So here we are. A “must win”. They are all “must wins” from here on in. It’s gone from “we can beat anyone on our day” and “being young and exciting” to “a potentially disappointing early exit”. Hang about. Have we been here before?
It’s funny. The whole thing is funny. The press are just caught between two stools. Of course, we can win against South Africa, but then again, we are probably more likely to lose based on recent performances against them. Those five limited overs losses on the bounce seem to have some major significance now.
The key message for me from yesterday was how a loathed individual, pretty much slaughtered (rightly) for his antics in Australia, is still picked by the most dysfunctional board, arguably, in top level international cricket, and wins the game for the West Indies. He has the label “T20 gun for hire” attached as a disparaging description. He has a double hundred in a World Cup ODI, and cares so little for test cricket that he’s made the effort to make a triple century in Galle, of all places (as well as the one at St.John’s). He’s an individual talent, a genius, a matchwinner, a non-conformist, an arsehole, if you want. But he won his side a big World Cup match. Meanwhile, you fill in the rest.
If you want your team to be a corporate, well-drilled set of altar boys, I suggest you might get to wait a fair amount of time to win major awards. We treat our time as #1 in Test Cricket for a year as some sort of climbing of Mount Olympus. Australia, for one, must be laughing their heads off at that. Especially as in that time we lost 3-0 to Pakistan and 2-0 at home to South Africa. Now we have a bunch of lovely, likeable lads, that the whole of England should get behind or there is something wrong with you. The most major indiscretion is someone punching a locker room door, for heaven’s sake. There’s individual genius in there – we’ve seen it in Stokes, we’ve seen it in Buttler, and even seen a bit in Morgan. We have a world class player in all formats in Joe Root. But Stokes aside, I don’t see any bastard in them. They all seem to be perfectly delighted to be there, playing some good cricket at times, but would you put money on any of them playing an innings like Gayle in that scenario?
As I said, things can turn around. I’m not daft. But I’m not hopeful either. However it pans out, it won’t matter. An early group exit will be put down as another piece of experience for a young and improving team, and now we can put this distraction away and concentrate on 50 overs cricket. A semi-final placing will be “good progress” and the coaches will be lauded, and the ECB hierarchy quietly content. Anything more than that and the eg0-less Strauss will be given plenty to have an ego about. There will be more puffery than a pipe smokers club.
Meanwhile, and isn’t it still fun, that those who wish we’d all just shut up about Pietersen carry on going on about him. The poor lambs are now offended by his presence on Sky’s coverage. One person today said, and I quote…
“putting KP on for an England match is like putting Jimmy Saville in charge of a children’s party”
It really isn’t. I’d evaluate your life if you start writing tossery like that. But while I have time for some of those commenting on the issue on Twitter (it just amuses me that the likes of us are accused of “tenacity” when the same old lines are repeated on the other side of the argument) it’s this tendency to just ignore the underlying issue and hope it just goes away. It clearly isn’t. It clearly won’t. Going to safe spaces, purging BTL of the naysayers, isn’t going to work. It just isn’t. I have no hope of KP playing for England again – and you know that, and the others know it too if they take time out and read the blog. I have some hope that continuing to highlight the awful behaviour of our wonderful cricket board, and the assistance of a supine press, illustrated in the utmost clarity by the Guardian and it’s laughable cricket correspondent, but aided an abetted by our perennial favourites at the Mail, Indy and Sun, will one day make a change. Hope is all we have, because they know the storm has blown over, and the odd Gayle isn’t going to make a difference.
I will give one of the anti-KP crowd one thing. He’s right. I don’t get to watch much cricket at the moment. That’s because I have a job, and these matches are played in job hours. I also have friends and colleagues, and I like socialising and talking many things with them. Given the attitudes of the press and our governing body, in reverse order of importance, I’m not exactly making buttons to see the highlights. You lot keep me up to date.
So to tomorrow. Will we be moping at the end of another campaign, with our bowling not good enough and our batting not great enough? Another tournament sacrificed on the altar of expediency? Or will we be back blowing smoke up their arses again! That “we” is our media, not me.
I’m so sorry I won’t give in. I’m so sorry that I offend some of them. I’m so sorry that this blogger isn’t being nice and happy with Corporate Team England. I’ll live.
Comments below…..
UPDATE – This doesn’t look good. It’s The 12th Man’s company doing the copyright protection:
I give up, a proper takedown notice this time for an Australian cricket video, end is nigh pic.twitter.com/jLbbp680dj
I haven’t been on here much in the past week. Basically I’ve had to take a very important decision in my personal life, and now it’s finalised, I can sort of concentrate on the blog again.
Providing that I give a stuff.
Sure, we’ve had the smoke blowing up the England team’s arses from the lot out there, and back at base, and while some of the big beasts are sitting this tournament out, there is still enough Farby to go round. A human energiser bunny, a man who could find the bright side out of a foggy day, Farby is doing the old ra-ra, and we’re supposed to be going loco with excitement. Straussy gets his props too, as the visionary who told England to stop being shit at limited overs cricket, and bob’s your father’s brother. Simples.
