Lancashire sign Nathan Astle

We're used to our hopes being dashed and we'll doubtless be putting that experience to good use. Lancashire have signed Nathan Astle while Brad Hodge is away on training camps and international duty.

As far as we're concerned, Nathan Astle has done one thing: This innings. That he's clearly not going to be anywhere near capable of living up to that will be abundantly clear to all of you. But how are we feeling about Astle being signed for Lancashire? We think he's going to replicate that innings every single time he comes out to bat.

We know in our head that this is not just unlikely, but actually impossible, but we're not one to let facts or reality get in the way of something like this.

As far as we're concerned, Nathan Astle is going to approach the County Championship, shepherd it into a dark alley and proceed to kick its teeth in. Then, for an encore, he's going to boil it down into a liquid, resculpt it back into the shape of the County Championship and then kick its teeth in a second time. Then he's going to have a quick sit down before doing it a third time. Take that the County Championship. Take that.

Imagine how excited we were when Lancashire signed Muralitharan.

Test Match Cricket - the table-top game

Super Cricket? What the blazes is Super Cricket? That, my friend, is Test Match Cricket. And what's with the weird layout of the pitch? It's all gone to rack and ruin.

It's essentially the same game though, let's be fair. Although in our day the bowler was just a glorified ramp. At least your batsman's still a broken toy waiting to happen. Some things never change.

Back when the bowler delivered the ball down a long chute, you could actually hit the ball-bearing back up it, launching it into the air, possibly scaring the cat. In fact we seem to remember more than one instance of 'cat stopped play' as she either chased the ball-bearing, got her claws caught in the immaculately ironed pitch, or stopped for a sleep in the middle of the wicket.

Such were the joys of Test Match Cricket. That and writing down full scorecards for every match and having to somehow fix things so that the tail-end didn't score more runs than your batsmen. That seems to be the abiding theme with all of these games: They're hard to believe in. Do you know why that is? It's because they're games and not real life. We really really really should have made more effort to play for England. Maybe we wouldn't be such a mental if we'd managed it.

More cricket games

International Cricket Captain - think what we could have achieved

Sometimes we review computer games. We got into this by writing an editorial about how we absolutely bloody hate International Cricket Captain but still play it. We're not linking to the article because it's dreadful.

International Cricket Captain is fairly long-winded, but after a few seasons we tended to find that batsmen were averaging less and less and so were bowlers. This annoyed us immeasurably. We devised a whole series of strategies to prevent this so that we could still enjoy the game. None of them worked.

The saddest part is that every now and again we forget how much we hate the game and play it again. It's like the worst kind of addiction. We can't bear thinking about how much time we've wasted.

We really are one of the saddest people in the whole world. We sicken ourself. Empire Interactive - we hold you responsible.

Masochists can buy the latest version here.

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Marcus Trescothick’s Cricket Coach - behold its textual majesty

Marcus Trescothick’s Cricket Coach has been released for the PC. In honour of this, we've decided to make today Cricket Game Day. A couple more posts will be appearing later on about other cricket games. We've already written about our EA Cricket 2005 saga in the past. You can read about it here.

Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach looks particularly impressive. This is the kind of game that we like. Look at its textual majesty. No pictures or animation or any of that rubbish here. Just statistics. Reams and reams of stultifying statistics. Cricket fans are crying out for this kind of thing. Hopefully in addition to all of the usual batting averages and stuff, the players' abilities will also be represented in numerical form. We reckon Matthew Hoggard's conventional swing rating would be about 92. Monty Panesar's catching rating would be about 1.

The second great thing about Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach is that it's only a tenner. It's always the sign of a well-developed product that its initial RRP is a quarter of that of a normal game.

We can't wait to forsake our real life, preferring instead the world of cricket represented by numbers. Maybe they'll make a special edition binary code version.

You can buy Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach here if you want.

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Michael Vandort’s hundred for Sri Lanka

Well played Michael Vandort. Well played indeed. With all the politics surrounding Sri Lanka’s opening batsmen, it was nice to see one of them do so well, even if his opening partner, Upul Tharanga, did bag a pair.

Much as we hate sticking to convention, we’ll have to call Vandort’s innings ‘an obdurate knock’. There were a couple of chances, but it never really felt like England were going to get him out and, crucially, it certainly didn’t feel like Michael Vandort was going to get himself out.

Michael Vandort has gone some way to proving his temperament and ability, batting against a decent attack, in a difficult situation and in relatively unfriendly conditions. If he can do it once, he can do it again, so he deserves an extended run in the side.

We also have a suspicion that he may be one of the giants. Not one of the giants of the game – one of the race of beings, ‘giants’. As we previously mentioned in our post about Essex’s Will Jefferson, giants are far superior to the rest of us, having mastered space travel during prehistory. They are our benevolent overlords, yet they only intervene when absolutely necessary. Clearly the soap opera surrounding Sanath Jayasuriya and Sri Lanka’s next generation of opening batsmen has led the giants to renounce their non-interventionist policy. They have sent us Michael Vandort.

Darren Lehmann wins one-day Roses match for Yorkshire

That Darren Lehmann finished the match as the most successful bowler was a slight surprise; that he finished as the most successful batsman was nothing of the sort. He hit 92 off 69 balls. He’s demonstrably a class above everyone else plying their trade in county cricket.

We’d say that he was Australia’s second-best batsman after Ricky Ponting, which would put him in the top ten in the world. We don’t know what we’re saying by this. We’re just in awe of Darren Lehmann. Maybe that’s what all we’re saying. Maybe that’s all there is to say.

We'll try and shut up about him now. We know that we tend to get a bit carried away with things. Particularly when the player in question's a little bit fat. What is that? Why are we so swayed by it?

Next week, here at King Cricket: We write 25,000 words on why Ian 'Fatty' Austin was the greatest military-medium bowler of all time.

Michael Vaughan’s pull shot

England won a Test. That’s been quite a rare feat since Trent Bridge last year, with only the bizarre final day shenanigans in Mumbai to sustain England Test followers.

One of the things that struck us as England were closing in on victory was Andrew Flintoff’s demeanour when he took wickets. Ordinarily, Flintoff is delighted at taking a wicket, as most bowlers are. During this match, he hasn’t cracked a smile. It’s weird. Either he has started buying into his own celebrity, believing his superiority automatically warrants wickets – which is too horrifying to contemplate – or he is just a tad tired of captaincy. For the sake of all that is good and pure, we’re going for the latter and the good news is that Michael Vaughan is playing cricket today.

We’re happier than we thought we’d be about this. Vaughan has come to represent England success to us. The first important blows were made when Vaughan himself sullied the Australian legend on England’s last tour down under.

We can see it now: Legendary Glenn McGrath rolls in, tormentor of England opening batsmen since time immemorial; he pitches the ball on a length, seaming away a fraction. But rather than feather the ball through to Gilchrist in the time-honoured England opening tradition, Vaughan rocks back and pulls the ball for four. It’s an outrageous shot. The ball was far too full for the pull stroke. Then, over the course of the day, Vaughan proves that it wasn’t just luck or misjudgement that produced that stroke, as he performs it again and again and again.

Welcome back to cricket, Michael. We hope your knee’s feeling better.

Some other batsmen and their signature shots

Kevin Pietersen’s reverse sweep for six

By any measure Kevin Pietersen’s reverse swept six was a remarkable shot. Pietersen himself described it as a ‘naughty little shot after I reached my hundred,’ which goes to show that he knew that it was self-indulgent.

That he attempted it was brave. It was also a little unnecessary. We can forgive him for it, because he got away with it and that’s pretty much the way Kevin Pietersen bats. However, in England’s second innings, chasing an easy total, he tried another reverse sweep, missed it and was almost given out. We’ve nothing against the shot, but sometimes you’ve just got to play according to the situation and in England’s second innings he should have just been looking for the singles to try and close out the game.

