Cricket Web Staff Member Corey Taylor has reviewed Cricket Coach 2009 detailing the highs and lows of the latest release in the continued series of cricket management games.

With the Tests now taking a ten-day break, it’s a good opportunity to assess how the players on both sides have performed so far. So here are the teacher’s reports on England after two days. We’ll look at Australia tomorrow.

Andrew Strauss
B+
Has received a lot of flak for his captaincy, particularly at Cardiff where he was a little too proactive with his bowling changes. He came under close examination in the fourth innings in Cardiff, but used Flintoff and Anderson when necessary, gave Swann the ball at the right time and led England to what was a comfortable victory. With the bat, he has played the most important innings of the series so far (not the best, but the most important) and one which ultimately led to England’s first victory over Australia at Lord’s in an age. He had a bit of luck on the way, but he took advantage of it.

Alastair Cook
C
Cook is blighted by the same problems as he has been for quite some time now; technical difficulties, planting his foot and missing the straight ball. He has made nice starts and not gone on with them, a problem he has had for a long time now. His place in the side was being whispered about before the series, he’ll hope for a hundred at Edgbaston.

Ravi Bopara
D
Bopara has struggled so far. He was unlucky in the second innings at Cardiff where he got a poor decision, but the rest of the time hasn’t looked all that convincing. Did well to get to 35 in the first innings of the series where he was all at sea, but played an innings in the second innings at Lord’s that was practically a polar opposite, scoring at a run approximately every five balls. He deserves one more shot, and with Pietersen looking likely to miss a game somewhere down the line he may get a reprieve anyway, but he’ll need to do better and prove that he can score against quality teams.

Kevin Pietersen
C-
Pietersen would get a higher grade if he was somebody else, but by his own standards he has been disappointing so far. Looked like he was in for a great summer on day one of the series then played one of the most bizarre shots of all-time, and hasn’t looked in good shape since. Pietersen is clearly struggling with injury and may have to miss a Test for the same time since his debut.

Paul Collingwood
B+
Three fifties in four innings in the series so far tell you that Collingwood is a batsman in consistent form. He played an absolute blinder in the second innings at Cardiff, and anchored the declaration chase at Lord’s well, allowing Prior and then Flintoff to tee off at the other end. He’ll need to convert these fifties into hundreds somewhere down the line though.

Matt Prior
B
Two fifties and two failures for Prior with the bat so far. His quikcfire fifty at Lord’s was just what England needed and his partnership with Flintoff on the first day of the series was crucial in England posting a decent first-innings total. He has kept above expectations so far, with no real clangers of note. Recent history suggests his keeping tails off as a series goes on, but he’ll be hoping that won’t be the case here.

Andrew Flintoff
B+
With the bat, Flintoff has looked better than in recent times, but has not threatened to return to his glorious performance levels of four years ago. With the ball, he had an indifferent start at Cardiff and then played a blinder at Lord’s. He was nigh on impossible to get away in the first innings, playing a huge role in allowing James Anderson to take four wickets. Then, in the second innings he bowled two amazing spells of fast-bowling, taking five wickets and securing a marvellous victory for England. This is Flintoff’s last Test series and he’s promised us the best is yet to come, Australia will be hoping not.

Stuart Broad
D+
Broad had a shocker at Cardiff and had plenty of people calling for his head. He bounced back at Lord’s with an improved performance but there is still a lot of work to do. His spell after lunch on day four at Lord’s has been forgotten, but he removed Ponting with some lovely bowling and if he hadn’t, anything could have happened. He also took a couple of wickets late in the day in Australia’s first innings; had those batsmen stayed in overnight we would have been looking at a very different game.

Graeme Swann
B-
Swann also had a very poor game at Cardiff, but then turned in a matchwinning performance at Lord’s. His contribution has been understandably understated in the wake of Flintoff’s glory, but Swann took four Australian wickets, including the key man and their best player of spin, Michael Clarke. He had a bit of luck with Clarke missing the straight ball, but he won’t mind that at all. He has chipped in with some useful runs as well.

James Anderson
B+
Nasser Hussain referred to Anderson as a fantastic cricketer yesterday after a fine piece of fielding, and he wasn’t wrong. Anderson is growing in stature with every game. His bowling never really fired in Cardiff but he was a hero with the bat in both innings but most importantly in the second innings where he amazingly hung in there at the death. He took four top-order wickets in the first innings at Cardiff, a feat not to be underestimated. The ball which got Hughes wasn’t a beauty but how many times have we seen Anderson bowl much better than his figures have suggested? He’ll have been disappointed to go wicketless in the second innings though, and will want to get himself on an honours bad in the series soon.

Graham Onions
C
Onions will have enjoyed his first big Test match, but ultimately he had a quiet one. The only top order wicket he took was that of Simon Katich in the first innings where in all honesty he had Stuart Broad to thank for one of the catches of the series so far, and he then added a couple of tailend wickets on Saturday morning, but they came at a time when England were struggling to dismiss the tail. He only bowled nine overs in the second innings and got hit around a bit, but seemed to be suffering from a niggle of sorts. His first-innings partnership with James Anderson with the bat is well worth a mention, mind you. He’ll hope to keep his place for the next game but it wouldn’t be a shock to see Harmison take his place.

Monty Panesar
C+
Panesar may well not play again in this series, but he returned himself to the hearts of English cricket fans with a legendary rearguard in Cardiff. Even though he always looks like he has carrying a bat that weighs more than he does, he never really looked like getting out and helped to save the game. He never impressed with the ball though, and although Swann was out of sorts in Cardiff there is absolutely no doubt who England’s number one spinner is. If England win the Ashes though, Monty should take heart in knowing that his batting in Cardiff will have played a massive part.

That’s all for now folks. Check back tomorrow for CW’s thoughts on the Australian performances.

This week we take a look at all-time First-Class records.

In the hours following yesterday`s play, all of the focus has been on the Australian bowlers and the ease with which England were allowed to play them, particularly in the last session which yielded around 180 runs. There`s little doubt that the Australian bowling attack let England get away but there is some context missing which would not totally excuse the quality of bowling on offer but, at least, provide a riposte to those who insist the largest problems for Australia lie in their bowling attack.

The Australian bowlers were subjected to a hefty workload in the first innings against a quick-scoring batting line-up on a very true pitch. All of the pace attack bowled 20 or more overs, Hilfenhous with 31. This was without Nathan Hauritz`s bowling due to a dislocated middle finger on his bowling hand courtesy of Andrew Strauss. That England `only` got to 450 is a testament to how well the bowling unit covered for the actually missing Hauritz and the virtually missing Johnson. Had England been allowed to escape to 600, which they were threatening to, Australia would simply have been out of the match from that point onwards. 450 meant they had a chance of staying in it.

Imagine the dismay of the bowlers who, on said flat pitch, watched as the batsmen threw away their innings` one after the other. The number of mis-timed pulls would have made even Andrew Hilditch question where their heads were at as the chaos unfolded in wicket order;

Hughes: wild swipe caught down the leg-side
Ponting: tied down by tight bowling
Katich: seemingly set to pass 50 and having just batted Australia out of early trouble, decided to hook Onions down to fine-leg only to be caught by, albeit, a great catch but somewhat an injudicious stroke
Hussey: had just passed 50 and lost Katich, average leave to a ball which ran up the slope
Clarke: charitably, a very tame chip to short mid-wicket
North: needed to knuckle down, pull wasn`t on, dragged on to the stumps
Johnson: pull to mid-wicket, again, when the side needed some more introspective batting (and he`s capable of it)
Haddin: high bouncer, pulled to short mid-wicket

After only 60-odd overs, the bowlers were out in the field again, 220 runs behind in the match and expected to take wickets a bowler short. They received some good news when Hauritz appeared at the bowling crease and took a couple of quick wickets and, certainly, in the middle session against Bopara and Pietersen, they bowled very well without luck (or support from the field) but the threads stitching together the bowling effort unraveled quickly in the final session as Siddle and Hilfenhous tired. Hauritz was taken to by Prior and others and Johnson did little to improve his day, struggling to consistently hit a line or length anywhere near being threatening.

However, all the problems with the bowling mask serious issues with the batting. Whilst the going was good in Cardiff, the Australian batting line-up smacked the living daylights out of the English bowlers but in favourable conditions here, couldn`t get anywhere near 300 after their bowlers did just enough to keep them in the match. Cardiff`s batting papered over the inexperience and lack of grit seemingly inherent in the Australian batting.

Now is the time, guys. No-one is saying the bowlers are without fault (some emnity must come their way for conceding 450 in first innings) but the larger problem lies with the mettle of the Australian batting line-up. There are two days to bat (presuming England don`t bat for a period in the morning session) and a win is off the cards. South Africa proved it could be done last year at the same ground and the pitch isn`t playing any serious tricks yet. There`s a sniff of bad weather around so if there`s anyone in the Australian team for whom a return on investment is due, it`s the batting line-up.

Black Cap Peter McGlashan discusses the New Zealand cricket contract system, and the difficulties of 6 month contracts. He touches on the effect that has on players careers and looks forward to a tour of India and NDs signing of a T20 superstar for the summer ahead.

Codemasters have released the official Trailer for Ashes Cricket 2009 with exclusive rights to viewing to The Sun newspaper in England.

They say it’s a funny old game, cricket. Oh hang on, that’s football. Well it would be more apt if spoken about cricket.

This time yesterday the general thought was that England should be able to go on to score around 450 but that that probably wouldn’t be enough and that the game would be heading for a bore-draw. Now all the talk is as to whether they should and will enforce the follow-on. How has this happened?

