Agree about nightwatchmen, although slightly harsh on Siders and Broad. Both of them are as competent batsmen as Mills, who scored 50 for New Zealand.

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As far as I can make out, the nightwatchman, who would be out for nought later on anyway, will keep a top order batsman away from the pressure of being out the evening before, and then when the nw is inevitably out the next day, the opposition could get a false sense of security at the minor triumph.

(but then what do I know about crckt?)


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Come back Duncan Fletcher, all is forgiven.

More apologies, this time to Kyle Mills. He averages a very useful 29 batting in F/C.

At Old Trafford, nine man New Zealand are being bamboozled by Monty- five wickets, his hundred in tests and it's 99-6 (effectively for nine, as Oram's in but can't move with a back injury, Flynn won't reappear and the last two average an aggregate seven between them). But with the Kiwis' 180 first innings lead, they should still win.

England have batted badly, been careless in the field and tolerated a lot of picnic bowling. At least two or three of these guys shouldn't play in the South Africa series- I'd say Colly, Anderson and Strauss in order for the chop.

If a top order batsman can't see out a few overs of pressure at the end of the day, he doesn't deserve to be batting for his country.

Now, our top order seriously need to get some runs, they've been shit for ages, each of them managing to weigh in with odd century or a couple of 60s to cover up the expanses of low scoring rubbish and prolong their place in the team.

As of this morning, none of them have averaged 40 this year.

No doubt it will come to naught, but West Indies need 286 in their second innings to beat Australia, after bowling them out for 167.

Some tasty action at Kingston (not upon Hull, their bus parade's tomorrow). As Ursus says, Australia should win. The target is similar to England's in Manchester, but Oz have a bowling edge over the Kiwis.

Highlights included Symonds smacking another 80, well supported by Hodge and Haddin. Lee- who knocked over Chanderpaul in the first innings- took some clobber himself in two hostile overs from Edwards before nicking one behind.

The gurn on Punter and Hussey's gobs when they got out was well worth watching. They were 17-4 last night.

Highlight for me was that spectacular 4-way collision and catch to get rid of Symonds. Are the Windies becoming a semi-serious team again? Very good in the field, and some decent bowling. The batting's still pretty suspect, mind.

Usually 4th innings targets are hard to get because of the threat of the spinner. But MacGill has looked out of sorts, so West Indies have more chance than normal. Johnson is wild too. So it's up to Lee and Clark. Please don't let Symonds rip through them.

DG, what's Strauss done wrong for England in this game?

England did however beat NZ in the 1979 World Cup semi-final on ESPN Classic, helped by John Wright running himself out, and a few tight overs of inswing from around the wicket by the cap-clad Geoff Boycott.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

QUOTE:
DG, what's Strauss done wrong for England in this game?

He's batted fairly well in this game, if a bit too slowly. Although Vaughan was even more sluggish in the first dig.

I suggest dropping him not on the strength of one game, but because he shouldn't have returned in NZ and still looks well below the standard he managed in 2004 and 2005.

As I've said before here, the way English pundits, fans and even players keep concentrating on the Ashes series is daft, when there are five or six other teams to play in between. But you do need to plan ahead a bit. The way England are scratching at the moment, they have little chance of beating South Africa later in the summer. Collingwood would struggle to hit me off the square at the moment, Anderson routinely goes for a run a ball on each of his many comebacks, Vaughan drifts in the field. As Agnew moaned on the BBC today, for the batters especially it seems to be impossible to fall out of this England side. All of the top six are too comfortable. I'm not suggesting a bad run over one or two games should see anyone dropped, but over three series they all need to perform. Hence the suggested order for the axe- Colly, Jimmy, Strauss.

Maybe he was lucky to come back, but he has done OK and of the batters, he's the one who doesn't look too comfortable to me. I thought his 60 yesterday was a solid enough innings which should have set up 300 at the very least. But Sky seemed to think he was at fault for not charging down the track and hitting the best finger spinner in the world down Warwick Road. There's too much made of the need to score quickly- Messrs Atherton and Hussain might understand that.

Windies take an offer of bad light and end Sunday at 46 for 1; 247 left to get.

Australia's 17 for 4 start in this innings was their worst in 72 years.

The final innings of the match started with 30ish overs of day 3 remaining, so criticising Strauss for scoring his 60, the highest in the England innings, too slowly seems completely false to me.

I think there's a big difference between slowly building a big score through judicious shots and well taken singles and simply sitting in your crease waiting to be caught behind or given out LBW.

"As of this morning, none of them have averaged 40 this year."

Strauss has averaged 53 in test cricket this year. He's also scored 120 more runs than any other England batsman.

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"I suggest dropping him not on the strength of one game, but because he shouldn't have returned in NZ and still looks well below the standard he managed in 2004 and 2005."

See previous answer.

Agree about Colly, he needs to make runs today if he's to justify his inclusion. But even if he wins the match today, I think he can't afford to wait till the end of the season for that shoulder op.

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Another interesting stat: Ian Bell has never scored the first century of an England innings.