Third Test preamble

Happy Good Friday to you all. In a couple of hours, the final match of England's winter gets under way. It's been a pretty awful winter all round and they could do with a convincing win in Napier to snatch the series and head into the summer in good spirits.

Things are looking up with the news that Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram are both injured for New Zealand, but England should simply look to their own problems. They may have won the second Test but the match raised far more questions than answers (the answers being that Tim Ambrose looks a decent batsman and keeper - let's put that missed stumping in the past; and that James Anderson and Stuart Broad look good replacements for Stephen Harmison and Matthew Hoggard).

I'm still concerned about the following, however:

1) Having done nothing to justify his recall to the team, Andrew Strauss remains unfulfilled at No 3. Two scores in the forties and two in single figures this series do not suggest that he deserves his place back. His career average, which was above 50 at the end of the 2005 Ashes (after 19 Tests) is now, 26 Tests later, bang on 40. He will no doubt play today, but Owais Shah must wonder what he has done wrong, after scoring 90-odd in the warm-up match on this tour.

2) Kevin Pietersen is going through a shocking run of form. No score of more than 45 for his past ten innings and an average that has now dipped well below the 50 mark that he should be aiming for. Is he undroppable? Probably more than anyone, but if this drought continues through the first part of the summer then people will be very worried.

3) The rest of the batting, frankly. Michael Vaughan has scored three fifties and no hundreds in his past 12 innings; Ian Bell hasn't scored a hundred for 11 matches; Paul Collingwood scored two fifties in the last Test but has not reached three figures for 9 matches; even Alastair Cook has, on this tour at least, developed the knack of getting in and then getting out. Someone needs to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. It's meant to be a good batting wicket in Napier, so we need two men to make hundreds.

4) And what about Monty? He's pootering along, but not setting the world alight. One wicket in the last Test, two in the last two in Sri Lanka. Hopefully the conditions will enable him to get a bit more spring in his step.

Sorry to sound so negative, but we must not let one Test win against an opposition that barely competed make us complacent. The talent is there, but nurturing a batting average of 40 or going through the motions with the ball should not be good enough. Fingers crossed for a fine opening day and a bit of hat-eating tomorrow.

Comments

[Ann]

Of course Strauss should be dropped, as I said here recently. And why on earth is KP 'undroppable'? Does he have a title deed for his place in the batting order? I say, drop AS and KP and put in OS and ... well, whoever you fancy from among the young hopefuls. It's time to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, as you rightly say, and that should include putting the frighteners on the non-performers. If and when they improve, well and good. And if they don't, we need some new ones coming up through the ranks.