Root at a crossroads

Just over a year ago, with the Ashes imminent, there was some sensible talk (amongst all the trash) about the battle of the captains. Joe Root was still relatively new to the job, and even if he seemed to take responsibility in his stride it was widely thought that he was yet to really stamp his personality on the side.  Steve Smith, his opposite number, was more established, with less focus on his actual captaincy skills but rather on just how England were going to get him out. At the time I mused that the captaincy issue was a smokescreen, yes Smith and Root was the key battle but not one that would be decided by a moment of Brearley-like inspiration or a quirky Vaughan-esque field setting. No, this would be a battle of runs, and for England to stand any chance they needed a whole stack. In particular they need at least 500 including a couple of meaningful centuries, from their one world class batsman, their captain.  Root finished with 378 runs and a top score of 83. Smith made 687 with 3 hundreds including a best of 239. Like the series itself, it was barely a contest. 

Since then it's fair to say that Root and Smith lives have taken different courses, certainly in the court of public opinion. Smith is still serving his 12 month ban for failing to prevent two idiots carrying out an act so stupid even Boris Johnson wouldn't have backed it; meanwhile Root is feted as a sort of cross between Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Russell Brand for failing to respond like an idiot to a crass, but off the cuff remark.

Like the captaincy argument, this is just another entertaining side-show.  Cricket hasn't changed since Smith was banned. It's still all about runs and wickets. And England are still as dependant on Root's runs as they ever were, possibly even more so; as will Australia be when Smith returns. Root can be as upstanding a member of society as he likes but if he doesn't start batting to his potential, then he is not doing his primary job - influencing matches and series from the start in the manner of a world class batsman. Second innings hundreds in dead rubbers are nice for the average but little good for the team.

There is some mitigation. With England's next best players currently consigned to the 6 and 7 slots, Root is in effect carrying the entire top 5. Clearly this is a lot to ask, probably too much. A couple of things could help him. Firstly another re-think of Jonny Bairstow's batting position. Having him at 5, possibly interchangeably with Ben Stokes depending on workload, would give the top order a solider look. Secondly, a recall for Ian Bell to bat at 3. He may not be the player he was but if he is properly motivated he is still streets ahead of the other options.

But the buck still stops with the captain. England don't need just the old Root back they need a new, improved version. Nasser Hussain reckons that he has another level in him. I agree, but to get there he needs to rethink his approach. There is a still a boyish carefreeness to his batting. It has  served him well at times and made him a delightful player to watch. He likes to score, to put bat to ball early on, and put pressure on opposition bowlers. And all done with a smile on his face.

Nevertheless Root's game, along with the majority of the world's batsman, has stagnated. Stuck in adolescence. Sure his range of attacking shots has grown thanks to the white ball stuff but in terms of building an innings he is still doing the same thing he was five years ago. Meanwhile their opponents have matured. Aided and abetted by video and statistical analysis and encouraged most recently by some sporting surfaces, bowlers have wised up. Just as batsman have forsaken patience, they have discovered its worth. A couple of boundaries is no longer due cause for a kick of the footholes or a volley of expletives. Captains are now increasingly happy to offer boundary protection (keeping the catchers but offering the single) in the knowledge that these cavaliers are unlikely or unable to change his game. As a result bowlers are more willing to play the waiting game. They've watched the videos, they've seen the stats, enough balls in a certain area and most batsmen, Root included, will give you a chance.

It was telling that before the Test series in the Caribbean Root stated that "you don't win games by batting long periods of time, you win games by scoring big runs". Now while it is possible to bat for long periods of time WITHOUT scoring big runs, it is, especially in the T20 era, rather improbable. And surely the longer you bat the better your chances of amassing those runs? It almost makes you feel that the entire basis of the strategy set out in Sri Lanka, to 'get the runs before they get you', was predicated more on the ability and mental capacity of the English batsmen than on the conditions and the bowlers they were set to face. That it worked was a happy coincidence but it is not and can never be a recipe for consistent Test match success.

Instead of poo-pooing the value of patience and restraint Root could do worse than to look at the example of Steve Waugh. Hard as it is believe, but when he first game on the international scene he was lauded for the freeness and range of his stroke play. But such freedom brought only limited success. Only when he decided to sure up his game, eschewing risk and instead waiting for the bad ball did his fortunes change. In 46 Tests up to December 1992, Waugh scored 2166 runs at an average 36. In the next 122 he made 8761 at 56.

