Just a short note to add this blog’s congratulations to Jarrod Kimber and Sampson Collins for winning Best Documentary at this evening’s Sport Journalism Awards.
This was a film of the utmost importance, and raised issues that much of the cricketing press in this country preferred to ignore. That it received the attention it did, and is now the Award Winning Death of a Gentleman is fantastic news and thoroughly deserved.
If you missed it, our piece on just why this film was so important, and why all cricket lovers everywhere should see it, our Review may provide some explanation.
Well done gents – the recognition your hard work and persistence warranted.
Being Outside Cricket 
A well deserved award. I can only imagine how (if they were present) the MSM of cricket reacted to this😉
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So well-deserved! It’ll be interesting to see any reviews of the awards in the press, and maybe the answer to the big question….Has selfry watched it yet?
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http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/awards-news/hayward-is-sports-writer-of-the-year-for-third-time/
No mention of a favorite journalist of some of the regulars on this blog i’m afraid.
Nice recognition for Nick Holt and Jonathon Liew though
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Well deserved and a giant FU to all the fake cricket journalists who ignored it, and in some cases laughed at it. Preferring to fill their copy with infomercials for ECB sponsors.
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I note Matthew Syed won a major award. That’s another FICJAM right there. Another just too amazing for words. Also Martin Samuel got commended for his work. Good grief.
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It’s a different world, Lord. A closed ecosystem.
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The only award Syed should win is for pretentious bullshit. He wrote a book in which he claims talent is not as important as practice. I mean really? Think of all the talent you have seen in the last 50 years of sport. Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Shane Warne and that’s just cricket. Pele, Maradona, Messi. U Bolt.
You too can be just like them……
Ping Pongs answer to FICJAM.
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Every day I’m trying to be like U Bolt. I’m in my late 40s now but I’m getting closer every day!
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Congratulations to both.
Here’s Part 3 in an occasional series of tweets about the star of the documentary:
Foolproof litmus test, this party, wasn’t it?
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Here’s the Guardian story on the SJA Awards.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/feb/23/daniel-taylor-named-football-journalist-of-the-year-as-guardian-sport-wins-sja-website-prize
That last clause takes some beating, it really truly does.
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Spectacular. Just wonderful. Tweeted.
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That’s fearless independent journalism for you.
Coming soon:
“The award-winning movie Chinatown, which addressed a water shortage in Los Angeles.”
“Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, which addressed a man’s obsession with a former lover.”
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Citizen Kane… A film about a newspaper.
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I hear Guardian Sport are re-making All The President’s Men. Tagline:
“THEY HAD THE DOCUMENT BEFORE ANYONE…
…THEY CHOSE NOT TO RUN IT.”
The plot has been changed a bit. Nixon throws a great party so they leave him alone. The end.
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Mississippi Burning. A film about Gene Hackman’s character’s feelings for a police officer’s wife.
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What a circle jerk orgy of self congratulation.
The Guardian……. a newspaper that pretends to be liberal, but is now politically controlled by neo cons in Washington.
The Guardian…………below the line comments section encourages you to express your views…….unless they go against guardian editorial policy.
The Guardian…..A newspaper lacking any integrity or honesty.
Fearless independent journalism is nice. Shame you won’t get any at The New Guardian.
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Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio: Aye, too much bloody T20.
No comments allowed on that ridiculous piece of self-puffery.
No comments either on Vic Marks’ latest. I know there’s more affection for Marks – but if Selvey had written that, we’d be all over it. The poor dears were tired? When Australia won the ODI series in England on September 13th, they’d been on the road since 3rd June. Did anyone praise Steve Smith for keeping going – or was it all “what a fantastic effort from this exciting England team for running the world champions so close”? And Marks is pushing Rashid’s dropped catch into “six inches of carry” territory the amount he’s going on about it.
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The Longest day.
A film about a group of men’s day out to the French seaside in the middle of summer.
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Protests on the last rebel tour. “Only a few people singing and dancing”.
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Bridge Over the River Kwai – a film about a some carpentry lovers who become best mates when practicing their woodwork skills.
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Dracula – vegetarians fight their greatest battle
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I just BTL’d this (on the Surrey/DiVenuto article as it was ‘open’), being pre-modded, might not last…
TheSlogfather 3m ago
In more important news… it appears the G’s senior cricket correspondent (and maybe others too) still haven’t watched DOAG, hence this ‘review’ of the SJA Awards on the sports page…
“The Independent filmmakers Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber were named ahead of their rivals in the best television documentary category for the feature-length Death of a Gentleman, which addressed the impact of T20 cricket on Test cricket.”
The dereliction of duty to cricket lovers continues…
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The dereliction of duty to truth lovers continues.
Fixed you typo Bogfather.
