To serve them all his days

Sussex faded away passively last night in their T20 quarter-final with Notts. They were missing a couple of guns in Prior and Dwayne Smith, and there was an unfamiliar little hole in the lower middle-order too. Robin Martin-Jenkins has slipped away to a better place.

RM-J was a name like no other, not just because of the famous - and rightly proud - father, but with its feel for the amateur days of decades past. There was something of the curate about him, and the Sussex faithful would sometimes serenade him with a chorus of 'RM-J my Lord' as he bustled in with his quicker-than-you-think medium pacers.

So fittingly he has gone to a higher calling, retiring mid-season to take up a place as a geography and religious studies teacher at Hurstpierpoint college on the Sussex Downs. There, his anachronistic life will continue: Hurstpierpoint is one of those schools that only really exist in England. Each Ascension Day, every member of the college climbs a nearby hill and at the top gather together to sing Hymnus Eucharisticus, a big hit in the 17th century. At Christmas, there's a boar's head feast, the boar carried through cloisters as the choir sing Caput Apri Defero, a big hit in the 15th century. The school has performed a Shakespeare play every year since 1854.

In all it sounds quite a lot like a county dressing room, albeit with slightly different songs and more Shakespeare. It's somehow comforting that RM-J will see out his days there, a man gloriously out of time.

England - player-by-player, mano-et-mano

England's world T20 side, player by player. The mark out of 10 indicates potential, now or at some stage in the future, to be in a position to refer to themselves in the third person during interviews.

Ravi Bopara

5 matches; 145 runs at 29.00, s/r 112.40, hs 55 

Ooh, that straight drive. Ooh, that cut shot. Ravinder is quickly becoming as good as he thinks he is. Befriended by KP. KP's other friends: Warnie, Chris Gayle. Dead giveaway. Ravi, the world is yours.

9/10

Luke Wright

5 matches; 113 runs at 22.60, s/r 134.52, hs 71; 1 wkt at 58.00, econ 8.28

UB40 had a song called 1 in 10. It was not a reference to the ratio of innings in which Luke Wright is likely come good, but it's not far off. More like one in six or seven, which is around the number he should come in at. If, though, you require someone to hit the ball vertically up in the air to an implausible height, he's your man.

5/10

Kevin Pietersen

4 matches; 154 runs at 38.50, s/r 152.47, h/s 58; 1 wkt at 17.00, econ 8.50

You might not be aware of this because he barely mentioned it - he hates drama and attention - but he has an achilles injury, which has been injected. Still has those big match balls to go with his big match shots though, and is becoming a far more convincing T20 man.

11/10 - actually the first to use a third-person nickname whilst discussing himself. 

Owais Shah

5 matches, 106 runs at 21.20, s/r 108.16, h/s 38

Weird, twitchy, strangely melancholic, Owais needs more love than he's getting. Has the range of shots and the power. A minor manifestation of the Hick/Ramprakash enigma.  

4/10

Paul Collingwood

5 matches, 63 runs at 12.60, s/r 114.54, h/s 19; 1 wkt at 17.00, econ 8.50

The Peter Principal, which suggests that a man has been promoted out of a job, might now be renamed the Paul Principal. As a captain, he shares one quality with Mike Brearley - he bats like him. Anyone witnessing the group that surrounded Colly when any kind of decision needed making might deduce that he wasn't really captaining. Affected his fielding and he bowled only two overs. Farewell Colly, but thanks. 

2/10

Dimitri Mascarenhas

3 matches, 42 runs at 42.00, s/r 100.00, h/s 25*; 2 wickets at 22.50, econ 6.42

Quiz question: who came top of England's batting and bowling averages at the 2009 World T20? Correct, it was Dimi, one of Warnie's go-to men at Rajasthan. The clue's in SHANE WARNE, selectors. Goes without saying that you know better than him, though.

6/10 

James Foster

5 matches, 37 runs at 12.33, s/r 115.62, h/s 14*; ct 3 st 3

Nervy at first but that electric, quicksilver stumping of Yuvraj turned the India game. Because this is England, there is now a body of opinion that says he should be replaced by Matt Prior. Wrong. Prior is good enough to play as a batsman. With more power in the middle order Foster's nurdling will be given a proper context, and T20, with its contractions and distillations, is the one format where a single piece of wicketkeeping brilliance can effectively win a match. 

1/10 - far too self effacing for all that. Which is nice.

Graeme Swann

4 matches, 5 wickets at 19.40, econ 6.92; 15 runs at 7.50, h/s 10*, s/r 93.75

About as good a conventional, non-mystery, straight-up, loopy, hit-that-if-you-can off-spin bowler as there is. Nous and swagger are his defences. Dreams of owning a Ferrari - that speaks of uncomplicated ambition. Potential to be a Harbhajan-type slogger if he practices.

7/10

Adil Rashid

4 matches, 3 wickets at 31.66, econ 7.30; 9 runs at --, h/s 9*, s/r 52.94

England were far more scared of him than he was of playing for England. The absolute best thing was his response to being hit. 

