Scyld Berry writes in the Sunday Telegraph that Andrew Strauss should either have two more years of being England's ODI captain, or just the two games of the series against West Indies.
After the ... two-match series against West Indies, England have no more one-day internationals until early September, when they come thick and fast until early December.
As little over a year will then remain until the next World Cup, England cannot suddenly hope to find a new captain and a new opening batsman and expect them to be bed in.
And Vic Marks writes in the Observer that the one-dayers against West Indies give two players who have been out of favour in recent months, Ian Bell and Ryan Sidebottom, a chance to make their case for the rest of the England summer.
Nasser Hussain is very impressed with James Anderson and England after their ruthless demolition of West Indies. Hussain goes so far as to write in the Daily Mail: "[England] are now the narrow favourites for the big one coming up in July and which I envisage being possibly as tight and dramatic as in 2005".
Former England coach Duncan Fletcher is also happy with Anderson's progress and feels that if he maintains his level of performance, he can do for England what Simon Jones did in 2005 – but with added extras. He writes in the Guardian.
Like Jones, he swings the ball at pace, but he swings it both ways on a regular basis and I would say he swings it even more than Jones did. And, unlike Jones, Anderson is the undisputed attack leader. If he can maintain that level of performance, he can be a match-winner in the Ashes this summer.
In the same paper, Lawrence Booth assesses where the England players stand ahead of the Ashes series.
Regular viewers of England Test matches will recognise Phil Brown, the freelance photographer whose loud shirts and unkempt features make frequent unscheduled appearances on the screen, particularly during lulls in play and post-match media melees. Now he has taken his talent for attracting attention to whole new levels, in partnership with his colleague, the PA photographer, Gareth Cpoley [sic], who together have produced a feature-length fly-on-the-wall documentary of England's tour of the Caribbean.
With an interview style that is part Rolf Harris, part Dennis Pennis, Brown leaves no ego unruffled in his quest to reveal the true nature of England touring life. Marvel at Mike Atherton's impersonation of Usain Bolt, Graeme Swann's karaoke heroics, and the favoured mode of transport of Sir Ian Botham, among other gems. Sky Sports' Tim Abrahams and the Independent's Stephen Brenkley lead a list of co-stars that is as long as the tour itself (though sadly there's no appearance from Cricinfo's own Gnasher McGlashan, who was clearly too busy for such fripperies). Watch it now.
There are reasons to smile for West Indies cricket after one of the more rewarding home seasons in recent times, despite the threat of a players' strike, writes Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner. The smile will only continue, however, if the board looks at itself and deals with the business of West Indies cricket and its representatives properly, fairly, and with respect while knowing, and accepting that, like the players, they can be removed.
Regardless of how its members behave sometimes, probably most times, cricket does not belong to the board, and regardless of what they may say and believe, regardless of how great they may be or believe they are, cricket does not belong to the players - to the Test players, or to the first-class players. Cricket belongs to the people.
In the Jamaica Observer, Garfield Myers comments on the composition of the West Indies' touring squad for England.
England return home finally with something to show for eleven-and-a-half weeks in the Caribbean. Both Andrews, Strauss and Flower, had a massive task in just bringing some stability to a squad that would have taken sides in the dispute, been factional, and low in morale after the upheaval and a tough time in India, writes Mike Selvey in his blog on the Observer website.
Together, two understated but extremely tough individuals have left their mark, making hard decisions in pursuit of an ethic that involved less mollycoddling and more personal responsibility. None of this change would happen overnight, but the evidence is there that the cosy culture has been supplanted.
Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday believes that Flower and Strauss have forged a trusting bond. They probably do not agree on every little thing but they have a shared vision of how the team should progress based on hard work in training and individual responsibility. Hence, England must opt for Flower as coach if they are to prevent their Ashes dreams from turning into dust.
Whoever is appointed England team director (and Flower is the red-hot favourite going into this week’s interviews), he faces a daunting challenge over the next five months. He needs to arm the one-day team with some genuine firepower ahead of the World Twenty20 and find a bowling attack with the capacity to take 20 wickets a game in the Ashes. Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times has more.
Pietersen's approach to cricket is certainly not holistic. The book has closed on all the evidence that marks him out as an extreme individualist in a game of collective endeavour. Paul Hayward in his blog on the Observer website believes there is nothing wrong with that and it can be managed.
The more they try to reinvent him, the more his core characteristics reassert themselves in a jumble of complaining, homesickness, self-justification and undoubted gladiatorial pride.
As a dream and experiment Owen Robertson, a self-employed electrician, saved up to follow the full tour of the Caribbean. He enjoyed it rather more than KP, writes Adam Sills in the Guardian.
"I have been watching England for 20 years since I was a kid and have always said that I wanted to go on a tour," said Robertson. "Two years ago I started saving and I can safely say I have no regrets. On Boxing Day last year I was on a laptop at a friend's house and decided that the West Indies tour would be a good one to start with, so I booked my flights, bought my tickets off the Barmy Army website and took it from there."
Ahead of Friday's finale, Stephen Brenkley, in the Independent, looks back on a troubled tour to identify the lessons England – and all cricket fans – can take into the blockbuster summer ahead.
Strauss and Flower make a dynamic duo From day one, when he took over in circumstances in which he had no desire to take over, Andy Flower has cut an impressive figure. England have gone through a tumultuous period of late and it has been difficult for players and staff. Flower has developed a strong relationship with Andrew Strauss, who himself demonstrated that he might (perhaps should) have been captain two years ago. They brought to their roles a well-rounded but hard-nosed aspect. They showed they were unafraid to take tough decisions – for instance, the dropping of Ian Bell and Monty Panesar, two players who still have big futures – and they have stamped their authority on the England squad.
If West Indies boycott the fifth one-day international on Friday – a remote but possible eventuality – the procedure will differ from the Oval Test of 2006 when Pakistan forfeited the match to England, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.
On the morning of Srinath's first game, in Sri Lanka, the umpire Mark Benson pulled out and flew back to London, so he is used to thinking on his feet. On Friday he has to consult with the umpires and ascertain that one side is refusing to play before awarding the match to the other. Under ICC's new regulations, Srinath could also initiate disciplinary action against Chris Gayle and his players, which makes a boycott even less likely, as they would end up in front of a legal committee headed by a judge.
Kevin Pietersen is a charming, engaging, forthright character who knows what he wants and how to go about it. He speaks from the heart and does not worry about upsetting anyone with what he says. I like him and hung on every word when I last spoke to him. But he really must start thinking before he talks, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail.
Kevin must remember that he has been in Barbados, one of the great places of the world, and that there are thousands of cricket lovers at home who would willingly swap places with him. On many a tour as captain I realised that when it came down to the
last couple of weeks, a lot of people — including myself — were desperate to get home, but we kept talk of it down to a minimum as it distracted from the task. Every member of the England team will be looking forward to going home on Saturday to see their families again, but they have not made that public.
If Pietersen wishes to stay part of the team he must change. His runs, his class and his dedication to batting will, on paper, guarantee him a place for as long as he wants but his presence is becoming a tedious sideshow, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
It has also emerged that he asked to have a break from the tour of the West Indies between the third and fourth Tests. This was not unprecedented because Matt Prior, the team's wicketkeeper, went home at the same time to be with his wife after the birth of their first child. Pietersen, however, wanted the break because his wife Jessica was unable to come to the Caribbean as she was appearing as a competitor in the television programme, Dancing On Ice. Pietersen has not been miserable, or at least not in public, but he has been plainly aloof. And he said in his column in the News of the World on Sunday that the England squad was "a lonely place to be". He was doubtless trying to appease the paper which pays him a considerable amount of money and which was miffed that he was so forthcoming to a rival.
Andrew Strauss led by example in Barbados but should he be England's permanent one-day captain? asks Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
To reiterate, though, this was a low target and as such the question remains whether Strauss, in particular on slower pitches, has the weight of stroke necessary to find the really big shots at the top of the innings. Towards the end, with a fielder brought up from the boundary to mid-on, he carted a six over long-on. It was the ninth he has hit in 82 one-day internationals, and, just clearing the rope as it did, it had still required the kitchen sink being thrown at it. Gayle hit 13 over the weekend. So, brilliantly as Strauss played, we should not be seduced into thinking that all top-order one-day problems have been solved: he may not have a gear beyond that he has revealed.
Nearly three months on, having stabilised affairs from the forced resignation of Kevin Pietersen and sacking of Peter Moores, Strauss can end a discordant winter by leading England to victory in the one-day series against West Indies, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
There comes a moment when a team have had enough chances. It is that time when all the goodwill has been used up, when all the idle protestations about talent simply waiting to be fulfilled are falling on deaf ears, when the suspicions about mediocrity are proven. For this England team it was yesterday at the Kensington Oval, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
It was the second worst day of England’s tour. Only being rolled over for 51 in the first Test in Jamaica was more humiliating than succumbing to West Indies, and to their own ghastly shot-selection, in the third one-day international, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.
All the West Indian pace bowlers had to do was bang the ball in short and watch England’s batsmen spoon a succession of catches. Five of England’s top eight batsmen were out hooking, while Matt Prior steered a short ball on the offside to point. At least lemmings don’t hook before they leap.
This was an all-round duffing of such massive proportion that it is hard to see how England can recover, least of all in Sunday's match in the same conditions on the same ground. It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Cry with laughter might be the best option, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
England supporters sat in a considerable minority, but a small section made themselves heard with boos and shouts of “rubbish” while Strauss was interviewed at the presentation ceremony, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
In an interview to the Daily Mail, Kevin Pietersen comes out in the open about the trauma of the events of January which led to him quitting the captaincy, why he does not want to be England captain again, his verdict on Andrew Strauss and the performance of Andy Flower, a man he wanted sacked along with Peter Moores, as stand-in coach, the Allen Stanford fiasco and more.
England's best player was never going to rock the boat despite the fears of those who do not know him. He has retained his dignity and moved on but the pain remains barely concealed beneath the surface. Now, in his first in-depth interview since losing the England captaincy so controversially, he is telling his tale.
We meet in one of the finest restaurants in Barbados at the request of Pietersen. The setting is the millionaires' playground of the west coast of this most affluent and attractive of West Indian islands. He is at home here, enjoying the success he has achieved since serving a long qualification period to play for England.
James Anderson's career was slowed by attempts to change his action. But if it isn't broken, don't try and fix it, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Seven years or so ago, not long after Jimmy Anderson burst so ebulliently on to the international scene with a seam position to die for and a host of wickets as he swung the ball round corners, it was clear he had a flaw in his action, in the sense that it was not textbook. Yet it produced. Fast forward a few years, some tinkering behind him, and what worked was broken, literally in the case of his back, which sustained stress fractures that sidelined him for most of the 2006 season. It has taken years of hard work, disappointment, inconsistency and a total rebuilding of confidence to get him back to where he started.
Jimmy Anderson is not even sure yet that he is the leader of the attack. Maybe he would prefer that he was not, or that it had not been noticed. But he is and it has, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
In England's freakish victory over West Indies in the first ODI, where coach Dyson called his players back after miscalculating the D/L par score, regulation took precedence over common sense once again, writes Vic Marks in the Observer:
No doubt there is a logic to the ICC regulations with which the umpires work during these one-day matches, but they do not appear to take into consideration that it gets dark quite quickly in the Caribbean and that teams in the field in the second innings of a close contest take longer than they should to bowl their overs. After the interruption for rain, common sense required the interval between innings to be 10 minutes rather than 30. Common sense also required the match to be played to its conclusion even if it was murky, but the regulations said something else and the umpires regrettably followed them.
In the Sunday Times, Simon Wlide hopes the England board will not be interested in John Dyson coaching the national side.
His ingrained negativity is the last thing this England team need; they are naturally cautious enough. In his time as coach with Sri Lanka and West Indies, not to mention as a crabby opening bat for Australia, Dyson has shown himself oblivious to cricket as entertainment.
Coach John Dyson's miscalculation of the D/L chart cost West Indies the first one-dayer against England in Guyana but the Times' Patrick Kidd wonders whether it was not all part of a cunning plan by Dyson.
By allowing England to win a game - and win it in farcical almost miraculous fashion - Dyson knows that the English media, which had been getting a bit down on their team, would start to ramp up their claims that now England are ready to win back the Ashes. Stuart Broad would be hailed as a new Botham, Andrew Strauss a new Brearley and Matt Prior a new, if less reliable, Bob Taylor. We'll all get carried away, England will get their hopes up and Australia will be inspired to rub our noses in it.
Richard Hobson says in the Times it has been a good few days for Andy Flower as he presses his case for England's revamped head coaching position. Hobson points out the decisions of the other contenders, Kent’s Graham Ford and Dyson, over the past week.
Firstly, Kent, where Graham Ford is coach, decided this week to sign Stuart Clark as overseas player for the start of the county season, thereby giving Australia a pre-Ashes lift by helping one of their frontline bowlers to gain match practice after injury. Kent may well benefit, but that may not be answer Morris wishes to hear from Ford if he is called to interview.
And now Dyson, another man linked to the post after his role in supervising West Indies to their success in the Test series. Duckworth/Lewis tables are not easy on the eye - those of a certain age before calculators will see comparisons with logarithm books - but to mistake victory for defeat by reading the wrong column of figures does not say much for his ability to work under pressure.
Andrew Strauss returns to one-day cricket for the first time in almost two years against West Indies with the added responsibility of captaincy, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Quite simply, the captain has to be worth his place in the side as a player. There is no room (or ought not to be), as Michael Vaughan ultimately found out, and before him Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, for a captain just to maintain continuity. This is not to say that Strauss cannot adapt. His absence from the team after the World Cup, was predicated in part on his own basic decline in form that has taken 18 months to rectify
Andy Flower's good relationship with Andrew Strauss should not disguise England's failings against West Indies, writes Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian.
I've said before that the England coaching role is the top job in world cricket because of the scrutiny you come under and the expectations involved. I find it odd that the England and Wales Cricket Board needed to employ a firm of headhunters to get their man, but now that's the case you would imagine an impressive CV would be one of the chief requirements. I know Flower has worked a bit with Essex, but surely the ECB are looking for more than that. I may be wrong. Flower may be worth a gamble. But the facts are that England have so far struggled against a pretty ordinary side out in the Caribbean. If by the end of the one-day series there are still no signs of improvement, it would feel very strange indeed to name Flower as coach.
England could not even bat out their 20 overs, so overwhelmed were they by the atmosphere and their own ineptitude. Trinidad does parties like nowhere else has done since Bacchus drained his last dregs, and the Queen’s Park Oval was filled to the gunwales with 21,000 swaying inside, at the pitch of excitement which comes only from having people milling outside desperate to get in, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.
Having played some fine cricket as the Test series wore on (and on, it seemed), England reverted to a red-shirted shambles. The captain, Andrew Strauss, did not so much not know what he was doing – this was a trying match for him such was the way his team responded in the field – as not know who he was, wearing the absent Matt Prior's shirt. His kit had been lost in transit apparently, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Perhaps England's affairs have to become truly appalling before improvement can begin. Perhaps they must hit rock bottom. Perhaps they have. It felt as though they were plumbing those murky depths yesterday in losing the Twenty20 international to West Indies by six wickets, says Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Andrew Strauss was pictured with the ICC World Twenty20 trophy on Saturday morning as part of a promotional drive by the governing body, but the England captain will not be lifting the silverware again in the summer unless his side can bring about a marked improvement over the next three months, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
England are now ranked sixth in the ICC's Test table and any expectations of a repeat of the drama of the 2005 Ashes series are receding fast. England's temporary coach Andy Flower needs a victory to earn the job permanently, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.
The Independent's Stephen Brenkley says the countdown to the Ashes has begun but Andrew Strauss must not panic. Barring resignation or catastrophe, Strauss is certain to be in charge come 8 July. England do not need, cannot afford, a fourth captain within a year.
In the Sunday Times, Martin Johnson looks at England's performers in the Tests and says they were not the biggest failures in the Caribbean capers.
Ramnaresh Sarwan’s role will be crucial to West Indies’ resurgence, writes S Dinakar in Sportstar.
Andrew Strauss made three centuries in the Test series to answer doubts over whether captaincy would await his batting form. However he hasn't played an ODI since the 2007 World cup, which makes the Daily Telegraph's Nick Hoult think the one-day leg of the Caribbean tour will pose a bigger challenge for Strauss.
In the Times Richard Hobson says England could be helped by the fact that the prize money for Sunday's Twenty20 is approximately US$20 million less than what was on offer in their previous Twenty20 match.
I am sure the England captain and the England Cricket Board spin doctors will tell us there are lots of positives to take out of this tour. Well there aren't, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph.
We had six batsmen and only four bowlers on easy batting pitches in Antigua and Barbados. Sending Jimmy Anderson in as nightwatchman in Antigua when we had lots of runs on the board was ridiculous. Only when England had to go for broke did Strauss play five bowlers and show some urgency. Will he get better? I bloody well hope so.
There is evidence that Strauss and Flower, still officially assistant coach, will be able to forge an accomplished partnership. They have become close allies in the past few weeks and together have begun to establish where England have been going wrong and what they need to do to put it right, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Duncan Fletcher writes in the Guardian that two of England's main concerns are the identity of their fourth seamer and No. 3 slot in the batting.
With England having slipped to No. 6 in the Test rankings after the defeat in the Caribbean, Michael Atherton says in the Times that they should realise they aren't one of the best teams in the world any more.
Two things were fundamental to that failure: an inherently cautious attitude, born of a team not used to winning and unsure of themselves, and a bowling attack that is worthy in its endeavours but lacks the magic ingredients to dismiss good players on good pitches.
The England press has been mightily impressed by the performance of former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower as the interim coach during the Caribbean trip. Michael Atherton writes in the Times that Flower has all the necessary ingredients to be a successful full-time coach for England, including the backing of Kevin Pietersen.
Flower will have the advantage of Andrew Strauss's good favour - the bond between captain and stand-in coach was obviously strong throughout the tour - a key consideration after the Moores-Kevin Pietersen fallout. Pietersen, too, has spoken publicly in favour of Flower, which is some turnaround from two months ago, when Pietersen wanted him out.
"It has been instructive watching Flower grow into the role, to witness at first hand the close working relationship with Andrew Strauss, and the mutual admiration they share, and the respect he has gained across the board, even from those who might before the tour have been regarded as potential dissidents."
England were denied in Trinidad for plenty of reasons, but the most galling was their failure to grasp the umpire review system. If the players keep misapplying the system by gambling with it, they will have to keep their grumbles to themselves, writes Lawrence Booth in the Wisden Cricketer.
This system was brought in to avoid a repetition of Andrew Symonds’ nick off Ishant Sharma at Sydney prior to a series-winning hundred. It was not intended to over-rule questionable lbw shouts. The sooner England realise this, the more chance they’ll have of keeping Australia at bay this summer.
The thriller in Port-of-Spain defied the behaviour of the pitch and delivered a fitting end to the series, writes Vic Marks in his blog in the Guardian.
The pitch did not change that much yesterday but the match situation did – deliciously. Criticisms of this surface or the one in Barbados should not be swept away amid the excitement of a Test match, which briefly wobbled from moribund to mesmerising on the final afternoon.
Cricket becomes fascinating when the mind games begin, when each side can either scent an unlikely victory or fear the worst. Then the brain starts to play its tricks. We were in this territory after lunch yesterday.
The series triumph was long overdue for West Indies, writes Tony Cozier in the Independent, and the tactics, despite the criticisms, justified the end result.
It regained the Wisden Trophy they [West Indies] once securely held for 27 years, but which has been in England's equally firm grip since 2000. In those nine years, they had not won a single Test against their oldest opponents and had endured a raft of humiliations – a two-day defeat at Headingley in 2004, all-out totals of 47, 54, 61 and 94.
The outcome of the series, however it was achieved, has put such memories behind them. There have been unmistakable signs that the fight, so glaringly missing for so long, is returning. It was put to the test time and again over the past six weeks and, even as they collapsed on a wearing pitch, it was evident yesterday.
Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says the Trinidad Test was not deserving of the thrilling climax given the way it had progressed for the first four days, but that in itself summed up Test cricket's endless possibilities.
Chris Gayle's tactics courted disaster, writes Michael Atherton in the Times, but in the end, England, despite their superb fight on the final day, had themselves to blame for their failure to win the Test.
Jonathan Agnew, in his column on the BBC website, writes about what the outcome means for the England team and what it needs to get right ahead of the return series in May.
Vic Marks bemoans the lifeless pitches in the Caribbean which have helped batsmen fill their boots. After watching several batathons, he writes in the Guardian that perhaps Duckworth and Lewis should to come up with a new formula.
Often we conclude that so-and-so's runs should count double because they have been scored on a dicey pitch in a taut situation. But in circumstances like these in Trinidad and the ones experienced in Barbados, the value of the batsmen's runs should be halved or reduced by whatever quotient Mr D and Mr L come up with.
After Shivnarine Chanderpaul made yet another century against England, Stephen Brenkley writes in the Independent that "no batsman can have been a greater pain in their [England's] collective backside than Shivnarine Chanderpaul".
The draw is heavy favourite but, if England can bowl out West Indies by lunch today, it is by no means curtains yet, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
West Indies were clinging on tenaciously in the face of some beautiful, controlled spin bowling from Monty Panesar, on whom most of all, the evidence thus far suggests, rest England's hopes of squaring the series, and mercurial pace from Amjad Khan, who produced some wicked deliveries, one of which disposed of Ramnaresh Sarwan in between giving Matt Prior a torrid time behind the stumps.
Doubtless if West Indies hang grimly on to win this series there will be dancing in the streets. While they are about it, the revellers might as well jig up and down on the coffin containing Test cricket, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Test cricket, as patented by generations of battle-hardened players who would no less have recognised the events of the first two days than they would have appreciated them, returned to the Queen’s Park Oval yesterday. Conditions remained batsman-friendly but at least the willow wielders were made to work hard for their runs by bowlers intent on taking wickets, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
Having received an unexpected boost after Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, retired hurt after taking his hundredth run, England’s chances of levelling the series ran into the brick wall that is Shivnarine Chanderpaul and his apprentice, Brendan Nash, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
It has been an agonising time for the Test debutants. In what other sport do they have to wait for two days after receiving that coveted first cap to make any sort of contribution? Lendl Simmons and Amjad Khan were unable to influence events for what must have seemed to them an eternity, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian
For Chris Gayle, the physical pain would have been trifling compared to the mental anguish. As soon as the West Indies captain felt the sharp pain at the back of his right thigh after completing the sharp, risky single to raise his hundred yesterday, he knew his team's chances of protecting their 1-0 lead in the series were out of his hands, writes Tony Cozier in the Independent.
West Indies are determined to protect their 1-0 lead, but their defensive strategy has made for some soporific cricket, writes Martin Johnson in the Sunday Times.
Test cricket is already reaching for the snorkel and flippers in its Canute-like attempt to stem the inrushing tide of Twenty20 and, with only a draw needed in Trinidad to win the series, here we have the West Indies appearing to have removed the responsibility for the playing surface from the head groundsman and called in a local undertaker to prepare it with an injection of embalming fluid.
For the first hour yesterday though West Indies came at England with intent, an outfit revitalised, in the knowledge that if they were not careful, the game, and series, could slip from their grasp, writes Mike Selvey in the Observer.
David Gower is feeling envious watching Andrew Strauss pump away hundreds on the tour to West Indies. In the Sunday Times he wonders how Strauss would have fared against Holding, Roberts, Marshall and Garner.
His figures point to powers of concentration and a determination to make the most of his opportunities. England’s lack of hundreds was highlighted last summer and it was part of his manifesto as captain that they sort it out. The message is getting through.
After one of the most desultory opening days to a Test match imaginable, notwithstanding another effortless Strauss century, there was briefly a spark of life to proceedings for an hour on the second morning. Our attention could legitimately meander from the Trini Posse Stand for a while. But thereafter much of the cricket was dire. Much more like this and the game will die, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.
It is an audacious strategy - batting for a draw from the second evening of a five-day game can’t be easy - and if Gayle and his team pull it off they will ignore the purists, having regained the Wisden Trophy that they relinquished to England in 2000 and having won their first series against major opposition for six years, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.
The middle-rankers continued their humdrum, protracted scuffle here yesterday, while the big boys clashed in Durban. The contrast was stark, not least in the levels of excitement. There is a real heavyweight scrap going on there in South Africa; this is piffling playground posturing. If that is Test cricket, this is no test at all. Not for the batsmen anyway, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.
Whenever an England captain is appointed, immediate concerns are expressed about what it might do to his batting. Unless it happens to be Bob Willis, who was 15 captains ago and did not count. The cares of leader-ship can weigh men down while they ignore their own game to think of strategy, selection and the needs of others. Andrew Strauss is giving serious trouble to this theory, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.
Andrew Strauss will score tougher runs than he did yesterday against a threadbare West Indies attack but, magnificent in its single-mindedness and focus, he may not play many more important innings, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
One man's desperation is another's caution. England selected five specialist bowlers, the West Indies just three. England chose two regular spinners, the West Indies none. That is no misreading of the pitch, just a difference in priorities, writes Steve James in the Telegraph.
Andrew Strauss, with another half-century, was leading the way once more as England set out on their quest to win the final Test and level the series but it was a slow march rather than a charge, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Andrew Strauss scored his third hundred in successive Tests, a feat only Graham Gooch has managed as England captain. Strauss reached the milestone with a cheeky single off Chris Gayle, his own mastery over the West Indies yet to be matched by the rest of his team, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
After surviving a nervous start in Trinidad, Owais Shah may yet justify the selectors' faith in him, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
Shah was perspiring freely and not just because of the heat. Harmison is under pressure because his career is in jeopardy. Shah experienced a different pressure, one that he has not been accustomed to recently: the pressure of being favoured.
No one will gain anything from preaching on the competitive grave of Steve Harmison, and, all the evidence suggests, least of all the man himself. However, it is impossible not to believe that his story, his long and unsuccessful wrestle with the challenge of performing according to his potential, is a haunting parable of what has been wrong with English cricket for so long, writes James Lawton in the Independent.
Amjad Khan's appearance in a Test match for England yesterday was extraordinary for at least three reasons. First, he was born and brought up in Copenhagen and thus becomes the first Dane to play Test cricket. Secondly, he was not originally selected for this tour and has been preferred to two fast bowlers who were. Thirdly, he has had to overcome career-threatening injury which kept him out of cricket for 18 months, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Even before a ball was bowled, the West Indies indicated by their selection their intention to disregard the purpose of any sporting contest - to win, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad Express.
Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, feels England captain Andrew Strauss is prepared to take the plunge and go in with five bowlers, including two spinners, for the must-win game against West Indies in Trinidad.
All the evidence of the series so far is that England need as many bowlers as they can muster to take the 20 opposition wickets to level a series they were expected to win comfortably.
...........
As he spoke, it was as if he was computing in his brain the cards bearing the names of the players. If five bowlers is the preferred option, he must leave out a batsman from the previous match – a straight choice between the two friends, Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara.
Former England coach Duncan Fletcher, in his blog in the Guardian, writes England must pick just four bowlers for Trinidad, and Steve Harmison should not be among them.
I notice he wanted Andrew Strauss to tell him where he stands, but that reaction is just the same old Harmison. He shouldn't be asking other people where he stands. He should be looking in the mirror and asking himself whether he's done enough to help this team. The stats suggest he hasn't. England have to think long and hard about his future – and it should not include today's game.
Michael Atherton, writing in the Times says England are in dire need of a quality strike bowler, and Amjad Khan, who could be picked should Strauss go in with five bowlers, may just provide the shock value.
The quantity of bowlers in the starting line-up is a red herring. England could have played any number of the seam bowlers at their disposal in Barbados and it would not have made any difference. The real issue was one of quality and in those conditions England did not possess enough of it to dismiss good batsmen. Until they find a strike bowler, they will continue to be a mid-ranking team.
Andrew Strauss must throw caution to the wind and make some brave selection calls for the final Test in Trinidad, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
On a drab pitch at the Kensington Oval, Fidel Edwards' figures of 3 for 192 don't do justice to the way he toiled on an unforgivable surface. He was easily the most threatening of the bowlers, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
When Chris Gayle declared on Sunday night at the fall of Ramdin's wicket, we spotted Edwards, pads and helmet on, brandishing his bat, before furiously withdrawing to the dressing room. He wanted to have a go on this sublime batting surface. Everyone else in his team had. Why should he be deprived? Like any self-respecting West Indian tail-ender he was desperate "to give it some licks". Instead he had to bowl again on this sadistic slab of real estate. And it was only when Edwards had a new ball in his hand that we had a contest worth watching. Why? Because he can bowl fast.
In the same paper, Mike Selvey writes that the real contest was not between bat and ball, but between bowler and pitch, won hands down by the latter.
One is to say that the surface (resurrected from a situation where the grass had been killed off towards the end of last year following the annual carnival held at the ground, to celebrate the end of the harvest) had rather more about it than that rolled into submission at the Antigua Recreation Ground for the third Test. Think a dormant volcano rather than an extinct one, where an exceptional group of bowlers might have had their say.
In the Times, Michael Atherton feels England's best bet to square the series is to hope for more spice in the Trinidad pitch.
In scoring 291, Ramnaresh Sarwan managed to equal Viv Richards' Test best, also made against England. There is an utter assurance about his play, the prospect of a big score not so much a possibility as an inevitability, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
He was helped somewhat by England’s tactics. In his first 200 runs, there was one leg-side boundary: the rest, all 22 of them, came through the off side, an indication that England had bowled to his strengths for long periods. For the most part, England’s line should be straight to him, their length full. Sarwan is a beautiful player through the off side and England seemed happy to encourage the sight of him cutting and driving them to distraction. His technique is such that, by keeping his back foot on leg stump and moving his front foot across his crease, he positions himself to hit through cover, point and backward of point. He thrives on width, being as brutal on the cut as anyone.
How does a captain keep his fielding side alert when the score is past 600? In the Guardian Vic Marks writes that Warwickshire, when stuck in a wicketless phase of play under Dermot Reeve's captaincy, used to pass an imaginary football from fielder to fielder, presumably to raise a smile and keep them awake. But that was hardly appropriate under the eagle eyes of the cameras in a Test match.
Soon the captain becomes more of a foreman than a strategist. It is his job to ensure the punishment is handed out equably and that the part-timers bear some of the burden. Hence Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara were in tandem for much of the afternoon and there was some ugly off-spin from Kevin Pietersen and Owais Shah. The bowlers could hope only to keep their figures respectable and that the third new ball would do the trick.
The Telegraph's Steve James is bored in Barbados, having to watch a drudge of runs collected on a pitch with all the liveliness of a sleeping kitten.
Things are falling into place for West Indies now that their keeper Denesh Ramdin has scored his maiden Test century, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad & Tobago Express.
The poor decisions by third umpire Daryl Harper on lbw appeals referred to him on the third day of the Barbados Test between West Indies and England has reopened the debate on ICC's referral system. The referral system is only as good as the men operating it, " writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.
Harper behaved as though he was an average Joe at home, six-pack by his side, watching the replays and going, “That’s out, mate!” And, “That’s not!” He thought his opinion more important than anyone else’s. We have all watched sport in that mindset. Not many of us have had the power to get our way.
In the Trinidad & Tobago Express, Tony Cozier says Harper and his colleagues are not trained to interpret the complex information that goes in to deciding a referral.
The problem, as it was always going to be, was that Harper and all of his elite colleagues have to be guided by a picture that is two, not three, dimensional and by technology with which they are not familiar.
The system was supposed to eradicate poor verdicts and it could definitely be improved if it was run by blindfold drunks, something the ICC should now seriously consider, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday
Ravi Bopara's maiden Test century has put pressure on Owais Shah's place in the England side, writes David Gower in the Sunday Times.
Both give the impression they know what they are about in the middle and from what we have seen in these past two matches Shah has an in-your-face self-confidence that can make him seem self-absorbed, while Bopara has an air of bravado that allows him to give full rein to his attacking instincts.
To Scyld Berry, in the Sunday Telegraph, Bopara is the finest British Asian cricketer there has yet been.
Bopara is the most talented British Asian cricketer there has yet been, unless the term is anachronistically applied to the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji. Although more than a century has passed since his time, the sense of wonder of the near-capacity crowd at Kensington Oval – English almost to a man – when Bopara leg-glanced straight balls, with a twist of his wrists, was much the same as when Ranji thrilled Sussex and England crowds with his invention of the stroke.
For decades, Kensington Oval was the impregnable fortress of West Indies cricket. Sides came here with aspiration and departed bereft and bruised from battering at the ramparts and the hammering inflicted on them by the rampant greats ... That was then, though, and this is now, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
West Indies are up against it now. To score 401 just to avoid the prospect of following-on is no easy task, even though the pitch has scarcely a mark worth calling a blemish. They were 85 for one last night, with Devon Smith (37 not out) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (40 not out) well ensconced. But for them, this will be a psychological battle as much as a technical one, the loss of Gayle a hammer blow at the end of two cataclysmic days in the field.
There are good cricketers and Test-match cricketers and, sometimes, a gulf divides them. Until now it was not known which category Ravi Bopara belonged to. When, in just under four hours of stylish batting, he brought up his maiden Test hundred yesterday, he put those doubts to bed for good, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
To arrive at the happy place Ravi Bopara reached yesterday required a startling confluence of events. Without the birth of a baby, an injury to a key player and the poor form of another he would not have been in Bridgetown to compile a majestic maiden Test hundred and establish an impregnable position for England in the fourth Test, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Mark Twain’s assertion that there are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies, and statistics - was hardly made with cricket in mind but it was accurately borne out by Fidel Edwards' figures in England's mammoth first innings. They were 30 overs, 3 for 151 and an utter injustice to the speed and spirit of a fast bowler who had every right to throw his hands in the air and to say to hell with it, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad Express.
Amid the celebrations of Andrew Strauss' fourth Test century of the winter, there must have been nagging concerns about the pitch at the Kensington Oval, which appears too flat for comfort. As he punched yet another boundary down the ground he could contemplate uneasily the wisdom of his selection. Was the investment in a sixth batsman really necessary? Vic Marks wonders in the Guardian.
The mistake was to describe this as a "good wicket". Prof Edwards, who oversees the ground here, had promised this pitch would be "fast and bouncy" but the groundsman has yet to be born who predicts his beloved surface will be "slow and low". In an age when everything can be scientifically annotated and analysed it is amazing how neglected the art of pitch-making remains. Last week in Karachi there was probably a dreadful cricket wicket, so many runs were scored by the batsmen of Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The balance between bat and ball was all wrong, bad for the game.
Andrew Flintoff's performance in Antigua was a startling demonstration of glorious and reckless self-sacrifice, of altruism, of a man giving everything for a cause beyond himself at a certain cost to himself, writes Simon Barnes in the Times.
Sinking of self into a common cause: this is what team sports are supposed to be all about. But it is not so terribly hard to find examples of players in team sports whose philosophy is based, instead, on the idea of sinking common cause into self. Chelsea's disappointing season can be traced to Didier Drogba's belief that his own sulks were more important than his team's results.
In the Telegraph, Steve James writes that England are starting to make some bold moves by dropping Ian Bell and Steve Harmison.
With Andrew Flintoff absent, it would have been easy to return him to No 6 and the calmer waters in which he has swum so strongly before. Instead, the stern words issued after exclusion in Antigua have been left to ring. There have been clear instructions. Bell’s fitness, and a few extra pounds, is obviously a concern. In response he has been training feverishly. But one wonders whether Harmison can now do likewise. Grave question marks linger. Bell will return one day to international cricket, but can Harmison?
Andrew Strauss was faced with more questions than answers on the eve of a Test match that his team must win. The balance of the side, the identity of the sixth batsman and Graeme Swann's injury were among them, but the most pressing concerned two players who have given England more headaches in recent years than any others: Andrew Flintoff, who definitely will not play, and Stephen Harmison, who probably will, but against whom there remains a huge question mark, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
So now England must go into a match in which they must take 20 wickets, something they have yet to achieve in four full Tests this winter, with their default Fredless balance of an extra batsman at six and a bowler light, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Quite who the batsman will be is a matter that Strauss and Andy Flower will have debated hard. Flower, in particular, is someone who might wish to break away from the cosiness engendered during Peter Moores' time in charge, which means that Ian Bell ought not to be an automatic choice. The alternative, Ravi Bopara, made a century in the tourists' match earlier this week, which proves little except that he has suffered hardly any impact from the journey and time change from New Zealand.
There comes a point in the affairs of man when it is necessary to be bold. For England that moment may have been reached. This does not mean recklessness or throwing caution to the wind – it is about assessing the risk, weighing the balance, and then concluding that desperate times require desperate measures, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Also in the Guardian, Duncan Fletcher feels its crucial for England to work out a plan to counter Ramnaresh Sarwan.
If that fails, Plan B is to work on him around off-stump and drag him forward. His cut is his release shot, so if England can keep him on the front foot he will be out of his comfort zone. Then, if the plan to get him lbw is playing on his mind and persuading him to keep his legs out of the way, he may be forced to over-compensate and reach outside off, which opens up the chance of a nick. It's not easy, especially against such a fine player as Sarwan, but England have to be disciplined against a guy who has so far scored two hundreds and a ninety.
Nobody quite so young as Baby Prior can have had such an influence on the naming of a Test team and the possible course of a series. Prior Snr flying home for the birth of his first child has opened a new selection conundrum for England. The only guaranteed selection is Tim Ambrose but the No.6 berth is still up for grabs and it's a tough choice between Ian Bell and Ravi Bopara. Stephen Brenkley ponders in the Independent.
Oh, and congratulations Matt and Emily.Births have been a regular feature of England tours in recent years. Indeed, every tour should have one and probably will. In 2002, Nasser Hussain took his wife and elder son to Australia so he would neither have to go home nor miss the birth of his second son. Strauss left a tour of Pakistan in late 2005 to be at the birth of his and his wife’s first baby. England lost by an innings.
The absence of Flintoff from the mix for the tour match has provided a selection conundrum for Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower, who must find a way of balancing the books without their allrounder, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
The notion of reducing the bowling option by bolstering the batting seems to go against the grain of circumstance. But how to put a quart into a pint pot? One idea is for Prior to bat at six and tell him to take responsibility. This leaves Broad at seven – too high for someone who has yet to make a first-class hundred – and a long tail in a series that has so far seen significant contributions from both lower orders.
Growing up with a cricketing family equipped Stuart Broad with a fierce appetite to succeed, surmises Vic Marks, and Andrew Flintoff's injury has given the Nottinghamshire bowler a chance to stake a claim as a frontline bowler. Read the full interview with Broad in the Observer.
Excerpts:
"I've had to grow up very quickly," he says. "A lot of that was down to me going to Australia for six months after I left school [Oakham School in Leicestershire]. I learned how to be a bloke. I knew no one over there, I had to meet people, play tough cricket. I had to grow up a lot quicker as an 18-year-old than most because I was out in the big wide world, living on my own.
"Sometimes I need to pinch myself and realise I am only 22, I prefer to watch a film in and chill out than go out and have a few beers, which is a bit strange for a youngster, but it's part of the job."
Cricinfo's Andrew McGlashan has also written a piece on Broad. Read more.
During the Antigua Test, as the locals "were drawn to the rickety stadium like pilgrims", James Lawton says that the management was told to turn off the music and increase the volume of the television commentary.Writing in the Independent, Lawton says it is a wonder that in 2009 the game in danger of death by skewered values and changed priorities should display, once again, such vital signs.
In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain wonders who is in charge of the leaderless England that made a mess of winning call in Antigua.
It made absolutely no sense and although it may seem like a minor detail, it cost England time and that is just what they needed more of on Thursday evening. They were effectively 300-odd for one, but still Anderson was sent out to protect Owais Shah. There was no logical explanation for it. Why on earth were the team's most fluent batsmen, Shah and Kevin Pietersen, sitting in the dressing room watching Jimmy bat? He did his best to be positive, but he is a No 9 or 10 for a reason.
The Antigua Test was a classic, says Mike Selvey in the Guardian, but England need to remember how to finish teams off.
Writing in the Mirror, Ian Botham urges England to think positive, or else the Aussies will give them an Ashes roasting.
Although clearly in pain from his injured right hip, Andrew Flintoff bowled on a tense final day in Antigua, sending down two spells before leaving the field wicketless. Flintoff strained every sinew as England pushed for victory, but he was overshadowed by a much younger bowling team-mate. England's struggling allrounder knows that Stuart Broad is waiting to step into his shoes, says Vic Marks in the Telegraph.
In the Independent, Tony Cozier says that West Indies ended with their tails up after a dispiriting week, and that it took the composure of tailenders not reputed for such level-headedness to do so.
James Lawton, in the same paper, recalls his stormy altercation with Viv Richards nearly 18 years ago. In his own words, that bust-up with Sir Viv was bigger than World War III, and stole a certain Bush and Gorbachev's thunder.
April 14, 1990, the Recreation Ground in Antigua, bailiwick of King Vivian Richards, lord of the island, are a date and a place I was never likely to forget. But then nor was I quite prepared for the vividness of recall when the old Test battleground came back to fleeting life this week.
It was the shuddering anger, so perfectly preserved, of the great man that did it.
In the Trinidad Guardian, Vaneisa Baksh says the blight of West Indian cricket has got to her. She is not going to any cricket matches organised by the West Indies Cricket Board, and it isn’t simply to protest the gross dereliction of duty in Antigua - it is more out of disgust with its response to it.
The most pivotal wicket in this series is undoubtedly Chris Gayle's and his dismissal in the second innings in Antigua is an example of how England's plans against him are working, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
The field was shuffled for the off-spinner. There were seven men on the off-side: a slip, a silly point, two men at short extra-cover and two men guarding the boundary at cover and long-off. This meant that there were acres of space on the leg-side. There were just Harmison at deep backward square-leg and Anderson at mid-on. England were tempting Gayle with those wide open spaces.
The slowness of the Antigua pitch made the flamboyant Kevin Pietersen and the gutsy Paul Collingwood bat in similar fashion, says Steve James in the Daily Telegraph.
Pietersen is a genius in the making; Collingwood is a battler always straining at the outermost reaches of his ability. Pietersen smites sixes that take the breath away; Collingwood tucks runs off his legs in the hope that nobody notices. Pietersen is cricket's caviar; Collingwood is about as fancy as egg and chips. But yesterday their differences were barely discernible. They were united in their struggles: not just to stay at the crease, of course- for this is a featherbed- but to find some sort of fluency.
It is a sentiment shared by the Guardian's Vic Marks, who says England's batting in this innings was an odd mirror image of their effort in Jamaica.
In Jamaica Pietersen alone was dominant, while all the rest of the batsmen were nervous and tentative. Here Pietersen scratched around like an old hen, while all the others bar Flintoff have bristled with aggression. He has never enjoyed being one of the pack.
After watching Andrew Flintoff fail with the bat again, Martin Samuel says in the Daily Mail that No. 6 is too high a position in the order for Freddie.
The start of the third Test in Antigua was important for Andrew Strauss and his century will help underpin the respect a captain needs from within the team, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
In between his moments of good fortune, Strauss played with the utmost fluency and freedom. It was noticeable that he was not prepared to let Benn settle, skipping down the pitch and smiting him for a straight six – his first in Test cricket in nearly three years. And he approached three figures with a number of resounding strokes, two pulls and a drive off Powell and a launch over mid-on off the left-arm spin of Ryan Hinds.
