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Rain threat over third Test

Ted Corbett

England may field an unchanged squad

— PHOTO: AFP

HUNTING IN PAIRS: If Ryan Sidebottom (right) and Stuart Broad play, it will be the first time since 1905 that two players from Nottingham are in the same England team.

NOTTINGHAM: If, as they trumpet repeatedly, England fields the same side for the third cricket Test against New Zealand as it has for the previous four matches, it will achieve yet another remarkable record.

A fifth unchanged side in succession will contain two Nottinghamshire players for the first time for 103 years.

Isn’t it astonishing that the county club that produced, for instance, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce in the 1920s and 1930s, never saw them turn out for England at the historic Trent Bridge?

Tim Robinson and Chris Broad, opening batsmen who barely spoke to one another, the off-spinner Eddie Hemmings and that neatest of wicketkeepers Bruce French, were all members of the championship winning side of the 1980s, but no two of them ever played together for England on its own county ground.

Now Ryan Sidebottom, son of Yorkshire father-cricketer and Stuart Broad, son of Chris, may even take the new ball together.

That is, if the most unseasonable weather relents for the umpires to get on to the field. No matter that Sidebottom, the great England hero of the moment with 34 wickets at 18.88 in five Tests this year, played for Yorkshire first or that Broad, not yet 22, has already been a Leicestershire all-rounder.

Two Notts lads are in the same England team for the first time since opening batsman Arthur Jones and all-rounder John Gunn played against Australia in May 1905. It will be Stuart Broad’s first Test on his home ground.

Neat contrast

This Notts pair makes a neat contrast.

Sidebottom, 31, is the left-arm swing bowler come lately, while Broad is the new kid who still talks fondly of playing in one corner of the ground while his father batted in the middle.

They are sure to be included but do not be surprised if at the last moment England picks the huge Chris Tremlett instead of the erratic James Anderson.

For all England has kept the same side together since the first Test in New Zealand three months ago, the selectors’ decision has not met with approval and three players will have to show better form if there is any chance of England making it an unprecedented six unchanged line-ups in a row.

Under the scanner

Paul Collingwood’s form has been under the spotlight recently though his batting average has not dipped under 40 for two years and he has gone 11 Tests without a hundred.

Ian Bell’s two Tests at Trent Bridge have yielded just 37 runs: three and three against Australia in 2005 and 31 and zero against India last year.

This Trent Bridge jinx spreads right through the team. Despite playing for Nottinghamshire for four years, Kevin Pietersen has never made a Test fifty here.

He averages 24.50 and has scores of 45 and 23 against Australia in 2005, 41 and six against Sri Lanka in 2006 and 13 and 19 against India last summer. Since leaving Notts for Hampshire, he has not made a fifty in any form of cricket at Trent Bridge.

Surely this run cannot continue. It has been 11 Tests since England topped 400 in its first innings and it is the bowlers who have kept it on the winning path.

The teams (from):

England: Michael Vaughan (Capt.), Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Tim Ambrose, Stuart Broad, Ryan Sidebottom, Monty Panesar, James Anderson, Chris Tremlett.

New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (Capt.), Aaron Redmond, Jamie How, James Marshall, Ross Taylor, Daniel Flynn, Peter Fulton, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Chris Martin, Iain O’Brien, Tim Southee.

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