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Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Junaid Siddique set the platform with a well-composed fifty•Associated Press

Bangladesh held their nerve despite wobbles at significant junctures to complete a whitewash in St Kitts. Set a target of 249, they were given a fiery start by Tamim Iqbal and Junaid Siddique before Mahmudullah steered the side through nervy moments to clinch a historic victory.Things were looking a touch dicey for Bangladesh at 133 for 5 in the 28th over but they recovered through a serene partnership between Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim, the wicketkeeper. It was almost risk-free cricket as the duo picked singles quietly and stole the odd boundary here and there to get closer to the target. Importantly, they knew the batting Powerplay could be taken later when acceleration was the need of the hour; till then it was time to play safe cricket. Mushfiqur picked up a couple of boundaries in the 38th over but he was unlucky to be given out out caught behind in the 40 th over, when replays showed he did not get bat on a flick down the pads.Bangladesh opted for the batting Powerplay in the 44th over and immediately Naeem Islam smoked three boundaries off Gavin Donge. Two shuffled flicks followed a biff down the ground and the required rate dipped. Mahmudullah picked a six over long-off against Nikita Miller and Naeem hit another six, off Kemar Roach, before falling to the same bowler but by then the pair had ensured that they made full use of the Powerplay to clinch the win. West Indies were left to rue the first-ball reprieve that they offered to Mahmudullah when Darren Sammy spilled a catch at first slip.Just as they finished strongly, Bangladesh had started their chase brightly. Tamim, in particular, was in some hurry, rattling three fours in the first over before repeating the dose in the third. The kind of shots also pointed to the poor bowling. Three were flicked fours and the other three were carved over point as Roach sprayed it around. Tamim later swung Sammy over long-off before smashing one straight to mid-on.His opening partner, Siddique, kept the momentum going with a measured innings. He started with a series of on-side boundaries against Tonge before he settled down to drop anchor as a couple of wickets fell. Mohammad Ashraful edged one behind, Raqibul Hasan was caught brilliantly by a diving Floyd Reifer in the covers and Shakib Al Hasan, who started with a flurry of shots, edged an attempted pull but Siddique batted on serenely. Though he got out after reaching fifty, Bangladesh had enough firepower to get past the line.West Indies lacked similar firepower in the middle as they wasted a good start provided by Andre Fletcher. As they have done in the Tests and the ODIs, West Indies continued to struggle against the spinners. They lost two quick wickets, proceeded to recover smartly through a breezy fifty from Fletcher, only to lose their way against spin and be bowled out for 248 inside 50 overs.A poor finish was in contrast to the great start provided by Fletcher. What stood out in Fletcher’s innings was a delightful tendency to drive straight. Mahbubul Alam was getting some outswing and was looking pretty good but Fletcher countered him with his drives in the v. He started off with an off drive in the third over and upped the tempo in the fifth with two sixes: the first one was dispatched over long-off before he swung the other some 20 rows over the long-on boundary. Neither shot had any touch of violence as he covered for the outswing and drove cleanly and fluently through the line. Mahbubul lost his composure and in the seventh over, he pushed three deliveries on the legs of Fletcher, who put them away for boundaries.With the seamers bleeding runs, the action swung to Fletcher versus the spinners. Again, Fletcher won the first round, reeling off several meaty blows. There was a back-foot punch through the covers, a customary swing over long-on and a heave to the midwicket boundary, which brought up his fifty, against Abdur Razzak but he fell soon, launching one straight to long-on. Almost immediately, the run-rate dropped as Bangladesh applied the squeeze. More agony lay in store for the hosts as Travis Dowlin, who gave admirable support to Fletcher, was run out on the last ball of the 25th over.It didn’t help West Indies’ cause that their captain Reifer’s travails against spin continued. He couldn’t rotate the strike and it perhaps, led to Dowlin’s dismissal. He was allowed some breathing space by Sammy, who oozed intent from the start and kept unfurling the big hits. He swung Mahmudullah for two consecutive sixes and belted Naeem for a couple of fours but he fell rather tamely, scooping a caught-and-bowled chance to Razzak. That was the final nail on the coffin as West Indies fell short of achieving a defendable target. .

