Testing times

The First Test against South Africa ended last night; the second begins on Thursday. A closely-fought series of five games has been crushed into just five short weeks by the brutish demands of television scheduling.

Fascinating as the series is, it has lost the natural rhythm of a game in which intense activity is punctuated by periods of idle reflection - and in the wake of the unexpected resignation of the England captain last night, time for reflection is perhaps what England cricket needs.

Change was inevitable however: we live in faster times and cricket must keep pace. But watching the Second Test at Lords before the ink has dried on the scorecards of the First is a sign of how the power of electronic media has shattered the historic cadence of our English summer.