On the Kelvin Scale

Graeme Swann's drink-driving charges this week might have been seen as a distraction from the task in hand, as the no. 3 in the World Test bowling rankings was forced to miss training a mere 48 hours before the third Test against Pakistan. What caught the eye in the Cricinfo report on Swann's absence on Monday, however, was the input from the no. 3 in the England T20 batting lineup, one 'Kelvin' Pietersen.

The form of Kaypee, former captain and once the first name on [insert England coach here]'s team-sheet, has been a worry of late. Stephen Brenkley has written about the dipping Test average that will soon plumb depths from which even a Man of the Series Twenty20 performance won't be able to drag him. What this story about Swann shows, however, to the English media and -- equally importantly -- the Australian dressing-room alike, is that here is a cricketer who remains at the heart of (*yuk*) 'Team England': it is KP's twitted comments on Swannee's predicament that make the headlines, ahead of the more professional summary of the team captain.

And it reveals something about Swann, too: even within the England team there are grumblings about the South-African-born contingent. I wonder how Andrew Strauss feels about that?

Old Kids on the Block

'Underestimating the Australian cricket team' is an activity that comes about as recommended as taking one's eye off a bouncing football at a crucial moment, even after weeks of press coverage had focused on the unpredictable aerodynamics of said missile, or daring to publicly mourn the loss of a foreign religious leader whose values were opposed to the pro-Israeli opinions held by your supposedly 'objective' and 'liberal' employers (ouch...enough with the politics). And in the time of a McGrath-Warne or Thompson-Lillee partnership, it is one in which an England team could certainly not have been accurately accused of indulging.

Yet the success of the England team in the recent ODI series over their antipodean antagonists, and the somewhat unlikely triumph at the World T20, have started murmurings about a showing in Brisbane in November fit to banish memories of a certain Harmison-Flintoff-second slip incident 4 years ago.

Luckily, such rumblings have not emanated from the two most important figures in the England set-up, The Two Andies ('It's goodbye from him...'). The plain-spoken honesty (is there any other kind? I'm slipping into journalese, myself) of Messrs Strauss and Flower has been praised in recent days by Andy Bull. Underestimating the Aussies -- like overestimating the English -- is not, on this evidence, an option.

And looking at the result from the first neutral Test at Lord's in 98 years, this appears to be a good thing. Not because of the potency of a new generation of potent young pace bowlers: the two men who almost single-handedly took apart the Pakistani team on the second and fourth afternoons at Lord's -- Shane Watson (5-40) and Marcus North (6-55) -- were a 29-year-old journeyman seamer now better known for his batting and a 30-year-old part-time tweaker. Simon Katich's battling pair of 80s won him the man-of-the-match award for Australia, but the two names to join batsmen Charles Kelleway and Warren Bardsley on the neutral Test honours board in the visitors' dressing room at The Home of Cricket were bowlers. England, watch out.