What England Could Learn from Marcus North

In terms of talent, not much separates Marcus North, Ravi Bopara and Ian Bell. Indeed, convincing arguments could be made that the Englishmen edge it. But it's the Australian who has worked out how to play a Test innings. While Bopara and Bell offer style over substance, North favours the latter, and in doing so offers both.

A look at the stats reveals North pays almost obsessive consideration to a shot that Bopara probably doesn't consider worthy of the name - the leave. His 125 at Cardiff comprised only 69 scoring shots and included a mammoth 173 dot balls. And why not? This is Test cricket, and not so long ago such stats were the norm.

North has form in this area. His 117 on debut against South Africa included 65 scoring shots and 168 dot balls. That Bopara and Bell take pride in aesthetics is no bad thing, but both must learn to prize their wicket above all else.

Bopara's 18 in the first innings at Lord's was scored at a strike-rate of 94.73, until he got carried away and fell lbw. There is a time and a place for such batting in Tests, but that role rarely falls to a number three batsman.

Clearly Bopara likes to score quickly, which made his two hundreds against the West Indies earlier this summer all the more pleasing - because they were scored at strike-rates of 50.35 and 51.92. The first of those innings included 204 dot balls. So he can do it.

For all the good temperament shown on those occasions, he was dropped a number of times by sloppy West Indian fielders. This is something else he must work on - 50 per cent of his Test dismissals (7/14) have been caught, and only once by the wicket-keeper. This suggests an abundance of unnecessary shots - too risky an approach to Test cricket, especially against quality opposition. Time to rediscover the art of the 'leave'.