After what was a relatively inconsistent summer for Monty Panesar, the news that he has moved towards the top ten of the ICC Test Match bowling ratings will be very pleasing for the Sikh of Tweak. The England spinner is ranked number eleven in the world and sits five places below Ryan Sidebottom and six places ahead of Andrew Flintoff.

This is, of course, a sign that Panesar is moving in the right direction as a bowler. He has often taken important wickets for England and has the potential to be a match winner for his country on a number of occasions before his career is over. The most significant factor as far as Panesar is concerned though is that there should still be a lot more to come from him.

Panesar hasn’t quite hit the heights that many people would have expected him to after making his international debut in March 2006. Yes, there have been some excellent performances – 6 for 126 in New Zealand during the winter for example. However, this was sandwiched in between a poor time against India and Sri Lanka and most recently against South Africa this summer.

Panesar had a frustrating time of it against Graeme Smith’s men as he took 13 wickets in the four match test series at an average of 31.69. With his overall test average being 31.91 – this series was rather typical of Panesar’s England career to date. It has been good at times, but these times haven’t been often enough. The latest climb in the rankings is a good sign, but it mustn’t be forgotten that he has been as high as 6th in the world at one stage. I suppose this highlights that he can be a lot, lot better than he has shown in recent months.

So, what is the problem with him? With the ability he possesses, why can’t he perform consistently enough to become a world-class spinner? Well, unsurprisingly, Shane Warne has had his say. The former Australian leg-spinner says that Panesar must ‘take more risks’ in order to take wickets. By this, Warne means that he should show more variety by ‘bowling higher and wider’.

Should Panesar take on Warne’s advice, there is every chance he will concede more runs, but I’d place a cricket bet on him taking more wickets. Panesar shouldn’t take on the Ashley ‘tie up an end’ Giles role. He is a born wicket-taker and should bowl in a style to reflect this. Everyone knows that the cricket odds are far more likely to favour England being a successful team if they have a dangerous spinner in their ranks. Panesar is that spinner and it is high time that he starts to have a more significant impact on proceedings.

My biggest concern with him is that I still don’t believe he feels at all comfortable as an England cricketer. Even after a couple of years as an England player I don’t think he feels that he deserves to be there. Perhaps this is because of his inability to bat or field. However, he should believe in his right to perform on cricket’s world stage. Should he not, there is a danger that he will be the ‘nearly man’ of English cricket and this would be a crying shame given his ability with a cricket ball.

Thomas Rooney - Freelance Sports Journalist

Tags: cricket, monty panesar, shane warne

A High Court ruling today suggests that the proposed multi million Twenty20 cricket match between the Stanford All Stars (i.e. the West Indies) and England is likely to be cancelled due to legal issues regarding the West Indies Cricket Board sponsorship deal with Digicel.

For the full info on the court ruling have a read of the BBC article and the one on CricInfo but essentially Digicel, the sponsors of the West Indies cricket team, have got their panties in a bunch and are unhappy that they’re going to receive little or no money from the $20 million head to head.

I’m not going to go into the rights or wrongs of the mini tournament Allen Stanford has organised. Well, not in this article, anyway, but I do have to ask the question on why this is an ICC recognised match in the first place. Let’s face it, folks, it’s nothing more than a glorified beer match. It’s not an international cricket fixture, for Gods sake.

I had no intention of writing about this whole sordid affair but todays news had me reaching…for the keyboard. Everything about this whole, sorry episode has me questioning the future of the beautiful game.

Oh bollocks. I’ve got one in my bonnet now so…

I find it obscene that any of the players, whether they be West Indians Stanford All Stars or England players are going to become dollar millionaires for playing a single game of cricket. It’s not even a proper fucking game of cricket. It says something for the tournament when the warm up game for the “main event” is a legends beach cricket match.

Now I’m sure that Allen Stanford has the best interest of the game at heart and he’s probably bemused by all this but come on. Enough is enough. How much more shit can we take about “player burnout” and then watch another meaningless cricket tournament on our pay-per-view subscriptions? IPL anyone? ICC Champions Trophy?

I’ve got a major beef with the ECB for agreeing to this match. It spells bad news for the future of cricket and I can’t understand why they took this on especially since they’re cash rich with the renewed Sky contract. I used to advertise Sky on this site but I’ve stopped now because, in some ways, I see Sky as being part of the problem.

Ball bags.

It’s late at night. I’ve had a few beers. I may not be as coherent as I should be and I’m sure that this post will pose as many questions as answers but, in essence, I’ll be more than happy if this dreadful whoring of cricket never happens.

Image credit: Duchessa

Tags: allen stanford, cricket, england, twenty20, west indies

Everyone knows that Stuart Broad is going to be in and around the England team for many years to come. After making his international debut in a one day international against Pakistan in 2006, is has been clear to everyone that he was born to play international cricket. Since then, he has become an established member of the England team and this has been recognised by the International Cricket Council. Broad is one of four players shortlisted for the emerging player of the year award.

It is good to see that his achievements at the tender age of 22 haven’t gone unnoticed. He may have struggled slightly with the ball in the Test matches this summer, but since Kevin Pietersen took over the captaincy there appears to be significant improvement. In the Test match at The Oval he took five wickets and then in the ODI series he helped England dismiss South Africa for 83 by taking five wickets in an impressive ten over spell. The fact that Pietersen opted to give him the new ball in the ODI games has done wonders for his confidence.

