The Bradman Factor

May 12th

This is going to sound serious. For me, part of the attraction of studying sporting history is the contemplation of what it might tell us about humanity’s potential. What could it imply for our future intellectual, moral, and spiritual development – fields where the notion of ‘improvement’ is even more disputed, philosophically and medically? We watch Usain Bolt and wonder how much faster human beings can run. Over the next, say, two hundred years is 9 seconds flat for the 100 metres even a remote possibility? And what then? Eight seconds? Seven seconds?

Why did Ralph Beamon suddenly leap right out of the long jump pit at the Mexico Olympics and set a record which would last for decades? And why, statistically speaking, is the Australian Don Bradman the best batsman the world has ever seen by a country mile?

He ended up averaging a very little under one hundred runs every time he went out to bat. No one else has ever managed to average eighty over a long career. Relatively speaking, that’s a huge difference, and leads to speculation about the nature of genius. The thing is with J.S. Bach, you can be overwhelmed by the extraordinary nature of the music he made, arguably more beautiful, complex and mathematically subtle than anyone else’s – but you can’t quantify his excellence. It’s just a notion which a lot of people accept at a feeling level. In the case of Bradman we apparently have a statistical argument for superman status.

It’s not the whole story though, is it? We have to take the quality of the opposition into account. Perhaps he faced a comparably weak series of bowling attacks. Or played on particularly benign pitches. The quantitative becomes infected with the qualitative. Actually, one doubts that either of these two factors played a major part. We know that in one highly controversial series (in Australia in 1932-33) the English formed a plan to limit his effectiveness by aiming the ball at his body with extreme velocity, in such a way that those matches became forever tainted – and caused an international incident. And the pitches were often uncovered when the weather was adverse, and so were more susceptible to damage by rain, and thus rendered unreliable.

Whatever, the memory of this great player, perhaps the most famous Australian ever, has become an albatross round the neck of the game’s other great batsmen. Every one of them is likely to be compared with him somewhere down the line, especially if they hail from the Antipodes. Bradman himself said that Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian, now in the glorious twilight of his playing career, was the player who most reminded him of himself. It seems to have been the range of shot and the placement which impressed. Brian Lara, the Trinidadian, one of the two or three players to have brought me most personal pleasure – Tendulkar never has for some reason - performed individual batting feats as stunning as Bradman’s (maybe even more so) but with far less consistency. Going further back into history, Merchant was described as the ‘Indian Bradman’, although of course I never saw him play, any more than I saw Bradman himself. And then there was the celebrated, bearded doctor, W.G.Grace, playing mostly in the nineteenth century at a time when pitches were often dire, although the bowling was certainly weaker overall.

In recent years, at the beginning of their careers, both Ricky Ponting, the current Australian skipper and Darren Lehmann were mentioned as candidates for the ‘New Bradman’ slot. Ponting became a great player of the second rank, and Lehmann was eventually merely good, judged by the highest standards.

But whisper it quietly, Philip Hughes, the New South Walesian who has come to England to play briefly for Middlesex before the Ashes series, may yet deserve consideration in respect of this title. He’s only 20, and the next year or two will tell us more. His background bears at least superficial comparison with Bradman’s, and his scoring thus far is spectacular. At present I gather his range of shot is more limited, but with confidence that may change. When Bradman first appeared, there was criticism about his allegedly rustic technique too –it just proved more effective than anyone else’s. However, the rhythm of the contemporary game, with its requirement for a batsman to continually keep adjusting the pace of his batting depending on the format of the game he’s playing in, will set the young man problems Bradman never had to contend with.

What seems fairly obvious is that, new Bradman or not, Philip Hughes will set the English bowlers a big challenge this summer. Personally I can’t wait.

Out of the Comfort Zone

10th May 2009

As commentators say rather too frequently, cricket’s a funny game. The bare details: England won in three days (bad business, good cricket!) England all out 377. West Indies 152 and, following on (I’ll explain later!) 256 all out. England then 32 for no wicket, winning by ten wickets - a big win.

