When a publication gets bored and runs out of ideas, it turns to lists. Whether that be “Five Things We Learned” or a wider list, it’s lovely clickbait because it manages to irritate just about everyone, whether the inclusions are too low, too high, not on it, or because the list itself is preposterous in the first place. (Is this author having a go at The Dmitris, or the journalist list?)
This week it was the turn of The Cricketer, with their Power List of English cricket. Oddly enough, we weren’t on it – presumably we were in 51st just behind the editor of Wisden, who they eventually remembered, probably when they realised he dared to criticise people. Objectively understandable – who would ever read the editorial of the world’s premier cricket book? Who would ever write article after article about his excoriation of the game’s governing bodies?
The real trick is then to nominate yourself to be on the list, but only the worst kind of self-important, smug, arrogant idiot would dream of doing that. So between the three of us we’ve come up with our own. It’s a list of those who adore the sounds of their own voices, who fully believe that they are far more important than anyone else, who rest with absolute certainty in the superiority of their own existence. And are not shy about letting us know.
It’s a team effort, it’s not listed individually, so you’re going to have to blame Dmitri, TLG and Sean equally. Oh and feel free to slate us in return, that’s the whole point of it after all.
There is an order to this, but trust us, we’ve not spent more than 5 seconds trying to work it out. Anyone upset by where they are…..good. Our work is done.
Stephen Brenkley
By all accounts one of the most charming, delightful men you could ever wish to spend time with, a chatterbox who entertains all those around him, and who often wrote beautiful prose. It was therefore particularly unfortunate that he didn’t turn his mind towards asking some of the more obvious questions that should have occurred to him. Had the misfortune to be at the Independent in the dying days of that paper, and whose departure was symptomatic of an organ that was going nowhere. Has been rather quiet since, and while his output may have been criticised, his loss to the cricket community is simply rather sad.
Ian Botham
Perhaps with hindsight Botham’s mastery with the ball over his career was down to the fact he had about 30 fielders at any given time. For surely there can be no other explanation for the uncanny ability to point out that England should have had a 26th slip fielder in place mere moments after the ball has gone through the vacant area. In this, he is at least more accurate than he tends to be when trying to forecast the future instead of the past, his notorious 5-0 prediction for the 2013/14 Ashes proving accurate as long as no one mentioned who to.
Dermot Reeve
A fixture of cricket coverage during the noughties, a period he clearly misheard, deciding to consider his time on air a mere interlude between visits to the toilet carrying a small bag and a rolled up £50 note. Special mention must go to his outstanding explanation of reverse swing as being akin to the uneven underside of an aircraft wing. Planes fell out of the sky a aeronautic engineers absorbed the reality of the new, radical theory.
Nick Knight
I’m sure some are amazed he’s here. In fact Knight himself would probably say “Would you believe it?” To be fair Knight says “Would you Believe It?” to almost anything; indeed it’s quite likely his default response to missing the bus. There are perhaps few greater exponents of the art of speaking the most bleeding obvious of the most bleeding obvious in the cricket world today. It has been said the poor man has splinters from such an outstanding ability to sit on the fence – I prefer to focus on the way he casually ignored the fastest ball ever recorded by nudging it round the corner for a single. Not for Knight the glorious out of the park for six shot, oh no – the nurdle for one, the special ability to be a key part of history, yet for no one to remember his role in it. Few have ever so beautifully summarised the point that television is a medium than Knight has – for it is neither rare nor well done. A medium medium. A chicken tikka masala with a keema naan. Inoffensive to all, memorable to no-one.
Paul Newman
He’s blocked one of our number on Twitter for a start. One prong of the Essex Mafia, and a conduit for the ECB line to take on everyone’s favourite scapegoat; the one thing not in his favour is his lack of gravitas. But it takes some sort of special individual to make the KP issue so personal. Some of his work read like a screaming teenager shouting “No. No. No.” I often wonder what it was that set him off, but then it really crystallised when he allowed the dignified silent man, the Flower of Andrew, to have his dignified say. Couldn’t have been a larger dose of cats out of the bag since Millwall drew Hull in the FA Cup. I have to say I was stunned. After all, Newman did the talking in 2014, and Flower’s lips never moved.
John Etheridge
Old school journalist, who never forgets to mention that he came from the University of life. Gloriously misreported that Kevin Pietersen had returned his gifts from his 100th Test match and then vowed to investigate when proved wrong. The investigation must be extremely thorough as it’s been 2 years and 85 days and we’ve still heard nothing about its result. Desperately keen to be seen as a serious journalist and known to get extremely pissy when asked “why he bothers as no-one reads cricket in the Sun”.
Kevin Pietersen
Ooh controversy. One of the most sublimely talented batsmen in the world, the one who can pull off an innings in Colombo that ghasts the flabber, and a friend of this place rather obviously going back to the frankly idiotic initial sacking and cretinously stupid refusal to consider him after the small matter of a triple century.
Trouble is, he’s a knob. You know it, I know it. He’s an amazing batsman, who is so good his international record is frankly a disappointment. But he’s an idiot. There’s being opinionated, there’s being a rebel. There’s even being right – and the worst crime Pietersen ever committed was that dreadful tendency to be right on so many occasions, and for the ECB to quietly do exactly as he suggested, even though he was very obviously wrong at the time, right? Who would ever forgive that? Especially those who have less talent, there’s no way they could ever even think about accepting such outrageousness. But there’s being right at the right time, and there’s being right at the wrong time. And then there’s being right at the right time that you’ve managed to turn into the wrong time. Hang on, slight pause to check I understand that sentence – oh yes, got it.
Pietersen is one of the most insightful, intelligent commentators on the game out there. That so many refuse to listen to things which are actually rather good is partly his fault. There are lots of villains in that whole sorry tale. Pietersen is sadly one of them, even if not the worst. In the last 30 years, there has never been so clear and obvious case for banging heads together as l’affaire Pietersen.
Ravi Shastri
The commentary darling of the BCCI and well known for his over the top praise for every Indian cricketer ever. Known to share the same commentary manual as Knight, Nick with gems such as “If India want to win here, then they will need to play well”, “Edged and….taken” and “the next few overs will be crucial” Ravi is always on hand to state the bleeding obvious time and time again. Has since been dumped as India’s head coach which left him “surprised and disappointed” but no doubt come the winter, he will lighting up the Sky studios with his unique take on how everything in India is amazing.
Colin Graves
The bar is set World Limbo Dancing Championship low when you follow Giles Clarke into the head of the ECB hotseat. That you couldn’t even make your KP statement stick two minutes before backtracking quicker than Frank Bruno against Mike Tyson second time around, spoke volumes for your ability. Wants four day tests, and absolutely loves the word “mediocre” which probably should just be the title of a book based on his reign so far. Well, mediocre will do when “A damn effing laughing stock” probably won’t make the shelves at WH Smith’s. Number 1 on The Cricketer’s list, which is amazing as I couldn’t think of a single good thing he’s done yet. Plus, just what is that £1m guarantee thing in the ECB accounts? Perhaps we should be told. Mediocre financial data there.
Channel 9 commentary
“Hey Brays, guess what Warnie and Slats went out for beers and pizza last night and boy are they hanging, boom they’re goes another four, went like a tracer bullet to the boundary, that went even quicker than Tubbs opening the door to the pizza delivery man, haha”. And so it goes on, the cricket commentary team where talking actual cricket is likely to get you sacked and where the arrival of Mark Nicholas in the box represents a glorious interlude of cricketing erudition. It’s like watching a middle aged episode of the Inbetweeners where a load of ex professional cricketers see who can outdo each other in the banter stakes and holler loudly whenever there’s a boundary. Then there is the deliberate idiocy in how Brayshaw and team declare how they have never heard of the Indian fast bowling coach or of the Pakistani leg spinner, after all, these teams are just there to make up the numbers and should not detract from the amazing Australian team. Oh and they don’t take criticism that well either, as Brad McNamara highlighted when launching an ill conceived tirade at Gideon Haigh after he had gently criticised the commentary standard of channel 9. Glass houses and all that.
Andy Flower
Since his appointment as Grand Vizier at the ECB, Flower has disappeared from the radar of many. But he’s still there, and he’s still exerting influence. This is a good thing, for losing the expertise of someone who has had such an important job would be extremely wasteful – though not so wasteful the geniuses at the ECB didn’t think it perfectly reasonable to dispense with Duncan Fletcher. Maybe it was because he wasn’t the Best Coach of His Generation or something.
Flower had a decent enough record as England coach, and the idea that he’s the enemy of the state is no more reasonable than believing he is descended from the heavens to dispense wisdom and success. But the determination that everyone bend to his will is as flawed as it always has been. The briefings to the media about players that seemed to include things that only Flower knew according to those on the receiving end of the headlines didn’t exactly engender trust. And now the England Lions get the benefit of that. Aren’t they lucky?