It is quite the cliche that you don’t know what a good first innings score is until both teams have batted, but it is so true. In both of the Tests in this series, England have batted first and put 400+ on the board. Yet England fans were probably more pleased with the batting effort in Cardiff than here. What has changed?

There was a lot of talk last week that the England batsmen needed to take note of how the Aussies batted and followed suit. I think the Aussie bats read this and thought they better set a bit of a poorer example, it is the only feasible explanation for the drastic difference in application. Michael Hussey batted well but then became the third batsman of the series to leave a straight one. Katich got in but never looked all that convincing before getting out to a blinder of a catch from Stuart Broad. The rest of the top six all failed, whereas last week you felt like they were never going to get out.

Credit where credit is due though, James Anderson and Andrew Flintoff formed a highly-effective partnership today. Flintoff’s tight-fisted bowling was a key factor in the four wickets that James Anderson took, and then the inroads that were being made seemed to spur Stuart Broad into bowling a little better than he had been doing in the series so far. He’ll be hugely relieved to have picked a couple of wickets up late in the day. Onions has been fairly expensive, it will be interesting to see if he manages to have any kind of great effect as the game goes on. He’ll probably be a little frustrated to have been denied the chance to bowl when he is at his most effective, i.e. when the ball was brand new, but you can hardly argue with having Hughes and Ponting back in the pavillion before twenty runs are on the board. Flintoff and Anderson should open for the rest of the series, with Onions at first-change and then Broad.

One man who will have had mixed feelings as England tore through the Australian bats will be Steve Harmison. As Katich and Hussey looked like they were setting up camp, Harmison was taking 6/20 for Durham. Yet if England do manage to finish this first-innings job successfully, and then follow it up with a victory (follow-on or not) then it is hard to see the bowling attack being changed.

All in all, a wonderful day from an English point of view. But I talked last week about the importance of going in for the kill. We were certainly more ruthless than we have been in the past today, but the key now is to keep it going tomorrow, and Sunday. This may not be the Australia of old, but you still can’t expect them to lie down for long.

It’s a little harsh on the four Aussie batsmen who tonned up in their only innings of the tour, but for my money, the most impressive player so far has been Ben Hilfenhaus. The last name on the teamsheet for Australia at Cardiff, and the most controversial selection to date, he’s also been the best player on either team.

Two bits of bowling stand out for me yesterday. The first was Hilfenhaus’s setting up of Ravi Bopara with five inswingers followed by a straight ball that did nothing for a straightforward lbw. To have the accuracy to do this- bearing in mind that his pace is generally around 87-92mph- is a massive achievement in itself. Of everyone who has bowled so far this series, only Hilfenhaus has been bowling well enough to execute the plan to perfection. Not only that, but having also caught out Kevin Pietersen with the non-swinger last Sunday, he’s starting to put serious doubts in the minds of players over what they have to play at. There’s no question in my mind that his setting up of Ravi Bopara contributed to the dismissal of Andrew Flintoff later that day.

The other piece of bowling that impressed me was the solitary bouncer he bowled in the entire day, to Kevin Pietersen. When Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle were being pulled off a length by Alastair Cook, Hilfenhaus continued to pitch it up and keep the batsmen under pressure. Then, when he saw Pietersen look uncomfortable, he threw in the short delivery which was top-edged inches short of keeper Haddin.

England should know plenty about the overuse of the short delivery. It scuffs up the ball early, tires the bowlers, gives away easy run-scoring opportunities if not consistently well directed and poses no threat to good batsmen. Bouncers work best as a surprise weapon, and Hilfenhaus uses his sparingly to great effect.

Unlike team-mate Peter Siddle, who excited fans and terrified onlookers by hitting Graeme Swann all over his body in a short period before tea on Sunday. For all the pain he caused Swann, he didn’t get him out, and he crucially stuck around for another hour before being dismissed, almost inevitably, by Ben Hilfenhaus.

Those two moments alone barely do credit to the consistency with which Hilfenhaus has bowled, nor do his seven wickets so far @ 28 quite do him justice. He’s been undoubtedly the best bowler on either side, in terms of both wicket-taking threat and building pressure. On very flat pitches, plenty of batsmen have stepped up, but he’s the only bowler to excel when everyone else has struggled.

So here’s to Ben Hilfenhaus, the guy least was expected of who has thus far delivered the most. Cue him bowling terribly this morning…

As English cricket prepares to say goodbye to one of its most iconic figures in a generation, we take a look at Andrew Flintoff’s Test career and what he has meant to cricket fans in England and beyond.

The thought of Australia and England as sharks and minnows may not sit easily with the average England cricket fan, but England can consider themselves somewhat fortunate not to lose the first Test to a rampant Australia. Here we take a look at how other teams since 1980 have fared after being dominated but staying alive in the series opener.