Line and Length - Times Online - WBLG

The Walford Oval

"Are the EastEnders scriptwriters subliminally picking the England cricket team?"

It was an odd opening gambit, but Steve Pittard, a Line & Length reader, grabbed my attention, even if I haven't watched the London soap since Leslie Grantham was plugged by a gangster beside the canal. Steve based his argument on the fact that characters called Swann, Trott and Peterson have all been introduced in recent years.

So far, so coincidental. But then Steve pointed out other cricketing links in the naming of EastEnders characters: there is the mechanic Gary (Jack) Hobbs, the shopkeeper Patrick (Fred) Trueman, Pat (Godfrey) Evans, Pauline (Foxy) Fowler, Ricky (Mark) Butcher, Mo (Lord) Harris, Johnny (Gubby) Allen, Stacey (Michael) Slater - an excellent sledger of the "shut it you slag" variety, Steve notes - and Amira (Owais) Shah. Surprisingly, he missed out Grant (Tommy) Mitchell.

Steve adds that a few years ago there was a character called Keith Miller who was an illiterate workshy sponger and it is surely only a matter of time before a "Dirty" Don Bradman rocks up.

Even the EastEnders dogs are named after cricketers. There is Genghis (Imran) Khan, Little (Peter) Willey and, of course, Wellard, the dog owned by Robbie (Archie) Jackson and clearly named after Arthur Wellard, the former Somerset and England all-rounder.

This is beyond coincidence. Something clearly is up. I asked the BBC for their thoughts and after three days of deliberation (I can only assume that they took this matter all the way to the top: to Mark Thompson, the director-general, or maybe even as high as Wogan) they came back with this rather bland reply:

"We are delighted that EastEnders has so many links to the world of cricket. Maybe one of our scriptwriters is a secret fan and wants to bridge the gap between the Oval and Walford."

It's a cover-up, I say. Well you've been rumbled now, BBC. Better cancel those plans for bringing in Mr and Mrs Bopara to run the mini-mart.

Is Kallis the greatest?

Kevin Pietersen may be many things, but he is not into false flattery. When he says he rates someone, he means it.

And although he likes to make big statements, without the conditionals and weasel words of others, he usually has sound reason for what he says. There is always basis for the bluster.

But some may feel he has taken leave of his senses with the comment in his interview with Richard Hobson this morning:

 “I truly believe Jacques Kallis is the greatest cricketer ever."

Eyebrows duly raised? Let's leave out all the ancient cricketers who Pietersen may not even have considered - the Bradmans and Barneses and Trumpers and Hobbses. Let's even leave out players of more recent vintage who have dominated but perhaps slipped the infant Pietersen's attention when he was running about on the farm in Pietermaritzburg rather than watching TV - the Gavaskars, Richardses, Bothams and Soberses.

But is Kallis even the greatest of those to have played in the past decade? Is he better than Warne or Ponting or Tendulkar or Murali? Where does he sit in relation to Gilchrist or Lara or Kumble? Could Sehwag or Sangakkara or McGrath be rated higher?

Perhaps by posing these questions, it just reveals how blessed we have been to be watching cricket in the past decade. So many greats to choose from. And I'm not saying that Kallis doesn't deserve his place. He averages 55 in Test cricket, 45+ in ODIs and has 500 international wickets. He is a very very fine player. If only he had an English parent we'd have been in there and poached him...

But for Pietersen to say so definitively that he is the greatest? Well, have your say. And come back here later for the first part in a Line & Length special series on the Noughties.

Not our women too

We are used to the occasional crippling embarrassment from the England men's team, particularly in limited-overs games, but normally we can rely on the England women to keep trotting along, winning games without alarm or fanfare. Alas, our girls have also gone off the rails.

Charlotte Edwards's team are in St Kitts, playing limited-overs cricket with the West Indies, who had not been noted for their strength in women's cricket. Before this series, the West Indies had won three of their 33 international games against England, Australia, New Zealand and India, the big four of women's cricket. At the World Twenty20 last year, they lost heavily to the two antipodean sides and beat South Africa, who are really ropy in women's cricket, by four runs.

