Recently I invented a time machine. I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details, but it involves wormholes and gaffer tape. While I was in the future I had a look at how cricket had changed.

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To: SA coach Mickey Arthur

From: Fletcher, Duncan

RE: England tactics

Mickey – Some thoughts on England as requested.

I should accidentally leak this under the opponent’s dressing room door, ideally with HOPELESS ENGLAND written on it. I’ll get young Geraint Jones to run off a few copies and scatter them around the place.

Fortunately, they’ve done you a massive favour by leaving out their most destructive bowler. Why Ashley Giles is at home in Edgbaston designing his range of signature spice racks, repotting his marrows and getting involved with the local historical battle re-enactment society when he could be out there ripping through a Test line-up with 1-35, chipping in with a tidy 20 down the order and being the first name on the teamsheet in the 19th hole, I simply do not understand.

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November 1993: Nelson Mandela ratified South Africa’s first democratic constitution, John Major and John Smith were arguing across the Commons floor and Norwich City gloriously dumped Bayern Munich out of the UEFA Cup. It was also the last time Australia had to bounce back from a home Test-series defeat. Now, 16 years later, Australia will be attempting to do so again. It’s been a long time.

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Daniel Vettori’s batting heroics – the poor bloke has just made 99 against Pakistan in Dunedin – are a sign of the times. It’s true that Vettori is exceptional even by the standards of the 21st-century lower-order batsman: that innings made him the highest-grossing No.8 in Test history, with 2,018 runs, including three hundreds, at the luxuriant average of almost 44. But the very fact that we are no longer able to refer to these one-time whipping-boys as the “tail” without being ticked off by an indignant coach tells its own story.

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Over the weekend, TWC received the following email from Hugh Gimber, vice-captain of Cockermouth Cricket Club, whose ground has been badly damaged by the floods that have attacked the north of England over the last week.

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What better remedy to transport rage this morning than walking into the office and finding India v Sri Lanka on TV. Armpits, mind the gaps and loud Americans melted away into the prospect of watching a high-quality, absorbing Test match. Then I saw the score. 320 for 1. Bugger. That’ll be a draw then. Transport rage, make way for pitch rage.

The Romanising of pitches is the biggest threat to Test cricket’s appeal and, while it’s a pretty universal thing, nowhere is this more dangerous than in India. Like Bob Dylan discovering electric guitars, India’s kinetic relationship with Twenty20 has transformed that country’s public’s taste and preferences for cricket.

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Stuart Clark’s test bowling average is 23. TWENTY THREE. In the modern era that is about as good as it gets.

But how many Test matches can you remember him winning?

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• Firstly, obviously we will definitely NOT be renaming the ground, or removing the names of legendary players from the stands. We have made this perfectly clear to our corporate partners, and all the chaps in the GetViagraOnline Denis Compton Upper, the www.pokerparty.com Free 25 Pound Bonus With Every New Credit Card Sign Up Edritch Lower and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Warner Stand have been most understanding.
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A bit of winter cheer for you on a cold afternoon – read the text and watch the great video below which tell the story of Kinross Cricket Club – The Wisden Cricketer’s club of the year for 2009.

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Memo to Mickey Arthur and Graeme Smith: save your breath. If England were being captained on their tour of South Africa by, I dunno, Graeme Hick in one of his less assertive moods, the constant mind games – and I only narrowly avoided inverted commas – might be worth it. But Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower have come through a lot together in a short space of time. As Michael Vaughan once said, it’s all duck off a water’s back.

Journalists are sometimes accused of spinning a story: emphasising those aspects which present it in, well, the most presentable light. The players and coaches usually roll their eyes; sometimes they object; but very occasionally, when it suits them, they join in. And that is precisely what Arthur and Smith have been doing ever since England landed in South Africa – and even before they got there.

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