2015 Ashes

State of Play

thelegglance30 Comments

The gap between Tests reduces to some extent the frenetic nature of the media as far as cricket goes, and allows a little time for reflection about where we are more generally, and how we got here.

Although it’s fairly rare to offer up any praise for the ECB (for the simple reasons that they tend to both incompetence and duplicitousness, which is rarely a good combination), it is worth noting that Women’s Ashes matches have been scheduled for between the men’s Tests.  For once they have it right, as it’s far more likely to gain attention that way.  It says a fair bit about the ECB that the overriding reaction to seeing such a piece of consummate common sense is surprise.  Generating that interest creates a feedback loop, as shown by Sussex announcing that the T20 at Hove is nearly sold out.

The rise of women’s cricket in England is a fascinating development.  It’s one that the ECB pat themselves on the back for an awful lot, and it has to be said they have played a significant part in that, although women’s participation in what were traditionally male sports has shown a significant rise across the board, from the success of the football team to the way the women’s Six Nations is now covered on television and gets decent crowds.  In rugby, the RFU have gone as far as to schedule some matches directly after the men at Twickenham, something the ECB have also done beforehand with some England games, and with the same kind of success.  As a means of allowing the more casual supporter to watch, it’s obviously highly successful.  But what it also means is that cricket is not a discrete entity in this; women’s sport is gaining an attention that would have seemed highly unlikely a generation ago.  Quite why that might be is a little hard to pin down, much of it being for sociological reasons as to the acceptability of women playing such sports – good to know we’re in the 21st century at last.  The ECB are entitled to be pleased, but when seen in the context that the number of women playing football is shortly to overtake the number of men playing cricket, it raises as many questions as it answers about their role as governors of the English game.

Nevertheless, whatever provided the catalyst, and whatever the context of cricket more generally, the ECB have certainly played their part in helping growth in women’s cricket.  Free kit has been distributed to clubs, and free coaching and umpires courses provided for women who wish to make use of them.  That does represent something of a contrast in how it is for men wishing to do the same, and the costs involved tend to be significantly higher (and with less given back) than the football equivalents.  Many clubs offset that cost themselves, in order to encourage their members to gain their qualifications, but it is still a lot of money.

What doesn’t get mentioned much (and here the ECB aren’t alone by any means, it is taken for granted across both sport and other walks of life) is that any success requires people on the ground to volunteer and give up huge amounts of time to help encourage people to play the game.  The decline of schools cricket is often cited as being disastrous in this, yet in comparing what was available 25 years ago to what is available now, the clubs have more than filled that gap.  As someone who attended a cricket playing state school, the coaching was non-existent (and the county paid little attention to the state schools there anyway – in that little has changed) while only one local club had a thriving youth section – indeed only one local club even tried to create a thriving youth section.  Moving forward to the present day, it is truly astonishing to see medium sized clubs having colts evenings comprising up to a hundred youngsters of an evening, and a plethora of qualified coaches to help them.  It is, of course, enlightened self-interest from the clubs; shorn of a supply of schoolboy cricketers, they are producing their own.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that for a child who has shown an interest in cricket (therein lies a different debate), the opportunities for playing are now markedly more plentiful than they were in the 1980s.  So far so good, with the obvious concomitant opportunities for cricket more widely.

With both boys and girls cricket, those volunteers are the heroes and heroines.  Many clubs simply decided they wished to create a women’s and girls’ section, and worked ridiculously hard to try and make it work.  Many male players will be familiar with making up the numbers in the initial stages until sufficient players of the correct sex were available.  It is there where the ECB provided some support, a little of it directly, more of it via the counties.  Let there be no mistake, that support was and is critical, but it is still the uncredited hard workers that form the backbone of every cricket club who have made it happen, almost always unappreciated higher up in the game.  The ECB and the counties have been facilitators of an existing desire, not the creators of it.  Given the sheer number of clubs it couldn’t be any other way, but that’s where the balance lies, not in initiatives from the ECB.  Like any organisation, self-justification is part of the marketing, but agreeing that they deserve some credit is not the same as allowing them to take it all.

There is another side issue that affects both male and female youth cricket, and that’s the way funding and support is channelled through the counties.  Girls cricket provides a fascinating insight into the methods of boys cricket as well, given that it was essentially a tabula rasa upon the foundation of the structures.  Some of the counties are excellent, and it’s striking how many cricketers at the top level they are producing, notably Durham.  Others are not.  There is sufficient anecdotal evidence that some counties wish to work with a very small number of clubs in their Premier League alone, and ignore the rest.  That manifests itself in pushing even 12 year olds of promise, boy or girl, to the big clubs in the county, where they can be watched by the county structure.  The frustration for the majority is that there is little point in focusing on producing the best players they can, if the first time they come into contact with the county, that county tells them to leave and go somewhere else.  It becomes a parasitical relationship rather than one of mutual support.  Now of course, as that youngster develops, there comes a point where they need to be exposed to the highest level of club cricket possible, if they are to make it to the professional ranks, and every club is – or should be – fully aware of that.  But that isn’t what is occurring in at least some of the counties, they are attempting to hoover up every single promising player and divert them from their home club at the earliest possible age to a bigger one.  If this was happening to a tiny village club with one eleven, you could almost understand it, but it isn’t, it applies to clubs who are playing in the county league cricket structure and by any measure are good, strong cricket clubs.

The Sky Millions question is: how widespread is this?  It is dangerous to extrapolate anecdotal experiences with reality, but it is a complaint heard sufficiently to cause deep concern.  The trouble is that few people have direct experience of multiple county structures, so one that doesn’t behave in this way would be seen as doing things extremely well by those living in a “good” county without being aware of the circumstances elsewhere – and vice versa.  In at least some of the counties, and perhaps more, the club game is treated as something of a hindrance, except as a means of extracting the best players out of it and into the arms of the county.

That attitude towards the clubs at the ECB and the counties is evidenced by the complete lack of representation of the amateur game within its own governing body.  It is striking that the much maligned FA has much greater representation outside the professional game than the ECB does.  A cricket club needs to be affiliated to the ECB but has no power of influence over it.  There is a single representative from the recreational game on the board, and that one person wasn’t elected by any clubs, but is an appointee.  Equally, there is little or no oversight for how a county fulfils its obligations to the clubs in its area, which means it is reliant on them doing so in the wider interest rather than their own.  The clear decline in participation can be for any number of reasons on an individual level, but when there’s a pattern more widely, questions need to be asked why.  It would be easy to point to the loss of terrestrial TV coverage, and undoubtedly that will have played a part, but it is much more complex than that.

Where this has relevance as we move up through the levels of cricket is in terms of affecting the quality of the player base from which the counties and then England can select.  As has been pointed out on a number of occasions, up to seven of the England eleven are public schoolboys.  In some instances they are scholarship boys, quite possibly because of their cricket prowess in the first place.  This isn’t a class based point, or a political one, but the reality is that with 93% of children going to state schools, there is clearly an enormous wastage of basic talent.  That has to be balanced with the reality that with excellent facilities, the public schoolboy has likely far better access to cricket as a matter of course.  It’s not an either/or and it’s not a straightforward criticism.  What it is though, is extremely careless to have failed to make the most of the vast majority, in a way that football tends to avoid.  And that’s without taking into account the worrying lack of Asian talent making it to the top level given the proportion of club cricket that comprises.  The clubs are developing young cricketers in greater numbers than they ever have before, athought there is inevitably wastage as they grow up, and inevitably some parents will regard it as a useful form of free babysitting.  The volunteers and the clubs themselves are more than aware of that, but do it anyway because of the small percentage who will stay with the club into adulthood.  If the clubs themselves are providing the basic numbers, then at some point as the standard increases, they are falling by the wayside as a proportion of the whole.

With the Edgbaston Test approaching, the dropping of Gary Ballance for Jonny Bairstow has been accompanied by a sideline that there aren’t too many alternatives to choose from.  There is obviously the pachyderm hovering which must not be mentioned, but even in that instance, the point of origin for that player is South Africa.  Since he arrived as a 19 year old off-spinner, a strong case can be made that he learned to become the player he was in England rather than anywhere else, yet the formative years weren’t here.  Indeed the same applies to Ballance himself who learned his cricket in Zimbabwe.  The county system itself looks in both directions, both up to England level and down to club level.  If done well, that link can be invaluable, if done badly, it’s a matter of self-interest rather than the greater good.  England are always going to have some input from places like South Africa for obvious historical reasons, the number of overseas British passport holders is enormous, and the county game offers the potential for a good living.  Some object to the importation of such players who then turn out for England, but given the rules, which are stricter in England than they need to be internationally, there is nothing wrong with England choosing them, and in any case someone who moves across the world to make their career as a teenager is clearly a driven individual.

No, this isn’t about the use of such players per se, but why it is that without them England would be so markedly weaker, why we aren’t producing enough players of the requisite standard ourselves, and why we don’t produce the exceptional players that other countries seem to.

A little over a year ago, an article appeared in Cricinfo from a father talking about the experience of his son, who hadn’t been part of the age group sides, but had developed later on his county trial.  For those who missed it, it is well worth reading again in its entirety:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/thestands/content/story/717821.html

On its own, a single article like that means little, but the trouble was that it very clearly chimed with a great many others.  It was a small article, somewhat hidden away, and within the depressingly small confines of those interested in cricket, received a lot of attention.

