Lords: The Wash Up

It’s probably delusional to think that we were right in this game up to that LBW referral, but I think it’s fair to suggest that things would have been at least slightly different if it hadn’t been made.

The Rogers LBW would have been referred, Hughes wouldn’t have come to the crease when he did and mightn’t have gone as quickly as he did and things might, possibly, have been different. We would, just after lunch, have been One-for with two referrals in hand.

As it was, shortly after lunch we were three-for, with none, and that, I think was where things moved out of the challenge and response ebb and flow of a competitive game and the tide started running heavily in one direction.

It’s probably even more delusional to suggest things might become more competitive at Old Trafford, but if they do it’ll be down to the batsmen getting something resembling their collective act together.

There’s not a lot of chopping and changing that can be done at the moment. The only spare batsman on hand is Cowan, and with the A Team in roughly the same time zone in South Africa there might be someone who sticks his hand up and says Hey, pick me. That may or may not be Warner, but it doesn’t alter a fairly straightforward situation in the here and now.

The batting resources are the six from Lords plus Cowan, and the only one who’s safe is Clarke, and that safety only lasts as long as his back does.

Becoming competitive, on the other hand, will require batting time and accumulating runs, so anyone who can do that is giving himself the best chance of holding down a place in the medium to long term, so let’s look at the candidates one by one.

Rogers, in two games, hasn’t done a lot with the bat but can stay for Old Trafford and possibly beyond since he’s out to prove (or should be out to prove) he’s a prospect for the Australian summer rather than a bloke who’s been drafted in to plug a weakness because he’s experienced in English conditions.

Khawaja has, IMHO, the rest of the series to establish that he has what it takes at Test level. It’s not as if he’s going to be facing a bunch of pie chuckers. England are out to knock us over, and they’re not going to be doing anyone any favours, so if Khawaja can stick there and score runs he’s there for the medium to long term.If he doesn’t he’s got the early part of the Shield season to make a case for retaining his place.

You can say the same thing as far as Hughes is concerned. There has been plenty of criticism of his technique, and it’ll be under the microscope for the rest of the series. If it comes through he stays. If it doesn’t, he’s got to perform at Shield level early in the domestic season.

Smith is a slightly different case since he can bowl. He might not be a front line bowler at the moment, but you can possibly class him as a batting all-rounder. If he does a bit with the bat and can continue picking up the odd wicket he might be useful.

Then, of course, there’s the difficult question of Watson. That’s only a difficult question because he’s been allowed to dictate his own fate for a little too long. You might want to question a little in that last statement, but it’s fairly clear that if he holds his place opening, one more LBW for not many without a substantial score between now and when it comes will see him out of the opening role, at which point he’ll start making pronouncements about being needed to bowl.

There’s a fairly obvious case for Cowan to take his place, though if he does, I doubt the Watson ego would handle a spot lower down the batting order and it becomes a case of who gets dropped to allow a bloke who’s promised far more with the bat than he’s actually delivered.

Look below Haddin at Seven and it’s fairly obvious we’ve got a useful tail, but selections there are going to depend on fitness, so you can leave that side of the equation to a case of Agar at Eight and we’ll see how things look from there.

If Agar were to come on a little more with the bat you could make a case, what with the lower order consistently pitching in with runs and all, for shifting him up to Seven, playing an extra bowler (Lyon?) and we wouldn’t be needing Watto at all.

That, however, is a little bit premature right at this point in time, though it may well be an option at some point in the future.

There’s a county game between now and Old Trafford, and you’d reckon (or at least I would) that everyone will get a bat there (except, possibly, Clarke) with Lyon, Bird and Faulkner getting a trundle.

Anyway, that’s the way it looks after the morning walk and a glance at a score card that revealed an LBW 20 to Watson, fifties to Khawaja and Clarke and runs at the end to Pattinson. One notes we were 3-36, got a partnership between Khawaja and Clarke, lost three quick wickets and had Haddin and the tail add 99 for the last four wickets.

Seems to be about par for the course, really, so it’s a matter of seeing whether anyone in the first six can put his hand up and claim a place in the long term picture.

Between the time I set out for the walk and the time I got home, this rather interesting article (The rotting of Australian cricket) appeared on Cricinfo, raising the regular issue of the decline of the Shield competition as an avenue that produces quality batsmen.

