if he wasn't playing for the Chennai Super Kings he'd probably have been playing for Lancashire and bowling more than four overs an innings. The only advantage he might have had is that weather in England would have been drier and warmer (why didn't they bring the IPL here, despite what idiots like me had to say?).

Fact is that England are all too used to doing without Andrew Flintoff, so another short May series without him won't hurt too much, providing he's fit to return for the World Twenty20 and the Ashes.

Only time will tell, though, and it's difficult to shake the feeling that it's going to be hard ever watching Flintoff bowl again without half expecting him to pull up injured at any time.

And Ashes series (if 2005 is anything to go by, and it probably isn't) are tense enough without that.

Afghanistan

I meant to write something yesterday about the achievement of Afghanistan, who, although they failed to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, have attained official ODI status for the next four years, and a lot more besides.

Clearly, for a range of cricketing and political reasons, they're not going to be able to play at home, but I look forqward to seeing the country's cricketers on a tour of the UK soon.

It's no more than they deserve.

The Relative Importance of Cricket Events

I seem to have heard somewhere that the IPL is starting today, although I've just had a look at Cricinfo and discovered that the start of the first game has been delayed by drizzle.

It wouldn't have happened in England, you know.

Like my fellow blogger Rob, I don't subscribe to Setanta so the tournament will largely pass me by.

Indeed, who needs it when you've got the superb James Hildreth racking up a double ton at Taunton?

The Fat End of the Wedge

One of the players whom Flower may have to deal with - or not - is Samit Patel, who, after being dropped from the England ODI squad because he failed to maintain what were deemed to be the required fitness levels, is now trying to make up lost ground, something which was covered in the Daily Mail during the week.

Personally I rate Patel and wonder, from the vantage point of someone who could do to shed a few pounds but whose skills are strictly village, whether the insistence on optimum levels of fitness isn't just a little overdone.

In the last year I and other Somerset followers have seen one of our best and most popular players, Ian Blackwell, forced out of our one-day side and then the club itself as a result of his captain's slavish insistence on particular levels of fitness, and a certain Jesse Ryder hasn't been doing too badly recently, despite the type of figure barely seen in the international game since Colin Milburn's Test career was prematurely ended in the late sixties.

Okay, I'll accept that in the interests of team harmony (and to keep the fitness trainers in a job) players like Patel need to put the same type of work in as anyone else, but my feeling would be that if they're still clocking in a few pounds over they might need to be cut a bit of slack.

Because, in the end, in cricket, it's the numbers that matter, and, at the moment, those of Ryder don't look too shabby.

Conservatism

The appointment this week of Andy Flower as the England team's new 'Director' (what most of us know as a coach) was, on most levels, a further triumph for the potent forces of English conservatism.

I've got no idea whether Flower will prove to be a success or not. Some in the media, such as Mike Atherton, are guarded, others, like Mike Selvey, seem to think he's the best thing since sliced bread.

It's undeniable that Flower was a great cricketer, courageous both on the field and off it, but the main reason behind his appointment seems to have been the fact that he was already doing the job and he gets on well with Andrew Strauss. Precious few of the high profile candidates who were supposed to have been 'headhunted' by the ECB's chosen firm made it anywhere near the final cut, the only exception being John Wright, who was apparently telephoned by the selection panel as a way of making it look less like an open and shut decision.

Personally, given his background and experience, I'd have thought Wright was worth a closer look, but I suppose, after a period of turmoil, you can't really blame the board for choosing what appears to be the safe option, even if his basic credentials (and his performance so far, if judged on results) aren't the strongest.

The last time they made a risky decision - the appointment of Pietersen as captain last summer - it went sour within months.

One can only hope that this appointment lasts a little longer.

Pragmatism

Since last week I've been meaning to throw in my ten pence worth on the media debate which was generated by the rather dopey interview which KP gave towards the end of the West Indian tour. I know I'm a bit late, but here goes.

Depending on who you read, Pietersen is either a disruptive individualist detested by many of his team-mates and should be jettisoned quick smart, or simply a man of strong opinions with a profoundly un-English capacity for telling it how he thinks it is and the one man who can save us once Ricky Ponting's band of resurgent cobbers hit town.

Well, much as I'd like to have a contact in the England dressing room, I haven't, so I can't comment on his popularity or otherwise, and I think the impression given by some that Australia, after one Test series win, are now back to their invincible best and are sure to stuff England, who've only got one real batsman, is exaggerated and pessimistic. We've got, oh, two batsmen at least.

Given Pietersen's background and character it's hardly surprising that he polarizes opinion in a country which often seems to reflexively mistrust people who are too successful, take the pursuit of success too seriously, or, worst of all, are too obviously aware of how good they are. Unfortunately for him, Pietersen puts a big tick in all three boxes.

With all this said, he quickly achieved a high degree of popularity with ordinary cricket followers in this country, most of whom know a good player when they see one, and have perhaps been more willing to forgive Pietersen's personal failings because he's so damn good. I've been fortunate enough to see several of his hundreds live, beginning with the Oval 158, and he's never been less than warmly embraced (even if he did have a bloody silly hairstyle then).

Whether that warmth is quite as strong after his unguarded comments remains to be seen. Many (including me) will have found his remarks about being desperate to get home when he'll just as soon be off to South Africa (which, after all, is another sort of home) to play in the IPL a bit rich, while his views about Shiv Chanderpaul, one of the few players in the world good enough to be compared with him, came across as insecure and slightly jealous.

However, while we're not a one-man team, he's the best we've got, and, as soon as he starts making runs in his usual dominant and innovative fashion, especially if Australia are on the receiving end, I suspect that all this will be forgiven and forgotten.

In modern sport pragmatism is everything. But, if the runs ever seriously dry up and the misplaced words don't, it could be a very different matter.

Presence

While England's win late last night in the final ODI in St.Lucia didn't transform what has been an uneasy and largely unsuccessful winter for the team, it did at least offer a reminder of what Andrew Flintoff can do when he has the ball in his hand in a limited-over game.

Whatever the extent of his popularity in England, history will judge Flintoff as a very good cricketer who had one really great Test series. However, as a one-day bowler - especially at the 'death' - he is a truly exceptional operator.

The yorker which hit the base of Sulieman Benn's middle stump to complete his hat-trick last night was just about the perfect delivery. Much better batsmen than Benn would have been defeated by it, particularly if they were backing away towards square leg.

With his threadbare fitness record and wildly fluctuating form with the bat, it's perhaps asking too much of Flintoff to have the same type of pivotal effect on this summer's Ashes series as he had in 2005.

But, if he can keep his body together, his presence sure won't do England any harm.

Received Wisdom

One of the oldest pieces of received wisdom about Andrew Strauss is that while he's a fine Test batsman, he isn't much of a one-day player. But this ignores the fact that, like a number of other players, he first cut his international teeth in the limited-over game and has played more than one outstanding innings in that form of the game at county level.

Yes, that's county cricket, and it's probably true to say that while an out-of-form Strauss (of the type seen throughout 2007) could muddle through in Tests (not least because he was allowed to) he could never have hoped to do so in the one-day arena.

But at the moment he's in the best form of his life, and the superb display of flair and judgement with which he piloted England's victory in Bridgetown last night was the best innings of its type I've seen from an England player for quite a while.

Over the past two years Strauss has shown his mettle in a range of ways. Firstly by stripping his game back to its basics in order to counter the run of poor form which led to him losing his place in the side in late 2007, and then, with his defence sorted, going back to his strokes and playing with as much style as he's ever done in an England shirt. What's more he's done this at the same time as he's captained a side that's far from at ease with itself.

Under the placid, conventional, exterior this is a man who's very skilled, very tough and, right now, pretty bloody outstanding.

We're lucky to have him.

Useless

Nearly two years ago, after England were humiliated by South Africa in the World Cup, I wrote this:

'Let's face it, with a few notable exceptions (Sharjah 1997, Champions Trophy 2004, CB Series 2007), England have been useless at one-day cricket for years and years and years.'

Nothing's changed and I'm starting to wonder if it ever will.

Final Thoughts

A couple of final thoughts on this winter's Australia-South Africa Tests.

1. Paul Harris has been given a hard time by many people since he came into the South African side. In particular I remember Geoff Boycott droning on about him like a broken record last summer.

But, as the wickets he's taken show, he has something. I'm not completely sure what, as he tends to look quite innocuous, but not everybody who succumbs to him does so in an ego-fuelled attempt to hit him out of the park (a la Kevin Pietersen). I think it's reasonable to assume that there are a few subtleties of flight and pace variation that aren't evident from the sidelines, and, at times, he turns it (just ask Michael Clarke). Since the end of isolation South Africa has failed to produce much in the way of decent spin bowling, and it's no coincidence that the rise of the side in the world rankings has accompanied the advances made by Harris.

He might just be one of those players who you keep expecting to get found out but who never quite does.

2. Mitchell Johnson currently looks like a cricketer of extraordinary ability and potential, and one who's sure to have a key influence on the Ashes series this summer. If his bowling - excellent though it clearly is - has an element of the mechanical about it, the same certainly can't be said of his magnificent batting, which has rare power, timing, style and, when the occasion demands, subtlety. His defence and shot selection both look quite sound as well, and while he has the look of the classic Australian hard wicket player who might struggle against the moving ball in England, if it's a dry, warm summer, he'll add a lot of potency to the Australian lower-middle order.

