Hindsight

The Headingley pitch has a reputation for producing exciting cricket. Why the grass and weather should interact there as nowhere else has never exactly been explained. But when there’s cloud cover or a sultry atmosphere, batting often seems unusually difficult in Leeds. And then, once the weather’s set fair, as it was for most of the recent match, everything is suddenly so much easier in the batsmen’s world: there’s immediately very little margin for error in the bowlers’ length. The ball ‘comes on’ to the bat when it’s pitched full, which with a speedy outfield and a compact ground means a lot of boundaries. And if pitched too short, the ball sits up and asks to be spanked away. So in one way it wasn’t surprising that the Fourth Test went no further than two and a half days, and given the momentum of the previous game I suppose we should have expected that Australia, not England, would be the winners. But what if England had chosen to ask Australia to bat? What then? The question may be one that haunts Andrew Strauss for the rest of his career because that decision, and what followed on the first morning, may have lost England the Ashes.

Two things bother me. One was the confusion which followed wicketkeeper Prior’s ‘ricked back’ which came on as a result of the pre-game kick about. Like others I can’t conceive why it’s thought a good idea to warm up for a game of cricket by playing soccer. The history of injuries sustained in this way is now a growing one. Anderson suffered in New Zealand. And so has Vaughan. And in this case, did the injury to Prior mean that Strauss was reluctant to field first, because Prior needed time to recover? If so that was an extremely expensive coaching mistake, rather than a captain’s misjudgement of atmospheric conditions, and much less easy to forgive. In the event, the ball swung and seamed throughout the first day, although England’s woefully slack batting was collusive, and 102 all out somewhere around two o’clock on the first afternoon meant that the game was as good as lost in the first three hours. Let’s pass quickly over the fact that Strauss also had to give three media interviews after tossing with Ponting, and before going out to open the batting. It’s one thing to be interviewed after you’ve come off the pitch at the end of a game, or at the end of two hours driving round a Grand Prix motor racing circuit – and even then the stars make a deal out of what a chore it is – but quite another for journalists and so-called lovers of the game to go seeking soundbytes when sports men and women should be focusing for a game or event. The tail’s wagging the dog. Perhaps we should have done things differently there, was the gist of coach Andy Flower’s response. You think?

The second thing is the omission of Flintoff. This series was always going to be about ‘Fred’ and ‘Kev’in their presence or absence. But the team selection here was mystifying. Flintoff thought he was fit. The coaching team decided otherwise. But clearly there was enough heat in the disagreement, that the big man was noticeably absent from the dressing room, at a time when you’d have thought he’d have been in there motivating, praising, cajoling. After all, he’s the one who’s supposed to make so much difference to the morale of the team. Perhaps he just couldn’t bear to look during those first catastrophic hours. And indeed what could he have said that was helpful to his erstwhile team-mates later on the second day? In his place they picked Harmison – supported it has to be said by a large proportion of the press – but not by Geoffrey Boycott, who in this matter for once talked more common sense than anyone else. Sidebottom was his pick, and surely this was right. A change of angle from a left-armer, who has a good grasp of swing and knows the ground – wouldn’t that have been a far better bet than someone whose weapon are speed, bounce, and intimidation? And, excellent cricketer that he is, why pick Swann and then bowl him for just sixteen overs while the Australians compile 445? A batsman would have been more useful, and Collingwood might have done an equally good job with the ball on this occasion. He certainly wouldn’t have bowled worse than the other England seamers.

Hindsight is all very well. And yes, after wars, particularly wars whose outcomes have been mixed (and maybe that’s all wars) we need a public enquiry so that we know better what to do next time, or so there isn’t a ‘next time’. But cricket is sport, and the kind of ruminations in which I’ve just indulged are all part of the fun. Sorry, Bill Shankly, but nobody died. What did or did not occur may be fascinating but it just isn’t that important. Except…

These days there’s so much money sloshing around in sport, that there will be enquiries, even if you and I as humble spectators have no right of attendance. Apart from anything else this was a cricket match which only lasted half as long as it should have done, and that will have financial consequences. And you’d think that, knowing that, cock-ups like the one which took place at Headingley on Friday morning would be very infrequent, that planning would be meticulous against all possibilities. Remember then one-time British premier Harold Macmillan’s muttered aside when things had gone wrong, ‘Events, dear boy, events…’

It’s inevitably going to be the one thing you haven't thought about which kills you.

Day 1 : England 102. Australia 196 for 4

Freeze frame

The weather was always likely to have the final say in the Third Test at Edgbaston: from the outset only the most optimistic or partisan watcher would have thought a result likely. That we came as close as we did is a tribute to the efficiency of contemporary anti-rain measures, and the intensity with which both these sides play their cricket. Sadly, the forecast isn’t promising for Headingley either: tomorrow’s first day looks at the moment as if it could be a wash-out too.

When cricket was played at Edgbaston, it was compelling enough, until mid-afternoon on the last day when it became apparent the English bowlers didn’t have the firepower on a still docile pitch to pull the Australian batting apart a second time. And throughout the match there were images to sustain the imagination.

Firstly of course there was the dramatic call-up of reserve wicketkeeper Manou to the Australian team, minutes before the start of the game, and at a point where if Strauss had so chosen, the suggestion that he play in Haddin’s place could have been refused. Haddin had broken a finger in the warm-up – a potentially disastrous moment for the Aussies, because he’s so often proved his value to them with the bat over the last twelve months. There was much discussion in the press about Strauss’s chivalrous action: the informal rules about where ‘gentlemanly’ behaviour begins and ends in cricket are as vague as territorial claims to the Antarctic. There seemed to be general agreement that what Strauss did was A Very Good Thing. But it seemed to me the journalists were leaving room that if Manou scored a hundred on debut, and pouched ten catches, they’d hold the English skipper out to dry. ‘Weak England captain puts Ashes in jeopardy’. In the event, the debutant got an extremely good ball from Anderson which cleaned up his stumps, batted out some time in the second knock, and kept wicket competently, taking just three catches without fuss. The image which remains is of him joyfully receiving his baggy green cap from Ricky Ponting on the second morning. There hadn’t been time for the ceremony on the first. Manou may be lucky to play in a Test for Australia again.

The second thing I shall remember is Watson’s first morning innings. We English had high hopes of the new Shane: we were salivating at the prospect of this one-time all-rounder, now makeshift opening bat, being turned inside out by Freddie’s pace. In the event, Freddie went through the match wicketless, and it was Watson who probably prevented England winning by scoring half-centuries in both innings and being top-scorer first time round. To be fair, during England’s purple patch on the Friday morning when the humid conditions were at their juiciest and most helpful for England’s swing bowling, he lasted one ball – the first ball of the morning – but by then he’d done just enough to take Australia to security. Half an hour into play on the first day, he squirted a boundary to third man, Flintoff bowled him a bouncer and gave him the stare. Flintoff’s stare is meaningful without real menace. Everyone knows he’s much too nice a guy for murder and mayhem, even when less than sober. There’ve been Australian bowlers in the past about whom one would have been less sure. When Dennis Lillee stared, anything seemed possible. And when South African Allan Donald utterly lost his cool in the face of Mike Atherton’s stubborn provocation a few years ago, for all that both sides laughed it off subsequently, there was a real frisson of danger. Anyway, the point is Watson just smiled while Fred glared: an apparently genuine, amused smile. If he was acting, he played the part very well. Flintoff enjoyed batting on this pitch, but he got little reward for his energetic bowling.

On that second morning Onions and Anderson were destructive, swinging the ball at a good pace, and taking out seven Australian wickets for 77 at one point before the tail-enders restored a little respectability. Sweet for Onions. He’d been on the end of some rubbishing from Australian commentators, quick to try and get Steve Harmison into the England team on pitches which wouldn’t have suited him, and where they could have got thoroughly into the big man’s head. You’ve got to wonder whether all along they haven’t been more concerned about the focus of the younger, hungrier bowler. Onions has good pace, and a clever bouncer, which did for Ponting in the first innings. The previous ball had also been short, but slightly slower. The next was quicker, and deceived the Australian captain for pace. The Australian captain didn’t have a great game. In the second innings he was out-thought by Graeme Swann and clean bowled at the end of a very testing over: perhaps the most absorbing six balls of the match.

Flintoff turned back the clock with an innings of the sort he used to play more regularly for England. In Prior he found a good foil, but just when it looked as if their rapid rate of scoring would take England to a point of real strength, he got an oddity of a ball from Hauritz which unlike any other in the match bit into the rough outside his off-stump and hit his gloves to offer an easy catch to slip. An hour more and England might have had a lead sufficient to really intimidate the Australians.

As it was Clarke’s broad bat snuffed out the chance of a win. He seems to be hitting most balls in the sweet spot at present. His driving through extra cover and straight was classically elegant: lovely to watch. There actually never seemed any likelihood that he and North wouldn't save the game.

A final thought. Had this match gone to a sixth day, England would have been the team struggling to survive.

On to Leeds, with pleas for civility from the watching crowd. Which will undoubtedly be ignored.

Australia 263 and 375 for 5 England 376

Freddie

The greatest sporting stars have a habit of writing their own scripts. In the end they’re who they are because they can turn on the magic when it matters – at least when it matters to them. So it was that inevitably, having announced his retirement from the long form of the game, Flintoff bowled England to victory in the Second Test, chest puffed out, fists clenched.

It’s a strangely fascinating thing – to watch the career trajectory of a cricketer: a little intimation of mortality, because their rise and fall reminds us of the shortness of our own human life. I’m old enough to remember the excitement of first noting in the newspapers the presence of ‘Underwood’ as a name in the previous day’s cricket scores whenever Kent played. It started to crop up increasingly regularly. Who was this Underwood? What was causing batsmen to succumb so frequently to his wiles? ‘Deadly’ subsequently became a fixture in the England side, and took many wickets with his uncompromising accuracy and subtle variation. But Derek Underwood is now long retired: a distant memory re-activated by occasional replays of black and white footage, although I carry his approach to the wicket forever in my head, a model of repeatability.

I first remember Andrew Flintoff as an anecdote told during a rain delay on television by David Lloyd, one-time England player, umpire, pundit, after-dinner speaker. Something to do with a bucket of water and a ball which had caught the young Lancastrian where it might have hurt him the most. Standard cricket fayre. ‘Lovely lad’, said Lloyd. ‘Promising cricketer.’

Then before long, after rave notices in the press, he’d been promoted to the England team, as a hard-hitting batsman who could bowl a bit. When he first arrived on the international stage he looked gauche, and frankly a little out of his depth. There was poor shot selection, a touch of the blacksmith. But England persevered and he grew in stature, and was encouraged in his bowling. The action was unorthodox, and put a great deal of stress on a heavy frame. As they tended to say at the time, he was a ‘big unit’. But he could bowl really fast, and even if there was little subtlety of cut and swing, batsmen found the bounce he generated intimidating. He got wickets for other bowlers too as batsmen relaxed, glad to be away from Flintoff’s end. And his batting improved to the point that I think he once passed fifty in eight successive England innings, although he increasingly struggled to repeat that consistency. Boy, could he hit the ball hard. He was a vital factor as England won the Ashes in 2005: he may yet see the trick repeated in 2009. He’s at times been a complete idiot off the field, but on it, he’s always given of his best. He remains an enigma. There’s a belief that he makes those around him perform. Yet we seem to win as many Test matches without him.

Where will he stand in the pantheon? Talking only of Test cricket his record looks modest when compared with the greatest England all-rounder of my lifetime, (Sir) Ian Botham. Botham managed nearly four wickets a Test, Flintoff just two and a half. That’s a statistically very significant difference, and Botham’s batting average was better too, on less good pitches and arguably against generally better bowling. They were both extraordinary catchers of a cricket ball, but personally I think Botham just shaded it. Flintoff has lived by instinct and brutal strength. Botham too was at times hot-headed and ill-advised, but say it quietly, he was a cricketer who thought a great deal about the game, particularly his bowling. He’d try anything to get a wicket, and often did, but there was a plan. More often than not.

The other near-all-rounder who could perhaps be bracketed with these two was Ted Dexter, now in his mid-seventies. Dexter was a toff, and a noted eccentric. He could have made a career at golf, if he’d had a mind to – he was an exceptionally fine amateur player. These days there might have been a hard decision to make, in view of the money available in the two sports. Dexter was a far more accomplished batsman than either Flintoff or Botham, and the figures show it. He averaged 47 per innings over 62 Tests, and today that figure might easily be inflated by 5 or 6 because of the nature of the pitches. He had a square cut like no other. His combination of strength and timing simply lashed the ball to the boundary as Jessup must have done half a century earlier. It was perhaps the most telling shot of any cricketer I’ve seen, utterly and ultimately authoritative. His bowling appears not to stand comparison with the other two, and yet…He’s sometimes described as medium-paced, but I suspect he would have registered in the mid-eighties miles per hour on his day. Although he took more than four hundred first class wickets for his county, Sussex, he managed only 66 for England. They underused him, and it may be, although I have no clear memory of this, that the mechanics of his whole-hearted, jerky action, rather like that of Craig White in more modern times, rendered him susceptible to injury. Little footage of Dexter seems to survive, or at least get played. That’s a pity.