It may be, rather than chopping and changing in quick succession, a case of giving the Khawajas, Smiths and whoever else is drafted in to the Test side an extended run at Test level, because if there’s anything there at all it’s more likely to be developed in the furnace of Test cricket than it is at the domestic level.

The astute reader will, of course, have noted the names of Khawaja and Smith rather than Watson, Hughes, Rogers and Cowan in the previous paragraph. One or more of those four may well have a part to play in the short to medium term, but a successful side in the long term will be built around the next generation of bats who won’t, as far as things look at present, be mastering their trade on (in the words of that Cricinfo article):

sporting or worse surfaces, as state teams chase the outright results required to reach the Shield final ... a litany of low-scoring matches and bowlers celebrating far more often than they did during the relatively run-laden 1990s.

Anyway, that's the way it looked on the walk this morning, and Mr Brettig's article offered a degree of confirmation...

Lords Day 2

There are times when it would definitely be interesting to be a fly on the wall.

Take the report here that contains this little quote re. Siddle’s no ball non-dismissal of Bairstow:

Australian cricket coach Darren Lehmann was furious that Siddle's carelessness - for at least the third time - cost the team so dearly on the opening day of the Lord's Test, berating him in the changeroom at tea.

If there’s any justice in the world, Watson and Rogers should have received a blast that would have left the walls in the change room in need of a repaint. According to this report the whole team got read the riot act, but, for good or ill, it was the Watson referral that set things up so the wheels could fall off the vehicle.

You can read the details of the rest of the debacle as we lost 10-86 here but these things are always about momentum, ad once you’re in a tail spin there’s usually no way out.

Consider the possibilities if the Watson decision hadn’t been referred.

First, any blast that was delivered to both batsmen during the lunch break wouldn’t have happened. I’m not sure whether anything that was actually said behind closed doors affected Rogers’ failure to refer his dismissal, but you’d have to assume there’s a sequential  equation that reads something like:

No Watson referral = No lunchtime blast = Rogers refers the full toss LBW = Referral upheld = Still two referrals left = Score line still reads 1-50 = Hughes does not arrive at the crease = No referral to his dismissal, which left us at 3-53.

More significantly, at 1-50 we might just have had Rogers and Khawaja batting to secure their long term places in the side. That’s not to say they would have succeeded, but the possibility would have been there.

It might have meant the same sort of scenario for Hughes when he eventually arrived at the crease, a change to cement the slot at Four that might allow Clarke to bat in his preferred spot at Five.

There’s a school of thought going around that suggests the problem is that we can’t actually bat, and the evidence for the proposition is reasonably strong as far as the stats go. We’ve picked a side on potential, but they’ve got to be judged by results and at the moment the results are dismal.

There is, however, a hint of a way out at the end of that Cricinfo article cited above. Lehmann on Bell, the man with centuries in three successive Ashes Tests:

"He just stays within his limitations doesn't he," Lehmann said. "That's Test matching batting at its best."

Since we’ve come to the point where players are starting to be dropped because of poor form, it might be time to drop the bloke whose frequent waste of referrals denies others the chance to use the things, if necessary, to prolong their own stay at the crease.

Speaking of points arrived at, we’ve got to a significant one as far as day by day updates at The LHoC Sports Desk are concerned. With nine days to go until we head off to Townsville to collect visitors from Japan there’s a swag of work that needs to be done around the yard, and I’m disinclined to devote the whole of the morning walk and the hour and a half thereafter to a lengthy analysis of what’s gone down in the Test arena. I do have other projects that need time devoted to them.

Sunday morning is an opportunity for two to two-and-a-half hours in the garden, so a lengthy analysis of tonight’s play, which may well wrap up proceedings at Lords (granted, things may go into Day Four, but the result has already become as close to definite as you’re going to get) may not be forthcoming on the morrow.

Monday? Who knows? There’ll probably need to be another hour and a half outside, so I don’t like the chances.

The visitors’ stay will take us through Old Trafford, and the associated social itinerary will mean limited opportunities for late night viewing, and I’m disinclined to risk the possibility of offending polite people by cursing and throwing things at TV sets, so the viewing will be further curtailed, to the point where it might not happen at all.

Silence at this end, in other words, can’t be totally interpreted as a dummy spit, though I must admit, visitors or no visitors, the pacifier is rather delicately poised at the moment.

