The third day at Hamilton was either stultifying or gripping, depending on how slowly you like to cook your contests. England creaked along at a rate of 2.14 an over, gas mark 1 by the standards of the modern game, but New Zealand kept stirring the pot gently with wickets at opportune moments, to leave their opponents in an undeniable stew. There have been all manners of remarks about the turgid nature of this pitch, but they’ve been completely at odds with the hand-grenade mentality that has gripped England’s batsmen. If they are this anxious on day three of the contest, imagine how they’ll cope if asked to bat time on a final-day minefield?Hyperbole is a part of Kevin Pietersen’s game, and at times you have to take his comments with a pinch of salt, but it was pretty revealing after play when he described his agonisingly slow innings of 42 as one of the best of his life. “Test matches are tough and I love playing challenging cricket,” he said. “There is nothing better than having to show up and really fight for your runs and beat yourself up in terms of stuff that you go and do. It’s great and I love it. The tougher it is, the better.” Pietersen may have been pumped which bodes well for England’s prospects, but that’s not the talk of a man who’s envisaging a peaceful death to this game.There’s no question that Pietersen scrapped hard for his runs. Only twice has he played a significant innings at a slower tempo than his strike-rate of 32.06, and both came in the midst of terminal batting collapses at Melbourne and Sydney last winter. In fact, there’s been a cautiousness about his cricket that runs very close to negativity since that series. It would not be surprising if it stems from a lack of faith in his colleagues.Today was a day for hundreds, that most elusive of landmarks for England’s cricketers. Instead, each man batted himself to a standstill, focusing so intently on survival that they forgot to keep the scoreboard moving. If you leave aside the anomaly of a desperately poor West Indies side in May and June, that’s been the attitude of their cricket ever since the Ashes – in particular since Adelaide, when the dangers of attritional cricket have never been more lividly displayed.New Zealand themselves know a thing or two about the safety-first approach, and nothing could have played more perfectly into their hands. “When a team gets defensive, it let’s us play with tactics,” said their offspinner, Jeetan Patel. “It lets us bowl in different areas, makes us ask different questions which is great, rather than have them ask us different questions. We can bowl dead straight or half a foot outside off stump and see what’s going to happen. We get a chance to play the game and play it our way.”Patel is a cricketer that England have treated with disdain so far on this tour. Dimitri Mascarenhas flogged him for four sixes in a row in the Twenty20 at Auckland and Pietersen himself climbed into him in the warm-up in Dunedin. He is playing only his second Test match, and a side with self-belief would have bullied him out of the attack, as Pietersen briefly threatened to do with his third-ball swat for six over long-on.But then Daniel Vettori dropped a man back to the rope as cover, and Pietersen didn’t play another shot in anger for 40 overs, a fact of which he was perversely proud. “I’m a mature enough player, and in my whole innings I didn’t try anything stupid,” he said. “I’m happy I didn’t chuck it away today.” Except, of course, he did, with a bat-padded chip back to the bowler Vettori, a dismissal he wrote off as “unfortunate”. That may be so, but the Pietersen of old would have had 130 on the board by the time his luck ran out, and England would have had enough momentum to put all thoughts of defeat to one side.

It’s not his fault, of course. The criticism is all relative because he can only do what he thinks is right for the situation, and as it turned out he was right not to go for broke because his colleagues didn’t give the impression they would have coped had he failed. Besides, New Zealand’s bowlers applied themselves superbly, producing a five-pronged assault that put England’s feeble attack to shame. “I thought they’d come at us a bit harder,” said Patel, “but it just shows how well we did bowl, how straight and how much we did with the ball, which is exciting for the last day.”The day was particularly notable for the odd ripping delivery that gripped and popped, a situation that gave Brendan McCullum a hairy day behind the stumps. “The footies are a bit ridgy,” explained Patel, “so if it hits the ridge it’ll go, and go high. We might have missed a few stumpings but to get them you’d have to be a bit genius-like. I think it just creates doubt, and it’s exciting in the sense that one will turn one way and one will bounce, and one won’t.”Those ridges could be crucial to England’s survival. If they crumble, as they were prone to do for Muttiah Muralitharan during the Sri Lanka series, the bounce will die with them and the spinners’ threat will be negated. If they endure, or deepen as the match wears on, then there may be trouble ahead. Either way, New Zealand have precisely what England’s game so desperately lacks. Confidence and momentum.”I’d be happy with a day: we could bowl them out in a day,” said Patel, when asked about the timing of a possible declaration. “But if we rock and roll them in the first half-hour tomorrow, it might be a day and a bit. It just depends what we do in the morning, how we come out. If we come out firing and excited about what could happen, which we will, then we’ve got the game in our hands.” New Zealand have a right to be excited. With McCullum in the form of his life and Ross Taylor enjoying his happiest birthday ever, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing two runs an over when their second innings comes around.Pietersen, the epitome of a confident cricketer, was clearly worried about how this match is panning out. “This wicket is deteriorating,” he warned. “You should see how far Patel was spinning his balls, and Vettori got a few to go too. It’s definitely changing and I think batting on the last day will be difficult. You just have to go out there and play the situation.”Who knows, they might not bat,” he shrugged. “They might set us a total or we might bowl them out and it could be like the Adelaide Test. You just have to go out there with your game plan, and when the ball comes into your areas you hit it.” I’m sure Pietersen mentioned Adelaide as a show of strength and certainty, an assurance that the scars have healed. Somehow it didn’t come across like that.

