I am going to use two 24th Novembers for this one, but with a common link. Two days ago I used the “On This Day” to highlight the debuts of two all-time greats. Today I use it to highlight the debut of one of my all-time favourite batsmen, Sir Richard Benjamin Richardson.
In the early days of overseas test coverage, watching some of Richie’s innings took my breath away, especially an amazing 182 against Australia at Guyana. I always loved the big floppy sun hat, the backlift, the drive, the cut, the hook. Richie was flamboyant. He had the look. While not quite the highest of the high in terms of a career, in his pomp he was unstoppable. Except in England where he never really hit the heights.
On this day in 1983, Richie took the field at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai for the first time as a West Indies test player. He didn’t get to bat until the 27th (rest day and a long Indian first innings), whereupon he made 0 (2 balls), LBW to Shvilal Yadav (who I instinctively remember when hearing either Umesh or Jayant’s name – no there is no relation). He made 26 in the second innings, falling to Ravi Shastri, but hadn’t done enough to cement his name into the West Indies team. He was dropped from the next test for Roger Harper.
Unbowed, and a couple of centuries at home later, we fast forward to 24 November 1984. Having missed out on selection for all the England matches in the fateful summer of 1984 (again Harper getting the nod most of the time), Richie returned to the West Indies team to face Australia, and promptly made a duck in his only innings at Perth (match starting on the 9th). However, at Brisbane two weeks later, on the second day of the match (the 24th), Richardson announced himself to the Aussie domestic public with a century. The Aussie players knew him well enough – he’d made a 131 in Bridgetown and a 154 in his home test in Antigua – but now the fans got to see what he was all about.
Clearly the Wisden scribe didn’t think too much of the innings. Other than being tied down by Holland, and dominated in a partnership by Clive Lloyd, it had this to say…
“Richardson, badly dropped off Hogg by Hughes at mid-off when 40, had 24 4s from the 232 balls he faced. ”
Well, that paints a picture.
24 November a debut for Richie, a first overseas ton for Richie. Much pleasure derived after that. As I said, one of Dmitri’s favourites!
The year is 2000. The venue is the Woolloongabba, Brisbane. The opening day of the Frank Worrell Trophy. Australia, all conquering, invincible, especially at home. The West Indies, faded giants, woeful away, having just lost to England for the first time in my lifetime. It was surely set to be a one-way contest.
Australia won the toss and elected to field. Hey, didn’t someone else do that two years later? The home team were without Warne, but had MacGill to take his place. After a solid, if sedate start, the openers Sherwin Campbell and Darren Ganga had seen off McGrath and Brett Lee, and hope started to rise. Then Campbell, in the 15th over, fell to MacGill. In came Brian Lara at number 3. If the Aussies could get him early, it was game on. Or possibly game over.
Having seen a couple of deliveries from others, Lara faced up to McGrath. Wisden takes up the story…
“McGrath, brought back after Lara’s arrival, needed just one ball, an away-cutter, to execute his contract and begin his demolition of the innings. Wicket to wicket, he took six for eight in 68 balls.”
The West Indies were dismissed for 82. By the end of the day the Aussies were 25 runs in front with just two down. They would win by an innings and lots.
The West Indies would be whitewashed. An era well and truly finished.
Today’s On This Day takes us back 42 years and again we are in India, at Bangalore.
The great stars of the game always have to debut, you always have to have a first test, but it must be exceedingly rare that two of the all-time greats debuted on the same day. In the 1st Test of their tour of India, the West Indies awarded debuts to Cuthbert Gordon Greenidge and Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards. Their careers would span over 15 years, they would be integral to taking West Indies to the top of the world and keeping them there, and they would provide us with many memories. If a cricketer is ever as iconic as Viv in my watching days (keep your Sachins, Viv defined “aura”) then I can’t wait to see him. Gordon Greenidge seemed to miss out on the plaudits, but anyone who saw his 214 not out at Lord’s on the final day of the match to win a famous victory in 1984 should have no doubt. He was the opener of his generation (along with Gavaskar, I suppose).
Greenidge had the more auspicious Day 1. He made 93 before being run out. His dismissal brought Viv to the crease, who hit a boundary and then got out to Chandrasekhar (who would also get him in the second innings). Greenidge would make a century in his second innings to help set up a massive win for the West Indies by 267 runs.