Dave Richardson, the ICC’s general manager for cricket, has suggested a two-tier structure for Test cricket, based on teams’ strength, to make the format more competitive. Such a move, Richardson said, would create a context for Test cricket, one of the challenges for the ICC going forward.”It’s an important point that Test cricket should be played against teams that are at least competitive with each other,” Richardson told Cricinfo. “Ideally, you want to have the top teams playing against each other, and then teams of lesser standing playing against each other, maybe in a second division or a lesser competition such as the Intercontinental Cup. I think that’s the challenge for the ICC, that it can create some sort of context for Test cricket both at the higher level and at levels below that.”Richardson was reacting to a suggestion by Adam Gilchrist, the former Australia vice-captain, who suggested while delivering the annual Colin Cowdrey lecture at Lord’s less Tests of better quality could be the way forward for the longer version.The ICC has been working over the last year towards lending context and meaning to Test cricket to make it more competitive and attractive for spectators. Last year, officials had discussed the possibility of holding a Test championship where the TV revenue flows into a common pool. But the idea was shot down primarily by India and England, who would end up contributing as bulk of that money. The other significant idea to be discussed is for countries to designate Tests between top cricketing nations as full-fledged five-Test “icon series”. India and England have already signed one such agreement.Any move towards a tier structure would, however, cause concern among the weaker nations, whose revenues stand to be affected most by it.On Wednesday, the ICC board agreed to a series of measures suggested by its cricket committee to boost Test cricket, including rolling out the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) from October and actively exploring the possibility of holding day/night matches from next year.

England’s Test captain, Andrew Strauss, will play no part in Middlesex’s Twenty20 Cup campaign, after it was decided by the England management that he should concentrate solely on first-class cricket ahead of the Ashes, which begins in Cardiff on July 8.Despite his current fine form in both Tests and 50-over internationals, Strauss opted to stand down from England’s World Twenty20 squad because the format didn’t suit his accumulative style. Now, despite Middlesex being the reigning Twenty20 Cup champions, he will remain on the sidelines until the resumption of the County Championship on June 6.”Andrew Strauss will not take part in Middlesex’s Twenty20 Cup campaign in order to focus on the longer form of the game ahead of the Ashes,” the England team director, Andy Flower, said in a press release.Strauss is one of four players currently involved in the ODI series against West Indies who will be unavailable to their counties ahead of the forthcoming World Twenty20. The England new-ball pairing of James Anderson and Stuart Broad have also been told to rest, along with Matt Prior, who is not in the Twenty20 squad, but who damaged his right ring finger during the closing stages of the second Test in Chester-le-Street.”Anderson and Broad will be rested from this week’s Twenty20 Cup fixtures due to their recent heavy workloads … against West Indies,” Flower said. “We believe they will benefit from a brief rest ahead of the ICC World Twenty20. Prior will be rested from the Twenty20 Cup as he needs to allow time for his injured finger to recover properly.”Prior and Strauss will be available to Sussex and Middlesex respectively for their County Championship fixtures against Yorkshire and Essex, starting on June 6. For the remaining 13 players involved in England’s Twenty20 campaign, they will be permitted to turn out for their counties from Wednesday through till Friday, before joining up with the national squad on Saturday.England’s ICC World Twenty20 squadPaul Collingwood (capt, Durham), James Anderson (Lancashire), Ravi Bopara (Essex), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire), James Foster (Essex), Robert Key (Kent), Dimitri Mascarenhas (Hampshire), Eoin Morgan (Middlesex), Graham Napier (Essex), Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire), Owais Shah (Middlesex), Ryan Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire), Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire), Luke Wright (Sussex).