Pedro Collins has withdrawn from the West Indies squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka next week after opting to fulfil his contract with Surrey.Collins, the left-arm seamer, had the chance to return to the international fold after two years out but said his Surrey deal meant he had to decline the offer and may well signal the end of his international career.”Unfortunately, due to prior contractual commitments I have no alternative but to decline your kind invitation at this time,” Collins said in a letter sent to the West Indies board and posted on the West Indies Players’ Association website. “I would like to take the opportunity to wish my colleagues best of luck for the upcoming series as I have every confidence they would make us all proud. Thank you in advance for your understanding.”Collins joined Surrey as a Kolpak player on a two-year deal and it now appears he has removed any chance of extending his West Indies career. He has played 32 Tests and 30 ODIs.

India have agreed to tour England for a series of four Tests, five one-dayers and a Twenty20 international in 2011, the England board announced today. The Tests will be held at Lord’s, Trent Bridge, Edgbaston and The Oval, though the exact schedule will be finalised later.The ECB also decided on the venues for the ODIs – Cardiff, Durham, Lord’s, The Oval and Hampshire’s Rose Bowl – but are yet to announce the venue for the Twenty20 international.England are slated to tour India in November this year for a series of two Tests and seven one-dayers. The Indian board couldn’t accommodate a third Test due to scheduling problems, given that Australia’s four-Test tour of India ends only in early November.’I am delighted that India will play four Test matches on their tour of England and Wales in 2011,” said David Collier, the ECB’s chief executive. “The ECB has been strong and consistent in its insistence that Test cricket is still the predominant form of the game.’We would have liked to have played a third Test this winter but appreciate that with the India v Australia series starting a week later than originally planned this was not feasible.”The ECB was also determined that the tour should finish as scheduled under the Future Tours Programme to give the England players the maximum rest period before they embark on the Test and ODI trip to the Caribbean.”India last toured England in 2007, winning the three-Test series 1-0, before England fought back to take the one-day series 4-3.

Graham Manou hopes South Australia will appoint their captain soon to establish the group ahead of the new season. He would love the job and believes a fast appointment would stabilise a unit already missing the retired players Darren Lehmann, Jason Gillespie, Matthew Elliott and fast bowler Ryan Harris, who has gone to Queensland.”If they offer it to me I would be glad to take it on,” Manou told the Adelaide Advertiser. “It would be nice to have the role at the start of the season.”There’s a good chance both of his wishes will be granted. Coach Mark Sorell said last week Manou was the “stand-out” candidate having filled in as leader for the remainder of last season after Nathan Adcock was axed. Sorell is also keen to seal the deal quickly to avoid a repetition of the pre-season uncertainty last year in appointing the captain late, which set the tone for a troubled campaign.Manou, who also took over when Darren Lehmann was playing for Australia in 2004-05, would relish having the captaincy full-time rather than being a fill-in. “Having a whole season to stamp your mark would sit a lot easier with me,” said Manou. “Given what has happened over the past 12 months the sooner we can settle as a group and start to focus where we think we should be going, that will be great.”In the meantime, Manou will play for Darwin grade side PINTS for the next two months where he will hope to build on a successful season with South Australia, where he made 596 Pura Cup runs at 37.25.When he returns his state could have recruited a few more players alongside Aaron O’Brien, Tom Cooper and Michael Klinger. South Australia have already missed out on opener Chris Rogers, the Queensland allrounder James Hopes and New South Wales targets Greg Mail and Grant Lambert. But they have vowed to carry on the hunt.