Don't gloat, England
Having saved the first Test, England can now go to Lord's for the second Test in better heart than might have been, although they would be wise not to gloat, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian .
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
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Having saved the first Test, England can now go to Lord's for the second Test in better heart than might have been, although they would be wise not to gloat, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Here, on a pitch that emasculated pace bowlers and spinners alike once the ball had lost its hardness, England were given a batting lesson by Australia's four centurions, one absorbed only by Paul Collingwood among the top order. They need to think long and hard about the disciplines required, the selection of shots according to the conditions and the bowling.
Pietersen has run into real trouble in this Test. Ritual defiance will not protect him from the suspicion that his lone wolf tendencies are now hurting the team, writes Paul Hayward in the same paper.
For Australian cricketers tradition is an ever-replenishing resource, like water, but Michael Henderson believes to an interloper like Kevin Pietersen, whose overriding ambition is to be rich and famous, the word may have no resonance at all. Read his piece in the Telegraph.
In the Times, Shane Warne writes that Pietersen reminds him of Mark Waugh, who found batting so easy that he sometimes got out in ways that looked horrible, like reverse-sweeping Phil Tufnell.
You have to be careful not to overcriticise. Cricket isn't played by robots. Any batsman can get out. What matters is the way they get out, because that reveals their thought processes about batting. It seemed that Pietersen just wanted to keep playing sweep shots against Nathan Hauritz. To me, that is an ego shot.
Paul Collingwood's 74 was vital to England, but more important was the attitude and example he showed, to the dressing room full of batsmen who had made gifts of their wickets earlier in the day and to James Anderson and Monty Panesar, who had to make sure that his good work was not wasted as they batted for the draw, writes Mike Atherton in the same paper.
To the Independent's James Lawton, Collingwood showed a bloody-minded refusal to accept a rather cruel categorisation of him by the Aussies.
Warne sneered that Collingwood's MBE was an extravagant reward for a fleeting contribution to England's Ashes triumph of 2005. But since then the man from County Durham has shown that whatever he lacks in natural brilliance, he has certain heavyweight compensations. We saw the best of them yesterday, a determination to play from ball to ball, over to over England crept towards salvation.
Batting is about mental toughness and it really doesn't matter about flair, shot-making or anything else if you haven't got that. Collingwood showed the top order how important it is to have that street fighting capability and we need to see more of it.Nasser Hussain echoes the same thoughts in the Daily Mail.
In his column in the same paper, Monty Panesar writes about those nerve-wracking final moments that he and Anderson batted through to clinch the draw.
Paul Collingwood is my batting ‘buddy’ and he’s done so much to help me improve ... All the things we’ve worked on together — like my back-lift and playing straight down the line of the ball — definitely helped me.
Nick Hoult, writing in the Telegraph, outlines 10 areas England must address ahead of Lord's Test.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo