Thinking The Unthinkable

England have just wrapped up a magnificent victory over South Africa in Durban, and to be honest, I am stunned. This wasn’t a victory fashioned out of fortune, with dodgy pitches, iffy dismissals and chancy knocks. This was a brilliant test match win on a flat deck with assured performances. England’s batsmen batted better than the hosts, and England’s bowlers took 20 wickets while the host’s bowlers floundered. You have to applaud any innings victory overseas, and given that our lot are followed round the world by media naysayers, you have to credit their self belief.

The test team at the start of 2009 looked in disarray. We had all that nonsense with Pietersen and Moores, which resulted in both being dismissed / resigned / forced out in a maelstrom of dodgy leaks. The first test under the Flower / Strauss partnership was a disaster as England gifted away a strong position, and then got steamrollered by Jerome Taylor’s spell of a lifetime. In many ways, Strauss’s response, a magnificent 169 on the first day at St John’s was quite an important moment. It showed Strauss’s response to a crisis and set the agenda for the rest of the year. He has since proved himself to be a formidable leader, and has lost one test the rest of the year (at Headingley, where these days England appear to lose their sanity). All this with a team that is flawed, but is improving.

Strauss has had his critics, most notably the increasingly execrable Sir Ian Aspergers, who seemed to think that England need to declare about two hours before everyone else does, who thought the two declarations made in the West Indies cost us the series. Maybe he did delay them, but Botham has been out for Strauss since the start, and hasn’t exactly been effusive with the praise for his achievements since. Maybe now he might recognise what the bloke is doing. For me the defining moment was refusing Graeme Smith a runner in the Champions Trophy – the image him of the foppish nice guy was turned on its head as he said “no”, and despite Smith’s protestations, told him to get on with it. Smith, predictably, bleated to the press and mentioned about “what goes around”, but Strauss wasn’t getting involved with the media nonsense then, and certainly hasn’t been in this series. I’m very impressed.

What’s the unthinkable? Well world number 1 is the unthinkable, and yes, I know, we have a very long way to go to reach that mark. India are unquestionably the best team in the world right now, with a scary batting line-up that brings a monster like MS Dhoni in at seven, but in all reality, could you name their best four bowlers? Ishant Sharma looked a real prospect but he’s died on his arse recently. Then there is the matter of the aged nature of their batting – Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman – all getting on now and won’t be around forever. However it is about NOW, and India sit atop the pile and deservedly so. I think we are due to meet them in 2011 in England and I hope it is a four test series, and that the last test isn’t played on an Oval shirtfront!

Undoubtedly second best in the world are Australia, who are showing signs of recovering from their relatively recent travails. They lack a little bit of consistency, and I’m not sure they know their best team yet (Marcus North is a curiosity to me, and surely they have better bowlers than Siddle and Bollinger), but Ponting is imposing himself on this new unit, and they are showing real signs of coming back to the boil. England may have beaten them in the Ashes, but we all, if we ask ourselves properly, know we had a deal of good fortune on our side to do so. Any team with a batting line-up like theirs, and the reserves they can call upon, has to be respected.

England, I believe, are in a batch with Sri Lanka and South Africa in a battle for third. South Africa amuse me no end. They won a series in Australia with two freakish, but brilliantly executed, victories. The first was a mammoth run chase on a Perth pitch that improves as the game goes on, and the second came from a freak partnership between Duminy and Steyn, neither of whom has remotely approached their career best test scores since. Dale Steyn was a constant menace with the ball, but then, having reached the summit after those wins, they lost 3 out of 4 to Australia, and are now 1 down to England. Pride comes before a fall has never been so apt. They acted like Australia in telling the world how to play the game in the three weeks or so before they got turned over by the Aussies at home, and now look at them. It is a flawed team, it doesn’t have a Shane Warne, it doesn’t have a Glenn McGrath, it doesn’t have a Ricky Ponting. The main similarities is it has a tyro quick in Steyn (Brett Lee) and a gobby left-handed opener in Smith (Hayden).

Sri Lanka appear on the downward curve as the powers of Murali wane. While their batting, with the newly invigorated Dilshan leading the way at the top, and the big innings hogs of Sangakkara, Jayawardene and Samaraweera able to set up enormous totals still in place, winning, especially in their backyard, will remain incredibly tricky. How Murali is replaced is going to be the issue. Mendis has been seriously chastened by his experiences in India and their hopes were pinned on him.

England find themselves in a much better position than they could have expected earlier this year, but still with many of the same flaws in place. Alastair Cook’s technical difficulties get exposed the more the pitch does; is Jonathan Trott a number three, and is he going to get bogged down too often – early days on this one; will KP convert his good starts into massive scores, which he really needs to do to cement his place as one of the greats and to assist England; can Collingwood provide more than one good test match a series; will Ian Bell continue to score a graceful ton every seven or so tests to keep his place, while failing every bloody other time; can Prior become what I believe he can become – a keeper scoring at least one century a season; is Broad a quickie or a line and length bowler or is he not quite good enough at either; will Swann continue on this path, or will he get found out; can Anderson and Onions lead an international bowling attack? Lots of questions, we’ll find out the answers.

In the meantime, celebrate a great win by England, an excellent century from Ian Bell, who won’t get dropped for a while now, which will only lead to disappointment when the heat is on and a gutsy character-filled knock by Alastair Cook to set this win up for the bowlers to execute a great coup de grace. Beaten by an innings in your own backyard is not the form of champions, South Africa, and while I don’t expect England to win the series, this is a pleasant surprise I will enjoy until our inevitable loss in Cape Town – where we always lose.

Liberty X For KP….

There was always a certain inevitability about all of this. Many who read this blog, many who know me in person, would accuse me of being an apologist for Kevin Pietersen. I don’t exactly hide my admiration for his talent and his attitude (thus far) and the fact is that England don’t have many players average over 50 for us to be cavalier with. But England’s cricket authorities, in showing their teeth to Pietersen who appeared far more sinned against than sinner in the shenanigans earlier in the year, have now put that talent in jeopardy because, from behind this computer screen, KP is finally showing all the signs of sulking.

 

Clearly this tour has been a poor one for all concerned. England have long believed that they only had to turn up to beat this West Indies team when the facts never backed up this highly inflated opinion of themselves. The England team believe they can turn it on as and when, but that injection of hope comes in short bursts, not for a whole test match. As for the one dayers, quite frankly I don’t know why we bother. If they are tacked on at the end of a tour, everyone moans they want to get home and we lose the series. If they are at the start of a series, everyone moans that the test team don’t get enough practice, or else the tour seems to become too long. Whatever, KP has clearly got the hump that we are losing and that his performances, although pretty good in the tests, have not been up to scratch in the one-dayers.

 

On asking to go home, and on this being made public yet again, the protagonists are wrong. So is KP saying he is “at the end of his tether” and that he “would do a Robinho” or that he “can’t wait to get home”. What the hell is he playing at? For crying out loud there are millions who would love to be in your shoes, mate, and you come out with this self-serving, woe is me bollocks? I know that South Africans and KP in particular have a reputation for being hard-nosed, I-don’t-give-a-fuck what you think type of people, but really… Are you missing a shag that much?

 

But I lay much of the blame for this on the ECB and their stupidity in firing the bloke. It was Lyndon Baines Johnson who said he’d rather have J Edgar Hoover “inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in” and by expelling KP from the captaincy because it appears he followed precisely what the ECB wanted him to do before someone decided to leak the missive and make it look like the captain was giving out an ultimatum, they’ve got KP outside of the hierarchy and we could lose him. Once he gets a taste of the filthy IPL lucre, all those blandishments about “wanting to score runs for England more than anything in the world” may well take a back seat to how well Bangalore are looking after him, and how he loves the 20/20 excitement. It was almost an acknowledgement to the KPs and Freddies of this world that by having the Stanford Series they would stop these players from going to the IPL which will always clash with England’s early season tests. KP was always the more likely troublemaker, and by giving him the captaincy, he’d also have a pretty large moral responsibility to be in the best shape he could be for his main prestigious job. Now what moral responsibility does he have to an employer who shit all over him from a great height?

 

Clearly he’s pissed off. Worst of all he’s showing it. Paul Newman and Nasser Hussain didn’t appear to need to egg him on too much to get him to show his morose side. “What would you do if asked to captain the 20/20 side?” “No.” Do you think you’ll ever be England captain again?” “Don’t want it”. In fact, the bit of the interview that I raised my eyebrows at was his failure to back Strauss over the two declarations saying “I would have done things differently, maybe”. The one bloke above all who has come out of this tour with his head held high, with his reputation enhanced and his position unquestioned is Andrew Strauss. Three test tons, one one day ton and last night’s swashbuckling 79 not out have meant he’s been our best test player and best one day player too. I think KP should wind his neck in on that front too.

 

I’m not one for sanitising people’s comments, and all that party line stuff gets tedious. Strauss would be well within his rights to tell Pietersen to fuck off and take that black cloud looming over him with him too. He’s clearly mentally elsewhere, and I don’t buy all this tiredness cobblers. KP is a bloke with the sulks, I recognise the signs because I do it too as my wife can attest. On TV yesterday Hussain and Lloyd politely laid into Pietersen saying he is “inconsistent” and says one thing one minute and then something else the next. Fine, he’s not a politician, nor is he a lawyer, but what I do expect from a sportsman, playing his cricket in a beautiful part of the world with all mod cons at his disposal is to quit moaning about how bad his life is. We want our sportsman to be winners, not whingers.

 

The ECB brought this on, upsetting their top man, and now the ego has taken over and the bruising is coming out piled upon some sort of justification for his own cause in the poor tour we’ve had since. KP is using up a lot of goodwill here, and should not expect the public to understand when he complains about loneliness and tiredness on this tour, and then he naffs off to South Africa to pick up his millions in the IPL. I give it until next year before he misses test matches and plays for money instead. Whether the ECB actually thought of this when they treated him like they did is another thing. It doesn’t absolve KP of responsibility for what he’s doing now. When’s the book coming out, mate?

Flat Track Bullies????

I usually have a lot of time for Mike Atherton, and I do like reading his columns in The Times. He accuses England of caution, and points the finger at a couple of minor incidents – well in the case of Chennai maybe not so minor – for the example of such fear. But one paragraph he wrote made me open the eyes a little wider..

 

“Given a steady lead by Strauss and the sprinkling of stardust that Kevin Pietersen provides, the batting is the least of England’s worries. But there is a gaping hole at No 3, a key position. Ian Bell did not dominate there as those at first drop should, nor has Owais Shah, whose running is indifferent and who offers little to nothing in the field.”

 

Please, Mike, don’t be fooled by cheap runs on flat wickets against poor attacks. Cook’s ton was out of the cheapest of bargain buckets, dangerously undercutting the price of the two made by Collingwood and Prior in Trinidad when the West Indies were more defensive than 1960s Inter Milan. Or the ton picked up off the floor by Ravi Bopara at Bridgetown, which could only have been easier if Fidel Edwards hadn’t had the hump with him. The truth is that in Kingston, on the only sporty wicket, KP was the only one to make a score, and when push came to shove and the pressure was on, the batsman capitulated and that meant we lost the series.

 

Sure, the bowlers showed the impotence that they have so sadly shown for a while now, but to put the belated run accumulation of batsmen on pitches they could wish to see in their dreams is to miss the point. One mad spell of awful batting lost us the series, and there is no getting away from that.

Sir Ian Hindsight Speaks Again…

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/2009/03/12/why-england-cricket-team-should-be-ashamed-of-heroic-test-effort-by-ian-botham-115875-21191607/

This blogger is sick and tired with Sir Ian Botham. I don’t particularly care how frustrating he finds the fact that England lost a series we should have won – sorry, a team we should have “spanked out of sight” (memo, no team other than the great Aussies, or the Vaughan bandwagon has ever spanked the Windies out of sight on their own turf) – and that he is annoyed by the tag “heroic failure”. (On the last point, rarely, I’m with him. England are world champions at heroic failure and it makes me vomit).

No, my main grouse about Botham is he’s the world’s biggest advocate of positive, i.e. reckless, cricket in the universe. The one line in the article that made me most annoyed is this one…

“Did captain Andrew Strauss not realise the West Indies had no intention of chasing anything down? All they wanted to do was draw the game and walk away 1-0 winners, so I was astonished we denied ourselves an extra 10 overs at them.”

“I just can’t get my head round Strauss’s decision to keep batting until lunch even though he had more than enough runs when Matt Prior was out – the Windies were never going to try to chase any total down.”

IF, and it was by no means a certainty that England would take wickets on a deck flatter than that woman who I can’t recall on the TV last night, the West Indies had got off to a good start, and were, say 50 for 0 in the first 15 overs, the rest would have been a cakewalk – 210 in 70 overs would be 160 in 55 and no-one would need to break sweat to do it. Pressure was only exerted because the squeeze was put on and the target became one they couldn’t chase and attacking fields could be deployed. For the first few overs the Windies were tempted. When they lost wickets, the temptation wasn’t there. If we’d have declared when Prior was out, we’d have had 5 more overs and a target of 210. In hindsight, sure you declare, but at the time I thought Strauss got it right. Just as he pulled out in the 1st innings at the right time. God, Botham always wants us to declare early, because he’s not on the hook when it fucks up. Like Adelaide 2006 when we should have batted Australia out of it. Like pulling out, albeit nine down, in Chennai.

Botham castigates Strauss for Antigua, when nine down we couldn’t get the last pair out in 36 minutes of bowling, as if an axtra 20 would have done the trick. Of course, Botham ignores the play lost at the start of Day 5, but there you go. He’s never going to be accountable for his actions, and if we had a captaincy record like Mike Brearley to base his declaration knowledge upon, I might listen.

Instead of wimpering on about declarations, I prefer Tom Fordyce on the BBC blog and his take..

“Successful Test teams come out on top in the decisive sessions. They might not dominate entire matches, but they’ll find a different gear or an individual match-winner when the situation demands it.”

This series wasn’t decided on a couple of cautious declarations (and in my view, Strauss’s in Trinidad is only cautious in hindsight, which has 20-20 vision) but on England’s inability to bowl out the West Indies twice in plenty of time in every test, AND the shocking 51 all out in Kingston.

The last piece of bluster is pure tabloidesque crap…

“Whoever is in charge of the England think tank needs to start sending the side out to win games of cricket and not just avoid defeat.

If you’re not prepared to risk losing for a chance to win, then what’s the point?”

I can accuse this England team of many things, and I do. But 1 down in the series England have made the running in the matches following, been denied victories in two tests with the hosts clinging on, while the other was a bore on a road which England could only lose on Day 5. England created an opportunity to win the last test thanks to KP and Prior. I don’t think they ever went out playing not to lose. They gave a declaration that was tempting to the Windies if they started well. They shut up shop, as they were always going to do, at the first hint of trouble. We could not dislodge the tail. Botham pins it on caution, I pin it on inability. Sir Ian Hindsight does what he does best.

Flawed Wisden

Poor old England. Had them nine down in Antigua hanging on. Had them eight down in Port of Spain hanging on. But the coup de grace was never administered and the meltdown in Sabina Park, where England collapsed like wet cardboard in a monsoon cost them the series. In truth it probably deserved to lose them the series, but I can’t help feeling that England, as is their wont, will look at this as a series in which they were horribly unlucky and focus on the pitches, the fact that they nearly won two tests, as evidence that they are the better team. What they should be focusing on is that on a result pitch they capitulated, and this is not the first time it has happened.

 

England racked up a number of centuries on this tour. Strauss got three, Collingwood two, Cook, Pietersen, Bopara and Prior added one each. But let us look again at the lack of a batsman to pass 170 on the roads presented before them. Does anyone seriously believe we have a player of the mental strength and application to make Ramnaresh Sarwan’s 291? It just doesn’t happen. While Sarwan was a thorn in our flesh throughout the series, there wasn’t the sense that England had a clue on how to remove a batsman on a good wicket. Where England need to think is if Australia, a better batting line up by far, get good pitches in the Ashes this summer, how on earth are they going to get out the likes of Ponting, Clarke and Hussey?

 

Because of a prior engagement with the WindyBricks I missed most of yesterday’s play, and Sky’s frustrating reluctance to show highlights at any time means you miss much of what went on, so I can’t really comment on how good KP’s knock was, how well Matt Prior played again, and how well we bowled; nor can I comment on the catch Agnew was raving about when Collingwood caught Lendl Simmons. I am pretty cheesed off with Sky every time there is a Windies series because being at work when I am means I can’t keep up with the action. They have enough channels to throw a highlights package together to Sky Plus so that we can see what happened, don’t they?

 

A lot of criticism seems to be aimed at Strauss for a cautious declaration – maybe he should have called England in five overs before lunch and had a go then. This is glorious hindsight, it really is. I think Strauss got the declaration almost perfectly on time, giving a reasonably comfortable run chase if the Windies were interested. In Sydney a couple of years back South Africa set Australia 287 in 68 overs and Australia did it at a canter. You can’t gift test wins by setting 200 in 70 overs, because the carrot is hardly enticing, it’s being fed to you (on a normal day’s play you can make 250 without breaking sweat, so if you grind to 100 for 1 in 40 overs, it’s not going to be a stretch to make 100 with many wickets in hand in the last 30). No, I think the declaration was fair in all the circumstances, giving Windies a target which would need some getting, but would not be out of the question.

