England

Dread

LordCanisLupus10 Comments

In the early hours of tomorrow morning, in Adelaide, England face the first of up to five win-or-go-home matches. It would be typical of this team to lose this one, but the odds have to be on us winning the next two and meeting India in Melbourne in a quarter-final next week. But this is England, and nothing is certain.

As usual, when we get to this sort of position, I hear and read the usual load of old shite from those who think they know best about those of us not totally enamoured with the way the game is run in this country. Let me put it this way, so it is easy to comprehend. Those of you out there who think that a Bangladesh (or Afghanistan) win is the only way we’ll get the root and branch examination of the game, its structures and its ruling body that has been overdue for nearly 14 months now, I have sympathy for you. I understand precisely where you are coming from. I am almost totally on board with that.

Those of you who slag those people off as being “unpatriotic” or some such other load of old crap, I understand why you want England to win. I do too. But I don’t feel it an either / or equation, and like most things in life, there is nuance. A win today, and it’s on to tomorrow. A win against Afghanistan, and it’s on to India. A win there and we are in the Semis. This would all have been worth it, then, in many eyes. The pain, the agony, the division, the spite, the nastiness, the despair. Semis is better than anything since 1992 (when our group defeats have been a damn sight worse).

That’s what pisses me off. If we do fluke this, somehow, those who have ruined the last 12 months will be vindicated. “So what”, say those England till I die merchants “it’s improvement”. I say it will be bad in the long run. But I want England to win, still. I just don’t care as much, which is obvious to anyone who has read my rantings over the last 13 months.

I’m in my mid-40s. I get the fanaticism of wanting your team to win regardless of the long-term. I was a fanatic of a football team. For 15 years I went home and away, saw their only ever game in a European competition abroad, saw them in their only two years in the top division, saw their glory day in the Cup Final (the biggest anti-climax ever) and saw two particularly legendary players in their developmental days (one English, one Australian). Three seasons ago, I walked away. I’ve been to one game in three years. We are going down this season. We survived by the skin of our teeth in the last two seasons. I don’t see a sport any more, I see businesses. I see the soul taken out of the game by over-coached, over-priced, under-enthused players, who don’t have an affinity with your club (how can they when you get loan players making up so much of the team) and a lack of hope. I still want them to win, I just don’t care as much. I feel the same about our national football team. I am beginning to feel this way with my cricket team.

I get devotion and fanaticism and I also see how those in charge use it to hold you over a barrel. You criticise those in the authority, those in management, and you are undermining your national team. How dare  you. You traitor. What does it matter who runs the game, it’s those out on the field that matter? Why are you bothered?

Well, as you know, I’m not one of those. Those in authority with “successful business careers” often have a lot to answer for. In my experience many of them suffer from some sort of superiority complex. Often, they have no substance. To a person, I believe they are over-rated. They over think, they project manage, they make a living out of making the bleeding obvious bleeding complicated. One is to hope that Colin Graves and Tom Harrison are not two such individuals, but it is early days and that think-piece paper does not augur well.

The other thing these people do is to latch on to success, any success, and sing it louder than an opera diva. Yes, we are guilty of talking down any achievements, but good grief, you’d never guess we’d beaten India at home, would you? The Sri Lankan defeats, in all formats, were much more a pointer to our World Cup fortunes than beating an Indian team that packed in the series after the first two days at Southampton. A quarter-final place, for all that we cleared the decks for this, will be seen as that expected during a transition phase (so how did we get to a transition phase in a World Cup year should not be asked) and these lot can carry on. Success will be measured in whether this allows the top brass to keep their jobs.

It’s comments like this, interpreted by George Dobell, that mean I don’t care as much..

While it is understood that Graves and Pietersen have spoken in recent days, it increasingly appears as if the ECB’s chairmen is regarded by others as having exceeded his authority and spoken out of turn and that his views are not those of his executive team.

They speak as if they are in a position of strength, not as abject failures in one of our key measurable objectives thus far. As if their decision making deserves no scrutiny. They’ve been abject and yet the “executive team” are getting prissy over someone having a word about a policy they decided upon. I admire their chutzpah.

