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Finally, Dmitri / LCL / Misery Guts

1. Pakistan winning the competition. What’s not to love?

There is a lot of goodwill out there for Pakistan, but as is usual with the twitterati, it has to be a bit overboard. Pakistan can be a capricious beast when it comes to the game, but they have good players, and we’ve all known that pointed in the right direction, getting a bit of momentum going, and a couple of players surprising us all can work wonders. We saw it with Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup. We saw it with West Indies in the 2004 Champions Trophy and last year’s World T20. We saw it with Pakistan in 1992. The “love” for Pakistani cricket is probably reflective of the need for us all to have a top tier of the world game with more than the Big 3 and South Africa putting up top class performances. The fear is that this won’t do anything other than paper over the cracks, like the West Indies wins in 2004 and the T20 tournaments. Oh, and is Mohammad Amir now totally forgiven?

2. Bump in the road or major setback?

A major setback. Absolutely and don’t pretend it is anything else. The aims of this administration, under Empty Suit, the new man in the cupboard and the Comma is to win a white ball world trophy and now two have slipped through their grasps. While the T20 was a total freak, this wasn’t. England had played well, but as the Lord’s game against South Africa showed, there’s a collapse in this team on a semi-regular basis. My hope was it would come in the Australia game, not the semi-final. Now we’ve got all sorts of confused messages / excuses about wickets, home advantage, changing teams and even knockout cricket. England have made considerable strides in the ODI format, becoming a thoroughly entertaining and refreshing team to watch. We are short of killer bowlers. We have a high risk strategy based on the law of averages that someone will come off. It’s a recipe for getting hot in a tournament and winning it, but I’m not sure it’s one for world domination.

It also kept a media, who want to anoint Comma as the saviour of English Cricket, in their boxes. Pakistan winning shows you don’t need a long-term strategy, mass adoption of rigidity, and clearing the decks for world tournaments. Pakistan aren’t quite as off the cuff as the image is put out, but they have shown what can be done without the Comma way. It will be interesting to see if the acerbic line from Vic Marks is adopted by some of the media men. And as for Bayliss and Farbrace? Were they invisible during the tournament?

3. Biggest disappointment at the CT?

AB de Villiers. It is hard to go off a cricketer like AB, but I am. He played like a drain in the competition and after a few crap hit and giggle games, is going to sit out the test series. If you are going to absent yourself from that form of the game, you’d better be damn sure that you make runs. After a quiet IPL, and now a really poor CT, AB is going to put his feet up while his colleagues try to keep their excellent record in England intact.

I’d also say Jason Roy, but by England getting knocked out, he got to play in the semi for Surrey and made 92. So not that disappointed!

4. What’s your view on the Champions Trophy? Great or grating?

The format is pretty good, but then I am not overly wowed about “group games”. In fact I’d love it to be 16 teams and a straight knockout with a random draw, but that is hopelessly naïve, doesn’t guarantee an India v Pakistan game, and might mean one of the “Big 3” gets knocked out which, as we all know “ruined” the 2007 World Cup. So we have to make do with this format which gets the gig over with in 17 days. I’m not going to moan about venues, or weather or so forth. Ticketing at major sporting events is, by and large, a fucking joke wherever you go. Now, because India have lost, no doubt, there’s talk of scrapping it. England 2013 is credited with saving the CT, and now it’s seen as its burial ground. What a metaphor for the past four years of world cricket administration.

5. Your favourite memory of CT17?

A few. For the first time in ages I heard two people, who don’t generally talk about cricket, commenting on the progress of the semi-final between England and Pakistan. That’s something refreshing. The game needs exposure, and it needs people to respond. Something, however small, to cling on to.

I didn’t get to watch a lot of this competition, for reasons explained a little in Saturday’s piece. What I did see wasn’t particularly memorable, so I will pick out being at Guildford on the 9^th of June and hearing the news that Bangladesh were on the way to the next round as Shakib and Mahmudullah making hundreds. A great day watching county cricket, a lovely stream of news as Bangladesh made another stride forward. As I said, we need more teams to be at the top table, not fewer.