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Suppose that answers my first question on “Rainy Days & Monday’s”.
So, does anyone think we’re near the bottom and, if not, how much further away could the bottom actually be?
I dispair…I really do.
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Despair!
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Yes I saw that. Both grudging and disingenuous. The Guardian’s editorial positions are becoming more and more curmudgeonly and unsustainable; it’s as though Selvey has taken over as editor in chief for the whole newspaper.
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I do wonder if you’re all rather missing the point. In your (worthy) orgy of gags you’ve omitted the following, which was the first thing I noticed: ‘The Independent filmmakers Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber were named ahead of their rivals in the best television documentary category’ – The Guardian was website of the year, Daniel Taylor football writer of the year but DoG wasn’t film of the year, oh no, it won no such award, it was merely ‘ahead of their rivals’. Telling that, almost a perfect metonym for The Guardian’s current approach to news coverage.
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Good spot.
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Simon, have you noticed how the ECB in house propaganda unit ( otherwise known as the English cricket media) have lessened their critiscm of the ODI team since Morgan extended the middle finger to us?
All he had to do to curry favour with the knuckle draggers was to kick those who had supported him the most. How nice! I guess when you start losing games, desperate times need desperate measures.
So we now get the tired excuse. Looks like he will get the full Cook defense now.
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Anyway, by contrast, here’s someone who knows and understands what he’s writing about:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/975353.html
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https://dropinpitch.com/2016/02/23/why-i-want-england-to-lose/
Maxie….
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“Whatever you think of the ECB, don’t you owe other England fans some loyalty?”
That was my favourite section. Can’t quibble with any of it.
“Are you going to carry on like this forever?”
Also hits the spot. I have genuinely begun to find the unequivocal, unquestioning supporter a bit weird. I can’t see how I’ll ever get back to how I used to feel.
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Maxie ……” Supporting England means supporting the ECB, because the two entities are indivisible. A victory for the team is a victory for the board – and vindication of their conduct.”
It is this truth that is slowly bringing me to the same conclusion, and the same exit door of English cricket. I just don’t give a shit anymore.
The ECB uses the same dishonest tactics that unscrupulous politicians use when they say “support the troops.” This way no one is allowed to criticise the scumbags that send them to war for no reason other than financial gain. If you criticise the war, and the liars who started it, you are seen as attacking the men and woman who are put in harms way. It’s cowadly.
How can you want the team to do well when it means Strauss and his elite posh boys will take all the glory, and take no blame when the team lose? But it isn’t just the ECB. Egged on by the most dishonest cricket media in the world, a type of thug like fan has emerged. Frothing at the mouth and wanting to shut down any criticism of said governing body. The ECBs own private army of morons. They are told what to say by a dishonest and complient media who work as propagandists for the ECB. Even ex players of once good integrity have sold out for 30 pieces of silver.
I watched hardly any of the ashes last year, and will not watch much of this summers offerings. Thank you Maxie, you have helped to make the choice much clearer. Supporting the England team on the field means supporting the scum in the suits. It’s enough to drive most people away. And the ones that are happy to remain are not woth bothering with anyway.
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https://twitter.com/TheCricketGeek/status/702122492823928832
Discuss…!
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Why? The view comes as no surprise to me if you’ve been following Peter for the last year. I disagree.
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I wasn’t really asking anyone to discuss it…!
I could not disagree more strongly. In fact, to be frank, it’s only one step up from “shut up and keep buying the tickets” (still, for me, Maxie’s finest work) or an Andrew Strauss interview.
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I thought the use of temper tantrum was, shall we say, provocative.
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Likewise. One step up from “bilious inadequates”, you could argue.
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Maxie addresses Millers issues with these remarks….
“There is nothing rational about supporting a sports team – or opposing one. It all boils down to emotions.”
“Why should I support a team like that? For what reason should I care about their performance or results? What personal equity do I have in their endeavours? The only link between me and the side is that I was born in the nation they claim to represent.”
“I never signed a lifelong contract to support England. I am under no obligations. Most importantly, loyalty has to be earned.”
I would add to that The ECB like almost all modern sports outlets have sort a more customer/business model than fan model. This allows them to claim they are in the entertainment industry. Which in turns lets them claim they can raise prices like going to the 02 or the Royal Albert Hall to see a top international singer. It’s balls of course, but like Premiership football clubs it brings in the cash. If I am customer, why should I show any loyalty to the brand? They have pissed me off. So I will shop elsewhere. Modern sports fans need to adopt the same attitude.
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I stopped listening to Geek & Friends for quite a while because Peter Miller seemed to be swallowing the “new era England” line far too much to my liking.
I read ‘Second XI’ recently (which is terrific) and that prompted me to start listening again. On subjects not related to England, I still rate them. He’s guilty of tending to invite people on who agree with his viewpoint and it can be an echo chamber – but I guess the warning’s in the title.
