Chris McGrath: Captain wins respect after Cardiff feud

London, July 17: It is not just the aching joints and sinews of Andrew Flintoff that measure the difference between Test cricket and the feckless, coppiced versions of the game that will keep him off the streets after this summer.

As we saw the last time these sides contested a second Test, at Adelaide in December 2006, even the deepest foundations – and they don’t come much deeper than 551 for 6 declared – can soon be betrayed by the blokes on the scaffolding.

But an engrossing day here certainly fortified the sense that you build a position in a Test match, as the house in scripture, upon rock rather than sand. Cricket’s defining mystique is the way it harnesses the collective fortunes of your comrades to your private, gladiatorial struggles, as bowler or batsman. And while the first Test in Cardiff showed how that tension may ultimately prove most critical with your last two batsmen at the wicket, as a rule it will be tautest in an opening partnership.

True, in what is widely cherished as the most pregnant atmosphere in Test cricket – the first morning of an Ashes match at Lord’s – it might be argued that the electrifying start made by Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook had its own foundations in the 11 epic overs shared on Sunday evening by James Anderson and Monty Panesar.
–Agencies