Now for South Africa
MICHAEL HENDERSON
England took Test cricket to the northeast last week when they 'christened' the ground at Chester-le-Street. It was a great coup for the Durham club, who have deprived Old Trafford of an international fixture, and they hope to bring England back for a more important match than the one against Zimbabwe, whose players provided inadequate opposition.
Beating Zimbabwe, in their current bedraggled state, is no great feat. It is more like shooting fish in a barrel. In the last month England have beaten them twice inside three days, to achieve the easiest victory in a Test series that any side can ever have done. It did not make for good watching. Sport at any level is defined by competition, and the Zims were unable to match England in a single session of play. Given that their best players are no longer available, for one reason or another, it is unrealistic to expect them to turn out a proper Test team for the time being, and one can only sympathise with them and their countrymen. England will meet South Africa later this summer, after an interminable period of one-day cricket, and they should beat them, too. The South Africans, while committed players, have lost Allan Donald, their great fast bowler, to retirement, and their failure in the recent World Cup, which they staged and hoped to win, has undermined their self-belief. It is a good time for England's youngsters to play them, and for one young man in particular, 20-year-old James Anderson, it is an opportunity to build on the excellent start to his international career.
This time last year Anderson was glad to get a game for Lancashire. Now he is opening the bowling for England, and likely to remain in the side even if — and it is a big if — Darren Gough manages to prove his fitness for five-day cricket. Gough and Andrew Caddick represent the past. Anderson, who took five wickets in his first bowl in Test cricket at Lord's, and picked up another six at Chester-le-Street, is a man for the future.
Anderson is not quick; not very quick, that is. The number of genuinely fast bowlers this country has produced can be counted on the fingers of two hands. Since Fred Trueman was stood down from Test cricket in the mid-60s, the only fast bowlers of distinction to have emerged have been John Snow and Bob Willis, though Ian Botham, an all-rounder, was capable of bowling quick spells in his youth. It is asking a lot of Anderson to add his name to that little list but he has made the best possible start, and he will not lack opportunity.
Cricket could do with a marquee name or two. Michael Vaughan, the opening batsman, is an outstanding player, but he can't carry the game on his own. It would be nice if Anderson joined him on the back pages, and it is high time that Andrew Flintoff, another man who first played for England at 20, turned his abundant promise into something significant.
This week sees the start of a new 20-over competition, the latest wheeze designed to attract teenagers. It doesn't bear any relation to real cricket, but the people at the England and Wales Cricket Board are keen for it to work, and they have laid on pop groups and all kinds of gimmicks to ensure that their young audience are not 'bored'. From there, it is hoped, the young folk will be curious to find out what real cricket is like. Well, we'll see.
More than anything, the game needs a successful England side, and that will not be achieved by any amount of three-minute 'entertainments'. We need Anderson and his youthful comrades to step forward and declare, 'This is where we belong.'
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