Author: LordCanisLupus

The Batting Armchair – Open Thread 5

LordCanisLupus97 Comments

County Championship fixtures on the way today. My mob are up in Yorkshire, where we try to avoid losing to the champions! Essex also host the Sri Lankans, so given we are going for this new point nonsense, and the Essex Mafia run cricket there must be something at stake to make this match have “context”. As you might have guessed, I’m not a fan. Of the Essex Mafia and the points system.

If you have any views on the upcoming England selection, put them down here. The name on everyone’s lips is James Vince. We know why he might be being pushed by Michael Vaughan, but Pringle has been banging this drum for a while. Seriously, is he any good?

We had a bit of a scare overnight with the taking down of Dennis Does Cricket. At first Dennis was blaming the BCCI, then it seemed to be some reason unknown. Of course, I’ll take D’s tweets on face value, and you have to admit that the blogging community is as welcome to the authorities as a fart in an astronaut suit, so I put up that post last night. Even if this wasn’t the BCCI, there are also hits on Rob Moody’s video channel (increasing copyright claims – see my last post on TV and cricket to see what I think of that) and AltCricket’s Facebook page. I’m not paranoid (alright, maybe a little) but I am also protective of what we have. We go down, we have a number of alternate sites we can immediately switch to. But that’s not the point. We write because we love the sport. The sport is all of ours, not the preserve of corporate fly-by-nights, no matter how much they think their love is proved by financial commitment.

Thanks for the hits this week, and thanks to a number of you who provoked me out of my slumber, as well as Newman and Fowler for a quite ridiculous article that stoked some of the flames, but interestingly, wasn’t overly re-reported. This seemed to have a “test the water” theory behind it. If so, not sure what to make of it from an outside “Outside Cricket” perspective.

Any other comments you might have, including how you’ll celebrate 10000 test runs for Alastair, then fire away. If you are going to a game, let us know how it went.

Cheers!

An Ominous Shot…

LordCanisLupus13 Comments

It seems topical after the posts on the TV business. Where I say blogs should be free to provide content and spread the word. Where I plead for the widening of the customer experience, not short-sighted profiteering.

Well you may or may not like Dennis Does Cricket. But this is a chill wind….

https://twitter.com/DennisCricket_/status/729083842347196416

F*ck this sport. Just f*ck them. They don’t deserve us.

Note – this came a day or so after this…

https://twitter.com/AltCricket/status/728508385742757888

UPDATE – Site is back up. We will await Dennis’s take on things.

The Anatomy Of Plants

LordCanisLupus18 Comments

So here I was, watching the golf from Quail Hollow and reminding myself that I was in the States this time last year, when Innocent Bystander, a Tweeter you should follow if you don’t already, alerted me to the Andy Flower article in the Mail. Now we are semi-joking, well I am, when I talk about an Essex Mafia in the media, but coming on top of Derek Pringle singing the praises of Tom Westley, and Newman bringing Nick Browne into the debate too, an interview with Flower that would disgrace Hello! Magazine is too much.

Both on HDWLIA and here we’ve had our fill with our cricket journalists. There is a major story to be told, yet it isn’t being told in anything other than small pieces, and with key parts deliberately excluded. When Pietersen told his side of it, the ECB leaked a dossier, a not totally irrelevant point when reading yesterday’s puff piece, which actually painted their own management staff as being a bunch of paranoid oddballs. When the scapegoat was being lined up and measured for assassination, the dignity shown by the management team (and judging in hindsight and at the time, there were a few of them at it) was to leak. Remember the harrumphing of the media at KP breaching the sanctity of the dressing room, while all and sundry were “good journalisming” aided and abetted by people clearly with an axe to grind.

Just to refresh your memories…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2535242/Its-KP-England-coach-Flower-resign-Pietersen-isnt-dropped-team.html

Yeah! He kept silent all right.

It is a gamble by the hugely principled Flower, particularly as England are likely to be a weaker team in the short-term without Pietersen, but it is one he is fully prepared to take and he will walk away with his head held high if the ECB decide their loyal support for him cannot be extended now.

I wrote this on HDWLIA:

Someone all over that story, as an apparent vehicle for Leak City was the Daily Mail’s cricket correspondent Paul Newman. Just as he was the useful vehicle at that time, so, back in the immediate aftermath of the 5-0 whitewash did he become the main focal point for the public release of the official England anti-KP sentiment.

To wit:

Jamuary 7 – 15:08 – Its-KP-England-coach-Flower-resign-Pietersen-isnt-dropped-team

January 7 – 22:06 – Flower Driven To The Edge

January 8 – 12:00 – Time For KP To Go

The case is set up. The quotes are leaked. Paul Newman makes the cry for the parting of the ways.

No, what. The ECB, Andy Flower or players had nothing to do with this co-ordinated attack? They wouldn’t desecrate the inner sanctum, would they:

Such has been the deterioration in the relationship between the two that Flower has suggested to England’s new managing director Paul Downton that Pietersen must go before the rebuilding programme can begin after the abject low of their 5-0 thrashing by Australia.

How did he know that?

but now the team director is adamant that there should be no place for their most talented batsman in this ‘new era.’

Who told him that?

Sportsmail revealed on Tuesday that Pietersen’s international future was in jeopardy but now it has emerged that the situation has already reached breaking point, with Flower deciding that he cannot carry on if Pietersen is reprieved

Oh yes, it came out of the ether. It emerged like Excalibur….

Flower has been fully backed by the ECB in the aftermath of the Ashes horror show. And while the coach denied he had delivered a direct ultimatum, but for Flower to effectively say ‘it’s him or me’ makes it clear his relationship with Pietersen is at breaking point.

Shane Warne wasn’t the only spinner in attendance at the SCG that day.

Sportsmail understands Flower believes Pietersen to be a divisive influence in a dressing room that will need to be united behind captain Alastair Cook in what the coach admitted will be a ‘painful’ transitional period. So bad has it become that Flower is risking his own position to bring the matter to a head.

“Sportsmail UNDERSTANDS” = Someone told them. All that understanding, and how remarkable that the United Behind Cook meme was floated back in January! I understand when someone is being briefed…

There has been anger at Pietersen’s attitude to warm-up games, which neared contempt here in Sydney ahead of the first Test, the manner of many of his dismissals in the Test series and what Flower sees as the undermining of Cook.

Sounds like someone breaching the inner sanctum to me.

The problem has been so serious, in Flower’s mind, that disciplinary action has been considered by England but they held back until after the final Test so as to try to seek damage limitation in the series before fully assessing the situation

This is making Piers Morgan look like a mute. Who is telling Newman this stuff? Given what has happened, this clearly wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

If the relationship between Flower and Pietersen has never really recovered from that point there had been a truce between the pair for the good of the side until the text scandal of 2012, revealed by Sportsmail, when the South African-born player sent ‘provocative’ phone messages to South African players about England captain Andrew Strauss during the Test series between the two.

Someone leaked that out of the inner sanctum as well….

Pietersen, who is very publicity conscious, attempted to get his retaliation in first after Sportsmail reported that his international career was in jeopardy by tweeting that he remains committed to England and wants to help them win back the Ashes in 2015. Clearly, if Flower wants him out then he is going to make it as difficult as possible for him and England

The publicity conscious KP. That one again. Yes he is. He also knows a bloody stitch up when he sees it. What should he do? Keep letting Newman talk to the flower in his garden without responding? He hardly got his retaliation in first when the paper leaked he was on the way out. Newman having it the Daily Mail way, that is both ways.

England want all their players to earn their Test places again with performances in county cricket, and will want Pietersen to play for Surrey under his old mentor Ford rather than cash in on India. If a deal is already in place for Pietersen to play for Delhi, as he was due to last year before injury forced him out, then clearly the situation is untenable. It is that piece of ammunition which Flower, who this week called the IPL ‘a tricky situation’ will want to use most keenly in what has become a hostile battle with Pietersen.

Which is not acceptable when it is KP, but it is for Ian Bell and Stuart Broad (my apologies, Stuart Broad wasn’t put forward for the auction. Other potential international cricketers were, though, including, amazingly, Jade Dernbach)…. Again, Newman seems to know a lot about what Flower is thinking.

There will be outrage from his high profile supporters like Shane Warne and Piers Morgan and he will make sure he acts the victim but it would be both a huge surprise and mistake if the ECB did not fully back Flower now.

Newman rather underestimated the outrage, underestimated Flower being backed to stay on when he clearly intended to, and the game is/was given away by how much of this came from sources within the inner sanctum.

It’s just hilarious. Because in his own views, Newman just about gives the game away…

Yes, for the record, there were times during this Ashes when Flower considered disciplining Pietersen for poor behaviour and, yes, patience is wearing thin about his attitude towards practice matches and his general attitude in the dressing room, where he can set a bad example.

For the record. Then some pretty assertive statements for the record. Leaving you no doubt someone wanted it on the record. Someone who would never defile the sanctity of the inner sanctum.

