Month: Oct 2018

Absence, Rain and a Forgettable Series.

Sir Ron12 Comments

Hello all, it’s been a while! As Dmitri pointed out in his last post, personal factors and work factors have made our activity scarcer than a good idea at the ECB and for this we naturally apologise. We know that a number of you log in regularly to the site and that our production has dropped dramatically, but we have all committed to increasing our activity for the Test series and beyond. A major reason for the scarcity of posts, alongside our own personal circumstances, is that the recent ODI series between Sri Lanka and England didn’t really set out pulses pounding.

As many of our parish know, we are not the biggest white ball fans and a series against what has been a poor Sri Lanka team in white ball cricket for some time doesn’t really rank as a must watch series; however the ECB managed to out do themselves with this particular series, yet excuses were quick to come:

The ECB said it had “very little wriggle room” over dates for the tour. After hosting England, Sri Lanka spend the rest of the 2018-19 season touring New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. “They play their first match in New Zealand on 8 December, which left very little wriggle room given our final Test in Sri Lanka finishes on 29 November”

Ah yes, the old future tours excuse, which has been trotted out more times in the past than the England batting unit has managed to make it to 400. Sri Lanka has 4 monsoons a year and despite the weather always being unpredictable there, whatever the time of year, the monsoon seasons rarely move. The ECB could have asked any travel specialist (Mrs TLG springs to mind), who could have told them that, but they decided to go ahead anyway without any thought for the fans who had paid less than an inconsiderable amount to be out there to see the tour. It is a classic case of greedy administrators having their cake and eating it and screwing the fans in the shorts at the same time (don’t even start me on the planned cost of £75 per day that the ECB are letting the Sri Lankan cricket board charge England fans for the Test series). Unless this is a ruse by Harrison to test underwater cricket as part of his whack job plans for the T100 (never rule that out), then it must have been an incredibly frustrating and anti-climatic experience for both the players and fans alike.

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As for the series itself, the constant rain interruptions meant that we learnt even less than we thought we would, unless that plan is to chase down low scores under the DLS rules in the 2019 World Cup. The batting line up is pretty stable with only injury or a dramatic loss of form from one of the top 7 likely to result in any change. When we did change the batting line up in the dead rubber game, we got well and truly stuffed (who knew, England losing a dead-rubber). The seam bowling unit looks like it has some depth with Woakes, Plunkett, Tom Curran and Stokes all able to take wickets at regular times and our spin bowling attack looks settled and potent whatever the surface. Rashid may cop a lot of stick from the journo’s and some of the fans (remember his card has been marked) for his less than stellar returns in the Test arena; however he is a truly world class leg spinner in the white ball game. As for the T20 squad, it looks like Root might be on the outside looking in for some time and whilst Denley’s deadly non-spinning leg spinners accounted for a rather meek Sri Lanka batting line up, I have a feeling that this was more a horses for courses game.  The only major downside (from a playing point of view and not a fan point of view, as one can only really visit the Dambulla caves once before seeing everything Dambulla has to offer) is the injury to Bairstow, which could well rule him out of at least the first game of the series and maybe more, alongside the fact that Stokes looks less than fit at the moment. It may be that Stokes is simply carrying a knock at the moment, but if so, it seems less than wise to play him in a pointless series when we already know what Stokes can offer to the team.

As for the Sri Lankan team, one who has a pedigree of fielding fine ODI sides (just think of the 1996 side), this side looked a pretty horrible rehash of a team. Their tactics seemed to have been borrowed from Peter Moore’s 2015 book of how not to play white ball cricket and of course, dropping their captain and probably best ODI player because their administration needed another scapegoat, was never a great idea in retrospect. In previous years, Sri Lanka would have been favourites for both the Test and White ball series, but they looked anything but a competent white ball side, especially in wet conditions where their spinners struggled to grip the ball. The Test series could be very different mind..

There have also been a few things that have happened in the interim which no doubt we shall cover in more depth in the coming week or so. The Director, England Cricket has stepped down for personal reasons, so no doubt there will be a tranche of individuals linked to the job before the ECB hire some friendly goon who will publicly support their plans to ruin cricket, sorry the T100. There has also been the fall-out from Australia, where its culture report into the sandpaper incident has labelled Cricket Australia’s actions as ‘arrogant’ and ‘controlling’. There are probably a few other words that I can think to add to this, though I hasten to add that any cultural report into the ECB would find exactly the same thing. Of course, not everyone agreed with these findings as a certain ex-Australian captain, not known for his commitment to the spirit of the game commented:

“You know they push the boundaries a bit by throwing the ball into the rough on the ground, which they shouldn’t do and then it’s escalated from there. It’s a shame how it got to the point that it did but I guess the authorities let that happen. There have been captains in the past who have been done for tampering with the ball and the penalties have been very lenient so there was no penalty for doing something wrong and it was always going to get to the case where it got out of control”

There is still nothing more Australian, than trying to pin the blame on somebody else, when you’ve been caught cheating red handed! I’m half surprised that they didn’t blame it on the ball for allowing itself to be sandpapered!

With the Test Series against Sri Lanka coming up, despite the threat of more rain throughout this series, we do plan to be a lot more active on the site. So please do feel free to comment below on any thoughts on anything above and thanks for bearing with us during our recent quiet time.

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Sri Lanka v England ODI Series – And A Month Off!

