2nd ODI v South Africa

Team news: Bopara has been dropped for Collingwood. KP really doesn't like Bopara, does he?

• KP re-jigs the Test side in such a way that Bopara (who the selectors clearly intended to play) was excluded.
• Next, KP gives Bopara only 2 overs in the first ODI, then takes him off and publicly criticises him for not taking the pace off the ball in the way KP wanted.
• Finally, he drops Bopara and retains Luke Wright, who didn't bat or bowl at Headingley and has yet to really convince anyone about his international calibre.

So much for the most promising English cricketer in the county game...

2.55pm: I'm delighted to see Paul Collingwood back at backward point. I have always thought it was a bit of a waste to have our best infielder at slip, and there is evidence to suggest he isn't the best slipper in the world anyway. A good backward point can be worth a lot of runs (to say nothing of the odd wicket out of nothing) when bowlers like Jimmy Anderson stray.

3.08pm: Stuart Broad continues to revel (4-1-8-3 at the moment) in the new KP era. Like Harmy and Flintoff, he seems to be someone who KP has decided is integral to the team in both forms of the game. In contrast to Ravi Bopara:

• first, he was brought back into the Test team after being dropped the game before;
• second, he was allowed to clear up the SA tail in the first innings of the Oval Test to boost his confidence;
• third, he was given the new ball for the first time in the first ODI.

I get the feeling KP is either "for" or "against " people, and God help you if he is against you. Of course, nobody in English cricket has got in trouble for playing favourites in the last few years, have they?

3.16pm: Good Lord, make that 5-1-9-4. No debates as to whether or not KP is going to take his powerplays in succession today. Shame Anderson had gone at over 5 an over from the other end - and that, I suspect, will be the problem for this new ball pairing. The chances of both of them getting it right on the same day are very low, and when one of them gets it wrong it goes very wrong indeed.

4pm: Doesn't look like the debate over who bats at 7 and bowls the odd over is going to matter much. In other news, this will be the perfect time for Bell to score a quick 50 in the chase to "answer his critics" - notwithstanding the fact that his critics say he can only score when the pressure's off.

How Not To Use Powerplays

At the moment, England are half-way through their innings in the first ODI against South Africa. Usually, it is prudent to wait until the end of a game to make judgments about a team's performance. In this case, however, there is still a chance that England might bludgeon their way to a respectable total and/or bowl well enough to win the game. So I'm going to make this assessment now, with the score at 113/3.

The Powerplay overs are the best time in the game to score runs. The Powerplay concept was created to make it easier for batsmen to score runs. That is the point. A big score during these overs is a necessity in modern day cricket, a score of 78-1 at their end is a victory for bowlers regardless of the conditions. Boundaries are the key currency, both through piercing the necessarily-crowded infield and by going over it.

Today, we picked ostensibly the right opening partnership. We have Bell, a cultured strokemaker but one who is more than capable of scoring at a run a ball throughout his innings. Then we have Prior, the latest in a series of pinch-hitters being asked to emulate Adam Gilchrist, but a player who has shown the form for Sussex this season to suggest he is up to the task. So far so good.

Bell is then sent out with the express instruction of batting through the innings. I fail to see how anyone can bat in that manner without being given that instruction. Certainly not a player whose instinct is to play shots, and who has all the shots in his locker. But it happened, Bell managed to bat for 19 Powerplay overs - you know, the ones promoting aggression and boundary-hitting - without hitting a single boundary and at a strike rate of 50.72. He did lots of leaving, and lots of defending, which is against his instincts and must be part of a grand plan. And then got himself out for 35 (surely not a start which wasn't capitalised on...?) by slashing a loose ball to point. *

Let's leave aside the fact that this is the worst of both worlds for the aspiring ODI anchorman (scoring at below the optimum rate for the first 20 overs, and then getting out, leaving the "hitters" to play around each other). The mere fact that the concept of an anchorman is still alive and kicking in any major international cricket side is worrying enough. It was last tried by England at the 2007 World Cup, where it was an abject failure and relentlessly pilloried in England and internationally. These days, teams bat so deep that losing a couple of wickets at the top of the order in exchange for a higher strike rate is fine. In England's case, we have Stuart Broad (whose is being touted as a potential Test no. 6 and who has played at least one match-winning innings at ODI level) coming in at no. 9.

That means that teams can now afford to carry on attacking even when they are four or five down, because they have players lower down the order who are capable of picking up the pieces. The risks are lower, which makes the risk/reward ratio higher. If our top five got out and we were left with Bopara, Wright, Patel (admittedly unproven at this level, think Swann instead) and Broad to get us over the line, it wouldn't be great but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

The modern version of the anchorman is for one partner in any partnership to try to nudge the ball around and score at a run a ball (note to Peter Moores: this is a strike rate of 100.00), whilst the other tries to blast the boundaries (aiming for a strike rate of, say, 150.00). Then, when the blaster falls, the nudger becomes the blaster whilst the new batsman settles by nudging. Obviously it's not that simple, and nobody is suggesting that a par score in every ODI is 300, but it should be the mindset of the players involved. If you want an example of that sort of innings in action (albeit in a different format), you could do a lot worse than watch Owais Shah's innings in the Twenty20 final - it took my breath away.

It was suggested in parts of the press this week that this could be a pivotal series for Peter Moores. If he oversees a return to the darkest days of Duncan Fletcher, that might not be as silly as it sounds.

