Month: Apr 2015

Infamy

LordCanisLupus40 Comments

In an act of self-indulgence, I am commenting on the mention of this blog in Wisden. I have a copy of the article, from the editor himself, and I’ll have to say it’s an interesting take on the blog.

One topic dominated the agenda of the English cricket media in 2014.
England’s brutal and irrevocable decision to dispense with Kevin Pietersen, and its deeply unsatisfactory aftermath, prompted serious attention from some of the blogosphere’s best writers. In terms of quantity and passion, Dmitri Old at cricketbydmitri.wordpress.com stood out.

Old wrote thousands upon thousands of words, mostly excoriating the
ECB. While at times the effect was like being repeatedly hit over the head with one of Pietersen’s bats, his blog acted as a valuable conduit for deep resentment at the ECB’s administration of English cricket. This was exemplified by their reference in a press release to people “outside cricket”, intended as a response to one of Piers Morgan’s many incursions into the saga – but which was latched on to by Old as evidence of the board’s lack of empathy with the fans.

First up, thanks to Brian Carpenter for including me in his review. It is interesting to see how your blog is viewed by those outside my usual comment client base. I actually grinned when I read the bit about “repeatedly hit over the head”, but at the time when this blogger was that mad about things, there was always gold in them there hills in which we could pick apart the arguments. I could repeat and repeat, because the press and the ECB repeatedly gave us the ammunition.

I am, by my nature, quite a modest person. I really find praise and that sort of thing awkward. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I don’t claim credit often. But I do think this blog (along with TFT of course) has done the most to put “outside cricket” front and centre over the last year. We’ve never let it go, even if it means I’m likened to a bludgeon. Repetition hammers home the message. I don’t apologise for it. I don’t think Brian means me to either, but there are a number who tell me to let it lie. Never. Not until I get the sense that the authorities do anything more than pay lip service to what this small, noisy band of cricket tragics say. This sport does not need to become more exclusive, more insular, more arrogant – it needs, to use their bloody horrible phrase, to reconnect with the public.

However, Old didn’t take aim merely at those in authority: he also trained his sights on the traditional press, some of whom he viewed as Establishment stooges. In one or two cases, he might have had a point. But the press coverage reflected, in part, the vulnerabilities of cricket journalists, who have a symbiotic relationship with administrators and players: the administrators grant access to the players, who provide interviews and quotes. Most bloggers have no such privileges, yet this very freedom from professional dependence means they can shoot from the hip.

This is a really interesting debating point, in my eyes. Let’s go back to when KP got dropped. There is a substantial section of the England fan base that said “good”. Fair enough. I have always said they are entitled to their opinion and I’d never want to shut that down. That part of the fan base, shall we say, was more than adequately represented in the journalist corps. We pick on Paul Newman a lot here, but he’d got the inside track, by hook or by leak, and there appeared glee in reporting the end of his career. The other big beasts, such as Pringle and Selvey, and I’d say Etheridge too, had nailed their colours to the mast.

Those of us who saw a batsman top of the run charts for his team, albeit, we know, not a stellar record, being the main man to pay the price as unfair, and in my case as a fan, antagonistic, weren’t the beneficiaries of much supportive press. KP split opinions. He still does. The main conclusions to be drawn, from totally outside, was that the press had either personal grudges they weren’t prepared to go into, or they were too close to members of the establishment. Selvey was possibly the worst case, with his piece supporting Downton on his appointment, his Cricketer love letter to Andy Flower, and then his praising of Moores. It’s easy to draw the conclusion we have.

Now, I will admit, that at some times I might have gone a bit wild. But as I’ve explained to the Editor, I come from the background of a football club’s message board. Nuance and reason didn’t work. They just didn’t. You needed to put your argument forcefully. If that’s shooting from the hip. then I’ll agree.

The main gripe, as Brian would know (and he’s limited to space) was our frustration with the journalists was the TTT – Tyers Twitter Tendency – which is “we know more than you, trust us, it was the right decision”. That intimated that there was something, but the proles couldn’t know. I still don’t. Innuendo, unattributable briefing and “I’m not going to comment” isn’t going to cut it in this day and age. And yes, I went on and on and on. I still do. But it is interesting to read these views.