Even Root's contemporaries and rivals (and fellow captains) have shown the value of abstinence.  Virat Kohli performance in the English summer past, was a model for any batsman facing such 'ego-burying' conditions. Even Smith himself, when confronted at Brisbane by a bowling strategy designed (by Root) solely to frustrate and restrict, refused to give it away and ultimately redirected and amplified that frustration back to bowler and captain. Root had a front row seat on both occasions but appears uninterested in the lessons.

Go back three years ago and you would have put Root on a par with Kohli and Kane Williamson with Smith slightly ahead. For the moment he has been left behind. Despite the boyish smile there is no lack of toughness, but does he have it in him to suppress his natural instincts and be what his team needs him to be - not just an accomplished competitor but a talented fighter.  Kohli would see it as a challenge, does he?

Alastair Cook - a tangible great and an intangible loss

Had Alastair Cook retired five years ago the loss to England would have been very different than it is today. It would still have been very significant, but it would have been more tangible.

Back then he was at the centre of everything - scoring runs, taking catches and providing dependable if not hugely imaginative leadership. There was Trott and Bell and Pietersen and Prior and Swann and Anderson and Broad, it was a fine side with a solid back bone of experience, but it was on Cook's axis that the team revolved. Remember India in 2012? KP's brilliant hundred in Mumbai, maybe his best, maybe one of THE best, and Swann and Panesar outbowling the Indians in their own backyard. Well that epic series victory was founded firmly and squarely on three outstanding if not instantly memorable captain's centuries. The first, in the face of almost certain defeat, was a defiant statement not only that his team still had the fight for the contest but they had the skill to win it. How quickly we can forgot. We really should not.

We also forget how great players force opponents to modify their strategies and tactics. For years Cook feasted on bowlers who could land the ball in the right spot five balls an over, but who would then either drop one a little wide and get scythed to the point boundary or, frustrated by the batsman's judgement outside off stump, would be drawn into delivering something a little straighter, only to see the ball clipped with minimal effort but maximum efficiency to the mid-wicket fence. Cook may only possess three shots (or four if you count the leave) but when he played them as well as he did (particularly the fourth) it seemed more than enough.

But faced with this conundrum bowlers have smartened up. They have embraced Cook's mantra and like an Aikido grandmaster are now using his great strength against him. On his second Ashes tour in 2010-11, the Aussies fed him a veritable feast of short and wide stuff on which he gorged handsomely and in record fashion. Since then he has found it tougher, as more disciplined bowlers probe relentlessly on a full length outside off stump. Patience was always Cook's game but now there are two players playing and the bowler holds most of the cards.

In response Cook's game has not unravelled but he has been unable to find a consistent answer to these new questions. On helpful surfaces and particularly against right arm bowlers such as Ishant Sharma and Morne Morkel who move the ball away from around the wicket he has looked a little lost. Whether it is, as Graham Gooch suggests, that the appetite to improve has finally left him (and frankly after 160 matches who can blame him) or that he has the lost the hope that he can improve, only he knows. Whichever it is, he has earnt the right to keep that truth to himself.

And what of the team, of English cricket, in the post-Cook era. Sad to say the runs and catches of recent times will be all too easily replaced but what of those intangibles, the things we, the public, are too far away to clearly see and that they, the players, are too close to fully appreciate: the experience, the calmness, the stubbornness, the dedication, the stamina and the will to succeed over and over again.

They say we never know what we have until it's gone. But in Alastair Cook's case it seems like we really do know and that it is an awful lot. Really how much more could there be? I guess we are about to find out.

Timing's right for Bell's return

Ahmedabad, November 2012. Kevin Pietersen lurches forward to the left arm spin of Pragyan Ojha, bat and pad divorced and estranged. He's beaten in the flight and his hands grope for the ball like a drunkard searching for a candle in a blackout. But it's to no avail - the ball beats the outside edge and he's comprehensively bowled.

