England Dances Poles Apart

Cook pulls imperiously

Sometimes it can happen this way in cricket: two teams take the field in the morning, one spends the day being dreadful and the other sublime. The simplest of summaries of the second day at Edgbaston was thus, with India very much in the dreadful corner.

Alastair Cook was at his near best. He cut, drove and pulled the ball for his seventh Test hundred in the last twelve months. Can you believe there were some - almost all of them in the 4th Estate - who were calling for his head a year ago when he broke a run of bad form with a second innings hundred against Pakistan at Lords? Since then he's made nearly 1300 runs at 75, was the dominant feature of series win in Australia and made six more centuries. Still four months short of his 27th birthday, he now has 19th Test hundreds. Bradman at the same age had four less. "Off with his head" indeed ... so much for the French Revolutionaries among the media.

Near best? Well, he edged through the vacant slip area on 94, gave other chances just after raising his hundred and played his usual lob to the on side several times for lucky escapes but then, few can make big scores unblemished.

Strauss bowled off a no ball

The man he'll succeed in the English captaincy, Andrew Strauss, had played a delightful hand before over estimating the line of his leg stump and attempting to sweep Mishra from there and missing. The batting of Strauss is starting show wear and tear and its only when he plays with a view to domination that he produces his best these days. There is so much about him that is reminiscent of Mark Taylor, especially the manner in which he leads the side. He is in the modern parlance, a fine man manager, who handles the tension between being one of the boys and making it clear he is the man in charge. He has little of Taylor's tactical acumen - the 8 men on the boundary routine being just one example of the shortfalls - but he likes to play positive cricket and always has his eyes on result driven cricket. 

His partnership with Cook has produced strong starts for the English with another 187 here but is the affect he is having on the young turk who will lead England which is creating a lasting legacy for which English cricket will be well pleased over the next ten years.

Pietersen steers the new ball
to the backward point boundary

Of the rest, Bell was elegant but was dropped by Dravid before Kumar bowled him with a jaffer, the equal of Bresnan's yesterday; Pietersen was belligerent, especially against Mishra and Sharma whom he treated with complete contempt; and Morgan got to bat against an exhausted attack and reaped the benefit of being dropped twice when he should have been out. Pietersen could feel a little unlucky in that his lbw was so close that most umpires would have given him the benefit of what must have been doubt. Bopara, as I suggested, may not be needed.

Everyone else played their part in another day in which the Indian bowlers were deservedly flogged. Shreesanth is no longer up for this and Sharma's bully boy antics in the West Indies have proved to be more pop gun than cannon ball on good English pitches which have required seam and control that he hasn't presented. Mishra got some good turn but it was always a big ask to drop a leg spinner back into the side who has played so little cricket in the last five weeks. Such are the dilemmas of the visiting teams in the modern cricket tour where the only players getting any game time are the A Team. Mishra bowled almost two overs of no balls in the day, including according to replays, the ball which hit Strauss' stumps.

Kumar celebrates Bell's wicket

Praveen Kumar alone deserved respect and commendation for his efforts. This kid from Meerut in India's north has been a worthy graduate of the shortened forms of the game and he has done everything asked of him in this series. He bowls with great maturity and control for a 24 year old, especially one playing only his sixth Test. Its not his fault that his fellow work mates are rubbish nor that the butterfingered ten have forgotten how to catch. There were multiple spills on a day when Dravid, one of the safest slippers in world cricket, knocked on the simplest of chances from Eion Morgan late in the day. The disgust with which he threw his hat to the turf was as good a summation of Indian cricket on this tour as any.

England scored 3-372 on the second day and with three to go, Banjo Patterson might have said "they halted, cowered and beaten and he turned their heads for home.". India will certainly be thinking of home now.


A good read is the David Frith article, "A Snooze, A Smoke, A Roar", written to celebrate 2000 Test matches.