Leg Side Filth

I like Trent Bridge. It’s a Test ground with the intimacy of a small county ground. The crowd is close to the action, the old pavilion holds court companionably over the new stands which complement and do not overshadow it – a pleasant contrast to the desecration of Old Trafford through the addition of the red Duplo brick home to the prawn-sandwich brigade that is “The Point” – and the floodlights are the best in England.

The last international I saw here was last year’s day-nighter against Australia which saw Ricky Ponting score an imperious 126 that propelled his side to victory and threatened England with a 7-0 whitewash in the post-Ashes ODI series. England lost that game in part because their fielding was shoddy and Matt Prior’s keeping bloody awful. (As a side-note, this was the second day-night ODI I was supposed to have attended at Trent Bridge, but the whole “day-night” concept of the 2008 Eng v South Africa match was effectively kiboshed by Stuart Broad – he took  a superb five-for, SA were all out for 83, Matt Prior and Ian Bell knocked off the runs and the match finished at 5:35PM.)

So at Trent Bridge on Saturday I was expecting something tasty. By the end of it I wouldn’t say I felt disappointed, what with England on the cusp of victory, but there were a few things that left me feeling vaguely pissed off.

First, there was the matter of the follow-on. Pakistan had one wicket left, and needed 8 to make England bat again. As it happened, Umar Gul punched Jimmy Anderson through the onside for 4 first ball, second delivery was an lbw shout that was turned down on height, and the next ball cracked off the middle of Gul’s bat to the boundary: first objective achieved for Pakistan in a quest that was pretty much only about temporary survival, but that clawed back a little respectability for the team nevertheless.

Umar Gul hits it for 6

At this point I was still labouring under the delusion that had Pakistan fallen short of these 8 runs Strauss would have made Pakistan bat again. Well, thank christ I’m not England captain, because according to a Sky Sports interview with Paul Collingwood before the start of the day’s play, he said England needed to be “ruthless” and bat again, that a lead of 200 or so would not be enough. Upon watching this later I may have been stricken with a brief fit of Tourette’s; I can’t remember. It’s more than likely, though. It was the use of the word “ruthless” that set me off. I have much respect for Strauss as captain – his man-management, his unruffled demeanour at the crease, his uninspiring yet safe-as-houses technique with the bat. If this sounds like damning with faint praise, it really isn’t – he and Andy Flower have done good things for England’s standing in the international game, though one could argue that that successful captain-coach partnership exists as much by accident as design due to Kevin Pietersen’s upsetting of the apple-cart back in January of last year. But one thing Strauss also is as a captain is conservative. I’m not sure when “ruthless” became a euphemism for “playing it safe and taking no unnecessary risks”, but there you go.

So England batted again, which is pretty much what they were going to do anyway, even though the conditions were as ripe for swing and seam as they were the day before. Pakistan’s fielding once more let the bowling down, yet despite Cook being under the microscope it was Strauss who fell first through some peerlessly acrobatic comedy from the Akmal brothers – Umar at second slip muffed a simple chance and juggled it to his brother who, after a moment’s hesitation, and remembering he had a pair of wicket-keeping gloves on – dived forward and took the catch. It was a piece of actual and near-ineptitude that was almost beautiful in its balletic cack-handedness: you couldn’t have choreographed it if you tried.

Asif tried to entice an edge from Cook by bowling the same line to him outside off-stump but it was a rank leg-side delivery that enticed the edge to Kamran Akmal. There’s been talk of Cook suffering with a back injury that may need surgery at some point in the future. While I hope all goes well with that, a break from the game might do him good because he looks completely bloody clueless at the moment.

I have no idea how Pietersen racked up his first 10 or so runs and to be honest I don’t think he did either, though he and Trott were both pretty watchful for the rest of the session, and Trott looked less fidgety than usual. This pleased and disappointed me, because I find Trott’s tics, foibles and incessant gurning and muttering quite fascinating to watch. Still enough scraping to keep us all entertained, though, as he dug his trench and was in the process of installing a latrine and duckboards as everyone else was pissing off back to the pavilion for lunch.

