England take on Kiwis in summer of non-stop cricket

It’s cold. It’s wet. And the nation’s sporting focus is concentrated on the big footballing issues being settled almost daily. So it must be time for the start of a new season of test cricket, writes Malcolm Boughen.

Maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s the loss of live coverage on terrestrial television, but the return of our national summer sport these days seems increasingly low key – like a wedding guest who’s not sure he’s really welcome at the reception. But as the festivities get into full swing, cricket can often turn out to be the life and soul of the party.

And this summer the entertainment will be non-stop.

The opening two-test series against New Zealand – offered as canapés at that reception ahead of the banquet to come – will be far from the routine assignment it might sometimes appear.

It’ll be followed next month by the ICC Champions Trophy – a 50-overs-a-side competition fought out by the world’s top eight one-day teams. And then, running through July and August, the highlight of this and any other summer: the Ashes series against Australia. So what are the prospects?

Contradictory signs

If we can get anything like five days of decent weather for the first test at Lord’s starting on Thursday – and that looks unlikely at the moment – we should get a good indication of the real strength of this England side. And the recent signs have been somewhat contradictory.

A year at the top of the world test rankings ended last summer with a 2-0 defeat to South Africa. But they bounced back impressively, recording their first series win in India in almost three decades.

If any other international side can be said to be familiar with English conditions, it is the team from the land of the long white cloud.

They travelled on to New Zealand in confident form, but escaped somewhat fortuitously with a drawn series – and the Kiwis will be keen to show they’re no pushovers, even on English soil.

These early weeks of the cricket season often yield up overcast conditions, ideal for English-style swing bowling. But if any other international side can be said to be familiar with such conditions, it is the team from the land of the long white cloud.

English strength

The England squad, without the injured Kevin Pietersen, still looks a strong one.

Captain Alastair Cook will renew his opening partnership with Nick Compton after the latter’s successful breakthrough in the winter tours. And the middle order – with the experience of Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell and the youthful exuberance of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow – looks full of runs.

Wicketkeeper Matt Prior, fresh from being named England’s player of the year, is never lacking in confidence. And the bowling line-up – with the return after injury of Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann and Tim Bresnan alongside James Anderson and Steven Finn – is also impressive on paper, with either Finn or Bresnan likely to be left to kick their heels as twelfth man.

In Ross Taylor and Hamish Rutherford, New Zealand have batsmen who are capable of turning a game on its head.

But this New Zealand team, despite being only eighth in the world rankings, must not be under-estimated. In Ross Taylor and Hamish Rutherford – who took apart the England bowling on his test debut in Dunedin in March and only last week scored a century against the England Lions – they have batsmen who are capable of turning a game on its head, while their pace attack arguably swung the ball more impressively than their England counterparts during the winter tour.

So England must not be too distracted by the prospect of taking on the Aussies again – even though they have the very real possibility of recording a third successive Ashes triumph. That would indeed be a champagne moment for English cricket. But first they have to polish off those canapés and prove they genuinely deserve their invitation to the party.