Tomorrow is a decent test, but as was shown today, anything can happen in T20. I won’t be watching as I’m still gainfully employed, but feel free to comment below – as you lot do!.
Thrilled at the reaction to the county cricket piece! Won’t be bothering with that again for a while!!!!!
In all seriousness, it has been a hell of a week. Blogging was the last thing on my mind. There were so many thoughts going through my head that I really paid no attention to much of anything outside of family and decision-making. I put those two posts up last Friday and it is interesting to see what gets the attention and what doesn’t. I hope people understand that I can’t do this as regularly as I maybe was one or two years ago, partly because the material is harder to come by, and because the enthusiasm for the main team I write about is at an all time low.
But we’ll struggle on. Have a good evening, and for those watching the cricket, enjoy!
I’m a reasonably contented admirer of Lord Palmerston when it comes to my Victorian history. So much more interesting than Peel, Gladstone and the others around that time. A bit of the old Gunboat Diplomacy…. Without going all FICJAM on you, I commend his response to the Schleswig-Holstein question to you…
“Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.”
I feel much the same way about the English cricket summer. For Schleswig Holstein read what to do about Leicestershire? It is a question that, simply, cannot be answered. We have inherited a long, historic structure of 18 counties we would not replicate now if starting a competition. There are variances in size. A solution cannot be found that will satisfy all parties.
“We want less cricket” say many of the players, but like their peers in other sports that won’t be matched by “we’ll take smaller salaries” which is the logical consequence of a reduction in productivity in these modern times. “We want a T20 series with all the stars, in a block, with franchises” say the progressive looking so and sos who see and smell a quick buck. But the counties see their golden goose being taken away after building up the audiences the past couple of years, each time those calls for T20 to be “sexed up” reaching a crescendo after the Big Bash concludes and our retinue of shiny toy merchants, probably including me, want to see us imitate it. The ECB have elongated the season so that the county championship starts in the first rather than the latter weeks of April, and that it finishes a lot closer to October than I might recall it doing so in the past. Then there’s the tricky old issue of the other competition. The not 20, not timed, format. 40, 45 or 50 overs. Played in a block or throughout the season? Played when? Where? How? Who cares? Why?
From 1905 the County Championship had 16 clubs. Number 17 came in 1921, number 18 in 1992. In 2000 we went to two divisions with three-up, three-down. This was too much sporting meritocracy from those who wanted “long-term planning” and was reduced to two-up, two-down. We’ve had the Sunday League, the B&H Cup (55 overs for a long time, 50 when it finished and with a mid-season final) and the 60 over cup which had that first Saturday in September final. There were play-offs in the 40 over comp, some other odd formats based on where you finished in the county championship for the 50 over comp. We’ve had short season T20s, 16 game pre-qualifying T20, and 14 games (where it doesn’t seem to matter that this is disjointed, but the sanctified County Championship does). The County Championship has been three days, three and four days, and now all four day cricket. It was never everyone home and away in the 18/17/16 team days (Can’t vouch for the latter back until 1921). There were fixtures a week in the CC for the entire Summer, until recently when they were bookended by and large at the ends of our season. We’ve had two universities, then six, then lord knows what. We had a pure knockout cup, and one with group phases. We’ve had leagues in limited overs. We’ve had absolutely bloody everything.
I am the first to rail against the “sport as a business” mantra. The sport needs to sustain itself as a whole. It needs to provide an outlet for talent to grow and develop before it reaches international standard, and it needs to do that in as cost-effective, but long-term way that it can. Those two ideals rarely coalesce. I’m reading “Barbarians At The Gate”, a book about the leveraged buy out of RJR Nabisco in the late 80s, and it’s plenty of making lots of money, but absolutely eff all to do with long-term growth. It’s short-term wealth and share-prices, and long-term well…… we’ll deal with that when we get there. That’s the times we live in now, kicking the can down the road, and hoping to get through another season. I said in a Tweet a few days ago that you can’t solve the glorious beast that is county cricket. Once we get that through our heads, then we can deal with what we have.
