Talking DRS with the ghost of Frank Chester

Umpire Chester demonstrates the victory jig he would have performed every time one of his reviewed decisions was upheld
© Getty Images



England and Sri Lanka will do cricketing battle with (a) each other and (b) another unpromising weather forecast in the final Test at Southampton today. It is the Rose Bowl's first Test match. As the old joke goes, new Test grounds in England are like London buses – you wait 100 years for one to turn up, and then three come along in under a decade.

Thus far, excluding the final-afternoon mayhem in Cardiff, when England's bowlers obliterated their opponents like a hungry rhinoceros turning up at a somnolent picnic just as granny was packing away the remnants of a half-eaten pavlova, it has been a middling series. England's imposing batting has only briefly been inconvenienced by Sri Lanka's rather blunt and inexperienced bowlers, and there has been a degree of tactical caution by both sides that has further bunged up the already-rain-stifled cricket.

From England's point-of-view, the series has further illustrated how crucial James Anderson has become to a seam attack that looked both one-paced and one-heighted at Lord's. After averaging under 33 in just two of his previous 11 Test series (early-summer series against New Zealand and West Indies), the Lancastrian is now one good match away from his fourth consecutive series average of 26 or less. From the early days of his international career it was clear that Anderson could, in bowling parlance, "make the ball talk". Unfortunately what he made the ball say was not always "Look out, batsman, I'm an unplayable outswinger"; slightly too often it was, "Ouch, I've been smashed for four again".

As many of his team-mates have done, he has improved markedly with experience and, in an age of dominant batting and often pallid pace bowling, is now one of the most exciting players to watch in world cricket today.

Meanwhile there has been little talk in my house of anything other than India's refusal to use the Decision Review System – easily my favourite decision review system – in the Test series in England later this summer.