In my bathroom, I was as good as Geraint Jones. This was my Edgbaston © Getty Images

Hello again Confectionery Stallers. Apologies for my absence from the virtual pages of Cricinfo since before the Chennai Test. This was not due to my being unable to bring myself to look at any screen for fear of being overwhelmed by flashbacks of England not looking like making a breakthrough as victory leapt confidently from their grasp. Nor was it due to being hospitalised by bafflement at how two teams for whom spinners bowled almost 60 per cent of the overs contrived to achieve a putrid over-rate of 13 per hour. Nor even has it been due to a niggling typing finger injury that I could not risk exposing to the rigours of a blog about a five-day Test.

Far from it. The real reason for my unscheduled sabbatical is that last Monday morning, with the Chennai Test gradually tipping in India’s favour and heading to a potentially nerve-jangling conclusion, my wife went into labour. In the modern manner (and much as I prize Test cricket as unquestionably the pinnacle of the game), I abandoned my radio and television to be with Mrs Confectionery Stall in her hours of need, as she set about launching our second child into the world.

However, the labour, like Craig White’s bowling, was unexpectedly rapid. To cut a not-long-enough but rather panic-stricken story short, we did not arrive at the hospital in time. In fact, we had not even left the house when my wife rather abruptly broke the news that new Zaltzman was shall we say, on his or her way down the pavilion steps after nine months in the dressing room.

The emergency services were called, and I was promoted unexpectedly to the role of chief and only midwife. The principal piece of advice from the reassuringly calm operator on the 999 call was: just don’t drop it.

Little did she know that my extremely humble cricketing career was marked principally by two characteristics – a prodigious ability to score not many runs unfeasibly slowly, and an equally Herculean capacity for failing to take catches. This was not the time for either of those qualities. This one had to stick. And it was bound to be slippery.

Crouched expectantly like a wicketkeeper in a 19th-century photograph, I awaited the arrival of my newborn with palpitating tension. My heroic wife uttered a couple more primeval yowls (imagine the noise Glenn McGrath would probably have made to himself had he ever bowled four successive long-hops), and here came the infant. “Watch the baby all the way into the hands,” I muttered to myself. “The pressure’s on, so stick to the basics. Stay low as long as possible, give with the wrists.” A momentary hush came over the crowd (namely, my wife) – and I caught it. Or, as it rapidly transpired, I caught him. I, Andy Zaltzman, serial dropper of dollies, sitters and regulation four-quarter chances on the cricket field, had caught the one that mattered. This was my Geraint-Jones-at-Edgbaston moment.

As my wife had valiantly conquered the final elemental pangs of birth, I had felt just as the much-maligned Kent gloveman must have felt in the milliseconds after Harmison’s bouncer brushed Kasprowicz’s glove with Australia’s last wicket pair needing three runs to steal the second Ashes Test of 2005. And like Jones, I pouched the biggest catch of my career, the one for which I would be remembered regardless of the numerous handling errors that have speckled the rest of my life.

For all the heroics of Flintoff, Pietersen and the rest, if Jones had shelled that tricky, sinking catch, England would not have won the Ashes, and the orange-mittened wicketkeeper would almost certainly have been summarily dropped. Similarly, if I had spilled my son during his first second of life, I would almost certainly have been summarily divorced.

I managed to refrain from either hurling the baby in the air in celebration, or even casually rolling him towards the square-leg umpire before high-fiving my wife and looking up at the replay screen, preferring to sink to my knees in relief and burst into tears. Thankfully, the Confectionery Stall’s newest fan had entered the world breathing and healthy, and the ambulance crew arrived five minutes later to complete the formalities with rather more expert hands.

Thus my brand new son emerged into the midsts of a shattering England defeat, born to the soft murmurings of a radio in the next-door room commentating on India now cruising towards their target. They too had achieved something momentous, far more easily than they might have done. My wife and I quietly thanked England’s bowlers for ensuring that our fraught situation was not rendered even more tense by a distractingly close finish to the Test.

The boy is doing well. His first week of existence saw two of the five biggest successful run-chases in Test history, much excellent, close-fought cricket, and a confirmation that the balance of power in the world game is shifting. What a time to be born. Not that he seems particularly interested by it at this early stage. But, if the science of genetics is worth the paper it’s written on, he will be a Test-match boy, not a one-day boy.

I will return shortly, sleepless nights permitting, with some thoughts on England, India and Ricky Ponting.

	The chaotic travel plans and the lack of public expectation could work in favour of Kevin Pietersen's men © Getty Images

Cricket makes a welcome return to the world of cricket today with the beginning of two Test series. As I write, the loser-takes-all New Zealand v West Indies clash has just begun, with bragging rights as Test cricket’s second most useless team up for grabs. Shortly, and thankfully, the India-England series will commence. With their total lack of preparation, chaotic travel arrangements, almost complete absence of public expectation and rampantly in-form opposition, it now seems inconceivable that England can do anything other than win. Everything is stacked in their favour.

Allow me to explain. Preparation is overrated. Before the 1954-55 Ashes series, England began their tour with a two-day match followed by six four-day matches. Hutton’s men must have been primed for first-Test action in a way of which a modern team’s management and backroom staff could only dream. If such an elongated build-up were possible in today’s hectic cricketing age, dressing-room laptops would be exploding with excessive analysis.

When the real action finally began, however, England promptly conceded 601-8 to Australia’s batsmen, before losing a high-class top four of Hutton, Simpson, Edrich and May for just 25, and eventually being comprehensively drubbed by an innings and 154 runs. Even a highly-trained 21st-century coach would have struggled to take many positives from a defeat like that – “the boys have learnt not to bother building up for matches,” he might have said. “It’s a valuable, money-saving lesson for future tours. We should have listened to Compton.” (England did admittedly recover to win the series 3-1. But they would have won 5-0 if they had pitched up two days before the first Test and winged it.)

	When it comes to acclimatisation time, the lesser the better for Alastair Cook © Getty Images

Alastair Cook will also testify to the futility of advance planning and acclimatisation. On his surprise Test debut on England’s last tour of India in March 2006, he scored 60 and 104 not out, thriving due to having endured two gruelling days of travel, and having no time to adjust to subcontinental conditions.

In fact, given Cook’s relatively mediocre recent form – an average of 37 and just one century in his last 17 Tests, compared with a 48 average and six hundreds in his first 17 – there is an argument that the young Essex opener should forcibly bundled onto an aeroplane and flown around for 15,000 miles before every match. Ideally, he should land on an airstrip near the stadium three minutes before the start of play, handed a bat, and ushered out to the crease before he has the chance to start worrying about all the different ways you can edge a drive into the slips without moving your feet.

Furthermore, the fact that virtually no-one expects England to win, and few will criticise them even if they are soundly beaten, may work in their favour. It should enable them to play with a freedom which they have arguably lacked since winning the Ashes in 2005 raised their supporters’ expectations to total and utter world domination, and which they have certainly lacked since implausibly pulling one of the great defeats from the jaws of a comfortable draw at Adelaide in 2006.

And finally, India may just have beaten Australia, but when they last did so in the legendary 2000-01 rubber, they followed it up by drawing with Zimbabwe (let me repeat that: drawing, with Zimbabwe), and then losing their next two series. Whereas the last time England lost to South Africa (1999-2000), they responded by winning their next four series. England, statistically as well as practically, cannot lose.

	Could Kevin Pietersen become the dullest batsman in world cricket by his mid-thirties? © Getty Images

The Confectionery Stall is quite open about its statistics fetish, however much society at large may disapprove. Here are some statistical pointers to how England will perform in the Test series, generated with a combustible cocktail of fact and inappropriate mathematics:

If England want good starts to their innings, they must hypnotise Andrew Strauss before the match starts, and convince him that Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma are in fact Chris Martin and Kyle Mills in disguise (with Martin bowling left-handed for a bet) – because excluding four consecutive innings against New Zealand earlier this year in which Strauss scored two centuries and two half-centuries, he has averaged 26 in his last 36 Test innings since losing the captaincy before the start of the 2006-07 Ashes, with no hundreds and only five half-centuries. This strategy is dependent on England winning the toss and batting first – even under the deepest possible hypnosis, it is inconceivable that the Middlesex man could mistake Virender Sehwag for Aaron Redmond.

	Should India be targeting Monty Panesar more than any other batsman? © Getty Images

[If you are allergic to or intolerant of cricket statistics, please either take an anti-histamine before reading this, or destroy your computer. Whichever is easier and safer.]

Do cricket statistics mean anything anymore? It used to seem that they were an unimpeachable barometer of quality. Now, they are skewed by a mixture of endemically weak teams, artificially weakened teams, 21st century superbats, homogenous pitches, nonsensical schedules, exhausted bowlers and supposedly entertainment-enhancing boundaries. There are now more statistics in the cricket world than ever before – and that’s just one of them. But they tell us less than ever about the players who generate them.

A Test batting average of 50 was once the certificate of authenticity of unquestionable world class, the unforgeable hallmark on the commemorative silver WG Grace statuette of greatness. That once exclusive club now has an increasing number of members. In the 1970s, seven batsman topped the half-century mark per innings (excluding those statistical chancers who played fewer than 20 innings in the decade). In the 1980s, it was six. In the 1990s, it was seven again. Since the millennium, 20 batsmen are on the Bradman side of 50 rather than the Mullally side. Are there really three times as many great batsmen as in previous recent decades?

First, let me give you some background on this statistical fixation. When I was a small boy, in the absence of any cricket-obsessed family members, my interest in the great game was fostered by a single book – Botham Rekindles The Ashes, the Daily Telegraph’s book commemorating the 1981 series, which my father gave the seven-year-old me for Christmas that year. There can have been few pages in history scrutinised with such incessant junior fervour as Bill Frindall’s scorecards in the back of that sacred tome. I was, clearly, an odd child.

My love of, fascination with and psychological dependence on cricketing statistics remains to this day. An unhealthily large part of my cranium has been permanently cordoned off for the retention of pre-1997 cricket stats (an achievement rendered even more obsolete by the subsequent creation of Cricinfo’s Statsguru facility, one of the unquestionable wonders of the modern technological world, whose very existence mocks my entire Wisden-trawling childhood).

	'How many people in the world could have reeled off the names of Imtiaz Ahmed, Taslim Arif (above) and Brendon Kuruppu with barely a pause for breath?' © Getty Images

This is neither a boast nor an admission. It is a simple fact. As a student, I remember one particularly spectacular stat-off with a fellow stat-nut. I successfully named all three wicketkeepers to have scored Test double centuries at the time. In my moment of triumph, I was overwhelmed with simultaneous feelings of pride and embarrassment. How many people in the world could have reeled off the names of Imtiaz Ahmed, Taslim Arif and Brendon Kuruppu with barely a pause for breath? Not many. And even fewer would have been even marginally impressed. Was this the path to happiness and love? If it was, there would be one unorthodox woman sitting at a folding table at the end of it, with a box of coloured pencils and a scorebook.

However, as many of you will know from personal experience, a sporting statistic learnt in childhood is not easily forgotten. Indeed, I find it far easier to recall the Test averages of cricketers who died before I was even born than, for example, my PIN number, or wedding anniversary [see footnote].

So it is that, with an increasing sense of nostalgia for the old mathematical certainties and fear for what the statistical future of cricket holds, I have watched my beloved averages and records become bloated, tainted and opaque. This was emphasised once again during South Africa’s recent and pointless obliteration of Bangladesh.

The Confectionery Stall Statistical Analysis Unit has examined the influence of performances against Test cricket’s two weakest teams, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. 49 batsmen average over 70 against these perennial purveyors of cannon fodder. 63 bowlers average below 20 against them. Inevitably, some illustrious career statistics have been given a sparkly coat of varnish, and some less illustrious ones have had unsightly stains at least partially painted over.

Matches against these two have, for example, raised Kumar Sangakkara’s batting average from 50 to almost 55; Marvin Atapattu’s from 32 to 39; Jacques Rudolph’s from 30 to 36; Ian Bell’s from 39 to 42; Marcus Trescothick’s from 41 to almost 44; Ramnaresh Sarwan’s from 37 to 40, and Chris Martin’s from a frankly insufficient 1.71 to a perfectly respectable 2.17. They have reduced Steve Harmison’s bowling average from almost 34 to 31; Irfan Pathan’s from 45 to 32; Daniel Vettori’s from 38 to 33; and Muttiah Muralitharan’s from 24 to 22.

Even the mighty Tendulkar’s numbers seem a little less divine – his 54 career average dips to 51. For Jacques Kallis, one of the most merciless acquisitors of statistical excellence in the game’s history, career averages of 55 batting and almost 31 bowling become a slightly less imposing 51 and 34 respectively. Still great, but not quite as great.

