Author: thelegglance

Age of Discovery

thelegglance2 Comments

It has been a while since I posted anything on here. Not a deliberate or conscious decision not to, more that I simply didn’t have anything to say that I hadn’t said before. So it came as quite a pleasant surprise to be thinking about something this morning and feeling the need to post about it. You lucky people.

And it is this. The Women’s Cricket World Cup is on, and I am really enjoying it. A resounding “so what?” is an entirely fair response to that statement, so I shall qualify it and explain why. Perhaps it says more about me than anything else, and certainly I do not confuse my own response with anything wider, but perhaps I am not alone and others may have the same kind of response. You see, I didn’t say I am enjoying it, I said I am really enjoying it. And this is new.

Of course, the rise of women’s team sports in the last years can be viewed as a wonderful thing in its own right, both in terms of the profile and as a social good, but you cannot force people to truly want to watch, no matter how much they are harangued to do so, or if social acceptability depends on it. It is an emotional response, to move from “oh the cricket is on” to “ooh the cricket is on”, and that this time around seems to be the personal difference. It isn’t format, it isn’t location, it isn’t because England are especially good, meaning there is a supporter stake in it; it is because the sport, for its own sake, is generating a significant appeal and desire to watch it. I can tell myself I am a modern man, who passionately believes in the equality of opportunity for female sport, and my brain will insist that is true, but I cannot help the fact that I find women’s football unappealing (while absolutely enjoying women’s rugby immensely) as a spectacle. Sorry, it just leaves me cold. You can call me names for that if you like, but I don’t care, it just isn’t something I seek out particularly. Cricket on the other hand, I have most definitely watched and enjoyed for years. But this time around it is more. I am going out of my way to watch the games. All of the games. It has made a personal step up in my desire to see it.

Why that might be, well that is the reason for the post, and I am trying to rationalise it and in truth largely failing. Perhaps it is that familiarity has taken me to the point where I do care what happens, but it certainly isn’t that national pride from English success is raising it in my awareness, because for one thing it is not just their games I am seeking out, for another the flaws in the England team are irritating me and for a third England have won World Cups before. To have an emotional stake in what is happening to the point of irritation is the essence in caring about a sport. The reason I have zero interest in the Hundred is not the format, which is just a game of cricket whatever the attractions or otherwise of it, but because I don’t care who wins any particular game, let alone the competition. Same applies to the IPL. I have no emotional stake in it, male or female teams. International tournaments are in any case different, for you can identify with all the nations whichever of them you might support.

It is dangerous and also rather arrogant to assume that this personal response is shared widely, or indeed by anyone, so perhaps it is a me thing solely, and if so that too is fine. TV audience figures would show to some extent if this a growth area (I suspect so, just because it is growing anyway), but even those do not show the degree of engagement, only that the engagement exists. Caring about outcome, checking the table and working out scenarios, being annoyed that the rain is falling, laughing at how damn lucky England were (and feeling bad for Pakistan at the same time) that the rain did fall – all of these are examples of feeling a connection to what is going on that is greater than background passing interest, and it is a new sensation.

Does this even mean anything? Perhaps not. But it was put to me that A list of commentators – particularly the male ones – at the tournament is in itself an illustration of reaching maturity, that this isn’t a secondary women’s World Cup, it is a World Cup. Posting something like that is inherently risky, for it invites comment that this is how it should have always been, and I can accept that criticism, but I would refer again to the point that you cannot force engagement or interest, only hope that it develops. For me, it has done. And I am pleased. If it is the case for others too, I would be even more pleased.

Rode the Six Hundred (and four)

thelegglance14 Comments

So there we go, 2-2, honours shared but Australia return home still hanging on to the urn by their fingertips. Not quite a classic series, but only because the Old Trafford rain ruined the possibility of a denouement, and as a result the destination of the Ashes was already known going into the final Test. The matches themselves certainly were, only the curtailed Old Trafford game was one sided, the rest were nip and tuck throughout.

And yet it was a missed opportunity for England. The Manchester rain would have been insurmountable no matter what, and the complaining about declaration timing is fairly irrelevant set against the reality of losing two days to the weather. If that happens, you’re just not going to win very often. Equally, the response to bad weather on too much of the English media side was to rail against the cricketing conditions that have prevailed for a century and a half – such as ridiculous suggestions for a spare day. It rains sometimes. It’s unfortunate, but it’s as much a part of the game as winning the toss and batting on a glorious sunny day. It happens, deal with it.

With that match aside, England certainly could have won 4-0 with only a slight shift in outcome, and while Australians could legitimately say they could have too, the difference is that throughout the series it was England who were the ones pushing, and making the running. It was their mistakes that gave Australia their openings, their fluffs that cost them matches. With England 1-0 down I argued (https://beingoutsidecricket.com/2023/06/26/working-six-to-leg/) that the Bazball approach was the best chance of beating Australia – at the end of the series I remain of that view, and equally sanguine about the fact that such a high risk approach also engenders mistakes. Selection might have been contentious, but there were no easy solutions, and too many seemingly wanted to pick twelve players to get around that, something even the Australians were bound to notice. As it turned out, many of those players dismissed early on as the ones to remove had a huge say in the outcome of the series – particularly Zak Crawley who was showing consistency and improvement all the way through, and before his huge century. It is for him to kick on from here, and a single successful series doesn’t mean he will, but his shot selection has improved out of sight, not because he’s playing fewer of them, but because he is committing to them. Edges flying over slip from full blooded drives is exactly how he should play, he gets into trouble most of all when he’s hesitant.

All this talk has been about England, and for good reason. This series is one that has happened to Australia, pretty much from first ball to last. They have resisted extremely well, particularly early on, but they were the ones under assault and trying to fend England off throughout, which made their 2-0 lead feel very odd (and perhaps explains the anger at mistakes of the kind that happen in cricket), and made England’s comeback less surprising than it might have appeared from the outside.

Any Ashes series that is competitive carries its own narrative (as an aside, this is why Australian fans create their own amid the boredom of a thrashing of the England team down under), the twists and turns highlight individual instances and players and it’s ever unsurprising that Stuart Broad inserted himself into the story. A player who has been more than just his statistics throughout did it again. The switching of the bails in both innings, and subsequent wicket the following ball each time was so very Stuart Broad. Some cricketers seem to have the ability to shape reality around them far beyond their on field skills. Ian Botham once returned from a ban and the first ball he bowled was a slow, wide, half volley – unaccountably snicked behind by (I think) Bruce Edgar. Narrativium was a glorious Terry Pratchett concept, amusing in itself, and sometimes a little hard to deny when you see it happening.