They’re saying at the moment that the day of the all-rounder is over. Too much strain on the body. Nonsense. Every team ideally needs someone who can contribute with both bat and ball. There’ll be great all-rounders again, but the truth is they don’t come often. Each country may see one in a generation. Enjoy Freddy while you can.

England 425 and 311 for 6 declared. Australia 215 and 406 all out

The Fickle Finger of Fate

Umpiring any cricket match is hard: the concentration, the fineness of discrimination, the possibilities of blame. Umpiring an international cricket match must be a definition of pressure. But just put me in that white coat baby - and rush me some of it!

I guess even the most exalted cricketers still get the chance to umpire at a junior level. Nevertheless most of them seem to forget what it felt like as soon as they’re given out (as they will swear blind) wrongly. As England batter Mark Ramprakash was once alleged to have said to an offending umpire ‘you’re messing with my career’.

To be entirely impartial, to have the required intense self-inspection before giving the decision, to trust one’s eyes and ears – Solomon, thou shouldst have been born for this hour. I once found myself umpiring in a local league match as the umpire supplied by the team I sometimes played for. Northampton Town League Division Three. Kingsthorpe Recreation Ground. Weather: overcast. Number of spectators: zero. (The previous weekend I’d attempted one of my periodic comebacks from retirement, and my Achilles was giving me gyp. Just like Kevin Pietersen.) Anyway, the pitch was wet and slow, and our opening bowler was bowling extremely straight and well from my end. A succession of opposition batsmen allowed the low-bouncing ball to hit their pads in front of the stumps, feet immobile in the crease. With increasing anxiety I raised the finger to give the first three out leg before wicket and then gave up. At least a couple more could have quickly gone the same way – perhaps all ten might have done - but it didn’t seem worth creating a world record only to end up in hospital. Bias, you see, doesn’t always work the way you might think it should. Don’t apply for a job within your own organisation.

At county and international level there are ‘not-outers’ and ‘outers’. The one-time Leicestershire wicketkeeper Ray Julian was one of the former. The ball had only to strike the pads somewhere in the most approximate vicinity of the wicket for the Julian finger to be raised. Even the non-striker might have been in danger. The most famous umpire of recent times, Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird, was by his own admission mostly a ‘not-outer’. If there’s doubt, the rule is that the batsman gets the benefit, and Dickie invariably had a whole barrowful of doubts. He was an agnostic’s agnostic.

Contemporary television slo-mo replays suggest Bird’s instincts were right. As the police and courts know, what the eye sees is often not what has actually happened. Where formerly run-out decisions might have gone in favour of the batsman, the television replays now often show the batter struggling to make her ground at the point the ball breaks the wicket. Frequently batsmen are shown to have got fine snicks from their bat onto their pads, when they’ve been given out lbw. (There’s a school of thought which says it shouldn’t matter, but that’s a discussion for another day!) Equally well, it’s quite clear that in times past certain spin bowlers in certain Asian countries may have benefited from close ‘catches’ which never remotely saw contact with the bat. At one time the practice was so prevalent that there you’d think an extra law of the game had been written: ‘There shall be two umpires, one for each side’ - which is why now umpires in Test matches are neutral. None of which spares them controversy.

Thus it was that on the fourth day of this Test match, the South African Rudi Koertzen found himself under pressure for alleged inconsistency of practice in referring disputed catches to the third umpire ( the one with the TV screen) or not.

Now from the armchair Rudi isn’t my favourite umpire, and I tend to agree with those who say that he’s made quite a lot of mistakes in his career, but any philosopher, and any scientist worth her salt too, will tell you that the quest for absolute certainty is a vain one, this side of heaven. Sport without the ‘was he or wasn’t he?’ would be so much more dull. We rightly chase the possibilities of equality of opportunity in our political and social life, but sometimes there’ll be injustices in cricket. Get over it.

Close of fourth day’s play: England 425 and 311 for 6 declared Australia 215 and 313 for 5 wickets.

Hill Climbing for Beginners

…was the title of an early seventies album, now a collectable classic, recorded by some good friends of mine, the very excellent Water Into Wine Band. Round of applause, please, for Bill, Trevor, Ray and Pete. But at the close of the third day’s play it looked as if Australia would have a mountain to scale in cricketing terms, not just a hill. Don’t it feel good to say it!

The instances of teams chasing a total of over three hundred in the final innings of a Test match are few and far between. It’s become a guide for captains as an approximate point of safety. Equally well, each country remembers only too painfully the occasions when it’s come out second in such a chase.

An instance at Lords which still stings came in 1984 when the West Indies were the visitors. Through the seventies, eighties and nineties the English team were on the wrong end of a fearful battering by West Indies fast bowling attacks, but in this match they were faced by a slightly more benign prospect, insofar as after the initial spearhead of the terrifyingly skiddy-quick Malcolm Marshall and the towering, remorseless Joel Garner, the backup bowling was merely adequate. Nevertheless a first innings total of 286 by England was below-par, and even for that they owed much to Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler’s century. Marshall was the destroyer with six wickets. However the powerful West Indies batting managed only 245 in reply. Ian Botham had one of his great days as an England bowler, taking eight of the ten wickets for a personal cost of 103. Like Flintoff today, captains would turn to Botham for inspiration: he could make things happen from nowhere.

And England were grateful to him for his batting when it was their turn again. He scored 81 quickly in the context of the match, and with Allan Lamb making a century, at the close of the fourth day England were well-poised on 287 for 7 wickets.

Consider for a moment. That means they were already 328 to the good with three wickets in hand. They must have thought themselves quite safe. The pitch was holding together very well, even maybe improving, but no side had scored at much more than three and a half runs an over. However, the England captain, David Gower exercised caution – unnecessary caution in the eyes of some watchers. He batted on a little while on the Tuesday morning, declaring at 300.

It’s not good for morale to dwell on what followed. Gordon Greenidge played one of the more radical innings of Test match cricket, limping throughout. It took the West Indies batsmen just sixty-six overs to reach the target, Greenidge contributing 214 unbeaten runs with twenty nine fours and two sixes. Among England’s shellshocked attack, poor Ian Botham suffered the most, leaking runs at six an over and failing to take a wicket. He wasn’t alone. After Desmond Haynes was dismissed at 57, run out, no further wickets fell. Greenidge and the unsung Larry Gomes, usually considered the one ‘blocker’ in the West Indies team, saw them home.

Why are these events so rare? Well, wickets do deteriorate over five days – and that’s part of the fun of the long game. But that knowledge also contributes to the psychology of the business, and perhaps teams are sometimes already on the back foot when they’re faced with a large target. The Australians will have to do better than their West Indian predecessors to get out of this one, but the ambitions of teams are getting greater with every year that passes!

Close of third day’s play: England 425 and 311 for 6 Australia 215

75 years

...is a very long time indeed to wait for an England win against Australia at Lord’s – and get this – the previous win to that was in 1896.

It’s interesting to look at the scorecard of that 1934 match, and realise it was a game pretty much won or lost on the toss of a coin. Australia’s strength was in their batting (somewhat weakened on this occasion by injury to Bill Ponsford) and in their spin bowling. In Grimmett, O’Reilly and Chipperfield they had a real force to be reckoned with. By contrast they opened the bowling with Stan McCabe – principally a gloriously accomplished batter – who as a bowler was a distinctly makeshift and underpowered performer. England’s pace bowling had far more bite with Ken Farnes and Bill Bowes backed up by Hammond’s medium pace. Their batting was strong too – Hendren and Hammond were the ones you’d imagine might get the runs, though it was Maurice Leyland and Les Ames who obliged here - but rather unreliable at times.

England took four sessions and a lot of overs to reach 440 all out by lunchtime on the second day’s play. Australia were strongly placed to match that total at the close on 192 for two wickets, although the great Don Bradman had already been dismissed - for a rapid 36. And then it rained.

In those days the pitches were left uncovered. If it rained, and the sun came out, conditions for batting easily got nasty, with the spin bowlers the main beneficiaries. They could make the ball bounce and turn sharply, and England’s hero on that Monday (no Sunday play in those days!) was the magnificently named Yorkshireman Hedley Verity. In a single day he took fifteen wickets, and bowled out the Australians twice. The grainy TV footage shows the ball spitting from Verity’s immaculate length, and the Australians fending the ball off into the hands of the waiting fielders. In colour, the pitch is scarcely discernible from the outfield. But of course, had the boot been on the other foot, and England the batting side, it’s hard to think Grimmett and O’Reilly would have been any easier to play.

On the second day of the 2009 Test, Australia collapsed again. Would the Englishmen be able to press home their advantage as successfully as Verity did then, we asked?

Neither Hedley Verity or Ken Farnes survived the Second World War, still then five years away, although events in Germany were already ringing the alarm bells. Ten years later cricket at Lords would have a very different flavour to it, as servicemen were occasionally released from their duties to entertain crowds on single golden days snatched during a bitter-sweet summer, even throwing themselves flat on the ground on one occasion for fear of a 'doodle-bug'. There are things more important than a game.

Close of second day’s play: England 425 all out. Australia 156 for 8

In the money

I missed the bulk of the Second Test match celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary in Belgium. The TV in the extremely nice hotel in Leuven gave us BBC1, BBC2 and BBC World but alas no Sky Sports, so I knew few of the exciting details from Lords until our return, although we were able to commiserate with the excellent Tom Watson as he failed to win the British Open at Turnberry. And since we were travelling home on Monday, we were in doubt about the outcome of the Test until our arrival at St. Pancras, where the Evening Standard proclaimed, ‘Aussies smashed by Flintoff’. But since we hadn’t seen men throwing themselves under the hooves of London cabs, I’d already assumed the Australians hadn’t achieved the apparently impossible and won.

It seems the post-university choice for Andrew Strauss was between becoming a pro cricketer or entering the world of City finance. As things have turned out, he made a very wise decision in favour of the former, and of course, the City being what it is, if he should ever fancy a second career, no doubt they’ll welcome him with a seat on a board or two. Good leader. Good at mental arithmetic. He copped a lot of criticism after the narrow squeak of the first match. ‘He’s a nice guy’, was the refrain, ‘but where do nice guys come?’ Apparently he lacked fire in his belly, or the ability to inspire others in the heat of battle. He was tactically weak, and hadn’t contributed sufficiently with the bat. Well, a week later he’s rather effectively nailed a few of those opinions.

What is it about Middlesex and money? I remember another exile from South Africa, well Zambia actually, another Lords favourite too, who went onto a career in the Square Mile. Philippe Edmonds was a man who never quite fulfilled his potential for England. 125 wickets at around 34 apiece isn’t an adequate reflection of his talent, although he was playing at a time when spin bowling maybe wasn’t as tactically valued as it is now. This was one aggressive cricketer. I remember him losing it with some batsman during a Test – words had been swapped – provoking a bouncer off two paces which smashed into the wicketkeeper’s gloves held high over his head twenty three yards away (it was probably the incomparable Alan Knott). And two balls later the medicine was repeated with even more venom. At which point I suspect further words were exchanged – though this time between ‘keeper and bowler.

Anyway, I digress. Strauss showed last Thursday that he’s not one of those captains for whom batting while in charge becomes an impossibility. As surely as Ponting had stamped his authority on the first match, so Strauss did on the second. He was helped it must be admitted, by some atrocious bowling, and a stroke of good luck. Johnson is having a bad time, his wrist position all over the place, and his arm a little lower than when he’s at his best. In the England first innings he suffered the indignity of going for more than six an over. And Strauss was perhaps fortunate to take out Hauritz with a fierce straight drive that at first seemed to have damaged a finger badly enough to have jeopardised his further participation in the match. He was a bowler who might have troubled the England captain. Mostly however, Strauss was left free to accumulate off his legs and punch square through the off-side in the area which is his favourite. Only Hilfenhaus exercised a measure of control.

Only the undisputed greats of English cricket have scored more hundreds for their country than Strauss has now done, and if for instance one compares him with Michael Atherton, England captain of a generation ago, he comes out very favourably. And at 32 years of age he has, as they say, power to add. Beware the quiet man.

Close of first day's play: England 364 for 6