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 lucky break

Joy at another person’s injury is probably a little bit cruel. It’s not like being dropped or losing form, it’s actual pain that goes beyond the sporting arena. That said, I’m apparently a slightly cruel person as I am very glad to hear that Ravi Bopara has a quad injury and is a major doubt for the first Test. (I was also happy when McGrath stepped on that cricket ball ahead of the Edgbaston Test in 2005.)

I’m glad because with Compton only scoring 20-odd for the Lions, Bopara looked like he had secured an spot in the Test side. As I have mentioned more than once Bopara should not be anywhere near the Test side, so this injury is a very good thing for England. It’s unfortunate for Bopara, of course and I would prefer that he had simply not been selected. Whatever the actual reason, however, England needed to keep him out of the Test team and this will accomplish that.

Now the question of who to bat at six becomes more interesting too. Compton has still had his incredible start to the season even though he only made 20-odd. Taylor scored a very impressive century, however, to put him in almost the opposite situation to Compton. Bairstow also scored a fifty on the back of his 182 for Yorkshire last week. There’s still a second innings to come, so we may have a clearer picture then, but right now I would still give it to Compton, with Bairstow as the second choice. I don’t think one innings is enough to put Taylor in form or Compton out of form. Bairstow, meantime, I think has consistently done almost enough to be selected. He would certainly not be a bad choice either.

LV=CC week five roundup

There was more rain in the LV=CC this week, but not as bad as it was last week and we did have more results than draws this time. (Though this was partly due to a contrived match at Lord’s.

Nottinghamshire beat Lancashire by 185 runs
Warwickshire beat Durham by nine wickets
Middlesex beat Worcestershire by 132 runs
Derbyshire drew with Gloucestershire
Glamorgan drew with Essex
Northamptonshire beat Hampshire by 117 runs
Yorkshire beat Leicestershire by an innings and 22 runs

Of note is that now all of Durham, Lancashire, Worcestershire and Glamorgan have still not won a match this season. Yorkshire’s win at Scarborough was their first of the Championship. Meantime, Warwicks and Notts are each yet to lose a match despite some close finishes for the former and the latter having just a single batting point this season. It keeps Warwickshire on top of the D1 table by four points over Notts, having played one fewer match. Derbys have also done enough in their draw to stay at the summit of D2.

As mentioned above, one of the most notable match of the round was probably at Lord’s where Worcestershire declared before the last day on 45-2 and Middlesex forfeited their second innings. It set up a chase of 283 on the last day, but Worcs did not get near it. It was still an example of good attacking thinking, however. The points allocation system is (rightly, I think) set up to reward victories highly and almost discount draws. Worcs correctly assessed that it was worth going for a win and we got an exciting finish out of a match that looked dead.

This was also the week in which all of the England players were cleared to appear for their counties. Ian Bell rather dramatically returned to form for Warwickshire, scoring 120 after coming in with the Bears 15-3. He this time outshone his England colleague Trott, who could only make two. As Warwickshire do not play next week, Bell will appear for the Lions to get some more time in the middle. Jimmy Anderson bruised his hand and come down with a stomach ailment, but still managed to take 5-82 in Notts’ second innings. In the other dressing room for that match, Swann and Broad took 3-26 & 2-30 and 0-60 & 3-67 respectively. Swann and Anderson each bowled the other in the match as well. Andrew Strauss scored a pretty good 49 in tricky conditions at Lord’s. It was not chanceless, but it was fairly quick and pretty fluent for the conditions. It should ease the silly media speculation about him, however. Steven Finn did not play a large role on the final day, but did take 2-30. For Essex, Alastair Cook’s return to the middle did not last long, as he made only nine and five. Jonny Bairstow made his case to bat at six against the Windies with 182 in Yorkshire’s innings victory, whilst Tim Bresnan took 1-37 and 1-57.

