Bopara creates a momentum of his own

England v West Indies, 1st npower Test, Lord's, 1st day
Bulletn by Shwe Wai

	Ravi Bopara signals for his name to be added to the honours board, after a momentum-propelled century

Test cricketers often talk of the importance of momentum, without quite expanding on exactly what that means. They say that success begets success, confidence breeds confidence, you make your own luck and all that guff. But as England demonstrated in their fitful first-day performance at Lord's, when momentum is the end in itself, it can be a mighty tough thing to conjure up from scratch.

After a winter to forget, England are playing catch-up as they enter a seismic season. They desperately need to forge a winning mentality before the Australians rock up next month, but in their haste to produce a defining performance, they managed only to live down to their billing as the No. 6-ranked side in the world. On a flat and blameless surface, they played with the swagger of series favourites but the application of a team who have not won a Test match since August. Andrew Strauss, so inspirational of late, set the tone with a rash chop to the keeper, and only a spate of dropped catches prevented embarrassment turning into humiliation.

One man, however, stood back from the stampede, and just let his innings flow. The momentum that carried Ravi Bopara to his second Test century was entirely unconnected to the fortunes (or lack thereof) of the England team - which is precisely why he was called into the side in the first place. Where others had found frustration on a tiring and fruitless Caribbean tour, Bopara found redemption with a late call-up to the squad and an impressive century in Barbados, with which he proved to himself, after a scratchy debut in Sri Lanka two years ago, that really could succeed at this level.

And then, where other Englishmen sank without trace in the IPL or tarnished their superstar billing, Bopara bobbed into the public consciousness with a brilliant 84 from 59 balls for Kings XI Punjab against Kevin Pietersen's Bangalore at Durban. That peculiar combination of experiences left him as chilled as the glass of champagne he will doubtless permit himself to sip at some stage this week, as he provided vivid evidence of what true momentum entails.