Scratch scratch scratch

I decided to attempt eating my own body-weight in mini sausage rolls, and pondered ice cream. The old couple behind me carried on with the same dialogue they’d been having all morning.

Woman (listening to commentary on radio while peering through binoculars at commentary box): “Is that Warne?”

Bloke: “No, it’s Gower and Hussein. Bumble’s on the left.”

Woman: “Where’s Warne?”

Bloke: “Well, I don’t bloody know. He’ll be on next, won’t he?”

Woman: “I can’t see through your binoculars. They are useless.”

Bloke: “So stop asking for them then. And anyway, it’s your eyes that are useless.”

Half an hour later:

Woman: “I think it’s Warne on now. Is that Atherton sat on the left?”

Bloke: “No, you daft woman. It’s Ramiz Raja.”

I’m usually lucky enough to be seated near such eccentrics. It is great. These are my people.

It was a good delivery from Gul that took Pietersen’s inside edge after lunch, ironically when he was starting to look more comfortable, and he was unlucky that Kamran Akmal got to it: it was a superb diving catch to the left that would have completely eluded the keeper in normal circumstances. Just when we were starting to see Kamran Akmal in a new, more appreciative light he dropped a regulation catch off Gul’s bowling which really should have done for Collingwood, warping from the sublime back to the inept in the space of one ball and reassuring us that, rather than being the target of bookmakers at Sydney, he really is that piss-poor as a keeper. A full and straight delivery that kept low dismantled Trott’s stumps, leaving him wandering off gurning in puzzlement at the wicket’s sudden propensity for variable bounce, and England were 64-4.

Trott's shattered stumps

It was unrealistic to expect that Morgan and Collingwood would reprise their partnership from the first innings. Collingwood was scratchy and went for 1 off 19 balls, and while England now led by 244 runs Pakistan must have thought they were still in this match if they could get England’s lower order out quickly as Prior came to the crease.

Do not get me wrong, Prior’s ton has underlined why he is the best wicket-keeping option for England in Test matches, but mostly all it did was make me angry. Lots of things make me angry, and one of them is Matt Prior. He was responsible for running out Morgan – it was Morgan’s call, there were three runs on no problem, but Prior sent him back while using the cunning “if I don’t look at him, then it’s not my bloody fault if he’s three quarters of the way down the wicket, is it?” ploy while completely ignoring the hard-running ginger Irishman.

Add to that the colossally infuriating go-slow from 95 to 100, while Finn gamely blocked out most of 8 overs after Prior took a single off the first ball – lather, rinse, repeat – and well, let us just say it wasn’t an innings for the ages. During all this the chap in front of me managed to munch his way through a large chicken sandwich in laborious, chomping slo-mow, the number of pigeons on the practice wicket increased from one to five, the couple behind me seem to doze off and all of us lost the will to live and didn’t care. I was half hoping the bastard would get bowled on 99.

“Do you think Strauss will declare when he gets his ton?” someone asked, hopefully, and with desperation.

“Well, he’s not going to wait until he gets another one, is he?” was the answer, and we all laughed, and sobbed, at the same time.

Prior did get that ton, the pigeons flew away, and the bloke who’d just finished the chicken sandwich belched noisily and stood up to applaud as the declaration came.

Finn and Prior last wicket stand

Pakistan needed 435 to win and finished the day on 15-3. I was disappointed that they seemed to capitulate again so easily. It seemed like declaration bowling from them at times during the latter part of England’s innings, and I felt sorry for young Mohammad Amir, pushed out as nightwatchman like a lamb to the slaughter, head down, trudging slowly out to the middle, wishing he were anywhere else but here. Their body language betrayed them as being certain of failure the same way as at Headingley they were terrified of success.

I have grown quite fond of this young team over the past months. But they need a wiser head on shoulders that have borne the burden of situations like this before, and thus it was no surprise to read, the morning after their 354-run defeat, that Mohammad Yousuf has been drafted back into the squad.

As for England, Jimmy Anderson was mighty, Morgan proved himself a Test batsman, and Prior still makes me very angry. “I am an aggressive runner between the wickets,” he blustered in an interview afterwards, “and I make no apologies for that.” Alrighty then!

