Given the appalling weather forecast for tomorrow, it looks as though I’ll be going to be able to sit down and watch an England game in this tournament. For England the point could not be any clearer. Win and they are through. Lose and they are out (I’m not sure there is any mathematical calculation that keeps us in the competition). England’s performances in this tournament have been patchy. The batting was OK, but the bowling wretched against the West Indies. The bowling went beyond wretched against South Africa, albeit on a batting dreamscape, but the batting got them out of it. Then the converse applied against Afghanistan. So, we will either put it all together tomorrow, or all fall apart! Well, that’s what is due.
This isn’t a Sri Lanka to fear, without three of their key men in the 2014 triumph, and yet we know that underestimating them is not a thing we should be doing. It will be a trial by spin in all likelihood, although we shouldn’t be taking the seamers for granted either. However, they had a bit of a shocker against the West Indies, and there’s always the chance that will happen here. Also, although we can remember some scars over the 50 over format in ICC competitions with Sri Lanka, we were the only team to defeat them in the 2014 World Cup (thanks to Alex Hales once in a lifetime knock – I think!). Hales missed the last game, and may return for this one, but one wonders if the scars inflicted on England at Delhi by Afghanistan might carry over.
Elsewhere, I’d like to thank you all for your comments on the piece called “The Exiled”. This is a blog to talk about cricketing matters, so although I like Mark’s idea about commenting on other sports, I think that would dilute the content here to a degree. However, I’m not discounting that entirely. I do believe there needs to be something to focus on in the next few weeks, as the blog does go a lot quieter during England international breaks. I do like the idea of open threads as well – they work elsewhere. Maybe that will be in the mix. As always, would love ideas as to what to write about.
For example, I’m not going to be in the UK for the first and second tests against Sri Lanka, so I’d love someone to help Chris out in writing up pieces on them, whether you’ve seen the game or not. I know I have Blackwash to finish. I know that I owe Russell Degnan a response to his magnificent comment on Schleswig Holsteinshire. There is also the small matter of getting hold of Pringle’s article in The Cricket Paper (if anyone can get a copy to me, e-mail me on dmitriold@hotmail.co.uk) as I don’t usually find one on a Saturday. That’s the article on trolling, in case you are wondering.
One other point. I know I’ve been a critic of Stephen Brenkley, or Bunkers as he’s known on here. Mr Aplomb was one of those guilty men who drip fed us some crumbs of information but never really told us what went wrong on that Ashes tour. I will remember the salt in the tea analogy as a particular Bunkers piece. Today he took to Twitter to say that he’s written his last piece as The Independent’s Cricket Correspondent, and that’s sad. He also said he has two weeks more to go and he’d write for the I if they wanted him to. I’m not rejoicing. Brenkley’s loss to the media coverage of cricket should be a bloody beacon of woe for the game. I’m not sure who will be taking over at the I, but I’ll bet it won’t be a full time correspondent. Let’s see. It didn’t seem the departure of a retiring man, but one of a paper cutting costs. Maybe things will become clearer.
Finally, other than comments below, I’d like to wish you all a happy Easter weekend. Enjoy the break and hope all close to you do too.
Note – Sean has a post below, and I’ve stuck a new one up as well. But I need to set up tomorrow’s game…
An early start for this one, as England seek to solidify their position going into the final round of games. Despite the fantastic win against South Africa, the chasing down of a mammoth total did not do a huge amount for the net run rate, and so it probably means that to qualify we will need to beat Sri Lanka and hope South Africa lose to West Indies or give them a huge beating (assuming South Africa beat Sri Lanka, of course).
There’s the danger. Afghanistan are not to be treated lightly. England can be vulnerable to non test playing nations in these competitions. We can’t assume a team that puts up a spectacular performance like they did with the bat on Friday, can just repeat it. England should win, but it doesn’t mean they will win. The unspoken words are that we don’t need to just win, but win very very well.
Comments below, as per usual. After this game we’ll see where the land lies. We have Sri Lanka to play on Saturday, and then we have to wait for three other games in the group to play out. We’re by no means certain of qualifying even if we win the last two games.
And I’m noticing that I’m still using “we” for England. It’s still there. Somehow. Lord knows the authorities that run our game don’t deserve it.
I know I frequently say this blog (in my posts) is written to represent my views only. I don’t wish it to be representative of anyone or anything. But I have to recognise there is a loyal band of readers, and that I need to keep interesting stuff coming to maintain this blog. So I had a number of questions.
Who, or what are we? Why does this blog continue on its path? What is there for people to discuss now the KP reinstatement debate is closed for good.
We’ve lost, haven’t we? As evidenced by….
There’s a major international competition going on, and yet the key theme here is that people cannot be bothered with it due to ECB/ICC stuff.
There’s an England team that has just performed the remarkable, chasing down 11 ½ an over to win a World competition match, and people are still talking about a batsman who isn’t there.
There’s a world competition going on, but people on here are talking about the teams not there, the organisation, the scheduling and the weather.
There is now a relative calm around the England team and the media feel it, but there’s still anger about key reporters, their “agenda” and their actions.
It’s March 2016 and not January 2014. These issues are still there, even if they are wished away.
This blog has discussed to the extreme what has happened in the past 26 months, in both its guises (HDWLIA and BOC), and seen an ignored writer (I’d been blogging for years) pick up “followers”. It has responded to every setback with an anger that can make those outside believe that its fanaticism, for want of a better word, is dangerous, pathetic, sick even. I’ve picked up critics, of course I have, but their vehemence against “us” did surprise.
I don’t see this as a cricket blog. Not in the sense those outside want a cricket blog to be. They want it to be about nice things, positive things, lovely things, places where you aren’t challenged, places where you find “writers” not bloggers. I find much of that writing tedious, but fully recognise that there is a wide audience out there who lap up those sort of articles, playing on their nostalgia and glorious memories of the past game, and reflecting it in the more brutal crash, bang and wallop of much of today’s cricket. Some are truly magnificent at this genre. It’s not for me. I wouldn’t go on their blogs to tell them. I recognise that there are all sorts out there. There is lots for all tastes.
I see this as a blog about someone who watches cricket, loves the sport, but who can see not much good in it at the moment, and in that I share some of the looking back to the past that others focus on. I see this is a blog that widened its scope from one decision in January 2014, to a look at those making the decisions, those reporting the decisions, and those authorising the decisions. We do match reports, we do match previews, but we’ve not the time, or the inclination, to try to emulate other blogs who go the extra mile, or the dedicated sites that do this better than us. I work five days a week. I spend four waking hours at home each night. I have other interests. Cricket is competing for space. In not just my life, but other people’s. Weekends are to do the jobs we can’t do in the week, or to go out. Running a full time blog requires dedication and motivation.
It seems to me that we need to think about the direction the blog should take. Chris and I had a discussion about this a month or so ago, and came to few conclusions. We react to events and give our take on them. I was much more pushing the KP line over the past two years, but Chris and I both agree that’s pretty much over. His treatment will always be raised, but what happened with our media must not be forgotten. That line, though, doesn’t lend itself to a continuous blog writing experience! There needs to be something more.
I have watched, and read, the numerous comments on this blog recently over the BTL comments in The Guardian. At the start of my ever so humble rise, I did go BTL, especially as Clive and NonOx were linking me on there. I stopped pretty much after Bertie Wooster described my posts as having poor grammar (you know my rule, draft, post, polish), which is fair enough. My writing style has always been Marmite, back to my school days. It isn’t going to change now, and my former English teacher is an occasional reader and hasn’t told me off for it yet! But Bertie also said he couldn’t read the posts for the bile on the screen. And that’s been a really convenient hat to hang on me. I’m bilious. It’s all about the bile. From that moment on, I thought it wasn’t worth it. I may have the occasional sortie on there, but I honestly can’t remember them. Bilious ain’t my style. Persistence is.
Since that date the schism, a word I love, has been stark. Those that still believe not a single thing has changed in the decision-making process that is the ECB, are given the KP Fanboy tag as a reason to explain away the miscreants in their midst. As if wondering how an England cricket legend, and he is, could be sacked and no-one told why, is something for blind rage and anger management patients only. By challenging the status quo, and the unforgiveable lack of inquisitiveness in our normally nosey keyboard clankers of the press, we’ve been labelled all sorts. Just the mention of a review of the media in these here parts has some outside wailing, insulting, denigrating the work. Even before it’s written, in some cases.
When I set out on the KP path, it was very much press focused. I reacted to piece after piece. I don’t really do that any more. I was thinking of starting it up, but in a much more thorough way, but then decided not to after the incident earlier this year when the groundwork was too much to continue without having to deal with extraneous matters. It was also very boring for me.
I have, though, been following a lot of the BTL stuff with amusement and amazement in equal measures. It is clear in the eyes of some that they have “won” and that the “KP Fanboys” can now just shut up and form whatever odd little tribe they like. Because the ECB and their compliant press have managed to weather this out (and I’ll bet when they started they didn’t think it would take two years) they are now “in the right”. It’s unedifying, and it’s also wrong. It is a Pyrrhic Victory, just as getting KP back into the side would have been. The damage to English cricket support may not be great in terms of numbers, although I think the people this has alienated are passionate fans who no sport can do without, but it’s a deep wound inflicted and there’s little sign of peace. Now a number of our gazes are at Mike Selvey, his words and deeds, his defenders and his critics. There are many on here who probably cast Selvey above Clarke as our Number 1 “enemy”. There are a number who are saying this pro-Establishment line is typical of the “new Guardian” (in the words of Chris Morris, who said this of Mark Thomas, I think the Guardian are more the harassers of the office secretary than true authority). I’m not sure. I don’t know why this has happened, but it has.
Mike Selvey utterly bemuses me. It’s not anger I feel, at all. It’s contempt, and that’s apt because that’s what he shows to anyone who goes up against him. I’ve taken the advice of those who said that I should stop reading Paul Newman if it upset me that much, and applied this to Selvey. He has nothing to offer me. I know he has let down many of you, who thought he was “more than this”, and that’s reflected in his dominance in our “Worst Journalist” poll. I don’t tweet him, I don’t read him, and only react to the comments on here when I need to. I did, for example, read his piece on T20, which was, frankly, something we could have all done with the access. And that’s it. He has the access. Not many of us are mates with a former England bowling coach. When it’s raised to me that I don’t know how journalism works, I do smile.
But Selvey and the Guardian’s frankly moronic comments policy (and the ludicrous reactions of the journos when criticised) aren’t enough to sustain us going forward, are they? And this is where I begin to get concerned. I’m nowhere near as enthusiastic as I was. About the game, about what surrounds it, and about writing about it. At this stage, the critics will be more than pleased, because they’ve done little to put a case to us, let alone persuade us to change views. It hasn’t been a dialogue of mutual respect, that’s for sure. But at some point, as I said when I gave up a voluntary role a few years ago, if you keep banging your head against a brick wall it does start to hurt.
I don’t want this blog to ever be boring to its client base. I don’t want to mail in posts more frequently than the current rate (20 questions being a case in point – a whim, a post, and lots of response). I respect the core readership much more than that.
I’ve rambled on and on as usual. I think you get the picture that the future isn’t clear. It rarely is. I don’t want this to be just a rant at the press, anti-Cook blog. We need to be more constructive. I’ve said it countless times over the past two years, if you want to write, and it fits what we want to do, then fire away. We don’t do satirical stuff, we don’t do poetry… I’ll leave those to SgtCook and the Bogfather! But how you feel, yes. We do that. What you think. We do that. Challenge us, we’re more than fair about it. I had a discussion a few weeks ago with someone very close to Andy Flower – we never came to blows, never even rowed. I’m not some obsessive, and I’m also going to stand my ground if I feel fit. I had a drink with him. We got on! I think some people need to realise that.