His dismissal leaves England in real trouble, tottering at 69 for 4 in reply to India's 521. Alistair Cook is still there but the next partnership will be crucial, it may even decide the game. Fortunately replacing Pietersen is a man with more than 5000 test runs, a man possessed with an unnatural degree of talent and a consumate player of orthodox spin. We are in safe hands.

His first ball is a slow, floated delivery. There's a chassis down the pitch, a full swing of the bat and the ball floats gently into the hands of mid off.  Ian Bell c Tendulkar b Ojha 0.  Horrid. Not ugly, never ugly, just horrid.

For many such dismissals will always define Bell. Soft and self-inflicted, seemingly proving that deep down he just isn't made of the right stuff. It's nonsense of course. This is a man who now has almost 8000 )Test runs and 22 hundreds. Only Cook and Pietersen have more. This is the man who almost single-handedly ensured that England won back the Ashes in 2013. You don't do that by being soft. Of course when you stop scoring runs as well (Bell averages less than 30 and is without a hundred since those 2013 Ashes) then you are in trouble. The decision to drop him following the 2014 series in the UAE was tough and I would argue mistaken given the weakness of the alternative candidates, but hardly unfair.

Ironically he now stands on the cusp of an unexpected comeback in part because of a succession of 'soft' failures by what we might call his aesthetic successor, James Vince. Currently England's top order is hopelessly shaky. Alex Hales and Gary Ballance have done little to settle doubts about their long term suitability although it is likely that at least one will survive to tour this winter. In this context the return of Bell seems essential, he might not be in the greatest form but it is not form that this top order is lacking. It is class.


If nothing else, Bell's return should immediately relieve some of the pressure that has piled up on Cook and Joe Root. Despite decent looking figures neither will be entirely happy with their summer's work with promising starts too often failing to result in match changing scores (and dare I say it one or two rather flaccid dismissals too), But these are clinical, pragmatic reasons. Important for selectors, irrelevant for cricket lovers. I just want to see Bell back. For me, for you, for the game. We should all want him back.  In these power obsessed day where bats have sides rather than edges there is a special joy in witnessing a player defined not by muscles but by grace and timing. Like so many things you don't appreciate it until it is gone. I know I didn't. This time I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it.

Are central contracts up to the Test?

In the Times last Thursday Mike Atherton argued, that "the whole point of central contracts is to ensure that England's premier bowlers are fit and ready for every Test match." A clear prioritisation of Test cricket therefore and one for which he believes we should be  unapologetic.

Pretty logical I would have thought and entirely fitting with the basis on which the whole expensive idea was sold in the first place. Not only that but with the team ranked number one in the world and with a seventh consecutive home series victory assured, these central contracts have clearly worked.

But as Atherton was perhaps gently implying, does this prioritisation of Test cricket over other international cricket actually exist or more accurately does it still exist? The possibility of England's new ball attack being rested for the last West Indies Test leaves this open to question.

The two cases concerned tell different tales. The first, that of James Anderson, is the more nuanced and thus the more easily defendable from a selectorial viewpoint. Anderson apparently has a niggling thigh injury. According to national selector Geoff Miller, the rest would give Anderson the chance to "overcome several minor injuries" and was "in the best interest of the team and James himself". Now for all I know the selector's have received medical advice that, at the very least, suggests that bowling another 50 or 60 overs would risk aggravating the injury(ies) and risk Anderson's missing the first Test against South Africa on 19 July. If so then fair enough, it is good, professional player management. In last summer's blue riband series, India went into the series with a half fit opening bowler, he took three wickets in the first morning and then hobbled off never to return. We know what happened next. England do not want to make the same mistake.

Anderson, however, seems less than convinced. He claims to be suffering from neither fatigue nor injury. On the contrary he has declared himself fit to play.  Now no player wants to miss a Test match or indeed any international match and so player estimations of their own health must be taken with a pinch of salt. But Anderson is no fool. As has been suggested, somewhat ungenerously, he may have regarded the Third Test as an opportunity to pick up some cheap wickets ahead of bigger challenges, but in fact like all top sportsmen it is for the biggest challenges that he plays the game. The South African series will be only a fraction down on the itensity of an Ashes series and more than a fraction up in terms of quality. Is he likely to risk missing that? One thing's for sure, in terms of preparation he is no Zaheer Khan.