Because thus far this coaching of our World Cup campaign has been wretched. People like Warner, Maxwell, Finch, McCullum, Sangakkara, Williamson, Dilshan, DeVilliers, Kohli et al are playing a different game. Meanwhile we are settling for 309 in an ODI, and it shows how we are just not on the same wave length as the others. We don’t seem to know how to maximise our potential, which is a damning indictment on our coaching staff. But still, we have the same old, same old. We’ve blown a chance to give Hales a go, we’ve gone to the old ways, we over-praise Root and Moeen, we under utilise Buttler, we mess Taylor about. It’s awful. It’s truly mind-blowing. Don’t even get me started on the bowling – hey, let’s play two blokes just over major injuries, and with little white ball form in the big tournaments and see what could possibly go wrong…

So far I’d barely five this coaching staff 1/10, and the back-room boys and officials even less. But, as is always said, we have a chance, still. Starting tonight in Adelaide.

It’s a feeling of dread all right. I dread the recriminations should it go wrong. I dread the justifications if we somehow fluke it. Dread. No wonder I’m not a fanatic any more.

#RIPDoug

Other House News:

You may be pleased to know that the old archive on the old site is up. The old blog has a new URL, which can be accessed by clicking the link on the right in the Blogroll section. Somehow the head picture disappeared. The old link DOES NOT WORK. I will be staying on this site as the host from now on.

As always, thanks for the comments on the games and other things. Not been as busy on this as I should have been (lots on, not being too chipper) but rest assured, we’ll see more activity if England goes downhill.

2015 World Cup – Game 22 – England v Sri Lanka

LordCanisLupus64 Comments

Wellington. Eight days ago. Annihilation.

Welcome back England, for an important game in the qualification process. Win, and we may get South Africa or India, lose and we may get South Africa or India. There’s a lot riding on this one. Actually, that’s being facetious. The big game in this group may not be this one, although winning it would help, but the one against Bangladesh. I’m looking past Afghanistan which may not be wise, but the Sri Lankans have alread buried Bangla and struggled past Afgha, so they have their two wins out of the way.

This thread is for comments as the game goes on. Also, follow my other alter ego, you know what it is, on Twitter for comments through the evening.

The past form guide isn’t good. We lost in 2011, in the quarters, in a stuffing. We lost in 2007, in the Super 8s, when Ravi and Paul Nixon came so close to snatching a win, which I was trying to listen to while at the same time listen to my future wife in the car back from Heathrow Airport, having not seen her for around 2 months! She still doesn’t understand this obsession with cricket. In 2003 we didn’t meet, whereas we did in 1999 when we won a low-key damp opening day game (I had a George Sharp anecdote re no play at The Oval, then found out it was another time – probably 2004… only five years out). Then there was Faisalabad in 1996, memorable for the brainstorm of picking Phil de Freitas and getting him to bowl spin! Brilliant times. Oh those Illingworth years….

2015 World Cup – Game 14 – England v Scotland

LordCanisLupus69 Comments

In just over an hour this crunch match for England commences. Given my need for sleep, I think I’m going to make about an hour and a half of it, whereupon I expect to top up the Lordly coffers with contributions to the old Christmas Fund Swear Box. It’s certainly had some replenishment over the last few days as those who told us all last year to quit flapping our gums over the departure of the evil Pietersen, and that all will be right with the new MD, fresh from JPM, and with BFIs, as well as the greatest coach of his generation (and will that clown ever live that down) all on the good ship Iron Rod with a core of steel.

They have to win this one, or the consequences are unthinkable for the hierarchy. Hell, they may even have to talk to the outside cricket plebs for once.

Feel free to comment below, read Maxie’s annoyance on TFT, or just listen to George Dobell’s podcast with Peter Miller one more time to actually convince the weapons grade cretins who think this is all about KP that we weren’t THAT serious about one man, but rather about the leadership and how it runs things. Why is Flower still, according to these sources, so influential when his methods resulted in a total implosion even our losers of the 1990s never quite managed (and they were up against much better teams).

OK. It’s England v Scotland in Christchurch. Have fun.

UPDATE – 75/0. Good start by Moeen, but Bell looks too cautious to me.

I’m getting royally fucked off (a quid for the swear box) by the “only care about the Ashes” mob. Many of this mob have also been the most vociferous when we are supposedly cheering against England, accusing us of all sorts. It’s needling me no end. While I appreciate this country needs something to focus on, and beating Australia is always nice, it should not be the only thing. I’m having Rugby Sevens thrown at me (indirectly) but ask the England World Cup winners in 2003’s rugby tournament, and many of them are most proud of winning in New Zealand a few months before that – not the World Cup. The sevens thing may have its world tournament, but the main format of the game does. Cricket doesn’t have a test championship, so this is its world event. If we go a distance in this, people will be interested all right.

