Author: LordCanisLupus

West Indies v England – 1st Test, 3rd Day

LordCanisLupus167 Comments

Comments on today’s play below, as England try to take a substantial first innings lead and then spend 8 hours batting to get Cook a career-saving hundred 🙂

I’ll be home a bit earlier today as the car is in for its MOT (#prayingforastra) and so should be able to watch the post-lunch session. The bits of the game I’ve seen so far have been interesting in their own way, but also sad to see what has happened to the West Indies. Remember when Darren Bravo came on the scene and he was viewed as the next big thing? He’s really not gone on. Shiv Chanderpaul now seems to eschew scoring runs as a matter of importance and now seems to concentrate on saving the game single-handed. I don’t think that swagger and attitude, the sort of bravado that now seems more Australian than the WIndies I grew up with, can come back that easily. There is not a lot of hope, not even Shai, in West Indies cricket.

One of the points made is that the IPL now clashes with the West Indies season, but is this true? I remember England playing series there in February and March, not April and May. Until they go back to that time, it will always clash. Yes, I get it in World Cup winters, but there won’t be one of those for 8 years now.

England still have a lot more questions than answers. Ben Stokes did well at 6, but I’d be getting worried if that’s where he stays against Australia. Trott as opener can’t be called a failure after one go, but it does appear we are ramming a square peg in a round hole. Watch us try Ballance there in the not too distant future. As for Cook? Well, 32 and counting. But by doing so we are disloyal. I got “Captaincy” by Graham Gooch out of the loft this weekend, and read the bit about how it was vital for him to score runs at the top of the order as captain or else the players would question his legitimacy to lead. But if we point that sort of thing out, it’s heresy. Well, there you go…….

Ian Bell made a very nice 143. OK, not a small enough ton to anger my senses, but still. He has a relative shortage of 150s for a man who has passed 100 on 22 occasions. I think I pointed out that 119 makes his top ten. This is picking on the man who pulled our arses out of the fire with a splendid innings, but I wanted more. There’s nothing much in this wicket, and the bowling is no better than decent. Our propensity to make big scores overseas is not great, and what a statement a double would have been. That said, Bell in flow is a decent old sight, although I’m not going into the paroxysms of ecstasy I was reading BTL. This blogger has been frustrated at his performances in the past, but now worries he is our rock (along with Root). Seems there is room for one other high performer, with a bit of swagger in there to me!

Didn’t see a lot of the bowling. Can’t help thinking that Chris Jordan is going to be the Phil De Freitas of his generation, and Stuart Broad is not going to be here for the long haul. Anderson, I understand, bowled well, but he’s no spring chicken. When I saw Tredwell, he looked like he posed no threat, but did take a wicket.

Happy to hear more, and will be along later.

2015 Test Century Watch #9 – Ian Bell

LordCanisLupus34 Comments

Ian Ronald Bell

IAN BELL 143 v WEST INDIES at NORTH SOUND, ANTIGUA

The return of the series started on HDWLIA, which we left with Virat Kohli’s 147 in SCG.

Our last visit in 2009 saw Bell dropped after a dismal shot in Jamaica. Now he completes his first century in the Caribbean, his 22nd in all, and his second against the West Indies (his other being an unbeaten 109 at Lord’s in 2007). This is the 7th test century to be made at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, and the first by someone other than an Aussie or a WIndies man. He is the 45th different player to make a test century in Antigua (Lara has a few), and this is the 64th test century made on the island. The highest score by an England player is 175 by Robin Smith in Brian Lara’s 375 game in 1994.

Other England players to make test tons at the old ground were Andrew Strauss (169), Michael Vaughan (140), Mike Atherton (135), Paul Collingwood (113), Geoff Boycott (104*), Andrew Flintoff (102*) and Peter Willey (102*).

Ian Bell’s hundred came up in 194 balls and contained 15 4s and 1 six.

West Indies v England – 1st Test, Day 1 From Antigua

LordCanisLupus139 Comments

Sadly your happy host will be in an office building somewhere in London, but never mind. Here is the game thread for the 1st day of the test series between a host without some of its potential players off at the IPL, against a team looking to find an identity and get back to some winning ways.

Comments and observations on the comments below, as per the World Cup (I must do those scores) and I’ll see if I can chip in on here. Which reminds me, before I go to bed, I have to set up Sky Go on my tablet.

Cheerio….

Parky

LordCanisLupus32 Comments

Opening day of the County Championship and as I can confirm, it was a bit blowy and cold out there. Got to love April cricket. There were interesting performances out there – Sussex struggled early but Wright and Brown pulled them out of the abyss; Colly rolled back the years with the ball at batsman-friendly Taunton; Worcester put up a decent opening day show as they played the champions; and Brendon Taylor made a debut ton for Notts against the North London mob.

Down in division two Northants made the highest team score of the day, while Glamorgan posted two centuries in their very solid start v Leicestershire, before the Surrey Circus comes to town next weekend. Rudolph and Bragg making hay while the wind blew (so much that they played without bails according to Twitter).

Spring is here, and so is cricket. County cricket may not be to all tastes, but I have to say I love my days out when I go far more than the T20 games, while recognising this is a personal choice and not something I want to dictate on anyone!

But it was a game outside the County Championship that is going to grab all the headlines, and even now, the attitude of some to it is just off the charts churlish. Kevin Pietersen turned out for Surrey in a friendly match at Oxford. He made 170. The world went mad.

Now, I’m telling you when he got to three figures, I laughed. A lot. I felt the rage swelling inside the anti-KP mob, and knew it would burst through at some point. Let me put this to you straight, ladies and gents, we are not stupid. We do all realise the quality of opponent he was facing. But let’s also have some context here. For right or wrong, this was his first game of red ball cricket at this sort of standard (didn’t he play a Grade game pre Big-Bash) for well over a year. He was fresh, but not proper match hardened. Wickets fell around him at the start of the Surrey innings and he needed to bed in. He did all that was asked of him. Then he made hay and took the score to safety and made 170. It’s a bloody good start, but we know there’s much tougher tests ahead.

Now, keep in mind the main newspapers sent people like Lawrence Booth, Ali Martin and so forth to this game. This is the lead cricket story in all the papers. The bloke is box office, and gets the hits because he’s divisive and compelling in equal doses. As many of you know, a journalist I defended because I’ve really liked his work had a bit of a bad hair day when the news came through:

{I have deleted the part about Chris Stocks. He’s been really good to apologise, and I don’t want to settle any more scores. Fair play requires a fair acceptance.}

Derek Pringle was there, and his bizarre retweet of this beauty (to be fair, the original tweeter, when it was pointed out that if KP had pulled out at 100, Surrey would have been 220 for 6) speaks volumes.

He’s also burbled on about this:

I mean, really? You need to be there to know how he played. Sounded like a KP knock to me – a bit iffy early, a few whiffs, into a rhythm, bang. Does Mike Newell or James Whitaker need to be there to know that. Good grief.

We can see what a circus this is going to be, can’t we?

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you (and thanks to Vian for this) with this lovely quote from our beloved captain:

“It’s a big Test series we want to win. I think my position should not really be a talking point as it has been over the last 15 months. I know it is, but I’m here for the most important thing – to help England win games of cricket. I feel I’ve still the energy to do that and the experience over the last three-and-a-half years to lead this young team forward.”

I get more than one correspondent saying my attacks on Cook are tiresome. and yet I think I’m one of the more mild ones on here. But this is tone deaf. It really is. There’s backing yourself and then there’s being deluded. Alastair, you’ve not made a hundred in international cricket for two years, and no-one is confusing your captaincy with Mike Brearley’s. Please stop saying these very silly things. Thanks.

It’s been a day.

Pressure

LordCanisLupus100 Comments

Thank you for all the nice comments on the Infamy post. I actually wanted to start a discussion on some of the points raised in the piece in Wisden rather than go for all that praise stuff. I don’t do this for praise.