In the Guardian, Vic Marks writes that by dropping Monty Panesar for the Test, probably with the expectation that the pitch would be seamer-friendly, England have adopted a 'horses for courses' policy rarely employed when Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan were in charge.
He is not used to being dropped. In fact his only experience of that since his debut in Nagpur was in Australia at the start of the ill-fated 2006-07 tour when England reverted to Ashley Giles. Then there was a populist hue and cry on Monty's behalf and he returned to the side for the third Test in Perth, never to be dropped again until yesterday. He is no longer the punters' darling, obviously not the captain's darling either.
Marks also writes that there was a liberated feeling to Strauss's stroke play, the cover drives crisp and plundered from pace and spin alike.
To Steve James in the Daily Telegraph, Strauss and Cook are, by some distance, England's best openers.
Seek level-headedness and phlegm in this England squad right now and the search will swiftly arrive at the doors of the southpaw openers. Unaffected by events, however calamitous, they have continued to work hard at their games, determined to reawaken their doggedness at the crease.
In the Daily Mail Martin Samuel wants to know why England cannot have a cricket manager who has a say in selection.
Unlike an international football coach, the manager of England’s cricketers would spend something like 250 days with his team. The argument proceeds that he would have no time for scouting, so would make decisions on players he has not seen. Yet is that the case? Could he not have a team of three observers, his appointments, in tune with his style, who are his eyes around the counties? They make recommendations or are sent out on specific missions. Is that so different to what happens now? All that changes is the random nature of national selection; the fact that, as it is, England’s team management may be responding to the choices of men who do not share their collective vision.
There's been plenty of farce on the tour already but the Sunday Telegraph's Steve James thinks there could be more in store when the third Test gets underway. He says the Antigua Recreation Ground is as unready for Test cricket as the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium was on Friday.
Potential hazards lie in the stands, where the top tier of the famous Double Decker stand will be closed. Full of wonderful memories and history it may be, but the ARG has not seen functional attention for years. It looks tired and decrepit.
The outfield is unfit in a very different way from the SVR stadium. Instead of the beach cricket proposed there, the ARG outfield has been prepared for football. It is bumpier than the island's roads, which is saying something.
In the Sunday Times, Martin Johnson takes aim at the ICC for it's "mindboggling ineptitude".
“Sceptrum Est Sceptrum”, should be the ICC motto, which roughly translates into “rules is rules”. If we went through the entire list of pettifogging examples it would run to toilet-roll length.
My own favourite involved Neil Mallender, the English umpire, during the last World Cup in the West Indies, when he was given the maximum mark allowable for decision-making, but docked five points for wearing two sun hats, one his own, and one belonging to the bowler. This, you might think, is not the kind of crime that should earn you lower marks than for raising your finger for a caught behind that’s missed the outside edge by the width of a Kevin Pietersen advertising logo, but Mallender had really no defence to the charge, given that he acted in direct, not to mention flagrant contravention of the regulation that clearly states (and you can’t make this up) that the hanging of extra sun hats should be confined to the official ICC belt clip.
Paul Weaver, on the Guardian website, says that while the Test at the ARG will stir warm memories, it will also unleash an anger, a fury at West Indies administrators who left a great cricket ground out in the cold to die.
The Rec - and what powerful memories of childhood those two words evoke - is more than just the stage where Sir Vivian Richards and Brian Lara played some of their most brilliant cricket. This is where the cross-dressing Gravy danced and where Chickie's Disco blared between overs, the ground which arrived on the international scene at a time when West Indies were in their swaggering pomp.
Over in the Nation, Haydn Gill says that when there appears to be reluctance by Antigua to host regional competitions, they should not get Tests.
Simon Wilde of the Sunday Times catches up with West Indies' 6' 7" left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, who starred in the first Test with an eight-wicket match haul. Benn credits the camp preceding the Stanford series for instilling the discipline necessary to succeed.
“Being in a camp for that period of time, obviously all you did was eat, drink and sleep cricket,” he says. “It let you know that this was your job, this was what you had to do to be as good as possible. I have tried to maintain those standards since then; so has everyone, even those who were not part of the Stanford set-up. They saw what had been going on and wanted to get to the same level.”
Wilde also finds out how the winners of the Stanford match spent their million dollars.
The influential and well-connected caribbeancricket.com website has launched a stinging attack on the West Indies Cricket Board in the aftermath of the shambles that was the ten-ball Antigua Test. As so many are doing, the article asks how the match was even allowed to start.
International cricket teams do not simply turn up on the morning of the first day of a Test match and find that the venue is wholly atrocious for any level of cricket. There are several standard checks and assessments which should have been put in place by the WICB to ensure that exactly what transpired at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium this morning never occur. There must have been a series of diabolical failures and gross neglect on the part of the assigned officer for it to have reached the stage where the Caribbean is left to suffer the utter humiliation now being rightfully dished out. What should have been those checks and balances? And who, specifically, was responsible?
The answer, according to the website, is chief cricket operations manager Tony Howard.
What was Howard doing? Was there a recce of the Sir Viv Richards Stadium? Who executed it? What was their report? Or was the recce a mere joyride around the Caribbean for Howard while he collected valuable per diem?
Angry stuff. But on a day the cricket in the Caribbean has been shamed, it is quite understandable.
In the Times, Mike Atherton says that heads must roll in the WICB after the latest shambles. He wonders why no match was played before the Test to test the suitability of the conditions at the ground.
Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian that the abandonment of the Test was "was not just a disgrace but another disastrous setback for the name of international cricket at a time, especially in the Caribbean, when it needs all the help it can get".
His colleague Andy Bull says that at a time when cricket needs an efficient Jeeves-like person in charge, it's left with a whole lot of bumbling Bertie Woosters. He suggests that the third Test should be moved to Barbados as the Antigua Recreation Ground isn't currently in a good-enough condition to host a Test.
The ICC and its match referee Alan Hurst are the subject of Martin Samuel's ire in the Daily Mail. He says it was more than a match that was abandoned in Antigua: it was the integrity of a sport, and the trust of the people who watch it.
Writing in Independent, Stephen Brenkley laments a crass decision by the WICB to build their new house on sand.
That a batsman of Owais Shah's inherent talent could play only two Test matches in 13 years is lamentable, and indicative of some fundamental failings on the part of both the player and the England management, writes Andy Bull in the Guardian.
"For Owais the turning point was in early 2004, when he took himself off to work with Mohammad Azharuddin in Hyderabad," Gatting suggests. "He worked on his technique and now he is very settled and very happy with it. That hasn't just made him a better player, it's helped him mature as a person. He knows himself a lot better." Shah attributes his transition from a "1,000-runs-a-season to a 15, 16, 1,700-runs-a-season batsman" to his work with Azharuddin. "I decided that if I had to sacrifice flair and become unorthodox, then I would do it."
The state of the outfield at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is a cause for worry, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian. The whole of the outfield has bare patches of pure soft sand but, most pertinently, these are worst on the bowlers' run-ups and, at one end, at the point of take off into delivery stride of the pace bowlers.
Within half an hour's play, the bowlers will have so softened the sand that it will be as if they are running along the strand, losing their momentum and risking calf strains and ankle injuries. No wonder the England physiotherapist Kirk Russell was prowling around with a face like thunder. He could have some business over the next few days.
In the same paper, Dan Roebuck has an update on the betting scene for the second Test. Punters are predicting a draw, with the pitch known to be a batsman's paradise.
On the eve of today's match, the draw was best at 10–11 (general), with England 11–4 (general) and West Indies 3–1 (general). England's fragility means they cannot be backed, while the draw price looks too short as it will almost certainly trade bigger at some stage during the match. If pushed for a selection it would have to be West Indies. There are, though, far better punts to be had outside the match betting.
In the same paper, Vic Marks comments on the usage of the referrals system. He feels there should be a penalty for unsuccessful referrals - a two-run penalty for the first failed referral, four for the second, eight for the third, just to spice things up.
There is much to be said for the Stanford system, in which the players have nothing to do with the referrals and the umpires themselves opt to go upstairs for help. This worked pretty well in Stanford's Twenty20 matches but in a Test the number of referrals might mushroom out of control. Umpires would be bound to take the cautious path. But the pursuit of a better system should not be abandoned because of the inevitable teething problems. More trials are needed to cut down the errors.
In his column for the same paper, Duncan Fletcher feels that administrators and selectors should be kept from the dressing room so England can address their off-field decision-making. It is also important they appoint a full-time coach soon.
Now we've got Hugh Morris, the managing director of the England team, closely involved with the side. Yet he's the guy who sacked Kevin Pietersen. What must the players think seeing him at breakfast every morning? To me, it's crucial that the atmosphere is generated by the players, not affected by the administrators. You just hope the players can get on with their jobs.
In the Times, Michel Atherton turns the spotlight on Andrew Strauss, saying that the one thing he can control is his own batting form.
They need to feel that a leader has things under control; the appearance of control, at any rate, even if that is far from the truth. In practice this week, Strauss has been exactly that. No ranting and raving from him, at least in public.
In the Telegraph, Simon Briggs meets Angus Fraser, the man who piloted England's stunning comeback in Barbados in 1994 after being rolled over for 46 in Trinidad.
Stephen Brenkley, in the Independent, lists his ten best batting collapses.
After the astonishing collapse in Kingston, England’s cricket team have rarely been perceived to be at a lower ebb. The Daily Mail convened a meeting in Antigua with Hugh Morris, managing director of the ECB, and Geoff Miller, the national selector, to pick over the bones of English cricket.
There was plenty to discuss and neither Morris nor Miller held back: on the Indian Premier League, Kevin Pietersen, why even Fabio Capello could not sort out England’s cricketers and the man who yet might — John Buchanan, the most successful coach in the history of cricket... and an Aussie.
Excerpts from the interview, conducted by Martin Samuel:
Samuel: Are you moving towards a different sort of manager for the England cricket team, more in the manner of Sir Clive Woodward or Sir Alex Ferguson?
Miller: It depends how it fits into the tree. What would the manager’s role be, and would it take responsibility away from people who are working well at the moment? I would like to talk to Martin Johnson and Fabio Capello about how things are done in their sports, but I wouldn’t be in favour of an all-powerful manager, no. It is essential that the captain has a say in aspects on the field, that coaches control specific areas and that there is a national selector. If the manager took responsibility from the captain, it wouldn’t work.
Samuel: What about the Indian Premier League? Since the first Test there seems to have been quite a backlash at home. People are saying the players are interested only in the money.
Morris: I don’t believe the IPL had an impact on the way we batted in Jamaica. I see many positives in it.
Miller: It was nothing to do with getting bowled out for 51, but beyond that it is hard to gauge what effect there will be because it is our first time out there. After it has happened we’ll have concrete facts. What I would say is we’ve given the players the chance to make money, and we expect the same loyalty and passion in return. We would look at it again if we thought it was not working.
