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  • Should Ponting retire?

    Ricky Ponting had a much awaited press conference a few hours ago to announce that he was okay with being dropped from Australia’s ODI side. Not in so many words, of course, but he did not say that he was actually retiring from anything, just that he didn’t expect to be selected in any more ODIs. I suppose it was new that he had been permanently axed, as opposed to just dropped for the series, but I think most people suspected that was the case anyway. The only thing of note that he said was that he was not retiring from Tests, which was probably not cause for and entire press conference. In fact, as far as press conferences go it was probably most underwhelming since a few years ago when Nasa announced their discovery of microbes that used arsenic in their DNA*.

    The rest of this post is now on The Armchair Selector! I’ve explained why here, but if you already know or don’t care then keep reading the article here!

    The fact that Ponting will not be retiring from Tests would seem to confirm that he intends to play in the 2013 and 2013/14 Ashes. He probably does have a couple of years left in him, but if he had gone out now (or soon) he would be going out on a high. As it is, I think his form will fall away again, if not against South Africa in a year then in the Ashes. He has had a very good series against India, but their bowling has been worse than uninspired. It’s worth remembering that against South Africa, against a good attack on reasonably helpful wickets, he scored only 70 runs in four innings. Worse, when he played on a Hobart pitch that was most similar to what he will find in England he made five and 16 against a talented, but hardly world beating attack. If he stays on for the Ashes he risks being humiliated by England’s powerful seam attack. Ponting will very likely score runs in the Windies, and perhaps afterward as well, but right now he has the chance to bow out on a high. Staying longer will jeopardise that and I doubt it will be a good idea for him in the long term.

    It’s a difficult situation for Australia, however. Ponting staying one would appear to be a boost on the face of it; he is in form and looks like he still has runs in him and at the same time their younger players do not look ready yet. Unfortunately they do not have very many series before the Ashes. After touring the West Indies next month they do not play again until they host South Africa this winter. If Ponting struggles, either against South Africa or later in the first Ashes series, Australia are effectively stuck with him through the 2013/14 Ashes. This is a very risky policy; I don’t think Ponting will bat well in the Ashes and whilst someone like Khawaja or Marsh may not be an improvement, I think Australia would be well advised to look for a replacement for Ponting sooner rather than later. That said, it’s very difficult to drop a batsman with the record of Ponting, especially before there is a clear replacement. I don’t expect the Australian selectors to do so, but Ponting has put them in what appears to be a no-win situation.

    The best case scenario for Australia is that Ponting plays reasonably well through the double Ashes series, then bows out and Australia can find his replacement and get him settled into the squad by 2016. I don’t think that’s likely, however, and I don’t think staying on is a good idea for Ponting or Australia.

    *For the handful of people who aren’t familiar with that incident, Nasa publicised the press conference several days in advance as an announcement of an important discovery relating to the search for extraterrestrial life. The fact that they had discovered entirely earthbound, albeit interesting, microbes made it rather a damp squib.

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  • Virender Morgan

    Eoin Morgan gave a very… interesting interview to BBC Sport recently. He claims that there is no need for him to alter his technique in Tests because ‘[t]he mental game still stays the same. It’s worked for me in the past and hopefully it will continue to do so.’ That mental game has given him a Test match average of 30.43 with only two hundreds in 16 matches. Only the first of those hundreds, against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in 2010, was an important one in the innings either. To say that his mental technique has worked well when he has not significantly contributed to the side is ignorant, but to say that there is no need to chance his technique when there are clear flaws in it is beyond arrogant. It is into the realm of Virender Sehwag, the poster-boy of arrogant, overrated, flat track bullies. The last thing England need is our own Sehwag, KP is already close enough. It is a simple fact that is true of any player in any sport: if he can’t or won’t adjust to help the team then he ought not to play for the team. In this case he can go back to Middlesex, they’ve been promoted so he’ll have some decent attacks against which to practise, or he can go to the Ireland and/or the IPL and forget Tests altogether.