Where Old sometimes fell short was in failing to recognise that journalists find themselves in a different position; in any case, the press as a whole weren’t quite the Establishment mouthpieces he felt them to be. But his obsessive refusal to let sleeping dogs lie – together with an urgent, punchy delivery and a nice line in song-lyric titles – was the most distinctive aspect of the blogosphere in 2014, even if it ultimately prompted the feeling that, at some point, he would need to let go. And in February 2015, he appeared to do just that, taking his blog down, his point eloquently made.

That is very kind of Brian, and while I disagree a bit (and I see the Establishment / Press relationship a little differently now to what I did – amazing what speaking to people does) it’s fair comment. I do listen to these things, and I recognise my style is not for all. I am clearing out the spare room at the moment and came across my old school reports. For English language (and my old English teacher follows me on Twitter) I was accused of all sorts of stylistic abominations. My history teacher called my writing style brutal. Maybe I’ve always been a blogger, and my “florid prose” isn’t to all tastes. But it gets the message across.

There is no secret that I was a nobody who no-one talked to 15 months ago, and now I’m a nobody that speaks to lots more people. I don’t over-estimate any influence I have, but I do know this blog resonates, because mainly the posts are backed up by salient, well honed arguments from many similarly angry commenters. It’s a bit raucous, very angry, and yes, we get things wrong. But it has made it’s mark.

I also see this blog as an extension of How Did We Lose In Adelaide (and Brian wasn’t to know that a new blog had taken its place) so excuse me if there is any confusion over which blog is which!

The conclusion to the article on the relationship between press and blogger is also worth a read, but I think that’s for another day. But it is an important discussion that I think I have a different view on.

My thanks to Lawrence Booth for allowing me to “fisk” the article. My thanks to Brian Carpenter for the review of this and other blogs, and my thanks to all who have supported, and all who hate what we say. It keeps the petrol flowing into the engine.

PS – Do you miss the song-titles?

Doyen

LordCanisLupus29 Comments

The news broke just as I was going to bed last night. It had been foreshadowed earlier in the day and so the shock had been mitigated somewhat. Richie Benaud had passed away, and as I am even more frequently saying these days, so did a little bit of my childhood.

Feel free to read all the obits doing the rounds, many very good, many personal anecdotes and many mentions of how he resonated, how he developed your knowledge and love for the sport, and importantly how brilliantly he moved with the times. I’m not going to try to add to them. There’s no point. As Grenville just said on a recent comment “Damn. Richie Benaud’s dead”.

Add your own tributes below, and I’m sure you will all do a fine job. I don’t feel much more than gratitude. Gratitude for a life where he touched millions, where he showed what could be done with commentary, and where you felt you knew him. A truly inspirational figure. He will be missed. A lot.

RIP Richie Benaud. There will never be another you. I’m popping down to the confectionery store.

Upstairs

LordCanisLupus32 Comments

The day after the Downton Dismissal and the chaos of yesterday already seems somewhat distant. Few journalists seem to be drawing the dots, with the trail leading up the line to Clarke so obvious it almost appears in neon lights. Clarke was a major player in the appointment of his MD, and yet today he leaves the ECB not to enable him to prosper more fully in his ventures in Colombia and Paraguay, but, er, wait a minute…… he’s been made President!

We knew this stitch up ages ago, but there is something even more unpalatable about it now, the day after his cataclysmic decision to appoint Paul Downton had been shown to be the abject disaster that it was. People who make appointments like that don’t stay long. People don’t generally beg those sort of people to remain on the ledger. Instead they are shunted aside, sometimes with an added gong to keep their mouths shut, and then we can pick apart their legacy at will.

To me, retaining this buffoon as Chairman is a stain on our organisation in this country. You cannot truly clean house, have a fresh start, if you merely move the dead rat from the living room and shut him away in the attic. It’ll still stink. His ICC role is even more of an insult, as the incident at the Wisden dinner appears to show. This man does not seem to be able to hold back when he has been criticised, or even mildly questioned. This isn’t Clarke’s team. This isn’t even Clarke’s organisation. I think Dean Wilson probably summed it up best:

But along the way he has ruled the game as if it were one of his personal businesses and he is a ruthless businessman.

His success in that part of his life has largely come about by doing what he thinks is best. By calling the shots, making the decisions and swatting away anyone who gets in his way. It works in business and for a time it worked in cricket, but the England cricket team and the ECB does not belong to him, and he doesn’t always make the right call, just ask Allen Stanford.