6/10

Stuart Broad

5 matches, 6 wickets at 17.33, econ 6.50; 22 runs at 22.00. h/s 10*, s/r 200.00

At the last one, he went for six sixes. At this one, he produced the overthrow that let the Netherlands beat England. That neither of these things will be held against him reflect his character. Came up with the round the wicket thing - good, and the arm-pointing thing - bad. 

8/10

James Anderson

5 matches, 5 wickets at 26.20, econ 7.55; 1 inns, 0 runs

Compared to Umar Gul, a disappointment. Compared to Mitchell Johnson, a success. That's Jimmy, occasionally devastating, more often middle of the pack. Didn't appear once as nightwatchman though, which must have felt weird.

6/10

Ryan Sidebottom

3 matches, 3 wickets at 22.00, econ 7.39; DNB

Probably undercooked, which made the last over against India impressive. Like most England bowlers, has a tendency to over-think things. Six yorkers are the default position - go on  from there.

6/10

Eion Morgan

1 match, six runs at 6.00, s/r 75.00, h/s 6

Bought the hype. Thought that England had selected him for the offbeat shots [let's be honest, they had], and felt obliged to play them. Needed proper direction. England - as usual - ran away in fear after one game. Must now be haunted by the name Ed Joyce.

3/10

Rob Key

1 match, 10 runs at --, h/s 10*, s/r 125.00

The most cursory study of Rob Key's career will reveal that a] England have toyed with his emotions like Madonna with a third-world orphan, and b] underneath the robust, ruddy exterior, Key does not feel like he belongs. The selectors' ambiguity extended to one game and being batted out of position like a red-faced sucker. A good player has been internationally neutered.

3/10

Graham Napier

o matches

What could England possibly want with a world-record-holding  six hitter who bowls at 85mph? I mean, really, what did he expect - a game? In this team? Sheesh.

Infernal affairs

132 years to the day since England contrived to bring Test cricket to the world - and lose at it of course - there they were again, demonstrating to everyone exactly how far they've come in another format that originated here, Twenty20. And the answer was...

Andrew Strauss's kit was 'lost' (read: 'we had absolutely no idea he'd ever play another T20') and so he wore Matt Prior's. Right shirt, wrong player. Expediency, as ever, rules.

Strauss is, technically, England's fourth T20 captain in 18 games, although the sequence is illuminating: From the first match in 2005 (glorious, glowing herald of the Ashes that it became), it runs Vaughan, Strauss, Strauss, Vaughan, Collingwood  (for the next 10 games), Pietersen, Pietersen, Pietersen, Strauss.  

Forty-three players have represented England in those 18 matches. Twelve of those have played only once, eight twice, seven three times, four four times and two five times. Only eight players have appeared in more than half the games.

Amongst the forty-three are six wicketkeepers - Jones, Nixon, Read, Mustard, Prior and Davies - and 14 opening batsmen - Trescothick, Jones, Strauss, Bell, Joyce, Vaughan, Cook, Prior, Maddy, Wright, Solanki, Mustard, Davies and Bopara - who have appeared in twelve separate combinations. The longest-running was between Bell and Prior, which lasted three games. England began the match in Trinidad with Bopara and Davies, neither of whom had opened for England before. 

Of the 18 T20 matches that England have played, they've won eight and lost 10, but three of the wins came against Middlesex, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe. Now there will be more upheaval as it becomes apparent that they can't carry Strauss. No-one needs a Brearley in T20. 

One man yet to appear alongside storied T20 names like Schofield, Dalrymple, Lewis, Trott, Batty, Yardy, Strauss, Snape, Cook etc: Graham Napier (highest score 152, career strike rate 154.72, total sixes 37, best bowling 4/10, economy rate 7.09, ave. 19.07). 

Warner's plum

Eleven days into the year, and David Warner has played one of 2009's landmark innings. Not for what it was - good though it was - but for what it means, for what it predicts. Warner, 22 years old and with a few list-A games on his slim CV, proved that youth is fearless and has nothing to unlearn; essential qualities for a new game.  The fish does not ask about the water. 

It was a bravura selection by Australia, but one that taps into an existing trend. The IPL's recruiters had already found Warner, and more of his ilk. The belief that Twenty20 is a game for young batsman and old bowlers continues to hold up.

The world understands this and will embrace it. The world outside of England, that is. It is simply impossible to imagine a kid from a county second XI opening in the next T20 international. 

Instead, here's the last England T20 side: Bell, Prior, Shah, Pietersen, Flintoff, Collingwood, Patel, Wright, Swann, Broad, Harmison. No place for Graham Napier or Dimi Mascarenhas, let alone Dawid Malan. England are already behind the curve, and they do not sense the future. 

In Twenty20, England don't do 'nothing to lose'. They just do lose. With a little clarity of thought, Pietersen's departure offered them a chink of light for the World Championships. They could give the captaincy to a Mascarenhas or a Key, and do what the world is doing: choose life.

They won't of course. England has a decent Twenty20 side. They're just not going to pick it.