Cricket

It's important to remember that the Ashes is still tied at one test apiece. It's not as though this has been a disastrous summer for English cricket. It just feels as though it could have been better. That being said, I don't think many people are confident that England will find a way to win at the Oval and England's pusillanimous selection has both failed to inspire confidence and dampened enthusiasm for the fray. Perhaps this is too pessimistic by far. Perhaps it's a little too soon to be quite so gloomy. Nonetheless, there's a sense of foreboding about this test match. So it's good to be able to read a book that takes us back to a time when it was the Australians, not England, who were a shambles.

So, the selectors have spoken. And what a dreary story they have to tell. The selection of Jonathan Trott (and the retention of Ian Bell) for the final test of the summer is depressingly timid. Worse than that, it is recklessly timid, since it presumes that England have been more competitive in this series than is actually the case and that modest tinkering with the side is all that is required to produce a final victory. This is not an analysis that is endorsed by the facts: England were comprehensively outplayed at Cardiff and Leeds, while their victory at Lords rested upon: a) a sloppy Australian batting performance, b) an unusually incisive spell from Flintoff and c) at least three dubious umpiring decisions that went England's way.

Selkirk vs Langholm at Philiphaugh, 8/9/08 Actually, it wasn't a completely disastrous cricketing weekend. Selkirk did successfully chase 206 to defeat Langholm in the Border League. Not called upon to bowl or bat, your correspondent's contribution was limited to taking a simple (but vital!) catch. Elsewhere, of course, doom and gloom and despair reign supreme. England's batting this morning as Broad and Swann gave it some humpty actually irritated me. Too late, far too late. But a reminder that there was nothing to excuse the abject feebleness of this English performance. This has been a strange series contested by two pretty average sides. The quality of the cricket scarcely compares to the thrills of 2005.

Ricky Ponting batting at Edgbaston last week. Photo: Tom Shaw/Getty Images. Three - yes, a whole three -  cheers for Dominic Lawson's article in the Independent today. He is right: booing Ricky Ponting is disgraceful. There may be a cartoonish element to it all and perhaps the Barmy Army will signal this by cheering the Australian skipper to the echo at the Oval when, we assume, he plays his final test innnings in England, but that's still not quite good enough. For the time being, too many England cricket fans - not to be confused with supporters of English cricket - seem to have decided that Ponting is some kind of villain.

Note the jaunty attempt to emulate Gordon Greenidge; note too the lack of control which has caused the bottom hand to leave the bat, suggesting that this attempt has, alas, more or less failed. Photo: Grant Kinghorn. No blogging until next week, I'm afraid. Holiday time. Albeit an unusually energetic trip overseas as I'll be playing cricket every day this week. I'm making my debut for the White City All Stars - a team skippered by Peter Oborne, late of this parish - on the club's annual tour of Ireland. Should be fun. Runs and wickets permitting, of course. Anyway, see you on the 28th or so.

In 132 years of test cricket a side has followed on and won on just three occasions. Despite this, enforcing the follow-on has become almost as unfashionable in the modern game as stationing a fielder at third man. It is as though modern skippers have concluded that the accumulated weight of cricketing evidence, built up over more than a century, has lost its persuasive power in the contemporary game. So it wasn't terribly surprising that Andrew Strauss declined to put Australia in again at Lord's this morning. One man, above all, is responsible for the follow-on falling out of favour. Ever since VVS Laxman scored 281 against Australia at Eden Gardens in 2001, the Australians have been wary of putting the opposition in again.

Tuesday's stage in the Tour de France was interesting and, in its way, revealing. Ultimately, it was about power and interest. Should the race be run be its organisers or, effectively, in partnership with the peloton and the teams? And, just as importantly, should the interests of the teams be placed ahead of the interests of the fans? The Tour organisers decreed that yesterday the riders would ride without the radios they've come to rely upon. The teams, unsurprisingly, objected and, equally unsurprisingly, the riders agreed not to race properly until the closing kilometres of the stage.

So, yes, little blogging. Blame a combination of Ashes cricket and an infestation of family... Hiatus will continue as I shall be at the cricket in Cardiff on Friday. Talk amongst yourselves and deliver your verdict on whether Kevin Pieterson is just a tube or merely something else... See you on Sunday* or Monday.... *We're playing vile Gala on Sunday in a must-win reserve league fixture. So, no blogging Sunday either. It's all cricket all the bloody time here, you know...

Not all change is necessarily or automatically regrettable. Even in cricket. Nonetheless, anytime anyone from the ICC talks about future plans you know that something terrible is on th ecards. No surprise then that David Taylor, president of the world's worst governing body, suggests that what we what to see is four day tests and that there's a "need" for day-night test cricket. Never mind that there's absolutely no evidence of any demand for day-night tests, nor that day-night first class cricket was a complete and utter failure when trialled in the Sheffield Shield a few years ago. Nor is there any obvious demand or need for four days tests. True, test matches have not always been played over five days, but back then sides were capable of bowling 110-120 overs a day.

