England v New Zealand, 2nd T20I, The Oval, 27 June, 2013

Does anyone care?

KP's back for this one.

Ugh, another nail in the Aus Ashes coffin.

Tredwell to captain. First Kent player to captain England since Alan Knott at Scarborough in 1st ODI v. West Indies on 26 August 1976:

http://www.howstat.com.au/cricket/Statistics/Matches/MatchScorecard_ODI.asp?MatchCode=0085

Apologies, Chris Cowdrey captained England in 4th Test v. WI at Headingley from 21-26 July 1988 which involved the famous burst drain incident on the first day:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/63487.html

One of the more random England captains in history surely? Will be a trivia question in years to come! If you ever go on "Pointless" and "England cricket captains" comes up, remember Tredders did the job once...

Weird one, but who else really? The rest of the bowling attack aren't shoo-ins (not that I think Tredwell should be - not that good at T20 IMO) and then you're left with Hales, Buttler and Stokes who are very young, then it's Lumb, Pietersen and Bopara. Pietersen will most likely never captain again. Lumb or Bopara? Neither has captained much before. Tredwell has.

No other option really. He captained England 'A' a few years back too.

His recent performances have earned him the right to a bit of respect I think. Should Swanny get injured for the Ashes, I'd rather have Tredwell in than Monty actually.

His FC record is absolutely dire this season though. One wicket the last time I looked... at best could do an Ashley Giles role in Test cricket.

Dreaded weather. It's replays time!

In fact no wicket at all for Tredwell in FC cricket this year, in 102 overs!

Forgot he had actually played a Test. Was against Bangladesh though, so barely counts...

beamer wrote:One of the more random England captains in history surely? Will be a trivia question in years to come! If you ever go on "Pointless" and "England cricket captains" comes up, remember Tredders did the job once...

Or didn't if the rain holds up and the match is washed out.

Even more obscure trivia in the making.

They've bowled two balls. He's officially an England captain in the record books! Even potentially without batting, bowling or fielding...

That was a rocking good game.

That's the thing about England - exciting. 'It's not just are we going to win?' 'Are they going to win?' It's also 'Are we even going to get a game?'

So, James Tredwell, the man who captained England for two balls without even taking to the field! Even better quiz question than he would have been under normal circumstances...

Also this equals the India v Sri Lanka ODI at Mackay during the 1992 World Cup, as the shortest ever international match to actually have any play at all.

There are four "matches" in the record books where no balls at all were bowled (two ODIs and two T20Is), presumably getting official match status because there was a toss. I remember Bill Frindall refusing to count such "matches" for caps records as the Laws say a match starts with the umpire's call of "play", not the toss.

2 balls?? Maybe the weather WILL be Aus's saviour in the Ashes.

Well, we retain them with a 0-0 washout...

Poor old Michael Lumb. Two balls in the whole match, and he gets out to one of them.

Neil D wrote:No other option really.  He captained England 'A' a few years back too.

His recent performances have earned him the right to a bit of respect I think.  Should Swanny get injured for the Ashes, I'd rather have Tredwell in than Monty actually.

Monty is a more effective bowler in the longer form. No spinner is really 'tearing it up' this season. Too wet, I guess. I've long thought Azeem Rafiq was the most promising of the young spinners because he tries to give it a rip. But he can't even get a game for Yorkshire this season because of Rashid, who's decent form was recently put in perspective by a mauling at the hands of KP.

Loses the toss and his team loses a wicket in the two balls that were played, can only imagine if the full quota was played.

Two balls.

Ian Bell's dream.