No looseners from Onions
Graham Onions, who took four wickets on the second day in Edgbaston, wastes no time in turning the Test on its head
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Graham Onions, who took four wickets on the second day in Edgbaston, wastes no time in turning the Test on its head. He underlines the virtue of getting the looseners out of the way before play and rewards the gamble to open with him, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
For his first delivery his strides to the crease were long and purposeful. He was at full pace and that first ball had that wonderful, mysterious property: it was straight. Shane Watson had looked the part, to the bewilderment of many on Thursday night, but not today. His feet did not move; nor did his bat and before he could look up Aleem Dar's finger was raised. Onions was at his peak at 11am; Watson had not quite got there.
In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain writes that Onions is the sort of bowler he would have loved to captain.
Also in the Guardian, Paul Weaver describes Ian Bell's 47th debut.
He always looks strangely new, fresh-faced and nervous, even though he should be a gnarled old sweat by now. Even his flannels – if we can describe England's awful, whiter-than-white decorators' uniforms as such – looked slightly whiter than the others as he strode, perkily, boyishly to the crease on his home ground today, trying to calm the nerves that jangled within him.
Peter Roebuck, in the Independent, backs Ravi Bopara as England's No. 3 and writes that despite his latest failure, England should persist with him.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo