Body talk... la dah dah

The BCCI-TV cameras dwelled lovingly on the England rooms as the Boys went 4-0 down in Bangalore. You didn't need to be Cracker to work out the psychodramas within. At one end sat Peter Moores, on his own, arms folded, leg crossed against the rest of the room. At the other sat KP, arms also folded, his lackey Bell passing him Red Bull. The rest made themselves scarce. 

In one of those offbeat Ducky-L games, England fell 19 short, despite getting 178 to India's 166. England lost it at the start of their innings, when they scored 21 from the first six. In the power play. Bell made 12 in seven overs. 

NB: Graeme Swann went in before Matt Prior. For the uninitiated, Prior is a Sussex man, where he made his name under coach P. Moores.

Extended run

England had to do something, and so they have. Ravi Bopara will open in Kanpur, according to the always excellent David Hopps. Matt Prior drops to number eight, eight games into his comeback. His run at the top of the order included one game against Scotland, one where he was required to chase the almost insurmountable South African total of 83 and one in which he did not bat due to rain. Of the eight games, England lost two. 

Stats lie, of course. He was paralysed by spin on monday. Bopara has been bullish in asking for his chance. It will be interesting to see how extended his run is under KP.

A chilling reminder of prior (no pun intended) consistency. Ravi Bopara made his ODI debut on 2 Feb 2007 in Sydney. The XI:

Joyce

Loye

Bell

Flintoff

Strauss

Dalrymple

Nixon

Bopara

Plunkett

Mahmood

Panesar

Pietersen had gone home injured. To continue the Spinal Tap theme of the post below, many of the others are of course current residents of the Where Are They Now File.