Must... write something... about... England's...one-day team

We don't want to write anything. Everything's been said. For example:

"There's a sense of inevitability about England one-day losses at the moment. You don't know quite how they're going to lose, but they will. They might get themselves in a good position and lose. They might let the game get away from them early on. They'll definitely lose though."

That's a quote of our ourself from June the 19th.

Or how about this post, entitled 'England's one-day team - what's wrong' about England's batting letting them down in one-dayers in India. Read it. We could have republished it today, word for word. There's progress.

Ordinarily we at least try and acknowledge 'encouraging' aspects of England one-day performances: There were three England bowlers who each took two wickets today. We're not naming them, even though two are among our very favourite players.

The solution to England's one-day woes

Maybe someone should burn something to symbolise the death of English one-day cricket and we could compete for the remnants.

Then in a hundred years time we might be inspired to get good again.

Steve Harmison bowls garbage in a one-dayer again

How are we doing this? As a one-dayer or as an Ashes prequel?

As a one-dayer it was business as usual for England. Of their three strategies, they went for 'starting encouragingly and really tailing off'. Their other two strategies are 'starting abysmally and clawing their way to a respectable defeat' and 'getting walloped'.

A decent opening stand preceded a jaw-dropping collapse with the not unexpected conclusion of Paul Collingwood being stranded not out. They'd lost by then, but a couple of early wickets were a good start to Australia's innings before the inevitable.

As an Ashes prequel it was mostly a whole load of nothing: Sajid Mahmood can take wickets, but can go for a few. Ian Bell can actually score runs against Australia. Glenn McGrath's off the pace at the minute. There's nothing major to glean, although Steve Harmison's astonishingly low skill level in this form of the game could yet be of importance. It's wides, half-volleys, half-trackers and a leg-stump line from the guy again and again. We love him, but it's more through loyalty on days like this.

The Australian team from an English perspective

Unusually, there seems to be a bit of debate about the Australian team for the Ashes. Traditionally Aussie teams have been pretty much self-picking, but ageing players are leading to a little bit of intrigue. Here's our opinion. And we're being honest.

1. Hayden
2. Langer
3. Ponting
4. Hussey
5. Jaques
6. Clarke
7. Gilchrist
8. Lee
9. Warne
10. Johnson
11. McGrath

You'll notice that we're sticking with Hayden, even though we think he's a bearlike rectum. On flatter Aussie pitches, flat-track bullies are to be coveted. He'll make sure he scores heavily just to irritate us. You can count on it.

We've also gone for Phil Jaques in the middle order. There's lots of hoo-ha about how Jaques, an opener, can't get into the side whatever he does. Well Australia's middle order's more fragile than it used to be, so stick him there. Why not? Australia have traditionally blooded batsmen at number six and then promoted them when they were more comfortable in Test cricket. It's a good ploy.

We've also gone for Michael Clarke rather than an all-rounder. We're not dead set on this, Watson could play. We just think that they've got to start picking Clarke at some point, so they may as well now.

Mitchell Johnson gets the third seamer's position, although Stuart MacGill would be just as good a choice against England, no matter what the pitch. In any case, there's no point picking any more old laggards to clog up the bowling attack - Kasprowicz, Gillespie, Stuart Clark or whoever. They may as well go with a wicket-taker. As with Michael Clarke, they've got to start picking some youngsters soon and Johnson seems to be the best of the bunch.

Finally, Brett Lee's above Shane Warne in the batting line-up. Click on Brett's name to find out why.

India v England - third Test, day one

It's a start. 272-3 looks pretty darn impressive, but to win this match England are going to need a few more.

We've never called for the dropping of Andrew Strauss, but we have been disappointed with his winter form, so 128 here felt like a bonus.

One of the weirdest terrace chants we've ever heard championed Andrew Strauss. It was delivered by one solitary, near-lethally intoxicated, fat, shirtless, middle-aged fan at Old Trafford. It was sung to the tune of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division and referred to Strauss's Waltz.

It went: "Straaauuss. He will waltz you around. Again." To truly replicate the effect you should ever-so-slightly gurgle the 'Strauss' part as you would if you were overburdened with phlegm. You should also sing the chant a capella, throughout the afternoon, to the general ambivalence and mild amusement of your fellow spectators. Nobody should join in and you should never. Ever. Stop. Finally, you should have the look of someone who would never have heard of Johann Strauss or Joy Division, let alone both.

We're a fan of Owais Shah's as well, so we weren't all that disappointed to hear of Alastair Cook's illness. Shah eventually had to retire on 50 due to hand cramps, but he should be back at some point tomorrow.

England should be aiming for a seriously big total, but there's every chance that early wickets will put that beyond them. If that happens expect the energy to visibly sap out of them and India to storm home.

Team-wise, Udal's playing which is a colossal disappointment, albeit an expected one, but to offset that, James Anderson's playing. We're enjoying actually having opinions these days, so we're going to say that James Anderson will win this game for England.

James Anderson takes his chance

As you can see at the bottom of this post, we reckon on James Anderson winning this Test for England. This is partly inspired by blind loyalty to any Lancastrian player, partly by our prejudice towards young promising players and also by our recognition that Anderson is a decidedly fine bowler who has been messed about by England.

Four wickets for 40, two dropped catches off his bowling and a run out. He's made a decent start. Maybe if he succeeds we'll have a James Anderson party. We don't know what that would entail.

India v England – third Test, day four

A day for the purists out at the Wankhede stadium means that all three results are possible going into the final day. You can’t ask for more than that.

India bowled defensively for the most part, which paradoxically gave them the best chance of wickets. Whenever England tried to force the pace, trying to set India a target, they consistently got themselves out. They eventually limped into a lead of just over 300 and had just enough time to dispatch stand-in opener Irfan Pathan.

The Test Match Special team seem to be of the opinion that an Indian win is the least likely result bearing in mind the slow scoring rate of the game so far. We disagree. India have plenty of time to build a platform tomorrow and late in the day they can have a dart at the win if they feel secure. Virender Sehwag was off the field injured for a good proportion of day and consequently can’t bat until five wickets are down, however this does raise the prospect of a partnership with Mahendra Dhoni and with those two at the wicket, no total is too large.

There's no jokes in this post, so you'll just have to make up your own.

The Innocuoso spins England to victory

Can everybody spell 'capitulation'? India have just been bowled out for 100 after being 75-3. Two of those three wickets were lower order batsmen in Pathan and Kumble as well, so that's pretty much the whole Indian top order and two tail enders out for 25. PLUS there were two dropped catches. Never mind 'capitulation'. This was a farce.

We're positively choking on the vast wave of pleasure that's washing over us, but the Indian public won't be best pleased. Rahul Dravid's decision to ask England to bat will be pored over at great length and he won't come out of it well, especially when you consider that the batsman who was asked to face that first ball went on to make a match-winning century.

In terms of India's second innings, Shaun Udal was the hero with the heroic figures of 4-14. Are you ready for how fickle we can be? You'd better prepare yourselves. It's quite something... We love Shaun Udal. He's played a major part in an England victory and therefore joins the ranks of players who we just can't hate.

One of Udal's wickets was a particular highlight. Dhoni, caught Panesar, bowled Udal for 5 doesn't look that interesting on paper, but three balls prior to this Dhoni hit an absolute skier. Monty Panesar dithered around under it. Maybe he lost it. Maybe he thought that the mid-on fielder was coming for it. In any case he didn't lay a hand on it. It was humiliating and the crowd were roaring at him. Fortunately for Panesar, Dhoni, being of a charitable disposition (or possibly sadistic), gave him a second chance with another skier and he caught it this time before the rest of the England team descended on him as if he'd won the entire series.

England will be more than happy with a drawn series (India will be apopleptic). However we do look back on England's own catastrophe in the second Test in Mohali when they batted like 11 crippled badgers in the second innings. If they could have played out more time then perhaps they would be walking away with a series victory.

Kevin Pietersen times his innings to perfection

What was the likelihood that we'd start this post with "England won a game!"? It was distinctly likely until we decided on the 'starting with writing about about what we were likely to start with' approach.

Anyway, as we were saying, England won a game! Which was a massive relief more than anything. We're not sure just how much one-day misery we can take. Sport becomes boring when it's predictable and that's the way things were heading.

You'd have to say that Kevin Pietersen's was the only stand-out performance from an England perspective. They bowled adequately and being as they only managed four wickets, it's a surprise that the Windies only scored what they did. England's openers, Strauss and Bell, again did a decent job and we're fairly convinced that they've got it in them to be a useful partnership, although more likely Trescothick will return as opener and Bell will bat at three. But mostly it was Pietersen.

Pietersen hung around a bit, played in a relatively reserved fashion for the majority of his innings and then went for it as the overs ran out. England won, so it's hard to fault him.

There's all sorts of talk about his aggressive approach being the downfall of him when the Ashes come, but we think that that's to undervalue his thinking. He often attacks only to change a fielding side's approach. If he feels in danger at some point, rather than ride it out, he sets out to do something about it himself.

Doubtless, he'll get out through this at some point and the critics will be onto him, but there'll be other occasions where more reactive batsmen would perish and Pietersen's proactive approach will be his salvation. What we'd like to see is him playing aggressively to put the field back and then batting a long, long time.

