In the latest world rankings, released after the Joburg and Hobart Tests, England are without a single batsman in the top 20 for the first time, by my reckoning, since 2002.

Andrew Strauss has slipped seven places over the course of the series with South Africa to No 21 and Kevin Pietersen’s fall has been sharper: down from No 4 at the start of the year to No 26 now.

Pietersen has fallen behind Paul Collingwood (up to No 22 despite not scoring a hundred in his past 11 Tests) and he is only one bad innings away from falling to England’s fourth best batsman with Alastair Cook in 28th place.

Heck, by the end of the Bangladesh tour, Pietersen could even have slipped behind Ian Bell, who is at No 32 and rising.

Four, or even five, batsmen in the top 30 isn’t in itself a bad thing. We’ve had as few as three in recent memory - and no more than six. Sri Lanka and Australia have only four each at the moment. South Africa have five and India have six, but England have two more than New Zealand or Pakistan and one more than the Windies.

That reflects our overall world Test ranking of fifth. The problem is the lack of one or two superstars. Depth is one thing, class is another. There are six different nations represented in the present top ten and England’s finest is 11 places outside that list.

This may be only temporary - Strauss could slip back into the top 20 next week if VVS Laxman (No 17) pays for a poor match against Bangladesh - but it has been a long time since we were without any top 20 representative. Pietersen had been in the top 20 since 2006 and was as high as No 3; before him there was a Trescothick or a Vaughan to fly the flag and, apart from a slump in 2000 and a brief dip in 2002, Graham Thorpe was in the top 20 between 1995 and 2003.

Before him, Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart were regulars in the top ten - and briefly, in 1992, we even had the No 1 and 2 batsmen in the world, in Graham Gooch and Robin Smith. Read more…

Administrator Views Alastair Cook, Alec Stewart, Andrew Strauss, Bangladesh, England, Hobart, Ian Bell, Joburg, Mike Atherton, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paul Collingwood, Pietersen, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thorpe

The third IPL auction - a more low-key affair than before given that many big names had already been bought and there was a cap of $750,000 - has concluded in Mumbai.

As predicted in The Times, Eoin Morgan was the only England player to find favour, picked up by the Bangalore Royal Challengers for $220,000. Middlesex, Morgan’s county, are resigned to barely seeing the left-handed batsman next season. They have given him their blessing to compete in the whole IPL, in return for which the county will receive 10 per cent of his sale price - about £13,500 in English money.

The IPL starts in mid-March and goes on until April 25. If Bangalore reach the final, Morgan will have to hotfoot it straight away from Mumbai to Guyana, where he will be expected to play for England in their opening World Twenty20 match against West Indies. That tournament concludes on May 16 and Middlesex may see their man for a couple of weeks before he will be required again by England in a one-day series against Australia.

He then goes back to Middlesex for August before having to turn out in blue yet again for a one-day series against Pakistan. Just as well he isn’t a Test cricketer - yet. And at least Middlesex will see more of Andrew Strauss, a useful enough replacement for Morgan, than they might usually do.

Here are the winners and losers from the rest of the auction:

Winners

* Kieron Pollard: the West Indies all-rounder, left, was a huge hit in India during the Champions League Twenty20 in October, particularly during the first of his two matches for Trinidad against New South Wales, when he scored a fifty at three runs a ball. He can bowl well too, and justifies the maximum bid of $750,000 that Mumbai Indians paid for him.

* Shane Bond: the New Zealand fast bowler also went for the maximum $750,000 to Kolkata Knight Riders. His reserve price of $100,000 was fairly low, but bidding was frenzied Read more…

Administrator IPL Andrew Strauss, Bangalore Royal Challengers, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Eoin Morgan, graeme swann, IPL, IPL III, Kemar Roach, Kieron Pollard, Middlesex, Shane Bond, Sohail Tanvir, Tyron Henderson, Wayne Parnell

As always, the Test XI of 2009 will be a major talking point as the merits of those who made the side and those left out are debated.

Choosing a Test team of the year can be hazardous. So far no lives have been lost, though it was a close run thing last year after Sachin Tendulkar was omitted. No amount of sweet words could convince offended parties that selection had been based on 12 months and not an entire career. In hindsight the criteria may have become too cut and dried, allowing the inclusion of one-year wonders. Accordingly, an adjustment has been made.

Only those performing well in 2009 have been considered but thereafter heed has been taken of records. Alas that has meant the exclusion of Thilan Samaraweera, the most productive batsman of the year (1234 runs at 72.6) and a miracle worker. It’s not so long ago that he was shot and almost killed when terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan bus. As usual, though, the side has been selected to win cricket matches, not as a slap on the back.

More than ever it is necessary to look beyond the statistics. Averages have been distorted this year by the free-scoring series between Sri Lankan and India. Four of the five highest scorers of the campaign are Sri Lankan. The Indian top order averaged variously 90, 70, 87, 67, 67 and 92.

They cannot all play. Even to concentrate on them means forgetting about Ross Taylor, Graeme Smith, Younus Khan, Chris Gayle, Michael Clarke, Jacques Kallis and so forth. As it happens, none of them made the cut anyhow, but all deserved consideration. Anyhow, here goes!

1 Virender Sehwag
Impossible to omit provided he has a presentable season. His ability to take attacks apart and to sustain his domination sets him apart. Sehwag is a great batsman and among the most devastating openers the game has known. His defence is immaculate and mostly mothballed as he plays his full range of shots from the first over. Impudent but rarely imprudent, his madness conceals a shrewd cricketing brain.

2 Andrew Strauss
Pipped higher scorers like Gautam Gambhir and Tillakaratne Dilshan due to the part he played in recovering the Ashes. Simply, he was the most influential batsman in a tight series. Read more…

Administrator Views AB de Villiers, Andrew Strauss, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dale Steyn, Daniel Vettori, graeme swann, Kumar Sangakkara, Mitchell Johnson, Mohammad Asif, MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Thilan Samaraweera, Virender Sehwag, World Test XI

From Centurion to Perth, there was plenty to savour as the long version of the game produced some thoroughly absorbing play

Did you notice how many of the “100 Top Sporting Moments” related on these pages last week occurred in Test matches? Were you absorbed from a distance by the uncertain outcomes of the simultaneous Test matches in Centurion and the Waca ground in Perth? Crowds for both games were no more than satisfactory but much of the cricket was spell-binding, proof if it were needed that Test cricket will confound those sages who fear that it is an anachronism in an age of instant gratification.

Such gratification does not come much more quickly, even in Twenty20 cricket, than it did for Chris Gayle last Friday, or for those who watched him launching a series of his trademark straight sixes on his way to a Test hundred scored from 70 balls during the third of three increasingly hard-fought games between Australia and West Indies.

He was out too quickly afterwards and West Indies lost their last six first innings wickets for 27 but they bowled Australia out cheaply and finished only 35 runs short of victory early on the last day. Since their uneven performances against England earlier this year West Indies have found a convincing fast bowler in Kemar Roach, the Barbadian who was quick enough on the Perth pitch to rough up Ricky Ponting, and an opening batsman of equal youth and promise in Adrian Barath.

While conditions at the Waca, as always, encouraged quick bowlers and buccaneering batsmen, those at Centurion rewarded patience, craft and enterprise in equal measure. On the third day in Perth 16 wickets fell for 235 runs; on the same day in Centurion seven fell for 303. Such variety is what we want; plus a proper balance between batsman and bowler; and, not least, administrators ready to keep balanced programmes without overloading the best players.

Pitches and the attitude of the players have always been the keys to interesting cricket. In India this month Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team recovered from a turgid opening draw in Read more…

Administrator England, South Africa Adrian Barath, Ahmedabad, Andrew Strauss, Australia, Barbadian, Blogs.CMDN.com, Centurion, Chris Gayle, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, David Richardson, Duncan Fletcher, Kemar Roach, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Paul Harris, Perth, Ricky Ponting, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Twenty20, UDRS, World Cup

Quiz question. What links these England Test wins? Lord’s 2000 (v West Indies), Kandy 2000-01, The Oval and Trent Bridge 2003, Johannesburg 2004-05, Edgbaston 2005, Mumbai 2005-06, Wellington 2007-08, The Oval 2009?

Answer: they all followed demoralising defeats.

So when England’s bowlers were given a lesson in ingenuity and chutzpah by AB de Villiers at Cape Town on Friday, you could almost guess what was coming next: South Africa all out for 119 – their lowest total in home one-day internationals – and England on the brink of winning a series that most observers, this one included, felt was another limited-overs accident waiting to happen.

You couldn’t make it up. And if you did, you’d be sacked for over-embellishment.
Consistency is a strange thing. It’s got so many syllables you imagine sportsmen nodding off when the captain uses it in his team-talk. Neither is it the sexiest concept in the sporting dictionary.

It’s also wonderfully understated. Why not just say: ‘We want to win every game’? But it has become the Holy Grail of this England cricket team – a reasonable, modest, unflashy goal for those embodiments of reason, modesty and non-flash, Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower.

The good news is England are aware of the problem. In the 1990s, their stirring victories were undoubtedly too seldom and almost always too late: at The Oval in 1993 and 1997, at Bridgetown in 1993-94, at Adelaide in 1994-95, and at Melbourne in 1998-99, the series could not be won.

Worse, all those games took place in series England went on to lose. The games mentioned in the first paragraph, by contrast, were all part of series England either drew after being behind or won. Progress comes in all shapes and sizes.

The journey, though, may only be beginning. After England’s win on Sunday, Strauss was keeping his size 11s on the ground. ‘The see-saw nature of this series so far suggests that if we expect to [win at Durban on Friday], we will probably come unstuck,’ he said. ‘So we have to Read more…

Administrator England AB de Villiers, Adelaide, Andrew Strauss, Andy Flower, Blogs.CMDN.com, Bridgetown, Cape Town, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, Melbourne, Mumbai, South Africa, The Oval, Trent Bridge, West Indies

Paul Collingwood is a quiet-spoken, thoughtful man, not prone to making big claims or overembellishing a situation and he cut straight to the point when asked to reflect on the tour of South Africa so far.

“It’s been a little bit of a rollercoaster ride, in terms of results and performances. It’s been an up-and-down tour.”

That it certainly has. England won the first T20 international - the scorecard says by one run on D/L but if it hadn’t rained they probably would have won more comfortably with SA needing 76 in seven overs at the close - and then were walloped out of sight in the second, with South Africa making 241.

Just as the press pack started preparing stories about the tour going off the rails, England produced one of their most accomplished and clinical displays at Centurion to take a 1-0 lead in the ODI series, then followed it by being pummelled at Newlands on Friday, conceding more than 350 runs and losing with eight overs unbowled.

Cue doom and gloom again, but two days later the same England bowling attack have just dismissed South Africa for 119 at Port Elizabeth, two runs fewer as a team than AB De Villiers made on his own on Friday. As I type, Trott and Strauss have taken England a quarter of the way to winning this game and going 2-1 up.

As journalists we like to deal in black and white. It is a justified criticism of the British press that England are painted as either the worst side in the world in the history of the game ever - or they are triumphant and magnificent and let’s have them round to the palace for OBEs and Read more…

Administrator England, South Africa AB de Villiers, Andrew Strauss, Blogs.CMDN.com, Centurion, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Newlands, ODI, Paul Collingwood, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, T20

…what posts would they take in the British government?

Prime Minister – Michael Vaughan
Sorry Strauss. Vaughan has a more Blairite public face with Yorkshire steel propping up his policies. Universally respected; peace envoy to the middle east already a certainty.

Deputy Prime Minister – Andrew Strauss
No Blair/Brown ego wars here. Strauss would never turn the job down if offered, but second in command suits his style.

Chancellor of the Exchequer – Matthew Hoggard
We need someone thrifty from Yorkshire to keep a tab on taxes and mortgage rates. Yearly budget speech guaranteed entertainment.

Secretary of State for Defence – Mike Atherton
Rock solid. Nothing’s getting past that. Get out of my sight, outswinging terrorists; this is Lancashire’s finest.

Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, First Secretary and Lord President of the Council – Alastair Cook
Mandyesque smarminess required. Mandyesque smarminess found. God-like aspirations will fall on deaf ears, as will all his policies.

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – David Lloyd
Everyone would love him.

Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor – Bob Willis
All derelict houses to be turned into prisons. Anyone not capable of an upright seam sentenced to five years labour making cricket balls. All umpires to spend seven months in solitary confinement on evidence of a “truly shocking” decision being made.

Secretary of State for Health – Andrew Flintoff
Just one of his roles. Expected to offer cheerful assistance to PM on most matters, and Read more…

Administrator England Alastair Cook, Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Blogs.CMDN.com, Bob Willis, Cricket, David Lloyd, Dhoni, Geoffrey Boycott, Matthew Hoggard, Michael Vaughan, Mike Atherton, Paul Collingwood, Robert Croft, Steve Harmison

Andrew Strauss tells us that the South African origins of himself, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior and Jonathan Trott are “a non-issue” for England’s cricketers. Which is fair enough, but you can bet your last rand that they won’t be treated as a non-issue by the during the forthcoming series of five one-day internationals and four Test matches. If the South Africa captain, Graeme Smith, doesn’t encourage his men to target these perceived turncoats in the England team, then he’s not the chest-thumping patriot I took him to be. And even if he doesn’t – for he does seem to be mellowing somewhat – the home supporters in Durban and Johannesburg will most certainly let the abuse fly at those biltong-flavoured Englishmen, reserving particular vehemence for Pietersen, who is scheduled to join the party next week.

