After the season ends &ndash and I’d like to play a Championship match

After the season ends – and I’d like to play a Championship match for Somerset before it does, not to mention the C & G Trophy final – I shall have a break for two weeks and then start training again It’s a good life The Aussies could have made it better.. Great expectations can sometimes weigh heavily on the strongest shoulders. Most people in England, and even more in Australia, thought Shane Warne would tear England’s batting apart at The Oval. Great expectations can sometimes weigh heavily on the strongest shoulders. Most people in England, and even more in Australia, thought Shane Warne would tear England’s batting apart at The Oval.
It is true that he finished with his 19th Test match haul of five or more wickets in an innings and took his tally past 400. This was above all a reward for persistence as much as anything because for long periods during the day he was noticeably below his best, even if he does still nag away like a dentist’s drill.He made a great start, too, when he bowled Mike Atherton with a good one on Friday evening. If his confidence needed a further boost, Marcus Trescothick did the job for him with a poor stroke in the first over yesterday morning.When, a little later, Mark Butcher edged the ball on to his pad and from there to Justin Langer at short leg, it was a wicket from a ball which should have been put away for runs.

At this point, Warne had taken 3 for 39 in 11.1 overs and he would be the first to admit that these figures were mildly flattering.Bowling from the Vauxhall End, he found a lot of turn, perhaps too much, but for once his usually immaculate control was not at its tightest. The odd ball was dragged down for the batsmen to cut, there were more balls to drive than usual and the Englishmen were able to use their pads with more safety than usual.There was also a greater degree of resolve in the England batting than there has often been of late. Although two tiring days in the field may have dampened some of the enthusiasm they brought down with them from Headingley, they knew that the Australian bowling was not quite the irresistible force it had seemed earlier in the summer.After all his shoulder problems, Warne does not nowadays have such a wide variety of tricks up his sleeve, which makes him more dependent than ever on his control.The googly is a thing of the past; there is not the same zip off the pitch and nor is he able to make the ball dip so dangerously in its flight. This last was never better illustrated than by that ball which bowled Mike Gatting all those years ago at Old Trafford.He will have longed to be able to call upon his old repertoire, and perhaps he suffered also from trying too hard. It was not going according to plan, and that predatory, seven-pace walk at the start of his run-up seemed almost too deliberate. As he strived for success, that lovely, easy, rhythmical approach became a little more stretched, not to say stressed.

There were occasions when he went round the wicket for a few balls to alter his line of attack but it did not work and one could feel him growing more frustrated.He will not have enjoyed giving way after lunch to Mark Waugh and, worse still, to see an innocuous off-break take the wicket of Hussain which he had worked so long and hard to take himself.Back at the Vauxhall End after tea, though, he may have been lucky to be granted a catch behind against Alec Stewart, his 400th victim. There was some doubt, too, about Andy Caddick’s lbw decision to the next ball which pitched outside the leg stump. It was a day when Warne should have been grateful for his good fortune.. How he confounds us. A week ago Mark Ramprakash slashed carelessly at a high bouncer and was caught behind when England badly needed runs. Three weeks ago he was out stumped playing a shocker of a shot at Shane Warne at a crucial moment that decided the whole direction of the Trent Bridge Test. Ramps was unapologetic, but unsympathetic commentators, like myself, decided these episodes proved that he was not a cricketer of Test class

How he confounds us.

A week ago Mark Ramprakash slashed carelessly at a high bouncer and was caught behind when England badly needed runs. Three weeks ago he was out stumped playing a shocker of a shot at Shane Warne at a crucial moment that decided the whole direction of the Trent Bridge Test. Ramps was unapologetic, but unsympathetic commentators, like myself, decided these episodes proved that he was not a cricketer of Test class.
Yesterday he gave the best possible answer to his critics, scoring 124 not out in five hours and 45 minutes, facing 215 balls and hitting 18 fours in an innings that was the principal ingredient in England ending the day only 33 runs away from saving the follow-on. This was defensive cricket, but a slow burn also has a capacity to absorb and even to thrill. “It’s a very important hurdle for me,” said Ramps after the days’ play when he appeared barefooted and sweating heavily after a very hot day.This Oval innings is his 81st in Tests and his 54th in England His century exhibited his hallmarks of style and patience Unlike the earlier innings this summer, it was chanceless “I made a real effort to battle today.

I didn’t play fluently, I was happy just to get stuck in,” he said. It was also his first Test hundred in England, and only his second overall His first was 154 in the West Indies in 1997-8. It was confidently expected to release him from his inhibitions Evidently it did not. Last summer Ramprakash opened for England and was dropped after three matches That seemed to be it.