 

West Indies chose to shut up shop and it got them into trouble. England could all out attack and then bring the pressure on yet more. It was always going to be tough to bowl out a team that had batted so well in this series, and so it proved. England shouldn’t look at themselves too hard for the second innings performances because they did brilliantly to make the game out of it they did. Where they should be looking is at their inability to bowl out a team who previously had been known for their batting fragility. West Indies are a better team than they were a few years ago, but they still should not be batting as long as they have done in this series when they have so many palpable weak links (Devon Smith, Ryan Hinds, Xavier Marshall). Sarwan was always difficult to remove, but this time his consistency overcame his tendency to get out early. Chanderpaul was as expected, making one ton, and batting vital time in Antigua. Chris Gayle made two small tons, but his was a peripheral role; much more important was Aussie Brendan Nash, who made a vital ton to stop any hopes of a massive first innings lead in Trinidad, and made a crucial gritty 55 in Jamaica to eke the Windies out into a vital first innings lead. He was a thorn in the side, make no mistake, and is a key contributor in this team. The West Indies still have the multi-talented Dwayne Bravo to come back into the team, and putting him in at 7 behind Nash, with Ramdin at 8, gives the West Indies a backbone.

 

What do England do? Graham Swann has proven he deserves his place, with two five wicket hauls and a really impressive sounding spell yesterday. Add to that his batting is decidedly better than Panesar’s and Monty faces a difficult spell on the sidelines, I’m afraid. Jimmy Anderson frustrates the hell out of me – according to the reports I read, he was sensational yesterday, but so often he is ordinary. What worries me with the Ashes is the Aussies don’t really think a lot of him, whereas they have a healthy regard for Harmison and Flintoff. Stuart Broad looks OK, and clearly is a test player, but I wish he’d take more wickets. The best is yet to come. Flintoff got injured, but the issue still remains for me – you can’t have him batting at 6. I do hope England are not fooled by Prior’s performance in Port of Spain up the order. If he’d got out early in the England second innings we’d have been in strife. Now picture Prior striding in at 6 with us 50 for 4 on the opening day of the Ashes; would you be happy with that? What is beyond doubt, despite a catastrophic 52 byes in this test, is that Prior is up there with the best batsman who keep in the world. That he’s a woeful keeper is a problem, but unless I missed something, he didn’t drop anything on this tour. In Ambrose we have a decent batsman / keeper as a back-up.

 

The batting at last got runs, but serious questions would needed to be raised if they hadn’t. Strauss made three tons – by far the best was the confidence restoring century in Antigua – and proved his place at the top of the order. He made 541 at 67.6 and enhanced his reputation as a batsman scoring big runs as skipper; 5 centuries in his last 9 tests as captain (including the North Sound nonsense) shows he has the mettle. Cook got a tour average over 50 for the bargain bucket ton on the last day at Bridgetown, but at least it got that monkey off his back. Still too many 50s and not enough big tons. Quietly KP assembled 400 runs at 58, with one century setting up the fireworks yesterday, but this series may be remembered for his unsightly heave when in the 90s at Jamaica, which some say cost us the test. You know my views on that. Paul Collingwood had a good tour with the bat, with two tons and a 90, but this only goes to show you how docile the batting tracks were. We’ve won one test when Colly has made 100. That he averages more in tests than Thorpe or Atherton shows you how flat pitches are, and how mundane the bowling is.

 

For Bopara, there was a ton and dropped. For Ian Bell, there was the disgusting dismissal just on lunch at Kingston that prefaced the horror collapse to 51 all out, and he was dropped. I’ve said it should have happened before, but we waited for him to be a key link in the chain of collapse for it to finally be carried out. Go back to county cricket, make huge runs, and then nail your place properly (at 5 or 6 preferably). Owais Shah is not a number three, but his impressive knock in Antigua gave tantalising hints at what he can do. The tendency to think we have another Ramps here is too tempting. He should be given another go at home and see what he can do; unless someone makes a case in the early part of the season. However, the portents are not good – as is their usual modus operandi, the dropping of Shah who is “too anxious” is being floated with the likes of Agnew and co, and unless he makes hay in the ODI series, it is looking like Vaughan, perhaps, if he can get his head down and make runs who may come back.

