As the saying goes, one out of two ain’t bad. Equally, both sexes should be preparing for a final, for this morning the problems in the middle order finally caught up with the women’s team and cost them the match. Throughout the group stages the top order had done most of the job, only for the jitters to kick in, the wickets to begin tumbling and a frantic scramble ensued to win matches that already looked safe. Against Australia the same thing happened, only this time the quality of opposition was superior. A fascinating thing about cricket is the collective panic that can set in to a side, and then happen repeatedly. Everyone in the team is aware of it, everyone about to go in to bat feels they are the ones to arrest the slide – and yet it proves impossible to do. The psychology of team sports is endlessly fascinating. T20 cricket more than perhaps any other form of the game can be about an individual raising their team to higher levels than perhaps they are at as a unit. Edwards, Taylor and Beaumont have been excellent and carried the side to this stage. The inability of those following to capitalise means they will go no further.
From the men however, it was dominant, as they cruised home against New Zealand with nearly three overs to spare – a result that is to all intents and purposes a thrashing. It was also the most complete performance from them in the tournament to date, for every side is more than aware that the firepower of England’s batting is their strong point. Moreover the victory over South Africa in the group stages means that every side will be thoroughly aware that they have the ability to chase down pretty much any target set, but on this occasion they didn’t have to because the bowlers did their bit, and more.
New Zealand will be deeply disappointed to have only made 153, especially after passing 100 after just 12.2 overs. At that point the generally useless score predictor beloved of the TV coverage was suggesting 197, which just goes to show that complex algorithms supplied after hundreds of hours of work are no better than equal to someone with a modicum of common sense and cricket watching experience thinking that they could get 200 here unless England start taking wickets to slow them down. Moeen Ali was the first to apply the brakes to the scoring, despite only bowling the two overs. Stokes and Jordan then increased the pressure to the point wickets began to fall under the strain of trying to raise the run rate. The latter in particular has improved by the game in this competition, while in Stokes England have a genuine death bowler for the late stages. Whoever England play in the final, this is going to be critical, for both potential opponents have explosive players who can ruin any carefully laid plans.
Alex Hales and Jason Roy made a sub-standard total look positively inadequate within 5 overs, rattling along at ten an over and removing any sense of pressure from the equation. Roy in particular was outstanding, demolishing a good attack while never slogging, while Hales, who has plenty of form for doing the same thing showed an excellent sense of game management in playing the supporting role to his partner. By the time Hales was dismissed for 20 runs that were far more valuable than in the numbers, England were over half way to their target with the better part of 12 overs to get the remainder.
It wouldn’t be England without a small wobble, and two wickets in two balls supplied that – Eoin Morgan’s penchant for first ball dismissals coming to the fore once again – but England had this under control and pretty much in the bag even then, despite Scott Styris’ entirely understandable pleas for a couple more wickets. Any prospect of the game going to the wire was removed by Jos Buttler brutally finishing the game off with an unbeaten 32 off 17 balls, yet ironically it was the present of Root, quietly going about his business that lent the sense of certainty to the outcome some time before.
And so a nation rejoices, right? Well not really. As has been observed before, this whole competition has barely registered with the wider public. In some ways that’s down to the perception (in the UK) that T20 is the least important format of cricket, and when England won the thing back in 2010, it can’t be said that open top bus parades were the result. Yet if the muted response to England’s first global tournament victory back then was the benchmark, this time it’s even more low key. Sky’s coverage has been as thorough as it usually is – at least for the men (the protestations that the failure to cover the England women was out of their hands is nonsensical, Sky are a very high value partner for the ICC, one who can and do push their case with them) but the newspaper coverage has been a little scanty and relegated to the inside pages, and while the BBC have certainly promoted the event in their TV reminders (not adverts. Oh no) it is without any sense that it has captured the zeitgeist.
The reality here is that cricket’s media footprint has declined to the point it’s a special interest sport, not a general interest one as it used to be. Here’s a little test for you: when was the last time you heard someone say they hated cricket? It’s so invisible they don’t have to any more, it doesn’t even exist as something to loathe. That’s no reflection on this current team, who are playing T20 how it should be played – indeed how only a couple of England players in the past demanded it be – which means that they are doubly unfortunate to be doing all the right things at a time where people don’t really care any more.
This isn’t carping at the England team, and it’s certainly not berating the print media, who respond to what their readers wish to see. But it is a dreadful missed opportunity that England can reach a world final, and rather than it be a catalyst for increased participation and interest, it merely serves to reinforce the sense of decline in importance for the wider public. The vast majority of people will see this result only in a 60 second round up on the main evening news. The showing of in game highlights has been a welcome development, so it isn’t that things aren’t being tried, with the proviso of refusing to recognise the bigger issue – the fear is that in England at least, it may be too late; not for the game, which will survive, but for cricket as a mainstream sport.
Reaching the final is a credit to this team, and they have every chance of winning the whole thing. What a pity so few will notice. What a shame Jason Roy’s innings today won’t be the thing everyone is talking about work tomorrow.