At the very least I’m hoping he bought Finn a few pints…

Judging by Pakistan’s showing in the first of their neutral Test series against Australia at Lord’s, Headingley better be baking hot with bright sunshine and a dry pitch or they are pretty much screwed. Chasing a total of 440 was always going to be a pretty stiff task, but yet again, and with depressing predictability, a crumbling middle order failed to follow the example of Salman Butt in batting with anything resembling responsibility and Pakistan were bundled out to the tune of a 150-run loss. In hindsight, Butt’s innings of 63 and 92 look positively heroic.

Add to that captain Shahid Afridi’s resignation minutes after the end of the match and the confusion that followed – even Ricky Ponting had to ask a reporter what the heck was going on – and Pakistan cricket is in crisis. Again. I am saddened by Afridi’s resignation, though seeing the way he batted I understand his reasons  – “I have struggled to adapt to this form of the game,” he said – but quite what the resignation of the captain is supposed to do to the morale of a team that’s just been thrashed within 4 days is anyone’s guess.

I was at Day 1 of this Test, and while the weather was bloody cold, and the walk from Baker Street tube station seemed to take longer than last year, the upside was that things were looking pretty good for Pakistan at stumps. Mohammad Aamer was bending it like a banana. That added to the devastation caused by Mohammad Asif either side of tea, and Simon Katich’s gritty stickability and Michael Clarke’s elegant innings aside Pakistan looked in a strong position with Australia 229-9.

Michael Clarke drives

Day 2, and the days thereafter, were an utter disaster for Pakistan. The team is not short on young talent but they batted like Ritalin-deprived four-year-olds with attention deficit disorder, the captain being the most obvious culprit. Their abject display turned an intriguing match into an all-out drubbing. 148 all out first innings followed by an Australian second innings that set them 440 to win – yeah, all we misty-eyed romantics liked to fool ourselves there was a chance Pakistan could pull off the impossible and make history, but then we woke up.

A few of the main points that emerged for me from this Test:

Pakistan Cricket: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.  Afridi never wanted to be the Test captain. He didn’t bat like he was the Test captain. Now he has resigned as Test captain. Salman Butt is the new captain. He will be Pakistan’s third captain in three Tests. As I said on Twitter while the Pakistan run chase was rapidly going tits-up, sometimes I think I have it tough being a Leicestershire fan; if I was a Pakistan cricket fan I’d be running myself a hot bath and looking for the razor blades.

That said, Mohammad Aamer: how good could this kid become? General consensus is that Wasim Akram wasn’t even as good as this guy when he was his age. That is, quite frankly, terrifying. Umar Akmal didn’t give us the big innings we’d have liked to have seen from him at Lord’s but we all know he is an exceptional talent. He will get his name engraved on the honours board at some point in the future, this is certain.

Speaking of the honours board, aye, we all had a bloody good laugh at the fact that while Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne’s names are nowhere to be seen, Shane Watson and Marcus North’s names are (initial reaction from many on Twitter on news from Lord’s that Shane Watson’s was the first name on the new neutral honours board: “Burn it”). But you have to hand it to Ponting, when the front-line bowlers weren’t doing the job – when the ball wasn’t swinging or seaming the bowling was utterly innocuous – it was the part-timers who delivered. While the whole four/five bowlers debate goes on as regards England’s Ashes line-up, Ponting seems to like the challenge of conjuring something out of nothing in a way I can’t imagine Andrew Strauss would. Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen can turn their arm over (there’s also Collingwood’s off-cutters but that shoulder is a worry) but that’s not really seen as a serious option.

Ricky Ponting is still a sore loser. While all the talk was of that elbow barge between him and a celebrating Mohammad Aamer, no one seems to have noticed the fact he walked deliberately into Mohammad Asif’s upraised arm while the bowler was celebrating with his team mates with his back turned. There is no way Asif could possibly have seen him. It’s like that bit in the Simpsons where Bart starts windmilling his arms around and says: “If you get hit, it’s your own fault.” Lisa responds: “Ok, then I’m going to start kicking the air like this. And if any part of you should fill that air, it’s your own fault.” For christ’s sake!