 

A deeply frustrating test series which England should not have lost, but did. Strauss may get called into question for delayed declarations, which I think is unfair, but this is always going to happen if you finish the odd wicket short of victory. I think he needs to rethink how to use the referral system, but given the thing is a sick joke anyway, I’m not going to go too mad on that. Strauss is a steady hand at the top of the order and he’ll be fine. I wonder if England will be likewise….

Pitched Prattle

I know England could be accused of moaning at their own failings, and to some degree this point is fair, but when Stuart Broad came out and complained about the pitches on this tour, he is entitled to do so. No-one doubts if the North Sound, Antigua test had been allowed to continue, that runs would have flowed. As it was the game was switched to the previous holder of the world’s best batting track, St. John’s and only because the pitch was under-prepared did the game reach its thrilling denouement. England can only have themselves to blame for not getting the last wicket. That the West Indies have prepared two roads to finish the series is their prerogative; just as it is ours to provide us with a sporty wicket at the Oval if we are 1 down (see India 2007); prepare a green top at the same ground if the opposition only have one decent bowler and he’s a spinner (see South Africa 1998); or do the same at Trent Bridge if you are one-up in a series against the same side (see Sri Lanka 2006). You may not agree with the way the last two games have allowed players to boost their averages, but all the while the host country tailors pitches to their need and are allowed to, you can’t moan. England can do it.

 

England are making a habit of losing the games that matter, when they are otherwise in control of series. India in 2007 is a case in point; they battered the visitors for four and a half days, had them 9 down, and then the rain and bad light saved them in the 1st test (that and an umpire soon after to be accused of being biased against them turning down a dead LBW for the final wicket when Sreesanth was nailed in front). England then went to Trent Bridge and were nailed on a green wicket at its worst. England were skittled out, the Indians made a big score, and England could not reply with enough. The third test was as infuriating a four days as I’ve been to. England lost the toss, India made 600 and plenty, England made 350, the Indians batted slowly on the Sunday and England batted out for a bore draw. When a pitch could have been set out for England’s benefit (a result wicket) our powers that be were more concerned on making sure they did not need to refund any fourth or fifth day money.

 

However, one thing has to be made clear to England, and that is even on good surfaces, our bowling has been crap. The toothless nature of the bowling attack has been there for all to see. It was once said that without extreme pace or mystery spin, the test teams would have trouble taking 20 wickets. Here England are struggling to take 10. Broad may say that there have been 20 hundreds (I think there have been 15) and only four five-fors (which is a stupid comparison because in reality there are just 12 opportunities for one of those – it is extraordinary for two bowlers to take 5 each in an innings), but England seem inept at applying pressure, bowling to a plan, or just conning batsmen out. Broad will be nothing more than a back-up seamer. Anderson is as Anderson does – never offending anyone but just not who should be leading your test attack. Harmison is a busted flush. Flintoff may “bowl like a Trojan” but he doesn’t run through team. Sidebottom needs the weather as dark as his mood. Panesar has regressed as alarmingly as any bowler – a real testament to Peter Moores, him – and Swann should not be any country’s leading spinner. As for Amjad Khan – dear oh dear. To think Darren Pattinson was shabbily treated and we pick someone like this. Geoff Miller must have been on the Shepherd & Neame down in Canterbury when coming up with this pick.

 

So as England go through another wicketless session despite the ridiculously over-positive sheen Stuart Broad was putting on the game last night, the game peters out and the West Indies regain the Wisden Trophy. If the Windies manage to top 650 and then stick us in tomorrow, we may even lose the game if there is some suicidal thought of trying something outrageous. The West Indies packed the side with batsmen and knew what they were doing – we have taken three front-line wickets in 5 sessions, and in the meantime seen our 5 man attack fare little better than our four man line-up. The only thing we look likely to achieve are two unwanted records – most extras (we have conceded 72, the record is 76), and byes (where Prior has 34 and the record is 37). Sums up the tour, I’m afraid. Still, we’ll keep learning the lessons.

The Gamble Or A Bunch Of Nutters?

