With an ever-increasing roster of international cricket venues in England and Wales, the ECB has come under increasing pressure to grant Lord’s just one Test a year, rather than two.

People have given a number of reasons as to why this should happen. In our eyes the best reason is tradition. Tradition seems to be the best defence from Lord’s as to why it should continue to host two Tests.

Tradition isn’t a reason. Tradition’s the complete absence of a reason. Tradition’s all about blindly and unquestioningly continuing to do things long after a reason has been lost in the mists of time.

The second argument in favour of Lord’s ‘right’ to two Tests a year is that players from opposing countries wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to play at ‘the home of cricket’.

We don’t doubt that Test cricketers from around the world like and respect the hallowed ground, but this lofty reputation is largely reinforced by banal leading questions to opposing players that usually take the form: ‘You must have always dreamed about playing a Test at the home of cricket’. How do you answer that? By saying no?

It was interesting to note that Daniel Vettori wasn’t totally au fait with the script earlier this summer. When interviewed in the Independent, he admitted that a home debut had the edge for New Zealand cricketers, closely followed by matches at the MCG or the SCG and maybe then Lord’s. So while it isn’t too far from the pinnacle in the eyes of the New Zealand captain, you do wonder what he might have said if it had been the build-up to a Test at Eden Gardens.

Most importantly however, there’s a cricketing reason for reducing the number of Lord’s Tests. England aren’t hugely successful there.

The last five Lord’s Tests have all been drawn, but that might change this week. South Africa have played at Lord’s three times since readmission and have won by 356 runs, 10 wickets and by an innings and 92 runs.

In 1994 England were bowled out for 99, chasing 456 runs to win; in 1998 they were all out for 110 in their first innings, with Allan Donald taking 5-32; and in 2003 an England first innings of 173 was followed by a South African first innings of 682-6 declared, with Graeme Smith smiting 259.

A record like that begs the question, just what are the MCC members celebrating with all that champagne?

See King Cricket’s regular blog at www.kingcricket.co.uk. King Cricket is a cult figure in the world of cricket blogs and was TWC’s first Best-of-blogs winner in April 2008.

Cricket forces you to make decisions with little time for considered reflection. Such decisions are guided by instinct, history and, lest we forget, fear. When Mark Benson looked into Paul Collingwood’s eyes with New Zealand’s Grant Elliott prostrate in the middle of the pitch, England’s captain had a decision to make. Should England’s appeal stand? Collingwood’s answer was affirmative.

Perhaps if Collingwood had heard an 1980s interview with snooker player, Jimmy White, he may have come to another decision. After calling a foul on himself and losing the frame, White was commended for his sportsmanship. In reply, Jimmy was having none of it. His inarticulate, unschooled South London drawl revealed a deep appreciation of the psychology of sporting conflict. He told us that the foul would have affected his later play, clouding his mind, blurring his focus – calling the foul had lost him the battle, but won him the war.

In those closing overs, the scoreboard looked healthier for England, but the team’s faces revealed a different story. Sidebottom was ill at ease and distracted by the crowd; other players looked at little shocked as boos rang around the ground; and Colly himself looked five years older in the final five overs. England collectively played poor cricket, culminating in comedy overthrows to lose the match.

Collingwood has apologised to New Zealand for his weak and tactically unwise decision, but he should apologise to his team and his supporters too.

By Gary Naylor

In recent times, centuries of established batting norms and mores have been smacked out of the park - not least the once fundamental one, that you block the good balls and hit the bad ones – and yet one minor custom is still slavishly adhered to: that your best player bats at No3.

England, you suspect, have been looking to get Kevin Pietersen up the order since they first set eyes on him, in the one-day team at least. At first a perceived fragility against the moving ball precluded promotion, but after riotous early success he was promoted to No4 halfway through the one-day leg of the 2005 Ashes.

At that point Pietersen was averaging 115.16 from his first 17 ODIs (with a strike-rate of 102.67); since then he averages 40.61 from 57 ODIs (strike-rate: 82.77). While the first statistic has an element of freakishness (the sample is much smaller, and Pietersen was riding such a wave that would probably have racked up runs batting at No11) but it nonetheless reinforces the perception that, as a one-day player certainly, and arguably as a Test player, Pietersen is more effective when he has freedom. That he needs less responsibility, not more.

Yet England have just moved to Pietersen to No3, the most important position in any one-day team. It all started well enough, with an unbeaten century at Durham, but more instructive were Pietersen’s failures at Edgbaston and Bristol, when he was out in the eighth and fifth overs. England need Pietersen around in the last ten overs to wreak havoc, not out in the first ten.

As well as killing England’s most effective death hitter, pushing Pietersen to No3 exposes an a middle order that, with the exception of Paul Collingwood, is seriously green. Being two-down early on in a one-dayer is damaging enough; being two-down when one of the men gone is Pietersen applies an asphyxiating pressure, as was shown by the light-headed shots played when England lost four wickets for two runs at Bristol. As Radiohead said, down is the new up. Pietersen should have moved from No4 all right, but to No5 rather than No3.

Rob Smyth is a freelance journalist. Rob is part of a group running 10 miles (which is 9.9 than he’s ever run before) for the Laurie Engel Fund in London on August 31. To sponsor him, click here; to read why he’s doing it, click here; or to join in the run, email Rob.

Mike Brearley, the Derren Brown of the cricket field, isn’t the kind of man to miss a trick. So he must be cursing Dimitri Mascarenhas. On not one page of Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy does it suggest abandoning your team for lots of money after leading them to a draw and two heavy defeats. How could he have ignored this blatant winning tactic? Luckily, Mascarenhas, Hampshire captain (and now the David Blaine of cricket), has shown where Brearley went wrong. As soon as his old mate Shane Warne got on the phone, he left Hampshire winless to join him as a Rajasthan Royals player in the Indian Premier League.

Now Mascarenhas, $100,000 richer for playing just one match, can’t understand why young England hopefuls Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright turned down approaches from the IPL.

“I read with interest that Luke Wright and Ravi Bopara turned down the IPL this week but, to be honest, it might not be that straightforward,” wrote Mascarenhas in his Daily Mail column. “I’m speculating here, but I reckon it’s more the fact that, at this late stage, their counties have refused them permission to go. I doubt very much whether the players themselves would turn it down.”

Bopara and Wright both seem pretty down to earth - Warney would probably like them - but I’m not sure they’ll be too happy that Mascarenhas chose to air his views in a national newspaper. While both players may well have held talks with the England management and their counties about the offers, you don’t have to spend long in the company of either of them to know their desire to play for England is enormous. There is no way either of them would jeapordise that opportunity in order to play in the IPL; the best way to break into the England team is to perform under the noses of the England selectors – and not be on a different continent as the international summer begins. That Mascarenhas doesn’t appear to comprehend this is staggering. Any young England hopefuls at Hampshire may well think twice before approaching their captain for career advice.

The lure of the IPL is huge – and rightly so. It is unfair to say that the majority of international players have signed up purely because of the Bollywood billions – it’s an exciting, groundbreaking and, most importantly, competitive tournament involving many of the world’s best players. What professional sportsman wouldn’t be enticed by that?

Yet Mascarenhas’s comments suggest that his motives aren’t so pure – or well thought-out. Either that or he can’t bear to be apart from Warney.

Daniel Brigham is assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer