Line and Length - Times Online - WBLG

Why not specialise?

Deepan makes a fair point in the comments to yesterday's post on the Twenty20 international - why are we not picking specialists for this form of the game? It is a bit of a shock that Paul Collingwood has not played even one game of Twenty20 for Durham when the competition is now in its fifth season, yet he is deemed competent to captain England in the shortest game - and presumably will captain them through to the Twenty20 World Championship in September. No wonder his only over yesterday was hit for 17 - including a six that was hit out of probably the largest ground in England. And yes, I know that he was very good with the bat, but that doesn't get away from the fact that we were flying in the dark about him.

Either we are taking the Twenty20 World Championship seriously - in which case players like Darren Maddy, Nayan Doshi, Luke Wright and Jeremy Snape, who have proved themselves expert at this form, should be playing for England - or we regard it as a bit of a joke, in which case why not give our leading Test and one-day players a break this autumn and let them rest rather than go to South Africa for a competition we don't care about?

Return of the Hair

Darrell Hair's back. The portly Australian umpire who was dropped from the ICC's elite panel last November after his fat-headed obstinacy ruined last summer's Oval Test returned to the international arena today, standing in a four-day match between Canada and the Netherlands in Ontario. It's a bit of a comedown from the top-class cricket he was used to - the 76-Test veteran is standing alongside Roger Dill, a fireman from Bermuda - but Hair can hardly expect favours when he is taking his employers to a tribunal, claiming that they ditched him out of racial discrimination.

Twentysomething

Can West Indies revive themselves with a change of format this evening? After being comprehensively outplayed in the Tests, the first of two Twenty20 internationals gives them the chance to record a first win although to judge by the comments in the media this morning a first victory for England under Paul Collingwood is all but a certainty. Here are five reasons why West Indies can win and five reasons why they won't:

West Indies can win because...

1. Chris Gayle, one of the most flamboyant batsmen of his generation, should be made for Twenty20 (he scored 73 against the PCA Masters on Tuesday) and will be aided by like-minded aggressive souls in Runako Morton and Marlon Samuels

2. Samuels, and indeed Gayle too, are canny spin bowlers who can frustrate batsmen. West Indies spin attack is arguably stronger than England's in this form of the game

3. In their only Twenty20 international, they made only 126 against New Zealand yet bowled well enough to earn a tie

4. In Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy (and with Andrew Flintoff and Ravi Bopara injured), West Indies probably have the better all-rounders

5. The poor weather in England at the moment may yet reduce this to a game of five overs a side, and anything could happen then

West Indies will get stuffed because...

1. Gayle has been in shocking form of late in all forms of the game, and the row with the board over his captaincy will not have settled his mood. The PCA Masters attack included Chris Lewis, Martin Bicknell and Nathan Astle. In six Twenty20 games against proper opponents he has a top score of only 40

2. Stuart Broad returns to the England team and by a long chalk was the most economical bowler in last year's competition

3. Kevin Pietersen said recently that he would peak between the ages of 27 and 30. He turned 27 yesterday

4. Matthew Prior's way of playing suggests that, after an abortive start 18 months ago, he could become a world-class aggressive wicketkeeper-batsman in the Gilchrist mould

5. Jonathan Trott and Dimitri Mascarenhas may make their debuts and England have a good track record in recent years of people coming in and making an immediate impact (Strauss, Cook, Panesar, Pietersen, Prior and others all started at a sprint).

Absolutely fuming

It's lights out on Sunday as the smoking ban comes into force across England and Wales, but four pubs in Kent have seen a silver lining to the vanishing clouds of nicotine. On Saturday, they will empty the detritus from their ash trays into an urn, to become the prize for a Twenty20 competition that will raise funds for a local hospice, which will be some sort of comfort to those dying of lung cancer, I'm sure.

In the days before po-faced Patricia Hewitt puritanism, non-smokers didn't need to go round banning the pleasures of others, they simply demonstrated that their way of life was better by beating the smokers in cricket matches. There were two first-class matches between Smokers and Non-Smokers, made up of Australian and English players, as part of the Ashes series in 1884 and 1887. The first, at Lord's, was comfortably won by the Non-Smokers by nine wickets after WG Grace's eight wickets helped them to make the hacking wheezers follow on.

At Melbourne three years later, the match was drawn but again the Smokers had to follow on after Arthur Shrewsbury, the England captain, made a double hundred and the Non-Smokers reached 803 in more than nine hours of batting. The Smokers made 356 in their first innings and had lost five wickets second time out when play ended, allowing them to run gasping for a fag back to the pavilion.

