- Jonathan Agnew
- 13 Jul 08, 06:37 PM
There is no doubt about who will have benefited the most from South Africa's obdurate performance at Lord's today - Andrew Flintoff.
As well as Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie batted, and they did play very well indeed, England's bowling attack was exposed on a flat pitch as lacking a cutting edge.
They needed someone to charge in and produce short spells of hostile pace bowling, as the ball did not swing for James Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom and even though they plugged away, that left them with very little in reserve.
Stuart Broad did his best to bang the ball in, but lacked the pace on such a placid surface to give the batsmen the hurry-up.
Continue reading "England lack cutting edge"
Sir Allen Stanford, the man who could turn England's cricketers into overnight dollar millionaires if they win a Twenty20 match in November, is no fan of Test cricket.
And if he had been at Lord's on Sunday, it is fair to assume he would not have suddenly been converted like Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus.
In the best weather of the match, South Africa's openers remorselessly drove Michael Vaughan and his bowlers to distraction with courageous, studied essays in self-denial.
Continue reading "Endurance test for Lord's fans"
All the talk recently has been about the future of Twenty20 cricket in England, and we've also just seen three weeks of domestic Twenty20 where it's all been whizz-bang, fast-food cricket.
So fans of that brand of cricket who have been watching the first half of Sunday's play at Lord's would possibly be praying for more Twenty20 cricket.
But to me, this has been what proper Test cricket is about.
Continue reading "Welcome to "proper" Test cricket"
