One of the issues with a blog such as this, is that it’s written by people who have jobs, and jobs that aren’t in (and definitely not Inside) cricket. That means that any post when a match is ongoing is dependent on being able to have the television or at worst the radio on during play. In my own case I am fortunate enough to be self-employed with an office at home, and doubly fortunate that having it on in the background doesn’t distract me in the slightest when I’m concentrating on work. Cricket is like that, it exists but it isn’t necessarily something where full on focus is possible or even desirable all the time. The same applies when going to a match of course, where much of the time can be spent chatting to others; queuing for the bar (which at Lords can take up to a session of play, so inept are they at looking after their customers); queuing for food (because you don’t want to do that during that portion of the day usually referred to as lunchtime, unless you want to miss even more of the play); or nipping off to the usually vile loo. Sometimes it’s as simple as wanting to stretch the legs that have indentations from the seat in front and where you try to recover some kind of blood flow in a backside numb from a plastic seat presumably bought in a sale at B & Q.
It’s a routine that cricket fans tend to be familiar with, and regular supporters take account of it. As an aside, a picnic at the cricket is often viewed by the media as being somehow charming, as opposed to the reality of it as being a necessity when faced with outrageously priced, virtually inedible tat you’ve waited an hour to receive – at which point imminent starvation tends to win out over revulsion.
All of which is the background to explaining that with meetings all day, I haven’t seen a ball of the match, and haven’t heard a ball either. But then you see, as I work for a living, I don’t get paid to watch cricket. On the contrary, cricket costs me, and costs me a lot of money. It’s not just tickets of course – for some on here go to far more matches than I do – or indeed for some like Dmitri, flights, hotels and tickets. It is also television subscriptions and the TV Licence fee.
This could be viewed as something of a disadvantage on a cricket blog, and indeed in terms of providing brilliant insights on a day’s play, it unquestionably is. I mean, I could start talking about how late the fonts moved off the seam on Cricinfo’s ball by ball text, but it’s probably not going to make anyone sit up and ponder. But here’s the thing, this isn’t a newspaper, and it isn’t written by journalists. We don’t get paid for this, and more to the point we don’t want to be paid for it. In fact, let’s go further than that on the point about us not getting paid. We don’t monetise this site through advertising either. The odd advert does come up, but that’s a WordPress thing, it’s nothing to do with us. The option to get banner advertising here is in the settings, it hasn’t been done, and it won’t be done either – neither of us are remotely interested in ever doing that.
And yet the idea that we are frustrated or failed journalists because we pen our thoughts here doesn’t seem to go away. Let’s be clear about this, neither Dmitri nor myself have the slightest aspiration to join the ranks of the paid hack, to have to pay attention to the possibility of upsetting someone at the ECB, to worry about “access” to players or officials or to have to write “Sponsored by Waitrose” at the bottom of a puff piece about Stuart Broad’s latest hairstyle (receding by the way, poor lad). Why would we? We have our careers and we’re both pretty happy with them. More to the point, if journalists as a body were doing their jobs properly, then blogs like this would barely exist, for few if any would read them, let alone take the time to make comments which repeatedly teach me new things and find out contradictions and hypocrisies of which I’d otherwise be unaware. Why unaware? Well, you see it tends not to be in the papers. Written by…oh yes.
What is puzzling is quite why some journalists find the blogs to be such a threat. If they are so irrelevant, inane or downright mad, what’s the problem? Clearly no one will pay them any attention and readers will instead genuflect to the great correspondents who nobly dispense wisdom on a daily basis. So why even mention them, why make a pointed comment about the difference between a journalist and a blogger as if one is somehow inherently superior? Because they get paid for it? Some people get paid for having sex, we don’t tend to consider it a plus point.
We do get the occasional journalist talking to us directly on here or on Twitter. It’s quite striking the difference in approach. The ones utterly unconcerned about blogs tend to be friendly, inquisitive and (he’ll hate me for saying this) full of praise for my partner in crime’s writing. The ones who are tend to make public comments at odds with what they say directly. There’s a word for that kind of behaviour, although “insecure” fits, it’s not the one I was thinking of.