Mohammad Asif

Finally, the debutants. Azhar Ali and Umar Amin showed promise in the second innings but given their youth and inexperience, their inclusion was always going to be a gamble. It’ll be interesting to see if they can bounce back at Headingley.

Tim Paine, who I bigged up in my last post, did a sterling job with the gloves on debut. Tidy and athletic with a couple of good diving stops he pulled off a smart stumping to get rid of Salman Butt in the second innings. He was nervous as hell when I watched him bat on the first day – “I couldn’t feel my feet,” he said afterwards – and this was reflected in his 7 runs off 46 balls, but he did a lot better with 47 in the second innings and there is no question he belongs at this level. Brad Haddin should watch out, because this kid’s going to be breathing down his neck from now on. Steve Smith, orthodox legspinner, unorthodox batsman, also acquitted himself well with 3 wickets, and given he is only 21, shows every sign of maturing into a fine cricketer.

Paine gets a boundary

Who knows what Headingley will bring? For once I’d like to see a settled Pakistan team give a good account of themselves while making good on all the talent and potential the team possesses. The weather doesn’t bode well, with overcast conditions, rain and even thunder forecast for the next few days, but it’d be nice to see a decent contest rather than a one-sided hammering. We’ll see.

At 10:30 tomorrow, Tim Paine will become the youngest Australian Test wicket keeper since Ian Healy.

Handed a Cricket Australia contract back in April in recognition of his performance in last year’s ODI series against England, the 25-year old will be looking to cement his place as heir apparent to an injured Brad Haddin, who has been forced to sit out this two Test series against Pakistan with an elbow injury.

Paine’s form in this year’s ODIs hasn’t been on the same stellar level as that 111 he made at Trent Bridge, and he seemed to struggle as opening partner to Shane Watson, though he made 44 at Old Trafford and 54 at Lord’s. His batting seemed to me to be a mixture of the laboured and reckless, as if he wasn’t sure how to approach or pace his innings, causing him to over-complicate the job in hand before letting impatience get the better of him. It was as if he was thinking too much about the future – the weight of expectation after last year’s performances, the Cricket Australia contract and his ambitions to become Australia’s Test keeper when Haddin hangs up his gloves – rather than concentrating on the now.

I know this is a horrendously over-used cliché, but he needs to relax and keep it simple. Batting further down the order – he usually occupies the number 6 spot for Tasmania in Shield cricket – and without pressure to score runs quickly will help him. His keeping is a work in progress: the tour match in Derby was his first time keeping to the red Duke ball and he dropped Chris Rogers who went on to make 93, but that will improve through time and practice (cf. Brad Haddin, Matt Prior, Alec Stewart and others not seen as “natural keepers”).

I’m a fan of Paine – I watched him in the nets at Old Trafford last year for the rain-aborted Twenty20 International against England and admired his enthusiasm and aggression at Trent Bridge, and I’m hoping he’ll do well in this series.

Tim Paine in the nets at Old Trafford 2009

Also, his 82-year-old grandmother will be watching in the stands, and that will be a pretty big incentive, too.

Good luck, Tim.

There’s been much debate over the last few days about whether Bangladesh should be playing Test cricket. Geoffrey Boycott has famously made his opinion on this known – an emphatic negative – and the day after he voiced this patronising piece of codswallop Tamim Iqbal hammered a Lord’s century, so that kind of back-fired in a “point and laugh” kind of way.

All I’ll say on this matter is that England are as capable as any minnow of playing like complete muppets, and no-one ever suggests they should be stripped of Test status.

Anyhoo, on Saturday I moseyed up to Old Trafford to watch Tamim in action on Day 2 of the 2nd Test. England were 5 wickets down; Bell and Prior were at the crease. Bell brought up his century and worryingly guaranteed himself a seat on the plane for Australia. Prior’s innings I can’t remember a damned thing about, other than that he seemed to grind to a halt during the 90s and time slowed to a considerably less-exciting approximation of the Incredible Hulk when he’d rip doors off cars in slow-mo in that old TV series; every one of Prior’s singles seemed executed in a burst of barely-restrained apathy. To say I was relieved when he got out 7 short of his 100 may be an exaggeration, but not much of one.