Being Outside Cricket 
I hate to admit it but I fell asleep and missed the entire England innings. There I was feet up on the sofa all ready to watch and next thing I knew I woke up with cramps and pins and needles and found we had one. This was not boredom I assure you but three disturbed nights looking after grandchildren catching up with me, but really I was not overly upset.
This tournament so far has been huge fun and I have watched nearly every game, including the associate teams at the start (good stuff there too) and enjoyed it all and such a shame that hardly anybody outside the Sky watchers know or care about it all. Surely this kind of tournament would get loads of viewers and generate enthusiasm and interest. It beggars belief that it is not accessible, not even highlights, for viewers.
I dislike the thought that I helped pay for Murdoch’s wedding reception to Jerry Hall, but it is a price worth paying in order for me to have access to the sports channel.
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We had ‘won’ obviously
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“It is undoubtedly true that the yorker, which England do not use as often as they might, is an excellent response to prodigious hitting, but only if it is delivered inch-perfect, otherwise it becomes one of the most hittable deliveries. It is neither a complete panacea nor indeed the percentage ball against a lot of players, particularly those with the bottom-hand muscle power to dig out and away even good yorkers”
(Mike Selvey, February 2015)
Jordan and Stokes seemed to bowl quite a few of those “most hittable” deliveries in the second half of the NZ innings where the opposition made only 64/7 and the game was largely won. A TV graphic showed that Jordan had bowled over 40% yorkers in his death bowling in the tournament. They weren’t all “inch-perfect” as the two wickets for Stokes with low full tosses demonstrated. For a “[not] the percentage ball” it seemed to work quite well!
Amidst all the kudos the MSM are going to fling at management for this campaign, I hope that some remember the contribution of Ottis Gibson.
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Yes, I actually remember that comment from a while back quite well, because it just didn’t make sense. A good yorker is very difficult, in any format. As to what comprises “inch pefect”, I wasn’t sure, because a batsman can move and change the length, and the line matters too, so there’s no point on the pitch that is inch perfect, it depends entirely on all the variables in play at the moment. Yorkers have been tying up good batsmen in every format for decades, why is it now not a good option?
It seemed an odd put-down, but I assumed at the time Selvey knew more than me about it. He probably still does when it comes to bowling, but I don’t believe a thing he writes anymore, and I assume any comment on bowling technique is agenda driven. I’ll go back to my belief in yorkers. NZ certainly had trouble getting those yorkers away today.
As for low full tosses, that’s another question. Stokes will probably be lauded for his wickets today, but they were cheap. It seems bowling a low full toss, once the guarantee of a boundary, is now a 50/50 chance of being a wicket as the batsman is compelled to try to hit it over the boundary. It’s not better bowling, it’s just riskier batting.
As for the actual result today, ie. England playing well, and England beating NZ, let me go to bed and see in the morning if it wasn’t all just a dream. Doesn’t seem right.
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A low full toss has always been difficult to clear the ropes with, it’s the elevation that’s difficult to achieve. The issue is the line of it, because if you’re a fraction off it opens up the whole field for a boundary. As batsmen are more inclined to try to hit sixes, it becomes a more useful ball than in the days of them stroking it to the fence.
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I don’t understand why anyone would think that Selvey would be an expert on anything.
What coaching qualifications does he have? How many books has he written? How many professional T20 games did he play?
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He has the qualifications of a career in country cricket. Unfortunately those qualifications don’t seem to have translated into a career as a journalist. Michael Slater was a great batsman, and Ian Healy was a great keeper, but…
Benaud went and studied journalism before he became a commentator.
The clock’s ticking.
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It’s just duch a crying shame, it really is! Remember the heady days of 2005 when cricket was “the new football”?? Talk about the ECB throwing the baby out with the bath water, they threw the whole bloody nursery out as well!!
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All is peace and tranquility. Sweetness and light. The new breed have won the Ashes, have won in South Africa and now made a final in a limited overs competition in India for heaven’s sake. They were right. We were wrong. Sackcloth and ashes (excuse the pun) all round.
I’ve missed today’s game, Work is pretty hectic. In a real positive sign one of my mates came over and asked how today’s game was going – so it isn’t invisible. But no-one else did.
But hey. Those that love the sport, love the England team are happy right now. And seriously, good for them. If you can feel that way, then absolutely brilliant. England needs you. Really needs you.
And well done to Jason Roy. Many people, me included, doubted him, but that’s what he can do. I see so much of Ally Brown in him it isn’t true. This more enlightened era of selection backs these players.and for that, well done. It paid off in making a squeaky chase a laugher.
This is an excellent young team, it has the ways of winning we rarely had before, and it has the belief to chase down runs in T20 and ODI formats.
Contrary to many out there who think I might be upset, well, you are wrong.
Meanwhile. Back to Mr Robot. The end of Episode 6. Wow.
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I love the sport, and whilst I don’t particularly care for the ECB, I do have high regard for the Natwest Blast and the players that play in it, and I think that the success of the England team reflects positively on them.