Following the soap opera with some of the characters you’ve already been introduced to (‘Previously, in the Test Match…’), Graham Onions the debutant (and darling of the headline writers for his name’s punning potential) took seven wickets in the match and so proved an inspired pick. Tim Bresnan by contrast was, one lovely catch apart, completely anonymous. As a counterpoint to Bopara’s accomplished innings, Graham Swann for the first time in his international career showed what he can do with the bat, and played very assertively towards the end of the first English innings for 63 not out, bringing up his fifty with a hook for six, a shot not thought to be in his repertoire. He also bowled with intelligence, skill, and luck, and picked up the ‘man of the match’ award. What appeared a somewhat casual, arrogant attitude early in his career, has now turned into a chirpy, media-aware confidence. England must hope that he can maintain his strut: Swann’s a breath of fresh air. And he hails from Northampton, too. Around here we’ve always known he can bat well when he puts his mind to it.

Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, didn’t have a happy game at all. In their first innings the West Indies openers set off like a train, but Gayle set the pattern for his team’s subsequent collapse by a daft waft at a delivery from Stuart Broad which demanded far greater respect, chopping the ball onto his stumps. In the second innings he played a poor shot to a good ball and failed to score. Before the Test he’d arrived so late from South Africa that even his coach John Dyson had offered criticism: Gayle (Crystal as I always think of him) needed to show more application to avoid more negative comments. I imagine the press back home will have been rather unkind. Fidel Edwards at times bowled with pace and guile.

The West Indies’ collective heart didn’t seem in this match. The climatic conditions were challenging – although it was no colder than they should have expected, and not as cold as it may be for the next game up in County Durham this week. But there was a brisk and chilly breeze throughout which no doubt added to the problems always set by the slope of the Lord’s pitch. Across the water you may find this hard to believe, but at the ‘home of cricket’ there’s a ten foot drop from one side of the ground to the other, such that depending on which way you’re bowling, the ball will naturally follow the slope when it bounces - either into or away from the batsmen. It’s not easy for the bowlers either. When running hard into the crease to deliver they may suddenly find themselves unbalanced by the cant of the pitch, and find it hard to achieve any accuracy. On the plus side the outfield at Lord’s means that a firmly struck ball will often find the boundary ropes. For instance, the diminutive West Indian wicketkeeper Ramdin hit thirteen boundaries in his second innings of 61. It’s always been that way. When I was an avid reader of cricket literature in my teens, I remember an account by Sir Pelham Warner (how’s that for a name!), a one time grandee of English cricket and captain of a famous tour to Australia in 1903. He was remembering the first occasion he played an innings at Lord’s, some time before the turn of the 19th century. “I leant on a ball outside the off stump,” he wrote, “And she flew to the ring. I can still feel her on the bat now.” It’s a memory with which many cricketers will identify.

Cricket is played in many different climatic conditions around the world. In particular the Asian sub-continent is often seen as difficult for visiting teams – the humidity, the constant heat, the pollution, the dusty pitches. England sometimes offers the starkest contrast – cold, wet, green. And being English we often feel a little apologetic for this, although there’s nothing which says the game must be played in shirt-sleeves. Locally in Northampton, a Boxing Day game of cricket is regularly played in the village of Litchborough, and I’m sure the villagers aren’t alone in their folly. But maybe it wasn’t just the meteorological conditions which caused the West Indians’ downfall here. They were a late substitute for Sri Lanka to play this series against England, and are probably reluctant tourists. Relations between their Board and the players are indifferent, and the history of sport tells us such a psychological backdrop rarely brings out the best.

And the ‘following on’ thing? In Test cricket if a team batting second scores more than two hundred less than the team batting first, the opposition captain can choose whether to have them bat again immediately rather than take turn about as would normally happen. This isn’t a straightforward decision. Think about it. A lot of interest in long games of cricket comes from the supposition that the pitch will wear during the match, and become increasingly difficult to bat on. So by asking a team to ‘follow-on’ a captain is taking the gamble of having to score runs to win when the pitch is at its worst. It’s a nice check and balance. Strauss here chose the attacking move, and ‘enforced the follow-on’. But there have been increasing instances in recent times of this proving an unsuccessful strategy. Here it worked to perfection, despite England’s inexperienced bowling.

Hail and farewell

6th May

The first four West Indians to bowl in this Test Match have the given names: Jerome, Fidel, Lionel and Suleiman. Strauss, the English captain will have to choose from a Stuart, a James, a Tim, and two Grahams. If you like a romantic, even swashbuckling tinge to your cricket, you should like the West Indians. Their tradition’s notable for packs of bowlers who value speed above all other virtues, and a succession of batsmen who value style over accumulation.

