A plea to the the powers that be!

Thanks to the announcement by Gordon Brown that the UK election will take place on May 6th, the decision to evaluate the “crown jewel” sports has been put on the shelf. This means that the announcement as to whether the home cricket internationals are to be shown on terrestrial TV have also been put back.

The last test on Channel 4 (terrestrial TV) was the famous England ashes victory in 2005. It has been too long since you could watch the cricket in any pub, whether they have sky or not, and this deadline extension is rubbing salt into the wounds for me!

So this is a plea to whoever wins the upcoming election, please hurry up make the decision so we can potentially go back to enjoying cricket on television, anywhere and everywhere!

Yours Sincerely

Paul Wilkinson

PS – Please Hurry!!

Michael Lumb - Future Star?

Another England player stars in the IPL today in the form of Michael Lumb. He’s been in really solid form so far for the Rajasthan Royals, but today he finally got himself past the fifty mark for the first time. Lumb smashed 83 off of 43 balls, which included 16 fours and 2 sixes, helping to set up a very straightforward 9 wicket win over the Kings XI Punjab.

He is one of only 8 English players to be in the IPL this year (Kevin Pieterson, Andrew Flintoff, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Eion Morgan and Graeme Napier). When you bear in mind that Lumb has only just been selected for England for the first time, he is doing remarkably well and repaying the selectors faith.

A lot of former professionals believe that the IPL is a poor way upon which to establish the quality of a player and their suitability for international cricket. How can they possible say this say this? It may not be suitable to pick potential future Test Cricket stars, sure. But bear in mind, every one of the ten IPL teams can play 4 of their overseas star players out of about 7 or 8 altogether in their squad. The any new or future International Cricket stars would get to ply their trade against the likes of Brett Lee and Matthew Hayden for example.

In county cricket, both four day and 40/50 over, the English players only get to face one class overseas player per game. The IPL has allowed them to play four times as many, and therefore (I think) gain valuable experience.

Michael Lumb has been able to not only get paid a decent amount of money for doing what he loves, thanks to the massive television coverage he has pushed himself to the forefront of the selectors minds.

Good luck to the lad!

Paul

T20 Squad Time!

So the past few days have been a story of ups and downs for English cricket players. Ravi Bopara was handed the news that he will be going to the World T20 at the end of April (don’t quote me on the exact date), but at the same time he managed to field appallingly in his last outing in the IPL. It’s also worth noting that his form has slumped rather significantly as of late after making back to back fifties in his first two appearances for the Kings Punjab XI this year.

This is classic England selection policy:

Step 1 - Wait till a player gets into good/great/amazing form.
Step 2 – Wait a tad more.
Step 3 – Form going slightly pear shaped/confidence waning.
Step 4 – Really out of form = selection made!

On a similar note, Craig Kieswetter has been chosen as the sole Keeper in the T20 part, which gives him a chance to flaunt his entire game to the selectors, and start banging on Matt Priors test and One day door’s. This is a brave move on the selectors part, bearing in mind that his international experience consists of a few appearances against Bangladesh, the worst team in the top flight of the game in all formats. On a downer, one of England’s best players as of late, and ranked 3rd best bowler in the world, Graeme Swann, has been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after his 31st birthday.........MUPPET!

Michael’s Yardy and Lumb have been recalled/selected for the T20 too on the back of solid form which is great news as I have always been a fan of the south coast duo, and I fully expect them both to shine! All in all an interesting squad and one that could make any diehard test cricket purist slightly interested.

Paul

PS - please feel free to comment and follow guys! (I don’t bite!)

For more information please go to:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/8595614.stm

Andy Flower singles out Bresnan as stand out seamer

Bresnan Bowled Beautifully!

As you may have read the other day when I blogged (had a rant!) about the lack of depth to England’s seam bowling attack and stand out performance from Tim Bresnan, England cricket coach Andy Flower has come out and said that he agrees (with me – get in!!).


"Tim Bresnan wasn't originally selected in the Test party but with the opportunity given to him by the injury to Ryan Sidebottom, and after his performances in the one-day series, he sort of leapfrogged his way into the side," Flower told reporters before the team left Dhaka.


"He reverse swung the ball both ways, he was controlled and accurate, bowled a heavy bouncer and was strong enough to keep going for long periods of time," Flower said. "I thought our players held strong in some trying conditions weather-wise and on some very flat pitches.”


The 91 in the second test is surely a sign that Bresnan can bat at 7 ahead of Stewart Broad should England wish to play 5 bowlers. Very important given that the Ashes in Australia are only 8 or 9 months away!


Paul

 
Read the full article - cricinfo.com

2nd Test vs Bangladesh (day five)

Captain Cook!

So England managed to go on tour to Bangladesh and come out as expected with a white was in every format. Their ability to beat their opponents in both tests, despite the ridiculously flat wickets, was a credit to their bowlers. The two main players for me have been Swann and Bresnan, most notably the latter who had very little to assist his brand of seam bowling, but ran in and took 6 hard earned wickets at a cost of just over 30 a piece. That being said, Swann did manage to take the most out of both sides (as expected), bagging 16 scalps at 25.25.


Tredwell managed to take more wickets that Swann in the final innings of the tour, which was an unexpected surprise, taking his tally to six in the one solitary game that he played.

The thing that is nagging at me though, being the cricketing guru that I am (NOT) is that there seems to be a lack of seam bowling depth. Finn and Broad really were pretty average on the whole and they both lacked variety and imagination, as far as getting batsmen out rather than waiting for them to make a mistake. They really needed Onions as he is the gravy (sorry about that one)!

The lack of inspiration and seam depth is rather alarming as it’s only eight or nine months until the ashes down under, against an Australian team that love revenge and have a wealth of talented and nasty fast bowlers. A lot of whom have the wool over a fair few of the English batsmen!

