England win by five wickets

I got the margin of victory off by one wicket. And that wicket fell with two runs to win. I’m kind of annoyed about that, but otherwise my thought last night that it would be tricky for England at first but ultimately comfortable was fairly accurate. Cook and Bell progressed serenely in a partnership of 132 for the fifth wicket that all but won England the match.

It was actually a pretty good, one might almost say ‘standard’, Test. Not particularly close, but not a blowout and a couple of sessions of negative bowling by England aside there was always something to watch. I don’t think either side will be too happy with the Test, however. England will be happy to have won, but did not ever seem to really play as well as they should and have a lot on which to work before the Trent Bridge Test on Friday. The West Indies overperformed, but if one had not expected them to be hammered one would probably not say they played particularly well, though it is a mark of how much they overperformed that one would also not say they played particularly poorly and certainly played as well as any average side would be expected to. They will also be disappointed to have lost.

As mentioned on a previous day, England’s bowling in this Test was at best average and at worst poor. Even with the standard caveats of good batting by Chanderpaul; a flat pitch and not a lot of swing, one would have to say that England need to improve. Jimmy was certainly off his best, despite bowling better than his figures suggested. Broad bowled well, but was rather flattered by his figures. Bresnan was simply poor and Swann did not get a chance to feature heavily, but managed to get the prize wicket of Chanderpaul as well as the important one of Bravo in the second innings. I think they will improve, however. One of the problems was that, as far as I know, none of them had more than one or two county matches in which to prepare. I think Jimmy especially needs more than the one match he got to really find his rhythm for the summer. The same, to a lesser extent, applies to Broad as well and although he was good in this Test I think he will be better in the next one. I think, however, that Bresnan needs some more time with Yorkshire. He has not looked quite the same since he returned from injury and I think he just needs more time in the middle with bat and ball. We have enough bowling depth to play Finn and/or Onions for the rest of this series. In hindsight (and this is not meant as a criticism because it was not as clear before the match) Onions should have played in this Test where the conditions would have been very well suited to him.

The West Indies need to work on their running between the wickets. A lot. They lost wickets in both innings to horrible mix-ups and could (arguably should) have had the Chanderpaul-Samuels partnership broken by one in the second innings. As important as that is, they also need to improve their batting in general. As mentioned above their performance was not in any way poor, but that does not mean that it does not need improvement. Especially in the first innings they still lost wickets to injudicious shots and the dismissal of Sammy in the second is almost cause enough to strip him of the captaincy. They did not collapse the way they could have (and did at home) and now their task is to build on that and improve. In the field they need to work on sustaining pressure. I never thought they were going to win today, but they did not put up much of a fight after dismissing KP. Even before then the field setting was odd (a problem we saw in Australia too) and there were always runs on offer. Despite losing two early wickets and being 57-4 (though one of those was a nightwatchman), England scored 121 runs in the morning session. It was a rate one would normally associate with well set batsman going effortlessly, not fighting through a difficult first hour. There was some poor bowling, only Roach was going really well, but a lot of very poor captaincy from Sammy. The field placing was terrible and the decision to bring the part time spinner on to bowl to Ian Bell was baffling.

Looking ahead to Trent Bridge, I think both teams ought to make changes. England should bring in one of Finn or Onions for Bresnan. Right now I would lean toward Finn, but that is without seeing the conditions. If it is a relatively quick wicket then I would certainly prefer Finn’s pace and bounce, though if it is slow then Onions’ ability to bowl at the stumps and move the ball in the air might be preferable. That should be the only change; whilst Bairstow only made 16, he did so comfortably and deserves another go. The West Indies must bring in a proper spinner this time. Samuels might buy a couple of wickets, but we already saw Bell take him apart. Shillingford will presumably replace one of the quicks and I suspect it will be Gabriel, as promising as the debutant looked. It is worth noting, however, that Roach appeared to have a slight ankle problem. There is also an outside chance that Edwards will be dropped after being wayward once again. It would be a gamble to ask Gabriel to lead the attack, however. The bowler who probably should be replaced is Sammy, but as the captain that will not happen.

The ball will almost certainly swing more at Trent Bridge than it did at Lord’s and it will be interesting to see if the West Indies can continue their fight. I may have mentioned it already, but in 2007 the West Indies batted very well at Lord’s before rain intervened. They then went to Headingley and lost by an innings and 283 runs, though there were some extenuating circumstances. I think the next Test will be more of a challenge for them than this one was; England will have likely improved and the conditions will be tougher. Weather permitting, England can expect to win. Whether the West Indies can make another good Test of it will tell us a lot about the nature of their improvement.

Eng v WI, Lord’s, day four: Eng 10-2

There will be a fifth day. I did not expect that, in fact I’m not sure anyone expected that. There was apparently more than one journalist who checked out of the hotel this morning. The West Indies fought well, but it has to be said that England bowled poorly. By England’s usual standards it was actually abysmal. Most of the morning was spent trying to contain Chanderpaul and Samuels. Strictly speaking it worked, as the run rate dropped, but it should come as no surprise that Chanderpaul was never tempted into an injudicious shot. As annoying as that was, it did at least seem to be leading up to a proper attack with the second new ball. Except once England got that second new ball, Broad and Anderson kept bowling wide! The length was also a bit too short and they were not making the batsmen play nearly enough. When Broad finally got one full and nipping away it was edged to slip, but the lesson did not seem to sink in. The West Indies fought well (and I do want to make it clear that I think Chanderpaul and Samuels batted very well when not trying to run themselves out), but it was poor bowling by England. For whatever reason, they looked toothless. To be fair, the pitch was flat and the old ball was not really swinging. (And the new one was only a bit.) The lack of swing was probably the biggest problem. Not only was it too cold for the ball to really swing, but England have to use the current (2012) Duke’s balls as they have run out of the 2010 models. For whatever reason (and the people at Duke’s need to find that reason out so they can replicate it) the 2010 balls swung much more than either the 2011 balls or this year’s balls. Last year England did not even use the 2011 balls, preferring the leftover 2010 models. With those gone, England have to work with the less helpful balls. Still, that is no excuse. The ball should not have swung at all in Sri Lanka at all, but they made it work there. At home with some runs with which to work they ought to have done much, much better.

England batted for four overs before stumps. It’s always tricky to do so and I was not terribly surprised to see a wicket go down. It is a situation for the bowlers similar to that of a rugby side playing with a penalty advantage: they can attack unhesitatingly knowing that even if it fails they can just start again the next day. The wicket to fall came off a very good ball and there was very little Strauss could do about it. This did not prevent people from suggesting that it in some way negated his first innings century or that he was not back to form after all. (Both patently ridiculous, of course.) It also meant that there was something akin to panic on Twitter. England were blowing it again, collapsing to an ignominious defeat this time to a weak team at home. The subsequent dismissal of the nightwatchman confirmed this. One wicket was bad, but the loss of James Anderson was vital. One would think that he was key to the run chase and without him England were surely going to lose.

Annoyance with the reaction aside, it really was a good four overs to watch. It’s not nearly often enough one sees the West Indies look like they think they can accomplish something. Roach bowled very well and we got much more lively cricket than when England were bowling negatively and the match was drifting a bit. Anderson’s wicket will not affect the result (except for that if England win the official margin will be different) but it did lead to the very exciting appeal and subsequent review for lbw against Trott. If he had been dismissed it would have put the match more in the balance. As it is, I do not think England have anything about which to worry. The pitch is still very flat, the West Indies do not have a spinner in the side, the forecast tomorrow is quite good and England only need 181 more with five specialist batsmen plus Prior not out. That’s not to say that England can’t lose, of course, but they are still strong favourites.