Lords Day 1

I’ve been banging on for a while about the need for Australia’s batsmen to work on their bowling a bit, and Michael Clarke’s decision to hand the ball to Steve Smith at the start of the 76th over might just suggest there’s something in that suggestion.

Clarke’s not afraid to try things, and is equally disinclined to persevere with something that’s not working, which would tend to explain the decision to hand the ball to Watson for the fifth over, a decision that was rewarded with the wicket of Cook, who, interestingly, walked where certain other individuals may have been tempted to linger and discuss a referral.

That suggests a reasonably hard-nosed attitude and a fair aptitude for assessing the chance of success.

I’d been inclined to favour Bird over Harris as the replacement for Starc, but the man they call Rhino definitely delivered. Two early wickets (Root and Pietersen) and the one that broke a 99-run partnership is a fair return for twenty economical overs. The question, of course, is how long you can keep him going, and the question of who to bowl if he breaks down comes into the equation as well.

That, of course, is one of the reasons for the everybody should be able to roll their arm over and send down something reasonable proposition.

With half the side used yesterday it’s also interesting that Pattinson’s eighteen overs were the least impressive contribution with the ball, though one notes the peculiar conditions that apply when you’re bowling at Lords.

For the uninitiated there’s an eight foot drop in height from one square boundary to the other, so the ground has the sort of built in slope that would long since have disappeared in a renovation/reconstruction project anywhere other than the fabled home of cricket.

Pattinson was wayward early, which accounted for Watson’s introduction to the crease. His twelve overs were about where you’d want them on a day when the workload was shared fairly evenly among the main quicks. I’ve always held that one of the benefits of Bowling Watto’s presence in the side is the fact that he saved the other blokes from overwork without any significant drop in aggression, pace or intensity.

Siddle and Harris did the workhorse bit fairly well, but it wasn’t a day when the attack really hit the heights after that impressive score line of 3 for 28 at the end of the sixth over.

From that point Trott and Bell fought back well (as you’d expect). Bell, in particular, has a fair degree of gritty stickability and scores at a reasonable rate as well. Trott’s in much the same mould, so while you’d like to get them cheaply you’ve got to expect fairly stiff resistance so it’s a case of keep it tight and wait for the opportunity, which arrived with a catch in the deep to dispose of Trott.

At that point, 4-127 in the thirty-fourth over, having gone to lunch at 3-80 off twenty-six, things looked to be swinging back Australia’s way, but a 144-run partnership between Bell and Bairstow had England looking good in the run down to the new ball, which is where Smith came into the action.

There’d been the regulation bit of bad luck (or whatever) back in the forty-ninth over with Bairstow bowled off what ended up being ruled a no ball after extensive forensic investigation. There wasn’t much in it, and if it hadn’t hit the stumps and attracted the umpire’s attention on the big screen as the batsman went to leave, it would probably have been counted as a perfectly legal delivery.

Back to the decision to bowl Smith.

In these circumstances, with a substantial partnership, the new ball imminent and not much longer to go, it’s the classic time to try something, and it would be handy to have a few options now that Clarke’s back seems to have taken his left arm tweakers out of the equation.

It had been Watson and Siddle, who’d just come back replacing Pattinson who might need a brief spell before taking the new ball and Clarke had been working the changes already, with short spells indicating a willingness to experiment and see what we can manage to come up with.

Handed the ball, Smith delivers four dots, concedes a four and picks up the prize scalp off the last ball, caught at slip off a perfectly pitched leggie.

Siddle bowls again, Smith gets another over, which goes for three, Siddle bowls a maiden and Smith picks up a second wicket off a full toss at the start of his third over. Bairstow pops the ball back for a caught and bowled, and Smith has his sixth Test wicket, five of which have been taken at Lords.

At that point Clarke could have taken the new ball, but with Smith doing what he was doing, why would you? While you’d prefer the bowler to land them, that wicket’s a reminder you don’t always need to.

At 6-279 Siddle delivers a maiden, Smith has another go, and it yields a four. Harris comes on preparing to take the new ball, Smith gets a third, caught behind and with Anderson in as night watchman to protect Broad it’s time to see what the new ball can do.

As it turns out, two doses of the new pill take the score on to 7-289 at stumps.

The key point here is that little cameo from Smith (6 overs, 1 maiden, 3 for 18) has things set up very nicely for the resumption tomorrow. The new pill is just two overs old, Pattinson and Harris will be fresh and if we pick up a quick wicket, at eight-for and Swann still to come, you’d have to think Broad can’t do all that much damage.