Some buck this trend. Warne and Lara have profited little if at all from these opponents. Younis Khan’s average would be just above instead of just below 50. So too the remarkable, evergreen Chanderpaul (career average 49). He scores a paltry 33 per dismissal against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, but almost 54 against the top five teams in the current ICC rankings. Is he in fact therefore the greatest batsman of the era? And one can only speculate on how much more extraordinary Andy Flower’s figures would have been had he had the good fortune to play against Zimbabwe as well as for them.

Admittedly, and obviously, throughout cricket history players have statistically benefitted from the weaker teams and been damaged by the stronger ones. Sobers averaged 57 and 34 overall, but only 43 and 39 against Australia. The greatest statistical bowling phenomenon of Test cricket, George Lohmann, averaged 10.75 for his 112 wickets. But without his 35 wickets at 5 apiece against a South African team who had only just learnt on which limbs pads were strapped, his average against Australia rockets to an almost wantonly profligate 13.

So what does all this show? Three things:

• 1. I need to spend more time with my family.
• 2. Statistics are like a ventriloquist’s dummy – shove your hand far enough up them and you can get them to say whatever you want.
• 3. Selectors sometimes look at the wrong numbers.

Cricket stats have always required a large element of interpretation – few would claim that Hashan Tillakaratne was a greater cricketer than Victor Trumper, despite his significantly superior Test and first-class batting averages. Even Hashan’s nearest and dearest would politely change the topic of conversation were he to start claiming so at a family function.

Now, however, the numbers ceaselessly generated by cricket require an increasingly large research team and several industrial-strength pinches of salt before they shed their grains of truth into the porridge of speculation. Please can I have my childhood again?

FOOTNOTE:

Following a brief and tetchy consultation with Mrs Confectionery Stall, I can now confirm that my anniversary is 18th September. I will never forget it again – the figures in the date 18-9 make up the number of Test wickets taken by SF Barnes, Erapalli Prasanna or (for at least another week) Zaheer Khan, or, as an emergency fall-back memory-jogging stat, the highest Test score of Jacques Kallis, Vijay Manjrekar, Bruce Mitchell and four others, or, in extremis, the number of runs conceded by underrated Pakistani tweaker Tauseef Ahmed whilst taking three Indian wickets in the first innings of the first Test at Chennai in 1987.

If I ever move to America, my revised anniversary of 9-18 would be simply recalled by remembering the number of Test runs scored by 1960s England offspinner David Allen, or the number of balls faced by David Gower in the 1983-84 Pakistan v England series.

Alternatively, if I merely wish to avoid confusion and remember the 9 and 18 sections of the anniversary date independently to ensure the great day is not forgotten regardless of geographical location, I need only remind myself of the number of Test centuries scored by Maurice Leyland and the number of five-wicket hauls taken by Lance Gibbs, and then deduce which number refers to the day and which to the month by analysing which one is greater than 12. My marriage is now safe. Thank you Statsguru. I owe you my future happiness.

There has been an understandable concentration on the negative implications of some or all of England’s cricketers not returning to India for the Test series following the Mumbai terrorist attack. Far less has been said and written of the potential positive impact of them going and playing.

Sport has often been used to make political statements, its huge popularity and symbolic power exploited for both sinister and benevolent purposes. This Test series offers a chance for English cricketers not merely to provide a welcome distraction, but to make a potent public statement, a significant human gesture of defiance and of solidarity with the Indian people, that will have far greater and more lasting impact and meaning than any sporting achievements (or failures) on the field of play.

If England refuse to return, they should not be accused of cowardice, abdication of responsibility, or (with reference to the London bombings of the summer of 2005) double standards. These men are sportsmen, not soldiers or diplomats, and they have no occupational duty to confront danger. And the two situations, whilst comparable, are not identical. However, if they do go, it could prove to be one of the most praiseworthy and important deeds in the history of English cricket.

The result of the matches would be incidental; the team would have had even less practice and acclimatisation than they were originally scheduled to have, it seems unlikely to be a first-choice XI, and they may be unable play with optimum focus and intensity. But the fact that they did play would be remembered for all cricketing time.

Thus it often is when sport is played out of its sporting comfort zone, or when it collides with politics. Who remembers who won wartime matches or the Victory Tests of 1945? Or, less heroically, it is not the results and statistics of the rebel tours of South Africa that are carved into the history of the game, but the bald fact that they happened.

If the currency of Test cricket is slightly devalued by England fielding an understrength team, so what? It is routinely diminished for far less worthy reasons nowadays. England have a chance to claim a small slice of cricketing immortality. Let us hope they are first able, and then willing, to take it.