Many of the best performances were not from the England players, or even those on the fringes of the side, however. Andre Adams completely turned the match at Old Trafford with his first innings 7-32 (a career best) and Warwickshire’s Keith Barker took 5-33 in the first innings and 5-37 in the second to ensure that Durham were only briefly in the match. Strauss got the most publicity in Middlesex’s first innings, but it was Joe Denly who put them in a winning position with his unbeaten 134 whilst Alan Richardson tried in vain to restrict the hosts with his 5-89. Derbyshire captain Wayne Madsen hit a century and Tony Palladino took 5-47 as Gloucestershire were forced to follow-on at Derby, but Kane Williamson stepped up for the visitors with 128 (of 409-4) as they secured the draw. Cook failed for Essex, but Alviro Petersen, his South African counterpart, did not and scored 145 at Cardiff. Huw Waters responded for the hosts with 5-47 to restrict Essex in the second innings as the match was drawn. David Willey put in a possibly match-winning effort with the ball for Northants, taking 5-39 in the final innings as Hants could not get close to their target. Finally, Leicestershire had a pair of excellent performances in vain at Scarborough. Wayne White took 5-90 in the first innings and Matthew Boyce scored 122 as Leicestershire tried to make Yorkshire bat again.

LV=CC week one roundup

In a pretty good start to the County Championship, six of the seven round one matches had positive results with only Kent’s trip to Headingley ending in a draw. The full results were:
Nottinghamshire beat Worcestershire by 92 runs
Somerset beat Middlesex by six wickets
Surrey beat Sussex by 86 runs
Derbyshire beat Northamptonshire by 202 runs
Essex beat Gloucestershire by an innings and 38 runs
Leicestershire beat Glamorgan by 52 runs
Yorkshire drew with Kent

I mostly listened to the Kent match this weekend (in the hope that the White Rose would lose) so I’m hoping that it is not a sign of things to come as I turn my attention to Lancashire from next week.

The Notts and Leics matches were similar, both times the home side lost the toss and were put into bat (which actually happened in six of the seven matches, Kent winning the toss and batting being the only exception). And in both matches they collapsed dramatically. In Leicester the hosts lost wickets to the first two balls of the season and were 1-3 at one point with each of their top three making ducks. The fact that they made it to 249 all out was a dramatic recovery then. Notts did not start out quite as badly, but they did not recover as well either and succumbed to 118 all out via 34-5. Both sides were able to instigate collapses in their opponents though, Glamorgan were at one point 34-7 en route to 124 all out and Worcestershire simply lost wickets at regular intervals in getting a first innings lead of 12. This is where the matches diverged sharply: Notts proceeded to bat Worcs out of the match with 403, whilst Leics collapsed to 110 all out. Both were enough, however.

Whilst I did not get to watch Yorkshire lose (I would have been pretty surprised if I had) I did get to see Kent rack up 537-9 against them before declaring. Amazingly, that included a ninth wicket stand of 157 after Kent had been 374-8. A century by Jonny Bairstow was not quite enough for Yorkshire to avoid the follow-on (though probably gives him an early lead in the race for number six), but an opening stand of 115 in the second innings mostly ended any hopes of a positive result in that match.

If I had to pick one match that I thought would be drawn, I would have guessed Somerset v Middlesex, after the start was badly delayed by rain. Somerset never let Middlesex build a big partnership in the first innings, though, and then their strong batting order got them a lead of 104. George Dockrell took 6-27 to give Somerset an easy target of 72 with plenty of time. They lost four wickets en route, but made it pretty easily in the end.

Surrey did not get much of a contribution from their batsmen, only three went past fifty in both innings, but a very good group performance from their bowlers made sure it was enough. Sussex were bowled out for 196 in the first innings and the only bright spot as they tried to chase 342 was 108 by Luke Wells. Once again Surrey’s bowlers kept them in check and shared the wickets around and Sussex never really looked like getting the runs.

Derbyshire’s match at the county ground against Northants was very close after the first innings. Derbyshire lead by 22 at that point on the back of 110 by Dan Redfern and 83 by Ross Whiteley. The rest of the batsmen contributed only 87 between them. The second innings was completely different, however. A Martin Guptill 137 anchored a score of 314-3 from Derbyshire and although Northants managed to bat until late on day four, they were bowled out for 134.