I’ve seen Jason Roy play live several times now and he’s always impressed me, I’ve always maintained that he and other similar quality batsmen in the NWB are as good if not better than whatever the IPL or BBL has to offer, and I’m glad that is being reproduced on the world stage and people are finally starting to recognise this.
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BTW, very interesting story in cricinfo on Waqar Younis about Pakistan’s effort. His 6 page critique to his Board which cricinfo has accessed makes you cringe. No wonder they underachieved, and it’s not just due to the lack of a home country to play in.
His criticism of Afridi is pretty savage. I’ve never understood the adulation people hold for Afridi and I’m pleased to see that I fall in the same camp as Younis on that.
Nice to see a coach that speaks his mind and a press prepared to report it. Although I guess his tenure as coach is now pretty tenuous.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/992819.html
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Mind you, in the video accompanying that article, he folded his hands in prayer and apologised to the whole nation, and requested the forgiveness of everyone, and sought the forgiveness “from all our mothers, including my mother” for the situation. So I guess a certain cultural rhetoric has to be allowed for.
The day Darren Lehmann requests forgiveness from his mother for the performance of Australia is the day my head will explode.
But Alistair Co…no, I’m not going to go there.
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Rumour has it that Waqar Younis is leaving and the man lobbying hardest for the job is Dean Jones. As rumours go, I suppose it is no sillier than Axl Rose joining ACDC
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“Roy in particular was outstanding, demolishing a good attack while never slogging”
Hmm! How many wild swings led to edges for boundaries? 🙂
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It’s 20 over cricket. There are always going to be edges. Slogfest this was not.
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Chris Jordan an apology.
In a recent piece entitled Fielders of Dreams, I had the audacity to suggest Chris Jordan’s bowling was the work of a Jade Dernbach tribute act. I felt guilty at the time and wondered if I should apologise to Dernbach immediately. Several weeks on…
Sorry CJ, never really doubted you.
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It’s always nice to see someone come good, especially when it matters most. Let’s just hope it lasts… at least for one more game.
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Nasser Hussain rewrites history:
“Guys like Jason Roy, Alex Hales and David Willey were all available to England going into last year’s 50-over World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. But the selectors weren’t brave enough to pick them”.
It was the fault of the selectors? Willey was injured, nobody was suggesting Roy that I can remember and Hales was of course selected. Who was it who preferred to pick Gary Ballance in the starting XI instead of Hales – and only picked Hales when all else had failed? Who had demolished Hales’s technique in a press conference only months earlier? Who had rendered Stokes unselectable by batting him at No.8? Who wouldn’t give Adil Rashid a chance even after the WC disaster? It couldn’t have been the coach who Nasser Hussain was backing, could it?
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I can remember Jason Roy being mentioned in a certain spiteful autobiography. Still what the hell does he know!
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Personally, I still maintain that there wasn’t much wrong with the squad (though Ballance should have been replaced due to his injury). The XI that faced India and Australia was probably the best we had available, without throwing debutants in. They bottled the team selection on the eve of the tournament and everything suddenly went into chaos.
Of course, had there been some long term planning after the end of the last Ashes whitewash, they could have brought some of the players in much sooner.
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Crucial moment of second SF?
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Kohli was on 1 at the time.
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Kohli brought on to bowl and takes a wicket first ball; 99m six by Andre Russell (it looked longer); Lendl Simmons twice out off what turned out to be no-balls; dew negating India’s spinners.
55 needed off last 5 overs.
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Ed Smith has a piece out on the “importance of Afghanistan’s exuberance.”
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/986479.html
I kid you not………
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You’ve just lost the “Ed Smith- the essayist” game 🙂
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Wow Windies Win!
The circle is complete.
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I won’t deny that was spectacular and I was excited – but a sporting contest? How many times is that the team winning the toss has batted second in a night game and won in this competition? The conditions killed India’s spinners.
Darren Sammy has won every toss in the tournament (indeed, he’s won nine consecutively in T20Is).
There will no doubt be some blaming the no-balls that took wickets – but WI still had Bravo, Sammy and Brathwaite in the hutch so how much difference did they make?
India, in the end, never really fired as a team in the competition. Kohli was out-of-this-world (even bowling in his Chris Harris tribute act style and taking a wicket) and the opening bowlers were impressive but too many batsmen didn’t fire and Ashwin had a horror show in the last two games.
I voted for WI-England for the Final in the cricinfo poll. It was the least popular option (only 3% support at the time). That doesn’t happen too often! (One of my other predictions was that Milinda Siriwardana would be a star of the tournament – that’s more like my usual accuracy…..).
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Hope no one goes to Colin ‘mediocre’ Graves for a quote ahead of the game.
Actually, where is Colin Graves these days? Has he been flushed down the ECB exec lavvy?
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Who?
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Last year’s KP debacle notwithstanding, you do wonder what they’ve got on him to have made him to shut up and drop out of sight quite so utterly. It’s like he’s become the ECB’s guilty secret. “Chairman? Let me see… no, I don’t think we have a Chairman. We have a President though…”
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Appearing at Oxted and Limpsfield Cricket Club’s Q&A a week tomorrow, 6:30pm (earlier bar). Don’t be late.