The second and more troubling case is of Stuart Broad, for whom no such injury concerns have been expressed. He is in the twelve man squad but remains an uncertain starter. It is not in debate that Broad (and indeed Anderson) has a busy period of cricket between now and the first South African Test - eight ODIs and one T20 to be precise - but how can that possible justify resting a fully fit bowler who has already been forced to miss one Test match this year through injury? If he is fit, surely he must play. 

But listening to England's Head Coach it seems increasingly likely that Broad will not play. In fact Andy Flower has put forward a strong defence of the policy of rest and rotation. One, however, that dispels any myth of the absolute primacy of Test cricket. "We came into this series with one goal and that was to win the series," Flower said. "We've achieved that goal so our priorities do shift. I'm not intending to demean the importance of this Test but, since we won the series already, our priority on the Test front does now shift to the South Africa series. There is also a slight shift to the West Indies one-day series because that series stands at 0-0. We haven't won that series, we've won this one. Part of our decision making is based around those reasons"

He may not intend to demean the importance of this Test but he does. No matter how superficially attractive some of his arguments may seem (there is merit in his desire to increase the "pool" of fast bowlers as well as in his observation that the selection of Finn and Onions would hardly weaken the team) they just don't stack up. In particular, rationalising the decision in the light of the South Africa series does not wash. If priority had truly shifted to that series then Ravi Bopara, who will surely take Jonny Bairstow's place then, should have played now. But instead Bairstow is rightly retained.

Referencing resting and rotational practices in other sports does not work either. For one thing, in no other national team sport in the UK is the management granted complete control over their players. With centrally contracted players playing virtually no county cricket these days, and with rest and rotation already being exercised in ODIs, do players' workloads still need further "managing"?

If the answer is yes it can mean only one of two things: that this summer's schedule is grossly overloaded or that central contracts are not working. I prefer to blame the schedule, not only because the one-day series with Australia is so palpably pointless but because, as much as I try, it is hard to argue with a number one ranking.

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Kevin Pietersen's retirement from all one-day cricket has served only to fling further mud into these murky waters. But whatever Pietersen's motivation it should not be overlooked that one of the superstars of the modern game, and a "great" fan of T20, has made a decision designed to keep him playing Test cricket for for the forseeable future. In these uncertain times let us just be happy about that.

Sri Lankan tour is a test of preparation for English guinea pigs

Despite a 3-0 defeat to the world's fifth ranked test team, it was of little surprise that the England squad announced last week shows only one change to their batting line up. For the optimists it's confirmation that the second half of their UAE adventure put to rest many of the doubts raised by the first; for the rest, it is evidence that the selector's had few real options but to continue with the existing group, who, it must be acknowledged, were being feted as world beaters only six months ago.

Although an optimist by nature, I find it hard to see much credibility in the former view.  It is less than a month since a cumulative and consistent failure of England's middle order resulted in a 3-0 test series defeat. In the aftermath, the management's attempts to fight spin with spin, so to speak, have failed to deceive.

Noble words and sentiments were expressed by captain and coach about progress made. Firstly between the second and third test and then during the limited overs series.  Certainly the batsmen put up a better effort in the last Test, but it was really only Andrew Strauss who made any significant step forward (both literally and metaphorically). Despite employing his legendary work ethic to the problem, Kevin Pietersen never gave off a sign of  permanance or comfort at any point of the test series. Ian Bell was much, much worse. Blame was also deflected towards that ever useful batting scapegoat "the scheduling" - too few matches, the wrong sort of cricket, and this time even the length of break between series. Like all the best lies, they convince because they have elements of truth about them, but they are still lies.

The success in the limited over series is also a red herring. Test and limited overs cricket are like apples and oranges - performance in one is a useless guide to likely performance in the other. The personnel are often different and even DRS is applied differently - one review per innings leaves no margin for error and it was noticeable that Misbah was a good deal more cautious in its use. Instead psychological factors, be it the need to atone for test defeat, or the mental disintegration caused by such a defeat (as was the case with India's tour of England) are often more relevant.

In short, this line-up could have netted every day from September to January, flown out a month before, had six practice matches, played the one-dayers before the main event, had Graham Gooch on hand 24/7 and they still wouldn't have been prepared for the Tests and they still would have lost 3-0. And yet they are quality players, so what went wrong and how do they put it right?