Mike Selvey, in his blog in the Guardian, attributes West Indies' victory in the first Test partly to the serious change in attitude engendered by Allen Stanford's involvement in cricket in the Caribbean.
For a decade West Indies cricket has been characterised by ill-discipline that failed to make the most of its assets. Stanford's squad was together for six weeks prior to the event. They prepared meticulously, practised assiduously, played wonderfully and got their reward. From that they learned the value of putting hard work into an enterprise. Six of that successful side were members of the team that won in Jamaica, led by Chris Gayle, a batsman of immense capacity but hitherto a serial underachiever, a batting dilettante. No more.
England must look beyond mere statistics to take a decision on the struggling Ian Bell ahead of the second Test in Antigua, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.
The key to Bell's immediate future is his mental state and only the captain and coach can know that. Is he shot? Does he need a break from the pressure? If so, he must make way. As Strauss suggested in Sri Lanka, there is much to be gained from time away and it is rare for any batsman not to be dropped at some stage. Demotion need not be permanent.
Mike Selvey, writing in the Guardian, feels the nature of Bell's dismissal in England's abject surrender in the second innings could cost him a place in the team for a long time.
Any batsman can get out to a daft shot played at an inappropriate time. It is what bowlers work at. But this was just crass, an encapsulation of all that Bell has conveyed for some time. What, precisely, was his thought process? Does his mind compute that having got into that area, around 30 or so runs, that suggests his vulnerability, he must avoid the criticism that would follow his dismissal and so places further pressure on himself to survive? Or does he believe that, having played with panache to that point, he has done the job and can relax? The latter seems more likely.
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says Owais Shah, who has been waiting in the sidelines for quite some time, merits a place in the England team for the second Test. Any decision to leave him out, he writes, would not only be unjustified for a player who is deserving of far more than the two Tests he's played, but could also mean his chances of future selection will remain grim.
In the Nation, Tony Cozier writes that there can be as many 51 reasons for England's defeat, one for each run scored in the second innings.
He might be regarded as England's talisman, but Andrew Flintoff's not been at his best since 2005 and the team's Test record is better without him, Lawrence Booth says in his latest post on the Guardian website.
The facts are these. Since Flintoff made his debut at Headingley in 1998, he has played in 72 of a possible 131 Tests (excluding the game for the World XI). With him, England win less than 39% of their matches and lose 33%. Without him, they win 45% and lose 32%. When you consider that he missed three Ashes trouncings (in 1998-99, 2001 and 2002-03) at a stage of his career when he was still some way off becoming the titan who bestrode the 2005 Ashes, it's fair to say those stats could be even worse. Again, this is not to say England should drop Flintoff. Far from it. It's simply to get a few things in perspective.
Another thing. Flintoff last scored a Test hundred and took five wickets in an innings during that 2005 series - one that marked the end of an 18-month golden spell for England's supposed heir to Ian Botham. Since then, he has averaged under 30 with the bat and not far off 34 with the ball. Even taking injuries into account, these are not the stats of a world-class all-rounder.
In the Guardian, Vic Marks says Monty Panesar should blend patience and parsimony to revive his fortunes. He feels Panesar showed some signs of improvement in Jamaica after a disappointing tour of India.
Panesar should take note of how Benn achieved his success (no West Indian spinner since Lance Gibbs has taken eight wickets in a Test match). This may not be the fashionable response to Panesar's problems (most crave that he magically becomes a modern-day Bishen Bedi) and it is a rather prosaic one: he needs to be more miserly, to bowl more maidens and the wickets will eventually follow.
Nick Hoult throws up a few more numbers in the Daily Telegraph.
3 The number of Tests (out of 20) that England have won since the 2005 Ashes with Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff in the side.
10 The number of Tests (out of 21) that England have won since the 2005 Ashes without Flintoff in the side. Pietersen has played all 41 Tests in that time.
13 The number of Tests (out of 20) that England have lost with Pietersen and Flintoff in the side since the 2005 Ashes.
The events of Saturday afternoon reflected more than just a momentary mental lapse. They suggested not just that a grim month for English cricket, when internecine warfare replaced any sense of team unity, has had a lasting effect, but also that there is a deeper malaise, one that has become increasingly apparent as England have stumbled along these past three years, says Michael Atherton in the Times.
The most fundamental issue of all is the absence of authority at the heart of the England team. We have a new captain and a temporary coach but whose hand is on the tiller, steering the team through a difficult period that poses such awkward challenges as the Indian Premier League (IPL)? For all the backroom staff with the team — masseurs, spin doctors, physiologists, you name it — there is one crucial position missing; that of a manager, a decision-maker who is ultimately responsible and ultimately accountable.
Suresh Menon feels it's not correct to blame the IPL for England's defeat. Read on in Espnstar.com
Usually it is the former players who missed out on the moolah who tend to sound all moralistic. Mr Graham Gooch loved to play for his beloved country so much that he was willing to chuck it all up and captain a rebel tour in South Africa, then banned from international cricket. He was banned for three years for placing money above country.
There's all this camaraderie in front of the cameras, but how genuine is it?, former England coach Duncan Fletcher asks in the Guardian. He feels the need for a head coach is important, since otherwise it leaves Andrew Strauss with a lot to handle.
Sure, not many dressing rooms can say they contain 11 happy chappies, but some get close. I used to talk in terms of a critical mass: if eight of the 11 guys get on well they can outweigh the influence of the three who may feel like they're on the outside. But as soon as that critical mass reaches 7–4 or 6–5 you have problems. I look at this side and wonder where we are at. Team spirit is not something that can be faked. It has to happen naturally.
Fletcher suggests Steve Harmison be dropped in favour of a second spinner and Owais Shah replace Ian Bell.
The one thing England can no longer afford to do is to stick with the status quo, says the Guardian's Mike Selvey.
Something has to give. In 1994 [the year England were bowled out for 46], determined that the selection merry-go-round that had characterised England cricket at that time should cease, Mike Atherton and Keith Fletcher kept faith with the same side and were rewarded. Times have changed. Continuity has been the norm, which is fine up to a point. But it has made some players bomb-proof and complacent. They dare not let things stand.
Kevin Pietersen's brilliant but truncated innings in Kingston will join the ranks of the game's memorable almost-hundreds, writes Michael Henderson on the Guardian website.
If Andy Flower is as tough as everyone says he is, he should demand the selectors recall Robert Key or Michael Vaughan, says David Hopps on the same website.
Stephen Brenkley expresses a similar view in the Independent.
Check out Patrick Kidd's 51 special quiz in his Line and Length blog on the Times website.
Several off-field issues are clouding England's progress. They are not in a rebuilding stage. There is no motivation to improve when they have more than a dozen backroom staff to analyse their techniques, put out the cones at training, and virtually wipe their bottoms for them, writes Geoff Boycott in the Telegraph.
It is time that England started putting the cricket first, not the whole circus that surrounds it. One of the big problems of the last year is that everything we have heard about the national side has been to do with money and politics. Meanwhile the cricket itself has become almost incidental, which I find rather sad.
In the Times, Michael Atherton writes that England's collapse at Sabina Park has brought back bad memories of Trinidad '94.
What was Paul Collingwood doing sprinting for a couple of runs when he had been bowled neck and crop by Jerome Taylor? In that moment, there was the reminder of Mark Ramprakash’s suicidal run-out in Trinidad 15 years before, the surest sign that the situation was about to overpower a group of players who were, mentally, not up to the task.
The post-mortem continues and Mike Selvey in the Guardian calls for immediate changes to the batting order. Time's running out for Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood and it's time to give Owais Shah a chance. Perhaps sending an SOS to Michael Vaughan won't be a bad idea.
Where do England go with this? They have the best part of a week to contemplate, with the second Test starting in Antigua on Friday. Flower has his work cut out. There are denials of disunity of any consequence in the ranks but there remains an impression of the PR shots of a smiling family leaning on the gate after a politician has been caught with his pants down. Something will have to give.
In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain writes that the unneccessary off-field distractions and constant backroom changes have contributed to England's heavy defeat.
Pietersen has had to travel around the West Indies with Hugh Morris, who was instrumental in removing him as captain, while Andrew Flintoff has been like a bear with a sore head with the press because they said he knifed his captain. There have to be tensions there. The priority has to be pulling on that England shirt.
When you compare his [Gayle's] lot to that of Andrew Strauss, inheritor of a situation that made a mockery of team organisation and any understanding of individual duty to a wider cause, it is enough, surely, to make English cricket lovers groan with a mixture of bitterness and disbelief.
Why? Because if their West Indian counterparts are seeing the miracle of renewal, new gusts of hope, and pride, what do English supporters see? It is something no less depressing than the entrenchment of decay and its agent complacency and – why avoid the reality? – greed.
It's a homecoming for Ottis Gibson, who's back in the West Indies as part of England's coaching staff. He talks to Haydn Gill in the Nation on his transition from being an international player to a coach.
"I am happy to say that I think I've got the respect of all the guys. They listen carefully to what I have to say. They challenge me sometimes. That's what you want as a coach. You don't want your word to be gospel all the time. You want people to have their own views."
Jerome Taylor's breathtaking bowling display revived memories of old West Indies glory, writes Mike Selvey in the Observer.
Taylor pitched full, not quite a yorker but up there, allowing the ball time to grab the air and swing away. But it went too late for Pietersen, deceiving even his gimlet eye. Pietersen saw only a leg-side scoring opportunity, but the ball swerved beyond his bat. Then, as Pietersen's body obliterated the wicket from view, we, perched in the press box eyrie high up in the massive Blue Mountain Stand, saw his off stump appear from behind his back and cartwheel gymnastically back towards the keeper. For a split second, before the implication had taken hold, there was silence in the crowd. Then, as the realisation set in and Taylor began his celebratory sprint towards the Red Stripe stand pursued by a phalanx of team-mates, a cacophony erupted.
Where on earth does this humiliation leave England? asks Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.
It's been fashionable of late to play down the problems in the England dressing room, mainly because it's a far easier thing to do than accept the serious issues that have already split the team. Fine. Bury your heads in the sand if you like. But many of us are still waiting for evidence that this England side is in any way a united one. When everything that can go wrong does go wrong, as it did today in Jamaica, you have to ask serious questions about the collective state of mind.
Andrew Strauss described his dressing room as being a “pretty disconsolate place”. You can bet it was a lot worse than that. It will have been a place of devastation and embarrassment, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.
In the pantheon of great overseas disasters, this one actually ranks fairly low down. Or at least it would if it wasn’t for the fact that this trip was supposed to be little more than a gentle workout for the Ashes against a supposedly flaky West Indian team, writes Martin Johnson in the Sunday Times.
For comedy, albeit black comedy, we had to look in the unlikely direction of Paul Collingwood. Another venomous Taylor delivery took the inside edge of Collingwood's bat before speeding off towards the fine-leg boundary. Collingwood sped off eagerly but when he turned for a second he was greeted by the spectacle of the West Indies side indulging in another mass celebration. Unbeknown to Collingwood the ball had brushed the leg-stump on its way to the boundary, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.