Opening the attack, Abid Ali and Solkar were quite unable to harness the pitch’s favours. Moreover, Greenidge who made 93 in his maiden Test innings, was twice let off before he had made 15.
He and Kallicharran, who came together at 38, when Fredericks retired with a sprained ankle, put on 139 in just over even time. Even this partnership was ended with a run out and so it was not until the last hour of the day, when Richards holed out at mid-off, that India’s bowlers at last struck a blow.
22 November saw the introduction of two cricketing legends, two childhood behemoths, two massive influences on my cricket watching. I never got to see either in the flesh (though I did see Gordon at Dublin Airport when he was the coach of Bangladesh). I got to see plenty on TV, either county or international cricket. That day in Bangalore is one of the most significant in cricket lore. Two stars on the ascendant.
As a postscript, also making his debut that day was Hemant Kanitkar for the home team. He would last just two matches, batting at three in his first innings and making 65, he followed it up with three low scores and was never seen at international level again. Poor Hemant died last year. Being an international cricketer should never mean you are a footnote, but I’m not sure I’d mind being a footnote to those two.
This one is a personal memory. On this day in 2002 I was present on my first overseas tour at the Adelaide Oval to witness Michael Vaughan’s magnificent 177 which proved to the Australians that (a) he could bat and (b) at a decent old pace. That it also meant that Justin Langer lost his shit over a catch denied him made it altogether sweeter in some ways.
I wrote at some length about it on the old blog. How there was a desperate search for accommodation, how the tickets were cocked up, how the stewards, to their great credit, sorted us out. How we had four numbskulls sitting in front of us with melons on their head, and when, in the Jetty in Glenelg later that evening I complained about them to a local who confirmed, much to my joy, that he was one of them! How I met two guys under the pylon, and met them each day to discuss the match (and went back four years later and they weren’t there…).
But the day was about Michael Vaughan. Tres and he got us off to a solid start, and then Robert Key batted at three for no great length of time. Nasser came in and stuck around for ages, scoring slowly, while Vaughan made it look a different game. The very short square boundaries suited his game, he made the most of them, and made a brilliant hundred. Hussain nicked off for 47 in the evening session, before Vaughan was dismissed with the last ball of the day to spoil the hard work England had put in. Three days later we had lost.
But on 21 November 2002, I saw Adelaide Oval in all its glory, Michael Vaughan flowing wonderfully, and added a life experience I never believed I would encounter.
We wander back a long way for today’s “On This Day”, all the way to 1955. It was a day of records at the Fateh Maidan, Hyderabad as India resumed the day on 252, with centurions Polly Umrigar and Vijay Manjrekar taking up where they left off. Having come together at 48 for 2 against New Zealand they extended their stand to 238 before Manjrekar was dismised by Johnny Hayes. It was the then best 3rd wicket partnership for India in test matches.
Umrigar was not done and by the end of his stay, caught behind off Hayes, he had made 223, a record for India that stood until….seven weeks later. This innings passed that of Vinoo Mankad, who made 184 at Lord’s in 1952, and who would make 223 a fortnight later, and 231 in January 1956. I guess he took the loss of the record personally.
Polly Umrigar is described by the cricinfo blurb as..
” A burly six footer, Umrigar was a commanding figure at the crease – whether batting, bowling, directing operations as captain or standing in his usual position at first slip. Umrigar excelled in full blooded drives but he could also hook and pull powerfully.”
His 223 was part of India’s then record total of 498 for 4 declared (there was a hundred for Kripal Singh, on debut, which would be his only hundred in a short test career), beaten a few weeks later, but today was Polly’s day.
For today’s look back in time, we travel back to 1984 and a successful England tour of India. In those days tours were of a much greater duration and England had undergone some pretty traumatic times already with the murder of the British Consul early on in the visit. On the field things did not start to well, and if couched in a modern day context (and do you know how hard it is for me to have 1984 not referred to as “modern day”) this result would have social media running wild.
England were playing the India U-25 team in a warm-up game. The Indian team was captained by Ravi Shastri, had Kris Srikkanth opening, Manoj Prabhakar in the bowling ranks, and two players who would go on to impact the test scene but yet to have made their debuts. On the 18th Mohammad Azharuddin made 151 as the U-25s made a score of 392/6 declared in response to England’s first innings effort of 216. However the final day saw England collapse to 117 all out, with Laxman Sivaramakrishnan taking four middle order wickets and sending preparations into disarray in Ahmedabad.
