Morning Angus, Well that turned out to be a couple of days in Dullsville by the end. With Test cricket under threat globally it was not what was required as an advertisement for the game - South Africa effectively patting the ball back to the bowler for two days. Having said which, they played with wonderul determination, helped by a flat pitch true but nonetheless firmly reminding England that they are in a real contest in the next month. England found out just in time and via a roundabout way that against good sides they need five bowlers, which you have been doing your best to refute. But Freddie's back so five it will be surely?
Well, Gus, this is what we have been waiting for, isn't it? With due respect to the New Zealanders, the series that starts today against South Africa is what truly counts to England's players, camp followers and fans alike. It has the smell of authenticity which you could sense as soon as you walked into Lord's this morning. Good stuff in prospect and also the overwhelming feeling that Englandwill be aware of their true place in the world when it's done.
But whenever I think of Cronje, and the terrible decisions he chose to make in becoming involved with illegal bookmakers which led to his downfall, I can’t help think of a tale my father told me recently about his brief encounter with the man once seen as the saviour of South African cricket.
England are the Comeback Kids. They looked to have no chance of winning the Second Test on the third afternoon but by the fourth had done so by six wickets. Such are the marvellous vagaries of Test cricket. The improbable win was set up first by some spendid spin bowling by Monty Panesar on a viperous pitch allied to some reckless New Zealand batting. The stuffing thus having been knocked out of the tourists, England ploughed their own furrow to victory with a virtuous hundred by Andrew Strauss. A welcome victory for sure, but it is hard to allay the feeling that England are still lacking some of the right stuff.
It would perhaps be wrong to say that Old Trafford is one of the most beauitiful grounds in the world. But for this morning at least the threatened rain has stayed away and it looks therefore as pretty as a picture. An important game for England should start on time. They are unchanged for the fourth match in a row - two wins and a draw in the previous three - but whilst continuity is important they have yet to look utterly convinvincing or to play with real conviction. New Zealand are doughty fighters with two or three very good players. But without wishing to jerk a knee it is time for England to produce, is it not, Gus?
The loss of too many overs to bad light and rain ensured that the First Test ended in a draw. England, as is their wont, could take many positives from the game - the batting of the captain, Michael Vaughan, the bowling generally of the four man attack - but it could be argued that New Zealand took more. Having lost an important toss and being up against it on the final day, the tourists, by the close, had established a lead of more than 220, which might have been tricky for England to negotiate. Gus, there wasn't the ruthlessness about England that the great sides show and which, if New Zealand are as weak as is commonly suggested, should have been reasonably easy to parade.
It may be of some consolation to Brendon McCullum that he has become the first man to be out twice in the nineties at Lord’s without making a hundred. But not much.
He deserved the landmark which would have put his name on the dressing room honours board. How he deserved it. On a pitch that made nonsense of the general supposition that the game is geared too much towards batsmen, he combined with perfect precision the arts of defence with those of attack.
The last thing New Zealand wanted to do after arriving at Lord's on an overcast, drizzly day was to lose the toss. Of course, in the nature of things they lost the toss. England, with other kinds of pressure bearing on them, then had to take advantage. So they did.
Not all their seamers put it in the right areas, as they say, all of the time, but this was a moment when it was not a batsman's game. The batsmen were in a contest. No bad thing for once.
By the second over, Aaron Redmond, hitherto a virtual run machine, had gone to Jimmy Anderson, caught at gully. Before long, Jamie How edged one behind - he had no option.
Well, here we are at Lord's, first day of the First Test against New Zealand. And in a cricket world where Twenty20 is king, where there is talk of untold riches, of the need to change, of the urge to do this and do that to make the game more appealing there is nothing, Gus, is there, like the first morning of an authentic Test match series? It is a pity the weather in St John's Wood is dreadful but even that cannot entirely erode the sense of expectation. Or am I being a romantic fuddy-duddy who needs carting off to the funny farm?
At last, after a week and eight matchs the Indian Premier League got the combination of ingredients it craved: a big crowd and a close, high scoring game. Chennai Super Kings, having scored 208 for five, edged out Mumbai Indians by six runs. One more boundary and it would have been an authentic thriller.
It was nonetheless exactly what the competition needed...
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