True fact. Not a very early April Fool.
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“…we hope you can join us to put some challenging questions to Mr Graves”, ventures the club’s website. We hope so indeed. Mine would be, “Colin, how many hours each day does Giles let you out of the gimp cage?”
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I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone for claiming before his appointment that Colin Graves would shake up the ECB and make it more accountable. I clearly didn’t realize that Giles Clarke has incriminating photos of Graves doing something unspeakable with a Yorkshire terrier. Or something else that would explain Graves’ transformation from a shoot-from-the-hip, no-bullshit hands-on leader into a trappist monk who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
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Outstanding win for West Indies. Great result👌👌👌
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Mark Butcher proving once again tonight on the verdict that he is the best ex- player pundit that Sky have.
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The WI T20 side is more cohesive I think than I’ve ever seen them . This is because the bulk of it has effectively been collectively Pietersened by WICB – except that since they consist together of the bulk of the talent they can’t all collectively be non-selected; WICB needs the money they will generate, but isn’t willing to pay them what they’d been paying – these guys are playing for 80% of the prize money, a $6K match fee, and nothing else. That’s it – the squad had to get to the finals to even get close to the guaranteed payout from the previous two T20s. All of this had been ‘agreed’ between WIPA and WICB, while the entire T20 squad but one is not represented by the WIPA and has been explicit about it.
As such, this is the last world cup and probably the last international match for the majority of the squad, even though they may not explicitly retire immediately afterward.
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And by the way, it’s once again really funny to see certain media figures be surprised that there are players on the West Indies team other than Chris Gayle.
I think Benn is going to be a big factor in the final.
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Selvey discovers who’s to blame for the women’steam exit:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/mar/31/england-women-harsh-insight-world-twenty20-mark-robinson#comments
It’s not the officer class. What a surprise.
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That last paragraph could be sold in a shit perfume shop as “essence of Selvey”.
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As Zeph and NL have pointed out on the thread, it smells a lot like Flowerism.
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Lovely comment from wctt to zephirine. Trying so so hard to be polite and fair-minded, yet falling so short.
Oh and – brace yourselves – p******man agrees with Mike.
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Saw your comment on a super thread NonOx. 😆
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I hoped you would, actually.
🙂
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Very disappointed with the behaviour on there.
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You find yourself reading some of the comments and going “Oh please”.
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Only ostensibly trying hard… It wasn’t long before ‘obsession’ and ‘parallel universe’ turned up.
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Undoubtedly this has been the most one-sided tossing competition in the history of the ICC.
Now, the ICC might finally start to see that something wrong with the toss deciding games, but only because India lost a toss – and the resulting loss of revenue, since a final of England – West Indies is not worth as much as a final featuring India. Or at least that should be the argument. If there is no difference in value, why are we being served the worst format that could possibly be organised?
India’s spinners were neutered because of the toss. But it has been like that the entire tounament at several venues. We have seen plenty of good spinners being reduced to cannon fodder because of conditions. Indian players and managers can’t complain about that. These conditions were not unknown, and both the BCCI and the ICC should have known about it.
It should be possible to organise a tournament somewhere, so that:
1) the games are broadcast during prime time in India
2) the toss does not decide the game
3) such tournaments allow the “smaller nations” to have a shot at it too. And not being rained out of the competition, because the organisers do not care one iota about them.
It probably would help if the ICC could be bothered to grow the game, so that there would be more potential venues available that do not suffer from problem 1 or 2. But that would require that the ICC actually backs up it tokenistic and ritualistic “meritocratic” talk with actual “meritocratic” action. Chances of that happening are minute.
Cricket will never be a game in which conditions do not (potentially) alter drastically over the course of the game, since the game takes too long for changes in weather not to affect it. But instead of maximising the chances of such things happening, as the ICC is doing now, they should look into ways of minimising the chances. Revolutionary idea, I know.
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When a team wins with only 2 balls to spare I would not have thought that the toss was that Important in the India -West Indies game. Perhaps on this occasion it was the fact that West Indies played better and didn’t get wickets with no-balls.
With the England -New Zealand game both teams got what they wanted from the toss and Kane Williamson was gracious enough to say that the better team won.
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Escort, here are the results in the tournament so far:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=3;result=1;spanmin1=14+mar+2016;spanval1=span;template=results;type=team;view=results
17 of the 22 matches have been won by the team that won the toss. Is that a coincidence? Is it a level playing field?
Williamson’s remarks show that he misread the conditions (NZ hadn’t played in Delhi while England were playing there for the third time). I don’t see how a close result disproves the importance of the toss – indeed, when a match is decided by fine margins then a factor like the toss arguably matters more.
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How many of those results would you say are a walk over because of the loss of the toss?
What do you think constitutes a hammering in this format?
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I looked at it earlier in the tournament: a hammering is winning by 6 wickets or more, or more than 20 runs. 20 runs is a lot in a T20I.
Those Full Members winning the toss have dealt out 11 hammerings to the opposing Full Member. Those losing the toss? Just one. That was India winning by 6 wickets against Australia with 5 balls remaining.
