If you want witty asides or jovial pre-Ashes banter, look away now. This is a serious post (for once), with a serious message.

This time last year, England were busy beating the West Indies in what was an appetiser for the summer’s main event: the three test series against South Africa.

Although we beat the West Indies fairly comfortably, our performances were far from convincing.

Our bowling attack looked toothless at times: the Windies tail wagged profusely, and the likes of Darren Sammy scored runs for fun. Meanwhile, our batsmen often got off to brilliant starts only for the middle-order to surrender what looked like unassailable positions. Middle-order collapses have now become an infuriating habit.

It’s hard to call any test series victory lacklustre – but that’s exactly what England’s performance in the first half of last summer was. The Windies unquestionably left egg on our faces (given that they were expected to capitulate quite readily).

It was no surprise, therefore, that South Africa beat us soundly. We just weren’t playing well at all.

Form is about momentum, and last summer England had very little. As the likes of Marlon Samuels, Sammy and Dinesh Ramdin had scored heavily against us, it was hardly a surprise that Amla, Kallis and Co filled their boots too.

That’s why the second test against New Zealand at Headingly is so important. England have been below their best in four consecutive test matches – and this has got to change.

Stuart Broad’s heroic performance with the ball last weekend will live long in the memory, but it shouldn’t disguise the fact we were mediocre for most of the match: our batsmen were hesitant, and with the exception of Jimmy Anderson, the bowlers looked short of rhythm.

England simply cannot afford to start the Ashes in third gear. They need to gain some momentum and confidence now – and that means putting on a show over the next five days.

If last year is anything to go by, England’s performances in May tell us what to expect in July and August. So let’s crush the Kiwis while they’re down, and send the Aussies a strong message.

James Morgan

“We had high hopes of winning tomorrow but the way England bowled was outstanding and created an element of panic … I’m proud of the guys to get us into a position to chase 240, it shows how far we’ve come but we still have a way to go.” (Brendon McCullum).

To float your balloon in a sun drenched field of positivist plenty, with a dash of public humility and magnanimous hat raising to the opposition, is a regular pastime these days for Kiwi Captain’s caught short in a Test.  Keeping your end up after a fourth innings capitulation that was more rapid, if less surprising, than the Fall of France in 1940 is no mean feat.

Few this side of the equator ever expected New Zealand to win at Lords, just as few across the channel in Dover and Whitehall really expected a prolonged French resistance in June 1940.  When hope is extinguished such that defeat always seemed the only outcome, much more is invested in the post-match interview or terms of capitulation than is strictly warranted.  Bewildered spectators search for an explanation and players seek solace that they did what they could at the time however discomforted they might feel about the outcome.  Only the printing presses are left to bemoan the insult to national pride.

How the Coach and Captain sum up the devastation of a single session, parted by lunch, is open to a child’s imagination.  Holding hands in the dark, cuddling keep sakes cross-legged on the floor, taking turns in the dunces chair, writing “I shall be patient. I shall not panic” 100 times or chaining yourself to a traffic island are time honoured paths to atone for misdeeds.  Yet this seems inadequate to explain a team dynamic in a group of professional sportsmen that starts a day in hope yet is all but destroyed in a pre-lunch panic, and muddled farce after lunch if one includes the final wicket run out.  The single 6 of the innings looks decidedly misplaced amid this wreckage.

The search for explanation has its roots somewhere deep in the psychological heart of Team NZ just as much as the French defeat in 1940 lay in the rubble of republican sentiment since 1870.  It will take a surgeon’s scalpel to uncover it.  As it stands, a stunned Coach Mike Hesson must be scratching his head for answers.  Brendan McCullum, who participated in a couple of batting collapses in South Africa (absent Ross Taylor) must be trying to unpick his own actions at the crease, let alone the mental steel of the batsmen that preceded him and those that followed him in that hour of pain.  It may not have filtered through to the Black Caps that this was a Test match or that a T20 game has only 20 overs and that every player does not have to bat.  After Lords, it can be said only that this team now has a certain form.

A mate suggested, between a row of barbecued prawns, that NZCricket should broaden their selection policies as the All Blacks have done to include the islands to the North and East.  Shed its image as “The Land of the Wrong White Crowd” he muttered from the side of his mouth.  Beer, bro!

It is a touch unfair to focus solely on Kiwi shortcomings.  Australia had its own patches of oil that spoiled the party in India: “…the bowlers (some of them) can take wickets when the pressure is off.  We just need to bust the 250 run partnerships early on and get our top 6 to score more than the bottom 4. It can be confusing if bowlers want to bat up the order” intoned a wag.  No pressure.  A Punjabi fortune teller might be a better pilot of team deliverance in England in June, than the betting markets forecasted in India in March.

