Day: Jun 20, 2015

Escape For Victory

LordCanisLupus40 Comments

There was almost something poetic about Jonny Bairstow’s knock today. In a nutshell it summed up so much that had gone wrong in the past. That Adil Rashid was there at the end as well, was strangely appropriate. Two talents somewhat unfulfilled at the international level. Two “what ifs”. Two players seemingly relishing their chance to shine.

Today’s win is one of the really good ones. It’s the one dug out of adversity, when you are, to all intents and purposes, dead in the water. You are left 45 for 5. The rocks on which we are building this revival had gone – Hales had failed at the top of the order, Root had gone at three, and then so did Morgan. With no Buttler to fall back on, it was now up to rookie Sam Billings, and fallen young star Jonny Bairstow. As I drove back from Costco in Croydon, in the middle of a rainstorm I heard the two lads put the partnership together to cement the innings and give us a shout. When Billings went, Bairstow piled on. I got back to see the end. Bairstow with cool hitting getting us home, and yes, with a bit of luck too, with the drop by Santner almost certainly costing the New Zealanders the match.

But the symbolism of a talent, abused and ignored by England for so long, bringing a new era home was not lost on me. Bairstow had become the world’s most experience drinks carrier. He was called up rarely, often without much in the way of top class cricket under his belt in the weeks building up to his appearances. He’d come into teams either shot of confidence, or knowing he wasn’t there for long. He’d been over-sold when he made a 95 at Lord’s against South Africa, or that 50 at Cardiff. But he’d be in and out more times than an Hokey Kokey convention and he withered. Today was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I’m thrilled for him, and I’ve not said that about a cricketer in ages. I thought it was reminiscent of the KP innings against Australia at Bristol in 2005 – maybe not as violent, but every bit as important because this won a series, this continued momentum, this set down a bit of a marker, and it was against pretty large odds. Good luck.

I’m not going to go into huge detail on the game. I’ll leave that to thelegglance who is going to do a series review in the next day or two. But a series win is important, but in the whole scheme of things not that important. It was the manner in which we played, it was seeing some of our talent set free. I love that more than anything. Adil Rashid was excellent with the ball today. Mark Wood looks like he loves it out there. Jos Buttler is a man with talent to burn. Eoin Morgan and Joe Root are the rocks at 3 and 4. It’s a team to get behind. It’s a team that enthuses.

On to the Ashes. And the return of those who were noticeable by their absence. ABC will return. They have a momentum they have to ride with, not destroy. We’ll be watching. Carefully.

2015 Test Century Watch – #27 – BJ Watling

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BJW

BJ Watling – 120 v England at Headingley

Bradley-John Watling’s second test century of the calendar year was a hugely important one. Playing in this test as a batsman only, he dug in, then expanded and put his team firmly on top. It’s the sort of innings to wax lyrical about, and different to his more legendary “dig-in” knocks to save tests. At the time of this innings he was the third man to make a second test century in 2015 – alongside Kane Williamson and Alastair Cook. With this innings he took his average to over 40, and made his 5th test hundred in just his 53rd innings. To put that in some context, Matt Prior made 7 centuries in 123 innings, and we’ve recently lauded him as a modern powerhouse.

Mind boggling fact #1 – BJ Watling’s hundred is the first made by a New Zealander at Headingley in test cricket. His 120 beat the previous best of 97 by Stephen Fleming in 2004. Luke Ronchi’s 88 was 4th best when he made it. It was the 23rd hundred made by a New Zealander in tests in England, and the second man to make 120 for his country here (Stewie Dempster did it at Lord’s in 1931). 120 is the 8th highest score made in England by a New Zealander. 14 of those 23 hundreds were made at Lord’s.

Have you seen a test 120, Dmitri?  Well, there have been 58 of them since the first test match. The answer is, a little to my surprise, yes. It was a century totally overshadowed by a legendary one later in the innings. It was a hot summer’s day in 2001 at The Oval, and after a lengthy opening partnership between Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, Mark Waugh strolled to the crease. He did what he did when in nick. He made 120 look easy. Then his twin came in on one leg, made 157 not out, and everyone forgot Waugh (and Langer’s) ton.

The first 120 in test cricket was made by a man who saw one of his long standing records nearly broken a few weeks ago. Bobby Abel, of Surrey and England, made 120 against South Africa in Cape Town in 1889. This is an astonishing score card, because Bobby himself beat the hosts by an innings and 30 runs. England posted 292 and Johnny Briggs then took 7 in South Africa’s first and 8 in the second to bowl the hosts out for 47 and 43. 14 of those wickets were bowled and the other LBW. This is brilliant stuff. Bernard Tancred carried his bat for 26 in the first innings. If he’d played for my school 2nd XI in 1985, he’d have been dropped (30 years on and yes, I’m still bitter!)

I’ll let the almanac describe the state of affairs…

The last match of the tour and a complete triumph for the Englishmen, who outplayed their opponents at every point, and won in an innings with 202 runs to spare. It was the second eleven-a-side fixture, and was more decisively won than any other match during the trip. The South African team, with the exception of Mr. Tancred could do absolutely nothing against Briggs, batsmen who had scored well in earlier matches failing dismally. The Lancashire bowler met with wonderful success, taking in all fifteen wickets for 28 runs – a worthy finish up to his briliant exertions during the trip. Abel, too, wound up in splendid form, making his third hundred during the tour. He went in first and was out seventh, making 120 out of 287.

No frippery or waxing lyrical. Well batted Mr. Tancred. Martin Williamson’s Cricinfo article is brilliant in explaining the circumstances behind this test .and the impact it had on South African cricket. There were three England players in that team that played their only first class games on this tour. But what is even more sobering is the fate of England’s young captain (he was 23):

Bowden, however, was an altogether sadder story. At 23 years 144 days, he was and remains England’s youngest captain, but he never even knew he had represented his country, or even saw his homeland again. In 1891 he headed north with Rhodes where he was incorrectly reported to have been killed. Not long after he was found to be alive, he did die, in a remote a mud hut in Umtali. The final indignity was that his body had to be protected from marauding lions – prior to being interred – in a coffin made from whisky cases.

I may be a bit down on Alastair Cook, but…

Bobby Abel’s famous record is the 357 he made for Surrey in 1899 against Somerset. It is said on Wikipedia that the England selectors were unwilling to choose him after 1896 over concerns about his eyesight. Seems to have more in common with KP than we think!

Other 120s that caught my eye included the previous one made in tests, which has also semi-legendary status. We’re talking about Ben Stokes at Perth. The only century made by an Englishman in the international part of the tour. The one that he needed to be persisted with because of it!

Bob Caterall of South Africa made two scores of 120 in test matches, within a fortnight of each other. In June 1924 he followed up his 120 at Edgbaston with the same score at Lord’s. Fellow countryman Bruce Mitchell also made two 120s against England, but they were separated by 17 months and the distance between The Oval and Newlands. Michael Vaughan has two 120s, with the first being his first test century against Pakistan at Old Trafford, and the other against Bangladesh at Lord’s in the run up to the 2005 Ashes.

Other players to have made 120 twice in tests include West Indian wastrels Viv Richards and Brian Lara and Sri Lankan wicket-keeper Prasanna Jayawardene.

In 1987 fellow Kiwi Jeff Crowe made 120 not out against Sri Lanka. It took him 609 minutes and nearly 400 balls. This was the same test that Brendon Kurrupu batted 777 minutes for 201. If time had not expired, lord knows how long Crowe would have taken to get to that, and the slow century award on this site could be called the Crowe (Jeff) Award! This looks like five days of thrilling cricket!

This was Watling’s third highest score in tests, his highest test score not made at the Basin Reserve, and the fastest of his test tons.

BJ Watling’s hundred came up in 136 balls with 13 x 4 and 1 x 6.

Book Review – Put To The Test by Geoffrey Boycott

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boycs book

On my very occasional visits to Hay-on-Wye (I’ve been there twice), I head out looking for older cricket books, and often they can be snagged for a pound, maybe two. I have picked up a number of the Boycott books from the late 70s, early 80s, where he wrote a tour diary about his fortunes, and often with blisteringly honest critiques of his team-mates. It’s the sort of book that could never be written now. It’s from a bygone age. But for all that, this Boycott book reads of a man in crisis and it is better for it. It seems real.

This particular book relates to the Ashes series of 1978/9, in the midst of the Packer Revolution, with an Australian team lacking its main stars. It is largely disregarded by the Australian cognoscenti on the grounds we were playing their 2nd XI, and thus the 3-0 hammering we received the following year (in a non-Ashes series) is more of a true reflection of the two sides at the time.

The book is couched within the first chapter when Geoffrey gets his excuses in early. He had been sacked as Yorkshire captain – oh don’t we miss those brutal fraternal wars in that quaint old county – and had the terrible sadness of his much beloved mother passing away. Geoffrey, as one of those highly paid gurus would no doubt have said, was not in a good place. So excuses may be a bit harsh, but I’m not going to call them reasons…

The book takes us through a tour that seems to be played on nothing but rubbish pitches. Look at the scores in the tests. Barely anyone has a good series with the bat. Rodney Hogg stands out with his bowling figures, but the teams are all over the place, and there are no draws. England find themselves in difficult positions in many of the games, but pull themselves out of them with a lot of luck and a lot of help from poor captaincy, dropped catches and bad play. Boycott himself has an awful tour with the bat, but even then Sir G is a front-runner for modern thinking, as the epilogue has a wonderful bit where he takes the positives.

Boycott pulls apart Yallop’s captaincy, while also getting the hump early in the tour that he wasn’t being listened to, but then being fulsome in praise of Brearley for asking him his views once that concern had been raised. Brearley does seem to apply remarkable common sense in most of his dealings, from what I can see. I think Geoff really liked Derek Randall, even though he really wasn’t his kind of player, and his 150 in the Sydney Test, when England had just lost the 3rd in Melbourne to lead 2-1, and had conceded a first innings lead of 142, was the deciding factor in the series. Then Randall’s contributions seemed to fade away.

There’s some interesting stuff throughout. England’s former run scoring record holder, Gooch, is still without a test hundred, and would go another two years before getting one. Brearley seems to get the solid start off to a tee more than Geoffrey, and this book is very noticeable by a lack of comments on that. There’s lots of praise in there for those who surpassed themselves, including Bob Taylor, who made a 97 in the 5th test that pretty much secured the game. But Boycs does show his frustrations with Botham’s batting and bowling, Gower getting out the same way, but he is borderline effusive on Brearley:

“I watched Brearley pretty closely…..and I consider he did a magnificent job on and off the field.”

This is also cricket from a byegone era, and it makes me feel old reading it, because this is the first overseas highlights I ever remember watching (I was 8). There is plenty running through the piece on bouncers, and the almost quaint “no bouncing list” that existed (yes, people were protected from having bouncers bowled at them if they were crap batsmen). It was more understandable given helmets were in their infancy in those days, but reading it makes me feel old.

Boycott has a pop at the umpires “they assumed an air of infallibility which their decisions did not always bear out” and at the Aussie crowds “The Hill at Sydney used to be amusing, sharp and cutting, but not unfriendly; now it is simply foul-mouthed and crude.” He wasn’t pleased with the pitches “The great Don Bradman himself once remarked that nobody expected Joe Davis to play snooker on a bumpy table” and Yallop’s captaincy also came under his microscope, with one exchange with Rodney Hogg an example of how the new captain struggled to assert authority. Boycott also rails against sledging and over-appealing, and the former debate still lingers on.

A really interesting read, and although just over 180 pages of text, none the worse for its relative brevity. Highly recommended if you can lay your hands on it. It is big boy/girl cricket writing. Honest, frank, informative, descriptive and free from cliche, management-speak, taking the positive speak (with one caveat) and dealing in nicknames. It’s a book that covers the debut of Allan Border (which all those who wish to dismiss this series Down Under should contemplate) and the force of nature that was Rodney Hogg. There are also familiar themes – the running between the wickets of Graeme Wood runs through this like a stick of rock – and the ODIs in this book look like the belong in Roman times compared to today’s high octane stuff.

A book like that today would be media managed out of existence. James Anderson once said that the ECB amended about 200 pages in his book (he may have been joking) and yet although I have it on my Kindle rack, I’ve not read (but also not heard anything controversial about it either). If you wonder why I am so nostalgic, books like this are the reason why. Honest accounts, dealt with in an adult manner. It’s actually quite refreshing.

England v New Zealand – ODI #5 – The Decider At Durham

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Well, Chester-le-Street, but you get my drift.

The Greatest One Day Series in the history of mankind (containing one remotely close match in four) comes to an end today up north. There appears to be a little bit of rain about, but probably not enough to impact too much on the game – though you never know – but let’s hope the series is not ended with a DLS, or whatever it is called, schmozzle.

England look to be without Jos Buttler, who has split the webbing on his hand, and there is an emergency call-up for Jonny Bairstow. I’d have thought we’d have allowed the other keeper in the squad, Sam Billings, a chance to carry out the duties, so have England just called Jonny up for another chance to carry the drinks, for which he’s undoubtedly the Don Bradman of in terms of proficiency. With Buttler out, does it mean a place for James Taylor, and if so, will it be at 6 or will he take 5 from Stokes?

As for the bowling, it’s getting to the stage that the quicker bowlers should sling their names in a hat, and the first three are pulled out. This has been a lamentable series for all the bowlers (perhaps I’m being harsh on Wood) and there’s no indication that’s going to stop.

Anyway, I look forward to all your comments as usual. Once this is out of the way, and the T20 game on Tuesday is in the books, this blog will be dominated by the one series that truly matters to all cricket fans in this country. So while the press and ECB TV are waxing lyrical over how great this series is, and what a shame it was just the two tests, all the promos, including that bloody song, and a renamed channel are on the way and filling our screens. We may not be having the “phoney war” as one poking journo (!) called it quite rightly, but it’ll be made up for. Or maybe, just maybe, we are a teeny weeny bit fed up that this is the third Ashes series within 24 months, and that overkill is in play?

Now Alex, when you get in that position again, you know, 60-odd by 10 overs, don’t do that again. There are massive tons in your horizon….