LordCanisLupus50 Comments

Yes. We are very late to this series, and for that apologies. We aren’t full time bloggers, we have lives, we have busy jobs. When the pressures of these combine, and where there isn’t international cricket that stirs the blood, we struggle. So sorry to all of you who check in here day in day out for the lack of content. We usually go down for a while at this time of year unless there is something that really drives us.

From my personal circumstances, the last three weeks have been horrendous. First I came down with a pretty naughty virus, which without being too graphic, meant I lost a stone in weight in 7 days. Now the task is to keep those less than marginal gains off – those of you who have met me will know I need to lose a lot more than a stone! But with that stress came something a lot lot worse. Those of you who follow the Lord Canis Lupus Twitter feed will see the picture of my beloved border collie, Jake. He was 10 years old last Sunday. For a couple of weeks leading up to his birthday we were extremely worried he wouldn’t make it. He has long spells, around 12-18 hours, where he is listless, doesn’t eat, can’t move and generally looks terrible. It is heartbreaking to see. The vet has him diagnosed with early kidney disease, but we also fear it is neurological. 3 days between each of these episodes and you wouldn’t believe we have an ill dog. Both my wife and I are stressed beyond belief over this. So if you want reasons for why I’m not even posting comments, and my twitter feed is sparse, or talking about my dog, then you have them there.

So here is a post to comment on the current one day international series. The first game in Dambulla was rained off with England batting, and today’s looks like being curtailed due to the same issue. Despite getting up at 5:40 to walk my stricken pooch, I completely forgot the game had started, so no comments on our innings until I see the highlights. 278 looks a decent total, and the opening salvo, where England took 5 wickets before Sri Lanka got to 80 pretty much proves it. The sixth wicket partnership put on over 60 before the torrential rains interrupted, and for all money ended, the action. England will take a one-nil lead into the third game on Wednesday in Kandy.

Of course, Olly Stone bowled something a little quicker than we used to, bounced out Dickwella, and the media went quietly mad. I love it. We do love a small sample size. That said, we desperately need new bowling talent with our top test bowlers getting on in years. Chris Woakes at the other end bowled very well to take 3 top order wickets and keeps up his impressive record recently in overseas ODIs.

With the batting driven by Morgan (92) and Root (71), England get important middle order runs when we’ve increasingly relied on the top order fireworks or Jos Buttler bashing the hell out of it. It would be nice to see these guys all being able to contribute on the way up to next year’s World Cup.

So, comment away on the ODIs.

Elsewhere, since I last wrote, Surrey have won the county championship, Rory Burns has got an England call up, and more mysteriously to me so has Joe Denly (no, seriously, I don’t have a clue behind the thinking on that one. Joe Clarke has to be miffed. Please tell me he’s not been picked because he can bowl spin). The season even finished with an absolute thriller between Surrey and Essex carried live on Sky. I am biased, I know, as a Surrey fan, but it has been an excellent season for county cricket. The concept of the Hundred gets more and more ludicrous, but one feels, as is typical with pretty much all top management around the world, to admit an error is seen as grave weakness. Top management does not like to admit the hoi polloi have a better insight than them. To admit that would be to admit that anyone could do their jobs, and that wouldn’t do. Despite everything the guardian authority threw at county cricket this year, it threw it back with excellent county games, a really good Finals day with a terrific story (how good was Moeen as skipper?), and a fervent base amplifying their love for the game, not retreating. We all distrust sporting authorities. That comes with being a fan. But the relationship between a lot of supporters and the ECB is beyond distrust. It’s raw, unfettered rage.

And given what the Wisden Almanack review of this blog this year said, I’m probably the angriest one around. Weren’t impressed. The fulsome praise for Chris was absolutely merited. The preamble wasn’t. But hey, if they are talking about us, we’re winning right?

In the test match world we saw the awesomely talented Prittvi Shaw make a blazing test hundred. Only the Sky Sports Cricket Channel, there for all us devoted cricket fans, never bothered to buy the rights. Let me know if it’s available on Virgin Media, anyone. Shaw made 70 this morning as the Indians are just a few runs behind West Indies’ first innings total with four down and Rahane and Pant in full flow. As I said, I have to envision this in my head because Sky Sports Cricket can’t even red button this. Or is it hidden on one of their other channels.

In Dubai we saw classic test cricket. After two days attritional cricket, where “experts” queued up to decry this dull boring test cricket as killing the game, we saw just how great the sport can be. Australia looked to be killing off the game, but collapsed in a heap in their first innings. Pakistan got caught between two stools in their second innings, but still set up an academic 472 target. Khawaja, Finch and Tim Paine played magnificent innings in rearguard, and Australia had 12 or so overs left and five wickets in hand. A flurry of wickets, and it was 8 or so with two wickets. Nathan Lyon stuck it out with Paine for a thrilling draw. A terrific game, a great finish, and all from a test written off after two days as a killer for cricket. You think these people would learn.

I’ve caught some of the Carribean 50 over competition on BT Sport. Blimey its bobbins. No wonder the game is struggling.

So, once again, apologies for the lack of posts. We will try to do better. Hopefully Jake’s condition stabilises and I can think more about here, than on issues outside of here. It’s also MLB post-season and my Red Sox beat the MFYs (the Y is Yankees, you work out the rest) and will no doubt get belted by the Houston Astros in the semi-final stage. There’s a lot going on, and a lot to do.

Comments on all aspects of the sport at present, below. We will back sooner.