Jonathan Agnew
Aggers is a late entry on this lise, first of all because crossing him invokes the fervent fandom’s ire, and we can vouch for how that plays out from personal experience. Secondly, even we have to pad out stuff like this. Agnew generates plenty of heat and light from those who don’t buy the folksy charm and think he’s an establishment stooge. We have to reflect that on here, although it has to be said, he’s not really part of the problem. But he gets in for the reaction to the infamous Clarke pic. And how he reacted with other blogs. Come on….
Michael Henderson
How this curmudgeonly old writer still gets gigs is beyond me. He’s allowed to spout off about this and that each month, looking back and never forwards, seeking decorum and manners in the game he rarely shows in his pieces. If you are looking for tolerance, look elsewhere. I can only imagine he’s kept on as some poor man’s Swanton tribute act, and instead of being amused my his grumpiness, he just enrages. I’m sure he would absolutely love this site. About as much as I love root canal. I’d like it that way.
David Lloyd
This is like criticising fluffy little kittens. Everyone loves Bumble, don’t they? Well, yes, to a degree. The problem comes when he stops being a cricket commentator with great humour, into an attempted humourist talking over the cricket. This tends to happen more in T20, where yes, we should give less of a toss, but still. Yes, Start the Car was amusing. The first ten times. He’s low in our pecking order because this is pretty harmless stuff, but one of us, in particular, has had his fill. It’s good to be contrary. So let’s name fluffy little kittens because some of us are allergic to cats.
Chris Stocks
He really went for Nick Compton, didn’t he? What on earth was that all about? At least he got in touch to ask how he was perceived, and that’s decent. But you can’t get away from the pieces. But we do have sympathy for freelancers!
Guardian County Cricket Blog
This will resonate with a few.If your face doesn’t fit, if you dare to relate our domestic game to our international, if you dare to question the sacred cows below and above the line, then woe betide you. For you will be damned for eternity, or at least until you abide by the unwritten rules. Suck up to the admin, be deferential to certain characters, and be whimsical. Oh yes, be very whimsical.
Simon Hughes
Put himself number 39 in his own Power List, above the Chief Cricket writer at The Telegraph, the single best England batsman of the last decade and clickbait king combination in history, the editor of Wisden, England’s current best all rounder, England’s best all rounder who works for Sky, and every single one who picks the England team as a selector. I’d understand it, just, if you were John Etheridge, Jonathan Agnew, or Jonathan Pierce. But if you walked down the street and picked out a random person and asked them who Simon Hughes is, I’d bet a majority who answered would pick the former Liberal Democrat MP! When you aren’t even the most famous person with your name, well that’s hard yakka. We’ll always have that Dobell exchange though….
Since this went to the original typesetters, we’ve had some small interaction. We’ve had those patronising tweets, where we are extremists and he is unbiased. I mean, really. I mean REALLY. Have a day off. Because “went off in a huff” is the language of equanimity. Let’s put it this way. This tweet…
….does him no favours.
Jimmy Anderson
There’s a peculiar difference prevailing in the world today. Be a grumpy so and so, scream at players when they make mistakes, provoke and get involved in physical confrontations, and the press will defend you to the hilt. Smack a ball down a deep fielder’s throat and you’ll be lambasted as irresponsible. Jimmy may be one of our greatest ever bowlers, but we enable his behaviour. And, well, frankly, this as well….
Lord’s
We don’t have many positions for entities rather than people, but we couldn’t leave out Lord’s. Look, we get it is where everyone wants to play, but to go there as an ordinary spectator is to be classified as a second class citizen, shuffled behind people who patently don’t have mirrors in their houses. Dressing up like a clown is clearly a sign of intellectual, moral, and let’s face it, financial supremacy over the proles. Then there are the queues – because they’re always shocked to find people want food or drink, the appalling views in the lower stands, the pervading sense of patronising people and those effing champagne corks. Who, or what do they think they are?
James Whitaker
But what is he for? I mean I’ve written loads of stuff on other people and I keep coming back to this one point when I think about Mr Sublime Interviewing Technique. And that is…..I don’t quite know how to word this. Oh yes. Um. How about “What is he for?” Answer – to bring Ballance to the proceedings…
Alastair Cook
You could have two entries here. One is the Mills and Boon character, the handsome doe-eyed (and they are his own doe eyes, not the one he shot) England captain, fighting against the odds to reach success while those beastly enemies try to take him out by pointing out his long period without centuries, and his appalling captaincy that used to coincide with the number 4. On the other is the man who has only to pass 50 before grown men collapse in paroxysms of ecstasy, retweet more than One Direction fans after the latest band break up, and then claim he’s been subjected to a media battering. Combined you have a strong contender for the top spot in our list. Oh, and he’s not England’s greatest ever batsman, before you start going on about that, either. Bring on the Cooky Crew…
Andrew Strauss
Well known for his role as Director, England Cricket and for calling KP a c**t on national TV and getting away with it. Strauss is the darling of the MSM, the man who decided that his trust is the only prerequisite to be playing for England, stuff talent and runs, and a man who Gary Lineker referred to as “extraordinarily petty and immature”. Director comma still believes that KP ended his career, never mind the fact that he couldn’t hit it off the square and has taken great pleasure in ending the former’s international career too. Currently being deigned as the saviour of England cricket alongside Cook, Alastair by his mates in the MSM and last seen desperately trying to push the merits of the ‘super series’ to fans who can smell bullshit 1000 miles away.
Dave Richardson –
Grow the game? What is this nonsense? it’s our game and our money and we’ll do what we always do by making the rich even richer and the poor even poorer, 3 team World Cup anybody? Last seen whilst serving as PA to Anurag Thakur.
Peter Miller
One of the more talented cricket writers out there, who has a body of work behind him to be proud about. So why would he ever make a list like this (That’s an in-joke between TLG, Dmitri and Sean, and a pair of Old Shades)? Well the trouble arises when certainty about his own wit and knowledge supercedes the more natural uncertainty that most people have. Miller’s Twitter timeline is a delightful example of being so sure of himself that anyone daring to disagree is considered thick. He’s keen on making political points, and that’s fair enough for anyone, but it remains instructive that anyone so sure of themselves that those who hold perfectly legitimate different opinions are regarded as the lowest form of life in his eyes. And that is the problem – contempt for the views of others in one field is illustrative of the same contempt in all others. Only the arrogant can ever be so certain.
Charles Colville
Well Charles…the Sky man who is only known for being Bob Willis’ cannon fodder. He surely can’t believe he has still got the gig despite knowing next to nothing about cricket and regularly being schooled by Mark Butcher, Rob Key and Marcus Trescothick, who don’t even pretend to hide their disdain for him. Posh, obnoxious and clueless never makes for a good combination for commentators; however it does tick all the boxes for a Director role on our glorious board, expect him to be the next MD of the ECB.
Peter Moores
The outstanding coach of a generation unfortunately turned out to be not that outstanding at all, even second time around. Primarily utilised by Paul Downton as a tool to ensure Kevin Pietersen could never return to the England fold, Moores did his usual job of talking a great game and then disappointing on the pitch. The lead up to the 2015 was at best comical and the results on the pitch were even worse, proving that Moores had paid no attention to the way ODI cricket was evolving. He then kindly hammered the nails into his own coffin by declaring that he would have “to look at the data” after a hammering by Bangladesh. Now working as a consultant at Nottinghamshire CC, which judging by their form this year, hasn’t exactly proved him to be the outstanding coach in which he was proclaimed. Special mention goes out to his wife, who after a vino or two, is not afraid to stomp onto Twitter searching for those who dare to declare that his time in charge wasn’t a roaring success.
Giles Clarke
In recent times thesauruseseseses (er, not sure where to stop there) have updated their entries to include Clarke as a synonym for “odious”. Indeed all cricket fans should be encouraged to do a Google search for both terms and ensure that it comes up as a suggestion in the search box. His finest moment in a career of James Bond villainy is undoubtedly his starring role in Death of a Gentleman where his patronising, sneering arrogance has led actors like Mark Strong and Jeremy Irons to watch and learn how to portray a character that audiences automatically hate. Where Clarke excels is in his total disregard for any other human being and disdain for any contrary view. Such things as actually loving the game of cricket are not for him, when instead it is purely there for his own self-aggrandisement. Lawrence Booth still lives in fear, looking over his shoulder every day to seek out Clarke’s henchmen intending to finish what the great man started at the Wisden dinner (this may not be entirely true).
Like all great supervillains, Baron Greenback has his sidekicks, and the superb insertion of Oddjob into the Guardian to act as chief cheerleader remains one of his finest achievements. Add in a sense of righteousness that removes any hint of self-doubt and you have a man who superbly manages to represent every single thing that is wrong with the game. What a diamond he is.