Henry Allingham, Britain`s oldest man and oldest surviving First World War veteran celebrates his 113th birthday at HMS President at St Katherine`s Dock, London, on June 6, 2009. To commemorate such a historic milestone the Royal Navy is helping their oldest member to celebrate in style. A birthday cake and card signed by the First Sea Lord will be delivered by fast raiding craft of the Royal Marines, and a decanter of Pussers Rum, Henry's favourite tipple, will be presented on behalf of the Fleet Air Arm by Rear Admiral Charlier. Photo: Geoff Caddick/AFP/Getty Images Henry Allingham isn't merely Britain's oldest man; he's now the oldest man on earth, outlasting Japan's Tomoji Tanabe.

Every so often someone at Lords remembers to trot out the line that Test Cricket is and must remain the pinnacle of the game; every time this happens something pops up that makes it harder than ever to take the ECB seriously when they say this. Not that the ECB are the only culprits; the ICC is just as bad. The latest evidence supporting the sense that given the opportunity to protect or devalue test cricket he people running English cricket will invariably choose the option that most damages the greatest form of the greatest game is the news that, despite being injured, Kevin Pietersen expects to play in this month's World Twenty20 Cup. Well, why not? It's not as though there's an important test series starting in July is there?

Shamefully, I've not kept a sufficiently close eye on the cricket today. It's early May and it doesn't feel right for there to be a test match on so soon. Anyway, reader TS writes "Do you realize that England have just given Graeme Swann the new ball?  In a test match at Lords, no less!  In May!  If this doesn't merit an "O tempora O mores" post, I'm not sure what does." Patrick Kidd and the chaps at Cricinfo seem equally perplexed. Actually, I quite like the move and not just because giving Swann a couple of overs with the new ball is refreshingly unorthodox. There's method behind the idea too, however. Yes, it's May and yes conditions are good for seam and swing, but the key to the decision, I would hazard, is Chris Gayle.

It's true you know, Barack Obama does want to un-make the United States of America. First he takes a quick cricket lesson from Brian Lara, now he's reading Joseph O'Neill's (splendid) Netherland - a novel that is, at least in part, about cricket in New York City. Could anything be more un-American? Of course not. Except, of course, cricket has a long and proud history in the United States and, for a while, it seemed as likely that cricket would become the national pastime as baseball. Indeed, the world's first international cricket match was contested by teams representing the United States and Canada. Personally, I blame the decision to move the capital from Philadelphia to Washington DC for cricket's eclipse.

The cricket season has begun which is, as usual, a cause for celebration and an occasion to lament the guarantee that the first month of the new innings will be ruined by rain. Commercial considerations - that is, the need to stuff the calendar with as many limited overs fixtures as possible during the prime summer months - demand the further marginalisation of the venerable County Championship. Nearly a quarter of the fixtures will be played by the end of May, with others just as liable to be afflicted by poor weather as the season staggers to a close at the end of September. Times change, of course, and even traditionalists have to accept that.

Courtesy of the Scotsman: Boycott rigged poll, says Al-Qaeda chief This would surely come as no surprise to many of the great man's former team-mates, but still, what can this mean? Has Sir Geoffrey been stuffing ballot boxes in some Greatest Yorkshireman contest or something? And why should Al-Qaeda care about that? Has Boycott offended them too? Alas, no, seems it's something to do with the Algerian elections. More important, perhaps, but less mysterious or intriguing.

The news that England hope to host the IPL  is as unsurprising as it is depressing. After all, what better way to start an Ashes summer than with the distracting influence of a cricketing circus? Never underestimate the greed of those charged with looking after the game, howver. As soon as the Indian government declined to offer satisfactory security guarantees it was inevitable that English cricket administrators, dazzled as always by the prospect of raking in more cash, would prostitute themselves in a mad dash to grab a piece of the action. It is hard to see any advantage in this. Better by far if the circus were taking place in South Africa.

In the grander scheme of matters, a West Indian series victory which left England thinking they should really have won the series 2-1 was not a bad result. England can argue that they were the better side for most the series and  only just failed to turn their superiority into victory. For the West Indies, the importance of a first series victory in five years cannot be over-stated. Caribbean cricket desperately needed this and so what if they remain just half a team and should, by rights, have been beaten by a pretty ordinary England team. In other circumstances the West Indians' decision not to even try and win the final test would have been reprehensible; as it was it became understandable if still, to my mind, regrettable and slightly contrary to the spirit of the game.