Eng v WI, Lord’s, day three: WI 120-4

On the face of it, today was certainly a much better day for the West Indies than the first two of the Test. They came out in the morning with a new ball in some of the best conditions of the Test and restricted England to 398 all out. I said yesterday that they had to prevent a partnership from forming with Bell and someone who would be able to increase the scoring rate and that is exactly what they did. With some poor weather forecast later in the Test, England did appear to be consciously trying to get some quick runs and the West Indies did very well to usually make sure it was at the cost of a wicket. Jonny Bairstow looked pretty comfortable on debut, but went for only 16 and Prior had looked set too before he missed a straight one trying to flick it through mid-wicket. Only Tim Bresnan looked uncertain and he made a very quick duck. The bowlers were not faultless, however. Ian Bell always looked like he wasn’t going to get out unless he was the last man and Graeme Swann, whilst a decent batsman, was hitting orthodox cover drives to the boundary. A decent batsman he may be, but he is not so good that he should be able to get to thirty off 25 without some help from the bowling. Still, it was a creditable effort and kept the West Indies in the match, albeit barely.

They also managed a bit with the bat. It was not a fluent second innings to set a total, the scoreboard shows that much, but it was a far cry from the catastrophes they had at home. It was much more like what they did in the first innings: the bowlers on top for most of it, but not getting as many wickets as one would expect. By the end of the day they looked pretty comfortable. They in fact did exceedingly well (or were exceedingly lucky) to survive Jimmy Anderson’s spell with the new ball. They did show just a glimmer of their old form, however, and it was enough to cost them three wickets. After Bresnan got the first wicket, England all but telegraphed that they were going to bounce Powell. Broad came around the wicket with two men out on the hook. Between the capacity crowd at the ground and those watching on telly, there were no fewer than 100,000 people who knew what was coming. Powell was not amongst them. Broad’s bouncer was good, but Powell was surprised. He tried to hook, a bit half-heartedly, and could only get under it and sky an easy catch to Bell. That was bad. Worse was the horrible running mix-up on the stroke of tea. Bravo hit one to Bairstow and Edwards came halfway down the pitch before being sent back. It was one of the highlights of the day for England though as the debutant threw down the stumps directly.

Despite the flaws, it was clearly a better day for the West Indies. They can at least show up tomorrow knowing that the match could have been over by now. Part of the reason it is not, however, is the over rate again. Today we played six and a half hours and still lost five overs. That is unacceptable and the fault is with the West Indies again. By my maths, England batted for a total of eight hours and 48 minutes in their innings. That gives a ‘raw’ rate of 12.90 overs/hour. The ICC Test regulations section 16.3 set out a minimum rate of 15 overs/hour with two minutes allotted per wicket (when a new batsman comes in) and four per drinks break. There is also an exemption for reviews and other ‘unavoidable’ delays. By my count, in this innings that gives 18 minutes for wickets, 16 for drinks and let’s say another ten for reviews etc. The revised over rate is still only 14.07, far too low. Put another way, in the eight hours and four minutes of ‘real’ batting time the West Indies were seven overs short of the minimum of 121. The good news for Darren Sammy is that it looks like England will bat again and give him a chance to make up for lost time.

Tomorrow will probably see England win. The West Indies have done better than they might have and better than I thought they would, but the fact remains that they are in a pretty desperate position. Four down and still 35 runs in arrears means they will probably need to bat all day tomorrow and also probably won’t. They resisted today, but once again most of it was due to Chanderpaul and they are dependent on him staying around. If he does and they keep fighting the way they have done today they might last into the afternoon session, but that will still leave England with a fairly small target. My guess is that they will last past lunch, but only barely and England will knock the runs off around tea.