Of course, had it just been for his bowling, I’m not sure Broad’s place in the team would be quite so secure. Nor would he have been nominated for any awards. This is because the thing that makes Broad such an exciting talent is his outstanding natural ability with the bat. In the nine Test matches he has played, he averages 37.20. In the games against South Africa this summer he averaged 53.66. Not bad for a number eight batsman is it? There was even talk that he should have moved up to number six in the batting order to accommodate Andrew Flintoff’s preference to batting at seven. This has obviously now changed with Freddie’s return to form, but it does show how much belief people have in Broad’s batting.

For the future though, I think that number eight is his position. The England batting line-up looks a lot stronger if Flintoff is in form at six, then Matt Prior as the wicket-keeper at seven and the talented Broad at eight. This has a healthy and balanced look to it and it has a lot to do with the batting ability of Broad. It is, of course, his bowling that needs to be his main discipline though and I’m confident this will be the case based on his recent displays.

Something he needs to do is work out what type of bowler his is. I have witnessed him mixing up his line and length and trying to be an out and out quick bowler. It is my belief though that he should adopt a Glenn McGrath style of bowling. Bowl every single ball in the same areas. Frustrate the batsmen and rely on consistency. If he did this, I would place a lot of my cricket betting money on him taking plenty of wickets for England. With the likes of Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff in the side, Broad doesn’t need to be an over-the-top aggressive bowler. Instead, he should plug away with consistent line and length – something he has done with success in the games since the change of skipper.

For what it is worth, I think it is unlikely Broad will actually win the award for the emerging player of the year. I think the cricket odds will tell you that new Sri Lanka spin king Ajantha Mendis is in line to pick up the award. He has taken an incredible 26 wickets in three test matches and 33 wickets in 13 ODI’s since making his debut in April 2008. He seems a remarkable talent and one who will end up being the long-term replacement for Muttiah Muralitharan.

Broad won’t be too concerned about this though. He should be more concerned with resting up ahead of the winter tours of West Indies and India. I mean, if he continues to improve his bowling and continues to maintain his excellent batting form, this certainly won’t be the last award he will be nominated for during what should be a long and successful career with England.

Thomas Rooney – Freelance Sports Journalist

Tags: cricket, england cricket, icc, kevin pietersen, stuart broad

Well he’d certainly like us to believe he is and, if you were to go along with some of the stuff that’s been written recently, it’s a view shared by journalists and pundits alike but just how good is he?

Now don’t get me wrong, our performances since he took over the reigns from Vaughany have been pretty impressive. We won the final Test match of the series and are 4-0 up in the ODI series with just the final match to be played tomorrow. Freddie Flintoff is back amongst the runs and Steve Harmison is back amongst the wickets. On the face of it he’s performed miracles since taking over. A win tomorrow lifts England up to second in the ODI world rankings but let’s just put things into perspective for a minute, shall we?

The win in the final Test was against a South African team who had already done what they set out to achieve which was secure a first Test series victory on English soil for over 40 years. Sure there’s the professional pride thing but I’m sure that as far as the Saffers were concerned they’d already done the job. To a certain extent that attitude has spilt over into the one day team. They weren’t helped by the injuries to key players but I can’t help feeling that their heart wasn’t in it. I’m not saying they’ve rolled over and kicked their legs in the air but I feel that if the Test series had gone the other way that we’d be seeing a different South Africa team.

Ian Bell gives us an interesting insight into Team KP in this quote from the BBC website:

Kev (Pietersen) sat down with us before the series started and gave us an honest chat about where he thought we were as a team…It’s pretty obvious to see that at times we can play outstandingly well and at times we can be pretty poor…The one thing he has tried to mark on everyone is that we have to have consistency and everyone has bought into that…

So the key ingredient to Pietersens success is by getting highly paid professional sportsman to stop being shit, then. Getting the players to agree that they need to perform consistently doesn’t strike me as being revolutionary and, if anything, says more about them than it does about him.

Maybe it’s just the curmudgeon in me. Possibly it’s because I wanted Fatboy Fat to take over but for whatever reason I’m still not totally sold on Pietersen as skipper.

Bring home the Ashes next summer and then I might reconsider.

Tags: andrew flintoff, cricket, england cricket, ian bell, kevin pietersen, south africa, steve harmison

Michael Vaughan has quit as England captain after the series defeat against South Africa. In an emotional press conference he explains that his mind was simply not on the job any more and that it was time to take a break from cricket.

Firstly I want to thank Vaughan for all the good times, not least of all the Ashes victory in ‘05. From a long suffering England cricket fan, it was great to witness the little urn coming home after all those years. Outside of that I think that Vaughan and, to a certain extent Nasser Hussain, put cricket back on the back pages of the papers and into the public eye once more so we should be grateful for his contribution.

Why has he stood down? Well he says that it’s because his mind is fried but I think it has more to do with the girly haircut he developed whilst convalescing after this knee injury. It’s a bit of a noncey haircut, Michael, and I’m sure that if you’d cut your hair before the NZ tour that you’d still be in a job but there you go.

Paul Collingwood has also been told to quit stepped down as one day captain so the current debate is about who will take over as both Test and ODI captain. Geoff Miller has said that he wants one man to do both jobs and it seems that the current consensus is that Kevin Pietersen is that man.

Well here at Flintoffs Ashes we have a different opinion and think that we have the perfect contender for the role and it might not be who you think…
Read more…

Tags: andrew flintoff, cricket, england cricket, kevin pietersen, michael vaughan