Yet something has changed. England lost the 50-over series 2-1 on Saturday, with defeats in the first and third matches by 40 runs and one wicket respectively. The latter was particularly disappointing as England had reduced West Indies to 66 for six, chasing 177.

The opening match of the Twenty20 series on Monday was just as frustrating. England made only 112 for eight, but West Indies collapsed from 91 for two before winning by four wickets with one ball in hand. Yesterday, the home side sealed their second series of the week with a five-wicket win in the second Twenty20 game.

England's batting was woeful again. Even the multiple initials of Ebony-Jewel Cora-Lee Rosamond Camellia Rainford-Brent, England's mouthful of an opening batsman, couldn't save them. They were dismissed for just 99 - 41 of them coming from Edwards's bat - and are clearly missing the calmness and experience of Claire Taylor and Sarah Taylor, who had decided to skip the tour. It does not bode well for England defending their World Twenty20 title in the Caribbean next May.

Swann + Swann + Swann = hope

Is it too late to clone Graeme Swann? OK, so that incessant chatter and playful mischief would get on your nerves after a while - a bit like when Calvin, of Hobbes fame, clones himself in Scientific Progress Goes Boink - but it would be useful to have more than one of him up our sleeves this winter.

England were bowled out for 89 by South Africa A in a Twenty20 game today. Alastair Cook made 22, although he took 13 overs to do it, but no one else showed up. When you are defending a tiny target like that the best you can do is chuck the ball to your most likely wicket-taker and hope that the oppo don't finish the game too early.

Paul Collingwood decided that Swann was the go-to guy. He was not disappointed. Swann bowled four overs and took two wickets for nine runs. South Africa A treated him with respect.

They may not have needed to take risks, but the fact they didn't try anything more than survival against Swann shows how much control he had. Let's hope that this is one of those indefinable positives that England like to take out of heavy defeats.

Closing in on a hundred

There are two barriers that have never been passed in Test cricket, but one may be broken in just over a year. No batsman who has played more than one innings has ended his career with an average over 100 and no player has lived to be 100.

None, in fact, have ever made it to 99 but in 38 days, God willing, Eric Tindill will become the first Test cricketer to get to within one of his century. At the weekend, the former New Zealand batsman became the longest-lived cricketer, passing the 98 years and 324 days of Francis MacKinnon, the 35th MacKinnon of MacKinnon as the chiefs of that clan are called.

I first wrote about "Snowy" Tindill on his 97th birthday and there is a good piece on him on Cricinfo today. As well as being the oldest Test cricketer, Tindill is also the oldest surviving international rugby player. He played for the All Blacks in 1935-36, his one international coming against England at Twickenham in which the immigrant Russian prince Alexander Obolensky scored two tries for the home side.

Tindill was the only man to have played Test cricket and rugby for New Zealand. He also refereed international rugby matches and stood as an umpire in a cricket Test - the double-double. While he is now the oldest Test cricketer, he has a bit longer to go before he is the oldest-lived international rugby player. Mac Henderson, a former Scotland No 8, died earlier this year at the age of 101 years and 309 days.

Only a northern song

Yorkshire may not trumpet its musical heritage as much as the Mancs and Scousers do on the other side of the Pennines, but several talented performers have come out of the county. And so did Mel B.

There's the Arctic Monkeys (Sheffield), Kaiser Chiefs (Leeds) and Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers (Rotherham). David Bowie's dad came from Doncaster, too.

Now the Yorkshire cricket team is looking for local bands and musical types to contribute to making the West Terrace a more tuneful place. The county want "talented unsigned Yorkshire bands to send in their music and become part of the club’s official soundtrack to the 2010 season".

Apparently, any genre will do, "from classical to rock, easy listening to indie, to reflect the highs and lows of a Yorkshire cricket season". Even if you don't win, all entrants will receive two free tickets to a Yorkshire match at Headingley Carnegie in 2010.

If you're interested, drop a CD to James Buttler, PR & Communications Manager, The Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Headingley Carnegie Stadium, St Michael’s Lane, Leeds, LS7 3BU or email comps@yorkshireccc.com.

