Steady Ashley Giles leaves behind a tail of woe

[King]

England No 8s must develop the knack of chipping in with regular twenty-somethings, says Steve James. More... Steady Ashley Giles leaves behind a tail of woe By Steve James, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 10:41pm BST 28/07/2007 Have your say Read comments In pics: India take upper hand | Trent Bridge scorecard Video: The Analyst at the Test England's No 8, Chris Tremlett, scored 20 yesterday. If only he, or anyone else batting in that position, could do that in every innings then England would be a much more potent side. Or so the argument goes. After all, just a notch over 20 was Ashley Giles's Test match batting average and everything appeared so much rosier in the lower-order when he was ensconced at No 8. Sadly, Giles is only at Test matches in a commentating role these days and is likely to announce his injury-enforced retirement soon. But it is still fresh in the memory how England's initial preference for him over Monty Panesar last winter in Australia caused such a brouhaha. It was a decision clearly made with the No 8 position in mind, but only made because Giles was considered to be bowling at least as well as Panesar. Subsequent events have, of course, clearly proved Panesar to be the far superior spinner, and therein lies the crux of this matter: that you must always endeavour to select your best bowlers. Only a fool would attempt to argue otherwise. But if you have two bowlers of a similar standard then it is obviously desirable to have the better batsman in your side. Of course it is the job of the specialist batsmen to score the bulk of the runs, but if they are worried about the inadequacies of their lower-order colleagues then it can affect them. Batting with the tail is also an art in itself, one not particularly perfected by this England side. Remember Kevin Pietersen's troubles in Australia - that was why he was promoted from five to four in the order. Ian Bell struggled badly against India at Lord's where England's last four (including Matt Prior after Ryan Sidebottom had earlier gone in as nightwatchman) managed a measly one run between them in the first innings. Lower-order runs do count. One only has to cast a glance back at last year's Test at Trent Bridge against Sri Lanka. England lost by 134 runs and the overriding memory is probably Muttiah Muralitharan's second-innings eight for 70. But what is easily forgotten is Sri Lanka's first-innings rally from their lower order. They were in serious strife at 139 for eight but contrived to make 231 thanks to 38 not out from Chaminda Vaas and contributions of 21 and 33 from Lasith Malinga and Muralitharan. It meant England could only achieve the near-parity of 229 and laid them grievously open to Muralitharan's wiles later. So England needed something similar yesterday. They did not get it, as an overnight 169 for seven swiftly became 198 all out. In truth neither Tremlett nor Sidebottom (18 not out) convinced. Tremlett had been offered a second life on Friday evening when, on four, Sachin Tendulkar spilled a regulation catch at first slip off Zaheer Khan. At least death then would have been better than the ignominious pair he recorded at Lord's. But the suspicion remains that Tremlett is a "hitter" rather than a "proper" batsman who can eke out the requisite runs. The expectations are not exactly onerous. As Giles said yesterday: "For me, batting at the back end of the innings is all about finding a method that gets you 15 or 20 runs every time you go in. You have to find out your best way to score and if I got 20 I thought I'd done an important job for the team." So if Tremlett and Sidebottom did reasonably, then Panesar and James Anderson did not. We even had the bizarre sight of Sidebottom (one first-class fifty) turning down singles to protect Anderson. Talk about delusions of grandeur. Panesar's batting continues to disappoint. He showed some promise at Trent Bridge last year in smacking a sprightly second-innings 26 (including a six off Muralitharan). But yesterday he survived an adjacent-looking leg-before to Khan before nicking the same bowler to second slip. As for Anderson, goodness knows what he was thinking in backing away to Anil Kumble. England's new bowling attack has quite rightly attracted rave notices, but it must not neglect its batting. It could be crucial. It certainly would have cast a very different light on yesterday's proceedings.

[King]

Similarly Anil Kumble for India used to do a decent job before chipping in with 20s or even 30s at times. Of late he seems to play a lot of shots and get a quick 15. Gone are his gritty long inning. Harbhajan can make a decent no.8 for India. Pathan would be fantastic no.8 but his bowling's been woeful. It helps to have a decent no.8 that can not only chip in with consistent 20s but play long enough for the no.6 and no.7 to realise some runs.

[Gambit]

Kumble played an extremely valuable knock in our victory at Kingston. Since then, he hasn't done much. Giles too has played some crucial innings, most notably in the 4th innings of the 4th test in the 2005 Ashes.