When it comes to sport and to cricket, you can’t just tell people what they want and what they are supposed to like. You can’t tell them that because you like one person over another, they must feel the same way.

You can’t endorse an England captain because he comes from the right sort of family.

That sort of outlook is what makes our great game exclusive when it should be inclusive. It is what shuts people out and makes them angry, so when you next ask them to dip into their pockets and buy a ticket to your show, they will turn their backs and look elsewhere.

I was beginning to worry about Dean, but this hits a nail on the head more than many of his other colleagues have. Instead of making it about KP, which is a major point, yes, but only one, he captures the essence of why I despise Clarke. The arrogance which comes from some sort of superiority that only a weapons grade pig can pull off. Every interview, every appearance and every word I heard from this individual brought one word to mind. No, not that one. The word is “unpleasant”.

Now many may laugh that a blog (and blogger) described as unpleasant by more than one member of the media should get on his high horse. But just like Newman, if you meet me, I’m really, most of the time, pretty nice. I like people who like me, and want people to. Clarke’s one of those I don’t get. He seems to get off on being loathed. Why the ECB couldn’t tell him to shove off, because all words seemed to indicate he was going to lose an election, I won’t know. While they made that decision, there will always be a stain.

I’d also like to approach one other point this evening, and it is the sudden reduction in the role and scope of Paul Downton’s role over night. To this, I’ll pick up on Jonathan Agnew’s piece on the BBC:

Downton had a difficult time of it. He was briefed that his first job must be to get rid of Pietersen. He took responsibility for that, but it was not 100% his call – it was a broader decision.

So perhaps he was an easy person to target with regards to KP. He has taken a lot of flak for that. And likewise he was not directly hands-on with the England team.

You have to question how much responsibility he actually had on England team matters.

Downton is moved from the key man in matters of England international cricket, to a sock puppet who danced to his master’s tune. So it wasn’t his decision to sack KP, but someone else. That someone else is either Andy Flower or Giles Clarke (OK, it could have been David Collier, but he was so far off the radar, he was in deep space). Both pose crucial questions to the future of English cricket. If it was the former, it appears as though we threw a drowning man, one who had been in charge of a team that imploded on the spot, a life raft. KP’s description in his “nasty” book of a man adept at managing upstairs seems appropriate. I am not an anti-Flower blogger. At this time I’m converting a lot of my Ashes DVDs from 2010/11 and enjoy the way we dismantled that team. We were a really decent team. But he’d lost it. That was clear. If it was Clarke, then we were sold the mightiest of pups by our friends rushing out of the door that spring day when Moores was appointed, to crown Downton with aplomb. Both the people who pulled the puppet strings are still employed at the ECB. That’s not symbolic, that’s insulting.

He was an easy target, Jonathan, because he made himself the target. He hid. Pure and simple, after the announcement. Not a peep in a live setting for a couple of months. I knew, as much as I could, then we had a problem. We call it, in our game, red flags. This was so red, it had a Liverpool season ticket. Read the stuff on the other blog. You’ll see what I meant from those early posts. The hilarity when Downton actually spoke for the first time, on a Waitrose ad. The difficult winter and all that….

I don’t want to pick on Aggers, but I’ve seen this theme more and more today. Except for one glorious exception which had me rolling about with laughter.

FEBRUARY 2014

After the Ashes whitewash, Kevin Pietersen and head coach Andy Flower are sacked. After days of silence, the official line on Pietersen’s dismissal is that the ECB wanted to ‘create a culture’ in which captain Alastair Cook had ‘the full support of all players’.

From one he was a puppet master, from another he was upholding Flower’s contention that he sack KP. From this article, he actually sacked Andy Flower. He didn’t. He resigned. That author should know the difference between a sacking (KP) and something not quite the same (Flower – resigned, and moved to a job he courted). I don’t think disingenuous quite covers it.
I’ve gone over a 1000 words, and it is late. More reaction including a look at two of our favourite journo’s work (Brenkers and Selfey) to follow. Good night, and thanks for the support.

