Tag: cricket

England still don’t need Pietersen

It was reported in the Telegraph that Kevin Pietersen had refused to sign a four-month contract with England before being left out of the touring squad to India. In other words, for all his talk about committing to England and wanting to play for England when given the chance to return he decided that he did not want to do what was required of him. His arrogance is staggering; he is labouring under the delusion the one calling the shots. He has to be forgiven by Flower and his (former) teammates to come back and whilst that ought indeed to happen, Pietersen does not seem to grasp that it is not down to him, the one seeking forgiveness, to set the terms. He must show humility and contrition for his behaviour over the whole summer to be allowed back and a large part of that is simply accepting the terms given by Flower and co and then actually working to get back into the side. It should not have to be stated that giving one’s public ‘apology’ via an agent and then haggling about one’s penitence is not the path to forgiveness.

In the meantime, we will be treated to more hysteria about England not having a chance in India without Pietersen. I’m not sure on what this is based; it’s not like England have been cruising to victory in Asia with him. Excluding the two match series in Bangladesh in 2010, Pietersen has played 16 Tests in Asia of which England have won only two and lost nine. England have not won any of those six series, the best result being a 1-1 draw in India in 2006 and of course Pietersen himself led the team to a 0-1 defeat in India in 2008.

The individual averages are even more damming. Pietersen in his career averages only 33.94 in Tests in Asia (excluding Bangladesh) in 31 innings. There are six batsmen with better averages in Asia in those same Tests (excluding Owais Shah who played only one) with the list topped by Marcus Trescothick and Paul Collingwood. And yet I have not heard anyone suggest that England cannot win in India without Collingwood or Trescothick. Amongst current players Pietersen is behind Cook, Prior and Trott (and Strauss, if one wishes to look at until-very-recently-current players as well). Despite all the suggestions that he can take the game away from oppositions and counter spin in a manner of which no one else is supposedly capable, the fact is that he either can’t or doesn’t. I’d much rather have Colly back than Pietersen.

But perhaps that is harsh. All it really shows is that Pietersen is not some talisman to lead us to victory in India. And whilst that is an important point it does not mean that he has not been vital in the wins we have had elsewhere. England’s most notable victories in recent times have come in the 2009 and 2010/11 Ashes and in the 4-0 win over India in 2011. Perhaps Pietersen was integral to those? Well, not quite. He’s been good, of course; he’s been useful. But he has not been the main factor. Pietersen actually only played two matches in the 2009 Ashes, during which he averaged only 38. To be fair, few of the batsmen had a good series, but that was still only a bit more than Graeme Swann who averaged 36 in all five Tests. Pietersen was also outscored in the series by Jonathan Trott who played in just one Test.

In 2010/11 Pietersen finished behind Cook, Trott and Bell in the series averages (and was not even close to the first two) despite scoring 227 in just one innings at Adelaide. That one innings was an outstanding display and utterly deserving of all the praise put on it. But the other four Tests got him just 133 runs. He helped England win that series, but he did not do so alone and was not even the biggest contributor. And of course, that only looks at the batting. He was not at all involved in England bowling Australia out for 98 in Melbourne.

The only one of those three great wins where Pietersen really was the main destroyer was in 2011 against India. He scored 533 runs at an average of over 100 with a pair of centuries (one of them an unbeaten double ton). Once again there were some brilliant innings and his contributions are deservedly praised. But once again he was not alone. He was the highest of seven England batsmen to average over fifty (and barely scored more than Ian Bell) in that series and once again the bowlers did just as much work. He was a huge help for England but he was not the reason they won.

The conclusion is obvious: Pietersen is a good player. He is an asset to England, but he is not the only asset. England can win matches when he is absent or not contributing and they can lose matches when he plays. He is one player not The Chosen One. The suggestions that England can not win without him are likely a product of a combination of hyperbole and poor memory; they certainly do not have a factual grounding.

An XI in India

After the England quad announcement was put back to tomorrow, there has been a lot of speculation about who might be included. I’ve already said my preferred squad, but there are a few things which have changed since then.

First off is that Eoin Morgan has a central contract and looks certain to be in the squad. I still think that is a bad idea and in fact his inclusion baffles me to an extent. He has a reputation of being a good player of spin and an asset on the subcontinent, but this seems to have come from nowhere. (I did see a suggestion that he played spin well because he played hurling in Ireland. Not sure if that is the actual rationale or not, but it is a ridiculous notion.) He has played one series in conditions that are similar to the subcontinent, in the UAE early this year, and he had an absolute shocker. He looked as shocking against spin as the rest of the squad and that is the only time we have seen him in conditions like India. There is simply no reason at all to include him without his proving his worth in the County Championship.

There’s also a suggestion that one (or very possibly both) of Ravi Bopara or Samit Patel will be in the squad. My thoughts on Bopara are well established. Patel is a more complicated matter, but I don’t think he should play. He is not Test quality with either bat or ball and I don’t like the notion of having such a ‘bits and pieces’ player in the side. It’s a philosophy that seems to be common for sides playing in the subcontinent that they need a special side or a special player for balance. Whilst I do think that there is merit to altering the balance a bit, I don’t see any logic in having players who are not good enough in the side just because they are not good enough at more than one thing. The conditions in India are different, but not so different that sides need to do something odd. Teams, or at least good teams, do not select unusual players for the different conditions in England, South Africa or Australia. So why for the subcontinent? Selectors need to keep faith in Test quality players to perform even in different conditions.

Lancashire in 2012

After the euphoria of 2011, the comedown of 2012 could hardly be more pronounced. From Champions to relegated and with the added pain of Yorkshire going up, meaning no Roses cricket next year as well.

Listening to Lancashire all season, it felt almost like they never could quite ‘click’. They always seemed to be playing a little bit worse than they ought to be and when they improved it was short-lived. Fate did not help at all. Last season Lancashire only lost 200-odd overs to the weather. This year it was about nine times that much; over five full matches worth of time lost. In practice it completely ruined eight matches: against Somerset (twice), Notts, Sussex, Surrey (twice), Worcs and Durham. Not all looked like being Lancashire wins, of course (though the two against Somerset did), and when it didn’t rain Lancashire still lost more often than not. The result can certainly not be blamed on the weather, but it really did not help. The other bits of misfortune were injuries and the schedule. Tom Smith missed most of the season with a hamstring injury and showed at the end of the year just how much that hurt the team. Lancashire finally started hitting their stride and either won or came close to winning their three matches before the T20 break. But that month of pyjama cricket broke their momentum and form.

Still, it would be inaccurate and rather irresponsible to blame fate for Lancashire’s relegation. There were flaws with both the bowling and batting. The batting has looked quite poor as there were a number of dramatic collapses that seemed to all but put Lancashire out of matches. But whilst it is true that the batting was not great, it was probably not as bad as it first appears. The first thing to remember is that the conditions favoured bowlers all year. No team batted as well as one would otherwise expect and Lancashire’s total of 25 batting points was comfortably more than Durham and only one fewer than Nottinghamshire. The biggest problem for Lancashire seemed to be that there was a much greater reliance on one person this year: Ashwell Prince. Prince scored 1,008 run at an average of over 40 in 15 matches. But he had no support; the next highest tally was Steven Croft’s 666 runs at under thirty. The practical upshot was that sometimes the batting would fire and put Lancs in a good position and sometimes there would be an astonishing collapse.