Michael Vaughan could play in the Ashes

But he won't.

Michael Vaughan reckons that he's fit to play again and that he only needs to regain match fitness - that supreme level of physical well-being that can only be attained by standing around on a cricket pitch shouting: 'Come on. Let's get another two wickets before tea.'

There's talk of his being available for the third Test in Perth, but frankly it isn't going to happen.

Much as Vaughan is a crucial part of England's side, particularly as captain, the selectors are unlikely to take much of a gamble when there's so little reason. Already England are wondering which of Ian Bell, Alastair Cook and Paul Collingwood will be dropped - all of whom have been hugely successful this year. If Vaughan were to return, it would mean a second of those three missing out in favour of a player of questionable physical hardiness with no Test matches under his belt for a long time.

On the other hand, if things are going badly, there's Vaughan's record in Australia to take into account. During the last tour, playing in a side who were being massively outplayed, Vaughan scored over 600 runs including three huge hundreds.

Plus, he won the Ashes that time.

Schizophrenic England make terrible start

The night before last, we dreamt that Australia had racked up 420-4 on the first day of the first Test. It was harrowing, but it reminded us of previous Ashes tours where England showed the game was up before it had even started. We were glad it wasn't like that any more.

Now who scheduled a one-day match to open England's Ashes tour? It's unforgivable. Remember before the last Ashes, England absolutely walloped Australia in a 'meaningless' Twenty20. Tours have momentum and a good few Australian warm-ups took the shine off their aura.

England don't especially have an aura, but tour momentum still applies and an Australian Prime Minister's XI played them into the gutter. Balls. England inserted their opponents who promptly hit 347-5. Our man Saj Mahmood went for 97 off nine overs, which is just... Well, you know what it is. In reply, England were bowled out for 181.

We're putting it down to England's schizophrenia: Test titans, one-day wallies.

We've never used the word 'wallies' before and we won't be doing so again. It's too early to think alliteratively and that's the best that we can manage.

Phil Jaques with our impartial hat on

England got battered. Phil Jaques did a good deal of the battering, hitting 112 off 110 balls.

We put Phil Jaques in our Australian team from an England perspective. We stand by that. Stick him in, Australian selectors. Everyone's waiting round for an injury to Hayden or Langer (or retirement). Why? Put him in at six. Or five. He WILL score runs.

Geraint Jones is England's wicketkeeper

Despite being dropped a couple of months ago in favour of Chris Read, Duncan Fletcher has confirmed that Geraint Jones will be England's wicketkeeper for the first Ashes Test.

At the time, the selectors seemed to indicate that Jones was being dropped as a result of poor form rather than anything more serious. They've had a quick look at Chris Read and given him a chance to make a big claim, but our feeling is that maybe they had always intended for Jones to keep his position for the Ashes.

We tend to agree with them and for much the same reasons given by Duncan Fletcher. Geraint Jones probably is the better batsman. He has extensive experience of Australian conditions, having been brought up there. His back-foot style of play suits Aussie pitches. Finally and most importantly, he has proved himself undaunted by the pressures that come with an Ashes series. This is not to be underestimated. A psychological war is in the offing and weaknesses will be ruthlessly exploited.

England scrabble around for the ignition switch

That's a reference to 'coming to the boil'. Excuse our nerves, but we've been conditioned to panic at losses in warm-up games Down Under. Previously, they heralded outright humiliation. We're still quite confident as far as the Ashes goes, but you can't throw away all these years of experience.

It's Pavlovian conditioning. England concede 325-5, as they did last night and we are conditioned to run round yelping: "No. No. The wheels are coming off. Abandon tour. ABANDON TOUR."

As Patrick described past Ashes tour matches on the Times' cricket blog the other day:

"Go to bed as England start to play and wake up eight hours later to a radio announcer saying 'and in cricket, England suffered a humiliating defeat...'"

Of course it's not so bad these days. England still lose warm-up games with alarming regularity, but when the Tests come, they inevitably get their act together. It's still a trifle worrying though. Steve Harmison got carted, for one thing. We'd really like a bit of reassurance from him before long. If Faintly Underwhelming Steve Harmison is replaced by Destructive Steve Harmison for the first Test, that's fine, but we'd really prefer the swap a little earlier.

Also during this tour match, Duncan Fletcher revealed that James Anderson is currently ahead of Sajid Mahmood. James Anderson bowled whereas Sajid Mahmood didn't, so this is unlikely to change.

England achieve slow simmer

They're at the sort of temperature at which you cook a stew. It's not quite at the boil, but at least there's pans and heat involved, which didn't seem likely as recently as yesterday.