Jesus. Ravi Bopara must be sitting back at Port of Spain and be saying to himself  “what did I do wrong?” You score a ton and you are dropped. Ian Bell must be silently laughing at this nonsense. I started smelling a rat when a number of pundits were suggesting that once Flintoff was out of the team through injury, we should start by replacing him with a bowler, not a batsman. So in come Panesar and “Young” Amjad Khan, and out goes “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More” Sidebottom and Ravi “ton isn’t enough” Bopara. Prior comes back from tart leave to replace Ambrose. So our number six is Prior, seven is Broad, and our tail is longer than a Brontosaurus’s.

Meanwhile the WIndies have dropped a bowler, Benn (alarming they drop their main spinner and we play a second one), and replaced him with Lendl Simmons, who scored a massive double ton against England earlier in the tour. They replace Taylor, who I presume is injured, with Baker. They have Ramdin coming in at 8, and Nash, a dobbler in the Bopara class, batting at 7. What is going on? Both teams have lost their minds.

England lost Cook early and already that batting line-up depends a lot on KP and Strauss. I fear for this nonsense.

The Dullest Of Dull Draws

No panic in the end.       

 

England easily held the West Indies attack at bay on the road at Kensington Oval, and in the process Alastair Cook brought an end to my oft-used statistic that he has failed to score a ton since December 2007. Cook looks ungainly to me, and a walking wicket at times, and often I wonder how he’s going to score. His temperament is fine, in my opinion, and for one so young to have his record is impressive in England. An average of 44 would be considered very acceptable in most eras, but today it is just ordinary as the opportunity to bat on flat surfaces with unthreatening attacks and unhelpful bowling conditions. 3000 runs by the age of 24 is not to be sniffed at, and if he plays for another 10 years, at that rate he’ll have 10-11000 runs and break all English records.

 

KP’s 72 was an exercise in stifling boredom. I didn’t get to see Shah or Strauss’s dismissals but on that wicket, you have to ask yourself how you could get out. I’m still getting over how someone like Dinesh Ramdin can score a test 166 against any sort of attack, albeit an England bowling line-up that looked like it would struggle to get 20 wickets in a week.

 

On to Port of Spain on Friday for England’s last chance. As we speak the pitch is probably being rolled to death, made as flat as humanly possible, and as slow and low as they can make it. In England, of course, if we are ever 1-0 up, we’d be providing the opposition with an underprepared green top, or if Sri Lanka come to the Oval or Trent Bridge, a madly spinning dust bowl for Murali to operate. Note the green tops provided in Sri Lanka for us to work on…..

 

This England team are set to lose another series, and yet again it will be another hard luck story of missing out on a game we should have won, a mad hour costing us the test match we lose, and then being thwarted by the pitch in pushing home any chance to win (see India, at home, in 2007 as the best evidence of this). We are still no nearer finding the elusive winning combination and who knows if we ever will again?

Day 5 In The Bridgetown Brother House..

..And can England possibly lose this game on the road that is the Kensington Oval pitch?

Anyone who was at Adelaide in 2002 knows the answer to that. This England team is as brittle as bus shelter glass being attacked by a drug-fuelled chav, and with one wicket down you know a second will follow. What England must also do is make sure that they are in front of the West Indies by tea at the latest, so that runs equal time out of the game, in case they do get themselves in a pickle.

This ought to be a formality on a pitch where 1350 runs have been made for 15 wickets, and Ravi Bopara has a test ton, while Dinesh Ramdin has set a personal best of 166! But This Is England. We can lose from here. Get KP for naff all and we will be down and out – especially if the top three have subsided well in advance…..

Nasser Insane is Being A Moron

Gower is currently chiding him for in essence saying we should play a second spinner in Port-of-Spain on the flimsy grounds that Graeme Swann has taken 12 wickets in this series. Obviously the two spinners who bowled in tandem in Chennai defending 370 odd worked a treat.

Of the 20 wickets the Windies took to beat Sri Lanka at Port-of-Spain last year (and there’s a warning in itself) a spinner took 1.

Gower rightly says look at the pitch which has a history of being favourable to the quicker bowlers. I’m sure I heard insane say all our three main pace bowlers are the same (if you mean unthreatening, yes, if you think swing bowler Anderson, lefty Sidebottom, and developing Broad are the same, you are mad). So bring in Panesar who has lost it, or Rashid who by common consent is “miles away” from being a test bowler, and you give yourself a better chance? Moronic.