    It is the last one which seems like the better route, both for him and the England team given the other quote he gave: ‘The Test series didn’t go quite as well as we’d hoped, but the one-day series has certainly made up for it.’ Really, Eoin? We were whitewashed in the subcontinent, threw our number one ranking into jeopardy and threw away any chance we had at being a properly dominant side for at least another five years, but a few ODI wins make up for that? If that is his attitude I don’t want him anywhere near any of the England sides, regardless of how good he theoretically is at limited overs matches. If he thinks ODIs are that important then he ought to go back to Ireland where he’ll get to play plenty of them without people asking questions about his Test form. We can’t have that kind of negative, complacent attitude infecting any of the young players who are coming up. It pains me to say this, but even Bopara would be better than Morgan now. It’s too late for this tour, but after England return from the UAE Morgan should never again be allowed to wear the Three Lions.

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  • England win by 48 runs

    The win makes it two in two for England’s women and this one was never in doubt. England’s top three of Edwards, Marsh and Taylor scored 33, 48 and 45 respectively and all at good rates to set up England’s total. The partnership of Edwards and Marsh was particularly impressive, as they went along at almost ten per over. Even after dismissing them in quick succession, the Kiwis never really found a way to contain the scoring. Taylor played another good innings whilst the batsmen farther down added nice cameos. New Zealand ended up using seven bowlers in the innings and all of them went for at least seven an over. I was hoping near the end of the innings that we could get up to 170, but the average completed first innings score in women’s T20 is only 126, so 166 was still more than handy.

    New Zealand’s run chase was rather odd though. They started poorly, getting only two of the first over before Anya Shrubsole, heroine from the first match, delivered a wicket maiden. After four overs New Zealand found themselves 9-1 and already needing almost ten per over to win. That prompted the only period of the match in which they really looked like going for it. McGlashan in particular made a concerted effort to find the ropes and just about managed to keep the Kiwis in touch for a couple of overs. Once they powerplay ended though they went back to knocking the ball for singles. I can understand keeping wickets in hand for a late assault, but they waited far too late. They went over six overs after with only a solitary six (followed by a wicket) as the only boundary, after which they needed 12 per over to win. By the time they actually started an assault in the 15th over the rate required was over 13 and all they could do was slog. Seeing as they had to get a four off of almost everything they saw, it was not surprising that it didn’t come off and they lost four wickets in two overs. What was surprising was that after that they went back to hitting singles! Part of that was some very good containing bowling from England, of course, but when one’s side needs 17 per over to win there is no excuse for not trying to clear the infield. Only boundaries were going to be enough and they did not seem to be willing to take the risks to get them. They kept losing wickets anyway, however, and their final tally of 118 all out was fairly pathetic.

    With England now 2-0 up and the Kiwis having looked pretty poor twice the series is there for the taking. New Zealand may be able to sneak a win, but I’m sticking with my original 4-1 prediction.

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  • England win by six/nine wickets

    Suddenly I’m writing the words ‘England win’ a lot. A couple of nights ago the women’s side won their first T20 by six wickets. It was rather closer than it ought to have been, Anya Shrubsole took 5-11 (all five bowled or lbw) in four overs as the Kiwis finished on 80-9. It was at this point that I made the in hindsight ill-advised comment ‘should be a straightforward chase’ on Twitter. Needless to say we got bogged down and after losing a few wickets were actually behind the rate for a time. For the Kiwis, Kate Broadmore at one point had figures of 2.2-2-0-1. Unlike Shrubsole, however, she couldn’t take more than that one wicket and Sarah Taylor hit a composed and unbeaten 31 off 34 to see England home with six wickets and 14 balls to spare. Never in doubt… The second match of the series is tonight/tomorrow morning and whilst New Zealand will take heart from their bowling display I’m tipping England to win again.