This could be Hoggy's big chance. Give him a guitar and a ginger wig and the man from Pudsey could yet be playing at Headingley again next season.

A Broad outlook

Stuart Broad has an autobiography out. Yes, already. He may be only 23, but these publishers like to snare them early. Broad's book has been ghosted by the admirable Paul Newman, who last year did as good a job as he could with the raw materials offered by Alastair "Lively" Cook. It is rather picture-heavy (well, he has been playing for only two years) but is fairly entertaining.

I spoke to Broad recently before he departed for South Africa and wrote two pieces today for The Times on his fears that he he could be burnt out before he is 28 and on the strange superstitions and rituals that got England through the first Ashes Test in Cardiff.

Unlike Cook, an admirable batsman but as bland as the Times canteen's pea and ham soup when it comes to expressing opinions, Broad has a bit of spark to him. Not quite in the Swann/Pietersen/Bopara mould, but there was still plenty left in the notebook after I'd filled 1,400 words of today's paper. So here is what else he had to say...

On being hit for six sixes in an over by Yuvraj Singh in the 2007 World Twenty20 “I’ve not erased it from my mind. One of my friends sent me a text message after that happened saying 'Jeez he hit that well. You'll have to get an Ashes five-for now to regain your reputation'. Things happen for a reason and change the way you develop. I’m a lot less predictable as a bowler now."

On his fear of being dropped "It would have been very easy for the selectors to drop me after the Edgbaston Test in the Ashes but they showed faith and it paid off. I owe quite a few people a lot for that. If I was playing at the time my Dad was, I might have only played half a dozen games before being jetissoned. They are much better at identifying talent and nurturing it now."

On Ravi Bopara "What I have noticed is how often players go back to county cricket and perform right away after they have been dropped. We saw that with Ravi Bopara when he missed the last Ashes Test but made a double-hundred for Essex. It proves that he is better than county cricketers and that is why he is in the international set-up. He'll play for England again."

On "being Australian" "As a kid, I played a lot of garden cricket, England v Australia. My mate would always be England, so I'd be Australia. I'd open with Glenn McGrath then bring Warne on and try to bowl leg spin. I'm not a frustrated spinner, although when I'm bowling the 30th over of the day in the heat I wish I was one. I don't have the nous to be a spinner, you have to be very clever."

On Ottis Gibson, the England bowling coach "He has been a mentor of mine for a long time. When he was at Leicestershire, I played seven championship games with him. Every time he’d choose to bowl into the biggest gale, just to give me a chance to settle in. It is a great selfless attribute to have as a senior player. On my England debut Darren Gough was just the same. I hope I can be as selfless to younger players as I get older."

Singing Cockleys and Moises, alive-alive-oh

There has been some consternation among my Australian friends, who are staggered that Australia have chosen some groundsman called Burt Cockley to replace Moises Henriques in their one-day squad (he's being sent home to have that ingrowing 'i' in his name removed).

Cockley, a fast bowler whose main claim to fame is that he used to mow the grass at the North Sydney Oval, has played four list-A games for New South Wales. That's state games, not one-day internationals. He has taken five wickets, four of them on the pitch he used to tend last week. It is a bold selection.

Jarrod, a timid Victorian, suggests that there is a pro-NSW conspiracy, but I think there is another reason why the selectors summoned Burt. It's his name.

Say it. Burt Cockley. What image comes to mind when you say the words Burt Cockley? Well, he sounds like a gardener, for a start, but it is also not the name of a modern Australian cricketer. It is a throwback to another age. In fact, when I first saw a headline saying "Australia summon Burt Cockley", I assumed it was a link to an archive story from the 1930s. Players just aren't called Bert, let alone Burt, any more.

The Australian team used to be full of Burt Cockleys and similar evocative, solid, son-of-the-soil names. Clarrie Grimmett, Wally Grout, Hugh Trumble, Clem Hill, Bert Ironmonger, even the underplayed Hammy Love (which sounds like a bad production of Romeo and Juliet). All were splendid names for Australian cricketers. Even Don Bradman wasn't bad, although Donald would have been better.

Ideally, an Australian Test cricketer should sound like one of the more rural characters in The Archers. I'm surprised they never had a Walter Gabriel or an Eddie Grundy or Sid Perks.

Then came the 1990s and players with effete names like Shane and Ricky and Justin and Nathan. Good players, but embarrassing names. Australia lost something of their history when they started selecting Shanes. They won games, but it felt wrong.

Gradually the selectors are taking a stand against metrosexual names like Ricky and Nathan. Recent selections suggest a return to old-style names that sound like the pioneers who built Australia.

Brett Geeves, Clint McKay, Doug Bollinger, Callum Ferguson. All good old-fashioned names. If the selectors continue this trend, the next players to be called up will be three splendidly named Tasmanians: George Bailey, Tom Triffitt and Gerard Denton. They have the right names, even if the stats don't support them, to restore a sense of historical pride to Australia.

The only mystery - and one that Jarrod would agree with - is why in this climate of selecting players with old-fashioned names, Dirk Nannes, who sounds as 1890s frontier Australian as you could find, cannot get a look-in.

Our South Africans are better than your South Africans

It was a happy homecoming for Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott today. Playing the Diamond Eagles in Bloemfontein, the Joburg-born Strauss made 72 and the Capetonian Trott got 85 to delight their many friends and relations in the crowd. Matt Prior, another Transvaal transplant, got 19, while Eoin Morgan, an Englishman via Dublin, made 67* as the touring side almost posted 300.

Look, it's going to be a long winter tour so if there are any South Africans out there who want to whinge about this selection policy (or even any England fans who think the national side should be reserved for purebloods), go ahead and do it now.

Personally, I'm delighted that so many people want to come and play for England. The more the merrier. And while Trott and Pietersen still sound like saffers (the test is whether they call a barbeque a braai), no one could mistake Strauss and Prior for anything other than Englishmen. Just listen to that voice, just look at those teeth.

Ronercise

There was a sketch on A Bit of Fry & Laurie some years back that featured Stephen Fry doing weird and amusing gyrations as part of a plan to lose weight. "A few years ago a friend put me on to dancercises," he explains to Hugh Laurie. "I won't tell you who this friend was, but if I dropped the hint that it was a prominent quantity surveyor, I'm sure you can probably guess. And the key to dancercise is the rather ingenious coupling of the word 'dance' to the word 'circumcise'."

That came to mind when I stumbled on the video below of Ronni Irani during an international series against Australia. Quite why, I don't know. Maybe Ronnie has a surveyorish air about him.

Anyway, I had an interview with the former Essex captain and talkSPORT broadcaster today for a piece that will be in next week's Times and while doing the usual semi-bored Googling and Cricinfoing that passes for research these days, I came across this footage of Ron in his England days entertaining the Australians with his own "ronercises". Even Nasser Hussain was amused and to judge by what Irani has to say about his former team-mate and captain that is some achievement.

Tendulkar falls inches short

I don't know if Four Weddings and a Funeral was big in India, but you can't blame Sachin Tendulkar if he starts doing an impersonation of Hugh Grant's opening speech in the film this evening.

"F***. &$£%. *&£%.£(^@"

It is not every day that you can make 175 in an international game of cricket and feel so thoroughly miserable. Tendulkar almost broke the record for the highest score in one-day internationals (19 short of Saeed Anwar and Charles Coventry's mark - and 11 short of his own personal best); he almost led India to what would have been the second highest winning score batting second in an ODI (they finished four runs shy of beating Australia's 350-4 and had needed only 19 off 18 balls when Tendulkar was out); he almost kept India's hopes of becoming the world No 1 alive (now that Australia have a 3-2 lead in the seven-match series they cannot be overtaken).

And to cap all that, it was reported today that some 12-year-old kid has beaten one of Tendulkar's earliest feats. One Sarfaraz Khan made 439 off 421 balls in a three-day match for Springfield Rizvi school in Mumbai against the Indian Education Society. When he reached 330, he passed Tendulkar's best as a schoolboy, which he set in 1988 as a 15-year-old.

Sarfaraz then went on to pass the 349 that Vinod Kambli had made in the same game as Tendulkar - they shared a stand of 664 - and by the time he was out Sarfaraz had the highest score ever made in the inter-school Harris Shield tournament.

Beware the Banglas?

It must be pretty grim to be a Zimbabwe fan at the moment. The state of the national side has got so desperate that even an ODI win against Bangladesh, chasing a target of less than 200 last week, is described as "an upset".

Bangladesh have been getting better of late - with five wins against higher-ranked opponents in ODIs in the past two years and a first Test series win away from home, albeit against the West Indies second XI - but it is more a reflection of Zimbabwe's weakness that their win in the first ODI was seen as a surprise.

Normal service has since been resumed. Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh captain, vowed after the defeat that his side could still win the series 4-1 and if they win the final match tomorrow then that will be the case. But it is not just that Bangladesh have been beating Zimbabwe, they have hammered them.

In the second ODI, Bangladesh won with 123 balls to spare (Shakib making 105*); the third ODI featured a batting collapse by Bangladesh, but they still won by four wickets with almost ten overs in hand; and then, in the fourth match, they dismissed Zimbabwe for 44 and won with 229 balls unbowled.

Zimbabwe are hopeless, but I don't think England should take Bangladesh too lightly this winter. Shakib has introduced a certain steel into their play (his fuming at his side because they had not won the third game easily enough shows that) and they have some bright talented young bowlers and batsmen. You would expect an England side to beat them in Tests and ODIs even if they leave a few leading players at home. But they are now a significant banana skin - on their own wickets if not yet abroad.

Certainly, Bangladesh have developed enough that defeat in an ODI to them in Chittagong would not necessarily be termed an upset.

Scores to settle

The knives - or rather the sharpened pencils - are out among the fraternity of cricket scorers, who are disgruntled at being treated like second-class citizens, according to a piece in today's Times by Ivo Tennant.

Some scorers say they have not yet been paid for work during the World Twenty20 in June. They are also miffed that the accreditation process was laborious and that they were unable to get tea because they had to queue with the public and didn't have enough time. "It was what one might expect at a club Sunday third XI fixture," one scorer sniffs.

The ECB replies that if bills have not been paid, it is because the scorers were slow to get their invoices in and that the rules for accreditation were quite clear. If there were problems, it is the scorers' own fault.

I have some sympathy for scorers because in my wild and reckless youth I was one of them. Indeed, I was the scorer for the Essex Under-16s when I was at school. My English teacher was the manager and knew that I liked cricket - but also knew how poor I was at playing it. He arranged for me to score for the school first XI and then for the county. It may not be as glamorous as opening the batting at Lord's, but I have announced bowling changes over the PA system at Chelmsford.

I always found that I was well treated. I ate lunch and tea with the players, drank with them after the game and was even allowed to join in their fielding practice (for all the good it did me). On one occasion, when a school side arrived with only ten players, I was offered up as a substitute fielder. It was a cunning plan by our captain that backfired when I caught him out at square leg.

I'm not suggesting that should be the model for international cricket - although it is probably safer to play pre-match football with a sexagenarian scorer than with Owais "Psycho" Shah (just ask Joe Denly) - but more could be done to make scorers feel valued. Lord knows they aren't that well rewarded financially: barely £100 a day for a Test that involves continuous concentration from start to well after the finish.

My solution would be to place the match scorers in the press box. We already have a press scorer, whom the journalists find tremendously useful to consult, but there is no reason why the official match scorers can't be in there as well, so long as they don't fight with our man over whether a leg-bye had been signalled or not. They can communicate the scores to the scoreboard by computer.

Not only does it place them on hand should we have any questions, but it means that by lumping them in with the press they get the same privileges. The Surrey scorer complained that it took him 90 minutes to get his accreditation for the World Twenty20 and that he had to queue with temporary cleaning staff. This is clearly wrong. It took me all of five minutes to stroll to a desk in a hotel near Lord's, produce a passport and get my pass. It should be as simple for the scorers.

Putting them in with the press would also tackle their most pressing problem: how to get a cup of tea and a sandwich at the interval. They can come and share the scoff with the hacks. Just as long as they leave a slice or two of cake for me.

Batting for (and by) beginners

I don't know if the England team analyst, who is also Stuart Broad's sister, ever reads this blog, but on the off-chance that she is passing by, the following photos may help her and Andy Flower to prepare England properly for the challenges ahead this winter. They were taken at Lord's earlier this year as my Kirby Strollers charity side prepared for what would be a glorious, undefeated summer (won one, drew one). Look and learn (and click on each image for a larger view)...

This is Richard, opening bat and all-time leading run-scorer in the history of the Strollers. Note the perfect balance, eyes looking straight at the ball out of the bowler's hand, feet poised ready to step back and cut or forward to drive. Like a larger, more ginger David Gower. His wife took the photos and somehow didn't forward me any of the ones of him slashing and missing (or indeed any of him hitting the ball).

Now this is Gareth, our Kolpak South African. Went to school with Kevin Pietersen and was a champion tennis player in his youth. Clubs the ball like a Neanderthal bagging a new wife. A flamboyant stroke-maker, rather than a nurdler: this was one of many balls that disappeared back down the net. Got run out while batting with his brother-in-law in our second game. Opponents should note that this is his only weakness.

John, modelling a Ray Bright-style beard that had sadly disappeared by the second half of the season, shows the perfect finishing position for a cover-drive. The ball seen trickling past his left foot was, he maintains, Photoshopped in at a later date. Opened the batting in the first match of the season but came in at No 8 in the second because, along with three other team members, he didn't arrive until half an hour into the game. Ian Bell should give that a go. Or perhaps not turn up at all?

The captain demonstrates his own unique approach to batting, modelled on that of Serena Williams. Note how he takes the "back and across" method to an extreme degree, almost stepping on first slip before playing the ball in front of middle stump. Is he trying to pull or cut or even play a straight drive? He doesn't know either. Tell KP to have a second helping from the braai and then try to copy this.

Lest we forget

One of our final links with the Golden Age of cricket has been broken with the death on Saturday of Hugh Dinwiddy, the last man to have played first-class cricket with Don Bradman and Jack Hobbs, as Martin Williamson notes on Cricinfo.

Dinwiddy played a handful of games for Cambrige University and Kent in the early 1930s, including a match against Surrey at Blackheath in which he made 45 (coincidentally I was at the same ground on the day he died watching the local rugby club beat Nuneaton). Hobbs, then 50 and in his penultimate season, made a hundred.

In 1934, Dinwiddy played for Cambridge against the touring Australians and scored exactly the same number of runs as Bradman - he was out for a duck. A year later, he played his final first-class game (Dinwiddy, not Bradman alas) and went on to teach and serve in the Navy. One point of interest for Terry Wise, this blog's regular reader in Uganda, is that Dinwiddy later helped to establish Makerere University in Kampala, for which he was appointed OBE.

Dinwiddy's death and the impending poppyfest that is Remembrance Sunday should make us cherish the few remaining links we have with the pre-war past. Earlier this year, the last person to see WG Grace play died and there are surely few around now who saw Hobbs or Sutcliffe or Larwood in their pomp. Anyone who saw England win their last Ashes Test at Lord's for 75 years in 1934 would now be in their 80s or older. Even Bradman's Invincibles is more than 60 years past.

I would love to hear from any readers - or their grandchildren - who saw the great names of pre-war cricket. What was Hutton like at the crease? Did he bat differently when he returned after the war with one arm shorter than the other? How great could Farnes have been if he hadn't been killed in action? Was George Headley really as good as Bradman? How graceful was Hammond, how wily O'Reilly?

If you have any good stories or memories from your relatives who may have seen these players, do get in touch and share them.

Why do we not love umpires any more?

Sad news: as you may have read elsewhere on this website David Shepherd, the popular former umpire, died last night at the age of 68.