Since I wrote it I’ve had a piece in my mind about the press and blogs. I am under no illusions. The vast majority of journos who read this blog, and I know a few do, probably think I am what Andrew Strauss called Kevin Pietersen. I get that. I’m not exactly coming to them in an attitude of peace and tranquility. I want to try to hold them to account. Believe me, I know many of the issues that confronts them, I’m not daft. The modern press is also, in many ways, a completely different animal to even 10 years ago. Everyone is a critic, everyone has a voice, and the digital age means clicks and hits drive a lot of the reporting, and time pressures mean deadlines and holding stories back is much more difficult. It’s a modern world, and even I can’t keep up.

The modern media includes podcasts, discussions and analysis of output. To that end, let’s take a look at the podcast on the Lord’s site that some of you pointed me to. I want to refer to it to set up some of the issues for later in the piece.

I’ve listened to a good deal of the Lord’s podcast where Strauss, in my mind, proves his complete unsuitability for the new role in the England line-up. No, it’s not about KP, but it’s about the line about “building towards the 2019 Ashes”. There’s a bloody World Cup in the intervening period, at home. There’s a World T20 in India (?) and a Champions Trophy in England. There’s also other exciting test series against the likes of mercurial Pakistan, difficult South Africa and other such match-ups. We concentrate on the Ashes?

A tweeter on my LCL feed pointed out in response to my “how did building go this winter” pointing out that we did not play test cricket. Of course, I meant how did building to this World Cup, by agreeing to mess the Ashes series about, clearing the decks of test cricket and playing ODIs almost exclusively since the end of August go in building to that aim? I couldn’t get that in 140 characters, so did it here. And that’s the point, just because you have some nebulous concept of “building” towards something, doesn’t mean we will do it. I recall a podcast on 5 Live before we went to Australia in 2013 and Flower was most assuredly building towards that. This is a vacuuous concept, one I want no part of. There are far too many good teams, far too much cricket to be played, rightly or wrongly, to try to get away with saying its OK to lose, and OK to exclude KP, as long as it is in the greater good to winning the Ashes in 2019. What a load of old baloney.

I’ve gone off on a little bit of a tangent, but stick with me. Strauss said that building line, ostensibly to justify not recalling KP post this summer. He earlier said the way to end the KP business was “winning games”. With all due respect Andrew, I’m calling baloney on that too. First of all, building towards something indicates winning in the present is not as high a priority as winning in the future, yet there’s a need to win matches now. I have no idea how those two aims aren’t opposed. And you see, Andrew, we’ve been there. The press told us this after we won against India, with a great comeback, runs for Cook, the bowling looking good, and the new players looking the part. But it hasn’t stuck. Because while you and your ilk are concentrating on this being all about KP, you miss the point. You always miss the point.

Outside cricket? No apology. Full explanation for not picking a team on merit and excluding a talented player? Not forthcoming. Communication with supporters who might be disgruntled at this lack of decency towards them? Pipe down, move on, not at a low ebb. Giles Clarke showed this week how he approaches those who dared criticise and that attitude permeated down the ECB and whether the press cared, had the appetite, or the need to fight on our behalf while also putting the case for termination of KP is for them to tell us. We did not see it.

Here comes that line in Brian’s piece about not being as understanding of the press position:

But the press coverage reflected, in part, the vulnerabilities of cricket journalists, who have a symbiotic relationship with administrators and players: the administrators grant access to the players, who provide interviews and quotes. Most bloggers have no such privileges, yet this very freedom from professional dependence means they can shoot from the hip.

Brian makes our point. The journalists may not have agreed with what was going on, but they didn’t want to risk not getting access (Mark makes this point in the comments too). I’m well aware of this. I know journalists are sick to death of the sponsored interview, and I know the player/press relationship is always a fraught one. So when we take the next logical step that some of them were showing rather too much glee at the dismissal of KP and by extension adopting a selection policy on something other than form or ability, that they had become extensions of the organisation we were so angry at, were we really out of line? Perception is important. The big beast appearances on the Agnew press round up, or on Cricket Writers, became an exercise on putting out the ECB line more often than not. The rush out of press conference to proclaim the KP matter closed, the ability of the empty suit in front of them, or the inevitability of Cook’s return to form was peeled back in an instant. They now sit there thinking KP’s PR team has won the battle, and in the same breath say his book was a disaster. They miss the point totally.

What has, I think, made them really uncomfortable isn’t the lack of access should they side with the great unwashed, but that the great unwashed simply aren’t listening and WILL NOT BE TOLD. I’ve said many times that KP isn’t the issue now, it really isn’t. It’s the ECB and pretty much always has been. It’s the way the press have leaned their way, by and large, and certainly in the immediate aftermath, that’s the issue too. Sure, I would like to see KP play for England again. What I want to see most is a team picked on merit and form. That would mean that England’s openers on Monday should probably be Lyth and Trott out of that squad, and not Cook. This makes me anti-Cook because I’m pro-KP. I’m anti a test opening bat who hasn’t made a test hundred in nearly two years, and has looked all at sea. A century or two in the West Indies does not prove the opposite. It merely proves that some people are picked for memories, not on evidence. Some people are picked because they are from the right kind of family. We did not see that challenged enough. As I said, in some cases, there was a little too much glee.

To me the acid test has been the attitude towards Andy Flower. I see very few pieces bemoaning his overwhelming presence still. I see little questioning his role in the collapse of 2013/14. I see very few pieces questioning if this is of great benefit. Instead it is the greatest coach stuff, world number 1, world T20 winners. Dobell gets it, and his back-seat driver quote last Spring was quite good in capturing the fear. But the press just said it was a good thing, we couldn’t lose his massive skills, and even called impertinent when questioning why he was talking to the Chairman of Selectors. This doesn’t require an understanding of the role of the journalist. It is asking questions that might need to be asked. Flower’s choice to remain silent has never been portrayed as anything other than “dignified”. I feel a little short changed. He played a massive role in what went wrong, it appears he sealed Pietersen’s fate, and then got a job he lobbied for. I think he needed to speak, don’t you?

I’ve done my usual old long-winded piece, and I’m not sure it went anywhere. That’s my prerogative, of course. A journalist has to tighten up, show skills in brevity, be able to convey things in a rapid way. He also has access, he has contacts (and she, of course, because there are very good female journalists out there) and he has a job many of us would love. I think they take this too personally at times. Yes, I’m pretty scathing, but I am because I am angry, and so are you. A faint heart never won a fair maiden and all that.

So while Strauss can babble on about winning shutting us up, he is wrong. The rate of anger went up when we beat India, not down. It seemed to be a reason to brush Sri Lanka under the carpet, and dispose of Pietersen, and it wasn’t fooling me. If Strauss can’t figure out why that win didn’t have us piping down, then he’s not worthy to be Director of Cricket. You aren’t dealing with stupid people here, and we have a voice. A small one, but one that seems to get noticed.

Have a great evening.

Infamy

LordCanisLupus40 Comments

In an act of self-indulgence, I am commenting on the mention of this blog in Wisden. I have a copy of the article, from the editor himself, and I’ll have to say it’s an interesting take on the blog.

One topic dominated the agenda of the English cricket media in 2014.
England’s brutal and irrevocable decision to dispense with Kevin Pietersen, and its deeply unsatisfactory aftermath, prompted serious attention from some of the blogosphere’s best writers. In terms of quantity and passion, Dmitri Old at cricketbydmitri.wordpress.com stood out.

Old wrote thousands upon thousands of words, mostly excoriating the
ECB. While at times the effect was like being repeatedly hit over the head with one of Pietersen’s bats, his blog acted as a valuable conduit for deep resentment at the ECB’s administration of English cricket. This was exemplified by their reference in a press release to people “outside cricket”, intended as a response to one of Piers Morgan’s many incursions into the saga – but which was latched on to by Old as evidence of the board’s lack of empathy with the fans.