    The far more surprising win was for the men’s side. If I had known before the tour that there would be 3-0 scorelines in both the Test and ODI series I would have assumed that we had won the Tests and been hammered in the ODIs. As it was, England turned in one of their most comprehensive ever ODI wins away from home. Only three times previously have England played top tier opposition away from home and chased down a target with more balls to spare than the 76 balls to spare that they had in this match. The most recent was against South Africa in November 2009 when England lost three wickets en route to 121 off 31.2 overs. England also won with 94 balls remaining at the MCG in January 1979, a 40-over ODI in which Geoffery Boycott scored an unbeaten 39 off 107 deliveries. England took just 28.2 overs to chase down the 102 they needed for victory and I’m sure the crowd went home thinking that they got their money’s worth. I think a case could be made that this was a more comprehensive victory than any of those, however. England looked today like they could easily have chased down another hundred runs. There were standout performances from Cook and Finn again, but KP was the real star. He looked today like the KP of old, a man bristling with intent and for once not likely to give his wicket away. Once he got into his stride the only thing that looked like it might stop him from reaching three figures was if England ran out of runs to chase. As it was, Cook’s dismissal meant that KP could get to an unbeaten 111, his joint highest ODI score.

    This puts England in a very rare position for overseas ODI series. Excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the last time England won an overseas ODI series by two or more matches was a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand in 1992. If England can win the last match, it will be only the second time overseas and fifth time ever that England have won four or more matches in an ODI series.

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  • England win by 20 runs

    Only an ODI could be this close and still this dull. Pakistan needed 251 to win and yet never seemed to go for the runs until it was too late. They hung around, matched England’s score and matched the D/L par score for almost the entire innings, and apart from a brief blitz by Afridi in the last powerplay they never showed any real attacking intent. It was a match in which the result was not decided until a couple of overs before it ended and yet it was never gripping. There were 99 overs played and about ninety of them followed the ‘dull middle over’ pattern. If it had been a Test match it might have been thrilling, but as it was it was just waiting for something to actually happen.

    Part of that was the England bowlers who were very good again, Finn turning in his second successive 4-34, but once again losing out on man of the match to his centurion captain. Jimmy Anderson, however, who I suggested should not play in ODIs took the vital wicket of Afridi in what turned out to be a wicket-maiden. I still say Jimmy should not play ODIs, or at least seldom play. My point about him needing to be fit and firing in Tests has not changed, but he showed today just how talented he is.

    I always think that ODIs should be played before Tests in a tour as to do otherwise is often anticlimactic, as we saw with the series against India last summer and the Ashes before that, but I think England will be particularly ruing that the Tests came before the ODIs on this tour. England played Saeed Ajmal much better today, partly due to practise and partly due to the format demanding that they attack a bit more and not having men around the bat. If the ODIs had come first they would have got their practise in the less important matches and they might have learnt the value of positive play before now. I don’t think it will be changed in the near future, but it is something at which I think the ECB ought to look.

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  • New Zealand v England preview

    England will start a five T20 and three ODI series against New Zealand on Friday afternoon (Kiwi time anyway, 01.45 GMT, and a very reasonable 19.45 Thursday evening in my time zone). I’d say England are strong favourites. They go in both in very good form in the warmups (all three of which they won convincingly) and over the past year and a bit in general. Since the start of 2011 they have lost only four of 21 completed matches in both the fifty and twenty over formats, including beating New Zealand once in each at home last summer. Of course, the men’s team have shown clearly that winning at home is very different from winning on the road, but the difference in conditions between England and New Zealand will not be nearly as large as that between England and the UAE. To further boost England’s hopes, New Zealand come in to the series on the back of a very disappointing tour of Australia. They lost the T20 series 1-4, the one win being in a dead rubber, and they were crushed by nine wickets and 200 deliveries in the only ODI that was not washed out.