The team in England this year may struggle to live up to their illustrious forebears but two players stand out. Captain Chris Gayle is a cricketer I’d always pay to watch. In the field he’s phlegmatic to the point of apparent doziness, which doesn’t make for convincing captaincy, although in the middle of a dodgy period for West Indian cricket, his players seem right behind him. But his batting can be excitingly violent and prolonged: even if he plays the ball softly it seems to be the immediate prelude to some act of batting savagery. As they say, when he hits the ball, it stays hit. Given his chosen sartorial style I suppose you could say he bats with bling. And his slow bowling is severely under-rated. It’s not that he turns the ball, although he does just enough with it – it’s more that with his height he manages to disguise subtle changes of pace and flight. The batsmen never find it easy to attack him, for all that the proposition seems simple.

The other man to watch is opening bowler Fidel Edwards. He’s the first of a little crew of recent international bowlers who bowl quickly with an unconventional low, slingy action. Like England’s hero of a decade ago, Darren Gough, he prefers a knowing smile to an insult when he almost but not quite defeats a batsman. His figures don’t flatter him. For a short man he generates a lot of speed (up around 94 mph at his quickest), but maybe that same lack of inches means consistently threatening bounce eludes him.

Now you know the characters. So how did they do? Gayle won the toss and asked England to bat. This may have been an attacking move – when the two teams played each other last winter, England’s batting proved vulnerable early in that series – but I rather think it was defensively minded. The tourists had lost their previous match and struggled in the other warm-up game as their own batsmen tried to fathom sappy English conditions, where the ball cuts (seams) off the pitch far more than it would in the Caribbean. Had they batted and lost wickets on the first morning, the game might well have been decided then and there. So it was safety first for Gayle, and a closing score of 289 for 7 shows his decision to be marginally the right one. If the Lords pitch does what it has done in the recent past and flattens out, it may turn out to have been a very good option, but right now, it’s too close to call. Edwards bowled very well. He dismissed Kevin Pietersen first ball with an unplayable delivery which squared the batsman up. Many would have played at air but unfortunately Pietersen was good enough to get an edge to the wicketkeeper. Dinesh Ramdin took the smartest of catches, having initially moved the wrong way. That’s how good the ball was. For England, two of the immediate returnees from the South African tournament had a day to forget. Pietersen was unlucky, and Collingwood made only eight. But don’t blame international travel. The third, Bopara, made an excellent century with confident shots all round the ground. He’s stocky and wristy, and when he hits straight he looks very convincing indeed, a little reminiscent of his mentor Graham Gooch, in stature, swarthiness and follow-through. England owed a lot to him today: the other contributions were minor, although Prior played with enterprise.

Hard luck, Michael Vaughan. Unless something most surprising happens, Bopara’s innings today spells the end of his international career. Publicity was given to some of Vaughan’s ‘art’ last week, but on the evidence offered I’m not sure that’s a way to go.

Clouds, cuckoos and ducks

5th May

Tomorrow a little piece of history is made. Never before has a Test Match begun as early in the English season as May 6th. And it must be a long time since one has begun on a Wednesday either, if ever, although doubtless someone will immediately remind me it happened just last year - usually they begin their five day span on a Thursday.

What’s so good about a Thursday then? Forty or fifty years ago, in a gentler, more amateur, maybe less secular, certainly less commercial age, Sunday was literally a day of rest for cricketers. So, the routine for a Test was to play three days, have a break and then finish the match on the Monday and Tuesday. What’s slightly puzzling is that if this match is over in three days (unlikely on recent experience at London’s Lord’s ground) the two most celebratory, financially satisfactory weekend days will be blank.

Who will face the West Indies this morning in St. John’s Wood? It looks likely there’ll be two new players for England, both of them quick-ish bowlers from the north. The Yorkshireman Tim Bresnan seems to have been around the county scene for a long time, but he’s still the younger of the two, a very solidly built young man. His stats in county cricket haven’t been headline-grabbing: the suspicion must be that he’s been picked because he ‘won’t let anyone down’, and can bat nicely. Maybe I’ve been unlucky, but every time I’ve seen him (only on the television) he’s provided easy pickings. He has no great pace, and although he swings the ball in the air both into and away from the batsman, it starts to swing early in its trajectory, which is far less dangerous than swinging it less extravagantly but late. I’m more interested in Graham Onions, the other debutant. He has a whippy, more explosive action, and unlike some other English bowlers at the moment, he seems to have a good idea what makes batsmen uncomfortable. In recent years the Lord’s pitch has broken bowlers hearts. Maybe there’ll be enough early season juice in the grass to change that pattern.