First up, thanks to Brian Carpenter for including me in his review. It is interesting to see how your blog is viewed by those outside my usual comment client base. I actually grinned when I read the bit about “repeatedly hit over the head”, but at the time when this blogger was that mad about things, there was always gold in them there hills in which we could pick apart the arguments. I could repeat and repeat, because the press and the ECB repeatedly gave us the ammunition.

I am, by my nature, quite a modest person. I really find praise and that sort of thing awkward. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I don’t claim credit often. But I do think this blog (along with TFT of course) has done the most to put “outside cricket” front and centre over the last year. We’ve never let it go, even if it means I’m likened to a bludgeon. Repetition hammers home the message. I don’t apologise for it. I don’t think Brian means me to either, but there are a number who tell me to let it lie. Never. Not until I get the sense that the authorities do anything more than pay lip service to what this small, noisy band of cricket tragics say. This sport does not need to become more exclusive, more insular, more arrogant – it needs, to use their bloody horrible phrase, to reconnect with the public.

However, Old didn’t take aim merely at those in authority: he also trained his sights on the traditional press, some of whom he viewed as Establishment stooges. In one or two cases, he might have had a point. But the press coverage reflected, in part, the vulnerabilities of cricket journalists, who have a symbiotic relationship with administrators and players: the administrators grant access to the players, who provide interviews and quotes. Most bloggers have no such privileges, yet this very freedom from professional dependence means they can shoot from the hip.

This is a really interesting debating point, in my eyes. Let’s go back to when KP got dropped. There is a substantial section of the England fan base that said “good”. Fair enough. I have always said they are entitled to their opinion and I’d never want to shut that down. That part of the fan base, shall we say, was more than adequately represented in the journalist corps. We pick on Paul Newman a lot here, but he’d got the inside track, by hook or by leak, and there appeared glee in reporting the end of his career. The other big beasts, such as Pringle and Selvey, and I’d say Etheridge too, had nailed their colours to the mast.

Those of us who saw a batsman top of the run charts for his team, albeit, we know, not a stellar record, being the main man to pay the price as unfair, and in my case as a fan, antagonistic, weren’t the beneficiaries of much supportive press. KP split opinions. He still does. The main conclusions to be drawn, from totally outside, was that the press had either personal grudges they weren’t prepared to go into, or they were too close to members of the establishment. Selvey was possibly the worst case, with his piece supporting Downton on his appointment, his Cricketer love letter to Andy Flower, and then his praising of Moores. It’s easy to draw the conclusion we have.

Now, I will admit, that at some times I might have gone a bit wild. But as I’ve explained to the Editor, I come from the background of a football club’s message board. Nuance and reason didn’t work. They just didn’t. You needed to put your argument forcefully. If that’s shooting from the hip. then I’ll agree.

The main gripe, as Brian would know (and he’s limited to space) was our frustration with the journalists was the TTT – Tyers Twitter Tendency – which is “we know more than you, trust us, it was the right decision”. That intimated that there was something, but the proles couldn’t know. I still don’t. Innuendo, unattributable briefing and “I’m not going to comment” isn’t going to cut it in this day and age. And yes, I went on and on and on. I still do. But it is interesting to read these views.

Where Old sometimes fell short was in failing to recognise that journalists find themselves in a different position; in any case, the press as a whole weren’t quite the Establishment mouthpieces he felt them to be. But his obsessive refusal to let sleeping dogs lie – together with an urgent, punchy delivery and a nice line in song-lyric titles – was the most distinctive aspect of the blogosphere in 2014, even if it ultimately prompted the feeling that, at some point, he would need to let go. And in February 2015, he appeared to do just that, taking his blog down, his point eloquently made.