    I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect England to win the T20 series at least 4-1, perhaps even 5-0. England only lost one T20 last year and had the best run rate of any team in that time, seven runs per over. England have not had quite the same advantage in ODIs, winning seven of ten last year, but still look much the stronger side. They were not troubled in South Africa, winning all three matches by comfortable margins. England’s success in South Africa was based in large part on sizeable contributions from the top order, with the captain Charlotte Edwards and Lydia Greenway being the standout performers both in the T20s and ODIs. The bowling was very good too, however, the most they conceded in a single innings in 2011 was 235, though Australia probably would have gone past that at Perth had they not achieved their target. For a New Zealand side that struggled a bit with the bat in Australia, that is not good news. When one adds in the fact that the Kiwi bowlers had the worst ODI economy rate in women’s cricket in 2011, I can’t see them getting close to England in the series. Barring an intervention by the weather I’m predicting a 3-0 win for the tourists. Unfortunately there are not any Tests being played on the tour and disappointingly England have played only three since 2006, the most recent being in Australia a year ago.

    The T20 matches will start at a very awkward hour in the UK, but it won’t be difficult to catch the start of the ODIs, which begin at 21.30 GMT. In any case it might be worth it to get/stay up. After the debacles the men’s side have had in the subcontinent and nearby areas it will be very nice to see what should be a comfortable win. Unfortunately, the first T20 won’t be on Sky Sports until after the New Zealand men’s T20 ends, about 03.30 GMT. (I’m not sure about the subsequent matches.) It’s rather frustrating seeing as the match that is being given priority is the one in which England are not playing, but even more irritating is the fact that there seems to be no radio coverage at all. Living in America, I don’t get Sky Sports at all so I will have to make do with Cricinfo’s rather minimalist ball-by-ball coverage. Hopefully the rest of you can enjoy it, however. Record it and watch it at a reasonable hour if nothing else.

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  • England win by 130 runs

    Up until very recently, the only thing that would be remarkable about that scoreline in a Test match would be the absence of ‘an innings and’ but for England it is an unusually good result for an ODI. The selection wasn’t quite what I had predicted before the match. I had suggested that Dernbach would play instead of Bresnan on the back of the performances in the warmup match, but England played neither of them, instead opting for Jimmy Anderson. This surprised me (not at the time, as I was asleep, but when I got up) as I had thought Jimmy had rather fallen out of favour during the last World Cup. I’m actually quite happy just to see Jimmy rested during the limited overs matches and saved for Tests; the last thing we need is a bowler of his calibre picking up an injury due to an ODI on which he is unlikely to have much of an impact. Anderson is a better bowler overall than Dernbach, however, so the selection makes sense from that standpoint. Jimmy actually did not fare that well, however; he only got six overs and did not take a wicket. He also went at four an over, which is not bad for an ODI, but Pakistan’s overall rate was only 3.7.

    Finn, of course, was the pick of the bowlers with his analysis of 10-1-34-4. Those four were not cheap wickets either, they were the top four batsmen in Pakistan’s order. He blew them away to leave Paksitan at one point 40-4 and it was always going to be a struggle from there. Credit should also go to Graeme Swann, for his 7-3-19-2. He actually was the sixth bowler used (Bopara got an over) but he was instrumental in keeping Pakistan tied down as England turned the screw. Once again the batting was not particularly good, but they did enough today. Cook led from the front, something at which he has got rather good at doing in ODIs. His 137 off 142 was enough to win him Man of the Match, with which it is hard to argue. Especially after England’s batting woes in the Tests it was a much needed innings. He scored seven more than the entire Pakistan team and more than the rest of his teammates combined, which says a lot about how important his innings was. He also scored at nearly a run a ball, which should help suppress suggestions that he and Trott should not play in the same team. Each have perfectly respectable strike rates.

    It should be noted that as it stands this is little more than a ‘feel-good’ win for England. The batting was still heavily reliant on one player and Finn’s early burst effectively ended the match, allowing the rest to play with the pressure off. Pakistan did not bat particularly well (though they hardly excelled in the Tests either) and England can probably expect them to come back. For now at least, England have a slight upper hand, nothing more.

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  • Four down, 11 to go…

    India have so far done better than I expected they would in the ODI series. They have won matches against both Sri Lanka and now Australia, as the series continues to drag on. After four matches, Australia and India each have two wins, though for some reason Australia got an extra point when they won the first match and are thus topping the table. (If someone knows why, please tell me in the comments, as I can’t seem to find an explanation.)