Broad bowled beautifully throughout the series, though showing his age as it went on and he tired somewhat. A year ago he had looked toothless and coming to the end, certainly compared to Anderson who somehow seemed to be getting even better. The switch in fortunes for the pair this summer could not have been more stark. Perhaps that is why it felt a surprise when Broad announced his retirement first, mere days after Anderson had insisted he was going to carry on. Broad’s explanation that he wanted to go out on a high made perfect sense, but then so did Anderson’s that he wanted to continue for as long as he could. People are different – some former Test cricketers play club cricket into their seventies, others never pick up a bat or ball again after retiring from the top level. At Anderson’s age, it is impossible to have a poor series without being considered to be at the end, and maybe he is, but if he wishes to continue and try to prove otherwise, then there’s no reason not to allow him to, as long as selection remains on merit. Being available to go to India in the winter is quite the commitment from him.

But this piece is to be primarily about Broad. He was, perhaps, just a little below the level required to be called a great, but longevity itself should never be underestimated as something to praise without qualification. Some of those with better records would not have such had they played for as long as he has, while his overall statistical record has been one of gradually undoing the damage of a fairly poor start. To look at his average over the last decade or so is to see a player who has been exceptional, and the only reason for refusing the tag of greatness is because that truly should be reserved for the best of the best, irrespective of the trend towards greatesteveritis. He occasionally went off the boil, and struggled, particularly in the daft “enforcer” period, but he was also capable of spells that really were great, and as a result struck a note of fear into opposition hearts constantly just in case it was one of those occasions. Stuart Broad Day was a concept familiar to fans all over the world for a reason, when he was on song he was completely irresistible.

If the refused tag of greatness is to be qualified, his batting might well be the reason why. His bowling record is extremely good, but had it been allied with the batting prowess he showed in his earlier years, to the point where he was close to being considered an all rounder, then he would be propelled to the top of a great many lists. His 169 against Pakistan remains extraordinary, not just because of how he did it, but also because of how different his batting looked subsequent to being hit by Varun Aaron. He became a genuine tailender in those latter years, and it has to be wondered how hard England worked with him on his batting to overcome it. Strangely, it picked up just a little bit in the last few years when it had looked for a time that he would be a true rabbit, even below Anderson in the order. Speculation all, for the mental difficulties he confessed to after that injury cannot be gainsaid by an outsider, we simply do not know truly how hard it was for him, as it clearly was.

Therein lies a particular irony. As his batting declined, it became more celebrated. The occasional echo of past glories as he would lash bowlers into the stands became a meme, something to be looked forward to by cricket followers all around the world. An “Is Stuart Broad Batting?” Twitter account was set up, and amassed by the end nearly 16,000 followers, a level of silliness that ended up actually causing a sense of loss from many with the final tweet, viewed an astonishing 1.2 million times at this point.

Perhaps that’s one reason that set Broad apart. Another is certainly his combativeness, something that irritated plenty in the earlier years when he was viewed as a cocky upstart. Either he changed or we did, or both, because over time the barbs were laced with an acute sense of humour, most of all when they were aimed at the Australians, for whom he became the ultimate pantomime villain.

That it can be said it was a pantomime villain rather than a real one can be defined by the way no one, apart from the terminally dense, could get truly irate about a player not walking after an edge, while wandering into the Gabba press conference carrying the morning newspaper slating him under his arm was delightful. As for his delicious dig at the sandpaper affair by wondering why Australia had changed a method that was already working for them, it all merely adds to the appreciation level that has seen him approach national treasure status in recent times.

He will reappear in the commentary box, and it’s to be hoped he maintains the asperity, for there is no shortage of anodyne observation already. Whether he also goes down the celebrity route, Strictly et al, is to be seen. But he does leave a hole in the England attack that will not be easy to fill, and perhaps more importantly, a hole in the sense of fun for everyone watching. He is going to be missed, and for a retiring sportsman, perhaps that is timing it best of all.

Working Six to Leg

thelegglance17 Comments

Two Tests, two defeats for England, but in rather different ways and with different attitudes, yet in both cases it is Australia who are 1-0 up.

This morning the women concluded on the fifth day – praise be for that change – but England came up short and will have some regrets, firstly that they didn’t kick on a little more in the first innings and for the shot selection in the second (plus a couple of tight lbws that didn’t go their way, c’est la vie). Australia are a fantastic team, and the addition of a fifth day making a result far more likely meant that Australia would have been deemed the likely winners before the start, but England had their chances and didn’t take them, the very essence of sport. It is instructive to note that the England women, while they score quickly, adopt a more traditional approach to run scoring than their male counterparts, which ought to be notable in the sense that this did not make them immune from making errors under pressure and playing poor shots. It is not purely a characteristic of Bazball. But unlike with the men, this one defeat really wrecks England’s chances of winning the series.

The response to England’s defeat to Australia at Edgbaston has been rather interesting. Ranging from a shrug of the shoulders to outrage depending on outlook and approach. What can be said is that it was a terrific Test match, that swung one way and then the other and was in doubt through to the very end. That in itself is becoming something of a habit for this England team, and few would deny they are quite extraordinary to watch.

The question though is to what extent England threw it away and how much it was that Australia went out and won it – plus what it means for the rest of the series. There aren’t any right or wrong answers to this, and the criticisms have validity, but equally so do the words of the defenders.

What can be agreed is that England’s approach has brought a lot more success than they had been having up to the point they flicked a switch and went on a rampage – a single win in seventeen Tests has been succeeded by eleven wins in fourteen. Overall, few would deny that this is rather better, so the criticisms are around the matter of degree rather than in general, except perhaps for a few who particularly revel in a two runs an over approach for its own sake.

Plenty of teams have adopted a positive approach to the game, that’s nothing new, where England differ is that they do so with an insouciance that looks reckless to many. But I would argue that this is not quite what it seems, or more specifically, the recklessness is deliberate, strategic and built in. “Playing without fear” is a mantra heard often, but it hardly ever means what it says, as Test cricket even in its modern form isa game where restraint is almost always the order of the day. In essence, whatever they might say, “fear” is baked into the equation, the fear of getting out, the fear of a collapse, the reluctance to play with complete freedom. It’s not a bad thing at all, it’s normal, at least historically. Where England are unique is that when they say they are playing without fear, they really mean it. Getting out is met with indifference and an occupational hazard precisely because of that approach. Anaethema to many it may be, but it is central to how England are playing. And this is important to note, because when it is said that all England need to do is to reign it in a bit, it is to change this mentality completely – it is to add fear, it is add the reticence to play with complete abandon. You will not get a team who can romp along at seven an over with it.

That doesn’t mean England can only throw the bat, for after England were somewhat unfortunately batting in poor conditions (sporting luck and bad luck, so be it) and lost wickets, they did tick over a bit more slowly in the second innings as it proceeded, Root’s scoop first ball of the day notwithstanding; but the ability to do that still without fear is the central aspect of England’s approach, the urgent desire to cut loose being transparently obvious even as they scored a little more slowly. Indeed, Stokes has been fairly criticised for going too far on many an occasion, throwing his wicket away when he scores fast enough normally not to need to do so, and yet in that second innings that is precisely what he did – his eventual dismissal being one of those normal enough cricketing occurrences. But to believe that England could flick a switch in terms of their approach is to misunderstand how they are even capable of going berserk in the first place – to change it in one context is to change it in all, it cannot be to cheer them on scoring at seven an over only to insist they don’t have that mindset when it is deemed to be inappropriate, it is, in cricketing cliche, to ask them to hit sixes but not take any risks. It isn’t that people are wrong to do so however, but it is to emphasise that the only reason you can have the extraordinary sight of England going nuts is to appreciate that they cannot just defend and accumulate, it really is one or the other, the mental bridge is far too wide.