The responsibility of captaincy obviously sits well on his [Chris Gayle’s] shoulders, while mind and body both seem to be in very good shape. There were, of course, moments of pure Gayle, his second-over six off Flintoff a sublime instance of a shot that comes from nowhere — proof that his innate instincts are working beautifully, writes David Gower in the Sunday Times.
The history of Test cricket at Sabina Park is replete with devastation wreaked by lethal fast bowlers. Jerome Taylor's sensational 5 for 12 from nine overs in the searing heat yesterday that led to the disintegration of England's second innings for 51 all out and defeat by an innings and 23 runs placed him in the company of Manny Martindale, Wes Hall, John Snow and Steve Harmison, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad Express.
Never believe those reports that said cricket in the Caribbean was dying. It was just in mourning for the passing of the good days. The people still loved the game, nursed their hurt, and waited for fortunes to change. The whoops and hollers from the stands showed that the passion was still there, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.
As far as sudden and unexpected humiliations go, this one ranks right up there with the best, says Jonathan Agnew on the BBC website. He feels Ian Bell needs to be dropped to indicate that the "established batsmen's places are not fireproof".
Martin Johnson isn't a fan of the umpire review system. Read his take on it in the Sunday Times.
Even for those who hold that cutting down on human error must be in the game’s best interests, there must be something fundamentally disturbing about the sight of a batsman declining to leave the field despite being given out by the umpire. Apart from WG, the only other recorded case of this happening in pre-referral days was in the Lahore Test of 1987, when Stuart Broad’s dad, Chris, took one look at the finger raised before him, and raised, metaphorically speaking, a couple back himself. They were just about to send for a forklift truck when his batting partner, Graham Gooch, finally talked him into leaving.
On the evidence so far, it is a recipe for organised chaos, an illustration both of the limitations of technology and man's ability to interpret the results it is meant to elicit. The influence that reviews can have on the course of a match has been abundantly clear in the first Test in Kingston, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.
In the Telegraph, Steve James also wrote that Test cricket was no place to trial the umpire referral system.
Paul Weaver writes in the Guardian that Kevin Pietersen, England's recently deposed captain and IPL millionaire, remains keen to prove his credentials as a team man.
On this tour Pietersen has been admirable, both as a player and in his exaggerated efforts to show himself to be a team man. The paradox is that he is a man apart, that the harder he tries to swim towards his fellows the more the strong tides of his breathtaking talent, his driven personality, his South African background and his fast-swelling bank balance carry him off to a distant island.
England had learnt overnight that they possessed the two most valuable cricketers in the world in Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, but the judgment of a bunch of rich Indian businessmen counted for little in the heat of Sabina Park, says Michael Atherton in the Times.
Tony Cozier writes in the Trinidad and Tobago Express that Ramnaresh Sarwan’s century, and his stand of 202 with captain Chris Gayle, were as important to Sarwan’s peace of mind as to the West Indies’ cause.
It is time to end the argument about who should be England’s wicketkeeper-batsman, or, to be more precise, batsman-wicketkeeper. Matt Prior showed again yesterday that, if the selectors are intent on fielding a player who can make Test fifties, hundreds even, and not let down the side with the gloves, then he is the man for the job, says Pat Gibson in the Times.
Prior belongs. Every Test innings he has played has demonstrated as much. After 21 of them his average stands at 42. Yesterday was the seventh occasion on which he has passed fifty during that time. What more do you want from your gloveman? Yes, the romantics will carp at the pureness of his glovework.
But is it that bad? He makes mistakes, as he did here in letting a couple of balls slip beneath him, but so do all keepers. And so did all keepers. In England the glasses are spectacularly rose-tinted when looking back upon our former wicketkeepers. None of them dropped a catch, apparently. Indeed it came as a great shock when I watched on ESPN recently and witnessed Alan Knott dropping a dolly in a domestic cup final. Jack Russell shelled his share of catches too, including one on his Test debut. They were wonderful keepers, as, of course, was Bob Taylor, but it is all about perception.
In the Times, Simon Wilde applauds Andrew Strauss' decision not to write a newspaper column, and also looks at the real hero and villain among Pietersen and Flintoff.
It's not so much seize the day as pluck it, pluck it like a ripe apple from the tree and make it yours. So a Latin scholar explained to me, anyway. So, as we turn to the panoply of sport and look to its participants and its great occasions, we can ask: who has the talent for plucking? Kevin Pietersen does, says Simon Barnes in the same paper.
Yet again Ian Bell managed, with considerable elan, to turn promise into abject disappointment. His cameos have now become a cliche, his sensitive introspection a hindrance, and, consequently, his immediate future at this level a serious doubt, writes Steve James in the Daily Telegraph.
... there was nothing ugly about Bell. He caressed and cavorted. It all seemed so easy. But it is indicative of the prevailing mood that, after a delightful three through mid-on, one press box cynic said: "Typical Bell this – he'll still get out for 30."
New captain, new coach, same old infuriating Bell, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
Maybe Bell felt obliged to rein himself in at the fall of a second wicket. Maybe he simply decided to give centre stage to Pietersen. Or maybe the fact that he scored nine runs from the next 49 balls he faced was a coincidence. Whatever the reason Bell sacrificed the initiative and was out to a very disappointing, indeterminate prod.
Kevin Pietersen fell three runs short of what would have been his 16th Test century. In the Daily Mail Martin Samuel writes that the innings may be remembered for the dichotomy that is Pietersen, working flat out to be reinvented as the ultimate team player, but ultimately unable to contain the wild side that makes him such a unique talent.
He wants to be the guy that took his lumps and came back the better man for it, happy to serve as one of a number, but if he cannot keep it up for one day what chance has he got of maintaining it through the rest of his professional life? He surely wanted this innings to be the riposte, aimed squarely at those who claim ego cost him the captaincy, instead he handed them a stick with which to beat him once more.
Also read Tony Cozier's piece on the Sabina pitch on cricinfo.com.
Garfield Myers in the Jamaica Observer charts Chris Gayle's journey from playing cricket over the wall from his home with his brothers as a kid in Kingston to captaining West Indies. All those who saw him in his formative years agreed young Gayle loved to bat.
George Watson, a relative of Gayle's and long-time Lucas club captain and elder, recalls that the young Chris and his brothers cut their teeth on cricket playing the hard, highly individualistic 'bowl fi bat' or 'ketchi shubby' on any available open space ... Andre Coley, the former West Indies Under-19 and Jamaica wicketkeeper and Lucas captain, now a member of the JCA's coaching panel, recalls a skinny, gangly left-hander batting for "hours and hours" on the concrete practice strip at Lucas. It was a habit that quickly convinced Coley and others that the young Gayle, who carried the unflattering nickname, 'Crampy', was destined to be a "cut above the rest".
Mike King of Barbados' Nation expects the series between West Indies and England to be a hard-fought one.
All of the individual stats are on the side of England. Shiv Chanderpaul, (49.71) is the only West Indian who averages above 40 in Test cricket. In contrast, Kevin Pietersen, who averages 50, is backed up by Paul Collingwood, Alistair Cook, and Andrew Strauss, all of whom average 42; Ian Bell (41) and Matt Prior (40).
When Kevin Pietersen walks out to the wicket at Sabina Park, his first Test innings since being removed as England captain after five months, all eyes will be on him. On most days, people watch Pietersen bat in the hope of seeing cricket elevated to new heights: a switch hit, or an electrifying century in 90 balls. Yet, in Jamaica, he will be trying out a new role: that of the comeback kid, writes Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail.
Never say never is the cliché and Pietersen has insisted he harbours ambitions to captain again, but unless there is a giant reversal in circumstances, it is fair to assume his moment to lead England has gone. Whatever he might achieve in cricket, above will always be a glass ceiling. Pietersen’s destiny is not to be a winning Ashes captain, like his ally Michael Vaughan, or to return from the Asian continent a victorious leader, like Nasser Hussain.
In the same paper, Nasser Hussain writes that he would have liked to play under Andrew Strauss, who is firm and solid - tough without being a bully.
Strauss has to push Flintoff and stand up to him, saying: 'Come on, I know you can walk into this side and I know you are just about to get IPL riches. 'I know you have run through a brick wall for every captain you've played under but if we are going to win the Ashes again, I need you to improve as a batsman at six.'
In his last two series against England, Shivnarine Chanderpaul has averaged 72.83 and an astonishing 148.67 - even the great Don Bradman could not match the latter over a single series. In the 2007 series in England, he averaged nearly 12 hours at the crease in total, scoring 448 mostly unspectacular, yet equally priceless runs. Therefore, England's biggest challenge in the Caribbean in the Test series will be penetrating fortress Chanderpaul, writes Pranav Soneji in BBC Sport.
The 34-year-old shares his name with the Hindu God Shiva, but their temperaments are polar opposites. Shiva is the destroyer, known for his untamed passion which leads him to extremes in behaviour; while Shiv is the creator, known to frustrate opponents with his crab-like stance as impenetrable as it is unique in tranquil and serene fashion. Yet Shiva the destroyer has had a profound effect on Shiv the creator.
Across three decades, West Indies cricket has gone from respect, to fright, to a short interlude of joy at England's ascendancy, to worrying about the future. In his blog on the Guardian website, Rob Bagchi relives the West Indian dominance during the 80s and shares with Colin Croft his fears over the future of his old team.
In the same paper, Andy Bull and Rob Smyth list six classic England v West Indies moments. Remember "those little pals of mine?"
The first Test of the Wisden Trophy is in Jamiaca, the scene of Steve Harmison's greatest triumph - the 7 for 12 that destroyed West Indies five years ago. In the Times, Michael Atherton wants Harmison to watch the video of that spell, rejig the memory and get back to being the genuinely fast bowler that England need.
He might find looking at the tapes profitable because technically he was at his best then. He ran in hard and straight, stayed tall at the crease - arms reaching for the heavens as if in worship - held a firm rather than floppy wrist behind the ball and followed through with purpose.
Stephen Brenkley also relives that spell in the Independent, and says that Harmison has since gone on to become England's most exasperating bowler.
After witnessing the sorry state of cricket in the West Indies, David Gower finds himself longing for the eighties. He writes in the Sunday Times about feeling nostalgic about 5-0 blackwashes and facing Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Co.
Playing in the West Indies in those days, one had to endure the test of “pace like fire”, one of the catchphrases of the time, while attempting to appreciate the vibrant atmosphere of the grounds and the unquenchable enthusiasm of the fans.
...
Nowadays the fire of West Indies cricket, on the field and in the stands, has been quenched. There are still fireworks to be seen from Chris Gayle’s bat, and once again there is some pace in the attack, but it does not come with the quality stamp of the 1980s.
With problems for the West Indies in both the batting and bowling departments, England are strong favourites to prevail in the Caribbean, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.
It's a view that's shared by Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times. He wonders which of England's five fast bowlers will be excluded from the XI for the first Test.