That prospect won’t trouble Pietersen in the slightest, of course. He got fearful stick when he first played one-day cricket with England in South Africa, to which he responded, after scoring his first international century (108 not out from 96 balls at Bloemfontein), by not so much kissing the three lions on his helmet, as snogging them. He finished as Player of the Series, some achievement given that the South Africans had won 4-1. And now he is five years older and wiser, witness the disappearance of that preposterous white stripe from his hair. It has been replaced, moreover, by an eminently sensible Brylcreem bounce, which augurs well, because the last Brylcreem Boy to play cricket in South Africa, in 1948-49, scored what remains the fastest triple century in first-class cricket. Playing for MCC against North-Eastern Transvaal, Denis Compton took one minute over three hours to reach his 300, hitting five sixes and 42 fours. He completed the last third of it in just 37 minutes.

Strictly speaking, Compton didn’t become the first official Brylcreem Boy until 1950, but we won’t let trifling details interfere with the parallels between the man they called Compo and the man they call KP. I was gratified, when I interviewed Pietersen a few weeks ago, to find that he had done his homework on Compton. “I know he was a pretty flamboyant batter, a chinaman bowler, a pretty cool guy,” he said. Cooler, in fact, than Pietersen knew. He’d done some of his homework but not all of it, and had no idea that his Brylcreemed predecessor also played for Read more…

Administrator England Andrew Strauss, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brylcreem, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Denis Compton, England, Graeme Smith, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, KP, Matt Prior, MCC, South Africa

South Africa are top of tree but England can knock them down a branch or two

After England won the Ashes in 2005, they had a party to end all parties. Sometime during this, it could be said, any potential legacy of the great triumph was flushed down the toilet.

The following winter the team went to Pakistan, and partly because they considered their work was done, partly because of untimely injuries, they were well beaten. Things were never to be the same, no combination of the 12 players who had prevailed against Australia ever took the field again. This time it will be different. This time, England are aware, Ashes or no Ashes, that they ain’t done nothing yet.

In the immediate aftermath of their victory against Australia in the summer just gone, they might have wished for a less exacting assignment than a tour of South Africa. Not only are South Africa the world’s best side in both one-day and Test cricket but their vastly accomplished captain, Graeme Smith, has propelled the downfall of two recent England captains. Both Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan felt compelled to resign during Test series against Smith’s South Africa.

“Let’s hope,” said the present incumbent, Andrew Strauss, yesterday, the humorous aside doubtless tinged with a hint of worry, “that I’m not resigning in three months’ time. He [Smith] is a very worthy adversary and combines being an excellent captain with being a formidable presence at the top of the order.”

Smith has been captain of South Africa for six years, has led them in 68 Test matches and 121 one-day internationals and personifies their unyieldingly tough yet intermittently vulnerable nature. He has probably been waiting for this moment for four long years since England won the Test series in South Africa, and he will not have been exactly delighted by his side’s Read more…

Administrator England Andrew Strauss, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Graeme Smith, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Michael Vaughan, Mickey Arthur, Nasser Hussain, South Africa

James Anderson is “gutted” not to be Andrew Strauss’s vice-captain for England’s tour to Australia this winter. The reason he was not given the responsibility, apparently, is because he is a bowler and from the North.

I suspect that Anderson was speaking with a wry smile, rather than a chip on his shoulder, but he has a point, although it is the bowler bit, rather than coming from the North, that really counts against him.

England have had only three captains in the past 60 years who were fast bowlers. Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham found the extra responsibility too much. Only Bob Willis (seven wins and six draws in 18 Tests) had much joy. You then have to go back to Gubby Allen to find a fast bowler who captained England - and he lost the 1936 Ashes after leading 2-0. Fast bowlers simply do not make good England captains.

The world was, of course, a happier place when England’s captains were all batsmen and gentlemen amateurs from the Home Counties who could rock up on the morning of a Test after a quick hour’s work shuffling their share portfolios in the City, introduce themselves to the collection of miners who had been dragged away from the pitface to form the England bowling attack and order them into battle.

We may not have won that often, but that was hardly as important as having the right sort of chap to introduce the players to the King during the luncheon interval. You could hardly trust a bowler - especially a northern one - with that sort of responsibility.

The “anti-Northern” argument is less credible now. Sixty-two of England’s past 92 Tests were led by men from the North (Vaughan and Flintoff). Mike Atherton had 54 Tests in charge from 1993-2001. Chuck in Paul Collingwood and his 25 ODIs as captain and the North has Read more…

Administrator England Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Atherton, Australia, Collingwood, Geoff Boycott, Ian Botham, James Anderson, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Mike Brearley, Mike Gatting, ODI, Ray Illingworth, Vaughan, Yorkshire