Declarations and field placing

The timing of a captain's declaration is always going to be scrutinised and, as we can't play parallel games with different tactics(!), no one is able to prove that their tactics were right. We've talked about Strauss' declarations before in the West Indies and the fact that his declarations are only as good as his field placings. By that I mean that the timing of a declaration can only be judged having seen how the next innings is handled by the fielding skipper.

On Saturday evening we club cricketers were discussing the timing of England's declaration and I was against giving Australia less than 600 to chase. The reason being that it would have allowed Strauss to have attacking fields throughout.

As things stand he's had to use sweepers to try and contain runs when a close catcher might have created a wicket. And when Anderson was bowling with the new ball at the end of today's play, he had only 2 slips rather than the 3 or 4 that batting Australia (almost) out of the game would have allowed.

Whatever the result, in my opinion the declaration was wrong and it reminds me of Adelaide 2006 when we declared our first innings too early - let's hope the result isn't the same.

Bowling to tailenders

I think it's obvious to say there has been a momentum shift. Australia fought back towards the end of the first day and then at the beginning of the morning on Friday but then let it slip. Anderson and Onions did enough to prevent a successful morning for the Australians, post a total above the pyschological 400 and keep the Australian opening batsmen on the field for longer than expected.

Whilst the England tailenders did well, I couldn't understand the field placings used by Ponting. Why have a deep point/sweeper on the off-side boundary for a number 10 and 11? All it did was allowed the pairing to build some confidence and remove one catcher from the ring.

And with this confidence the bowlers took the game to the Australians and we are where we are as a result.

Now the question is, how will England bowl to the Australian tailenders?

Getting ahead of ourselves....

As always the English media are assuming that England will go on to win the 2nd Test at Lords now - the same happens whenever England have a good day and it makes me exceedingly nervous!

Australia are unlikely to save the follow on and England should enforce it if the conditions are still overcast, but there is no way that Australia will get skittled again in the second innings. They will go well past England's first innings total of 425 and the pressure will be on England's batsmen....and having watched England over the years we must realise now that we're susceptible to the odd collapse or two.

So I wish we'd stop getting ahead of ourselves in the UK....

Four letter word usage....

Is it just me and the rest of our touring cricket party who thought that Johnson turned to Anderson having got him out this morning and called him the C word? I'm not a lip reader but it looked like that. Two questions arise:

1. Can't the Aussies of the past give these current lot some sledging advice - just calling someone a c*** shows little imagination and won't bring a smile to the faces of those who hear that sledge many years later like some of the best old ones have done.

2. What is it about Anderson that winds oppositions up? Fidel Edwards seemed to lose the plot when he came in and it's not the first time. When I read Nasser Hussain's autobiography he said that he struggled to get Anderson to say a word in the England changing room so it's difficult to believe that he does anything to rile players so much in the middle.

Competitive Test Cricket

I was thinking about the competitive state of test cricket at the moment and realised its probably the healthiest its been in its history. There is very little to choose between the top four teams in Australia, South Africa, India and England. There is then a small gap to Sri Lanka and Pakistan, either of these two teams could beat any of the top four given the right conditions. Then a slightly larger gap to New Zealand and West Indies (at full strength) and then down to Bangladesh. As much as I loved the Australian domination of the last 15 years it is refreshing to see so many teams being competitive.


I thought I'd check the ICC rankings to see if they agreed with my assessment. As you can see, I may have over-estimated England's team. I forgot they were recently beaten by the West Indies.


Even so, I maintain that test cricket right now is as competitive as it has ever been.

England time wasting

Following the draw in the first Ashes test Ricky Ponting was quoted in the press criticising England for time wasting tactics. I certainly agree with Ricky's comments. I think it was fair enough to send the gloves out the first time to get the message to the batsman. When the 12th man came out with another pair of gloves the very next over, accompanied by the physio, I was screaming at them through TV to "GET THE #$%^ OFF THE FIELD AND LET THEM GET ON WITH IT!!!" It was an obvious time wasting ploy and as mentioned by the Sky commentators, it was not a good look for the game.

Andy Flower has since come out and said Ricky made too much of it and was using it as an excuse despite him specifically saying "its not the reason we didn't win. We need to look at those reasons." Flower also gave a lame explanation that the reason for the second interruption was because the batsman spilt water on the gloves and there was confusion about whether the physio was required. Please Andy......we were not born yesterday!

While I agree the tactics were against the spirit of the game it is up to the umpires to step in and send the 12th man and physio off before they get to the middle. I've seen this happen in international cricket before, the umpire intercepted the 12th man en route to the middle and sent him straight back to the dressing room and there was minimal interruption.

Annoying late cancellations

It happens all round the UK every weekend....a team cancels at the last minute. But it's even more annoying when you're on tour, as has happened to some intrepid Cricket Burblers, and the only alternative is all day drinking. With the chance to try the game "bat and trap" admittedly, but still no sport to forcibly stop the alcohol consumption.

Cancelling the night before is just not cricket....but I'll update you on bat and trap which apparently predates cricket....

P.S. If Bell plays he needs to bat below Prior.

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.