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England’s healing following a traumatic winter is a long-term process and three victories against a desperately poor West Indies side provide only the gentlest of starts. However, winning is a habit and there is an enjoyment back in England’s game that vanished during the previous six months. Nobody enjoys their cricket more than Monty Panesar and his third five-wicket haul, which led to the Man-of-the-Series award, put England firmly on course after West Indies had threatened to prolong the match.

Panesar had a mixed winter after he was left out of the first two Ashes Test before returning with five wickets at Perth then suffering a variety of experiences in one-day internationals. But through it all he didn’t stop smiling. Barring four days at Old Trafford this series has been played in damp, overcast, cool conditions that would normally leave a finger spinner with his hands in his pockets and the occasional over before an interval. Panesar, though, ends as the leading wicket-taker on either side with 23 scalps. Without him England could even have lost at Old Trafford.

His success has come through guile and intelligence. Two dismissals today were snapshots of Panesar’s craft at its best. Dwayne Bravo had deposited him over deep midwicket, with swift footwork, but Panesar held his nerve and tempted him again. Bravo found mid-off. Then he bowled Denesh Ramdin with a delivery that almost matched his mesmeric ball to Younis Khan last summer, pitching on leg stump and turning to take out off. “I guess that was the perfect left-armers’s dismissal,” he said.

Michael Vaughan was fulsome in his praise. “It was a slower wicket [than Old Trafford] with not as much spin but I think the delivery which he got Ramdin out with will be a delivery that is shown to young left-arm spinners for a long time. It was a perfect spinning delivery. He’s offering control and giving it a good rip.”

He is proving to be a man for all conditions and is able to adjust between a flat Lord’s pitch, where he used his arm ball, to a spitting-cobra surface in Manchester and something in between at Chester-le-Street. The key is he never negates his wicket-taking potential as some previous England spinners did when conditions weren’t loaded in their favour. The fascinating duel against India’s ageing middle order awaits.

While Panesar has moved on from the Ashes and missing his only two Tests since his debut, Steve Harmison’s efforts at forgetting Australia have not gone exactly to plan. However, a hostile 17-over spell, split by lunch, followed his improvement from last week at Old Trafford. There was even a flash back to Sabina Park in 2004 when he steamed in at Fidel Edwards with six slips lined up. A couple of fearsome deliveries rose off a length and would have been too good even for Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

I don’t look at the runs column when Harmison is bowling. I look at the pressure he is putting on Vaughan on his strike bowler

“Figures can sometimes be misleading,” Vaughan said. “Steve Harmison’s run into bowl and he’s got five slips so there are plenty of gaps and every time you hit the bat it goes for runs. I don’t look at the runs column when Harmison is bowling. I look at the pressure he is putting on. More importantly is the people waiting to bat and the ball whistling past batsmen’s heads. It can’t be nice and certainly on a side-on ground like this one it must be intimidating. That was Steve back to somewhere near his best today.”

Now comes the next spanner in the works. At some point he has to go under the knife for a “non-serious hernia” and depending on the invasiveness of the surgery he could be ruled out for as long as six weeks. The first Test against India starts on July 19, and he is set to play in Durham’s Friends Provident semi-final on Wednesday, so it’s a tight time frame. With Harmison finally finding some form a return to the sidelines couldn’t have come at a worse time. He’s in rhythm and desperately needs to keep it going.

“My summer’s been a bit like the West Indies,” Harmison told Sky Sports. “When it was good it was really good but when it was bad, I hold my hands up, it was pretty poor. There have been times where things haven’t gone well for me but I’ve never dropped my head. I’ve wanted to keep trying and keep going.

“I said at Old Trafford I’d climbed a few rungs up that ladder from where I’d been on that Friday and I was honest with myself that it wasn’t good enough. But I’ve just got to keep trying to climb that ladder and there’s a bit to go, but I’m closer to the top than the bottom.”

The relish with which he steamed in from the Lumley End on his home ground has been a rare sight in recent times. “He’s worked something out and people always give others credit when you get it right but Steve deserves a lot of credit himself,” Vaughan said.

Perhaps he was spurred on by the ovation Paul Collingwood received yesterday, but his spell supported the line handed out earlier in the day that the hernia isn’t affecting his bowling. It is wise, though, to sort out the issue while it’s minor although Harmison said after the match that he was keen to play until the end of the Tests against India.