Shane Watson, Nathan Bracken and James Hopes will not contest Cricket Australia’s move to stand them down from the IPL, despite being left disappointed and out of pocket by the decision. The trio had hoped to join Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab respectively from this weekend, only to be ruled out after undergoing medical examinations by Australian team doctor, Trefor James.Bracken and Hopes were in line to earn in excess of $100,000 in pro-rata payments for a fortnight’s work, having signed deals worth $325,000 and $300,000 with their IPL franchises. Both were hopeful of receiving medical clearance to join their teams in South Africa, but were informed prior to Australia’s Twenty20 match against Pakistan – a game in which they both batted and bowled – that minor knee injuries would rule them out.”He was keen as mustard to play with Bangalore,” Rob Horton, Bracken’s agent, said. “He was prepared to go and get the release from Cricket Australia, but he was not granted medical clearance so couldn’t go. He’s disappointed, but he can also see the bigger picture here. While he did have a knee injury last year, and it has since come good and not given him much trouble, there is also a heavy schedule coming up. He understands their reasoning. Apart from the dollars at stake, he had signed an IPL contract and wanted to fulfil it.”There is no point trying to appeal the decision. Cricket Australia has the final say. I was talking to [Bracken] last night, and he knows there is a busy schedule coming up, which also includes the Twenty20 Champions League, because NSW qualified. He understands the reasoning behind it. Moves like this can help provide longevity for his career. He’s not a young chicken anymore. At the top level of the game, he probably has another four good years and he wants to get the maximum out of it.”Hopes, a regular in Australia’s limited-overs squads in recent seasons, was similarly resigned to forgoing IPL earnings to ensure his fitness for the World Twenty 20. “He’s certainly disappointed, because he was looking forward to playing in the IPL,” Peter Rogers, Hopes’ agent, said. “He’s disappointed in terms of not being able to play, but he is comfortable with [Cricket Australia’s] decision. He has tendonitis in his right knee and he’s been playing a fair bit recently, so he knows the rest will do him good. There comes a time when the body says it needs a break.”Watson had expressed his desire to join Rajasthan, with whom he has a $125,000 contract, after Australia’s limited-overs series against Pakistan, and apparently passed an initial fitness assessment. But the allrounder injured his groin while compiling 33 from 14 balls in the series finale in Dubai, and was subsequently stood down from the final stages of the IPL; a tournament he dominated in 2008.Watson’s injury is not expected to restrict his involvement in the World Twenty20, but is nonetheless unwelcome in a year that has already seen him miss successive series against South Africa on account of stress fractures of the back. He has yet to return to competitive bowling – the IPL, he felt, would have been the ideal platform – and could now head to the Centre of Excellence to continue his rehabilitation.”I spoke to him briefly before he got on the plane from Dubai, and he was pretty philosophical about it,” Dave Flaskas, Watson’s agent, said. “His view was that that he would have liked to play, but now a decision has been made and he wants to make the best of it. Obviously there is a commercial downside to it. But he is running into some pretty good form now, and there are obviously some big series coming up, so he pretty pragmatic about it all. He wants to start bowling and make sure he’s 100 percent fit and healthy with the Ashes coming up. There is obviously a downside in terms of the cash, but I think he realises there is more at stake here.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Bangalore Royal Challengers never recovered from Matthew Hayden’s initial blitz•AFP

Chennai Super Kings’ big-name foreign players stepped up to get the campaign back on track after the opening-day reverse against Mumbai Indians. Matthew Hayden rolled back the years to crack a quick half-century, Muttiah Muralitharan put another nail in the coffin of the spinners-have-no-place-in-Twenty20 theory, and Andrew Flintoff sparkled with bat and ball to sink Bangalore Royal Challengers.Bangalore may have revamped their side this year, but turned in a performance reminiscent of their dire showings last season. The batting has yet to fire in two games, and the bowling was clueless against the initial onslaught from Chennai’s openers.After a weekend when the bowlers mostly held sway, the Chennai openers staged a display of vintage Twenty20 batting to provide just the start MS Dhoni would have wanted after winning the toss. Hayden was at his bullying best, and the hallmarks of his batting were on view: the walk-down-the-track to club the quicks, the muscular sweeps against the spinners. There was plenty of finesse among the fireworks as well, gentle glides to third man, and some caressed drives