Aplomb

LordCanisLupus154 Comments

So. Where were you when you heard the news? Me? I was outside the Shakespeare’s Head pub in Holborn and my good friend had shown up. He was on the phone when I saw the first blog message. Incredulity struck, but it was true. I reacted, then felt a little guilt. Should I be cheering a man’s sacking, when it meant bad news for someone else? I then had what little joy I might have had ebb away to anger. Anger that we’d had to put up with someone so out of his depth for so long. Anger that he’d had that attitude throughout of unchallenged intellectual superiority and his boderline patronising nature. Anger that he’d been seen through after five minutes by many on here. Anger that we’d been sold a pup by the ECB hierarchy and more importantly to me, by the print media. The print media which lambasts this site, and people like me for indulging in “guesswork”, of not being close to the team, of not following them around professionally. They took the you-know-what out of us. Damn them. Damn all those who looked down their noses at us. We were right. He was not up to it. We are right about Moores. We are right about Whitaker. Most importantly of all, we are right about Andy Flower. Yet there he resides.

Now what? The news appears to be that Downton is being moved on and his post has been removed from the ECB hierarchy to be replaced with something called the Director of Cricket. Lord alone knows what that means, but people seem to be indicating that Whitaker is for the chop tomorrow and a whole new structure will replace him. Shed no tears either for the speak your Gary Ballance machine if he goes, as he’s been a laff-a-lympics when he’s had to front up to anything resembling a sentient questioner. I’m not that impressed with this from Harrison if truth be told because the structure is being used as a fig leaf for two utter failures.

So what now? Downton gone leaves a huge hole for me to fill, but there’s plenty more where he came from. The replacement list is full of holes, but I think we need to know what the role is before people are put forward. I’ve not had time to read this exercise in shifting sands.

Here’s what I do know. We handed the keys to the kingdom to Paul Downton. His first major move was to speak to Andy Flower. Before we knew it, Flower had gone as coach and been shunted into a role he appeared to be lobbying for. Then he sacked Pietersen and entered into a ridiculous confidentiality clause, which he broke a few months later. He held a press conference where he came across to me as a buffoon, but to some of the agape media as a latter day seer. If the warning signs weren’t flashing then, they had to be after his Agnew interview. But no. After a period in hiding, he re-surfaced in a Sky hack-piece, and was then hidden under the stairs. We then had to endure his backing of a lame duck captain, especially in the ODI game, and his disastrous intervention in the ODI series in Sri Lanka was the crowning glory. Or so we thought. Because then came his post-World Cup media blitz, which was staggering. By then, most of the media had seen the light. I say most.

Because some still don’t. We know their names, we know why they don’t. Their enemy’s enemy has always been their friend. Pietersen was banished by this man. For many this seems enough. They get to keep stirring the pot, getting the clicks on their website, yet still get to be the offended patron at KP’s misdemeanours. If any of them actually think a man who didn’t have a clue what social media was when he took on the job (his words) is still a fit and proper man to be in charge of our team, well….

I hope Harrison undertakes a review of ALL his key decisions. The appointment of Moores actually being more of a priority than Pietersen. The maintenance of a role for Flower arguably being more than that. To sack a man after a year indicates you have no confidence in him at all. So look at his key decisions and act on them.

In tabloid style let me go through some of Downton’s best moments:

  • Sacking KP. Oh yes. For reasons unclear, but something to do with being disconnected. You make a big decision like that, you need to explain yourself. Constantly avoiding the question makes you look a fool.
  • Outside cricket. Given he used that phrase in a 1985 Q&A for Cricketer’s Who’s Who, it seemed to be something he would have said. Way to get a meme started.
  • Difficult Winter – Oh yes. Losing 12 out of 13 to your main foe is just “difficult”
  • The press conference – Alastair Cook being told that he wasn’t strong enough to captain KP seemed rather amusing. Of course that was our spin. Other saw aplomb.
  • The interview – SO good I got multiple posts out of it. Where do you start? Read this. The read this. Then read this. And then there is this. Once you’ve done that, read my conclusion.
  • Who can forget his interview round in Sri Lanka. Backing the captain, then presiding over his sacking a few days later, all the while refusing to answer any questions on KP. Good lord.
  • Then there was the side to be reckoned with going into the World Cup. That went well.
  • Then the media blitz post elimination which struck all the wrong notes, had him wondering how T20 cricket had impacted, and played “it weren’t my fault” cards all over the place.

There’s enough for this evening. No background research, no looking at other things, just an instant reaction. Have your say, read Maxie over at TFT, read the papers/online news columns, and we’ll reconvene.

Speak tomorrow.