I give Paul Newman his due. He never sat on the fence. He did some reporting. He may have an agenda, but he didn’t hide behind nonsense. It’s pretty clear he had sources in the dressing room telling him stuff. He did what a journalist is supposed to do. Fine. Just don’t throw that accusation back at Pietersen when he does it. That’s rank hypocrisy and everyone with a brain can see through it. Newman tries to re-write history regarding his role in the Moores nonsense – with friends like him, who needed enemies – but is putting a view out there and not hiding. The rest seem to just want to hide.

Yesterday’s article was just another of those pieces.

Andy Flower is taking his place among the sprinkling of supporters at an early season county match happy to remain anonymous as he sizes up one of the next generation of England cricketers.

‘We’re sitting here at the Oval watching Somerset and Tom Abell is batting with Marcus Trescothick,’ said England’s most successful coach. ‘The biggest compliment you can pay Tom is that both look like international batsmen.

‘There are some very good young batters around and Tom is one of them. We just have to keep pushing the boundaries and find out how good they can be.’

Just to remind you that when Flower left the England job he moved into one he was actively lobbying for. Remember how there were unattributed comments on his workload, the Radio 5 special on his modus operandi, the almost unanimous praise for his coaching. Still Flower got the job he wanted and in the eyes of the press and, if I recall, Swann, good on him. This is to remind you….

Two and a bit years on from the Ashes disaster that brought his distinguished reign at the head of the England team to a crashing halt and Flower is reveling in his role as coach to the England Performance Programme and the Lions.

A job he wanted. I thought I’d remind you. The point made to me last night was compare the last days of Fletcher with those of Flower. People were actually calling out Fletcher’s mental health after that dismissal. There was no love lost between the press and him. The way Flower managed his press relationships paid off. He walked out with no rancour from them, and into an important job, and gets to be called distinguished. Flower was a very good England coach. But he lost 5-0 to an Aussie side that doesn’t compare with the greats of the past. He can revel in a new role. Nice.

‘This is an excellent match to be at,’ says Flower as we watch one of the four county games he took in within four days last week assessing young talent.

‘Tom Curran and Mark Footitt opening the bowling for Surrey is great competition for Tom. He may not have scored many here but you can see his potential. 

Hello! magazine stuff.

‘We’ve got some very exciting young players and I think English cricket should feel very optimistic about the resources we have.’

Players as resources. Teeth itch.

Flower is finally optimistic himself now after emerging with his dignity intact from the fall-out of the 5-0 Ashes thrashing that saw one of the best of all England teams unexpectedly disintegrate spectacularly and then bitterly.

Now this is where the Looking Glass stuff starts. Dignity? Issuing a him or me ultimatum? Saying he wanted to stay before resigning/being asked to leave? Presiding over a team imploding on itself, losing 5-0, putting up a shocking display at Sydney, players falling by the wayside, debutants having disasters? That’s dignity intact? Words can’t express what I feel about that nonsense. Newman himself can’t quite buy it. How can one of the “best of all England teams” lose 5-0 AND have their coach remain with dignity intact?

The man who coached England to three Ashes victories, the No 1 Test ranking and a World Twenty20 triumph disappeared into the background to lick his wounds while the mud-slinging and recriminations swirled around him.

As you can see with the post I reproduced above, he didn’t go silently, and threw a fair bit of mud. That it wasn’t reported as coming directly from him fooled nobody. Please don’t insult our intelligence.

Even now he will not respond to the assassination of his character by Kevin Pietersen in the saga’s aftermath and instead is content to still be playing his part in the betterment of English cricket away from the spotlight he never relished.

Kevin Pietersen’s character was assassinated by unattributed leaks, journalistic innuendo, and the maintenance of flat out lies (the texting how to dismiss Strauss is still regularly spotted). That went on from mid-December 2013 until KP released THAT book in October 2014. That doesn’t seem to matter. No. KP said what he thought and suddenly we need to be concerned about an ex-coach’s reputation. Flower doesn’t have to say anything in public. You lot, and especially Newman and Selvey, did it for him.

‘It fell apart very quickly and much quicker than I hoped,’ reflected Flower on those tumultuous times in Australia. 

‘Regardless of whether I moved on I would like to have seen a healthier transition where some senior players stayed and there was a drip-feed of younger ones rather than a complete makeover.

Don’t worry Andy. Mission accomplished. The journos kept reminding us of the good times and laying all the blame on KP and the dastardly Mitchell Johnson. No-one could have done any more. SimonH in his comment buries the transition myth as well.

‘Sometimes life doesn’t work out perfectly and that’s an example of that but England have made a great recovery.

‘Peter Moores put some really good foundations in place and had some tough situations to deal with and I think Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace have reaped some rewards for the work he did during that transitional period for English cricket.

We live in a world where we praise Peter Moores contribution as coach over KP’s contribution to a world-beating XI. Peter Moores was done badly by the ECB, but lets not pretend that his reign was anything other than a failure. Let’s also not take away the credit from the current management team, who, of course, are not linked to Flower in any way. Moores brought Flower into the England set-up, lest we forget.

‘It’s such a shame it didn’t work out twice for Peter because he’s an outstanding coach, and man, and Trevor has acknowledged that which is good because he didn’t need to do that,’ says Flower in his first major interview since the Ashes meltdown that cost him his job.

Newman’s odd, quaint reminder, in case you’ve forgotten that Flower has been a mute in the last two years is out of place. As is an homage to Peter Moores.Likeable, dignified man, but not an international coach. All this praising of Moores comes across as some sort of defence mechanism for a decision made in Spring 2014 that was a mistake. They want to say it is an honest mistake. There was a large school of thought that the key man pumping Moores tyres was Flower.

‘Trevor is a very experienced coach and he’s bringing a lot of knowledge to English cricket. He may give the impression he’s a simple guy from the bush in New South Wales but he has a cricketing wisdom about him and about people and teams. 

‘He’s making that count for English cricket. I still don’t know Trevor that well but I’m looking forward to knowing him better.’

Hang about! The England Lions coach and Trevor Bayliss don’t know each other that well. Do they talk at all? What’s going on here? Are there two fiefdoms in operation?

It is an enormous shame that it all ended so badly for Flower after he did so much, along with his captain Andrew Strauss, to lift England to unprecedented levels after taking over in the wake of another Pietersen fall-out in 2009.

He deserves the praise when we win and none of the blame when we lose. This is Essex Mafia in full effect. See also A.Cook. I don’t remember the enormous shame articles after Fletcher left. And he inherited a far greater mess than Andy Flower, who did a very good job for most of his tenure I must say, did. If you want me to feel sorry for Flower, you aren’t going about this the right way.

He deserves to be remembered for the highs of that rare away Ashes success in 2010-11, climaxing with innings victories in Melbourne and Sydney, and another win against Australia in the final of the 2010 World Twenty20, rather than when the world of English cricket came tumbling down around him.

And airbrush out the bad bits. Remember the great bits, forget the humiliation. Wow. Journalism in full cry. Should we remember how he jacked in the limited overs stuff?

‘There were hard times during that tour of Australia and some testing times for me and a few others afterwards,’ he reflects now. ‘So I don’t have good memories of it but having said that it was still fascinating to be part of.

Very fascinating. How to get out of that with “dignity intact” seemed to be the important aspect. Nothing like some nice press and managing upwards to enhance future job prospects. But to sum up the tour as “some hard times during” it and “some testing times for me and others afterwards” is a whitewash. You might not have good memories Andy, but stick around and Newman et al will airbrush them out. “You will always be our #1 Andy”.

‘It was interesting to try to find a way of halting the slide even though we weren’t able to do it. It was fascinating to watch how people were dealing with what we went through and how I dealt with it myself. 

‘Coming out the other side and evaluating why things happened. Hopefully I’m stronger and wiser for it.

‘If we’d won that Ashes I would have wanted to carry on, no question. There was talk of me going even if we’d won but I would have wanted to stay because I was really enjoying the job and it’s one of the best you can have. Why wouldn’t you carry on when you’re winning?’

It was interesting to try to find a way of halting the slide. Hilarious. I had a ton of respect for Flower – read my blog properly if you don’t think I do – but what is he trying to do here? We know his attempts were laughable. It was team in a death spiral. You also didn’t want the whole job – you’d packed in the limited over stuff and had more than one journo telling us you hated the constant travelling as you had a young family. Now you want to change that. I’m confused

Alastair Cook did, of course, carry on while England moved on without the likes of highly successful players like Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott, Matt Prior and, controversially, Pietersen. 

And the way his second captain has emerged from the dark times himself gives Flower enormous satisfaction.

‘Cooky has done amazingly well,’ says Flower. ‘He’s got genuine resilience and strength. He was under a lot of pressure in that post-Ashes period. He took a lot of the brunt of the Pietersen fall-out and has always been a stubborn b****r which is one of his great qualities.