through cover.Jacques Kallis, surprisingly picked ahead of Jesse Ryder, bore the brunt of Hayden’s hitting. His first three deliveries disappeared for boundaries, and Hayden rounded off the over with a blast over long-off for six, 20 runs in that fifth over had Chennai flying at 56 for 0.Pietersen rang in the changes but they were to no avail. Vinay Kumar was taken for two fours in the next over, and part-timer Virat Kohli gifted a couple of fours in the seventh which had Hayden racing to his half-century.Parthiv was not quite as fluent, always keen to throw his bat and loft towards midwicket. There were plenty of mishits while he attempted that stroke, but there was one glorious pull off Dale Steyn which sailed over the square-leg boundary. By the time the tactical time-out came around, Chennai had sprinted to 106 for 0.Kevin Pietersen may have been paid the big bucks for his flamboyant batting and captaincy, but it was with his amiable offspinners that he made an impact. His first ball bowled Parthiv, who made a meal of a slog-sweep, and Hayden was run out by a direct hit from Rahul Dravid at point off the next delivery. Only eight runs came off the next three overs.Suresh Raina and Dhoni played some sumptuous strokes, but there too many singles and dot balls to keep the run-rate at the stratospheric levels the openers had maintained. It was left to Flintoff to make a 13-ball 22, including a flat six over square-leg off Steyn, to push Chennai along.The boundaries may have been brought in at St George’s Park, but 180 was always going to be a tall order for Bangalore. Their experiment to open with Praveen Kumar failed when he was bowled in the first over.Kallis started to make amends for his lacklustre bowling with some eye-catching strokes steering Bangalore to 40 for 1 after five overs. However, he perished when, after a Pietersen-esque jumps across the stumps, he missed a full ball from Morkel to be trapped lbw.The miserly Flintoff then struck, getting Ross Taylor when a wild swipe only went as far as the bowler.Worse was to follow. Murali, bowling from round the wicket, trapped Pietersen for a duck with a straighter one, and the unconvincing Robin Uthappa was stumped after being drawn forward by a flighted delivery which dipped and turned. Bangalore had slid to 51 for 5, and the chase was shipwrecked.With the asking-rate spiralling upwards, Bangalore set about throwing the bat around, and the inevitable indiscreet strokes had them bowled out for 87.

The 146th edition of the , launched today, reflects on 12 months in which Twenty20 has continued to reshape the game and cricket, in general, has been forced to confront a range of major challenges.Scyld Berry, the cricket correspondent who is editing Wisden for the second time, opined that due to the brevity of the matches, 20-over cricket lacked the “drama that a full day of intense cricket provides.”But perhaps more concerning, Berry writes, is the shift in players’ priorities caused by the IPL, highlighted by Sri Lanka’s withdrawal from its tour of England after 13 players demanded they be allowed to play in the lucrative Twenty20 tournament. And the problems are not confined to Asian nations. Berry also notes that England’s IPL players are due back less than a week before the first Test against West Indies at Lord’s.As with last year’s Almanack, Berry has commissioned players – both former and current – to be a key part of the editorial. Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, reveals an apocalyptic vision of cricket’s future, with players serving as mercenaries and flying from one 20-over tournament to another without playing Test matches. Vaughan also discusses the pressures of captaining England and how he had to often hide his emotions.Berry again voices concern about the lack of free-to-air TV coverage in the UK. While he acknowledges that the ECB attracted top dollar for the sale of international TV rights to BSkyB, he draws attention to chilling research carried out among more than 26,000 schoolchildren in South London.The Pro-Active survey asked secondary school students which three sports they would like more access to. Cricket was ranked 21st on the list, behind archery and rounders. Berry concludes that much of the impetus gained from winning the Ashes in 2005 has been lost – and also draws attention to the near total disappearance of British-raised Afro-Caribbean cricketers.Another blight on the game, Berry notes, is the failure of Test captains to adhere to over-rate guidelines, reducing games to a glacial pace and cheating fans out of action. Berry proposes two potential solutions to the problem: not allowing anyone onto the field except at the official intervals (other than in extreme circumstances), and insisting that lunch and tea only be taken after 30 overs have been bowled in each session.As usual, Wisden is not afraid to break new ground and Claire Taylor’s inclusion as one of the five Cricketers of the Year marks the first time a women has been included in the list. The other four honoured are James Anderson, Dale Benkenstein, Mark Boucher and Neil McKenzie. Virender Sehwag