The question of where he'll bat in the longer term is an interesting one. With 35 and an unbeaten 123 from number eight at Newlands it's clear that that's far from too high. If he wants to - and this may depend on how his body copes with what's sure to remain a heavy workload with the ball - I see no obvious reason why he can't bat at seven, taking the place occupied in this series by Andrew McDonald and leaving room for the return of either Clark or Lee further down.

IPL? In England? In April?

The other thing some people seem to be getting excited about this morning is the idea that the IPL, which is apparently unable to be played in India this year because of security concerns and the elections which are scheduled to take place at around the same time, might come to England.

Regardless of the fact that the sun's been shining in most of the country for the last week or so and it's often felt quite warm, the fact remains that England in April is often a deeply inhospitable place weatherwise (and it often isn't much better during the summer), with conditions usually more conducive to pulled hamstrings than pull shots. And if it's not freezing then it's usually raining so much that ark building seems a more likely activity than cricket.

Maybe I'm being too negative, so we'll just have to see how it pans out. I assume that Giles Clarke is on the case (which is another thing to be concerned about).

Flighting the Ball

I've never actually seen a live game of women's cricket, although I have played with and against some very useful female players.

It was great to see that England had won the Women's World Cup in Sydney overnight, and, catching a few highlights this morning, what stood out was how much the spinners of both sides flighted the ball.

Apart from the odd Jeremy Snape 'moon-ball' nothing similar's been seen in major men's cricket since Bishen Bedi retired.

I wonder what Monty thought of it?

Prince of the Cape

I was out and about in Somerset and Devon yesterday, but I got back in time to see Ashwell Prince come off with 150 under his belt and the cheers of the Newlands crowd ringing in his ears.

As he showed in England last summer, Prince is a classy operator, but to return with such a score, out of position, after losing his place in the side through a combination of injury and Duminy's brilliance, showed a special type of resilience.

With the South African selectors' experiment with Neil McKenzie at the top of the order apparently over, it may be that Prince has a future as Graeme Smith's opening partner. Prince is no more a specialist than McKenzie but he is a much better batsman.

I'd like to see it.

Theatre of the Absurd

With a rare day off work and the spring sun shining gloriously, I didn't see a huge amount of the action in either Cape Town or Guyana yesterday, but I was ready for a good finish when the first England-West Indies ODI was curtailed in another farcical denouement of the type cricket seems to specialise in.

Okay, John Dyson made a mistake in his interpretation of the Duckworth-Lewis tables. He's not the first person to do that and he won't be the last. But what really grated was the alacrity with which the West Indies batsmen fled the field, when what they should have been doing was giving a huge crowd what it had paid to see, namely an exciting finish to a fairly mundane game. To a certain extent it could be argued that the Windies got what they deserved, but you just know that England would have done exactly the same if the teams' roles had been reversed.

And all this on a ground with floodlights which couldn't be switched on because of some inviolable advance agreement.

Simon Hughes had it about right this morning when I heard him on the radio describing the whole sorry mess as the latest production from cricket's 'theatre of the absurd'.

It needs sorting out, but can anybody really imagine the ICC doing anything meaningful about anything?

Fighting the Flab

As at least one person a bit better qualified than me (they were there) and a bit quicker off the mark (they didn't have to go to work in a job that doesn't involve writing about cricket before getting to watch the highlights) has said already, the first day in Hamilton was good for the soul. You can have all the batting fests you want, but really, virtually anybody who appreciates the five-day game prefers a more even contest between bat and ball. This we almost got, although, outside the Ryder-Vettori partnership, the ball dominated.

As I've said before, in a strictly New Zealand context, Daniel Vettori is a great cricketer, while the fantastically flabby Jesse Ryder, all power and timing, is going to be around for a long time if he keeps his head together.

From yesterday, though, I'd like to mention two things. Firstly, the hugely impressive way that James Franklin took a poor decision, suffered in the worst imaginable circumstances.

And, secondly, Munaf Patel, a bowler I really liked when he played his first Tests against England three years ago but who's spent the intervening period going nowhere in particular. Now he looks fit, his pace has been stripped back but his action and rhythm have more than a little bit of McGrath about them. Knowing him he may not be able to maintain it but right now he looks like a great foil for Zaheer and Ishant.

The second day's play starts in less than half an hour. India will be looking to bat all day and beyond.

Same Old, Same Old

So, again, England came, saw and were thrashed in a Twenty20 international. As more than one person pointed out this morning, they're still waiting for their first international win of the winter and any resemblance to a unit with a coherent one-day strategy is purely coincidental and probably illusory.

As Mark Tilley said on The Corridor last night, what on earth is Strauss even doing in a Twenty20 team?

Australia must be quaking in their boots...

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.

Bleak

While the information coming out of Pakistan is still sketchy, the vivid contributions of Trevor Bayliss on Cricinfo and Dominic Cork on Radio Five Live here in the UK this morning have served to build the impression of a really serious terrorist incident in which, in all probability, the Sri Lankan team were specifically targetted. While the events were obviously utterly tragic for those who died, there's no overlooking the fact that, for cricket, things could have been much, much worse.