Those collapses are quite memorable, of course, but the bowling was the much larger problem. The summer was so wet that the conditions very much favoured bowlers, but Lancs had a terrible time taking twenty wickets. In sixteen matches they took only twenty wickets only three times. It was very much the bowling that won the title last year, with three bowlers taking over fifty wickets in 2011 and Simon Kerrigan of course taking 24 in just four matches. Whilst it would be a lot to ask for a repeat performance, few of the bowlers even came close. The apparently ageless Glen Chapple took 42 over the course of the year (with a pair of five-fers, ten in one match and a bowling average of 24 over the course of the year) and Kerrigan still managed 44 on what tended to be fairly unhelpful pitches. But he did so with an average over 33 and the next highest wicket total was that of Luke Procter of all people with 25. This is not to say the bowling was uniformly terrible, but they did a terrible job of making the most of good starts. In the first match of the season, Sussex recovered from 13-3 to 300 all out thanks to a fourth wicket stand of 164 and unfortunately it was that which really set the tone for the season. Every match that was not badly rain affected had at least one century partnership for Lancashire’s opposition and usually they occurred after early collapses. Of particular import were Warwickshire’s stand of 224 after being 81-7, Worcestershire’s partnership of 127 after being 93-6 and of course Middlesex’s recovery to 446 after losing three wickets early. The first two probably cost Lancashire the match, and by extension their place in the first division, whilst the third all but broke the back of the season.

There will be some calls for change over the winter, I suspect, but I think restraint is important. There are changes we can make, but I think we only need a few. First is that we will need a replacement for Ashwell Prince, unless we can convince him to return. Whilst we have to back our batsmen to improve next year (we know they can play better than they did this year), they will be very much helped by having someone very good and reliable like Prince again. There aren’t a huge number of options due to the IPL and international commitments, of course, but there are a few who are in similar situations as Prince was and who we might be able to sign. But as I said above the bowling was the bigger problem. Ajmal Shahzad looked a decent addition (especially with Sajid Mahmood having a shocker of a season), but he did not actually come up with a lot of wickets. Kyle Hogg also had a poor season, Tom Smith was injured for much of the year and we seldom had chances to play both Keedy and Kerrigan. It’s probably fair to expect Hogg to have a better season next year. Shahzad and Mahmood are a lot more uncertain, but both are talented. I don’t think there is actually a lot we can do to improve the bowling from a personnel standpoint. There are no English players (and I’m assuming we use our overseas player for a batsman) who spring to mind who are all of available, affordable and a clear improvement to what we have. It’s not ideal, but I suspect we will have to make do with what we have. (And maybe hope we get Jimmy for more than just one match this time.) Really, it should be enough, though, especially in Division Two. I think in most cases one would expect it to have been enough in Division One.

I’m optimistic about Lancashire’s chances next season. Unless something goes very wrong in the winter (eg: Chappie retiring) we will probably be favourites to go straight back up. There are improvements to be made, but I think that sticking with the core of this squad will pay dividends.

Twenty20 World Cup preview

Now that England have finished their rain affected series against South Africa there is no other men’s cricket until the start of the T20 World Cup. Of course there should be another two years, but because the ICC only sees various currency symbols in the fixture list they decided to go ahead and compromise some of the integrity of the tournament in exchange for the extra cash of having it once every two years instead of once every four. But it’s a reasonable enough decision as it’s only T20 and the whole point is just to make money anyway.

The format for the tournament is one of two group stages leading to the semi-finals. The first group stage is four groups of three with the top two from each advancing to two groups of four. It’s exciting in that any of the top teams can see their tournament end quite quickly if they slip up in the first two matches and rubbish in that this gives a huge role to chance. Still at least it’s a direct tournament and not the flawed rankings.

Group A contains England, India and Afghanistan. England are officially the best team in the world in the shortest format in the world and to be fair have won seven of their last ten (completed) matches. India are theoretically T20 powerhouses. They have probably the best disposed fan base toward T20 and this is manifest in the IPL. Despite (or very possibly in part because of) this India actually have a very poor record in T20 and have lost at home to both England and New Zealand in the past year. And then there is Afghanistan who I think I might be required by law to call ‘plucky’. Their story in getting to the tournament has been documented elsewhere in a much better fashion than I could, but what is most relevant is that they are not at all a bad side. They gave Australia a scare in a fifty-over match not long ago and they cannot be written off. One would probably not expect a major upset; England and India have to stay on their guard, but they will probably both advance.

Group B contains Australia, the West Indies and Ireland. A bit was made last week about Australia actually falling below Ireland in the rankings. (The Aussies have since moved back in front.) Although I pointed out why it was overblown, it is true that Australia have had a pretty dismal time in T20s recently. The West Indies have done a bit better though and split a two match series against Australia earlier this year. Ireland have played very little major opposition and were whitewashed in three matches at home by Bangladesh in the last series that they played. I think the West Indies will probably be the safest leaving Australia and Ireland. Ireland actually look like the better team on paper, but that is almost entirely against other Associate nations. They will be keen and if Australia have any sort of off day Ireland can definitely win. This might actually be a group where all three teams manage one win and run rate becomes the decider. I’m going to spring for the upset and have Ireland go through.

Group C comprises Sri Lanka, South Africa and Zimbabwe. South Africa have had a solid if unspectacular year. Zimbabwe have lost all six official T20s they played in the last twelve months and only two of them were even close. Sri Lanka have hardly played any matches so it’s quite hard to judge them. Presumably South Africa will top the group comfortably with Sri Lanka quite likely finishing runners-up. It might be interesting to see if Zimbabwe can pull off something remarkable against them though.

And in Group D there is Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh. Pakistan have been a fairly strong T20 outfit recently and just technically beat Australia 2-1 in the UAE. (Though it should go down as 1-1 with one tie.) New Zealand did just manage to beat India, but had a poor time against the West Indies before that and are still far too mercurial. Bangladesh are Bangladesh. They may pull off a surprise against a better team on paper, but it would be a surprise. The Pakistan v New Zealand battle for the top of the group might be interesting, but unfortunately the tournament structure is such that the group winners are not rewarded over runners up. As with so many T20s, the result of that contest won’t matter.

So I suspect it will be England, the West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Group 1 of the second round and India, Ireland, South Africa and Pakistan in Group 2. The top two teams of those two groups will meet in the semi-finals. Assuming the groups finish as I suggest (which isn’t going to happen, but never mind) then I would guess the semi-finals to be England v Pakistan and South Africa v West Indies and probably South Africa topping off a good year by beating Pakistan in the final. Maybe.

T20 matches

England played a T20 match the other day. I don’t really mind the international stuff the way I dislike the IPL, but I did actually forget that it was on and missed a pretty comprehensive defeat. Such things happen in T20s with regularity and there should not be too much read into them. The format has a sizeable element of chance about the result and sometimes it will swing heavily toward one team. Of course there is skill involved as well and South Africa may have simply been the better team (as I said above, I didn’t actually watch it so I don’t know), but it is important that no substantial conclusions be based on that match. That point also holds true for Australia’s super over defeat at the hands of Pakistan. Leaving aside the bizarre fact that they played a super over even though it was not a knockout match, the result sent Australia below Ireland in the ICC T20 rankings. But these are actually even less reliable than the results of one match; most international T20 matches are one-off affairs at the end of a tour and there are simply too few being played to meaningfully rank the teams. As amusing as it may be from an English perspective it simply does not mean anything.

Despite this, however, I did see a predictable and ridiculous conclusion almost immediately announced: that the defeat showed that England ‘needed’ Kevin Pietersen. It showed no such thing. Even leaving aside my personal feelings on the Pietersen issue; it should go without saying that if England needed Kevin Pietersen to win then they would never be able to win without him. And yet England beat the West Indies in the first T20 of the summer and won eight out of ten ODIs played without him. He might be a useful addition to the side; he might make England more likely to win, but that is also true of Matt Prior or a time-travelling Ian Botham from his pomp and no one would claim that England need either of them to win. In the same manner it is absolutely not true that England need Kevin Pietersen to win. This just seems to be a convenient refrain to spout every time England lose, regardless of the actual circumstances. It’s rapidly becoming as annoying and stupid as that ubiquitous ‘your boys took one hell of a beating’ ‘joke’ that is now said by someone after almost every single result. Both need to stop.

Lancashire at Lord’s

Lancashire probably do not quite have everything to play for in these next two days against Middlesex at Lord’s, but they are not far from it. Coming into the match they sit 17 points behind Surrey and safety with a head-to-head match to close out the season next week. But for that match to matter they must stay in touch with Surrey this week and the more they can close the gap now the easier the task will be at Aigburth. Which makes it all the more disappointing that they conceded 446 in the first innings. That’s very much been the story of the season this year, but the match is not over yet. After 77 overs of their reply, Lancs are 236-3 at stumps on day two.

This sets things up all rather interestingly. Lancashire already have four bonus points from the match (three bowling and now one batting) and have almost exactly until lunch tomorrow to see what else they can get. Another two points should be on the cards and a third one (fourth overall) should be just about within reach. One hundred and fourteen runs in a session is certainly possible. But the match is not a guaranteed draw. Lancashire could still certainly lose it and there is even a (very) outside chance of winning. Meantime Surrey have a first innings lead over Notts, but only got five bonus points from that match. So how should Lancs approach things this morning?

My natural instinct is to play it safe. Lancs probably could get to a seventh bonus point tomorrow, but the risk is that they would find themselves 350-8 instead of 325-5 and in a position to lose the match rather than draw it. And there’s little use getting a seventh bonus point if it costs three points that would be earned in a draw. But there is one huge caveat: the second new ball. Twice in this match the new ball has wreaked havoc in the early morning. On day one Middlesex found themselves 39-3 after 11.2 overs with the new ball and on the second morning they went from 389-6 to 427-9 in 12.3 overs against a slightly older ball. Given the way Lancashire have batted this year, there is then every chance that a cautious approach may leave us 325-8 and in the worst of both worlds without both the extra point and the strong batting position.

So I would actually go against my instinct and advise the batsmen to play themselves in facing the three overs of the old ball and then try to get plenty off the new one. One of the advantages of the new ball is that it goes to the boundary easier and by all accounts the pitch is a road. There’s no need to go slogging, of course, but intelligent play and going for runs wherever possible should see Lancashire up past 350 and to a competitive total. Even if we are bowled out shortly thereafter (and even if we are seven or eight down there’s a decent chance the tail will put on a few) we will be within a hundred runs and still have another innings in which to bat. If the bowlers do their job it could yet be game on. More than anything else, however, Lancs must hope that Surrey do not beat Nottinghamshire as that would surely spell the end.

England squad in India

With the retirement of Andrew Strauss, there now another aspect to the question of how England will look when they play India on the 15th of November. England need a new opener in addition to deciding how they want the middle order to look and deciding on the balance of the bowling attack.

As far as an opening partner for Cook goes, there are three main possibilities: Trott could be moved up a spot with someone like Nick Compton coming in to the middle order, Joe Root of Yorkshire could come in or Michael Carberry could come in. Of the three, I think moving Trott up would be a very bad idea. He has batted at three for almost his entire career and despite being a bit short of form at the moment he has had great success at that spot. To move him would also necessitate moving Ian Bell up to three and them possibly leaving three batsmen at four, five and six with only six caps between them. I would rather break up the inexperience. Choosing between Root and Carberry is interesting because a couple of years ago there really would not have been a choice. Carberry was the heir apparent and was even given a Test against Bangladesh when Strauss was rested in 2010. But he suffered from a blood clot in the lung and although he has fought back from that his form has fallen off this year and Root has had a blinder. (Both have been in Division Two.) I’d be quite tempted to have them both on the plane to India and see who looks better in the warmups. I’d have Root as the favourite though and (with a couple of LV=CC matches still to come, of course) if I had to pick just one right now it would be him.