That is very kind of Brian, and while I disagree a bit (and I see the Establishment / Press relationship a little differently now to what I did – amazing what speaking to people does) it’s fair comment. I do listen to these things, and I recognise my style is not for all. I am clearing out the spare room at the moment and came across my old school reports. For English language (and my old English teacher follows me on Twitter) I was accused of all sorts of stylistic abominations. My history teacher called my writing style brutal. Maybe I’ve always been a blogger, and my “florid prose” isn’t to all tastes. But it gets the message across.

There is no secret that I was a nobody who no-one talked to 15 months ago, and now I’m a nobody that speaks to lots more people. I don’t over-estimate any influence I have, but I do know this blog resonates, because mainly the posts are backed up by salient, well honed arguments from many similarly angry commenters. It’s a bit raucous, very angry, and yes, we get things wrong. But it has made it’s mark.

I also see this blog as an extension of How Did We Lose In Adelaide (and Brian wasn’t to know that a new blog had taken its place) so excuse me if there is any confusion over which blog is which!

The conclusion to the article on the relationship between press and blogger is also worth a read, but I think that’s for another day. But it is an important discussion that I think I have a different view on.

My thanks to Lawrence Booth for allowing me to “fisk” the article. My thanks to Brian Carpenter for the review of this and other blogs, and my thanks to all who have supported, and all who hate what we say. It keeps the petrol flowing into the engine.

PS – Do you miss the song-titles?

Doyen

LordCanisLupus29 Comments

The news broke just as I was going to bed last night. It had been foreshadowed earlier in the day and so the shock had been mitigated somewhat. Richie Benaud had passed away, and as I am even more frequently saying these days, so did a little bit of my childhood.

Feel free to read all the obits doing the rounds, many very good, many personal anecdotes and many mentions of how he resonated, how he developed your knowledge and love for the sport, and importantly how brilliantly he moved with the times. I’m not going to try to add to them. There’s no point. As Grenville just said on a recent comment “Damn. Richie Benaud’s dead”.

Add your own tributes below, and I’m sure you will all do a fine job. I don’t feel much more than gratitude. Gratitude for a life where he touched millions, where he showed what could be done with commentary, and where you felt you knew him. A truly inspirational figure. He will be missed. A lot.

RIP Richie Benaud. There will never be another you. I’m popping down to the confectionery store.

Upstairs

LordCanisLupus32 Comments

The day after the Downton Dismissal and the chaos of yesterday already seems somewhat distant. Few journalists seem to be drawing the dots, with the trail leading up the line to Clarke so obvious it almost appears in neon lights. Clarke was a major player in the appointment of his MD, and yet today he leaves the ECB not to enable him to prosper more fully in his ventures in Colombia and Paraguay, but, er, wait a minute…… he’s been made President!

We knew this stitch up ages ago, but there is something even more unpalatable about it now, the day after his cataclysmic decision to appoint Paul Downton had been shown to be the abject disaster that it was. People who make appointments like that don’t stay long. People don’t generally beg those sort of people to remain on the ledger. Instead they are shunted aside, sometimes with an added gong to keep their mouths shut, and then we can pick apart their legacy at will.

To me, retaining this buffoon as Chairman is a stain on our organisation in this country. You cannot truly clean house, have a fresh start, if you merely move the dead rat from the living room and shut him away in the attic. It’ll still stink. His ICC role is even more of an insult, as the incident at the Wisden dinner appears to show. This man does not seem to be able to hold back when he has been criticised, or even mildly questioned. This isn’t Clarke’s team. This isn’t even Clarke’s organisation. I think Dean Wilson probably summed it up best:

But along the way he has ruled the game as if it were one of his personal businesses and he is a ruthless businessman.

His success in that part of his life has largely come about by doing what he thinks is best. By calling the shots, making the decisions and swatting away anyone who gets in his way. It works in business and for a time it worked in cricket, but the England cricket team and the ECB does not belong to him, and he doesn’t always make the right call, just ask Allen Stanford.

