Give Silverwood a chance... and pray

13 April 2012

Can Australia be stopped? Are the world champions really as good as they seem? I am afraid, as things stand, there are two very simple answers - no and yes.

Yet again at Lord's England were outplayed. Yes, there were dropped catches, a couple of decisions that went against us, but overall the gulf in class was such there was only ever going to be one outcome.

Glenn McGrath was on fire for England's first innings, and was well supported by Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne. Then the batting of the Waughs, Mark in particular, and that of Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist ensured Australia could again unleash their bowlers on an England batting line-up facing a daunting deficit.

There is one selection issue that has to be looked at. We have played two matches with seven specialist batsmen but have not scored enough runs on either occasion. We have also played with only two genuine strike bowlers, which meant the Aussies - bar their 14-run 'chase' on Sunday - had to bat only once in each Test.

We have to realise soon that if we are not going to score more than 400, we need to enhance our chances of bowling the tourists out more cheaply.

Apart from Warne, they have McGrath, Gillespie and Lee, with Damien Fleming waiting in the wings.

During the first two Tests, it was clear that for all the quality of Darren Gough and Andy Caddick, and all the effort that Dominic Cork and Craig White put in, we have not looked like bowling the Aussies out cheaply once, let alone twice.

So who is the Tufnell tip for the Third Test? Well, my vote goes to 'Quick Silvers', Chris Silverwood. He was brought into the squad for Lord's, so he is obviously in the selectors' thoughts. Let's give him a chance. We've tried swing bowling, now let's go for pace and see if the Aussies have a weakness against that.

On the last tour to South Africa, Silvers bowled straight and quick at their quality batsmen and picked up five wickets in the Fourth Test.

Let's look at some of the performances at Lord's. For England, Mark Butcher again showed he is the batsman in form, and it was unfortunate Mark Ramprakash was not able to stay with him for a little longer.

Mike Atherton was his dependable self until being undone by Warne. But again we missed the sort of partnership that the Aussies always seem able to produce.

In terms of the bowling, Caddick was by far the main threat and was well worth his five wickets in Australia's first innings. Goughie, as any good bowler tries to do, stole in at the end to make his figures look better than they had been for most of the innings. However, the back-up attack managed only one for 176, which speaks volumes.

England have to hang in there and make it as difficult as possible for Australia. You never know - they may even have a bad day!

I am certainly not one for giving up the ghost when there is still a chance.

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Give Silverwood a chance... and pray

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