Month: Jul 2015

Liquefied Natural Gas

LordCanisLupus52 Comments

By way of entertainment, I’ve been reading some of our old favourite’s work so you don’t have to.

Who might that be, you ask?

Fox Sports Australia regrets latest appointment
Fox Sports Australia regrets latest appointment

Yes, our old man who used to be at the Telegraph, a man who topped our polls for worst journalist on a regular basis, and yes, who deemed us poor saps who write using blog names as “irrelevances” has got himself an Ashes gig with Fox Sports Australia. In return for some coinage to recompense him for his views and insight, Oman’s cricket consultant (what, you didn’t know) has regaled those Down Under with some tremendous insight.

Here’s something from a piece just after Cardiff…

If England were not quite wetting themselves at the prospect of facing Mitchell Johnson and all the other Mitchells currently operating with menace, they were pretty apprehensive about it. But a Cardiff pitch shorn of pace, especially in the middle where the main Mitchell is most effective, brought about a double play after England’s victory – simultaneously raising the home side’s spirits while depressing Australia’s, a situation obvious to anyone who watched the past few days’ play.

Suddenly Alastair Cook and his men know there is little to fear, providing climate change doesn’t accelerate like Lewis Hamilton and turn the pitches rock hard overnight. Facing fast bowlers without fear gnawing at you is bolstering in a way that is hard to explain to those who have never been pinned to the crease by 90mph thunderbolts aimed at your throat.

I love hindsight. Yes, I was going on about distress signals, but also, this is a tough bunch of professionals now, not some flaky old players with no recent success behind them and I recognised that. I suppose the Aussie audience want some good old fashioned Pommie jingoism, Muppet…

Tours can unravel at an alarming speed when they start as badly as this one has done for Australia. Teams can play poorly, that is the nature of sport, but it cannot help that Clarke, with his chronic back problems, and several other senior players are on their last Ashes tour.

This is it now. All first test malaises are to be measured about a tour that unravelled spectacularly with our lot. You note that Australia lost the first two over here last time and definitely had the better of the third and to a lesser degree the fifth tests because they did not collapse. It does not follow that Australia will act like England did 18 months ago. However, in lazy journo mode, this is the only precedent, it seems, worth considering.

As a captain heading for the exit and no doubt worn down by the prospect of being the first Australian to lose four Ashes series in England, any further setbacks could see him move on mentally to the next phase of his career.

I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like Michael Clarke to me. What say you?

Maybe Shane Warne’s claim that Starc is ‘soft’ will pique him into declaring himself fit.

Oh yeah. That would do it. Wouldn’t be a muppet piece without some snark.

England, hugely buoyed by their swaggering victory, will also take heed of the recent past. They went one-nil up against New Zealand earlier this summer only to be hauled back to parity in the second Test. Yet that was before Trevor Bayliss had settled onto his perch on the dressing-room balcony, an Aussie hawk to lend talons to Cook’s English dove.

Finally, Cardiff, despite being an opening Test, felt like a watershed moment. During the Ashes series six years ago, Cook’s predecessor Andrew Strauss announced that Australia had lost their aura, and was proved right. Expect Cook to advance that claim again.

I do miss him at the Telegraph. It felt like a watershed, there’s a hawk for poor ickle Ally’s little precious dove (the deer shooting callous bastard). Beautiful. Brings a tear to my eye.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/the-ashes/ashes-2015-england-knows-theres-little-to-fear-from-australias-quicks-writes-derek-pringle/story-e6frf3gl-1227439838392

But there’s a lot more. There’s a podcast that I’m sorry, you can’t pay me enough to listen to. My eyes are sore enough as it is without feeling the need to stick nails in them listening to this man’s wit and wisdom. So I’ll read some more…

OUCH, that hurt.

Mitchell Johnson may not have bruised many England bodies at Lord’s, but his fast aggressive bowling broke their resolve.

Three wickets did not do his savage brilliance justice, but Australia will tell you it is a team game and the other bowlers certainly benefited from his efforts as England’s second innings disintegrated in a measly 37 overs.

You changed fast, Muppet.

Less edifying is the sight of craven capitulation, something England were guilty of and something their selectors have a fortnight to come to terms with.

Getting bowled out in the fewest overs ever in the fourth innings in a Test at Lord’s has created an unholy mess and James Whitaker and his panel must now figure out how, and who, they need to cope with Mitch and the other Mitchells.

It will not be simple.

Three of England’s top four are ailing badly though there are hardly a plethora of worthy candidates bashing down the door.

Less a watershed, more a boggy swamp. One week eh? Needed rock hard pitches, eh? No-one seemed to consider the Aussies came into the first test a little undercooked, did they?

Now, there are hardly a plethrora of worthy candidates bashing down the door. That’s partly because the ECB locked one in the cellar and chucked away the key, the duplicitous lying bastards. There is no way this Muppet will mention his name. Here comes the insight:

Jonny Bairstow reached a hundred for Yorkshire the exact moment Jos Buttler edged Johnson to Peter Nevill and has been in purple form all summer.

But it wasn’t long ago he was discounted for Test cricket because of a problem against the short ball.

The Romans may not have minded one-sided contests in the colosseum, but unless Bairstow has overcome his apprehension against the bouncer it would be cruel to pitch him against Johnson in this mood.

There will be advocates for batsmen like Alex Hales and James Taylor, but neither has done well for Nottinghamshire in red ball cricket this season.

James Vince, from Hampshire, has been on the fringes of England selection and can pull well, but like most young players he is the spawn of T20.

“The spawn of T20” being spat out like it’s vile. David Warner is the spawn of T20. One could argue Virat Kohli is. Our wicket-keeper made his name in T20. Why the bile, Degsy?

I thought I’d also highlight this magnificent piece of muppetry that I want to stick on a plinth and polish every day:

In another era Ben Stokes would have been dropped for sheer stupidity after he was run out by Johnson, a dismissal that would not have occurred had he the whit to ground his bat.

Stokes is a huge talent but will never fully realise it while he refuses to engage his grey matter in the sporting process.

There it is. Right there. What is wrong with English cricket. People who write this absolute fuckwittery retain paid positions.

Australia now have all their batsmen, Clarke perhaps the exception though he did make an unbeaten 32 setting the target, and all their main bowlers, confident and firing.

Suddenly, the woes of the world are England’s — a feeling Cook and some of his players know only too well when it comes to Ashes cricket.

A week is a long time in cricket. So it is in cricket writing.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/england-eye-michell-johnson-breaks-england-resolve-with-savage-fast-bowling/story-e6frf3g3-1227448731650

Do you want more?

How about this from Day 2 of the 1st Test:

It looked like hopeful thinking until Smith, who came into the series with some serious plaudits about being the best batsman in world cricket, got in a horrible tangle and poked the ball to Alastair Cook at short mid-wicket, instantly transporting England’s captain into the realms of tactical genius.

Yes. Good captaincy, good field position, snark at Smith, job done. Smoke blown up Cooky’s backside. Lovely.

Next – how about Derek’s marks out of 10…

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/the-ashes/ashes-2015-derek-pringles-england-report-card-from-second-test-at-lords/story-e6frf3gl-1227450609751

I think some of this is accurate, but some of the digs…well….

At the moment he looks jittery at the crease and is not watching the ball, a problem Mark Ramprakash, England’s batting coach, also suffered from when uptight, which was most of the time.

No personal vendetta there given who he replaced, Muppet?

But 128 runs in his last 12 Test innings suggests chances aplenty and the selectors should move on.

Remember, there are no replacements. So drop him (Bell).

He has tired quickly during series before and it may be that back-to-back Tests hit him hard.

Someone check that out with Root. Thought it was technical issues and opening/ number 3 in previous series v Australia, but swear he got a big hundred in the 5th test at The Oval last year, didn’t he? Where’s this nonsense come from?

Three ratings for Stokes, a supremely gifted cricketer though one you would not necessarily want in your pub quiz team.

Being in your pub quiz team = a requirement for great test teams. You snob.

Trouble is idiotic tendencies do overcome him, like his naive run-out in the second innings where he failed to ground his bat despite being well in.

His dismissal did not make a difference to the result but its carefree nature was suggestive of a team who does not give a fig about losing and England supporters won’t tolerate that.

You see, the one thing I think about Ben Stokes is that he doesn’t give a toss. All that anger and rage in him, shows up his lack of giving a toss. What the effing hell is this muppet on about? He made a mistake running between the wickets. Jesus. It’s hardly a death penalty offence. But no, he’s a bit rough round the edges, a bit angry, a bit not my type, so the lectures rain down on him. Stokes had better watch out, because they need a new KP, and he’s prime candidate.

Blue-eyed boy, literally and metaphorically. Or at least he was until his star began to wane to the point where he has made just two significant Test scores (fifty plus) in his last 11 innings.

More famous in the last Test when he walked, Adam Gilchrist-style after nicking off to Nathan Lyon, but wicketkeepers have always been strange beasts. His ‘keeping has been decent enough but he needs to deliver a telling knock soon.

This is drivel. Pure drivel.

Another with two ratings but another cricketing schizophrenic. He carried the home side’s attack manfully on an unresponsive pitch (at least for England’s bowlers) yet he appears to have excused himself from getting stuck in with the bat.

His shot-a-ball insouciance, when England could have done with some hard grind, was inexcusable except in the second innings when the end was nigh. A classy Test bowler but a vaudeville act with the bat.

He’s resorting to madness now.

Wonderful stuff. As I say, I miss him. Like a dog misses fleas. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The more you read of this, the more gems. Some more from other articles…

The other predictable outcome was that Ian Bell is too good a player not to make a major contribution, eventually, having been in deep torpor since last summer.

I’d love thepoetseye to do a job on that shite.

Then there’s talent spotting:

Smith came into the series being lauded by his countrymen as the greatest batsman currently in world cricket. He made 33 in each innings but to this observer he looks too fidgety to be worthy of such a grand claim. His dismissal yesterday, to a ball many would have done well to reach, does not suggest the inner calm possessed by the true gods of batting.

Most of us got over those reservations a few years ago. Here’s what Smith is….. a quick learner. Also, it’s not just the Aussies claiming that title, the ICC rankings seem to concur. Maybe we should have the Muppet Rankings instead.

A few days later…

Smith, who brought his hundred up with a pull for four off James Anderson, played the more fluent innings, if anyone that fidgets as much as he does at the crease can be so described. His shuffle across the stumps is one of the more expansive trigger movements in the game but despite his head moving as the ball is on its way he meets it with the middle of the bat so often that England’s bowlers started to wear that put upon look and pose the rhetorical question of whether this was really a home Test?

Still on about the fidgeting…. how does he do it, you can see him asking himself.

Quite what Cook could, other than rotate his bowlers and hope for a mistake from the batsmen, was not obvious. He needed to dry up the runs and build pressure but none of his bowlers was able to achieve that.

Genius. “Ah, eff it” captaincy.

The last time England took only one wicket in an Ashes Test was Headingley in 1993. On that occasion Australia went from 307 for three to 613 for four. After the match, which England lost, Graham Gooch resigned the captaincy something Cook will not be doing should the same fate befall his team this time.

Not really sure what the point of this was other to mention two England captains from his county.

Ashes Panel #007 – The Spectre of a Skyfall, No Quantum of Solace

LordCanisLupus14 Comments

australia-celebrate-the-ashes-whitewash_10piscrajeyf61qj64a1ovgr5r (2)

You knew I’d do that with the title, didn’t you?

Before we start, a little cross-promotion. On the Extra Bits, I’ve added another ten pics from the Lord’s Test. Click here.

The seventh edition of the Ashes Panel has taken time to reflect on the result and consider some of the events of the week. We have an esteemed panel, and a sad absentee. We have Hillel, a major tweeter under the EoinJPMorgan label, Man In A Barrel (MIAB) who has been on this blog for a long old while, our Hammer overseas MD Payne, and Philip Chapman (PGP). Sadly, the other invitee, our very own Bogfather has been unable to participate this time around, so I’ve decided I’ll step into his shoes, if not with poetry, but with passion instead….

So, off we go…..

1. We’ve had a few days to digest the result from Lord’s. What was your initial reaction and has it changed?
PGP – Genuine surprise at how poorly we batted. I was at Lords for about 2 hours on Thursday and the pitch was so flat I fancied a bat against our attack. The thing about our team is that it is mentally weak. So they don’t have the mental strength to say “it doesn’t matter what the opposition scored, I am going to bat for as long as I can and go big”. The Aussies bowled significantly better but it was the wickets that Marsh got that hurt us the most.
Hillel – I am rather ambivalent on the Lord’s debacle, as horrified as I was at the time (and remain so) to see the lack of fight that we put up in the second innings; there are correct ways to lose. Lord’s, in the long run, will not be as terrible as many pundits are suggesting. It was not, as we have seen before with England, the revelation of some horrific endemic problem that faces us, but rather an accumulation of far too many relatively minor mistakes which added up to cost us dearly. The pitch clearly favoured swing and pace over seam which massively advantaged Australia; it seems strange that England are the only country which won’t doctor all of its pitches to suit their bowling attack. Even if one disagrees with the point that the pitch favoured Australia over England, it was clear that whichever team won the toss had as good as won the Test. Additionally, England’s batting lineup are on the whole horrifically out of form and one cannot expect Cook and Root to be able to save us every innings. We have to learn to rest Wood as well. Overall however, I don’t feel that disappointed and think overreactions, whilst plentiful, remain futile.
MDP – I live in Australia so went to bed at tea on the 4th day and my emotion was one of ‘same old England’ again. Waking to find we had capitulated in such fashion was a bit of a shock, though. I would at least have expected them to take the game into the final day. Since then fear has crept in that we are looking at another heavy series defeat.
MIAB – Frankly I was overjoyed at the win.  I find it difficult to support England anymore and so any team that beats us so resoundingly feels like another small crack in the self-satisfied carapaces of Clarke, Strauss, Cook etc.  Eventually they will be gone.
DO – I confess, I was wavering. I thought Australia were sending out some real distress signals with their machinations over Haddin and Watson. This was a time to go in for the kill, but Day 1 put paid to any of that over-used cliche “momentum” to take effect. Smith’s 215, Rogers 173. Once that happened it was almost inevitable, as this team of our’s doesn’t seem to react well to scoreboard pressure – they aren’t alone in that. So once we slumped to 30-odd for 4 while I was there I thought anyone with a Day 5 ticket was in trouble.
My initial reaction was one of feeling stupid that I doubted an Australian team’s mental strength, relief I hadn’t indulged in the hyperbole that followed the win in Cardiff, and a bit of affirmation in the trend we have of following up a win with a defeat. Since then I’ve just watched an England team talking a good game for Edgbaston, and wondering if these are the deluded rantings of condemned men, or real belief. I’m really not sure.
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2. I’ve seen a lot of pundits saying “it’s still 1-1” and “stop being fickle”. I’m certainly not a fan of the last one. But it doesn’t feel all square, does it?
PGP – See the above after we won the first game the emotions were running high, we took the foot off the gas, as we have done loads recently. So a feeling of frustration as much as anything.
Hillel – It certainly does not feel square, and saying that the score is level is a gross oversimplification. All professional sportsmen (or women) will easily be able to tell you that sport depends a great deal on confidence and momentum, which is undoubtedly with Australia at the amount. Nonetheless, as guilty as the eternal optimists are the eternal pessimists. It is foolish to proclaim this series done and dusted whilst there is still much to play for and, as Australia showed at Lord’s, momentum can swing (pardon the pun) round in an instant: It will all depend very much on how England carry themselves, and whether they are able to dust themselves off and move on or wallow in self-pity. I’m pleased to say it seems likely that this new England side under Bayliss are more than capable of shrugging off a large defeat, returning to play positive cricket, and win the series (or at least give the Ozzies a run for their money).
MDP – No it doesn’t. My mind keeps returning to the 1997 series, when England won the first Test convincingly and it all went downhill from there. Can’t see anything coming from the camp to suggest it won’t happen again.
MIAB – It certainly does not feel like 1-1.  Look at the trajectories of the 2 teams – Australia are improving and England got wiped out.  Look at the opening partnership: Australia have made 52 and 19, 78 and 114.  These are impressive figures, especially when you consider that Rogers was deemed too old by certain pundits and that Warner was supposed to be technically fallible.  For all his loathsome personality, he is actually a smart cricketer.  His footwork is quick and his batswing is straight i.e. he has a good technique, certainly much more technically correct than Cook.  He is playing more cautiously than he normally does but he is getting used to the pace and bounce and movement of the ball in English conditions.  He is going to make a big score at some point.  The way that he and Rogers took on the English attack in the 3rdinnings at Lords was superb.  Their certainty of shot, the lack of fuss demoralised the opposition:  you could see confidence draining out of them.  Smith is in good form and he is very impressive technically.  For all his fidgeting, at the point the ball is bowled his head is still.  His backlift is impressively vertical.  He moves calmly into position without any fuss at all and then hits the ball.  He is as orthodox as say Sobers or Cowdrey once the ball is bowled.  Now that he has decided to milk Ali, as he did so successfully in the World Cup, rather than attempt to smash him out of the attack, there is no reason not to expect him to keep scoring big hundreds.  Clarke is getting into something approaching good form.  Nevill and Marsh seem a cut above Watson and Haddin – although it was unfortunate that Watson received 2 such shocking lbw decisions.  The bowling is also getting better and Johnson found his mojo after his 77 in Cardiff.
Looking at England, all you can say is that Stokes is batting well and Broad has remembered how to bowl.  The Aussies seem able to dry Cook up.  Root is about to get the working over that will show whether he really is world-class, as all the pundits have been telling us for the last 2 years.  Wood is unfit.  Ali cannot keep control – there is a rank long hop or full toss every other over – and if the Aussies just keep milking him for 5 singles per over, Cook cannot keep bowling him unless he takes wickets.  There really are not many positives.  Can Cook motivate his team after that debacle?  That will be the acid test of his captaincy.
DO – Anyone who has had the “pleasure” of being in an Aussie cricket stadium when we are getting humped will be used to the chant “Look at the Scoreboard”. Edgbaston is going to be an absolutely fascinating test match, because we need to come out with intent. Someone needs to make a statement of resistance, and play out of their socks. Joe Root did it at Cardiff, but it needs to be more than him. But thinking this is more like 1997 is not being fickle, it’s being realistic. Australia were arguably caught a bit cold at Cardiff, and they showed true colours at Lord’s. England batting first might be a good start. This doesn’t feel like Perth 2011 to me.
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3. Gary Ballance paid the price for the Lord’s debacle. Fair or not?
PGP – Fair, although I have no idea why his technical issues haven’t been sorted at some point in the last 2 months. Reflects poorly on the eng coaches.
Hillel – The axing of Gary Ballance is a pathetic yield to public pressure of which England should be ashamed. To set the record straight, the man has not been found out; he is out of form. There are those who will point to his technique and the fact that he doesn’t move his legs, and yet forget that Sehwag didn’t use to move his legs much either. Marlon Samuels barely moves his. It is not technique that matters, but the ability to churn out runs and Ballance has already proven he can do so at international level. The other side to the proffered argument is that Ballance is only being dropped in order to rediscover his form, as of when he can return to the team – the flaw in this argument is obvious, for then why is Bell given the opportunity to rediscover his form in the team, and not be dropped? It is not fair at all to drop Gary Ballance, especially when he is not even being directly replaced by a fellow number 3.
MDP – I think it was inevitable – he has just looked so vulnerable against pace bowling. His technical deficiencies have been exploited by Johnson and Starc and I feel keeping him in the squad any longer could have done long-term damage to his confidence. There certainly are others who were fortunate to escape the chop, mind you.
MIAB – Someone had to pay the price.  I feel sorry for Ballance as he has actually scored more runs this series than Bell and Lyth but the latter deserves a few more matches and dropping Bell would effectively end his career, I would imagine.  So many members of the team have not contributed significantly that something had to change.  Bairstow for Buttler was one possibility but that seems to have been ignored.  It might have been more sensible.
DO – I’d never bought the Ballance ticket, as you know. It’s not personal, because mentally I think he’s the real deal, but I got to see that batting stance and trigger movement in the flesh from side on at Lord’s, and it’s alarming. I’m not a technician, and therefore people may think I’m talking nonsense, but it was always on my mind that when the skill level of the bowlers went up, he’d struggle. That said, the sharks of the media were very keen to circle him, and it seemed rather prescient that they were suggesting he was in the most danger compared to Ian Bell who has been in an even more shocking rut. I also thought we were backing young, fresh talent over older lags if the choice prevailed. So I understand it, but can’t help thinking that this is a little panic measure.
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4. Ian Bell’s promotion to number 3 is intriguing. Any logic you can see behind it?
PGP – Bairstow is the form player and has earned his place. He isn’t a number 3. Root won’t do it. Stokes isn’t the right guy. Who is left? Dropping 2 of the top 4 is not a sensible play so bell it is.
Hillel -Once again, England’s fantastic logic is at work: Bell is not scoring any runs at 4, so perhaps moving him to 3 (laughably actually greater exposing him to the new ball) will cause him once again to plunder hundreds for the country. This also points to a wider problem: England have dropped a number 3, and decided to replace him with a number 5, only then to actually worry about who is going to fill the number 3 role; the poor tactical planning in this is so ludicrous it’s actually laughable. It matters not how well Jonny Bairstow is batting if he’s not replacing anyone. Thus it feels less like Ian Bell is intended to be a number 3, and more that he a victim of a team reshuffling to accommodate a number 5 batsman. Furthermore, if we assume if we lose Lyth and Bell early again (for there is no reason to assume we won’t), we are falling into the same trap of asking Joe Root to save the innings, simply at 30-2 instead of 30-3. How helpful.
MDP – Not much, borne out of necessity rather than anything else to accommodate Bairstow. Being first drop when on a bad run of form is a huge gamble. I feel reluctant removing Root from 5 too.
MIAB – I Imagine that the “logic” would be that he wanted to bat at 3 in the Ashes down under when Trott went home but the gig went to Root instead, so let’s bat him at 3 now when he is in terrible form and apparently lacking confidence.  Does he thrive on responsibility?  I don’t really think so.  He seems to prefer it when he is under the radar, out of the spotlight and things are not expected of him.  However, who else can bat 3?  Can you realistically put Ali there the way he is playing at the moment?  Root seems happy at 5 and is one of the few batters to have scored any runs.  Maybe Stokes, but that would be more of a gamble than Strauss and co could take.
DO – I saw Ian Bell make his test best 235 at number three in 2011. I was there, loved every minute of his partnership and thought he made a point. When the chance came to give it to him after Trott’s departure in 2013 from the Ashes tour, they did not change and put Root in to his place. Now this is a decision based on necessity and desperation. They couldn’t drop both Ballance and Bell, because people might question our mighty selection committee’s infinite wisdom, so we come up with this dog’s breakfast. They are flying by the seat of their pants.
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5. You are the lucky panel that get the KP question? You are the selector. Yes or no AS OF NOW (i.e. he’s not played first class cricket for a few weeks).
PGP – Yes I pick him. He is one of the top 4 batters we have.
Hillel – We know KP has the class. We know he is still fit enough to play long innings. We know the world won’t explode (nor the dressing room implode) if he returns the team. I may not love the man dearly, but for goodness’ sake, let’s grow up and just select him on merit.
MDP – My position on this is straightforward, is he in the top 6 batsman in the country? If so, he should be picked. I think it’s open for debate whether he is but my feeling is his experience would be invaluable for the challenges ahead. So I’d say yes.
MIAB – Yes.  He has been playing cricket recently after all and I am not entirely convinced that playing for Surrey would be of any great value in preparing to face the Mitches.  I suspect he would do what Nasser used to do after his innumerable broken fingers on tour – set up net conditions and practise as if it were a real match.
DO – When the ECB did him over (and I’m utterly convinced, as I’ve been for a few months now, that this is Giles Clarke’s work) and basically packed him off to T20 humdrum, they cut off an option. An option they should have left open. It isn’t the ECB’s team, it’s our team. The fact that a talent who COULD make a difference, who had just mashed a 355 not out (and stuff those who diminish it), and yes, who would go out there with something to prove, a chip on his shoulder, a passion to make people sit up and notice, would have been an option. But no. We go all prissy about a load of old twaddle, in the old English way. I say no, he shouldn’t be in the team under current circumstances because he’s not played first class cricket for perfectly understandable reasons (a point those who are totally against him ignore), but if he’d stayed here, given a hope to play, and piled on the runs, why wouldn’t you want that option?
We know the answer to that last question. Idiots.
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As is his wont, PGP has had a lovely supplemental comment which I think I should share with you…
I really need have a rant about James Whittaker.
Pre Duncan Fletcher selection was typically chaotic. When Fletcher was in charge we had a vision. Steady 3 dimensional bowler, swing bowler, 90mph bowler and a bouncey bowler. Then a mixture of stroke players and hard working players.
With Moores v1 we had a transaction of players to the successful group which flower and Strauss made blossom (sorry). What both these coaches did was identify the type of players and back them. In most cases it worked.
At the end of the Flower reign when Whittaker took over we have seen no coherent selection strategy. No identification of new players other than just picking the current form player. The only exception is Root.
Where is the Strauss, Trescothick or Vaughan? Players picked for the mental strength rather than the run scoring.
I also don’t see how have two full time coaches is a successful approach for selectors.
We have seen multiple players ruined, the treatment of Hales is borderline masochistic. The over bowling of Anderson and Broad is insane. Any reader can have their examples.
Something has to give. Whittaker should have stood up for KP and Carberry in selection rather than just doing as told.  Pathetic. A man with morals would have resigned.
And that was me being gentle.
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As usual, my thanks to the contributors, who put in a ton of time and effort and they are great for doing so.
Ashes Panel #008 will probably be sent out in the next day or so and will focus a little more on Edgbaston.
Thanks all. Have a good weekend.

England v Australia – ODI #2 from Bristol

LordCanisLupus16 Comments

After a superb chase on Tuesday, the England team look to add the points in the second game in Bristol today.

As with the first match, I won’t get to see any of it, but will be following when I can in the office. However, the game thread went down really well (judging by hits and comments – not all on the game) so have no problem sticking up another one for this series.

You may have noticed I don’t call it women’s cricket or such like. To me these are two international teams playing the sport I love. One team represents England, one Australia. End of. Just a personal thing.

Paraxylene

LordCanisLupus97 Comments

First of all, some house notices.

The Ashes Panel #006 is in the books, and I’ve just now sent the questions for the seventh panel to lucky recipients. You get a doozy of a Question 5. Do well with it.

On The Extra Bits, I concocted a little post on books. I’d be happy to hear what you think are good and bad ones, and perhaps make some recommendations for others. The Extra Bits is meant to be a bit gentler than here, so no wars, eh!

It’s been a great week on here, and I was pleased we got a decent response to the Ashes ODI thread yesterday. There will be one for tomorrow’s game as well.

Now, to the meat of this post, and it’s going to be a bit of a ramble, so do keep with me.

Item 1 – A Legendary Tweet.

Now my flabber was gasted. I mean, this is really just utterly superb. A puff piece? Selfey accuses someone of writing a puff piece?

This is like shooting fish in a barrel, even before we look at the hilarious mis-spelling of Paul Hayward’s name. I’m a bloke who often falls foul of the old auto-correct, so perhaps jumping on that was a tad harsh. Maybe I jumped on it because it included the words “puff piece” and “star” columnist.

I mean, puff piece..

In the process Cook, a genuinely good man and one of the greatest of all England Test batsmen, was subjected to a disproportionate amount of abuse, some of it carefully orchestrated and relentless, of a kind that, in my experience anyway, has never before been directed at any England cricketer.

Genuine puffery.

Against Sri Lanka the margin between winning and losing the series was as slender as could be: six inches more carry on the final delivery at Lord’s; and survival of two more deliveries at Headingley

A classic of its genre.

Without question, though, the other members have been sufficiently convinced that whatever else they may feel, the fact that India is “inside the tent pissing out”, as some like to term it, rather than the reverse, is actually something of a political coup.

Ah yes, the ICC stitch-up. Nothing to see here.

Then there was this non-puff piece…. https://dmitrihdwlia.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/morris-flower1.jpg

And this one…https://dmitrihdwlia.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/downton-selvey.jpg

Not enough puff for your pastry….

As a collective, the team had forgotten how to forge partnerships. There was a complete systematic breakdown of the batting unit. It may say more about them than Gooch, but it is said that many of the players – and shame on them for it, if true – simply stopped listening to the record. Maybe it was a generational thing: Gooch is 60.

Augmented by this tremendous Tweet:

Maybe it’s a puff piece when others do it, eh?

Then there’s Moores…

Read the post this comes from again. God, I was a much better blogger then – https://dmitrihdwlia.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/well-good-morning-judge-how-you-doing-today/

The fact is, that I’ve not even mentioned the Tweets about Saker, absolving him of all blame, and the countless times he’s backed Cook when he was under pressure for his place, no doubt believing he is vindicated. Calling for KP’s return, or considering it, is every bit as much puffery as the crap he wrote about Downton, or Flower, or Gooch. I laughed hugely at this nonsense.

BTW – want an old gold post, which I used in this research, then read this again. https://dmitrihdwlia.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/behind-the-hatred-there-lies-a-murderous-desire-for-love/

Which leads me on to Part Two

kp FO

I’ve not spoken a lot about Pietersen recently, but the tide of fury is rising. In the past two or so months, since Strauss came out with that pile of drivel about trust and what-not, I’ve seen a decided change in approach. The mere mention of Pietersen’s name is to bring in some sort of collective shock, or even worse, collective contempt. Mention him to one of the media behemoths so staunchly stood behind the aristocracy of the game, and it’s no better than “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”. Muppet did it the other day, the contemptuous prick that he is, as if our wishes and concerns are of no relevance to him.

Remember the arguments made by media folk, and those anti-KP’ers at the time…. “There’s no vacancy….who would you drop……this team needs to grow and develop”. As with most of the pathetic arguments about KP, that one has been shot out of the water. By dropping Ballance after a rickety start to the summer, and promoting Bell up to three, they created a vacancy, as many thought might happen. Now, as much as Bairstow deserves a place in the team, should KP not be eligible for consideration? Note, those of you who think this is all black and white and are quick to throw their nonsensical bollocks at me, I’m not saying KP should be an automatic choice, but 8181 test runs seems rather persuasive when looking for evidence. But you can’t just shut down the debate because you don’t like to hear it. Strauss cut off one of our options on “trust”. This may be that Cook doesn’t want him back, but neither Strauss nor Cook have the guts to tell us that, instead we heard it via Dean Wilson in the Mirror.

Pietersen, in the eyes of his critics can do no right. He has finished his T20 spell in St Lucia and this coincided with a test loss. I suppose that is his fault. He has an ego – news to you, pretty much all top level sportsmen do – and probably thinks he should be playing. Many of us share that contention. This argument isn’t going to die with any zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz tweets, or people telling the likes of me and Maxie to stop it, we’ve got no chance of him coming back. It, as always, spectacularly misses the point. It’s personal politics, and it’s potentially harming England. I think it was, and probably still is, especially driven by Giles Clarke (and potentially Cook and Flower, although who knows how influential he is now). And yes, KP’s book is not irrelevant, but these are grown adults and they should sort it out. It’s not too late.

What I won’t let go is a tweet like this. I won’t give the name, but I’ll copy what he tweeted to me a couple of days ago.

it was only a matter of time before the worst thing for English cricket was heralded as a saviour again

The worst thing for English cricket. That’s just unutterable bollocks and despite frequent points that you may question many things, but you can’t question what he gave to England by way of entertainment and match-winning innings (hey, the worst thing for English cricket saved us an Ashes series. What did the second worst thing do?). I don’t get it. I call Graham Gooch “the devil” but christ on a bike, I don’t demean his batting, his great innings, his determination because I don’t like him. Bloody hell. This was a man WHO TURNED HIS BACK ON ENGLAND FOR MONEY and he gets revered above by Selfey, while KP TURNED HIS BACK ON MONEY FOR ENGLAND and gets slagged off! Hell.

I also know of no-one who thinks KP is a saviour, which also appeared in that tweet. Another sweeping generalisation of the position perpetrated by numpties. My line is this – is he in our Best XI? Simple as. I’m sure Bell’s sour demeanour at present and stupefying lack of form is absolutely intrinsically vital for this team’s performance while someone who might just go out and give it a whack would be a dressing room cancer the likes of which we’ll never recover from.

I said it almost a year ago when that post went viral….

But on Day 5, this looked in jeopardy. One man held the line. While all the other top batsmen got out, one man rode an early piece of luck to then just take Australia to the cleaners. Aided and abetted by a spin bowler people derided, that one man kept the dream alive and then made us believe it was all over. Without that one man, Australia would have been chasing 200 or less to win the Ashes in 50-60 overs. You want to know what would have happened without that one man’s innings, you saw exactly what in Adelaide 18 months later.

So, all you “haters” out there, remember that. Remember it when you boo him. Remember it when you spit out YOUR bile (for that’s something I’ve been accused of) on the various sites. Remember it when you demean a great career. Remember it when you slag him off relentlessly as some sort of traitor despite the fact he was sacked, has been abused by the cricket authorities more than any other player I can remember, treated with disdain and contempt by a media in their back-pockets because maybe, just maybe, he didn’t like them. He is a bit arrogant? So what? He scored masses or runs, loads of hundreds, played injured (and was then slagged off if he took time off to cure or rest them). never gave less than his all (remember Headingley 2012, before textgate, when he opened the batting for the team in the second innings?) and yet still there’s this hatred. For what?

I get it. People don’t like him. People despise him. I happen to enjoy his batting and to me that matters. Until someone comes up with more than a half-arsed dossier, leaked like so much to do with KP was, and tells me how it was, then I will believe there’s a stitch up and that the main sufferers are those that want the best players playing for England. I understand the other view – about building a new team, under new players with a solid figure as coach – but I disagree with it. The bile, if you want to call it that, comes from the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, and the demeaning of his record and his contribution. The almost Orwellian erasing of his history, the Lynton Crosby-eque “dead cat” mention of his name among media types. The sheer fact that a score of 355 is dismissed casually by many.

By the man in Mumbai, the conductor at Colombo, the harrier at Headingley and the bringer of brilliance in Bridgetown in the World T20. Yeah. He’s been the worst all right.

(Before people say the individual meant going forward, he had plenty of opportunities to clarify that, but he never did.)

The worst thing for English cricket? Really?

After all, you can only get better from a 400 run smashing, can’t you?

Ashes Panel #006 – Lord’s A Mercy (Mitchell Collapse Mix)

LordCanisLupus80 Comments

australia-celebrate-the-ashes-whitewash_10piscrajeyf61qj64a1ovgr5r (2)

A little plug – put up 10 more pictures on The Extra Bits from Lord’s on Friday. Have a look, hope you enjoy them. Part 1 is here.

It’s a few days after the disaster at Lord’s and there have been recriminations-a-plenty. So, striking while the iron is hot, and loading up my laptop without opening the piece of crap that is ITunes (which crashed my laptop TWICE last night), here are the latest Ashes Panel responses.

The drill was, as I have ten days between games, to have an immediate reaction, a considered reaction in #007 and a look-forward to Edgbaston for #008. Five questions, responded to at varying lengths by…. Andy In Brum (Andy), My fellow Friday at Lord’s man Keyser Chris (Chris), my fellow Southeastern Sufferer, The Great Bucko (Sean), Cricket Jon (Jon), and our resident Yorkie (Metatone)….

These were sent out on Sunday night and I had all responses by middle of yesterday. Gold stars, and huge thanks, to all.

1. That was an annihilation. Bad day at the office or something more deep-seated?
Andy – If I said both, would that make sense, yes it was a bad day, we’ve proven we’re better than that at Lord v NZ & Cardiff last week. Unfortunately, the flaws that have been bailed out by the middle order & an inspired bowling performance creating a batting collapse.

Our top order is flaky & our bowlers lack penetration on flat decks. Losing Rashid was a massive blow. Even if he would have got spanked, he’d have got wickets.
Jon – I think it is a matter of sustainability. In conditions that suit ( and the evidence is overwhelming that the Lords pitch doesn’t suit our seam attack) and where we have a chance to apply some scoreboard pressure, our guys can keep up from time to time with the best of them. But even in circumstances where, for instance, Darren Bravo is on his way to a match winning knock such as he was against England just three months ago we “go for a walk” in terms of competitive intensity. The heads drop.
It isn’t surprising. One banner you can expect to get rolled out over the next few weeks is that they are halfway through a long campaign in the Test arena and it is affecting the players. Well no shit Sherlock, whose Board agreed to this schedule? I hope the MSM are reading this because if they roll the fatigue banner they will be pooing on their own doorstep ( by virtue of them being the extended media arm of the ECB). In short, it’s a bad day at the office that has a recurring theme. [ I shall now remove the splinters from my backside].

Meta – I feared a humping when I saw the weather forecast. We don’t have the bowling attack to prosper on Chief Executive pitches. We’ve been reliant on Joe Root to get big scores, he was bound to have an off day sooner or later. Aussie bowlers were bound to bowl a bit better than in Cardiff. We’re not good against real pace. Certainly not “a bad day at the office” – this defeat sits in line with the failures against a touring SA and of course the drubbing we had Down Under. Very little has actually changed since then. Surprise, surprise! Sacking KP didn’t make much difference – a cynic might wonder if actually he wasn’t the problem.

Chris – In isolation, an aberration. But it’s not in isolation, given England’s recent performances. Anyone who follows me & Dmitri on Twitter knows we were at Lord’s separately on Friday. Separately we straightaway saw the Aussie bowling in the flesh was a step above in that last Friday session compared to us, even accounting for the extra rest Rogers & Smith gave them. It was sensational. And on an allegedly duff pitch. Losing by 400+ at home, at Lord’s, with the sun mostly out? Oh my. England have a bad recent habit of collapses, and it’s under Cooks watch even when he gets (blood-soaked apparently) runs. There has to be some ministerial responsibility on that front.
Sean – It was a complete annihilation and probably one of the most embarrassing performances that England have put in for a long time; however it shows why most people on the blog didn’t embrace the musings of the national media, who had made Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss the saviours of all cricket. We are ranked number 6 in the world and that accurately reflects where we are in international cricket. We haven’t had a front line spinner since Swann retired and a reliable opener since Strauss himself retired as well as a middle order that is consistently inconsistent. The fact that the national media decided to throw eulogies around as if it was going out of fashion and had written off the Aussies, shows how far up the ECB’s backside they all are. I predicted at the beginning that the series would be a tight one and i still think it will be, but we need to sort the top 4 out as Root can’t always be there to dig us out of 40/3 hole.
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2. Focus is on the batting, that undoubtedly did not do well – we’ll come to that. But that’s two deeply unimpressive test matches from James Anderson. Reason to be worried?
Andy – Yes, he doesn’t appear to get the ball to move anymore, either normal or reverse swing. That’s very worrying.
Jon – It is understandable that as he gets older Anderson will become less effective on these types of pitches. So yes we have reason to be worried. For this is not a time for change in Planet ECB. This is all about maximising inflow of funds for the Paymasters so my delight at a 180 plays 210 plays 210 seeking 180 shootout, the best type of a Test you could ever see, is something of a sporting fantasy and flies in the face of the modus oppo of these dreadful people who run our game. (Mind you I thought he bowled well in the 2nd inns at Cardiff).
Meta –  Post 2011 (where he was excellent) Anderson has been neutered when the pitch doesn’t swing. I’ve gone all the way to saying England should have looked at the pitch at Lords and the weather forecast and not picked him. That’s probably a bit of 20/20 hindsight because you couldn’t know it would never swing across the 5 days. Yet at the very least he shouldn’t be using the new ball if there’s no swing… Worried? Yes I am, because if we get 2 more flat pitches, well hard to see how that’s not the series lost…
Chris – Lyth needs more time. We all know that, rightly or wrongly. Bairstow is in sensational county form, and has to play especially given the way he’s been messed around on previous tours. Every stat backs that up. It’ll be for Ballance, because you can’t drop 3 & 4 at the same time, plus Root has to stay at 5. Apropos of nowt, Cook opening but not facing the first ball & leaving it to Lyth is just wrong, hiding behind the captaincy pressure thing to avoid it – just wrong. Cook primarily is an opener. Open.
Sean –  It’s a concern and has been for a while. Anderson now seems to only be able to perform on those pitches that suit his bowling and provide him with some swing and seam movement. Granted the two pitches we just played on offered nothing for the quicks (unless you happen to be tearing it down at 90+ MPH) but it was a horribly toothless display from our attack (Broad excepted) and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finn given a go at Edgbaston, though as a Middlesex fan who has watched a lot of him this season, I’m not sure it’s the right call. I think we have to understand that we have bowled Jimmy into the ground over the past few years and it looks like he has lost his nip (or that it has been blunted from years of bowling on flat pitches) and that Father Time may be catching up with him. He may come back, if Edgbaston and/or Trent Bridge offer some sideways movement replicating what happened against India last year, but unfortunately i think we are seeing the gradual winding down of a top drawer test bowler.
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3. I confess, I saw none of the 337 for 1 first day. What went wrong?
Andy – Shit dead pitch, good batting, bowling not that penetrative, but it wasn’t bad.
Jon – Nothing much. Australia just applied themselves.
Meta – I didn’t see the whole day. From what I saw we had a bit of bad luck in the morning session, and shelled a couple of chances. And good players on a reasonable batting pitch took advantage. And yet… Jimmy didn’t threaten and Wood looked a bit tired. And Ali was bowling with an injury. Stokes didn’t get it together. Basically we didn’t have enough threat on this kind of pitch. It’s the usual story – real pace or mystery spin takes wickets when the going is tough – and we have neither. As I say above, this is an issue going back to 2012 at least.
Chris – Primarily, 337-1 happened (from what I saw on telly whilst, erm, working) because Rogers & Smith batted really really well. They earnt it. Ignore the bad pitch guff – those runs still had to be scored. Anderson going wicket less is a real worry this early in a series. 4 Tests ago I would have Broad dropped for his terrible scared batting; he bowled terrifically this Test. Anderson needs a question or two raised about him so he ups his game. It’s been a while since that was necessary, but needs must. We may need to think about Mark Wood alternatives later this series as well (not necessarily for the alleged fitness issue – more him slowly being found out? Unless he digs out an imaginary alpaca!)
Sean – I worked from home that day and watched some of it on the TV. The main thing that went wrong was we lost the toss on a flat, flat wicket. Australia batted very well and i thought Rodgers and Smith batted very intelligently (and Davie Warner showed us again why his score outweighs his IQ); however It wasn’t our performance on day 1 that lost us this test, it was the batting on the evening of day 2.
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4. What changes would you make to the batting line-up, if any?
Andy – I’m a massive bell fan, but he’s so far out of form, he’s down with Downton looking up at those fishes with lights. So Bairstow for him & Root to 4.
Jon -Remove GB, his runs against poor attacks such as SL, India and WI count for little once you face NZ and Australia. I wouldn’t make any other changes. These are the guys the Paymasters want in the team so let’s lie on the pillows we spent two years plumping. However to not remove GB would be stubborn and I think his replacement should be Compton ( although it won’t be).
Meta – It is still 1-1 and we actually lost this match bowling, long before the batting f!cked up. Hence, I’d give Lyth another chance – also I’m having trouble saying that Carberry or Compton would do better – yet they are the prime candidates in CC at the moment. I’d send Ballance back to CC and pick either Taylor at 3, or promote Bell to 3 and pick KP. Ballance has clearly been worked out and is all over the place. It’s kind of odd as a Yorkshire fan to not pick Bairstow, but he’s not cut out to come in at 3 or 4 – and he’s not clearly better as a package than Root, Buttler or Stokes.
Chris –  I think move Bell to 3 & play Bairstow at 4. It keeps the changes relatively minimal. Hales should be looked at as well, but maybe not for a Test or two. Firefighting is the order of the day right now. Post-Ashes then we look at the longer term, even considering the third straight potential “difficult winter”… It really is all too predictable this situation. Honestly Dmitri, bet you regret not “piping down” now!
Sean – It’s a difficult one, because a) i don’t think chopping and changing the batting works and b) there is no one (Bairstow excepted) who looks like they could fill one of the problem child spots. I think they will make one change and that will be Bairstow for Ballance (who if he tried to bat any deeper in his crease, would be standing at first slip) with Bell at 3, Root at 4 and Bairstow at 5 – now whether i agree with that decision is a mute point, i just can’t see the management dropping Bell. On a side note, I still believe that we have to give Lyth the whole series before we decide whether he is good enough (I think Bob Willis giving him a 0/10 and calling him out of his depth, was an extraordinary statement for a batsman who has played 4 tests and scored one hundred). I also couldn’t name another opener in the county game at the moment that isn’t out of form or could do a better job again the Mitchells.
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5. 103 all out on a featherbed. Can you think of a worse England Ashes batting performance. Go let it out……. pick one. (Not allowed to pick Adelaide 2006).
Andy – Sydney 2013
Jon – There was one in the Boxing Day 1990 Test at MCG where we were 100ish for 1 on top of a lead of 50 and from nowhere 9 wickets fell for 50 runs meaning they within the space of a session only had to chase 200 in a day (which they did). A bit like Melbourne 2013 but without the team meeting.
Meta – Worse batting performance? Hard to choose in my lifetime – Headingley 1989 probably hurt me the most, because it feels in retrospect like a precursor to so many more. Melbourne 1990 being the obvious next one. But in the end, surely the one I have to tag, because it so represents how this team is still Cooky’s is Brisbane 2013…
Chris – Damn you. You knew I would go for the 2006 “Scottish play”… Score-wise, these don’t really compare, but Melbourne & Sydney in 2013/14 and Headingley 2009 spring to the top of my head. Most of those were rescued by an individual or twos scores (“him” twice in Melbourne, Swann & Broads humpty at Headingley ’09); but mostly abject. There have surely been worse – I just can’t bring myself to statsguru those dark places in my soul!
Sean – I’ve been watching English cricket for the past 20 years and unfortunately have seen more English collapses than i’ve eaten hot meals; however the one that sticks with me is the 51 all out at Sabina Park in 2009 in part 1 of the glorious Peter Moore’s reigns. This again was no minefield off a pitch and the West Indies attack was hardly a mirror of the one from 15 years previous led by Walsh and Ambrose (I remember the 46 all out debacle as well), yet we succumbed in such a weak and gutless fashion, so much so that my partner at the time decided to go for a long walk to get away from all of the expletives that I was hurling at the TV (I was in a mood for about a week after that performance). Salt was then rubbed in the wound by the fact that we couldn’t beat a mediocre West Indies side in the remaining games of the series and went down to a 1-0 series defeat, which i still believe should have cost Peter Moores his job first time around. Mind you, England’s collapse against the short ball last Summer in the second innings at Lords against india was pretty rage inducing too. (er…..Ashes, Sean…. still this was too good to leave out.)
As always, some terrific responses, and some decent insight from these outside cricket muppets! Keep an eye out for #007 (no James Bond question) in the next few days!

Miami

LordCanisLupus38 Comments

In case some of you are not on Twitter, here are the latest tweets from Kevin Pietersen….

https://twitter.com/KP24/status/623198583936958465

https://twitter.com/KP24/status/623199340216090625

https://twitter.com/KP24/status/623199614527766528

Needless to say, those in the media who had forgotten about him will now report these tweets avidly. The Mail already has a story up, not checked elsewhere.

You know how I think about this by now. We’ve done this to death, but it never hurts to remind ourselves that on the one hand we moan about our top order, and on the other, we have a proven performer not playing, and now 18 months out of international cricket. I’m not sad, I’m effing livid.

I thought Chris Rogers played very well for his 173.

BTW – think Miami is massively over-rated. Never liked it much there, and I’m a supporter of their NFL team!

Gasoline

LordCanisLupus51 Comments

Just to tide us over until I get home tonight and can look and revel in the majesty of the press (incidentally, my Mail Online at work has no new pieces since Saturday night so I’m not up on Newman’s latest, for instance) if the mood so takes me, I thought I’d give my reactions to events of the past four days and the immediate aftermath.

In the middle of the 2013 series Australia had two really good first days – the Old Trafford and Oval tests. These were slightly contrasting wickets and yet Australia filled their boots in the first innings having won the toss and batted. At OT, you know who made a century, while at The Oval, I believe you know who added two half centuries. I just want to put that out there because it is amazing the likes of Samuel were invoking his name, and even Andrew Miller was snorting derisively at people mentioning his name on cricinfo, yet we are all supposed to be moving on and even, hell, yes even forgetting who he is. Dave Kidd’s remarkable piece of weapons grade buffoonery in the Mirror entilted “We Need To Talk About Cooky” (with Kevin crossed out) spoke volumes of a media completely in tumult. Those people just won’t let go, constantly invoking his name, going on about him incessantly. Of course, those people are the media. Not us. There’s not been that much KP stuff prior to this weekend, has there? Kidd’s “Players Thrive Without KP The Forgotten Man” bye-line is a classic. If this weekend was thriving, God help us.

It is important not to over-react. The way media types were jumping on the “look how many times we are three down for not a lot” bandwagon as if this was a shock revelation says it all. That Cook, who has only just started being of any benefit with the bat after his two year slump, is now absolved of all blame is not such a shock. In a reverse Whitaker, it appears to be Ballance’s fault, and it also tolls on the Bell. The other opener has been such a problem for so long now, it’s taken as a given we’ll have another soon. However frightening Ballance’s technique is at the moment, and how Bell’s regression is a terror-strewn binary nightmare, both were seen to be OK after a sixty in Cardiff. The Twitter mouthpiece of All Out Cricket (The Official Magazine of the Professional Cricketers Association) was ramming it down doubters’ throats. “Drop Moeen, Drop Ballance, Drop Bell blah blah blah” (love that underneath my Twitter column for that it has “Translate from Indonesian”) as if doubting these players was erased by a half decent 60. We aren’t doing it because we enjoy it, Jo. We do it because we aren’t blind to trends, to technique, and to the relative abilities of the teams we are up against.

I don’t want to pick on that individual particularly – although that Tweet rankled – because in the main I agree with sticking with people for a while. But this England team set the bar with Cook’s wilderness period, and now Bell, with a 143 of great quality not three months ago, in the firing line there is the obvious implication of one rule for one etc. That’s the problem with our selection process. We have journos and pundits saying they can’t drop Bell without dropping Ballance and vice-versa. Why the hell not. Since when has our selection process, that has trust as its prime factor over ability, had any logic in it? If we have only one replacement that they think can come in, then drop just one player.

I am rambling, as usual, but I want to leave this piece with a couple of thoughts. First of all, we weren’t as good as Cardiff made us seem, and we genuinely aren’t as bad as this performance made us look. But we found out some harsh lessons that the “experts” chose to avoid. Steve Smith is a class number three and for all this was a featherbed, he made 215. He looked supremely in control when I saw him even when not at his best. Don’t insult him Swann. Don’t talk rot. Then there’s the Johnson can’t bowl at Lord’s codswallop based on the 2009 model. It’s six years on, and he was devastating. I don’t think we have a thing about him, I think we have a thing about left arm pace. Thirdly, Anderson was atrocious. Yes, atrocious. But he’s another sacred cow in this team, and that’s our issue.

Let me go back to Dave Kidd on Thursday:

“Pietersen’s new chums in the bookmaking industry make England even money to reclaim the urn. If Cook continues to lead as he did at Cardiff, they may soon be red-hot favourites.”

I don’t call the Australians “the cockroaches” for nothing. They may have been displaying distress signals, but they are never killed off. That’s the sign of a resilient, formidable team. Not a “win one game, ain’t we just the best, shut up haters and doubters” mob.

Back tonight.

2nd Ashes Test: Day Four review

thelegglance154 Comments

It’s one thing to lose, it’s entirely another to offer no resistance whatever, on a docile pitch, in good conditions.

This was as bad as anything on the Ashes from Hell tour, because this pitch offered absolutely nothing for the bowlers even on day four.  England at the start of play were clearly likely to lose the match, but few would have expected any side – not even Bangladesh – to surrender meekly in 37 overs.  This was abject, pathetic and spineless.  Sure, collapses happen, but with England they happen a lot, and they happen against Australia all the time – indeed even ignoring the three for not very many at Cardiff, it’s happened in 6 of the last 7 Tests against them.

That England went through the motions with the ball this morning is almost forgivable, given the match position.  Australia were so far in front even skittling them wouldn’t have made much difference.  But it did betray a side who knew their fate and didn’t rage against it.  The declaration when it came didn’t change the reality of what England needed to do, and what England knew they needed to do right from the start of play.

Instead, once again they flopped horribly.  Two of the first three wickets at least came from decent balls, though Lyth and Ballance both betrayed flawed techniques in how they got out.  What was extraordinary was how the Sky commentary team focused on these two dismissals and actually claimed Cook’s was a good ball at the time (Hussain in contrast did at least call it a “lazy little waft”).  It wasn’t, it was a dreadful shot, a short wide one that he went after and edged.  Getting out to a bad shot happens, it’s an occupational hazard of batting, but to seek to excuse it by crediting the bowler beggared belief, and merely fuelled the suspicion that Cook cannot be criticised on Sky.  Let’s get something clear here, players make mistakes.  They are human beings, and flawed intrinsically.  Pointing out a bad shot doesn’t lessen the person, it’s called being honest.  Stop making excuses.

England had lost their first three wickets for fewer than 52 for the 8th time in their last 12 innings.  It’s been repeatedly pointed out that the middle order will not always bail them out, and the horrible muddle England have got into over the last couple of years is still the same, even with different personnel.  Of the top four, the only one who is in any kind of form is Cook – and Cook the batsman is doing fine – indeed Cook the captain still didn’t have a bad match in the field, England certainly didn’t flop horribly because of his actions. Once again, the problem is not with what Cook does as a batsman, it is the way it is treated as though he’s Bradman reincarnated whenever he gets a few, while saying his dismissal was down to him being “desperately tired” as Mike Selvey put it – a tiredness that didn’t seem to afflict Rogers or Smith who scored far more runs.   And in mentioning Rogers, all cricket fans will have seen his dizzy spell with some concern.  Let us hope it was unrelated to the blow on the head he took at the start of day two.

And so once under way, the procession continued.  Bell again got out cheaply, and again in unconvincing fashion, managing to edge a ball that didn’t spin to short leg.  Stokes had the kind of dismissal that will haunt him for days to come, failing to ground his bat for an easy single.  Whether that was a simple matter of brain-fade or evidence of the kind of scrambled minds in the England team probably depends on how one wishes to think of them.

Buttler once again edged behind hanging his bat out to dry, and Moeen did absolutely nothing to prevent the addition of another piece of evidence that he can’t play the short ball very well.

By this point, not only were Australia rampant, but England were skulking around like a little boy who knew he’d been caught stealing.  Broad at least decided to go down fighting, throwing the bat.  That was another reminder of the dire displays in 2013/14, Broad reacting by trying to hit fours and sixes in a game long since gone.

Root’s dismissal as ninth man out was neither here nor there and entirely irrelevant to anything, while there was something apposite about the way Anderson’s stumps were shattered to end the torture.

The various Mitches had blown England away, and all credit must be given to them.  They will only get better having scented blood.

The only way of reacting to this omnishambles is that with the final wicket, Australia had gone into a 1-1 lead in the series.  It is scarcely credible that England had managed to fall apart so abjectly on such a placid wicket.  Yet they’d managed to, and shown no bottle whatsoever for the fight.  It is therefore ironic that the pattern of England wins and losses recently can be seen to be one of them being metaphorically flat track bullies, able to put sides away with aplomb when in front in the game, but collapsing in on themselves when challenged.  That is, except on non-metaphorical flat tracks where they aren’t just bullied, they are whipped, chained and thrashed.

The inquest will of course begin now, but there’s not much that isn’t already known and has been known for some time.

Bell is in awful form, and has been struggling for a couple of years.  Yet England set the precedent of standing by Cook when he had his drought, and they can rightly point to his form this year as being a justification for that.  So they’ve made a rod for their own back where Bell can legitimately say he deserves the same patience.  Whether he will get it or not is another matter, as is whether he should.  But missing straight balls as he has been isn’t terribly reassuring.

Lyth is perhaps one of two players under most pressure, but dropping him now would betray the same kind of muddled thinking that the ECB under Strauss have absolutely promised is a thing of the past in this brave new world.  Having not picked him in the West Indies when they should have, he then scored his maiden century only two Tests ago.  Lyth may not ultimately prove to be good enough, but that there is such a chorus for his replacement after two quiet Tests, and only four in total would be a return to the chopping and changing of the nineties.  And that worked so very well.

Ballance on the other hand has – at least for the time being – been found out.  He is clearly a highly talented player, and also young enough to improve, but his sophomore season is proving to be a nightmare for him.  The problem is that his place in the side is the critical number three position, and so the question of moving players around comes up.

Here is the rub though, moving Root up to number three is obviously an option, but Root didn’t perform particularly well as an opener two years ago, and there’s no pressing reason why he should do better now so high up the order.  Yes, he’s batting extremely well, but treating the symptom rather than the cause has never been much of a medical solution to anything.  Putting Root there would be to risk getting less out of England’s best batsman, not because of a certainty he would do better there, but solely because those above him currently are doing so badly.  That isn’t a justication, it’s negative selection.

Nor does it in any way address the problems Lyth and Bell are having, so while rearranging of deckchairs would give the selectors something to do, it doesn’t address the bloody great hole in the hull.

Naturally, as this was discussed, the elephant in the Sky studio hovered.  At one point Hussain talked about England needing a “Kevin Pietersen type” player in the top four, without a shred of irony.  At another, Ricky Ponting came dangerously close to saying the name of He Who Must Not Be Mentioned, and Gower flapped in utter horror (“don’t say it, don’t say it”).  This was extraordinary behaviour, but not necessarily for the reasons that might initially be thought.  There’s no reason to assume Pietersen would have made any difference in this Test, and no reason to assume he would be a panacea for England’s batting woes.  That’s not the point.  The ECB have made their decision and that is that.  But.  It is not for Sky to endorse that decision by refusing to even acknowledge the point, it is not honest to pretend it isn’t there.  An honest response is to point out the obvious that one player England could select is in the cold and then move on to the alternatives.  Each and every time this sort of thing happens, the recognition of what has been done is critical to the debate even if that decision is agreed with.  Pretending it isn’t there is ludicrous, no matter which side of the debate someone might be.

Once again, the fundamental point is that Sky’s editorial line is not meant to be at the behest of the ECB’s internal policies.  It’s a basic journalistic tenet, and one they have failed time and again.  It shouldn’t need stating, that’s the point.

More realistically in terms of England’s options, apart from moving those players around, Johnny Bairstow is the likely candidate to come in.  Should they do so then that certainly means changing the order as well, with Bell and Root at three and four.  A second spinner is also an option, if they also drop Lyth and move Root up to open.  That would be a lot of changes.

England were plainly unhappy with the pitch at Lords, which was more than obviously a chairman’s one, intended to last the full five days – so Australia (and England in a funny way) denying them the revenue from day five serves them right.  That’s somewhat ironic, because in one sense England were right to be.  Australia’s faster bowling attack is always going to be better on a very flat and slow surface where England’s fast medium offering is going to be akin to cannon fodder.  Yet this very flat, very slow surface was one on which England were shot out for 415 across two innings.  That’s woeful even on a green seamer, which if Cook has his way based on his post match interview is what we will get at Edgbaston.  The problem for him is that the Chief Executive of Warwickshire probably thinks otherwise.

Yet Cook was correct that for England to have a chance, their own bowlers need to have a chance in the game.  Over the last few years Test pitches in England have followed the same pattern, slow surfaces intended to stretch the game out to the full extent.  It is this tendency that Colin Graves was quietly referring to when he raised the idea of four day Tests – another example of treating the symptom incidentally.  That this has had the result of spectacularly biting England on the arse is exactly what they deserve, for it has been a long time since England produced the kind of quick pitches that might actually prepare them a little for facing the two Australian fast ‘n nasties, and even allow England to develop one or two of their own.

This match was nothing but total humiliation.  It is striking that in the Tests between these two sides, there are very few close ones, one side absolutely batters the other albeit Australia batter England rather more than the other way around.  To that extent England will feel that there is no reason they can’t win the next one, and they are of course right.  If anything has been demonstrated in previous Ashes series, momentum is a rather overrated thing.

Yet England did have a real chance to put Australia under huge pressure in this match.  After Cardiff there were definitely cracks in the side.  Not large ones, and as has been seen in this game, not critical ones.  But had they produced the kind of English pitch we used to get before they started trying to be clever and extract even more money from the poor spectator, it likely would have worked to England’s advantage.  Not so much to guarantee a win of course, but at least to give them a chance.  The Test against New Zealand at Lords was of course a fantastic one, yet that was so unusual compared to the ones we’ve seen in recent years that one can’t help but feel it was some kind of happy error. Certainly the two prepared in 2014 were every bit as lifeless as this one, and note that England could not bowl Sri Lanka out in one, and lost badly to India in the other.

Once England had lost the toss here, their chances of winning were very low.  The difference is that there was no reason why they should lose the Test.  And no reason whatever that they should lose the Test by the margin of 820-10 to 415-20.  Or to put it another way, based on this, England would have had to bat a whole additional Test to reach Australia’s match total.

And finally we come to the media in general.  At the risk of repeating a common theme on this blog, they went completely overboard once again after the win at Cardiff.  It was a terrific win there’s no doubt about that, but the “fickle” people in such places as here and at the Full Toss, repeatedly cautioned that England had a habit of losing their next match badly after a win, and that triumphalism was both premature and more than a bit ridiculous.  It didn’t stop them.  From writing a homage to Andrew Strauss as the architect of England’s success to saying Ian Bell was back, to long paeans of how the new England under Cook would go on to terrify all and sundry, this thrashing is matters coming home to roost.  Again.  Doubtless they will now swing the other way, demand wholesale changes and assume England will be blown away in the remainder of the series.  And that is indeed a possibility, and unquestionably a fear given this implosion.  It’s just not guaranteed.

England may well recover from here, it doesn’t mean they can’t win from here.  It does mean there is concern about how they will react to it – that is up to them, to decide whether there really are scars from 2013/14 or not.