England should take no pleasure from finally besting the 8^th ranked test team.  This test is known for what England did not do, ranked no. 2, than what they did do.  England were bundled out twice with half collapses due mainly to Southee who bowled a good line and length, with some swing, on top of a first day run rate that had every appearance of a local cane toad derby west of Cunnamulla where the overs are long and hot, a bowler needs to dance between the tiger snakes and saltbush on his way to the crease, and the ball regularly swings 10 degrees to magnetic north.   The Aussie quicks will fancy themselves to stay healthy in a more congenial climate.  And England will need to scuttle the Kiwis at Headingly as effectively as the Royal Navy sank the French fleet in Toulon in 1942 to prove some resolve.

Congratulations to the pasty and hot chip sellers who hung on at Lords for the Day 4 lunchtime rush.  Headingly is shaping up as a bowler’s paradise where the main event is over by tea on day 4 should  England bat first.  A three day test may be a luxury if New Zealand bat first.  I would not be pre-ordering 1500 day 4 floaters from the local baker just yet unless the game is billed as a set of four 1 day fixtures.

It would be wrong not to end by quoting in full the 22.5 overs of the Black Cap fourth innings at Lord’s:

|…..I|..w..1|……|..4..4|2…31|w.w..4|……|…..1|……|…w4.|…w..|..4w1.|.1..4.|..1…|3.11..|.w24.1|1…..|1….4|…w..|6..1..|1.1..3|..1..w|..(1)w  [22.5 overs]

This should be incentive enough for any team to get it together.

Jeremy Pooley

Jeremy Pooley is co-author of Dust to Dust, the only published book about the Australian Tour of India 2013, and the 17thManDiary.  Find the 17^th Man at www.17thManDiary.com

After Friday’s play I opined that our side had become stuck in a rut, lacking in inspiration, stolid, and decaying in confidence. Unable to break the Kiwi shackles, we seemed a team about to unravel, who had lost its joie de vivre and sense of identity.

And now this. Just as it appeared our deadlock with New Zealand would last for the rest of our lives, we blasted a breach into the hitherto impregnable Black Cap fortifications, and stormed through it with the voracious gusto of a Viking raiding party.

To win by 170 runs in such a low-scoring game is remarkable, and it sends out a chilling message to Australia – because this is the kind of crushing-victory-from-nowhere which their forebears of the 1990s and 2000s would have perpetrated.

What scares opponents is the knowledge that – even when below par – your team always retains that capacity to find another gear and blow you away through sheer aggression, fortitude, and even downright nastiness.

If they could do this to the Kiwis, Michael Clarke will be thinking, they can do it to us. His batsmen are probably even less experienced than New Zealand’s.

Yesterday’s performance has the potential – which may of course not materialise – to transform our summer. Our team play best with the sun of confidence on their backs – when they feel the force is with them, and they can exert both control and authority.

It was the consciousness of a missing mojo which stymied our players during the last three and a half test matches. Yesterday’s breathtaking display supplied the galvanising experience they sorely needed.

Which is not to say no issues remain. Root and Trott aside, our batting feels unconvincing, and this match demonstrated what can happen when the perma-safety net of Matt Prior is cut away. Cook may have entered one of his periodic spells of misfiring technique and strategic miscalibration.

We might just have to accept that Stuart Broad will remain an enigma for the rest of his career. It’s not so much that he blows hot and cold – than cold, cold, tepid, tepid, white-hot, then cold again. If only he could convert those annual spells of brilliance into something more reliably consistent – and what’s most painful is that his inability to do so is even more frustrating and baffling to Broad himself than to us.

More generally, this test match had another function in that it underlined how low-scoring games will almost be more entertaining than high – which makes you wonder why the ICC and other administrators don’t recognise this in the way everyone else does. In their world, the erroneous and unthinking assumption is that runs=entertainment – hence the ubiquity of agonisingly flat pitches, short boundaries, and über-powerful bats. They’ve got it completely the wrong way around.

This was one of the most absorbing, intriguing, and ultimately thrilling test matches England have played for a long time – because the low scores kept the game moving quickly, with all outcomes remaining possible.

What would you rather watch – 600 v 600, as each side amasses a mountain of dreary runs? Or 200 v 200 v 200 v who knows what?

England 232 and 180-6. New Zealand 207

Well, it’s heart in your mouth time again. As if it could be any different supporting England.

I’m sure it isn’t like this for other international sides. If you’re Bangladeshi, you’re used to defeat. Ditto, in recent times, if you’re West Indian or, ironically enough, a Kiwi.

On the other hand, if you’re South African or Australian, you expect victory. You know that historically your team wins far more games than it loses. You might lose the odd series, but overall the team plays true to form.

England, however, are a different matter. One day we’re brilliant, the next we’re about as useful as Emile Heskey. What’s more, we always seem to do the opposite of what’s expected of us.

The tour to India was built up as mission impossible. Against all expectations we triumphed comfortably. Playing New Zealand was supposed to be a formality.

In four tests in a row now, New Zealand have competed admirably with us. With the exception of James Anderson, there doesn’t seem to be much between the sides. Yet we still, despite all evidence, claim we’ll win the Ashes easily.