It wouldn’t be me, though, without a couple of moans. ICC events means the moron quotient when it comes to commentary is accentuated. While Ponting, Athers, Sanga and Brendon McCullum are nearly always worth a listen, the Warne / Slater axis, and the old stagers who don’t seem to be able to get sacked like Ramiz Raja make it a depressing experience at times. However, for all that, there was no Nick Knight, and at least Sky had Ian Ward introducing the highlights. BBC, in their infinite wisdom chose Ed Smith. Good grief.

I also got really bored with Twitter. That’s fine. I’m becoming more of a curmudgeon. Yes, that’s possible. I could go into great detail, offend many, bore most, but the quality of discourse is going downhill. If it weren’t for Innocent Bystander, I could go mad. I’ve muted a few, got annoyed at others.

Finally, the CT will be forgotten very quickly. It’s almost the League Cup of cricket, and I’m not even sure it is on that level. Well done to Pakistan. You may well have killed the competition off. You gave it a fantastic burial. Zindabad, or whatever.

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So, what do you think? Answer the five questions in the comments below if you feel like it. Have a go at our answers if you feel like it. I couldn’t deal with the formatting, so put the answers individually.

Meanwhile, Chris sent a cryptic message to the questions. As he travels his way around SE Asia, and taunting us in the process, his response “GFRLF” is one I can’t decipher.

Like most things in my life, birth, wedding, even the dog’s birthday, the 7th is a major date in any month. I started How Did We Lose In Adelaide on the 7th of January 2009. I thought I’d start a cricket blog, that my mates could read and agree or disagree. It accompanied another blog, that when I read it back, I wince. Thoughts, words, opinions, beliefs. Change. Constant evolution, constant change.

That’s a rather cryptic intro into the preview for a Champions Trophy Final. A Final the English cricket world now cares about as much as the finals we didn’t play in when the tournament was held in Sri Lanka, South Africa and Kenya, for instance. Jason Roy may have exorcised some demons today with a 92 for Surrey, but no-one else will now really remember this tournament in England, who is an England fan. Sure, some involved closely in the game will give it all that, but the fact is, tomorrow I won’t be watching the Final. I’ll be out with the family on a lovely summer’s day, and let India and Pakistan fight it out without caring one jot what happens.

But 8 and a half years ago I would have cared. I’d have found some excuse to fend off the beloved and sit in and watch it. This is, yet another, “I don’t care” piece from me on the state of the game. On the state of fandom in cricket. On its running. On its marketing. On its meaning. The game is about patience, adaptability, skill, strategy, long-term thinking, short-term skirmishes. The game is test cricket. It is three day cricket, or four day cricket. The shorter forms are taking over and cricketers who made their way in the test era are visibly, audibly contemplating a life without it. You cannot force me to be interested. Good luck to those who care about this piffling trophy, a tournament somehow resurrected because India won it in 2013 and England hosted a half-decent competition that they got to the Final of. Now it is being given added life support because the biggest game cricket can provide makes a Final. It’s not new. It happened before. That Australian World Championship thingamy in 1985. That was a crap final.

As I sit here, on a Saturday night, putting together a half-hearted preview of a game I care nothing about, I have to contemplate what is coming up. I still love cricket. I still love my days at Guildford, the journeys to see a county game at Lord’s or The Oval, and to watch some really good players do really good things. I will probably watch the test matches as well, when I can. But there’s a lot of work on. I won’t be watching or listening to anywhere as near as much as I would like to. The days I look back on, those in 2014-15 when I was a solo show, putting up a piece a day, getting abused by people for actually caring, are like something from an age ago. I would churn out stuff, day after day, and be called out in Wisden for being akin to being bashed over the head by one of KP’s bats. But I loved the game then – both cricket and blogging. I can’t say there’s the level of love for either right now. I’m so pleased that we’ve brought together a cadre of excellent writers and commenters, passionate, angry and most of all, very hard to ignore. We’ve achieved a lot, and will still do so.

