What a difference a match makes

"The England attack today was Ashley Giles," said Brian Lara after West Indies were bundled out for 267 on the fifth day at Lord's. Giles, who took 5 for 81 in that innings to go with his four wickets in the first, will now have his name painted in gold on the honour boards at Lord's - the first English spinner to take a five-for there since Phil Tufnell against Sri Lanka back in 1991. The British papers were united in their praise for Giles, once derided as a "wheelie bin", but now acclaimed as "the next Steve Harmison".

"To England the spoils; to Ashley Giles the plaudits," wrote Mike Selvey in The Guardian. "Given a pitch offering assistance, a bag of runs with which to play and the opportunity to book himself in at the Nursery End as something other than the ice-cream salesman in the interval, the Warwickshire left-arm spinner bowled his side to victory in the first Test by 210 runs."

In the same paper, David Hopps summed up Giles's last few months. "Baited last month, feted this: the summer has brought quite a transformation for England's senior spinner. He began it burdened with criticism, so much so that he half-toyed with retiring from Test cricket. Now he is burdened with wickets and is probably the only player for whom Thursday - and another Test on his home patch at Edgbaston - cannot come soon enough."

However, Hopps was quick to point out that despite Giles's excellent performance against touring sides this summer, some fans were still not convinced of his use to England before his matchwinning effort on the fifth day. "Do not blithely presume that the criticism of Giles has entirely abated," he said. "Late on Friday, as West Indies saw out the day, a desultory chant of 'Giles, you're boring' sounded in the Compton Stand. By Sunday the hosannas from the Mound Stand as he began his dismantling of West Indies' second innings were edged with English irony. Only yesterday was the applause simple and heartfelt."

In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Briggs put England's latest win, their seventh against West Indies in the last nine meetings, down to Michael Vaughan's ability to "combine commitment with contentment. Put simply, he has got England smiling again".

Briggs went on: "No-one exemplified this trait more than Ashley Giles, a man who told the current issue of a leading cricket magazine: 'I've been a miserable bugger at times.' Having secured the match award for his nine wickets, Giles came to last night's press conference with Vaughan, his captain and close friend, and could hardly stop cracking jokes. That is what happens when you have just castled Brian Lara, the world's most remorseless destroyer of spin, with the kind of wonderball more usually associated with Shane Warne."

"It's smiley Giley!" gushed The Sun's headline, continuing the theme, as John Etheridge applauded Giles's sharp turner that bowled Lara yesterday. "It turned at least two feet, and Warne or Muralitharan could not have purveyed a more deadly delivery. When Lara's stumps were disturbed, Giles embarked on a manic sprint in the general direction of Notting Hill, pursued by joyous team-mates."

"This was Giles's match," stated The Times's Christopher Martin-Jenkins, before going on to put Giles's performance in perspective. "Damned with the faintest praise since he made his first Test appearance on a typical modern pitch at Old Trafford in 1998 (he took 1 for 106), he has always been underestimated, criticised for a lack of flight largely because of his height and for a lack of spin less because he does not give the ball as much of a tweak as orthodox finger-spinners of old. That is to some extent a false impression, however, because covered pitches, heavier bats and the more aggressive approach of the average batsman have combined to make life significantly harder for all bowlers of his type.

"The last England spinner to take more wickets than this in a Lord's Test was Derek Underwood on a drying pitch against Pakistan in 1974. Those were days when rainwater often seeped under the covers down the Lord's slope overnight. Now the unique hover-cover ... ensures pitches as dry as old bones."

Martin-Jenkins concluded that it was Giles's "curving arm balls and skilful changes of pace and trajectory" that brought him his first five-wicket haul in England, and his fourth overall. "The other three came in places a few miles east of St John's Wood: Faisalabad, Ahmedabad and Kandy. He will treasure his Man of the Match award all the more for that."