Today was a disappointing day for England cricket on quite a few levels, Andrew Strauss' captaincy, the benign nature of the pitch, at least whilst the Aussies had bats in their hands and a blunt England bowling attack. The last, at least in part, being due to the first. I'm not a huge fan of Strauss as captain, though I understand that there are factors that mitigate against just about everyone else who commands a regular place in the team, but the reality remains that Strauss is steady rather than spectacular. He was late, very late, bringing on spin this morning and once he had done, and seen that they had a good degree of control of the scoring rate and were offering a wicket taking threat he didn't support them at all with close catchers and then throws away the control by taking the new ball as soon as it's available and runs begin to flow. Andrew Flintoff bowling with a new ball to one slip and one gulley, just what is that about? Clearly Strauss did not expect wickets to fall with the new ball, or wasn't interested in taking them by that time, but there was every likelihood that the hard new ball was going to go for more runs in the hands of the seamers that the soft old ball in the hands of the spinners. So what was the point to taking it? The result was that the Aussies scored as they wished, for as long as they wished, Strauss gave up all control of the game and seemingly did care who knew that he had.
As far as the nature of the pitch is concerned, whilst it could yet produce a result, it looks a little bland, nothing for the seamers and even the worn parts aren't spitting and jumping for the spinners, I suppose it's not too surprising that the preparation has been conservative for a test debut at the venue but I hope it's not going to be the template for the remainder of the series.