Sivarama would go on to dominate the 1st Test in Mumbai, but England would fight back strongly. Azharuddin would come into the team in the 3rd test and reel off centuries in all the tests he played in but England would win the series. You’d have got long odds on that on 19 November 1984. (Shout out to the blog’s hero who made 11 and 6 in this match).
This England team really are a mine of material, keeping me motivated to continue. Whenever you think that this blog might die down, go through a period of stability and calm, so that we don’t have to keep stating what appears to be the obvious (to us), they come up trumps with a display full of talking points. I think what gets to me, and looking at the comments, us, is that we are so often right. Sure, a stopped clock and all that, and I don’t have an editor or a line to take to tell me what to do, but some of the stuff I read, or hear on the radio, baffles me. In the words of the late Fred Trueman “I have no idea what’s going on out there” half the time. Are they watching what we are? Are we so off the beaten track of cricket opinion? Is our evaluation of a days play so anathema to the others who report on it?
It’s tough to make it clear how I’m thinking, and it’s nothing to do with a convivial lunch. But there’s a frustration watching this England team. It has ability. It just doesn’t seem to believe in itself enough. I find it hard to define. But if I’m frustrated with the team, it pales into insignificance when I read about the game. There the matters on the field seem, for some, to mean less than how they should be reported against some message that needs to be conveyed.
The last test match did not follow the script. This script appears to be an exercise in managing expectations. England were supposed to lose 5-0, because (a) we can’t spin and (b) we can’t bowl spin. Add to that scraping a draw in a series against Bangladesh, and the fear of God was put in us all. Then, one very positive, encouraging performance, and the managing of expectations is going to be a bit more tough to put out when England played so well. Where do we stand after Rajkot? The players have to be positive, we know that. We would be worried if they weren’t, but the watchers and writers have to display more scepticism. “Now we are ready to take it to India toe-to-toe” they imply, remarking that Ashwin has a block against England…. Kohli still hasn’t really made hay. Then the last two days happened and it is almost a volte face. The expectation management, or as I know it “excuse” is that we lost the toss and then we lose the match. So this is to be expected, or as Newman said this is “the performance we all feared”. Funny, this wasn’t really what I was reading last week. Clearly the toss is important, but as you’ll note from a remark in my “On This Day” below, it doesn’t have to be fatal.
Yesterday four wickets fell, today eleven. The game has moved forward quite rapidly and India hold all the cards. They got first use of the wicket, capitalising on their chance to use the pace and bounces, such as it was, to its fullest, while our bowling wasn’t quite up to it (and I’m not mentioning the captain). Two of India’s top four made centuries. England fought back well this morning, but still 455 looks a good score on this wicket. In fact, there aren’t many test wickets where 455 isn’t a good score.
England’s demise wasn’t so much as predicted as bloody well certain. Now a lot of this is predicated on me not seeing the action (job etc.) but following on Twitter and the comments here, but once Cook was toppled early there was an air of inevitability about this. I saw his dismissal, and a very good ball, make no bones about it, got him, but heavens above they didn’t half go on about how great a delivery it took to get the opener. As you know, I’m not setting up an Alastair Cook Appreciation Society on here, and as you may also conclude, I may go out of my way to find reasons to get angry about it, but the media he gets is preposterous. It’s as if any word of criticism is going to be met by the most awful of repercussions, and any dismissal has to be explained away with reverence reserved for royalty. Honestly, I’ve known nothing like it. Nothing like the Hughes puff piece interview in the Cricketer (which is really getting better if you could just shove #39’s bloody ego out of the way) which might as well have had a soft focus border and ended up with the question “Alastair, sir, do you have any words for your subjects to explain how they could be great like you?”.
This is what gets our ire – Cook is venerated, and even his mistakes are given a veneer. Contrast that with how the Joe Root dismissal has been treated. More of that later.
I’ve not seen the run-out. By the time this goes to press on the blog I would have. Most people indicate that Root was the guilty party, HH the victim. These things happen sometimes. They just do. You can’t legislate for them. Quite often, when they happen, the TV and news pundits will say it is evidence of “a scrambled brain” but that was obviously not going to be put forward for the manchild or for the putative World #1 batsman they’ve all very reasonably buffed up this week. So remember that the next time someone of a fragile mind might get run out, or play an injudicious shot, that scrambled brains don’t happen to the star players or the prodigies. (I’ve seen it now, it’s the sort of thing that happens, but let me make a point. Hameed made 13 in 50 balls and an hour and 20 minutes. He got run out with a dozy piece of cricket. Replace Hameed’s name with Compton. Not Compton now, but the Compton of 2013. Think he’d be getting that same lovely press for an innings every bit as slow as his. It would be unfair to have a go at Hameed, but that never stopped our media laying into Compton).