narrowly eclipsed Graeme Smth for the Leading Cricketer award after both openers enjoyed epic years.In a new section, Wisden selects a Test XI of the year. Berry writes: “Almost every international cricketer, when questioned, says the ultimate form of the game is Test cricket…the highest, most skilled, form of the game, and the least subject to the intrusion of time.”The 2008 Wisden Test XI Virender Sehwag, Graeme Smith, Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Kevin Pietersen, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Harbhajan Singh, Mitchell Johnson, Dale Steyn, Zaheer Khan.The Young Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year went to James Taylor, from Shrewsbury School, following a phenomenal summer, scoring 898 runs in schools cricket at an astounding average of 179.60.Sweet Summers, a selection of the classic cricket writing of JM Kilburn, is the winner of the Wisden Book of the Year award. Kilburn, cricket correspondent of the Yorkshire Post for more than 40 years from before the Second World War until 1976, “possessed the eye of a reporter and the soul of a poet” according to Wisden’s reviewer, Patrick Collins.Buy the 2009 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack

Brett Lee expects to be immediately reinstated to the role of Australian pace spearhead, and believes his new-ball combination with the vastly improved Mitchell Johnson will cause “carnage” among opposition batsmen throughout the Ashes and beyond. Fitter and stronger after his recovery from foot stress fractures, Lee was in a bullish mood when assessing his chances of returning to an attack that has won three consecutive Tests against South Africa since he limped from the scene during the Boxing Day Test.Australia’s selectors face a difficult decision ahead of this year’s Ashes campaign. Lee, the 2008 Allan Border medallist, and Stuart Clark are nearing the end of their recoveries from foot and elbow surgery respectively, and will attempt to force their way back into a young and in-form attack. Johnson and Peter Siddle lead all-comers on the current tour of South Africa with a combined 23 wickets at 19.78, but Lee hopes his imposing record of 310 dismissals from 76 Tests will convince selectors to restore him to new ball duties for the Ashes.”I’m not embarrassed to say that I expect to lead the pace attack and take that brand new ball again for Australia,” Lee told Cricinfo. “I think it will add another dimension to our attack to have a right- and a left-hander out there capable of bowling over 150kph and swinging the ball in and out to the batsmen. Australian cricket is obviously in a very healthy state at the moment with the way the likes of Mitch and [Siddle] have been bowling, and I can’t wait to be involved again. I hope that my record speaks for itself – I’ve worked hard to achieve ten years at the top of the game – and I can be out there creating a bit of carnage again alongside Mitch.”Lee, 32, revealed for the first time he was carrying two separate foot stress fractures towards the latter stages of the Australian summer. He required as many as eight painkilling injections to complete 10 second-innings overs at the MCG, with surgery later revealing he had not only broken the fourth metatarsal in his left foot, as suspected, but also a bone in the back of his foot as well.Lee has employed the services of a six-day-a-week personal trainer since the operation, and has added 10kg of lean muscle mass to a frame that had suffered from the effects of the giardia bug. The illness hampered him throughout Australia’s unsuccessful Test tour of India and subsequent home series against New Zealand and South Africa, and resulted in his weight falling to 82kg during the domestic summer.”The hardest thing was that I had no momentum behind the ball,” he said. “I had nothing to drive myself through the crease with and I just wasn’t able to consistently bowl fast, no matter how much I wanted to. It wasn’t a great feeling.”I am back up around 92-93kg now, and I’m feeling much stronger and energetic. My strength is up, my skin folds are down and I’m feeling much better for it. I am viewing the time off as a positive, as much as I can. It has helped me get my foot, ankle and general health back, and when you’ve built a great base like this, it can only create longevity.”Despite security issues stemming from the recent terror attacks on Lahore and Mumbai, Lee expects to make his competitive comeback for the Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League in April. When asked whether the IPL governing body’s move to block FICA from the security process would sway his decision in any way, Lee was coy.”The best way to answer that is to say that we do get guidance every single day as to what is recommended from a safety point of view,” he said. “There are several places where that information comes from, and it gives you the basis to make an informed decision about certain places. But I am looking forward to going to India. I have been going there since 1994, and I can’t wait to unleash a couple of thunderbolts at the IPL ahead of the Ashes series.”

