Freddie, Freddie, Freddie!

There's some of what Flintoff said that I agree with - Atherton did only average in the late 30s in Tests for example, so when he's held up as an example of a great batsman I do sometimes wonder just how great he was.   But similarly Flintoff's stats don't make him look quite as good as his reputation would make you assume - Bresnan's short career has seen him perform infinitely better than Flintoff with both bat and ball.

Atherton was right Flintoff was a terrible captain - truly one of the worst in my lifetime in international cricket.   I watched in Melbourne in 2006 as he single-handedly got Australia back into the game with some terrible defensive field placings off Panesar that allowed the struggling Symonds to play himself in and get his confidence up (he got a hundred).   And in Sydney he played a terribly irresponsible shot (running down the track and having an enormous slog) when well on the way to a century....mindless.

Atherton has also publicly admitted he was wrong about Cook, so unlike many commentators he can clearly own up to his mistakes.   No need to have a go then Freddie - or atleast it might be better to be a little more objective if you're going to.   Back to your D list celeb circuit and TV shows.   Talking of D list celebs and TV shows, have you seen Michael Vaughan is the latest to take the Strictly pay cheque at the cost of his reputation?

Can't win.

So in today's papers Angelo Mathews , or whoever was instructing him, got flack for engineering it so that his partner Dinesh Chandimal got to 100 before their side ran out of target runs. Do you remember how much criticism Atherton got for declaring on Hick on 98* and Thorpe got for not engineering it so that Alex Tudor got to his nightwatchman's 100 ?

England's ODI team

Interesting to see that Mike Atherton has had a dig at Alastair Cook before the ODIs start. If Bresnan is fit I'd like to see him playing ahead of Bopara - with Bell at 6 Bresnan's bowling should be more important than his batting at 7.

Atherton oh so wrong in 2007

Mike Atherton is a must read for me on all cricketing matters, even though I seem to find myself disagreeing with him quite a bit. Tendulkar's amazing innings did make many people, including me, think of 2007 when he was *apparently* on the edge or retirement or being dropped.

At The Cricket Watcher's Journal, they dug out this piece from Mike Atherton in 2007 that suggested that Tendulkar was on the wane. It happens to the best of us - I remember dismissing Shane Watson's ability to bat in the top order in a Test match!

Athers agrees

Anybody who's been listening to me will know that I reckon all this fuss about near neighbour John Terry is pure flannel and now the mighty Athers has made the same point in today's Times -'what does a football captain actually do?'. He's got virtually no decision to make beyond 'heads' or 'tails' and 'where shall we go paintballing next?'

Oooh er....

Listening to Mike Atherton talk about the South African openers, Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, he said during the rain break earlier "they're both big men, in more ways than one".

What could he have been referring to?

Last words on Symonds and alcohol

As readers of Cricket Burble will know, I'm not entirely sure I agree with the way Andrew Symonds has been handled by Australia, so it was interesting to read a couple of recent articles relating to Symonds.

The first, from Australia and eloquently entitled "Cricket bosses are pompous wowsers", chastises the rest of the Australian team and management for not understanding that there is a life outside of cricket.

The second is an article from Mike Atherton in The Times, recognising just how closely linked alcohol and cricket are. He makes the point that Symonds thrived in the IPL under the stewardship of Darren Lehmann and Adam Gilchrist that like to enjoy their time outside cricket, while almost immediately falling foul of the Australian team management when he arrived in England. Atherton also reminds us that Ponting doesn't have a squeeky clean past when it comes to alcohol.

It's a pity Symonds didn't choose England. He would have played Test cricket much earlier in his career and I think he might have found it a little easier to play, despite the undoubted ultra-professional approach England have now, while still enjoying life outside cricket.

Same England team next week, no doubt

Given that England only scored 51, there are obvious comparisons to be made with 1994, when they scored 46 against West Indies. That put them 3-0 down, but Atherton's men came back and won the 4th Test of the series. How many changes were there to the starting XI? Just one - Phil Tufnell came in as the spinner for the 4th Test, instead of Ian Salisbury who had played the 3rd. The idea at the time was very much that Atherton wanted to show that the days of constant chopping and changing were over.

This time, England haven't chopped and changed in the run up to the Test - certainly not with their batting. To outside observers it seems inconceivable that Owais Shah won't play in the 2nd Test, but inside the camp they are no doubt considering if they should retain the same side - possibly making the same change as in 1994 - the spinner. But the time has come for Ian Bell to go - he will come back if he's good enough. You may or may not have seen a short article on Bell in one of the free London papers last week, written after day 1, lamenting the fact that 28 was probably enough for Bell to cement his place for the series. Bell is starting to become a joke, and Collingwood and Cook need to turn the corner soon to avoid the same ridicule. It's none of the player's fault that they keep getting selected for faultering perfomances, but they've got to return that faith eventually. A side that relies so heavily on Pietersen is never going to be consistent.