The blog won’t be going away. It just lacks a focus at the moment. One thing that the last two years has taught me is that something to concentrate on is never ever far away. We’ll be here to comment.
As my laptop clings precariously to some sort of working life, I am thankful that Sean B has taken time out to write a piece that certainly echoes many of the thoughts of this parish. I had the great pleasure in meeting with Sean a couple of weeks back, and I am keen to see him write more for us in the future. His pieces certainly seem to go down well. Maybe I can retire to a villa in Hastings at this rate.
Anyway, Sean’s piece is reflective of his mood about cricket at the moment. Read it, and feel free to comment. It was sent over on Friday night, and as far as I am aware, he doesn’t want to change his mind…
T -20 and counting
I’m going to be honest, I have no interest in the World 20/20 at all. Not a jot. I’m not bothered whether England win or lose (I felt no emotion when we lost to the West Indies nor when we beat South Africa) or whoever goes onto to win the damn thing. I haven’t watched any of the highlights, nor do I plan to and I haven’t had the scores up at work, which is normally the very minimum for me. It’s a surreal state of affairs for me as it’s the first time in my life that I really couldn’t care less about a televised world cricket tournament. In the past I have always managed to convince myself that we would pull it together at a tournament despite the normal rubbish build up and hence would make sure that I watched as much as possible, but I just can’t do it for this tournament. Now I do include the caveat that I’m not the biggest fan of the one day or T20 cricket, I’ve always been more of a traditionalist and preferred the ebb and flow of Test Cricket, nor do I really attend any International T20 games though I do normally go to a couple of domestic games a year, but this is more an excuse to meet up friends and have a beer or two. When England won the world T20’s in 2010, it was only really in the final rounds of the tournament that I started to become really interested in the tournament when it became apparent that we might actually go on and win it. Now despite not totally enthusing about the white ball fare, I would normally at least watch it on the TV when it’s on or at least settle down in front of the highlights at the end of the day, but not this time. I’m disillusioned with the game and perhaps even worse, I feel actively disengaged from cricket for the first time in my life.
How dare you not throw your support behind Eoin’s young guns some outraged individuals might scream, you “outside cricket” lot are the worst type and spend too much time shouting about Mike Selvey and the ECB rather than supporting the team. And yes it’s true, the absolute and total refusal to cover the most important issues in world cricket to protect your buddies from the former and the endless levels of corporate bullcrap, naked greed and total incompetence from the latter has no doubt soured my view of the cricket world, but by no means are these the main reasons. We also have the Kevin Pietersen question and how one of the world’s most talented T20 players can’t play cricket for his country (I unfortunately accepted that he wouldn’t play Test Cricket when Darth Sith Strauss told him he wouldn’t be considered after scoring 300 odd) because the phony administrators and those who hold personal grudges against have him, have decided that “he doesn’t come from the right type of family” and ultimately, they’d rather go with less talented, but easier to manage individuals. You wait until they do the same to Ben Stokes in a few years time. To them, it doesn’t matter that they weakened and significantly reduced our chance of winning the tournament, nor do they care what the fans think, pay up and shut up is the order of the day now and they have plenty of willing accomplices in the Media to carry out this line. Indeed no-one could be fooled by the Daily Mail exclusive, when Eoin Morgan was trotted out in front of Nasser Hussain (and no doubt a fair number of the ECB’s press office) and declared “That door is completely shut. Kevin will not be picked. That’s from me.” He owed Andrew Strauss a favour for keeping the England captaincy after an absolutely awful World Cup, this was his payback, sell KP down the river or sell yourself down the river and unfortunately it’s a bit of a no brainer really. This again annoyed and angered me, but it didn’t surprise and although again, it plays a part in my current cricketing malaise, it’s not really the main reason for my current disengagement.
Personally, I just think my disengagement has been building up over the past few weeks and months, hence my absence of any guest posts for the past few months. I have attempted 2 or 3 pieces in that time but have simply never got round to finishing them or have given up and binned them halfway through. I must admit the grim reality of the Big 3 carve up has been weighing heavily on my mind and the fact that our own board are not just complicit in the most disgraceful act in cricketing history, but have actively got into bed with India and allowed themselves to be repeatedly violated has brought even more shame on already shameful organisation. I thought things couldn’t get any worse, when Giles “the cockroach” Clarke decided that Alan Stanford seemed a genuinely nice guy and the sort of chap that it would be good to do business with; however they have got worse, much much worse, as we’re now in the drivers seat of a bulldozer heading straight towards world cricket in return for the cash that the BCCI are offering. The Cockroach is the driver, the ECB are the passengers. The evidence of what cricket has in store for us over the next few years has been demonstrated with some vigour at this World T20 tournament and it’s a nightmare vision, one where you pinch yourself that you’re not dreaming; however it is not a dream, just a grim reminder that cricket’s best days are well behind us. This is the reason why I can’t bear to watch the World T20’s, if I did then I feel that I might be in someway adding some sort of credence and credibility to the Big 3 and ICC when they deserve none. So whilst we’re looking at the World T20 tournament, let’s examine the sort of thing that has beset the competition from the outset and the sort of thing that we can get used to in the future:
The Tickets – you want to come and watch the game and support your team, well tough luck, we’ll release them 2 weeks before the event. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
The Politics – India and Pakistan playing the hokey cokey, will they, won’t they, game. Governments posturing for power, sport a very distance second.
The Organisation – We’ll tell you what’s happening when we want to and switch grounds at a moments notice, moan all you want.
The Associates – No you’re not welcome at our party.
These are simply the 4 most important things in any tournament and the BCCI & ICC either through laughable logistics and decision making processes or more likely because they don’t give a rats arse, have absolutely pissed up all of them. Those that have watched the games have told me that all of them are being played in front of half empty stadiums in a country that is supposed to adore the sport (however I’m sure the administrators will point to the sold out game between India and Pakistan in defense). Fans are meant to be the lifeblood of all sports, but obviously cricket is the odd one out, the ICC and the Big 3 don’t give a monkey’s arse about the fans. Simply pay your money and keep quiet at the back, you’re customers not fans now, there to line our coffers. In Death of a Gentleman, Gideon Haigh asks the question “does cricket make money in order to exist or is it now the case that it exists in order to make money?” I think it’s very clear what the answer is now.
And then we come to the Associates and this is the part that makes me the most angry. How is it that in every other sport the growth and expansion of the game is paramount to the health of the sport, but in cricket we are actively trying to constrict the game? The treatment of the Associates at this tournament and throughout the past few years has been absolutely scandalous. The ICC may bleat that it’s a 16-team tournament, but anyone with any sense (Dennis Freedman has obviously lost his) can simply see the first 2 weeks as qualifiers to win the right to lace the big boys shoes, Christ half the teams weren’t even in the country when the tournament began! They are the warm up act, the matinee, the token effort by the ICC to show they are expanding the game. Oh and what reward do the Associates get for turning up, go play your games in Dharmasala during the monsoon! They may as well have held them in Aberdeen in January. Nothing angers me more than watching a group of committed and in the main talented players being forced to feed off the cast offs from the Full Nations table. Preston Mommsen (amongst others) absolutely nailed it when he remarked “In general, it’s tough to attribute our lack of getting over the line, i do go on about it, but there is a lack of international cricket for us. Since the 2015 World Cup I have played in one ODI match – in 12 months. So, you tell me how I’m going to improve my skills and develop as a cricketer. That definitely has something to do with it. Playing under pressure, being exposed to a higher level of skill, exposed to different conditions, you know it all adds up, every little percentage. You know unfortunately that’s just the way it is and we try and handle it in the best way we can. However, it probably does take its toll.” What was the reaction from the ICC? Absolute silence, although Harsha Bhogle did manage to come up with this pearler “You can either moan about how little you have or you can make the most of whatever you have. For the hungry, opportunity resides everywhere”. For the record, for some of the associates the most they’ll get to play against the Full Nations in the next two years is at most two or three times and many will get none. £100,000 out of a £500,000 yearly fund to put on a ODI against a full nation team is totally unfeasible. Yep that opportunity certainly resides everywhere Harsha.
So why does the ICC and the big 3 give less than 2 f*cks about the rest of world cricket, let alone the Associates? Well we go back to Gideon’s quote again – it’s the money stupid. Imagine if the World T20 was a true 16-team tournament divided into 4 x 4 groups (as it should be in my opinion) and imagine if some of the Associates got through and knocked out the likes of England and India? Well that’s simply not good for business, they don’t have the crowds or the support and the large television audiences to attract the large advertisers, so best not take a risk in that case then, it’s our club and our cash and everyone else can go jump. Quite simply the ICC does not run cricket for the good of the fans or the sport anymore, it runs it for the good of the sponsors and the good of their cash-flow and they won’t let anything get in the way of it. So for those who choose to watch the T20, I genuinely hope you enjoy the spectacle, I however won’t. I have now seen glimpses of the future of world cricket and it looks a long dark road ahead.
Been having laptop issues, and writing posts on the tablet is a real pain. Plus, it’s a weekend and I have other things to do!
England’s victory, which came as a great surprise to some, but as evidenced by my tweet midway through the South African’s innings, was fantastic. The theory I have is that by scoring 230 to win it does rather unclutter the mind. It’s put the pedal to the metal and have a real old go. So in the same way South Africa chased down that 430 odd those years ago, by going for it from ball one, so did we. And that’s the flip side of this new attitude. Plenty of column inches were devoted to the lack of sense this team showed towards the end of the South African series, and yes, that might be fair when setting a total. But when chasing, you have a less cluttered mind. It’s focus 100% on giving it a lash from the start. Jason Roy did that, Joe Root played the superstar innings we like to see from him, and the others (with perhaps the curious exception of our captain) maintained the pace. It was a top win. I’m not going to pretend any otherwise because to do so would be having an agenda, and that’s not me. I’m so fed up with explaining the wilful misrepresentation of my position, but I’ll say this – the performance on Friday does not neutralise the argument any more than Wednesday’s supported it. I will always say this country puts character above talent.
We have a bit of a break before the next game, so add your comments on the current matches on here. I saw AB’s 29 off an over this morning, and felt for Rashid who was getting all the plaudits on Twitter! I’ve just seen Cloete’s LBW decision on Dilshan and laughed. I defend umpires, but good grief.
Have a good week. I have a guest post from Sean B on the stocks which will be up later, as he discusses the T20 and other world cricket perspectives. It’s a good one.
As I said, the laptop is giving me some grief, so do bear with me.
So here we are. A “must win”. They are all “must wins” from here on in. It’s gone from “we can beat anyone on our day” and “being young and exciting” to “a potentially disappointing early exit”. Hang about. Have we been here before?
It’s funny. The whole thing is funny. The press are just caught between two stools. Of course, we can win against South Africa, but then again, we are probably more likely to lose based on recent performances against them. Those five limited overs losses on the bounce seem to have some major significance now.
The key message for me from yesterday was how a loathed individual, pretty much slaughtered (rightly) for his antics in Australia, is still picked by the most dysfunctional board, arguably, in top level international cricket, and wins the game for the West Indies. He has the label “T20 gun for hire” attached as a disparaging description. He has a double hundred in a World Cup ODI, and cares so little for test cricket that he’s made the effort to make a triple century in Galle, of all places (as well as the one at St.John’s). He’s an individual talent, a genius, a matchwinner, a non-conformist, an arsehole, if you want. But he won his side a big World Cup match. Meanwhile, you fill in the rest.