The most one sided match of the first round was at Chelmsford. Essex were put into bat and responded by scoring 364. One hundred thirty of those were from opener Billy Godleman and Gloucestershire simply had no response. They collapsed to 180 all out and were asked to follow-on. Second time around Graham Napier took 5-58 as Gloucestershire could only make 146 and succumbed to an innings defeat.

Four sides are still yet to play, but so far Somerset have the early lead in Division One with 22 points from their first match, whilst Essex lead the second tier with 23 points.

Pakistan v England tour review

Make no mistake, this was a dreadful tour for England. It’s easy to forget that in the wake of a 4-0 ODI victory and a 2-1 T20 victory, but when it really counted we lost 0-3.

Our batsmen mostly displayed either an infuriating inconsistency on the tour or were simply consistently awful. This was a middle order that came into the series having thrashed the best in the world in England and the second best in the world in their own backyard. 517-1, 620-5, 513 and 644 v Australia in Australia and 474-8, 544, 710-7 and 591-6 v India suddenly gave way to 72 all out. The spin of Ajmal was a contributing factor, of course, but it was not the sharp, quick spin of someone like Warne. It was theoretically playable spin, but England could not play it. I thought before the series that the batsman would win it for us, but instead they did the exact opposite. And then, incredibly surprisingly, they turned their fortunes around in the ODIs. Captain Cook scored two tons and an eighty, whilst KP chipped in with a pair of imperious tons and a match winning 50 in the last T20. That’s the same KP who averaged 11 in the Tests. The turnaround was not quite inexplicable, one of England’s problems in the Tests was an unwillingness to go after Ajmal and not just sit back and block. In the ODIs they had to try to score and had the extra advantage of fewer men around the bat and so had better success. (Though that’s a relative measure, Ajmal still did very well.)

Cook and Prior are probably the only ones to come through with their reputations unscathed; Cook had the highest individual score for England in the Tests, plus good success in the ODIs and Prior had the highest average in the Tests (the only one over 30). Strauss, however, did not embarrass himself to the extent of many of the batsmen. He was the only one to look relatively assured during the 72 all out debacle, and for a time it looked like he and Prior might lead England to victory. Strauss then also ground out a fifty in the third Test run chase. I know none of that sounds like much, but the important aspect was that he looked like he had learnt how to play, albeit too late. None of the other batsmen looked like they had learnt anything at all. KP, meanwhile, will coast into the next series on the back of his ODI and T20 heroics, but he had an absolutely terrible Test series and that must not be swept under the rug. He looked, as he so often does, like an idiot. And I don’t mean in the proverbial sense, I mean he looked literally stupid. He so often does not seem capable of learning from experience and has always had very poor impulse control. He did better in the ODIs, but he has to find a way to play sensibly when it matters. When it comes off, as it did at Lord’s last year, it is majestic and when he only does that in pyjama cricket it is so, so frustrating. There was also the limited overs introduction of Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow. Buttler was much hyped after an incredible Lions tour to Sri Lanka, but he did not look quite ready for this level yet. Bairstow did rather better, hitting a match winning 60* in the second T20 and generally looking quite composed. Bopara was another who was given a chance in the limited overs leg, and scored two fifties in the ODIs. This has led, of course, to another wave of suggestions for him to bat at six in the Test series. Very annoyingly, I except Flower and Strauss will agree. Despite my saying that Morgan has to go, I cannot overemphasise that Bopara is not the answer! He has failed in every chance that he has been given in Tests. If we are going to persist with playing a batsman at six then we should give a chance to one of the Lions players. There are no fewer than three candidates, any of whom would not be worse than Bopara. Personally, I would play another bowler, but…

In the vicious battle for worst batsman of the tour, Morgan edges out Bell by virtue of failing for the entire tour as opposed to just the Tests. Morgan showed clearly that he does not have the temperament for Test cricket, at least not yet, and then he abjectly failed to redeem himself in the limited overs matches. This despite the fat that he is supposed to be a limited overs expert, able to find any gap in the field. He did sod all, then gave an interview that showed he was not willing to work and change to help the team. As I said last week, it’s time for him to go back to Ireland. Bell, meantime, had a much more anomalous tour. He was the best batsman in the world last year, averaging over 100, but he could seemingly not buy a run this time. Even when he started to look like he might know roughly how to play Ajmal he promptly became unable to play Gul and his last dismissal of the series was horrific. He has a very good record as a batsman, however, and I expect him to improve.