England were eventually all out for 419; Shakib took 5 wickets; the sun shone; the temperature started to climb.

When Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes came out to open the Bangladesh innings I said to myself, “Even if Tamim only scores 20 or 30, it doesn’t matter, because I will have seen him bat, and it will probably be the most exciting 20 or 30 I will see this year.”

I got what I wished for, and then some. Destiny and I have a peculiar understanding when it comes to cricket, but I’ll write about Eng v Australia, Day 5 at Lord’s last year, some other time.

Let’s just say I’d prayed for England to bat first, which they did, and then when wickets started falling and they ended up 5 down at the end of the first day I sighed with relief that Prior and Bell had halted the collapse.

Tamim didn’t piss about when he came to the crease, but then he never does. His batting is a peculiar form of art, and the combination of Sehwag-type aggression and Pietersen-style virtuosity creates a style of batsmanship that is very much his own. Although he brought up his 50 with a 6 smashed over long-on off the bowling of Graeme Swann, this was a more measured innings – if that is possible with Tamim – than that explosive knock at Lord’s, though any pretence at watchfulness deserted him when he got into the 90s, swinging wildly at several deliveries like a man with a rolled up newspaper being harassed by a particularly aggressive wasp. The shot that brought up his century was a boundary smashed with glorious abandon off the toe of his bat through point, and even though he went soon after, edging a wide delivery from Anderson to Matt Prior, I knew I’d seen something very special indeed.

There were other reasons to remember this day. I found a Jack Fingleton book I’d been looking for at the LCCC book stall. An attempt to construct the world’s largest beer snake was kiboshed not long after the plans were formulated. At one point a bloke in blue body paint dressed as a smurf ran on to the field and was promptly tackled by the stewards, who kept his hat as a trophy.

But that’s not why I’ll remember last Saturday.

All hail Tamim Iqbal. Long may you entertain.

It’s here:

Cricket Sadists' Monthly April 2010

Cricket Sadists’ Monthly issue 1, available now. Featuring an article on Trumper and Bradman by yours  truly.

Trumper or Bradman?

On this day, 18th March, 1877, Clem Hill, arguably Australia’s greatest left-handed batsman, was born.

He was pretty badass. A child prodigy, he scored 360 for Prince Alfred College at the age of 16, and in his career as Test cricketer set records that stood until Don Bradman and Jack Hobbs broke them. One of the “Big Six” in the 1912 dispute with the Australian Board of Control, he flattened a selector with a vicious right hook (he also bowled right-handed) and almost defenestrated him. There’s not many cricketers who’ve almost succeeded in throwing a selector out of a third storey window, but there have been doubtless many since who wished they could have followed his example.

One of his finest innings was scored in between bouts of throwing up on the Adelaide wicket in 1908 after he’d been in bed with gastric flu for three days and England were well on their way to victory. Afterwards dubbed “Clem ‘Ill” by the press, he batted for 5 hours 19 minutes for 160. He pulled Australia from the mire of 180 for 7 with a record eighth wicket partnership of 243 with Queensland’s Roger Hartigan, and England were beaten by 245 runs.

He was the original “nervous 90s” specialist, being out for 99, 98 and 97 in consecutive Test innings. He is also the only Australian batsman to be dismissed twice in Tests for the unlucky score of 87.

As a batsman, he was rated second only to the great Victor Trumper. He relished taking on the quicks, and great England fast bowler Tom Richardson once said to him: “You make me feel I took up fast bowling for your benefit.” His hook was a statement of powerful attack and no little courage in those days before helmets and grills. Always eager to get off the mark, he would often take a single or more off the first ball he received – the Golden Age’s equivalent of Kevin Pietersen’s “Red Bull run”. Known for testing the nerves of wicketkeepers, about a third of his strokes were made outside his crease, and his method of recovering his ground was to swing the bat right over his shoulder upon completion of his stroke and smack it down on the crease with an alacrity that, in pre- third umpire slow-mo replay days, would have the umpire puzzled as to whether the bat had come down before the bails had been taken off.