The Test Match Special commentary team were wondering whether anyone had ever hit a reverse sweep for six in a Test match before. They concluded that no-one had. Didn’t Andy Flower do it? We don’t know this for a fact, but he’s a mighty powerful reverse sweeper of the ball. It’s not a risky indulgent shot when Flower plays it. It’s a legitimate scoring shot because he plays it with such control. Anyone? Has Andy Flower hit a reverse sweep for six in a Test match?

We’ve been practicing the reverse sweep in the kitchen this morning. After a couple of minutes of wondering why our knee kept getting in the way, we gave up and went for a nice quiet sit down.

The Rob Key situation reaches crisis point

Those of you who’ve been keeping up to date with the scores in the County Championship will be aware of the horrifying fact that Rob Key hasn’t yet scored a hundred. Yesterday he played onto his stumps for 28 and it occurred to us that maybe the Rob Key situation had reached crisis point.

With Alastair Cook taking his place in the England team along with Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell and Owais Shah lining up behind them, our hero has fallen quite some way down the queue. So we’ve come up with an action plan. It’s so simple we don’t know why we didn’t come up with it sooner. It was staring us in the face. Perhaps it was just too obvious. Rob Key has to get back into the Test team. This is how:

Rob Key must score a quintuple century.

Nobody can ignore a batsman who goes past 500 in a first-class match. Breaking Brian Lara’s record of 501 would make up for Rob Key’s lack of hundreds so far and it would send his batting average sky-high. At a stroke he would leapfrog everyone and earn a place in the England side. Then he could set about scoring some Test match hundreds convincing everyone of his genius.

This plan must be executed without delay. Does anybody have any idea – any idea at all – how we can go about doing this?

Rob Key posts:
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West Indies win one-day series

India aren’t as good abroad as they are at home. Nothing’s really changed there. But if I were Indian I’d merely consider it a setback. The one-day team’s really shown itself to be a thing of substance for quite a while now. This doesn’t undo all that.

The West Indies can still win matches. You’d be forgiven for thinking this wasn’t the case if you read about them much. So does this one-day series victory mean that Brian Lara’s bold new West Indies team are showing signs of becoming a force again?

Not really.

The West Indies are probably on an upward curve, but it’s quite a shallow curve at present. We’ll repeat our view of the team because it hasn’t changed:

The West Indies have a talented batting line-up, but they don’t have enough cutting edge in their bowling attack. When their attack does recapture some bite the knock-on effect will be that the batting line-up will be under less pressure and will score more heavily. It all hinges on finding or honing some bowlers though. That’s the keystone. That’s what everything else will build on. It’s like our tooth in the dream that we described here.

Kevin Pietersen is a really good batsman who is really good at batting

As we write, Kevin Pietersen's 142 positively dwarfs the next best personal score in this Test - 30 by Vaas and Strauss. What impresses us most about Kevin Pietersen's batting is the way he influences the situation. Most batsmen upon finding themselves under pressure try and ride it out attritionally. Kevin Pietersen's more pro-active than that. He sets out to change the field and even the tone of the game.

This isn't just a matter of trying to hit the ball out of the ground (although it often manifests itself through this). It's just a matter of moving the fielders. Pietersen can hit the ball in some unexpected directions and he uses this to manipulate the fielding side. There's more thought going into this than most people think. We guarantee it.

At one point in his mammoth 158 in the last Ashes Test, he deliberately went after Brett Lee who had been troubling him. True, he could and should have been out many times over by this point, but he recognised that as long as Lee was bowling it was only a matter of time before he finally did lose his wicket, so he hit him out of the attack. There was a lot of luck involved, but it worked. This isn't the best example of Pietersen influencing the bowling side, but it's the most memorable. The best instances are the ones that you don't even notice because he seems to be under no pressure at all.

So to summarise: Kevin Pietersen amazes us.

Monty Panesar's catching and fielding

Monty Panesar's fielding is dreadful, just dreadful. He CAN catch. He CAN stop the ball. It's just by no means guaranteed.

Action plans seem to take one of two forms: One, England drop him for someone with better co-ordination; two, England make the sacrifice so as to benefit from his excellent bowling. We're siding with Duncan Fletcher on this one with option three: Teach Monty Panesar how to bloody well field.

The problem is that we're not sure if it's going to happen. We're of the opinion that a good deal of hand-eye co-ordination development occurs as a child and Monty Panesar was presumably busy with Transformers at this time. No-one's going to criticise him for that. Much as we love cricket, if we had owned Scorponok (pictured) we would have had a hard time tearing ourself away from him in order to go and bat on our own with a sawn-off adult bat and a sponge ball. So it may be that Monty Panesar just won't ever be able to field as well as his Transformer-deprived teammates.

But nevertheless it's worth trying because he's such a good bowler. If he can raise his fielding from 'catastrophic' to 'occasionally dicey' England will put up with it. So will we. We love Monty Panesar, but we reserve the right to be annoyed with his fielding. It's not endearing. It's not loveable. It's bad. We'll find him far more endearing and loveable when he's diving full length to catch Ricky Ponting at the MCG.

Liam Plunkett's consistent, accurate bowling

Liam Plunkett has a great name. Liam Plunkett is also a very promising bowler. We haven't been blinded by our enthusiasm for Sajid Mahmood. If we had been writing King Cricket last year, Liam Plunkett would have been one of our Ones To Watch. We kept our eye on him all season

Yesterday, at Edgbaston, he bowled immaculately. He's not as eye-catching as Mahmood, primarily because he's not as quick, but yesterday he bowled with great accuracy, at the right length and swung the ball a bit. Before he took Michael Vandort's wicket, he bowled him an absolute beauty that turned the batsman front-on.

He's not a great interviewee as yet though. Hopefully he was just nervous, but there's definitely the potential for lots of comments about 'putting the ball in the right areas' and how the team all gets on together.

Liam Plunkett's barely 21 as well, so he's quite precocious. He's got a good solid action, so there's no real reason to expect him to drastically lose form. Hopefully it should minimise injury too. And just think - he's a handy batsman now. He could be pretty decent in five or ten years time.

So, in summary: England should play to their strengths and pick nine pace bowlers.

A beer with Channel 5's Test match highlights

At one point we thought that England were going to bowl out Sri Lanka for double figures, but it was 141 in the end. And to think that we weren't going to have a beer tonight. 7.15pm: We'll be sat there; beer in one hand, remote control in the other hand.

It'll be a Lion Stout of course.

It's good to see that England's bowling and catching is in (pretty much) full working order today. The trick is to maintain it. After the first Test, England must surely be in on the little-known secret that you have to bowl a side out twice to win a game.

We really should do at least some work today.

What's wrong with the English?

So Sri Lanka are 25-4. How is the average Englishman feeling about it?

"Oh, it's obviously going to go the same way as the last match. We bowl them out for nothing in the first innings and then their tailenders will save the match. England just can't bowl sides out."

What is it with the English? Why are they so monumentally stupid and negative?

We're English. We're not like that. We're overjoyed that England are in this position. That quote, incidentally, comes from a colleague who represents the England Deaf Cricket Team, so they aren't unknowledgable.

We hate the English. We can only imagine how those of you from what was the British empire must feel. At least we brought cricket and then let you all beat us at it.

To the English! (Raises cup of tea and adopts pompous facial expression.)

Lasith Malinga's bowling action

Lasith Malinga's bowling action is first-class. He slats it. He whangs it. He slings it. He doesn't chuck it. Better not use the word 'chuck'. No, what Lasith Malinga does is what all of us used to do when we were kids. He just tries to propel the ball as fast as humanly possible. It looks pretty weird, but it's effective. There are pros and cons.

Pros:

Lasith Malinga's action uses every part of his body in generating pace.

The ball is released from an unusually low point, which can catch out batsmen used to more conventional actions.

If he swings the ball in, it will also dip, due to the angle of the seam. Waqar Younis's inswinging yorker did this. Waqar Younis's inswinging yorker was just about the best delivery there's ever been.

If he swings it out, the ball will also rise, pitching fuller than the batsmen anticipates. This is likely to lead to false strokes.

Cons:

Accuracy. If Lasith Malinga releases at the wrong moment, the ball will either go full and down the leg side, or short and on the off-side.

Those of you with modern internet connections or at work can see a video of Lasith Malinga bowling against the West Indies here.

Go on Lasith Malinga. You fire your tennis ball into that piece of wood propped up with a brick. Your bowling action's purer than any in international cricket.

Read our latest stuff about Lasith Malinga
Read our latest stuff about Sri Lanka

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Test match nerves and giddiness

We're not actually that nervous. We're just sort of wired. We get a bit highly charged before a Test match, which is a strange sensation because there's no outlet for our energy. Its further evidence that we're genetically predisposed to excel in the world of Test match cricket.

Here are our predictions for this Test:

Sajid Mahmood will take, ooh, let's say 12 wickets in the match.
Andrew Flintoff will score a hundred.
Geraint Jones will score an 'effervescent fifty'.
Mahela Jayawardene will hit a fifty in each innings.
England will win by a mile.

Then we'll cheer and try and celebrate and probably realise that there's no-one around to celebrate with because it's a Monday night.

Mushtaq Ahmed takes lots of wickets

Mushtaq Ahmed's great isn't he? Stumbling in with all the eagerness of a slightly simple dog; screaming his appeals like a slightly simple dog; and working out the batsman's weaknesses like the biggest supercomputer in the world. Plus he's got a beard. We're a fan of Mushtaq Ahmed's, make no mistake. We're led to believe that he's a nice bloke as well, but we'd think that Mushtaq Ahmed was nice whether we'd heard that or not.

There was a strange sort of a match between Durham and Sussex yesterday. Sussex won by an innings and 39 runs having only managed 229 in their one innings. Durham were bowled out for 110 in their first innings and then, having reached 47 without loss in their second innings, fell to 80 all out.

It was pretty damp weather yesterday, so your first thought would be that it was perfect weather for swing and seam, but that wasn't it. Steve Harmison may have proved his form with 4-43 during Sussex's innings and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, who we were embiggening a couple of days ago, may have taken nine wickets in the match, but it was Mushtaq Ahmed's day - as it so often is.

He took three wickets in an over to presage Durham's second innings collapse and finished with match figures of 10-37. It's probably fair to say that Durham's batsmen didn't get the measure of him. Not many do. We could probably take the trouble to find out how many wickets he's taken in county cricket and at what average, but we all know how good Mushtaq Ahmed is without statistics, don't we?

Mushtaq Ahmed is as good as buying the wrong type of beer only to find that you prefer your accidental selection.

Thanks to "pressure" we will be around to comment on the Test

You'll all be delighted to hear that we will be around for the Test after all. The current owner of the house that we're buying has complained of being under pressure to move. Legendary Aussie all-rounder, Keith Miller once said: "Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse" - it's not other people trying to stick to move dates that were set months ago. In any case the upshot is that now we're moving between Tests.

Of course there's always the chance that the current owner is a reader of ours and can't bear the thought of our absence during a key Test match. Well if you are, we've a message for you: Get out. Get out. Get out of the house. Pick up your stuff and leave. Stop messing us about.

England v Sri Lanka, second Test at Edgbaston

Back to back Tests are rubbish. You need time to digest Test cricket. A week off in between is perfect. So on to Edgbaston then with our enthusiasm intact. There was a half-decent match there last year. We've never roared so loudly as when Geraint Jones caught Michael Kasprowicz - not even when we've been trying to ward off predators.

We're siding with just about everybody who says stuff about cricket in believing that England will take their catches and win this match. However, Jayawardene's obviously in great form and Sri Lanka's other batsmen have shown signs of improvement, so Murali could have something to bowl at. Lasith Malinga must surely get a game as well and it will be interesting to see how he does.

Unfortunately, you might not hear from us quite so frequently during this Test as we're moving house. In light of Old Trafford's retention as Lancashire's ground, we're moving slightly further away from it. We'll try and write something when we can. Oh no. Wait. We won't have the internet. Moving house is rubbish.

We'll work something out.

Ramnaresh Sarwan goes one better

That was a bit unexpected. We were all set to write a 'crashing back down to earth' type post about the West Indies, but they only went and beat India again. Good on them.

Ramnaresh Sarwan improved on his 98 not out from the last match with 115 not out as the West Indies overhauled India's 245 off the penultimate ball of the match. If you look at India's scorecard it doesn't look like it adds up to 245. Sehwag gave them a flying start with 97 off 83 balls, but then it all fell away. The entire middle order, Kaif, Dhoni and Rao were all run out and no-one below them reached double figures.

West Indies are showing signs of improvement, but they often do prior to a disaster. It's only two wins. We're withholding all talk of a renaissance until they're bowling England out for double-figure scores again.

Steve Harmison gets to play for Durham

It’s quite a rarity. Durham will be seeing more of Steve Harmison this season than they have for years. England’s selectors have decreed that Harmison is not sufficiently match-fit to earn a place in the Test side.

We’re disappointed about this because Steve Harmison’s one of our favourite players. It’s also about time that Destructive Steve Harmison showed his face, rather than Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison. We’re not as big a fan of Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison and he’s been playing more and more matches for England recently. Stephen Fleming once described Harmison as ‘like Glenn McGrath, only more dynamic’. We’d like to see more of that guy.

At least Liam Plunkett and Sajid Mahmood get more of a chance to show what they’re made of (primarily water, we're led to believe) so every cloud has a silver lining. Well, not every cloud. The clouds that have been shrouding the British Isles for the last week or more haven’t got silver linings. They’ve got wet linings. Has anyone ever found a way of punching clouds in the face?

Rana Naved-ul-Hasan in the County Championship

Has anyone noticed how good Rana Naved-ul-Hasan is? You must have. He’s taking wickets for fun, same as he did last year. Of course he’s only the latest in a reasonably long line of Pakistani fast bowlers tearing English counties to pieces. Wasim Akram spent many years at Lancashire and Waqar Younis topped the bowling averages for about fifteen years on the trot. The difference with Naved-ul-Hasan is that he’s not really proved himself a particularly effective Test bowler.

Well expect that to change. Naved-ul-Hasan will decimate England’s batting line-up later in the summer. We’re as sure of that as we are that we’re going to get distracted by a cup of tea before the end of this paragraph (we’re going to make a cup now). He can’t possibly be so consistently excellent in county cricket without backing it up with at least something for Pakistan. When better a time than in English conditions having acclimatised for a couple of months. Beware England batsmen. Beware.

Of course he could just be Pakistan’s answer to Jon Lewis. Although there’s no saying that Jon Lewis wouldn’t be a great international bowler. We can’t keep afloat amongst all this conjecture. We may as well stick with it though: There’s no saying that WE wouldn’t make a great international bowler. That’s not even conjecture. You prove otherwise. This post has kind of lost its way. Best reel it in. Er, Naved-ul-Hasan, something-something-something…

Nathan Astle’s double hundred against England at Christchurch in 2002

We were days from the nearest road in Nepal when this match took place. When we got back to the land of newspapers, we read the match reports, day-by-day. We couldn’t get our head round this match.

First of all, let’s set the scene. England batted first and promptly lost two wickets in the first over. They recovered to 228 all out, thanks largely to Nasser Hussain’s 106. In reply, New Zealand were toppled by an immense spell of swing bowling by Matthew Hoggard, who took 7-63 in bowling them out for 147.

England’s second innings subsided to 85-4 and then 106-5 and at this point it’s clearly not a batsmen’s game. Then, out of the blue, Graham Thorpe and Andrew Flintoff shared a partnership of 261. Thorpe scored what was at the time, the third fastest Test double hundred off 231 balls. Flintoff weighed in with his debut century, hitting 137 off 163 balls. England eventually declared on 468, setting New Zealand 550 to win. Then Nathan Astle went mental.

New Zealand eventually made 451 and lost the match, but nobody remotely cares about that. In New Zealand’s innings two batsmen passed 50. Mark Richardson hit 76. Nathan Astle hit 222. Not only that, he scored them off 167 balls.

Astle’s first hundred took 114 balls. 100 to 150 took a further 22 balls and 150 to 200 took a mere 17 balls. Seven consecutive Andy Caddick deliveries over the space of two overs went for 4, 6, 6, 4, 6, 6 and 6.

The ninth wicket fell at 333. Nathan Astle clearly still thought that he could win the match. Why? Why did he think this? Not only that, but he thought that he’d try and complete the task within an hour. England bowled good balls; Astle thrashed them for six.

Logic and reason decreed that New Zealand were dead and buried. The history of cricket proved with facts that New Zealand were essentially dead and buried. The loss of nine wickets and the fact that his batting partner was injured should have told Nathan Astle that New Zealand were dead and buried. Nathan Astle just decided to ignore all that. Instead he concentrated on carting the ball over the stands.

This is why we will always love Nathan Astle. He’s the man who out-Shahid-Afridied Shahid Afridi.

Ian Bradshaw – a good bowling performance that we’ll forget about if we don’t write about it RIGHT NOW

We have trouble remembering Ian Bradshaw. He’s got a fantastically dull name. We saw that he’d taken 3-33 against India, then immediately forgot. We remembered the figures, but not the bowler, so we checked again: Ian Bradshaw. Ten seconds later we’ve forgotten again. His 3-33 against India was a tidy effort. At nearly 32, he’s not going to be the bowling saviour that the West Indies so desperately need, but he’d be a more than capable support act.

The West Indies aren’t as disastrous as people often make out. If they could somehow find a pair of strike bowlers, they could fashion a more than handy team. If they weren’t constantly chasing the game, they have more than enough talent in their batting line-up to make big totals. It’s amazing how much easier it is to bat when you’ve gone past your opponents score. A couple of good bowling performers and we bet that they’d be more up-for-it in the field as well. Bowling’s always the key. Bowlers win matches.

But as we said, Ian Bradshaw isn’t that match-winning bowler. He’d be the unsung first-change bowler, keeping it tight. That way we wouldn’t have to remember his name as well.

Yuvraj Singh is great but not flawless

King Cricket’s nominee for world’s best one-day international batsmen in the world at batting worldwide nearly got India home in the second one-dayer against the West Indies. But not quite.

India tantalisingly fell two runs short of victory with Yuvraj Singh being the last man out for 93. It was a tale of two batsmen in many ways. Yuvraj’s 93 was a significant proportion of India’s 197 and Ramnaresh Sarwan’s 98 not out was a slightly greater proportion of the West Indies’ 198. That slight difference proved to be of great significance as the West Indies shaded it.

It also brought to an end India’s run of 17 consecutive successful run-chases. A staggering achievement and one in which Yuvraj played a great part. That he failed today when India required only two runs from the last three balls was quite a shock really. Regardless of that, his magnificent run of form seems to be showing no signs of coming to an end. We think that cricket may be entering the Yuvraj Singh era. Maybe we should get some t-shirts made or something.

Does anyone know what Yuvraj Singh eats? We’re going to start eating whatever it is. It’s not impeccable hand-eye coordination, hours of practice, a constantly evolving gameplan and experience that makes Yuvraj a great batsman – it’s his breakfast.

Lasith Malinga has to play in the second Test

Surely Lasith Malinga will get picked for the second Test. Surely.

Sri Lanka’s pace attack was neither pacy nor an attack in the first Test. Malinga is genuinely quick, which would offer something in itself. There’s also the small matter of his action. If you’ve not batted against Malinga before, it must be quite unnerving. Besides the sheer speed, he slings the ball with a very low arm. Think an exaggerated version of Waqar Younis. The ball comes through a trajectory that batsmen aren’t particularly used to. It’s often said that steep bounce is one of a fast bowlers’ greatest strengths, well this is the opposite.

Malinga took 5-79 in the current warm-up game against Sussex. True, the Sussex team is virtually unrecognisable, but Malinga’s made more of a case for himself than any of his team mates.

When we were being taught cricket, we were told to keep our bowling arm as high as possible. There’s no doubt in our mind that we would currently be leading England’s bowling attack if we had bowled round-arm like Malinga. No doubt whatsoever. We weren’t rubbish, you understand. Not rubbish at all. Just mismanaged.