The one part of the equation that never seems to get called into question is the players side. We see many a survey complaining about their workload, that county cricket loses its meaning, that it’s a treadmill, flitting between format. OK. So they’ve said they want to work the system into blocks. They have their wish, supported by Director Comma, another of those brought up on the system of county cricket, but not so keen to laud its qualities once he got to the international limelight – see also Atherton, Mike. It does have considerable qualities. The standard, by and large, isn’t all bad. Overseas superstars didn’t come over here to experience our cold Aprils, our magnificent May ambience, or the leaf-fall of early Autumn. Mr Rabada isn’t coming to Canterbury for early season high jinks. It is a great school of learning, even now, when the top stars don’t come along. The T20 competition, much maligned, although not the unmitigated success some of its key plaudits would have us believe, isn’t a bloody disaster either. It seems we’re more interested in dressing up a competition to flog overseas (a la Big Bash), than one that works. And the Blast has posted increased attendances. Friday nights worked. There were good games, with good players, and crowds seemed to like it. It’s not for me, but then that’s not who it is aimed at. Matt Dwyer, the ECB’s recruit from Australia to get participation levels back up, said this in an article for All Out Cricket:
Here we get into the debate of TV coverage, which is a very separate topic and one with a life of its own. T20 in a block is for the players, it is not for the fans. As many point out, if a team has 7 home games in two blocks spread over, what, three weeks, at £20 a pop per ticket, how are families, who they want to attract, going to be able to watch all of them without a significant reduction in ticket prices. Those same ticket prices that counties depend on, and can be spread out more easily over fortnightly periods by and large, for their core revenue? I could make the flippant point that it isn’t about the international team, as we don’t choose our international T20 team on merit, but it’s about a route by which counties can better self-fund. They still need the revenues from the test and other international arenas, but it’s a way for them to contribute better. It’s damn easy for Yorkshire or Lancashire or the KPs to bang on about “franchise cricket”, but they have no plan for how those below that amazing height are going to keep the international cricketers, test cricketers of the future gainfully occupied.
I’ve seen mention of a pooling of resources, but that over-arching care for all attitude left these shores in all sporting formats long ago. Football fucked over its have-nots by making the Premier League for the benefit for the 8 or so clubs who would only get relegated if they left Tim Sherwood in charge too long, and pooling the perpetual vast revenues among themselves. Those smaller clubs who tried and dared became like Icarus. They got to the sun, paid out mightily, got relegated, went bust. Rugby union has its big club teams, and I’ve no idea of the strength beneath that level. Rugby leagues big prizes seem to reside in the big four clubs at the top of the game (Leeds, Wigan, St Helens and Warrington, I’m thinking). It’s business, not altruism. There will be a point where a Yorkshire franchise, perhaps run by similar people who run Yorkshire might say “hang about. Why should a Derbyshire be getting a cut of my hard work?”. The fact the county championship has 8 test venue counties and Somerset says a lot. It’s probably already happening. I’ve heard it said about my county side, that it isn’t really even a cricket club. It’s a successful conference facility running a cricket team.
Which leads me on to the Championship. Many of us profess to love it. That it’s just a wonderful thing. And it is, and I do. My fellow author isn’t so enamoured. Or so he’s told me. But do I support it? Do I hell. Why not? Because I have a full-time job, and a wife and dog to spend time with when I’m not there, and my wife isn’t a cricket fan. Any days I do go are on my annual leave, and I’m not taking too many of them in the summer for that. When I have gone, I’ve been the benefactor of free tickets. I’ve bought my own food and beverages. Great, at last season’s Middlesex v Yorkshire Day 3, I saw the newly crowned champions, a magnificent fightback by that North London mob, a Toby Rowland-Jones hundred AND I got to meet Mr Declaration Game and Mr Wigmore. A tremendous day out. I hardly contributed to the coffers though. I have stumped up some entrance money in the past, of course, but it’s not going to cover the hourly rate of a jobbing county pro, let alone the top boys. It is not economic. It will never be economic. I’m inclined to say leave it the hell alone. A messing about of the format is going to achieve nothing except annoy some bloody loyal followers of the sport. The sort this lot can’t get shot of in the chase for the Big Bash Street Kids.
I’ve done 1600 words, and I’m no nearer the answer. And nor are the people on the ECB committees and such like. Nor are any of us out there. There is no answer. Like the Scottish football league trying to do all it can to make it interesting, when it’s really only about two teams once the blue lot get back to the top of the pile, there’s no real point. It is what it is. A Big Bash type league isn’t going to do for cricket that the Premier League and all its bombast has supposedly done for football (our recent European club form is lamentable, our national team is pure Championship level in world terms), and deep down, people, you really all know it. You really do.
Me? Leave the County Championship as it is, even moving to three-up, three-down, but not fussed. A pure knockout 50 over comp. Even invite Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark whoever to play in it. If it’s 18 teams, then one preliminary round, drawn at random, then a straight knockout with the Final played in June. T20 – well the Blast worked for audiences so I wouldn’t mess with it. This one I’d invite the national teams as well, have 21 teams, 3 pools of 7, each pool winner and second going through and the four best remaining records go into a Wild Card round, a la NFL. The four best records get home draws for the QFs, then there are home semis for the best record, and a Final. But it’s just a pipe dream. They want an 8 team tournament to get the mythical “best players”.
Of course, the national team lays over the top of that, like the hippo on the silentnight bed. Writing about that will be another 1000 words, and it’s late, it’s Friday, and Lord Palmerston is probably right. I’d forgotten about them.
How many times since January 2014 has Alastair Cook “almost resigned”?
Are there people out there that believe that the reinstatement of Kevin Pietersen to the England team means we wouldn’t have lost major test series since?
Why was Kevin Pietersen sacked?
Why wasn’t Kevin Pietersen picked for the World T20?
Does asking Question 1 above Below The Line on The Guardian mean you are banned from posting?
Why is Giles Clarke gainfully employed by the ECB?
Could India and the ICC give less of a f*** about the “Qualifying Tournament” for the World T20?
Do any of our print media still believe the Big Three carve up is a good idea, or as compromises go “not bad”?
What do we do with county cricket?
Is Colin Graves allowed out in public yet?
Precisely why doesn’t Andrew Strauss trust a certain individual?
And what the hell has that to do with team selection?
Who at The Cricket Paper thought it a terrific idea to give Derek Pringle two columns a week?
Which state-run media organisation trained the people responsible for the Team England Twitter feed?
Are the ECB embarrassed at the fact they will be hosting a 10 team World Cup in 2019?
Why is James “Gary Ballance” Whitaker still gainfully employed at the ECB?
Can the media give us a reason why Duncan Fletcher was hounded from office after a disastrous Ashes tours, with lots of harsh words, but Andy Flower is sanctified?
Just what is Paul Downton doing now?
Will the ECB be voting for Giles Clarke as ICC head honcho? (nicked that one from Sam Collins, but good grief, it needs answering)
There’s loads more, and it’s blatant filler, but hey, add some more of your own. It’s not as if anyone wants to answer them, after all.
Tomorrow is the start of the World T20. Well sort of. In fact anyone could be forgiven for not knowing when the tournament actually starts, even with the fixture list in front of them. Indeed there are 12 matches in two groups made up of the sides outside the top eight that might be called qualifiers, or might be part of the main tournament. Or could be something else. Does anyone know what is going on here? There are two groups in the first round and then we go into into the Super 10s, where it starts properly. I think. So it starts on the 15th. Or possibly the 8th. You do have to take your hat of to cricket administrators, they do a fantastic job of trying to pretend they care about those not at the top table while at the same time making it as hard as possible for any not in the club to get anywhere.
It’s not exactly surprising it should be all confusion, given that until a few days ago no one knew for sure whether all the matches would go ahead, how to get tickets or even where the games might be. For cricket tour operators outside India it’s been something of a nightmare, two weeks notice of ticket sales before a tournament is entirely impossible to organise anything. Pointing fingers is the easy bit, the reality of things is that we go into this tournament with few outside of those paying religious attention to the thing having much idea what the hell is going on. Tournaments that begin this way tend to then struggle to catch the imagination of the wider audience. Having said that, it’s in India (well it had to be in India, Australia or England – the Big Three stitch up ensured that) which is to all intents and purposes the home of T20, despite what the ECB might think, so the crowds will be large and vocal, especially if the home team do well.
Yet how many in England are aware that it is happening, and of those how many know how it will operate? This is not an idle question, for it is the only global tournament England have ever won, and should garner attention. Yet the media coverage here remains somewhat limited, and newspapers in this day and age give their readers what they want – clickbait might be the term of choice, but there’s a commercial imperative behind that, and when cricket is buried away, there’s a good reason for that. We can of course remind everyone that with the competition tucked away on Sky, it’s also out of sight and out of mind, and all debates around cricket’s wider popularity in this country seem quite content to skirt the elephant that has parked itself squarely in the middle of the carpet.
As for how the tournament will unfold, who knows? T20 is the format above all others which gives weaker sides a chance, essentially in cricket the longer the game the more certain it is the stronger side will prevail, which is an excellent reason behind making sure that the bigger sides (by which read “wealthier and more powerful sides”) have several opportunities to make sure they get through to the latter stages.
The likelihood is that the winner will come from one of India, Australia, South Africa and possibly England or New Zealand, with the home side’s familiarity with conditions a big advantage, but it is still quite open.
Also today the ECB announced the new format for the county season, which appears to amount to a reversion to how it was three years ago. There are of course a variety of opinions around this, and those dead set against any idea of city based franchise cricket pleased with the outcome. The problem with this debate is that it’s forever around the fringes – this is not decided as some item of pure principle about the history of the game in England, it’s about county chairmen ensuring that the game’s revenues work for them primarily. Understandable of course, for turkeys tend to be reluctant to vote for Christmas, yet the claims that this represents the finest form of T20 tournament this country can host is palpable nonsense, as even the most cursory of glances at the Big Bash should demonstrate. There are always going to be opinions about what is the best thing to do, but let’s not pretend for a moment it’s based on adhering firmly to questions of integrity.
Since I’m spending the next two weeks in a variety of places around Europe that doesn’t include “home” for more than one night, I shall be mostly absent until the latter part of the month. Hooray I hear you cry…see you on the other side.
I wrote this piece at the beginning of last week, and I’m going to put it up without amending it from then. I hope it still works.
Admin Matters – Their Business Is OUR Business
It’s one of Giles Clarke’s bon mots. That “no-one should be interested in sports administration”. I know many supporters of sport feel the same way. “Can they just get out of the way and let the sport play out” they say. “It’s not worth worrying about bad administration. What is there we can do?”