On this form, making that assumption is pure folly. England are the archetypal jackal and hyde team. We can beat anyone; but we can lose to anyone. And yes, that does include the weakest Australian team in living memory.

What totally mystifies me is our total lack of either composure or confidence in this match. We look fragile. Every time we get into a good position – as we did when Root and Trott put on a century stand in the afternoon – one wicket initiates disaster.

But where does this lack of confidence come from? Is it the captain? We all know that Brendon McCullum is ten times the captain Alastair Cook is (at this stage in their careers at least), but surely England’s management have enough about them to motivate the players, and insist on the right game plan.

Thus far, however, you have to say that they don’t. When New Zealand were all over England in our first innings – mainly because they pitched the ball up and let it swing – we tweeted that England would probably bowl far too short (thus ignoring everything New Zealand had taught them). And so it came to pass.

I’m afraid that I just can’t explain such basic strategic errors. Just the same way that I can’t quite put my finger on why a far superior England side is not beating New Zealand easily.

Something isn’t right at the moment, and I don’t know what it is. We might still win this test match –we’ll need another 80 runs on Sunday to be favourites – but our cricket has been about as convincing as Graham Gooch’s hair-hat. Australia will be licking their lips.

James Morgan

This is getting a little tiresome now. Even dull, maybe. For what feels like far too long, we have been playing New Zealand – and to put it mildly, it has not gone well. Day after day the cricket gets ever more dour, while inch by inch our players retreat ever further into their shells.

These last two days of test cricket have had a distinctly Pinterian feel – a brooding sense of paranoia, decay, and crisis of identity. None of this is doing much for our Ashes prospects, about which we’ve been feeling increasingly less sanguine ever since these confounded Kiwis hoved into view.

The Black Caps have destabilised us, and eroded our confidence. Both our batting and bowling in this match so far – Anderson excepted – has betrayed that fraying confidence. As a team, we seem diffident, tentative, and unsure of ourselves – at least for now. That’s the analysis I would put forward for our mediocre performance in both disciplines, not only in this test, but on tour.

It’s hard to say quite how this can be put right. Confidence cannot be confected or contrived – you either have it or you don’t. That said, there are plenty of players in the team who ought to have the experience and gumption to man up, at least in a mental sense, back their ability and take the initiative.

This KP-less England teamsheet feels low on dynamism. Apart from Prior and Anderson, who of this XI can galvanise the dressing room or change the tone of a session, either by word or deed? Whether Alastair Cook can find it in him to inspire, influence, and bring the best out of his players, may be the question which defines his captaincy.

Speaking of Prior, let yesterday’s events serve as a warning to never again present an award to a vitally important player on the eve of a test series. Talk about putting the mockers on someone. Sunday: voted player of the year (followed by a deserved eulogy here on TFT). Friday: golden duck and a dropped catch. Let’s just hope someone gives Michael Clarke an award four days before the Ashes start.

Meanwhile, we’d like to hear your thoughts on Jimmy Anderson and his tremendous milestone. He deserves huge congratulations for achieving something which only three other Englishmen have done before – especially, perhaps, because unlike the other three he struggled for so much of his early career.

Anderson was rightly deemed, for a long time, an under-achiever – a bowler who would lose his focus and let his head drop when things weren’t going his name. His nickname of Daisy – some days he does, some days he doesn’t – neatly summarised an inconsistency which frustrated Anderson himself as much as us.

But he came through all of that, with a perseverance, dedication and skill which has now made him the most consistently penetrative and match-winning English bowler since (probably) Botham in his pomp.

But is he really the fourth best England bowler of all time? We’d like your views on that. You could also argue that many bowlers with equal skill were given fewer chances or recalls than Anderson was.

In a way, it does seem a little limp to make such a fuss about 300. In most other nations that figure is small beer. Jacques Kallis has nearly as many (288) and he’s also scored 13,128 test runs. 301 wickets puts Anderson only twenty sixth on the all-time list, behind Daniel Vettori, Makhata Ntini and Harbhajan Singh.

But Anderson may still have two or three more years of test cricket left in him. Can he get the 83 more wickets he needs to eclipse Botham? And might he become the first ever Englishman to 400?

Maxie Allen

England 160-4 (80 overs)

One of the things we bang on about at TFT is the cost of test match tickets. If you paid £80 to watch yesterday’s debacle we feel really sorry for you.

I’m going to keep this report brief because, if I’m being honest, I rarely paid attention. I was vaguely aware that a test match was in progress, but it was so utterly devoid of compelling action that I got out my kids finger paint instead. I found that making smudges on a blank piece of paper, and then seeing the colours change ever so slightly as my red, blue and yellow masterpiece slowly dried, far more interesting.

England’s batting yesterday must have intimidated the Aussies about as much as Reading FC’s transfer budget scares Manchester United. Masculine it was not.

Yes there were some extenuating circumstances – the pitch was slow and the ball swung around in the first hour – but come on, two bloody runs an over?! England won the toss and batted remember. This was no green top, and New Zealand’s attack is hardly the best in the world. At times it was like watching Chris Tavare on sedatives.