With his ruddy cheeks, broad West Country way of saying "lunch gentlemen" and his reputation for fairness and accuracy, Shepherd was much loved. He stood in 92 Tests and more than 150 ODIs, having earlier been a solid journeyman pro for Gloucestershire.

A sign of how respected he was came in his final year as an international umpire, in 2005, when the ICC offered to put aside their rule about neutral umpires so that Shep could stand in one final Ashes series. He turned them down, but was touched by the offer.

It is a sad fact of modern cricket that umpires are less loved now than they once were. When I started following the game, the likes of Shep, Dickie Bird, Mervyn Kitchen, Sri Venkat, Steve Bucknor, Lloyd Barker, David Constant and others were tremendously popular with players and fans alike. As kids, we would try and get the umpires' autographs after county matches. Their mannerisms and quirks were adored, rather than mocked.

It is hard to think of modern umpires who are loved. Some, such as Simon Taufel or Aleem Dar, are respected; others, like Daryl Harper, Rudi Koertzen or Billy Bowden, cause amusement but their judgment is often critisicised (unfairly, I'd say). The constant, ever-intrusive gaze of TV cameras means that the human failings of our officials, who are better trained and probably more accurate than they ever were, are picked to pieces.

As fans we are often too harsh on officials. They do not mean to make mistakes and when they do it deeply hurts them. When Shepherd made several howlers in the 2001 Old Trafford Test against Pakistan, he was mortified and apparently came close to retiring. Yet the players respected the fact he did his best and was unbiased. There would have been protests if he had stood down early after one duff game.

Shep was an umpire in an age when players and officials realised they were on the same side. Mutual respect came from mutual honesty. Of course, players still tried to cheat but they were not outraged when they were found out. They did not try to blame their dismissals on bad decisions.

One comment from Tatenda Taibu when Shep stood down in 2005 sticks in the mind. He was playing in his third Test for Zimbabwe as an 18-year-old and he got a thin bat-pad to a ball from Harbhajan Singh, which was deflected to short leg. Taibu walked off and later said: "After the day's play Shepherd came to me and said, 'Well walked young man, I hadn't seen the edge, thank you.'"

Many players would have been cursing their honesty even four years later - "I'd have made a hundred if I hadn't walked" - but Taibu was chuffed that the umpire had sought him out. "Since then I have been full of respect for him," Taibu said. "If a man of his stature can find time to thank a young boy who is only playing his third Test, it's just heart warming."

It is a great shame that this friendship and camaraderie between players and umpires is dying out.

The northern "prejudice"

James Anderson is "gutted" not to be Andrew Strauss's vice-captain for England's tour to Australia this winter. The reason he was not given the responsibility, apparently, is because he is a bowler and from the North.

I suspect that Anderson was speaking with a wry smile, rather than a chip on his shoulder, but he has a point, although it is the bowler bit, rather than coming from the North, that really counts against him.

England have had only three captains in the past 60 years who were fast bowlers. Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham found the extra responsibility too much. Only Bob Willis (seven wins and six draws in 18 Tests) had much joy. You then have to go back to Gubby Allen to find a fast bowler who captained England - and he lost the 1936 Ashes after leading 2-0. Fast bowlers simply do not make good England captains.

The world was, of course, a happier place when England's captains were all batsmen and gentlemen amateurs from the Home Counties who could rock up on the morning of a Test after a quick hour's work shuffling their share portfolios in the City, introduce themselves to the collection of miners who had been dragged away from the pitface to form the England bowling attack and order them into battle.

We may not have won that often, but that was hardly as important as having the right sort of chap to introduce the players to the King during the luncheon interval. You could hardly trust a bowler - especially a northern one - with that sort of responsibility.

The "anti-Northern" argument is less credible now. Sixty-two of England's past 92 Tests were led by men from the North (Vaughan and Flintoff). Mike Atherton had 54 Tests in charge from 1993-2001. Chuck in Paul Collingwood and his 25 ODIs as captain and the North has been reasonably well represented.

Going back over time, though, the South has held sway. If you don't count Willis (born in Sunderland but raised in Surrey), the last northerner to captain England before Atherton was Geoff Boycott, who had four Tests 16 years earlier. Northerners like Mike Denness, a Scot, and Ray Illingworth, whose 31 Tests as England captain came after he left Yorkshire for Leicestershire, had to move south if they wanted a look-in.

Yet with the exception of men from Middlesex (Mike Brearley, Mike Gatting and Andrew Strauss) and an aberration for Surrey and Peter May in 1956, the rule of thumb since the war is that if you want to win the Ashes you need someone born in or playing for Yorkshire in charge (Len Hutton won it twice, Illingworth and Michael Vaughan once each).

Anderson's problem is not that he is a northerner, it is that he plays for Lancashire. Just look at what happened when Flintoff was captain. Perhaps he should follow the young Vaughan's example and cross the Pennines if he wants to captain a successful side? That and work harder on his batting.

200% effort

Younus Khan is back as Pakistan captain after the briefest of resignations (you're not considered a proper Pakistan captain until you have resigned at least once) and he is determined to do as well as he can for his country, even if it means cloning himself to do so.

That is the implication of his press conference today. "I used to play 100 per cent," he said. "Now I have to play 200 per cent."

Rather makes Kevin Pietersen's promises to play at 110 per cent look half-hearted.

A question of cricket

Poor old Monty Panesar seems to have gone out of fashion faster than Friends Reunited. Seemingly loved a year ago, he is now England's third-choice spinner and former team-mates are sticking the knife in.

The latest to have a pop is Michael Vaughan, who wrote in his diary, serialised in The Times, that "Monty is really starting to irritate me with his lack of cricket knowledge".

One wonders what he means. It could be a general lack of awareness and unwillingness to get involved in a game, but perhaps Panesar has been coming last in the team quiz nights, always confusing Raymond and Richard Illingworth and Herbert and Bert Sutcliffe. I can see why that would irritate.

Or was it something deeper? Maybe Monty really knows nothing about cricket, its customs, traditions and rules. Does that explain why he always appeals so excitedly for leg-before when the ball is missing first slip? Maybe he just doesn't know the lbw rule.

To test out this theory, I watched the tape of the last game Vaughan and Panesar played together (against South Africa at Edgbaston in 2008) and tried to lip-read their conversation. This is what I think they said.

Vaughan Monty, old chap, will you go and field at mid on for a while?

Panesar Yes, yes, mid on. I know where that is. [starts to wander to third man]

Vaughan No, over there. To the right of the umpire

Panesar The what now? The vampire?

Vaughan Umpire. The man in the white coat.

Panesar I thought he was a dentist. Why do people keep saying "ow that hurts" to him?

Vaughan They're saying "Owzat". It's what bowlers say when they want a wicket.

Panesar Why are they wicked? Is it because they are throwing the ball at the batsman's stick pile? It looks like it took him ages to balance those little ones on the top of the big ones.

Vaughan That's the whole point of the game! We try to hit their sticks, they try to stop us and if the ball hits the batsman's leg and would have gone on to hit the sticks then the bowler says "Owzat" to the vampire, I mean the dentist, I mean the umpire, and we all celebrate if he raises his finger.

Panesar This sounds like a fun game. What did you say it was called again?

Flight needed for 15 tired Trinibagoans

Bad enough that Trinidad & Tobago should lose the final of the Champions League today, but it seems that they may also be struggling to find a flight home.

Apparently, the organisers booked their return flight from the Champions League for Monday, not thinking that they would make even the semi-finals, and having lasted a few days longer they have found there are not enough seats left on this weekend's flights back to the Caribbean.

Normally this would be no big deal - go and do some sightseeing in India - but the West Indies domestic tournament starts next Wednesday and T&T have to get back for a match in Guyana. They asked the West Indies board if they could delay the first fixture by a few days - what with being the pride of the Caribbean and all that after their exploits in India - but of course that would have made common sense so the board said no.

As things stand, the Trinidad team may well have to make their way back to the Caribbean on separate flights and then it's just a question of hoping that enough players and kit show up in Guyana next week.