This could go the way of one of my usual diatribes about how sport isn’t what it used to be, how business has corrupted the sporting ethos, how money is much more important than the sport itself. And I probably could bore you senseless as I go over all that again.
I stopped going to Millwall at the end of the 2012 season. Why? We were a lower-middle Championship side then, probably punching a little over our weight, and yet I felt I didn’t really associate myself with the team being put out there. We’d survived the drop due in no small part to a useful old player called Harry Kane. But he wasn’t our player, of course. We’d loaned him in. As we did with Ryan Mason. With Benik Afobe. We were getting more and more loan players in. They style of football was boring, all about surivival and defensive resistance. This was because a drop into League One was seen as a footballing disaster. It wasn’t like that in the recent past. We survived and thrived in that league below by bringing on youngsters, or snapping up wily old pros and lower league talent to prosper. That’s not the way now. It’s all about borrowing other team’s players.
But I’m digressing. Sport is about loving what is out there. It’s about enjoying the moments you are at a venue, or watching on television. One such moment occurred this weekend. Oklahoma City Thunder were at home to Golden State Warriors in a regular season game. The game ebbed and flowed, the Thunder not quite sealing the win, and the Warriors keeping it close. The game went into overtime, and with 20 odd seconds, the game was tied. Then this happened….
The Warriors are not my team. But it is watching that total class act do something truly extraordinary that defines what sport is about to me. It’s about enjoying the best being the best, and indeed, enjoying sporting contests with ebb and flow. I love watching Barcelona, but not when they are duffing up some mid-table nonsense, but when they are in a contest. A true battle against a foe they could lose against. That’s when you see how good they are, and why the Champions League is as successful at is, because for all the fact that they win it more often than others, Barcelona sometimes struggle. Tainted by money and used by the rich to get richer the Champions League maybe, and that daft nonsense about putting the rich teams automatically in defines why business should just foxtrot oscar, but even in its present form it still knows that it needs to excite.
It is that excitement, passion, emotional investment, the need for good competition and entertainment that drives sport. The fact is, these are traits that are an advertisers or businessman’s dream. This is a demand that is super-loyal, and takes a lot to break. It is a clientele that when they fall for something, will become irrationally devoted to it. Association with your team, or your sport, is seen as a reinforcement, even sub-consciously, of what you believe in. But still they want more. The best playing the best more often, completely ignoring the short-term “gains” with the long term contempt those contests engender if they happen too often. It’s their relative rarity that makes them special. The World Cup is special because it takes place every four years. So are the Olympics. Sports administration just wants to make money, by and large. In F1, how can you have a grand prix in Sochi, but not in Germany like last year? How can Monza be under threat, but there be a race in Baku?
But it’s pernicious. I heard someone say that what else was all this football from all round Europe on TV for now? What is football on TV channels now other than a vehicle for in-play betting? Check out how many betting adverts there are on all football broadcasts. Betfair, Skybet, BetFred, Bet365, Betway, whatever that one Swann did, BetVictor, William Hill, The effing Ladbrokes Life, Paddy Power…. and that’s off the top of my head. I know a gambling addict, and I know that watching a football broadcast now is akin to mild torture. Football is the betting industry’s cash cow, and as some say, it doesn’t matter who it is, as long as it is televised. That has been levelled at cricket, with the reputation that affixes itself to any ODI that has a collapse, or a T20 where scoring rates slow surprisingly. I’m sorry, I find that objectionable. I want to watch sport, not intervals between middle class, mainly white blokes, celebrating whatever wins they have, or flogging me free bets.
But it’s money, and that’s what matters, and keeping our players in the huge pay to which they’ve become accustomed (I read today that Nathan Loftus Cheek is on £65k a week) and the next TV contract (£11m a match – just let that sink in) is just going to make it worse. But people can’t get enough of it. The English Premier League is a worldwide “brand”, is successfully run if you just look at the bottom line, and as far as we all know, not corrupt. I said, as far as we know. Again, despite some rumours floating around, we are given to believe that English cricket is largely without sin, but how do we know?
The “Paul Downton Locked Cupboard Under The Stairs”. Currently occupied by Colin Graves
Contrasting the organisation of our behemoth “best league in the world (c)” and guardian football authorities with the ECB is interesting. The President of the ECB was awarded the post because it would have been too bloody to get rid of him altogether. So they created a post for him (the head of the FA is being pretty much forced out by the “blazers”. There’s much rejoicing that he will have to face the DCMS Select Committee, but it’s a Pyrrhic Victory getting him there now – although it might be jolly good fun. We have Colin Graves, who will obviously need a very long sheet of paper to detail what he’s been up to this past year, because, frankly, other than the KP thing, who the hell knows? Tom Harrison is lauded in some parts, but comes across as a slightly aloof, extremely dismissive, sharp suited chap we’re totally used to and who most of us would cross the road to avoid. The press office have changed little, we have a North Korean-like Twitter feed (it’s been ten years since Cook’s debut, which they commemorated twice this week), which is so resolutely upbeat it should be prescribed downers forthwith. The counties control the agenda, and change seems to be wrung out of them like a fiver out of my wallet when the charity collection comes round. I’d wager all the bosses of these counties, in their business lives, are great proponents of “change” but in this world, they seem rather reticent.
The award at the SJA last week for Death of a Gentleman has opened the window a bit, and the light is slightly seeping in. The MPs had a screening on Monday, and more and more clubs and institutions are showing it (I went to one at an unlikely venue, it has to be said). The word is getting out, and yet we still feel all so powerless. Our fears for the game fall on the deaf ears of administrators who want the power, and its measurable unit, money. We are to be monetised, as Gideon Haigh says in the film. We have no say. I understand people feeling that one voice doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
I’ve just finished “The Ugly Game” about the bid to win the 2022 World Cup. It is a book that has made me incredibly angry. Do NOT confuse this with “surprise”. I remember talking with people many years ago who said Joao Havelange was a crook, and Sepp Blatter was learning at his side. Blatter is the archetypal head of a crime syndicate. He’s not getting his hands dirty, but he’s certainly making sure that anyone becoming his henchman is going to get their’s very mucky. As Michel Platini is finding out, as Bin Hammam did before, if you take on Blatter, you are assured of your own destruction. The book actually made me feel sorry for Bin Hammam, would you believe. A billionaire businessman, bribing a way for Qatar to win the bid, and then disowned afterwards by both FIFA and his own royal family, as a result of getting too big for his boots and challenging Blatter. The list of corrupt practices in the FIFA “family” is relentless, yet the organisation is run as some sort of private slush fund for its corrupt members. The motto being “don’t get caught” but even if you do, we’ll bring in some judge on our dime to bury the evidence. Even today, Charles Sale repeats this line about the Qatar bid….
It emerged after the FIFA Congress in Zurich that the still-to-be-published Garcia report into the bidding process for Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 has no smoking gun in its details.
The report will only the see light of day when an investigation into the conduct of Thailand’s Worawi Makudi is complete. But even if Garcia has uncovered one or two instances of bribes playing a part in those murky votes from 2010, it would not be enough for either country to lose the World Cup.
One or two? Jesus wept. Sale’s being a muppet here, because the Sunday Times ran this story to saturation before the World Cup in 2014, and there’s evidence that a key man bought votes. He did deals, it seems, with Spain to secure the Latin vote. He broke rule after rule, and yet he gets sent into purgatory and the paymasters, the people who get to reap the spoils have plausible deniability. And there is precisely fuck all we can do about it. Except speak out.
Sports administration, be it in football or cricket, needs vision and it needs to be open and transparent. It should run the sport, not be the sport. It should keep itself to matters organisational, and should not be intervening in the playing side (and if it does, it should be open and transparent as to why – and you know who I am getting at here). Sport has always been a business, and yet, now, it is more corporate than ever. That corporate nature is built upon those people who love moments like the Curry long-range shot, the Messi genius, the thrill of Grant Elliott’s semi-final six (which I committed to DVD last night) and such like. Moments of drama and excitement. They are up for sale, and you’ll pay the price. They are up for monetising you and your love, knowing it is an inelastic demand that takes a hell of a sacrifice to break. It preys on a form of addiction, and you, the punter, feel like can’t do anything about it. It’s wrong. Sports administration matters all right. You just choose not to admit it. This is OUR game they are flogging. Not their’s.
But it doesn’t matter, does it. Because they are ruining what you love. It’s always the same. When they are gone, with their damage, we will still be here. Paying the next lot the cash.
Chris Jordan in his temporary role as a Surrey opener. Did he have what it takes?
Philip, aka Batting With The Bola (Too long a name for the heading!), who can be found on Twitter @pgpchappers has kindly written a piece for us on what he thinks is required from an opening batsman. As usual, I’d like to express my great thanks for the time and effort put in to this post (and for Philip’s previous post on batting technique too).
Feel free to jump in, have some questions, and I’m sure Philip will answer.
The England team has had many struggles working out what should be their opening pair since the retirement of Andrew Strauss. Rather than say who I thought should be playing which like most people seems to be a guess, I thought I would write a few words on what I think a successful opening pair needs to do, which I hope will spark some debate. Feel free to disagree and challenge in the comments section.
I have set this up with a few headings which I have then tried to elaborate on them – clearly I won’t have thought of everything and they are in no particular order, but what I have tried to do is look beyond the obvious (with the exception of the last one). With the coaching I do I try to work on how players think about their game and read the situation rather than just focussing on technique as especially in club cricket this isn’t something that is generally worked on.
