Final Test already looking unwinnable
West Indies are determined to protect their 1-0 lead, but their defensive strategy has made for some soporific cricket, writes Martin Johnson in the Sunday Times .
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
West Indies are determined to protect their 1-0 lead, but their defensive strategy has made for some soporific cricket, writes Martin Johnson in the Sunday Times.
Test cricket is already reaching for the snorkel and flippers in its Canute-like attempt to stem the inrushing tide of Twenty20 and, with only a draw needed in Trinidad to win the series, here we have the West Indies appearing to have removed the responsibility for the playing surface from the head groundsman and called in a local undertaker to prepare it with an injection of embalming fluid.
For the first hour yesterday though West Indies came at England with intent, an outfit revitalised, in the knowledge that if they were not careful, the game, and series, could slip from their grasp, writes Mike Selvey in the Observer.
David Gower is feeling envious watching Andrew Strauss pump away hundreds on the tour to West Indies. In the Sunday Times he wonders how Strauss would have fared against Holding, Roberts, Marshall and Garner.
His figures point to powers of concentration and a determination to make the most of his opportunities. England’s lack of hundreds was highlighted last summer and it was part of his manifesto as captain that they sort it out. The message is getting through.
After one of the most desultory opening days to a Test match imaginable, notwithstanding another effortless Strauss century, there was briefly a spark of life to proceedings for an hour on the second morning. Our attention could legitimately meander from the Trini Posse Stand for a while. But thereafter much of the cricket was dire. Much more like this and the game will die, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.
It is an audacious strategy - batting for a draw from the second evening of a five-day game can’t be easy - and if Gayle and his team pull it off they will ignore the purists, having regained the Wisden Trophy that they relinquished to England in 2000 and having won their first series against major opposition for six years, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.
The middle-rankers continued their humdrum, protracted scuffle here yesterday, while the big boys clashed in Durban. The contrast was stark, not least in the levels of excitement. There is a real heavyweight scrap going on there in South Africa; this is piffling playground posturing. If that is Test cricket, this is no test at all. Not for the batsmen anyway, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.
Whenever an England captain is appointed, immediate concerns are expressed about what it might do to his batting. Unless it happens to be Bob Willis, who was 15 captains ago and did not count. The cares of leader-ship can weigh men down while they ignore their own game to think of strategy, selection and the needs of others. Andrew Strauss is giving serious trouble to this theory, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo