Being Outside Cricket

“What I thought was happiness was only part-time bliss” – Janet Jackson – The Pleasure Principle

OK. So I said I was temporarily done with cricket blogging, and in many ways I still am. I want to have a proper break from the blog, work and to a certain degree, life. I am taking a holiday at short notice to visit my relatives in the States, and to get away from what has happened, and what is about to. It’s a chance to take a complete break from some of the matters that have ailed me, and in some ways made life harder.

Of course, as many of you will know, and those that have read my long post on my personal blog certainly will, the death of my beloved border collie has knocked me sideways. This shouldn’t happen to a bloke of my age, but it has. While it is a hell of a struggle holding it together during working hours, the constant reminders at home, the lack of his presence, the destruction of the routine, the massive empty space to the right of me as I write this, hurts. It absolutely fucking hurts. 17 days on from it, there is no real reduction in the pain. I’ve been through grief before, we all have, but for some reason this one is different, because I am very different.

Now, I know this is not, as yet cricket related, but do stick with me. I’ve always used this blog, and How Did We Lose In Adelaide to convey my feelings. I think it was Zeph, many moons ago who said what made my blogging real was it exposed my weaknesses, my insecurities, and made this an honest read. Something like that. And it was absolutely true. It still is. My negativity and pessimism shines through. There’s a quip with my work colleagues that when someone says “you’re a glass half empty kind of bloke” I respond “what glass?” The four and a half years of railing against the selection policies, the media nonsense, and then the ECB’s running of the game have been mentally draining, but also a source of pride. I’ve been using this as an outlet to rail against the game, to shake my fists at the cloud, and I’ve found kindred spirits along the way. When people challenge me, I react poorly, but rarely do I think we lose the argument. I sometimes tried to be all things to all people, and on others righteously indignant. I’ve been scared to reveal my true identity. I’ve been labelled a few things. What was it Brian Carpenter called me in Wisden this year? Unwaveringly angry? Whatever. How about honest? No. That might come a little too close to the knuckle for those who want nothing but warm beer, village green and doff your effing cap to the establishment and its supine media.

England have just won a very decent victory in Sri Lanka at Galle. While Sri Lanka may not be the force they were, this is still a terrific win. There were great signs. England got centuries from Foakes and Jennings. They played three spinners, what a joy. They dropped Stuart Broad because, on that surface, it was giving England the best chance to win. Sam Curran’s development in playing in a test on surfaces like this must outweigh Stuart Broad flogging himself to death on a wicket that doesn’t do him any good, does it? Still there were whispers, still there was intrigue, mainly stoked by Vaughan, but we’ve come to expect that. Then there was Rory Burns, who didn’t look massively technically exposed, but already has Simon Hughes spouting off that he shouldn’t play here, Bairstow should open, and that he might be better saved for the West Indies (where pitches are low, slow turners also, bright spark) or England next year (where, presumably, he’ll sit twiddling his thumbs from May to when the Ashes starts). It’s when you listen to attention-seeking, clickbait, controversy generation that you don’t feel bad about having an outlet to express your feelings – at times we make a lot more bloody sense than these professional foghorns. England have won a really good, solid win, with some new exciting players, without someone we can’t do without, and there’s a lot of negativity. Contrast the reaction of some who bemoan the quality of the opposition with the victory in, say, Grenada a few years ago, greeted by rapture. It’s bloody revealing in my eyes.

But despite a good win, with an England team I identify more with, and in a style I quite enjoyed watching, there’s still a hollowness. Still this feeling I’m presiding over a decline. The test game is being abused to a level I can’t believe we’ve seen before. There’s great cricket out there, like Australia’s amazing draw in the first test in the UAE, as tense and exciting as tests can be at the end, but slagged off relentlessly for the first couple of days as a total bore. India played a dull one sided test series against the West Indies. Australia meet India in the next few weeks, with the ACA trying to get their ex-captain back (he really should be, but hey, let’s not stop Australian cricket tearing itself apart in moral hubris), but with every chance that they might find the visitors too tough. But then, we thought that back in early August and England managed to win 4-1. Sky Sports Cricket Channel has not shown either the UAE series or the Indian one, which does make you wonder why they have a dedicated channel. I am rambling on a ton of subjects within one, because there is no one reason for the hollowness. It’s an accumulation.

When Jake died I naturally benchmarked it with other grieving episodes. My mum died in 2005 of cancer, just like Jake, and it was a pretty short time to get used to the diagnosis and then death. Within a couple of weeks of her passing I had been invited to a reception which saw visits from Michael Kasprowicz, Simon Katich and John Buchanan in the build up to the Ashes. I then got to see day 1 and day 3 at Lord’s. KP’s debut. The game was on Channel 4. The public were into cricket in a big way. The whole game acted as a release. A way to get immersed into something that meant a lot. When Dad passed away 9 months later, I got to go to Sri Lanka at home, and some of the Pakistan series. Cricket was an intrinsic part of the healing process. It was an exciting distraction. Now, in 2018, I couldn’t give a damn.

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable.”  Dante Alighieri

During Jake’s final days one of my great sporting loves, the Boston Red Sox, were beating the Yankees, beating the current champion Astros, and then the Dodgers to win their 4th World Series in 14 years. I cared a lot. I would watch the games, I would get up in the middle of night to watch some of them, or follow them on my phone. So I still love sport. I still love the thrill of the top matches, the excitement at the pinnacle of the game. Baseball has a crisis of confidence, much like test cricket. The game is too long. The kids don’t watch it. Viewing figures are down. The game needs to innovate. As if TV audiences is the be all and fucking end all of what sport is about. Yes, TV money is crucial to administrators, but why? Because it is about keeping up the lifestyles and wages of players, managers and administrators. Football is having one of its occasional crises of confidence over the financial fair play hogwash, but it is still on the decided path of maximising revenue, and fuck the fans. As we’ve said on this blogs, fans should pay up and shut up. When subscriptions go up, TV bids go up, entrance fee and tickets go up, and “more popular” versions of the game are shunted into our lives, it is to recompense money laundering owners, avaricious administrators, players who want to be paid massive amounts, and their retinue of hangers on, agents and personal trainers. It’s the free market innit, and sport and it don’t mix.

When you have this mix of my tired cynicism, diminishing love, grief, context of matches and a blog I’ve been constantly flogging my brain for for 50+ months, there comes a time to take a proper rest. But then, you know I won’t. Because one thing is clear, and it is why I’m the mug punter sport relies upon. What the hell else is there to entertain me? What’s my outlet? Football has become an oligarchy, and the hope has evaporated. Golf has its majors and the Ryder Cup but is disappearing up its own irrelevance, so much so that it needs a revived Tiger to keep it in the eye. Big sporting events in other sports are hidden from view, badly publicised, or not in my conscience now. I missed watching the Arc de Triomphe, for example, a race that meant a huge amount when I was growing up. Any decent fight appears to need me to pay an extra 20 quid on top of what I’m paying the thieving sport channel bastards. The NBA has become a travesty as the need to have star teams outweighs competitive balance. The NFL has now become a “I don’t care as long as the Patriots lose” league, which is not particularly fulsome a pursuit. Even the plucky little Red Sox had to have the top wage bill in baseball to win it this year!

“Respect cannot be inherited, respect is the result of right actions.” 

So to cricket. If anything adequately sums up the message I’ve been trying to get across since the sacking of KP, and the puffery around Cook, it’s the Hundred. An idea put together by people who have no faith in the sport, don’t care about its existing customer base who they think will put up with anything, but think that we’ll just accept their word for it and will carry on regardless. It was the initial message in pieces like “Know Your Bloody Place” back in the day. The piece I wrote after that press release:

Following the announcement of that decision, allegations have been made, some from people outside cricket, which as well as attacking the rationale of the ECB’s decision-making, have questioned, without justification, the integrity of the England Team Director and some of England’s players.

This statement applies as equally now, as it did then. That KP was the focus then, now your quaint love of the T20 Blast or the County Championship is now. You are outside cricket, you aren’t authority. You can’t attack the ECB for a decision because they know best, and heaven forfend if you even intimate they might be either conflicted and/or incompetent. Don’t you dare. Know your bloody place. The penny might have dropped this year with many of the cricket blogging and social media fraternity/sorority. But it has come too late. Maybe if many of these had put aside their loathing for an individual and seen the KP stuff for what it was – the ECB telling you that you had no say – then maybe we’d see something different. A faint hope, but better than no hope.

My next missive may be focused on some other things I want to shake my fist at, and that’s most notably social media and blogging these days, but let’s have a break. I know this has rambled a little, but I hope you get the overall message. Cricket, test cricket, is great. I love it, but not unconditionally. I don’t need to love it when it is being abused, when we are abused for loving it. I might be harking back to a nostalgia that never happened, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling sad.

As writing is my emotional valve, and that’s what it always will be, I may well write some more on my personal blog. It’s not the end for me on here either. It is a break. How long, we will see. But as cricket is a part of my life, whether I like it or not, it will provoke me. I may even need to do a day of the next test!

Thanks for the support. Thanks for being friends. Thanks for being outside cricket. See you all soon.