Eng v WI, Lord’s, day two: Eng 259-3

A great day for England, they’ve put themselves in charge of this Test. This highlight was, of course, Andrew Strauss’ unbeaten century, his fifth at Lord’s. He looked fluent almost all day (until he got into the nineties) and hit some of the best drives down the ground one can hope to see. Upon reaching the milestone, he got what sounded to me like an unusually sustained ovation from a packed Lord’s. Every second of it was absolutely deserved, one could see the determination writ across Strauss’ face during his innings and his delight was palpable when he got to his century. I noted three types of reactions. Most common was the delight. I think almost every England supporter wanted to see Strauss score a century and as noted above the appreciation shown by the Lord’s crowd was immense. The second, and rather amusing, reaction was from the people quickly covering themselves by explaining why all the previous ‘questions’ had still been warranted. As I mentioned the other day, I don’t think they were justified, but I do accept that if they were then this innings would not have changed that. It would simply have meant that he had answered the questions they had set. I still found it amusing to see how quickly people started to defend themselves, however. The reaction that was not amusing (but was at least in a small minority) was that of those who immediately said that a hundred against the West Indies was meaningless. I’ll be the first to admit that runs against a small side should be noted and treated as such, but if a batsman is poor enough to be dropped then he or she is not going to score a century against anyone. It’s especially ridiculous in the case of Strauss because the ‘problem’ has always been that he was getting starts and not going on. This time, however, he set himself and made sure that he did go on. The weakness of the attack was not relevant.

Of course, there was another batsman at the crease during all this. For most of the day it was Trott, after Cook got a little bit careless in the morning session. Trott batted well, clipped the ball through mid-wicket a lot as usual and generally looked pretty untroubled until getting out to a bit of a rash shot. There had been a very unusual incident with his batting after lunch, however. With Fidel Edwards bowling, he fished at one outside off, there was a small noise and a stifled appeal by the Windies. The fieldsmen never acted as though they thought it was out and the umpire did not look like he really considered the half-appeal. Hot Spot and Snicko both subsequently showed, however, that the noise heard was definitely a faint outside edge! Trott was lucky there and he had also been lucky just prior to that as he survived an lbw shout and a review that had the ball just barely not hitting enough of leg to be overturned. Needless to say, there was no comment from those who claim that the DRS is unfairly increasing the odds of an lbw.

For most of the day the West Indies were poor. England’s overnight score of 259-3 is one which may look a little bit low at first, I think especially with England one expects closer to 275-300 runs in a day, but this is not because the Windies kept the scoring rate down. It was around four an over in the morning and even though it dropped from there it still ended up well above three an over. The problem was the West Indies over rate. Even accounting for 2.5 overs lost in the morning to the change of innings, the West Indies only managed 80.2 overs before bad light stopped play after the scheduled close. They hardly have the excuse of wickets falling either. Their overall rate was an appalling 13.3 overs per hour and even assuming one minute for each wicket and two minutes for each drinks break it only goes up to 13.7 overs per hour. It had been clear for some time before bad light stopped play that even an extra half hour was not going to allow all of the overs to bowled. In the overs that they did manage to bowl, the ball did very little off the seam and very little in the air. But one gets the feeling that if England had been bowling the conditions would have appeared a lot more helpful. It was a bit like yesterday in that it was not the shambles it could have been, but nor was it ever close to enough.

England go into tomorrow with their two most under-fire batsmen at the crease: Strauss and Bell. Strauss has already made his hundred and Bell made one in the County Championship as well. I don’t think he is nearly out of form as many people think (remember that he averaged 118 in 2011) and is up against an attack that suits him. I would not be at all surprised to see him get a hundred as well. Jonny Bairstow will finally get a chance to bat tomorrow once one of Strauss or Bell is out and I am looking forward to that. He has been doing well in the LV=CC and as I recall he looked pretty good in the handful of ODIs in which he played. He is also a pretty fast scorer and if he gets in along with Bell, Prior or Broad England have a chance to pile on the runs quickly. They already lead by 16, so the West Indies cannot afford to let that happen.

Eng v WI, Lord’s, day one: WI 243-9

There were two talking points today before play had even started: England’s team selection and Strauss’ decision to bowl first after winning his first toss in four matches. Whilst I understand the decision to play Bresnan, I would not have done so. He is a good bowler and he adds quite a bit to the side, but I don’t think this was the best occasion for him. The conditions actually most suited Graham Onions and I think Steven Finn would have added some very nice variation to the attack. Purely looking at the bowling, both would probably have been better selections, In a way, I think Bresnan’s main qualification is almost his batting. I can certainly see the argument for using batting skill as a tie-breaker of sorts for bowlers, but with Stuart Broad already in the side along with six batsmen and Matt Prior it is rather superfluous. With Bresnan in the side, we comfortably bat down to nine with Swann at ten. That sounds like an argument in favour of Bresnan, of course, and fact that we can bat so deep without seriously compromising our bowling is definitely a good thing. We have seen lower order partnerships either save us or break the back of the opposition many times before. Against the West Indies, however, it’s probably excessive. In my mind, the benefit of playing a stronger bowler is greater than the benefit of extra batting that is probably extraneous anyway. I’d have gone for Finn.

I do, however, agree with Strauss’ decision to bowl first. The pitch is pretty flat, but there was some moisture in it, there was some cloud cover and there was already a strong indication that the West Indies were not going to play a spinner. The Lord’s pitch has been known to actually get better as the match goes on as well, so there was almost nothing to lose by bowling and an opportunity to see if the West Indies would implode.

The Windies did not do so and it is a credit to them. Jimmy Anderson certainly did not make it easy, but the Windies showed some proper application this time and England had to work for a lot of the wickets. The only times we saw the Windies to which we are used was when Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Darren Bravo found themselves at the same end, glaring at each other. It was Shiv’s fault, but Bravo was the man out. Shiv is a great player, but he has had accusations of selfishness levelled at him before and I think we saw a bit of that today. Not only did he make sure he was not the one to pay for his failed calling, he exposed Fidel Edwards in the last over of the day. Edwards did not make it to stumps.

There was also some discussion during the day of Chris Gayle and how much the West Indies theoretically miss him. One would get the impression from listening to people that he would be scoring a century by lunch and keeping the West Indies in the match single-handed. In fact, he only averages 36 in England with one century in 21 innings. In his last six Tests in England he has only passed fifty twice and last time he played at Lord’s he made 28 and nought against an attack that was not as good as the current one. The subject of where he ought to be playing is one for it’s own post, but there is no reason to suspect that the West Indies would be substantially better off in this Test or on this tour with him in the side.

I don’t think the West Indies were particularly poor today. Certainly it was not like what we frequently saw from them against Australia. At the same time, England did not look quite at their best, particularly in the morning session. All the same, England are in the stronger position overnight and deservedly so. They may not have been at their best, but they did play the better cricket over the course of the day. Anderson looked lethal, though that’s nothing unusual, and Broad came back from a poor morning to blow away most of the tail with a combination of fortune and some brilliant deliveries. Today was a case of a very good side playing a fairly poor one. Given how it went, one shudders to think what will happen when England find their stride or the West Indies slip back into their old routine.

Captaincy issues

I have been having a very interesting discussion on Twitter about the merits of various styles of captaincy. This was born, probably fairly predictably, out of a different discussion about Andrew Strauss’ place in the current England side. There were two very interesting questions raised: is captaincy skill reason enough to justify selection and what skills are most important for a captain?