This has not, and never has been, about attention. This has been about writing. I love writing. I love cricket. What’s not to love about doing both. Bully pulpit I might be, some would say, but you were always given your say on here. You were never fully stopped from commenting (pre-moderation was the exception rather than the rule). I think the day I knew things were totally effed up was when someone threatened to “Dox” me. That struck me as sickness, not strength. As cowardice, when I was being accused of being a coward. The laughable death threat I got after a row with Agnew, a row instigated by an infamous critic, wasn’t it. It was someone threatening personal exposure because of a sport. You sort of lose a lot of respect for a sport that has that sort of fandom. Just as I did with my football team, when a post I did on an old blog ended up with someone threatening to sort me out.

The media landscape has changed dramatically since I started. Indeed it changed dramatically after 2014. Pringle is left to scrape around on second rate journals on a level with his talent. Selvey has retired, and I certainly haven’t missed him. Brenkley, who I didn’t think had the best 2013-14, but who I still quite liked for all that because you sensed he still really enjoyed the sport, and conveyed that, is not on the radar. We still have Newman, Etheridge, Berry, Wilson and Hoult to carry the old torch, to varying degrees of efficacy and effluence. Some good, some bad. But to me it’s the rise of talking heads like Shiny Toy Vaughan, #39 Hughes, and Ed “The Plagiarist” Smith that makes my heart sink. To watch the first set of BBC Highlights of this Champions Trophy and for it to be introduced by a man who Cricinfo blatantly won’t employ any more because he copied, and to have it broadcast as if we were all five year olds who should be grateful for Ed to tell us how it is, was deflating. I wish George Dobell and Tim Wigmore all the best of luck. Imagine a profession where airheads with big heads move seamlessly on, and the talent is stuck out of plain sight.  George Dobell has 37k followers on Twitter. #39 has 74k. Double the exposure, less than half the ability, insight, knowledge and communicative powers for someone like me. No wonder a mate of mine imagines me to be in a permanent state of “shaking my fist at the screen”.

No. I’ve not had a beer. No. I’m not feeling especially moody at this point. I always said that there would be no grand farewell, and this isn’t it. I am not the most emotionally stable person, as the blogging history aptly displays, but I do care. That’s what I want to convey. I don’t care about tomorrow, no matter how much Shiny Toy will tell me to. The fact that me, and people like me, don’t care is a matter that should concern the powers that be. We are the games evangelists. We, well I, feel as relevant as a Sinclair C5.

Comments on tomorrow’s game below.

So now we get to the real nitty gritty of the tournament. England have looked imperious during the qualifying stages of the Champions Trophy and as a bonus, instead of being drawn against a high quality South African side, they instead face the unpredictable enigma that is Pakistan. Seriously it is impossible to predict what Pakistan will actually turn up in Cardiff, will it be the one that bowled so well against South Africa or the meek side that got hammered by India, there’s just no point in trying to guess. One thing that Pakistan will need to do to be competitive is improve on their batting dramatically from the past 3 games, as they haven’t anywhere near threatened a score of 300 in the tournament so far and have seemed to take the old England approach of having one aggressive opener and a number of accumulators in the middle order to try and get them to a decent score before they open their shoulders in the last 10 overs. We have seen from past painful experiences with England that this really isn’t a formula for success in the ODI arena, so one would hope that Pakistan will throw off the shackles with their batting tomorrow. We shall see.