Putting pressure on the opposition bowlers
Barnes, Morris, Haynes, Greenidge, Slater, Sehwag, Hayden and Warner – all tremendous attacking opening batsman for genuinely great teams and they also set the tone for some of the greatest teams ever to play the game (I accept the mid 2000’s Indian team wasn’t as good as the Invincibles, the 80/90’s WI side or the Australian 90/00’s machine so no quibbles about the Indian team please!). All were/are horrible to bowl at, especially on the first day of a test match and all put pressure on the opening bowlers by taking them on. They were instrumental in taking their team to the top. Their value cannot be underestimated in setting the tone of an innings. As far as I am concerned not allowing the opening bowlers to settle is a key function of an opening batsman. I admit that those players I have named were (are) extraordinary and the very fact there are so few of them is relevant, although there are others you could name.
But at any level having a player who can upset the bowlers is key. If you don’t have that then the received wisdom is to have a right hand/left hand combination or a bank foot or a front foot player as contrasting styles for your opening pair. Why have England been struggling in this department? Cook’s form has been mixed (but recently decent) and the player at the other end hasn’t known whether to stick or twist and have been bereft of confidence pretty quickly into their period as the other one to Cook. What Cook and Strauss always did really well was run between the wickets and put pressure on the opposition that way. There are many ways to skin this cat…
Regardless having a dynamic opening pair is crucial – at the moment you can’t say Cook is hugely dynamic. I sort of wonder if, given that Root won’t bat at three, perhaps Cook should, I think having two new opening batsmen would take the pressure off the new player that isn’t Cook, the problem England has at the moment.
Batting as a pair
This is a very common comment, but what does it mean – in my view it means knowing if your partner is struggling and giving them a breather, perhaps hogging the strike a little, knowing if they are flying – so giving them the strike, running well between the wickets, knowing who is the “bogey” bowler. When you are opening it does matter who takes the first ball – Which one of you will the bowler least like to start his spell against… this matters – put pressure on that opening bowler. As an experienced player you should take the first ball because your junior partner will be more nervous. It is natural. Conversely if you know that a batsman has a terrible record early on against a bowler, put him up the other end to start with! Be flexible, especially when one of the openers is the Skipper. A few years back Andrew Strauss was captain when there was a rain affected toss, had to do a few interviews then was out batting under 15 mins later. He was out first ball. In those circumstances, why didn’t Cook say: “Straussy mate – go up the other end have a breather get your head sorted, I’ve got this.” That is what batting as a pair is.
Reading the field – what is the opposition trying to do?
As you are walking out to bat – read the field – this will tell you what the bowler and opposition skipper is trying to do – also read where your strong scoring areas are – and are they covered or clear. Classically as a batsman you are told to look where the fielders are – but it is far more helpful to look where the gaps are!
Where the fielders are will tell you what the bowler is trying to do however – whether that is 3 slips and a 6/3 or 7/2 field for an away swinging bowler or 5/4 with 2 slips and a short leg for an inswing bowler. I wonder with all the computer analysis that is done these days whether players forget to remember that each day is different, different pitch and conditions and the bowler may be in a different rhythm.
But above all know where you like to hit the ball and know where the gaps are.
Understand the state of the game/setting up the innings/being adaptable
One of the key roles for the opening batsmen is to give confidence to the other batters and to set up the game. This isn’t always easy as you are facing the new ball with the freshest bowlers – but a few solid shots and a couple of early boundaries will make a different. A few wild shots and a play and miss however and you are causing a bit of chaos for you mates in the shed. Remember so much of batting is in the mind.
Knowing the pitch is a road also brings its own pressure – you are expected to score runs – but how often in these circumstances there is an early wicket because the batsman is so eager to cash in they haven’t played themselves in properly.
But what about Seeing off the new ball?
I know – what would Sir Geoffrey say – you have to see off the new ball – it is harder, it bounces more, it moves in the air more. Taking your time helps the rest of the team, play with soft hands, leave the ball well etc… I paraphrase – and it would be callous to disagree with Sir Geoff – but I don’t see how that isn’t in any way compatible with what I have tried to outline though this commentary.
I hope it is helpful, I look forward to reading your thoughts…
On the bus to the station, but thought I should pay a short tribute and also have a thread for your thoughts.
To me he had that special status. “The bloke you had to get out”. Each team seemed to have at least one (except us in the 90s!). His century to open the 1992 World Cup set up that tournament. There are plenty of tributes out there. Feel for his friends and family, and for New Zealand.
Let’s do something I used to do. Thirty minutes, and thoughts I have about all things cricket.
You might have noticed the lack of posts. As I said, I’m just about all written out and often can’t think of much new to say. But I’ll try to keep up with some stuff. Sometimes, and it is becoming more frequent, I wonder why I bother. I especially wonder that when all I’m doing is sounding an opinion. I can’t express into adequate words those who choose to ignore the malaise in the game, and instead attack those trying to put a case as to why things must change. I see my view, and that of many on here, now being jumped on as the DOAG bandwagon starts to roll. But some would rather creep up to a Selvey about online critics, than actually pose the question to him “why have you said nothing about the ICC?”.
Which brings me on to Selvey. I have been excessively restrained on this. The frustration over his see no evil, hear no evil approach to the ICC changes and the lack of public critical judgement he has shown on them is palpable. What on earth has he got to lose, and do not answer that question? Both Chris and I are being careful not to print articles that are just about nailing this attitude from Selvey – we see it clearly enough. Articles of his spur on hits on here without us doing anything. We all know what’s wrong, you don’t need to read it. We’ve turned down a guest article on Selvey, and we hardly ever turn down articles! Instead of Selvey railing against his critics, and failing to address their points, he needs to realise what he’s doing. He’s abdicating his responsibility on these matters. I don’t know about office politics at The Guardian, but we have a sense of what is going on. This constant ignorance of the elephant in the cricket room is tainting him further and further.
I still have a lot of anger. Don’t confuse my silence with not being angry. The fact is that the non-selection of KP for the World T20 has, finally, totally, closed the door. There was no reason to believe he would be selected, and I’m sure those whose work I see on the social media and BTL networks far too often for my sanity, are crowing with delight at us. That’s life. We weren’t wrong. We’ve been down this path far too often, and yes, we’ll go there again. The ECB have done nothing, no matter how much those who I thought more of contend that they have, to assuage my anger. Shut up. Pipe down. Move on. Pay your Sky Subs, and don’t you dare get any ideas.
The proposed test match championship is just yet another wind-up. Well it is until I see the first ball bowled in it. I can’t but help get the feeling that this glasnost in the ICC is a temporary thing. A chimera (and I don’t mean the fire breathing monster type). It’s going to need TV deals to fund it, and it’s going to need India to be at the sharp end of it. That’s reality folks, and there are few guarantees for that. Also, I can’t also help thinking Manohar is gone when the next BCCI congress, or whatever, goes ahead. Or at least he’ll have his refreshing wings clipped. I have no faith in these people whatsoever, and their track record is not one of progressive thinking. I don’t blame India, but it doesn’t mean I have to like what they do. We can’t sit around dreaming up divisions and all sorts, when we’ve hardly heard a peep out of India as to if they want it. I have absolutely no reason not to be cynical.
Believe it or not, I love watching Indian cricket, so please don’t take this as an attack on that nation, but good grief, their organisation on tickets for the World T20 is an absolute shambles. I know that in the case of matches not involving India it might be a little easier to secure tickets on an as and when basis, which for both test tours to Australia we did (even with the horrendous Australian Cricket Family ruse in 2006). But that’s not really the point. There’s been arguments over venues, politics being played out, and it’s just bloody wrong. Administrators and organisers need to get the effing basics right before they start lecturing any supporters about their issues. A potentially exciting tournament may not, in the end, be critically affected, but one day one will. Complacency for the people who go to games is the start of a terrible downward cycle.
Of course I’m sad to see Brendon McCullum leave international cricket, although I don’t know about him doing it before a major tournament where his team may well have a decent shout. But you choose the time of your leaving. Of course his impact on the game is not to be judged by the numbers, because doing that over the whole of his career doesn’t make him anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps he wasn’t a great player but a player of great innings, eh? However, it is for his galvanising effect on the country’s almost moribund cricket team that he deserves all the praise. Last night I was transferring stuff from my hard drive recorder to DVD and had the end of the World Cup Semi-Final, with Grant Elliott’s six. They came a long long way under McCullum. I thought some went over the top in their paeans but that’s life. It’s not overly a sin to be nice to people, and say nice things.
The thing with England, and it’s a theme I’m talking about on a more frequent basis, is that cricket is in the market with other sports for my time. Now, writing a blog has kept me interested for a couple of years, but now one of the key cogs, the KP issue, is dead and buried, there is a sense of what now? I have a full-time job, and things to do at weekends. I get home at 7:30 and then have a limited amount of time to do or watch what I want. So what do I do? I’m seeing an increase in the time I watch the NBA. The baseball season is around the corner, and I’m looking forward to that. I quite like watching the PGA Tour golf on a Sunday night, now that the NFL has gone. We have the Olympics and Euro championships coming up. Cricket has to fight for space, and it did, well, for my lifetime. But now I see it and go, why? Why should I spend my time catching up with England cricket? They sacked their main highlight reel over something they might tell us a long way down the line. Why bother with a sport that does that?
It’s a little more than half an hour, but let’s finish off with some points upcoming. Anyone care to take a guess at the five cricketers of the year, which will be announced next month in Wisden? Stick ‘em in the comments. What about the World T20? Looking forward to it or don’t give a stuff? County cricket will be upon us soon. Are any of you interested? Do you go to games at all? Also, anyone want to write an article for us, the offer is always open.
Chris and I will be meeting tomorrow night, in one of our quarterly editorial sessions. Any results from that, and I doubt there will be many, we will relay to you.
Finally, to those that seek to do this blog down. I laugh at you. Have a nice evening.
Being Outside Cricket 