I have already put the pictures up from the day (I’ll add a few more in this piece) in the Ashes Memories piece here. However, for me this was an incredibly emotional and tumultuous time, so the following piece will be a little bit personal as well as a discussion on cricket.
We have four entries in, so as usual, I will stick this up. I am awaiting Dennis Does Cricket, who volunteered, but he’s obviously incredibly busy with his site and has covered some of the ground already.
So, without further ado, let me introduce our esteemed panel. First up is Rooto, who is a regular here with a base in the South of France. Then we have Sean B, another loyal follower on here and on Twitter. We have our own Bogfather, who has responded in his own inimitable way, and finally, the blogger of all things West Indian, David Oram (AKA Col Blimp and Roland Butcher’s Hook). A great panel to match the two already, and they were put the usual five questions.
Our batsmen..
With Mitch J
On the spray
We’ll relax then…?
Yet the future is still Starc
As Hazelwood hits the mark
And Siddle can still riddle them…
Yet, I still expect
Each Mitch to click and collect
The openers and three
Bell too, intimidatingly quickly
Feeding on weaknesses known
As runs dry up amid ‘outside’ groans
Leaving 4 through to 8
To get us out of a state
Which won’t always occur
So forgive me if I demur
From taking the positives…
—————————————————————————————-
For sure it’s for show at the Mo’
Cookie won’t want to be Adil-do
By not having a clue how to win
By placing fields for twin spin.
If England wanted to show fight
They’d let Buttler bat higher and delight
Bring in Bairstow to keep up close
He’s more used to Rashid’s mixed dose
And Jonny’s in hot form with the bat
So what would be wrong with that?
If that means dropping Ballance or Bell
Then so be it, what the hell!
2-0 after three
To the Aussies it’ll be
Then our leader is replaced
by the young and fresh faced
Joe Root…
He’s held our batting together so far
Already lauded as a global superstar
He’ll take up the challenge with gusto
Watching him grow is a must…Oh…
Here he comes on a Wood-en horse
Leading us to win the last two of course
So a 2-2 draw, no Ashes regained
A flight of fancy? Must pull in my reins!
Opening morning of Ashes is dawning
MSM bow down with such fawning
As Cookie awaits the first ball to face
He prods forward, a buzz, a nick, at pace
An appeal, hushed silence. Hark!
Here cometh, Mitchell Starc…
I think I covered this in Q2
And that is what I think they should do
But knowing how clever our selectors are
They’ll wait ’til the Aussies lead by two bar
and Jonny will then be so out of form
So they’ll pick him, isn’t that the norm?
Not an Ashes memory, but my first Eng v Aus experience. As a bit of background, my initiation to Test cricket came in ’76, watching Greenidge, Richards, Roberts, Holding et al on the box, as well as Hampshire at the United Services ground, Portsmouth. Then, in March ’77 came this…
I lay awake in pure excitement
Radio tight to my ear
Awaiting the Centenary Test
from Melbourne, near midnight here
My first exposure to radio commentary
And from 12000 miles away
Determined to stay awake
E’en tho’ I had school the next day
Sound kept low so as not to wake
Anyone else in the house tonight
Crackling lines and Aussie tones unknown
Yet still Arlott was there to delight
What a first day
Australia blown away
McCosker felled, as seagulls stood in a line
Lever and Willis, Old and Underwood
Only Greg Chappell briefly withstood
This was more than mere dreams, so sublime
Then England were shattered
Lillee and Walker battered
All out for less than a ton
Greig top scored with eighteen
I remember him yorked, it seems
Leaving Willis, not out, one
Second innings commencing
No more tepid batting or fencing
Aussies building, Hookes imperious
Marsh, a century fightingly serious
McCosker jaw-strapped
Aussies cheered and clapped
The score mounted, 463 to win
Surely impossible, imagine Lillee’s grin
Early wickets fall
Brearley grinds and nicks
Then Randall fidgets and refuses to fall
Except for a back-roll after a Lillee ball
He doffs his cap as the bowler glares
Passes 150, supported by Amiss’s share
And Greig, then Knott edge us past 400
Until Knott, LBW, Lillee’s 11th wicket plundered
So near yet so far, and an amazing final stat
45 runs the final difference,as was 100 years before that…
Azhar Ali – 117 v Sri Lanka at Colombo PSS
We are getting into the realms of repetition now. This is Azhar Ali’s second test century of the year, and he is the second man to make 117. Steve Smith has both of these attributes, if that’s the right word, already in 2015. The great shame with that means I can’t tell the story of the first 117 again, scored by WW Read in 1884, from the highly regular batting position of number 10. Read about here on the Steve Smith 117 on HDWLIA. This is the 70th score of 117 in test matches.
Again, another photo montage of two rain affected days in the crucial test in 2005. I will go into Day 1 more in the future, but here’s a taster of some of the pictures I took from those two days.
Less than a week to go before the Ashes begin, and the news today that Ryan Harris has announced his retirement is an unwelcome development for Australia. Harris probably wouldn’t have been in the side for Cardiff, mostly because his fitness was questionable anyway – and clearly rightly so – but to lose a player of that calibre from the squad is unquestionably a blow. For Harris himself, he’s had perhaps four more years of a Test career than seemed likely when he limped out of the 2010/11 series, seemingly into retirement. That he came back, and proved so effective a bowler, is greatly to his credit. A shortened career at international level perhaps, but 113 Test wickets at 23.52 represents a fine return even so. And there’s little question that a certain England captain will be delighted that there’s no prospect of his technique being picked apart by such a clever bowler.
He has said himself that he’s played 27 more Tests than he thought he would, and it’s probable that is at least partly down to Cricket Australia’s relatively careful management of him, providing space for recuperation. They received a lot of stick for their policy of resting and rotating their pace bowling attack, yet it may well have ensured that in Harris’s case, they truly did get as much out of him as was possible.
Pat Cummins has been called up as his replacement, which is an interesting choice, as he hasn’t played first class cricket in almost two years. His talent isn’t in doubt, but given his own injury record, it has to be questionable whether in the event he needed to play, he’d be able to last five days of a Test. Even if completely injury free, he’s very much out of practice at the longer format.
Australia have had a decent workout in their two warm up matches, and perhaps the one area of concern for them has been that their spinners have come in for a fair degree of stick. A warm up is a warm up, so not too much should be read into it, but it does perhaps detail a line of attack that England could look to adopt when the phoney war is over.
And a phoney war it certainly is. David Warner picked the build up to the Tests to repeat his claims about Joe Root from the tour two years ago which resulted in Warner throwing a punch. This is trivial stuff, but it indicates that the sledging game is well and truly on. Australia themselves are something of a known quantity anyway, much of the series depends on how England play. The one day series raised optimism that England would look to be aggressive, but the Test side and the one day side are two distinct entities. An obvious difference is that the captain is Alastair Cook, not a skipper renowned for going for the throat of the opposition. Indeed Shane Watson specifically referred to that issue recently:
“I’m not sure if that’s exactly in Alastair Cook’s DNA, to be really able to put a game on the line. It’s going to be interesting to see how now that Alastair Cook comes in and takes over the Test team, how they continue to evolve as a team, because it’s very obvious in the one-day series they’ve played how they’ve really started to take on the game.”
Watson hits the nail on the head there. Partly of course it’s a case of trying to undermine England, which is normal enough and fair enough. But the question itself is one that England followers have raised several times. Putting aside the merits of the teams for a moment, the style of play is going to be interesting to watch. It remains extremely hard to imagine England adopting the mentality of the first innings at Edgbaston in 2005. That contradiction has been observed by the incoming coach Trevor Bayliss:
“The way the game has been played over the last five or ten years, you could argue that maybe we haven’t kept up to date maybe as some of the other teams. Whether you like it or not, the T20 format and the one-day format do have a bearing on the way the game is played at Test level. It’s that philosophy of being positive and aggressive.”
And yet Andrew Strauss doesn’t seem to be on the same page.
“As I said at the start of the summer, I think Cook is very much the man to take the England Test team forward
Perhaps there’s an element of having to say that, but the innate conservatism of Strauss is looking somewhat out of kilter with the approach of both the new coach and of the stand in. It was certainly noticeable that Bayliss was very quick to praise Morgan and Farbrace for the way the one day team played the game, as was the much more non-committal remark about Cook:
“I’ve not seen him up close or worked with him before.”
It is of course entirely possible that despite the initial appearance of them being chalk and cheese, they might get on like a house on fire. It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened – perhaps most notably in the instance of the taciturn Duncan Fletcher and the fiery Nasser Hussain, who proved to be an outstanding partnership. But it still has the feel of end of term about Cook’s captaincy, particularly so if England lose, as so many expect.
And will England lose? It was quite amusing to see Glenn McGrath react at the terming of Australia as “Dad’s Army” when it was actually Jason Gillespie who made a point of describing them as such. And yet it is quite clear that this is indeed a fairly old Australian side. One thing that shouldn’t be ignored is that sides never look past it until they actually are. Although more sensible observers noted that England in 2013/14 were a side running out of steam, few anticipated the collapse that followed. A side can look old very quickly.
Where Australia do clearly look to have the edge is in the fast bowling stakes. Starc and Johnson are a potent opening pair, though Johnson does blow hot and cold. If he were to return to the 2009/10/11 vintage, then Australia have a problem. Of course, if he’s more like the one from the last Ashes, England could be in for a fearful hiding. Even then, Starc looks a more obvious – and more consistent – threat in any case.
So where do England have to perform if they are to have a chance? Cook himself is pivotal. His technique was dismantled by Australia’s bowlers in the last two series, and should that happen again, England will do well to compete. Cook bats long, and blunts opposition attacks when all is going well for him. His technical approach is vastly improved over the recent vintage, both in terms of playing much straighter and his judgement of line. The strength in England’s batting is in the middle order, but for that to be a strength they need a platform. Lyth is at the start of his career, it’s asking a lot for him to provide it consistently at this stage. So it hangs on Cook himself. If England are consistently 30-3, then to call it an uphill task is an understatement.
Equally, there are question marks over other players. Ballance’s sophomore difficulties need to be resolved and fast. Ian Bell’s relative drought likewise. There is ability throughout, but as things stand too many of them have dubious recent records.
The England bowling attack is simpler to assess. Broad and Anderson are a fine new ball pairing in English conditions, the doubt is over whether the latter will be ground into the dirt and asked to do too much. Broad might blow hot and cold almost as much as Johnson, but Australia does seem to bring the best out of him. Perhaps the key might be Mark Wood, who has shown serious promise in his brief career to date. That doesn’t mean he’s under pressure to deliver, it means that he’s a wildcard that may just come off.
Bayliss also made an interesting comment that Moeen was the number one spinner “at the moment”, and suggested that he had no problem with selecting two spinners for Cardiff. It seems unlikely, but it’ll give Adil Rashid a degree of hope he might be more than a drinks carrier in future.
One of the fascinating elements of this series will be how Steve Smith performs. He’s had an outstanding couple of years, but his idiosyncratic technique is likely to receive greater examination with the Duke’s ball moving around. He certainly didn’t do that well on the last tour, and while that doesn’t reflect the player he has become since, the same could be said of Joe Root.
And so it comes to the time of actually making a prediction for the series. I don’t think it will be as one sided as some others do, but I do think Australia will have a bit too much for England to beat them. Being optimistic, a 2-2 series result would represent serious progress for England, but the head says Australia will win 3-1.
Asad Shafiq – 131 v Sri Lanka at Galle
Asad Shafiq joins Steve Smith, Alastair Cook, BJ Watling and Kane Williamson in making his second century of the calendar year. Shafiq’s seventh test hundred and his second highest score in test matches. Shafiq isn’t doing well in the DBTA stakes – that is his average over 100, which is just 20. But it has to be remembered he is usually the last of the top line batsmen and is batting with the tail. Shafiq is certainly having a decent 2015!
Shafiq already had two half centuries at Galle (80 in 2012, 75 in 2014) so he’s had a record there. This was his fifth century away from the UAE and his second in Sri Lanka (he made 100 not out in Pallekele in 2012) which was his second test hundred. Continue reading
Before I start, let me point you in the direction of two excellent pieces I read today.
Andrew Miller’s piece on Alastair Cook (and thanks to SimonH for the heads up) is the sort of writing that the Cricketer misses. It doesn’t tally with all I believe in this saga, but it’s well put together, it comes across as considered, even-handed and evidential, and despite one use of “conspiracy theorist”, I’ll let Andrew off as his description of the “outside cricket” statement nails it. More on that below.