England have a history of waiting and waiting then being made to regret it. In 2002 Andrew Flintoff was patched up and played against India, at Headingley, only to do himself more damage. England have showed promising signs of moving on during this series. It would be silly not to learn from previous mistakes.

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Daren Ganga looked back on his side’s series defeat against England and hoped the team would learn for the future. Despite the 3-0 scoreline he was holding on to the occasional moment when they had England wobbling, at Old Trafford and, to a greater extent, at Chester-le-Street. He said, though, his side was short of what was required in all aspects and the culture needed to change.

“West Indian culture is very unique,” he said. “We need to appreciate that and to find ways, slowly and gradually, of changing that relaxed sort of mode into a more professional mode and I think we are well on the way. The effort is always there by all the players. It’s a subtle change and cannot happen overnight. There is a lot of talent, a lot of potential in our team.”

He pulled out examples of the team’s narrow loss against New Zealand in Auckland in 2004, a tight Test against India and the recent defeat by 60 runs at Old Trafford as evidence that all hope wasn’t lost. “We are getting closer and closer to Test match victories,” he said. “We are a couple of sessions away from winning Test matches. That is something we need to address.

“The consistency in all departments of our game is lacking. It’s something that has hurt us and it hurt us in this game. We had England on the ropes and weren’t able to get that breakthrough against [Paul] Collingwood and [Matt] Prior. These are things we need to revisit.”

The moving ball was a major issue for West Indies’ batsmen, with only Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Dwayne Bravo showing the necessary skill and determination, and Ganga was one who also fell short. “One thing is for sure, the experience at international level of English conditions is something I experienced for the first time and something I am going to keep in my memory bank in terms of what transpired in this series,” he said.

“Leading the side in an international series is something I’ve never done before so it’s been a new experience for me. Halfway through the tour I really never expected to have that responsibility. Assessing myself after this series is something I will do, to realise where I went wrong and the ways I can improve.”

Ganga said the whole team could learn from Chanderpaul, who finished as the Man of the Match and West Indies’ Man of the Series after making 448 runs at 148.66. He also became the first batsman to remain unbeaten for more than 1000 minutes on three occasions, following similar marathon efforts in 2002 and 2004. He was finally removed by Monty Panesar for a second-innings 70.

“It’s always difficult as a player when you put in a big effort and there is nothing to show for it from a team perspective,” Ganga said. “Shiv is a team player, he’s someone who goes there and fights for the sake of the team. His batting in this series has been tremendous. He’s somebody who can carry our batting and we all need to take a page out of his book, the manner in which he commits himself to cricket.”

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Whether or not it was a case of merely delaying the inevitable, the fact of the matter is that Dwayne Bravo’s dismissal just after lunch triggered the collapse that paved the way for England’s eight-wicket victory on the last day of the fourth Test to complete a 3-0 trouncing of West Indies in the four-match series.

‘Bravo has delighted with the audacity of his strokeplay’ © Getty Images

It may seem unduly harsh to be critical of the only Caribbean player other than Shivnarine Chanderpaul to come out of yet another disastrous campaign with some credit. However, instead of settling with being a little better than the mediocrity that surrounds him, this gifted allrounder must demand a considerably higher standard from himself, much in the way his illustrious fellow Cantaro villager was motivated to excel in the midst of the worst period in the region’s cricket history.

Indeed, he need look no further than Brian Lara to appreciate that successful batting at the highest level does not only require a wide array of shots, but also a ravenous appetite for runs. In a very different way, Chanderpaul is also a testament to the adage that you can only score runs out in the middle and, at the end of the day, it is scoring runs in great quantity that will win or save matches, while also enhancing individual reputations.

Throughout this series, Bravo has delighted with the audacity of his strokeplay. The extravagant flourishes that decorate his shots on both sides of the wicket, the willingness to use his feet to the spinners and the eagerness with which he scampers every run have put smiles on glum West Indian faces over the past month.

Instead of settling with being a little better than the mediocrity that surrounds him, this gifted allrounder must demand a considerably higher standard from himself.

But for a player of his obvious ability, it definitely is not enough that he should so often get in and get out, spending enough time at the crease to be well set, having seen what all the bowlers have to offer, only to give his wicket away through poor shot selection.

Five times in seven innings he was dismissed between 40 and 60. On almost every occasion, beginning with the pull to deep midwicket at Lord’s and ending with a miscued lofted drive to mid-off at the Riverside Stadium, his demise was of his own making.

