Batting for your life

England need to bat for 3 sessions (subject to weather) today with 8 wickets in hand so real dedication is needed. We have Pietersen first up so all we can hope with him is that he scores enough that when he's out we're past Australia's total - I don't think telling him to defend would be helpful. England's top 2 I'd want batting for my life would be Strauss and Collingwood, if runs were not important.

Interesting then to see some New Zealander's talk about who they'd want batting for their life. Tendulkar, Dravid, Chanderpaul, Yousuf and Sangakkara all seem to make it.

Freak dismissal

Ed Joyce may rightly feel aggrieved by his recent county championship dismissal batting for Sussex against Warwickshire. He hit an aggressive sweep against off the bowling of Ant Botha, only to see the ball lodge in the pocket of Jonathan Trott at short leg as he tried to jump out of the way of the shot. Talk about having the batsman in your pocket!

Simon Katich

It's interesting reading the various reports of Katich's innings - apparently he's redeemed himself after 2005. I've checked 2005 stats and he did come out with an average of under 30, but my memory is that he was really hard done by with some poor umpiring decisions. Yes, Australia chose to drop him, but let's be honest - he performed far better than Ian Bell who stayed in the England side after that series.

So I'm not shocked he's come good - he's a good player who had a bad series at the same time as getting some very bad luck.

By the way, I would have bowled Swann rather than Broad just before lunch! Well done Monty!!

Are tailenders allowed expensive bats?

We've all seen it, and we've probably all ridiculed it. The number 11 walks out with a brand new £300 bat and gets bowled first ball. What a waste of money.....or is it? What I have always wondered is whether it is ever acceptable for a tailender to spend a fortune on a new bat?

Despite the stigma attached to it, about three years ago I decided to take the plunge and buy a top of the range bat. My rationale was that I wasn't good enough to hit the gaps, force the pace, hit out effectively, or any of that, and that a good bat might help me do this. Having never scored a fifty, I thought it was worth a go. After being subjected to a few stifled chuckles as I tried it out in the shop - and even some attempts by the shop assistant to negotiate me down in budget - I indeed plumped for the most expensive in the shop.

It all started slowly, but the bat went like a dream and I was soon picking up some more runs. What I found was that my dots were turned into 1s or 2s, and my 1s into 2s or 4s. This in turn helped me not to worry that I wasn't getting it off the square, because I was, and so I stopped playing silly shots. Over the course of the season I got myself further up the order, batted for longer periods, developed new shots and eventually got my first fifty in the last match of the season. This was all down to the bat via some additional mental strength brought on by confidence.

My point is that despite the ridicule, it is well worth any player investing in a better bat if they want to. Even though my bat broke after one and a half seasons - it scored a LOT more runs than I did - I considered it money well spent.

Why am I raising the point now? Well, as of last Saturday I am now the proud owner of a new bat again, and yes, it is stupidly expensive for my ability. Bring on that first hundred.

Practice needed

Did anyone else notice that every one of Monty's 5s (high or low) after dismissing Ponting missed ?

Night watchmen

England now seem to have settled on the tactic of using James Anderson as night watchman at number 8, protecting Stuart Broad. Ian Botham has been typically vocal in his criticism, suggesting that a night watchman gifts the momentum to the fielding side, but I can't say I agree. Where he's right is that night watchmen shouldn't be used when the batting side can't afford to waste a few overs at the end of the day because they need to push for a result - a mistake England made in West Indies.

But, unless in those circumstances, I think on balance I support them using Anderson to protect Broad. Broad averages over 30 and Anderson has proved that he can stick in there as necessary so his value is not only in seeing out the evening, but also seeing out the first half hour tomorrow morning as he did last summer against South Africa. In addition, in the first innings the end of the day is also the time of the new ball, making it an even more perilous time to come in for Broad. The only doubt I have is how far from the end of the day is appropriate - within the last 4 or 5 overs seems ok.

I think times are changing. More bowlers can bat now, and consequently the use of night watchmen should logically change given that is the case. So I suspect that I'm in the minority, and certainly not in agreement with Botham, but at the moment I would back England's use of Anderson when they aren't pushing for a result on the penultimate day of the match.