According to Bayliss, Thilan Samaraweera, who was in the form of his life, is the worst-affected player but it is thought likely that he'll play again.

For cricket in Pakistan, though, the long-term effects are likely to be dreadful. It's impossible to envisage any other international side agreeing to play there in any form of the game in the foreseeable future, and, while they'll probably be able to pick up some of the slack by arranging series in the Middle East, it won't do anything for the health of the game at home. Pakistan, a young country which has produced some of the most naturally brilliant cricketers in the game's history, has started to seem an increasingly marginal presence at the game's top table over recent years, and the future for it now looks bleak.

There are precedents. South Africa spent twenty-two years in the cold and came back stronger and better. For Pakistan the barren years surely won't last that long, but, while they do, it's important for the ICC to support its cricket community in any way it can.

At the very top level, cricket is a small game. Zimbabwe has been lost to Test cricket; the world game can't afford its field to shrink any further.

Charlie Chatfield

As my Sky box died last week and wasn't put right (sort of) until late in the day yesterday, it's hard for me to say much about any of the Tests going on around the world at the moment, except to state that Mitchell Johnson's going to be a scarily good cricketer when he reaches his peak.

However, I have come across this today, which will strike a chord with anyone who remembers the years when New Zealand could, thanks to Richard Hadlee and a handy supporting cast, mix it with the best.

Really enjoyed it.

Alive and Well?

With four run-saturated days gone in Karachi I was ready to post something along the lines of it hardly being the way to attract people back to Test cricket, especially given the fact that Pakistan rarely seem to play much these days anyway.

However, I notice that there was almost an interesting finish to the game today, with Sri Lanka somehow managing to lose five wickets for 144, which just goes to prove that you can't take anything for granted.

Except, perhaps, that players of the quality of Mahela Jayawardene and Younis Khan (not forgetting the largely unsung but hugely consistent Thilan Samaraweera) will, when they find themselves on a pitch like that, invariably make big runs.

I wonder, though, if anyone was watching?

Making the Running

In the end, having made the running throughout the game, England will have been very disappointed not to have completed their first victory in Antigua since Tests there began in 1981.

However, while Sarwan, Chanderpaul and their lower-order associates deserve a lot of credit for batting out for the draw in a manner which their side would never have done a few years ago, England didn't help themselves. Not necessarily in failing to enforce the follow-on - although they would probably have won if they had - but in failing to bat with enough urgency, the mad decision to use a nightwatchman at the end of the third day, and an over-cautious declaration, which owed much to what happened in Chennai before Christmas.

Not that you'd want to criticize Strauss too harshly just yet. The signs, both from 2006 and now, are that captaincy brings out the best in his batting, and he didn't half play well on the first day in St.John's.

Sportsman with Personality

On the field, it was great to see Graeme Swann take five wickets in an innings for the first time in just his third Test.

Of course he's a fine bowler and all that, but, for me, what makes it a particular pleasure is that Swann always appears to be such an obviously good bloke.

Unlike most of his team-mates he answers interview questions in a genuinely open, interesting and often witty manner and is clearly relishing the whole experience of being involved in the international game.

Which, after years of slogging round the county circuit, is hardly a surprise.

Bewildered

Watching the distracted, slightly bewildered visage of Giles Clarke as he blustered his way through his media interviews in Antigua last night, one got the distinct impression that here was a man who doesn't really do self-analysis or contrition. Even when he - and the ECB - have got everything in relation to Stanford so manifestly wrong you wouldn't bet on Clarke admitting as much to himself, let alone the wider world, anytime soon.

As Johnny Rotten once said:

'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

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.

Third Umpire, Second Thoughts

Things have been a tad busy this week - with much of it spent travelling to and from work in the worst winter weather seen in this neck of the woods since David Gower was still flying Tiger Moths - so the first two days of the Sabina Park Test have largely passed me by. As for the IPL auction, well, it's hardly big news round my way and I was asleep when it took place, so I can't say much about that either. Lastly, when I did try to sit down and watch some of the post-tea action from Kingston last night the picture kept breaking up because there was a snowstorm going on outside.

So, what to say? Many a player (and follower) brought up in harsher times would have cracked a wry smile at the sight of Gayle and the impressive Benn bowling so well in tandem on the first day. A sign of changing times if ever there was one, as, of course, is the first use of referrals in a Test match involving England, something which seems to be causing plenty of comment. While there are clearly imperfections in the embryonic system - the lack of a time limit on the wait for a decision being the most obvious - I think it's a step in the right direction which is surely justifiable on the grounds that having more demonstrably correct decisions rather than fewer has to be good for the game, however those decisons are arrived at.

