Kneejerk Reactions

So, one day on from my post and a crushing ten wicket win, do I feel a bit silly? Well, no, not really. I actually think all the points I made stand.

What England did today was perform well on a wicket that plays to their strength: high quality seam bowling in helpful conditions. Give any of our bowlers a fruity wicket and they'll perform for you. There's little mystery about most of their methods (though Dernbach's slower one is a joy), but they are as liable to do the job on a green top as Malinga is when he's bowling the last over and the oppo need ten to win.

'twas ever thus. Even in the 90s when we were properly shit, our home record wasn't *that* bad, because we could take 20 wickets when it swung and other countries' seamers usually bowled a foot too short. Cricket is fundamentally a cultural game. That's why I love playing in London. Bowl a quick short ball on a bouncy wicket to an Indian batsman and he probably won't play it that well. Play against a South African and the chances are he's not a brilliant mystery spinner. Play a Pakistani and he might well sprint in from the boundary and try to break your toes with a yorker.

What about the batting? Well I actually stand by all the points I made. With the pressure off Cook and the pressure on the Sri Lankan bowling, he got a lot more bad balls to hit and he dispatched them at such a rate that he thoroughly outscored Kieswetter. The problems haven't gone away, but as long as we play on pitches like this, they'll be forgotten until we go on tour.

The lesson is simple: play to your strengths. Swann was calling for more helpful wickets for the seamers this week, and he's the team's spinner (admittedly it's probably easier to make such calls when you're ranked number one in the world, but anyway). The really great teams, of course, find ways of performing when conditions don't suit them. I think you have to be a special player - like McGrath or Warne - to do that consistently at this level. England's players are good, but not special. On a spicy wicket, this line up makes a lot of sense. It doesn't when length bowling goes the distance and you're expected to make 300+

The other issue is one that seems to have been discussed since he came into the team: what sort of bowler is Stuart Broad? A nasty quick or a line and length merchant? My feeling is that he should aim for the latter. Try to  bowl 90mph+ at all times in short spells. After all, he's the only bowler we have who can really do that.