Australia's Ashes Team

With Brett Lee out of contention Australia have a real head-ache to pick the eleventh member of their team for the first test. The first 10 are relatively simple: Hughes, Katich, Ponting, Hussey, Clarke, North, Haddin, Johnson, Siddle, Clark. The decision for the final spot is between a finger spinner who is obviously not up to test standard, and who even seems to have lost the ability to tie up end, a medium pace all-rounder whose batting is suspect and bowling is steady, or a promising swing bowler who bowled well in patches in South Africa, but hasn't played since.

To be honest, I don't like any of these options. A decision must be made, however, and if it were up to me I'd go with Hilfenhaus. He's a swing bowler who I think will be an established test bowler on Australia's next Ashes tour. I have two big concerns with him however. One, he hasn't played since South Africa. Two, he is a confidence bowler, and his confidence can be easily shaken. I've seen him bowl some very good spells, but when he steps up to play for Australia he doesn't yet beleive he belongs and when he gets hit for a few fours, he seems to fall apart pretty quickly. At the end of the day though I think he is more likely to chip in with a few wickets than Hauritz or MacDonald and we will just have to rely on Clarke, North, and Katich to get through the spin overs.

Ashes Prediction

Clearly it's risky predicting as I could look a chump! But nevertheless, having changed my mind several times over the last few weeks, I'm going for 2-2 with Australia retaining The Ashes.

Just when I was starting to get excited!

I'm saving up Simon Hughes's new book for later but couldn't resist starting Marcus Berkman's new Ashes to Ashes and therefore finished it during the Men's Wimbledon Final. Burble readers know that I'm a huge fan of both writers (although SH can be an acquired taste at times) and of Ed Smith (despite slight disappointment at What Sport teaches........). Unfortunately Berkman has brought back (in very amusing way it has to be said) much of the agony of watching England play cricket over the last years. He's lucky, he only goes back to 1972, I can remember Benaud bowling May behind his legs 11 years before.

Generally speaking (and he's really only covering matches against the Aussies so nearly manages to avoid mentioning some of the disasters against The West Indies in particular) it's a tale of better batsman and bowlers with better attitude against our boys but there is another pattern. That is the quantity of dropped catches and the panicky attitude of the selectors (remember Stephen Fleming talking about our skill at cutting off integral parts of the team) . I reckon if we just get those bits right it will make a huge difference.

Still I'll now be watching from behind the sofa. Great read though !

Premier League ref oversees umpiring for ECB

Today it's been announced that Premier League referee Steve Bennett will work at the ECB as the Director of Officials. Apart from the wanky job title, good luck to him. I'd love to understand what the Director of Officials does day-to-day - organising the officials is clearly an admin job, so presumably as Director he's looking at their performance in great detail and any improvements that can be made to the way they do their job.

I look forward to video replays for all first-class cricket then.

(Reverse) swing the key

I've never worried about Brett Lee being in the Australian side as he has an average of over 40 against England and our batsmen seem to have no problem playing him. But having said that, he seems to have learnt how to reverse swing the ball now. I wonder if, from an England perspective, he may be the surprise Aussie package - normally we plunder him but I fear we won't this year.

Cricket Burble will come back to this once he's seen in action in Cardiff after his 5 for yesterday....

4 day Tests and 2 tiers

It seems that the ICC are rightly considering some radical ideas for how to increase interest in Tests given the interest in "T20". I think things will level out - Twenty20 has it's place...but eventually it will be just another form of the game, not the dominant one. But the ICC are right to try to bolster the main form of the international game. However....


4 days Tests: I can't see how that will work unless you can get the players to play an extra session per day. The need is to increase the number of results without noticeably reducing the standards of wickets, so reducing match length can only mean an increase in overs, and I can't see the players going for it, despite the fact I'd love a nice 10am start and a late finish as a spectator.

Two tiers of Test nations: This can work as long as they ensure that 2nd Tier do play 1st Tier, but just less often. Any attempt to avoid Tier 1 nations playing Tier 2 would be pretty disasterous. And there needs to be a revenue adjustment so that Tier 2 nations are compensated.


I realise that it's difficult to push through change, but fingers crossed that the ICC can get it right.

The results of internet research

In case anyone's wondering whether the internet research of Sunday's opposition worked, it didn't! You can see the scorecard here or, if you prefer, the match report.

Fantastic set of initials.

The Times said E J C L C R Rainford-Brent so thinking that this must be a match for W P U J C Vaas you look her up on cricinfo. Dissapointing to note that she has 6 letters fewer than Chaminda and that two pairs of her first names are hyphenated so I guess she should really be E C C R Rainford-Brent but three hyphens ! That's fantastic !