Even if they can still think for themselves, they won’t be allowed to if they want to progress. Their whole lives will be structured by a battalion of experts for every eventuality, and should they speak up against it, they will be labelled “a divisive influence”, “a rebellious individual”, or most worryingly of all, “not a team player”.

The relentless focus on fitting in with what those above wished, the intolerance of individuality, and the requirement for a player to be coached to meet the narrow definitions of the approved cricketing path, rather than trying to get the most out of them is a complaint heard all too often, even in the national set up.  This is the other side of the coin from the counties themselves trying to drive the direction of youth cricketers from a very young age.  A child whose parent resists the push to move to a bigger club at an early age is already risking being marked out as part of the awkward squad, with all that entails.

Recently, he trialled with a first-class county, and after a single session lasting less than three hours, he was left injured and demoralised for more than a week afterwards. The injuries were because the session seemed to be less about cricket and far more about physical punishment. If a bowler failed to hit the cone, hurdle or pole that was acting as a target in the drill in question, he faced punishment. If a batsman failed to hit the bowling machine ball back between the cones provided, he would face punishment. If a fielder failed to complete the drill faultlessly, he would go back to the queue, because for the second half of the session, fielding drills were the punishment.

Allowances in that particular article need to be made for someone being a father to his son; the trouble was the lack of outrage from other counties, and the lack of anyone coming forward to say that it was an entirely isolated incident.  Indeed, just the opposite, with even some coaches lamenting that their own experiences in the centres of excellence mirrored it exactly.  Few allowances are made for players developing at different rates in the first place, if anything it was something of a surprise that an older player who hadn’t been through the county process got as far as getting a trial in the first place.

There’s a degree of irony in this.  When England talk about “executing their skills” ad nauseam, what is clear that those skills form a smaller part of the development of young players than might be thought.  English cricket – and the clubs are no more immune to this criticism than those above – has a terrible tendency to focus on what someone cannot do rather than what they can.  It is indicative that it is somewhat hard to imagine a Steve Smith, with a highly unconventional technique, making it to the top level without someone trying to force him to do what everyone else does, and probably failing.  A wise man once said that the skill of coaching was to ensure a player became the best he could be, and that doesn’t mean making that player fit in to preconceived ideas and micro-managing every aspect of their lives beyond the nets.

The danger for women’s cricket is that this template is being duplicated at every level.  From a low base, this probably doesn’t matter in the immediate term, but it seems too much to hope that lessons are being learned.

None of this should be seen as a criticism of the selection of Bairstow, his record this season merits consideration, and he is clearly steeped in cricket from birth, both directly and indirectly.  It is a matter of closing the circle from the lowest levels on the village green to the Test arena, whereby England are able to select from the widest and deepest talent pool available.  Whether it is the bowling attack, or the batting line up, the cry that often goes up is that is all too samey.  Yet this is hardly surprising given all the above.  Talented players are pushed the same way, to the same circumstances, and the same end result.  And ultimately we end up with an England team where the batsmen tend to be very similar, and so do the bowlers.  It is perhaps unsurprising in that context, that the county who are often seen as creating a template for producing players who exist on their own merits – Durham – are also the one who create players who reach England level that have quirky personalities and techniques that have been largely left alone.  It is furthermore disappointing to see that someone instrumental in that, Graeme Fowler, felt the need to stand down in protest at the direction the university cricket centre was going in.

In recent times one of the more striking things about the England team has been the peculiar joylessness in their play.  If the likes of the article above are true about how the various development centres are run, it is unsurprising that this would be the case, players pushed in a certain direction from a very young age, forced to operate with narrow parameters lest they be considered unable to toe the line or form part of the group, and prevented from expressing themselves in their play.  Of course, the New Zealand series showed that this doesn’t need to be so, yet the last Test showed worrying signs of a reversion to the mean, although a single match shouldn’t in itself be viewed as any kind of trend.  The challenge for Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace would then be far more extensive than simply to allow England players to express themselves, it would be to undo half a lifetime of being trammeled and restricted.

This doesn’t mean for a moment that those players in the England set up are therefore unhappy, but it does take a particular type of person to operate in the kind of environment cricket in England works in.  The problem is not those players who have made it, but those who have not.  How many talented players are lost at every stage due to it?  Falling by the wayside is inevitable, not making the most of what you have is criminal.   Whether at 12 years old or 25 years old, a one size fits all approach cannot work, it simply produces those who are pre-disposed to fit the prevailing culture.  And that’s all very well, but you end up with an England side who are the products of that, with all the limitations therein.  One of the most striking things about l’affaire Pietersen is that he so plainly didn’t fit into the box into which the ECB wanted to put him.  When that same perspective pervades the entire game, then suspicions start to arise that the ECB itself is a major part of the problem.

It is highly unlikely that the ECB are doing anything except that which they feel to be the best overall.  But the tail wags the dog, with the counties having the overriding power.  Where this ties in as at both ends of the game’s spectrum.  The wider club game is often viewed as a chore within the counties, hence the desire to compact it to as few clubs as possible, while the England team is not the focus except inasmuch as it benefits those counties, especially financially.  That being the case, from youth to senior professional, the counties play their role well, producing significant numbers of county level professionals, of whom England select the best at playing county cricket.  The trouble is, that is not the same as producing the best possible players.  And this is completely inevitable, because although some would doubtless protest at the way they are being painted here, any organisation will gear itself to the promotion of its primary aim, irrespective of what they might say that aim is.   How that translates in terms of the financial distribution of the money brought into will be the subject of a future blog.

Women’s cricket is in an expansion phase where there is optimism about the direction in which it is moving.  But by doing it the same way as they are with the men, the potential for the same shortcomings is clearly there.  The men’s team will play the best available team (with arguably one exception) who will do the best that they can.  But why they are the best we have is a subject that reaches right the way down to the park and the village green, and ultimately, England get what they have worked for since the players were children.  The problem is, that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

@BlueEarthMngmnt

Liquefied Natural Gas

LordCanisLupus52 Comments

By way of entertainment, I’ve been reading some of our old favourite’s work so you don’t have to.

Who might that be, you ask?

Fox Sports Australia regrets latest appointment
Fox Sports Australia regrets latest appointment

Yes, our old man who used to be at the Telegraph, a man who topped our polls for worst journalist on a regular basis, and yes, who deemed us poor saps who write using blog names as “irrelevances” has got himself an Ashes gig with Fox Sports Australia. In return for some coinage to recompense him for his views and insight, Oman’s cricket consultant (what, you didn’t know) has regaled those Down Under with some tremendous insight.

Here’s something from a piece just after Cardiff…

If England were not quite wetting themselves at the prospect of facing Mitchell Johnson and all the other Mitchells currently operating with menace, they were pretty apprehensive about it. But a Cardiff pitch shorn of pace, especially in the middle where the main Mitchell is most effective, brought about a double play after England’s victory – simultaneously raising the home side’s spirits while depressing Australia’s, a situation obvious to anyone who watched the past few days’ play.

Suddenly Alastair Cook and his men know there is little to fear, providing climate change doesn’t accelerate like Lewis Hamilton and turn the pitches rock hard overnight. Facing fast bowlers without fear gnawing at you is bolstering in a way that is hard to explain to those who have never been pinned to the crease by 90mph thunderbolts aimed at your throat.

I love hindsight. Yes, I was going on about distress signals, but also, this is a tough bunch of professionals now, not some flaky old players with no recent success behind them and I recognised that. I suppose the Aussie audience want some good old fashioned Pommie jingoism, Muppet…

Tours can unravel at an alarming speed when they start as badly as this one has done for Australia. Teams can play poorly, that is the nature of sport, but it cannot help that Clarke, with his chronic back problems, and several other senior players are on their last Ashes tour.

This is it now. All first test malaises are to be measured about a tour that unravelled spectacularly with our lot. You note that Australia lost the first two over here last time and definitely had the better of the third and to a lesser degree the fifth tests because they did not collapse. It does not follow that Australia will act like England did 18 months ago. However, in lazy journo mode, this is the only precedent, it seems, worth considering.

As a captain heading for the exit and no doubt worn down by the prospect of being the first Australian to lose four Ashes series in England, any further setbacks could see him move on mentally to the next phase of his career.

I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like Michael Clarke to me. What say you?

Maybe Shane Warne’s claim that Starc is ‘soft’ will pique him into declaring himself fit.

Oh yeah. That would do it. Wouldn’t be a muppet piece without some snark.

England, hugely buoyed by their swaggering victory, will also take heed of the recent past. They went one-nil up against New Zealand earlier this summer only to be hauled back to parity in the second Test. Yet that was before Trevor Bayliss had settled onto his perch on the dressing-room balcony, an Aussie hawk to lend talons to Cook’s English dove.

Finally, Cardiff, despite being an opening Test, felt like a watershed moment. During the Ashes series six years ago, Cook’s predecessor Andrew Strauss announced that Australia had lost their aura, and was proved right. Expect Cook to advance that claim again.

I do miss him at the Telegraph. It felt like a watershed, there’s a hawk for poor ickle Ally’s little precious dove (the deer shooting callous bastard). Beautiful. Brings a tear to my eye.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/the-ashes/ashes-2015-england-knows-theres-little-to-fear-from-australias-quicks-writes-derek-pringle/story-e6frf3gl-1227439838392

But there’s a lot more. There’s a podcast that I’m sorry, you can’t pay me enough to listen to. My eyes are sore enough as it is without feeling the need to stick nails in them listening to this man’s wit and wisdom. So I’ll read some more…

OUCH, that hurt.