There’s a lack of depth to the English batting. They’ve decided to go with the future and pick Bopara at number three in the order. No Vaughan (who has had an unfortunate start to the season, including hurting his ankle playing a warm-up game of football – duh!), no Bell, no Shah. After Bopara come two players in Pietersen and Collingwood who, like the West Indian captain Chris Gayle, are just off the plane from the Indian league in South Africa. How long will it take them to adjust to different climatic conditions, and a different kind of cricketing challenge? These things often don’t work out quite the way you expect. Sometimes everything seems ridiculously easy the first time out in a different situation: it’s only later that the mind plays tricks. After that in the order comes the wicketkeeper Matthew Prior, carrying too much responsibility for my liking, and then the bowlers who bat a bit – Broad, Bresnan and Swann, and then finally two men with no pretensions to batting at all – Anderson and Onions. This is thin stuff for an international side, but they may get away with it if the pitch is benign and against a West Indian bowling attack which probably won’t enjoy the likely chilly conditions.

So then, cloud cover, a Test match earlier than the first call of a cuckoo, and as for ducks – well, colloquially getting a duck in cricket means you return to the pavilion having scored no runs. The idea is that a zero resembles the shape of a duck’s egg. I don’t think the pitch at Lord’s will be fast enough to have the batsmen ducking and weaving.

And perhaps the sport’s administrators are living in cloud-cuckoo land if they think the amount of cricket played around the world can be endlessly expanded without causing damage to its quality or the enjoyment of the spectators. This particular game feels wrong at this particular moment. Too little anticipation from either the players or the watchers. Lords won’t be full tomorrow.

Basics

3rd May 2009

Kids in school and sports clubs get told all kinds of stuff by their teachers and coaches about the ‘right way’ to play. But sometimes rules are meant to be broken…Here are some well-rehearsed cricketing lines.

‘Cricket is a side-on game’. This is kind of true – a good working principle, and a helpful way of thinking about how to bat, bowl and field. But even the most side-on bowler relies for speed and hostility on the torque achieved by throwing his leading leg across his body in a braced position as he delivers the ball. Then as the bowling arm pulls down across the body, he twists and breaks away sharply to his left to avoid tearing up the pitch with his boots, and incurring the umpire’s displeasure. And many bowlers approach the bowling crease front-on: it helps them with their accuracy. Batters need stereoscopic vision to locate the trajectory of the ball. The intriguing Northamptonshire batsman Colin Milburn, eighteen stone of pure relocated Geordie, was a magnificent hitter of a cricket ball until the car smash in which he lost one eye. He was never the same player thereafter. Some players, like the West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul watch the ball from a stance that starts with their whole body facing down the pitch, before they shift to a side-on position as they attempt to play. And to avoid falling over, a batsman must shift to front-on when playing the ball to leg (left-hand side for a right handed player).

‘Try to tread on the ball’…is what kids are told to think about when batting. In fact in all my years of watching cricket, I’ve never seen anyone actually achieve this, and if they did, presumably severe ankle injury would result. What the coach means is more commonly put as ‘Get to the pitch of the ball’. It’s sensible to cut down the risk of what will happen once the ball lands on the surface by hitting it as close to that point as possible. That way the ball, once hit, stays on the ground, and is more likely to go where you intend it. Needless to say the bowler will stop you trying to do this, perhaps by bowling at your head.

‘Never run on a misfield’. The greatest batsmen know where the fielders are standing, and can guide the ball into the gaps between them. When this happens and one of the two batters judges there’s time to do so, she’ll call the other one through to run to the opposite end of the 22 yard pitch (= one run scored). The good batsman also has the judgement as to which ball is ripe for hitting extra hard through the fielders to the boundary (= four runs scored - or the maximum six if it clears the ropes without bouncing). If the ball isn’t quite hit to the boundary, the batsmen can judge how many times they can run up and down before the ball is returned. On the largest grounds around the world, such as Melbourne, Australia, or The Oval in London an all-run four is possible. The fielders are always on the alert to throw the ball such that the wickets (stumps!) can be broken before the batsman makes their ground. I suppose that sometimes a fielder might kid on that they’re not in control of the ball when they really are, and lull a batter into thinking there’s a run when there isn’t – hence the advice given above. A lot of fun can be had when a batsman isn’t the best judge of a run. Anecdotally the worst of the lot was a man called Denis Compton, for whom any call to run was described as a basis for negotiation. Since it takes less than three seconds to run from one end of the pitch to the other flat out, you can see that he who hesitates or indulges in prolonged conversation is generally speaking lost! (Today Compton would have been an even bigger star than he was in the forties and fifties – suave, rakish, multi-talented, and the head which for years advertised Brylcreem. He liked a drink too.)

‘Play with a straight bat’. It’s said that to be sure of hitting the ball in the middle of the bat, the bat needs to come down straight. Actually, some of the greatest batters don’t do/haven’t done this. And thinking about whether your bat is coming down straight (behind you!) is about the quickest way to get bowled out.

‘Get behind the line of the ball’. This makes good sense, but can be hard to train the body to do when a rock is being hurled very fast in your direction. Sometimes when the bowling is very hostile batsmen evolve a survival strategy by standing very slightly to the leg-side of a high-bouncing throat-threatening ball. The courageous Surrey batsman/wicketkeeper Alec Stewart tried this against the brutal West Indian bowling of the early nineties, and it worked for a while. But it’s a measure of last resort.

‘Wait for the ball to come to you’. The greatest batsman, like all great sportspeople, seem to have more time to do what they want than ordinary folk. In cricket this means that they play the ball late (although we’re talking fractions of a second here), delaying a decision as to what to do and thus widening the options. For most players, the advice comes down to being optimally relaxed. Too much effort and snatching at the ball never got anyone anywhere. Too laid-back and you’ll be on your way too. I once watched a fellow-student try to bat after a 20-pint night on the beer. He was still playing a hopeful waft at the previous ball when the bowler was running in for the next one. (Bit of a stretch – but you know what I mean!)

‘Find the corridor of uncertainty’. Bowlers hold the cards. Theirs is the action from which comes the batter’s reaction. So the clever bowler is always looking for a weakness to exploit. He may bowl a sequence of balls to unsettle the batsman or get him over-confident about their respective abilities. But the best place to bowl – the banker – is in a channel just to the off-side of the batsman on a ‘good length’ such that she can neither go forward comfortably to the pitch of the ball or step back to a position where she can accurately judge the bounce. This channel is the ‘corridor of uncertainty’.

‘Do what the opposition least wants’. This is good advice for a captain. It works in business too. And politics. In fact, there’s a whole book to be written applying cricket’s moral and practical principles to the rest of life. I won’t want to read this particular piece of self-help (‘Men are from Lords, women are from the Gabba*’?) although the royalties from writing it might be nice.

* A well known Brisbane cricket-ground

Wham, bam, that's quite enough of that thank you

19th April

The story so far. Less than a decade ago, the English invent a short form of professional cricket. It’s called 20/20. It lasts roughly two and a half hours. Each side can bat twenty overs (120 balls). No batsman has the time to play himself in. As soon as he gets to the crease, he must try to hit the ball as far as possible, or if he can’t do that, at least score something from each ball bowled at him. The risks of batting are accordingly enhanced. Wickets are bound to fall. In the small gaps between something exciting happening, the crowd is bombarded with blasts of music. Girls dance. The public is thus very entertained for a period of time only slightly longer than the duration of a soccer match. And since in soccer, obscene amounts of money are routinely made, it’s hoped a little of this will rub off onto cricket.

But England already has soccer. The function here is already adequately fulfilled. However, over in India cricket is a national passion. There 20/20 really can become the star sporting event. Using the British/European soccer model, millionaires pump money into the game, seeking to increase their commercial and political profiles. A league of teams featuring international stars is formed. In its second year, the dates clash with the protracted Indian general election. The cricketers’ safety can’t be guaranteed. At a month’s notice the whole circus is transferred to South Africa. Doesn’t really matter where it’s played of course. The TV rights are the most important thing.

And yesterday was one of the first significant matches of this year’s Indian Premier League. For the record the Chennai Superkings beat the Bangalore Bashers (or some equally daft name). Not that many of us will care. The matches have no more meaning than the fantasy cricket games we used to play as kids between Mars and Alpha Centauri featuring Batman’s fast bowling (where was Bowlerman when you needed him?) and Vlad the Impaler’s unusual fielding techniques.