With regard to the first question, I would answer ‘yes’ in almost all cases. The captaincy is almost a specialist position in itself and skill or lack thereof there can have as much an impact on the match as runs or wickets directly taken by the player. The best example of this is probably Mike Brearley. Brearley is rightly famous for his captaincy and boasts not only the fifth highest W/L ratio all time (amongst Englishmen he is behind only Douglas Jardine) but also a record of 11 wins and just one loss in 15 Ashes Tests. He also had a Test batting average just under 23. The goal of a Test match is to win and it is clear that a very good captain can increase the odds of winning even if he or she is a poor batsman. The question of selection is not then ‘pick the best five or six batsmen, a ‘keeper and four or five bowlers’, it is a more general matter of picking the eleven players whose combination of skills provide the best chance of winning a Test match. Depending on the circumstance, one might have a team with very skilled players who can carry a poor captain (eg: Ricky Ponting in the Warne/McGrath era) or one might have a team in which a very good captain causes his team to perform at a higher level than they would otherwise and is thus worth more to the team than a better batsman/bowler. I prefer the latter, but clearly both can work. It is a matter for the selectors to determine which course the situation of the team requires.

How that relates to Strauss then ties into the second question of which skills are most important. As a captain, Strauss has been both lauded for his man-management and criticised for his negativity. The question is whether his captaincy is good enough to offset his form with the bat and I would say that it is. I have certainly not refrained from criticising Strauss when I have felt that it is warranted, but this does not mean I think he is anything other than a very good captain. He has the misfortune of being a captain whose weakest area, tactics, is the one most publicly visible. His work in uniting the dressing room, however, has been utterly astounding. Remember that he took over a very fractured one and managed to transition the ‘old guard’ out with a minimum of fuss whilst at the same time winning an Ashes series that we were not expected to. Since then he has managed to get the very most out of all the players (with the exception of Morgan) and has won the respect of the team. His influence has been visible in some of the ODI series where Cook has been in charge, most notably in India. Cook struggled to control the team when the results were not going their way, this is not something that happens when Strauss is in charge. His calm demeanour and the respect the players have for him has ensured that England have stayed professional even on the occasions where things have not gone their way.

This is not to say that I think tactical ability is completely unnecessary, merely that one can compensate for it. I actually rate Michael Vaughan as one of the best ever England captains because of his tactical genius, but what he and Strauss both exhibit is a massive amount of skill in one area or the other. As with the first question, we have a situation where both man-management and tactics can be successful with the right people in the right circumstances. Finding someone who can do both would be ideal, of course, but a rare luxury. As to which is ‘better’ it is a matter of opinion, but I personally prefer a tactician. As important as it is to have all the players behind the captain, one needs to look no farther than the 2005 Ashes to see the benefits of a tactically astute captain. Cricket is a cerebral game and if a captain can outthink the opposition then the battle is halfway won already. Again, good management can adequately compensate for tactics, but given a straight choice I would choose a tactician.

What does not work, however, is a ‘leader’. I have seen it suggested more than once and more than once have the selectors decided that the best player ought to get the captaincy. I almost think this is from people who watch too much football. In football, all the captain has to do is play well and ‘inspire’ the other ten men. Cricket is not the same, however. A cricket captain has to have something between his or her hears to succeed. To see that this does not work, one needs look no farther than Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. (Though one is welcome to look back to Ian Botham too, if one wishes.) Both were unmitigated disasters. Both were captains who played very well, but were tactically inept and could not control the players.

All of the above should give a good indication of why Strauss should have a very secure place in the side. He is not a perfect captain, but there are very few of those and he is a very good one. His captaincy provides more to the side than the runs of another batsman would (and that’s even assuming that Strauss’ contributions with the bat are and will continue to be negligible, neither of which I think are true), if he is dropped the side will be worse off overall.

England v West Indies preview

The West Indies come to England fresh from a disappointing 0-2 defeat at home to Australia. They only performed passably well even at the best of times during that series and were frequently dire. Despite England’s recent woes in the subcontinent and similar regions, they are a side who have lost only two Tests at home since the start of 2009 and are still number one in the world. It is fair to say that if the Windies are going to come close in this series, they will have to perform far, far better than they did at home.