‘He was stubborn enough not to back down personally from the challenge in front of him as England captain and I’ll always respect him for that. 

‘He came through it like a champion and hopefully he’s got a few years of heavy scoring in front of him. And not just heavy scoring but also contributing as a leader.

‘One of the things I’ve most enjoyed over the last 18 months or so is watching him change as a captain. I think he’s evolved as a leader.

Not going down the Saint Alastair of Bedford route. But “the brunt of the Pietersen fall-out” was a creation of his own device. He was reported to be in agreement with the sacking, he was reported to be opposed to any rapprochement. He went two years without a hundred. Stubbornness backed by a board who needed him.

As for the last point. A skilled observer might note that Cook developed as a leader once free of the shackles of the Flower/Moores management axis. But that wouldn’t fit the narrative, would it Paul?

‘He’s become stronger, more certain of his views and he’s learnt from watching. The example set by Brendon McCullum and New Zealand, I think, was very important to him.

‘Some of that stubbornness sometimes meant he didn’t learn as quickly as some but I think because he was going through such a hard time he watched and looked and listened during that period and he’s come out with much clearer views on his leadership and the tactics he’s going to employ in Test cricket.

‘It’s a really tough job at any stage and we tend to think as soon as we give someone the captaincy they become all knowing on tactics, leadership and selection and how people develop.

‘It’s a crazy thing to expect young guys to become great leaders straightaway but part of my job is to create environments in which we can give opportunities to these players to lead in different ways. 

‘And through that they can make mistakes, learn about themselves and learn what leadership means in their context. That’s quite a chunky responsibility we’ve got at our level.’

Again, a studious avoidance of the influence of Bayliss and Farbrace and an exoneration of his own methods. The attribution to this of Cook’s youth is staggering and we can’t let them get away with it. He was 29 when Flower was sacked/resigned. He had brought up his 100th test on that tour hadn’t he (at Perth)? He’d been an international cricketer for 8 years. Good grief. He wasn’t a young guy. Is Joe Root going to get that? Michael Vaughan was 28 when he assumed the captaincy, with a lot less international experience. I don’t recall anyone ever calling him young.

All the indications I hear is that Bayliss is letting Cook be the leader. Maybe Flower should worry less about his chunky responsibilities and look and see how he has reacted once out of the control of Moores and Flower.

It is a responsibility Flower is relishing in a far more significant role than his initial job as director of elite coaching that the ECB gave him after he finally decided he could not possibly survive that 5-0 humiliation and resigned.

‘It’s very different to being England coach but I’ve really enjoyed doing it for the last two winters,’ says Flower.

We never will know what went on after that tour. The truth never will out. The thing is, when he was appointed technical director of elite coaching his role was described as..

His new role will be based at the national cricket performance centre in Loughborough.

“Not only will Andy work with both players and coaches but he will also look to enhance the relationship between the county coaches and the England set-up,” added Downton.

“He will also work with Level 3 and 4 coaches in the ECB coaching structures.

“Andy will also build on the highly-successful ECB coach and talent development programmes which have seen players such as Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, to name a few, graduate to England senior teams as well as work with a number of coaches from first-class counties who have been involved with the England Lions.”

Flower said: “I am particularly excited about the chance to build and mould a leadership course which is not simply about captaincy but much more.

“This role offers me a chance to make a real contribution to the ability and character of England players and coaches in the years to come.”

So now he just works in the winter, or am I reading this wrong – indeed the article seems to indicate he’s acting as some sort of talent mentor at home. His role has never quite been defined in public and I’m finding this reporting strange.

‘You’re still working with very talented players, ones who are hungry to play international cricket and have this dream of fulfilling their talent.

‘You are away from media scrutiny and it’s quite nice to take a break from that after seven years with England. It’s a lovely role to have, I’m still trying to make a positive influence for English cricket and that’s really nice.

‘I was very committed as England coach to the cause and I’m lucky to have this job, still be involved and still doing my best for the English game.’

He talks with real enthusiasm about his charges among the second string, for example a batsman who appears set for his Test debut against Sri Lanka in the first international of the summer at Headingley on May 19.

‘James Vince has captained the Lions the last two winters and he’s been outstanding,’ says Flower.

Great. I hope he does a brilliant job with them. He’s not had a huge hit rate thus far, but it is early days. James Vince is carrying a lot of hopes. Also, James Vince seems to be an assured pick as well, which is interesting. Has he links to Essex as Pringle has been bigging him up too.

I’ve skipped the bit on the Currans…so on to the finale…

Flower himself is thoroughly enjoying the way the new vibrant young England team are playing now, a team that have emerged from the ashes of those troubled times to reach the brink of greatness now themselves.

‘It’s a really exciting England team and they’ve selected exciting players,’ says Flower. ‘Players with plenty of power and it’s a young, developing group too.

‘One thing I like is that they obviously like playing with each other. It’s nice to watch players having fun together and in a fun environment you learn quickly.

‘You don’t quite have the emotional involvement and commitment as when you’re coach but I’ve loved what I’ve seen over the last year. We were huge underdogs in that Ashes last year and for the England side to come through as they did was magnificent.

‘Then to go to South Africa and win was a great achievement. We went there a few years ago and drew 1-1 so we know how tough it is.

No comparisons with the dour functionality of the 2013 Ashes win, something which, in my eyes, no-one has anything to apologise for. Plenty of hints that that team didn’t enjoy playing with each other. PLenty of tips to youth that Flower didn’t have a great record of developing while in the job. Also Flower is doing himself down over South Africa. That team we put out in 2009-10 faced a vastly superior opposition then. Three factors. Smith. Kallis. A fit Dale Steyn. We had Swann as well (so that’s four). IN blowing smoke up our teams arse this is almost too self-effacing.

The article tails off with things about future international jobs.

Flower is done little credit by this. Two years silence to talk about a current job and hinting about things that went on, while interviewed by a friendly face who is hardly going to pose the tough questions because he nailed his colours to Flower’s mast many years ago, and has been at times an out of control anti-Pietersen reporter. Flower was not a failure as a coach. I’m not saying that. I’m saying Flower got a man scapegoated for the tour, and in the process secured a job he was campaigning for at the time because he knew that team’s run might be coming to an end. There is still the unanswered questions on his role in the dodgy dossier, the leaking, the role in getting KP sacked. He chooses not to answer. I think that silence speaks volumes.

I still want answers, and I want him to answer them. He doesn’t have to, of course, but what we don’t need is for friendly journos to put his case for him. That’s why those of us who huddle under the “outside cricket” umbrella, rained upon at many turns, get so frustrated. There’s no attempt to be even-handed. They’ve decided that KP was the man doing the character assassinating and that anything said about him was fair game, even though it came through all sorts of leaks and sources. Until the likes of Newman actually get this, we’ll still be doing what we are doing.

The final question about this is timing. Why now? Flower has been, so the story goes, an example of a man keeping his counsel. The dignified coach who let the mess go on around him. We never bought it, but we understood the right to silence. Now, 28 months after the end of the series, he speaks, albeit tangentially about the thought processes and his new job. Why now? What does he want to get out of it? This looks like an ECB sanctioned piece – only Newman can tell us that – so there has to be some thought going into why you’d open up this can of worms now (I fully expected it to come out in either his or Cook’s autobiography)? Is he after another job? Is he worried that not enough credit his coming his way? Is this some sort of attempt to get him back in the public eye now KP has gone for good? I really don’t understand. These media managers manage for a reason.

It’s a long time since I fisked an article and this one deserved it. Andy Flower was a very good England coach. I have not gone to town on Flower ever. I think he had things he should have said, I think he had a role in what went down, and I think he leaked (has anyone ever asked him whether he leaked the discussion over Taylor with KP). I know some will sigh and say “it’s just Dmitri being Dmitri” and if that’s the way you feel, you’ve done well to reach the 5000th word of this piece to read that. But I don’t trust the ECB and their motives and I sure as hell don’t trust this journalist to tell it straight. So what is going on here and don’t you think the supporters of England should know?

Feel free to take me to task. This was bad.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-3577853/Andy-Flower-admits-reign-fell-apart-Ashes-whitewash-believes-England-bright-future-Trevor-Bayliss.html#ixzz47y5iopQb

A Flower Speaks

LordCanisLupus33 Comments

No comments from me at present, but no surprise who it is with, and no surprise that it’s not the most challenging piece…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-3577853/Andy-Flower-admits-reign-fell-apart-Ashes-whitewash-believes-England-bright-future-Trevor-Bayliss.html

I feel like I’m throwing a slab of meat into the ring here. I look forward to your comments!

Enjoy comments like…

Flower is finally optimistic himself now after emerging with his dignity intact from the fall-out of the 5-0 Ashes thrashing that saw one of the best of all England teams unexpectedly disintegrate spectacularly and then bitterly.

The man who coached England to three Ashes victories, the No 1 Test ranking and a World Twenty20 triumph disappeared into the background to lick his wounds while the mud-slinging and recriminations swirled around him.

Revel in the tough interrogation…

Even now he will not respond to the assassination of his character by Kevin Pietersen in the saga’s aftermath and instead is content to still be playing his part in the betterment of English cricket away from the spotlight he never relished.

‘It fell apart very quickly and much quicker than I hoped,’ reflected Flower on those tumultuous times in Australia. 

‘Regardless of whether I moved on I would like to have seen a healthier transition where some senior players stayed and there was a drip-feed of younger ones rather than a complete makeover.

‘Sometimes life doesn’t work out perfectly and that’s an example of that but England have made a great recovery.

Oh boy!

You Too Can Pay Per View Two

LordCanisLupus11 Comments

Off again….a follow up to yesterday!

I saw a lot of interesting stuff revolving around yesterday’s post. AB is quite right to suggest that I am “despondent” about the future, and the reasons are there to see when looking at the Nick Hoult article in the Telegraph. The sheer level of fright the ECB are showing at their county clubs showing real-time fixed camera action and the impact it has on Sky is remarkable. Once again, the ECB are much more concerned about keeping a broadcaster sweet rather than those who actually want to watch their sport. If this is their attitude, we have no chance.

I find Sky’s attitude to this rather predictable. I take, for example, my visit to the States coming up. I would quite like to watch the cricket easily and accessibly from my tablet/laptop. I don’t want to use any proxy hosting software or illegal streams blighted by poor pictures, spamware, pop-ups et al. I’ve paid for the service, I should be able to use it where I like. When I was with Sky, you could watch Sky Go quite easily. I had two or three attempts to get it to work through Virgin Media and nothing worked on my mobile platforms. So stuff it. They’ve lost a willing consumer for a few weeks, and I get more angry at their intransigence. That’s a perfect model for sustainability, right there. However, even if I got it to work, I’d need to go through a proxy server abroad. Why? To protect US cricket broadcasting rights? What broadcasting rights? If I were the ECB I’d be screaming blue murder at this inconvenience and stupidity that a person wanting to consume their “product” has to go through. So, folks, I won’t be seeing a ball of the second and third tests against Sri Lanka, despite paying for Sky Sports. What a f*cking joke.

There is a way for the ECB to change this, but they won’t. They are now the addict to the Sky “pusher”, needing their fix of Sky cash, bowing to all their demands, just to keep going. Without Sky money, they have a cricketing model that is now knackered. They have seen salaries inflate for the top players, they’ve increased the ticket prices, and now we see the northern heartlands turning away from test cricket. The ECB needs to start thinking more creatively. The fixed camera coverage belongs in the Stone Age. I have watched Minor League Baseball online – it was given away for $10 on top of the MLB Premium package a few years ago – and it was better than that. The ECB need to invest in a proper digital streaming platform to allow people to watch cricket on their TVs and other platforms at home or on the move. So when there are 9 games scheduled on the Friday special T20 nights, the other 8 not covered by Sky do not disappear into the ether. Pitch it at a reasonable price – £50 a season – and try it. I hear the powers say that the youth consume their experiences differently now (a bit patronising. I’m not a youth, and so do I) and yet they stick with the arcane TV model that stifles digital content. They’ve made some steps on the ICC tournament front, but everything else is done to protect the big deal. Because without the big deal, they are royally f*cked.

I saw a Tweet earlier to say that the BCCI had taken down AlternativeCricket. The authorities treat bloggers and cricket nuts, who want to share their love of the game, 99 times out of 100 for absolutely no commercial gain like criminals. Get some enlightenment. Every single one of those people who click on here, other blogs, youtube channels, Facebook pages, twitter feeds is a customer. Each one of those people is getting engrossed in cricket and wants to find out more. They want to read about it. They want to watch the highlights. They want to damn well love the game. What do these short-sighted f*ckwits do? And they are f*ckwits. Go after them. Why? Why the hell pursue Robelinda for his brilliant video clips? Why get Facebook to delete Alternative Cricket? Because there might be a couple of quid you are missing out on? As Mark and others say, this isn’t a free market at all, it’s straight up protectionism. I’ve always said, if I felt like, today, I wanted to see a clip of Brian Lara’s 277 at the SCG, I should be able to find it somewhere and watch it. If Channel 9, the rights holders want to charge a nominal fee, so be it. I might pay it. But you can’t and they won’t. So Rob puts a clip up online, a service the rightsholder doesn’t want to provide and has shown that to be the case, and he is potentially threatened with a copyright suit by some organisations? Where is the sense in that? Really. Where is the sense….

Let’s go back to domestic cricket and the County Championship. There is a latent audience out there. Some people would quite like to be able to watch their county on the way home from work, or in their breaks, and a basic (above fixed camera) feed with commentary would be a really good way to go about this. Others displaced, retired or unable to attend could watch an hour or two as they pleased. When something magnificent is happening, people can dip in and watch it. I don’t know the expense, but let’s say it is plausible. A web platform on the Smart TVs, via digital TV platforms (a la Netflix and Youtube on Virgin or Xbox) and mobile hardware would be a terrific innovation. There’s a chance this might just work.

Rather than try silly, costless innovations like the points system, try something that might last. That might be a trend setter. Have confidence in your ability to connect the sport with people. You hide the whole thing behind a paywall, then you are shutting off a massive potential customer base. I’m despondent because I’ve seen little innovative that is going to address the key problem with the sport. Visibility. Cricket is not football, which still has a major footprint on terrestrial TV as next month’s Euros will show. It is not rugby that has its marquee international tournaments on free-to-air. It is totally hidden.

I believe all the ECB are doing is catering to its existing customer base, and being dictated to by a broadcaster which holds all the cards. Tom Harrison has a mighty job to do. Cutting players salaries is not going to be an option – it never is – and ticket prices are exorbitant for international cricket as it is (given you take much of the weather risk, and all of the overs short risk).  It may be too late to find alternative income streams, and yet you hamstring yourself with a TV contract that means innovative counties can’t even get their token highlights shown to make it even harder. It’s a bind of their own making, only cricket lovers are the losers.

That’s right David Collier (referring to the quote I highlighted yesterday). Some of us are emotive over it. Because we think not only that you and your kindred spirits at the ECB are snobs, we also think you aren’t up to it too. In fact, we know you aren’t. Call Stanford…quick.

Pay Per Viewer

LordCanisLupus34 Comments

Television rights. The debate continues. Money or exposure. Visibility instead of viability? It’s a distance from the days BBC ruled the roost. You knew where you stood, you knew the players. But change was coming…

It was an October day in 1998, I think. October 17. Location…Ataturk Airport, Istanbul. I was boarding the Saturday morning 9am flight to London, having forced my boss to get up early so that I could get back to London in time for Millwall v Fulham (we lost 1-0, last minute goal, the ref was a bastard). So what, Dmitri? Stop rambling…

I picked up one of the daily papers on the flight and saw the news.

“BBC to lose cricket contract to Channel 4. Shock as live coverage moves to commercial channel.”

This was a seismic moment in TV coverage. BBC had held the rights since I was a child, and now, after all those years, it was moving to a commercial channel? How could they? I do remember the late Trevor Bailey getting very irate about it (he said something along the lines of people having no sense of history and being obsessed by money). There was a sense that the BBC had got very lazy, but what was to become of Richie Benaud?

Now a lot of old bollocks has been spoken about BBC coverage. About it being interrupted by the racing, or by kids programmes, or on Saturdays by every other sport. But this is of course pre-digital television for the vast majority, and the digital platforms then were in their evolutionary stage. Sky might have had three sports channels at the time, and were struggling to fill them! There wasn’t even a thought that cricket would follow football and rugby league by handing over their bread and butter exclusively live to the pay TV market.

Sky got their toe in the water  with their one exclusive test per year. This would normally be the non-Lord’s test played by the first tourists of the summer. It wasn’t a great game to get, but Sky, as is their wont, went full in and did their usual high-standard production. As we know, when the contracts for the post-2005 cricket were being awarded, Sky Sports won the bid and got the whole of the sport exclusively live in this country.

If Giles Clarke was the man to which the focus of the ire was focused post-2005, it seems the man that Trevor Bailey had in his cross-hairs was Lord McLaurin. Remember also that test matches were part of the “Crown Jewlels” of sporting rights that had to be on terrestrial TV and that the ECB, or whatever it might have been called then, were having severe constraints placed on their revenue by being forced to, in effect, deal with one partner. But McLaurin was vocal when the Sky exclusive deal was announced. Even he wasn’t thinking that far ahead.

Fast forward to now, and the one partner is Sky. We have no idea if BT Sport bid for the last round (might have been too soon), but one effect of their arrival on the sporting scene of BT was for Sky to exercise their two year option in the 2013 deal very quickly. Sky play an effective long game as the key sports rights holders in the UK, and their thinking may well be that come the new contract discussions, their inside track will be a key selling point to the ECB, and that BT Sport will really be encountering choppy waters. They’ve seen off Setanta and ESPN in the UK, and while BT have deep pockets, they might well see them off to.

