Crikey. England have a top order.

I’m cursed by having to work in the day time, which means I can’t stay at home watching cricket all day. If I could find a job that let me do that, then cor blimey, I’d be all over it. Anyway, the result is that to catch up with what happened in the 1st day of the 3rd Test between England and Pakistan, I had to watch the highlights. It’s OK, Sky do a pretty comprehensive 2 hour programme. So I’m watching the highlights. England would have been pretty happy with their 350 odd for 6 at the end of the day. But something occurred to me.

England actually have a decent top order.

As batsmen got a start, but, with the exception of Pietersen, never really went anywhere, there was a reasonably constant stream of players coming in. And each time, they seemed to be greeted with the same tagline from the commentator:

“x is the in-form batsman for England”

And it’s true. Trescothick hasn’t scored many runs recently, but there’s no doubting his class. Likewise with Strauss. Alastair Cook has burst on to the International scene. Pietersen, bit of a ponce, but no doubt he can play. Paul Collingwood – scoring runs. Ian Bell – 2 hundreds in the last 2 matches. Geraint Jones would have been thoroughly miserable to see his replacement Chris Read score a pretty fluent 38 on his return to test cricket. Each of those players would have been annoyed with themselves to have not gone on and got half centuries, at the very least, but for each of our top 5 to be averaging over 40 – you can’t really ask a lot more. And crikey ‘o’ blimey, that lineup doesn’t even include Flintoff.

And with Harmison and Hoggard bowling well, and Monty, well… just Monty… all of a sudden the English test side is looking like a force to be reckoned with once again. Australia – put your boots on and start quaking.