Mind you it is only when the bowling is above medium pace that Tufnell looks like a shivering kitten and he never really

Mind you, it is only when the bowling is above medium pace that Tufnell looks like a shivering kitten, and he never really looked in trouble until Ambrose, bowling for the first time with the second new ball, had him caught at cover.By then Tufnell had batted for over an hour and made sure England would not have to bat until after West Indies second innings.. A few overs later, Fraser, having been protected from the wiles of Dinanath Ramnarine by Ramprakash, at last found himself facing the leg-spinner.With Ambrose still nowhere to be seen, Fraser clearly fancied himself for a few. Unfortunately his sweep shot was poorly executed and Lara duly trotted round from slip to catch the top edge.Tufnell’s appearance, with 13 runs still wanted, was not a situation that even the wildest of City speculators would have taken on lightly. It paid off now, and he managed to keep Ramprakash company for 31 overs adding 64 runs, before attempting an exotic cut off Hooper, he edged to Lara at slip.If the stand, which had taken England to within 14 runs of the follow- on had brought some belated comfort the collapse that followed, would have made the hearts of those players watching, palpitate once more.Dean Headley, so stoic at the crease in Trinidad, was timid here and he edged Hooper to Williams for a duck. To be fair to Croft, who wore a daffodil in the strap of his right pad,to commemorate St David’s Day, has worked hard at this weakness. In fact it is a lot more basic and Lara will now realise that you first have to get to A, before you can contemplate B, and it was ironic that the follow-on was avoided due to a sloppy misfield by him, when Ramprakash deftly dabbed Carl Hooper his way at slip.Ambrose’s absence, for the whole of the morning session, allowed Ramprakash and more especially Robert Croft, never previously at ease against the throat ball, to settle. However, the portents, at least as far as Ramprakash is concerned, are encouraging, and the Middlesex captain showed that his nerves are no longer as taut as piano wires when the going gets tough.

For underachievers like Ramprakash, it is important to win the little battles like this one and next time he faces the abyss, he probably will not even teeter, let alone fall in.The crusty, broken nature of this pitch, now slowing as well, has caused many of batsmen to adopt strange tactics, but none as strange as the decision made by Lara, the world’s best batsman, when he declined to bowl Curtly Ambrose, the world’s best fast bowler at England’s tail.Whether Lara was saving Ambrose for England’s second innings, or whether he had been reading Mike Brearley’s discourses on captaincy, his tactics were far too erudite in a situation that probably required little more than brute force.Cricket has often been likened to chess, but rarely the way the West Indies like to play it. He did not, but at least he attempted the catch which was more than Atherton did, when the left-hander chipped a leading edge into the covers off Fraser. Shortly after tea, the fourth wicket went down when Butcher did catch Lara, a smart take as the West Indies captain unwisely advanced down the wicket to Tufnell.In spite of the late heroics by bat and ball, Atherton’s team remain in a parlous position. The first a blistering whip shot to square leg off Headley would have been one of the catches of the series had Mark Butcher managed to cling on. The West Indies, resuming their second innings with a combination of the cavalier and the calamitous, were quickly in trouble after Stuart Williams was well caught by Alec Stewart as he drove at Dean Headley in the bowler’s opening over.The response, after Williams had been booed off by the crowd was was a flurry of boundaries by Sherwin Campbell and Lara, before Campbell, flicking Angus Fraser off his hip, was brilliantly caught by Ramprakash at short-leg.A ball later, Hair had to seek the help of the third umpire watching the TV replay after Shivnarine Chanderpaul, setting off for a quick single, narrowly lost out to a brilliant direct hit by Nasser Hussain, as he swooped on the ball from cover.It might have been even better for England, had two chances from Lara, on 5 and 9, not gone begging.

For Ramprakash, it was, apart from his vital 48 at The Oval against Australia, probably the most important innings he has played for England and certainly his most satisfying. Before yesterday he had played 21 innings against the West Indies and never passed 29.
But if the innings was a personal corner turned, he needed help to make it count for England, his cohorts coming in the unlikely shapes of Robert Croft and Phil Tufnell, the latter sharing a tense 25 minutes together for the last wicket, before the follow-on was saved.The efforts by Ramprakash and the tail, clearly spurred the bowlers on. That they managed to do so, was largely due to Mark Ramprakash, who scored an unbeaten 64, though some bizarre captaincy by Brian Lara, as well as some careless batting by his team, also gave England’s men, drowning in self-pity the previous day a few more straws to cling to. SHOWING the kind of spirit and application that would have served them better earlier in the match, England managed to avoid the follow-on against the West Indies at the Bourda yesterday. I hope the committee will be able to bring forward another vote as soon as possible and that threshold will be reached,” Major added “I don’t see any justification for the present situation.”. It was a majority for change but it wasn’t a big enough majority to pass the threshold their rules state.”No, I don’t think the present system is sustainable.

He told BBC TV’s Breakfast With Frost: “I think it’s archaic that they don’t. The Sports Minister, Tony Banks, warned on the day the voting figures were made public that the MCC could expect no lottery funds for development until it changed its stance.The former Prime Minister, John Major, said yesterday that he, as a member of the MCC, had voted to admit women. Mr Blair’s response continued: “It strikes me that, in this day and age, such a decision does not reflect well on the MCC or anybody else.”His comments add to the weight of opinion building up for a re-think by the club. Had I been I would have voted to admit women and can see no good reason why that decision was not taken.”
The cricket club’s vote produced a majority in favour of women as members – but not the two-thirds majority which its committee had decreed was necessary for a change to the rules. His reply read: “I am obviously aware of the decision that was made I am not a member of the MCC. THE Prime Minister has criticised the vote last week which saw the Marylebone Cricket Club keep the door slammed firmly shut on women as members. Tony Blair’s views are spelled out in his responses to “a handful of letters” he has received from critics of the decision.

A smattering of grubbiness is a small price to pay for what sounds like a vastly more exciting life.. While his arch enemies the Hubert Laneites were languishing on their beds sick with only an improving history book to keep them company, William and the Outlaws were out saving the day, getting five shilling rewards and munching through endless slices of layer cakes. (It’s now also believed that Ophelia didn’t commit suicide but lost her balance after over-vigorous application of a loofah during some extra-mural bathing).No, a little bit of dirt did no one any harm, as Just William can testify. Sadly it’s more likely the spur was that Lady Macduff might be passing rumours that the new queen has dirty fingernails, which is why she wails that “all the perfumes of Araby will not sweeten this little hand”. It’s popularly been assumed that her sleepwalking and obsessive handwashing springs from guilt over Duncan’s murder.