The press are remarkably Sky-friendly too. Note how BT Sport, trying to bust its way into a major industry, are criticised by papers like the Daily Mail for the lack of audience for Champions League matches. What Charlie Sale and his kith and kin should be looking at is how an audience of millions for the 2005 Ashes, an outlier, but also an indication of how the sport can grip the nation, has turned into a fraction of that despite the quality production values and dedication to international cricket that Sky has shown. For Champions League football, read Sky Sports and cricket. But Sky always gets a free pass.

Looking back to the announcement in 2004, the thing that strikes me is that English cricket sold wholesale access for a 10% rise. The contract was for £220m for four years – so my maths says that is £55m per year. Even then, the ECB’s spin was appalling….

“We understand that the decision to place all live cricket coverage on satellite and cable television is an emotive issue for some people,” he continued.

“We have made an agreement that will offer the highlights package to a peaktime audience.

“Five will broadcast highlights from 7.15-8.00pm, a time which is the most popular slot for TV viewing for children and a time when an average of 21m people watch television.”

“Emotive issue for some people”. How charming. It’s sneering at you….”You get over yourself if you actually care about the long-term visibility of the sport, and if you were a non-Sky consumer, the fact you would be paying a huge amount to get to watch it”.

Stop those emotions, you people… Those “some people” getting emotive were key consumers of your sport, and yet the insults flew. Now, in hindsight, we recognise that contempt for the supporters. “Watch it on Channel 5” is the equivalent of saying “let them eat cake”. Don’t think I’ve ever watched those highlights, actually. Are they any good?

Alec Stewart sounded a warning at the time…

Former England captain Alec Stewart, speaking on Tuesday, said: “Young girls and boys should be able to see cricket without having to pay for it.

“The ECB have to look at the whole picture. They may be getting a big cheque but, long-term, English cricket will suffer.”

But it isn’t, is it? We were world number 1 test nation in 2011-12, we haven’t lost an Ashes at home. Our ODI cricket was always crap, and T20 was just a flicker at this point. Collier’s view at the time was that take the money now, and see where we go…

“The bids we accepted allow us to invest even more in the development of the England team and grass roots cricket.

“Other proposals included live coverage of some international cricket on terrestrial TV but, if accepted, they would have resulted in a significant financial shortfall for the game and it was decided that this was not in the best interest of the sport,” explained Morgan.

“This is a very good deal for cricket as it guarantees wide accessibility to watch or listen to the action and secures the future development of the game from playground to Test arena.”

We can fertilise the lawn with this.

The suspicion is that the money received from Sky didn’t filter to the grass roots as we see them. The club game is on its arse. My club was showing distress signals in 2005, with us all getting old at the same time, a couple of youngsters coming through but not prepared to commit every weekend, and clubs all around our area merging or folding. I didn’t see any of this investment come down to us. And the recreational game is important. It hands down the love of the game to people like me. I loved my club cricket. If I had kids I would have taken them with me, got them into the game, and hoped they’d be a lot better than me. At worst they’d be able to watch the sport, perhaps pay the ticket money and help fund it that way. Now my nephew will not see it on the TV, will not encounter the game in any way, and if was interested, it’s a struggle to find a way in. He’s very young, but I’d picked up a cricket bat at that age.

The money has funded better facilities and rewards for the top players. Of that there is no doubt. I’m not sure how the wages of county cricketers were affected, and I’m not about to go on a raid on Google to find out how they might have, but when I was talking with a fellow member of Surrey a few years back, the salaries I was hearing were astounding. Over £100k for a county player while the attendance at the fixtures wouldn’t cover the costs (because there was  more than one of those paid players on the staff). So I’m assuming the funds from the Sky contract paid for that (and thus the counties supported the moves to exclusivity). There really didn’t appear to be much long-term about it. It was to trouser more cash to pay everyone involved in the game. Once hooked on the drug of money, it’s pretty tough to get off. Anyone want a precedent in history for this, look at what happened to football below the Premier League when ON Digital went bust. Ask our current Premier League champions what happened to them?

A clue in the raising of the wages of cricketers in the last few years can be gleaned, very roughly, from the cost of sales/ other operating expenses part of the ECB accounts. In 2006, cost of sales was £6.2m and operating expenses were £64.7m. In 2014 those numbers increased to £18.9m cost of sales and £128m operating expenses. Now, this period covers the global economic downturn and the lack of pay rises for many people out there. I can’t delve deeper into those figures because the accounts are pretty opaque, but there is always a spike in years with the Indians touring England (2011 and 2014 in particular) but the trend is up across the piece. There seems little doubt that the players share of the pot has increased. As with football, your subs fund their wages. It’s little wonder that they took the largest pot. Wouldn’t you? You’d really turn down large sums of cash for the future of the game? Bet you wouldn’t.

Now, don’t get me started on Giles Clarke and his vision for the sport. The vision was to increase salaries. The vision was to get money for counties to pay more salaries and perhaps make them sustainable. The counties are the lifeblood of players coming through the ranks as well as, in a number of cases, the parasites sucking the coffers dry. Where you stand on that is your own choice, your own evaluation. I don’t know enough about how this works, and I’m damn well sure we’re not told enough either.

So you have a number of important issues to consider. If you do offer cricket “free-to-air” (and as AB points out, correctly, it isn’t. You still pay a licence fee) then Sky may well drop the value of their bid based on their exclusivity premium. The BT Sport angle is interesting, but we are still a year away from the bidding and while they’ve snatched the overseas Ashes from Sky, it’s probably not going to be followed up by a bid for home international cricket, which is hardly value for money. BT still come across as cheap and cheerful.  If I were them I would not be bidding the current levels that Sky do.

If Sky bid against themselves, then why up the ante too much?. Here’s where Harrison has to earn his corn. Mr TV Rights has to persuade a sole bidder that someone else is interested, while also trying to hawk a T20 match or ten to a free-to-air channel (so far unknown) for a competition that hasn’t been created yet (a franchise one) while keeping the players in the manner to which they have become accustomed, and justify what looks like his £300k plus salary. Good luck Tom.

Commentators protest that the lack of free to air access has meant stars like Joe Root don’t get the recognition they deserve. Great. No argument there. So what are you thinking is the solution? All I’ve seen is a franchise competition with a few games of T20 cricket on free-to-air. Is that really going to work? I’d say the most famous cricketer who has played in England this decade remains Kevin Pietersen. I’d wager Andrew Flintoff gets recognised more than Joe Root. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t secrete a sport on pay per view, that isn’t football, and then expect it to grow. It has to have terrestrial presence (for want of a better word) but that comes at a cost. A cost this short-sighted generation of administration will not countenance.  Joe Root may not get a SPOTY nomination but he’s getting double the salary he would have done without Sky money. Which would you prefer?

Comparisons with other sports are not helpful. AB and I have been having a discussion regarding baseball. One would think it’s a good thing to compare with, but is it really? The focus on cricket for revenue purposes is international fixtures. They get all the good players, they get the crowds, they get the interest. MLB doesn’t have that. The World Baseball Classic isn’t taken seriously in the US. The turnover figures do not compare. AB cited $9bn for a season. A team plays 81 home games, minimum, will have a local TV station rights award (some even own those channels and coin all the revenues for themselves) for the vast majority of all their games, and there is some national coverage on Fox (on Saturdays) and ESPN (a couple of nights in the week and Sunday Night Baseball). A Superstation (TBS) which is available on cable packages throughout the US also has a live game on Sunday afternoons. Then you have the play-offs (postseason) and the World Series. The ballparks vary in size, with some over 50000 in capacity. Revenue from executive boxes and prime location seats are enormous. For a county membership of £150, I’d be hard pressed to sit behind home plate in many ballparks, and certainly the top teams, for one game! Attendances are not even comparable with our international fixtures! Sure, a lot of games don’t get a lot in, but at home to the Red Sox, the Yankees et al on a Friday night? Good luck! I went to see Boston play Pittsburgh a few years ago in PNC Park. It was their record attendance at the time. Two middling teams on a Sunday afternoon.

Cricket in England isn’t in baseball’s league. But the principles are. The sport is cared for like cricket – an anachronism in a fast moving world. It needs the older generation to nurture it for the young. There are concerns that the black community, the US black community, is decreasing in its representation. The World Series doesn’t have the buzz it used to. It does make sure its stars are known. It does show them on major networks, accessible by very many people. It doesn’t just resort to a Twitter feed or a silly #propercricket hashtag. It has a savvy social media platform. It has a wonderful website allowing you to stream nearly every game. We have a couple of counties with fixed cameras showing some action and Sky/ECB start whingeing that it’s scaring the horses. What the serious fuck is going on here? Do they want to stop any innovation?

In my opinion Sky Sports cricket coverage is brilliant from a production perspective and borderline awful on a commentary one. Atherton is fine, but I’m not as high on him as many. Hussain has gone to pot. Lloyd is the court jester, but that act is wearing on me. Shane Warne needs to do one. Michael Holding has been there too long, and I’m not too sure he should be sticking around long, and then there is Ian Botham. You know what I think. Gower as link man is a travesty – Ian Ward should be suing for some sort of age discrimination on grounds of relative youth. Nick Knight in the wings fills no-one with pleasure. This isn’t a national treasure needing saving. It’s sporting coverage needing some bloody new faces. Good ones. Robert Key. Mark Butcher.

But none of that really matters. What matters is growing the sport the decision to take the money and cut the exposure damaged. Perhaps permanently. I don’t see any solution. Who is going to watch a franchise T20 competition if there are many who don’t know the players? Who is going to bid for this for decent sums of money? How will they cope with Sky’s need for exclusivity? Will they even get the same money next time around?

Loads of questions, nearly 3000 words, and no answers. That’s blogging.

Update – As if on cue, check out this load of old absolute stupidity, and the senselessness of having no digital foresight, as explained by Nick Hoult in the Telegraph…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016/04/29/ecb-tells-counties-to-stop-twitter-broadcasts-to-avoid-sky-sport/

Several counties have been circulating footage of championship action on their social media pages and Nottinghamshire even streamed a match live on their club website when they played Surrey at the start of the season, although this is permitted under the ECB deal with Sky.

Many clubs see it as a vital way of marketing the county championship which struggles to attract crowds and has proved popular. 

But the ECB this week emailed all the counties reminding them they are not allowed to stream “as live” content online because it contravenes their exclusive broadcast deal with Sky Sports which is in place until 2019.

Talks are ongoing with Sky to try and hammer out a deal which will allow the counties more freedom to show county action online but until then they have asked the clubs to stop breaking the contract.

An email from Rob Calder, the ECB’s head of marketing, was sent to county chief executives this week outlining the rules agreed with Sky, which will show its first county action of the summer next week when it screens live coverage of the match between Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire at Trent Bridge from Saturday.

Under the current deal counties are allowed to show highlights lasting five minutes filmed two fixed cameras at either end of the ground. If Sky are covering that match counties are allowed not allowed to screen highlights until 12 noon the following day. If Sky are covering a different match a county is allowed to put highlights of their game up online an hour after play.

But sharing on social media is not allowed until Sky and the ECB come to a compromise although counties sources have told Telegraph Sport they will defy the ban. 

Honestly. I’ll let you comment. You know what I think.

Void

LordCanisLupus48 Comments

It has been a little while now since I’ve put up anything original on here. The Open Thread gives you a chance to put your views across but at this time I simply feel like I have nothing left to say. Some will be celebrating, some will be laughing, some will, if there’s something wrong with them, might be quite sad. Name dropper that I am, but when I was left alone with Lawrence (while Chris nipped out) he asked me how the blog was going. My response?

“Lawrence, I’m knackered.”

And I am. Mentally and enthusiastically knackered. I had a couple of posts half way drafted, but then decided not to finish them because I thought they weren’t good enough, or that they were too self-centred. One of them was on Hillsborough, which of course isn’t cricket related but is personally linked because I was there that day. Another was on the reaction to being outed by a true friend of the blog, who now contends she has my full name. I’ve wrestled as to whether I should do it myself, but then something that was also said on Friday stuck with me. “Why do you bother when no-one listens to these people, when, as we show, we read what you say.”

There’s also the chances of recalling this weekend last year. The sacking of Moores, appointment of Strauss and the 355. But why? That’s all in the past. As we’ve said, the battle has been decided.

I didn’t watch much of the Notts v Yorkshire game. I couldn’t be arsed to go to Surrey on Sunday. I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs, sorting out life, following the Red Sox and cricket has taken a back seat for the first time in a couple of years. And when I see the sort of nonsense around points for results in formats to make something more interesting because the game has been so damaged, I wonder why I should be bothered. I’m away for the second and third tests in May/June and I’m not even bothered to find out how I might catch up with them.

And then I read Jomesy’s comment. And I know why I do what I do. The community we have here is worth persevering with. The fact he’d put his thoughts on here like that is immensely touching. It gives the lie to the criticism that this blog is a one trick pony. It is chock full of people who deeply love the sport and feel betrayed by the past two years. Betrayal is a strong emotion. You need to care to be betrayed. You need to give of your soul to be betrayed. And when it happens, the corrosion of your soul from the betrayal is worse than the act itself. One day these people might understand what they did. Evocations to “get behind the lads” fall on reasonably deaf ears. Yes, it is only a sport, but no, it isn’t just a sport.

But let me get something clear. Here’s why I use a pseudonym. I wrote this in one of my aborted pieces:

I’m exhausted. You’ve probably already gathered that. It’s a really long run, and I’m knackered. There are times this week I’ve thought I’ve nothing left to give.

I’m an emotional kind of person. Wear my heart on my sleeve. You could say that I can dish it out but not take it. I’d say you were wrong. When emotions pile on top of each other, and when you know there’s a breaking point imminent, you have to take action.

I started blogging in 2006. It was  on Blogspot. It was a general thing, talking about life in general, politics, my less developed views on certain issues that I wince at now, and my main passions in life. My football team, Boston Red Sox and cricket. I started it because I loved to write, and thought of it as an online diary. I still feel it was some of my best writing.

2006 was a time of huge change in my life. My parents, as you might know, died within 9 months of each other. Losing one was an immense shock. My mum was amazing, and the sort you thought would go on forever. Then my dad also passed away, and I was left with no-one other than a brother with a family to help me through those times at home. A brother grieving himself. My future wife was not on the scene. In short, once away from friends and colleagues I was alone. So I needed to fill the time. So I blogged.

Then came the problems of 2008 when I was threatened. I’d written an article about an issue involving my football club’s supporters (it was an election) where I’d pointed out, with evidence, a candidate’s unsuitability, in my opinion, for the role. For that, I was threatened. I wasn’t anonymous. People knew me, knew my face. That wasn’t comfortable. So I was faced with a choice. Fight or flight. I took the latter and closed the blog. I avoided confrontation.

In some ways the problems were that I was betrayed by someone who read my blog (I got 5 hits a day tops and was for my mates more than anything) and grassed me up. You wonder why I reacted the way I did to someone earlier in the year? That’s beyond the pale.

So you wonder why I post under a pseudonym? Experience. I’ve met plenty on the blog who know my name. I am in e-mail contact with a few more who certainly know my first name. I started a new blog, new pseudonym and the one that lasts until today.

Just saying to me “don’t be bothered by these people” is not going to work. You are who you are. Jomesy puts that in true perspective.

One thing I am sure about is that there will be something. There always is. Maybe I’ll finish this piece:

The Marvellous, Mad Month of May 2015

I always said I’d do a blog review of the events of last May. It was an absolutely nonsensical month, if truth be told. It started, on the first of the month no less, with Alastair Cook finally making that elusive test hundred. And there was much rejoicing in his heartlands, and much braying at the naysayers (who weren’t wrong, you know). A couple of days later and England had spewed up a test match and given away a series win to a frankly mediocre West Indies team. Instead of looking at the disastrous performance, journalists were telling us to “look over there” at Colin Graves’s statement before the series. A few weeks later Australia went over there and tore the home team apart. But we won the Ashes, so no-one remotely cared.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Paul Downton’s dismissal, there were manoeuvrings afoot on the new appointment of a Director of England Cricket. For all intents and purposes it came down to three men. The establishment candidate in Andrew Strauss, virtually offered Downton’s role a couple of years ago, but who honed his skills in the Sky Commentary Box, most notably in the wondrous ability to call someone a “c***” and have the press think it great. Then there was rent-a-gob Michael Vaughan, at one point the nailed on favourite until he seemed to realise that he couldn’t have it all ways like he has now. He started to beat the retreat early in the process. We might have known then that it was for Strauss, and Strauss alone. Finally there was Alec Stewart. He’d been doing the job for Surrey (not brilliantly, but he inherited a hell of a mess), was an England stalwart, had not too great a distance from today’s players and was highly respected. The fear with him was that he might want the man with those initials back, and that he’d very publicly supported him in the Genius Twitter affair.

I knew it would be Strauss. He was born to this role. A man who loves management theories, who has his own consultancy, and who was putting his ducks in a row to get it. When it was leaked, of course, in advance of a formal appointment, it wasn’t a shock. What followed the leak was.

Meanwhile, back in England, Kevin Pietersen was making waves. After Colin Graves’s statement that KP couldn’t get picked for England if he wasn’t playing county cricket, serial dunce and naive KP jacked in his beloved IPL for a shot at getting back into the team. He signed on with Surrey and had already hit a massive ton against the University (Chris Stocks…I still remember that tweet) and the world went mad. His early form wasn’t world-beating but something was around the corner. Something very, very big.