The same applies to the declaration on day one. In the first instance, to assume a day one action led directly to the day five result ignoring all that went between is to beg the question, but also because the thinking and mentality was so clear. It was to put Australia on the back foot and try and get late evening wickets and then have another go the following morning with a still new ball. It can be disagreed with certainly, but the logic of the aspiration was clear and we cannot solely judge on the outcome as though if they’d taken three wickets on that first day it was a stroke of genius and because they didn’t it wasn’t. In terms of the attempt to put Australia on the defensive in approach, it did work – Australia were oddly passive throughout the Test match (the very vocal sledging coming from Australian sidelines is instructive too – you don’t need to do that if you’re not a teeny bit concerned), and while they won, that might have an impact further down the line when England carry on doing this. Or not, there are no guarantees. Furthermore, Australia might have won, but they are in any case a far better side than England, defeat in itself doesn’t mean the approach was wrong, any more than believing a more restrained England would have got across the line has a great deal to back it up. The suspicion has to be a more defensive England would be hammered. It is, in essence, the opposite – England’s best chance of beating Australia is to go all out, and if that is concurred with in principle, then it means accepting the downside that it cannot, will not, always work, and may even not work at all.

The same applies to selection. Whether Moeen Ali was the right call or not is open to question, but believing a tailor made alternative would have come in and scored a century and taken ten-fer is to indulge the realms of fantasy. No player is as good as when he’s been left out of the team, but the criticisms there need to be aimed at the structural weaknesses of the England cricketing structure that meant that he was a viable option in the first place. Another player might have done better, or might have done worse, to assume certainty is to reprogramme the matrix.

Similarly, Bairstow’s inclusion came at the expense of an extremely unlucky Ben Foakes. When analysing the reasons for England’s defeat the dropped catches and missed stumpings loom large, and unlike with Moeen Ali, it is reasonable enough to acknowledge that Foakes is more than good enough for it to be assumed with reasonable cause he would have taken more of them, especially stood up to the stumps where he excels. But few would deny that Bairstow should be in the side as a batsman, and as a result a decision had to be made about where. Given Zak Crawley has few advocates, the option there would be to move someone else to open and have both Bairstow and Foakes, but it is an either/or and they went with retaining Crawley. On that one, it is selectorial stubborness for sure, but Crawley himself is very much part of the England thinking because of how he plays – it is less a matter of whether he is worthy in itself and more whether someone else can do precisely that role better than him. To understand is not to concur, but failure to understand means the wrong criticisms are made.

Those dropped catches had far more consequence in terms of outcome than anything else. It is a cricketing normal, catches win matches being more than just a cliche. Indeed, even at the end a difficult chance put down by Stokes could be viewed as being the game right there. But it also must be said that some of the critiques failed to sufficiently acknowledge what an outstanding partnership it was from Cummins and Lyons – whatever else went on, to win the game eight down from there was an exceptional performance. Australia won that game rather than England losing it, and sometimes you simply have to doff your cap. Had two quick wickets fallen some of the earlier England decisions that have been criticised would have been praised as creating the time to secure an England win. And this is no small matter, a more conservative England approach, even had it succeeded, would have resulted in the match being drawn. And yes, 0-0 might be preferable to 1-0 down, but it created the opportunity for England to win the match, that they ultimately didn’t take it is a separate matter.

England do have a tendency to state their aim is save Test cricket, which irks plenty of Australians – and therefore is a good thing in itself – but also English fans who say their first priority should be winning matches. And so it should too, but the reason England players say this in defeat is to give affirmation for their approach when they’ve lost. It is evidently human to say such things.

This is somewhat lofty, but all teams do need that self-justification when things go wrong, to reassure themselves they are on the right path in what they do. It’s understandable, and when looked at in the wider context it is also welcome in that it is pleasing that they believe it to be worth saving,
but it is also undoubtedly fair comment to point to the discrepancy, as long as there’s understanding why they say these things.

Many are annoyed, many more are disappointed. I just can’t be. Might you disagree?  Absolutely so, and that’s fine, but I will challenge that and say why I feel as I do.  It’s certainly not that I’m right and others are wrong, it is that sensing an affinity as to why they do what they do means that I remain entirely content to take the rough with the smooth on these things. The question then put is how I’d feel if England lose the series heavily, and I can honestly respond that it will be with the same general indifference to individual outcome when set against the bigger picture. I do get why others differ, but I can only express how it is for me. And I will leave you with one thing – anecdote isn’t data and there’s no reason to assume it ought to be, but three friends generally relatively indifferent to Test cricket followed, listened and watched this one with fascination, enjoyment, excitement and at the end crippling nerves. And that gives me hope for the game. Hope has been missing for a very long time.

Still Standing on Those Shoulders, Still Giants

thelegglance4 Comments

It’s been a reflective time for me the last few months, and in a cricketing sense too. Watching England play has been a joyous experience, seeing them throw caution to the winds in an attempt to entertain has been both startling and impressive. I wasn’t bothered that they lost the 2nd Test to New Zealand, that they – as some insisted – threw away a series win simply didn’t matter to me as much as how they played. Perhaps it is a thing about getting older, to care less about the outcome on the field than the process that led to that point. Certainly English cricket and world cricket isn’t short of problems, many of their own creation, but if the England team are raging against the dying of the light of the game as we’ve known it, then I’m going to be right behind them and express both my wonder at how they’re doing it, and my complete forgiveness when it goes wrong.

Perspective and context. The essence of this blog has been to highlight so many of the hugely damaging initiatives the ECB have brought forth in the last decade, and they are still there, and those problems have far from disappeared. English cricket remains in trouble, and the objections remain the same. It doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate what is happening, nor is there a “but” when offering up that praise. Ben Stokes has proved to be a remarkable captain, Brendon McCullum a remarkable coach, and Rob Key an astute selector of people. Perhaps it could even be an indicator of where those in charge are looking to go, we will wait and see.

And yet that observation, of taking succour where it is offered, could be seen as simply taking the positives – a phrase that invokes a sense of doom whenever it is heard. Perhaps that is so, but for now, for me, it is enough. My father entered his final illness at the start of the year, a period of distress for all the family, leading to something of a sense of release when he passed away. His influence on me was far and wide, but in a cricketing sense he was the one who first put a bat in my hands, who bowled to me for hours in the back garden and insisted I keep the ball on the ground in order to avoid dumping the ball over the fence to the neighbours. It did have an influence on how I played for decades, rather more than I would have liked to admit. Certainly I was forever stronger in the arc of the offside than the onside, where a wall a few feet away from me meant as often as not pinging the ball through there meant it came back and smacked me in the legs. But he was proud that I became a much better player than him, and it’s unsurprising that given he was a bowler, I was a batsman. The wicketkeeping came much later, but certainly I cared little about bowling to Dad when I had the alternative of him bowling to me.