History, or at least recent history, is against them. They have not won an overseas Test somewhere other than Bangladesh since the Boxing Day Test in South Africa in 2007. The last time they won a Test in England was at Edgbaston in 2000; since then they have lost 12 and only managed to draw two. Their coach, Ottis Gibson, said that his hope for the Lord’s Test was to take it into a fifth day this time. This was in reference to their defeat inside three days at the home of cricket in 2009. That hope may be a bit optimistic. They have selected a squad which on paper appears to be slightly weaker than the one which lost to Australia and they have started the tour by losing to the Lions by ten wickets. In truth, they did well to make it that close. The Lions, boasting England’s third choice bowling attack, bowled the West Indies out for 147 in the first innings and went on to post a lead of 196. The Windies did come back a bit in the second innings, however.

Their performance against the Lions shows the fact that their batting almost begins and ends with Shivnarine Chanderpaul. He is a true great, but we have already seen that one great cannot carry a poor side. The rest of them have talent, and we saw some of that in the first innings of the first Test against Australia, but they are also very prone to give their wickets away (as we saw in the rest of that series). The West Indies will be facing arguably the best pace attack in the world in very friendly conditions. It is a far cry from the flat pitches and weak attacks on the subcontinent, or even the turning ones pitches from the recent series in the Caribbean. They occasionally performed well in those places, but even then were prone to collapses. Even if they were to cut out all the mistakes that have plagued them recently I think they will find the going very difficult and they are up against an attack that thrives on coaxing batsmen into errors. Last year India failed to pass 300 in four Tests; the Windies have only three and I would not be at all surprised to see the same result.

They will clearly need something from their bowlers. Unfortunately, their best performers at home were probably the spinners and despite England’s struggles against turn over the winter, they are unlikely to be more than a supplement in England. A lot will rest on their pace attack. Again there is some talent, but of what would appear to be their first choice attack (Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy) only Roach has a bowling average under 30. They may cause some damage in friendly conditions, but these are home conditions for England’s batsmen and they put a pair of similar attacks to the sword last summer. Given that their batsmen already liable to give them a mountain to climb, I think it will be a tough ask for the West Indies bowlers.

England are strong favourites, but do go in under a bit of pressure after the disappointing winter. There is a strong sense that nothing less than three emphatic wins will do. As mentioned above, however, they have lost only twice at home in twenty Tests under Strauss and Flower. (They’ve won 14 of those Tests.) Most of the side have scored runs in the Championship already (no easy feat) with Cook the only exception and he has not had a lot of opportunities. As already mentioned, Bairstow looks like he will be batting at six. After the struggles of the winter, the batsmen do seem to have found some form and should present a formidable opposition to the Windies. The biggest hope will be that Strauss can get some big runs and ease the (insane) questions about his place in the side. He has a pair of decent scores in the Championship already, including an unbeaten 43 in Middlesex’s last match, and I do not see any reason why he could not push on from there.

England will probably be playing either Finn or Bresnan as a third seamer, though Onions is also in the squad. Whoever is picked will have an excellent opportunity to nail down the spot for the series against South Africa, but that’s assuming whoever it is (I’m guessing Finn) gets much of a bowl. Jimmy Anderson finished the series in Sri Lanka looking like the best bowler in the world and Stuart Broad had been in excellent form in the UAE before picking up an injury. They have both, especially Jimmy, shown themselves to be formidable weapons in all conditions and in May in England against a side prone to collapse I expect them to take bags of wickets. Swann will also be useful, he always is, but I doubt he will have an opportunity to do much more than chip in with a few wickets.

I can’t see the West Indies winning a Test. I said before the Australia series that I thought they had a chance to steal one from that series, but they could not and England are a much different proposition. I’ve already mentioned that at Lord’s in 2009 they lost before stumps on the third day. At Durham in 2007 the entire first day and quite a bit of the second day was lost to rain, but England still won comfortably. England are now a much better side than they were in either 2007 or 2009, whilst the Windies are arguably worse. Unless it rains non-stop for three days during one of the Tests I can see no other result than a 3-0 whitewash for England.

England Test squad

England have named a 13-man squad for the first Test against the West Indies starting this Thursday. Predictably, Bopara and Patel have missed out. In their place come Jonny Bairstow and Graham Onions. I’m quite pleased with this squad; I’d be pretty happy with almost any realistic XI that could be picked from this. Bairstow, as I said the other day, probably deserves the call-up and I am always happy to see Onions in the squad.

I suspect that Bairstow will get the nod at number six with probably Finn being the third seamer. This series looks like it will be a good one in which to test out the young batsman and Finn has had a very impressive winter and deserves another chance to show what he can do at the highest level. The ongoing ‘problem’ for England is that there are currently no fewer than three different people who probably deserve an extended chance as third seamer. This is one of the reasons why I would still like to see Prior at six and Bresnan at seven and Finn at eleven. Strauss and Flower seem set against that, however. With that in mind, hopefully Bairstow will have a productive series and secure the number six spot for the near future.

A nail in Morgan’s coffin?

The professional Cricketers Association today released a survey showing overwhelming support amongst English cricketers for a 16 game County Championship and criticising the Morgan Report for not consulting them. (Cricinfo also has a piece on this with a very misleading headline.) It is very good to see yet more condemnation of Morgan’s ill-concieved notion.

The ECB is now one of very few organisations to actually support the Morgan Review. In fact, I’m struggling to think of any others. I believe there are two or three counties and a handful in the media. Most of the counties, however, most I have seen in the media, nearly all of the county supporters and now the PCA are against it. The ECB are stubborn enough that I expect that they will still do everything in their power to force it through and rather pessimistically I expect them to succeed in the end. I am very pleased to see such strong resistance, however.

Bopara is still not the answer

There has been a suggestion that Ravi Bopara has secured the number six spot in the Tests with his 117* against Yorkshire today. It was a good innings, Essex only made a total of 199, but it is still not a reason to pick him to play at six.

First off, it does not change Bopara’s terrible Test stats. As I have noted previously, Bopara’s batting average against teams other than the West Indies is a dismal 15. Going by the same criteria (ie, throwing out Tests against the West Indies) that average fits neatly between Jimmy Anderson’s 13 and Graeme Swann’s 18. That’s good enough for a specialist bowler, it is not good enough for someone who has one Test wicket for 212 runs. There is no reason to suspect that if we give him another chance now it will be any different from all the previous chances we have given him. He can get runs against the Windies, but we need to pick someone who will succeed against South Africa too. There is no reason to suspect that Bopara will do that.

It is important to remember that Bopara’s innings, whilst good, was in the second division. In their only other match, Yorkshire conceded over 500 in the first innings against Kent. One hundred seventeen is a good fightback when part of 199, but the fact is that it is an innings against a bowling attack that is not special. He played a good innings in difficult circumstances against a mediocre attack in the second division. That does not at all indicate a reversal of his absolutely terrible Test form.

That innings was not even the best in this round of matches. Chris Read played a much better innings for Nottinghamshire, his hundred was ten times the score of the next best batsman. It was out of a tally of 162 and it was in the first division. Also in the first division, Rikki Clarke scored 140 after coming in with Warwickshire 81-7. Darren Maddy also scored what was for me an incredibly frustrating century in that match and they have probably ensured their side cannot lose from a position where they looked very likely to lose. As I type this, Nick Compton has scored his second century of the season to go with his 99 in the first match of the year. He leads the first division in runs, average and balls faced by a huge amount and that is with the incredibly bowling friendly conditions around the country so far.

I am very much in favour of the selectors looking at runs in the County Championship, but Bopara has failed so often he must not be given any special preference over other batsmen and he has demonstrably not been the best of those batsmen. There remains no rational argument to pick Bopara.