Memories of Newlands – Being Able To Walk On The Outfield
At 8am tomorrow morning (just, as I start writing this at 11:50) the decider will commence at the iconic Newlands ground. South Africa have clawed it back to 2-2, with a skin of their teeth win I’ve not seen a jot of. I have the highlights on my Tivo so I’ll get around to it. But it’s not exactly a priority at the moment.
You can share your comments below, as always. I’m not sure when I’ll surface from my pit, but it won’t be 8am, that’s a certainty.
I did describe myself to someone, after a particularly superb flounce on Thursday, as a world-class sulker. Difference between me and many others is I’ll admit I can be a right old stroppy sod. But this series is doing nothing for me. It changed tack a little more when the media strategy, about as transparent as the cleanest of windows, to build up to the World T20 announcement, and then throw Cook out to do his “aww shucks, down on the farm” routine, and I’m honest in that. Me and English cricket are currently in a phase of conscious uncoupling.
So while we look at the loss of Waitrose (worth reading George Dobell’s tweets on this) and the rearrangement of the deckchairs on SS Cricketer Magazine – and Evans-Tipping entrepreneured brilliantly – there’s a series to be decided. The essence is in the lack that this really matters. Do we care who won the deciders in our ODI series in the summer? Not really. We enjoyed it when we beat New Zealand, shrugged when we collapsed in a heap against the Aussies. It’s the overall, and I hate this phrase, “direction of travel” that matters. The Champions Trophy in 2017 is the target.
So enjoy this piece of cricketing fluff if you like – yeah, I know what I said before, but let’s face it, I have to face reality – and get involved emotionally if it’s your thing. I’ll be around mid-morning if you need me.
Meanwhile Adam Voges becomes the third man to make 239, while dropping his average below 100. Andy Ganteaume stands alone, still.
Just occasionally you get an ODI that’s genuinely gripping. They tend to be usually forgettable and in truth although this was a good example of the format, it still won’t be one that is recalled in a decade. It’s just the disposable nature of 50 over cricket.
Even so. This one see-sawed almost like a Test match, with England getting themselves into terrible trouble at 108-6 with only Hales and Root at that point making any impression on the game. Rabada had ripped through the England top order, not for the first time, and an early finish seemed on the cards.
Root got England up to a half reasonable total, aided by Woakes (who had a good game all round) and Rashid. Root’s century was in the circumstances an outstanding one, quite possibly the best he’s made in short form cricket. But even a total of 262 looked woefully inadequate, especially when the build up had been full of suggestions that 400 was a competitive score.
It didn’t quite turn out that way, as while the South African batsmen all made contributions, England kept chipping away. Broad took out Amla at the top of the order, while Duminy decided that if England couldn’t get De Villiers out then he could, running him out in spectacular style thanks to an athletic pick up and throw from Woakes. 143-5 and 210-8 left England hot favourites but a combination of an astounding innings from Chris Morris and some fairly poor bowling and fielding under pressure turned that around.
Rashid’s removal of Morris with the scores level made it interesting but he’d already won the game for his team, and Imran Tahir applied the coup de grace.
So it’s 2-2 going to Cape Town and all to play for. England will be scratching their heads about losing this one. From absolutely nowhere they got in position to take the series, and then it was taken away from them. That can happen, and they did at least give themselves the chance of a win by continuing to attack even from the wreckage of their innings at the mid point of the first dig. Equally, South Africa will feel that they both nearly threw it away, and also stole a game they had no right to win. How very odd all round.
In other news today, the ECB rather carelessly lost Waitrose as the team sponsor. According to the Mail, the supermarket both felt undervalued and ignored by the ECB, and we’re also unwilling to double the value of it as the ECB wanted. To add to that, they were apparently unimpressed that the ECB were trying to find new partners even before they’d decided not to renew. It is good to know that the ECB treat their sponsors with the same degree of contempt they do everyone else, and perhaps Waitrose too can now consider themselves Outside Cricket with everyone else.
No more Team Waitrose. I’m not sure who will be most relieved.
One other small item that came out of the Mail report was to say that the ECB lost a potentially “lucrative” sponsorship with Johnson’s Paint because of minimal TV coverage of the county game. Whether that means the small number of county matches currently on Sky, or the lack of a wider audience on a more open TV channel is open to question, but it seems both surprising and inept if it’s the former, as persuading Sky to cover additional county matches should have been well within their range of abilities.
After this week, if you can give a flying one about this match then good on you.
Because I don’t. Not today. I will be at one of my best mate’s leaving do and will not be watching a single ball of this. The game will not merit a mention at the do. I will check in to see how this is rumbling on, but even then, I’m not sure that I’ll have anything to say.
However, TLG advises me that he’ll be watching, so he’ll help you through the day. I’ve a lot spinning around in my head to write but I need to think a bit more.
But please, please, please. Don’t let me stop you. Comment away.
“This is not what you wanted. Nor what you had in mind” Moderat.
I have reason to believe that there is someone trying to bring the site down. It’s not paranoia, but we’ve got two very ominous click sources in the past 24 hours. If this site is to go down, we will revert to the old one.
Hopefully a false alarm. But I’m not so sure.
We’ll keep you informed.
UPDATE – No more attempts and speaking to an IT guy at work the threat is small. But if there is anything odd (and I don’t mean commenters) let me know.
I love my Ipod. It’s one of them 160GB classic Ipods. I bought it just before Apple, in their infinite wisdom thought that they were obsolete and decided it was all about those silly “minis” or “Iphones” or whatever. But I love walking out of my house every day, on the way to work, having the shuffle on for the 23k tracks there are on there and wondering “what will today throw up”? I mean, it’s not all great. ITunes is the spawn of satan, but you can’t have everything.
Anyway, I was walking into work and the news had broken a little before of the team for the World T20. I was checking the phone when the Carly Simon song with that well known Nile Rodgers riff came on. It’s as if the Ipod had the same thoughts as me. Why?
As I said on Twitter this morning, I am not a three year old. I knew he wasn’t going to be picked. If the people out there are dense enough to think that then they aren’t worthy of reading a single piece on here. But I still thought. Why?
After a work function in Park Lane, I rambled down Oxford Street, passing Grosvenor Square, looking at the building, thinking about the future. I was there to purchase my wife’s Valentine’s present (hope she likes it) and then wend my way home. On the bus I caught up with some of the correspondence on line, read some of the tweets, and felt like shit, to be honest.
Got to the station, and boarded it. Still head full of “what should I write”. I Whatsapped Chris and told him I probably wouldn’t be on tonight, and I probably shouldn’t be. Then, near the end of my train journey came on one of my favourite pieces of music of recent times.
It’s “And I Will Kiss” by Underworld. Or as it is better known worldwide as that music from the Pandemonium portion of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. And it takes me back. I’m an emotional sort, and that piece of music still brings a little tear to my eye. It is immense. It has everything in it. It was played when our country was being portrayed to the world. And it made me immensely proud to be British. It filled my heart and soul with a joy I can’t express. I wished my mum and dad were here to see the ceremony and hear the music. My brother, no lover of that thing, texted me to say it was amazing. He doesn’t say things like that. No matter what anyone else out there thought, my family loved it.
It lasts 19 minutes, and I’m listening to this music and just getting overwhelmed by it as I always do. Yes, a little alcohol might have assisted, but it generally doesn’t matter. And I go back to when it was released. A week before textgate and all that nonsense. While we were getting humped by South Africa and the scapegoating was in full effect. I thought of Andrew Strauss getting upset that KP was fraternising with key South African players, and then thinking “what do you think Ian Botham would have said to Strauss if he moaned about him being too close to Viv and Joel?”. But that’s by the by. It’s all moot now.
And the thing is that the swelling of pride in my country, the love of the music, the joy of the sport, ended. Two weeks of Mo, Vicky, Chris, Greg, Jess, Brad, Laura et al, and watching, in person, the GB women’s basketball team run the eventual silver medallists, France, so damn close, and then it was gone. Sure, it’ll all be repeated in Rio later this year, but it won’t all be here again. While that was going on, England’s cricket team went off the effing rails. The contrast was stark.
And I Will Kiss will remind me, did remind me of that. How, on the one hand, the country rallied behind the participants, not knowing personalities, not showing suspicions, but enjoying sport, while our precious cricket lot got into a spat and started leaking like a sieve. Like it always did.
And that brings me to the present. I really don’t like the ECB. They run the game like a fucking old boys club. There’s snobbery. There’s cowardice. Overall, there’s arrogance. They know that out there there are many, many cricket fans who would love to see the dust settle between the ECB and KP. There are a lot that don’t, but their needs have been more than catered for in the last two or so years. The dust isn’t settled by saying “sorry old chap, sorry you’ve cancelled a £200k contract on a wild goose chase, and made us look like muppets, but hey, how about a little part time job as a matter of goodwill?” but by being honest. Telling us what the trust issues are, not “I don’t want to get into that” which has been far too easy on them. But again, that’s for another day.
They know there are many KP fans out there. Their attitude towards them this week has been downright insulting. Eoin Morgan’s “that’s from me” without so much as an explanation was bad enough. Anyone who thinks I overdid it on the Outside Cricket Day yesterday, that’s why. It’s contemptuous. Then for Bayliss to say “his name never even came up” put the tin hat on it. So that’s that then. And you want me to put money in your coffers to watch you lot? I doubt that this even entered their mind. I find people with these sort of attitudes just don’t think like that. What can I say….
I’m not asking for him to be selected. I’m asking for some bloody openness and transparency. I’m asking for a cricket reporter, if there are still any out there, to do their damn job and get answers to the questions. TLG earlier made the eloquent point that this is about not selecting on merit. We’ve done that to death. This is about owing something to the supporters who wanted him back. Who want selection on merit. Who want to know what it was he did that was so wrong that he’s been blackballed and airbrushed from history. And no, it is not the book. That was not what got him sacked.
And so, when And I Will Kiss ended, this Ipod read my mind. As I walked down the hill to my house, there came on this…
Such a shame to believe in escape ‘A life on every face’, but that’s a change Until I’m finally left with an ‘8’ Tell me to relax, I just stare Maybe I don’t know if I should change A feeling that we share, it’s a shame
(Such a shame) Number me with rage, it’s a shame (Such a shame) Number me in haste (Such a shame) This eagerness to change It’s a shame
The dice decide my fate, that’s a shame In these trembling hands my faith Tells me to react, I don’t care Maybe it’s unkind if I should change A feeling that we share, it’s a shame
England announced their squad for March’s World T20, making a late bid to match their previous and astounding heights of omnishambles over the last few years. The selection of Liam Dawson, apparently on the back of a good Lions tour, is certainly eyebrow raising. Trevor Bayliss’ swiftly made it clear one way or the other than if it all goes horribly wrong it ain’t down to him guv, by openly stating he hadn’t seen him play and that he was trusting the selectors. The tone is so often the giveaway, and saying he was a good fielder “apparently” spoke volumes. Of course, it’s not remotely Dawson’s fault, and he will be rightly thrilled and excited at his call up. That James Whitaker stated it was on the back of the Lions tour may have been because it’s rather hard to state it was due to last year’s T20 blast when he failed to take a wicket. Stephen Parry can count himself unfortunate.
Dawson may well go on to be a success, and there is nothing at all wrong with selections based on a hunch that the player will go well, but there is the suspicion that he will be little more than drinks carrier on this trip.
Broad too has been omitted, which rather makes his call up to the ODI series in South Africa somewhat peculiar, as he could have been given the time off to recover if he wasn’t going to be in the squad. As it stands, and given he isn’t playing in that series so far, it seems pointless to make England’s key Test bowler hang around.
The selectors have managed to thoroughly pretend the various T20 competitions going on around the world don’t exist by ignoring Luke Wright. England play too few T20 matches for there to be a pattern of international success to draw upon, and Wright is unquestionably a specialist in this form of the game.
And then there’s Kevin Pietersen. His non-selection is a surprise to no-one, but the idea that England have six better T20 batsmen to draw upon is laughable. It is thus a team selection for reasons other than cricketing ones. Some will approve of that, many will not. No one will be shocked, but the ECB once again are making it clear that teams are not decided on what players can do on the field. They could have made the argument that they felt others would be more effective, which would be open to question, but a cricketing decision. Instead they said that he wasn’t even discussed, and thus confirming the point that cricketing matters were not the focus. As ever, the point is not about one player’s presence or otherwise, but what that means for all others going forward – if they don’t like you, then no matter how many runs or wickets you might take, you will not get in the side.
Some have suggested that England are amongst the favourites for the tournament, but the bowling looks somewhat thin for India conditions. Even so, in competition cricket, they may well find a way, for not too many would have pointed to Ryan Sidebottom being so outstanding in the one global tournament England have ever won. Steven Finn is in the squad despite his injury, and he is the one member of that attack shorn of Stuart Broad who looks a wicket-taker, his fitness is critical to England’s chances.
The fundamental objection to the ECB remains that they would prefer not to give themselves the best chance of winning something, in favour of internal politics.
Thought I’d stick up some more of my snaps to finish the day. There’s no match report today as both TLG and I saw none of the game….
Cricket at Tunbridge WellsHundred Up for Alviro PetersenJacques Kallis – 2012Graham Napier in his six-hitting masterclass at WhitgiftTrent Bridge – England v New Zealand – 2008Ramps
Since my blogging got more attention than the one man and his dog prior to the KP announcement, it’s been a question nagging me more and more. “What’s the point? Have I lost the point? Is the point different?”
A warning up front here. This is a long and quite self-indulgent piece, but blogging is self-indulgent. I had a lot of doubts about publishing it, but so what. Let’s go for it. That’s what blogging is about. But what is the point of doing it?
It is actually quite an easy one to answer, but I tend to over-complicate it. For large parts of the time, the point is…. I enjoy it. I love writing about the sport that I played as a bumbling amateur for years. I love the sport that brought me the closest of friends. I love the sport that energised the spark in me to travel. It was the sport I loved to take pictures of. It had a camaraderie of its own. I followed a football team home and away for 15 or so years, and never really got that. But cricket did, and it did bring a joy in me to write about it. Even in times of complete anger, it was good to get it off my chest.
And yet often there’s a feeling of some emptiness in doing this. A huge frustration that the point will always be lost. The point that it resonates, if at all, infrequently. This isn’t some cry for influence, some desperate attempt to be relevant at some thing or other. It’s about putting out my voice and seeing what resonates and what doesn’t, which I did for years without a hit, but wrote some of my best stuff.
It’s not about him…no matter how much they tell me it is.
This isn’t about the dropping and exile of one player, which has been a catalyst, but never the main point. It isn’t even about berating the ECB for their latest nonsense. It’s about what sport has become. A business. A product. Something to monetise. Personified by the suits that run the game. A budding management consultant as our Director, waffling on about trust. A former TV sports rights negotiator now in charge of the ECB’s operations. A bloody supermarket owner, who the ECB owe(d) money to, as the Chairman. And Giles Clarke – laughed off by the Guardian as a pet store owner. These are the insiders. The main men.
Who am I? What was I? I was a crap club cricketer, and an even worse schoolboy one. I was an opening batsman for much of my playing days. I bowled only if the game was dead, or on a skipper’s hunch. I wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t very bad. Being an opener requires something else, I think. I’m by no means a driven individual, but you need to have some sort of bloody-mindedness to stay up the top of the order. A great friend of mine had a completely different approach to opening than I did. His view was that it gave him the maximum time to score his runs. He always was a team player, but he had his own personal goals. My approach was “please don’t get out for 0”. Then, please get to 10. Then 20, and then I’d lose count many times, and my objective was to not be too slow. I never made a hundred, and I think my playing life is enriched by not reaching my goal. A true metaphor for life.
