If England let Panesar loose he has the chance to prove a lot of people right and to kill the opinion now being commonly expressed that England reached a plateau in winning the Ashes and can only go down, writes Ted Corbett.
Of the 42 cricketers who have bowled slow left-arm spin for England there have been a number of men you might never forget.
Bobby Peel, for instance, could drink as well as he could bowl (101 Test wickets at 16.98) and ended his 19th century life in a lunatic asylum. John Wardle (102 at 20.39) produced left-arm orthodoxy, Chinamen and tough language with equal facility and ended his county and England career by putting his name to a series of ill-advised revelations in a national newspaper.
Hedley Verity (144 at 24.38) — Nick Verity Knight, the England opening batsman and Warwickshire captain is a remote relative 100 years after Hedley's birth — would probably have been the finest of them all had the Second World War not first ended his career and then ended his life in the far away killing fields of Italy. Tony Lock (174 at 25.58) chucked the ball "like a throw in from cover point", one illustrious batsman remembers. Lock remodelled his action but occasionally threw one "just to show I can." Wilfred Rhodes patiently undermined 127 Test batsmen at 26.97, rarely spoke off the field until he went blind late in life and then became as garrulous as a radio talk show host.
Phil Edmonds (125 at 34.18) was a better businessman than a cricketer and now few days pass without his name appearing in the city pages of the posh papers as he adds to his millions. At least, he still has his money. Phil Tufnell, his successor with Middlesex and England, won a celebrity contest after retiring with 121 at 37.69. Sadly, his millions have vanished as quickly as the batsmen.
Ashley Giles took the spot left vacant by Tufnell and has played in only 10 defeats in 52 Tests while he took 140 wickets at 39.60 but he cannot tour India since he has not recovered quickly enough from his hip operation. Which makes Monty Panesar, whose parents left Punjab to find prosperity in middle England, the 43rd purveyor of left-arm spin and the first Sikh to vie for an England Test place. Do you remember the other Indian slow left-armer to play for England? Min Patel of Kent, one wicket for 180 runs.
Perhaps, in the cautious England way, Panesar will be allowed to absorb the Test atmosphere while Shaun Udal bowls off breaks in Nagpur, Chandigarh and Mumbai in the coming month and Ian Blackwell acts as back-up.
Panesar has the makings of a great spin bowler after years in the care of Nick Cook who went from Northamptonshire to Tests in the mid-1980s and finished with 52 victims at 32.48. If England let Panesar loose he has the chance to prove a lot of people right and to kill the opinion now being commonly expressed that England reached a plateau in winning the Ashes and can only go down.
They say — that is the never-were cynics meeting in quiet corners to remind one another how much better cricket was in their day — that England won back the Ashes by two narrow victories and that by the time they reach Australia this autumn they will have lost all their verve and power after a series of poor results. Well, we will see.
Duncan Fletcher, the most successful England coach, certainly does not think so. He is already planning for the attempt to keep the Ashes and, if he does not see the series against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as stepping stones to that struggle, he will always have one eye on the little urn throughout the next eight months. He says: "It is the most important series and we must be sure we are ready for it. I shall be working my way towards it all this year."
Marcus Trescothick, stand-in captain for Michael Vaughan during the one-day international series in Pakistan, thinks that Panesar will play a big part in England's future. "I first played against him in the nets in Adelaide when he was at the Australian Academy and I have to say I was impressed," Trescothick says.
He also believes that the defeat in Pakistan will fade into insignificance long before the team lands in Australia next October. "We lacked experience in the sub-continent but we have absorbed the lessons and feel we do not need to change too much. We are at our best when we bat aggressively but if we have to score at a slower pace we must be able to adapt."
His tour of Pakistan was blighted by a phone call which told him that his father-in-law had had a fall and suffered serious head injuries while he was repairing the roof of Trescothick's home in Somerset. Modern technology meant that on his mobile phone Trescothick, 6000 miles away in Pakistan, was able to watch John Rowse, 55, placed in the ambulance. Luckily, Mr. Rowse made a full recovery and will be able to join Trescothick in India for ten days during this second tour of the 2005-6 winter. Mrs. Hayley Trescothick and their 10-month-old daughter Ellie will also watch one of the Tests.
Both Trescothick's view of his father-in-law's accident and the visit from his nearest and dearest are far from the early tours of India when, one old player told me, he and the other professionals made part of the journey locked in the goods wagon of a train. The amateurs travelled in first class, "of course" he said. Nowadays, professional cricketers want for little. First class hotels, business class on the plane, a hoard of helpers, their own medical service, police escorts to matches; all a vastly different set-up from the days, not all that long ago, when Test players had to beg lifts to get to the ground or take the bus. That would hardly be appropriate for men looking for a million pounds sterling a year, benefits in multi-millions and a lifestyle to match.
I often wonder how the old-time player would have coped with modern training, dietary plans and long sessions in the gym. Or how the 21st century professional would like long sea voyages, no communication with home for six months at a time except by post and a rigid class structure that gave the amateurs their own dressing room, a different gate and the belief that they should be addressed as "sir" by the common herd. Peel, Rhodes, Verity, Wardle, Edmonds, Tufnell and Giles had much in common not least that after long, hot, dusty days around the world they won Tests and found glory briefly from an art form that has hardly changed since the first Test in 1877. If Panesar joins that group in the next couple of months it will probably mean England have won a series in India for the first time since David Gower led his side to a 2-1 victory in 1984-5 after a trip marked by violence, disruption and thousands of deaths.
Twenty-one years ago there was still the leisure for trips into remoter parts of the country; Gower snapped wild life in a nature reserve for four days; this time three Tests are squeezed into three weeks; with barely time to take a snap in between. I wonder how Colin Blythe who grabbed 100 wickets at 18.43 in 20 Tests despite a catalogue of illnesses or the thirsty Peel would have managed that.
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