No slouch in the field, in 1902 he ran 25 yards to take a spectacular diving catch on the Old Trafford boundary in a Test Australia won by 3 runs.

When not being wound up by selectors, Hill was happy-go-lucky with a sunny, even temper. He was an extremely popular Australian captain, even when his side were losing.

Even away from cricket his life was eventful. In 1913 burglars broke into his house, removed his safe while he was asleep and blew it up in the garden. They stole £500 pounds worth of jewellery, but didn’t take any of the bats he had been presented with, so they couldn’t have been cricket fans. In 1909, during a car ride with a couple of South Australian team mates, his car overturned with their chauffeur pinned underneath it. Clem, with help from his team mates, lifted the car off him. Three years prior to this a wagon had driven into the back of his horse-drawn trap while out for a drive with the missus.

He died on September 5th 1945 after being thrown from a tram. He didn’t have much luck with wheeled vehicles.

He is one of my favourite batsmen of all time.

Happy birthday, Clem Hill.

Clem at the crease

Graeme Swann took 10 wickets. Alastair Cook brought up his maiden Test ton as England captain with a 6 on a wicket so flat you could have used it as an ironing board. England racked up runs gifted to them by Shakib Al Hasan’s blunder in choosing to bowl, and aided by a weak Bangladesh bowling attack Ian Bell scored 84 and 39 not out. England still took five days to win.

Alastair Cook didn’t enforce the follow-on despite being 303 runs ahead. Graeme Swann later attributed this to the tiredness of the bowlers who toiled all day on a wicket which admittedly offered nothing to the seamers. But if the rain which was forecast but never showed up had curtailed the match on Day 5 questions would surely have been asked. Swann bowled 78.3 overs, 36 per cent of the entire overs bowled by England in this Test match. Whether it was solely Cook’s decision, or whether Andy Flower had input as to whether or not pick James Tredwell and thus burden Swann with the lion’s share of the bowling, we will perhaps never know.

The fact is that over-cautious captaincy and short-sighted selection along with an opposition that refused to lie down and die quickly prolonged this Test match far longer than it should have been. This is not to denigrate Bangladesh: many have argued that they do not deserve Test status but they did improve throughout this match. Tamim Iqbal is a superb talent: he top-scored in Bangladesh’s 1st innings with 86, and his swashbuckling 125 in the first ODI was sublime. He is only 20 years old so there is still time to get that rashness out of his system that sometimes results in the needless squandering of his wicket. Junaid Siddique also scored a maiden century and Swann’s sendoff was perhaps a tad ungracious, but at the same time a reflection of just how big a thorn in England’s side Bangladesh’s resistance had become.

Mushfiqur Rahim’s been the player who has really impressed me, though. He kept the first innings going with a doughty 79 and a wild swipe dancing down the wicket to Graeme Swann got him out for 95 in the second. His 167-run partnership with Siddique kept England waiting for victory, with not a single wicket falling before lunch. He’s also only 5ft 4″ and his interview with Bob Willis at the end of Day 4 was worth its weight in gold for the mind-boggling discrepancy in scale. His work with the gloves is questionable but surely there’s a case to be made for pushing him up the order. Bangladesh will also be hoping Raqibul Hasan has a change of heart regarding his retirement from international cricket as they could do with him at number 4, with Tamim and Junaid opening and Mushfiqur at 3. Shahadat Hossain and Imrul Kayes should probably be dropped, with Shafiul Islam coming in for Shahadat, who’s been vociferous but toothless in this match.

James Tredwell must play in the next Test to provide support for Swann. Michael Carberry should be the one to make way as on a Dhaka deck that threatens to be flatter than this one it could be argued England already have enough batsmen and Carberry has not done enough to give the selectors a reason to retain him. This means that either Trott or Bell should open with Cook: Bell would be my preferred option as the last thing a brooding Jonathan Trott needs is to be shunted up and down the order. Broad looks tired and not altogether fit; they should rest him for the next Test and play Plunkett. The ECB says Paul Collingwood isn’t injured but he required a cortisone injection in his left shoulder and didn’t bowl, so he too remains a concern. Finn, aside from a nervy first spell, deserves more opportunities beyond this tour and it’ll be interesting to see him on a wicket with more bounce.