If you want your team to be a corporate, well-drilled set of altar boys, I suggest you might get to wait a fair amount of time to win major awards. We treat our time as #1 in Test Cricket for a year as some sort of climbing of Mount Olympus. Australia, for one, must be laughing their heads off at that. Especially as in that time we lost 3-0 to Pakistan and 2-0 at home to South Africa. Now we have a bunch of lovely, likeable lads, that the whole of England should get behind or there is something wrong with you. The most major indiscretion is someone punching a locker room door, for heaven’s sake. There’s individual genius in there – we’ve seen it in Stokes, we’ve seen it in Buttler, and even seen a bit in Morgan. We have a world class player in all formats in Joe Root. But Stokes aside, I don’t see any bastard in them. They all seem to be perfectly delighted to be there, playing some good cricket at times, but would you put money on any of them playing an innings like Gayle in that scenario?
As I said, things can turn around. I’m not daft. But I’m not hopeful either. However it pans out, it won’t matter. An early group exit will be put down as another piece of experience for a young and improving team, and now we can put this distraction away and concentrate on 50 overs cricket. A semi-final placing will be “good progress” and the coaches will be lauded, and the ECB hierarchy quietly content. Anything more than that and the eg0-less Strauss will be given plenty to have an ego about. There will be more puffery than a pipe smokers club.
Meanwhile, and isn’t it still fun, that those who wish we’d all just shut up about Pietersen carry on going on about him. The poor lambs are now offended by his presence on Sky’s coverage. One person today said, and I quote…
“putting KP on for an England match is like putting Jimmy Saville in charge of a children’s party”
It really isn’t. I’d evaluate your life if you start writing tossery like that. But while I have time for some of those commenting on the issue on Twitter (it just amuses me that the likes of us are accused of “tenacity” when the same old lines are repeated on the other side of the argument) it’s this tendency to just ignore the underlying issue and hope it just goes away. It clearly isn’t. It clearly won’t. Going to safe spaces, purging BTL of the naysayers, isn’t going to work. It just isn’t. I have no hope of KP playing for England again – and you know that, and the others know it too if they take time out and read the blog. I have some hope that continuing to highlight the awful behaviour of our wonderful cricket board, and the assistance of a supine press, illustrated in the utmost clarity by the Guardian and it’s laughable cricket correspondent, but aided an abetted by our perennial favourites at the Mail, Indy and Sun, will one day make a change. Hope is all we have, because they know the storm has blown over, and the odd Gayle isn’t going to make a difference.
I will give one of the anti-KP crowd one thing. He’s right. I don’t get to watch much cricket at the moment. That’s because I have a job, and these matches are played in job hours. I also have friends and colleagues, and I like socialising and talking many things with them. Given the attitudes of the press and our governing body, in reverse order of importance, I’m not exactly making buttons to see the highlights. You lot keep me up to date.
So to tomorrow. Will we be moping at the end of another campaign, with our bowling not good enough and our batting not great enough? Another tournament sacrificed on the altar of expediency? Or will we be back blowing smoke up their arses again! That “we” is our media, not me.
I’m so sorry I won’t give in. I’m so sorry that I offend some of them. I’m so sorry that this blogger isn’t being nice and happy with Corporate Team England. I’ll live.
Comments below…..
UPDATE – This doesn’t look good. It’s The 12th Man’s company doing the copyright protection:
I give up, a proper takedown notice this time for an Australian cricket video, end is nigh pic.twitter.com/jLbbp680dj
I haven’t been on here much in the past week. Basically I’ve had to take a very important decision in my personal life, and now it’s finalised, I can sort of concentrate on the blog again.
Providing that I give a stuff.
Sure, we’ve had the smoke blowing up the England team’s arses from the lot out there, and back at base, and while some of the big beasts are sitting this tournament out, there is still enough Farby to go round. A human energiser bunny, a man who could find the bright side out of a foggy day, Farby is doing the old ra-ra, and we’re supposed to be going loco with excitement. Straussy gets his props too, as the visionary who told England to stop being shit at limited overs cricket, and bob’s your father’s brother. Simples.
Tomorrow is a decent test, but as was shown today, anything can happen in T20. I won’t be watching as I’m still gainfully employed, but feel free to comment below – as you lot do!.
Thrilled at the reaction to the county cricket piece! Won’t be bothering with that again for a while!!!!!
In all seriousness, it has been a hell of a week. Blogging was the last thing on my mind. There were so many thoughts going through my head that I really paid no attention to much of anything outside of family and decision-making. I put those two posts up last Friday and it is interesting to see what gets the attention and what doesn’t. I hope people understand that I can’t do this as regularly as I maybe was one or two years ago, partly because the material is harder to come by, and because the enthusiasm for the main team I write about is at an all time low.
But we’ll struggle on. Have a good evening, and for those watching the cricket, enjoy!
I’m a reasonably contented admirer of Lord Palmerston when it comes to my Victorian history. So much more interesting than Peel, Gladstone and the others around that time. A bit of the old Gunboat Diplomacy…. Without going all FICJAM on you, I commend his response to the Schleswig-Holstein question to you…
“Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.”
I feel much the same way about the English cricket summer. For Schleswig Holstein read what to do about Leicestershire? It is a question that, simply, cannot be answered. We have inherited a long, historic structure of 18 counties we would not replicate now if starting a competition. There are variances in size. A solution cannot be found that will satisfy all parties.
“We want less cricket” say many of the players, but like their peers in other sports that won’t be matched by “we’ll take smaller salaries” which is the logical consequence of a reduction in productivity in these modern times. “We want a T20 series with all the stars, in a block, with franchises” say the progressive looking so and sos who see and smell a quick buck. But the counties see their golden goose being taken away after building up the audiences the past couple of years, each time those calls for T20 to be “sexed up” reaching a crescendo after the Big Bash concludes and our retinue of shiny toy merchants, probably including me, want to see us imitate it. The ECB have elongated the season so that the county championship starts in the first rather than the latter weeks of April, and that it finishes a lot closer to October than I might recall it doing so in the past. Then there’s the tricky old issue of the other competition. The not 20, not timed, format. 40, 45 or 50 overs. Played in a block or throughout the season? Played when? Where? How? Who cares? Why?
