Stuart Broad ruled out of England's second Test against Sri Lanka

He will now undertake a rehabilitation programme which will determine his availability for all cricket including the Indian Premier League.

Broad, 25, went into the first Test with a sore left ankle which he had sprained on the boundary rope doing warm-ups before the first practice match in Colombo, just over two weeks ago. This latest problem, although on his other leg, could well be linked given the overcompensation that often occurs when bowlers take niggles into a game.

England, experiencing a losing streak that has now extended to four straight defeats, will miss a fit Broad, with his aggression and sense of purpose, but not the one there, who was not fully himself. He has struck up a dynamic new-ball partnership with James Anderson, but while he bore his discomfort well during the Test, he was noticeably off colour.

Tim Bresnan, himself recently injured, will also be under consideration. England badly missed a third seamer on the opening morning of the Test when they had Sri Lanka 15 for three. Instead of maintaining the pressure created by Anderson and Broad by introducing another pace bowler, they had to turn to spin, which is in the comfort zone for Sri Lankan batsmen, especially on a first day pitch. With 20 wickets more a priority in Colombo than big totals, because of their desperation to win the game and level the series, England could well play five bowlers.

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Surrey pace bowlers hold key to County Championship

Surrey have reserves of pace bowling like no other county except Lancashire, and this season the holders of the county championship have to play four of their home games on the new sideways-pitches at Old Trafford which are not as pacey as their traditional ones.

While counties are stocked with fast-medium bowlers — and some with nothing but fast-medium — very few have anyone fast. In Stuart Meaker, who debuted for England’s 50-over team last winter, Surrey have one; and, rarer still, in Chris Jordan they have a quick-bowling all-rounder.

With Jade Dernbach, Tim Linley and Jon Lewis — signed from Gloucestershire – who has been nibbling the ball around on Surrey’s pre-season tours of Somerset and Essex, Surrey have the fuel in an era of reduced power-supplies; and there is also the possibly that Chris Tremlett might recover from his latest injury in time for the championship run-in.

The brown caps, or brown helmets, have batsmen too. The younger ones are shot-a-ball merchants more suited to the 20- and 40-over formats, but Surrey’s resources — as one of the richer, or least bankrupt, counties — have enabled them to sign veterans for them to bat around.

Given that county cricket now attracts only the left-overs from overseas — players not wanted by the Indian Premier League, whose fifth season extends to the end of May — Jacques Rudolph has been as big as any off-season signing this winter.

Rudolph may not have proved himself a Test opening batsman, but at number six he is not so much of an ‘lbw candidate’, has got away with closing the bat face and re-established himself in South Africa’s Test side. His relative absence from Yorkshire last season was a major reason for their demotion; and his acquisition by Surrey for the first two months of this season should guarantee their staying up, and maybe more.

The big question is whether Mark Ramprakash, at 42, can make any more big hundreds, especially after Rudolph departs for South Africa’s tour of England. Last season’s average of 33 was Ramprakash’s lowest since his debut year of 1987, and he made a single first-class century, leaving him on 114 in all.

Ramprakash got in last season, like Andrew Strauss in recent Tests, but didn’t go on from his 20s and 30s. Last week, when captaining MCC in Abu Dhabi against Lancashire, and when batting against a pink ball was fine except at twilight, he began his 26th first-class season with a 7 and 6.

As an ever higher proportion of top-level runs are scored in limited-overs formats, and an ever lower proportion in first-class cricket, nobody in future will come close to the 35,000 first-class runs that Ramprakash has clocked; and even Sachin Tendulkar, with 78, and Ricky Ponting, 77, are not going to approach his tally of first-class centuries.

This season’s county championship would round off not only an individual career but an era.

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The ashes of 2010: ITV4 salient facts screen series between the United Kingdom and the Australia

Cricket will be broadcast on ITV4 - and therefore only available to viewers access to Freeview or other digital services - but it should nevertheless attract audiences over one million, as well as the same kind of profile ABC1 period drama Julian Fellowes.

"We've attracted peak figures as high as two million ITV4 for some matches of the Europa League", said a spokesman for ITV. ""This channel has hosted a number of sporting events, including France, tour the world and the Indian Premier League Cup".

The new more important as cricket free Sky Sports fans are concerned, that they can watch a full sequence of ash, time is a significant improvement over Windows falls short clips that will be available on the website of England and Wales Cricket country of.

Mark Nicholas will be before the program, which will begin at 10 am every night, even though the comment and sequences provided by the Australian Channel 9 host broadcaster.

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V England India: Andrew Strauss, explains the long form of cricket is the ultimate Test

The initial to ttwweennttyy rush declined a little, but you do not have to be a specialist of the rockets to see that, in some parts of the world that it is fighting for interest. Many of the reasons is not met and has turned to other forms of gambling.

We are very lucky in England , because we have a base of very stable and solid support for the game of Test cricket, which I do not change any time soon.

