With Andrew Flintoff on paternity leave, four regulars rehabilitating at home and the hardest-working members of the Test squad relaxing in the stands, England yesterday gave those players loitering around the fringe of the one-day side the chance to push for a place in Tuesday's opening match against India in Delhi. The prospect of playing seven unforgettable games in front of huge, noisy crowds ought to have been enough to motivate an England team packed with young thrusters, but Ian Bell, Matthew Prior and Ian Blackwell were the only players to further their cause during the five-run defeat by a President's XI. Bell scored a responsible 71 and Prior posted a breezy 55 as England tried to chase down a target of 260. On a pitch that became harder and harder to score freely on it was always going to be difficult for England to pass a competitive total, but the task was made nigh-on impossible by a combination of dreadful running between the wicket and reckless strokeplay.Panic batting resulted in England losing four key wickets to run-outs and four more slogging the ball into the deep. How they needed the responsible and reassuring figure of Flintoff to guide them home. Kabir Ali almost saved England's blushes in the "Pink City" with a quickfire 25 before James Anderson was, predictably, run out with one ball remaining.The acting captain, Vikram Solanki - who had chosen to bowl first after winning the toss - and Owais Shah fell to indifferent shots in the first four overs of England's reply before Kevin Pietersen and Prior settled matters down with some powerful strokeplay. But their partnership ended when a mix-up resulted in Pietersen being run out from a direct hit.
In the next over Prior foolishly hoicked one into the deep, and from this point on England struggled to keep up with the required run-rate.Paul Collingwood and Blackwell formed useful partnerships with Bell until they, too, needlessly ran themselves out. With England now requiring seven runs an over, calculated risks needed to be taken but three successive batsmen, including Bell, hoisted simple catches to fielders in the deep.Sajid Mahmood and Anderson had, rather fortuitously, given England an excellent start by dismissing the President XI's openers within seven overs, but this only brought Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif, two members of India's one-day squad to the crease. Both batsmen played England's seamers with worrying ease, and the tourists could do little to prevent Kaif posting an excellent hundred. Raina, too, is an exciting player and England can expect to see quite a bit of these two over the next three weeks.Anderson, Kabir Ali and Liam Plunkett are expected to form the backbone of England's attack in Delhi, yet they conceded almost six runs an over here.
The generosity of the faster bowlers forced Solanki to employ his slower bowlers; and it worked.Collingwood replaced Mahmood, who retired with gastric problems after three overs, and dismissed Raina for 49 in his first over He then bowled Venugopal Rao in his fourth Blackwell's left-arm spin proved equally effective. In 10 overs Blackwell conceded only 33 runs and claimed the wicket of Ajay Jadeja, the former Indian all-rounder.Despite a falling run-rate and the regular loss of wickets Kaif knew the importance of having wickets in hand during the final 10 overs, and the President's XI added 87 runs in this period.Kaif brought his hundred up off the 129th ball he faced before hacking the final over of the innings, bowled by Kabir, for 16 runs Ultimately, it won the game.. According to the latest official Test ratings released on Friday, the second best all-rounder in the world is Andrew Flintoff With due respect to the man in top spot, this is tosh. Jacques Kallis is a cricketer of exceptional gifts, but nobody outside the room where the LG ICC rankings are compiled would seriously suggest that that he or anybody else is above Flintoff at present.
The gap between the pair is only 13 points, but it remains almost enough to put the system on a charge under the Inter-national Cricket Council's code of conduct.As batsman, bowler, fielder and captain in a series against India that finished 1-1 after a remarkable victory for England last week, Flintoff was extra-ordinary. On a personal level, as he was playing with his wife having given birth to their first son on the eve of the Second Test, he was monumental.. Brian Lara yesterday chose a familiar course to show that widespread reports of his demise may be somewhat premature. Dismissed for 5, 0, 1 and 1 from the 23 balls he received in his preceding four innings of the series against New Zealand, Test cricket's highest run-scorer and owner of most of the available batting records chose to move one place up the order to No 3 in the third and final match here. It was a bold decision. West Indies were sent in on a pitch which was underprepared after three days of persistent rain that delayed the start by almost three hours and which was expected to favour New Zealand's seam and swing bowlers, who had embarrassed Lara in Auckland and Wellington It was also a calculated move. He has not batted so high since he amassed his unbeaten record 400 in 2004, against England in Antigua, an innings which also followed a run of unusually low scores.Three balls after he replaced Chris Gayle, caught at short extra-cover for 30 from a loose drive off Chris Martin, Lara was confronted by Shane Bond.
New Zealand's high-class spearhead had removed Lara with the only ball he bowled to him in each innings of the First Test but had missed the Second with a virus.It was a confrontation worthy of the attention of more than the few hundred spectators scattered around under dark skies. Bond aimed the first delivery at the leg stump, just as he did in Auckland, when Lara was bowled round his legs, but this time the left-hander was not quite as far across his stumps.For the next hour and a quarter, Lara batted with increasing assurance and was unbeaten on 28 when fading light halted play after only 27.2 of the allocated 47 overs. It was just the start he needed to rediscover his touch.Daren Ganga was 31 not out and the tourists has reached 95 for 1, an encouraging start to their quest to halt a sequence of eight consecutive Test defeats.Lara was still short of his best and could not have complained had the South African umpire Ian Howell granted Nathan Astle's lbw appeal when he was 14. But his intensity was obvious, stirred by some adverse headlines. "Lara: Prince now the pauper", proclaimed the Dominion-Post after the Second Test. "Special powers desert ageing Lara," stated the New Zealand Herald.Conjecture over whether it is the first sign that time is catching up with Lara has not been confined to the New Zealand media. He is just over a month away from his 37th birthday and is Test cricket's oldest current player.