Several years ago I wrote this: https://beingoutsidecricket.com/2017/04/12/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/, a tribute to those who formed us, who taught us the game and who we failed to appreciate at the time. In a cricketing sense, this is more true of my father than I ever realised, for his contribution above all else was to imbue in me a love of the game itself. He would tell me entirely fictional cricketing stories using players from his childhood or early adulthood, meaning that someone like Alf Valentine was a hero to me long before I knew a single thing about the real man and cricketer. All entirely down to long forgotten father’s tales made up on the spot. And perhaps that he was telling such stories about so many West Indian cricketers says a lot about those he considered his heroes too.

In his last years he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and became an echo of the man he had been. But he still enjoyed the simple pleasure of seeing cricket. When I went to visit him I would download (entirely illegally, and no I don’t give a shit given the context) recent cricket matches to watch with the highlights with him and talk through what had happened. His face would light up watching it all, that part of his mind still able to appreciate the simple joy of a game of bat and ball. And that is why England under the new bosses (not the same as the old bosses) will get so much affection from me whether they win or lose. Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter, the pleasure of the game is everything. That is not how I played, where winning absolutely mattered, otherwise why bother keeping score, but it is a perspective that perhaps comes with moving through life and seeing other things as more important.

Last week an iconic figure at my old club passed away. The pain of that was sharpened by losing my father not long before, that circle of life might be inevitable, but we all focus on our own lives and experiences. David Silverson was someone who played the game for over half a century, one of those for whom a couple of generations saw as an ever present backdrop to their own sporting lives. Since I had moved to the area as an adult, he wasn’t one of my cricketing heroes of my formative years, but he was for the generation behind me. And my own thoughts about my heroes led me to put together the club statistics, detailing every player who had been at the club. He was top of the list, with over 20,000 runs and 1,500 wickets, and when I first produced the spreadsheet I called around to his house to show him. His reaction was for his eyes to fill with tears, I think not because of caring at all that he was at the top, but because someone had taken the trouble to put it all together. And you know what? I’m damn proud of doing that, because the existence of those tables, and the awareness of the entire club membership about them made a material difference in how the kids saw him. No longer was he just the old man coming to watch and making appearances for the Sunday 2nd XI, he was an icon, someone who had been there and done it all. We persuaded (forced might be a better word) him to play the odd 1st XI friendly match to get him over that 20,000 run landmark, and the sheer pleasure of everyone of all ages when he did so is a treasured memory.

But he was anything but a relic. He came to watch with huge enthusiasm the women’s matches when they began, offering support without ever pushing his opinion. He cared for the game of cricket first and foremost, for the people who played it and the culture and lifestyle that it conveyed. It mattered to him because it is a part of life and community, something far more important than the result, whether in a Test arena or a Sunday friendly. To him, both were parts of a greater whole. He was a wise man.

Yet if a player wanted advice, he was there – and it wouldn’t be unusual to see a young player, male or female, in deep conversation with him about their game as he would talk it through with them in his gentle way. He was a modern mind, caring less for the detail of coaching and more for the mindset and how to make the most of what someone had. And for those who came to him, that support was firm and unending. One young player was languishing in the Sunday 2nd XI, just another player who would be an entirely social one and never make it as a key performer at the club. He disgreed. Oh how he disagreed. When all others had written this young man off, he was insistent he would be a 1st XI player. When asked why, given the modest returns on the field, he would answer “because he wants it”. And he was right too, that young man did go on to be a central player for the club.

And this is where it all comes around again. When I wrote that piece about our influences, that young man read it. He said it made him cry, because he did so thinking time and again about David, and how instrumental he had been to him and how much he valued it. “So tell him”, I said. “Go and see him, and tell him how much he has meant to you”. And he did. And I imagine that must have been deeply emotional for both of them. David’s passing is as desperately sad as it always is, as it has been for me with my father’s. But they remain enormously consequential to us all in our own lives and in how we live them.

I will miss them both, for different reasons and in different ways. But from them both will be the pleasure of watching an England team who play in a vibrant manner because of a love of a game I have at different times fallen out with, and that they never forgot. It has been an honour.

Let’s Hear it For the Boy

thelegglance15 Comments

There will be plenty said about this Test, the blow by blow accounts of what happened and why. It was genuinely remarkable, and the problem with the grade inflation of besteveritis is that all the superlatives have been used up on far lesser events and performances, leaving many to reach for the same words for something that did astonish.

Yet it should not be forgotten in the afterglow of praise for England’s approach of somehow extracting a win from a terrible pitch that plenty were queuing up to criticise as reckless both England’s approach to the second innings as they lost wickets, and also the declaration itself as far too generous.

Perhaps it is confusion, that Stokes and McCullum really mean it when they say they are prepared, as Warne would have put it, to lose to win, but there was a strong logic in what they decided that went far beyond simply dangling a carrot.

England could not have won the game had they batted on and only offered Pakistan a chance if they wanted to take wild risks. The final five wickets might have fallen in a heap, but the chiselling out of the top order batsmen required there to be the genuine prospect of a successful run chase. It wasn’t a matter of chucking everything on red and hoping for the best, it was a hard headed calculation as to the best prospect of winning. Had Pakistan chased it down, it still would have been a fine pursuit, but it wasn’t generous, it merely opened up a possibility sufficiently widely that there was little choice but for Pakistan to try to win given the time available, and that is what brought England in with a chance of bowling them out.

This isn’t always going to work, but it probably is England’s best chance of regular success. They aren’t an outstanding team by any means, and some of the stalwarts who have bought in to the new ethos are coming to the end. England will collapse in a horrible heap from time to time, but that was happening anyway, there was little to lose by trying this, and thus far it is working. That it won’t work every time is not the point – it can’t be argued that there will be criticism when it goes wrong given that there was plenty of criticism here even when it went right – in fact absolutely perfectly.

Outcome is everything. Its like the shot that just clears a fielder for six; there will be praise for it being a great shot, but if it falls two feet short and is caught, there will be cries that it was reckless. Same intent, slightly different outcome, but it is unhelpful to say the least to criticise the intention based on how well it turned out.

Yes, if they try this in the Ashes it might go wrong. Or it might go brilliantly. Either people buy in to what they’re attempting and accept it is a high risk but thoroughly calculating strategy, or call for them to do it completelt differently and traditionally overall. There’s not that much middle ground, and it’s certainly not reasonable to criticise the overarching strategy when it doesn’t work only to be adulatory when it does.

