English Test summer begins

You can tell by the rain in the air that today heralds the start of the English Test summer. Fortunately it's stayed away from Lord's so far and we're two sessions in to the first Test against the West Indies.

After snacking on Indian Premier League for a couple of weeks or so, it feels good to be sitting down to a balanced, square meal such that Test match cricket represents. Nobody is proud of themselves after a superficial diet of take-outs and fast food, and neither am I after a smorgasbord of IPL cricket dominating the TV schedules chez moi. No more DLF maximum bollocks - and Robin Jackman, I'm coming for you after you committed the heinous crime of using 'DLF' as a verb, to whit "he's DLFed it out of the ground" - instead the monotonous ramblings of Nasser and pals on Sky's increasingly annoying coverage.

And what of the cricket so far? Well, we've only had two sessions and Kevin Pietersen has transferred his IPL form to the bigger stage by getting a first baller, a superb delivery from Fidel Edwards who continues to impress, and Ravi Bopara is the latest to look at least fleetingly good at number three. Early days yet, but he's gone pretty well. England line up with Graham Onions and Tim Bresnan on debut in a long tail and I really never thought I'd see the day when Bresnan got a Test cap. How he's made it into the side ahead of his much more impressive team-mate at Yorkshire, Adil Rashid, is one of those mysteries of life that future generations will shake their heads at in disbelief. Meanwhile for the West Indies, someone really needs to tell them how to catch small red balls. If they'd hung on to catches, then they'd be batting already.

The big difference between this and the crash, bang wallop in South Africa is over rates. There is no reason why sides should not be able to go at fifteen overs per hour. Rates of thirteen and lower are pathetic. Some time ago, Chris wrote about flat pitches beating the living daylights out of Test cricket. So are slow over rates. The fines aren't working. Either they need to be upped, and upped significantly, or penalty runs brought in. Or both. Oh, and suspensions for captains.