But it is important that we continue encouraging and nurturing the game in other parts of the world. There is room for three forms of game to coexist, but we need administrators to continue to work and ensure Test cricket is a good product to look at.

Once, no there were no rival of Test cricket. We now have to adopt other forms of game and use them to introduce people to Test cricket.

It should not be an unhealthy competition between the formats. The challenge for administrators is to get this balance so that all can coexist together. The difficulty is that on the commercial plan, shorter forms of the more logical than Test cricket game is a challenge for administrators to look at the overview rather than simply the bottom line.

In my view, it is not easy for them and we all have responsibility for the future. Sometimes, this means investing in something that is not the most cost-effective in the short term while knowing that in the long term it could pay off the coast.

As players, we also recognize that such situations that leave for bad light help to our cause. We have too much to a little more receptive to change if this means that the game will continue to prosper.

In 20 years the cricket Test will always be with us, but it is unlikely that we will play as much of it. You can see that already happening in other parts of the world but there is much cause for optimism that England will continue to produce high Test cricket players in the future.

In this case, Test cricket is 1 and you can make an argument that it is not necessarily healthy to the priority on a day and ttwweennttyy cricket. It is something that we know and will continue to address so that we can win the world cups in the future. But the strength of Test cricket is with its history in this case, the manner in which our media focus on it, and because the players to the forefront of their minds.

I think always that the vast majority of players see the ultimate form of the game. This is where you make your name and players see their Test record as a measure of good how a cricket you are. We are yet to see a specialist ttwweennttyy and watched as a Test player and that will not change.

It is clear that some players were influenced by the armoury of ttwweennttyy and make a pleasant stay for themselves. I would hold it against them, but the next generation of cricketers will face difficult choices on what direction they want to go. It is up to individuals, but they got to keep in mind the balance between money and the status of the game. Test cricket gives opportunities to produce sports feats, such as the Test of ash at Headingley in 1981.

That does not occur in the shorter forms of the game and is the reason why I like Test cricket. Individual players are tested continuously and if they have any weakness it deems.

If the players and spectators start to turn its back on the cricket Test which would be a shame. A value of two centuries of history and tradition would be lost, but there are reasons to believe that will not happen.

Innovations such as day-night Test cricket have been raised and the world Test Championship will give us context.

Series of tests is more and more short so you must have a context otherwise, it is difficult for people to generate real interest.

Also if the teams are familiar with each account to something at the end of what they may feel encouraged to play more Test cricket.

None of us know enough how the Test World Championship, which will be played for the first time in England in 2013, at this stage, but over time, it will rely on a great event give us a reason to be confident for the future.

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Virender Sehwag: India should be upset with us

The end of another one-sided contest was swift with the Australians snapping up the final four wickets in an hour to skittle India for 201 and inflict an eighth away Test defeat on the trot for the demoralised tourists.

The series drubbing comes after they were similarly hammered 4-0 in England last year, but speaking after the latest reverse, stand-in captain Sehwag claimed that India could take inspiration from the lows suffered by hosts Australia in recent years.

"It happens, if you look at the Australia team also they were struggling a year back and they lost the Ashes and they got out on 47 in South Africa so it happen with every team, so we have to rebuild the team and we'll think about it."

He conceded that India's cricket-obsessed fans had every right to be disappointed with their underperforming idols but pleaded for support.

"I think they should be upset with our performances, and I totally agree with them. This is the time the fans should back the players. When we won the World Cup, everyone was happy. Everybody was cheering for Team India. Now is the time we need support from fans. They should back their own team.

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V England India: Andrew Strauss's England pacemen must hit the race ground to beat the India

Rahul Dravid has a great technique: If the MCC, to update their book coaching, it would be between Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ian Bell to illustrate right-handed traits. And large sleeves, won a match, series which rotates, VVS Laxman has played the most in the modern era.

Reason than in England have hit hard at the India of the Lord and Trent Bridge, on the grounds that more favours their pace bowlers and Mount 2-0.

Tourists are traditionally slow starters, and this reputation has only been graced over the past three years, when the Tests only three, they have lost were the first test of a series: home and away against South Africa and later in Sri Lanka.

Council of the India have also made their players a disservice: a convenient three-day game against Somerset, interrupted by rain, can be inadequate by way of preparation. The last team of the tour who tried to flee with a few days to adjust to English conditions, West Indies in 2007, dropped by dolly in their first Test to the Lord.

Most of the Indian party were playing white-ball cricket in the Caribbean, but with Kookaburras, not the Dukes, who swing more: drummers and launchers need time to adapt. In the absence of Sehwag and match practice, England have to dismiss the India cheaply in the first round of this series if they want to get on top.

Only the fast Perth and Johannesburg - and against bowling faster that everything that the India can parade - lands has the stick of England concluded in the past two years. The key to England is whether their attack by four men, without any support of the note, can Bowl India - with their great batsmen - two times outside.

