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| |  Wednesday, 3 April, 2002, 12:25 GMT 13:25 UK England suffer from cavalier stand Hussain seemed happy to share the spoils Not only should England have secured a third Test draw with New Zealand, says BBC Sport's Rob Bonnet, but they should beware devaluing the series with reckless attitudes. Switching on my radio at just before 4am, I just caught the fall of England's last wicket in the third Test in New Zealand and the confirmation - therefore - that the series had been drawn. England had been scoring at nearly four runs an over. They'd fallen 78 runs and 42 overs short of winning the series with a win or a draw in Auckland. They'd been going for the win.
Was it good, perhaps, that their pro-active approach had provided the crowd and television viewers with entertaining cricket? Or was it bad that their series lead had apparently been carelessly discarded? In other words, had captain Nasser Hussain been admirably positive, or shamefully reckless? Challenged afterwards at the news conference, he said that "pushing and prodding" for a draw would not have been a sensible option, that "the defensive shots were just as dangerous as the positive shots". Championship 'unimportant' We'll take his word for that. He was there on that portable pitch, we weren't. But more revealing - and maybe more significant - was Hussain's comment that he wasn't in the slightest interested in the ICC Test Championship table.
England have dropped from fourth to fifth as a result of the series in New Zealand. "Tables will come and go," he said. "I'm interested in the efforts of my team. Are we improving, are we learning - and how we're going to win an Ashes series". Funny that. When the table was introduced last February, Hussain said, "It's a shame it didn't start a year ago because we'd be right up there." He seemed to approve. There was a day when failure to finish off New Zealand would have provoked a national outcry; now we're being allowed to form the impression that anything but an Ashes series is nothing more than glorified net practice. Disrespect I've always been a big fan of Nasser Hussain: sharp, bold, inspirational, and a man with respect for the game's values. He remains England's best captain since Mike Brearley. But I think he's got this wrong. At a time of declining interest in Test cricket across the world, its championship should be supported.
But it insults other countries for us to imagine that the results of series elsewhere are as disposable as the cricket that England seemed to be playing towards the end at Eden Park. And let's not forget that the Test Championship was brought in as a partial antidote to corruption, on the basis that the result of every match should be important and therefore keenly contested. I'm certainly not saying that England weren't trying in Auckland, or that we shouldn't applaud positive cricket. But England have now gone a year without a series win. And a serious challenge to Australia as world number one won't come without building the winning habit to take England up the table. So for once, I would have happily heard that England had ground out a boring, safety-first, dull-as-ditchwater draw. | |
See also:  03 Apr 02 | England in NZ 2002 12 Mar 02 | Statistics 18 Mar 02 | BBC Pundits Top BBC Pundits stories now: Links to more BBC Pundits stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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