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

Hallelujah to the news that MCC is to reject a plan to name Lord’s after a sponsor. Watching England play India in the ToffeeCrispStadium @Lord’s.org would have just felt wrong.

There is a certain poetry to the naming of cricket grounds. For more than a century, Test cricket has been played at Lord’s, Trent Bridge, Edgbaston and Old Trafford without the need to adorn the ground with a sponsor’s name.

Co-naming rights may have been signed for The Oval and Headingley - and how the addition of Brit and Carnegie grates - but nothing jarred quite as much as when the first Test of last summer’s Ashes series was staged at the SWALEC Stadium.

The problem was not that the match was played in Wales. It was that the ground used to have the far more attractive name of Sophia Gardens, until the South Wales electricity board bought a ten-year sponsorship deal in 2008 for £1.5 million. The only plus was the irony that it ambushed a series sponsored by npower, SWALEC’s competitor.

Yet the original name for the Cardiff ground was itself a form of sponsorship. Sophia Gardens was named after the wife of the second Marquess of Bute, who arranged for land in Cardiff to be put aside for sport in the late 1800s.

For that matter, what was the naming of Lord’s in 1787 but an early sponsorship deal? Thomas Lord was a Yorkshire wine merchant who had been approached by Lord Winchilsea, the patron of the Hambledon cricket club in Hampshire, to build a ground in London. Winchilsea said that Lord would be free to stick his own name on the ground as a reward.

Surely that was sponsorship. The only difference is that 200 years of tradition has given the name authenticity. Likewise, modern baseball fans could not imagine the Chicago Cubs playing at a ground named anything but Wrigley Field, although the stadium changed its name Read more…

Administrator England Blogs.CMDN.com, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, Hampshire, Headingley, Lord's, MCC, Old Trafford, Sophia Gardens, South Wales, SWALEC, The Oval, Trent Bridge

Tough and talented, South Africa have taken their inspiration from their captain to become the world’s best Test team

This tour is going to be especially fascinating for me because these are two teams close to my heart. Over the past year I have worked with South Africa as a consultant, a part-time role I took on before their Test series against Bangladesh in 2008. I’ll be working with them again this winter, for six or seven days before the one-dayers start on 20 November, and again for another stretch of 11 days around the first Test.

In the time I’ve spent with them, most recently at a six-day training camp ahead of the Champions Trophy, I’ve seen at first hand how and why they have become the No1-ranked team in Test cricket. For me, there are three key reasons for their success.

The first is that they have found the right captain. Graeme Smith has been around for some time, because he had only just turned 22 when he made captain. He has grown into such a strong character. It took him time to win the respect of the senior players in his side because he was so young, but he has earned their admiration by performing in the most difficult circumstances.

His hundred against England at Edgbaston last year was as good an innings as I’ve seen played in terms of how he shouldered responsibility for the side. He made 154 not out in the fourth innings to clinch the series. There was nothing flash about it, but it showed the sheer guts of the man. Graeme leads from the front. He’s not a technically gifted batsman, in fact there are times when he really struggles with his technique, but you won’t find anyone who is stronger than him mentally. Good technique can get a batsman out of trouble when he makes a mistake, but Smith relies more on his mental resilience to avoid erring in the first place. He has the self-discipline to stay away from playing in his weaker areas, and he makes sure he watches over Read more…

Administrator South Africa AB de Villiers, Albie Morkel, Blogs.CMDN.com, Champions Trophy, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dale Steyn, Edgbaston, England, Graeme Smith, JP Duminy, Mark Boucher, Mickey Arthur, Morne Morkel, South Africa

A spell in South Africa should make Monty Panesar a more assertive – and therefore better – cricketer

All is very much not well in the cricket world of Monty Panesar. His top-dog England place has gone for now, and with the advent of Adil Rashid so has the touring that has been his for the last four winters. He has endured a miserable season in which his confidence has bled dry, and there are stories, overheard and recounted by Afrikaans-speaking members of the opposition, of a lack of respect from overseas players at his county which he must have sensed. Monty would have been aware of an atmosphere but oblivious to the detail. Northants will be considering whether they can afford his wages now his central contract has gone but in any case he needs to get away from such a pernicious, disrespectful atmosphere as soon as he can. He is at a low ebb.

On Sunday, though, Panesar is flying to Johannesburg where he will spend the winter playing for the Highveld Lions as their overseas player (and perhaps learning Afrikaans) and those who know him well believe it will be the making of him in his attempt to climb once more cricket’s greasy pole of fortune. The change of scenery will do him good. There will, it is reasoned, be a responsibility on him, beyond that which is normally associated with an international spinner, on which he may thrive. He will, in a sense, be required to be a leader.

