The Edge: it’s a long road back for Monty Panesar

There is a commonly held theory that for someone in the position he is in now, a change of scene may be just what he needs. Fresh challenges and a different environment might just drag him out of the mental rut into which he appears so horribly stuck.

He has already lent support to that idea by going off to spend the winter playing for Highveld Lions in South Africa, the best displacement activity he can find in view of the fact that England do not want him.

The argument is that as long as Panesar keeps playing, he will eventually get back to bowling well.

And it’s true that everyone knows Panesar can bowl. We have seen him do it, beautifully, on many occasions during his short but often brilliant Test career. There are not many bowlers in the game, certainly not England spinners, who have taken 120 wickets in their first 36 months of Test cricket and in the process unpicked the techniques of numerous world-class batsmen. It was obvious that here was somebody in love with his art.

He probably loves it a lot less now after 12 months of sliding from one indignity to another - in India and West Indies, where he was usurped as England’s No 1 spinner by the super-confidently cocksure Graeme Swann, and then back home in the first Ashes Test at Cardiff.

When Panesar’s batting is all that anyone can remember him contributing to a game, you know things have got bad.

But will a mere change of scene be enough? Much surely depends on whether Sussex’s batsmen can put runs on the board, whether Michael Yardy proves a sympathetic captain and how the pitches play at Hove.

And, in any case, do Monty’s problems go beyond a mere temporary loss of form? There is certainly a worrying dimension to his predicament because it is hard to think of an England cricketer who rose so steeply, or declined so precipitously. He couldn’t even take wickets for Northants last summer.

It has become fashionable to switch counties in the hope that it will bring about a change of fortune but it is hard to find a precedent that might comfort Panesar. Kevin Pietersen left Nottinghamshire for Hampshire, and duly won himself a Test place, but he more or less had to leave because he had fallen out with so many team-mates that it was going to be hard to stay.

Ryan Sidebottom got back his England place after leaving Yorkshire but he was not suffering from a personal crisis as such, he simply wasn’t getting the opportunities to play that he wanted. Swann also secured a second go with England after moving from Northants for Notts but his problem was that he wasn’t getting on with Kepler Wessels, the coach.

Someone who did reclaim a Test place that had been lost at least partly through a decline in form was David Gower who, after switching from Leicestershire to Hampshire, returned to the England side with enough success to secure a place on another Ashes tour.

But Gower was a seasoned batsman who was well into his thirties and knew his game inside out. Gower’s first county captain at Leicestershire, Ray Illingworth, also became England’s surprise captain after leaving Yorkshire in his late thirties, but it was his leadership and batting that flourished rather than his bowling.

Panesar’s dilemma is an unenviable one. He knows that he must rebuild a successful county career from scratch, but even if he manages it, it may not be enough as he is now firmly behind Swann and Adil Rashid – both of whom can bat and field better than him - in the England pecking order. It could be a very long road back.

Captaincy may weigh heavily on Hoggard’s shoulders

One bowler who is not moving counties in the hope of an England recall is Matthew Hoggard.

Hoggard, released by Yorkshire, has washed up at Leicestershire, who beat off competition for his services with some nice, flat, dog-walking terrain and the post of captain for the next three years.

This was extraordinarily generous of the Grace Road management given Hoggard’s previous captaincy experience (none) and his reputation for whackiness, a trait his recent autobiography milked rather tiresomely.

One hopes they did it on the advice of accountants trying to justify Hoggard’s possibly inflated salary rather than because they genuinely believe – against pretty much all available evidence - that a fast bowler can be leadership material.

They clearly cannot have read Michael Vaughan’s book, which hardly came as a ringing endorsement of his former Yorkshire team-mate. As England captain, Vaughan had always insisted that Hoggard should stay on the “shop floor” as a bowler and not get ideas above his station (i.e. not think of himself as attack leader). Now Hoggard is in charge of the whole Leicestershire factory.

Hoggard may think that anything his old mucker Darren Gough (Yorkshire captain 2007-08) can do, so can he. But it is one of the oldest axioms in the book that fast bowlers don’t make great captains.

Fast bowling is about unbridled energy and instinct and this tends to prevent the head staying clear enough for a dispassionate assessment of the wider picture.

Andrew Flintoff, Bob Willis, Shaun Pollock, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis ? these were not among the great Test captains, even if they were among the great fast bowlers. And few county championships have been won by teams led by fast bowlers, although there are exceptions to both rules. Imran Khan didn’t do too badly in charge of Pakistan and Clive Rice did lead Nottinghamshire to some notable silverware in the 1980s.

But as all-rounders they were used to doing more than one thing at once.

The return of exciting 50-overs cricket

It has been a good few days for 50-overs cricket. A format only fashionable for having its obituary written provided two riveting contests, one in Hyderabad between India and Australia, the other in Abu Dhabi, Pakistan’s home from home for a three-match series with New Zealand.

A generation ago, it would have been hard to imagine a finish like the one in Abu Dhabi, where Pakistan’s last-wicket pair made an audacious attempt to hoist their side from the wreckage of 101 for nine past a New Zealand score of 211 for nine. Tailenders never used to carry on like this. They would have had a swish, possibly biffed a few boundaries, and then got out in a flurry of flying timber, and everyone would have got off home early.

But once Mohammad Aamer had duly swung Daniel Vettori for three sixes, he and Saeed Ajmal settled down to play like proper batsmen and chipped away at their dwindling target with cool heads. In the end, they failed by seven runs to pull off what would have been one of the most remarkable victories ever seen in an international.

Four days earlier, India made an equally bold attempt to chase down 351 against Australia. The difference was that their collapse came at the end of the innings rather than the beginning. With Sachin Tendulkar playing sublimely, India’s target was reduced not just to manageable proportions, but to such trifling ones that India became favourites rather too far out from the finale.

Just before Suresh Raina got out, India needed 52 off 47 balls with six wickets in hand; just before Tendulkar followed, they needed just 19 from 18 with four wickets remaining. Suddenly, Ricky Ponting, who had looked a beaten man, found the game being handed back to him on a silver salver.

Rarely has a side thrown away such a golden position. And we thought the Aussies were washed out. And we thought the Indians were supposed to be getting good at this limited-overs stuff. Needless to say, Twenty20 cannot provide such drama.

THE LIST: TEN PAKISTANIS WHOSE CAPTAINCY ATTRACTED CONTROVERSY

1. Younis Khan

2. Shoaib Malik

3. Inzamamul Haq

4. Rashid Latif

5. Aamir Sohail

6. Salim Malik

7. Waqar Younis

8. Wasim Akram

9. Javed Miandad

10. Asif Iqbal