The first paragraph of this post detailed some of the joys of going to cricket when you’ve actually paid for a ticket. How many journalists are in any way aware of any of it? How many have paid to get in to a Test match and sat in the normal seats? There’s a TMS commentator who played the game at the highest level and thought tickets were about £20; there is a total disconnect between those who report on the game and those who pay to watch. It’s a delightful little club, where they really are Inside Cricket, and the rest of us are Outside. Obvious it may be, and it’s all too often regarded as a trite point by those on the receiving end, but without people going to matches, they truly wouldn’t have a job. In my line of business I’m acutely aware that without customers I don’t have a job, not least because it’s happened. And yet there is very little evidence whatever that the media appreciate that most fundamental of points. The various ECB disasters over the last couple of years were dissected repeatedly from the perspective of those on the inside of the special club. The wider question of why people should pay a fortune to be treated like dirt at the ground while at the same time being dismissed as irrelevancies never occurred to many of them, because they don’t even realise that’s how it is.
It isn’t all of them of course, no one would claim that. And yet those this isn’t directed at would know that perfectly well from reading it. They know who they are, and they do good work.
Here’s the rub, great journalism does what a place like this could never do, and wouldn’t even try to do. It can be majestic, and it can change the world (FIFA, IAAF). You want to know the difference between a journalist and a blogger? It’s that you can. You want to know why there isn’t one? It’s because you don’t.
Oh yes, the Test match. Looks pretty even to me. Here’s a match report:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/south-africa-v-england-2015-16/content/story/961977.html
Discussion on day two below!
Being Outside Cricket 
Wonderful stuff! Says it all and more
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Great piece as always! Know what and who this has been referenced at and 100% behind the words expressed above.
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I don’t, I can imagine a few candidates though. Usual Self(ie) indulgent candidates I expect, he is the sort of supericilious character that would raise the issue of being paid for something without fully thinking through the ramifications of such a statement
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Here’s what a well known journo said to me a few months ago…
“The newer guys love it [the blog], we all had to make our way in what was a very unfriendly environment when most of us entered it. This sort of thing makes it all a bit more open and easier.”
and
“Had a ten minute conversation with one of them once where they told me, me, that blogging was the problem with modern journalism.”
Another well known figure said…
“Cricket writing has become about being able to write, not being in the right place to get a job.”
Peter Miller summed it up well…
“It is your hobby, not your job. You do it well and enjoy it. F*ck em”
Absolutely.
Top stuff from TLG!
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“And yet the idea that we are frustrated or failed journalists because we pen our thoughts here doesn’t seem to go away. ”
Oh dear, they’re spinning that old line again are they?
In the old days the only way to criticise a journalist was to become some cranky retired wing commander form Tunbridge Wells. Take out the Basildon Bond, and write the old………
“Dear Sir, it has come to my notice……..Blah blah blah?……..” The Editor would decide if the letter would be heavily censored, and then printed on the letters page. Or completely ignored.
I don’t know if these journalists have noticed, in all their rantings about social media, but most of the companies they work for constantly push an interactive social media experience. The BBC and The Guardian being examples of the biggest culprits. Hardly any programme can start without the obligatory announcement ……”Text us. Email us, tweet us, we want to hear what you have to say. “……. Well sure, they want to hear our views if we fit with their conventional wisdom. If not, the BTL is just censored like the good old days.
Unfortunately they cant do the same to bloggers. The bloggers tanks are sitting on their lawns. And they don’t like it. It’s not that the bloggers pose any financial threat, because as you say most bloggers don’t do it for the money. This in itself is a novel concept to most professionals. But it does propose a challenge to their world order. The plucky amatuer with a passion for an issue against the seasoned pro.
There is a great film out at the moment called the Big Short. I read the book. It’s about how a bunch of misfits and obsessives bet against the major banks over the sub Prime mortgage market. The banks were complacent, and arrogant. (the classic insiders) The shorters however knew their stuff. (The classic outsiders)They did their home work on the ground all over the US? And then they bet against the banks. The banks lost, big time. But fortunately for them they had govts to bail them out. Fortunately for the cricket media they have the ICC and the ECB.
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Cap is doffed, sir. A fine read.
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Beautifully written and very compelling. Well done Chris.
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Great article. I am finding it hard to find cricket reports in Seville. Jeez it was easier in Texas. Giles has closed down those leaky holes. The arse. If he doesn’t want anyone in Spain to watch cricket, then feck him.
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I don’t want this to appear smug or Luddite, but it seems that being on Twitter just brings annoyance, angst and pain for you two guys. Slatings, snide comments, blockings. I wonder if you wouldn’t become aware of all the news anyway if you just allowed us to draw your attention to the interesting snippets with BTL links.
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Twitter is a necessary evil. It brings lots of info, is fun at times, and gives blog writers a heads up. Also it is not exclusively used for this blog. But you have a point.
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Sorry for being thick but BTL means?
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Below the line. The comments section on a newspaper article.
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Sorry Dmitri. There I go confusing bloggers and journalists again… 🙂
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One’s just got to wait till those “outside cricket” have more followers on their twitter handles and all hell will truly break loose. These (in)famous folks live in the cuckoo-land, delusional in their belief of self importance in a world that’s changing so fast, that it’s leaving them behind. Their only safety net, is the perceived usefulness to their publishers. If only, BBC and Guardian had the savvy to start using RSS feeds from these blogs on their websites. Sigh!
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Let’s not get carried away. We’re niche compared to the big beasts. They’ve weathered the storm of KP, now we are even more ignored than we were before! Good. We don’t write this for them.
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Not really. The whole saga has cost them enough equity with fans. I know I am not going back to read the pimped views of the establishment. I am not going to paint everyone the same way, because I still hold enough respect for Atherton or Nasser or Boycott, but “the analysts” and “the selfies” of this world are no longer for me. I just don’t have respect left. And, I am fairly sure I am not alone. You may not be writing for “them” but the fact is, we won’t all be here if the mainstream journos were doing their jobs properly. Folks at the G should be happy to have someone like you writing for them. This is actually engaging the audience without the pretense that we usually see. And, it’s nowhere as rabid a crowd as we see BTL at the G these days.
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On the last thread, Simon and Aaron briefly mentioned Mike Selvey criticising Anderson, “for the first time since 2008”. I’ve only just twigged the significance of that date. Was that when a certain rotund Australian bowling coach took up his position?
If the bowlers are now fair game, as are all batsmen yet to open their deer-hunting accounts, it really does just leave the institution they’re playing under as ‘untouchable’ in the eyes of certain seat of the press. That’s totally arse about face, surely.
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‘seat’ should say ‘sections’. Sorry, I have fat fingers.
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Statgasm! Every SA batsman has made double figures without anyone making a fifty.
Sir Ian’s rumbling about the length of the bowling (and not that it’s too full).
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Anderson ordered off by Aleem Dar for running on the wicket. Bit of arguing if he’d been warned.
Stokes come on, pitches first ball up and ends the innings.
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Interesting point Atherton made yesterday, about the square being quite raised above the rest of the ground and it’s impact on the bowlers feeling like they are running uphill both ends. He seemed to think it affected the rhythm somewhat.
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By the way a great post as well. Loved the line about being paid to have sex. Summed it up for me!
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Great piece. Cricket doesn’t, of course, operate in a vacuum (though many wish it did). We are going through seismic changes, particularly in how we process and respond to authority and information. The long 60s was put on hold for a generation, the digital revolution and the financial crisis have liberated our thinking once more.
As for journalists, correspondents and the like: they’ve just got to up their game haven’t they? It’s a new world. The difference in approach between say, Ali Martin and Mike Selvey is instructive.
Having noted that cricket doesn’t operate in a vacuum, I must say that cricketing culture, as manifested by our more jaundiced scriveners, certainly does. The ex-pros reveal in their scribbling a culture driven by resentment and entitlement.
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Wicket of Cook for Viljoen first ball! Leg-side strangle and a terrific catch by Vilas.
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Viljoen’s more Andre Nel (in style – not personality!) than Allan Donald from the evidence so far. Hits the pitch hard but not above 140 on the speed-gun.
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To be fair, he’s been regularly 140+ in his subsequent spell and peaked at 92 mph.
Viljoen’s a big unit so maybe he takes some time to warm up. Otherwise it was just debut nerves.
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60 runs in 5 innings klaxon (same as Hales’s highest score).
Any proper journalists listening, I wonder?
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Cook’s an opening batsman who averages over 45 (pretty rare and only Hayden, Gavaskar and Sehwag average over 50 in the modern era) and will likely soon be the first to pass 10,000 runs as an opener. He needs 738, btw. He’s in no danger at the moment.
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?batting_positionmax1=2;batting_positionval1=batting_position;class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=runs;template=results;type=batting
He’s having a bit of a shocker, but he’s always been a player who’s like that. One of the players with whom he bears the best comparison is Kevin Pietersen. They started their test careers at around the same time, scored a very similar number of runs, 50s and centuries, had broadly, similar averages, and had the same taste for daddy hundreds. Yet KP is written about as being mercurial and Cook is the rock of Gibraltar when the stats show that they both contributed roughly equally if just in different ways.
In fact, they prove the genius of test cricket in that in spite of playing with wildly contrasting methods they both got very similar results.
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Yes and no. KP has a far better record against the best bowling attacks.
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Cook out, caught down the leg side again (from a loosener, this time). Do we remember the stick Gower used to get for his ‘lazy wafts’?
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Tweets:
“Hales.driving ,no footwork, ct second slip”
“Morkel def targets Cook down legside”
“Oh dear so does Viljoen who has Cook ct behind with first ball in Tests”
The man with no agency, except when he’s batting well.
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Cook clearly has an issue as this has become a common mode of dismissal to both seam and spin bowlers. Will this be reference by the MSM? I won’t hold my breath on this one
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Some have on twitter, to be fair.
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One or two folk claim it is bad luck. However it clearly isn’t bad luck if it happens an increasing number of times.
One commentor claims that Cook is unlucky but he in effect condemns himself by saying the following.In fairness he isn’t a Cook fanboy.
“Because playing at one pitching on the leg stump or just outside is usually a shot to nothing”.
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He gets in trouble when he plays outside the line of his body – as any batsman does. A leg glance really should be played off the hip, but he’s moving across the stumps to counter his problem with nicking off to the keeper and slips. It’s an area of vulnerability that’s being targeted, I wouldn’t be surprised if teams start positioning a leg slip before long.
It kind of happens, every adjustment to solve one problem creates another, but it’s definitely not just bad luck.
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Is the Captain’s poor form Nick Compton’s fault yet?
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Must have been batting with Compton that forced the poor Cook to try and unselfishly up the tempo. Completely Compton’s fault for his selfish batting.
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Anderson’s removal from the attack by the umpires was apparently ‘great captaincy’…….
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I thought that was a joke? Wasn’t it? I know sarcasm doesn’t come across in print, but. . .
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No. See the post-lunch comment.
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The whole “inside/outside cricket” thing has always confused me. The ECB is not cricket. The England team is not cricket. There are hundreds of thousands of cricketers in this country, the vast majority of whom are amateurs. English cricket, like all other sports, is a almost entirely amateur affair. Surely to be “inside” cricket, you need to be actually working on the front line, playing with other amateurs, coaching kids and organising recreational leagues. How many journo’s actually get involved in the day-to-day nitty-gritty of the game?
We’re not the ones “outside cricket”. The ECB mandarins and their friends in the press are. They need a swift reality check.
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Exactly! Which is why the outside cricket jibe was so offensive to many cricket lovers in this country. The ECB is more a private club than the governing body of English cricket.
It’s why they tried to row back by claiming it was a throw away remark. Not buying it. It revealed all their arrogance in a simple phrase.
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The way they briefed it was to say it was about Piers Morgan – which is obvious. But this is the Piers Morgan who goes to matches and plays in the East Sussex League for Newick CC. The response to that is what it always was – if he’s outside cricket, so is everyone else.
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I’m fascinated to see how long Cook can go on in this protective bubble before the media start to criticise him. Now the KP battle has been won (although the collateral damage has been so huge a win is pushing it a bit) there is no reason for the media to protect Cook anymore.
The sad fact is that he has moved from being the TINA captain to the TINA opener. When his captaincy had to be protected by the TINA defence his batting form was poor. If he lost the captaincy he was in danger of losing his place in the side. Thats why his chums in the media used the TiNA defence. But he has now moved to being the TINA opener. This is a sad critique of English county cricket that there are no alternatives.
But the media needs to understand you can criticise someone without calling for their sacking. They did exactly that to Ian Bells entire career. Every failire was met with someone writing “he should be dropped.”
This is a good example of the Journalist Vs Blogger debate we have been having. If Cook continues to fail against the best teams and the media keep looking the other way, the journalists just make themselves look ridiculous.
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Exactly this. Do journalists think people watching have all lost the use of their faculties? They look like idiots. The team at Sky simply don’t mention Cook’s innings at all when they review the play. There’s no hope of impartial analysis. And I’ve had to walk away from the radio whenever Boycott starts up about ‘our two great players, Root and Cook’, and a discussion of their test averages compared with the rest of the team. No context, or apparently looking at what’s right in front of him. I have a lot of time for Boycott but he hasn’t stopped banging that drum since England landed in SA, and it’s infuriating.
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Comment on Cricinfo:
“The 60 runs Cook has scored in this series is his worst five innings run of scores since Strauss retired. His next worst is the 70 runs scored between the 2nd Sri Lanka Test and 2nd India Test in 2014.”
Now that’s quite a bar to have limboed under.
Comment from someone we all know well, from the last Ashes summer:
“I think he would have done well against the great West Indian attacks, yes.”
*whistles innocently*
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Of course, a player who averages 35 against SA would have coped with Marshall, Garner et al. Beggars belief. Perhaps they meant a West Indies attack made up entirely of Benjamins with Eldine Baptiste and Roger Harper in support……
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Disappointing from Taylor again today. Was hoping he was going to make the big score to get him settled in the side. Obviously him scoring runs always comes with a nod to KP saying he was not cut out for international cricket coming up to 4 years ago. Taylor seems to get more slack than Hales or Compton though for his failures.
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Gary Ballance (is that you Whitaker ) is getting a better player by the day. You need to back James. Think he might have it.
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Indeed. The ECB is guilty of having made two appalling decisions that have damaged the careers of their two best batsmen: handing KP the captaincy and handing Cook the captaincy. Neither was equipped and the decisions have had disastrous impacts on both their careers.
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2 points.:
1. This is a great game. I’ve been thinking about pitches, and why I think that pace and bounce make better cricket. I can’t work out if that is a subjective thing, because I am trained to understand batting as about having the skills and reflexes to prosper against a ball moving at pace and jagging around, or if it is just better than cricket where batters are grinding it out on slow, low wickets. I feel like this is better. You have to take a risk to prosper.
2. Cook, in my view, was criticised by both sky and the bbc. Atherton, Key, Hussain and Smith have all repeatedly said that his head is too far to off. Sky were also critical of his choice of Broad and Anderson first up. They haven’t called for his dropping (fair enough), nor discussed his so far disastrous tour. It is not a big sample yet, so perhaps that is ok.
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There aren’t many cricketers – either batsmen or bowlers – who don’t like wickets with pace and bounce. They’re both easy to take wickets on and easy to score runs on: it encourages positive cricket from both sides.
Of course, there is always a place for a bit of variety and the odd green seamer or Bunsen burner is always welcome to test different skills. Its just the slow, low pitches that are either so flat they become too batsmen friendly or a bit two-paced making them attritional that are bad for the game.
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Ian Chappell once described it best about bouncy flat pitches being good for cricket. (Asuming the bounce is consistent.)
He said bouny pitches get rid of mediocre cricketers. If you can bowl fast and accuratey mediocre batsman will disappear. But just as relevant, good quality batsman will see off mediocre medium pacers who do nothing with the ball. Because they can have confidence in playing across the line of the ball. The low slow wickets we get in so many places just encourages 80 mph trundles who can pin batsman down without doing anything.
If I was running WI cricket my biggest priority would be to find a way of bringing back fast tracks if at all possible. It will bring back a better class of player.
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Thanks for the replies. It is certainly true that fast, bouncy wickets are better than the turgid dross that the ECB served up at Cardiff and Lords this year, but do I and Chappeli think of good technique, and thus good cricket, as precisely that which prospers on a hard bouncy surface? Younis Khan, undoubtedly a bloody good bat, will consistently outscore, his English or Aussie counterpart on Asian pitches. There must be technique and skill required to play well on those surfaces. Do I just not appreciate it as much because I’m trained see the skill in good play on quick wickets, but not the skills required to play well on a lower, dustier surface?
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Two types of Asian pitches: Dubai and Nagpur. One requires patience and a willingness to score at 3 an over indefinitely, one requires immense skill against the turning ball.
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An attempt at humour BTL in the DT. Don’t laugh too loudly now.
“I see that a former South African player called Gulam Bodi is in the news.
It seems he once kept Kevin Pietersen out of the KwaZulu Natal cricket team, and this prompted KP to seek his fame and fortune in England.
Bodi thus bears a heavy responsibility; however, I gather he has only been charged with attempted match-fixing.”
Such hilarity. To quote Blackadder ‘thank heavans I am wearing a corset as my sides have just split’
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Eh, I’m as big a KP fan as anyone and I have to admit I smiled reading that – it’s quite a good punchline. You don’t have to hate KP to mildly enjoy innocuous jokes made at his expense: it’s hardly KPGenius, anyway.
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Superb article by Dan Brettig on the health of Test cricket:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/962221.html
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Just got round to reading this, great article Chris and sums up my feelings towards the MSM perfectly. You’re absolutely right in that many of the journos, who had never been criticised before the advent of btl and social media, now view anything outside of their cosy clique as a threat and lash out accordingly. There are some (especially the Cricinfo team) who are helpful, do engage with people and don’t get shitty when you disagree with them; however they are in the minority I’m afraid.
That most of the articles on here and some of other blogs are more insightful, knowledgeable and truthful must be a real slap in the face to them, hence their desire to vilify “us little bloggers”.
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