We have had 18 games between Full Members this tournament thus far. So if you win the toss, you have more than 60% chance to score an easy win. If you lose the toss, you have about 5% chance to score an easy win.
I’d say the toss is worth about 30 runs. That would be too much for an ODI, but the ICC apparently sees this as an insignificant problem for T20Is.
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I also looked back on the last T20I WC – the matches there were split almost exactly 50/50 between teams winning and losing the toss going on to win the game. I looked as well at recent ODIs and there more winning teams had actually lost the toss than won it.
This does suggest that the issue is not one that is general to one-dayers or T20Is – but has been more specific to this tournament.
One feature of the tournament has been that some captains have been very lucky, or very unlucky, with the toss. Sammy has won 5/5 and Morgan and Williamson won 4/5. Conversely, Dhoni, Afridi, Mortaza and Stanikzai all won only one each.
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Perhaps the Adam Hollioake assessment of T20 as told by Mark Butcher is a better way of looking at the results. He thought the team that hits the most sixes will win.
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Hi all
I’m here looking for some help actually. You see a small town near me is being invaded today, April 1st, by two England captains – Cook and Gatting to assist with something called Cricket AirForce One or something, here’s the link:
http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Alastair-Cook-Mike-Gatting-launch-2016-NatWest/story-29014146-detail/story.html
What I want to know is do I emigrate now before they get here or move quietly into a retirement home? It could of course be an AprilFool but the guy across the field from me won the Dymock 3rdEleven(might be 4th) player of the year last summer and he wouldn’t kid about this – help!!
Good to see you are still here – best wishes
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Boz, I hope you attended the said event, heavily disguised*. Looks like a photo-op for an ECB fund-raising brochure to me, but then I’ve become a cynic.
*PS It would have been unwise to go disguised as a pie. Or a deer.
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West Indies arriving back at their hotel after beating India:
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I like the vibe but, I’m afraid, looks like a clique.
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“It could just lead to the one of the most memorable of all English sporting triumphs”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-3519408/Eoin-Morgan-s-band-happy-hitters-looking-achieve-one-memorable-English-sporting-triumphs-Kolkata.html
Lawrence Booth taking the path of gentle understatement….
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Meanwhile Peter Hayter in The Cricket Paper has this article title.
Well, if we’re using 20/20 hindsight, I’d say Eoin Morgan. What say you?
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Puke making.
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His other article is entitled…”Forget KP and Dilshan! Nic Switched It Up First”
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Lawrence Booth is on turbo-chargers today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-3519395/England-cricketers-line-1m-bonus-beat-West-Indies-World-T20-final.html
“England’s cricketers will bag over £1m if they beat West Indies at Eden Gardens”.
England cricketers get paid money? I thought they got paid in seedcorn for their farms – except the c***s of course.
“the potential payout of £75,000 per man”.
How does the prize-money compare to that for Test cricket? What does it say about the game’s priorities? (I believe topping the Test rankings earns slightly less – but am happy to be corrected).
“The win bonus, which would come from the coffers of the International Cricket Council, the tournament organisers, and not from the ECB, is understood not to have been a topic of discussion in the dressing-room ahead of Sunday’s final”.
Is understood? From who? The dressing room that never leaks manages to leak that our good lads would never mention anything as vulgar as money? Only c****s talk about money.
“Even defeat would come with a little consolation: the runners-up at Eden Gardens will take home around £565,000”.
Allen Stanford wouldn’t like that.
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TheBogfather @TrevBog 18s19 seconds ago
@phaytercricket the who would @KP replace column, so trollingly solemn in desperation, so sad an evisceration purely for clickbait sensation
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Appropriate surname isn’t it. Just remove the ‘y’
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Peter hasn’t been a hater at all. Not that I’ve seen. Certainly not in the league of others. The headline just totally disappointed me. It’s worthy of pillocks who compare KP appearing as a pundit to a dead peado at a kids party, not Peter.
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I see @Englandcricket have removed their ‘hilarious’ April fools joke about KP being recalled for the final. Every time you think our Board can’t sink to new depths, they always surpass themselves…
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I missed that, Sean. Not been on Twitter much today.
Classy.
Unless you are April fooling me. Then I’m a mug!
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Did they really do that? If they did, then my anger which I thought had passed, is now wholly reignited. Pathetic.
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That’s not true England cricket didn’t tweet that at all ever. Why are you telling lies?
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Actually, @englandcricket did post a so-called April Fools tweet stating KP had been brought back into the T20 squad due to Alex Hales suffering a back spasm (or something very similar). They have since deleted the post.
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Did you see it Tregaskis?
Both you and Sean, two contributors to the blog and comments threads, of long-standing and not prone to exaggeration or misinformation have said it existed. I am sure there will be further comment.
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I will quote Tregaskis on Twitter to me:
D, In reply to your question on your comments thread about the ECB April Fools post about KP, yes I did see it. I’ve even tweeted about it today. There does not seem to be a reply option to your post asking the question.