In their joke warm-up match against New South Wales, they took a few more wickets for not many runs in the morning and then toddled along to 256-4, which is nice and solid. Kevin Pietersen is on 80 not out, which is a welcome return to runs for a man who's never mentioned in the discussions about dropping middle-order batsmen, but yet who averages roughly the same as those who are.

Andy Flintoff's 48 not out, which is similarly reassuring. Any cynics who are suggesting that New South Wales' international bowlers are lulling England's batsmen into a false sense of security are seriously misunderstanding the Australian sporting psyche. Australians want to crush the English without mercy. It's as simple as that.

England turn up the heat in an attempt to thicken the sauce

We're finishing with the culinary analogies now. They're wordy and increasingly meaningless.

The three-day muck-about against New South Wales has finished. Kevin Pietersen got his hundred. Then James Anderson took 3-40. How quick is he now? Does anyone know? We're just wondering whether the stress fracture has slowed him at all. Hope not.

The big news of the day was that Phil Jaques didn't get a hundred: He got four. We always said he was rubbish.

Monty Panesar: Smart and English

Monty Panesar was called a 'stupid Indian' during England's warm-up against New South Wales by a dense prick in the crowd.

Just to clarify, Monty Panesar has a computer science degree and if you can't remember where he's from, just check the scoreboard. It says 'England' on it.

Maybe Monty should have responded that he was as Indian as the speaker was English. That would have gone down well. We're presuming that whoever it was, wasn't of Aboriginal descent.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph reports that the beered-up no-mark went on to add: "Give us a wave, Monty. You can't speak English, you stupid Indian. I'll have to say it in Indian," which you would have thought was an insanely optimistic offer on his part. Not least because there's no such language.

New South Wales' captain, Simon Katich, described the incident as 'disappointing'. When Matthew Hayden got bitten by a dog that time he described it as 'disappointing'. They seem to be a bit strapped for emotions Down Under at the minute. Everyone's just sharing the one.

Marcus Trescothick to miss Ashes

Marcus Trescothick's 'stress-related condition' has flared up again and he's missing the Ashes. This is mighty bad. (We're not questioning the legitimacy of his condition with those inverted commas, incidentally - it's merely a reference to the predictability of the mainstream media who have settled on that phrase to explain his malaise.)

Marcus Trescothick is like a big, solid lump of familiarity at the top of the order. No, we'll go further than that: Marcus Trescothick IS a big, solid lump of familiarity at the top of the order. The reason why he's attained this status is because he's played heaps of games for England because he's so good at batting. To lose a player of his calibre is a bitter blow.

We wish Marcus the absolute best with his continuing struggle. If there were some way of indicating the absence of sarcasm, we'd have used it there. We're quite capable of genuine emotion, despite the vast majority of this site.

Most likely Alastair Cook will move up to open the batting with Andrew Strauss, thus removing England's selectorial headache surrounding the middle order. However, there is an alternative.

We should probably add that Mahinda beat us to that in the comments on our previous post. We were already thinking it though. Since about March.

England jump for Joyce

That makes no sense. You don't 'jump' for players. You select them. We'd change it, but we can't be bothered thinking of another title.

Sadly, England's selectors have selected Ed Joyce as Marcus Trescothick's replacement. We rate Ed Joyce highly, but at the end of the day, he's competing against Rob Key here. There's only one way we were going to go with that. The point's moot anyhow. Joyce is in. Owais Shah was also rejected, despite being the next in line when injuries took their toll in India earlier in the year.

We're a bit puzzled by the batting hierarchy at the minute, if Joyce is ahead of Shah and Key. We were trying to work it out and eventually decided that they'd plumped for Joyce on the basis of youth. We're not sure about this, because the next generation of England batsmen are pretty much playing already with Cook, Bell and Pietersen holding down regular spots. You can look too far ahead.

Then we checked ages. It turns out that Ed Joyce is the oldest of the three, followed by Shah and then Key (time's still on his side), so it has to be assumed that Ed Joyce is being selected on ability and nothing besides, which is how it should be, really. He certainly is a class batsman and we suppose that the selectors have given hints by repeatedly picking him in one-day squads.

He's still not Rob Key though. You can justify it of a fashion, but the fact is that it will take at least two further injuries to front-line batsmen for Rob Key to play a part in this series. Nobody should treat Rob Key this way. NOBODY.

Strike bowler Matthew Hoggard finds form

Matthew Hoggard nearly took a hat trick against South Australia. We don't know how close he was with the hat trick ball, but he certainly took two wickets in two balls. He finished with 3-40, so maybe he CAN bowl in Australia after all.

Adelaide's historically the best ground for batting in Australia, so England limiting South Australia to 247-7 declared wasn't bad. We're almost 100% certain that England are going to win every single Test by an innings and at least a hundred runs after this.