Even 20/20 works when it has a context. Put up a genuinely Australian team against a genuinely English one and you have a game to be watched, even if for some the vital spark of ‘proper’ cricket is missing. No anticipation, you see. No seduction. No foreplay. Just a few minutes of desperate mechanics.

But the financial logic is ineluctable. The big stars (and their agents) will do this thing, whatever ordinary cricket-followers think. And the two biggest stars of English cricket were there last night. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Tarzan and Superman. I heard on the radio Pietersen was out without troubling the scorers. They didn’t say what Flintoff may or may not have done.

You’ll hear more of these two Big Men this summer. And they are big, both in marketing terms and physically. I remember seeing a). Muhummad Ali b). an early seventies All Blacks rugby team in the flesh, and both times my reaction was to be flabbergasted by the physical presence of the men concerned. Pietersen and Flintoff come into that category. On the other hand, the personal behaviour of both has occasionally been lamentable, which somewhat devalues their charisma.

Both have done extraordinary things on the cricket-field. Flintoff’s obvious body-on-the-line whole-hearted commitment to his bowling is something unique, though his actual stats aren’t. In his prime (now past) his uninhibited hitting of a cricket ball was something which made the heart leap. His smile can light up a stadium. His good nature and encouragement of friendly but intense competition are not to be underestimated in an age of sporting cynicism. But on every occasion he runs in to bowl, one asks whether the body will take it this time. Bowling was once his second skill but it’s become his first, and there’s a mismatch between body and activity. *

Pietersen is simply a batsman unlike any other. He can switch himself round in the crease and hit the ball almost as far from the lefthanded position as he can from the right. No one else in the history of the game has ever done this. He will never be beautiful. In fact, the way he closes the face of the bat as he hits though the off-side produces a shovelling motion which looks plain wrong. But the thing is, even if you’d never coach it, it’s a technique which works mighty effectively for him. He scores fast. He’s confident to the point of arrogance. And behind the bluster appears to be a young man who cares enough about his game to work very hard at it. He has yet to convince us that he cares equally about any team’s success. He came from South Africa to play for England. He’s fallen out with county colleagues, and with England team managements. He’s briefly been captain of England, but is so no longer. Whisper it softly, but it’s possible that as with Flintoff, we may now have seen the absolute best of Pietersen, although he will score many more runs for England.

They will play for another fortnight – half the Indian Premier League tournament – and must then return to England to play Test match cricket. Where will their heart be?

* Two days later it was announced that Flintoff had ‘done a knee’ and was heading back to the operating theatre for what seems the umpteenth time.

First wicket down

18th April

Judgement day. The two opening batsmen don leg-pads, protective gloves, thigh and arm guards, an abdominal protector, maybe some extra chest protection and a helmet. They cross themselves a few times and then jog down the pavilion steps to face the worst the opposition bowling can do. Given their intention will be to stay out in the middle all day if they can, and that cricket’s best played in hot weather, and you can see why dehydration may be a problem.

The bowlers have a brand new ball to work with. The leather, divided into two hemispheres by the prominent stitched seam, is covered in lacquer, and to begin with is therefore equally shiny right across the two halves of its surface. The ‘new ball’ is a significant factor in long games of cricket. It may curve through the air (swing) more readily than an old one, and at first the batsmen will be vulnerable as they adjust to the pitch and the light. However, sometimes the bowler may find this early swing hard to control. The lacquered ball may slip slightly from the hand and the ball will pitch (land) in a place where it’s easy to hit. Cheap runs may be made. On the other hand at this early point in the game the ball may bounce more because of its hardness, and the extra lift will sometimes provoke misjudgements from the batters. Later on, as the ball becomes softer, life will become easier until the bowlers are offered another new one, after eighty six-ball overs, if the innings lasts that long. The new, hard ball isn’t all bad news for a batsman though. It tends to come off the bat pleasantly, with a zingier, more higher-pitched sound. And if you’re a fieldsman it’s nicer to catch too, seeming to stick easily in the hand and with less pain than it will when its leather’s been distressed by repeated heavy contact with a stick of willow.

So, despite the fact that the order of a team’s batting tells you something about the relative skills of the batters ( numbers 1-6 will probably all be specialists, but thereafter the batsmen will present themselves in rough order of ability), a wicket is always likely to fall early. And strategically, the number three position in the batting order is crucial. If he or she also gets out quickly, the opposition are bossing the game. A pattern for the innings may be set.