The problem, as far as I’m concerned, is that England’s top three has totally the wrong balance. Having three blockers provides a semblance of stability I suppose, but it’s far too passive. We don’t put the bowlers under any pressure; instead they can ease themselves into a rhythm knowing full well that the batsmen are more intent on survival than scoring runs. The result? The initiative is immediately surrendered.

Nick Compton must learn to play more aggressively or make way for a more attacking opener. The last thing we want to do is let the Australian bowlers get on top of us early in the Ashes. England need to assert their obvious superiority, rather than play like wimps and allow the Aussies’ confidence to build.

The best teams stamp on the opposition when it’s down. They smell blood and they’re ruthless. England are just too conservative.

James Morgan

To spice up our coverage of the Ashes this year, we’re going to bring you an Aussie perspective every now and again. When we were growing up, and England were captained by the likes of Chris Cowdrey, we used to see Aussie fans as extremely confident (cocky, one might say) with a penchant for extracting the Michael. These days, as you’ll see below, the confidence is long gone and they mostly take the mickey out of themselves.

With thanks to Jeremy Pooley, a Sydney-based writer and co-author of the 17thManDiary …

Doubt and certainty

“If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, we shall end in certainties” – Francis Bacon.

In horse racing punters bet on the chance that good form can be carried into the next race.  No one wants to bet on a nag at a billion to one, or a bolter that has pulled up, refused or unseated its rider.

Fortunately there are no comparable form and fitness guides to help us predict the outcome of the coming England v New Zealand series and the five Ashes tests with certainty. Nor can we gauge the quality of the player-coach-captain relationships that are so vital to success.

It is safe to say that neither TaylorGate, now that Ross Taylor has returned to the Black Cap squad, nor HomeworkGate would sit neatly anywhere in Andy Flower’s playbook. England have a steady ship. But what about New Zealand and Australia?

Ross Taylor and his Coach are communicating – even if it is across the 38th parallel – and every member of the Australian Ashes squad can now use a pair of skin callipers and recite three ways to improve team performance.

But are they united and ready to test England? Black Cap stalwarts might play up the remorseful three test grind in New Zealand as a David and Goliath contest that went the distance, but the contest was hardly of epic proportions and pleased no one.

It demonstrated that the Black Caps did not have the firepower to capture 20 wickets, even when they score a bundle of runs, and that England’s lower order can be frustratingly resilient.

For all the hoopla, no quacksalver worth his salt would have raised a weather eye to the fifth day ordeal England endured during the third test in April. (There’s nothing like Aussie slang eh. Ed) 

When all is said and done, England created the circumstance by lazy play. The game puttered along to an unexciting draw in front of a dwindling crowd.  It was a long day out; a punter would have been more entertained at the shooting gallery or the laughing clowns in sideshow alley.

Australians looked longingly across the ditch at this series as a cool respite from the heat and debacle of another tortured Tour of India.  How a team can win comprehensively 4-0 at home then lose as convincingly 0-4 away to the same team within a year defies sensible explanation. Many Aussies would have settled for a single Test draw if it went for five full days, or an afternoon on a merry-go-round with the Men in Blue riding a purple yellow-speckled horse.

England must be looking forward to playing their antipodean colonies with the same pleasure and relief with which they welcomed the ANZACs to the Western Front in 1916: no prodigious spinners, no quality swing bowlers, and few batsmen with competent technique or a history of long innings on English wickets against swing and spin. Oh, joy!

Michael Clarke is sure that our boys will give a better account than in India. But he’ll need to score a hundred in each test to make sure. If Australia are going to put up a fight, they might need a typically short English summer, with unwelcome rain punctuating matches, to give Clarke’s back a rest now and again. But given the English punter loves a couple of consecutive sunny days at the cricket, it’s hard to deny them this simple pleasure.

Mathematics is an odd thing. If New Zealand manage to drawn the series with England – although it might require seven English bats do a knee each (and maybe a hamstring as well) for this to happen – and then England beat Australia comfortably, the Kiwis will have the bragging rights. This would be an odd result indeed.

There are rumours circling that Cricket Australia received four applications (believed to be from Ross Taylor, Daniel Vettori, Martin Crowe and Mike Hession) to join the Australian Ashes squad. CA thought they were a joke until they received 7 more applications from English cricketers (and cricket supporters) including KP and 4 more from the Men in Blue.

As someone in a privileged position, CA invited me to ascertain their validity. I concluded they were unusual but genuine: the whole cricketing world simply felt SORRY for us, and being keen lovers of the game, were simply offering a friendly hand until we could get back on our feet. It’s nice to know our supporters around the world are thinking of us.

However, as I haven’t had a good bet since Black Caviar won the Diamond Jubilee Stakes in January, maybe I’ll take a little flutter on Ross Taylor and Michael Clarke getting a ton during their first tests this series and see what happens. Australia’s odds will be good, and their form is as close to a certainty as Black Caviar would allow.”

