Reverse Swing

Watching the TV coverage of England v India you could hear Matthew Prior groan every time the batsman played a shot. I found it vaguely irritating after a while. According to Steve James. who clearly had the benefit of a stump mike this was what he was saying to Karthick and then Dhoni.

Clearly it spurred Dhoni onto better things and saving the game. It strikes me there’s not much point to sledging unless it contains some mordant wit or an essential truth, and “Yuvraj Singh is batting brilliantly in the nets,” slips into neither category. And as Prior found out it can backfire against you. It’s obviously not just Lara that you don’t sledge.

India First innings – 201 all out

Looking at England’s second-string bowling attack and India’s star batters before the game began I was apprehensive. But Anderson and Sidebottom bowled with a consistency that has escaped Harmison, for instance, over the last couple of years. With Anderson and Sidebottom in tandem it was good to see some conventional swing bowling from both ends. Whether this is the Alan Donald effect it’s difficult to say, but Anderson looked relaxed and in control, with no free gifts for the batsman. I can’t recall him bowling like this since he came into the team in 2003. On this performance you’d pick the bowlers to hold their places for the next test

Despite being behind on first innings, India must fancy knocking over the English top order. If they can get the home side out for less than 150 that would leave a gettable 250 in the fourth innings.You sense that this will be a low-scoring test with a result in prospect.

Dravid must have been thinking it was a good toss to lose at Lords with the cloud cover and movement and England at the crease. But Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan have been bowling some unthreatening lines, failing to exploit the conditions, and RP looks accurate but of no great pace. Just the thing an out of form batsman like Strauss needs. I’m sorry to have seen Munaf Patel so unceremoniously dumped – I bet he’d fancy a bowl on this.

You feel that over the last few months England have been quietly getting better at this one-day cricket business. In the World Cup so far they’ve looked competent against the lesser teams, and while the faults in the England team have been obvious – poor starts by the openers, a lack of overall quality in the bowling – you never felt they were totally out of things.

Against Sri Lanka today they looked they’d worked on the game: plenty of variation in the bowling with slower balls and different lengths, accuracy at a premium, and the fielding was sharp. They looked like they’d come together as an outfit, and when they dismissed Sri Lanka for 235 you felt they were in with a good shout.

It looked like they were purposefully chasing down the target when Pietersen and Bell were together, and the latter was narrowly run out. The wickets that quickly followed of Pietersen Flintoff and Collingwood seemed to put England right out of the game. The best batsmen disappearing together in the space of a few overs.

Enter Nixon and Bopara. ” I don’t know why you’re watching this,” said my wife.” Forty-five minutes later she was cheering on Nixon, as he wickedly improvised, reverse sweeping Murali for 6, and Bopara standing there, calm at the crease, looking like it was his destiny to win this game. In one way when you come as close as this and lose heroically you’ve won whatever happens: after playing all day it comes down to what happens off one ball.

But I felt sorry for Bopara at the end, especially when Fernando ran in for what should have been the final ball and it never left his hand. The actual final ball that was delivered bowled him, and you wonder whether he had been disturbed by Fernando’s failure to deliver the ball. Perhaps it was nerves in the Sri Lankan bowler, but I wouldn’t like to see this non-release of the ball become an established tactic in the close moments of a game.

It takes some time to get used to the idea of winning a ODI series in Australia, but it’s generally a good feeling. Today in Sydney, it was the pleasure of watching Plunkett and Mahmood’s improvements as bowlers as the weather provided some seaming conditions. Suddenly, England has an attack with these two backed up by Flintoff, and with Panesar spinning and Dalrymple and Collingwood providing the pace off the ball stuff. The latter of course somehow managed to out-shine even his own recent efforts, top-scoring with 70, a couple of wickets, and somehow contriving to provide a clone of himself at backward point when Dalrymple took a stunning left-handed catch.