When it comes to sport and to cricket, you can’t just tell people what they want and what they are supposed to like. You can’t tell them that because you like one person over another, they must feel the same way.

You can’t endorse an England captain because he comes from the right sort of family.

That sort of outlook is what makes our great game exclusive when it should be inclusive. It is what shuts people out and makes them angry, so when you next ask them to dip into their pockets and buy a ticket to your show, they will turn their backs and look elsewhere.

I was beginning to worry about Dean, but this hits a nail on the head more than many of his other colleagues have. Instead of making it about KP, which is a major point, yes, but only one, he captures the essence of why I despise Clarke. The arrogance which comes from some sort of superiority that only a weapons grade pig can pull off. Every interview, every appearance and every word I heard from this individual brought one word to mind. No, not that one. The word is “unpleasant”.

Now many may laugh that a blog (and blogger) described as unpleasant by more than one member of the media should get on his high horse. But just like Newman, if you meet me, I’m really, most of the time, pretty nice. I like people who like me, and want people to. Clarke’s one of those I don’t get. He seems to get off on being loathed. Why the ECB couldn’t tell him to shove off, because all words seemed to indicate he was going to lose an election, I won’t know. While they made that decision, there will always be a stain.

I’d also like to approach one other point this evening, and it is the sudden reduction in the role and scope of Paul Downton’s role over night. To this, I’ll pick up on Jonathan Agnew’s piece on the BBC:

Downton had a difficult time of it. He was briefed that his first job must be to get rid of Pietersen. He took responsibility for that, but it was not 100% his call – it was a broader decision.

So perhaps he was an easy person to target with regards to KP. He has taken a lot of flak for that. And likewise he was not directly hands-on with the England team.

You have to question how much responsibility he actually had on England team matters.

Downton is moved from the key man in matters of England international cricket, to a sock puppet who danced to his master’s tune. So it wasn’t his decision to sack KP, but someone else. That someone else is either Andy Flower or Giles Clarke (OK, it could have been David Collier, but he was so far off the radar, he was in deep space). Both pose crucial questions to the future of English cricket. If it was the former, it appears as though we threw a drowning man, one who had been in charge of a team that imploded on the spot, a life raft. KP’s description in his “nasty” book of a man adept at managing upstairs seems appropriate. I am not an anti-Flower blogger. At this time I’m converting a lot of my Ashes DVDs from 2010/11 and enjoy the way we dismantled that team. We were a really decent team. But he’d lost it. That was clear. If it was Clarke, then we were sold the mightiest of pups by our friends rushing out of the door that spring day when Moores was appointed, to crown Downton with aplomb. Both the people who pulled the puppet strings are still employed at the ECB. That’s not symbolic, that’s insulting.

He was an easy target, Jonathan, because he made himself the target. He hid. Pure and simple, after the announcement. Not a peep in a live setting for a couple of months. I knew, as much as I could, then we had a problem. We call it, in our game, red flags. This was so red, it had a Liverpool season ticket. Read the stuff on the other blog. You’ll see what I meant from those early posts. The hilarity when Downton actually spoke for the first time, on a Waitrose ad. The difficult winter and all that….

I don’t want to pick on Aggers, but I’ve seen this theme more and more today. Except for one glorious exception which had me rolling about with laughter.

FEBRUARY 2014

After the Ashes whitewash, Kevin Pietersen and head coach Andy Flower are sacked. After days of silence, the official line on Pietersen’s dismissal is that the ECB wanted to ‘create a culture’ in which captain Alastair Cook had ‘the full support of all players’.

From one he was a puppet master, from another he was upholding Flower’s contention that he sack KP. From this article, he actually sacked Andy Flower. He didn’t. He resigned. That author should know the difference between a sacking (KP) and something not quite the same (Flower – resigned, and moved to a job he courted). I don’t think disingenuous quite covers it.
I’ve gone over a 1000 words, and it is late. More reaction including a look at two of our favourite journo’s work (Brenkers and Selfey) to follow. Good night, and thanks for the support.