The peculiar case of Ravi Bopara – it sounds like a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, no mean cricketer himself. Perhaps there is no mystery about Bopara's treatment. Even so the young (ish) Essex batsman might justifiably be feeling a little mystified.
Off he goes to the United Arab Emirates as one of England's batting options. Once the middle order had failed pitifully in two Test matches against Pakistan, he must have thought there was a chance that he might get a place in the side for the third Test – even though he was woefully short of practice.
No, the selectors doggedly stuck to the same middle order, which failed to produce any significant runs in the final Test as well. What must Bopara think? "Well, if they don't reckon I'm any better than this lot, they must think I'm pretty bloody awful" would be a fair guess.
All of which begs the question why they picked Bopara in the first place. Obviously not as an alternative, just as a stopgap replacement for a batsman suddenly laid low on the eve of the match. They do not seem to trust him much.
Now the one-day internationals are upon us the 26-year-old might get an outing. He did play in all five of the ODIs in India, albeit without achieving a great deal. He must also be confused about what role he is supposed to play in this form of the game. Bopara has appeared in 69 ODIs for England. In that time he has batted in every position from No1 to No8 without ever nailing down a regular slot. Occasionally he has bowled usefully.
He cannot be guaranteed a game in Abu Dhabion Monday. T, though the news that Jos Buttler has arrived in the UAE with split webbing on his hand gives him a better chance. However Buttler has been in princely form with the A team this winter: if he is fit by Monday then it would be so tempting to give him his 50-over debut on the basis of getting dynamic, young players straight into the side when they are at the peak of their form. If Buttler does play then surely it is Bopara who will be on the sidelines again.
There is the potential consolation that the tour of Sri Lanka is around the corner. Since Bopara is the only middle-order batsman to have a flawless record in the Middle East during the Test series, he is surely bound to get the nod for Sri Lanka, albeit with a terrible feeling of deja vu.
In 2007 he went there and having scored 8 and 34 in Kandy on his Test debut, he endured three consecutive ducks in the rest of the series. He was duly dropped. On his recall to the side in 2009 he proceeded to hit three consecutive centuries against the West Indies. Thereafter mediocrity.
So in 2012 Bopara might be returning to Sri Lanka in identical personal circumstances. Five years on he is still on trial as a Test player; he is still peripheral; he is still none too certain whether he is trusted as a batsman. This must be a dispiriting realisation since five years is a long time in a cricketer's career.
Perhaps a successful ODI series – if he can get into the side – will help Bopara. After the final Test in Dubai Andy Flower said that he felt skills were transferable from the one-day game to the Test arena. Therefore anyone who excelled against the Pakistan spinners during the ODIs would enhance their chances of getting a berth in the Test team in Sri Lanka.
But is it that straightforward? In one-day cricket Eoin Morgan has forged a reputation as being adept against spinners, innovative and daring. Yet faced with the peculiar pressures of a Test match in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, against a turning ball propelled by high-quality Pakistan spinners into some nasty patches of rough ground outside his off-stump, Morgan looked just as fallible as any of the others.
But they kept picking him and Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen. Perhaps they still will. So how can Bopara get back into that Test side? The sad and simple fact is that his best bet is via a couple of broken fingers or some dodgy prawns.
Could England's cricket team show the footballers the way forward?
A cheerful reminder to those fretting about English football: think of the state of the cricket team in January 2009. Then they had an ineffective coach and an inappropriate captain. Yet, magically – and seemingly through happenstance rather than any Machiavellian plotting — both were gone inside a week to be replaced by a far better combination, Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss, a brilliantly successful duo at least until the last month.
The parallels between Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores, the men in charge of English cricket at the start of 2009, and John Terry and Fabio Capello are not that obvious even though KP and Terry remain Chelsea men while Moores and Capello both had a tendency to speak a brand of English at press conferences that no one really understood. Now at the FA there is a vacuum from which to construct a brave new world. This might be just what they need. For the Ashes 2009 read Euro 2012.
