The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Collingwood gets a recall

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Collingwood gets a recall

Ted Corbett

BIRMINGHAM: If you have a fast bowler as quick as Steve Harmison at his best 90 miles an hour whenever he likes, who is at least 6ft 4in and probably more with 212 Test wickets behind him, would you drag him all the way from his home in Northumberland, knowing how he hates travelling, to Birmingham and then ask him to make sure the drinks and towels are neatly laid out? I hoped not.

Yet that is what the England selectors have done for the third Test against South Africa at Edgbaston.

The present bunch of selectors, nice fellas, I know them all after several tours together, are as confused as any group of people in cricket. After the fiasco of Headingley where they launched a lad of 29 who had to circle the dressing room explaining who he was, the panel of Geoff Miller, part-time comedian, Ashley Giles, recently the England slow left-arm bowler, and James Whitaker, once a Test batsman, has done it again.

Sidebottom fit

They announced at training on Tuesday that they will leave out Harmison, drop Stuart Broad even though he is the most promising cricketer of his generation and hope to correct the mistakes of Leeds by bringing back Paul Collingwood at No. 6. At least they have the wonderful Ryan Sidebottom fit and as likely to win a Test as anyone bowling on the planet at the moment.

As the third Test gets underway, the South Africans cannot believe their luck. As a breed they are not given to one-line jokes or rib-tickling remarks but they are laughing all the way to what they think must be the easiest series victory in recent times; and they have won seven of their last nine. Once they get on top they take a lot of shifting, said a rueful Michael Vaughan, the England captain, soon after Headingley.

Nel for Steyn

They plan only to bring in Andre Nel to replace the injured Dale Steyn. Nel is an entertainment package all on his own, fast as you like, volatile and dangerous, with an action that appears to be based on the working of a broken crane. He is a gentleman who likes to help old ladies cross the road and softly spoken but he has an alter ego he calls Gunther who lives in the mountains and does not get much oxygen to his brain. Gunther does the bowling.

Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, says the recall of Harmison to the squad after six months, must be a quick fix and calls the England camp desperate. Are they planning for the Ashes or for now? he asks. He would not even be so presumptuous as to ask if he had been around England for 25 years as I have.

All I can say in defence of the selectors is that in 2005 their predecessors saw their team for the Lord’s Test demolished by the Australians, picked the same side again and turned the series round with a two-run victory at Edgbaston. It is England’s favourite ground and now it needs the luck that often seems to help it out at this venue if it is to stay in the series.

The teams: England: Michael Vaughan (capt.), Andrew Strauss. Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Tim Ambrose, Ryan Sidebottom, Monty Panesar and James Anderson.

South Africa: Graeme Smith (capt.), Neil McKenzie, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, Ashwell Prince, A.B. de Villiers, Mark Boucher, Paul Harris, Morne Morkel, Andre Nel and Makhaya Ntini.

Umpires: Steve Davis (Aus) and Aleem Dar (Pak). Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (SL).

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