Thanks to Rod Gilmour for the Kent story

Historical perspective

And the reward for least sensitive headline of the week goes to....

"Sri Lanka aim to terrorise Tigers" (BBC News Online)

Yes, the Bangladesh cricket team's nickname is the Tigers. But given that the Tamil Tigers have been killing Sri Lankan citizens for the past 30 years, and that the violence back at them in the past couple of months has been as bad as ever (with 30 Tamil Tigers killed by government forces in a raid last week), perhaps a different verb may have been more diplomatic.

On Colly and others

I've been short of posts recently for some reason, although there has hardly been a shortage of things to talk about: England have a new one-day captain and a few new players, India have arrived in Europe for their summer tour, the ICC have sacked four of their elite umpires and the Twenty20 Cup has got under way. So, in an attempt to make up for it a little, here's what I think of all that (and given that today is my wedding anniversary, you'll have to excuse the brevity. Why not expand the debate by clicking on comments and letting me know what you think? So...

1) England's one-day side: it was right for Vaughan to step down (and right that he continues as captain). I'd have preferred for Strauss to take over, given his impressive record when deputising, but his poor form probably mean that it is best for him to take a break. I would still like him to be ahead of Trescothick in the pecking order for a recall. Collingwood is a bright man and the most experienced player in the side. In the way that great wicketkeepers can raise a side by their sheer competence (and vice versa), so Collingwood's brilliant fielding may lift his team.

From the village green to the Test side?

After reporting yesterday that West Indies have called up Ruel Brathwaite from Loughborough University as cover for their match against England Lions tomorrow in Worcester, it appears that they have also plundered English club cricket to find someone capable of bowling a decent spell. Andrew Richardson, 25, has been playing for Sawbridgeworth, of Hertfordshire in the Home Counties League, and coaches schoolchildren through the Chance to shine campaign. Tomorrow, he joins West Indies for the day.

With Darren Sammy, Fidel Edwards and Dwayne Bravo carrying niggling injuries from the Test series, West Indies called up Brathwaite and Richardson as cover. Oddly, one of the reasons why the youngsters have been given a chance is because three members of the West Indies one-day side - Dwayne Smith, Lendl Simmons and Austin Richards Jr - will not arrive in England until tomorrow, which sounds like an almighty cock-up on the planning front.

Richardson, a fast-medium bowler who toured England with West Indies A last year, almost missed his international chance when his Hertfordshire club thought the call up was a wind up. Val Waring, vice-chair of Sawbridgeworth thought that the West Indian man asking to borrow their player was Richardson playing a joke on her. "I kept saying, 'very funny, Richie,' and it was only when my mobile rang and Richie's number came up that I realised it wasn't him," she said. "When you're in a sleepy little village, you don't expect a call from the manager of an international team."

Richardson's young pupils are all delighted for him, Waring said. "When the children at Little Hallingbury heard the news in assembly, the whole school cheered. Richie's like a Pied Piper with all the schools, you see a trail of kids and he'll be at the end of it, he's been such a hit."

Eagle-eyed

Proof that the Dutch, for all their drugs and women of the night, need to relax a bit more came with the news yesterday that ABN Amro, the Dutch merger partner for Barclays, wants the British bank to drop its 317-year-old eagle logo on the grounds that it looks a bit Nazi. Utter lunacy. I was at an Indian wedding at the weekend and there were Swastikas all over the place, yet no one protested about the comparisons with Hitler's favourite geometric shape.

Still, at least Essex are taking this political correctness in the right spirit. A spokesman said that they will be looking at their own Eagles logo and "if it is considered that our particular eagle has any Nazi connotations then we will remove it henceforth". I'm assuming he was joking. Then again, Essex do have a Dutchman - Ryan ten Doeschate - in their ranks. Maybe he is kicking up a fuss?

One to watch

News reaches Line and Length that the West Indies have called up Ruel Brathwaite, a Loughborough University student originally from Barbados, to play in the one-day match against England Lions on Thursday. I'm chuffed about this because I've been promoting Brathwaite's merits for the past year after seeing him bowl well against the touring Sri Lankans last summer. In fact, an English friend of Brathwaite says she sent my article on the bowler last year to the West Indies Cricket Board and they gave him £15,000 to go towards his study fees. Nice to know that just occasionally we feral beasts of the media can bring about good things.