Also there was a tide of consternation around Peter Moores. A horrendous World Cup and an inauspicious tour of the West Indies left him with fewer supporters. However, despite things look ing bleak in hindsight, there wasn’t a thought that we were serious about getting rid of the “best coach of his generation” a year after he was appointed.  However, in hindsight again, it was obvious. The key decision makers, Downton and Clarke, were both gone – one sacked, the other booted abroad. Strauss was reported to be one of those unimpressed by Moores in his first go around, but conveniently allowed KP to blow his own head off and assume the captaincy as a result (I’m sure Moores being coach during the only time Strauss was dropped had nothing to do with it).

I was in the States when it all kicked off. England were playing another rain-interrupted ODI against Ireland when rumours went around the ground that Moores had been fired. As we’ve won the Ashes and the South Africa series all this nonsense has been forgotten, but Strauss got off to a brilliant start. Before a formal announcement he had the job, he’d sacked a coach, had the decision leaked, and while I was no fan of Peter Moores, even I felt this was truly wretched stuff. A dead man walking, he conducted himself with dignity and honour, two traits we never doubted in him, and the ECB, frankly, looked like the lovely word Strauss had used against KP.

However what happened the following weekend would top that. Surrey commenced their fixture against Leicestershire on the Sunday, and Surrey had bowled out Leicestershire for 292 and were 105 for 2 in reply – KP was on 35 not out. The Monday saw the heavens open in terms of runs for the former England batsman. As I journeyed up and down the Garden State Parkway, following the scores on my limited mobile package, KP passed 100, then 200 and ended up 326 not out at the end of the day. A message? Some message. An irresistible reminder of the talent. The next best score in that innings? 36 by Sangakkara.

Some were ready to say it “was only Leicestershire”. They looked daft. This was the reminder that this man was still the best in this country to bat alongside Root in our middle order. “There are no vacancies” was the call. It wouldn’t be long before there were.

Which is where I stopped! Maybe I’ll start again…

And then there’s my excerpt from “Hillsborough”

To go forward to 1989 and how a Millwall fan ended up at Hillsborough. My mate at Uni, called Jon, knew a Nottingham Forest director. We were on Easter leave when he gave me a call and told me we had tickets for the Semi courtesy of the. This would be the biggest match I’d ever been to. I had a bit of a cold, and finished my temporary work assignment a couple of days early and drove up to Liverpool in my little Vauxhall Nova on the Friday. We were to take two others over the Pennines with us. One writes a fair bit on Liverpool now (Rob Guttman) and Jon and Rob’s mate Julio. Rob had a seat, Julio had a terrace ticket. We discussed what time to leave in the pub. We thought there’d be a bit of traffic but estimated it to be 2 and a half hours to Sheffield. I suggested 8:30, picking the other two up shortly after.

It was a nice Saturday morning, and the Brown Bomber that was my Nova set off from Sandown Lane in Wavertree. Our house had a pub on the other side of the narrow road, The Edinburgh, and was yet another example of the locals taking to us because we just wanted to blend in. Lovely people, full of reds. We passed the pub, picked up our two Liverpool fans and took the M62 out of Liverpool.

As we drove around Manchester we started encountering traffic, which was pretty bad. Suddenly the 2 and a half hour drive looked to be one that would be nearer 4. I’m one of those who left super early for football matches, accounting for traffic. Many don’t. It’s always been a question of mine that there might have been a few people caught up in that, but it’s conjecture.

The mood was one of excitement, of course. The FA Cup was massive then. We drove over the Pennines (pretty sure it was Woodhead) and came from the north into Sheffield. I remember we parked in a side road up the hill from the ground. It was the third time I’d been to Hillsborough so it wasn’t new to me. But it would be the first time in the home end. We said cheerio to our Liverpool fan colleagues, and Jon and I walked around to the Kop. I passed a pub, which was full, with fans having a drink before the game, but really, that was nothing odd.

I walked down the main road to the Kop and thought it really odd. There wasn’t the throng of people I was used to in big matches. I produced the ticket, went through the turnstiles, walked up the steps, and we went to the top, and looked out. And I will never forget my first words “where on earth are all the Liverpool fans?”. The two pens in the middle were reasonably full, but those on the side were nigh on empty. It was around 2pm.

There’s the issue folks. I can’t finish pieces at the moment. Maybe these 2000 or so words can fill the void.

Have a great week…..

Heart of the Middle Order – Open Thread 4

LordCanisLupus65 Comments

Welcome to the latest Open Thread.

I’m not going to list the fixtures – what’s the point – so you can comment on any of the games, any of the press comments, and anything else that comes up.

I’ve seen a copy of the latest annual accounts from the ECB. They are pretty opaque, which is normal for most companies, but there is still some interesting stuff. Most importantly, turnover was £133m in 2015, which was an Ashes Summer, but this was £40m less than the previous summer when we had India.I think in one cool statistic you can see how much the financial impact of an Indian tour really is. It also begs the question that if you barely scrape a profit when the sun is shining on an Ashes tour, how much will turnover be for this year’s series and will it cover the cost of sales?

Also, the leading pay for a director is £340k. I’m guessing that’s Tom Harrison. There are no mentions of pay-offs for Downton and Moores, nothing on Giles’s expenses and on the value of contracts for the players.

As those of you who follow Chris and I on Twitter might know, we met for a drink with Lawrence Booth last night – he called me by real name, Peter, all night as calling me Dmitri would have been stupid. This means my anonymity, my pseudonym, is now compromised! Seriously, it was a nice evening, we had some good exchanges of views and I reckon that 5% of it might have been on “my obsession”. We all got something out of the evening, and although we had a chat on a basis of not sharing personal views on line – and I’ll stick to that – the one thing that rang clear is that this blog has a place and is widely read. And that includes the comments. So thank you to all for that. You made it get noticed.

Still not decided about tomorrow and Surrey v Durham. Head hurts today!

A Serious Commentator of Restricted Ability Writes…

LordCanisLupus43 Comments

There now commences a ramble…..

It’s really quite difficult at the moment to think about what to write. Even the tedious Twitter bores, one of who called me “a KP groupie” yesterday are not exactly getting the fire in me going. In short, we are in calmer times, the world seems a much smoother place in terms of cricket, and thus blogging is a little bit sparser. I mean, what could I write that gets you to respond and energised when I don’t feel that way myself?

But let’s have a quick chat about the last week. I think the most important story is that of the ECB’s chosen man, El Presidente for Life, Giles Clarke having that charming effect on his international colleagues. They ran away from him faster than Usain in an Olympic 100 metres final when his patron, the love Srini, was booted out of his roles in the BCCI reshuffle. That the individual governing bodies saw what we’ve known for years is not surprising (that it took that long is probably testament to how the Indian authority pervades the sport like a genial mafia don) but for some reason I don’t feel like cheering.

Because one by one our source material is being eroded away. There’s no Paul Downton, who is the patron saint of BOC in my eyes. There’s no Peter Moores, a decent man but really not a shocker that he wouldn’t cut it again in the top job, yet those in the media who sang his praises still tell us we know nothing. But even they are disappearing one by one. There’s no Derek Pringle in the mainstream press, the Indy’s newspaper presence has gone and so has Bunkers, which leaves us just Newman and Selfey of the four horsemanures of the Cricket Pops. With Clarke going too, what are we to do, except to say, god, we were wrong about that lot weren’t we, us bilious inadequate, know-nothing KP groupies?

The question for the ECB now needs to be what we do with Giles now his one aim for remaining, to become ICC President (or whatever), has gone. His presence is an utter embarrassment to us all. The backer of the big three takeover, he now stands alone from that unholy trinity and yet the ECB would rather ignore this. They don’t have the balls to stand up to him, instead focusing more on making sure the right messages are coming out over social media, as County Championship Live on Twitter seems to be falling over itself to buff up our beloved skipper. But Clarke remains a polarising figure. Loathed by the majority in the cricket-loving fanbase, be it pro- or anti- the other focus of opinion,  Clarke seems to have the skin of a rhino.

I can get angry at him staying, but that’s almost like being angry at a pantomime villain now. We await what the ICC does in the near future, but everyone who speaks about it seems to say this is a bright new era of world governance. Only there’s not a lot coming out except Giles being rejected. In a world where England cricket needs to build bridges and maybe show a little humility, there is no place for Giles Clarke. Let’s see how our board cope with that.

