Darren Pattinson finished with figures of 2 for 95 in South Africa's first innings © Getty Images

With barely a murmur of complaint Pattinson has done a lot more in the last few days than take the new ball for the country of his birth, if not his upbringing. He has placed Grimsby and Dandenong on the Test-cricket map. He has given Australians another excuse to guffaw at the old enemy. And he has encouraged the pessimists' perennial grouse that English cricket is going to the dogs. What he was not supposed to do, after just 11 first-class matches for Victoria and Nottinghamshire, was expose worrying holes in England's masterplan, both for this summer and next.

His selection here has offended on non-cricketing grounds. His dad has described him as a fair-dinkum Aussie, and Pattinson himself has admitted he never harboured any dreams of playing for England. But he has also held up a mirror to the nation's supposedly plentiful ranks of seam bowlers. The reflection makes uncomfortable viewing.

In the same paper, Vic Marks feels Geoff Miller's selection committee would have done enough to make Steve Harmison hopping mad.

Meanwhile those who have been selected to bowl for England are causing their employers a headache. If nothing else think of the cost. All those new balls are expensive. For the second South African innings in succession a third shiny red ball has been removed from its wrapper. As one wry new ball wag once observed after another run glut: "we must be onto the colours soon."

Derek Pringle, in the Telegraph, lists six cricketers who qualified to play for England: Tony Greig, Allan Lamb, Devon Malcolm, Graeme Hick, Adam Hollioake and Kevin Pietersen.

In the Telegraph, Simon Briggs writes that England's top order continue to live on past glories since Marcus Trescothick lost his will to play. The averages have been gently dwindling. The South Africans, by contrast, have been on the up ever since they axed the underperforming Herschelle Gibbs at the beginning of the year.

The Aussies take their lead from Ricky Ponting, a man who plays more shots than a hacker at Royal Birkdale. But Graeme Smith and his men prefer to grind out results. They have scored at two-and-a-half an over in this series, subjugating their opponents through cruel implacability rather than outrageous flair.

In the same paper, Simon Barnes feels Andrew Flintoff needs a lethal sidekick if England are to progress on what appears a benign pitch.

England's star allrounder has a double personality. There is Andrew, the doting husband and new dad, dutifully feeding his tribe their breakfast cereal, as he was in the players' hotel yesterday morning. And there is Freddie, the cricketing warrior, national icon and tormentor of Australians.

The whole point of Test cricket is an eponymous one – the examination of character – and few can any longer question where that leaves Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, writes Chris McGrath in the Independent.

On the first morning, he had been cast as pantomime villain after claiming to have caught a ball that might well have killed a mole first. None was more incensed than Michael Vaughan, who left him in no doubt of his views at the lunch interval. De Villiers listened to the England captain in silence, reserving his own response until he had a bat in his hand ... No doubt the few, obnoxious boos that leavened the applause for his century were of similar authorship. By that stage, however, the majority had come to acknowledge the fortitude, forbearance and flexibility of an exceptional cricketer.

July 20, 2008

Lancashire club keep tabs on Prince

Posted on 07/20/2008 in South Africa in England 2008

Morecambe were locked in a top-of-the-table clash with Barrow yesterday afternoon, but at least half an eye was kept on the progress of one of their own at Headingley, says Andrew Longmore in the Sunday Times. The reason:

For two seasons as a young man, Ashwell Prince was the professional at the Northern League club and it is a tribute to the allure of club cricket that he still keeps in touch nearly seven years after he forsook the northwest for wider horizons.

In the heat of battle

Posted on 07/20/2008 in South Africa in England 2008

	David Gower thinks that was taken cleanly © Getty Images

It is amazing there are not more off-field confrontations similar to that between the England captain, Michael Vaughan, and South Africa's AB de Villiers, Angus Fraser says in the Independent on Sunday, given the close proximity of the opposing dressing rooms at most venues. Fraser recollects one such rare flare-up.

There was an ugly incident in a one-day international I played in Barbados when Gladstone Small, one of the nicest men to play cricket for England, pointed to the dressing room when he dismissed Gordon Greenidge, the rather angry West Indian batsman. At the Kensington Oval the dressing rooms are divided by a narrow walkway, and at the end of the match an England player stuck his head in our room to inform us that an irate Greenidge had Small by the throat

.

Both Vaughan and de Villiers were at the centre of controversial catches, both of which were given not-out after being referred to the third umpire. In the Sunday Times, David Gower says he thought Vaughan's catch off Hashim Amla was clean, and feels perhaps the player's word should be taken.

My view was that Vaughan had caught it. Sky tried before play yesterday to demonstrate how the ball can look to be on the ground to the long lens when in fact it is safely in a fielder’s hands. The method of Vaughan’s catch, with a dive involved, left it open to suspicion that the ball might have just touched the grass. In our commentary box there was little agreement. I can sympathise with the third umpire and understand there was enough doubt for him to deny the catch.

So here is the key question: should we return to the days when players were trusted to say if a catch was good or should we be heading for greater use of TV pictures to help in the decision making? The answer has to be a bit of both, including selective use of the latter, which could be extended from its current scope to include a second look to check on whether a batsman has hit the ball for a catch or inside-edged it when the arms are up for an lbw appeal.

Systematically scouting the unorthodox

Posted on 07/20/2008 in Sri Lankan cricket

	Ajantha Mendis is surely not the last of unorthodox cricketers Sri Lanka is going to produce © AFP

Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis may have awed the world with their unconventional styles, but there are more in the pipeline from Sri Lanka, Sandeep Dwivedi finds out in the Indian Express.

Jerome [Jayaratne] is the current head of the system that has produced unconventional cricketers such as Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Lasith Malinga and now Ajantha Mendis. And, as one takes a look at the display window of the academy, one finds that the supply-line isn’t going to stop any time soon. A Malinga lookalike, a leggie who delivers the ball from an awkward angle, and a pacer who till yesterday was a star on the tennis-ball circuit, are a few of the ‘works in progress’.

A lot of effort, though, goes in to unearth that ‘different’ bowler.

The Sri Lankan board has about 700 active coaches spread across the country, who are all linked to the national academy. The complex network explains how tough it would be for a talented cricketer to go unnoticed. Head coach Jayaratne has national coach Trevor Bayliss and the Lanka A coach under him, along with the national pace and spin coaches and their assistants.

There is a Coaching Education Department with three members, looking after batsmen, pacers and spinners, who are under-studies of the national pace and spin coaches. The coaches from the ‘education department’ travel to provinces — comprising of three to four districts — on regular scouting trips. Helping them are coaches with provinces, districts and schools who have a ready data of players from their region. With such a labyrinth spread over the small island, where virtually all districts or villages are wired, the red lights frequently flicker at the academy in Colombo when an unusual talent is spotted. With the coaches having a common agenda, uniformity in the system is maintained.

The secret of Mendis' dramatic success, is not merely his variety, but his pin-point accuracy, says team-mate Kumar Sangakkara in the Sunday Telegraph.

Indeed, while people talk of his variations, his mystery deliveries, his amazingly complicated method of delivery, when I keep to him I see only simplicity. I see a someone adhering to the age-old basics of bowling. Up until the point of delivery, when his fingers rub their magic, his action is perfectly orthodox. This gives him a strong foundation.

Referring to Cricinfo's Round Table, Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner analyses the role of coaching in the development of great players.

Warne still the best

Posted on 07/20/2008 in Australian cricket

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Shane Warne talks about the Indian Premier League experience and captaincy, his family and his views on Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and sledging. He reveals what he told Paul Collingwood during the Ashes in 2006-07.

“I will tell you exactly what I said. He was ripping into me, saying stuff, so I said, ‘Mate, you’re actually making me concentrate, so thanks for that’. He kept going, so I hit back. ‘Paul, tell me, are you embarrassed about your MBE? Don’t you think you should send it back? You’ve played one Test match in the Ashes, made seven and 10. I mean, mate, I would be embarrassed if I were you. But if you do send it back, I’ll pay for the envelope and the stamp’. He went pretty quiet after that. Sledging is actually made out to be more than it is and 10 years ago it was far worse. Now there are too many cameras, too much super slo-mo, and the players have to be politically correct.”

The dodgiest of all decisions

Posted on 07/20/2008 in South Africa in England 2008

	Darren Pattinson: The most numb-skulled of choices? © Getty Images

In a week full of decisions, the most numb-skulled of all was England's decision to select, from nowhere, the uncapped Darren Pattinson, says Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.

Pattinson's inclusion proffers a depressing statement, the antithesis of the England and Wales Cricket Board's desired message. For they are desperate for their counties to rely more on talent reared in their own academies than ready-made hired hands from abroad. And now this from the national team. It is a dreadful example for the head boy to be setting. And Pattinson doesn't even look that ready-made.

Pattinson's was an extraordinary selection, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

Our selectors have been boring us to tears for six matches. Same team, same team. Meanwhile, the hacks have been pining for change - just to have something to write about. Geoff Miller has smiled enigmatically when announcing yet another unchanged side; his function is not to make life easier for journalists. Miller, we had decided, was meticulous, logical and conservative in his selections: a policy that would breed trust among his players, boredom among the scribes.

Then, out of the blue, Miller - dear, dour old Dusty - has pretensions to be another Uri Geller: to pluck from his flat, Derbyshire cap some gobsmacking magic in the form of the former roof tiler. A fresh face, albeit a fresh old face.

The selectors have failed their first big test. That's Stephen Brenkley's verdict in the Independent on Sunday.

Read John Stern's take in the Sunday Times. He says:

Seven years ago on this ground, a man whom nobody recognised walked out to bat for England in an Ashes Test. It turned out to be the serial hoaxer Karl Power, whose other stunts included having his picture taken with the Manchester United team on the pitch in Germany against Bayern Munich and playing on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

In a way, history repeated itself on Friday, in that there was a man bowling for England whom almost nobody recognised. It quickly became apparent that the only remarkable thing about Darren Pattinson is his selection.

Pattinson did not appear to have the resources to deal with the leap into Test cricket, Mike Brearley says in his blog on the Guardian website.