vallierojas: Tim Bresnan destroys India and leaves England with selection dilemma

The tyke all-rounder celebrated Yorkshire Day with a devastating display of ruthless pace bowling to follow his 90 runs

Monday was Yorkshire Day, a modern festival designed to celebrate everything to do with the county. This year the civic gathering of mayors was held in Wakefield. But down south in Nottingham the celebration of Yorkshireness was just as vigorous and vehement as anything going on there.

Tim Bresnan, broad of beam and broad of bat was ... well, he was doing his Stuart Broad impersonations: thrashing runs, taking wickets, threatening a hat-trick. Bresnan is a proud Yorkshireman and on Monday all of Yorkshire ? and England ? was proud of him as he shredded India's bowlers in the morning and their batsmen in the afternoon.

"Just found out it's Yorkshire Day," Bresnan tweeted on Monday night. "Mine has not been bad at all as it goes. Happy tyke day to everyone. Even @JimmyAnderson9."

Of course, Yorkshire Day has attracted some criticism within the county itself ? how could it not? Some have fretted that it perpetuates all those stereotypes of whippets, black puddings and black caps. There may be a similar concern with Bresnan. He seems to epitomise everything about Yorkshire. He is a stout, dependable, cheerful, no-nonsense man, whom you would welcome into the trenches, down the pit, in the dressing room.

Yet Bresnan is now much more than that. He is a very serious international cricketer and on the brink of being a regular one. He was drafted into this Test match only because Chris Tremlett was injured. Now, after taking seven wickets and scoring 101 runs at Trent Bridge, how can he possibly be left out of the XI at Edgbaston next week?

England are lucky enough to have a similar scenario to West Indies in the 80s. The fast bowlers in Clive Lloyd's side had brilliant fitness records; they trained hard and diligently, more so than their contemporaries. Why? Because they recognised that, if they missed a Test, through injury they would be pressed to get back into the side, such was the quality of their likely replacement.

As things stand it is almost impossible to fathom how Tremlett, if he is back to full fitness for Birmingham, can return to the team. Broad is suddenly undroppable; Jimmy Anderson keeps getting Sachin Tendulkar out and Bresnan, in addition to his runs, has just produced his first five-wicket haul in Test cricket. Moreover England have won all eight Tests that Bresnan has played. On top of everything else he has become a lucky charm.

There is something wonderfully reassuring about having Bresnan and Broad at eight and nine in the order. Bresnan bats with pleasing orthodoxy. He may look like a tail-end, blacksmith biffer. In fact he moves into line in a manner that any true Yorkshireman applauds with an imperceptible nod of the head. For all those muscles Bresnan prefers the cover drive to the swat over mid-wicket.

He has played only those eight Tests, so his figures cannot be trusted. But at present they put him alongside the greatest all-rounders in the history of the game. A sound measure of an all-rounder is to match his batting average with that of his bowling. If the batting average is higher then we are talking about the genuine article. Bresnan averages 37 with the bat, 25 with the ball.

Statistically that puts him above Broad (29 with the bat, 33 with the ball), Andrew Flintoff (31 and 32) and Ian Botham (33 and 28). It is time to calm down. Bresnan is a mature 26?year?old, who has been on the county circuit for a decade now, but he will not be able to maintain that rate of progress at Test level. We would be wildly overestimating him if we thought that was the case.

But in the past it has been easy to underestimate him. Perhaps he lacked the pace (of a Broad) or the sharp swing (of an Anderson). Perhaps he was a bit too bland for Test cricket. Perhaps not.

Now he is as fast as any of them and there is usually a semblance of away?swing. No one in the England camp will dub him "the enforcer". That word has been banned from their vocabulary. But it was the Bresnan bouncer that blew India away on Monday. Four of his five wickets came from fast, short deliveries at the body.

It is not immediately obvious that it requires almost as much skill to bowl a good bouncer as a beautiful away?swinger. The ball must not bounce too high. It needs to be directed between the chest and shoulder; it must not be too wide, allowing the batsman to sway easily out of its flight-path.

Bresnan barely wasted a bouncer on Monday. Abhinav Mukund, out of control, fended, Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh both hooked in desperation. But the pi�ce de resistance was Yuvraj Singh's dismissal. Bresnan worked him over ruthlessly; the ball banged into Yuvraj's left index finger and the magic spray failed to relieve the pain.

Then Bresnan bowled remorselessly into Yuvraj's body. Soon Alastair Cook, with helmet and other armour, was stationed precariously 10ft from the bat behind square on the off?side. Sure enough, next ball another fend from Yuvraj ballooned in the air and Cook took the catch. For a fast bowler this was as satisfying as a wrist-spinner befuddling a batsman with his googly.

Having taken his fifth wicket Bresnan held the ball high in celebration and the cheers echoed around Nottingham. No doubt there was a similar reaction in Wakefield on Yorkshire Day. "Brezy lad, he'll do."

Vic Marks

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