Also, David Oram’s piece on the ostracising of Reds Perreira and Tony Cozier, as well as Kenny Benjamin and Michael Holding, from West Indian commentary puts some of the below piece into perspective. It couldn’t happen here? Well, we had “something must be done” and the reported KP request. Who knows. Ruling bodies seem to think the sport is about them.
So to the meat of the argument.
As per usual I’m going to kick a piece off and not really knowing where it is going to end up. But the very minor events of last night, as a reaction to a post that had a brief shelf-life called “Hardly” was almost amazing, even by the standards of some of the stuff that had been seen in the HDWLIA days. A blog that was going slightly moribund as I tried so hard to get up for the Ashes had a rant laid down before it and I can tell you, by the hit rate, which gets the readers’ juices flowing and what doesn’t. I mentioned on a frank twitter exchange with someone we might know that I wrote what I did last night as a partial experiment. I wanted to see if I could still get the rage going, still see if it’s what the readership react to. It wasn’t contrived AT ALL, but it’s a piece I’ve avoided writing for quite a while now.
The fact is that the whole of the last 18 months has got me in a combative mood towards those that challenge me, and more, the opinions I hold. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a rebel of any kind. I am not some political animal who rages against everything. What does annoy me is being told what to think, told what I am thinking, told something without evidence and treated like an idiot. And yes, I don’t like being misrepresented, and in the case of last night’s post, I believe I misrepresented Lawrence Booth’s position. I certainly did not misrepresent Paul Newman’s.
The problem with the 140 character format is you can leap to your own conclusions and they may be wrong. The problem with the longer reading format is you can leap to your own conclusions on the basis of a couple of sentences. I am particularly touchy when it comes to the inside/outside cricket thing. After all, the blog is named after that phrase. To belittle its significance is, in a small way, belittling the premise of this blog. On that February day, and frankly you can stick all the excuses you want, a professional organisation has no excuses for it, the authorities, having sacked a prominent player, and told the paying public to just accept it, threw in a phrase “outside cricket”. We aren’t a bunch of muppets, we knew full well what they were talking about, and it was one man. But instead of calling him out, they thought they’d be clever. They could have said “certain individuals”, “associates of people involved”, or anything like that. No, they put in the phrase “outside cricket”. It may have meant one man, but it opened the window into their DNA. We’re inside, and if you’re not inside, you’re outside, which means shut the hell up, and butt out.
So many journos are rapid to emphasise the first part – the Piers Morgan part – as if we’re elementary school pupils who need education by constant repetition. No. Increasingly a number, not all, journalists need to have that method applied to the true insight on outside cricket. There is an attitude around that say we are too touchy about it, that it was clumsy, that it wasn’t meant as implied, that it was really all about one person. Well, they knew the storm it caused, and apology there has been none. If there was, I certainly missed it. The ECB acted like all arrogant, out of touch organisations do. It wasn’t going to admit it had made a mistake. Instead, they’d hope us shallow proles would be ameliorated by performances on the field and new fresh brands etc. (note – Andrew Miller says exactly the same in his excellent piece on Alastair Cook) In short, they hoped the team would dig them out and make us forget.
When that didn’t work, we were marginalised. Attempts were made to make us look like idiots. False dawns were (and still are) exaggerated beyond belief. How many pieces do we see about bilious inadequate, the phenomenon of social media and the silent majority codswallop? It’s again, as if we are too stupid to understand. I see our hit rates for a month, and the number of visitors we get. I know this blog is seen by a very small section of the cricket community. Fine by me. While the message can be intemperate, maybe a bit OTT, from my behalf, I didn’t exactly get noticed by being all sweetness and light. Because to do that you become neutered. When an unreasonable party faces someone being aggressive, they tend to blame that party for being unreasonable. To divert attention away from their own failings. I’m really not like that. Nor are many of the readers here.
This is rare from me, but I do apologise to Lawrence, having considered my position overnight, for perhaps reacting in the wrong way to his tweets. If the first paragraph of “Hardly” had been more clear, maybe he could see why, but that’s not enough from me to justify my jumping the gun. I have to recognise when I’ve over-stepped the mark and over-reacted. Lawrence has been someone prepared to break bread with me, and I think using his tweet to post that item was not the brightest thing I’ve ever done. I can still see why I reacted to it the way I did, but I needed to stop and think. We should all learn along the way. I am not one who will let that Piers Morgan / Outside Cricket thing pass, but also Lawrence’s Wisden notes, his comments, and what he says to me along the way, I should have taken into account. My mistake.
There comes a point when you blog, and 18 months full on is pretty hard work, where you evaluate where you are. In terms of quality of writing, this blog is better than ever. TLG is a brilliant addition (thanks jofo), I love the panel stuff, I’ve enjoyed the memories work and others seem to enjoy it too, and at times it has been fun. But the mood that made this blog what it was is changing, and I’m wrestling with myself over whether we can have the success and feedback (struggling for the right word) in an environment like this. There is a “fear” (if that’s the right word) that this blog is a “bad times” blog and when success comes to this England team, as it will, can it function and survive?
This is not a blog that is negative for the sake of it. Seriously, believe it or not, it isn’t. It’s just that negativity brings the best out of me, and many of you. By negativity, of course, I mean critiquing bad results, bad administration, bad reporting not just being doom and gloom merchants. We enjoyed the ODI series that just went by (how could you not watching England bat like that) but instead of many of the print and TV journos who only jumped on the “we are out of date” bandwagon once the World Cup got underway, we’d been banging on about it for ages. Yet we are pilloried by insinuation if we are “not reconnecting with the team” or “falling in love with it”. I’m not. Nowhere near it. I’m pleased we played well. I’m effing livid we blew a World Cup and no-one did anything to change it beforehand. That’s in the past now. Doesn’t matter etc. Because if you think it did, you’d be aiming your laser missile at the ECB, who made Downton carry the can, and then his greatest coach of a generation.
From where I sit, I see much journalism determined by access. It was one of Brian Carpenter’s criticism of HDWLIA in Wisden (don’t get me wrong, I thought it was an incredibly fair article) that I maybe didn’t have an understanding of their pressures. Fine. I probably don’t know the realpolitk of modern sports reporting. That’s because I’m not a journalist. But what I see from the outside is not the stenographer that some of the commenters on here are seeing (and they may be right), but more reporting by access. Benny, I think, on here says that much of the press coverage now in newspapers is out of date by the time you read it, because bloggers get there first, or the internet has it all up. Yes, to a degree, but I was always one who wanted to read what others thought. Half the fun of a Newman column is reading his opinions, and then getting angry about them. The same with Selvey. But remembering that those people have vastly larger
audiences than us and are writing to be read by the fanatics and the casual fan. They have vastly more influence on shaping views than we ever will.
I’ve banged on about the Tyers Twitter Tendency – the inside knowledge what I can’t tell you plebs approach – for ages, but it grates. I wrestle with the fact I talk to a couple of journalists behind the scenes and do not report it here. Am I being a hypocrite? Probably, but this is because I’ve actually not been expressly asked to keep this stuff quiet, and I treat it as a relatively private conversation (I’ve shared a couple of things with my co-writer to be fair). These guys are dealing with the decision makers, and in some cases, are consulted by those decision makers (Downton freely admitted it). That’s where there’s a lack of trust, so that when we see the Outside Cricket line is about Piers Morgan, I get tetchy. That’s the ECB line. You are reporting the ECB line, because they don’t want to admit that’s how they think about cricket, and their public. My touchiness on this is my problem. You wouldn’t have read the stuff on this blog for
the time you have if you didn’t at least respect where it came from.
I will release the Hardly post without the bit referring to the Outside Cricket exchange which will make the comments look slightly odd. Apologies for the long-winded nature of this post, and it’s only touched the surface of what I would wish to say, but it needed clarifying.
I’ve not done this much before, but I’ve taken a post down.
I want to reconsider it before I put it out again. I’m sorry folks, but that’s the way it is. If people read the first part of the post, they might see some reason why I reacted the way I did. Maybe I should have left it longer before I posted.
Speak soon.