We know Test cricket is in trouble. This is a way of saving it for the future. Stokes has talked about his determination to do something to popularise the best format of cricket there is, and he deserves everyone’s support for that, because it’s really important, and a damn sight more so than a three match Test series.

You’re not going to find me having a go at them when this goes tits up and England get hammered, not even if it’s in the next Test. I love every element of what they are doing and I want more of it. And we are going to lose matches.

I made a flippant observation this morning that Ben Stokes would make an outstanding Sunday 2nd XI captain, but within that is a serious point – the creativity required for that thankless task is something he possesses in spades. It is genuinely a high compliment.

Strap yourselves in, we’re in for a hell of a ride.

All Hail the T20 World Cup

thelegglance6 Comments

At a time when saturation levels of T20 cricket have gone beyond even the wildest fantasies of the money men in every country bar England, where it isn’t deemed sufficiently radical, it might seem strange for one of us to write a paean of praise for a tournament of hit and giggle cricket, but I’m going to do it anyway, and not because England won it either.

That was a nice bonus, for sure, and the free to air coverage of the final again demonstrates that Sky Sports have a better grasp of the value of wide exposure of a particular sport than the ECB have done in recent years. It is of course entirely a matter of slightly enlightened self-interest, but that’s rather the point – the exposure argument has never been about doing so to be nice, but because it has value in and of itself down the line. At a purely anecdotal level, two friends who have little more than a vague passing interest in the sport and don’t have Sky watched the final and were caught up in it, sending me messages asking for an explanation as to what the Powerplay was and how the hell DLS worked. There are some questions too difficult to answer.

But it wasn’t the final or the result, or even the relatively wide audience watching that made me think about how good the T20 World Cup was, it was the whole tournament. The matches themselves were not overly reliant on the toss, unlike some previous instances (Hi UAE), and the format is one that provides a genuine sense of peril in each game. That’s partly because of the short nature of the format – the longer the version of cricket, the more the stronger side can be sure of winning. 20 overs – or indeed 10, or 100 balls – equalises the difference between the teams by raising the importance of a single exceptional performance to turn the game. The longer the game goes, the more sure the stronger team can be of winning, until you reach Test cricket where genuine upsets in a mismatch are relatively rare, whatever the other strengths of it. Ireland’s victory over England in the 50 over World Cup in 2011 was a very special day for the game, but shines bright as a rarity, and one that foreshadowed the arrival of Ireland as a genuine international side rather than a total minnow pulling off a shock.

But the Netherlands beating England in T20 World Cups in 2009, again in 2014, and South Africa this time around, that’s a bit different. It’s hard to see such results being so likely in 50 over cricket, and almost impossible to in Test cricket. It goes further too. The first round involving the qualifiers being part of the main competition – in effect if not in promotion – both eases everyone watching into the competition and also showcases the associate nations more obviously than is usually the case at ICC events. And here again, the opening match saw Namibia giving Sri Lanka something of a hiding, while the West Indies were heavily beaten by both Scotland and Ireland. The T20 World Cup is the FA Cup of international cricket, maybe even the FA Cup of international team sports.

That first round was as brief as it was brutal. Lose a game and you’re in trouble. Lose two and you’re done, and going home with your tail between your legs, just as it should be. The lament for West Indies cricket can be a genuine one without losing sight of the cruel beauty of a tournament that crushes hopes in the space of an hour or two.

Various 50 over World Cups have had a Super Eight or Super Twelve, or God help us all Super Fourteen stages, but the abiding principle of these always appears to be to maximise the number of games, extend the tournament long enough for civilisations to rise and fall, and above all else ensure that the “big” teams go through. It’s perhaps most of all because of the determination for so long to hold quarter finals meaning the odd embarrassing defeat can be overcome, a kind of repechage for the wealthy but inept to ensure they do at least reach the point where being put out of their misery is done by a genuinely good team rather than the flogging that’s deserved beforehand. Maybe the ICC have learned a little, as the 2019 50 over version (and the 2023 edition to come) was something of an exception to this, and better for it, whatever the legitimate criticisms of the round robin format that still allowed for recovery from a balls up. Whatever the flaws, and there were many, it did make it a dog fight to only have four going through rather than eight. Qualification for these events and the exclusion of the smaller teams, that’s a different matter, and one that is shameful.

The T20 World Cup as currently constituted does not have quarter finals, and doesn’t have a round robin either. And at no point can any team feel comfortable. England’s defeat on DLS to Ireland plunged a comfortable road map to the semi-finals into a frantic last chance saloon in every game they played afterwards, effectively turning the group stage into a knock out scenario half way through. And wasn’t it great? South Africa were cruising through to the semi-finals with only a match against a so called minnow to go, while Pakistan were to all intents and purposes on their way home – and then everything changed.

And then there’s the weather. The interminable whining about rain in 2019 came back to bite many an Australian journalist or Twitter user on the arse as the scheduling in the wettest part of the year in certain parts of Australia allowed the English to gleefully suggest that until they have covered stadia they shouldn’t be allowed another one, but it had a wider impact too, which was to make the games that did happen even more important. It’s entirely capricious, unfair and downright unreasonable, but however frustrating it might be for teams and supporters to watch the rain fall, it adds to the sense of a tournament where you have to win the games you do play because of the ones you don’t. Australia ultimately went out because they got whacked by New Zealand.

Of course, not holding the final Super Twelve games simultaneously was horrifically unfair to Australia, and it’s no defence of it to point out that it happening to Australia makes it acceptable. Although it is funny. But that sporting quibble aside, I am all in favour of the sheer viciousness of the capricious weather gods entirely wrecking carefully made plans. England’s tournament win in 2010 too was nearly derailed by bad weather in the group stage for that matter, and the raging fury at that which is impossible to overcome is too part of the tournament experience.

There’s far too much T20. There’s certainly far too much T20 involving teams no one cares about except the billionaires that own them. But national teams playing a short, sharp, savage tournament that kicks out the unworthy unceremoniously is one to be both enjoyed for the spectacle it is and most of all celebrated for being that rarity in international cricket – a total hoot.

Daydream Believer

thelegglance30 Comments

England’s first Test victory of this summer was rather routine. Not in terms of the run chase, because that was impressive. But it was also entirely orthodox, relying on a proven world class batsman – their only world class batsman – leading his team home with a superb innings. It didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know, namely that England were a brittle batting line up, but that if Joe Root got runs they might have a chance. At the time it seemed little more than that, no indication in particular of anything especially different, and apart from Root’s majestic knock, England probably had the worst of the game. So sure, a win, and a welcome one after the dreadful run of the last 18 months, but maybe not a whole lot more. It’s with hindsight it appears to have been greater than that, with it granting a degree of confidence and belief in the next step. Since then all hell has broken loose, the batting performances becoming ever more extraordinary and insane. After the conclusion of today’s Test Ben Stokes said a part of him had hoped India’s lead had reached 450 in order to see what England did about it. And you can feel this team is absolutely itching to have a go at a world record chase just to see if they can do it. It’s a world record for a reason, but after the absurdly easy and routine chasing down of 380 who is to say they couldn’t do it?

And in a tactical and strategic sense, this has an effect. Teams will be wary of setting England a total that up to now will have been considered a safe one, particularly with a time element. Leaving England 300 to get at 5 an over has been something that could be viewed as placing the pressure entirely on an England team that had little intent to go after it and a couple of sessions to survive. Not any more, opponents would be viewing it as a risk to do so. Even 400 plus will be treated as though it’s a feasible target. That isn’t to say for a second that the game has been entirely turned on its head – in such circumstances the bowling team should feel they were in a strong position and not all fifth day pitches will be remotely as accommodating as the ones this summer, but the mind is a funny thing, and the nagging thought that England won’t just go for it, but might well get it will be present in many an opposing dressing room from now on. A similar thing happened with the ODI team, where teams would often be so aware that they needed a big total against an England side that made it abundantly clear they thought they could chase anything that opponents overreached and fell in a heap. Test cricket isn’t white ball cricket, true, but the difference so far this summer has been narrower than ever seen before.

Likewise, the disquiet when building a lead will be entirely about the potential doubt of whether it’s enough. It shifts the pressure onto England’s opponents in a way that has never been tried before in the longest form of the game, or at least not to this extent. It’s why the whole Bazball approach is so extraordinarily fascinating to watch how it pans out over the longer term. England haven’t become radically better as a batting line up overnight, but it is the case that the quite incredible levels of belief flowing through them have raised their level to a degree that’s hard to credit.

There will certainly be bad days, when they fall in a heap and collapse. But they are trying this out from a position where it was hard to see how they could get any worse, with endless feeble subsidence of the batting order under the lightest of pressure. When you’re often 100 or fewer all out anyway, why the hell not? In that they are lucky – because it’s not just that this is thrilling to watch, it’s that they have licence to do it from a supporter base that wants to see something, anything, done to show some sign of life.

Stokes again probably went too far, his last couple of innings were less aggression and more rank slogging. But you can see why and how this happened – he is trying to set a particular tone to the rest of the team that he won’t take a backward step and he wants them to follow his example. That will doubtless be pulled back in to some extent in the months ahead because he’s got a decent cricket brain, and he’s got the buy in from everyone, on and off the pitch to a level he doesn’t need to demand they follow suit. An example of the level of commitment was surely to be found yesterday evening, when the nightwatchman padded up was Stuart Broad. Stuart Broad!

It’s really why this morning and yesterday were so impressive. Although England scored at a preposterous rate, they weren’t going all out for trying to hit every ball to the boundary, it was aggressive, but it was controlled. Jonny Bairstow’s twin hundreds were markedly slower than those against New Zealand, yet still rapid by any standards other than his own. Root’s tempo is little changed, but it suddenly looks like part of a bigger plan than just his own ability, oft mentioned, to score quickly without anyone noticing. The ramp shots though – that is someone not just in astonishing form, but someone who doesn’t fear a bollocking if it goes wrong.

And it will. If there’s a certainty, at some point it will. But there is a difference between it going wrong on occasion due to the high risk/reward equation or doing so on a consistent basis because it’s not sustainable in Test cricket, and it’s that we don’t yet know, and that that will be enthralling to witness. Whether they can play like this away from home, whether they can do it against the likes of Australia (if they’ve done it to India and New Zealand I simply see no reason why not) and so on. But at the moment they are pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with, and it feels dangerous and exciting – not necessarily something people would normally think about Test cricket.

And here’s the biggie: Test cricket has been in real and increasing trouble, as the white ball game dominates the cricketing calendar. If England are to try to play like this consistently, and even more so if other teams follow their lead, then the Test game becomes far more than the one that people have loved for decades, it becomes one to really pull in those younger adherents that everyone is trying to chase after. It becomes an attraction in itself to those who happily go to an ODI hoping to see fireworks. That might not be entirely traditional, in fact it’s rather the opposite. But we have been hoping for a way that Test cricket might not just survive, but even thrive, and who knows, maybe this could be it.

It’s anecdotal, sure, but I’ve had plenty of friends who scarcely pay attention normally talk glowingly about how England have been playing. It is the fours and sixes that do it, and however facile many might find that, it’s not a crime to be practical in the approach to the need for Test cricket to succeed.

It doesn’t mean the challenges have gone away, nor the mismanagement by the ECB. Indeed, it would be a truly delicious irony after the millions chucked at the Hundred if the way to entice people into cricket proved to be the Test team instead, especially as Test cricket is, and always has been, the ECB’s main source of income.

Yet we now have a six week gap to the South Africa Test series as the white ball internationals take over and domestically the Hundred rears it’s controversial head. It’s unfortunate, but we didn’t really expect England’s start to this summer anyway, just the opposite. But let’s put it this way, the England Test team are raising all sorts of questions at the moment. There might not be answers, but they’re really, really good questions. And it’s an absolute blast isn’t it?

I Saw Two Shooting Stars Last Night

thelegglance42 Comments

England have just bowled New Zealand out, and need 296 runs to win. Which makes this a good point to think about where England are generally, before what happens next in the final innings of this series.

Because 296 is a hell of a lot of runs on a wearing pitch, and New Zealand are surely not only favourites, but really strong favourites. And that’s the funny thing – this is a big ask for England, and supporters, commentators and journalists are so thoroughly caught up in the new England approach that they have started thinking this is extremely gettable. It probably isn’t, but it’s absolutely marvellous to see how the arrival of McCullum, and quite likely Rob Key who appointed him, has entirely changed the mindset of not just the England team, but everyone who follows the England team. Anything is possible. And we now really think anything is possible. It just might be too.

And that’s the reason for writing this up now, because England haven’t magically become a good side overnight – all the flaws in the batting line up are still there, the fragility of the techniques of the top order bar Root is little different to before. And if England fall in a heap and get hammered today and tomorrow, that really shouldn’t affect the perception of what is a fairly seismic shift in the way everyone is looking at the game.

With the same batting line up a year ago, the degree of optimism about England’s chances would have been subterranean, now viewers and spectators are eagerly awaiting England having a right good crack at it.

It’s extraordinary. Kumar Sangakkara said yesterday that he was jealous of the members of this England team, and would have loved to play in it. Fear of failure appears to have been thrown into the bin. They aren’t going to get it right all the time, and there are going to be some pretty horrendous collapses to come as a result, but there were horrendous collapses anyway, match in, match out, there’s little downside from where England have been loitering over the last couple of years. Equally, the reckless abandon needs tempering occasionally with a slightly more rational approach – Ben Stokes’ first innings was more than freewheeling it was reckless slogging and cost him his wicket. No matter, Stokes is more than bright enough to have realised that, and has shown before he’s more than capable of being downright defensive of circumstances permit. The difference is that England seem to just believe they can win from anywhere, and that entire attitude can take them a long way.