Of course, people with biased viewpoints (that is, of course, all players and most spectators) will still find plenty to complain about, whatever the outcome. I thought, as did Mike Atherton, that there was sufficient height-related doubt about Sarwan's lbw for it to be reasonably disallowed, but it came as no surprise to find that plenty of people, including the England wicket-keeper, didn't agree with that.

In the end, though, only one person's opinion counts, although, when that person is the dreaded Daryl Harper, you can't help but have second thoughts...

Never the Same

The ICC's belated but completely correct decision to finally award the 2006 Oval Test to England is one that Bill Frindall would have approved of.

The death of the 'Bearded Wonder' came as quite a shock. I'd last heard him on Test Match Special from Mohali before Christmas, and he was just one of those people who you expected to go on and on and on. Although he'd missed a few overseas tours in recent years and had given up scoring ODIs, I think I'm right in saying that nobody else has scored an England Test in this country on BBC radio since 1965, while one of the tributes I read stated that he'd scored 377 Test matches, which, when you think about it, is a hell of a lot of cricket.

Like any English cricket follower of my generation I grew up listening to TMS, and the laconic, perfectionist, occasionally waspish but hugely knowledgeable Frindall was simply part of the furniture. I never met him but have clear memories of seeing him coming in and out of many a ground - Lord's and the MCG to name but two - weighed down by what always looked like several suitcases of reference books, many of which he'd compiled himself.

It's the cliche of cliches, but it's true to say that TMS, which resumes from Kingston this week, will never quite be the same again

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?

Afghan Warriors

Thanks to Will Luke at The Corridor for pointing me in the direction of this:

The Times

An inspiring story which will make a great film.

Forever Young

It seems a little simplistic (not to mention repetitive) to say it but watching Australia taken to the cleaners at the Adelaide Oval yesterday felt a lot like watching the changing of the international guard.

South Africa had Hashim Amla, now one of the classiest batsmen on the international circuit, and AB de Villiers, punchily consistent and able to resume wearing the keeper's gloves after several years' hiatus without missing a beat; Australia, in the field, had Shaun Tait, Ben Hilfenhaus and James Hopes, three bowlers who, with the best will in the world, are never going to strike fear into any international batting line-up worth the name. Tait has plenty of raw pace but little else going for him; Hilfenhaus looks as though he might be capable of doing a bit with the ball in more helpful conditions. But conditions and circumstances weren't helping yesterday, and they they were blown out of the water by a much better side.

South Africa also had Herschelle Gibbs, who went relatively early in their reply but not before he had issued a rich reminder of the talent which has sustained the South African top order for more than a decade. Gibbs is one of those players who seems destined, stylistically and temperamentally, to remain young forever, but a glance at the facts reveals that he's almost 35 and, with his lengthy record of off-field baggage, might almost be older.

Yesterday, though, the problems were all on the field and all those of the Australian bowling attack, as he repeatedly used his feet to plunder the bowling (Hilfenhaus suffered particularly badly) both through and over the off-side with timing and power that spoke of genius. In the end he fell to a shot that was poor and over-ambitious, but that, of course, is what geniuses do.

As Alan Ross once wrote of Curtly Ambrose, for Gibbs there will not be many more such days.

Fiery Views

Some typically forthright stuff from Geoff Boycott:

Typical Boycott Rant

It's typical but that's not to say it's without merit. In particular, I agree that England could probably get by without a head coach. With everybody else in the world having a coach it would be an innovative step for the ECB to commit England to doing without one - which is precisely why they probably won't even consider it.

When Boycott says that Morris and Collier should have backed Pietersen '100 per cent', I assume he means that they should have just sacked Moores on KP's say-so.

This would, indirectly, have probably led to the team having to go without a coach as no sane person (except Graham Ford, who appears bomb-proof in this context) would then have taken the job in the knowledge that they could be summarily sacked as soon as KP decided he didn't like them.

And I think it was sensible - and reasonable - to take the views of the other players into account before taking any sort of decision, especially as it appeared that support for Pietersen's views was very far from unanimous.

Still, I like Boycs. He says what he thinks and he gets you thinking too. Which can't be bad.

No Tears Shed

Just for once, with another famous player having retired, I'm not going to write a heartfelt valediction. I just can't bring myself to do it, because, while his statistics and performances undeniably speak of a very, very good, and possibly great, player, I never had much time for Matthew Hayden.

As a batsman he was just a bit too muscular, stereotyped and unemotional for my liking, and, if you throw in the grating contrast between his widely trumpeted Catholic piety and the way in which he apparently abused Graeme Smith relentlessly on his debut (I say 'apparently' because Smith might have been lying, but I don't think his account of events has ever been convincingly refuted), there always seemed to me to be plenty there not to like.