It was interesting the reaction it got. In more than one way. All these Ashes Memories and panels are treated with equanimity and quite low hit rates. Put out a “Dmitri Rant” post aimed at my favorite targets and “bang”. The first 30 minutes after release and the dial rocketed.
Guess I know now what floats the boats.
I was in good cheer when I read another tweet yesterday, and which I’ve seen in today’s amazing episode of The Cricketer Magazine.
I mean, seriously. I am getting to be seriously crotchety in my old age, but I hate this shit. I realise we live in a corporate world, where sport has to flog itself to maximise the revenues for its players and so forth. But Hardy’s doesn’t own the Ashes, and they aren’t some commodity that can be flogged to death to some corporate with ties to the sport as deep as a puddle. But no, let’s have it hawked out and retweeted by the players so they can earn a few more bucks. Let’s have all the interviews by England players sponsored so they can earn a few more quid. I even saw an advert on Twitter by Specsavers using the Ashes.
While I don’t doubt the sporting commitment of any of these players, there seems far too much of players hawking themselves to flog a bit of the sponsors wares and not enough actual proper engagement with the hoi polloi who follow them around. The team looks appallingly distant still. I get no more of a warm glow from Alastair Cook as I do from my neighbours on the other side of the estate I live on. I hate how sport has become a corporate vehicle, so it’s corporate first, second, third, fourth and so on, and the punter comes a distant last. The corporate pays and gets the finest seats, the best service, and fuck me blind, decent beer. We sit in the cheap seats, have to somehow manage to carry four beers in a paper/cardboard contraption that happens to break if it gets to wet to a crowded seat, with eff all leg room, to be bombarded by nonsense, have official rehydration breaks, have the most prestigious test series in the game paired with an investment bank every time it is mentioned over here (it was never the Cornhill Insurance Ashes, was it) and drink absolute piss masquerading as one of Paul Sheldon’s selection of “fine beers”.
Their priority is to make money – the players and the administrators. To soak the asset. If they see off some of the low earners or recalcitrant fans, well that’s just collateral damage. They probably wouldn’t drink Hardy’s wine, probably think Waitrose is a bit too pricy, wouldn’t have a scooby who Royal London are, think tap water is fine to drink, don’t use an investment bank and so on and so forth. Stuff ’em. After all, they are outside cricket.
Commercialisation is a growing annoyance, and don’t tell me the journos don’t think so. Agnew, for one, was livid he had to go through this “interview is brought to you by…” crap. The players seriously don’t help themselves when any interview they have is done under serious media management and only on the premise that they can hawk something for a few bob more. This tweet summed it up…
Which brings neatly on to Betway’s new “employee” in his Editor’s notes in The Cricketer…
“Alastair Cook has been called a weasel and a coward and other derogatory things. He does not deserve any of it.”
Ah. But calling someone who scored 8181 test runs a c–t is ok. Rah Rah. The article has decency all over it. Alastair is a thoroughly decent man. If you get a chance, read it. It’s like a bloody love letter. There seems no recognition that there is another interpretation of all this. That Cook has never truly explained the decision that he must have been party to to (a) exclude Pietersen and (b) as Dean Wilson reported, I believe, at the time, that he maintains a veto over his return. I call not explaining this as, yes, a form of cowardice. A form of weasel behaviour. He may have very good reasons, but I’ll bet he’s storing them up for a lovely autobiography somewhere down the line. Hughes, of course, conflates the cowardice line with actual facing up to quick bolwing in a marvellously ridiculous finale…
“He (Cook) is the antithesis of the men who say, “It’s the way I play.” He is constantly evolving as a player and as a leader and is about to confront the fastest attack and feistiest foe to visit these shores for many a year. So whatever you think of him, don’t call him a weasel or a coward.”
Bloody hell. Instead, we’ll just laugh at this piece of analysis (as previewed in comments below) in a tweet from Tickers.
Indeed.
I’m sorry, but Lovejoy, complete with stupid mug shot is at it again in The Cricketer…
“Obviously the above are moot points if England themselves have a divided camp and are still being forced to answer questions about the captain, opening batsman and other extraneous stories that refuse to die down. Alastair Cook must shrug off any worries about the hierarchy and apparent criticism from the media and get back to enjoying the role of prolific run scorer and team captain.”
Count the many ways this is laughable.
Being Outside Cricket 