But of course the real pleasure of today has been gently pissing on the parade, and in particular on the script of the Commonwealth Bank series, designed to celebrate yet another Australian triumph. The king-size cheques and the trophy which resembles something used by an illegal car-clamper in Deptford, and Ponting promising to win it for the Commonwealth Bank next year, showed how a genuine contest like the Ashes doesn’t need hype like this.

Talking of hype the last thing England need at the moment is the English media talking up the team’s chances. It’s good to win against Australia three times on the trot but the team is some way from achieving the consistent levels of performance needed for success in the World Cup. For at start they need to do some work on the problem of run-outs.

While I’m not quite at the stage of thinking that England may have a chance of becoming the first overseas side to beat Australia in a ODI series in Australia since who knows when it’s good to enjoy success for a moment or two. I may write to John Buchanan pointing out that the inadequacy of the Australian bowling attack is interfering with England’s World Cup preparations, but then again we all know ODI cricket is not that significant in the great scheme of things.

What I am enjoying are the performances of Collingwood. Successive centuries, some excellent take the pace off the ball bowling and his athleticism in the field make him a fine cricketer, far more than a useful one-day player.

I’m also pleased for him because he’s been blamed in some quarters in southern England for losing the Ashes, for his obdurate 22 n.o. at Adelaide and for making Shane Warne angry with his sledging. ( His detractors also seem to forget his double-century in the first innings at Adelaide.) It’s largely been down to his gritty excellence that England are now in the position they are. And suddenly, overnight, very discreetly the prospects for the next few months are considerably brighter.

While it was good to see England finally win a game in Australia, the best part was that they showed some character. When Symonds wandered out of his ground and Nixon lobbed the ball at the stumps and hit Symonds who slapped the ball away something was said. It took you back to how England played in 2005 with Jones’ shy at Hayden and Harmison hitting Ponting in the first test. It’s the kind of spirit and aggression that’s gone walkabout for England in this series, and while its return may be late it demonstrated that they’re still capable of playing with some passion.

There’s been a problem with the sound on my TV for the last four months, and yesterday I finally got around to taking it in for repair.

“How long it will be?” I asked
“Around a week,” said the engineer.
“That’s fine,” I said.

What will I miss? Just a couple of ODI defeats for England, nothing new. England may be a nation of spectators rather than participants when it comes to sport but it looks like we’re giving that up to. The Barmy Army are selling their tickets and coming home, there was no coverage of cricket in the Guardian today, no preview of the ODI international, only some significant discussion of Aston Villa’s new pay structure, which shows you how far cricket has slipped in the scheme of things. The nation is into displacement when it comes to the summer game.

In fandom land you know that once you reach the lowest point that an upturn invariably arrives. But have we reached the lowest point yet? Bowled out of for 111 and losing by 9 wickets seems pretty bad. Let’s just hope that this is the lowest point.

One-day series, Adelaide: New Zealand 210 (50 overs) beat England 120 (37.5 overs) by 90 runs

In this sorry defeat against New Zealand England’s batsmen either looked low on confidence and out of touch or just not up to it. It makes you realise how much they’ve relied on Pietersen over the last couple of years.

This must be the end of the line for Duncan Fletcher – in football he would have been sacked some time ago. With Woolmer waiting in the wings it will be a case of when Fletcher goes and not if.

With England currently being stuffed out of sight in the ODIs against Australia cricket coverage is hanging on by the odd column in the papers.

Against Australia, English supporters are trying to take satisfaction from ” James Anderson bowls a decent spell and swings the ball” and “Mal Loye plays shot of the tournament with his slog-sweep off Brett Lee.” But we know deep down that we’re some way from Australia and while we will win a game against them eventually, our best chance at the moment relies on the Aussies getting bored with winning.

In our own sub-tournament against New Zealand it’s more nip and tuck. And while aiming to beat them in the ODI at Adelaide is a reasonable aspiration, it’s going to be a tight game with the teams more evenly matched.