Finishing with 291 runs at an average of 41.57 is above average for what would be expected from an allrounder. Yet it is nowhere near enough if it is appreciated that he has it in him to turn those attractive starts into really big ones more often than not.

This is the challenge for Bravo, to blend steely resolve and greater powers of concentration into the mix without losing that so very obvious enjoyment of every aspect of his game. As I’ve said before, it is a credit to this 23-year old that, despite not experiencing victory in the 23 Tests since he made his debut three years ago, he remains such an ebullient, infectious cricketer.

He has not enjoyed much success with the ball over the four Tests, yet there have been a couple excellent spells without much luck. His cleverly-disguised variations in pace will be even more of an asset during next week’s back-to-back Twenty20 Internationals and the three ODIs that follow. In the field, he is very much a leader whether in the outfield or the slip cordon, and the chance he missed diving to his left at second slip that gave Andrew Strauss a temporary reprieve off Fidel Edwards could be described as a genuine aberration in a series where, at times, the West Indies didn’t seem capable of catching a cold in almost freezing conditions.

It can only be hoped, for his sake if no-one else’s, that he has really listened to people like Ian Botham. The fact that he sought out England’s greatest allrounder for some advice during the third Test in Manchester suggests that he is really keen to improve and not fall into the trap of complacency that has ensnared so many of the current West Indies cricketers.

And just in case anyone of influence is seriously considering Bravo’s leadership qualities as a future option, that is probably the worst thing that could happen to him as far his cricket career is concerned. Being such an important all-purpose player is demanding in itself without the burden of captaining a team that will remain in the doldrums for the foreseeable future.

If that appears unnecessarily pessimistic, there was more than enough evidence yesterday to reinforce that depressing forecast, from Daren Powell’s astonishing repetition of his criminally reckless first innings shot (especially with Chanderpaul again standing firm at the other end) to a succession of errors in the field that had everyone except embarrassed West Indians laughing their heads off amid the gloom at Chester-le-Street.

So the first Test series in the post-Lara era has ended very much like most of the campaigns when he was around. There seems to be no one or nothing capable of even slowing the 12-year decline, especially with selectors as inconsistent as ever and the administrators finding new ways to attract ridicule (the fact that an injury-riddled squad won’t have the services of their limited-over specialists for the first warm-up match tomorrow is a case in point).

In this environment, Bravo’s value is magnified many times over. But he still has a very long way to go. Hopefully he knows that.

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The Indian team left Mumbai on Tuesday night for their three-month long tour of Ireland and England, their first real test since the first-round exit from the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. The tour, which includes 12 ODIs against four countries on either side of three Tests against England, takes place without several familiar names and with a relatively inexperienced bowling attack.

India’s last tour of England, under Sourav Ganguly in 2002, saw them drawing the Test series 1-1 and winning the one-day series. That success was built on the excellent form of the big three batsmen – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Ganguly – and, in the pre-tour press conference today, Dravid stressed that the key to a good showing on this tour lay with the experienced batting line-up.

In the absence of Virender Sehwag, dropped from both Test and ODI, India have a new opening combination in Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik which adds to the responsibility of the middle-order. “We have experience in the batting department, I am sure that is going to fire,” Dravid said. “If we play to our true potential, I think we can have a very good series. We have to try and play good cricket and maintain the performance right through the tour.”

The fast-bowling attack, however, does not share the same experience. Ishant Sharma has played just one Test, in Bangladesh, Ranadeb Bose has played none and S Sreesanth and RP Singh have 12 Tests between them. Dravid said Zaheer Khan, the most-experienced fast bowler with 47 Tests, had “a big role to play having played county cricket in England”. In the spin department, India dropped Harbhajan Singh from both the Test and ODI squads and picked the 18-year-old Piyush Chawla for the ODIs and Ramesh Powar to back up Anil Kumble in the Tests.

Given the inexperience of the attack, the experience and guidance of Ventakesh Prasad, the bowling coach, could make a sizeable difference. “He has a lot of experience and has been working hard with the youngsters,” said Dravid. “He has a big role to play on the tour.”

The team will be traveling without a coach or an administrative or media manager. Instead, after the fiasco of Graham Ford’s refusal to take up the coaching job, the BCCI chose to appoint Chandu Borde, a former Indian captain, as the cricket manager for this tour. Dravid sought to play down the absence of a regular coach and stressed that Borde would play a vital role on the tour. “Borde will be part of the team management… he will take part in strategies and meetings. He has so much knowledge and experience. In the earlier part of the tour, he will get to know the players and how the team works and get more comfortable with everyone.”

Borde described the tour as a challenge and said he was used to handling such situations. He didn’t join the conditioning camp in Bangalore but said that he had been keeping tabs on the England team. “They have variety in their pace attack and also have a formidable line-up. The team that plays at home always does well. I have been watching them on TV. They are doing well against West Indies. The batting looks comfortable with [Kevin] Pietersen, [Alastair] Cook, [Paul] Collingwood in their ranks.”

The Tests, though, are still a month away; India begin with a one-day international against Ireland on June 23, followed by three matches against South Africa and a match in Glasgow against Pakistan. The three-Test series against England will be followed by seven ODIs.

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Geoff Boycott says England should have dropped Andrew Strauss for the fourth Test against West Indies and asked him to regain his form with his county.

The Middlesex opener, 30, struggled during the winter and has hit only 58 runs in three Tests this summer.

Coach Peter Moores has backed the left-hander to come good but ex-England batsman Boycott says he needs a break.

“He’s just not playing well. I would have sent him back to county cricket for a while,” Boycott told the BBC.

“If he gets runs in the next Test it will be a good decision but I’ve been in that situation when your mind’s gone and you can’t make a run, your feet are all over the place.

“If the West Indies bowl OK he will get out again cheaply because his feet are not going in the right spot so he will need a lot of character and a slice of luck or two early on to survive.”

He’s worked hard and with hard work normally comes that bit of luck Peter Moores on Strauss

England made just one change to their 12-man squad for the fourth Test, which starts on Friday at the Riverside, recalling seamer Matthew Hoggard in place of the out-of-form Liam Plunkett.

But they kept faith with Strauss, and Moores is convinced he will be back to his best sooner rather than later.

“He’s hitting the ball well in practice. I’ve every confidence in Andrew, he’s a really good player, he’s shown it in the past and we’ll see it again in the future,” he insisted.

“It’s a case of getting some time in the middle. Before he came into this Test series he’d just got a hundred, and he’s very hungry.

“He’s worked hard and with hard work normally comes that bit of luck, and hopefully he gets that at Durham.”

Strauss made a flying start to his Test career with five centuries in his first 11 games and he has almost 3,000 from 39 Tests at an average of 41.15.

It would have been an opportunity to push Michael Vaughan up to opening and bring in a younger player Boycott on why Strauss should have been dropped

But that has dropped because of a dip in his form which began with a torrid time in the Ashes series in Australia and continued at the World Cup in the Caribbean.

Despite his struggles – he made 6 and 0 in the third Test at Old Trafford – England have an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series against the Windies and Boycott says the time was right to make a change.

“I’m not dismissing him from Test cricket – he has too good a record,” the former England opener added on BBC Radio Five Live’s podcast.

“But everybody’s had a period where they haven’t played very well, they’ve lost confidence and form, and it can be very cruel in the Test arena.

“It would have been an opportunity to push Michael Vaughan up to opening, which he’s quite used to, and bring in a younger player.

“Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara could do with some international cricket, so it would have been a good opportunity, especially since they’ve already won the series.”

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Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Munaf Patel have been left out of both India’s Test and one-day teams for the tour to Ireland and England, starting later this month.

Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly have returned to the one-day side, while expectedly retaining their spot in Tests, while Ranadeb Bose is the only new face in both the squads.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was picked as the one-day vice-captain while Sachin Tendulkar was entrusted that responsibility for Tests.

India’s one-day squad Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid (capt), Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (vice-capt, wk), Rohit Sharma, Ramesh Powar, Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawla, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Sreesanth.

India’s Test squad Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar (vice-capt), Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Ramesh Powar, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ranadeb Bose.

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Chandu Borde, the former Indian batsman, has been appointed as the manager for India’s tour to Ireland and England, starting in a week’s time.

Borde’s appointment comes in the wake of Graham Ford, the former South African coach who is currently the director of cricket at Kent, rejecting the Indian board’s offer for the job of a coach. He said he was “happy to get this responsibility”.

Borde, 72, was the manager way back in 1989-90, when India undertook a tough trip to Pakistan. He had also been entrusted with the responsibility between 1984 to 1986. He was also the chairman of selectors from 1999 to 2002.

Borde played 55 Tests for India between 1958 and 1969 and captained them in one Test, the opening game of the 1967-68 series against Australia at Adelaide.

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