At the start of this season there’s a bit of doubt as to who will fill this no. 3 slot for the English team. One who might is a bloke called Michael Vaughan. He’s been a successful captain of the team (and in cricket the captain’s role is important), but those days in charge are well behind him now. Since he resigned, things have moved on. Vaughan is a Yorkshireman, but despite the stereotypes, is urbane and drily witty, a man of character and emotion, clearly liked by fellow-players and the press. Those of us who merely watch the game often like him too. He’s tall and slim, and when he bats his movement is graceful, the shape of his shots always elegant. Particularly memorable are his hook shots off quick bowling, where the ball is played off the upper body or face to the leg-side of the pitch (that’s the the left hand side as a right handed batsman faces the bowler) with bat parallel to the ground. When Vaughan plays a hook, he seems to pick up the line of the ball unusually quickly, his follow through is full and certain, and he hits down, rolling the wrists as the textbooks suggest, to avoid the possibility of being caught out. In Vaughan’s repertoire, it’s a clinical, counterpunching shot, and the man’s temperament and quality is such that the chastened bowler tends not to offer verbal commentary after the event. Either he’s just admiring the skill too, or he knows the ball deserved it. He also probably knows nothing will be gained from abuse. Insults are water off Vaughan’s back.

The stats suggest Vaughan is a big occasion player. Unusually, his figures are rather better in Test cricket than they are at lower levels. But here’s the problem. Once away from the larger stage (and it’s been that way for a year or so) it’s hard to assemble the evidence for his recall. How do we know if he’s ‘over the hill’ and patience or eyesight have started to fail? Or do we stick to the old ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ cliché? Injury’s been a problem for him in the past.

The man to some extent in possession is Ian Bell. When he’s played for England the rather diminutive Bell has done little wrong. The accusations are that he somehow lacks character, and has been guilty of rarely converting his many good starts for England into really match-winning innings. Isn’t there research which suggests smaller men always lose out to the tall guys when it comes to life-chances? At any rate there is perhaps something of a question-mark about Bell’s body-language. He doesn’t impose himself on the opposition, and can seem rather anonymous at the crease even when he’s playing really well. Despite the good figures, there’s never been a memorable ‘Bell Moment’ in international cricket. But he’s relatively young, so maybe this is still to come. He’s a good timer of the ball, and his trademark shots are a square drive to the off which has a provenance stretching back to Michael Atherton and Geoffrey Boycott (two more or less recent England batting heroes), and a clip off his legs at which neither of those other two batters excelled. He’s a slightly more mobile fielder than Vaughan. Having been dropped for the last few Tests, Bell has said to the press he knows he’ll have to score heavily in the early season if he’s to regain his place. He’s made his words good with a fine 172 in the recent match at Taunton.

The third obvious candidate is Owais Shah. Early in his career, like Bell, Shah was singled out as a player with a big future. At that early stage there seemed to be occasional insinuations that he was an awkward character, although perhaps this was blatant prejudice, racial, or anti-urban. Shah very definitely can impose himself on the opposition when he’s on song. When he bats, he’s capable of both a long hit, and considerable grace, with a phenomenal ability to use his wrists to whip the ball to the leg side when it has no business being sent in that direction at all. It’s a skill which is more often seen in batsmen from the Asian sub-continent: the disgraced former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin is one who comes first to mind. Of other current English Test batsmen only Pietersen has the ability to do this, although he’s added his own eccentric variations to the shot. When played it gives the bowler an apparent chance as the batsmen reduces the window of timing by marginally playing across the angle of the ball. But if the eye is sound, and the shot is played with repeated success, it drives bowlers to distraction. Shah is only a moderate fielder: one wonders why.

And down in Somerset is a young man called James Hildreth. After Bell’s century in that opening county match, Hildreth went to the crease and scored 303 without losing his wicket. Big scores are the province of young men. If this kind of stat stuff is beginning to draw you in, look up the figures of legends Donald Bradman, Vivian Richards, Brian Lara and Graham Hick to see how it’s true. The conditions for good scoring at Taunton will have been benign, but anyone who scores 300 should be taken seriously. Vaughan has never done it, nor has Bell, and nor has Shah. One day Hildreth will play for England and with distinction, but not yet.

And then there’s Ravi Bopara.