(If you fancy a bet yourself, see the latest Ashes cricket betting odds from Titan Bet. Ed)

Jeremy Pooley

Jeremy is a Sydney-based writer and co-author of the 17thManDiary, the daily diary of the last man selected on the Australian Ashes Tour to England 2013. Find them on www.17thManDiary.com

‘Whatever happened to all the heroes?’ The Stanglers once sung. When it comes to the England cricket team, they’ve got a point. Since the retirement of Andrew Flintoff, we haven’t really had any heroes – not proper cult heroes anyway.

Whereas we had the swashbuckling Sir Ian in the 1980s, tinkle toes Darren Gough in the 90s, and Freddie himself in 2005, recent England sides have lacked that true inspirational figure.

Players like Cook, Trott and Anderson are all very good cricketers, but they inspire by the power of example more than anything else. We admire their grit and their skills, but have the public really warmed to them in the same way as a Flintoff? Their cricket is more consistent, but somehow it’s not as wholehearted or compelling.

Of course, the public love Panesar, but Monty is a bad example. His cult status is not without irony. What we love about Monty, aside from his bowling, is his sheer fallibility; plus, of course, his somewhat comic demeanour in the field (and with the bat). A swashbuckling hero he is not.

Then there’s KP. Pietersen plays like a champion, his cricket is colourful and eye-catching, but do the public love him? KP will always be seen by some fans as an egotistical loaner, even if this characterisation is unfair. For that reason alone, he’ll probably never become a cult hero.

But fear not. England are finally on the verge of unearthing a new, true, cult hero – the heir to Botham, Gough and Flintoff. This man is not a newcomer by any means, but his performances, and the manner of them, are rapidly earning him hero status.

The man in question is Matt Prior, who was named as England’s player of the year this week – a man who has averaged over 50 in test cricket during the last twenty four months (despite the fact that he’s often bats with the tail and has to sacrifice his wicket in the quest for quick runs).

If you love gritty cricketers, you’ll love Prior; he’s competitive and tough as nails. If you’re a purist, you’ll also love Prior; he’s possibly the most elegant batsman in the country (his only rival in the style department is probably Ian Bell).

Furthermore, if you’re someone who values a cricketer’s ability to entertain, and to play with personality and exuberance irrespective of the match situation – whether England are under duress or pressing home an advantage – you’ll love Matt Prior too. He’s a player every cricket fan can relate to.

Prior is now unquestionably the fulcrum of the England team. He’s the ultimate team man – the guy that unites the players. He’s also an able deputy to Alastair Cook: relaying the cerebral captain’s instructions to the rank and file. As wicket-keeper it goes without saying that he’s the focal point of the side as well (rallying the troops hour after hour). Prior is England’s voice on the field, and it’s heart and soul too.

Looking towards the Ashes betting odds for this summer, England remain firm favourites. If Australia could do one thing to even things up, to remove one player from the equation, you sense they would choose Prior.

Experienced cricketers like Michael Clarke appreciate that Prior does for England what Adam Gilchrist used to do for Australia. If the younger Baggy Greens don’t currently fear England’s wicketkeeper, they should do …

Although he bats number 7, Prior could bat anywhere in the top six and not look out of place. At times he simply looks like England’s best batsman. No, scratch that. He looks like one of the world’s best batsmen.

Nobody is stronger through the off-side; nobody is better to watch; nobody can change the momentum of an innings better than the Sussex wicketkeeper.

You sense that if Prior stays fit for all ten tests against the Aussies (home and away), England cannot lose the Ashes. He simply won’t let it happen.

James Morgan

The balmy sunshine of early May, so full of promise, has given way to cloud and rain – which can only mean one thing: the new village cricket season is upon us.

Gone are those warmth-giving rays of tantalising spring weather, which has given way to drizzle and gloom to accompany our first trudge down to the park with the kit bags.

For most of us, the club season starts around now, and so, as is traditional at this time of year, here’s the Full Toss guide to the new term down on the village green.

Kit No pre-season prep is complete without the annual overhaul of the club kit bags, which begins by unearthing them from whichever obscure nook of the shed or loft in which your partner finally relented to your storing them over the winter.

You manfully struggle with the dead weight of the bloody things down the loft ladder, wondering how exactly two pairs of pads and three old balls seemingly have a mass of 200 tons.

On opening the bag, the contents will also include: one screwed-up sock, assorted dead leaves, three leaking biros, and a frayed thigh-guard no one has ever used.

You take everything out of the bag, and judge that the cracked bat, and pads with only one working strap ,will just about last another season. Your intention was to execute a full inventory, discarding and then replacing defunct items. But as you can no longer be bothered, you put it all back in again, including the sock.

Membership and recruitment It’s time to audit your personnel and rally the troops for the new campaign. As you conduct the roll-call of your members’ availability, you are impressed once again by the sheer variety of their excuses for not being able to play this year.