Brathwaite played for MCC against West Indies in Durham two weeks ago, taking the wickets of Devon Smith and Denesh Ramdin, and took two wickets today in the MCC Universities final. Although the West Indies media manager plays a dead bat to inquiries about the one-day side - "we will announce the make-up of the team in due course" - if my source is accurate and Brathwaite has received a call-up, it would put a big dent in Tino Best's hopes of a return to the side.

Best, you will recall, was booted out of the Essex league and ended up in Central Lancashire playing for Crompton, where he has done reasonably well, taking 16 wickets in six matches at an average of 17 and an economy rate of 4.3.

Done and dusted

Jeeves would have disapproved of a cricket match being completed within three hours (although his master, Bertie Wooster, would have delighted in the excellent spread laid on at half-time), but the demands of work and school curriculum meant that there was only time for a Twenty20 match when the PG Wodehouse Society's cricket team (also known as the Gold Bats) played the Dulwich Dusters, or the masters of Dulwich College, Wodehouse's alma mater.

The annual fixture brings a good smattering of spectators to the pretty South London ground - where the name "Wodehouse PG" can be seen in the gold-engraved first XI for 1900 on a wall of the pavilion - but most of them come just for the tea, an obscene anthology of sandwiches, cakes, scones groaning beneath the weight of jam and cream, and at least 20 sausage rolls per person. No wonder the Gold Bats were slightly hesitant in the field as they attempted to defend a total of 114 for nine, and capitulated with five overs unbowled.

Your blogger (second from the left in the photo, click to enlarge) was denied the chance to bat by a lengthy ninth-wicket Gold Bats partnership that stayed together for four overs until being broken off the final ball, but made up for it slightly with a wicket on his debut and respectable figures in the context of 2-0-9-1 as well as some rewarding streaks of Dulwich turf up his trousers, suggesting enthusiasm if not ability in the field.

For more information on the Wodehouse Society, click here. (Picture: Peter Gooday)

Vaughan relinquishes one-day captaincy

Michael Vaughan has stepped down as captain of England's one-day side, probably going before he was pushed. He says that he reached the decision some time ago, but had not wanted to say anything before the end of the Test series with West Indies in case it "became a distraction to the team". That is, a distraction in addition to the distractions he had already caused by saying that England should have used him more during the Ashes and that "Fredalo" was to blame for them doing badly in the World Cup.

So, farewell then Michael Vaughan (the one-day version, anyway). You actually had a reasonable record as captain of England's one-day side, with 32 wins and 22 losses in 60 matches (compared with nine wins in the 26 matches he played but wasn't captain), but you never quite made it as a one-day batsman.

An average of 27 from 86 matches is not good enough for a top-three batsman, especially without making a hundred. It is for that reason, fearing that he would be dropped as a player, that Vaughan has fallen on his sword as captain, even though he says he is available for selection. It may just prove to be the best decision he has taken: expect a fighting fit Vaughan, unwearied by having to play any more Mickey Mouse pyjama games, to captain England's Test side into the 2009 Ashes series.

Nixon's back

For all you Paul Nixon fans out there, Nigel Henderson has news of him:

"Paul Nixon has learnt that his brief international career may not be over after all. The Leicestershire wicketkeeper, who was called up by England for the Commonwealth Bank triangular series in Australia and kept his place for his country's disappointing World Cup campaign, was given a message of hope by David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, yesterday when he was named in the England Lions XII to play the West Indians in a one-day warm-up game at Worcester next Thursday.

"However, the inclusion of  the 36-year-old, who seemed to have been jettisoned when Matt Prior, the Sussex wicket-keeper, was given his chance by the new England regime, means he will miss another important appointment – his benefit match against a PCA Masters XI at Grace Road that evening. It is hoped he will be back in time for the subsequent slap-up dinner at which Justin Langer, the former Australia opener, and Monty Panesar will be guest speakers.

"The Twenty20 match is expected to go ahead without him because Tim Boon, the Leicestershire senior coach, is keen for his team to get practice before their opening game in that competition, of which they are holders, at home to Yorkshire the following evening.

"Graveney, questioned about the selection of Nixon, was quoted as saying: "If Prior broke his finger tomorrow, who would we play? It makes sense for Nixon to have a look at the opposition," presumably implying that the veteran keeper was only being considered as a possible replacement for the one-day series against the West Indies.  What happens if Prior breaks a finger against India in the next Test series?

