Chris "Captain of Misery" Gayle speaks

How to lose your cool image in one go:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/may/12/chris-gayle-andrew-strauss-cricket

Chances of West Indies winning in Durham: almost zero

Ian Bell

Just when I thought some sense had been knocked into the England selectors they do this: recall Ian Bell. The justification is that he has been in early season form, which is true he has had scores of 172 and 108. However it is worth remembering that:

1. Only one of those scores was a first class century (the 108 was in a Friends Provident match)
2. Bell’s second century was made on April 19 which is well before the squad for the first test was announced so why would they suddenly make a difference for the second test?
3. Ian Bell’s first class scores this season are: 12, 172, 13*, 29, 27, 37, 30*. As you can see he is right back in form...

Ian Bell was dropped in the West Indies from the number three position. Dropping a number three is a decision that should not be taken lightly: it is in some way the most important position in the batting line up. To drop a number three and then reselect him for what is clearly no good reason shows the selectors up to be badly flawed. There seems to be something going on here that does not include ‘picking the best player’.

Three days at Lords

So what did we learn from England’s easy victory over the West Indies? Nothing much I suspect. It is difficult to draw conclusions from one match. Great performances can soon lose their lustre after a few poor ones and similarly a poor performance is forgotten when superseded by a match winning one.

For England the big winners were Bopara, Swann and Onions. All three are relative or actual newcomers and all played big parts in England’s win. Swann was particularly impressive knocking his first fifty and dismissing Chanderpaul twice. As for Onions, I wonder if a debutant has ever taken his first three test wickets in one over! Remarkable. He reminded me a little of Peter Siddle and that is no bad thing. England need a workhorse who can keep running in.

I thought Bresnan was poorly treated. He was only given seven overs in the match on debut – what chance has he got to shine there. I wondered if Strauss has a lack of faith in him.

The West Indies were just plain poor. Fidel Edwards bowled with fire and no luck and was by far the standout player. The indiscipline of old returned with a bang. Let us hope they pull it together by the time the next Test starts.

A bit early in the season for lethargy

The West Indies are playing one day cricket at Lords. To be more specific they are playing two session cricket and those two sessions happened yesterday. After tea yesterday the real West Indies side turned up and took over from the over-achievers that have been masquerading as the Windies all year. Only the noble Fidel was not replaced. What a shower they are. Cannot field or catch. Cannot bat either it seems. This is not that surprising, it is the West Indies after all and it is also early May in England, a time-of-the-year dedicated to making visiting sides feel home-sick. A time when Englishmen say things like “isn’t it supposed to be warm in May?” However that is irrelevant because of all the things in the West Indies side power, trying is one of them! They are not trying even a little. They look like they do not want to be there; at all. Wake up Windies, you are at Lords in a test match and if things don’t improve you will be beaten by lunch on the third day.

England's newish look

Collingwood, Pietersen, Strauss, Collingwood. They are the England Twenty20 captains over the last year. I know Twenty20 is a shortened form of the game but four captains in a year? I say four because of course the last Collingwood on the list must be a different one to the Collingwood that resigned nine months ago. Picking a captain who has recently resigned because it affected his play would be silly. I think you can guess where this is going...

What is even more strange than Collingwood being made captain again is that there is no obvious other choice. Twenty20 is the new cricket cash cow and everyone is raving about it – so why does England struggle to even find a captain? The fact that Collingwood has only been appointed for the three week World competition is pretty telling – he is a fill-in -- for a World event on home soil! Bizarre. Of course some people will say Rob Key should have got the job, but picking a guy who has never played International Twenty20 cricket is just too far out even for the ECB.

The really big news is that Ian Bell and Michael Vaughan are back in the Test team, who would have predicted that (eh Danny)? I am kidding (for the first Test anyway), in fact they have both been left out along with Steve Harmison. Quite right too, even though I hear Vaughan is hitting it beautifully in the nets... Ravi Bopara has been given the number three position which he deserves after his century in Bridgetown. Onions and Bresnan are also in the Test squad and let us hope they both get a game – in early May you really would expect only one spinner to be played and so presumably Panesar will miss out. An unexpected May Test recall against the West Indies two years ago was the making of Ryan Sidebottom, Onions and Bresnan will be looking to take their chance next week.

Freddie Injured Again

Andrew Flintoff is injured again and needs to have knee surgery. Of course there will be a lot of fuss and some serious questions asked of the ECB, namely: ‘Should Andrew have gone to the IPL’. For me it’s irrelevant. Andrew Flintoff is a professional cricketer; he plays cricket for money. If he was not playing IPL cricket he would probably be playing for Lancashire... and with more workload. The real worry for Freddie is that he needs another operation. The media quite often treat operations as if they are trivial. Cutting people open and chopping bits off is never trivial and can cause unexpected complications. The ECB say Andrew will be out for three to five weeks and will be back for the ICC World Twenty20 in June. Personally I just hope Andrew will be ready for the Ashes – England doesn’t have a chance without him. Get well soon Andrew.

Squeeze the pips

So it’s all go for the IPL or SAPL. Am I excited? Well, no and here is why: I will not be watching it because it's subscription only and on a channel that hardly anyone has. I could pay another £40 (two month subscription) but am I really that bothered... If I, a cricket fan, cannot be bothered to pay then the IPL is a non-event in the UK and will remain that way until it has had at least a year on a free channel.

Four years ago the UK went Ashes crazy, helped of course by the England team actually doing well! Will there be as much fuss this time around? Well, no and here is why: people will not be watching it because it's subscription only. Four years ago the Ashes was on free-to-air TV. This time around, if you do not already subscribe to Sky Sports, it will cost at least £35 a month to watch the Ashes – with a minimum 12 month contract! £35, that is just not going to happen for a lot of people. Even if a miracle occurs and England are pushing for a win, the Ashes will not have anywhere near the following they had four years ago.

Ian Bell speaks

There is an interview with Ian Bell here. I actually laughed out loud at one point when he said

"Changes had to be made, it's difficult, no one got any runs and we were beaten heavily so someone had to go and it was my turn ... It was disappointing not to get another opportunity to try and put that right.”

I think the CEO of Lehmann Brothers said something similar. Bell has had chances galore and botched virtually every one of them. It is an interview with Bell so I suppose I didn’t expect him to say “Yea, I have been crap for a while and I deserved to be dropped. I plan to put all that right this summer though.”. It would have been nice to see a touch of reality though.

Bell and Vaughan are contracted players so I would be amazed if one of them did not start the first test against West Indies. Sadly, I suspect either one does not have to do much to get a spot. Long gone are the time when players had to deserve their place in the side...

Strauss misses the cut

Andrew Strauss has been left out of England’s 30-man squad for the ICC World Twenty20 competition in June. Quite right too. He may have ‘suddenly’ become a 50-over player but he is in no way a T20 player. However, Andrew Strauss captained England’s last T20 match and did about as badly as everyone else.

Did they pick him in the Caribbean knowing he wasn’t the man for the job? Probably, they really are that stupid.

Did the one match he played force him to be dropped? I would hope not, he did as badly as everyone else.

After captaining in the previous match how did he suddenly become not worth mentioning in the best 30 players? Error, does not compute.

Do the England selectors have even the slightest clue what they are doing?

The full squad: Kevin Pietersen, Kabir Ali, James Anderson, Gareth Batty, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Stephen Davies, Joe Denly, James Foster, Andrew Flintoff, Stephen Harmison, Rob Key, Sajid Mahmood, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Eoin Morgan, Graham Napier, Samit Patel, Liam Plunkett, Matt Prior, Adil Rashid, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Chris Tremlett, Shaun Udal, Chris Woakes, Luke Wright.

Sammy's 'catch'

Darren Sammy is a cheat. He grassed a difficult catch in the last ODI but came up from it and claimed Kevin Pietersen’s wicket. Pretty poor really. Happily the West Indies lost and quite rightly so after such a display of cheating. What I cannot figure is:

• Why there was no referral system for the ODIs
• How Sammy thought he was going to get away without anyone knowing
• Why there hasn’t been that much fuss made

Had Ricky Ponting or Rahul Dravid grassed the catch there would have been howls of people calling for their banning. Sammy however seems to have largely gotten away with it.