On the subject of batsmen and captain supreme at the same time, Alistair Cooks first proper run out as captain must be very very satisfying indeed. With two hundreds in the test series (one of them a big one) and some very solid one day inning to boot, Cook may have deservedly nudged his way into the selectors minds in terms of one day selection. Not to mention becoming the future captain. I hope Andrew Strauss has had a nice rest!!

Paul

2nd Test vs Bangladesh (day three)

Bell makes his 10th test hundred

Surely England should whitewash Bangladesh? Their test series in Bangladesh should be more straight forward than this. England played some scintillating cricket in the ODI’s with Eoin Morgan in particularly good form. Bangladesh, although new to the international cricketing arena, do not have the players that England do nor do they have the pedigree. Don’t get me wrong they have some fine cricketers including the young Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan but they do not match up against the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood.

Surely then this series is a foregone conclusion? With Bangladesh achieving a score of 419 in this test match, their third highest ever score in their short international cricketing history; it suggests that it is not.

A good consistent response from England which included 138 from Ian Bell and an unbeaten 74 from Tim Bresnan has left England on 440-8 at the end of day three in Mirpur. With the relative inexperience and the youth of the Bangladesh front line, England’s bowlers and Graeme Swann in particular, should see Bangladesh off in the end. Maybe it’s me being too expectant of England and their cricketing prowess or maybe I am just realistic but Cook and company should polish this off with relative ease (in theory)!

Rob
Follow the game here - http://www.cricinfo.com/

2nd Test vs Bangladesh (day one)

Bell and Prior watch as Bangladesh march on

So I wake up this morning to see that Bangladesh have almost mustered 300 in the first innings of the 2nd test in Mirpur, against England. They eventually closed on 330-8, with Mr Graeme Swann claiming another 3 wickets (30 – 4 – 94 – 3) and debutant James Tredwell claiming 85 – 2 off of his 29 overs. It’s clear that Bangladesh are improving as a test cricket nation, their current score of 330 almost equalling their second innings fight at Chittagong, they still have a long way to go.

That being said, England’s lack of penetration it terms of seam bowling is rather worrying. It was only 5 years ago that it was an attack formed of messers Flintoff, Jones, Harmison and Hoggard. The attack of today seems rather dull and lacking in match winning characteristics. Although Tim Bresnan, Steven Finn and Stuart Broad are fine bowlers, with good records at the county championship level, are the test match bowlers??

Compare England’s current attack to the one lead by Flintoff in the 2005 Ashes and which one are you more scared of and which one is more likely to get (knock) you out?!

I’m guessing what I’m saying is that the current seam attack don’t have the same aura and ability as they used to, and this is really evident in the way that Bangladesh, the lowest ranked team on the test match ladder, are fighting against them. But how do they get this X Factor back?? Pick the 2005 Ashes attack maybe??

Paul

Follow the game here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/default.stm or here http://www.cricinfo.com/bdeshveng2010/engine/current/match/426424.html

The IPL

The Little Master

Although the coverage is not the best, the pundits are truly woeful at times, it's still better than nothing! There are three major bees in my bonnet with regards to the IPL that I need to get off of my chest as it is really starting to nag at me:

1 - The Horn - During the games, wherever they are and regardless of who's playing, there is a loud Spanish sounding horn that the DJs love to play to get the crowd going. This gets used in the UK at football/rugby/cricket matches, but THEY use it every half hour or so. The IPL, the DJs like to sound this horn, and I’m not exaggerating here, every half a second! P*ss off!

2 - Ad Breaks – I know that the IPL is being staged in a country with over a billion people and have a viewing audience of hundreds of millions worldwide, buts is there really a need to have ad breaks ever couple of overs and in between balls?? REALLY??

3 - The Presenters – Yes I realise that ITV got the IPL at the last minute, but surely they could have got two people with more experience in the world of cricket? Come on ITV, you can do better!

Right, rant over! Now I’m going to be watching the rest of the current game Deccan Chargers vs Kings XI Punjab (follow it here - http://www.cricinfo.com/ipl2010/engine/current/match/419117.html) and keeping a close eye on the only Englishman in the game, Ravi Bopara.

Paul

Craig Kieswetter (wicket keeper batsman)

Another Huge 6 At Taunton

Since this is the first time that I’ve posted on here I thought I’d keep it close to home. Being born and bred in the west-country it seems only natural that my first post is about the magnificence that is Somerset County Cricket Club, more specifically the sensation of Craig Kieswetter.

In the past few years they have had a meteoric return to their rightful place at the top of the county championship, largely thanks to the opening partnership that is Marcus Trescothick and Craig Kieswetter. These two propel Somerset at an incredible rate in the one day game and have taken this aggression out on the county scene as well.

Like a number of players before him Craig Kieswetter, a hard-hitting wicketkeeper-batsman, chose England ahead of South Africa. He joined Somerset when he was 18 and made his international debut four years later, little more than a week after completing qualification. Playing against Bangladesh in his first 2 ODIs Kieswetter made scores of 19 and 4, and he looked rather out of his depth. In the third however, he repaid the decision of the selectors with and extremely mature innings of 107 (from 123 balls). He is the first wicket keeper since Alec Stewart to score a hundred in limited overs internationals, and this surely must be worrying the current holder of the gloves, Matt Prior.

This wonderful start to an international career must be the signs of things to come from such a promising young talent. It is my belief that Craig Kieswetter will be the full England keeper, in all forms of the game within the next year and a half, which will bring a much needed sense of youthful exuberance to the team. Anyone care to bet against me???

Paul



Follow Craig Kieswetter here at cricinfo.com:

http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/content/player/230855.html