Cook’s captaincy hasn’t convinced me of anything other than competence displayed within the cautious cradle of a temporary appointment. His is a place-holder captaincy for a resting Strauss and his inexperience showed. Bangladesh, though, fought with honour and refused to be pushovers, and hopefully they can continue improving.

Swann was again superb, and Pietersen’s return to form encouraging. It would be nice, though, to see an England that didn’t make victory such hard work.

When his side is reeling from the loss of early wickets and Rahul Dravid steps into the breach, watching him is something akin to the comforting thunk of the central locking on an expensive saloon as you’re driving through a particularly dodgy part of town. Danger is averted; the sense of panic passes; the blood pressure settles down because you know things will be okay.

There hasn’t been that reassurance from Dravid for a while in international cricket. He’s looked uneasy at the crease; a man struggling with the weight of all those runs already scored for India and with the expectation of their continuation, and while young guns like Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina have been snapping at his heels you get the feeling it’s not been the age so much as the mileage. Unceremoniously dumped from the ODI side in October, his domestic form recently has been superb, averaging 77 for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy, so perhaps it was only ever going to be a matter of time before he gave notice to these pretenders that the Wall was not for shifting.

And so it was today. He finished Day One of this first Test against Sri Lanka on 177 not out, out of a total of 385. Marshalling India from a potentially-catastrophic 32-4, his innings comprised 26 free-flowing fours and a six slapped imperiously off Rangana Herath over long-on. He shared in two 100-partnerships with Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni, and reached the milestone of 11000 Test runs, passing Steve Waugh in the process. Cuts, drives, pulls, flicks off the pad; this Dravid was a re-tuned, fuel-injected version of the model that scored runs in New Zealand back in March but never looked entirely convincing. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him play with such confidence and exuberance; his timing was perfect, his placement impeccable. This was not the immovable object so much as the unstoppable force.

“I’ve been playing for a long time. I’ve been around the scene for a long time,” he said afterwards. “It’s nice. I guess it is something about my longevity. I’ve been able to be consistent over pretty decent periods of time which has helped me stack up these numbers. It’s a nice thing.”

Yes. Yes it is. Even if he gets out first ball tomorrow morning it doesn’t matter, because this has been one of the great Test innings.

England won the Ashes yesterday.

I can’t begin to describe how awesome, yet surreal, this is.

We were told before this series that Australia, without McGrath, Warne, Hayden, Langer and Gilchrist, were a weakened side. We were told England had a good chance of regaining the urn. But England lost in the West Indies, and Australia beat South Africa on their own turf and were the number 1 Test rated nation in the world.

What happened in this year’s Ashes series was so up and down and bizarre that the fact England won has still to sink in. In truth Australia are indeed a weakened side, and one going through transition trying to replace the greats who have departed (Hauritz for Warne) and nurturing young talent that is not yet firing consistently (Johnson, Hughes).

Collingwood and the amusingly stubborn partnership of Monty and Jimmy Anderson saved England’s bacon at Cardiff. Freddie bowled like a Viking god at Lord’s. Edgbaston was buggered into a bore-draw by both the rain and excitement-killing knocks by Pup Clarke and Marcus North (I had tickets for that day but poleaxed by swine flu I drifted in and out of consciousness on the couch all day and didn’t miss much). Headingley, oh Jesus, Headingley – the crowd chanting “We’re shit – and we’re 1 nil up” as the batting disintegrated summed up the utter direness of England’s performance. Good god, the batting was dire. Most Test teams have one god-awful collapse a year: England manage it once a series.

Australia’s collapse in their first innings sealed it for England – but even then, never say never: I’d not have bet against Australia chasing down a massive total because it wouldn’t have been the first time England bowlers have bottled it.

Ricky Ponting said during the presentation that looking back over the stats in this series (by which he means lack of hundreds by England batsmen as opposed to Australia’s and the fact the Aus bowlers have taken more wickets), he couldn’t figure out how England won. That was perhaps a tad ungracious, and got some boos from the crowd, but he has a point. If England had performed like this against the McGrath/Warne juggernaut of 2006/07, they’d have been shafted ten ways till Sunday – again.