*For those of you who are interested, I thought Prior did a decent enough job with his 42 at 80.76. The timing of his dismissal wasn't great, but he was trying to hit England out of a flatline which is what he is there for.

Against Ian Bell's Promotion

I do feel like I'm repeating a bit of a cliche now, but I am getting pretty frustrated with Bell.

He has been a fixture in the England side for the best part of four years, so surely he's past the probationary period of "has all the shots and talent to be very good". He should be very good now, and the fact that he hasn't really moved on much in the last 18 months is be a big concern for me. The reason that I and others get so down on Bell is that he never delivers consistently. Never has done for the Test side.

Let's look at his recent record:

vs SA: 199, 31, 4, 50, 20, 24 and 4

The 199 came in a match where 6 other players scored hundreds, and the game was a dead duck draw on a superb batting track.

When he got out for 50, he was the last full batsman there and his dismissal condemned us to a massively sub-par score - look at what an extra 70 runs with Flintoff could have done in the context of the game. He let the pressure get to him and underperformed when we needed him most.

vs NZ (home): 16, 8, 21*, 0

Nuff said.

vs NZ (away): 25, 54*, 11, 41, 9, 110

The 54* was a pretty knock with no pressure on in a totally lost cause.

The 110 was a good knock, but as junior partner to Strauss, and half of those runs were made once NZ were effectively out of the game.

It may sound like I'm running him down a bit, but can you point me to a single knock he's played where we have won or saved a game as a result?

Like Ambrose's 102 in Wellington, the only 3-figure score that game.

Or KP's 129 in Napier, which was over half our runs that innings.

Or Vaughan's 106 at Lord's, which was the only reason we were able to post a lead after collapsing from 121-0 to 208-6.

OR KP's 115 in the deciding Test at Trent Bridge, which rescued us from 86-5 and was again the only century in the entire match?

I cannot summon to mind a single one where Bell has put his hand up in a tough spot and been the only beacon of light in the darkness.

Equally, since the Ashes, he has made only 3 centuries, and only converts 27% of fifties into 100s (KP converts 80%). If you take out WI and NZ, that figure falls to 1 with a conversion rate of just 14% (KP's is still 80%).

Now he's not the only one to have conversion problems, but we've just promoted this guy to number 3, to the place where you need big hundreds to come from.

I can't shake the impression that Bell is a fair-weather player. There ain't going to be much fair weather against India or the Aussies. So I'd rather have a gritty, mentally tough but unorthodox player like Shah there rather than someone who goes missing when the pressure's on.

I would bracket Bell with two other great batsmen, Hick and Ramprakash. I think the comparisons there are a bit too close for comfort.

Game over, then.

It was always a long shot given that we didn't take any early wickets last night, but the game looks to be well and truly over now, barring some astonishing collapse from New Zealand.

Shame in may ways, because the match is quite interestingly poised. I think a target of 250 would be defensible, and if we were at the start of day 4 rather than day 5 we'd have a tight match on our hands.

Strauss' "new" technique

For someone who has spent most of the last 18 months "working on his game" and trying to "iron out some flaws", the secrets behind Andrew Strauss' apparent return to form seem to be fairly straightforward.

They are both designed to combat his tendency to flail outside the off stump - play too far away from his body, thus losing control of his shots and resulting in the ball being airborne through gully and point far too often. Nothing revolutionary, but:

1) He has changed his guard to middle, so that his body is much closer to the ball. He is therefore much better balanced when playing the ball outside his off stump, and the bat stays much more under control.

2) More decisive footwork, particularly in coming forward - this should assist him in driving straighter and opening up more scoring areas.

3) Leaving more balls - he is picking the balls he plays outside the off stump much more judiciously, and leaving plenty which are hittable but risky.

As Alistair Cook starts to open up a bit, I think we may be seeing a return to the Andrew Strauss who first broke into the team on such a purple run of form - a calm, thinking player who never gave his wicket away.

Bucknor and his Light Meter

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday - I was actually at the cricket, so opportunities were limited. I will have to figure out this mobile blogging lark.

Very frustrating day it was, too. I can tell you as a matter of fact that the light wasn't that bad, although it fluctuated quite a bit over every five minute period because of variations in the cloud cover. Steve Bucknor in particular had his light meter out every two minutes, and was intent on offering the light at any opportunity.

All I can say is - if light like that is not good enough for play, then we shouldn't be staging Tests in May.

And if that argument needs any more back-up, today's 8.5 over washout does the job admirably. But if we didn't stage Tests in May, then were would we fit in all those fascinating one day internationals......yes, quite.

Test Match Special - Blowers and Jeremy

I'm having to listen to a lot of today's play on Test Match Special today. If you're in England and want to do the same, click here.

It's a shame to hear dear old Henry Blofeld's increasingly senile rambling. It's not as though he was firmly on the straight and narrow at the peak of his powers, but at least he was able to keep good tabs on the cricket in between rambling about buses and pigeons.

Now he struggles to make out which player is which (regularly being prompted by his co-commentator, who is silently gasping in frustration), and often loses track of the flight of the ball. Like this blog's guardian angels Athers and Russell, though, we love him regardless.

And for anyone who watched Sky's highlights programs of the NZ tour, they got that Kiwi bloke called Jeremy on, and he's rather good. He's already had an enjoyable argument with Boycott.