The other thing with being an opener, and a non-bowler (and someone who hated fielding) is that my day could be effectively over one minute into the match. But I also knew that if I made it through the opening spell, I’d made my runs against the best bowlers. I never really looked forward to playing, yet I loved playing. I was always scared of failure, but I loved some successes. I never wanted to be someone put out in front, but in my one full season as captain, we lost just one game all year and enjoyed it. I think those characteristics are the same as in blogging. You do it because you enjoy it, but the process is tiresome, there is a fear of failure, and when you hit the spot, it’ll count for sod all if you mess up next week.
The thing with being a very ordinary club cricketer is that when you watch those so gifted players at the top level, you just shake your head. I will take an example where we faced a bowler measured in the low 80 mph. I never bloody saw it for four balls. I’m jealous at their ability to be able to do what I could not possibly hope to master. But I also saw it as a gift, to watch those top players, and to see their skills. What I could not abide, even at club level, was petty politics, and people caring only about getting a game for their tenner. I also hated cliques, favouritism and stupidity (some of which I was guilty of). I think you see some of that driving me on here.
I think the thing that riles me the most is the playing of any cricket being seen as a “job”. I’m lucky. I have a nice job doing things that can bring good to people. But it’s a job. Cricket is a profession, but it isn’t work (and yes, you can accuse me of naivety). Or it shouldn’t be. I’ve seen a couple of comments on my “Outside Cricket” piece referring to the dismissal of KP as “office politics”, and while Kev and Paddy are two guys I’d willingly have a beer with, I nearly swore on the 9:04. This shouldn’t be about office politics, should it? It shouldn’t be about corporate PR, should it? It shouldn’t be about anything other than putting the best players on the park. It shouldn’t be about anything other than being clear as to what has gone on.
The responsibility isn’t to cover up your own tracks, but to be open and honest. Your responsibility isn’t to rake in the cash, but to protect the sport and those two things are most definitely not the same. Secrecy begets suspicion begets mistrust and for people like me, it makes me want to know what is going on. Money doesn’t kill sport, but the attitude to it does. It divides. The excellent back and forth between David Oram and Amit on “The Phantom Menace” is an example. Money and power, sport and politics (my thanks to both, by the way).
So for me blogging like this sort of comes down to being an opening batsman. I’m not the most talented, or the most outrageous. I’m not the most confident, or the most agile. I’m not going to win you many games, but I can bloody well assist those who can. I’m also not going to back down easily. I might lick my wounds and want to move down the order for a while, but there’s nothing like that rock hard ball on my bat. In blogging terms, getting a post that hits the spot is the same as that pull shot off the opening bowler. Getting something wrong is like running out your premier batsman in a tight run chase.
Brendon McCullum playing one of those shots…..
When I did play, I found like I was thinking too much. Dreaming of shots I couldn’t play. When an opposition sledged, and in one case, really pretty appallingly, it made me concentrate. It made me focus much harder and fight harder. Again there are a number of parallels with the blogging world – the useless taunts and crappy barbs of those who, for whatever reason, despise my right to say what I think – but it’s not that simple. On the field you are never looking to win those opponents over, but you don’t feel that much anger towards them 99% of the time. But I do want to win the battle of minds over these views and this does lead to anger.
There is a point to this, so please stick with it! The thing with writing something like this blog is everyone is looking for “my angle”. What’s “your agenda”? We’ve had this discussion already. There’s no agenda, just a reaction to action, which have consequences and effect. The consequences of the actions have meant I don’t watch England cricket matches now with an all consuming desire that we win that game. Do not confuse this with me wanting us to lose, which is what the brainless think. They prefer to sit on their prejudices and believe it is all about the KP issue, which is easy, because it causes them not to think. Simple messages. Black and white.
Those that engage with me on here, and I don’t bite unless you pull my tail, find I’m not the person they thought I would be. I have my doubts. I’ve had a pretty famous cricket writer, for instance, tell me “why do you waste your time on journalists, when you are a far better writer than they are, and no-one gives a shit what they think”. My reaction to that was to say the individual was wrong, and it isn’t false modesty. But my best writing is when I’m most angry, and for a while, it was the journalists who made me angry. But there were a lot of people who speak to me on DM who think, I believe I’m not the “baby eater”!
So, I’m a useless, but keen player, who opened because he blunted the attack for better players. I value the sport for the camaraderie and friends, and for helping me to see some of the world. I admire the top players for their immense skill, but hate it being referred to as a job. I concentrate when attacked, I write better when I’m angry. You want my agenda, that is it. A mixture, a mismatch of aims and ideals, an outlet for frustrations, a chance to have a say. But absolutely, totally, sure that this is nothing special. That this happened a lot by chance.
I’m the bad guy, the fruitfly, the problem. Not this chap.
There is no point for people who don’t understand that I can write this blog without needing to have any “attention” that goes with it. There is no point in trying to persuade those who singularly will not even countenance a debate, no matter how they try to say that they do. There is a point though when, as I felt very strongly at the time, and still do, that I am “outside cricket”. How dare they say that after all cricket has done for me (and for countless others who played for the love of the game). How fucking dare they. Angus Porter said that the comment implied “elitism”, and he was one of the co-signatories to it. So don’t tell me I’m imagining things. I know they were after one person, but in doing so they besmirched everyone outside their cosy little coterie. This isn’t the stuff of corporate PR, because, as was shown, it was an unmitigated disaster. This isn’t the stuff of competence. I cannot speak, I do not speak, for all of you, but when I faced an 80 mph quick bowler, far above my ability, without a helmet (couldn’t bat in one), that the governing body could, a decade later, say someone like me, like Piers Morgan, a club cricketer, is outside cricket, it cut. It cut very, very badly. It told me they didn’t give a fuck. They really didn’t. And who were they to determine that?
I remember, a couple of years ago now, popping down to The Oval for the season opener against Somerset. At this stage Jos had broken into the England limited over teams and was seen as a T20 assassin in the English competition. This picture, of him not particular flattering pose, was tkaen then. I think Jade Dernbach dismissed him. He was an ODI player too! How fondly we remember that.
England look to ride the Buttler Bus all the way to a series win. His mind is uncluttered, free from the stick or twist nature of test cricket for the time being, a purchased star for the biggest stage of all. His century in the first game was the key cog in a 400 innings (call me a liar for a run) and his tour de force finish in the second game, making Imran Tahir look like the sort of stuff I used to dreg up in the intra-club games. He seems a decent, self-effacing chap, the sort that us English quite like. Be really good, but don’t be too damn flash about it.
Alex Hales played a really decent innings on Saturday, and yes, he became the first man to make 99 at ODI and T20 level, and I’m hoping that he’ll go on and become the man to set us up at the top of the order. Jason Roy showed what I think most Surrey fans know – he’s a definite hit or miss player, but the hits are really worth it. The gate between his bat and pad when Abbott dismissed him last weekend was quite alarming which should be Exhibit A for any people tempted to think he might be the next taxi on the rank for the test opener slot. But Jason is box office, and I’m hoping we treat him better than we did Ally Brown back in the day.
The bowling did well on Saturday and kept the South Africans to a total that could be managed. I think we all know that this part of the team is a work in progress, but in Adil and Moeen, we have two spinners who I don’t mind having in the team going into the upcoming World T20.
We meet again in Centurion, on the High Veldt, and while not the home to the fearsome totals at Friday’s location, it still poses a great test. The home team are giving off the vibe that they are in a state of flux, and it is England’s time to pounce.
Being Outside Cricket 