One has emigrated to Papua New Guinea, and three have feigned their own deaths, while two have joined the Moonies.

Another chap – and he is very sorry about this – has contracted a mysteriously vague yet debilitating illness which will rule him out for the summer, although mercifully he can still summon the strength to sit by the boundary and drink cans of lager while criticising your field placings.

And as luck would have it, the really shit bloke is available for every match.

Fixture list The finalising and tweaking of your fixture card is a vital part of your preparations, bringing with it your discovery that the only three clubs you beat last year have all closed down. Your other opponents are brimming with enthusiasm, however, having spent the winter netting four times a week and recruiting lethally fast South African seamers.

But some of the snootier of your opponents may have discarded you during the close season, having finally tired of beating you by ten wickets before 3pm. Your final fixture list, therefore, may be less attractive or logistically straight-forward than you first hoped – with matches scheduled only against Rockall CC, Dasmascus Irregulars, and a Broadmoor patients and staff XI.

Tactics It’s time to re-evaluate your on-field stratagems for the challenges ahead. Your occasional spinner has been talking up his “new delivery”, which leaves you a difficult decision to make: whether to post nine men on the boundary, or put the wicket-keeper out there as well. Your batting order also requires careful consideration, and a judgement call on where to accommodate the weaker batsmen. Would you rather have the batting collapse at the start of the innings, or not till four overs in?

Nets No self-respecting cricketing outfit can feel adequately prepared for a new season without first spending an hour aimlessly bowling into the side netting before heading to the bar for six pints of Guinness. Attention to detail will ensure that only the most useless players will actually turn up for the nets, and care should be taken to ensure the batsmen receive no playable deliveries during the entire session. Nets also give your squad the perfect opportunity to practise two disciplines which will be a major feature of the months ahead: arriving very late, and “forgetting” to bring their subs.

Much as I’d like to write off Australia’s Ashes hopes, there’s this little thing niggling away inside me. Steve Waugh, a bloke whose cricketing brain I admire immensely, reckons Michael Clarke’s bunch of crocks could actually win.

Waugh believes that England are vulnerable; a fair opinion considering our abject showing in New Zealand. If there’s one thing consistent about the England team, it’s our inconsistency: poor against South Africa last summer, brilliant in India, then back to disappointing (bordering on the plain crap) in New Zealand. How do we know which England will turn up in the Ashes?

Thus far most analysts are looking at England’s side, comparing it to Australia’s likely line-up, and declaring Alastair Cook’s boys firm favourites. In the process they’re dissecting every conceivable Australian weakness, but ignoring our own.

Today we’re going to redress the balance – not because we really think Australia will win, but because playing devil’s advocate is fun, and sometimes it can be quite revealing.

Therefore, instead of writing off the likes of Phil Hughes and Ed Cowan (one unorthodox and exciting, the other orthodox and about as thrilling as an episode of Neighbours) we’re going to find weak links in England’s line-up. We’ll start at the top of the order:

Alastair Cook is a brilliant batsman, but he’s prone to extreme fluctuations in form: basically, he’s either a run machine (and seems immovable every time he arrives at the wicket), or a bit iffy. He didn’t score too heavily when England needed him against South Africa last summer, did he.

Then there’s his opening partner, Nick Compton. The Aussies might be licking their lips. Compton has shown a good temperament during his brief test career, but there’s no getting away from the fact that his first class career until 2012 was rather pedestrian; he was released by Middlesex not long ago, and even Phil Hughes would probably makes runs for Somerset at Taunton. Compton still has something to prove.

It’s pretty hard to criticise Jonathan Trott, but England’s middle-order has question marks. If you look at the stats, the engine room has failed miserably a number of times over the last few years (Matt Prior can’t keep coming to the rescue indefinitely).

Kevin Pietersen is a genius. But true genius is always flawed. Whilst KP has the potential to win matches, he also has a tendency to get out at the worst possible time. More importantly, however, he has the potential to disrupt the dressing room and throw the side into turmoil. I wonder if he’ll end up texting Shane Watson mid-series to exchange notes on being disruptive?

Next we come to the enigma that is Ian Bell. One day he’s a Rolls Royce; the next he’s a Lada. Although purists love to purr over Bell’s batting, he’s hardly the strongest character. If England are under pressure, can we really rely on Bell? His place in the side has been questioned so many times for a reason you know.

Finally there’s Joe Root. He looks really promising, right? Well the truth is he hasn’t actually been tested against a test-class seam attack yet. He’s showed a good temperament, and a sound technique, against spin on the slow pitches of India, but James Pattinson at the Oval is a different proposition. Root didn’t play particularly well in New Zealand, and his dismissal in the first test (when he looked rushed and guided a wide ball to slip) will encourage Australia’s bowlers.

Then we come to England’s attack. We’re not going to pick apart Anderson. He’s proven time and again that he’s a quality performer. The same could be said of Swann, although he’s not particularly effective against right-handers if the truth be told. However, there are significant question marks over Finn and Broad.