Mitchell Johnson may not have bruised many England bodies at Lord’s, but his fast aggressive bowling broke their resolve.

Three wickets did not do his savage brilliance justice, but Australia will tell you it is a team game and the other bowlers certainly benefited from his efforts as England’s second innings disintegrated in a measly 37 overs.

You changed fast, Muppet.

Less edifying is the sight of craven capitulation, something England were guilty of and something their selectors have a fortnight to come to terms with.

Getting bowled out in the fewest overs ever in the fourth innings in a Test at Lord’s has created an unholy mess and James Whitaker and his panel must now figure out how, and who, they need to cope with Mitch and the other Mitchells.

It will not be simple.

Three of England’s top four are ailing badly though there are hardly a plethora of worthy candidates bashing down the door.

Less a watershed, more a boggy swamp. One week eh? Needed rock hard pitches, eh? No-one seemed to consider the Aussies came into the first test a little undercooked, did they?

Now, there are hardly a plethrora of worthy candidates bashing down the door. That’s partly because the ECB locked one in the cellar and chucked away the key, the duplicitous lying bastards. There is no way this Muppet will mention his name. Here comes the insight:

Jonny Bairstow reached a hundred for Yorkshire the exact moment Jos Buttler edged Johnson to Peter Nevill and has been in purple form all summer.

But it wasn’t long ago he was discounted for Test cricket because of a problem against the short ball.

The Romans may not have minded one-sided contests in the colosseum, but unless Bairstow has overcome his apprehension against the bouncer it would be cruel to pitch him against Johnson in this mood.

There will be advocates for batsmen like Alex Hales and James Taylor, but neither has done well for Nottinghamshire in red ball cricket this season.

James Vince, from Hampshire, has been on the fringes of England selection and can pull well, but like most young players he is the spawn of T20.

“The spawn of T20” being spat out like it’s vile. David Warner is the spawn of T20. One could argue Virat Kohli is. Our wicket-keeper made his name in T20. Why the bile, Degsy?

I thought I’d also highlight this magnificent piece of muppetry that I want to stick on a plinth and polish every day:

In another era Ben Stokes would have been dropped for sheer stupidity after he was run out by Johnson, a dismissal that would not have occurred had he the whit to ground his bat.

Stokes is a huge talent but will never fully realise it while he refuses to engage his grey matter in the sporting process.

There it is. Right there. What is wrong with English cricket. People who write this absolute fuckwittery retain paid positions.

Australia now have all their batsmen, Clarke perhaps the exception though he did make an unbeaten 32 setting the target, and all their main bowlers, confident and firing.

Suddenly, the woes of the world are England’s — a feeling Cook and some of his players know only too well when it comes to Ashes cricket.

A week is a long time in cricket. So it is in cricket writing.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/england-eye-michell-johnson-breaks-england-resolve-with-savage-fast-bowling/story-e6frf3g3-1227448731650

Do you want more?

How about this from Day 2 of the 1st Test:

It looked like hopeful thinking until Smith, who came into the series with some serious plaudits about being the best batsman in world cricket, got in a horrible tangle and poked the ball to Alastair Cook at short mid-wicket, instantly transporting England’s captain into the realms of tactical genius.

Yes. Good captaincy, good field position, snark at Smith, job done. Smoke blown up Cooky’s backside. Lovely.

Next – how about Derek’s marks out of 10…

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/the-ashes/ashes-2015-derek-pringles-england-report-card-from-second-test-at-lords/story-e6frf3gl-1227450609751

I think some of this is accurate, but some of the digs…well….

At the moment he looks jittery at the crease and is not watching the ball, a problem Mark Ramprakash, England’s batting coach, also suffered from when uptight, which was most of the time.

No personal vendetta there given who he replaced, Muppet?

But 128 runs in his last 12 Test innings suggests chances aplenty and the selectors should move on.

Remember, there are no replacements. So drop him (Bell).

He has tired quickly during series before and it may be that back-to-back Tests hit him hard.

Someone check that out with Root. Thought it was technical issues and opening/ number 3 in previous series v Australia, but swear he got a big hundred in the 5th test at The Oval last year, didn’t he? Where’s this nonsense come from?

Three ratings for Stokes, a supremely gifted cricketer though one you would not necessarily want in your pub quiz team.

Being in your pub quiz team = a requirement for great test teams. You snob.

Trouble is idiotic tendencies do overcome him, like his naive run-out in the second innings where he failed to ground his bat despite being well in.

His dismissal did not make a difference to the result but its carefree nature was suggestive of a team who does not give a fig about losing and England supporters won’t tolerate that.

You see, the one thing I think about Ben Stokes is that he doesn’t give a toss. All that anger and rage in him, shows up his lack of giving a toss. What the effing hell is this muppet on about? He made a mistake running between the wickets. Jesus. It’s hardly a death penalty offence. But no, he’s a bit rough round the edges, a bit angry, a bit not my type, so the lectures rain down on him. Stokes had better watch out, because they need a new KP, and he’s prime candidate.

Blue-eyed boy, literally and metaphorically. Or at least he was until his star began to wane to the point where he has made just two significant Test scores (fifty plus) in his last 11 innings.

More famous in the last Test when he walked, Adam Gilchrist-style after nicking off to Nathan Lyon, but wicketkeepers have always been strange beasts. His ‘keeping has been decent enough but he needs to deliver a telling knock soon.

This is drivel. Pure drivel.

Another with two ratings but another cricketing schizophrenic. He carried the home side’s attack manfully on an unresponsive pitch (at least for England’s bowlers) yet he appears to have excused himself from getting stuck in with the bat.

His shot-a-ball insouciance, when England could have done with some hard grind, was inexcusable except in the second innings when the end was nigh. A classy Test bowler but a vaudeville act with the bat.

He’s resorting to madness now.

Wonderful stuff. As I say, I miss him. Like a dog misses fleas. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The more you read of this, the more gems. Some more from other articles…

The other predictable outcome was that Ian Bell is too good a player not to make a major contribution, eventually, having been in deep torpor since last summer.

I’d love thepoetseye to do a job on that shite.

Then there’s talent spotting:

Smith came into the series being lauded by his countrymen as the greatest batsman currently in world cricket. He made 33 in each innings but to this observer he looks too fidgety to be worthy of such a grand claim. His dismissal yesterday, to a ball many would have done well to reach, does not suggest the inner calm possessed by the true gods of batting.

Most of us got over those reservations a few years ago. Here’s what Smith is….. a quick learner. Also, it’s not just the Aussies claiming that title, the ICC rankings seem to concur. Maybe we should have the Muppet Rankings instead.

A few days later…

Smith, who brought his hundred up with a pull for four off James Anderson, played the more fluent innings, if anyone that fidgets as much as he does at the crease can be so described. His shuffle across the stumps is one of the more expansive trigger movements in the game but despite his head moving as the ball is on its way he meets it with the middle of the bat so often that England’s bowlers started to wear that put upon look and pose the rhetorical question of whether this was really a home Test?

Still on about the fidgeting…. how does he do it, you can see him asking himself.

Quite what Cook could, other than rotate his bowlers and hope for a mistake from the batsmen, was not obvious. He needed to dry up the runs and build pressure but none of his bowlers was able to achieve that.

Genius. “Ah, eff it” captaincy.

The last time England took only one wicket in an Ashes Test was Headingley in 1993. On that occasion Australia went from 307 for three to 613 for four. After the match, which England lost, Graham Gooch resigned the captaincy something Cook will not be doing should the same fate befall his team this time.

Not really sure what the point of this was other to mention two England captains from his county.

Ashes Panel #007 – The Spectre of a Skyfall, No Quantum of Solace

LordCanisLupus14 Comments

australia-celebrate-the-ashes-whitewash_10piscrajeyf61qj64a1ovgr5r (2)

You knew I’d do that with the title, didn’t you?

Before we start, a little cross-promotion. On the Extra Bits, I’ve added another ten pics from the Lord’s Test. Click here.

The seventh edition of the Ashes Panel has taken time to reflect on the result and consider some of the events of the week. We have an esteemed panel, and a sad absentee. We have Hillel, a major tweeter under the EoinJPMorgan label, Man In A Barrel (MIAB) who has been on this blog for a long old while, our Hammer overseas MD Payne, and Philip Chapman (PGP). Sadly, the other invitee, our very own Bogfather has been unable to participate this time around, so I’ve decided I’ll step into his shoes, if not with poetry, but with passion instead….

So, off we go…..