With the bowling attack, England still have the ‘problem’ of having more Test quality bowers than they can fit into a single match. There is also the added problem in India of whether to play two spinners and if so how many seamers to play alongside them. The received wisdom is to play two spinners in India and indeed anywhere on the subcontinent. It is important as it provides a threat when there is not a lot of help for the seamers as well as a way to keep the scoring tied down. But England’s strength is seam bowling. We have seen in New Zealand’s series in India that good seam bowlers can get help from the Indian pitches and can make life difficult for the batsmen, at least in August. I think England would be well advised to play three seam bowlers, but that does not rule out two spinners. England played three seamers and two spinners in the one match they won over the winter last year, so Flower is clearly not impossibly set against the idea and it has been successful. I favour five bowlers anyway, but especially in conditions such as in India that can be quite draining on the bowlers. To play three seamers and two spinners would give England ample options for both attack and defence and I think they will need that.

The most obvious second spinner would be Monty Panesar, though Samit Patel does offer more with the bat and acquitted himself decently in Sri Lanka. He did not, however, look Test quality and England may need a bit more in a four Test series. There is also the matter of Swann’s elbow to be considered. He is being rested from the ODIs against South Africa, but it is not at all clear how fit he will be in India. England could not afford to have just Patel and a half-fit Swann, I think, which would mean an almost certain recall for Monty Panesar. He didn’t look great in the one match he played in Sri Lanka, but he was very good in the UAE before that and his nearest competition, James Tredwell and Simon Kerrigan, are a bit short of international quality and still too inexperienced respectively. At least one of them (and with an eye to the future I would have it be Kerrigan) should be in the squad as backup, but I would not expect them to play unless Swann is so injured he has to miss a Test.

This just leaves the middle order. Right now it is Trott, Bell, Taylor and Bairstow, but if England do play five bowlers than one of them would have to miss out and it’s a fair assumption that it will be one of the lower two. (Though if Trott is moved up to open then that would no longer be the case.) Bairstow is probably the favourite to stay in the side after his heroics at Lord’s, but Taylor looked very talented as well and should at least be on the plane. He can push for a spot in the playing XI during the warmups. There will also be no doubt suggestions of recalls for Eoin Morgan and/or Kevin Pietersen. Neither should be seriously considered, however. Morgan did well by announcing that he wanted to focus on his Test career, but he still has to back that up by actually refining his technique and improving at the first class level. He may get back in the test side at some point, but he is behind both Bairstow and Taylor now and will need to prove himself over most or all of a season with Middlesex. Pietersen should simply never be considered for England again. Most of his actions this summer have been unconscionable and although he was not the main reason for Strauss’s departure there can be little doubt that he does carry some of the blame. As Rob Smyth put very well in the Guardian: ‘if he cannot see “Straussy’s” blood on his hands, he has an even bigger lack of self-awareness than we feared’. Pietersen threw England into disarray at the end of 2008 and he is having a go at doing so again. Regardless of how talented he may be, it is time England got shot of him for good.

With all of the above in mind, my touring squad to India would be: Cook*, Anderson, Bairstow, Bell, Bresnan, Broad, Carberry, Davies†, Finn, Kerrigan, Panesar, Prior†, Root, Swann, Taylor, Trott

The playing XI would depend heavily on the results of warmup matches, but I would lean toward: Cook*, Root, Trott, Bell, Bairstow, Prior†, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn, Panesar

Farewell, Straussy

Andrew Strauss retired from all forms of cricket yesterday. It is a sad moment for England who lose one of our most gifted and successful captains of all time, but also for cricket in general as it loses one of the true gentlemen of the game. Strauss was one of the few left of whom it could always be said that he played in the proper spirit and was an ideal role model. I don’t know that there is anyone right now who can fill that role. It was also, I suspect, a very sad moment for Strauss himself. Certainly it was not an ideal ending to his career. Strauss took England from the shambles of the divided dressing room and the 51 all out humiliation to an Ashes triumph within a year and then to seven consecutive home series victories, an Ashes win down under for the first time in 24 years and the top of the ICC Test rankings. All throughout that time he put the team before himself, leading with a quiet authority and stoicism. He played for 100 Tests, captained for fifty and with the bat he fell one short of the England record for most Test centuries. ‘Great’ is by no means too high praise for him. Both as a captain and a person he deserved so much better than to go out in the situation he did.