The one outstanding bright spot on the tour was the bowlers. The 0-3 scoreline was fair in the end, but the absolutely outstanding bowling effort prevented it from being in the same league as the hammering we gave to India during the summer. The only bowler who did not perform was Tremlett, who probably ought not have been selected at all. Graeme Swann had a slightly below par tour, but still did quite well despite taking a backseat to Monty in the second two Tests. Broad, Jimmy and Monty were outstanding, however. Monty deserves special praise for doing so well after being out of the Test side for so long, but Broad and Anderson were not supposed to be so effective on the slower pitches. Broad was probably the pick of the bowlers for me, as he continued his revival from the ‘enforcer’ phase of his career. He pitched the ball up and got it to nip back at the top of off stump time and time again, and the Pakistani batsmen seemed to have no answer. He continued his good performance into the limited overs leg as well, including some good captaincy in the T20 series win. In that limited overs leg we also were treated to an outstanding performance from Steven Finn. He picked up where he left off in the India ODIs and ran through the Pakistani top order. He appears to have added a yard of pace and some accuracy and there are many calling for him to be in the Test side. I think that might be a bit premature, I am always hesitant to try to apply ODI form to Tests, but at the same time I probably would not have dropped him from the Test side to begin with. The problem is that there is no one for him to replace. He certainly has not shown that he is a better bowler than Tim Bresnan, let alone Jimmy and Broad. I think for now he is still the fourth seamer, which means he is going to be carrying the drinks until someone is injured or England decide to bat Prior at six and Bresnan at seven. (And the latter is apparently never going to happen, even though it would also solve the problem of who to bat at six.)

As tempting as it would be to say that England won the tour 2-1, everyone knows that Tests count at least quintuple and that England lost the tour rather heavily. I have every confidence that the management will look most closely at the Tests when analysing the tour, but it is important the the media and fans do the same. We cannot say that KP is off the hook due to his ODI runs, nor can we say that Bopara is a Test number six. We cannot think that this was a good tour, or even a decent tour. Most importantly, we cannot think that anything short of a pair of comprehensive victories over Sri Lanka will redeem England. That willingness to gloss over flaws has become a defining characteristic of Indian cricket recently and it is almost certainly related to their loss of form. We must not allow it to happen in England as well.

I was mostly right

In a way, I did a pretty good job of predicting the weekend’s matches. I correctly called one win out of two for England’s women, a win for Wales and a win for Liverpool. The only things I got wrong were a washout in the other women’s match (I predicted a Kiwi win) and the England men winning their T20 (by quite a lot, as it transpired). So on the face of it, I did okay. It was the details that went a bit awry though.

First off, an English victory in the T20. We are the World Champions and world number one in that format, but I never feel comfortable saying that we will win. I know I’ve said it before, but there is a huge element of luck in T20s and I think England have been almost more fortunate than good in the past. Yesterday though saw a very skilful performance by young Jonny Bairstow who hit an unbeaten 60 to propel us to 150-7 after a slow start. Once again though, it was the bowlers who really won the match for us. The captain led from the front with 2-12 from 3.2 overs and was ably backed up by Finn (as usual), Swann (2-17) and Dernbach (1-13 from three overs). Pakistan were 33-4 after the powerplay and all but out of the match at 50-5. Afridi and Hammad Azam had a go near the end, but it was already too late and when Azam was out Pakistan capitulated. Afridi started turning down singles and looked like he was going to just bat out the 20 overs, before getting impatient and skewing a catch. One of the biggest factors in the run chase was England’s outstanding fielding. Of the ten wickets to fall, nine of them were caught (with the other run out) and at least eight of the catches were difficult ones. If England had dropped even a few of those the match would have been a lot closer, but as it was Pakistan never had a chance.