As it was Hughes, the much vaunted wunderkind, failed to deal with the short ball and was promptly discarded, Nathan Hauritz bowled well at Cardiff but Australia still didn’t really give a fuck about him to the extent of leaving him out of the squad for the Oval, to their cost; Mitchell Johnson’s radar went AWOL and suggestions of “Midge! Phone your mum!” from the Edgbaston crowd may not have been entirely helpful; Bing didn’t play and Stuey Clarke was mystifyingly damned with faint praise by chief selector Andrew Hilditch after taking 3-18 at Headingley and really should have played in every Test.

Still, Shane Watson, called in to replace Hughes, more than coped at the top of the order. He scored three half centuries in five innings and more importantly managed to roll out of bed each morning without breaking something. Michael Clarke was Australia’s best batsman, and Marcus North put his hand up in with innings of dogged defiance at No 6 while chipping in with the ball. Midge got his mojo back and Hauritz’s performance at Cardiff made me think that Australia should shut the hell up about looking for a new Warne and look to go forward with this guy because he’s sure as shit better than Beau Casson. Hauritz must feel like the young second wife whose hubby can’t stop going on about his stunning first wife who was his one great love and who he still carries a torch for. It sucks and I felt sorry for the guy when I read he’d been avoiding reading the newspapers with their endless “is this the best Australia can find?” coverage.

England had their own travails to deal with. Fred’s knee packed up and KP’s achilles decided it had had enough. England were without both players at Headingley, and this was really one in the face for those who said England perform better without Flintoff, and that Pietersen should be dropped as punishment for giving his wicket away in the 90s, because without them England sucked. They were without Flintoff’s heart, and without the sheer bloody-minded determination Pietersen brings to the middle. I’m of the opinion Pietersen made a pretty good captain, and in time could have been a great one. Strauss decided to pursue a career in cricket rather than in the City, and somewhat appropriately, he captains like an accountant. Don’t expect any daring declarations from this guy. But his batting was solid, which was more than could be said for a few of them. Bell was infuriating – again, he didn’t step up when England needed him to, and the explosive potential of Ravi Bopara seen earlier in the year against the West Indies fizzled meekly into nothingness. Cook for some reason seems to have escaped scrutiny, despite posting one big score of 95 in this series and then nothing of note thereafter.

Bopara’s replacement, Jonathan Trott, was awesome. A century on debut in the deciding Test of an Ashes series takes some beating. He doesn’t have the insouciant brilliance of Pietersen or the outrageous, showboating talent, but boy he can bat. KP reckons he and Trott will get some flack from the South African crowds when they tour there this winter. The SA crowds can go fuck themselves. With KP’s strutting aggression and Trott’s steady robustness I can’t wait to see these two together out in the middle come December.

Of course, England will be without Fred. All the bowlers stepped up at various points, be it with ball or bat, but most of the attention was on Flintoff. I was at Lord’s on the day he won that Test for England and it was magical, amazing, something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. This wasn’t quite Flintoff’s Ashes, but the big man gave us all something to remember him by.

The highlights of Day 4 at the Oval are playing on the TV behind me as I’m writing this. Earlier this morning Flintoff held a press conference. He told how he had a quiet meal with wife Rachael last night and that the celebrations this time around were more poignant than the full-on alcoholic debauchery of 2005. He goes into surgery tomorrow morning to get his knee sorted and will be out for 9-12 months. Get well soon, Fred.

Andrew Strauss summed up the series best when he said during the presentation: “When we’re bad, we’re very bad; when we’re good, we’re good enough.”

Yep. “Good enough” may not be full-on awesome, but compared to the hiding England took in 06/07, it’ll do for me. It’ll do for me, and for every other England fan, for now. But if England want to keep hold of that urn come 2010, “good enough” won’t be enough when it comes time to jump on a plane Down Under and face a team who are at their most dangerous when they’re wounded.

Enjoy it, lads, because the hard work, that’s just beginning.