He also believes England must find a way to dismiss Shivnarine Chanderpaul on his home turf if they are to succeed, but it will certainly not be an easy task
A piece of notoriety has seized Joseph and it will accompany him to his grave, for he was the groundsman here 11 years ago when the Test match between West Indies and England was abandoned after only 56 minutes. All sorts of things are abandoned, including cars and ships, houses and careers, even spouses and babies. But not Test matches, writes Paul Weaver, who spoke to the groundsman Charlie Joseph, in the Guardian.
There had been almost 1,400 of them in 121 years of Test cricket when the game was called off in January 1998, after 10 overs and one ball. England were reeling at 17 for three, but if that sounds familiar the circumstances were not. On a new clay surface that bore an uncanny resemblance to a strip of corrugated iron, the ball flew, from a length, towards the throat, or scuttled along the ground, so Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, who could never be negotiated with comfort in the most benign of circumstances, were unplayable.
If Kevin Pietersen was at all concerned about how he would be received by team-mates in the England dressing room post-"Mooresgate", maybe he should spare a thought for a player he is likely to encounter during the current Caribbean tour. That man is Brendan Nash, an unlikely face in the West Indian team because, when he made his Test debut against New Zealand in December, he became the first white man since Geoffrey Greenidge in 1973 to play for West Indies, writes Matt Gatward in the Independent.
"I guess when I first arrived the Jamaican people weren't so understanding of what has happened," Nash said. "It was a bit unusual. The reception I got from the local crowd was probably not that great. [He was met by shouts of abuse from the stands during trial matches]. I was always asked what would happen if I took the spot of a young Jamaican player. I am taking the spot of a younger player, but hopefully that younger player can learn from me and maybe take things that I do on to his game to make him a better cricketer. I had to break down a few barriers and I think once the Jamaican people realised that I wasn't there just for myself they let down their guards a bit and welcomed me a little bit more."
On a few things in the disparate lands that form the Caribbean all are agreed. Their cricket team is rubbish, the game is in crisis and it cannot be allowed to continue. They have been agreeing on this for 15 years and the continuation has been virtually unchecked, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Go anywhere in the subcontinent from the back streets of Multan to the maidans of Mumabi, or indeed in parts of rural England and impromptu games of cricket are to be seen. In the Caribbean, except where there are Asian communities, they are not. There are abundant reasons: a losing team, ill conceived development programmes, the so-called American influence and as Sir Garfield Sobers pointed out in these pages a while back the changing culture which sees kids, like kids everywhere, using their time in different ways, such as watching telly and playing computer games.
The danger in writing about the decline of West Indies cricket is that it can be overplayed. There are, as England are discovering here in St Kitts against West Indies A, still some very good players in the Caribbean - players who combine natural athletic gifts, an instinct for the game and plentiful ambition, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
If the declaration was delayed with demoralisation in mind, then it succeeded to an extent as England's fielding disintegrated even if the bowling was never less than wholehearted. One moment of comedy, for example, brought six overthrows to add to a single off Graeme Swann, who endured a chastening couple of days, conceding 160 runs from 41 wicketless overs. Normally a jovial chap, his sense of humour deserted him.
England's captain wanted warm-up games to "challenge his players how they might play in a Test match", though he did not bargain on getting a history lesson in utter demoralisation as well, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
England tried everything to get a wicket – silly bowling actions, silly field settings. They even managed the odd decent over but nothing could disturb Simmons, who seems to have Brian Lara's appetite for the big score. When he finally went, he was officially lbw to Ryan Sidebottom, but the shot, a whip across the line, suggested a man getting bored by his own dominance.
"We bat today, you bat tomorrow," Ian Bell had been told by the opposition – orders, one suspected, from a higher authority in Jamaica. Throughout, the England bowling was industrious and at times, as the heat intensified and the dust flew, better than that. The towel was never thrown in. Only the fielding broke down in worrying fashion, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Whatever plans England had for starting life under Andrew Strauss they may not have included the continuing onslaught at Warner Park yesterday. At times it became so laughably grotesque that it was easy to believe that this was where the brothers who bear the same name as the ground made all those horror movies, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
England did not bowl badly, but nor did they look threatening, having the type of day a kindly coach might term a thoroughly good workout, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
The tastiest figure on show? There was not much to choose between them, if truth be told. Harmison, even though he did not have the best figures, caused the bastmen what little discomfort there was. He ran in with a little more vigour, suggesting that the fire in his belly has not been completely extinguished yet, although he is still a long way short of optimum pace. He, like the rest, will be glad to see the back of this pitch.
Two young Trinidadians put the England XI to the sword at Warner Park yesterday, giving Andrew Strauss's side a chastening day in the field, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
If ever the tourists had worries that life in the Caribbean these next few weeks may not be all rum punch and jollity then they had them dramatically confirmed by the supremely confident and mature batting of Adrian Barath, a protege of Brian Lara, and Lendl Simmons, a nephew of the former West Indies batsman Phil, who made memorable centuries after James Anderson had created a false dawn with an early new-ball wicket.
England will be limited to just two unsuccessful umpire decision referrals per innings during their Test series with West Indies but judging from the bowlers' lack of progress against the region's 'A' team in St Kitts on Thursday, they would struggle to use up their allocation, so little were the batsmen inconvenienced, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.
Some pitches are designed to make bowlers doubt their vocation. The surface at Warner Park here yesterday was enough for entire attacks to seek psychological counselling about what they might do with the rest of their lives, apart from bowl ever again, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Perhaps the day’s biggest loser was Graeme Swann, who outbowled Panesar on the tour of India but seems unlucky to have been the one England spinner to play in this match after Panesar and Adil Rashid had enjoyed easy pickings against St Kitts and Nevis, writes Paul Newman in the Daily Mail.
England's team for the final warm-up match against West Indies A, should have come as no surprise. Ian Bell will bat at three, Owais Shah will be at six, but is in the team only because Andrew Flintoff's side strain has ruled him out, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
In the first warm-up match of this tour, Owais Shah scored a studious unbeaten century, Ian Bell compiled pleasing innings of 36 and 52 and was dismissed both times offering daft catches. In the one-day series in India at the fag end of last year, Bell made 84 runs in four innings, Shah made 236, more than any other Englishman. In his last 10 Tests, Bell has made 188 runs. Shah has made none simply because he has not played …
… The inference is startlingly clear: Bell, despite his poor run, will play in the first Test, starting in Jamaica next Wednesday and possibly the second, third and fourth. Shah, despite his continual good form, will yet again not play if Flintoff is fit, which thankfully has begun to seem likely.
With only one three-day match before the first Test, which starts in Jamaica on Wednesday, the England selectors have some tricky decisions to make in the next few days, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
Principally, attention will be focused on Ian Bell and Owais Shah, who are again in the odd position of being team-mates and rivals, and James Anderson and Stephen Harmison, who, from reading the runes set out by Flower yesterday, appear to be in competition for the final seam-bowling place.
In the Times, Mike Atherton writes about how St Kitts has changed since his last visit to the island 15 years ago.
St Kitts was a sugar island then, rather than the tourist destination it is now. The cane fields have largely disappeared and where there was scrub before, a huge, garish Marriott hotel stands, serving waffles and fry-ups. But with this “progress” has come violence and now St Kitts and Nevis has one of the highest murder rates in the world: 23 last year alone out of a population of only 46,000. There is a sullen, anxious edginess that I do not remember previously.
Owais Shah is in danger of becoming the most high-profile casualty of England's desperation for Ian Bell to succeed at No. 3, says Lawrence Booth in his latest post on the Guardian website.
Of course, this may all be a very English debate. More ruthless sides would have dispensed with Bell some time ago and ensured their most obviously wristy player was in the side, hitting the ball to parts of the ground the opposition had never even thought of defending. But, as Pietersen has discovered, unorthodoxy takes longer to be accepted in English cricket. Shah's greatest crime may have been to neglect the game that needs playing off the field, as well as the one on it.
On the same website, Toby Radford, Shah's coach at Middlesex since 2007, and Graeme Fowler, the former Lancashire and England batsman, debate the merits of including Shah in the England Test side.
The Guardian's David Foot wonders which former captain would be an ideal role model for Andrew Strauss.
Jardine happens to be one of the best. He had an austere, patrician manner and, as far as I could discover, went in for rib cages rather than too much laughter ... I advocate the Aussie-born, Somerset-reared Woods because, apart from being a good rough-and-ready captain he had life and humanity nicely in perspective. Like Jardine, he had no time for draws.
Fixture congestion means that Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff should not play in the IPL this year, writes Vic Marks in the Observer. Andrew Strauss knows all too well that the success or failure of his period in charge is disproportionately dependent on this pair. In the short term, barring Flintoff colliding with a pedalo or Pietersen with Andy Flower, the relationship between captain and his key players should not be a problem.
In the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde says that England return to the Caribbean armed with a battery of pacemen they hope will repeat the feats of the fondly remembered Fab Four.
Wilde also traces how Brendan Nash, West Indies’ first white player since 1973, has cracked the Caribbean barrier.
Once England's net sessions were over in St Kitts, the Independent's Stephen Brenkley didn't find it hard to sit down Graeme Swann, who is in pole position to be England's No 1 spinner. Brenkley finds it 'fascinating' to hear about the dark days when Swann felt like giving up. He also finds out that Swann enjoys banter with Andrew Strauss.
The Guardian's Mike Selvey says from St Kitts that Andrew Strauss could make life easier for himself if he makes the difficult decisions England require to flourish on the Caribbean tour. The island comforts offer England a gentle start to their tour but team selection will not be so breezy, writes Selvey.
Also in the Guardian, Paul Weaver says England's players may on the surface appear to be all friends together, but there's plenty of leftover baggage in St Kitts.
The performances of the England cricket team since they won the Ashes so memorably in 2005 would lend credence to the notion that their players, even the side's stars in Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, do not walk on water. They do, however, enjoy the privilege of magic carpet rides, writes Paul Weaver in the Guardian.
It was by magic carpet that they arrived in St Kitts today for the start of their 10-week tour of the West Indies. Or, at least, a magic carpet of sorts, a Boeing 747 with the Virgin logo spilling all over its tail, as if it had just snagged its famous owner's hot-air balloon. It was magic because Flight VS29 was not meant to go to St Kitts at all, but Barbados. It was rerouted for the specific purpose of unloading the 16 England cricketers and support staff whose tour starts with a three-day fixture against a St Kitts XI on 25 January.
As England prepare for their West Indies tour, now is the time for a jaded side to pull together, writes Andy Bull in the Guardian.
As an example of what that phrase "team spirit" means in practice, just look at the washed-out one-day match between England and Australia at Edgbaston in 2005, when Matthew Hayden exploded into a rage after being hit on the shoulder by Simon Jones' wayward shy at the stumps in his follow-through, and Jones' team-mates rushed to his defence. "It was a big statement on our behalf. In other times, we would probably have all shuffled back to our places," observed Marcus Trescothick in his book Coming Back To Me. "This time four or five of us rushed to the scene to back Simon up." England cannot afford to be "shuffling back to their places" now.
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