England pile on pressure

ENGLAND continued their domination of the second npower Test yesterday and in the process all but reclaimed the Wisden Trophy that they surrendered in the Caribbean two months ago. They cannot now lose this game or the series; the only remaining issue is whether the bowlers can build on the good work of the batsmen and deliver victory in the team’s final match before the Ashes.
To do that they needed to capture 20 wickets in the space of seven sessions, a tall order for an attack that has not found 20 wickets easy to come by in much longer periods than that.
In the first of those sessions last night, one curtailed by rain, James Anderson, bowling in beautifully relaxed and confident fashion, dismissed Devon Smith, Chris Gayle and Lendl Simmons in six overs.
Gayle, the most important of these scalps, was leg-before playing no stroke. Replays suggested the ball was probably going over the top but without referrals there could be no reprieve. All in all, a bad end to a miserable week for the West Indies captain.
England’s best chance now is that West Indian commitment continues to buckle. If Gayle’s side capitulate as feebly as they did at Lord’s, where they were dismissed twice for a combined total of 104.5 overs, then England may still win with something to spare.
Has a Test team visiting England ever looked less interested than Gayle’s? Only when Fidel Edwards has had a ball in his hands and Anderson in his sights have they appeared to bristle with intent. Otherwise they have mooched around with their hands in their pockets like a gang of labourers with no hole to dig. Strange behav-iour really, considering they are being paid over and above normal wages to make this hastily arranged tour.
Before England closed their innings at 569 for six at tea, West Indies gave another slapdash display in the field.
Dinesh Ramdin had a bit of a nightmare behind the stumps, letting off nightwatchman Anderson, Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior with chances of varying difficulty, while Edwards repeatedly no-balled, off one of which Anderson was caught at gully. Stuart Broad was dropped for the fifth time in two innings, Sulieman Benn spilling a sharp return catch.
Extras, 61 of them in all, were sprinkled like confetti.
W e s t I n d i e s ’ b i z a r r e approach to this tour was reinforced when they yesterday summoned Runako Morton as replacement for the injured Dale Richards in the one-day squad. Morton was only recently suspended and stripped of the captaincy of his regional side for fighting a teammate during a match in Barbados. Morton’s presence is unlikely to lighten Anderson’s mood: he already has Edwards on his case and now he is going to have to deal with Morton, with whom he shared a shoulder-barging incident at Trent Bridge two years ago.
Strauss had difficulty with the timings of his declarations in the Caribbean, arguably batting on too long in Antigua and Trinidad, and he may have erred on the side of caution here again. The cricket became tiresome as England pushed on well past 500 when the time felt right to apply some pressure with the ball. Even the scoreboards lost interest, both of them breaking down simultaneously.
At least this passage of play provided further evidence that Matt Prior is the man to start the Ashes at No 6. The bowling could have been more demanding but the situation nevertheless presented a challenge he met, to score fast runs. He monopolised his stand with Collingwood, contributing 63 while his partner added 29 before sacrificing his wicket. In three Tests at No 6 his scores now read 131 not out, 61, 42 and 63 for an average of 99. Edwards’ eagerness to dispatch Anderson at least got Kevin Pietersen to the wicket early for the game’s first big crowd of around 12,000.
But neither Pietersen nor Alastair Cook, who had been in the nets early practising his cutting and pulling, were to have particularly satisfying days. Cook added 34 to his overnight 126 to finish with a career-best score but had his sights set on a double-century; Pietersen had to be content with 49.
Pietersen is the subject of a new biography by journalist Wayne Vesey called KP: Cricket Genius? The only bit of the title Pietersen might quibble with is the question-mark but the text recounts several spats that might make him shift uneasily in his seat.
One theme that emerges is Pietersen’s strong preference for southern hemisphere types whose backgrounds are similar to his own. Hence his greater respect for Clive Rice ahead of Mick Newell at Notts, and for Duncan Fletcher rather than Peter Moores with England. At least on this basis Andy Flower ought to have a chance of working well with him.
One revealing story Pietersen will not dispute is the regular canings he took from Pietermaritzburg schoolmasters and his own Afrikaaner father, Janie - experiences that perhaps played a part in Pietersen’s subsequent merciless treatment of bowlers.
After taking a first-baller at Lord’s, he was certainly hungry for runs here. He flinched a couple of times at Edwards’ pace before calming himself with three fours during a wayward over from Jerome Taylor. Soon, he was lacing Edwards through the casually patrolled covers, but his footwork did not really got going and this was never quite the Pietersen of old.
What was the Pietersen of old was the way he got out, making a hash of trying to bring up a landmark in the grand manner with a booming drive, which skewed off into the hands of backward point. It was the third time he had fallen to Sulieman Benn in Tests.
Prior’s success could be all the more important given the delay to Andrew Flintoff’s return from knee surgery. He is now all but certain to miss the World Twenty20, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
He now has the opportunity to play up to four first-class matches before the Ashes - three with Lancashire and one with an England XI against Warwickshire in a final collegiate warm-up at Edgbaston. It would be overdoing things to expect him to play all four games but three might be enough for him to find some form with bat and ball.
The danger is that his right knee flares up under the workload and jeopardises his part in the Ashes. Were this to happen, the more runs Prior, Broad and Swann can provide at six, seven and eight the better.
Source:The times