As for England, it’s more of the same please, but with one exception; that being that poor old Jason Roy looks like he has finally been dropped from the team tomorrow (it was reported that Bairstow netted today and Roy didn’t, which seems about the biggest hint possible). It’s hard not to feel some sympathy with Roy as he has been an integral part of the white ball set up under Bayliss & Morgan and I do think his presence at the top of the order allows Hales a bit of time to settle into the game; however sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Roy has just happened to fall into one of the worst trots of form in his England career at the worst possible time; his head looks scrambled and his technique looks all over the place, that coupled with a reserve batsman in prime form waiting in the wings meant that a change was going to be inevitable. There had been talk from Morgan about backing Roy for the whole tournament but I would guess the manner of his dismissals added to the fact that this is a tournament that Director Comma really needs to win to lend credibility to his white ball focus, meant that Roy is now in the firing line. Some may point to the fact that Roy didn’t do himself any favours by sitting on the bench throughout the IPL and I agree that could have possibly been a factor; however young HH has been playing county cricket all season and has a top score of 38, in my opinion, sometimes you are just out of nick irrelevant of circumstances. I’d be shocked if there were any further changes for England, despite Ball not exactly pulling up trees with his bowling. The one thing that could be interesting tomorrow is that this pitch in Cardiff will have been used three times before the game, hence don’t be surprised if it’s a bit two paced and conducive to spin. 300 might not be the par score everyone is expecting  and hence the team batting first will quickly need to assess conditions especially if par is around 275. Misjudge that and 215 all out could beckon.

Then of course, we come to the ticket farce, with as much blame storming flying around as a Tory cabinet meeting. Our good friend shiny toy has naturally waded into the debate now that he has stopped advising everyone on how to deal with the threat of global terror, and naturally he starts off with blaming the fans for not attending:

https://twitter.com/5liveSport/status/874525506468696064

https://twitter.com/MichaelVaughan/status/874542158178639877

The fact that Vaughan has used the ticket price as justification for the fans not attending again shows that he is on a different planet to everyone else. So to make it easy for Shiny Toy and #39 to understand, I’ve carefully explained things below:

1. Many matches are on a weekday and guess what people have to work or look after children, if only it was that easy to drop all commitments for a jolly at the cricket then we’d all be there.
2. There are very few £30 tickets with the majority being in the £40-£60 bracket. When you factor in travel and food costs you’re probably around £80 lighter at least. In case you hadn’t noticed the economy isn’t exactly in tiptop condition at the moment and many can’t afford the outlay.
3. Stop holding tournament matches in Wales, give it to Lancs or Yorks if you want bigger crowds to come. The Swalec is a lovely ground and really central but if the surrounding communities are a bit meh about cricket (since they can’t watch it on TV), then why expect people in their droves to turn up to Bangladesh vs. New Zealand.

Anyway rant over on that score, if you are in the Wales vicinity tomorrow there is a good chance of getting a ticket to the game as around 38% of available tickets were bought by Indian fans hedging their bets that have since decided to return their tickets. Hasten to say, it would not surprise me one bit if there are plenty of empty seats at the game tomorrow, however I’m not going to even start on the ICC ticketing procedures….

In other news, there’s also been the announcement of the T20 squad to face South Africa after the Champions trophy with five new debutants in the squad for the three games. It would be nice to see Malan given a go as he has been supremely consistent over the past two years, Liam Livingstone looks like he could be something special and it would be also interesting to have a proper look at Mason Crane, who despite having limited playing time for the Bransgrove lot at the start of the season, still looks a fine prospect. Will anyone actually care about the series after the glut of white ball cricket well that is another matter completely.

Lastly, England have announced the England Lions squad for the one off 4 day game against South Africa A, I wonder if you can spot where England’s focus might be? Anyone else would’ve laughed if they’d included Chef as well?? 

England Lions squad: Keaton Jennings (Durham, capt), Mark Stoneman (Surrey), Haseeb Hameed (Lancashire), Nick Gubbins (Middlesex), Dan Lawrence (Essex), Ben Foakes (Surrey, wk), Sam Curran (Surrey), Jamie Overton (Somerset), Tom Helm (Middlesex), Jamie Porter (Essex), George Garton (Sussex), Jack Leach (Somerset), Dominic Bess (Somerset).

Anyway thoughts on the game and anything else below: