'Oh, Calamity' - Headingley Test 2009

Michael Henderson just about says it all about the Headingley Test, although I haven't actually seen any of the action. I'm told CricInfo had rather over-egged the pudding in describing North's catch off Strauss.

Looking at a rough estimate of Win Expectancy at the end of England's first innings, they had about an 18 per cent chance of winning the Test from that point. Looking at how those wins were achieved, they fall into two categories:

1) Bowling out the other side for even less. ENGLAND FAIL
2) Keeping the other side's score within about 100 runs. ENGLAND FAIL

That leaves us commentators with not much to write about.

I could talk about England selection, and even Australian selection. After the Australian's hinted at something really radical, like using five bowlers, they fell into their default option, merely replacing the spinner with a pace bowler. Meanwhile, England, confronted with Flintoff's injury, were forced to think through all the permutations. One wonders if they thought at any length about sticking Trott in the side and going with four bowlers. I doubt it.

EDIT: Couldn't we make the same complaint about both Flintoff and Harmison? They bowl to too short a length? Food for thought there.