Next in was last month’s Bright Young Thing, Ben Duckett. Now I really want Ben to do well for a number of reasons, not least that he plays aggressively, seems to have a good head on his shoulders, and it might debunk the myth about Division 2 being too big a gap to bridge to play test cricket. His half-century in Dhaka was greeted with joy unconfined even as England toppled like wet cardboard after he got out to post that ignominious defeat (still not buying Bangladesh being a good side, yet). Today those that were praising are now burying. A number openly calling for him to be removed from the action for his own benefit. Hey, maybe opening with him and letting him get his eye in to quicker bowling might be better for him, instead coming in against spin, cold, is not working out well. There’s a lot being made of his technical flaws (watch out Ramps, they are after you) but two test matches ago we were being feted by tales of a “brilliant half-century”. As I write this Colvile has previewed the next part of The Verdict as “Is Duckett’s career in a spin”. Two tests, two innings, time to go. Now, just as people might be right about Hameed, so they might be wrong about Duckett. Not every top player has a watertight technique. Give the guy a bloody break.
Joe Root’s dismissal is getting the easy, lazy lines out again. Far better for a player to have his technique undressed, albeit in a one-off scenario (Cook) than for you to get out having an attacking shot and getting caught in the deep. I understand Farbrace said that he did not want to hear anything about “that’s the way I play”, but if he did say that then he’s a dolt. Of course Newman has piled in, comparing this dismissal to his usual bete noire, Ian Bell (and SimonH’s prescience on this in the comments is spooky) playing well and getting out to a soft shot. Really. As usual, we pop at the one who showed most aptitude, rather than those who didn’t. Sure, Root will be mad at himself. He sets himself high standards, but maybe, just maybe, I’m smelling a Cook preservation rat, and Root’s name being discussed recently means a higher bar being set for Joe. Odd, because I think Cook is as secure as he’s ever been. I’m probably looking for my tinfoil hat.
Moeen’s LBW has me chuckling all the way to the end of this piece. For years we have rightly excoriated the BCCI for going their own way in not using DRS. The theory was that Sachin wanted no part of it because he might get out more, and the word of the Little Master was never to be contravened (it kept him playing well past his prime). The other theory is that the other word of the Lord in India, MS Dhoni, was implacably turned against DRS by an LBW decision overturned in the 2011 World Cup against Ian Bell. Whether these two contentions are true or not, let’s recognise that India have taken up the DRS. Now they use it to overturn an LBW decision based on a couple of change of regulations over the years, and suddenly we (well Newman does in the Mail) get all precious about it. “I’m sorry, that’s just not out” isn’t a defence when DRS has given it out. We can’t pick and choose. Sure, Moeen was unlucky. Sure, Moeen wouldn’t have been given out in years gone by, but spare me us moaning about DRS when we wanted it imposed on India.
So what now. The S&B crew need to get us out of trouble again. Stokes has shown much better aptitude against spin this winter, and Bairstow has put out so many fires in the past few months we almost expect him to do so. For the record I think getting to 256 is academic – India are going to bat next in this test match – so it’s a combination of time and runs that are going to matter.
So that’s more than enough for one day – I didn’t see the India innings, but I want to get this out because I have things to do. Which leads me to a topical On This Day…
On this day in 2012, Alastair Cook batted for 90 overs at Ahmedabad adding 94 runs to his overnight score of 74 not out, as he and Matthew Prior undertook a long rearguard to attempt to save the match for England. On a wicket that had seen 8 of England’s first innings wickets fall to spin (Ojha taking 5/45), Cook thwarted all that was thrown at him on the fourth day to take England ten runs ahead with five wickets in hand, and at least give England a chance of saving the match.
I thought I’d put this in because just because a pitch is aiding the spinners, it doesn’t mean you can’t make runs on it.
Sure, on Day 5 we were bowled out for 406 – Cook making 176, Prior 91 – and just five second innings wickets fell to spin, and India completed the win, but their rearguard inspired England that they could play on these wickets, Cook was brilliant all series, and England won on a ragging Mumbai snake-pit having lost the toss.
So for one of his best, most valiant, most stubborn knocks, Alastair Cook is today’s “On This Day”.
Plus, at the end of this piece, another “On This Day”
Jimmy Anderson gets Sachin in 2007 – bowled as the evidence shows!
Dmitri, and I’m starting to talk about myself in the third person so beware, is a curmudgeonly old soul. He’s also been round the cricketing block when supporting England. As have many of you. We’ve seen many a bright starlet hit the ground running, only to struggle to maintain that as world bowlers look at you, think about how you bat, and target accordingly. We’ve seen many a resilient England performance, battling against the odds, only to be followed by a dreadful subsidence in a following fixture, or a comprehensive defeat. We live in post-Strauss captained England, one where it doesn’t really matter if we lose certain test matches, as long as we win the ones that are appointed to matter. We live in an instant gratification world, where a half decent debut is extrapolated out to those with all time great careers, and where one of the blogging cognoscenti can call me out for being unreasonable in pointing out how silly this looks. So just as Dhaka is now in the books, where a result can be ignored because there was a better one after it, and an opener who was praised can be ignored because there was a better show after it, we can consign Rajkot Boulevard to the memory banks and wander down the Vizag Vista for match number two. For those of you not aware of the fact, in amidst the fan boy accolades and the hyperventilating hyperbole from the first test, we didn’t win it. The score is 0-0.
It might be worth a walk down memory lane to see how England have fared in first and second test matches against India in the sub-continent. Back in 2012 we lost in Ahmedabad (and you’ll get nonoxcol going with that one) but did so fighting back in the second innings with a great innings by Cook and a good one by Prior too. We took that momentum into the second test and won. Some bloke played a reasonably good innings, backed up superbly by another Cook ton and some top spin bowling.
Our previous tour was that blight on world cricket, a two test series. We lost the first, in 2008, at Chennai as we walked into a Sehwag whirlwind and a Tendulkar masterclass, but we were, again, extremely competitive. We drew the second in a weather affected bore in Mohali, enlightened by some bloke making a reasonably decent hundred to ward off any threat. Wonder what happened to him?
In 2006 we drew the first test in Nagpur. You might recall a certain Alastair Cook making a half century in his first innings and a century in his second, and still Matthew Hoggard got to ride the post-match motorbike as man of the match. That was arguably a winning draw for England, much like Rajkot was, but we followed it up by losing on a spin-friendly track in Mohali before clawing back the series in the Ring of Fire test in Mumbai.
Back to 2001 and again in Mohali, we lost the 1st test of the series, with Dees Dasgupta, the legend, making a key century. That may have been peak India in terms of bowling spin, as Harby and Kumble put us to the sword, covering for two very inexperienced opening bowlers. England acquitted themselves well in the next two tests, although Bangalore was very badly rain affected.
There’s been a total randomness to how we’ve hit the ground in India, but it’s not unknown for us to over-rate the opposition and then, after we play them in the first test, re-adjust expectations. We usually are 1-0 down – 2006 being an exception (we lost the first tests in 1992 and 1984) and trying to claw back series. So yes, we are better placed. It also better places the doomsayers who had this as a 5-0 whitewash!
I’ve been doing this blogging lark for too long now. I keep feeling that things I’ve said before I have to say again. This England team has far too many unreliable parts. By putting together ONE batting performance in the first innings that wasn’t exclusively relying on Cook or Root, or a Bairstow / AN Other recovery job, England’s top order strung scores together and made a formidable total. A forward step, but with pretty much the same personnel, do you think this is a solid base or an outlier? Let’s put it this way, the evidence points to the latter.
We’ve seen many decent performances followed by annoying lapses. Grenada by Barbados, Cardiff by Lord’s, Edgbaston by The Oval, Abu Dhabi by Dubai. The way the performance at Rajkot has been reported, you’d think all our problems are over, and England now stand a decent chance of doing well. The realist believes that the only time you might see a road like Rajkot is if India hold a one test lead going into the last match…. (at this point I must point out that India produced a truly dreadful dirge of a pitch when we were 2-1 up last time out). England can be good, they can be bad. One swallow does not make a summer.
Imagine how our media corps would react after a debut like this man’s.
The main source of debate going into the match, other than where to place Haseeb on the genius steps (above Cook, about level with Sanga, maybe a notch down from Sachin, but compare HH and SRT’s debuts), is will Anderson play or not? I’m past caring. If Jimmy breaks down, leaving us a bowler short, then on his head be it. Newman’s almost messianic pushing of Saint Jimmy of Burnley has been bizarre, but he’s been given pause for thought by a solid bowling display by England in the first match. Now we’d have to leave out someone from the “best all round team performance” that Bayliss had seen from an England team in his time. Such great performances, if precedent is to be believed, have the “no vacancies” sign put up like a B&B in peak summer. But now there’s talk of letting Woakes have a rest, and while I might not quite believe it, I don’t know who is briefing who here.
The other matter is the wicket. Now here we are being given all sorts of doom and gloom, based, it seems on the recent ODI between India and New Zealand, which saw the visitors crushed, and Mishra take five wickets. Here are your Ranji Trophy games this season at Vizag:
Who knows what we will get? We are set for an interesting test match. Was Rajkot a blip? Will KL Rahul make a difference? Will England revert to a mean, or was that the benchmark for the series, and perhaps something we might improve upon? And whatever happens, will the print and TV media be able to keep their heads, or will they respond to the match as if they are Taylor Swift fans and she’s about to release another voice amended, pile of old dirge masquerading as music? There used to be Bad Blood indeed.
Enjoy the game.
ON THIS DAY….
Let us wander back 18 years and the Far North Queensland town of Cairns. England were preparing for the upcoming Ashes with a match against Queensland, which started on the 13th. Within a few minutes of the start, Matty Hayden had been put out of action with a broken hand. It was a sporty wicket, a low scoring one, and these were the days when the Aussies put out full strength teams to mentally disintegrate the tourists.
So to Day 4, the 16th of November. England had been set 142 to win, and were doing their usual hard job of it. Starting at 74 for 5, Ramprakash fell with the score on 89, and the writing appeared on the wall. Mike Atherton was batting at 8, for some reason, and his presence with Dean Headley took the score over 100. With the score on 101 Headley was bowled by Mike Kasprowicz, and shortly after Atherton was stumped off the bowling of Paul Jackson, who, if I haven’t told you before, I’ve played against! When Darren Gough was bowled by Kasper, England were 36 runs short, and Robert Croft was joined by Alan Mullally. The Leicestershire man’s batting would be a standing joke on this tour, but on this day he found his mojo. Run by run they eked England closer and closer. Derek Pringle, then of the Independent, has his report relatively easy to find online:
But if Croft was steadfast, Mullally was a revelation. Like all fast bowlers Mullally fancies himself with the bat. Until Monday morning there had been little evidence that he even knew what a bat was let alone familiar with shots like the hook and the sweep, both of which he played with great verve in his unbeaten 23. Dean Headley, another of the bowling fraternity, also weighed in with a useful 20, which included two of the nine fours struck in England’s second innings.
“I’m determined to have a good tour and do well,” said Mullally, once of Western Australia but now of Leicestershire. “If me and the rest of the tail-enders can make 20 or 30 runs each with the bat, it will help us enormously.”
As pure cricket goes, this match has been generally dull and attritional, though the drama as the last pair inched their way towards the 142 required was undeniable.
The unbelievable scoreline is here…. that Queensland team wasn’t bad.
We like (well I like) a good anniversary and I thought I’d share this one with you tonight. 30 years ago we saw a brilliant individual performance by Ian Botham. It would be his last test hundred…
England resumed the first test at Brisbane on 198 for 2 against Australia. On the infamous “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field…” tour England were decided second favourites but a very good Day 1 had them believing. However, Day 2 did not get off to an auspicious start. Allan Lamb and Bill Athey, the two overnight batsmen fell, and this brought David Gower and Ian Botham to the crease….
The entire England innings highlights are here…
I may have lost a lot of my regard for Sir Ian in his life as a commentator, but this was pure gold and showed why we were big fans of his playing days. Merv Hughes was vaunted as a new leader of the attack. Botham put him to the sword. Add to that the mental impact this had on the series. Hell, who knows if the 30th anniversary had a subliminal impact on Australia in Hobart this morning! We also got DeFreitas making 40 on debut, a half century for Gower and England went on to win the match.
Here’s a report by Tony Lewis on the day’s play:
Happy memories of the Gabba, prior to it being turned into a soulless concrete bowl!