On the face of it, his retirement in advance of this summer's Ashes series does England a favour, but does it really? Although he might have recovered his form - good players always think they will - his career had entered a marked decline which may well have been age-related and unrecoverable. Australia now have a choice of several candidates for his opening spot, the majority of whom (Jaques, Rogers and Hussey, anyway) know all about scoring shedloads of runs in England.

Personally I have a hunch that the Australian selectors might go for the young New South Walian Phil Hughes for the South African tour, but, for England, Jaques looks a better bet. Or, if they're happy to rejig their order, they could do much worse than move Hussey up to form another left-handed combo with the revitalised Simon Katich.

Another interesting imponderable ahead of a series which is building up to be very interesting indeed...

A Certain Age

English cricket followers of a certain age still talk about the time, at Lord's in 1963, when Colin Cowdrey came out to face the West Indies with a plaster cast on his arm. In years to come, South Africans (and a few others) of a certain age will talk in similar tones about Graeme Smith at Sydney, 2009.

I've been thinking a bit recently about the fact that I've never written very much about Smith. In some way he's an easy cricketer to take for granted, but, when you stop to think about some of the things he's done, it's obvious that he's an exceptional man of cricket and, all in all, a great batsman.

Captain of his country at 22; 75 Tests, 6000 runs and counting at more than fifty, with 18 centuries and his country's highest Test score; the priceless ability, seen at Edgbaston and Perth over the last six months, to play his very best when the stakes are highest.

Rising 28 now, he stands in unchallenged charge of a team which will surely soon be at the top of the world rankings, his only concern being the task of restoring his shattered fitness by the time Australia and South Africa resume hostilities at the Wanderers in seven weeks' time.

I think he'll be there.

Strengths and Weaknesses

As always, these are busy times. No sooner have I seen Graeme Smith come out to bat with a broken hand and a chronic elbow injury in an ultimately vain attempt to save the third Test (and more on that later), than I find out that Kevin Pietersen's resigned as England captain, presumably before the powers that be could push him, but not before he'd dragged Peter Moores down with him.

When I wrote about the ongoing situation last week I hadn't thought about the possibility of both men going, but, in retrospect (well, it's hardly that, but you know what I mean), KP overplayed his hand in demanding the removal of Moores without, it must be surmised, much support from elsewhere in the dressing room. Also, reading between various people's lines, it seems as though the subject which brought things to a head for him was the omission of Michael Vaughan from the West Indies party, and it seems to me to have been deeply unwise for him to have made such an issue out of something which could hardly be called controversial. What on earth had Vaughan done to justify a recall?

Where this leaves him, and England, is currently anybody's guess. With little more than a couple of weeks to go before they embark on their next overseas tour, England need to find themselves another captain (Andrew Strauss) and, presumably, a temporary coach.

Pietersen has to deal with the fact that he's lost a rare opportunity - and one which may never come again - and get used to a place back in the ranks. But what's he going to do if the next captain and coach don't meet his approval? Get out altogether (not forgetting to help himself to plenty of IPL rupees on the way home)?

More than one person has pointed out in the last few days that Pietersen's got previous where this type of thing is concerned, as anybody who was around the Notts dressing room a few years ago will testify. And two of the aspects of his personality which go to make him the player he is are the strength of his ego and the toughness of his mentality.

Sometimes, though, as anyone who's watched a lot of cricket will tell you, your strengths can also be your weaknesses.

Almost Over

After what seems like years (probably because it is) of sometimes tedious stability and domination, one of the most interesting things about Australia's current situation is seeing their new players and wondering how they'll do in the long run.

It's hard to comment on at least one of the debutants in the current game, Doug Bollinger, as I've seen little of him and he's only taken one wicket so far, while the kneejerk impresson of the other, Andrew McDonald, is that he looks a decent operator but is highly unlikely to pull up any trees at the highest level.

I do feel, though, as if I ought to apologize to Peter Siddle, who I wrote off after he and the now-departed Jason Krejza were taken apart in the second innings in Perth, even though he impressed me during the Indian tour. The same qualities I noticed then - chiefly the ability to just keep on coming, whatever sort of hammering he's getting - together with plenty of raw pace, were in evidence during his first innings five in the current match, and I get the impression that he might just develop into a useful international bowler, especially if he can enhance his ability to move the ball. At the moment I'm not sure how well he'll do on slower pitches, but, as he now seems very likely to come to England later in the year, we'll find out soon enough.

Right, that should ensure that Bollinger and McDonald conquer the world while Siddle disappears into obscurity, but I will make one final, much more obvious, prediction.

Matthew Hayden's Test career is almost over.

What You See is What You Get

It's a bit sad but I think the first image that's always likely to come into my head when I think of Michael Clarke will remain that of him having his stumps wasted by Steve Harmison at Edgbaston in 2005.

But, as the weekend in Sydney showed again, he can't half bat.