No one should regard the bitter pill of rejection now as the end of Panesar as an international cricketer. When first selected for England four years ago, in Nagpur, he was already an extremely good bowler, and he remains no less than that. In fact it is easy to lose sight of that fact until his statistics are perused. He has 126 wickets from 39 Tests, which places him in the top 10 of England spinners, those above having all played more matches. In a side that generally has been based around pace, he has an average of 3.23 wickets per match, a rate exceeded from that top 10 by only Derek Underwood, Jim Laker, Tony Lock and Hedley Verity, all of whom bowled in eras when uncovered pitches offered helpful conditions more frequently than now. Read more…

Administrator England Adil Rashid, Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Blogs.CMDN.com, Chennai, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, India, Michael Vaughan, Monty Panesar, South Africa, Sri Lanka

As you may already know, I adore cricket. As a new fan, I am continually amazed by this strikingly beautiful game and it’s parallels to life. I see so much in cricket that is good, generous and noble, and I’ve come to believe that America needs cricket. Cricket could be the answer to many of her problems and a salve for her soul.

A simple act by Andrew Strauss at the Edgbaston Test got me thinking. His decision to allow Australia to replace an injured man at the last moment wasn’t required but it was a decent and honourable thing to do. It was the thought of protecting the sport, respecting a historic rivalry and ensuring the spectators’ experience that had a very competitive man do the right thing. If the American corporate culture were to follow suit, we might have escaped some of the economic turmoil the world has experienced in the past 18 months.

I don’t want to give the impression that Strauss’ action on that day was unique either. As any cricket watcher knows, these gestures are played out on a daily basis at every level around the world. Even in the midst of a heated rivalry behaving properly is the epitome of honour. If ever there was a place to look for many of humanity’s best qualities it is the cricket field.

Due to America’s isolation from the true world sports, we’ve missed priceless lessons in tolerance, acceptance and learning from other nations. America has so many fine qualities but a few devastating blind spots as well. We are a nation of immigrants and many of us, or our ancestors, left homelands to seek greater financial opportunity in the States, or to escape hardship. It’s one of the best things about the United States but America has somehow come to believe Read more…

Administrator USA America, Andrew Strauss, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston

Gosh, is it really over? It seems like barely yesterday that English cricket was in crisis after the rout at Headingley, only a few days ago that we were getting het up about the drainage at Edgbaston. That win at Lord’s was only last week, wasn’t it? And time has certainly flown since I was trying to follow the closing overs from Cardiff on my mobile phone as I was on a plane taxiing down the runway at Zurich.

This was not a classic Ashes in the 2005 sense when two teams near the peak of their powers and packed with all-time heroes slugged it out, but don’t let anyone claim that 2009 lacked drama or tension. Yes, England and Australia had their moments of ineptitude and at times it seemed as if the battle would be over who could make the fewer mistakes, but it was gripping for all that.

It became a cliche in 2005 that someone would “put their hand up and come to the party”. I think that applied even more this series. When there were 20 overs remaining in Cardiff, when England won the toss and batted at Lord’s, when Australia were fighting back in the second innings at Lord’s, when Graham Onions started to bowl on day 2 at Edgbaston with Australia 126-1, when Stuart Broad was chucked the ball at the Oval, when Jonathan Trott came out to bat on Friday at 39-3… these were the small moments when questions were asked of character and England answered.

Australia scored more runs, more hundreds, hit more sixes, took more wickets and held more catches than we did, but in two crucial categories we outscored them: number of five-fors and number of wins.

And this shouldn’t be a surprise. We said at the start of the series that England’s bowlers held the key and that Australia’s attack were weaker. The fact that Ben Hilfenhaus and Read more…

Administrator Ashes Anderson, Ashes, Aussies, Australia, Blogs.CMDN.com, Broad, Cardiff, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, Flintoff, Graham Onions, Harmison, Lord's, Monty Panesar, Peter Siddle, South Africa, Swann

One day, your son or daughter might pull a copy of Wisden from the bookshelf, or more likely magic Andrew Flintoff’s stats on to a computer screen, and ask the killer question: “Was he really that good?”

And you’ll sigh and chuckle, having recalled ‘that’ over at Edgbaston back in 2005, or his five-for at Lord’s in 2009, or his 167 against West Indies in Birmingham in 2004. And you’ll find yourself saying, rather patronisingly, “you’ll never really understand”.

The record books will tell future generations that Flintoff wasn’t even the best all-rounder of his time. South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, with his 10,000-plus runs, his 31 Test centuries, his 258 wickets, rather swamps Flintoff in terms of cold statistics.