Derek Pringle
It is always instructive to visit Del’s Wikipedia page, purely for the deliciously cruel entry about him that reads “Pringle’s first-class batting average exactly matched his bowling average, indicating that he cancelled himself out perfectly.” But his true metier has been in journalism, where he created a dedicated following of readers, who were united in despising every piece of vitriolic hatred that passed for a newspaper column. The only ones who approved were those who hated Pietersen even more. The best journalists have the rare ability to necessarily criticise players who have by definition made it to the top of the game. Only Pringle had the extraordinary ability to arrogantly belittle those so much better than he ever was. These points about him won’t worry him in the slightest, for he has that wonderful ability – let’s call it Clarkitis – to consider the views of the little people to be beneath his pay grade. The feeling of contempt is entirely mutual.
Paul Downton
Where would we be without Paul? We wouldn’t have a name. We wouldn’t have been able to keep this (and the previous) blog going without his material. We wouldn’t have had aplomb. We wouldn’t have had the dossier. We wouldn’t have had the “best coach of his generation”. We wouldn’t have had the Agnew interview (and one of our number wouldn’t have had death threats). To do a FICJAM to AndyInBrum, “He’s so out of his depth he’s below fish with lights.” We miss him. We needed him to get through “difficult winters”. It’s hard to be “fresh” and “exciting” and instead we need to be disengaged. Also noted for having his English corrected by Kevin Pietersen, who responded to the charge he was disinterested by denying that he’d been uninterested.
David Gower
This is all about disappointment. The most talented player of his era, hell the most talented player of almost any era. I’ve spent hours waxing lyrical about Gower innings to the young (i.e. therefore stupid – apparently it’s a meme), mentioning the most sublime cover drive ever seen, the most delicious cut shot, the most perfect pull (unless it was a fraction too full and knocked off stump out). And he’s a posh boy, he’s ideal for TV. And he was too, he was wonderful. But in more recent times he’s gone all establishment – the insistence on refusing to mention the Great Satan (Pietersen FYI) because it might cause palpatations at Lords, the general stroppiness when anything or anyone dares to challenge orthodoxy. Where did it all go wrong? You were the Bojo of cricket, the upper class boy who was the rebel incarnate, and unaccountably popular with the masses. And now you’ve gone native.
Nothing is as disappointing as being let down. Oh David. What price criticism from the studio for flying a Tiger Moth over the team now.
Ed Smith
Failed England Cricketer and now author, philosopher, philanthropist and more recently plagiarist. Never hesitates to remind us how incredibly clever he is by dropping in notes about 15th century Umbrian history or Virgil’s Aeneid into his cricket writings. His ability to destroy the morale of a whole dressing room which then kicked him out on his ass, has naturally led him to be proclaimed “the next Jonathan Agnew” on TMS and the Course Director of the MA History of Sport at Buckinghamshire University. Currently lying low on social media after being found to have copied and pasted one of his Economist colleagues pieces on stress and claiming it as his own. Not as clever then as he thinks.
Danny Morrison
I’m all for enthusiasm. Really I am. But there’s enthusiasm and then there’s being the kind of person that you see come into the pub and pray to whatever sky fairy you hold dear that he won’t come and pull up a stool next to you. Danny Morrison (or DFM as I call him – work it out, it’s not hard) is unquestionably one of these. Picture the scene as you quietly sip your pint, only to have someone next to you screaming that the way the barman has delivered it is the best he’s ever seen, that there’s simply no pint in existence that could ever compare, and that while the bar staff run for cover in terror, he then turns to everyone else and invites them to partake in excited appreciation of said beverage. Just for God’s sake no one tell him there are crisps under the bar, probably of various different flavours.
It’s always been an idle thought that the commentary box has anything sharp removed just prior to a DFM stint, and his colleagues are allowed solely a hip flask in order to cope with the ordure created from order over the following half hour. It takes something truly special for cricket fans to be actively looking forward to the commercial breaks, where a Safestyle advert counts as a reduction in the volume. Drinks breaks in DFM covered matches should be increased to one every other over, allowing desperate fans to run outside and put their heads into a bucket to cool off. But you know, it’s what the people want, right? It’s cool, it’s down wiv da kidz (innit). He must be popular with someone, or he wouldn’t be there. But who? Um, seriously who? Answers on a postcard please*
*They will be ignored – just so you know.
Stuart Broad
Is gaining rapidly on Jimmy Anderson as England’s leading wicket taker, without ever getting quite the same amount of coverage for his achievements. Divides opinion like few others not called Kevin, with some calling for his dropping despite a truly world class bowling average over the last few years. He will not be satisfied with it, mostly because of his absolute certainty that he has been denied around 300 lbws by the combination of appalling umpiring and a DRS set up that is biased against him. It must be biased, because when he walks out with the bat the dastardly umpires switch round the settings so he is given out every time he is struck on the pads (quite frequent) and then DRS upholds it no matter how many times he reviews it. There should probably be an investigation into this clear example of bias.
A major redeeming feature is a pathological love of winding up Australians.
Dominic Cork
A few years ago there was a Test series in New Zealand. Actually they’re fairly regular, but this was a specific series and I can’t remember who they were playing anyway. It matters little, in the way that Tests played by New Zealand so often tend. Anyway, it was raining. That happens too. And with a morning wiped out, Sky – who had spent at the very least pub money in getting Cork and Mark Butcher in to the studio, had to fill. And fill they did, Charles Colville (who is going to get a right slagging elsewhere on this page to my undying fury – there will be words ) deciding to simply ask Butcher and Cork about cricket at the highest level. It was glorious. The following day rained as well, and the cricket viewing public tuned in to watch two old Test cricketers (Er. Old. Looks at birth certificate. Bugger) reminisce about players, series, conditions, opponents, structures and anything else in their minds. For a cricket fan, it was nirvana. To the point on the third day the fact play was possible was a fundamental disappointment. I wanted to hear more. In fact I wanted a dinner party with Cork as a guest, I wanted to know everything. He was wonderful, Butcher was wonderful, Colville was wonderful.
All of which makes it so hard to understand why Cork has to be such an utter twat the rest of the time.
The County Chairmen
The rulers of the English game. In itself, it doesn’t have to be a problem, after all someone has to do it. But here’s the problem, cricket isn’t like football, where the clubs are the power and the money. County cricket is a loss maker, international cricket is a money maker. And yet the counties are the ones in control and they are the ones who dictate everything. What that means is that all the international arrangements are handled in terms of how it can best support the counties, and the county chairmen. The English structure has managed to create a delightful situation where the counties leech of both the top level and the clubs beneath them. Nice work if you can get it.
Chris Gayle
It’s hard to know what’s worse – the stuff Gayle comes out with or the response to it. When he decided to chat up a journalist on air, the howls of outrage echoed from one side of the world to the other. And then there was a long debate about the nature of it, whether it was sexist, what defines sexism and so on. All of which missed the point rather spectacularly that it was still boorish, rude and disrespectful first and foremost. Gayle is wonderful at belting a ball over prodigious distances, but has an uncanny ability to annoy and enable the holy to engage in virtue signalling. Ultimately this man’s place is in the wrong.
Michael Vaughan
Captain of the most famous Ashes winning side now turned mouthpiece for ISM Sports Management and Stan Collymore impressionist on Twitter. Vaughan never fails to have an opinion on anything, unless of course it contradicts that of Neil Fairbrother, you’ve got to bring home the bacon after all. Campaigned mercilessly for James Vince’s inclusion in the Test squad even if everyone and their dog can see he is patently not good enough and will no doubt do the same for the next batch of ISM inductees. Occasionally seen writing in the Telegraph in favour of whatever Director, England Cricket has briefed him on.
Dennis Freedman
A ubiquitous Twitter and blogging presence, with that oh so unique Australian sense of humour that generally involves ignoring any Canary Yellow disasters and shouting “look over there” at anything English. Being maganimous in victory is easy, to be arrogant when you’ve been thrashed is far more satisfying. So thus it is that Olympic medal tables can be dismissed as Britain being four countries rather than one, and awkward stats like Yorkshire doing better than the whole of Australia ignored. It’s a good game of course, and one we all like playing. Which is why Dennis himself will be inordinately thrilled at his presence on this list. That’s Denis with one n.
Mark Nicholas
He is to Richie Benaud as I am to Neville Cardus. And I didn’t go half way round the world, suck up to the powers that be and pretend to support Australia to further my career. Crackerjack. His written pieces in Cricinfo exist only to give Plagiarist Ed something to live down to. It is a measure of how far Channel 9 have sunk that he is clearly and by a distance the best thing on it.
Nasser Hussain
Ex England captain and one time promising commentator who actually asked difficult questions of the ECB but has since sold his soul and insight for bucket load of cash from Sky. Now mainly seen wandering around ECB sponsored events asking innocuous questions to England’s band of up and coming warriors and writing pre-approved hagiographies in the Daily Mail. Always the butt of the jokes from fellow commentators for having a big nose and being tight – oh the lolz.
The IPL
Some things in life deserve a serious tribute. And the IPL is one. There are few such magnificent money making adventures in the world of sport, and the owners of the franchises can indeed sit down, raise a glass and appreciate how they’ve superbly exploited a love of cricket to their personal benefit. It’s a touch unfortunate that artificial teams that no one remotely cares about change around every year, and even more so that the police seem to take such an active interest in what’s going on. But what does that matter – feel the cash. Appreciate the dosh. Hang the rest of the game, this is where it. is. at. And. Ya.
Ali Martin
We like to go against the grain on here. Not for us the open goal of quite a bit of journalistic stupidity over the years, no we prefer to attack the nuance, the subtlety, the clear problems in the media. And thus, so it is that Ali Martin finds himself on this list. More acute observers of the largely nonsensical output of the media may be puzzled, they may indeed consider Mr Martin to be one of those who has irritated few, who has criticised where it is due, who has praised when needed, who has offered up pithy and occasionally subversive tweets daring to take the piss out of the ECB.
And that’s the damn problem. No one can be that good. No one can have been in his role all this time and not managed a single article on here complaining he’s an idiot. Not even the fact he’s a mate of the wife of one of your writers justifies the reasonable, critical and generally objective journalism Martin puts out. To be blunt, this is not what is expected of the Guardian, whose cricket writing has tended to be beautifully pro-ECB throughout (The Telegraph has been the anti-establishment paper on this – which just goes to show the world is more screwed up than you ever imagined) to the point the good old Grauniad have thoroughly enjoyed the company of Giles Clarke in various hotel suites.
Sorry, it’s not acceptable. It’s not what we’re used to, and to be blunt about this, things were so much better when Martin was at the Sun covering the Zimbabwe element of the Under 19 World Cup while John Etheridge enjoyed the hospitality of a full England tour. Reasonable and balanced coverage? Call yourself a cricket journalist!
Elizabeth Ammon
Oh Lizzy, where to start? No, you’re not Mike Selvey, insulting your followers doesn’t work or make you look clever. Trying to follow Lizzy on Twitter is akin to putting ones head in a sand mixer and hoping for the best. Lizzy is great if you follow her peculiar brand of cricket, but try and disagree with her about anything, then she will not hesitate to tell you that you know nothing and are an idiot of the worst kind. Desperate to be part of the MSM, fortunately her talent isn’t as strong as her bite.
Mike Selvey
Bilious inadequate, eh? Social Media zealot, you say? Vile Ignoramus? Charming. A man who launched a thousand quips, his presence at the Guardian as some sort of teleporter for the words of Chairman Giles, he bestrode the media world like a colossus, until the Guardian packed him off, with a stream of WestCorkian tears trailing behind. If you didn’t play, you couldn’t say. He made fruitflies an acceptable insult, made calling someone a C*** a moment to cherish, and if you dare question his greatness, well, you were just plain impertinent. Rather loved being called Lord Selvey by his adoring public, many of whom became rather less adoring quite swiftly. His departure has been the journalistic equivalent of Steve Waugh’s Australian finale. By the time it was finished, I think we were all glad.
Tom Harrison
Played a bit of county cricket, so you thought he might know that the doddery old sods in charge of the shires know more about survival in harsh climates than Bear Grylls. They ain’t about to take some secondhand TV salesman with a sharp suit and a line in sweating gibberish at his word, when they’ve had Vodafone and Paraguay Mining Inc beating at that door before. Or was McLaurin Tescos? Who gives a stuff. Anyway. good luck with that reshaping of T20 old bean. You may come across as a straight talking hard nut, but to us here, you’ll always be an empty suit we’ll never trust.
David Saker
Best mates with a certain ex Chief Cricket Correspondent of the Guardian and an ex England bowling coach who had one method of trying to get the opposition out, i.e. bang it halfway down the pitch and hope for the best – see Headingley 2014 as a prime example. Successfully turned one of our most promising fast bowlers into a quivering wreck and after successfully making the Melbourne Renegades one of the laughing stocks of the Big Bash, is currently the new bowling coach for Australia, where I guess he has been advocating the need for the bowlers to ‘get in the oppositions faces’.
Shane Warne
The thing is, you need to lose to win. If you want to win a game, you need to lose to win. If you win, then it’s because you lost to win. If you lose, it’s because you won to lost. Oh hang on, that doesn’t make any sense at all. Warne never said it, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he had, since the verbal diarrhoea reaches such proportions that there’s almost nothing you won’t be fairly sure you’ve heard him say. It’s always a clue on commentary – the momentary silence while a colleague tries to think of creative ways to politely say “that’s a load of shit, Shane”.
When you have a true great, a titan of the history of cricket, a man who stands second on the all time list of wicket takers, who would have been first but for an unfortunate episode where he was incapable of reading prescriptions, anti-doping regulations, team orders, WADA guidelines….errr perhaps just incapable of reading given the lack of plausible excuses for the ban.
As a commentator Warne has managed to nail that oh so difficult niche, whereby he witters on talking utter crap, yet retains the attention of the audience because maybe, just maybe, there will be a nugget of actual insight. And let’s be clear, Warne doesn’t lack insight – the bigger problem is the Herschelle Gibbs level of intellect. It does limit it a touch. He’s also so delightfully Australian. Not content with slating Alastair Cook to the point that even the residents of this blog were getting feelings of fatherly love and sympathy for the England captain, he also manages to go full on C’mon Aussie C’mon without realising there’s someone next to him who might remember it differently. Things like, oh I don’t know – the laughable claim Australia never doctored their pitches for Best Spin Bowler In The World Shane Warne for example.
Atherton could barely disguise his incredulity.
Graeme Swann
Like the mate you knew from when you were growing up, you know the one who behaved like Jay from the Inbetweeners, been there, done that, completed it mate. Swann believes he is the best thing since sliced bread and has the banter mode to live up to expectation. What most of us see is a middle aged, ex-international spinner who decided that he didn’t quite fancy being whacked around the park in Melbourne and decided to pack his bags and leave in a huff. The man who believes that Test tickets are but a mere £20, Bantersorous Rex is truly a man of the people. Tim Lovejoy has a new heir to the throne.
Jade Dernbach
One of the authors of this blog in particular takes great umbrage at being offended. Jade didn’t like the fact that I criticised him not for his bowling, but for some irresponsible batting when a game might have been saved. As I saw he returned for the ‘rey recently, I clicked on his Twitter timeline to see I was still persona non grata. Given his performances for England, his position as a standing joke as a “finisher” across the whole of social media and press, to take umbrage at li’l ole me seemed rather, shall we say, petty. But it’s his right.
The English Medical Staff
Do they have something against people with first names starting with M? With Cheese, who made everyone know he was playing through pain, they let him carry on with a tear in his achilles that ended his career. With Mark Wood, even Director, Cricket was questioning what the hell was going on. But there are green shoots. They told England not to pick Stokes and Anderson at Lord’s, and the selectors backed them. Mr Dignity played absolutely no part in the furore that ensued. That furore went strangely quiet when Stokes broke down again and Anderson said it would have been too early.
———————————————————————-
This list is arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable and the product of three blokes in the pub deciding who to have a go at.
On that basis it’s every bit as important as the Cricketer’s list. Glad you approve.
Sean, TLG, Dmitri
Being Outside Cricket 
Possibly the highest laughs-per-line ratio of any article on here or HDWLIA.
Well done.
PS: this should not however be taken for universal approval of the list.
PPS: for the second time in two days, where’s wctt?
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Er, we don’t universally approve of the list between us!
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Part of the fun was trying to work out where you disagreed! Betting it was you versus Sean on Colvile….
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We all totally supported each other’s views without exception. Obviously!
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“How this curmudgeonly old writer still gets gigs is beyond me”.
And yet get them he does – his latest is, alas, hidden behind the Murdoch paywall but the reaction it provoked gives some idea of the delights it contained:
http://www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk/news/local/sports-writer-slams-scarborough-s-grottiness-1-8100084
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I was scouring through the Cricketer for this article. Instead we had a poem to John Woodcock.
I say no more.
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Would your notional #51 have the initials AB, by any chance, Simon?
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Apart from –
1) Defending Stanford because he had clean toilets.
2) Accusing Michael Atherton, when he criticised Stanford before it was convenient to do so, of “a cute turn of phrase” and asking how many Test caps Atherton had.
3) Never writing a word of direct criticism of Giles Clarke.
4) Defending the ICC power-grab.
5) Accusing a BTL critic of said power-grab of “misty-eyed cobblers”.
6) Never writing a word of direct criticism of Andy Flower.
7) Writing the most pusillanimous review of DOAG.
8) Addressing the issue of corruption in cricket by writing ten paragraphs about about match-fixing in a game in 1840 and concluding there’s always been match-fixing in cricket so don’t worry about it.
9) Using the same “there’s always been….. ” line to dismiss any concerns about the current health of Test cricket.
10) Writing about how many Tests Alastair Cook has won without mentioning how many he’s lost.
11) Accusing those who think some FTA cricket might be a good idea of wanting to deprive the blind.
12) Having the most nauseatingly sycophantic BTL fan-club.
13) The preening self-regard of that header photo (okay, that’s probably not down to him but I’m on a roll here).
14) At a time of unprecedented upheaval in the game, and as the supposed leading feature writer on the UK’s leading (only) progressive newspaper, failing to come up with a single memorable line to compare with Haigh’s “does cricket exist to make money…..” or Atherton’s “if you can’t be idealistic about sport….”.
15) Turning ‘The Spin’ away from a forum to analyse major issues in the game and into a diet of nostalgia and whimsy.
16) Probably some other stuff.
What has Andy Bull ever done for us?
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Not quite sure what I’ve done to make Simon Wilde block me on Twitter. Can’t think of anything I’ve said about him (not really) on here on Twitter.
Which is odd, because, as The Cricketer magazine showed this month, Simon has Giles Clarke’s ear. I’m sure that’s not linked at all. And that you conduct an interview with him which doesn’t challenge his nonsense on Stanford, omits the KP affair, lets him off the appointment of Downton, and barely touches his toxicity that was so grave the ICC changed the rules to prevent him becoming leader.
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Wilde’s an odd one. His ‘On Pietersen’ was quite sympathetic and for most of 2014 he was one of the very few in the press box who didn’t portray Pietersen as the Great Satan.
In late 2014, he switched. He claimed it was because of “the book” – and he became as bilious about Pietersen as the worst of them, almost as if he was making up for lost time. I then stopped looking him up his writing (which is mostly behind a paywall anyway).
“The book” is of course open to various criticisms. But to claim it could bring about a complete volte face seems to me preposterous. Is that ‘The Cricketer’ interview with Giles Clarke by Simon Wilde? It’s pretty difficult not to be getting a decided whiff of rodent about all this…..
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The Cricketer interview, or ghost writing the thoughts of Chairman Clarke, is by Simon Wilde. Put it this way, I wasn’t surprised he was the named journo on that piece.
As I said, the bits I saw, and his appearances on CWOTV, made me quite like him. I don’t even think being in Clarke’s camp automatically makes me loathe anyone.
I’ll live.
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Meaning this one….. any chance of a fisking?
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Notice how Mr Hughes allows Clarke to give his side of the story. No bias there then? You won’t find such generous terms given to those that oppose this agenda.
As for Simon Wilde, once the KP thing had been settled they all had to get back to sucking up to the ECB. They all rely on access. No surprise he blocked you.
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There is a Simon Barnes article on Clarke which is less flattering. I’d hardly call it a destruction, but it isn’t letting Clarke off the hook.
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@Mark – to be fair to the Cricketer Magazine, they ran a survey at the start of the summer, and one of the questions was ‘who would you most like to hear from in an interview’. Clarke was first or second (I can’t remember which), so it’s good they’ve finally tracked him down. I know it’s a soft-soaping interview, but at least we can all read his bilge and think “Oh, FFS, Clarke” rather than it being hidden out of sight.
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Nicholas, let’s not be fair. I answered that survey and responded Giles Clarke to that question. By “interview”, I (and I’m sure most respondents) meant asking some difficult questions and then pressing Clarke on them. By all accounts, this is simply a platform for Clarke to defend himself and is more stenography than interviewing.
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Wonderfully written – snorting with laughter throughout. Thanks, all!
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I can’t believe NonOxcol didn’t make the list. Insufferable doesn’t even begin to describe him.
Otherwise, I heartily approve. Though I think you were a bit too kind about . . . . well, all of them really!
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Simon Hughes tweet to Maxie is the proof that he has gone completely insane.
“you have a valid voice in the game but do yourself no favours with extreme unbalanced criticism of unbiased opinion”
This is delusional on a scale not seen since Hitler pulled his Panzer divisions off the coast of France to invade Russia. Hughes is implying that his work and that of his chums is unbiased. This confirms all I feared about these charlatans. They really, really do think they are doing Gods work. They honestly look at themselves in the mirror everyday and see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. You have to be NUTS to belive this.
The fact he wrote himself in at number 39 is probably the funniest joke in all of this sorry affair, yet he honestly thinks he belongs there. I await for him to start talking about himslef in the third person.
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Oh, it was aimed at me as well, Mark. Of course it was.
I have no illusions over my lack of influence, so what favours I’m not doing myself is anyone’s guess. What? I’m not going to be invited to the Analysts Rodeo BBQ and Line Dance evening? I’m beyond crestfallen.
And, Godwins….
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I don’t believe in or accept Godwin’s law. Nazi Germany is a an endless seam to mine from.
And if I or anybody else wants to so they should. And just because some twat called Godwin doesn’t approve…….. well f*** him, and the horse he rode in on.
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“England have picked a diamond in decent, dignified and debonair Paul Downton”
Google it, and come back when you’ve finished choking on your own laughter and vomit.
“Unbiased”
Didn’t Arthur Dent have something to say about the unfamiliar use of words?
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/10389961/England-have-picked-a-diamond-in-decent-dignified-and-debonair-Paul-Downton-as-managing-director.html
Let the public see “unbiased opinion”.
#39 problems and humility ain’t one.
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That article has a link to Nick Knight’s twenty players to watch in the last T20I WC:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/sky-sports-t20-india/nick-knights-20-to-watch/
He managed to identify 3 of the top 20 run scorers in the competition (the ultra-risky picks of Kohli and Buttler plus Mohammad Shahzad).
He managed to identify 3 of the top 20 wicket takers in the competition (Badree, Mustafizar and – at number 20 – Chris Morris).
Picking the names at random out of a hat would probably have had a higher success rate.
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Oh heavens. They called him “Yozzer.” I assume they meant “Yosser” and I assume they had no idea of the cognitive dissonance needed to equate anything about the pompous, unaware bumbler in front of them with the character written by Alan Bleasdale.
I weep sometimes. Well, quite often.
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Best thing in that article is the description of Downton as “a human pacifier.” Snort.
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Mean to Charles Colville, I thought. Otherwise, splendid relentless churling.
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I agree, Zeph. Colville isn’t demonstrating his cluelessness, he is playing the role of everyman, asking questions that the nonexpert may have so that the studio guests can answer them. Nice to have someone on Sky who isn’t a giant ego.(To be fair, Gower also does this very well.)
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Gower is a terrible front man in my view. He never stops talking, and answers his own questions before the the others have had chance to have their say. He is a better commentator.
I quite like dear old Charles. It’s also refeshing to have a non ex player on the panel. As you say Clive he asks the questions the pros over look. Modern broadcasters seem think that ex players are all that is needed. Quite often they are are clueless outside their own skill set. Look at Swann.
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Absolutely chuffed to have made such an important and code defining list. Funniest thing I’ve read all year. I won’t defend your criticisms of me, except to say that if you are using Olympic joke references in a cricket piece, I’ve got you beat. I would have gone after the Overratedson stuff myself.
Boom!
Where’s Piers by the way?
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I must admit when I first saw Dennis Freedman on the list my first thought was….. “who the frig is Dennis Freedman?” But then I had a double take and realised it was you Dennis, and not the bloke who played Terry in Minder.
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We were trying to find something where you’d only been moderately thrashed, not completely destroyed
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You can’t destroy me. I’m so cocksure of myself. You bloggers are the pits. And yes, KP deserved it and leave Etheridge alone. He’s a good egg, even if the clock is still ticking 😂
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“When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer … Being Outside Cricket is only 2 1/2” ….
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And Piers Morgan can’t be included because he’s Outside Cricket remember.
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So does this make me inside cricket? And why was I rated below the Guardian County Cricket live blog? I’ve a right mind to write a letter to the editor. Oh, the indignity.
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Dennis Ul Haq surely???
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Absolute gold list fellas, well done.
Re DFM – he’s been a tw@t for 30 years. Perhaps it’s because he’s 3 ft tall. Perhaps it’s because at the WACA in 1989 his attempt at a forward defensive shot, left elbow high, resulted in him head butting the ball to backward point. Perhaps it’s because he bowled shrewd long hops which AB & Junior repeatedly feasted upon. Perhaps it’s because he’s follicly challenged………sorry, last one is mean spirited.
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Well guys & me Lord you haven’t seen me in a long while. I was so sick of the sycophancy in the Cricket World – alias Cloud Cuckooland for the blind, deaf, & ga ga of Cricket Establishment PLC – I couldn’t be er um err um bovvered to watch any more. One sight of darling, unassailable, deer killing Cook, was enough to send me straight to the wine rack quick smart.
However, hubby said: “Oh look at this, it’s so funny & brilliant. I don’t know who wrote it tho. Just listen to this….” Off he went like a Virgin Train trying to catch up with yesterday’s passengers.Quick as flash I said:”Only one person writes like that, it’s gotta be me Lord Canis,” (et al).
Just had to have a look didn’t I? Fantastic. Been laughing myself silly. So damn pleased you got up Simon Hughe’s nose. He still hasn’t got me a beer having promised me one on line. No class at all. Certainly no bottle. He can only hide behind Twitter and have digs at you and others. Made my day and no mistake. Only and his tweet made no sense. English not his strong point.
I remember Lord Boycott and Dermot Reeve having a run in on Channel 5 (I think). Dermot Reeve – before his snorting problem was announced to the world and his wife – was slagging all the players off and Boycott had enough. “You’re having a go at our Test players, you couldn’t even get into a Test side with your puny little body….” Me and old man nearly lost our tea. Fantastic.
Nice to be back. Missed you fellas. Enjoying the ODI but don’t watch Test Match. All the sycophants come round like bluebottles around stinking fish. Nauseating in the extreme.
Cheers me Lord and all who sail in her and join in the fun.
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Nice to see you again.
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Cheers.
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This is probably the most enjoyable cricket article I’ve read. Shame there are so many elements, it’s impossible to respond without a reply of similar length. I would give Charles Colville some latitude. He will say, roundabouts, “isn’t this bollox?” Now and then
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What a cracking read for a Saturday night. Well done, chaps. (I seem to be evoking my inner Mark Nicholas).
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I was going to chide you for the inclusion of Jimmy Anderson, but then I remembered that I don’t like his on-field behaviour sometimes either. Shame about that, because otherwise the guy deserves the sort of praise that the MSM reserves for Cook and Cook alone. Pace Denns Freedman.
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Any criticism Jimmy gets is well earnt I think. His shit attitude has been defended to many times by the ECB.
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I just love it when you reconnect to your roots and come over all “bilious”.. brilliant read Sean… bloody well played Sir!
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Haha, thanks. Though it was definitely a 3 man effort for this piece.
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Sunday morning and don’t think I shall stop laughing all day. At least will have a silly grin on my face.Thank you Dmitri for making my day. Just one question, do you think all those mentioned will read your wonderful article? Oh, how I wish.😂😂😂😂
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You skipped over the KP one, Julie. 🙂
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Very very good.
Two things.
Verity got off lightly. He’s not just bland, he’s an idiot, who often suggests the most absurd contrarian standpoints to appear intelligent, when all it does is further highlight his stupidity.
And, as i’ve argued with others before, DFM doesn’t deserve it and YOU KNOOOOOW IT.
He’s the clown at the IPL circus and is paid to put on the suit. A circus is not a circus without a clown. Indeed he’s dragged out to the CPL to trot out exactly the same routine. If you treat it as such rather than evaluate his commentating on the normal scale, he’s actually reasonable entertainment. As an aside, when he’s not taking the T20 circus money, he’s pretty anonymous as you’ll find out if you’re listening to the SL/AUS ODIs
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I’m also less down on Danny Morrison than some – I heard his test commentary a couple of years ago for New Zealand’s series in the West Indies and the UAE, and he was noticeably much calmer than usual and actually really interesting and informative. I think you’re right, he just adjusts his style for what he thinks best suits the format.
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Given a choice between Danny Morrison and Pommie Mbangwa, I’d prefer the former every time.
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I agree. I can’t stand Danny on T20 comms (way over the top), but during Tests he is quite a decent listen
Also with regards to other IPL commentators (Ravi Shastri falls in that category as well, on occasion), they can’t say anything that is critical of the BCCI, or even refer to anyone with captaincy potential as “future Indian captain”. That got Sunil Gavaskar suspended from IPL commentary a few years ago.
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Lovely work gents! Surely a collective entry for the Australian cricket team wouldn’t have gone amiss after their horrible performance in Sri Lanka. Otherwise I can’t complain about any of that.
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After any of these are put together you regret some omissions. Mine is the England Cricket Twitter feed. Or Pravda as it should be known. The DPRK has little on its devotion to a Dear Leader.
We also have Australian readers. I might have put Conn on there, though. Or Dorries, for crimes past.
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Yep. I can’t believe we forgot Piers Morgan for one thing.
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Ssssssssssssh. People think we’re a Piers Morgan front group as it is.
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I could have told personal tales about playing against him. As Denis would say, I’m dirty.
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I suppose Dennis getting in is compensation. The problem is he clearly rather enjoyed being on there!
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Who doesn’t like making a list? Especially one as piss funny as this one?
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I can possibly see one or two members of the MSM not being too happy at their inclusion including a couple of former/current bloggers who have sort of gone to the darkside!
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Brief discussion about “the list” on TMS this morning…apparently it’s causing some ” reaction”?
We can only speculate…
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I’m assuming you don’t mean our list…
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outstanding work guys, I’ve read it three times now and I’m still laughing
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What on earth made you put Dermot Reeve on the list? I haven’t seen sight nor sound of him for nearly 2 decades. Also you missed out Alice.
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Listen to Keith Olbermann’s intro here. This piece is that…
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Terrorvision – Alice, What’s the matter? https://youtu.be/VOOcJobuZTc via @YouTube
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More “unbiased” comment:
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Hughes would be the first to sneer at Pietersen if he was still hanging around at Surrey, hoping for a call from Strauss: “KP lingering around in the second division like a bad smell, what part of ‘get lost’ doesn’t he understand?”
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He didn’t go off in a huff Mr Hughes he was sacked by England under Strauss. But The ECB didn’t have the balls to say forever because they were scared they would be sued under employment law. He gave up an overseas contract to play county cricket because he was told to score runs in county cricket and then he would be considered for England again. He did that and your scummy mates changed the rules, because they have no integrity. You know that is true, so why do you keep lying? Do you lie to your children ,and your wife as much as you lie to your readers? Are you a born liar or just over KP?
Only the Nazis and the Communists rewrite history as much as you do Mr Hughes. You and your small minded mates got what you wanted. Shame you don’t have the integrity or honesty to admit it. You are not impartial, you have been running a pro Cook anti KP campaign through the whole affair. You either really believe you are impartial, which means you are a moron. Or you are lying again. Which is it? Liar or moron?
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but when you pretend to be impartial while promoting a blatant agenda you are nothing of the sort. You should be removed from your current job for the lies you keep churning out. Perhaps your employer likes liars? Doesn’t say much for the owners of the magazine.
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You do yourself no favours with your extreme unbalanced criticism of unbiased opinion.
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As Clive says…. Hughes would have been the first to sneer if KP had stuck arround playing for Surrey with no chance of getting picked for England.
Getting rid of KP was not good enough for these scumbags. They wanted total humiliation of him. How many cosy dinners did Hughes enjoy with his chum Cook? How much plotting and scheming went on? I think we should told. Now that is the real story if ever Mr Hughes has the integrity to write it.
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Well, you know, Mr Hughes, it’s a funny thing.
If I’d been led to believe that I could have something that I valued very much, provided I fulfilled certain conditions; and I’d given up £250,000 worth of work to do it, and I’d fulfilled those conditions in a spectacular and highly skilled way; and then I’d been told that after all I couldn’t have the thing, now or ever…
I mean, I don’t want to exaggerate here but, I think I might have been just a tiny bit cross.
I might even have been in what you might call a huff. And I would probably go on feeling like that for quite a while.
But then, I’m a human being. Apparently Kevin Pietersen is supposed to be something else.
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Ah, the same old one-eyed drivel that made me cancel my subscription to the Cricketer over 2 years ago. Good to see times haven’t changed for them. Now catching up with All Out Cricket around which title can be most pro ‘establishment’
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Cook was never “in a huff” of course, not with Angelo Mathews when he played by the rules, not when Matty was about to be dropped, not when something had to be done about Warne, not when Swann was a so-called friend, not after Morgan failed at the 2015 World Cup, not when Graves hinted that Pietersen might be available for selection.
No, he was a brave and not at all uxorious private, humble man under the kind of intolerable pressure you can only experience through being backed unconditionally by your employer after one of the worst results in history, benefiting from the broader perspective on life offered by farming, Alice and shooting baby deer.
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Exactly!
But you would have to be a jounalist of integrity to write such a piece about Cook and his huffs. No good waiting for Hughes then.
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For your reading pleasure. Written by Turbervill.
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“Saw him close to quitting.”
Yea right….. The old jokes are the best ones!
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A reminder of what Hughes Tweeted the day the book came out –
If “extraordinary lack of self-awareness” is grounds for dismissal, there’ll be some long dole queues tomorrow. I can also think of a few cricketers who would have had fewer Test caps.
The whole thread is worth re-reading (remember the husband-wife metaphor?). It is of course magnificently “unbiased” and doesn’t read at all like a journo, hell-bent for whatever reason, on defending the ECB’s action. Hughes probably thinks he’s unbiased because he wrote that piece in 2015 praising Pietersen’s career. That was the one that read like an obituary (Pietersen at the time was 34, four years younger than Younus Khan).
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I found a comment I was rather proud of, BTL on an Owen Gibson article
about Graves and KP in May 2015. It was in response to a poster who said that if Hughes “of all people” thinks Pietersen is a twat, then it must be so.
Can’t link it from my phone.
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I didn’t see that at the time, but yeah, that’s a completely useless analogy. Sure, your wife doesn’t have to stay with you if you behave badly, but the justification for her doing so rests on the rather crucial point, which Hughes seems to have completely missed, regarding whether you were indeed behaving badly at all, no? That’s where the dispute was here, whether Pietersen’s actions quite merited his particular level of (mis)treatment.
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Of course KP didn’t know the reasons why he was sacked. Because the ECB didn’t want to be specific for fear he would sue the shit out of them. So instead we had all these whispers, and innuendo. A decent reporter would have looked into it instead of being spoon fed from his masters.
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Apparently there’s part 9 of a ‘StraussSuperSeries’ going on…. just thought I’d let you know… not sure who gets to lift the ‘atrophy’, even tho’ his Cookieness failed to win his bit of the deal… but hey, shouldn’t he still be our ODI leader to this day?
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Hi Dad. Good one.
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Hey, my luscious lil Annie, great to hear from you anew
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Thanks Dad. See my bit further up. Steve said, sort of, must read this its brilliant. We were both laughing our socks off. Steve said he didn’t know who wrote it. I said sounds me Lord Canis. Had such a laugh last nite. Been so busy this last year looking after our friend who was living with us as his health declined and he died month ago. We both miss him so much. Been a tough time for his family and us. Just couldn’t watch The Deer Hunter captain and nauseating & sycophantic comments. Just added to me frustrations. But been watching the ODIs and so brilliant. Watching how the team responds to each other. There is a real team spirit. I really don’t see it in Test Side at all. Maybe it’s just moi with blinkers on. Don’t answer that. Lovely to see you and hear from all the lads and lasses on here. I will have to go back to the list and have a good laugh again. Cheers.
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Not sure if this has been flagged here before, but really? The last entry on The Analyst’s “blog”:
http://theanalyst.net/2016/06/12/cook-as-relentless-as-the-sea-at-lowestoft/
Photo caption: “Alastair Cook after a net with the Hughes family”
FFS – how much self-awareness do you have to lack not to realise that when you are the “editor” of a relatively important cricket magazine, this sort of anal smoke puffery is just not acceptable? And how can anyone believe you to be unbiased when your kids are netting with the England captain? How can you say what you really think now, if you even had the awareness to think it?
There is a nice echo of George Galloway on Saddam in this piece as well – “the root of his indefatigability.” I doubt Yosser has the self-awareness to see how that is funny though.
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“Cricket’s Forensic Examiner”
This is up there with Huw’s comment “He pioneered the innovative, increasingly technical coverage of the game”. I could put out the rumour that they stuck him in the truck because noone could stand him in the commentary box. No idea if it was true, but I do recall a really tetchy exchange with Ian Smith….
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I think we have had it, because I remember the damaged crockery when Cook was directly compared to Border, he of the World Cup, one Ashes Test loss and twelve wins (eight away) in his last eighteen as captain, and significance as Test captain roughly equivalent to a combination of our Hussain and Vaughan, only longer and greater. I’m sure Fred in particular was highly impressed.
Still, “unbiased” though, what?
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Oh, and his average over 50, back when it was bloody tough to achieve (never mind sustain over 16 years) of course. That too.
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Don’t know about anybody else but the very fact he goes around calling himself “The Analyst” puts up enormous red flags for me, and makes me deeply suspicious of him. Especially as channel 4 lost their cricket contract a decade ago. It’s like people who speak in the third person.
“Cricket’s Forensic Examiner” The jokes write themselves.
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CSI – Lost Analyst?
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“… I’d be quite keen to widen the analyst ‘brand’ into consumer products, or travel, or food, for instance…”
http://www.alloutcricket.com/features/a-drink-with-simon-hughes
Hughes, January 2014. Not sure quite what he knows about consumer products, travel or food, to be quite honest with you.
We haven’t discussed on here yet the murky manner in which he became editor of the magazine. I am fairly sure that he was a shareholder in the company when he was appointed ‘editor-in-chief’ in 2014 when Miller was sacked. It’s all very incestuous. Frankly, following the line of Swanton-CMJ-Stern-Miller, Hughes just simply isn’t a good enough writer or journalist to take on the mantle of editing the Cricketer magazine. I always liked his work on Channel 4, and his book ‘Morning Everyone’ about life in the media in the 00s remains a favourite of mine, but I am getting less and less keen on him as this decade progresses.
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I thoroughly look forward to his words of wisdom on travel. My industry in which I’ve been a professional for 20 years. He won’t even know how it works, in the way that no one from outside a particular industry does. If he ever spouts off on it do give me a shout, I’ll enjoy pulling his ignorance apart.
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Made the mistake of looking at the Guardian ODI thread. It’s a great read – on whether Morgan, Ali or Rashid is more un-English.
The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.
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It’s about the lowest level I’ve ever seen on a Guardian cricket thread.
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It’s fairly standard for The Guardian BTL, I’m afraid these days, that’s why I stopped visiting a few years ago. He who shouts loudest is now King…
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It’s the Internet the Guardian claims it wants…….. or something!
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“Member since 4 Sep 2016”.
Admit it, you’re amazed.
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Gee whizz. What is wrong with the Guardian? Bad enough getting rubbish from Mr very bad tempered Selvey. Really is sordid stuff.
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A big issue is who to replace the dismissed three with on my picture (the first one on the List post). Newman stays. Smith and Hughes must be there, I would have thought. But who else?
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Dan Lucas making a late play for it….
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Needs a much stronger body of work, an Introspective nature, active nightlife, and actually some very fundamental changes, a bilingual approach to alternative behaviour, please.
One of our number will get that. Super.
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I thought it was a promising beginning. Will soon learn to use bilious in a casually liberal manner and assume the tone of voice akin to someone who has run over his pet cat. Assume Mike’s on speed dial now…
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The outright racist stuff about Ali and Rashid has all been deleted now. Though they’ve left slaptroll’s bizarre insistence on insulting Morgan.
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Can just say that I like Danny Morrison’s mad t20 commentaries. I find him hilarious and fun. Maybe it’s because I don’t have pay tv at home so I associate him with the rare free live cricket on tv.
Surely Matthew Syed should sue Ed Smith as Smith has stolen his act?
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“When a publication gets bored and runs out of ideas, it turns to lists. Whether that be “Five Things We Learned” or a wider list, it’s lovely clickbait”.
Oh look –
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/sep/05/england-pakistan-odi-series-five-things-we-learned
Number 2 is rather aptly named:
“Strauss’s first task as director of England cricket was an awkward one. He had to tell Kevin Pietersen his unbeaten Championship 355 for Surrey in May 2015 meant diddly-squat in terms of an England recall. That, along with rumours the former opening batsman was considering running as a Conservative MP, led to some on social media forgetting what an admirable man Strauss was as the captain of England”.
Selvey may have gone, but the stench lingers on……
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FFS, I hadn’t even got to #4:
“England are very good indeed at one-day cricket – so very good that if you were invited to pick their all-time best one-day XI, you could be excused simply choosing their most recent incarnation, subbing in IT Botham, and leaving it at that”.
So no Willis, no Pietersen, no Swann, no Gough for starters?
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Doesn’t Botham have a very mediocre one-day record indeed?
One post-Selvey issue is that the generalists under 40 appear to know very little about English cricket before about 1990. The difference between them and, say, Smyth, is vast.
So, lots more “England, eh? Crap in the 90s, eh? Eh?” to look forward to then.
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It’s priceless how they are all drooling over the ODI side, yet most of them wanted the sheep to continue as captain, and a lot of them wanted Morgan sacked after the World Cup.
They are all blinded by Strauss’s influence. The English cricket press does like to genuflect in front of power. The transformation had started before he took over. Morgan just didn’t have long enough before the World Cup because England piddled around with Cook for too long.
But the only thing the media is good at in England is re writing history. They are masters of it. It’s the ” Anyalists” only skill.
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That is just so pathetic.
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You and Clive are being compared to (conspiracist pro-Corbyn anti-MSM website) The Canary now!!
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Badge of honor that is!
The Guardian is too busy with injecting identity politics into everything. I am surprised they don’t want a gay English captain or a female captian or a one legged English captain. It’s the only way they judge a persons worth.
How the old Manchester Guardian has gone down the toilet.
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Where did Dan Lucas spring from? I have a feeling he’s going to provide this blog with regular material, so there’s no need to worry about the loss of our old “favourites.”
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To answer my own question:
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He’s also making a play for the “Promising Newcomer” when it comes to the journalist poll. He’d better develop a thicker skin as well in responding to criticism. That piece had the quality of The Canary.
By the way, the Lordship comment. Bravo.
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“Since 2012 I have interviewed the Pet Shop Boys…….”
Well say no more then……. Another John Arlott in the making…not!
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Careful now.
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The other guy (the one who seems to believe that I.T. Botham had a stellar ODI history), Dan Harris, is a football blogger who wrote a book about one year in the life of Manchester United. Is the idea to make us nostalgic for Selvey?
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Daniel Harris ghost wrote the last KP book.
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Lucas’s expletive, a comparison of Kevin Pietersen to cancer and clivejw being called “Piers”….
Another morning on “the web we want”.
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“Awkward” was not the word Strauss used when describing sacking KP to an ex-Mosman team-mate.
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They all seem to want to reinvent history. Imperial historians at the ready. If it doesn’t tally with Establishment then change to suit the upper echelons of cricket instead. Now what was it that his majesty said about us all when we complained? We don’t listen to “outsiders!”
Clark’s swan song as Chairman was to ensure that KP never got back into the side, making Costco man look like a right pillock & oh so weak. Strauss bought in because he was only “yes man” on list of wannabes.
Let’s all have a reinvent history day. Pick and choose your bit of of history Fact and alter it. I mean we could all be Simon Hughes wannabes who told me on Twitter that his tweet was not biased it was FACT. Now Mr Hughes really is the gift that keeps on giving. As my dad used to say: If you are going to lie on a regular basis you need a damn good memory. Which he doesn’t have.
Bunch of tossers – FACT.
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He’s still apparently on extended gardening leave at Cricinfo, but in case anyone was missing him:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/sport/2016/09/why-football-not-olympics-can-help-us-understand-economics
“Is the state reduced to orchestrating totemic sporting triumphs, counter-rhythms to the far greater influence of hyper-globalisation?” Errrr….
Strip it down, and (surprise, surprise) it’s another hymn to wonders of the free market.
And the idea that the EPL is an economic model for anything is laughable.
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Can’t wait for my polling form!
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Not a slam dunk this year. Some real contenders.
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“If Team GB were to become the blueprint, Britain would end up pouring state money into creating a handful of super-rich entrepreneurs without generating any new jobs lower down the food chain.”
Good lord, how the hell is this man still employed anywhere? He obviously has never heard of channelling huge funds of printed money into the banks for no other purpose than to bail out the 1% elite. It sure as hell hasn’t stimulated economic growth, either here, despite doubling the national debt. Neither has it worked in the US despite taking their national debt from 6 trillion to 19 trillion $ or in Europe. Japan has been trying it for 20 years and failed completely. But I bet he is a great supporter of bailing out banking elites and artificially inflating asset prices for the top 10% The very model he denounces in the Olympics is helping to increase the value of his property in London.
Of course if that fails, you could always try plagiarism. Just steal form the past.
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I started writing a long demolition of Smith’s argument, but it’s not really worth it. Suffice it to say he lifts, sorry references, a list of sports at which Argentina excels from an article by someone called Lincoln Allison. (Football, rugby, tennis, golf, motor racing and polo – yes, polo)
Sadly, presumably in order to look like he’s done some of his own work, he adds hockey to the list. Unfortunately for FICJAM, Argentine hockey has seen not only substantial state and local government investment since 2000, it’s also trebled participation in that time. Which is sort of the opposite of the point he’s trying to make.
This is another lovely nugget “a state shouldn’t spend all of its money on health care, education and pensions, any more than a household should spend all of its money on essential provisions and repairs.” I don’t suppose it occurs to him that any households might not have enough even for that.
Smith and Hughes, barely a clue between them.
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KP joining the Channel 9 team – that should be fun.
http://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/cricket/kp-set-to-join-channel-nine-ranks/ar-AAivDAA?li=AA54yd&ocid=spartanntp
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Dummies being spat out all across the globe. Mark Nicholas will be extremely pleased! And they had the chance to sign the Anyalist and turned him down?
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Hehe. Kevin the Mole, they keep trying to whack him down and he keeps popping back up.
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Brettig on an important week at the ICC:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/story/1054601.html
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After Simon Hughes reflected, this morning, that he should not have been on the Cricketer list of the 50 top influencers in English cricket, the pressing question was, well, who was #51.
My understanding is that a few names bubbled under the surface. These include Andrew Flintoff, Hugh Morris and John Etheridge.
I believe Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber had strong support, too. It’s likely that #51 will have come from one or other of these folk.
Make of this what you will.
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Personally, T, I think you have shown #39 a good deal more patience and tolerance than he deserved. He’s snipped at us before, patronised me certainly, and has shown no proper inclination to engage with us proles. Until the focus was on him.
They have confused “interest” in their list with being a laughing stock. He’s no more sorry for being in there than I am for the tweets on Saturday.
As much as I loathe him, if Simon Hughes doesn’t think the lead cricket columnist in either the Mail or the Guardian isn’t in the top 50 most powerful figures, then who knows. Where was Stuart Broad, as John Etheridge said, the man, who it could be argued, won both the crucial tests in the Ashes and South Africa with his bowling? No, the scorer with attitude (Leamon) is more important. It’s risible.
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I put this information out there for interest and without comment.
My Twitter feed sets out pretty strongly what I think about some of the choices.
It is a constant challenge finding the right tone when attempting to engage folk and test their positions. I don’t pretend I have yet found the right balance. My block rate suggests I still have work to do!
At the same time, the list was always intended to produce heat rather than light. For the most part, it has far more to do with what folk have done in the past rather than their current status as a key influencer. So it’s all a bit of fun and nonsense. I’ve tried to bear that in mind in my interventions.
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It was meant in a purely observational way and no judgement. You are a more tolerant man!
But you knew that!
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Stuart Broad has arguably been the key bowler in three home Ashes wins (2009, 2013, and 2015).
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The calm before a potential storm after Wednesday if some players refuse to tour. Look at Newman’s ‘exclusive’ that Farbrace will tour if you want a taster of what’s to come for Morgan if he won’t go. Some who’ve never been reconciled to Morgan as captain are waiting to settle some scores. I’ve nothing particularly against Farbrace by the way but the extensive verbatim quotations in that article I’d offer as strong circumstantial evidence that he is Newman’s main source for “good journalism”.
Meanwhile there’s this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016/09/06/if-eoin-morgan-does-not-tour-bangladesh-the-ecb-will-begrudge-hi/
Despite the headline, most of it is about how KP assesses where England’s ODI team stands – and he’s absolutely spot on about it in my view.
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Agreed Simon, he’s absolutely nailed it…t’was ever thus!
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Also in agreement:
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One comment below Chris’s tweet. “Sounds like shit stirring nonsense to me”. Of course it is.
Excellent column.
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The sewer that is Paul Newman. All the shit that flows from England goes down Newmans pipes. Same as it always was.
And Simon is right they are just waithing for pay back. I bet they are relishing the idea that Morgan won’t go. Horrible people. I sometimes wonder why anyone would want to play for Strauss’s England? Always remember Trust is a big issue. 😉
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This is the article I meant:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-3771166/Paul-Farbrace-confirms-intentions-tour-Bangladesh-England.html
The only thing that protects Morgan is that Strauss appointed him – but if he defies them here I doubt that’ll be enough. They’ve manoeuvred it so that Morgan is to blame if he’s the only one not to go (he thinks he’s so special!) and he’s to blame if others don’t go (Morgan led them astray!).
Still, it’s an individual decision and there’s no pressure…..
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If there is a terrorist outrage, and people get seriously injured I want to see Newmans resignation letter on Darce’s desk within an hour. How dare he criticise others for a decision that has to be taken by individuals and families.
There is a another issue here. The determination to treat all ENGLAND cricketers like upstairs downstairs staff. The lower orders must have no say in what happens. This horse Stookie about players being given free choice to decide themselves is nonsense. If they refuse to go, it seems action will be taken against them. This was at the heart of the KP issue. No one is allowed to have a mind of their own.
TRUST TRUST TRUST TRUST TRUST TRUST TRUST?
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Quiz time, hotshots:
Can you identify the missing piece of information in this career summary?
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/06/peter-moores-cricket-head-coach-nottinghamshire
Extra wiseass points if you can identify the missing piece of information simply by reading the URL rather than clicking!
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Looks like Glenn Maxwell has re-found his mojo!
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Swanny = that’s the winner for me. Nice one.
Peter Moores is full-on in charge of Notts now. Oh dear. Still, the local IT suppliers might be expecting a hefty order.
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