With the Ashes months away, now is not the time to drop the lot of them, and as they are away touring the option does not exist, but the management need to show that consistent failure is not acceptable by dropping Bell. They should also start to consider how they can alter the balance of the side to leave Flintoff and Prior batting at 7 and 8 without it being seen as a negative move. If Flintoff is going to open the bowling and bowl more overs than anyone else bar the spinner, the argument that his injury worries mean we must play 5 bowlers so that he's not over-worked doesn't stack up, especially given that we're finding it hard to find 5 consistent world class bowlers right now. Runs on the board and getting wickets through pressure might be a necessary evil for England until news players emerge.

So the same team next week then, no doubt.

England to paint Wellington green...

Well done, England, for a solid win vs New Zealand in the second test. But...was anyone else bemused during the post-match interviews by the quantity of English players' references to their planned drinking session?! Fair enough that they should celebrate the win, but the next test does start in a few days! (I wonder what advice English rugby debutant Danny Cipriani might have to offer...)

I particularly enjoyed Michael Vaughan's repost to Atherton's question about the final test strategy in Napier:

"Well, we've got to get there first - it is St Patrick's Day!"

Mothers, lock up your pedalos.

Vaughan to bow out of ODIs

If Michael Vaughan is to announce his retirement from ODIs as has widely been speculated today, then in my opinion it's really sad news. I remember watching the last match of the Commonwealth Bank Series group stages in Australia in the winter, when England had to beat New Zealand to get into the final against Australia. Vaughan was masterful that night, and England's win was more to do with him than any other player, despite Collingwood's brilliant 106. With New Zealand cruising after 10 overs at 64-0 chasing England's 270, he didn't take the powerplay but still attacked bringing on Panesar. Panesar duly took the wicket of Lou Vincent and the game swang back in England's direction as Vaughan maintained the pressure throughout with well thought out fielding placements and bowling changes. Vaughan scored 0, but he won the game for England as far as I was concerned.

The captain's decisions don't always go right but Vaughan gets more things right than anyone else in England by a huge margin. So much as I sing Collingwood's praises and will continue to do so, to make him skipper of the ODI side will be a step into the unknown versus what we could have had - the equal best skipper in the world with Mihale Jayawardene. No - I don't think the likes of Ponting or Smith come close, and Fleming has now retired from ODIs. I presume that if Vaughan does step down, Collingwood will get the nod - Pietersen is getting talked about but I presume that is just poor press speculation trying to make a story where there is none.

Who is going to come in and replace Vaughan as an opener? Ed Joyce? Hardly inspires confidence. Mal Loye? Well if you think Vaughan is past it and his fielding may be exposed, then Mal Loye is surely unselectable. Marcus Trescothick - will his head go again? Ian Bell - let's not repeat mistakes from the past. Alastair Cook - definitely the best option but unproven in ODIs and doesn't set the world alight with his fielding. I presume the other openers slot will go to Matt Prior.

So if England go into the ODI series v West Indies lead by Collingwood, I'll be very happy for the ginger northerner, but I can't help feeling that England are taking a step backwards.

Disagreeing with Atherton again...

I'm a big Atherton fan but I find myself disagreeing with him again, this time over whether Vaughan should have come straight back in. If he'd been out with a recurrence of his knee injury, or if we had someone who could do as good a job as captain, then I might be swayed Michael, but not when he's been fit for a while now barring a broken finger, hardly the most dangerous of injuries unless repeated several times on the same digit. And let's face it - we hardly have anyone knocking on the door in terms of captaincy credentials - even if Vaughan bags a pair he'll effectively average 40 with his captaincy decisions versus Strauss, and plenty more than that compared with Flintoff.

May the best team win?

Possibly in a minority of one outside Australia, I was supporting Australia to win the World Cup final. It seems strange to me that anyone should have wanted otherwise unless they were Sri Lankan - after all Australia had proved comprehensively they were the best team in the tournament hadn't they?

But the problem with wanting the best team to win is that the audience, be they at the ground or watching on TV want a close match, and that doesn't always happen or, in the case of the 2007 World Cup, rarely happens. But that still doesn't mean that the game should be allowed to be shortened when it comes to the knockout stages - there is simply too much riding on the game to allow the chances of the lesser team winning to increase.

This contradicts what Michael Atherton was telling everyone in commentary during the World Cup final - and for one very good reason, I couldn't disagree more! He reckoned that as Australia had more big hitters this made them greater favourites in a shorter game, so let's take that to a hypothetical (and admittedly ludicrous conclusion). Australia were hot favourites to win the 50 over game before the final, but if they had played one ball each? The odds wouldn't have been much more than 50/50 as to who would win.

Let's hope that the best team is given the best chance of winning cricket World Cups, because the alternative is the situation in football where the best team certainly doesn't always win. Greece the best team in Euro 2004? I don't think so...