Andrew Strauss hit it on the head when acknowledging "it's hard to prepare without facing them". They lost the series because they had no previous experience or opportunity to replicate what they were about to face. It's not just England, virtually no one has faced Saeed Ajmal on low bouncing asian pitches with full, predictive ball-tracking, DRS in effect. In Sri Lanka, England will not be confronted by anyone of Ajmal's special talent, but all the other elements will be present. 

In some respects England are guinea pigs for this new DRS reality and so their response will closely regarded by their rivals. We know that Strauss and Bell will travel out a week early to Sri Lanka and Andy Flower has promised that preparation will be different for this tour and that of India later in the year.  But is this enough? DRS will not be used in either of the two official practice games, meaning that the players will again enter the First Test without any practice under true match conditions. Its absence is understandable. According to ICC general manager Dave Richardson, it costs $10,000 per day for the use of the cameras and ball tracking technology to operate DRS. A significant cost for international cricket boards, and surely beyond state, provincial or county set ups. And yet, if players only face these conditions in Test matches how are they to train and how are selectors supposed to know whether their techniques will cope?

Much has been made, particularly in England, of the need to replicate international cricket as far as possible at domestic level. Three day games became four for this purpose, two divisions was supposed to raise standards; but without DRS these players are playing a different game. It's a particularly uncomfortable fact because there is no easy solution. In the short term, you could argue that having DRS in place for at least one of those two warm up games may have been as valuable an investment for England as a full time batting coach.

Is cricket ready for Ajmal and his new best friend?

Unless your shoes are covered in red clay from the time you could walk, winning the French Open is likely to be the toughest task in tennis. McEnroe never managed it, Sampras never even made the final and even Federer, regarded by many as the best ever, can count only one victory amongst his 16 Grand Slam titles. Winning a Test series on the sub-continent is cricket's equivalent. It was beyond even Steve Waugh's great Australian side and has proved way beyond the world's current number one team.

The capitulation of the English batting line-up in Abu Dhabi on Saturday made for particularly strange, if compelling, viewing. I had the feeling of witnessing something profound, a changed game. Now of course cricket is always evolving, or indeed revolving, but its essence has always remained the same. Having watched DRS' impact on that last day's play, I am no longer sure.

The general consensus is that the onus remains on the English batsmen. They must sharpen up. On the sub-continent, with DRS, the margin of error is much smaller. They must improve their judgment, particularly of length, and more generally come up with a strategy that will achieve more than just survival. All this being said, has the balance may not have swung back too far in the bowler's favour. Has that margin of error been reduced too much?

The LBW law was first introduced in 1774 for reasons of fairness - to prevent negative pad play. In 1883 the MCC vowed to "discount and prevent this practice by every means in their power". Amended many times, there is now little argument as to its correctness. What has never changed, partly because it is not written down, is the discretion granted to umpires to give the benefit of the doubt. Technology, firstly in the form of the 'landing strip' and then Hawkeye, has however served to reduce this doubt. Umpires, with Darrell Hair very much a pioneer in this regard, have become much more confident in giving batsman out on the front foot, with spinners like Graeme Swann the chief beneificiaries. Nevertheless before DRS, where there was doubt it was still the batsmen who received it. Whilst that benefit remains with the review system, it is the umpire who is now the recipient rather than the batsman - a decision will only be overturned if Hawkeye shows a clear error.

And we are yet to see the full effect of DRS. Even if it has been around several years, it has never been used consistently or uniformly on sub-continental pitches. It was not even used in Pakistan's series victory over Sri Lanka in the UAE less than four months ago. Furthermore in the post Murali/Warne era, even where such conditions have arisen there have been few bowlers skillful enough in terms of accuracy and deception to exploit them fully. In Saeed Ajmal, Pakistan now have such a bowler.

Ajmal is the perfect soldier for a new kind of warfare. Bowling relatively straight to maximise the doosra's effect, Ajmal's subtle and seemingly indicipherable variations have bamboozled the English batsmen. He is not a huge turner of the ball which is to his advantage. LBW is his preferred method of dismissal and for that a bat's width is sufficient - any more than that he risks falling foul of DRS, his new best friend. Eleven of his seventeen wickets in the current series have come in this manner.

In the finest spinning bowling tradition, from William Clarke, to Bosanquet to Warne, Ajmal also uses psychology to throw batsmen off guard - he didn't even coin the phrase 'teesra' (Saqlain Mushtaq did that a few years ago) and certainly there is no clear evidence that he has developed a new ball - which he then backs up with wonderful control to create stiffling pressure and, in the case of England's batsmen, near paralysis. With a batsman's mind so befuddled, a straight ball can be as deadly as viciously turning one, something which has benefited not only Ajmal but his fellow spinners too.

Earlier in the week Mike Atherton suggested that the DRS may actually lead to the teaching of different batting techniques. He was referring to younger players but from an English perspective such remedial work cannot wait till next week let alone until the next generation. As Alistair Cook amongst others has already noted, some techniques, namely those which involve a reliance on pad play, simply do not work any  more. With DRS the pad is more a landmine than protective armour.

The solution though is not simple. Much is made of the skill and success of two members of the England coaching team, Andy Flower and Graham Gooch, in playing spin. Both however relied heavily on the sweep shot, a positive tactic which can serve to disrupt a bowler's rhythm. But that was pre DRS. Playing across the line and across your pad is now a very dangerous tactic as Kevin Pietersen has found. Others advise batsmen to use their feet and indeed this can be very effective - both in negating spin and in disrupting a bowler's rhythm. But it is also very dangerous if you don't know which way the ball is spinning and in any case, unlike Graeme Swann, Ajmal tends to bowl quickly and relatively flat making a chassis down the pitch all the more difficult.

In effect for the first time in cricket's history, DRS is ensuring that the lbw law is properly enforced and batsmen, at least the English batsmen, are struggling to adjust. It is initially tempting to view this as a return to the purity of cricket's origin - a simple game of bat and ball. But cricket is not a simple game and the LBW law is perhaps the least simple aspect of it. The law originated when such definitive judgment was inconceivable and my concern is whether such enforcement, particularly on sub continental pitches, ensures a fair balance between bat and ball. The 16 LBWs in the match was the third highest total in 2032 Test matches. Will this become the new norm?

Of course it is far too soon to come to any reasonable judgment on this, and certainly too early to predict a doomsday like scenario. For all we know DRS may lead to the emergence of more bowlers of Saeed Ajmal's skill and not just in the sub-continent. By consequence, more countries may be encouraged to produce pitches that take spin earlier in the game. Can this be a bad thing? From a batting perspective we may also see a revolution in technique and in particular footwork, with batsmen regularly advancing down the pitch, Trumper-like, attempting to impose their own will on the game. Does this not sound like a glorious future? It may be the reality, but it also may not.

Test cricket can't be left at the mercy of the free market

Another ICC meeting and another disappointing retreat by the powers that should-be.The continued flip-flopping on the DRS issue could have been predicted but the likely postponement of the first World Test Championship, considered by some as a key means of re-invigorating the greatest form of the game, is altogether more serious. As so often before, financial considerations appear to have trumped all others.

To be fair, this is not a broken promise - under their long term planning the Champions Trophy 50 over competition was originally scheduled for 2013 and that is what now looks like happening. To all intents and purposes, however, the Test championship had been pencilled into to replace it. Indeed Lord's was awarded, or decided to bid for, only one Test in 2013 on this assumption. The MCC must have received some fairly strong assurances to have gone along with this.

Of itself, this would not be the end of the world, indeed I would question whether such a championship is absolutely necessary. The point is though, that it was put forward as an example of the importance the ICC placed on Test cricket and how seriously it was about protecting it. Instead it looks like another case of the ICC failing or being unable to provide strong leadership.

Chief Executive Haroon Lagat may argue that the Board has to balance several objectives. Fair enough, as is his point about the financial implications for the game without broadcasting support. The problem is broadcasters are not just influencing the agenda, they are setting it and that is the ICC's job. It is not a broadcasters job to care about the future of the game (although they would be unwise to ignore it entirely), their job is to make money. And the fact is, that if it was left to the free market to decide, international cricket would probably be dead in thirty years. Test cricket, with the exception of the Ashes series in Australia, would probably cease to exist outside England in the next ten. And with no one else playing how long can it survive there? The 50 - over game wouldn't survive much longer either. T20 would be okay for a while, particularly on the subcontinent, but it is hard to believe that even Indians won't eventually get bored with its formulaic monotony.

