大象传媒

A sense of lethargy pervaded as England began their warm-ups on Wednesday morning.

Matthew Hoggard and Sajid Mahmood bowled off-spin at each other, the touch rugby was lackadaisical and then the players, working in pairs, threw gentle lobs at each other with a baseball glove in one hand.

Monty Panesar contrived to drop a couple, as one might expect, but when it came to throwing down the stumps and catching practice, he looked surprisingly sharp.

This may sound crazy but perhaps one day he could make a serviceable slip fielder.

The first batsman to face up to 鈥� the bowling machine unveiled last year to help England attack Shane Warne 鈥� was Kevin Pietersen.

Set up to mimic the leg-spin of Danish Kaneria, Merlyn conceded rather too many sixes for its liking.

One particularly savage blow from KP hit the top of the canopy overlooking the new OCS Stand.
And if you have been to The Oval in the last year or so, you鈥檒l know just how big a hit that made it.

A few yards across from Pietersen鈥檚 unrelenting onslaught, Matthew Hoggard and Jon Lewis both bowled at full tilt 鈥� the former thereby proving his fitness for Thursday.

When they bowl consecutive deliveries at the same set of stumps you can see how they are remarkably similar they are to each other.

Both bowled with accuracy and both found outswing 鈥� but yet again Lewis seems certain to miss out at the toss with Hoggard鈥檚 sore knee no longer affecting him.

Not that Andrew Strauss would say as much at the lunchtime news conference, but he did not sound like a man who had any surprises up his sleeve.

While many fans and journalists already have more than one eye on the Ashes, even the England captain lapsed into unprompted debate about the big winter series.

鈥淲e鈥檝e got very good momentum heading into the Ashes series,鈥� he said, before hastily adding 鈥渁nd, more importantly, the one-day series.鈥�

Then there is the small issue of the captaincy for the Ashes.

Strauss said it was right for the selectors to meet to decide whether he or Andrew Flintoff should get the job.

But he also suggested he would be keen for them to do it sooner rather than later.

Revealingly, he added: 鈥淚 still need to continue scoring runs 鈥� that鈥檚 my primary job in the side.鈥�

Strauss is at least prepared for the bad news then, though on anecdotal evidence his own form has kicked on now that he has got used to captaincy.

Flintoff鈥檚 own stint as captain had its high point when he led from the front in that memorable match in Mumbai (Bombay).

But when it came to the home Tests against Sri Lanka, he was unable to dominate by his own deeds and then struggled to coax the best from his players.

Nothing has gone right for Pakistan this summer, and even on Wednesday they had to make do with the worst of the weather for their warm-up.

Shoaib Akhtar was there, but only to lend moral support.

Pakistan will surely fancy their chances in the one-day series, though.

Shoaib will be as hungry as a starving hyena for that one, will also be fresh, and England will have to arrest a dreadful run of form in 50-over cricket.

Their last 11 completed matches have yielded just one victory, and the bowling in the June matches against Sri Lanka was abysmal.