Sri Lankan fast bowler Chaminda Vaas is keen to get back into the one-day fold and hopes the 2011 World Cup will provide the stage for his final bow. “For a cricketer it is a challenge, and you’ve got to have those challenges,” he said. “But I am confident that I will get back. The 2011 World Cup will be my last World Cup and I am going to finish my cricket then.”Vaas, who is still going strong in Tests, has picked up 354 wickets in the 109 matches he has played, but has not featured in a one-dayer since the 2-3 home series loss against India in August last year. He has reason to be hopeful, though, after grabbing 400 wickets in 322 ODIs – only the fourth bowler after Muttiah Muralitharan (505), Wasim Akram (502), Waqar Younis (416) to have reached the 400-milestone in ODIs.”I have been playing domestic cricket back home, both three-dayers and one-dayers and am looking forward to the Tests. I still want to come back in the ODIs.”He was also enthusiastic about the next generation of fast bowlers from Sri Lanka. “I think we have good fast bowlers coming up, we have a good academy under [Champaka] Ramanayake which has produced some good bowlers,” he said. “It is a challenge to keep up with that, but it is good that we have so many coming up.”Vaas, who picked up 1 for 30 in the 10 overs he bowled during the tour game against the Pakistan Cricket Board Patron’s XI in Karachi today, expected a tough challenge from Pakistan in the two-Test series, the first of which gets under way in Karachi on Saturday.”Well the wicket was flat, there was nothing for the fast bowlers but we had good practice. Pakistan is a tough side so I am looking forward to the encounter.”

Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain and politician, has said that the chief of the Pakistan board should be elected rather than be appointed by the country’s president. Imran felt that cricket “is in as much of a mess as the country” and said, if the president wanted the game to prosper, he had to allow it to be an institution, with a constitution and elected representatives.”No way should the president of the country appoint the cricket chief,” Imran was quoted as saying in the . “The president of Pakistan is patron of the cricket board and appoints its chairman, unlike in most countries where the chairman is elected.”The latest mess in Pakistan cricket includes Shoaib Malik being replaced by Younis Khan as captain, and Javed Miandad resigning as the board’s director of cricket. After Zardari came to power, many key posts in the administration were given to former players, and Miandad was the first one to quit.Pakistan’s current president Asif Ali Zardari had suggested holding a round-table conference with former captains and other stakeholders of the game to discuss problems plaguing it. Imran, however, rejected the proposal, saying the previous PCB regime under Nasim Ashraf had “wasted millions on such conferences to no avail”.”Why can’t Pakistan cricket be based on successful models like [those of] Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, where the talent is concentrated in six regional teams set up by nurseries below?”Our domestic cricket is incapable of polishing a talented youngster, so it needs an overhaul. We should do it quickly otherwise time will run out.”