My Day One Par Score is around 6 for 320. On that basis, Australia definitely finishes the day with a nose in front with the prospect of a quick conclusion to the innings and the chance to (hopefully) bat all day to set things up...

Outlook: Definitely bullish.

Off to Lords..,

It may be delusional, but Hughesy’s expectation that we’re going to go close to retrieving the urn over the course of the next four Tests is based on an expectation that eventually we’ll work out the best way to use our existing resources, and when that happens Australia will be extremely competitive.

The process of figuring out the best way to use our existing resources is, of course, the tricky bit, and is more than likely the cause of any friction or rifts within the side. Eventually, however, we’ll sort things out to the point where we’re competitive at the very highest level, and when we do the success that should naturally follow will bring its own issues with it.

There’ll inevitably be friction in any collection of humans unless you’ve been lucky enough to assemble a group that’s absolutely committed to a common target with every individual within the group in total agreement about how the target’s supposed to be reached.

There’ll inevitably be members of the Australian side who take, shall we say, exception to the presence of others in the team, and resent the manner in which responsibilities are allocated.

Whether the Scott Muller incident was down to Joe the Cameraman or the formerly chubby Victorian leg spinner, there are always going to be players in the side who aren’t convinced that recent additions are good enough. Don’t just think Warne and Muller, go back to, say Ian Chappell and Graham Yallop and continue from there through the squads selected. You’ll find any number of other examples.

Questions regarding the leadership will invariably generate friction. Expectations and ambitions on one side will be resented, but hopefully grudgingly accepted. We’ve heard recent suggestions that Michael Hussey’s departure was hastened by issues with Michael Clarke’s captaincy, and if you cast your eye back a bit over thirty years you’ll see obvious friction between three West Australians named Kim Hughes, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee.

So while these things are, I think, inevitable, at some point someone makes a call and says this is how it is, fellas, and, hopefully, at that point given a decision the protagonists pull their heads in and get on with the game.

Warne may have resented Gilchrist landing the vice-captaincy but he kept on bowling, and did it rather well.

Inevitably, you’ll see examples of people who are used to getting their own way and attempt to influence decisions to make sure the trend continues.

That, of course, brings us to the question of likely changes to the starting eleven this time around as we wait to see the side for Lords. We took our time and dropped a bombshell for Trent Bridge, so while there may or may not be any bombshells for Lords, you can bet your bottom dollar that, ten or so hours out from the start with the side and the management pushing up Zs, we’ll be taking our time.

As far as I can see there are only two spots where changes are likely, and the overnight rumours suggest a Khawaja for Cowan swap is unlikely. If it doesn’t happen, either Cowan does enough to cement a spot this time or he doesn’t.

His spot, however, didn’t necessarily have to be at Three, which is where the Watto conundrum kicks in. Maybe it doesn’t quite constitute whiteanting, may or may not be a cancer on the side, and almost certainly constitutes the actions of a man who’s used to getting what he wants the decisions about where Watson bats and how much he bowls have been heavily influenced by the man and his actions.

Those decisions have, however, been made, the judge’s decision is in, no correspondence will be entered into and the choice is down to Cowan or Khawaja at Three.

The other question’s a bit more tricky, since it involves the composition of the bowling group. Based on Trent Bridge you’d have to say Agar holds his place, batting Eight and doing his share of the bowling. Siddle and Pattinson look safe (barring injury) so the final spot comes down to whether Starc stays and, if he doesn’t, who replaces him.

A bowling Watson would open up a chance for Lyon to return if it looks like the track will turn, but I’m assuming Watson’s role with the ball will constitute cameos rather than donkey work, so it’s either Bird, Faulkner or Harris (as always I try to keep these things alphabetical).

There’s a case for each of the three.

Bird, as our prospective new McGrath, would be an obvious candidate for the work horse role behind Pattinson and attack leader Siddle.

Faulkner can bat, and would be a left arm for left arm replacement, but is probably the least likely of the three prospects with the ball. Of course, having said that, name him in the side and he’ll more than likely deliver.

Harris, who is no good thing to hold down a spot for four games, but will work his guts out while he’s there.

In the end, not having seen any of the three in action on the tour I’m half inclined to go for Harris, but the question mark over the longevity means I’m more inclined to play it safe and opt for Bird.

Who knows? Typing this at ten-thirty-nine on a post-State of Origin morning, I’m more inclined to adopt a wait and see approach, Pressed to make a call. I’d go Khawaja for Cowan and Bird for Starc, but we’ll see...

This is the must win game, and winning is difficult if you’re a bowler short, which explains my preference for Bird over Harris...

And in overnight news...

I was slightly late out of the cot this morning, and a combination of a late rise, bin day and a deposit left by an incontinent cat meant I didn’t manage to get to Cricinfo before it was time to head out on the morning walk.

That’s not a problem, because a glance at the ABC News website and The Australian gave me plenty to ponder on the hour-long lap around the Catalina memorial, the Bowen Jetty and the Yacht Club.

The first of them, unsurprisingly, was the unsurprising news of Mickey Arthur’s unsurprising claim that Michael Clarke believes Shane Watson's faction is a "cancer" within the side (here and here, and undoubtedly in a myriad of other locations). The only thing that was surprising was the suggestion the news was leaked, and it’s a suggestion I’m inclined to give a bit of credence to since it will possibly have a detrimental effect on the sales of Mickey’s autobiography when it eventually appears.

Old news and all that...

What one hopes has happened is that these issues have been raised behind closed doors in the team environment, with the message delivered heavy on the words then, now, continuation and contract terminated.

I’ve no doubt the rift happened, but hopefully the law has been laid down, team procedures and protocols set in place, and anyone not happy with the new regime has been offered an airfare home and N.T.T.A. (Never To Tour Again) status.

Took me all of five minutes to sort that one out, though I did spend a bit more time considering team protocols and such, which was rehashing old ground, since I’ve banged on about the need for a social committee and suggested that there needs to be some sort of sergeant-at-arms fine system put in place.

After the law had been laid down, I’d have liked to see a suggested list of offences and penalties tabled, with suggestions about additions welcomed from the floor. Infringements would involve a certain number of points, with some additional penalty being imposed on whoever’s managed to accumulate the most, and a reduction in your tally if you come up with a really good sledge, chirp or whatever you want to call it.

I’d have Haddin as the sergeant-at-arms, with misdirected throws from the outfield being 10, 20 or 30 point infringements and penalties in place for a variety of serious and non-serious offences, all the way down to dressing room flatulence.

In any case, the Arthur allegations are hardly news.

More interesting, at least from where I’m sitting, is the report (here) that: The International Cricket Council has admitted there were three uncorrected umpiring errors during the Trent Bridge Test but, no doubt to the chagrin of many England commentators, the alleged Ashton Agar "stumping" wasn't one of them.

Two of the three involved Stuart Broad’s innings, and the suggestion that Broad should have been out LBW while not offering a shot underlines the need for us to get our use of the DRS sorted out. The third involved the Trott first ball LBW.

Interestingly, none of those involved our batting, which suggests additional proof the English approach to the DRS while they’re in the field is working.

The most interesting snippet came with Haddin’s suggestion (here) that a war of attrition might be the key to reducing the effectiveness of England's Ashes pace bowling spearhead James Anderson.

Anderson, of course, is their key bowler, and it makes sense to do whatever you can to force Cook to keep turning to him because the rest of the attack is being mauled. He’s the go to man, but if they go to him often enough eventually the wear and tear will wear him down. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?

Actually, the interesting part will come if and when he does break down, because at that point we might have confirmation of the fifty overs in a Test makes you more likely to break down in the next one argument that was used to justify the old rotation policy and the dropping of Pattinson and Siddle in Perth.

The over counts from Trent Bridge make for interesting reading.

Running down the order they bowled Pattinson had 51 overs (5 wickets), Starc 49 (5 wickets), Siddle 47.5 (8 wickets), Agar 42 overs for 2 and Watson 19, wicketless, but at a rather economical rate. On the England side the story is Anderson 55.5 for 10 scalps, Finn 25 overs (2 wickets), Swann 63 overs (4 wickets) and Broad 29.5 for 3. Root also bowled a couple, taking 1 for 6.

On that basis, lining up the attacks, the Australian workload looks to have been shared evenly among the quicks, thoughWatson could have bowled more, while it’s obvious England are going to lean on Anderson and Swan, which doesn’t come as a surprise.