Recently he’s interviewed Strauss for a book on England in ODIs and seems more than a little starstruck. Perhaps that’s where this latest has come from? That phrase “temper tantrums” is just awful.
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Let us say, that is if he cares at all, he might want to take “temper tantrum” back.
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Im afraid it’s access journalism. If you want Strauss to come on your show, you have to be accommodating. Quite why you would want him on is a mystery to me.
There are quite a few cricket writers and broadcasters who seem to have magically……. ” got with the program.” I guess it’s lonely if you are on the outside. They have to make a living at the end of the day.
There is virtualy no critique of English cricket now. Far more in Footbal and rugby. Cricket has become a orgy of self congratulation and back slapping. Where journalists have the team come to their birthday parties. Nothing to see here……. Move along.
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Petulant and childish now.
It’s got legs, this.
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Finding it fascinating.
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I generally have time for Peter Miller, but my issue with the phrase “temper tantrum” and the context he’s using it in here is problematic because he’s not especially clear on what makes the complaints one can make about English cricket genuinely valid and which ones come from the misguided and unjustified visceral emotions he’s trying to define.
Sure, I still enjoy watching the team play (and don’t want to get into a massive debate about this point now) but I’m not going to pretend the concerns expressed in the comments here haven’t been given a great deal of thought (and, to be honest, the passion with which you all write suggests to me that it’s actually inspires people to back up their points with reasoned arguments) regardless of whether or not I ultimately feel the same way. There are reasons some people are so unhappy, after all. Are his specific gripes with English cricket the only ones you can mount a reasonable case for and that aren’t rooted in the irrational anger he describes?
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I rather think you nailed it Rufus.
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Love this.
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How odd of Miller not to mention T20 at all.
Wrong script, sir.
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Bull runs to his favourite safe place – the retirement of a ‘good egg’.
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Was going to ignore it – but, when one of the first half dozen comments was a ridiculous piece of fawning about how great it is, it was time for both barrels.
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Oh, I guess that was my comment. Sorry, but I did like Bull’s column. Andy just isn’t interested in cricket administration questions, or if he is, he is not briefed to write about them. I am a fan of his writing, though, and at least he doesn’t piss all over us, like Selfie.
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No, clivejw, it absolutely wasn’t yours. I’d accept yours as a genuine difference of opinion.
Meanwhile, KP had a chance for another great ‘FU’ innings in the PSL Final and was looking good but has just dragged a pull off Andre Russell and been well caught in the deep.
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Andrew Flintoff elected president of the PCA.
I confess I had no idea who his six predecessors were.
What a….. contrasting bunch.
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That seems an odd appointment, is this how it happened?
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One of those guys sat next to me at The Wanderers in 2005.
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New Selvey – containing a “greatest ever” and a “most important ever” in a single article.
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Oh hell.
Dare I even?
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I came straight back here as soon as I got to “finest captain of this and perhaps any other generation”.
Any other? Indefensible crap. I don’t care how many Tests you played.
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The way Selvey tells it, he was three inches of carry away from a career of 100 Tests and at least 400 wickets.
But it all went wrong somehow.
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Benaud. Frank Worrell. Clive Lloyd. Hells’ bells, even Douglas Jardine. Tony Greig and Mike Brearley, under whom he played! That’s after twenty seconds’ thought.
FFS, over-praise always does a disservice to the subject. See Cook, Alastair. There are already actual New Zealanders saying the piece goes way too far. Was it really too hard to deliver a sober, analytical career assessment?
As for most important tour – why? Because we’re all so obsessed with New England, and we have so much invested in it working that we’ll even go with the Henry Ford attitude to history. That’s it, basically. We saw that at the end of the Ashes, when so many people were so patently desperate to jump in with the self-justifying, post hoc rationalisation of early 2014.
If anyone can find the pudding underneath all that messy egg, they’re a better man than I.
Might even beat the Amla/Chappell/Ganguly/elephant in the room for his worst piece of 2016. God alone knows what we can expect if he’s still around when Cook retires.
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Finest captain of this generation? Misbah by a country mile.
Any generation? I’ve started writing a list of better captains that I’ve seen (so that just goes back to 1975) and I’m currently up to about fifteen. These are captains (like Illy, Chapelli, Brearley, Imran, Vaughan, Smith, Ranatunga, Clarke etc) who, you know, won stuff – rather than captains who gave some sort of moral instruction on being better chaps to the English. I wouldn’t even rate McCullum NZ’s best captain which would be easily Stephen Fleming and I’m not at all sure he’d be ahead of Jeremy Coney or Martin Crowe as their second best captain.
