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mark-ealham

Thanks, Fred, and goodnight

last year, mid-September

So that’s probably it for Freddie, then. Whatever drivel the ECB can try and spin about his ankle needing time “to settle and recover before the process of further strengthening and assessment is intensified” – medico-speak for “he’s done it in again” – it’s probably safe to assume that a man on the wrong side of 30 who has played just one of his team’s last four Test series isn’t really one for the future. It’s time to look beyond.

Flintoff

Probably most likely to step into the breach in the short-term is Ravi Bopara. But he’s untried at Test level and despite knocking Mike Hussey over on his ODI debut, it’s hard to imagine him knocking over Test sides with his gentle trundlers off a short run. Similarly Paul Collingwood, who encouragingly hasn’t let snaffling Sourav Ganguly on a lucky LBW shout go to his head.

So let’s look to the current crop of youngsters. There’s Adil Rashid, who scored his first Championship century this season, and team-mate Tim Bresnan, who has fought back well from being Jayasuriya’s bitch last summer. Younger still, there’s Alex Wakely at Northants and James Harris at Glamorgan. For some of these it looks like the next Ashes in 2009 will come a bit soon (Harris was born in 1990, for heaven’s sake), while none of them really looks like a potential Test number six. But then again, nor does Freddie at the moment.

Who does everyone think will end up filling Fred’s specially-modified boots? A batsman? A bowler? Or is it time David Graveney got Mark Ealham back on the phone?

Mark Ealham goes beserk

2 years ago, mid-April

At work today, we weren’t sure if the scorecard was faulty/wrong or whether Mark Ealham had, actually, hit a blistering century. It looks like it did happen though:

Nottinghamshire 2nd innings                                     R   M   B  4 6
DJ Bicknell                              b Bresnan              0   2   4  0 0
*JER Gallian          c Cook             b Panesar            171   0 230 27 1
RJ Warren             c Davies           b Bresnan              4  14  10  1 0
DJ Hussey                                b Bopara              19  37  23  4 0
WR Smith              c Clarke           b Footitt             39   0  15  5 0
+CMW Read             not out                                 110   0 156 14 2
MA Ealham             not out                                 112   0  53 11 8
Extras                (b 2, lb 7, w 3, nb 4)                   16
Total                 (5 wickets declared, 93.4 overs)        471

53 balls for 112!