The surprise comes with the suggestion that Swann, tipped to be a major factor on pitches apparently made to order for offies, doesn’t seem to have come through and trouble an Australian lineup that is supposed to be vulnerable to spin. Match figures of 63 overs, 14 maidens, 4 for 164 are reasonably economical, bit that strike rate of a wicket per 94.5 balls suggests that while he might take wickets he may well have to do plenty of bowling to do so.

I have a suspicion that a subpar performance on Indian decks a few months ago might say as much about what was happening in the dressing room and behind the scenes as it does about what was going on in the middle.

See Point 1 above...

After Trent Bridge: The DRS

The drizzle that’s been hanging around for the past couple of days cut the morning walk, which was going to be devoted to deliberations on the Decision Referral System, short, but that doesn’t mean I need more time to sort these things out in my own mind. In fact I had things more or less done and dusted before I turned around at the Sound Shell and headed back into town.

It’s fairly obvious when you take a look at the score card that the runs Broad scored after the incident that had everyone talking were a key component in the final margin, and when you factor in the runs Bell contributed at the other end through that seventh wicket partnership you’d have to say poor management in our approach to the DRS was one of the factors that cost us the game.

Not, by any means, the only factor, but it was a significant one. It’s something that needs to be addressed as a medium to long term issue until the current DRS regime is modified, and once it is we need to make sure we address it again.

Before we go too far with the issue, of course, we need to remind ourselves why it’s there and what we’re looking to do. Those considerations should be part of an overall reassessment of where the Australian team stands as far as umpiring is concerned.

For a start, there’s no point about going on about neutral umpires and repeating the old line about the best umpire in the world being unable to stand in an Ashes Test if he comes from England or Australia. Umpires have egos too, and it doesn’t do any harm to stroke them occasionally. You get more flies with sugar than you do with vinegar.

The other point here is that I suspect referral happy teams get an unconscious bump in the incidence of dodgy decisions because the umpire knows a referral will sort things out if he does make a mistake. That’s an unconscious thing, much like the situation when you have someone with a reputation for walking who stays put after a confident appeal.

I suspect these things end up delivering less rigour to the decision making process.

We know, of course, that the official version of the logic behind the DRS is the desire to eliminate the obvious howler, and we also know that cricket at the top level is a pretty ruthless business, so you can expect players will always be looking for an avenue through which an advantage can be gained.

Let’s stick with the official version, modified to reflect a healthy self-interest.

The DRS is there to avoid obvious howlers that end up costing us games. Obvious, innit?

There are slightly different considerations involved depending on whether you’re batting or bowling, but the key factor in the decision to refer or not to refer should be a definite No referral without consultation.

That, I think is where a fine or some other penalty comes into play. Fail to consult, lose the referral, cop the consequences. Double or triple the consequences for repeat offenders, quadruple it if their surname starts with a W.

When we’re batting there’s only one person the prospective referrer can consult, and that’s the bloke at the other end. It should be a case of batsmen who’ve been given out approach the partner, state their case and if the other bloke agrees you refer it.
So the bloke who may have feathered a snick through to the keeper goes down, reckons he didn’t hit it, the partner says I dunno, I heard something and it’s all over red rover.

If the subsequent forensic evidence suggests it shouldn’t have been referred, a penalty applies to both of them. You don’t necessarily make the penalty a financial one, you make it known that it happens, and you work it from there to ensure that there’s no suggestion that you’re referral happy and will do it at the drop of a hat.

The same basic point applies when we’re bowling, but the consultation should be between captain, keeper and bowler, with the T shape only being made when the consensus is that there’s something there.

If we have penalties for failure to follow the agreed protocol when we’re batting, there should be a reward for the bowler who gets asked about an LBW and responds that it might have been going down the leg side. Particularly when the umpire’s within earshot.

Similarly, if there’s a shout, a Not out, and no referral, a verbal check with the umpire might be interpreted as pocket-pissing, but see the above reference to flies, sugar and vinegar.

The key thing here is that you want, if at all possible, to have at least one referral, and preferably both of the little devils in hand around the eight-for and nine-for mark, at which point you can be a little more relaxed about these things, but I’d still like to see the innings end with at least one referral still in the bag, because that means whatever we’ve referred has been spot on, and we’ve probably ended up with fewer dodgy decisions anyway.

And, particularly when we’re batting, if we’re out of referrals before the eight-for mark it’d be obvious any penalties involved aren’t high enough.

Those penalties, of course, don’t have to be financial. It might be a case of assigning the individuals in question some chore that will induce a degree of banter and hilarity in the team situation.