From 1905 the County Championship had 16 clubs. Number 17 came in 1921, number 18 in 1992. In 2000 we went to two divisions with three-up, three-down. This was too much sporting meritocracy from those who wanted “long-term planning” and was reduced to two-up, two-down. We’ve had the Sunday League, the B&H Cup (55 overs for a long time, 50 when it finished and with a mid-season final) and the 60 over cup which had that first Saturday in September final. There were play-offs in the 40 over comp, some other odd formats based on where you finished in the county championship for the 50 over comp. We’ve had short season T20s, 16 game pre-qualifying T20, and 14 games (where it doesn’t seem to matter that this is disjointed, but the sanctified County Championship does). The County Championship has been three days, three and four days, and now all four day cricket. It was never everyone home and away in the 18/17/16 team days (Can’t vouch for the latter back until 1921). There were fixtures a week in the CC for the entire Summer, until recently when they were bookended by and large at the ends of our season. We’ve had two universities, then six, then lord knows what. We had a pure knockout cup, and one with group phases. We’ve had leagues in limited overs. We’ve had absolutely bloody everything.
I am the first to rail against the “sport as a business” mantra. The sport needs to sustain itself as a whole. It needs to provide an outlet for talent to grow and develop before it reaches international standard, and it needs to do that in as cost-effective, but long-term way that it can. Those two ideals rarely coalesce. I’m reading “Barbarians At The Gate”, a book about the leveraged buy out of RJR Nabisco in the late 80s, and it’s plenty of making lots of money, but absolutely eff all to do with long-term growth. It’s short-term wealth and share-prices, and long-term well…… we’ll deal with that when we get there. That’s the times we live in now, kicking the can down the road, and hoping to get through another season. I said in a Tweet a few days ago that you can’t solve the glorious beast that is county cricket. Once we get that through our heads, then we can deal with what we have.
The one part of the equation that never seems to get called into question is the players side. We see many a survey complaining about their workload, that county cricket loses its meaning, that it’s a treadmill, flitting between format. OK. So they’ve said they want to work the system into blocks. They have their wish, supported by Director Comma, another of those brought up on the system of county cricket, but not so keen to laud its qualities once he got to the international limelight – see also Atherton, Mike. It does have considerable qualities. The standard, by and large, isn’t all bad. Overseas superstars didn’t come over here to experience our cold Aprils, our magnificent May ambience, or the leaf-fall of early Autumn. Mr Rabada isn’t coming to Canterbury for early season high jinks. It is a great school of learning, even now, when the top stars don’t come along. The T20 competition, much maligned, although not the unmitigated success some of its key plaudits would have us believe, isn’t a bloody disaster either. It seems we’re more interested in dressing up a competition to flog overseas (a la Big Bash), than one that works. And the Blast has posted increased attendances. Friday nights worked. There were good games, with good players, and crowds seemed to like it. It’s not for me, but then that’s not who it is aimed at. Matt Dwyer, the ECB’s recruit from Australia to get participation levels back up, said this in an article for All Out Cricket:
Here we get into the debate of TV coverage, which is a very separate topic and one with a life of its own. T20 in a block is for the players, it is not for the fans. As many point out, if a team has 7 home games in two blocks spread over, what, three weeks, at £20 a pop per ticket, how are families, who they want to attract, going to be able to watch all of them without a significant reduction in ticket prices. Those same ticket prices that counties depend on, and can be spread out more easily over fortnightly periods by and large, for their core revenue? I could make the flippant point that it isn’t about the international team, as we don’t choose our international T20 team on merit, but it’s about a route by which counties can better self-fund. They still need the revenues from the test and other international arenas, but it’s a way for them to contribute better. It’s damn easy for Yorkshire or Lancashire or the KPs to bang on about “franchise cricket”, but they have no plan for how those below that amazing height are going to keep the international cricketers, test cricketers of the future gainfully occupied.
I’ve seen mention of a pooling of resources, but that over-arching care for all attitude left these shores in all sporting formats long ago. Football fucked over its have-nots by making the Premier League for the benefit for the 8 or so clubs who would only get relegated if they left Tim Sherwood in charge too long, and pooling the perpetual vast revenues among themselves. Those smaller clubs who tried and dared became like Icarus. They got to the sun, paid out mightily, got relegated, went bust. Rugby union has its big club teams, and I’ve no idea of the strength beneath that level. Rugby leagues big prizes seem to reside in the big four clubs at the top of the game (Leeds, Wigan, St Helens and Warrington, I’m thinking). It’s business, not altruism. There will be a point where a Yorkshire franchise, perhaps run by similar people who run Yorkshire might say “hang about. Why should a Derbyshire be getting a cut of my hard work?”. The fact the county championship has 8 test venue counties and Somerset says a lot. It’s probably already happening. I’ve heard it said about my county side, that it isn’t really even a cricket club. It’s a successful conference facility running a cricket team.
Which leads me on to the Championship. Many of us profess to love it. That it’s just a wonderful thing. And it is, and I do. My fellow author isn’t so enamoured. Or so he’s told me. But do I support it? Do I hell. Why not? Because I have a full-time job, and a wife and dog to spend time with when I’m not there, and my wife isn’t a cricket fan. Any days I do go are on my annual leave, and I’m not taking too many of them in the summer for that. When I have gone, I’ve been the benefactor of free tickets. I’ve bought my own food and beverages. Great, at last season’s Middlesex v Yorkshire Day 3, I saw the newly crowned champions, a magnificent fightback by that North London mob, a Toby Rowland-Jones hundred AND I got to meet Mr Declaration Game and Mr Wigmore. A tremendous day out. I hardly contributed to the coffers though. I have stumped up some entrance money in the past, of course, but it’s not going to cover the hourly rate of a jobbing county pro, let alone the top boys. It is not economic. It will never be economic. I’m inclined to say leave it the hell alone. A messing about of the format is going to achieve nothing except annoy some bloody loyal followers of the sport. The sort this lot can’t get shot of in the chase for the Big Bash Street Kids.