Indeed, he reminds me more than a little of his captain. Right-handed, with the same fundamental orthodoxy, the same precise awareness of what to leave, what to defend and what to attack, and a similar range of strokes.

In true Australian fashion you usually get what you see from both Ponting and Clarke. And with Ponting's position at the head of the team bound to come under greater scrutiny if things go wrong in South Africa, Clarke seems to me to be moving himself into a position from which the selectors might not want to bother looking past him when it comes to finding a successor to Tasmania's finest.

Whether he would want the job before the Ashes is, though, another question. I'm not sure I would.

No Smoke Without Fire

Happy New Year.

While passing the time in freezing and gloomy Derbyshire over Christmas I managed to see much of the action from Melbourne, where Australia were ultimately despatched in some style by South Africa. And the third Test, starting tonight at the SCG, will still be very watchable, if only to see if the Proteas can make it 3-0. While the relative decline of Australia was inevitable, I'm sure it won't prove terminal, but it is an experience full of the most relishable Schadenfreude imaginable, especially when you look at Cricinfo to see Punter flanked by the latest couple of debutants dredged up by the selectors. A few eyebrows may be raised around Worcester when local cricket fans realise that Doug Bollinger, who didn't exactly cover himself in glory during a stint at New Road in 2007, is one of them.

Closer to home, everyone's wondering what's going on with Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores. I'm inclined to think that there's no smoke without fire, especially since the two were reported to have had talks to clear the air between them just after Pietersen was appointed captain last summer. If, as has been reported, KP is making an issue out of the fact that Vaughan wasn't selected for the West Indies then I think he's wrong, as there seemed to me to be no way that Vaughan could be selectd without opening up those responsible to charges of the most ludicrous favouritism imaginable, but it would be interesting to see who the last man standing would be if it came down to a choice between the captain and his coach.

On the one hand you have a batsman of genius (and a promising captain) who, unencumbered by traditional English modesty, is clearly prepared to speak his mind and rock the boat if he thinks a cause is worth defending. On the other you have a coach who embodies the modern technocratic approach to player preparation but who hasn't covered himself in glory since he took on the England job. Up to now Moores has avoided too much criticism, mainly, I suspect, because he isn't Duncan Fletcher and has a bit more charm and politeness about him (which isn't hard), but, personable though he is, it's probable that he may not be as good as a coach as Fletcher.

If it comes down to a choice between the two, I know who I'd back.

Dead Game

When I left the house this morning, just after Dhoni had failed to declare at lunch for no obvious reason apart from allowing his two batsmen to chase hundreds, I had a feeling that the second Test was heading down the pan.

It clearly did exactly that, and, as so often, Andrew Miller sums things up very well here.

Regardless of Dhoni's tactics, which will (or should) have put his previously unquestioned reputation as an innovative captain at risk for a few days at least, the fact is that two Test 'series' stink, and I hope to God they don't catch on.

I'm going away for Christmas tomorrow, and I'll be keeping a close eye on events in the southern hemisphere. See you in 2009.

As Far As You Can Get

When I last posted, at lunchtime on Friday, it looked, as I wrote, as though all the problems in Perth were South Africa's. Three days on and it's Australia who have a bit more to think about.

I'm unconvinced that there's anything terminal about Australia's relative decline, but, with Lee struggling and Siddle and Krejza about as far from what's required as you can get, they're certainly 'coming back to the pack' at a rate of knots. The batting looks stronger, but Hayden will need runs soon if he's going to make it to England, and, if he doesn't, a further foundation stone of the great era will have gone.

At the moment next summer's Ashes rubber is looking a more enticing prospect by the day. With Australia weakening and England plodding along as they do (but with the prospect of two confidence-boosting series against the West Indies to come), it could be the most closely-fought series between the two sides since 1972.

As for South Africa, well, in the end, they did it at a canter. The signs are that de Villiers is now fulfilling his immense promise and it was great to see him partnered by the debutant JP Duminy, who played a cool and confident role in the chase.

Incidentally, I once saw Duminy acting as twelfth man for Devon at Bovey Tracey.

Which is about as far from the WACA as you can get.

Mitchell Johnson, I Presume?

With India grinding their way through a truncated, gloomy, opening day in Mohali, one's attention has tended to wander in the direction of Perth, where Australia hold the upper hand after three days, largely thanks to Mitchell Johnson's 8-61.

Until quite recently I was dubious about Johnson. A lot of people have dredged up Dennis Lillee's comment about him being a 'once-in-a-generation bowler', and, when I first saw him, I came to the conclusion that Lillee must have been talking about a pretty short generation. However, despite an action which has a slightly staccato, mechanical, look to it, he's starting to get good players out on decent tracks, and that surely, must be a sign that he has something.

It's easy to see why too; he bowls a tight line at high pace, gets good seam movement and has apparently been working on his aggression. With Lee's form waxing and waning and his inability to take really big-wicket hauls (he's never taken more than five wickets in a Test innings and is playing in his 75th Test) it's looking more and more as though Johnson's going to be leading his country's attack come the Ashes.

While the average English track won't offer him the type of pace he thrives on at home, he's shown that he can get plenty of movement with minimal assistance. If he gets England on a seaming track somewhere he could cause some distinct problems.

For the moment, though, 322 behind, the problems are all South Africa's.

One for the Annals

With the relationship between Indian and British time and the fact that I have to work for a living (and haven't found a way of watching cricket while I do so), I didn't manage to see what happened in Chennai until last night.

Of course it was utterly brilliant, even though I knew the result, and like Samir here, I thought one of the nicest and really most touching moments of the whole epic came at the end when Tendulkar stopped to shake the hands of the groundstaff. No triumphalism, just celebration, thoughts of the Mumbai victims and an innings for the annals.

But in many ways I thought Yuvraj's contribution was the most interesting, if not the most significant. Okay, Viru laid the foundations like only he can (and left me wondering just what the hell standing in the gully to him is like) and Sachin steered the ship home, but Yuvraj, with a relatively ordinary Test record and plenty to prove, appeared immune to England's attempts to disrupt his focus and produced plenty of his signature shots, played with a style, grace and verve which few can match. It remains to be seen whether he can kick on - and even I, an unashamed devotee, have my doubts - but, if he doesn't, he'll always be able to say he played a vital role in one of the great Test run-chases.

This was a game which could very easily not have happened. That it did, that it turned out to be a great match, and that England played such an important part in it, is something to be truly thankful for.

One final thought: When I was growing up, 18 or 20 Test centuries was regarded as outstanding. Now we have someone with 41, from 19 years at the crease.

Not bad.

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.

Strauss

Despite their defeat - and the questions which will have to be asked of certain members of the attack, Monty very much included - England can take at least one very big consolation out of the first Test - the return of Andrew Strauss to something approaching prime form.

Strauss's form has been affected by various issues over the last couple of years. He was disappointed not to be chosen to lead the side to Australia in 2006 and I've always felt that the loss of his original opening partner, Marcus Trescothick, led to some confusion in Strauss's mind about the type of role that he was required to play without the scoreboard-ticking assurance of a really attacking player at the other end. And then there's the fact that the analysts of the international circuit - and their bowlers - got to work on his technique, identifying and exploiting a weakness around the off-stump, especially when driving.

Despite his centuries at Napier and Old Trafford earlier this year, this was the first time in a long time that I've felt as though he was back to something like his best. He's changed, though - the spinners are almost exclusively played off the back foot and the loose drive is eschewed in favour of the type of judicious leave which can break bowlers' hearts - and his batting looks all the better for it.

His twin centuries in Chennai were the work of an experienced, skilful and mentally resourceful international opener, and, at 31, he hopefully has several more years in the side ahead of him. starting in Mohali later in the week.

Loud and Long

It's a little worrying that we're now twelve days into December and this is my first post of the month. Time was I'd be into double figures by now, but there are reasons. For one, I haven't had internet access at home for several weeks (which I'm actually quite enjoying and which may be why I haven't got round to getting the problem fixed) and so have had to do all my blogging at work, and just recently I haven't been at work all that much, having spent a very enjoyable few days in Paris, taking in the sights and the titanic Heineken Cup game between Stade Francais and Harlequins last Saturday.

Before I went away I was very doubtful about England's Tests in India even taking place, and I certainly didn't expect to be writing after the second day of the first of them about England being in a very strong position. But I am, and they are.

There are reasons for that too, including a cool century by Andrew Strauss, some equally well-judged lower-order batting from Matt Prior and an eventful maiden Test over from Graeme Swann, who I, for one, am pleased to see in the side.

At 29, time is against his chances of developing a long career in the five-day game. His bowling style (slightly old-fashioned orthodox off-spin) doesn't help either, but he's always impressed me as a confident, humourous, open and articulate character who bowls in a more attacking vein than many a similar English bowler.

He also appeals loud and long, as Daryl Harper will testify. The two lbw decisions which Adelaide's finest gave were far from being stone dead (especially Dravid's) but my initial impression was that both were well worth a shout and the vehemence of Swann's representations may just have done the trick.

This was highlighted by Nasser Hussain on Sky, who said something along the lines of 'you've got to work your umpires', which was a bit less controversial than what he may have been thinking, which may not have been dissimilar to 'Darryl Harper's an inconsistent, occasionally weak and often downright poor umpire who's only stayed on the Elite Panel as a result of some typically mad ICC decison-making'. Well, to be fair to Nasser, that's just what I think, and those two decisions were far from being among Harper's worst, but if you can make sure he knows what you think you've always got a chance.

Going into day three, England have a decent chance too.