Offenders become the designated luggage porters for the duration of the match as well as the next one, or until the next offender rolls into view.

That last bit is possibly going to be enough to ensure there isn’t another offender (or pair of ‘em) in a hurry.

Which raises an interesting thought. We have a team member designated to lead the victory song. Do we have a sergeant-at-arms, dispensing penalties for assorted offences? And, if not, why not?

Trent Bridge Day 5: The Entrails Part 1

Putting issues like walking and the Decision Review System to one side, if we can get that close playing at those levels I definitely like our chances of heading out of The Oval with the urn in hand, and if we can’t quite manage that I reckon we’re looking good to have the prize reclaimed by the end of the Australian summer.

I’m not in the business of assigning percentages to the opposition, though I’m fairly definite in saying England were playing somewhere beyond 100% back in 2005. That’s an easy call. They were playing out of their skins, far better than they, or anyone else, had a right to expect.

So I’m not sure about the level of performance from this England side in that particular Test, but I’d rate our batting somewhere between 75 and 80% and the bowling somewhere between 85 and 90. There’s room for substantial improvement with the bat and a significant lift with the ball and we still only fell 14 runs short.

Pattinson, Starc, Siddle and Agar may well be our best specialist bowling quartet, but there’s room for improvement in the lines we bowl and the percentage of deliveries we force their batsmen to play at. If Trent Bridge is a sign of the surfaces we’re going to see through the rest of the English summer we’re not going to see anything resembling bowler friendly conditions unless weather and atmospherics intervene so attack off stump, get the length right and we’re going to be a big show.

Looking at the English bowling, this particular quartet is handy, and they under bowled Broad in the first dig after he got collected in the shoulder. There may be room for improvement there, but not having seen enough of them in the past it’d difficult to judge. There’s no doubting Anderson’s class, but I think there’s a fair gap between this group and their 2005 combo, which was boosted by the Flintoff all rounder factor.

If you scratch your head and wonder why we get our knickers in a knot looking for a Botham or Flintoff, take a look at our lineup and ask yourself how good it would look with Watson assuming a fair proportion of the workload. Four overs in the first innings and fifteen in the second when his four colleagues were all in the thirties doesn’t rank as a fair proportion of the workload from where I’m sitting.

At his best he’s not far behind the best of them for pace and aggression, which is why I’ve never been happy about having him open the batting, but that, it seems, is where he’ll be staying for the foreseeable future, so there you go.

The batting is the department where there’s the most room for improvement, and the first thing I’d do is issue an edict that an unsuccessful referral will result in a thousand dollar fine. No, make that ten thousand. Let’s see an end to the speculative or opportunistic referral, and limit them to setting the absolute howlers right rather than allowing a batsman who’s made a mistake the possibility of a lifeline.

At the moment it seems to be a case of maybe I can get away with one here rather than hang on a minute, that decision was wrong.

I suspect a decline in the number of referrals will result in a decrease in the number of referable decisions, and everyone will end up benefiting.

I also believe that taking out the lifeline will make a couple of our batsmen more responsible for technical deficiencies, and in the case of unsuccessful referrals from Watson I’d double the amount of the fine (apply the same figure to Rogers if you think that’s unfair, but Watto seems like the sort of bloke who’d be likely to blow the whole allocation within the first ten overs, which, to me, is another reason I’d prefer to see him down the order.

Having whizzed Warner off to Zimbabwe and South Africa, where he’ll get more time in the middle against better attacks than an English county side resting key players will throw up, and with Khawaja as the other specialist bat in the squad, I’d have him back in the side at three.

That means a batting order that reads Rogers, Watson, Khawaja, Clarke, Smith, Hughes, Haddin, Agar, Pattinson, Siddle, Starc which is, I guess about as good as we can muster at the moment and puts Hughes and Smith under the spotlight with a chance to cement their places over the next two or three Tests, which is fair enough in my book.

Any changes in the bowling lineup would be slotted in after Starc.

That’s my take on what’s gone down at Trent Bridge, and having allowed myself the ineluctable luxury of sleeping in until nine-thirty this morning, it’s one that hasn’t been influenced by at length cogitations on the morning walk or extensive perusals of opinions expressed in the press and over on Cricinfo.

We might be taking a squiz at those tomorrow, and casting an eye forward to Lords on Wednesday and/or Thursday. Stay tuned...