Penalty runs

I've long suspected that much we hear on the radio, in particular, and on television about overrunning because of slow over rates is mostly about commentators wanting to get away to the pub but I do agree that the speed with which Tweny20 matches are played is much better than the dawdle you often see elsewhere (even in club cricket). And this is much to do with the penalty runs system.

However I watched two games last week one at The Oval and once on TV where the sudden change in the target changed the whole match. At The Oval Surrey's target changed from 14 to 8 off the last over (big difference, although they still failed to get there). Fair enough to penalise the players but tough on the supporters - is there not a better way?

The tale of two all-rounders

Anyone can of course miss a time they're meant to meet someone, but it doesn't bode well that Flintoff missed the team bus. The good thing is though that our heavy drinking all-rounder is available for selection, and Australia's isn't. I wonder how important that might be to the result....

Team photos

I've come to the conclusion there is only one suitable time for a team photo, unless your playing for a professional side and then you do one of those pre-season squad ones at a training session. I really do think there is only one correct answer.

Your thoughts?

Strange dismissal

We just crept over the line yesterday yesterday, chasing 128 on a dusty wicket that made run scoring off the spinners very tricky, and one of the wickets that fell while we collapsed was a strange one. Our left-handed number 8 went to sweep their off-spinner, missed, the ball hit pad then hit the bat on the follow through (middled), and the ball flew round towards slip who clutched it above his head taking a sharp catch. The ball seemed to fly over the keepers shoulder on its way there and credit to the guy at slip, he was still concentrating despite the chances of the ball ending up there being only fractionally greater than zero.

Can't say I've ever seen that happen before in any form of cricket!

We did just win, 9 wickets down. And I excited the crowd with 13 not out off 70 odd balls!

Two great England captains

Differing stories about two great England captains in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, the Guardian ran an interesting piece about Charlotte Edwards, giving the background as to how she became captain of the all-conquering England women's team. (I hope they are still all-conquering after the one game Ashes series coming up!)

And this morning, rumours abound that Michael Vaughan will retire. This Cricinfo article suggests he will retire from international cricket, but the BBC are reporting that he'll retire from all first-class cricket. I can't say I'm surprised - he's struggled with his knee again, and I didn't ever really believe him when he said he'd be playing next season whether he was picked by England or not.

The Duckworth Lewis Method

I mentioned before how they have produced a whole album based around cricket.....and The Evening Standard has delved a little deeper today. I particularly like these lyrics written from the view of Mike Gatting when bowled by that ball from Shane Warne that pitched outside leg stump and clipped the top of off:

"It was jiggery pokery, trickery jokery, how did he open me up?
Robbery, muggery, Aussie skulduggery, out for a buggering duck."

Team bonding

Some of you may be surprised to say, I think that anything that improves team morale and mutual trust is great. But going abroad when you've got a game in 5 days time seems a little strange to me - shouldn't the players practice in English conditions and hire somewhere private to do whatever team bonding exercises they wish?

I dont' know if Buchanan had anything to do with this, but I just hope that the ECB don't take his word as gospel. Like all consultants, he'll have some good ideas which should be taken on (which Shane Warne was never capable of realising), but also some that need ignoring. I hope that all in the England set up realise that and can take up only the good....

No details on umpiring referrals

Yes, the ICC have said that referrals will be rolled out from October, but there is no detail given as to how they're going to do this so I'm worried. Will they, like last time, not allow the video umpire to see where technology suggests the ball will go on to after hitting the pad for LBWs? Will they in fact allow the video umpire to see and hear everything that TV viewers get to see and hear?

Until the details are known, I'm fearful that it will be another botched rollout. But the good news is that umpires will only take the players off the field if it's dangerous and the players will have no say (although I'm quite sure the team struggling in the match will be whining). That should be a great change, so it will be up to the umpires to ensure that they take the players off only when it's truly dangerous, remembering that these days they wear a helmet, chest protector, forearm guard, etc, etc.

2010/11 Ashes in the bag already

Yes, now that we know it's all down the the weather cylcles, we'll win without a doubt. Unless those dastardly Australians have also checked the internet and found out that they need to learn about the El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon to have the best chance of winning back the Ashes next time.

Did you notice that? Winning back....there's optimism for you.