1. We’ve had a few days to digest the result from Lord’s. What was your initial reaction and has it changed?
PGP – Genuine surprise at how poorly we batted. I was at Lords for about 2 hours on Thursday and the pitch was so flat I fancied a bat against our attack. The thing about our team is that it is mentally weak. So they don’t have the mental strength to say “it doesn’t matter what the opposition scored, I am going to bat for as long as I can and go big”. The Aussies bowled significantly better but it was the wickets that Marsh got that hurt us the most.
Hillel – I am rather ambivalent on the Lord’s debacle, as horrified as I was at the time (and remain so) to see the lack of fight that we put up in the second innings; there are correct ways to lose. Lord’s, in the long run, will not be as terrible as many pundits are suggesting. It was not, as we have seen before with England, the revelation of some horrific endemic problem that faces us, but rather an accumulation of far too many relatively minor mistakes which added up to cost us dearly. The pitch clearly favoured swing and pace over seam which massively advantaged Australia; it seems strange that England are the only country which won’t doctor all of its pitches to suit their bowling attack. Even if one disagrees with the point that the pitch favoured Australia over England, it was clear that whichever team won the toss had as good as won the Test. Additionally, England’s batting lineup are on the whole horrifically out of form and one cannot expect Cook and Root to be able to save us every innings. We have to learn to rest Wood as well. Overall however, I don’t feel that disappointed and think overreactions, whilst plentiful, remain futile.
MDP – I live in Australia so went to bed at tea on the 4th day and my emotion was one of ‘same old England’ again. Waking to find we had capitulated in such fashion was a bit of a shock, though. I would at least have expected them to take the game into the final day. Since then fear has crept in that we are looking at another heavy series defeat.
MIAB – Frankly I was overjoyed at the win.  I find it difficult to support England anymore and so any team that beats us so resoundingly feels like another small crack in the self-satisfied carapaces of Clarke, Strauss, Cook etc.  Eventually they will be gone.
DO – I confess, I was wavering. I thought Australia were sending out some real distress signals with their machinations over Haddin and Watson. This was a time to go in for the kill, but Day 1 put paid to any of that over-used cliche “momentum” to take effect. Smith’s 215, Rogers 173. Once that happened it was almost inevitable, as this team of our’s doesn’t seem to react well to scoreboard pressure – they aren’t alone in that. So once we slumped to 30-odd for 4 while I was there I thought anyone with a Day 5 ticket was in trouble.
My initial reaction was one of feeling stupid that I doubted an Australian team’s mental strength, relief I hadn’t indulged in the hyperbole that followed the win in Cardiff, and a bit of affirmation in the trend we have of following up a win with a defeat. Since then I’ve just watched an England team talking a good game for Edgbaston, and wondering if these are the deluded rantings of condemned men, or real belief. I’m really not sure.
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2. I’ve seen a lot of pundits saying “it’s still 1-1” and “stop being fickle”. I’m certainly not a fan of the last one. But it doesn’t feel all square, does it?
PGP – See the above after we won the first game the emotions were running high, we took the foot off the gas, as we have done loads recently. So a feeling of frustration as much as anything.
Hillel – It certainly does not feel square, and saying that the score is level is a gross oversimplification. All professional sportsmen (or women) will easily be able to tell you that sport depends a great deal on confidence and momentum, which is undoubtedly with Australia at the amount. Nonetheless, as guilty as the eternal optimists are the eternal pessimists. It is foolish to proclaim this series done and dusted whilst there is still much to play for and, as Australia showed at Lord’s, momentum can swing (pardon the pun) round in an instant: It will all depend very much on how England carry themselves, and whether they are able to dust themselves off and move on or wallow in self-pity. I’m pleased to say it seems likely that this new England side under Bayliss are more than capable of shrugging off a large defeat, returning to play positive cricket, and win the series (or at least give the Ozzies a run for their money).
MDP – No it doesn’t. My mind keeps returning to the 1997 series, when England won the first Test convincingly and it all went downhill from there. Can’t see anything coming from the camp to suggest it won’t happen again.
MIAB – It certainly does not feel like 1-1.  Look at the trajectories of the 2 teams – Australia are improving and England got wiped out.  Look at the opening partnership: Australia have made 52 and 19, 78 and 114.  These are impressive figures, especially when you consider that Rogers was deemed too old by certain pundits and that Warner was supposed to be technically fallible.  For all his loathsome personality, he is actually a smart cricketer.  His footwork is quick and his batswing is straight i.e. he has a good technique, certainly much more technically correct than Cook.  He is playing more cautiously than he normally does but he is getting used to the pace and bounce and movement of the ball in English conditions.  He is going to make a big score at some point.  The way that he and Rogers took on the English attack in the 3rdinnings at Lords was superb.  Their certainty of shot, the lack of fuss demoralised the opposition:  you could see confidence draining out of them.  Smith is in good form and he is very impressive technically.  For all his fidgeting, at the point the ball is bowled his head is still.  His backlift is impressively vertical.  He moves calmly into position without any fuss at all and then hits the ball.  He is as orthodox as say Sobers or Cowdrey once the ball is bowled.  Now that he has decided to milk Ali, as he did so successfully in the World Cup, rather than attempt to smash him out of the attack, there is no reason not to expect him to keep scoring big hundreds.  Clarke is getting into something approaching good form.  Nevill and Marsh seem a cut above Watson and Haddin – although it was unfortunate that Watson received 2 such shocking lbw decisions.  The bowling is also getting better and Johnson found his mojo after his 77 in Cardiff.
Looking at England, all you can say is that Stokes is batting well and Broad has remembered how to bowl.  The Aussies seem able to dry Cook up.  Root is about to get the working over that will show whether he really is world-class, as all the pundits have been telling us for the last 2 years.  Wood is unfit.  Ali cannot keep control – there is a rank long hop or full toss every other over – and if the Aussies just keep milking him for 5 singles per over, Cook cannot keep bowling him unless he takes wickets.  There really are not many positives.  Can Cook motivate his team after that debacle?  That will be the acid test of his captaincy.
DO – Anyone who has had the “pleasure” of being in an Aussie cricket stadium when we are getting humped will be used to the chant “Look at the Scoreboard”. Edgbaston is going to be an absolutely fascinating test match, because we need to come out with intent. Someone needs to make a statement of resistance, and play out of their socks. Joe Root did it at Cardiff, but it needs to be more than him. But thinking this is more like 1997 is not being fickle, it’s being realistic. Australia were arguably caught a bit cold at Cardiff, and they showed true colours at Lord’s. England batting first might be a good start. This doesn’t feel like Perth 2011 to me.
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3. Gary Ballance paid the price for the Lord’s debacle. Fair or not?
PGP – Fair, although I have no idea why his technical issues haven’t been sorted at some point in the last 2 months. Reflects poorly on the eng coaches.
Hillel – The axing of Gary Ballance is a pathetic yield to public pressure of which England should be ashamed. To set the record straight, the man has not been found out; he is out of form. There are those who will point to his technique and the fact that he doesn’t move his legs, and yet forget that Sehwag didn’t use to move his legs much either. Marlon Samuels barely moves his. It is not technique that matters, but the ability to churn out runs and Ballance has already proven he can do so at international level. The other side to the proffered argument is that Ballance is only being dropped in order to rediscover his form, as of when he can return to the team – the flaw in this argument is obvious, for then why is Bell given the opportunity to rediscover his form in the team, and not be dropped? It is not fair at all to drop Gary Ballance, especially when he is not even being directly replaced by a fellow number 3.
MDP – I think it was inevitable – he has just looked so vulnerable against pace bowling. His technical deficiencies have been exploited by Johnson and Starc and I feel keeping him in the squad any longer could have done long-term damage to his confidence. There certainly are others who were fortunate to escape the chop, mind you.
MIAB – Someone had to pay the price.  I feel sorry for Ballance as he has actually scored more runs this series than Bell and Lyth but the latter deserves a few more matches and dropping Bell would effectively end his career, I would imagine.  So many members of the team have not contributed significantly that something had to change.  Bairstow for Buttler was one possibility but that seems to have been ignored.  It might have been more sensible.
DO – I’d never bought the Ballance ticket, as you know. It’s not personal, because mentally I think he’s the real deal, but I got to see that batting stance and trigger movement in the flesh from side on at Lord’s, and it’s alarming. I’m not a technician, and therefore people may think I’m talking nonsense, but it was always on my mind that when the skill level of the bowlers went up, he’d struggle. That said, the sharks of the media were very keen to circle him, and it seemed rather prescient that they were suggesting he was in the most danger compared to Ian Bell who has been in an even more shocking rut. I also thought we were backing young, fresh talent over older lags if the choice prevailed. So I understand it, but can’t help thinking that this is a little panic measure.
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4. Ian Bell’s promotion to number 3 is intriguing. Any logic you can see behind it?
PGP – Bairstow is the form player and has earned his place. He isn’t a number 3. Root won’t do it. Stokes isn’t the right guy. Who is left? Dropping 2 of the top 4 is not a sensible play so bell it is.
Hillel -Once again, England’s fantastic logic is at work: Bell is not scoring any runs at 4, so perhaps moving him to 3 (laughably actually greater exposing him to the new ball) will cause him once again to plunder hundreds for the country. This also points to a wider problem: England have dropped a number 3, and decided to replace him with a number 5, only then to actually worry about who is going to fill the number 3 role; the poor tactical planning in this is so ludicrous it’s actually laughable. It matters not how well Jonny Bairstow is batting if he’s not replacing anyone. Thus it feels less like Ian Bell is intended to be a number 3, and more that he a victim of a team reshuffling to accommodate a number 5 batsman. Furthermore, if we assume if we lose Lyth and Bell early again (for there is no reason to assume we won’t), we are falling into the same trap of asking Joe Root to save the innings, simply at 30-2 instead of 30-3. How helpful.
MDP – Not much, borne out of necessity rather than anything else to accommodate Bairstow. Being first drop when on a bad run of form is a huge gamble. I feel reluctant removing Root from 5 too.
MIAB – I Imagine that the “logic” would be that he wanted to bat at 3 in the Ashes down under when Trott went home but the gig went to Root instead, so let’s bat him at 3 now when he is in terrible form and apparently lacking confidence.  Does he thrive on responsibility?  I don’t really think so.  He seems to prefer it when he is under the radar, out of the spotlight and things are not expected of him.  However, who else can bat 3?  Can you realistically put Ali there the way he is playing at the moment?  Root seems happy at 5 and is one of the few batters to have scored any runs.  Maybe Stokes, but that would be more of a gamble than Strauss and co could take.
DO – I saw Ian Bell make his test best 235 at number three in 2011. I was there, loved every minute of his partnership and thought he made a point. When the chance came to give it to him after Trott’s departure in 2013 from the Ashes tour, they did not change and put Root in to his place. Now this is a decision based on necessity and desperation. They couldn’t drop both Ballance and Bell, because people might question our mighty selection committee’s infinite wisdom, so we come up with this dog’s breakfast. They are flying by the seat of their pants.
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5. You are the lucky panel that get the KP question? You are the selector. Yes or no AS OF NOW (i.e. he’s not played first class cricket for a few weeks).
PGP – Yes I pick him. He is one of the top 4 batters we have.
Hillel – We know KP has the class. We know he is still fit enough to play long innings. We know the world won’t explode (nor the dressing room implode) if he returns the team. I may not love the man dearly, but for goodness’ sake, let’s grow up and just select him on merit.
MDP – My position on this is straightforward, is he in the top 6 batsman in the country? If so, he should be picked. I think it’s open for debate whether he is but my feeling is his experience would be invaluable for the challenges ahead. So I’d say yes.
MIAB – Yes.  He has been playing cricket recently after all and I am not entirely convinced that playing for Surrey would be of any great value in preparing to face the Mitches.  I suspect he would do what Nasser used to do after his innumerable broken fingers on tour – set up net conditions and practise as if it were a real match.
DO – When the ECB did him over (and I’m utterly convinced, as I’ve been for a few months now, that this is Giles Clarke’s work) and basically packed him off to T20 humdrum, they cut off an option. An option they should have left open. It isn’t the ECB’s team, it’s our team. The fact that a talent who COULD make a difference, who had just mashed a 355 not out (and stuff those who diminish it), and yes, who would go out there with something to prove, a chip on his shoulder, a passion to make people sit up and notice, would have been an option. But no. We go all prissy about a load of old twaddle, in the old English way. I say no, he shouldn’t be in the team under current circumstances because he’s not played first class cricket for perfectly understandable reasons (a point those who are totally against him ignore), but if he’d stayed here, given a hope to play, and piled on the runs, why wouldn’t you want that option?
We know the answer to that last question. Idiots.
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As is his wont, PGP has had a lovely supplemental comment which I think I should share with you…
I really need have a rant about James Whittaker.
Pre Duncan Fletcher selection was typically chaotic. When Fletcher was in charge we had a vision. Steady 3 dimensional bowler, swing bowler, 90mph bowler and a bouncey bowler. Then a mixture of stroke players and hard working players.
With Moores v1 we had a transaction of players to the successful group which flower and Strauss made blossom (sorry). What both these coaches did was identify the type of players and back them. In most cases it worked.
At the end of the Flower reign when Whittaker took over we have seen no coherent selection strategy. No identification of new players other than just picking the current form player. The only exception is Root.
Where is the Strauss, Trescothick or Vaughan? Players picked for the mental strength rather than the run scoring.
I also don’t see how have two full time coaches is a successful approach for selectors.
We have seen multiple players ruined, the treatment of Hales is borderline masochistic. The over bowling of Anderson and Broad is insane. Any reader can have their examples.
Something has to give. Whittaker should have stood up for KP and Carberry in selection rather than just doing as told.  Pathetic. A man with morals would have resigned.
And that was me being gentle.
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As usual, my thanks to the contributors, who put in a ton of time and effort and they are great for doing so.
Ashes Panel #008 will probably be sent out in the next day or so and will focus a little more on Edgbaston.
Thanks all. Have a good weekend.

England v Australia – ODI #2 from Bristol

LordCanisLupus16 Comments

After a superb chase on Tuesday, the England team look to add the points in the second game in Bristol today.

As with the first match, I won’t get to see any of it, but will be following when I can in the office. However, the game thread went down really well (judging by hits and comments – not all on the game) so have no problem sticking up another one for this series.

You may have noticed I don’t call it women’s cricket or such like. To me these are two international teams playing the sport I love. One team represents England, one Australia. End of. Just a personal thing.

Ashes Panel #006 – Lord’s A Mercy (Mitchell Collapse Mix)

LordCanisLupus80 Comments

australia-celebrate-the-ashes-whitewash_10piscrajeyf61qj64a1ovgr5r (2)

A little plug – put up 10 more pictures on The Extra Bits from Lord’s on Friday. Have a look, hope you enjoy them. Part 1 is here.

It’s a few days after the disaster at Lord’s and there have been recriminations-a-plenty. So, striking while the iron is hot, and loading up my laptop without opening the piece of crap that is ITunes (which crashed my laptop TWICE last night), here are the latest Ashes Panel responses.

The drill was, as I have ten days between games, to have an immediate reaction, a considered reaction in #007 and a look-forward to Edgbaston for #008. Five questions, responded to at varying lengths by…. Andy In Brum (Andy), My fellow Friday at Lord’s man Keyser Chris (Chris), my fellow Southeastern Sufferer, The Great Bucko (Sean), Cricket Jon (Jon), and our resident Yorkie (Metatone)….

These were sent out on Sunday night and I had all responses by middle of yesterday. Gold stars, and huge thanks, to all.

1. That was an annihilation. Bad day at the office or something more deep-seated?
Andy – If I said both, would that make sense, yes it was a bad day, we’ve proven we’re better than that at Lord v NZ & Cardiff last week. Unfortunately, the flaws that have been bailed out by the middle order & an inspired bowling performance creating a batting collapse.

Our top order is flaky & our bowlers lack penetration on flat decks. Losing Rashid was a massive blow. Even if he would have got spanked, he’d have got wickets.
Jon – I think it is a matter of sustainability. In conditions that suit ( and the evidence is overwhelming that the Lords pitch doesn’t suit our seam attack) and where we have a chance to apply some scoreboard pressure, our guys can keep up from time to time with the best of them. But even in circumstances where, for instance, Darren Bravo is on his way to a match winning knock such as he was against England just three months ago we “go for a walk” in terms of competitive intensity. The heads drop.
It isn’t surprising. One banner you can expect to get rolled out over the next few weeks is that they are halfway through a long campaign in the Test arena and it is affecting the players. Well no shit Sherlock, whose Board agreed to this schedule? I hope the MSM are reading this because if they roll the fatigue banner they will be pooing on their own doorstep ( by virtue of them being the extended media arm of the ECB). In short, it’s a bad day at the office that has a recurring theme. [ I shall now remove the splinters from my backside].

Meta – I feared a humping when I saw the weather forecast. We don’t have the bowling attack to prosper on Chief Executive pitches. We’ve been reliant on Joe Root to get big scores, he was bound to have an off day sooner or later. Aussie bowlers were bound to bowl a bit better than in Cardiff. We’re not good against real pace. Certainly not “a bad day at the office” – this defeat sits in line with the failures against a touring SA and of course the drubbing we had Down Under. Very little has actually changed since then. Surprise, surprise! Sacking KP didn’t make much difference – a cynic might wonder if actually he wasn’t the problem.

