Reverse Swing

Pietersen may have been the player who garnered the headlines after England’s win over Sri Lanka. His unorthodox stroke play, including his left-handed six and those onside cuffs where he slaps the ball in the ground, and the way he went for Murali, all caught the eye. Andrew Flintoff was wise enough to give him the credit in the aftermath of the victory and identify his innings of 142 as the difference between the teams. But there have been other quieter moments of satisfaction for the England management in the series.

Fast bowling

Plunkett among the wickets at Edgbaston – OK it was his kind of wicket but you still have to put the ball in the right place. I read a murmur somewhere about how he needed another yard of pace but at 80-85 mph he looked fine.

Sajid Mahmood. He’s clearly got the pace and his ability to reverse-swing the ball has been useful. In many ways the nearest like for like replacement for Simon Jones.

The fact that the selectors have opted not to recall Harmison for the next test is partly, as they have said, to give him more time to recover. It also gives more time for Mahmood and Plunkett to gain experience at test level, and its better they gain it now rather than later in the year when they could suddenly be thrown into the Ashes test. The chances of the Ashes winning quartet appearing together again look limited at the moment, and the aim, as Troy Cooley has said, is to have a pool of around 8-10 fast bowlers you can draw on at Test and ODI level.

With Hoggard cementing his way into the world rankings, and acting as senior pro and mentor, and Flintoff contnuing to offer options with both old and new ball England are in a strong position. When you consider that the dependable Jon Lewis can’t get a game, and Harmison and Simon Jones will be ready to return later in the summer, you can see that England have seven quality bowlers to draw on without thinking about it too much.

With Mark Footitt, Stuart Broad and Tom Smith in the pipeline you feel that this is one area where England are relatively rich in resources.

I’ll post later on the state of spinners and batters.

India’s 4-1 defeat at the hands of the West Indies means they drop from 3rd to 5th in the ODI rankings.

The West Indies remain in 8th place despite winning this series and the one against Zimbabwe. They’re now only 5 points behind England when previously the gap was thirteen points.

Difficult to read the form with the approach of the World Cup, but from what I saw it looks like India under-performed, and the Windies were at the top of their game.

Ian Blackwell is out for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. Cameron White is to captain Somerset:

“Matt Wood will remain as vice captain to enable him to concentrate on opening the innings and Cameron White, who has captaincy experience with Victoria will take over as captain for the rest of the season.”

Cameron White takes over 

England v Sri Lanka 002

Originally uploaded by Anna the cricket nut.

Flintoff getting ready to bowl.

There was a point in the afternoon where Pietersen hit Muralitharan for a flat one-bounce four that was almost a six, and followed it up with two further fours off the next two balls. It crossed your mind that Muralitharan didn’t look like one of the two greatest spin bowlers in the world. In the next over Pietersen reverse-swept him for six, getting into position so early it was more like batting left-handed than reverse sweeping.

But like the great bowler he is Muralitharan kept going, varied it and had him lbw. He then picked up Plunkett and Jones, inspiring Malinga to pick up Flintoff and Panesar at the other end. The Pietersen dismissal was the turning point in the England innings – England had gone from 290-5 to 295 all out.

A couple of things emerge

• Muralitharan’s 6-86 is on what is still essentially a seamer’s wicket
• of those who batted today it was only Pietersen who played him with confidence

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Originally uploaded by Birmingham Selly Oak Weather.

Tells you what’s happening weatherwise – the weather link for the Edgbaston test, a mere 2km from the ground.

Ian Pont, the Essex fast-bowling coach, has written a book, “The Fast Bowler’s Bible”, which is to published in early June.

As well as including an easy to understand guide to biomechanics the book also promises to provide some new info on fast bowling skills.

“There’s a lot of new stuff I know hasn’t been written before, with reverse swing, and also how to reverse swing a brand new ball. It reveals a lot of secrets.”

The BBC article doesn’t go into details but it sounds intriguing stuff.

How to be a fast bowler 

As I write this Sri Lanka are 96-8 on the first day of the second test, after winning the toss and deciding to bat. Typical English early-season conditions after the rain of this week and not that much pace in the wicket.

The four England seamers have all bowled well- there’s some swing there and they’ve decided to pitch the ball up and wait behind the wicket for errors.  So a definite opportunity to redeem themselves on the fielding front after Lords.

The catching is much improved – Trescothick at first slip has taken a couple of nice ones. Strauss  dropped one and Collingwood got his hands to one hard flash, and this qualified as a good stop rather than a missed chance.

The exception has been Panesar. For some reason he was at leg-gully and he missed one – David Lloyd decribed his dive as “going down in instalments.” He was immediately moved to mid-off where he dropped another that was straightforward – if an under 13 had made an attempt at a catch like that you would have been disappointed.

Panesar is  the best spinning prospect England have had for years, and he does work on his fielding, but it will be interesting to see whether he can hold his place in the side if he continues to make errors like these. He really has to improve – there’s no way round this – Ricky Ponting is not going to wear the idea of using a substitute fielder for him in the Ashes.

Following his toe-crunching, in-swinging yorker stuff in the India – England series it’s no surprise that an English county should be taking an interest in signing Munaf Patel.

Leicester have been looking for a replacement pace bowler Mohammad Asif and Munaf has been one of the options under consideration. However, it looks like India’s busy schedule will stymie these plans:

The club were at one stage considering Munaf Patel as a potential replacement, but India’s current tour to the West Indies does not end until 4 July and they have another series against Sri Lanka scheduled for August.

Perma-cricket strikes again!

Foxes step up search for paceman

This is one of the most popular searches on Reverse Swing. In today’s ODI at St Kitts he was around 80mph with a slower ball in the lower 70s.

Makes a change to see India tested – thanks to a resurgent West Indies – a tired England didn’t provide much opposition in March and April. Lara’s return to the captaincy has provided some impetus and Sarwan looked on great form today, and it’s difficult to believe he’s still only 25.

2-1 with 2 to play has set this series up nicely, and a 5 match series feels about the right length.