    Australia have looked a bit feeble; their top order collapsed in Melbourne and Perth and did not look perform that well in Adelaide. They ended up winning easily in the first match, but they barely survived an Angelo Mathews blitz in Perth and could not survive MS Dhoni in Adelaide. India for their part have played better than I expected; MS Dhoni has finally remembered how to hold a bat and whilst their bowling has not been exceptional it has been respectable. Australia must be worried about the performance of their top order, however. It wasn’t impressive in the Test series and it hasn’t redeemed itself so far in the ODIs. Ponting hasn’t batted at number three in Tests for a while, so I’m not sure why he’s up the order in ODIs, but it does not look like a sound strategy at this point.

    Although I predicted Australia to do well in the ODIs, it was mostly due to the the relative skill of the opposition. I’m not actually too surprised that Australia have not looked overpowering. Their tope order was mostly absent in the Test series as well and we already knew they weren’t the force they once were. Australia have plenty of time to recover, however: we’ve only played four of a scheduled 15 matches.

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  • ODI selection

    The first Pakistan v England ODI is tomorrow. I don’t think England ought to be particularly optimistic, their only warmup has come from crushing the Lions and Pakistan are a rather better side. The Lions match did seem to suggest that a lot of the youngsters are not yet ready to be called up the the senior side, however, and with Buttler injured I think I’d be hesitant to call any of the Lions players up for the first ODI. (Though I wouldn’t mind seeing them for subsequent matches if the seniors continue to underperform.) Ideally, I would also extend this to Kieswetter, who played for the Lions before coming to the UAE. We’ve seen that runs for the Lions are no guarantee of success, and I’d like to see Davies (better ODI average and S/R than Kieswetter) given another chance. Unfortunately he isn’t in the squad.

    There is also the Bopara question. I don’t harbour the same antipathy toward him in the shorter formats as I do in Test matches (he can’t do nearly as much damage in only 100 overs) but I am still reluctant to see him play. He also fared the worst of any of the senior players in the warmup, scoring only 36 (off 45). With none of the Lions players standing up and demanding selection I’d keep him in, but only until Buttler is fit. There is also an interesting question around the bowlers; they did exceptionally well to bowl the Lions out for 97 and should probably stay unchanged, but they did so without Stuart Broad, who has been England’s star performer. Before the match I would have replaced Dernbach with Broad, but the former’s 3-21 off eight overs probably demands selection. The odd man out is probably going to be the fit again Tim Bresnan who took only one wicket and went at 4.6 in the warmup. If any of the other bowlers struggle in the opening matches, however, I would not hesitate to bring Bresnan back in. My XI for the first ODI would thus be:

    Cook*
    KP
    Trott
    Morgan
    Bopara
    Kieswetter†
    Patel
    Broad
    Swann
    Finn
    Dernbach

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  • Saturday Review – 11 Feb

    This week has been primarily notable for the predictable, if still disappointing, dénouement of the third Pakistan v England Test and the subsequent reset for the limited overs leg. England handily beat the Lions (which surprised me), meaning there will probably not be dramatic changes for the first ODI on Monday. (More on which tomorrow.) Pakistan warmed up by playing Afghanistan in the latter’s first full international. The Afghanis lost, but did themselves proud. There were also quite a few ODIs in the southern hemisphere. The Australian tri-series kicked off with three relatively poorly attended matches. India overcame Sri Lanka by four wickets in Perth, but otherwise little of note happened. And Zimbabwe’s horror tour of New Zealand continued with two massive defeats in the ODIs and a heavy loss in the first T20 as well. It was a surprisingly exciting week, and there were some very good pieces written, my favourite of which follow:

    Third defeat completes humiliating whitewash of England – Batting For Hours

    The revolution has been televised – Alex Malcolm, Cricinfo

    Phil Tufnell’s England player ratings – BBC

    Pakistan v England – England’s series report card – Gary Naylor, The Guardian

    Jos Buttler, the latest candidate to be England’s Chosen One – Barney Ronay, The Guardian

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