I’ve done 1600 words, and I’m no nearer the answer. And nor are the people on the ECB committees and such like. Nor are any of us out there. There is no answer. Like the Scottish football league trying to do all it can to make it interesting, when it’s really only about two teams once the blue lot get back to the top of the pile, there’s no real point. It is what it is. A Big Bash type league isn’t going to do for cricket that the Premier League and all its bombast has supposedly done for football (our recent European club form is lamentable, our national team is pure Championship level in world terms), and deep down, people, you really all know it. You really do.
Me? Leave the County Championship as it is, even moving to three-up, three-down, but not fussed. A pure knockout 50 over comp. Even invite Netherlands, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark whoever to play in it. If it’s 18 teams, then one preliminary round, drawn at random, then a straight knockout with the Final played in June. T20 – well the Blast worked for audiences so I wouldn’t mess with it. This one I’d invite the national teams as well, have 21 teams, 3 pools of 7, each pool winner and second going through and the four best remaining records go into a Wild Card round, a la NFL. The four best records get home draws for the QFs, then there are home semis for the best record, and a Final. But it’s just a pipe dream. They want an 8 team tournament to get the mythical “best players”.
Of course, the national team lays over the top of that, like the hippo on the silentnight bed. Writing about that will be another 1000 words, and it’s late, it’s Friday, and Lord Palmerston is probably right. I’d forgotten about them.
How many times since January 2014 has Alastair Cook “almost resigned”?
Are there people out there that believe that the reinstatement of Kevin Pietersen to the England team means we wouldn’t have lost major test series since?
Why was Kevin Pietersen sacked?
Why wasn’t Kevin Pietersen picked for the World T20?
Does asking Question 1 above Below The Line on The Guardian mean you are banned from posting?
Why is Giles Clarke gainfully employed by the ECB?
Could India and the ICC give less of a f*** about the “Qualifying Tournament” for the World T20?
Do any of our print media still believe the Big Three carve up is a good idea, or as compromises go “not bad”?
What do we do with county cricket?
Is Colin Graves allowed out in public yet?
Precisely why doesn’t Andrew Strauss trust a certain individual?
And what the hell has that to do with team selection?
Who at The Cricket Paper thought it a terrific idea to give Derek Pringle two columns a week?
Which state-run media organisation trained the people responsible for the Team England Twitter feed?
Are the ECB embarrassed at the fact they will be hosting a 10 team World Cup in 2019?
Why is James “Gary Ballance” Whitaker still gainfully employed at the ECB?
Can the media give us a reason why Duncan Fletcher was hounded from office after a disastrous Ashes tours, with lots of harsh words, but Andy Flower is sanctified?
Just what is Paul Downton doing now?
Will the ECB be voting for Giles Clarke as ICC head honcho? (nicked that one from Sam Collins, but good grief, it needs answering)
There’s loads more, and it’s blatant filler, but hey, add some more of your own. It’s not as if anyone wants to answer them, after all.
I wrote this piece at the beginning of last week, and I’m going to put it up without amending it from then. I hope it still works.
Admin Matters – Their Business Is OUR Business
It’s one of Giles Clarke’s bon mots. That “no-one should be interested in sports administration”. I know many supporters of sport feel the same way. “Can they just get out of the way and let the sport play out” they say. “It’s not worth worrying about bad administration. What is there we can do?”
This could go the way of one of my usual diatribes about how sport isn’t what it used to be, how business has corrupted the sporting ethos, how money is much more important than the sport itself. And I probably could bore you senseless as I go over all that again.
I stopped going to Millwall at the end of the 2012 season. Why? We were a lower-middle Championship side then, probably punching a little over our weight, and yet I felt I didn’t really associate myself with the team being put out there. We’d survived the drop due in no small part to a useful old player called Harry Kane. But he wasn’t our player, of course. We’d loaned him in. As we did with Ryan Mason. With Benik Afobe. We were getting more and more loan players in. They style of football was boring, all about surivival and defensive resistance. This was because a drop into League One was seen as a footballing disaster. It wasn’t like that in the recent past. We survived and thrived in that league below by bringing on youngsters, or snapping up wily old pros and lower league talent to prosper. That’s not the way now. It’s all about borrowing other team’s players.
But I’m digressing. Sport is about loving what is out there. It’s about enjoying the moments you are at a venue, or watching on television. One such moment occurred this weekend. Oklahoma City Thunder were at home to Golden State Warriors in a regular season game. The game ebbed and flowed, the Thunder not quite sealing the win, and the Warriors keeping it close. The game went into overtime, and with 20 odd seconds, the game was tied. Then this happened….
The Warriors are not my team. But it is watching that total class act do something truly extraordinary that defines what sport is about to me. It’s about enjoying the best being the best, and indeed, enjoying sporting contests with ebb and flow. I love watching Barcelona, but not when they are duffing up some mid-table nonsense, but when they are in a contest. A true battle against a foe they could lose against. That’s when you see how good they are, and why the Champions League is as successful at is, because for all the fact that they win it more often than others, Barcelona sometimes struggle. Tainted by money and used by the rich to get richer the Champions League maybe, and that daft nonsense about putting the rich teams automatically in defines why business should just foxtrot oscar, but even in its present form it still knows that it needs to excite.
It is that excitement, passion, emotional investment, the need for good competition and entertainment that drives sport. The fact is, these are traits that are an advertisers or businessman’s dream. This is a demand that is super-loyal, and takes a lot to break. It is a clientele that when they fall for something, will become irrationally devoted to it. Association with your team, or your sport, is seen as a reinforcement, even sub-consciously, of what you believe in. But still they want more. The best playing the best more often, completely ignoring the short-term “gains” with the long term contempt those contests engender if they happen too often. It’s their relative rarity that makes them special. The World Cup is special because it takes place every four years. So are the Olympics. Sports administration just wants to make money, by and large. In F1, how can you have a grand prix in Sochi, but not in Germany like last year? How can Monza be under threat, but there be a race in Baku?
But it’s pernicious. I heard someone say that what else was all this football from all round Europe on TV for now? What is football on TV channels now other than a vehicle for in-play betting? Check out how many betting adverts there are on all football broadcasts. Betfair, Skybet, BetFred, Bet365, Betway, whatever that one Swann did, BetVictor, William Hill, The effing Ladbrokes Life, Paddy Power…. and that’s off the top of my head. I know a gambling addict, and I know that watching a football broadcast now is akin to mild torture. Football is the betting industry’s cash cow, and as some say, it doesn’t matter who it is, as long as it is televised. That has been levelled at cricket, with the reputation that affixes itself to any ODI that has a collapse, or a T20 where scoring rates slow surprisingly. I’m sorry, I find that objectionable. I want to watch sport, not intervals between middle class, mainly white blokes, celebrating whatever wins they have, or flogging me free bets.
But it’s money, and that’s what matters, and keeping our players in the huge pay to which they’ve become accustomed (I read today that Nathan Loftus Cheek is on £65k a week) and the next TV contract (£11m a match – just let that sink in) is just going to make it worse. But people can’t get enough of it. The English Premier League is a worldwide “brand”, is successfully run if you just look at the bottom line, and as far as we all know, not corrupt. I said, as far as we know. Again, despite some rumours floating around, we are given to believe that English cricket is largely without sin, but how do we know?
The “Paul Downton Locked Cupboard Under The Stairs”. Currently occupied by Colin Graves
Contrasting the organisation of our behemoth “best league in the world (c)” and guardian football authorities with the ECB is interesting. The President of the ECB was awarded the post because it would have been too bloody to get rid of him altogether. So they created a post for him (the head of the FA is being pretty much forced out by the “blazers”. There’s much rejoicing that he will have to face the DCMS Select Committee, but it’s a Pyrrhic Victory getting him there now – although it might be jolly good fun. We have Colin Graves, who will obviously need a very long sheet of paper to detail what he’s been up to this past year, because, frankly, other than the KP thing, who the hell knows? Tom Harrison is lauded in some parts, but comes across as a slightly aloof, extremely dismissive, sharp suited chap we’re totally used to and who most of us would cross the road to avoid. The press office have changed little, we have a North Korean-like Twitter feed (it’s been ten years since Cook’s debut, which they commemorated twice this week), which is so resolutely upbeat it should be prescribed downers forthwith. The counties control the agenda, and change seems to be wrung out of them like a fiver out of my wallet when the charity collection comes round. I’d wager all the bosses of these counties, in their business lives, are great proponents of “change” but in this world, they seem rather reticent.
The award at the SJA last week for Death of a Gentleman has opened the window a bit, and the light is slightly seeping in. The MPs had a screening on Monday, and more and more clubs and institutions are showing it (I went to one at an unlikely venue, it has to be said). The word is getting out, and yet we still feel all so powerless. Our fears for the game fall on the deaf ears of administrators who want the power, and its measurable unit, money. We are to be monetised, as Gideon Haigh says in the film. We have no say. I understand people feeling that one voice doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
I’ve just finished “The Ugly Game” about the bid to win the 2022 World Cup. It is a book that has made me incredibly angry. Do NOT confuse this with “surprise”. I remember talking with people many years ago who said Joao Havelange was a crook, and Sepp Blatter was learning at his side. Blatter is the archetypal head of a crime syndicate. He’s not getting his hands dirty, but he’s certainly making sure that anyone becoming his henchman is going to get their’s very mucky. As Michel Platini is finding out, as Bin Hammam did before, if you take on Blatter, you are assured of your own destruction. The book actually made me feel sorry for Bin Hammam, would you believe. A billionaire businessman, bribing a way for Qatar to win the bid, and then disowned afterwards by both FIFA and his own royal family, as a result of getting too big for his boots and challenging Blatter. The list of corrupt practices in the FIFA “family” is relentless, yet the organisation is run as some sort of private slush fund for its corrupt members. The motto being “don’t get caught” but even if you do, we’ll bring in some judge on our dime to bury the evidence. Even today, Charles Sale repeats this line about the Qatar bid….
It emerged after the FIFA Congress in Zurich that the still-to-be-published Garcia report into the bidding process for Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 has no smoking gun in its details.
The report will only the see light of day when an investigation into the conduct of Thailand’s Worawi Makudi is complete. But even if Garcia has uncovered one or two instances of bribes playing a part in those murky votes from 2010, it would not be enough for either country to lose the World Cup.
One or two? Jesus wept. Sale’s being a muppet here, because the Sunday Times ran this story to saturation before the World Cup in 2014, and there’s evidence that a key man bought votes. He did deals, it seems, with Spain to secure the Latin vote. He broke rule after rule, and yet he gets sent into purgatory and the paymasters, the people who get to reap the spoils have plausible deniability. And there is precisely fuck all we can do about it. Except speak out.
Sports administration, be it in football or cricket, needs vision and it needs to be open and transparent. It should run the sport, not be the sport. It should keep itself to matters organisational, and should not be intervening in the playing side (and if it does, it should be open and transparent as to why – and you know who I am getting at here). Sport has always been a business, and yet, now, it is more corporate than ever. That corporate nature is built upon those people who love moments like the Curry long-range shot, the Messi genius, the thrill of Grant Elliott’s semi-final six (which I committed to DVD last night) and such like. Moments of drama and excitement. They are up for sale, and you’ll pay the price. They are up for monetising you and your love, knowing it is an inelastic demand that takes a hell of a sacrifice to break. It preys on a form of addiction, and you, the punter, feel like can’t do anything about it. It’s wrong. Sports administration matters all right. You just choose not to admit it. This is OUR game they are flogging. Not their’s.
But it doesn’t matter, does it. Because they are ruining what you love. It’s always the same. When they are gone, with their damage, we will still be here. Paying the next lot the cash.
Being Outside Cricket 