That was going on at the same time as the Six Nations match between England and Wales. Whilst I correctly predicted the outcome, I didn’t expect England to make their match so close. England actually led until fairly late at Twickenham, coming back well after a dismal first 20 minutes. It is a mark of how well they did that the loss was still gutting, with Wales getting a very late try and England not quite being able to match it at the death. Still, England can take a lot of positives from that match. After a horror start to the match that saw Wales completely dominate possession England turned it around and dominated the next 20 minutes to almost the same extent, playing a surprisingly fluent passing game. They had good width and were able to force Wales back well. The one thing they could not do, however, was get over the tryline, though it took an incredible tackle from, as I recall, Sam Warburton to deny Manu Tuilangi at one point. What England will particularly rue though is the ten minute man advantage that they wasted. After kicking the penalty to go 12-6 in front, they did not get possession for the next five minutes as Wales held on to the ball and gradually worked it down the pitch. England did eventually manage to get a lineout on the Welsh 22, but made an absolute hash of it despite being a man up. By the time Wales were back to 15 they had scored a penalty and had the momentum, which they didn’t really relinquish until England’s last ditch effort to bring the scores level. It was, as I said, a very disappointing result in the end but there is at least more cause for optimism ahead of the last two matches. Wales, meantime, having won the Triple Crown have a great chance for a Grand Slam. Effectively, they only need to beat France at the Millennium Stadium.

The big result was the League Cup though. I said that I thought Cardiff would score a goal, but Liverpool would score at least two. I was half right: Cardiff did go in front in the first half, but Liverpool equalised in the second. Cardiff’s goal came against the run of play, and although they did have other chances (including a heart-stopping moment a few minutes before the second half ended) Liverpool were always the more positive side. We had what seemed like dozens of corners (I lost count), hit the woodwork a couple of times and it seemed like we were almost constantly threatening. Whilst there was some of the profligacy in front of goal that has plagued us all season, Cardiff were also very good. They never seemed to tire in defence and kept charging down shots and attempts to pass the ball in the box. The effort looked like it had worn them down in the end though, as after all the chances we had had it was a relatively meek one by Kuyt that put us in front 2-1 in extra time. After that was where Cardiff really deserve credit though, they did not drop their heads, they did not give up. They came back, put us under pressure and got the last gasp equaliser. I’m sure the adrenaline of a big match helped, but how many teams could go behind after 108 minutes and still have the energy to come back in the 118th? It was a phenomenal show of fight from them and they deserve no end of praise for it. I thought that it would be enough to win them the match, myself. We have been very poor at normal penalties this season and apart from Gerrard and Kuyt I did not know on whom we could rely to take them. Fortunately Suarez, after his howler last week, was not amongst the five. I had been pessimistic to start, so when Gerrard had his saved and Charlie Adam followed up with an attempt that looked like he was aiming for the net at Anfield instead of Wembley, I was despairing. Kuyt was as reliable as ever though, and some hope appeared when the Cardiff players missed badly too. In the end it was Downing and Johnson who scored the vital last two penalties, much to my astonishment and delight, before poor Anthony Gerrard, Stevie’s cousin, missed for Cardiff.

I’m still, of course, ecstatic about having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and finally getting some silverware. King Kenny is also now the first person to win a career treble as both a player and manager, though he’s helped by having done some of them at the same time, of course! And I could be wrong, but I think the win also guarantees European football at Anfield next year. Whilst we still need to push hard for a top four finish, it’s nice to know that we have the Europa League on which to fall back should that not go our way. We’ll be able to help ourselves in that respect soon too, as our next Premiership match is at home to Arsenal who rather annoyingly won today.

Ultimately, it’s been a pretty good weekend.