Chris – In isolation, an aberration. But it’s not in isolation, given England’s recent performances. Anyone who follows me & Dmitri on Twitter knows we were at Lord’s separately on Friday. Separately we straightaway saw the Aussie bowling in the flesh was a step above in that last Friday session compared to us, even accounting for the extra rest Rogers & Smith gave them. It was sensational. And on an allegedly duff pitch. Losing by 400+ at home, at Lord’s, with the sun mostly out? Oh my. England have a bad recent habit of collapses, and it’s under Cooks watch even when he gets (blood-soaked apparently) runs. There has to be some ministerial responsibility on that front.
Sean – It was a complete annihilation and probably one of the most embarrassing performances that England have put in for a long time; however it shows why most people on the blog didn’t embrace the musings of the national media, who had made Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss the saviours of all cricket. We are ranked number 6 in the world and that accurately reflects where we are in international cricket. We haven’t had a front line spinner since Swann retired and a reliable opener since Strauss himself retired as well as a middle order that is consistently inconsistent. The fact that the national media decided to throw eulogies around as if it was going out of fashion and had written off the Aussies, shows how far up the ECB’s backside they all are. I predicted at the beginning that the series would be a tight one and i still think it will be, but we need to sort the top 4 out as Root can’t always be there to dig us out of 40/3 hole.
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2. Focus is on the batting, that undoubtedly did not do well – we’ll come to that. But that’s two deeply unimpressive test matches from James Anderson. Reason to be worried?
Andy – Yes, he doesn’t appear to get the ball to move anymore, either normal or reverse swing. That’s very worrying.
Jon – It is understandable that as he gets older Anderson will become less effective on these types of pitches. So yes we have reason to be worried. For this is not a time for change in Planet ECB. This is all about maximising inflow of funds for the Paymasters so my delight at a 180 plays 210 plays 210 seeking 180 shootout, the best type of a Test you could ever see, is something of a sporting fantasy and flies in the face of the modus oppo of these dreadful people who run our game. (Mind you I thought he bowled well in the 2nd inns at Cardiff).
Meta –  Post 2011 (where he was excellent) Anderson has been neutered when the pitch doesn’t swing. I’ve gone all the way to saying England should have looked at the pitch at Lords and the weather forecast and not picked him. That’s probably a bit of 20/20 hindsight because you couldn’t know it would never swing across the 5 days. Yet at the very least he shouldn’t be using the new ball if there’s no swing… Worried? Yes I am, because if we get 2 more flat pitches, well hard to see how that’s not the series lost…
Chris – Lyth needs more time. We all know that, rightly or wrongly. Bairstow is in sensational county form, and has to play especially given the way he’s been messed around on previous tours. Every stat backs that up. It’ll be for Ballance, because you can’t drop 3 & 4 at the same time, plus Root has to stay at 5. Apropos of nowt, Cook opening but not facing the first ball & leaving it to Lyth is just wrong, hiding behind the captaincy pressure thing to avoid it – just wrong. Cook primarily is an opener. Open.
Sean –  It’s a concern and has been for a while. Anderson now seems to only be able to perform on those pitches that suit his bowling and provide him with some swing and seam movement. Granted the two pitches we just played on offered nothing for the quicks (unless you happen to be tearing it down at 90+ MPH) but it was a horribly toothless display from our attack (Broad excepted) and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Finn given a go at Edgbaston, though as a Middlesex fan who has watched a lot of him this season, I’m not sure it’s the right call. I think we have to understand that we have bowled Jimmy into the ground over the past few years and it looks like he has lost his nip (or that it has been blunted from years of bowling on flat pitches) and that Father Time may be catching up with him. He may come back, if Edgbaston and/or Trent Bridge offer some sideways movement replicating what happened against India last year, but unfortunately i think we are seeing the gradual winding down of a top drawer test bowler.
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3. I confess, I saw none of the 337 for 1 first day. What went wrong?
Andy – Shit dead pitch, good batting, bowling not that penetrative, but it wasn’t bad.
Jon – Nothing much. Australia just applied themselves.
Meta – I didn’t see the whole day. From what I saw we had a bit of bad luck in the morning session, and shelled a couple of chances. And good players on a reasonable batting pitch took advantage. And yet… Jimmy didn’t threaten and Wood looked a bit tired. And Ali was bowling with an injury. Stokes didn’t get it together. Basically we didn’t have enough threat on this kind of pitch. It’s the usual story – real pace or mystery spin takes wickets when the going is tough – and we have neither. As I say above, this is an issue going back to 2012 at least.
Chris – Primarily, 337-1 happened (from what I saw on telly whilst, erm, working) because Rogers & Smith batted really really well. They earnt it. Ignore the bad pitch guff – those runs still had to be scored. Anderson going wicket less is a real worry this early in a series. 4 Tests ago I would have Broad dropped for his terrible scared batting; he bowled terrifically this Test. Anderson needs a question or two raised about him so he ups his game. It’s been a while since that was necessary, but needs must. We may need to think about Mark Wood alternatives later this series as well (not necessarily for the alleged fitness issue – more him slowly being found out? Unless he digs out an imaginary alpaca!)
Sean – I worked from home that day and watched some of it on the TV. The main thing that went wrong was we lost the toss on a flat, flat wicket. Australia batted very well and i thought Rodgers and Smith batted very intelligently (and Davie Warner showed us again why his score outweighs his IQ); however It wasn’t our performance on day 1 that lost us this test, it was the batting on the evening of day 2.
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4. What changes would you make to the batting line-up, if any?
Andy – I’m a massive bell fan, but he’s so far out of form, he’s down with Downton looking up at those fishes with lights. So Bairstow for him & Root to 4.
Jon -Remove GB, his runs against poor attacks such as SL, India and WI count for little once you face NZ and Australia. I wouldn’t make any other changes. These are the guys the Paymasters want in the team so let’s lie on the pillows we spent two years plumping. However to not remove GB would be stubborn and I think his replacement should be Compton ( although it won’t be).
Meta – It is still 1-1 and we actually lost this match bowling, long before the batting f!cked up. Hence, I’d give Lyth another chance – also I’m having trouble saying that Carberry or Compton would do better – yet they are the prime candidates in CC at the moment. I’d send Ballance back to CC and pick either Taylor at 3, or promote Bell to 3 and pick KP. Ballance has clearly been worked out and is all over the place. It’s kind of odd as a Yorkshire fan to not pick Bairstow, but he’s not cut out to come in at 3 or 4 – and he’s not clearly better as a package than Root, Buttler or Stokes.
Chris –  I think move Bell to 3 & play Bairstow at 4. It keeps the changes relatively minimal. Hales should be looked at as well, but maybe not for a Test or two. Firefighting is the order of the day right now. Post-Ashes then we look at the longer term, even considering the third straight potential “difficult winter”… It really is all too predictable this situation. Honestly Dmitri, bet you regret not “piping down” now!
Sean – It’s a difficult one, because a) i don’t think chopping and changing the batting works and b) there is no one (Bairstow excepted) who looks like they could fill one of the problem child spots. I think they will make one change and that will be Bairstow for Ballance (who if he tried to bat any deeper in his crease, would be standing at first slip) with Bell at 3, Root at 4 and Bairstow at 5 – now whether i agree with that decision is a mute point, i just can’t see the management dropping Bell. On a side note, I still believe that we have to give Lyth the whole series before we decide whether he is good enough (I think Bob Willis giving him a 0/10 and calling him out of his depth, was an extraordinary statement for a batsman who has played 4 tests and scored one hundred). I also couldn’t name another opener in the county game at the moment that isn’t out of form or could do a better job again the Mitchells.
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5. 103 all out on a featherbed. Can you think of a worse England Ashes batting performance. Go let it out……. pick one. (Not allowed to pick Adelaide 2006).
Andy – Sydney 2013
Jon – There was one in the Boxing Day 1990 Test at MCG where we were 100ish for 1 on top of a lead of 50 and from nowhere 9 wickets fell for 50 runs meaning they within the space of a session only had to chase 200 in a day (which they did). A bit like Melbourne 2013 but without the team meeting.
Meta – Worse batting performance? Hard to choose in my lifetime – Headingley 1989 probably hurt me the most, because it feels in retrospect like a precursor to so many more. Melbourne 1990 being the obvious next one. But in the end, surely the one I have to tag, because it so represents how this team is still Cooky’s is Brisbane 2013…
Chris – Damn you. You knew I would go for the 2006 “Scottish play”… Score-wise, these don’t really compare, but Melbourne & Sydney in 2013/14 and Headingley 2009 spring to the top of my head. Most of those were rescued by an individual or twos scores (“him” twice in Melbourne, Swann & Broads humpty at Headingley ’09); but mostly abject. There have surely been worse – I just can’t bring myself to statsguru those dark places in my soul!
Sean – I’ve been watching English cricket for the past 20 years and unfortunately have seen more English collapses than i’ve eaten hot meals; however the one that sticks with me is the 51 all out at Sabina Park in 2009 in part 1 of the glorious Peter Moore’s reigns. This again was no minefield off a pitch and the West Indies attack was hardly a mirror of the one from 15 years previous led by Walsh and Ambrose (I remember the 46 all out debacle as well), yet we succumbed in such a weak and gutless fashion, so much so that my partner at the time decided to go for a long walk to get away from all of the expletives that I was hurling at the TV (I was in a mood for about a week after that performance). Salt was then rubbed in the wound by the fact that we couldn’t beat a mediocre West Indies side in the remaining games of the series and went down to a 1-0 series defeat, which i still believe should have cost Peter Moores his job first time around. Mind you, England’s collapse against the short ball last Summer in the second innings at Lords against india was pretty rage inducing too. (er…..Ashes, Sean…. still this was too good to leave out.)
As always, some terrific responses, and some decent insight from these outside cricket muppets! Keep an eye out for #007 (no James Bond question) in the next few days!

2nd Ashes Test: Day Four review

thelegglance154 Comments

It’s one thing to lose, it’s entirely another to offer no resistance whatever, on a docile pitch, in good conditions.

This was as bad as anything on the Ashes from Hell tour, because this pitch offered absolutely nothing for the bowlers even on day four.  England at the start of play were clearly likely to lose the match, but few would have expected any side – not even Bangladesh – to surrender meekly in 37 overs.  This was abject, pathetic and spineless.  Sure, collapses happen, but with England they happen a lot, and they happen against Australia all the time – indeed even ignoring the three for not very many at Cardiff, it’s happened in 6 of the last 7 Tests against them.

That England went through the motions with the ball this morning is almost forgivable, given the match position.  Australia were so far in front even skittling them wouldn’t have made much difference.  But it did betray a side who knew their fate and didn’t rage against it.  The declaration when it came didn’t change the reality of what England needed to do, and what England knew they needed to do right from the start of play.

Instead, once again they flopped horribly.  Two of the first three wickets at least came from decent balls, though Lyth and Ballance both betrayed flawed techniques in how they got out.  What was extraordinary was how the Sky commentary team focused on these two dismissals and actually claimed Cook’s was a good ball at the time (Hussain in contrast did at least call it a “lazy little waft”).  It wasn’t, it was a dreadful shot, a short wide one that he went after and edged.  Getting out to a bad shot happens, it’s an occupational hazard of batting, but to seek to excuse it by crediting the bowler beggared belief, and merely fuelled the suspicion that Cook cannot be criticised on Sky.  Let’s get something clear here, players make mistakes.  They are human beings, and flawed intrinsically.  Pointing out a bad shot doesn’t lessen the person, it’s called being honest.  Stop making excuses.

England had lost their first three wickets for fewer than 52 for the 8th time in their last 12 innings.  It’s been repeatedly pointed out that the middle order will not always bail them out, and the horrible muddle England have got into over the last couple of years is still the same, even with different personnel.  Of the top four, the only one who is in any kind of form is Cook – and Cook the batsman is doing fine – indeed Cook the captain still didn’t have a bad match in the field, England certainly didn’t flop horribly because of his actions. Once again, the problem is not with what Cook does as a batsman, it is the way it is treated as though he’s Bradman reincarnated whenever he gets a few, while saying his dismissal was down to him being “desperately tired” as Mike Selvey put it – a tiredness that didn’t seem to afflict Rogers or Smith who scored far more runs.   And in mentioning Rogers, all cricket fans will have seen his dizzy spell with some concern.  Let us hope it was unrelated to the blow on the head he took at the start of day two.

And so once under way, the procession continued.  Bell again got out cheaply, and again in unconvincing fashion, managing to edge a ball that didn’t spin to short leg.  Stokes had the kind of dismissal that will haunt him for days to come, failing to ground his bat for an easy single.  Whether that was a simple matter of brain-fade or evidence of the kind of scrambled minds in the England team probably depends on how one wishes to think of them.

Buttler once again edged behind hanging his bat out to dry, and Moeen did absolutely nothing to prevent the addition of another piece of evidence that he can’t play the short ball very well.

By this point, not only were Australia rampant, but England were skulking around like a little boy who knew he’d been caught stealing.  Broad at least decided to go down fighting, throwing the bat.  That was another reminder of the dire displays in 2013/14, Broad reacting by trying to hit fours and sixes in a game long since gone.

Root’s dismissal as ninth man out was neither here nor there and entirely irrelevant to anything, while there was something apposite about the way Anderson’s stumps were shattered to end the torture.

The various Mitches had blown England away, and all credit must be given to them.  They will only get better having scented blood.

The only way of reacting to this omnishambles is that with the final wicket, Australia had gone into a 1-1 lead in the series.  It is scarcely credible that England had managed to fall apart so abjectly on such a placid wicket.  Yet they’d managed to, and shown no bottle whatsoever for the fight.  It is therefore ironic that the pattern of England wins and losses recently can be seen to be one of them being metaphorically flat track bullies, able to put sides away with aplomb when in front in the game, but collapsing in on themselves when challenged.  That is, except on non-metaphorical flat tracks where they aren’t just bullied, they are whipped, chained and thrashed.

The inquest will of course begin now, but there’s not much that isn’t already known and has been known for some time.

Bell is in awful form, and has been struggling for a couple of years.  Yet England set the precedent of standing by Cook when he had his drought, and they can rightly point to his form this year as being a justification for that.  So they’ve made a rod for their own back where Bell can legitimately say he deserves the same patience.  Whether he will get it or not is another matter, as is whether he should.  But missing straight balls as he has been isn’t terribly reassuring.

Lyth is perhaps one of two players under most pressure, but dropping him now would betray the same kind of muddled thinking that the ECB under Strauss have absolutely promised is a thing of the past in this brave new world.  Having not picked him in the West Indies when they should have, he then scored his maiden century only two Tests ago.  Lyth may not ultimately prove to be good enough, but that there is such a chorus for his replacement after two quiet Tests, and only four in total would be a return to the chopping and changing of the nineties.  And that worked so very well.

Ballance on the other hand has – at least for the time being – been found out.  He is clearly a highly talented player, and also young enough to improve, but his sophomore season is proving to be a nightmare for him.  The problem is that his place in the side is the critical number three position, and so the question of moving players around comes up.

Here is the rub though, moving Root up to number three is obviously an option, but Root didn’t perform particularly well as an opener two years ago, and there’s no pressing reason why he should do better now so high up the order.  Yes, he’s batting extremely well, but treating the symptom rather than the cause has never been much of a medical solution to anything.  Putting Root there would be to risk getting less out of England’s best batsman, not because of a certainty he would do better there, but solely because those above him currently are doing so badly.  That isn’t a justication, it’s negative selection.

Nor does it in any way address the problems Lyth and Bell are having, so while rearranging of deckchairs would give the selectors something to do, it doesn’t address the bloody great hole in the hull.

Naturally, as this was discussed, the elephant in the Sky studio hovered.  At one point Hussain talked about England needing a “Kevin Pietersen type” player in the top four, without a shred of irony.  At another, Ricky Ponting came dangerously close to saying the name of He Who Must Not Be Mentioned, and Gower flapped in utter horror (“don’t say it, don’t say it”).  This was extraordinary behaviour, but not necessarily for the reasons that might initially be thought.  There’s no reason to assume Pietersen would have made any difference in this Test, and no reason to assume he would be a panacea for England’s batting woes.  That’s not the point.  The ECB have made their decision and that is that.  But.  It is not for Sky to endorse that decision by refusing to even acknowledge the point, it is not honest to pretend it isn’t there.  An honest response is to point out the obvious that one player England could select is in the cold and then move on to the alternatives.  Each and every time this sort of thing happens, the recognition of what has been done is critical to the debate even if that decision is agreed with.  Pretending it isn’t there is ludicrous, no matter which side of the debate someone might be.

Once again, the fundamental point is that Sky’s editorial line is not meant to be at the behest of the ECB’s internal policies.  It’s a basic journalistic tenet, and one they have failed time and again.  It shouldn’t need stating, that’s the point.

More realistically in terms of England’s options, apart from moving those players around, Johnny Bairstow is the likely candidate to come in.  Should they do so then that certainly means changing the order as well, with Bell and Root at three and four.  A second spinner is also an option, if they also drop Lyth and move Root up to open.  That would be a lot of changes.

England were plainly unhappy with the pitch at Lords, which was more than obviously a chairman’s one, intended to last the full five days – so Australia (and England in a funny way) denying them the revenue from day five serves them right.  That’s somewhat ironic, because in one sense England were right to be.  Australia’s faster bowling attack is always going to be better on a very flat and slow surface where England’s fast medium offering is going to be akin to cannon fodder.  Yet this very flat, very slow surface was one on which England were shot out for 415 across two innings.  That’s woeful even on a green seamer, which if Cook has his way based on his post match interview is what we will get at Edgbaston.  The problem for him is that the Chief Executive of Warwickshire probably thinks otherwise.

Yet Cook was correct that for England to have a chance, their own bowlers need to have a chance in the game.  Over the last few years Test pitches in England have followed the same pattern, slow surfaces intended to stretch the game out to the full extent.  It is this tendency that Colin Graves was quietly referring to when he raised the idea of four day Tests – another example of treating the symptom incidentally.  That this has had the result of spectacularly biting England on the arse is exactly what they deserve, for it has been a long time since England produced the kind of quick pitches that might actually prepare them a little for facing the two Australian fast ‘n nasties, and even allow England to develop one or two of their own.

This match was nothing but total humiliation.  It is striking that in the Tests between these two sides, there are very few close ones, one side absolutely batters the other albeit Australia batter England rather more than the other way around.  To that extent England will feel that there is no reason they can’t win the next one, and they are of course right.  If anything has been demonstrated in previous Ashes series, momentum is a rather overrated thing.

Yet England did have a real chance to put Australia under huge pressure in this match.  After Cardiff there were definitely cracks in the side.  Not large ones, and as has been seen in this game, not critical ones.  But had they produced the kind of English pitch we used to get before they started trying to be clever and extract even more money from the poor spectator, it likely would have worked to England’s advantage.  Not so much to guarantee a win of course, but at least to give them a chance.  The Test against New Zealand at Lords was of course a fantastic one, yet that was so unusual compared to the ones we’ve seen in recent years that one can’t help but feel it was some kind of happy error. Certainly the two prepared in 2014 were every bit as lifeless as this one, and note that England could not bowl Sri Lanka out in one, and lost badly to India in the other.

Once England had lost the toss here, their chances of winning were very low.  The difference is that there was no reason why they should lose the Test.  And no reason whatever that they should lose the Test by the margin of 820-10 to 415-20.  Or to put it another way, based on this, England would have had to bat a whole additional Test to reach Australia’s match total.

And finally we come to the media in general.  At the risk of repeating a common theme on this blog, they went completely overboard once again after the win at Cardiff.  It was a terrific win there’s no doubt about that, but the “fickle” people in such places as here and at the Full Toss, repeatedly cautioned that England had a habit of losing their next match badly after a win, and that triumphalism was both premature and more than a bit ridiculous.  It didn’t stop them.  From writing a homage to Andrew Strauss as the architect of England’s success to saying Ian Bell was back, to long paeans of how the new England under Cook would go on to terrify all and sundry, this thrashing is matters coming home to roost.  Again.  Doubtless they will now swing the other way, demand wholesale changes and assume England will be blown away in the remainder of the series.  And that is indeed a possibility, and unquestionably a fear given this implosion.  It’s just not guaranteed.