This will do for me.
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If anyone ever wonders whether this blog is occasionally unfair to cricket journalists in the MSM, look no further than the front page of tomorrow’s Times:
Did Hughes even watch the second semi-final?
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Hmm… Image does not show… See here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce-4WJGWAAEgmGH.jpg
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I know he finished a distant third behind Saker’s mate and FICJAM, but he’s well worth his spot.
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The Guardian shows it can rip into a sport’s governing body when it chooses to do so:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/apr/01/f1-critical-mass-bernie-ecclestone-formula-one-baku-grand-prix
The ECB must be pissing themselves laughing that they haven’t had this sort of coverage. Virtually all the criticisms of F1 apply to the ECB (abandoning FTA coverage, chasing a fast and often dodgy buck, contempt for fans, cynical manipulation of the rules, diabolical governance).
Perhaps Bernie Ecclestone should find a successful but unpopular driver, designate him a c*** and ban him?
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Good piece on some of the deeper context with the West Indies by Jonathan Liew:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016/04/01/world-twenty20-final-west-indies-fuelled-by-insults-disputes-and/
There’s a priceless quote in there from Mark Nicholas’s tournament preview.
For a deeper look into some of the issues Liew raises, the Geek & Friends podcast 110 is something I cannot recommend too highly.
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D’oh!
Well done Mark Nicholas. We won’t be needing any further quotes from Colin Graves, then.
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So the usual washed up, moral bankrupt cricket journalists are still having to invoke KPs name to get any interest in their snooze fest columns. How deeply embarrasing for Peter Hayter that he is now so irrelevant, and has nothing to say that he has to invoke KP in not one but two of his columns. He joins the other losers like Selvey, Hughes and Pringle. Still living off KP. Still living off others work.
And according to Sean B even the governing body of cricket has sunk even lower. They use KPs name on the eve of the team being in a world final. How pathetic and how it reveals the kind of low life scum that runs English cricket and reports on it.
A genuinely funny ECB April fools day press release would be them claiming they are competent, and not India’s puppet. Now that would be amusing.
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It’s a lie because England did not tweet that
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According to Tregaskis they posted a claim KP had replaced Hales. Then removed it. How cowardly?
I believe him over you. I have no idea who you are or what your agenda is.
This type of behavior fits with the numerous dishonesty and moronic behavior we have seen from the cricket establishment over the last 3 years. The media still living off KPs name while hating his guts. But it’s the only way they have any relevance.
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Good insight into England’s yorkers and the coaching behind them from Atherton:
“New Zealand were unable to capitalise on a decent start, as Jordan and Stokes (and Liam Plunkett) rolled back the years and bowled some old-fashioned yorkers but with a modern twist: varying their line, sometimes aiming at the stumps, but occasionally challenging the umpire’s decision-making by pushing the ball wide. Wide yorkers to the left-handers, Corey Anderson and Colin Munro, proved especially effective.
Before every game and in practice, you will see Ottis Gibson place three sets of different coloured cones across the popping crease. This is what differentiates the modern bowler from his predecessor: he is not just looking to hit the hole at the end but also looking to be precise with his line, challenging the batsmen in two different ways”.
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This is an odd site as there are no ‘Reply’ buttons but in reply to Tregaskis and LordCanisLupus does it not occur to you that there are no mentions of the tweet by England that you claim to have seen anywhere else but here, no other website or newspaper website or journalist? I’ve searched a lot by many combinations of words and the only mention I can find on Twitter was an April Fool by Dan Kingdom but nothing else so are we supposed to believe that out of the 200000 followers of englandcricket twitter only two people saw it and they’re both here?
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I am not sure why there is an issue with reply buttons. That’s down to WordPress, not me.
I think coming on here and accusing people of “lying” isn’t really a decent way to start. There is a possibility, and I don’t know because I’ve not been on Twitter a lot recently, that this spoof Tweet has misled a couple of people. They aren’t lying. I know both of the commenters personally, spoken or conversed with them many times, and they aren’t prone to running wild. That’s why it has credence me.
You can come here, with “are you sure” or “could it not have been that spoof tweet” but you came into the room packing a verbal gun. Now I’ve got the usual suspect saying we’re going mad over it, which is hilarious.
The perils of “running” a blog.
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You have an issue with me but not with the Mark guy above calling England low life scum based on something that isn’t true and I don’t understand why when England did not tweet what is being claimed on here.
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I don’t have an issue with you. I think you might have approached it differently.
Mark can look after himself. This isn’t the first time he’s had a go at the ECB!
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He would wouldn’t he as Mandy Rice-Davies might have said. Our grey blazered friend monitors this sight obsessively in the hope of finding something to mock or get morally indignant about. He has had slim pickings lately so it’s hardly surprising that he pounces on this little morsel like a starving vulture
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Alan,
Good to hear from you.
If they can’t see which way the land lies with my attitude to cricket at the moment, and therefore the direction this blog might take from my perspective, then they might need to reset the radar.
They’ve got their way. If people still have it in their heart, and I have loads of mates who still do, then great. Enjoy it. I don’t begrudge them for a minute. But that’s not enough for some. It never is.