Wisdom

LordCanisLupus126 Comments

It’s that day again. The release of the latest version of cricket’s bible. I have copies dating back to 1970 and will do my usual – try to pick it up cheaply from a source in September – but it has been hard to miss the reports coming out on Lawrence Booth’s Editor’s Notes today. The ECB get a good kicking and so does KP. You take what you want from it – some will hone in on the criticism of Pietersen to reinforce what looks more and more like an editorial line (or personal vendetta – both of which are reprehensible), while others will focus on the kicking of the ECB and care less about the book and things. The newspapers have long since been the source of record in this sorry affair.

The KP issue still gets the blood pumping. Hearing that the book is reviewed by Patrick Collins saddened me. He was given free rein to give KP everything in previous editions, and lo and behold, he gets another opportunity. I’ve not read the review but Newman’s given us the flavour in another spectacularly typical article.

Now sadly, because I’m writing this on the tablet and in my lunch break I cannot do a proper fisking of that Newman article. It deserves it. However, I’ll hold that one back a few days as I have a real life outside of here to handle, which includes a meeting with my legal mate tonight. However a phrase or two requires comment. I can’t cut and paste so you will have to rely on my memory.

“a decision on which they had right on their side”

Newman is amazed that after 15 months sacking a player who had a lot of fans in this country, and a lot of enemies, having top scored in a disastrous tour (an inconvenient fact that you can’t brush away) was the one to be sacked and yet the ECB lost the media war. That this was done without a proper explanation to the fans, was accompanied by unattributable, off the record briefing in the aftermath of Sydney, and with further leakage and gossip along the way, really doesn’t resonate. When the supporters of KP, and others keeping in mind this treatment might be dished out to others (see, to a degree, Cook in Sri Lanka), had the gall not to take our beloved press corps word for it, and raised legitimate, unanswered questions, most notably about their willingness to receive leaks yet not get the ECB to state the case properly, he is mystified how the cause was lost. The message is in there, Paul. Don’t spend too long thinking about it.

“a decision supported by those who follow the team around professionally”

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It’s not all there is it? Because you are so damned close, and yet so damned reluctant to press these duplicitious swine, is the reason we take your view so sceptically. You don’t have a bloody scooby, do you? Your constant vitriolic, yes, the same word that is used against me, campaign against a man with over 100 caps, allying yourself with the idiots given a shoeing in Wisden today by one of your colleagues, a piece you should have written months ago (and not just after Cook got fired, but before it), is the reason this blogger and, given comments I see elsewhere, many others can’t take you seriously. The Daily Mail is our first stop for a laugh, frankly.

I need to follow the team professionally to have an informed view. There’s the bobby right there. If that doesn’t contrast with the “England team belongs to us all” line in Lawrence’s piece, I don’t know what does.

No complaints over the Five Cricketers of the Year, although I’d have been tempted to consider Brendon McCullum because they can go outside the domestic season if they please, albeit rarely and for special cases (sure they have done). Let’s hope he does enough this summer to get in. I’ve seen some complaints about Moeen Ali, and I do feel there’s a bit of symbolism there, but it’s fair enough. He’s a ray of hope. Ballance, Angelo Mathews and Adam Lyth wrote themselves, and Jeetan Patel is also very deserving.

An absolute ton of work goes into this book, and I would thank Lawrence Booth for the efforts. One of the benefits of speaking to him offline is appreciating the co-ordination required to bring this together. It’s not me going soft. It’s me not being a total curmudgeon.

I’m not commenting on anything else at the moment, until I’ve seen what’s written. Couldn’t Lawrence have sent me a review copy too?

Duplicity

LordCanisLupus112 Comments

I’ve followed the debate on here as best I can and once again the same points are being raised. I’m not moaning because they’ve never been answered, but Cook’s travails are always going to be an issue. To me it doesn’t matter if he scores buckets of runs, because it has not proved the selectors right to persist with him. He’s been given the luxury of time that has not been given to a Compton, Carberry or Robson. He’s been treated as the prodigal son, the one to be kept at all costs. Never forget what Downton said in his infamous interview with Aggers when asked about whether the genius MD had considered changing captains. “Not seriously, no” was the reply. I think it was then I lost it….

Cook has also had the front, it seems, to get arsey over his treatment in losing the ODI captaincy when we were losing and he was a liability at the top of the order. There were the interviews where despite his “nice” persona he made it clear what he thought of the decision and then there has been several bits of reporting indicating his thoughts on all matters including whether KP should come back.