Chris Cairns of New Zealand, in a career blighted by injury, averaged higher with bat and lower with ball. Another Kiwi, Daniel Vettori, runs Flintoff close on batting stats and has taken 18 five-fors to the Lancastrian’s three and three 10-wicket matches to Flintoff’s none.

But then the English have never really dealt in cold statistics when it comes to choosing their heroes. Most will take the maverick James Hunt over the monochrome Nigel Mansell; the lavishly gifted but fatally flawed Jimmy White over Steve Davis, the cold-blooded winner; “daft as a brush” Gazza over Brand Beckham.

Indeed, Seve Ballesteros, the winner of five majors, elicits more love from the English public than Nick Faldo, winner of six majors and arguably his country’s greatest ever individual Read more…

Administrator England Adam Nicolson, Birmingham, Blogs.CMDN.com, Chris Cairns, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Daniel Vettori, Edgbaston, Flintoff, Jacques Kallis, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros

In the course of my travels over the last couple of days, I’ve watched Ravi Bopara and Alastair Cook get out for one and four respectively at Lord’s, seen Kent skipper Rob Key score an assured 90 only to miss out on a ton when he was lbw to a straight one at Northampton, and called in at The Oval to sit in on an interview with Mark Ramprakash, to hear him say he’d definitely play for England again, if asked.

What a week this is turning into for speculation, counter-speculation and player watching.

Once Bopara and Cook were dismissed at Lord’s, England selector James Whitaker sat in the media centre, glued to the television, awaiting news of Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott from Trent Bridge.

The skies were leaden and it wasn’t a good day for batting. Who’d be an England selector?

Wholesale changes aren’t needed for the Oval. Yes, England had a horrendous time at Headingley, batted and bowled abysmally, but you don’t become a terrible side overnight (or even in two-and-a-half days as the case may be). Read more…

Administrator Ashes Alastair Cook, Ashes, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, Headingley, Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, Kent, Kevin Pietersen, Leeds, Lord's, Mark Ramprakash, Ravi Bopara, Rob Key, The Oval, Trent Bridge

What makes the 11 dissenting cricketers believe they should be exempt from an anti-doping regulation to which 20,000 athletes have signed?

You are an Indian cricketer, so revered/reviled by the public that you can’t step out without the sunglasses and wigs that wouldn’t have been out of place on a TV show about Scousers in the 1980s. The season is over and, with just a fortnight to go before the interminable cycle of gym, practice and commercial shoots starts up again, you decide to take your family and disappear into the wilds of the Masai Mara or Iceland.

You have a good time on holiday, putting away your favourite food and the odd beverage, those little luxuries that modern sport tends to deny its practitioners. Then, in the middle of the night, around the time cricket tragics back home wake up to tune into the play from New Zealand, there’s a knock on the door. It’s an inspection team from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). Bleary-eyed with sleep, you have to step into another room, drop your pyjamas and pee into a bottle, in full view of some stranger that you’ve never seen before.

This, in a nutshell, is the Doomsday scenario that has India’s cricketers refusing to accept Wada’s controversial “whereabouts” clause. According to the rules to which all major sporting bodies are supposed to be a signatory, players must advise the organisation of their whereabouts for an hour every day over the forthcoming three months. Not really a problem during cricket season, with itineraries planned months or even years in advance, but a nightmare Read more…

Administrator Indian Cricket BCCI, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, Mohammad Asif, MS Dhoni, Shoaib Akhtar, Tendulkar, WADA

Despite such an emphatic defeat, England should not panic. All they need is a result pitch, a returning hero, and a miracle

There was fun and frolics to be had on the final morning at Headingley Carnegie, but the last laugh belonged to Australia. This was a crushing victory and the final flourish provided by Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann had no more effect on the punishment dished out than the student who flicks a “V” at the headmaster once his back is turned.

This was the stuff of men against boys. The fresh-faced, almost angelic-looking Broad and the cheeky chappie Swann throwing the blade with abandon and grinning cheerfully, as Australia became ever more ragged, provided some amusement, even solace for a short time.

But when Graham Onions was bowled to give Australia their victory by an innings and 80 runs, the realisation dawned quickly that England had been so utterly outplayed, that the momentum shift was so complete, that hopes of a revival at the Brit Oval are nothing more than mere fancy.

If, before the series began, England had been offered a level scoreline before the final Test, they might well have taken it. But that hypothetical fails to take into consideration Read more…

Administrator Ashes, England Andrew Flintoff, Ashes, Australia, Bill Gordon, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brit Oval, Cook, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Edgbaston, England, Graham Onions, Headingley, Ian Bell, Jonathan Trott, Lord’s, Marcus Trescothick, Mark Ramprakash, Mitchell Johnson, Old Trafford, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Ricky Ponting, Strauss