Stop sneering at Paul Collingwood

Paul Collingwood's been quite firmly branded with the 'makes the most of his talent' tag. It's pissing us off. 'Making the most of your talent' is a prerequisite for any international sportsman. The insinuation is that he makes the most of not a lot of talent.

At least one cricket writer described Collingwood as 'out of his depth' after England's first innings. He's not. He just scored 96.

It's patronising to talk like this, but mostly it's inaccurate. Paul Collingwood's not from the Mark Richardson, 'three shots including the forward defensive', school of batting - Richardson's Test average was 44.77, incidentally. He's got plenty of shots. In fact, gifted wunderkind, Alastair Cook, said after they'd both scored hundreds together earlier in the year that he was having trouble getting the ball off the square and that he admired Collingwood's ability to manoevre the ball and keep the scoreboard ticking over. Who was the grafter there?

You'd think that England supporters raised on an inspid diet of Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash would recognise that a God-given talent is by no means the most important factor determining a batsman's success. Ask Steve Waugh. In fact do, because Steve Waugh once said that he thought Paul Collingwood was good.

James Anderson: He’s not got a ‘knack’ for taking wickets – he’s just good at it

We’re still holding out for an England win with James Anderson leading the charge, but we’re not relishing the headlines if he manages it. We have two fairly major problems with the coverage of Anderson’s return.

Firstly, it is being portrayed as a return to form on top of a return to the side. Anybody who watched James Anderson bowl last year (as we did) knows that he never lost form. Virtually the only bad game he had was against South Africa last winter, which was fairly understandable being as he’d been standing around doing practically nothing for the preceding few weeks. He was only dropped from the Test side in the first place to accommodate Simon Jones. We weren’t sure about that at the time and it has taken a while for us to be convinced of Jones’ quality. However, Anderson wasn’t a bad bowler then and nor has he been since.

Secondly, it is often said that he has the ‘knack’ of taking wickets; that he can get people out with bad balls. This is only a whisker away from saying that he’s blessed with outrageous good luck, which is, if you consider it rationally, complete testicles. If a bowler consistently takes wickets, it’s with good reason – it’s because they’re talented. James Anderson bowls at a decent pace and he swings the ball a lot. He gets wickets with some deliveries which seem too full, but it isn’t a sudden blizzard of fortune that causes the batsman to edge the ball or miss it – it’s the swing.

So, to confirm: James Anderson – not lucky, just good.