Is there anybody out there?
Lawrence Booth, in the Guardian , says Darren Pattinson's selection is a reflection of England's lack of seam bowling options.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Getty Images
Lawrence Booth, in the Guardian, says Darren Pattinson's selection is a reflection of England's lack of seam bowling options.
With barely a murmur of complaint Pattinson has done a lot more in the last few days than take the new ball for the country of his birth, if not his upbringing. He has placed Grimsby and Dandenong on the Test-cricket map. He has given Australians another excuse to guffaw at the old enemy. And he has encouraged the pessimists' perennial grouse that English cricket is going to the dogs. What he was not supposed to do, after just 11 first-class matches for Victoria and Nottinghamshire, was expose worrying holes in England's masterplan, both for this summer and next.
His selection here has offended on non-cricketing grounds. His dad has described him as a fair-dinkum Aussie, and Pattinson himself has admitted he never harboured any dreams of playing for England. But he has also held up a mirror to the nation's supposedly plentiful ranks of seam bowlers. The reflection makes uncomfortable viewing.
In the same paper, Vic Marks feels Geoff Miller's selection committee would have done enough to make Steve Harmison hopping mad.
Meanwhile those who have been selected to bowl for England are causing their employers a headache. If nothing else think of the cost. All those new balls are expensive. For the second South African innings in succession a third shiny red ball has been removed from its wrapper. As one wry new ball wag once observed after another run glut: "we must be onto the colours soon."
Derek Pringle, in the Telegraph, lists six cricketers who qualified to play for England: Tony Greig, Allan Lamb, Devon Malcolm, Graeme Hick, Adam Hollioake and Kevin Pietersen.
In the Telegraph, Simon Briggs writes that England's top order continue to live on past glories since Marcus Trescothick lost his will to play. The averages have been gently dwindling. The South Africans, by contrast, have been on the up ever since they axed the underperforming Herschelle Gibbs at the beginning of the year.
The Aussies take their lead from Ricky Ponting, a man who plays more shots than a hacker at Royal Birkdale. But Graeme Smith and his men prefer to grind out results. They have scored at two-and-a-half an over in this series, subjugating their opponents through cruel implacability rather than outrageous flair.
In the same paper, Simon Barnes feels Andrew Flintoff needs a lethal sidekick if England are to progress on what appears a benign pitch.
England's star allrounder has a double personality. There is Andrew, the doting husband and new dad, dutifully feeding his tribe their breakfast cereal, as he was in the players' hotel yesterday morning. And there is Freddie, the cricketing warrior, national icon and tormentor of Australians.
The whole point of Test cricket is an eponymous one – the examination of character – and few can any longer question where that leaves Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, writes Chris McGrath in the Independent.
On the first morning, he had been cast as pantomime villain after claiming to have caught a ball that might well have killed a mole first. None was more incensed than Michael Vaughan, who left him in no doubt of his views at the lunch interval. De Villiers listened to the England captain in silence, reserving his own response until he had a bat in his hand ... No doubt the few, obnoxious boos that leavened the applause for his century were of similar authorship. By that stage, however, the majority had come to acknowledge the fortitude, forbearance and flexibility of an exceptional cricketer.
Ashok Ganguly is an editorial assistant at Cricinfo