The “most important ever” concerns NZ’s tour to England. The most important tour? More important than (off the top of my head and just for starters) 1948, 1976, 1981 or 2005? I’ve just had to look at the article again to make sure he really wrote it – and there it is in the last paragraph. It’s because they played the game “with fun and without rancour”. Unlike f***ing Australians he might as well add…..
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Hear hear on Misbah. The situation McCullum entered was a cakewalk compared to what Misbah has endured and got results in. Perish the thought the state Pak cricket would be in without him. There’s a true TINA.
My favourite Misbah moment as skipper was when he wanted a short leg a couple of (home) series back. Standing in the position with the helmet he turned to each teammate from junior to senior and was met with a shake of the head by all. Poor bugger had to do the job himself.
So McCullum, good galvanizing captain, exciting even, but no where near the best of his contemporaries or a couple of his Kiwi predecessors.
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Another vote for Misbah, who not only revived a cricket team in the most difficult of circumstances imaginable, but who also restored the international reputation of his country after the spot-fixing episode.
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The finest captain of this generation? And maybe all time?
I’m guessing who he is talking about, and can’t bare to read his drivel. If he belives this crap he should be taken away by the men in white suits.
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Australia are currently a hundred runs away from completing a 4-0 victory over NZ across two series. Most people thought the teams quite evenly matched at the start (NZ did better in England and UAE than Australia so that wasn’t without foundation). Australia have played the last two Tests without their best bowler and the last Test without their second best bowler. NZ are at full bowling strength and haven’t bowled Australia out for less than 500.
If McCullum’s the finest captain ever, Selvey’s tribute to Steve Smith is gonna be amazing…..
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Also to add on Selvey’s claim that NZ’s tour was the most important ever, it wasn’t even the most important tour of England by NZ.
That has to be the 1999 tour. The lasting impact of that tour on English cricket was immense.
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Regulars to the Guardian’s cricket pages may have seen my comment on Selvey’s article already, but if not, and in case it disappears over night, here it is the main part:
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10 recommends so far Clive, on a thread with only three posts in double figures. Of course, that’s no guarantee against the EmperorChafingDish treatment…
softlysoftly is easy meat, isn’t he? Still smile at the “Cook is worth six KPs in this situation” from last summer. The situation being one in which KP and Bell had far superior records to the dauphin.
Nice to see simonk back as well!
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So the ECB have given Selvey extended leave to produce an in-depth behind-the-scenes exclusive blah blah blah report on the Big Bash. where he continues his on-going bromance with David Saker. Since when was Selvey interested in T20 cricket? Four years ago the IPL was the home-wrecking scarlet woman Pietersen was pursuing instead of staying home with his lawful wedded test cricket wife. I smell something fishy going on.
Oh, and Angry Red Squirrel has already picked up on this gem:
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There’s a lively if brief discussion on the ‘Glory in Their Hands’ thread…
(Angry Red Squirrel is also northernlight71, in case you didn’t know)
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Ah, didn’t know that. Thanks, Aaron. Well done, northernlight.
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Indeed. Good old Selve, right at the cutting edge of contemporary developments. Fearlessly reporting from behind enemy lines. Now what’s this new fangled game called again? Cricket? 20/30?
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By the way, I forgot one thing. Selvey is such a hypocrite. Three years ago, during the drawn series in New Zealand, where we were mostly outplayed by the Kiwis and were saved by the skin of our teeth by Prior and Monty and a struck bail that refused to dislodge, some of us below the line had to PLEAD with Selvey even to mention the Kiwis in his daily reports. It wasn’t just the usual suspects, a lot of people were annoyed with his studied ignorance of anything that was going on outside the England camp and unwillingness to credit the Kiwis. Back then, he was incredibly sniffy about McCullum’s captaincy, and it wasn’t until “the most important tour ever” that he finally was willing to give him a break.
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Totally agree. Unfortunately he thinks we’re all stupid, with goldfish memories. I distinctly remember him saying that England weren’t lucky at Auckland, even though the effing ball hit the stumps without dislodging a bail.
Even outside Flower and the ECB, so much is explained by his friendships and personal likes (McCullum, for example) and dislikes (Michael Clarke, for example). I still think the reason why this was the “most important tour ever” is purely and simply down to the ECB’s investment in ***k’s New England finally starting to pay off. No other explanation makes any objective sense whatsoever, imo.
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He also kept repeating the line that the pitches prepared by the Kiwis were deliberately flat and that they had been playing for a drawn series from the outset. This enabled him to avoid the fact that Anderson and Broad had been completely outbowled by Southee and Boult, who got the ball to swing where Jimmy couldn’t.
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Steve Smith now averages over sixty in Tests which is some achievement.
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http://theoldbatsman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/death-of-gentleman-my-part-in-his.html
great read from Jon Hotten on the making of DOAG
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