Broad in particular polarises opinion. He’s prone to big fluctuations in form and fitness. He was nothing more than a rank medium pacer against South Africa last summer, and whilst he improved against New Zealand, his career statistics are still very ordinary.

Finally there’s Finn. Has he really kicked on? He’s certainly good at kicking down the stumps in his delivery stride. David Saker persuaded Finn to experiment with a shorter run-up in February. It didn’t really work. He still tripped over the stumps, and his rhythm was awry for much of the series. In a four-man attack, England can’t afford misfiring seamers.

Now don’t get us wrong, we still think England will win the Ashes, but the above analysis provides plenty of food for thought. The odds on an Aussie series win are enticing to say the least – they are currently priced at 7/2 to win the Ashes with Ladbrokes - so pause for thought before you back England. You might expect Alastair Cook and Co to retain the Ashes, but do you really know more about cricket than Steve Waugh?

James Morgan

Good luck!

1. Which commentator twice stood for parliament as a Liberal candidate and, before his broadcasting career, served as a police sergeant with the Hampshire Constabulary?

2. Which TMS stalwart’s father was an Eton contemporary of Ian Fleming?

3. Probably the only TV presenter to work in the fields of both cricket and cookery, who hosted four series of ITV’s Britain’s Best Dish?

4. In his playing career, who took 248 wickets at 27.03 and scored 2201 runs at 24.45 in sixty three tests until his retirement in 1964?

5. And who only took four wickets in his test career, but two of them (and the first two), were those of Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards?

6. Which Channel Nine commentator captained Australia in the first ever one-day international, on 5th January 1971?

7. The press box of the Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados, is named in honour of which locally-born cricket writer and broadcaster?

8. The nickname of which Sky Sports commentator derives from a character in a Michael Bentine children’s TV programme?

9. The celebrated one-liners of which Indian pundit include: “Wickets are like wives – you never know which way they will turn!”?

10. Which TMS summariser was once described by then-prime minister Harold Wilson as the “greatest living Yorkshireman”, and made three first class centuries?

Before I start, I’d like to make it clear that this is not a joke. It isn’t my intention to poke our rivals in the ribs like Glenn McGrath used to do with his 5-0 series predictions. It’s meant to be a serious discussion (as if you’d expect anything else from that blog that brought you the ten best Ashes jokes from 2011).

Over the last twenty five years (or is it one hundred and twenty five?) Australia have been far better than New Zealand at cricket. To claim that the Black Caps are superior to the Canary Yellows would be like saying Fosters is better than London Pride. However, things aren’t so clear cut these days.

New Zealand gave England a much tougher time in Australasia last winter than Ricky Ponting’s motley crew did two years ago. All the talk might be about this summer’s Ashes – with the New Zealand series considered nothing more than a warm-up – but the first half of the summer might actually present Alastair Cook’s boys with a tougher assignment.

Let’s look at the two teams. On paper, Australia’s batting is weaker than a watered down can of XXXX. Michael Clarke is arguably their only international class batsman – and even ‘Pup’ isn’t guaranteed to play all five tests because of his dodgy back. In American sports, ‘PUP’ actually means ‘physically unable to perform’. Ironic, isn’t it.

New Zealand, on the other hand, have several young players who are improving rapidly. The future of their batting line-up looks pretty good.

I didn’t buy into the hype surrounding Hamish Rutherford after his scintillating century in the first test earlier this year, but there’s no doubt he’s a talented chap. Is he any worse than David Warner? I’d say ‘no’.

Meanwhile, Kane Williamson looks a very organised player with a good temperament. I’d bet he’ll have a more productive test career than Phil Hughes, who showed in India he’s just as clueless against quality spin bowling as he is against pace (and I’m a Worcestershire fan … sorry Phil).

New Zealand’s middle-order also looks better than Australia’s these days. Ross Taylor is an effective strokemaker, whilst Dean Brownlie has similar traits to Williamson. And then there’s Brendon McCullum. I’d take him over Wade and Haddin any day. BJ Watling isn’t bad either.

Now I admit that my theory falls flat on its face somewhat when it comes to the bowling, but hear me out. Is Australia’s attack really that much better than New Zealand’s? Trent Boult is a promising left-armer, and he’s troubled England’s batsmen a lot more that Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and company.

And then there’s the spinners to consider. Daniel Vettori is twice the bowler Nathan Lyon is. Bruce Martin is better than Xavier Doherty too.

Those deluded souls who think Australia actually have a chance of winning the Ashes (Steve Waugh, we expected more from you) usually point to the Canary Yellows battery of young fast bowlers. Well, we’ve got news for optimistic Aussie fans: the battery already looks flat.

Pat Cummins has already been ruled out of the tour because of (yet another) serious injury. Will this bloke ever play more than twenty tests? Meanwhile, James Pattinson is also coming off a bad injury; he struggles to stay healthy too.

Bowlers can be as talented as you like, but if they can’t stay fit they’re about as useful as Ed Cowan in a T20 match. Who do you think will take the most test wickets (and be honest), Cummins, Pattinson, or Trent Boult?

Although this post will probably incur the wrath of our lager swilling Aussie friends (I’m allowed the odd dig, aren’t I?) our more cerebral antipodean cousins might concede I’ve got a point. Australia are no longer far superior to their much patronised southern neighbours.

In fact, the Canary Yellow’s best chance of winning the Ashes could well rest with New Zealand tweaking England’s nose, and undermining their confidence, before the so called main event begins.

What do you think?

James Morgan

Fifty years ago this week, Lancashire met Leicestershire at Old Trafford for what would become one of the most significant matches in cricket history.

The date was 1st May 1963, and by stumps the home side had beaten the Foxes by 101 runs and recorded the first ever victory in the new Gillette Cup. Today the contest is known as the YB40 -  but rather more significantly, it was also the world’s first professional one-day cricket competition.

And so limited overs cricket was born. Half a century later, the game’s infant has become its grand old man, and a fecund one, too – spawning endless domestic and international versions, from the John Player League to the World Cup, and not forgetting its most rebellious, impudent, and youngest child, the bastard offspring which is T20.

Endlessly tinkered with, and ruthlessly exploited in commercial terms, one day cricket became the game’s financial saviour and the mainspring of its growth in Asia. Without it, few people would ever watch live cricket in New Zealand, and to an extent, South Africa. But here in England, its birthplace, our relationship with the 50/55/60 over format has always been complex and ambivalent.

Cricket is a realm of ironies, not least that it was our own nation’s establishment – usually and often rightly caricatured as conservative and timorous, which created and then propagated the most revolutionary, most transformative, version of our sport. And not just English cricket per se, but the county game – the archetype of antediluvian, backwards-gazing stuffiness.

In a lovely piece in the Daily Telegraph, Steve James reminisces about the sepia-tinged early years of county one-day competition, many aspects of which now seem quaint. It’s almost startling to recall that until fairly recently, limited overs cricket was played in whites. To begin with, conventional breaks were taken for both lunch and tea. Captains posted a full cordon of slips and gullies, and the first trophy – the aforementioned Gillette Cup – began as a 65 (yes, 65) overs-a-side contest.

For me, the glory days of county one-dayers were the 1980s. Perhaps that truly was the case, or it might just have been due to my age – those earnest and unjaded years from late childhood to the cusp of my teens.

But it really did seem to matter much more in those times, before they began changing the name, rules, and format every ten minutes. This might even have been something to do with the whites themselves- which leant an air of gravitas to proceedings, in contrast to the disposable impermanence of coloured clothes.

In the eighties, the B&H Cup and NatWest Trophy were big events, and the finals marquee dates in the calendar. All the later rounds were screened on the BBC, on Tuesdays, the day after a test match finished – and that was exciting enough in itself, as it meant an extra, bonus day of coverage, hungrily consumed by my eleven-year-old self’s insatiable appetite for televised cricket. The BBC covered two matches simultaneously, flitting between the pair, which meant a chance to hear an exotically-unfamiliar cast of second-string commentators. Ray Illingworth, normally the summariser, would even be given his own match to take charge of.

For me and my generation, this was the most extensive access to English domestic cricket we would ever have. If you’re aged between 32 and 45, and you don’t believe me, close your eyes, think ‘county cricket’, and an image will come to mind of Derek Pringle bowling to Asif Din, both wearing baggy shirts, with Tom Graveney commentating.

It was through the B&H and NatWest that we discovered a whole range of characters – and cricketing textures – we would never have done otherwise. From ageing legends (Alan Knott and Derek Underwood), to the not-quite-good-enough-for Englands (Mark Nicholas, Simon Hughes), to the quirky, the daft, and batsmen who stood sideways (John Carr). But my memories aren’t just sentimental and frivolous: they remain vivid because the cricket was meaningful, hard-fought, and competitive.

That’s not to say that modern county one-dayers are none of those things, but the lustre faded years ago. T20 appropriated the glamour, the profile, and the compactness. And by merging the knockout cups with the Sunday League, in the form of the YB40, the premier limited overs competition has been diluted into relative anonymity, exacerbated by the constant rearranging of the furniture. The fact it’s also no longer on terrestrial TV doesn’t help.

In broader and global terms, 50-over cricket is still important and an integral part of the game’s architecture. For many, it continues to hold its own as a form of the sport both long and demanding enough to command respect and satisfy our senses. The World Cup remains the game’s single most prestigious contest, and if England win this summer’s Champions Trophy everyone on these shores will regard it as a significant achievement.

But though I sorely wished not to end this piece on a sombre note, I can only admit that to my eyes the format too often feels outworn and unloved, outflanked by its rivals, invariably predictable, and the continuous rule-changing far seems more a symptom than a cause of its decline. As unhealthy and deluded as it sounds, I want to go back to 1987, with the clothes in white and the trophies sponsored by cigarettes, to see Clive Radley taking guard against Monte Lynch.