England may well recover from here, it doesn’t mean they can’t win from here.  It does mean there is concern about how they will react to it – that is up to them, to decide whether there really are scars from 2013/14 or not.

Ashes 2nd Test Day 3 – Comments Thread

LordCanisLupus78 Comments

P1060675

Back to normal for me, I’m afraid.

I’d like to thank Justin for inviting me to share the day with him and his colleagues yesterday. I had an absolutely brilliant day and appreciated it so much. A day like yesterday reinforced to me how great it must be to watch this sport and get paid for it. I know it was a one-off so it was probably more special for being so.

Some quick thoughts. Stuart Broad was immense yesterday. I thought he bowled superbly on a wicket not giving him much help. This isn’t Nagpur, as some tedious irk said on Thursday, but it is a benign surface and thought processes and proper considered bowling were required. Once again, Anderson, who was such a rock on surfaces and conditions like these, was below par. I really believe we hit the high-water mark two years ago at Trent Bridge, and something inside Anderson went with him. Sure, you’ll get good performances now and then, but the tiger inside may have roared its last. I’m probably talking nonsense, but he did not bowl well.

Steve Smith was a pleasure to watch. It’s not for the beauty of his batting, but for his temperament. He’s also a photographer’s nightmare / dream.

As for England’s batting. Knock me down with a feather. We collapsed. I missed Bell completely (toilet break) and Australia did Root up like a kipper. Watching Johnson in full cry was an amazing sight.

To today. England need a miracle, but I’ll say this. Ben Stokes came out at 30 for 4, and the Aussies are nervous of him. He was allowed to plonk his front foot down and drive, in stead of Johnson starting off with chin music. He has that swagger about him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in the flesh. I was impressed. Cook’s knock at the other end was what was required.

Comments on the day’s play here. I might put some of the 235 pictures I took yesterday up during the day.

Ashes 2nd Test: Day 2 review

thelegglance36 Comments
P1060682
Ballance is bowled by Johnson – look closely and you will see a bail in mid-air….

Now what was I saying about all those who piled in to complain about the pitch after one day?  In the Australian press it was all about England doctoring the surface, which apparently means creating one that Australia rack up a huge score on, and then rip through the England top order.  Indeed, it was wryly amusing to hear Stuart Broad imply that the surface very much aided Australia and not England.  Spin on both sides.

Meantime, the English press went big on the idea that it was a nailed on draw, that the groundsman should be shot and that it was impossible to get wickets on.  The old adage that you shouldn’t judge a pitch until both teams have batted on it is as true as it ever was.  Australia have bowled superbly on it, and have put themselves in prime position to square the series.

There did seem to be a little bit more in it today, but it remains excellent for batting, as Australia demonstrated all too well in their innings. Steve Smith led the way with 215, and as fabulous as that innings was, it was curiously less assertive than normal, and slightly more sketchy than at his best.  Which if anything should cause serious alarm in the England dressing room.  For Chris Rogers, it’s quite possible that his 173 is his last innings at a ground where he has served Middlesex so well.  If so, it’s quite a way to finish.

From there, the scorecard looks like Australia fell away somewhat, which is a good example of a scorecard not conveying a match situation.  Australia were pushing on and trying to score quickly.  Slow surfaces are often quite hard to score rapidly on, and the wickets fell at regular intervals.

England’s reply was a shambles.  As has been pointed out England keep finding themselves three down for very little, and sooner or later Joe Root wasn’t going to bail them out.  Adam Lyth’s poke at a wide ball was fairly typical of what often happens when a team has been in the field for the best part of two days, but it doesn’t make it any better a shot.  Ballance was again undone by a full ball, and while it is good to keep faith with a player, it’s at the point now where he’s not going to get anything else, so transparent are his difficulties.  He needs to work this out and fast.

Bell too was undone by a full ball, and once again this has become a notable weakness in his game.  Any player can be beaten by a full swinging ball, but not time and again. As for Root, he failed today.  It’s going to happen sometimes. From there, Cook and Stokes batted extremely well.  Broad again made a rather telling slip in the post play interview saying that it looked much better when England batted in a more disciplined way.  The implication of that was fairly clear.

There’s no reason whatever England can’t continue to bat that way, this remains a very easy paced, very flat surface. The trouble is that having lost four cheap wickets, they are 481 runs behind.  It is a huge ask for them to even reach the follow on point, no matter how flat the pitch might be. About the only positive they have is that they have frontline batsmen down to number eight in the form of Moeen Ali.  But to even get to within 200 runs, more than one player has to score a century.  All hopes really rest on Cook going very big and batting through.  It’s a big ask, but it’s what’s necessary.

England have got themselves in a horrible hole, and have been completely outplayed in the first two days.  The reality of their plight is that they can’t afford to lose so much as a single session if they want to get out of this one.  1-1 seems almost inevitable given the time left. @BlueEarthMngmnt

Ashes 2nd Test: Day One Review

thelegglance60 Comments

If there’s any amusement to be had from Australia closing on 337-1 today, it’s that it has once again made an awful lot of journalists look silly.  They don’t need much help in order to achieve those lofty heights, but their continued lack of awareness when jumping on a single victory as a harbinger of the future generates as much amusement as ever.  One wonders if today’s play was mainly down to Andrew Strauss as well, for example.

Instead of reacting with pleasure to England’s victory at Cardiff, but noting it was a single Test match and that Australia hadn’t become a bad team overnight, several once again got giddy – just as they did in the West Indies, and then just as they did against New Zealand.  After one outbreak of egg-on-face disease, it might have been thought that a lesson would be learned, but oh no, they did it again after England beat the Kiwis, and then a third time after Cardiff.  There’s not a thing wrong with offering an opinion, or making a call on what might happen – the risk that you will be wrong is an occupational hazard – there is a lot wrong with going over the top repeatedly and failing to learn the lesson that baseless hyperbole tends to bite back.  Doubtless the scurrying back over the bridge and pretending none of it happened will be in evidence tonight.

Now equally, it shouldn’t go too far the other way (place your bets on how doomed the fourth estate will consider England after today), it’s day one of five.  Lords is what it has been for quite some time, an excellent batting surface lacking in pace and movement.  It shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise that Australia, having won the toss, have had a good day.  It shouldn’t even come as that much of a surprise that they’ve had an exceptional day.  They’ve simply made the most of conditions, which is what decent sides do.

The irony is that over-reaction is one of the charges continually aimed at the bilious inadequates, yet it is the established press (one again) who are most guilty of it time and again.

No doubt also there will be some complaining that the pitch is too flat and that it is therefore some kind of anti-cricket surface.  That may yet prove  to be true, but it is a faintly ridiculous line to take after a single day.  Much will depend on how it plays over the remainder of the Test – should it prove to remain entirely flat, then such comments will be justified.  If it deteriorates – and let’s be clear, Lord’s usually produces a result – then there’s no reason for any such claim.

What today’s play does mean is that Australia are in a very strong position to dictate terms for the next couple of days at least.  England didn’t bowl badly, and while they missed a couple of half chances they couldn’t be said to have performed badly – not that they were outstandingly good, just not bad – it was benign conditions for batting and Australia just cashed in.  At this stage it’s already going to be key how England bat in response.  Even with everything going right, England are going to be facing 450; more realistically somewhere around 550 and above is probable.  Rogers and Smith deserve immense credit for maintaining their discipline, and should they survive the first hour, England will unquestionably be chasing leather.

The pitch at that point is if anything likely to be even better for batting on, so there’s no reason for England to have a problem on it.  Except that thing called scoreboard pressure.  Australia will have their tails well and truly up, and negating the early stages will be critical.  Cook had a quiet first Test, but he will be needed to play one of those long innings in reply.  There’s no reason whatever he can’t.

For Australia, the one person in the team who may need to be kept away from sharp implements is David Warner.  Being positive against the spinners is one thing, and players who take a chance in order to dominate always risk looking foolish when it goes wrong, but the nature of the three shots in an over against Moeen Ali were outright slogs at the ball.  First one was fair enough (a full toss), the second was wild, and the third was downright rash.

Cook rotated the bowling well enough, trying different things, and attempting to find a combination that worked.  Sometimes you just have one of those days.  What we do not know yet is whether that is an example of England lacking penetration on flat surfaces or simply a result of the conditions.  Certainly the ball barely swung, and definitely didn’t seam.  England tried to counter this by bowling dry, which was exactly the right approach, but weren’t able to maintain the pressure.  If one was to be critical, that’s perhaps where it might lie, a few too many four balls.  It’s quibbling, they worked hard.

Short of having a disaster and being bowled out for 150, day one is a set up day, with limited certainty about what is to follow.  It has always been that way and always will be that way.  Australia have had an outstanding day today, but whether it is a decisive one, it is impossible to say.  There’s no doubt though that England are up against it as things stand, and will have to play well to get a result.  They are quite capable of so doing, and if they do, there is the potential for a borefest.  The additional pace in the Australian bowling order will make them feel that they can get something out of the surface that England didn’t, and they may be right about that too.

Today is one day.  And a very good one for Australia it was too.

@BlueEarthMngmnt