"Meanwhile, Australian readers will no doubt be interested to hear that Chris Rogers, the batsman who won a central contract from his country for the first time this year, failed in his first match back for Northamptonshire, his county, after a spell on the sidelines with a broken thumb. He was dismissed for four by Leicestershire’s budding England paceman Stuart Broad, who was also returning from injury, on a rain-sodden day in the East Midlands. Broad swung the ball late down the leg side, but the Western Australia left-hander followed it and got the thinnest of edges and Nixon, who else, did the rest."

The wrong man

Cricinfo is reporting that some Australian called Trevor Bayliss is the new coach of Sri Lanka. Someone has clearly made a bit of a cock-up in Colombo. Clearly the man they wanted was not the coach of New South Wales (what qualification does he have?) but Trevor Baylis, the eccentric English inventor who came up with the clockwork radio.

Not only has his invention improved the lives of people in the Third World immeasurably (now they can all listen to Test Match Special, which will take their minds of Aids, famine and all those other nastinesses), but the experience from his former career as an underwater escape artiste will be invaluable in preparing Sri Lanka for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup, to be held underwater off the coast of South Africa (a detail that no one has yet noticed).

I met Baylis once. He told me he was working on a new project for a mobile phone that had a battery in the sole of a shoe, which you powered by walking. He didn't have many views on how best to dismiss Ricky Ponting, however, but I imagine that like his greatest invention, it will probably involve a lot of winding-up.

The (Indian) Apprentice

This post will mean nothing to Line and Length's many non-English readers (it may even induce a bemused shrug from those Brits who have better things to do than watch Wednesday night TV) but is Graham Ford the new Katie Hopkins?

Like Scary Katie last week on The Apprentice, Ford was offered his dream job and then had second thoughts. Did Sunil Gavaskar "do a Swallan" and suddenly play the guilt card, asking Ford if he really wanted to uproot his children from comfortable old Canterbury and move them to cacky Brentwood Calcutta? Perhaps Ford thought he'd earn £40,000 by, like Katie, selling tales of shagging in a cornfield to the News of the World? In which case, he may be disappointed.

All of which avoids the burning question of where this leaves John Emburey? I had my suspicions that this election was like the episode of Yes Prime Minister where Jim Hacker has to choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and is aided in his decision-making by being presented with two candidates, one so awful that the other is a shoo-in. The BCCI surely did not expect that Ford would turn them down after going to India for an interview. Were they just having a laugh by naming Embers in the final two? The BCCI selectors should learn from the recent history of the Tory party and beware going for the joke candidate: John Emburey could be cricket's version of Iain Duncan-Smith.

(UPDATE: I've just discovered that Ford's middle name is Xavier, the same as Michael Portillo. Emburey clearly is Iain Duncan-Smith then.)

The highest and the lowest

I suppose it is an act of gross treachery to hope that West Indies make another 154 runs today to win the third Test, but what a boost that would be for Caribbean cricket if they can do it. They won't (surely not) but things will become interesting if Ramdin and Chanderpaul are still together at lunch.

While we are contemplating the record achievement of a side making more than 450 to win a Test, perhaps it is appropriate that today marks the centenary of the lowest score in first-class history. At the Spa Ground in Gloucester on June 11, 1907, Northamptonshire were bowled out for 12, with Gloucestershire's George Dennett, a slow left-arm bowler, taking eight for nine in six overs. Amusingly, despite him then taking seven for 12 in Northants' second innings, the visiting side still managed to escape that match with a draw.

It is surprising that Dennett, who took more than 2000 first-class wickets at an average of less than 20 and once took all ten in an innings (against Essex in 1906), never played a Test match. In fact, after Glamorgan's Don Shepherd, Dennett is the second highest wicket-taker not to get an international call-up. Wilf Rhodes, the Yorkshire left-arm spinner who could also bat, nabbed most of Dennett's chances.

Not through there

A hat-tip to Pooter Geek, not normally a cricket-related blog, for this picture and the caption "While his master leads the England bowling attack, Steve Harmison's dog, Magoo, participates in the British Dog Agility Championships"

Pietersen loses his helmet

I have barely blogged on this Test after being off on county championship duty at the end of the week, but am indebted to Will for digging out the clip below of Kevin Pietersen's dismissal yesterday, which should be shared with the rest of the world. It is almost possible to feel sorry for the poor bloke - as unusual ways of getting out go, having a ball knock your helmet off and on to the stumps is pretty rare - but a great piece of theatre that set up Darren Sammy's run through the side (incidentally, nice to see that Sammy spells his name properly, the Gough way, unlike the Darens Powell and Ganga).