I wish that he had stayed on longer. I wrote why he should for the Armchair Selector just recently and I don’t think any of that has changed. I have trouble finding fault with the notion that England are a worse side without him than with him. But he clearly disagreed and I think it’s fair to say that he probably knows the situation better than I do. He spent his entire career doing what was right for the team and doing an admirable job of it. It saddens me greatly in this case, but there can be no doubt that he has done enough to earn faith in his decision making.

India win by an innings and 115 runs

India put their most recent losing run behind them in fairly emphatic style inside four days against the Kiwis. I didn’t get to see all of the Test due to the time zone, but there were a few aspects that stood out:

– New Zealand were shoddy. This is something I’ve seen from them quite a few times, of course, and I think it is probably the biggest thing keeping them from becoming an average side. They have very little application with the bat and although their bowling was good their fielding was not. They have the talent, I think, to get better results than they do. But they just don’t seem to put in the work to get there.

– Ravichandran Ashwin is a decent bowler. It’s not wise to read too much into a result on an Indian wicket against a team seemingly determined to get a day off and his failures in Australia cannot be forgot. But one can only beat the opposition that is presented and Ashwin got very good turn and bounce. He still has a lot to prove, but it is a red flag for England in three months.

– Speaking of England, they may be slightly encouraged by the amount of swing and seam the New Zealand bowlers got. Boult and Bracewell in particular were getting a lot of movement in the air on the first morning and given the similarity of England’s attack it will be very interesting to see if the conditions in November are still conductive to swing.

– Virender Sehwag is an idiot. We knew that already, of course, but it goes to a new level when one does not even manage to bully on a flat track. He made a decent 47 and off of only 41 balls, but offered two clear chances and a few edges through the slips in that time. He didn’t take the hint though and got out trying to cut a ball that was too close to his body. He then went off rehearsing the shot, seemingly under the impression that it was the execution which had let him down as opposed to the shot selection. There is almost no other way to describe it apart from ‘stupid’.

– The DRS must be made universal. For all the arguments over the influence the DRS has had over umpires and whether it is correctly applied to close decisions, there is little doubt that it has achieved it’s stated goal of getting rid of the howler. At least when it is used. It was not used in this Test, of course, because the BCCI don’t like it. And so, after a year of discussing marginal cases and whether it was a good thing with front foot lbws we got to see the return of the howler. New Zealand were hit the worst by it, with two absolutely terrible decisions going against them. Guptill and McCullum both were given out lbw, the first to a ball that was comfortably spinning away and going over the stumps and the second to a massive inside edge. There is little chance that the result was affected, but it is still quite troubling and not the least because of what it says about the elite panel of Umpires. They do, of course, get more decisions right than they do wrong as well as getting more decisions right than most people would. But that is not really good enough at Test level and especially without some sort of backup in place. Right now, the only two really trustworthy umpires are Aleem Dar and Simon Taufel and unfortunately even they make errors and in any case they cannot be at every Test. Which means that some sort of review system is an absolute necessity.

The final Test is on Friday in Bangalore and it is hard to see any other result than another Indian victory. Even with quite a bit of rain, New Zealand did not come close to saving this Test and collapsed from 92-1 at lunch on day four to 164 all out before stumps. They have a huge amount of work to do and have the disadvantage of only playing a two Test series so they just don’t have the time. Though even if there were four Tests, I expect they would struggle.