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If you are going to come on here shouting the odds about accuracy kindly have the decency to quote me accurately please. I didn’t say England, I said the people who run English cricket and who report on it. There is a difference.
Why do you even bother with this site? You people are obsessed by it. As Dmitri has said many times, you won. Congratulations?…Hip hip hooray. Although you lost the moral and intellectual argument. But still, a win is a win. However if you ever think I am going to change my opinion, or that I will one day have a Damacas moment and suddenly admit you were all right, I am afraid hell will freeze over before that day comes.
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Darren Sammy;
“Gods don’t love the ugly. We’re very wonderfully, beautifully made and that’s why we play exciting cricket.”
“Just thinking about lifting that cup tomorrow, I can almost foresee what’s going to happen after. But we have a game of cricket to play first,” he said.
“It’s going to be a match up of skill versus skill and mind power versus mind power, but I know we win the celebration part.”
I’m terribly, terribly conflicted. How could I, born and bred under the southern cross, possibly be hoping for an English win? But in the face of such arrogance and hubris, how could I not? At least Broad is not playing, that makes it more palatable. I’ll just focus on Joe Root, he’s class, I hope he wins.
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Ah. I wondered how long it would be…
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/apr/02/andrew-strauss-england-world-t20-final-west-indies
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Grrrr, beat me to it! 😉
Seems to be the first – but it won’t be the last. At least a few others might be able to contain themselves until after actually winning the bloody thing.
This after his reference to “keyboard wiseacres” and serial contempt for the associates, confirms Vic Marks has gone down the plughole.
Of course the (relative) failure of the women didn’t prove anything about anyone who manages them – it was all down to the players being unfit.
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Makes you sick, doesn’t it? The English would have made John Buchanan a deity before they ever got round to giving Adam Gilchrist so much as an OBE.
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Oh, we’ve got a “didn’t deserve the vitriol” in the sixth comment.
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We knew it wa coming. Only the officer class get any praise in this crony set up.
Morgan should get the plaudits really because he started to turn it round with the 20/20 team against India in 2014. (Long before Strauss was anywhere near the job.) But the media were to busy having a giant circle jerk in homage to Cook, and the fact that Jimmy Anderson bailed out England, and prevented KP from coming back. So they ignored the 20/20 game. Don’t think Agnew even bother going.
But after Morgan did his little PR spin with Nasser for the ECB, it will be quite funny if all the credit is given to Stauss. That is why the KP issue was always more than about just KP. The England players are about to discover that they are just cannon fodder, and even when they win the elites get all the praise.
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Why doesn’t p******man rename himself “emetic” and have done with it?
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Just realised that my response to the “vitriol” post (which mentioned how St Andrew once used a very naughty word to describe a professional cricketer, a word no-one BTL has yet resorted to) has disappeared without trace.
Combine that with the usual snowflakes talking about our “fixed agenda” and it’s not clear to me whether posting on the Guardian cricket threads is at all worthwhile any more, frankly. Bollocks to it, I’m bored.
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As I’ve said a few times, sir, they have their way, and now they want to humiliate and denigrate us just because we spoke out. These people never wanted to acknowledge what the argument was about, and settled cosily on it being all about KP. That turns the argument towards a binary pro and anti KP. It has never been solely that.
I don’t believe this schism will ever be bridged. I have no intention of being sorry for what I said, of apologising for being angry, for arguing against the status quo. Maybe when Cook is out of the way, perhaps it might. Maybe only then. And the damage may be beyond repair. Actually, I think it will please them very much, as we turn more introspective, become super critics, and wonder at their behaviour. 🙂
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I am convinced some of the BTL writers at the Guardian are Guardian journalists and their friends. Funny how thy seem to turn up in groups at the same time.
The media has become paranoid about BTL critics of their work. Pringle wrote a column about it. It was drival hiding behind a giant picture of Cook and pretending he was defending the players.
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I can only reply to that Vic Marks’ article in about 5000 words or not at all. I’m choosing not at all. That thread is seriously unpleasant.
I think I’m done with reading about England for some time – and, after tomorrow (which I will watch), with watching them for quite a while (maybe the Pakistan series will bring me back but I don’t know). My interest in county cricket has been totally killed.
I’ll stick to commenting about governance issues and certain series that appeal to me. I might give the CPL a try and possibly some games involving associate teams (if they get any).
I might give some other sports more time but I’m pretty disillusioned with most sport at the moment. (That’s just from the stuff we know – I suspect what we may find out in years to come about issues like drugs and fixing might make all that look like child’s play).
I’ve been through spells like this before although I’ve followed cricket as my main sport fairly continuously since 1975. The last one was around 2012. I always knew I’d come out of them. I’m not at all sure this time.
(Apologies if that’s a bit whiny and self-indulgent. I’m not claiming to speak for anyone but myself. I’m probably quite an untypical sport fan. But I feel better – a little – for having said it)
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Absolutely appreciate where you are coming from Simon. Sport has lost its way in the drive for money, money and more money.