England look to have this match sewn up, with seven more wickets needed in five sessions and none of those famous Old Trafford rainclouds expected until later in the week, when Lancashire host Kent. Lancashire fans will love that: they've not had a chance to blame the weather for them not winning the championship for a while.

Kirtley curtailed

Welcome to the blogosphere, James Kirtley. The Sussex and England fast bowler has been as cursed as any England bowler in the past few years, what with various injuries and suspect bowling actions, which have kept his Test appearances down to four in 2003. He has taken only one wicket in four matches for Sussex this season, but appears refreshingly upbeat and unbitter about life out of the first team, as his blog relates (annoyingly, you have to register to read it):

"I was left out [of Sussex's game against Lancashire] and from the sidelines I was able to see just how much the game took out of our lads... Playing in the 2nd team is a great opportunity to see the young up and coming players... I'm really looking forward to a reunion of the 1997 Eastbourne side [that won the Sussex league with Kirtley in the team] in July."

Nice Guy Andre

I commend to you this recent interview with Andre Nel by Jenny Thompson, which reveals that his famous on-field rage is all a bit of an act. He blames it on his alter-ego, who rather bizarrely he calls Gunther (a tribute to the sexually frustrated coffee-shop owner in Friends, perhaps?). "Gunther is a guy who lives in the mountains and doesn't get enough oxygen to the brain and that makes him crazy," Nel said.

He also describes his rage as "white-line syndrome", which could get grossly misinterpreted on less responsible blogs. It may describe why he had a rolled-up 100-rand note shoved up his nose as he chatted to Jen, however.

Andre, as regular readers will know, often posts comments on this blog (bafflingly they tend to come from a computer in Brisbane), although generally they are of the Gunther variety, expressing a series of tub-thumping egotistical pieces of self-propaganda about his feared ability to beat the bat at 75mph, rather than the gentle pussy cat of a man that Jenny discovered. That suggests two things: either this blog recreates the fierce pressures of the Test arena and brings out the dickhead in Nel, or he just softens when confronted with a charming blonde such as Jenny. No doubt he will write in to let us know.

Please look after this Irani

Grey clouds over Chelmsford today as Ronnie Irani, the captain who was for a spell the best all-rounder in the country, announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season. He popped up into the press box to share some final thoughts, including this story about his first day at Essex, having joined as a 22 -year-old from Lancashire in 1994:

"I had no idea where Essex was - I just knew it was somewhere near London - but it took me three trains and two buses to get to Chelmsford. These days parents would drive their kids the length of the country to get them a new job, but I set off from Bolton with five bags on my shoulders and no idea where I was going. Naturally, the train I was on derailed at Sheffield, so we had to get taken by bus to Nottingham, where I got a train to London, but it didn't come in at Euston, as I'd planned.

"I had no clue where I was so I called the county and said 'I'm lost but I think I'm at somewhere called St Pancreas' (I'd done a bit of science at school so I recognised the word Pancreas). Eventually they were able to get me to understand how to use the Tube across London to get to Liverpool Street for the train to Chelmsford. I arrived saddled down with luggage, like Paddington Bear, but full of hope."

Farewell, Ronnie. It's been fun having you.

Dying Embers

Good for John Emburey, getting down to the final two on the shortlist to be India's next coach. One of the most likeable people on the circuit, he will certainly raise spirits in the India camp, but has he done his research yet on who the bright things are in India? It's just that when Embers was on the Times World Cup Podcast a couple of months ago, he rather surprisingly, when asked who should be bowling for England, named Darren Gough, Mark Ealham and Dominic Cork (combined age: 109). I almost sensed he was about to name Phil DeFreitas and Alan Mullally as well.

Presumably India's attack for the Test series against England will contain such sprightly bowlers as Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Narendra Hirwani. Does anyone know if Bishen Bedi can still turn his arm over?

Speaking about podcasts, by the way, our latest one has gone live here. It has Mark Ramprakash on it, although his continual tap-dancing all the way through the interview starts to get on the nerves after a while.