I didn’t feel like commenting on the issue of Cook’s headgear. This seemed like a peculiar story, raised because our captain wasn’t playing with a helmet meeting our domestic standards, and then morphing into a story that showed Cook to be either a stubborn man or one who thought he could defy his own board and being bigger than their rules. I think it is the former rather than the latter, a man for who having the right things in the right place, and being used to certain set-ups is crucial, but there are good reasons to believe it COULD be the second one. This blogger is not about to set up the Alastair Cook Fan Club, that is for sure, but this story got right out of hand. It truly jumped the shark when Ian Botham, in a pathetic outburst, said it was “political correctness gone mad”. He’s entitled to his views, boring as I find them on cricket, but that’s just utter shite. If you are going to get your retired colonel schtick correct, it should be “health and safety gone mad”. Boycott saying the game has gone “cissy” is also just as stupid. Sometimes I weep. I really do.

The piece Chris put together on the IPL really did hit the spot. I’ve tried to be interested but it doesn’t work for me. In the whole scheme of things that doesn’t matter, because it is the Indian audience that needs to be excited, not me. They seem to still care about it, the players genuinely appear to like playing in it, and that’s probably going to trump everything. That most games seem to be won by the team chasing also appears to be a concern, because when sport becomes predictable it loses excitement. Then when excitement goes, people might be less inclined to watch. The odd Kohli hundred isn’t going to make up for that. We’ll probably be saying this about the IPL in 10 years  time, so to spend too much time on it is probably counter-productive.

Of course, I am, or was, following KP’s progress in the IPL. It’s one of the rare chances we get to see him in this country, and yet again he has had injury problems to curtail his participation. To those who think that this is obsession, if I am guilty of wanting to watch the finest player I have seen for England in the past ten or so years, then I’m guilty of obsession. But not as guilty as someone who goes out of their way to criticise anyone who dare praise him, and fill their timeline up with their obsession! I was pleasantly surprised we didn’t see too much gloating, but THEREALTRUTH on the Mail covers it nicely..

No problem for the “EGO” no doubt the DM will soon carry an article written for the “EGO” TO THE EFFECT THAT HE THINKS HE BATS BETTER ON ONE LEG than the whole of the current England top order put together. Delusion cannot be cured !

Delusion. There’s great mirrors in your house….look in one for evidence of delusion.

I am still waiting for the publication of the 2016 Accounts for the ECB. Last year the Company Secretary (Brian Havill, who left on 18 November 2015) and Auditor statements were signed on 9 April 2015. Last year they were formally filed on 24 April.  It’s now the 25th of the corresponding month and there is no sign on the ECB’s website and the other data repositories I can go to, but they must be imminent. Why am I interested? Because I’m a nerd, and I can’t wait to see how they compensate certain individuals for “loss of office” (£192k last year, and this appeared to be, though I can’t confirm it, David Collier). The interesting thing is that Havill doesn’t appear to have been replaced (there’s no formal notification on data sources) as Company Secretary. Does make you wonder what happened there! Once I get a copy, I’ll have a sweep through and see what I can see.

Lovely to see Kumar make a big one for Surrey yesterday. It’s a wonder he could communicate so well with his partners in major partnerships when he can “barely speak English” but do remember, the bile and vitriol is all our side. Interesting to see Daniel Bell-Drummond make a ton for Kent on what looks like a wicket doing something for the bowlers. I find those who make centuries when all about them are falling are a lot more valuable than the flat trackbullying. Bell-Drummond is local to me (indeed, I do believe I might have played against him when he was a kid) and been mentioned a few times as one for the future. I have a little local bias here, even though he plays for the wrong mob. Also going to be following Dan Lawrence, who looks to have a great future ahead of him, as he’s 44 not out overnight, and at 18 definitely one to watch.

I’d like to thank the commenter (Fred?) who linked the Geoff Knox piece on the Day Night test. There’s a whole epic post in me on sport and money but this seems like a good place to start. Players apparently bought off to say everything in the garden is rosy and do the board’s bidding? Poor sight for spectators? People drifting away early? We weren’t told this at the time. Infantilising your “customers” is so symptomatic of the world we live in. Media management is more important than letting opinions out. It’s because we are too soft to take the truth, and dish it out. The reason people question motives, and think we all have an agenda, is because of these insidious techniques.  You only have to look at how Maxie was questioned because he’d worked with Piers Morgan. I’ve been called a Piers Morgan front despite hating the man. We live in a world where managing the message is more important than the message itself. I’m just a blogger, writing what comes into his mind. I have no ulterior motive, I speak what I believe, open to hear counter-arguments (not abuse) and perfectly happy to admit I’m wrong when proven to be so. I’m not managing media or messages, other than moderating some small things. I’ve always felt my heart is in the right place.

Mark Wood’s career is on hold as what appears to be a farcical approach to his injury has meant that the poor bloke has been rehabbing for months to get over a temporary fix in his injury, only for the injury to get worse and another, more permanent fix put in place. That’s how I understand it. Sadly this has been the way with England for too long. While they sort of got away with it for Stuart Broad and James Anderson, they didn’t with others. I often recall Andy Flintoff’s injuries being prescribed “rest” as a cure, only for him to rest, rehab and then break down again, meaning operations. KP almost had his career ended by an Achilles injury. Matt Prior played on with one, and had his career ended. We play too much international cricket, and players will also chase the big pay cheques. There’s no end to this in sight, so protecting them is key. Best wishes to Wood in his recovery.

This should help move things on for a bit, and hopefully there will be some stuff up later in the week. Or earlier.

Let me leave you with some mirth. Someone actually wrote these two tweets to me:

“Apologies for challenging your restricted abilities. If you wish to limit yourself then I suggest you use your privacy settings”

But instead of heeding my request not to tweet me, I got this absolutely glorious addition:

“Read Wisden thought you were a serious commentator on cricket. Just read your blogg (sic), Didn’t realise you were just a KP groupie.”

This from the same person (not, I’ve been advised, a bloke – my bad for assuming that) who compared KP appearing as a pundit on England cricket to Jimmy Savile appearing at a kid’s party. I do get ‘em. Humility, intelligence, rationality and perspective. Fancy calling me a “serious commentator”? These people really must think I have the ego the size of an aircraft hangar.

Have a great week folks.

Open Thread III – In At First Drop

LordCanisLupus48 Comments

While not quite as fierce as the first open thread, the second certainly had its moments, although not many of them were related to the actual cricket going on – though some posted in their match reports or views and they are most welcome.

So far a lot of the attention has been on the high scores for April and the proliferation of double hundreds. Ben Duckett’s 282 not out against Sussex on the opening week was joined by three first division double centuries – Jonny Bairstow making 246 against Hampshire, Sam Robson making 231 (and 106) against Warwickshire and Jonathan Trott compling an unbeaten 219 in the same match. There may be some concern that this “no-toss” rule isn’t providing spinning tracks, but roads. It’s a small sample size thus far (and I remember plenty of early season games at The Oval with large scores) but the portents are that the rampant green tops aren’t in evidence. It’s early.

This week’s matches are as follows:

Division One

Durham v Middlesex

Surrey v Somerset

Warwickshire v Yorkshire

Division Two

Derbyshire v Glamorgan

Essex v Northants

Gloucestershire v Worcestershire

Leiestershire v Kent

If anyone is remotely interested I’m thinking about going to Day 1 of the Surrey v Durham game next week, and more firmly, the first day of Surrey v Middlesex on 15 May.

Meanwhile, the IPL keeps churning along, spewing out fixture after fixture. I tried to get into it with the early matches, but I sort of share thelegglance’s attitude towards it. The content, thus far, hasn’t been gripping and emotional investment, certainly outside of India, is always going to be tough. It becomes a thin line between top class sport and exhibition stuff. Just an impression, but some of the intensity on the field isn’t there. But let’s keep an eye on it with this week’s matches:

23 April – Delhi v Mumbai

23 April – Sunrisers v Kings XI

24 April – Gujarat v Bangalore

24 April – Pune v Kolkata

25 April – Kings XI v Mumbai

26 April – Sunrisers v Pune

27 April – Delhi v Gujarat

28 April – Mumbai v Kolkata

29 April – Pune v Gujarat

Of course, with today’s IPL season-ending injury to KP, I’m even less interested in it than before.

There’s been a bit to talk about this week. The punts on Nick Browne (second division runs, eh) and James Vince in Newman’s article were very interesting. There’s the foiling of Giles Clarke’s ambitions, but even so, the brave old ECB will leave him on that unpaid gravy train for a while yet, and then there’s the boring crap about the helmet. Lord, it was a good story by Lizzie, but hell on earth, what a fuss.

Do you remember that terrible furore when one of our number said that the only way that the English medical team would learn is if one of our fast bowler’s career ended due to their mis-diagnosis or willingness to play with injections? Well, he put it a little less subtle manner and the you know what hit the fan. Now Strauss wants answers over Wood? I do hope that penny is finally dropping. Good luck Mark Wood on your recovery. I want to see you back when you are fit and ready, and as pain-free as possible.

Anyway, fire away on here. I would ask you to respect the conditions regarding the blog. I’ve let a lot of the semi-political stuff go. I really don’t like it, but I can’t be the dreaded censor. I just really don’t have the time.