The early days of this tour have provided enough material for a psychologist to write a thesis. Who has been having dinner with whom? Is Kevin Pietersen talking to Andrew Flintoff? Is the IPL providing a distraction? The second day at Sabina Park allowed the first proper look at how Andrew Strauss would manage his team in the field and, on that score, there are still more questions than answers.Although this isn’t the first time Strauss has led England in the field, he is at last doing so without another captain lurking in the background. It’s always been suggested that the full-time leadership would enable him to imprint his own ideas more strongly, but there is the other side of the argument too. When he was merely a stand-in captain, Strauss pulled the strings but had none of the stress. This time, he’s been landed with the fullest package imaginable, and after a nervy first innings and a flat day in the field, he wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t feeling the pressure.As a captain it is important to have a clear mind, but aside from the usual dilemmas of bowling changes and fielding positions, Strauss has also had to contend with the intricacies of the referral system. His first call was easy enough, when Devon Smith lost sight of Andrew Flintoff’s yorker with Tony Hill initially saying not out. England’s second referral, however, was more problematic, and opened the debate about how best to use them.Sarwan, who was on 2 at the time, was caught on the pad by a full inswinger, and again Hill said not out. Even to the naked eye it was clear the ball was snaking down the leg side and it didn’t require the TV replays to confirm that fact. Taking issue with the decision was a grievous waste of a precious resource.In Strauss’s defence Matt Prior later revealed that it had largely been down to Flintoff to make the call. “I didn’t get a great view of that one, Fred felt pretty strongly about it so he made the call,” he said. “I wasn’t sure about it, but he felt confident and you give the guy the responsibility to make the call.”However, that raises the issue about who should make the ultimate call. If the responsibility rests with the captain, as most things do on the field, then Strauss must surely have had the final say. It was a wasted referral, but the point is that nobody quite seemed sure what to do. Could Strauss have been stronger and told Flintoff ‘no’? It would have required a brave man to do that. Would Pietersen have done it if he was still captain?Pietersen was certainly actively involved in the field, at one point running from gully to the bowler to offer some advice while Strauss pondered his options at slip. Being a close catcher means Strauss is less able to spend time next to his bowlers, whereas Pietersen had mainly fielded at mid-off during his spell as captain. Another one for the psychologists to ponder.Referrals may or may not become a permanent part of international cricket, but one thing that won’t change is the need to take wickets. England again struggled to do that and although it’s still early days in this series, the omens didn’t look good as they laboured through the best part of two sessions.

Strauss tried all his options, and backed up his own desire to bring out the strike bowler in Flintoff by using him in three short bursts after handing him the new ball alongside Ryan Sidebottom. Steve Harmison was made to wait, and how the mighty have fallen since his 7 for 12 on this ground five years ago.The desire to use Flintoff as an attacking option is similar to how Michael Vaughan utilised him on the 2003-04 visit to West Indies. That was the series in which Flintoff broke through as a Test bowler, taking his maiden five-wicket haul in Barbados, after being persuaded to crank it up a notch by the bowling coach, Troy Cooley. The difference, however, is that Vaughan had the luxury of a potent four-man pace attack. Strauss’s current foursome lacks cutting edge and confidence.Since 2005 and the break-up of the Fab Four, Flintoff has become more and more of a stock bowler, with his greatest attribute, pace, deferring to his second-greatest, accuracy. Strauss has never previously captained Flintoff in a Test (he was injured in 2006 and 2007), but it wasn’t long before he too was placed in that predicament so familiar to England’s leadership. Who does one call upon to exert control when Flintoff is resting up between bursts?Stuart Broad might have provided control, but he was the most disappointing of the pace quartet. It was surprising, however, to see Ryan Sidebottom ignored for so long after a reasonable five-over spell with the new ball. Harmison appeared in good rhythm, and he thought he had Sarwan lbw until the decision was referred, but this pitch is too slow for him.And then there was Monty Panesar. He has been talked up by his team-mates – “he is in a great place,” said Pietersen on the first evening, although that sounded like a euphemism for “the right areas” – and had spent the best part of four sessions watching Suliemen Benn find turn and bounce.Panesar has struggled with expectations in the last six months, but that comes with having played more than 30 Tests and taken over 100 wickets. Prior supported him saying “he’s getting better and better” but sooner rather than later Panesar will have to back up the talk with deeds. For Strauss’s sake now would be a good time to start, because if he had any doubts about the task ahead of him now it’s abundantly clear. He won’t need a psychologists’ thesis to tell him that.