You're welcome

Australia didn't just gain a boost in the Gross National Ego and a chance almost to stroke an ancient miniature urn when they won the Ashes last winter. The influx of 37,000 members of the Barmy Army also boosted the economy by $317 million (about £135 million) and created almost 800 new jobs. The report doesn't state what proportion of the $317 million came from Nigel Henderson, Line and Length's travelling fan, who must have spent at least a tenth of that on whiskey and valium to get him through the misery.

Mistaken identity

We all make cock-ups (God knows I can't preach on that) but you'd think that the agents for one of sport's most familiar players - the England cricket captain, no less - would know what their man looks like. Not according to the news pages of Michael Vaughan's official website (run by "powered by" IMS, his agent). Click on this link, then click on the story "Vaughan returns with century".

Notice anything odd about the picture above the story, copied left? Run your mouse over it and the caption "Vaughan celebrates century" appears. Yet surely that is Kevin Pietersen who is waggling his Woodworm bat at the Headingley crowd, not Vaughan. Hint to IMS: your man is a couple of inches shorter and he uses a Gunn and Moore.

Many thanks to Graham Morris, the legendary photographer and chairman of the Cricket Writers Club, for spotting that blooper and sending it in.

Best rocks up in Lancashire

Just over a week ago, I reported that Tino Best, the flighty fast bowler whom West Indies don't dare pick, had attempted to play village cricket in Essex but the opposition, fearing battered bonces, had passed a league rule banning him. Well, it appears that Best simply went to play up north instead, for Crompton in the Central Lancashire League, a league that has previously nurtured the likes of Saeed Anwar, Roy Gilchrist, Jimmy Maher and Mohinder Amarnath.

Best's first game last week was pretty unspectacular - nine runs and figures of 0-51 in 11 overs - but he picked up the tempo yesterday against Monton and Weaste, making 15 runs and taking 5-36 in ten overs as Crompton won by 107 runs. Conveniently for Tino, Crompton is a bit closer to Old Trafford and Durham, should the West Indies selectors be reading the local papers, than Essex.

pic by Graham Morris at Lord's in 2004

The Times: a team of winners (sort of)

It was a good day for Line and Length yesterday as The Times won its first match of the season, against the Gentlemen's XI at Toddington Manor by 80-odd runs. I made my usual lack of contribution with nought not out, no overs bowled and barely any distinction in the field (although I kept score beautifully, as ever), but it was a triumph for Mathew Gullick, one of this blog's frequent commenters who I dragged into the side five years ago. He top-scored with 38 and held a fine catch. Any other blog readers who fancy a game every once in a while, let me know. Our captain is always scrabbling around for players the day before each game. That's why he'll even let me play: to make up the numbers (and because no one else bothers to record balls faced when scoring).

KP nuts to bat at 4

"You are invited to brunch with Kevin Pietersen" read the invitation frm adidas, his new sponsor, but it wasn't the prospect of bacon sandwiches that was enticing. Actually, that's a lie, I largely just went for the sandwiches, but it was also a good chance to meet the man of the moment, whose haul of runs from his first 25 Tests is second only to Don Bradman.

Pietersen was in typically bullish mood, predicting that England would continue to crush West Indies and then go on to wallop everyone else before regaining the Ashes in 2009. You can read his bellicose tub-thumping here. When asked if he sets himself any personal targets, Pietersen said he simply tries to score 100 runs every Test, and with 2448 in 25 he is not far off that goal.

With eight hundreds in that time, his conversion rate is pretty good. When KP gets going he really gets going - only six batsmen have got more in their first 25 Tests (Bradman, Harvey, Morris, Compton, Weekes and Gavaskar). But is Pietersen getting the best out of his talents? There was a lot of kerfuffle during the last Ashes series that Pietersen was batting too low at No 5. He is an enforcer, a bully, not a rock. The number of times he was caught batting with the tail in Australia - the frustration was clear - suggested that he was in the wrong place.

But would he be even better at No 3? After all, most of the great batsmen he is contesting a place in history with came in at first man down. Bradman, Ponting, Richards, Harvey, Hammond, Barrington, Headley and Dravid all were at their most devastating batting at 3, while Compton, Weekes, Tendulkar and Graeme Pollock were happier coming in at 4.

I'm surprised Pietersen hasn't pushed to go in one place higher, but he seemed almost shocked at the suggestion yesterday. "I'm most comfortable batting at 4," he said, pointing out quite fairly that England's present No 3, Michael Vaughan, has just scored a hundred. But I do wonder whether he could be even more devastating in such a crucial position.