And goodness me is it good to watch. Some might think it’s not Test cricket as we know it, and they’d have a point, but when Test cricket itself is under threat from shorter and shorter forms of the game, to have the best and longest format become not just intriguing and fascinating, but thrilling on a constant basis, then that might just be the way to have everyone with a passing interest in cricket open mouthed in disbelief. Anecdote is never data, but I’ve had friends enthusing about the cricket in the past couple of weeks in a way I’ve not heard for years. People without Sky (and that issue doesn’t go away, no matter how the ECB would like to ignore it) following closely and considering the highlights as appointment viewing.

Which means that for the first time in quite a while there are genuine grounds for some guarded optimism. Not just about the England team, because the state of the game that is drawn from to comprise that England side is still in considerable trouble, but about cricket itself in this country. That’s not to say all our troubles are over, it’s scratching the surface. But if we’re quick to point out the problems we should also acknowledge when something offers a ray of hope, and in the space of a couple of weeks, a couple of appointments appear to have provided that.

For Stokes has made an extremely bright start to his captaincy, and not just because England have won a couple of Tests. He appears engaged and willing to gamble. It’s been years since an England captain appeared so willing to show such trust a spinner not called Swann, and in this Test at least, Jack Leach has repaid that faith. The spinner has for years been the last option to turn to when all else has failed – hardly surprising that whoever the spinner was didn’t feel entirely confident or backed.

You can see the same in the rest of the bowling attack – partly because England have by hook or by crook scored runs this series and they’ve actually had a rest for once. And their role has been less about trying to pull the fat out the fire and to sit glowering as the batsmen make a right mess of a chase no one ever believed they had a chance of in the first place. But also because they are hunting their opponents down to then turn it over to batsmen who are itching to have a crack at whatever target they’re set.

Mental attitude is always cited as being important in any sporting, or indeed life, endeavour. It is rare to see it change quite so hugely in such a short period. But it does work. The great Australian and West Indies Test sides carried on winning for a fair while after their finest players departed the scene, because they expected to win, and did, until they stopped running in thin air and finally realised there was nothing underneath them except gravity.

Jonny Bairstow is another who appears to be thriving. He has always been the most sublimely talented of players, but one who has failed to fulfil that talent on a regular basis. His interviews have always been the epitome of spiky aggression, but in years past they have also tended to be extremely defensive. Not any more, he’s embracing every moment, and goodness me his liberation is a sight to behold.

Ah, England have lost a wicket to a quite brilliant run out. Never mind, we move on.

England did this with their white ball team some years back, almost overnight changing their entire attitude to one of unbridled aggression to the point of declaring war. But few thought the Test team would do the same. There were hints last time New Zealand came over with McCullum in their side, and a series of rampant attack took place. But not even close to this level. Perhaps the most similar example in microcosm was the arrival of Kevin Pietersen into the 2005 team, when instead of prodding and poking at Shane Warne he kept depositing him into the stands. Even in defeat in that Lord’s Test, it signalled a shift in approach.

England will lose Tests. They might lose a lot of them. The players aren’t going to be averaging 50 where they were averaging 30. But it might just get the best out of them, and structural change takes a long time. But above all else, the England players look like they’re having a ball, and so do the supporters.

Cricket should be fun. My God this is fun.

Balance of Terror

thelegglance9 Comments

There are a few surprises today. First that we’ve had three days and the match is still going on, secondly that England are still in it, and thirdly that they’ve had a pretty good day. 62 needed and 5 wickets left, and most importantly Joe Root is still there. And that’s the key with this fragile England batting line up, that he’s the one genuinely world class batsman in the side – indeed the one obviously Test class batsman for that matter. If he scores runs, England have a chance. When he doesn’t, and he can’t do it all the time, they fold like a cheap suit. His game awareness pushing to take the second new ball out of the equation was just a small part of his continuing excellence. It really is a pity he’s having to carry this team all the time, because his record in a better one might be even greater.

Only 62 runs are needed, and if he’s there at the end, England will win it. Sure, it’s a statement of the bleeding obvious, but it emphasises how much they rely on him, or upon Stokes. With a normal side, and with so few runs required, there would be strong expectation of victory at some point in the morning, weather permitting, but this is the England team. If Root goes, getting 62 would be a tall order. Getting a dozen would seem challenging. So to that extent we’re learning nothing we didn’t already know – Root is a magnificent player, Stokes is a very fine one, and there’s not a lot else. The first innings collapse will leave New Zealand still confident that one wicket will get five.

That England have any shot at all is down to a fine bowling display in the morning session, particularly from Stuart Broad, who decided to do what he does and ripped a hole in the New Zealand batting order. Yesterday they went 60 overs without picking up a wicket, and the bowlers came in for some criticism for that. But it was a normal enough day, and the opposition are allowed to bat well. The only reason it ever stands out is because of the brittleness of England’s batting that requires the bowlers to skittle the opposition every single time without exception for England to get their noses in front. Let’s be pretty clear on this, the England seamers have been exceptional this match because they know damn well they have to be on their game constantly to have a sniff, and why it shouldn’t be a surprise when they fail to deliver sometimes having seen their own side shot out in a couple of sessions yet again.

Weather permitting, it’ll be a short day but a fun one tomorrow. Low scoring matches are exciting because every ball has a degree of peril attached to it, for both sides. But that doesn’t make this one a great game, it’s been far too flawed, and far too short. But England are still in it, thanks with one exception to their longer serving, class acts. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Magic Roundabout

thelegglance9 Comments

Here we are again, the start of an international summer, a first Test in the offing, and cricket in England continues to go round in circles with the same issues, same arguments, and fundamentally, the same tone deafness concerning how those crazy, unimportant people who love the game think – and including those who might fundamentally disagree with every word we ever write by the way. Just because some of what they believe happens, isn’t because they’re being listened to. So let’s have a little look through some of the current debating points – even the ones we’ve all talked about a hundred times before:

Ticket prices

It’s not new, and it is a Lord’s thing particularly. Sure, the Oval isn’t cheap, London prices are a thing after all, but Lords is a lot more across the board, and since they have two Tests a year, they deserve all the stick they’re getting. But it’s been this way for a while now, and it’s far from the first time people have complained about it. There is something of a difference in that tickets are still available, but it’s not going to be half empty as some have suggested. 20,000 unsold tickets over 4 days does not equate to that in any way.

Nonetheless, there’s now a fairly substantial group who refuse to go to Lord’s because of the cost, even among those who can afford it. It doesn’t matter to the MCC or ECB at all as long as they’re replaced by others who will, though their argument that the Jubilee holiday has made it harder to sell tickets compared to what would otherwise be a normal work day is a bit peculiar. Sure, there are plenty of options, but people are off work, that increases the potential pool, not reduces it. Arguing that people don’t want to choose the cricket over other things isn’t the killer argument they think it is.

The difference in cost between somewhere like Lord’s and Headingley or Edgbaston is always what grates – though it’s far from unusual across other sports too. The difference in season ticket price between Arsenal and Manchester City is quite astonishing, reflecting local demographics and disposable income differences. But that it prices people out of the market is beyond doubt, while that there are so many who have benefitted hugely from cricket’s largesse bemoaning the cost while continuing to rake in the income and never having to buy a ticket also grates. It’s similar to those who get in for free criticising the Barmy Army – they rub quite a lot of people the wrong way, sure, but they pay their way, which is more than many of their critics do. But let’s put it this way – a family could go to Headingley for a Test from the south, book a hotel, and still save a fair old wodge compared to going to Lord’s. That’s not a great position for cricket to find itself in.

Injured Bowlers

I’m not a sports scientist, I’m not a physiotherapist – on the subject of conditioning and biomechanics, what I know could be written on a postage stamp and still have room for franking. So nope, I don’t have solutions, nor do I have meaningful criticisms about what has gone wrong. But after several years of this, it’s not unreasonable to wonder what on earth they’re up to at the ECB and how come they keep breaking them.

Broad and Anderson

It might be their last summer. At this point, you never know if it might be their last Test. And if so many bowlers weren’t in the garage with the mechanics tutting and sucking their teeth, they might not be playing in this one either. But they deserved to be treated better at least in terms of the communication prior to the tour of the West Indies, and the recent comments from Rob Key about wanting to pick the best team were welcome: If the view is that Broad and Anderson (or indeed anyone else) aren’t part of the best team, there is no problem not selecting them, because that’s a judgment call everyone can argue about. The mire England managed to get themselves into far too often over recent years was in ignoring this basic premise and trying to be clever. The critical point is and always has been that if this is not the guiding principle, you’ll never pick your best side, because there will always be other issues butting in. It goes back a long way, and many will recall the infamous quote asking what Graham Thorpe brought to the England side apart from runs. Speaking of whom, every cricket fan has him in their thoughts.

Absent Friends.

We’ve lost a few of the most precious cricket characters over the winter. What is there to say? It’s dreadful. I will miss Shane Warne’s combination of banality and insight on commentary – I don’t mean that in any way flippantly, he was a magnificent cricketing icon and an infuriating commentator who we all deeply treasured and rather loved. Damn.

New Broom

Rob Key is installed as the Managing Director, while Brendon McCullum is the head coach. What even makes a good managing director when it comes to England cricket? The direction of travel in the organisation comes from the board and the Chief Executive, the much loved Tom Harrison, for whom there will be rending of clothes and wailing from the masses as he steps down having completed his reign of terror over English cricket. The Managing Director – of men’s cricket only, note – can then only work with what he’s given. Take Ashley Giles doing that job. It coincided with England being generally inept, which is rarely a good look, but what did he specifically do wrong? That’s not a defence of him, it’s to say that from beyond the boundary it is difficult, if not impossible to have a good insight into how one individual is performing in the structure and where the fault lines lie.

This is particularly true given the hand dealt. The Hundred, Harrison’s ugly baby, is not the reason for England’s woeful Test run, but it is the culmination of decision making that is behind the decline of England’s Test team. A symptom, not a cause. Key wasn’t about to get the job by stating at interview that the Hundred was an abomination, even if he did secretly think that was the case, and in his role he has to work with the structure as is, not as he might wish it to be. Where the ECB go with Harrison’s replacement, now that’s where it gets interesting.

Suggesting a reduction of first class fixtures from 14 to 10 per season, as he did in a podcast yesterday, has to be seen in the light of the shambles of a schedule across the season and the need to fit in the Hundred and the Blast. What it does say, is that where that pressure is most keenly felt, it is red ball cricket that must give way. That’s not new and it’s not news, it’s how the ECB have operated for a decade or more, salami slicing the foundation of the Test team and presuming it won’t have an impact.

Now, fewer red ball matches don’t in themselves have to have a negative effect on the production of Test cricketers, it may even improve it. The problem is the same one that has been there for a while, that there’s no sense of strategy behind it, it’s simply cutting back where they feel they can.

And herein lies a general matter that we are all guilty of not doing at times – that is listening and trying to understand what the thinking is. Take Kevin Pietersen’s push for franchise cricket in the red ball game. I have a lot of doubts about that, including but not limited to that no one will remotely care about the outcome of any of the games, which is an important sporting requirement, and not just for the county cricket supporters. But it’s an idea worth considering, even if that consideration leads to disagreement. But the kicker there is that it’s extremely hard to understand the logic of why such a system would improve the standards of red ball cricket – it seems merely assertion. And so it is with Key’s comments about reducing the number of Championship games. Plenty will oppose that for very good reason from their perspective – fewer matches to watch or play in. A legitimate objection. But if there is a rational plan as to why this would raise standards, it’s ok to be open to that. It’s just that it’s a bit hard to see what that rationale is. And that’s why people who have been repeatedly whacked over the head by a board that doesn’t seem to care about the actual game of cricket are suspicious and angry. Who can blame them? As one former ECB Managing Director said, it’s all a matter of trust. Rob Key is by all accounts a genuinely decent, intelligent and thoughtful man (our only interaction with him was that he thought our cruel entry about him in the Outside Cricket List was funny, so we’ll love him for that). But he won’t be at all surprised that now he’s stepped into the role, that lack of trust now applies to him. He can earn it though, and that’s interesting thing to watch.

As for Brendon McCullum, not a clue. He might be great you know. Or not. Or he might be unable to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, which seems more likely. To me, the role of the coach always seems somewhat overblown anyway. Your mileage may vary.

New team, new captain

It occurs to me that when Root was captain, the There Is No Alternative argument always ignored that Stokes was the alternative. Now Stokes is captain there really is no alternative, and for the same reason that it was problematic when Root was captain, namely that no one else is sure of their place. He might be good at it, there’s no certain rule that an all rounder can’t do the job, and maybe he won’t bowl people into the ground which in itself would be a welcome development. Ultimately, captaincy candidates become apparent amongst those who play regularly and have a degree of certainty about their place. If we go back to the team of a decade ago, an argument could be made for about 8 or 9 people to be captain, not because they’d be good at it necessarily, but because they were a fixture in the side. Until the current merry go round of selection changes and there is a settled team – and that needs them to be good enough – this is how it will be.

Cricket Clubs

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence this year that clubs are struggling to fill sides and have players available. This may be indicative of the wider problems afflicting cricket popularity that has been talked about for several years. Or maybe it’s specific for other reasons. None of it suggests a game in rude health, all of it has been flagged for quite some time as a concern. Perhaps the most concerning is that women’s teams have been reporting similar, and since the rise of female participation has been the one bright spot in an otherwise depressing landscape, that’s not good at all.

Everyone ready? Play

We do have a Test match in the morning to watch and listen to. For all the issues in the sport, things do feel slightly better when the international English summer begins. The mess of the India Test will be something to pick up when we get closer to the time, but New Zealand do at least have three Tests this time around, and feel slightly less of an afterthought, so it’s good to have the World Test Champions here first up. Shall we enjoy the next few days and see how it goes?