I contrast this decision making, those actions and interpretation, not just with the treatment of KP, but with those of Compton and Robson in particular. Cook’s past, as he confesses in his latest interview, does not matter, because he needs to score runs. This is hilarious as it is this “past” that is keeping him in the team. The hope he recaptures that elusive form. The hope he makes regular hundreds at the top of the order. The hope his technical flaws are ameliorated. All these are in the past. But it gives him the rope while the other failures hang themselves. These technical flaws are not espoused in the print media the way Compton’s stodginess and intensity, and Robson’s feet movement and quietness in the field were.

I can go on, and probably will, but if the likes of Derek and Selfey think this is “wearisome” as they stick doggedly to Tyers Twitter Tendency, then I have news. I’m not weary of pointing this matter out. It’s your haughty arrogance combined with this lack of rigour that cheeses us off. I’m not here calling them dishonest, but good grief, they are hard to love, ain’t they?

Which brings me to the duplicity. This KP thing is a charade. A total charade. It doesn’t matter what runs he scores or how England do. They won’t pick him. No chance. The thing is, if the ECB (and Graves) thinks they are being clever by getting him to play, and close the door on him for reasons of revenge or whatever, then they are fools if they think the public will fall for it. They will only buy it if this team beats Australia, and all the batsmen fire. KP, on form and fit (a big if that last one), walks into THIS England team. The line this lot are taking is that if this were Lara or Tendulkar sitting on the outside now, they wouldn’t make the team because there is no vacancy. Hogwash. He’s not in the team because the establishment excluded him, and every day that lack of form canard is put forward, and every day I want to bash those proponents of it with a Punch and Judy stick.

The ECB are pulling our plonkers, and the picking of the team on merit that we all want to see is being made a joke of. It’s not being tackled at all. We keep being told “nothing has changed”, and that equates to “moving on from Kevin Pietersen, who we wish well for the future.” There was nothing about county form last year when he was sacked. In the aftermath of Sydney, when the ECB were leaking like the Titanic on a bad iceberg night, and Newman was receiving more gifts than a one-year old at an extended family christmas, it wasn’t about KP giving it loads to Glamorgan or Leicestershire. So stop bullshitting and let’s have a clear, unambiguous statement. KP is eligible for selection, and will be considered if he makes runs. Anything else is duplicity.

Midnight City

LordCanisLupus55 Comments

Nothing much from me this weekend. Been busy getting stuff ready for my holiday in a few weeks, had lots of little jobs to do, and getting my sport dvd database in as good a way as I can. Have a fair bit of cricket…

I’m thankful you all found things to talk about over the weekend, and must admit I’m writing this with little in mind. It’s a short ramble before I go to bed.

One has to question an opposition that gets skittled for 59 and then allows England to make 180 odd for 1. I mean, really? It takes me back to the last 40 over game I ever played. We played it on a wicket used a couple of days before for a county game at Southgate, and we were playing a team we knew were massively stronger than us. Said to the skipper “win the toss, bat first, and we can have this over with in short order”. I’m a realist. He lost the toss. They batted. Their opener made 189 not out, they got 360 in their 40 overs, and to be fair to the bully, he never made a lot of it, but still. What pleasure can you derive from smashing muppets?

Lots more important stuff will be on the way for next week, so I’ll see what I can do. Cheers for all the words….

Furtherance

LordCanisLupus112 Comments

Not a full post at this stage, but some interesting links out there. Here’s Stuart Broad on Alastair Cook…

http://www.trentbridge.co.uk/news/2015/april/broad-west-indies-a-tough-opposition.html

There’s a lot in there to chew over, especially the contention that Alastair Cook is England’s greatest ever batsman.

Of course, you’ve probably all seen Boycott’s piece:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11516038/Englands-Alastair-Cook-and-Co-in-need-of-reality-check.html

It’s the usual sort of stuff from Geoffrey but ramped up a little. I can’t help get the feeling that he’s really, especially, pissed off with this team and their attitude. I might do a reverse fisking of that a bit later on, but I have the spare room to deal with today.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/west-indies-v-england-2015/content/story/858327.html

According to this the arch data miner and captain plonker haven’t discussed one of the fundamental positions. I’m with James for TFT:

I’ll add more as the day goes on, so keep checking back if you feel like it, or follow my rants on Twitter.