And the lack of support for the four launchers of England is aggravated by the decision control system compromise which the Council, to save face, agreed: no Hawk-eye to predict the trajectory of the ball after the ball strikes pad.

It would not matter if Aleem Dar were free, but Pakistanis will not be standing in this series. The two first trials, umpires are Billy Bowden and the good South African referee, relatively new Marais Erasmus; for the last two tests of Simon Taufel and Steve Davis.

Stuart Broad has done enough in his championship match for Nottinghamshire and over the years, to stay ahead of Tim Bresnan as seamer third in England. In addition, England need fast bowlers who are tall against the India - both for the extra bounce and the fact that the Launcher Caribbean tall only that the India had to face for the last month is not fast.

All that is required to complete this table and make a landscape painting - a real police officer - is a field that changes over five days and not rest not a road to the beginning to end, which was too frequent the end to the Lord.

An opportunity of great become dull if it is a competition of drummers along, however great they are. Should not be left to the clouds only to change the nature of a set of five days.

This Test will be the 100th between England and the India, which dates back to the inaugural test at Lord's in 1932. But it is not really going to be the 10,000th Test 2, if a Test match is defined as a competition of five days between two countries playing test at full power. There were too many matches since March 1877 that did not comply with this criterion.

South Africa, strictly speaking, has not played a Test before 1902. They put their best side together several times before that date, but English teams that navigates to the Cape to play them have been stocked with cricket club amateur players and only the strange County pro.

Many will say that Bangladesh have achieved the status of Test with obscene haste and for reasons of political expediency only. Objective historians of the future can say that only in recent years have they deserved Test status, after almost all their 50 first Tests were to walk-overs.

And the ICC precisely defined a Test match as a contest 'between teams selected by full members' - only bow before commercial opportunism and classify the game between the Australia and the rest of the world in 2005. The validity of this exercise may be found that it has never been repeated.

Still, even if this Test is only number 1, 930 - odd, remain "a great game of Cricket" this week to the Lord that the country is classified third challenges the first.

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Stuart Broad the enforcer puts England back in business against Pakistan

Pitches at home, in Australia and in South Africa, usually offer something – either extra bounce or movement, or both - and batsmen lured into exploring the corridor of uncertainty are induced into mistakes.

The dry, lifeless surfaces in Asia negate this approach. There is no movement and negligible bounce so that even if the edge is taken, it often doesn’t carry to slip. Slip fielders become almost redundant. Such pitches require a completely different mindset for bowlers as well as batsmen.

Bowlers have to be much more aggressive, especially once the shine has gone off the new ball. They need to run in with purpose and hit the pitch hard.

Lengths have to be varied more too, to catch well-set batsmen out of position. Most importantly, the stumps must be targeted. The two greatest exponents of Asian pitches in the last 20 years, the peerless reverse-swing duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, took 30 per cent of their wickets lbw.

For more conventional English-type seamers, like Angus Fraser or Andrew Flintoff, the lbw percentage is under 20. Waqar and Wasim were masters of making batsmen jumpy with awkward skiddy bouncers, forcing them onto the back foot and then pinning them in front of the stumps with wicked in-swinging fuller deliveries.

Both had exceptional pace to go with their other assets of course and it is a method that doesn’t suit everybody.

But it is really the only way to make progress in Asia and England were a little slow on the uptake in the morning. They opted for a trial of patience, plugging away outside off stump, with slips and gulleys, but to no avail, and the attack looked insipid, Chris Tremlett especially. The Pakistan opening pair registered their hundred stand with some comfort.

Broad, the most experienced English bowler in Asian conditions, having made his Test debut on a fast bowlers’ graveyard in Colombo, suddenly went into enforcer mode (see Beehive above).

He had Mohammed Hafeez dropped at long-leg off a well-directed bouncer, and then, having also forced the left-handed Taufeeq Umar to take evasive action, trimmed his off bail with a peach delivered from round the wicket as the batsman shuffled too late into position.

He followed quickly with the wicket of Azhar Ali and England were back in business.

A second example of how to bowl on this surface came from an unlikely source. Jonathan Trott was thrown the ball just before tea, perhaps surprisingly ahead of Kevin Pietersen.

Trott proceeded (see his Beehive below) to bowl naggingly straight and full with a hint of swing wither way, and soon trapped the unsuspecting Younis Khan lbw with one that nipped back sharply.

The batsman reviewed it, and on English pitches it is the extra bounce that often saves batsmen, but not here and Pakistan’s most seasoned player was on his way.

After this, England really understood what was required. Not only a direct aim, but also a different fielding strategy. Bin the slips and station more men on the leg side (the fifth stump approach employs three or sometimes only two leg side fielders) to prevent easy runs flicked through midwicket from straighter deliveries.

Anderson converted to this mode superbly and finally earned his reward with two late wickets to cap an instructive day for England that will serve them well.

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