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31 July
2008 Edgbaston
Five-Fer: Day One Confusion reigns,
according to Ladbrokes.
A couple of weeks ago, Paul Collingwood was dropped
because his form was shocking and England wanted
five bowlers. A couple of weeks
ago, Tim Ambrose was considered a better batsman
than Andrew Flintoff. A couple of weeks
ago, Darren Pattinson was a Test
cricketer. After picking an
unchanged side for a record-breaking six straight
games, England seem to have lost all clue about how
to go about making alterations. After achieving
the near-impossible by recalling Andrew Flintoff
and unbalancing the side in Leeds, the England
selectors topped the trick with a selection in
Birmingham so bafflingly, astonishingly and
obviously wrong it would have defied belief in any
other sport and any other country. Collingwood was
recalled after precisely zero Championship runs for
Durham since he was exiled. Andrew Flintoff
stayed at seven as Tim Ambrose dropped from six to
eight in the order. A keeper picked primarily for
his batting batting in the tail.
Brilliant. If the keeper's
batting at eight, then why overlook the superior
glovework of James Foster or Chris Read? Big runs
from number eight weren't enough to keep Stuart
Broad in the side, but fewer runs will apparently
be enough for Ambrose, a player whose keeping has
been shown up at the highest level. Bet now at
Ladbrokes Steve Harmison
was recalled to the squad with great fanfare,
ignoring the fact that it was on a ground where his
record is dreadful and he had no real prospect of
getting into the final side: if England picked
three seamers, they would be Flintoff, Sidebottom
and Anderson. If they picked four they would have
needed Broad's batting. His presence in
the squad smacks of PR, while the return of
Collingwood adds weight to county cricketers'
complaints that Team England is a closed
shop. If they wanted a
batsman who can bowl at six, why choose the
recently-discarded Collingwood? If that's the type
of player they wanted then Ravi Bopara is available
and in form. Collingwood's
popularity in the dressing room was cited as a
factor, meaning that the old sporting gag 'good on
paper, sh*t on grass' has a new twist: Good in the
dressing room, inept on the field. Beating this
impressive South Africa side is tricky enough with
your strongest XI; with this many bizarre and
self-inflicted mistakes before the game even starts
it becomes almost impossible. Alter-Ego Of
The Day He had some
assistance from the bizarre and the dubious, but
Andre Nel is an irrepressible player hard to keep
out of the game. On the face of it
a pretty limited bowler, he was impressive today
even without the wickets he got through a
combination of luck, skill and sheer force of
personality. While his
enthusiastic send-off for Essex colleague and close
friend Alastair Cook may lighten the paceman's
wallet it will not dampen his spirit. He'll do it
again in the second innings given the chance, and
will probably end the game out of
pocket. Who knows who
deserves the credit - or pays the fines that follow
- but today Andre and Gunter were a formidable
combination. Bet now at
Ladbrokes Village
Idiots All the usual
words to describe the England effort had been
successfully utilised by the 77th over, at which
point new ones needed inventing. Village and
schoolboy seemed particularly unfair on villagers
and schoolboys, while words that do accurately
describe the fittingly shambolic conclusion to
England's innings are unsuitable for family
websites. The fact that
England lost their last two wickets in two balls to
laughable run-outs - something I've certainly never
seen in a Test match - would be bad enough if it
wasn't for the fact that the over started with a
tantalising glimpse of the sort of tail-assisted
heroics Flintoff has produced in the past. The
first ball sailed over the ropes for six; the
second almost took Makhaya Ntini's head off as it
flew to the boundary. Even another
couple of overs could have seen England up to 250.
It wouldn't have been enough, but it would have
been something besides James Anderson's 26th
birthday for the subdued crowd to cheer. Angry Young
Man Ryan Sidebottom's
constant fury when his fielders fail to prevent a
boundary has become increasingly grating over the
last few months. Today, it tipped
over into downright embarrassing. England fans who
complain about Nel's ultimately harmless
histrionics would do well to look at their own
excitable fast bowler. The fact his
anger is usually directed at Monty Panesar makes it
all the more unnecessary and unfair: Panesar is a
poor fielder, but a wholehearted one. His errors
are not borne of laziness or lack of effort but
from good old-fashioned lack of ability. Tonight he didn't
even make errors. The sight of Sidebottom
chastising Panesar for failing to cut off a
boundary Jonty Rhodes would have given up - shortly
after making a mess of a more stoppable one himself
- was one of the worst sights on a day full of them
for England watchers. Hope Springs
Eternal Flintoff's anger
- some of it one assumes directed internally - at
the end of England's innings suggested things would
be interesting once he got the ball in his
hand. It didn't take
long for Vaughan to turn to his key man - just
seven overs - and Freddie responded instantly. The
first ball passed Graeme Smith's outside edge, the
second found it. England had a
breakthrough and Flintoff celebrated so hard he
ended up on his backside. From the sublime
to the ridiculous: a fitting microcosm of England's
cricket since the first three glorious days at
Lord's. Bet now at
Ladbrokes |
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