14 years ago today Dmitri was in Port Douglas, and England were in Hobart playing Australia A. It was a lovely Friday morning, and we were fresh off our journey to the Barrier Reef the day before (one of my great lifetime experiences) and Sir Peter and I were readying ourselves for a drive up to Cape Tribulation. Before we left we say Martin Love blatantly smack the cover off the ball when on about 7, the bent Aussie umpire had his deaf aid switched off, and Love went on to make 201 not out.
I’ll be returning to these tours post Christmas, when we have a large void to fill in the run up to the English summer, but any memories you have of 1986, let me have them….
I picked up a copy of the Evening Standard on the train this evening. On the back there was the repeating of a claim I’d heard already today that this was, in the view of Trevor Bayliss, the most complete performance he had seen from England in his time as coach. But it was when I flicked inside that my heart sunk.
Now people can say this about me and they might have a point. “Dmitri, if this cheeses you off that much, why don’t you try a sport that doesn’t?” Or you could say “Lord Canis Lupus, if you can’t get excited about a great new talent, why do you watch?” Or you could say Mark “surely a coach pumping up the tyres of a young kid isn’t that surprising, is it?”
I’ve been around the block a bit, and try not to get above myself when it comes to hype. I’ve not anointed Virat Kohli the new Tendulkar, Steve Smith as the new Border or Quentin de Kock as the new Gilchrist. Yet they have a more firm body of evidence than Haseeb. Yes, you can say that Haseeb is a young kid and surely you have to get excited, and believe me, I am. He seems a great lad, a great attitude and approach to the game, a beautiful temperament and very importantly for the sport in this country, a British-Asian batsman with what we hope is true staying power. But it’s so early in his career to be giving us this nonsense.
Bayliss, in the article, say Haseeb reminds him of Sangakkara in his love of batting., wanting to practice all the time etc. etc. Great. That’s not what the headline screams, is it? And even the most naive of media trained coaches must have known how this would be presented. Is there a big deal? No, not really, but English sport is littered with young sports stars who flamed out. Four England players made hundreds in this test match and Haseeb wasn’t one of them, but because we’ve been so desperate for an opener this strikes me as a little bit of over excitement. But I’ll say this once, and then hope it sticks. Judge Haseeb after a year. Judge him after this series, on more difficult surfaces than this on. Judge him on a home series against South Africa. Judge him on how he tackles an overseas Ashes series. We have time to see if the kid is the real deal, or if he gets worked out. We know he has the temperament, we can see that. Now let’s see if he is the package. Pumping tyres is all well and good, but if Bayliss really thought that of him, he’d have had him in the team at Chittagong, not at Rajkot. It looks daft, the headline looks daft, and we invite ridicule with this stuff.
It’s not a lot, but if you can’t see why I’m worried, people, you haven’t been paying attention. This England team, this set-up, over the years has chewed up great talent and spat it out. Sure, get excited, but keep your heads. Say nice things, of course. The lad deserves them. But keep some proportion, for heaven’s sake. Our press have built up enough to knock them down. Good luck HH!
I see George was saying this was the most entertaining England team he’s ever seen. Interesting. I’ve been clearing out a lot of stuff and came across the DVDs of the highlights from Adelaide 2010. So I put them on. I watched us bowl out the Aussies for very little, I watched Cook and Trott make hay, and then KP applying the coup de grace. That team would have murdered this one. And with the bat, which I care about the most it has to be said, they were really, really good to watch. Cook’s knock was magnificent – on the back of 235 – and well, KP was KP. Prior’s demolition of the demoralised was fun. I sometimes wonder if George takes the bowling dry thing too much as lacking entertainment. The MCG morning was certainly entertaining!
OK. Hope that explained my thinking, if you care!
Just thought I’d say that I’m reading Ian Chappell’s book at the moment. It makes me sad. Really sad. Chappelli absolutely raves about Sir Garfield Sobers. I hate the fact I’m in my late 40s and only just missed him makes me really sad. I wish I’d got to see him play, even as a childhood memory. But I don’t. I also went on a holiday 11 years ago where the previous year the star guest for the evening I went to was Sobers. I felt a little cheated to get “only” Joel Garner! The Chappell book is a good read so far, and I might do a review when I finish.
OK. That little ramble over, have a good night, and I’ll speak soon…
Being Outside Cricket 