Avoiding such a scenario requires a greater, wider and deeper vision than the ICC currently seems capable of providing. The revenue and exposure from international competitions such as the World T20 and the World Cup are clearly essential to the game's future. But what broadcasters, such as ESPN the Board's broadcasting partner, would like to do is to pick and choose the tournaments they cover, to take off the cream and leave the rest, which in the case of ESPN's main market includes Test cricket, to go sour. When it comes to the next negotiations in 2015, the ICC must back up its words with actions and ensure that Test cricket is an integral part of the deal.

It's only twenty wickets

He may have made some handy contributions with the bat for England over the years but under normal circumstances Ryan Sidebottom's wicket would not be a prized one. On this occasion his dismissal on Sunday morning was not only the match winning one but it was the twentieth English wicket to fall. After weeks of trying, South Africa had finally broken through the magical '19' mark.

For basically a statement of the bleedin' obvious, the importance of 'taking twenty wickets' has come along way in recent years. In the hands of players and commentators alike, it has moved way beyond truism, transcended mere cliché and attained a significance only usually reserved for ethereal terms like 'the spirit of the game'. It may even go mainstream one day, instead of 'closing the deal' you could be 'taking the twentieth'.

Aside from limited vocabularies and limitless press conferences there is a good reason why captains and coaches are speaking about it more. Results in Test matches are expected now. With covered pitches, covered outfields, better drainage and even floodlights much less play is lost to rain than fourty years. As a consequence every one of the Test playing nations who were playing then and now have reduced considerably their percentage of drawn games. Pakistan for example, between 1970 and 1979 drew over 56% of their matches compared to only 26% in the last ten years. Most pleasingly, outside the subcontinent the stalemate has become almost a thing of the past, but with it has also gone many a captain's and many a bowler's first excuse.

This has become the era of the 'good draw' or even the 'great draw',  the type of concept that leaves your stereotypical American bewildered. But for all the honest, positive sentiment after games such as Cardiff, Centurion and Cape Town, the truth of the matter is that winning is still almost everything. As an Englishman I celebrated those epic draws, but had I been an Australian or a South African I would only have cursed the missed opportunities.

So why can't teams finish off the opposition like they used to? There are a number of obvious reasons for this, better pitch preparation for one and yes that does include ones of the 'chief executive' variety from time to time. There is also the matter of the players themselves. The lower orders are much stronger than they used to be. When the South Africans returned to Test cricket, by accident or design their numbers 7 to 10 seemed almost as potent as their top order. And of course this was something that Duncan Fletcher brought, most certainly by design, to his England side. (It's interesting to note 'c.f.' on this subject that in the Bodyline series Jardine considered the biggest difference between the teams to be England's superior lower order batting rather than a particular fast bowler that one might more obviously think of..)

The Australians are also responsible. Specifically the Australian side of 1989 to 2007. They are responsible because they have skewed our current reality. Teams didn't actually finish off teams with any greater regularity in the past, certainly not since covered pitches were introduced and timeless Tests abolished. That particular Australian side was a complete Test team, the first in a long time and much more complete than the West Indies of the late 70's and 80's who were one-dimensional by comparison. The Australians had a conveyor belt of high quality batsman, two superb wicket keepers and two of the best bowlers, one fast, one slow that have ever played the game. It would be too easy to say, especially given the theme of this article, that it was Shane Warne that really made the difference. Sure on many occasions it was him that finished sides off, but he only got that opportunity because of the work of the team as a whole.

Cricket is a team game and Test cricket a true test of that team. Where there is a weak link it will be shown up, especially on a good pitch and even against moderate opposition. Unlike Australian, South Africa have always suffered from an overly defensive mentality but like today's Australians they also do not yet have the players. Morkel and Steyn are already very good and will get even better but without the depth battting and the spin bowling to match, they are fated to suffer further frustrations.

Harsh as it might be, a draw doesn't just mean you failed to beat the opposition it means you failed to meet the challenge of the game.