I’ve just read the Guardian comments, and it’s the usual mix of snidey drivel, obsequious brown-nosing, and score settling. It’s why I don’t comment on there.
You will always be welcome on here!
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Know how you feel Simon. Just chill out.
Enjoy the cricket or whatever sport you watch. It’s getting harder mind, now we know how most of these sports are run.
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When I said reading, I meant in the MSM – I’ll still be reading here of course!
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Don’t know about serial contempt for the associates, but generally I still have a lot of time for Vic Marks as a writer and commentator. The ‘keyboard wiseacres’ was about the people BTL calling for Morgan to be dropped regardless of the fact he’s been chiefly instrumental in getting the side to where it will be tomorrow. (I did point out on a previous thread that in the interests of fairness Morgan should be allowed two years of crap scores and still keep the captaincy, but I think that comment perished in a mass cull.)
BTL below that Marks/Strauss article is a terrible thread, people shouting about how they don’t like this or that other poster (usually clive, who seems to have achieved some sort of perverse stardom). Guardian comments are heading rapidly down to YouTube level.
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Selvey was in the pub with a couple of old mates last night and posted a photo on Twitter.
Most of the replies were appropriately sycophantic. Thankfully there was one, from Gwyn Owen, that would have failed the Guardian safe space test these days.
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As if to prove Zephirine’s point:
mydoghasnonose LastWarriorPoet 50m ago
spot on
if you text the opposition on how to get your captain out you’ve pretty much gone beyond the pale
This particular turd was dismissed by *the ECB* within two months; has been debunked dozens of times BTL, with links and everything; has been satirised with reference to the dismal last third of Strauss’s Test career. And yet it still won’t flush.
There really has been no point to anything we’ve done for the last four years, has there? A high-class career has been tarnished for good, way way WAY out of proportion to the actual crime.
I think I’m burned out.
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I’ve never been that great a fan of Vic Marks – but had a little more regard for him which is probably why my sense of unhappiness with his recent writing is all the greater.
“Keyboard wiseacres” was made in the specific context of Morgan and, yes, there are some annoying posters who regularly call for Morgan to be dropped. They are mainly from the county cricket brigade who think that because Morgan doesn’t have a great CC record and doesn’t genuflect before its magnificence he isn’t one of their beloved proper batsmen. To me, however, it also feels symptomatic of Marks’s wider attitude in this tournament. I’m sure he never used to read BTL (probably the wisest policy). This tournament he has been reading BTL and he doesn’t like it – little snippy comments have been coming in (“a danger of zealotry among those championing the associates’ cause” etc). He’s talking about his customers, some of the people who pay his wages. Whether Morgan has got the team where they are today is another question – I’m inclined to think there’d be no observable difference if Root was captain. I suspect the key shift was when the Root-Butler-Stokes nexus became the dominant dressing room influence replacing Cook-Anderson-Broad but that’s just my view.
As for serial contempt for associates, I refer you back to:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/feb/07/cricket-world-cup-2015-england-australia-sri-lanka-new-zealand
The article he wrote praising this tournament’s format and organisation (while ignoring the farce of the pre-qualifying round) is the worst single cricket article I’ve read this year.
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As I put in the preview post (and before I saw this), remember all the plaudits for Hugh Morris in 2010?
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Mark I don’t know what you mean by you people, I don’t what a Damacas moment is. I do know that England cricket didn’t tweet what they’ve been accused of and that it was an April Fool by Dan Kingdom which has made fools of a couple of people but not of anyone with even a vestige of sense. I expect those fools who accused England cricket on here will apologise.
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I’ll let the Wisden Writer of the Year deal with the “vestige of sense” part.
You’re offended on behalf of England Cricket. Maybe this blog isn’t for you.
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Adrian,
I don’t know who you are or what you’re agenda is, but I do not appreciate being called a liar or a fool without a vestige of sense.
The fact that you are calling Tregaskis the same thing, shows what an idiot you really are.
Now, kindly crawl back into the pond in which you came from.
Sean B
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Oh dear a contestant for Mr Grey Blazer’s position as moral indignant of the year. The usual clichéd demand for an apology. Mind you it’s a sign of the times when everybody has to apologise for everything even though it happened years ago and is nothing to do with them. It has however now reached the ultimate height of absurdity of anyone taken in by an April Fool is required to apologise for it. But hey ho if it keeps these moral indignants happy I humbly apologise for the many that have taken me in over all these years whatever they were
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Text book troll behavior.
1 go on site whose opinions you don’t agree with.
2 make provocative statement that you can’t back up, and call other users liars.
3 clutch pearls and feign outrage when people call you on it
4 claim innocence and demand apology from others.
They have troll schools where they teach this sort of idiocy.
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You having fun, Mark?
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I had a word with Dan Kingdom, and he confirms that he did change his Twitter avatar to the England Cricket three lions logo (white out of red), so it is possible that this is what I saw, though from memory I am convinced the twitter handle was @englandcricket.
If I was taken in by an April Fools jape, then fair play to Dan Kingdom and mea culpa!
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