Winning prefaces winning. The great teams don’t opt out of things. I believe these players desperately want to do well.

We have a real problem in this country in focusing on winning the big one every so often, instead of creating a culture of domination. Roger Federer won Wimbledon, won all the hard courts stuff, but desperately wanted to win the French. You don’t think not winning the French eats at Djokovic? They want a culture of dominance. We seem happy if we peak just to win a test match series against one team. I’m sorry, I’m not like that. Most great teams don’t have that mentality.

Killing Puritans

LordCanisLupus18 Comments

Ah yes. Always going to throw in an Armand van Helden reference where I can. If you thought not, well, you don’t even know me.

But the main reason for invoking the above album name is because of George Dobell. Those of you who have not listened to his podcast with Peter Miller, aka The Cricket Geek, should. End of. Those of you who think the “campaign” I’ve run here and on my previous incarnation, and that The Full Toss has been on too, is one based on bile and rancour need to listen to it. You have to. Choose not to believe George when he mentions when the ECB deliberately leaked misinformation on an individual, and instead believe Selfey with his “anal about leaks” comment. Choose not to believe George when he said that individual items on the dodgy dossier were leaked to journalists, and that when the full document became public property the ECB tried to sue, and instead believe the mainstream media who believe their work is good journalism rather than the beneficiary of crumbs from the table from above.

This podcast has so much to recommend it. Readers of the previous incarnation will not be surprised at my “bigging up” of George Dobell, and also Peter does a superb job of keeping the fires burning. The podcast leaves you wanting more, almost as if you’d just like to go down the pub with the bloke and get the lowdown as he sees it. There is definitely a “I know a lot of what is going on, but can’t tell you” but the fact is, he lets you know a lot more than the ECB line.

The podcast is also good on the current England set-up. From Dobell’s standpoint it is clear to him that Andy Flower remains a key influence in the England firmament. There is some even more damning stuff around the fall of the Flower Empire, which I’ve not seen or heard in such graphic detail, and the story arounf Boyd Rankin, for instance, really needs to be examined if he was told to play with what was a pretty bad shoulder injury. Flower seems to be the sort of bloke Downton is in awe of, and this is worrying. Dobell clearly initmates that it is Flower pulling many of the strings. Maybe, just maybe, we are getting some clarity on the KP exile that the ECB don’t want to admit.

I’ve got a bit of sympathy for the Moores stuff. As you know, I’m not one who wants to plunge the knife into him, but it is inescapable that this team set the 2015 World Cup as a goal, and the preparation was farcical, the late switch of plans a hint of indecision and the current performances are lamentable. Moores is going to be in the firing line, big time, if this doesn’t turn around. The narrative, set by a friendly media last summer, was that he had created a good environment, and that young talent was thriving under him. People ignored the dodgy start against Sri Lanka, leaped on the turnaround of the India series, and put the late season ODI collapse down to end of season blues. Moores had a friendly press after their initial scepticism.

Moores, as Dobell says, doesn’t do himself any favours in press conferences. He does always seem a decent bloke trying his best to me, and if that sounds slightly patronising it isn’t meant to be. Moores was handed a horrible bed of nails to lie on, and he’s starting to show the marks. The latest interviews seem to indicate that the plans are right but the execution is at fault. Fair enough, but the players look shit scared when they go out there. The problem, and I know it is extraordinarily simplistic, is that our lot go out there as if this is a job of work. Many of us who do jobs don’t love what we do, and hence we don’t perform to our best. Some respond to the threat of the Sword of Damocles, and others retrench and play it safe. How many of this lot actually look like they are enjoying playing the game out there? I felt a little bit of that once we turned it around against India, but it needs the team to grasp the nettle before we get into winning positions. Given what we’ve been told about the regime that ended in Australia last winter, it seems fun was well down the agenda. Was it really true that players were asked not to celebrate birthdays because it could disrupt the team? This is sport, not a war. It’s meant to be enjoyable, not a torture. I perform better when I’m enjoying it, not when it is a matter of fear. I have been told of players snapping at journalists for daring to suggest there may be alternatives to them in the team, as if some believe they have a right not to be questioned. They may be a likeable bunch, according to George, but that message isn’t getting through here.

There are so many nuggets in that podcast, that I urge you all to listen to it. So, before this evening’s entertainment, let me leave you with a quote from Nick Hoult’s article…

Michael Vaughan, Paul Collingwood, Cook and now Morgan all found run making difficult while Moores was the head coach. The only one who did not struggle was Pietersen, partly because his tenure was brief, and he probably did not listen to Moores anyway.

But, never forget, KP was the problem. The real problem. The thing that needed to be dealt with.

My thanks to Mr Miller and Mr Dobell. Do it again soon.

On other parish news, here is where a friend of mine has been recently and mailed to me today…

Galle

World Cup Game 9 – New Zealand v England

LordCanisLupus58 Comments

This is a big one for England in Wellington. New Zealand are a favourite to win it all, and England approach the game on the back of a bit of a shoeing by the Aussies. It seems a little more important when, if we lose this game, our main rival for the 4th spot in our group may well be picking up a point v Australia after Cyclone Marcia.

Comments on the game, while I am sleeping, can be put here….

Post-Match Moan Special

LordCanisLupus23 Comments

Comment here, but as this is more their bag, go over to the Full Toss.

I’ll have the reactions of my own later.

And here they are.

First of all, you have to have belief. I really don’t think they believed they could win today. They felt that they had to play Australia in an opening game in front of their largest crowd, and they just didn’t think it was on. Sure, they will tell you that they had this belief, but it is, as we are increasingly finding out, not a guide to future performance in listening to these media-trained automatons. Australia are in our heads. Just 18 months or so ago we scored around 270 in a Champions Trophy game in our backyard and we won it at a canter. That team had a good number of the players we met today, but we had mental strength over them. I still maintain we are the only team to win a test series 3-0 and come out of it believing we might have lost! We gave up our mental hold over them, and that’s the biggest crime of the end of Flower’s reign.

We had them at 70/3 and still allowed them to make 342. Good grief. There’s a lot said about our garbage death bowling, and I have to say I was sleeping and then tending to my sick border collie so unable to watch the game in this period. But it takes an innings long debacle to allow a score like that on the board. Then our batting subsided meekly. This was a performance that lacked heart and belief. James Taylor showed what could be done if you got in and picked your spots, and although a lot of the congoscenti are saying that it was easy pickings because Australia had taken their feet off the gas, this doesn’t ring true with me. Australia want to humiliate us, it is in their DNA. They want us buried, because, unlike us, they don’t feel any sorrow for losers. Just five or so years ago we sat here lording over the Aussies wondering when they’d next give us a contest. That arrogance is coming home to roost.

But in the end, this doesn’t really matter. As so many say, the format means that losing these games do not mean the competition is over. We need to win against those we are favoured against and perhaps nick one against Sri Lanka or New Zealand, and we’ll be safely in the Quarter Finals. Then it’s that puncher’s chance old crap. Our clearing of the decks, our minute, detailed preparation under the greatest coach of his generation, has come to this. Praying we might get lucky in three fights in a row. I weep. I truly weep.

This game taught us little, other than confirmation that our coaching and selectoral staff have the propensity to drop WTF decisions on us. Taylor has done really decently at number 3, but this brains trust thought the better option might be to drop Taylor to 6 to accommodate a test number 3 who has played one full ODI since June. It’s just mind-numbing. Others will go into it in much greater detail than I, but this should be one nail in Moores’ coffin should we go down that route.

Morgan’s lack of form is also a concern. This is also something the anti-KP lobby (I refuse to believe there is much of a pro-Cook one) are throwing at us refuseniks. “Look at Morgan, he’s not getting the stick that Cook is” is the lamentable, pathetic, mind-numbingly tedious drivel coming from these people who don’t quite reach “clown” status when it comes to debating this. This sort of thinking makes me want to poke needles in my eyes, pull them out of my socket and stick them in acid.

By any measure, and by the way he actually plays, Cook is not an ODI player now. There’s a great piece on Tim Sherwood by Spurs fans saying why Villa shouldn’t hire him. “He played Kyle Walker as a #10” is repeated ad nauseam. Persisting with Cook, who could not make a run, nor make them at any great pace when he did, and the circus surrounding him was a crushing error and akin to playing Walker behind the striker. This is our coaching brains trust trying to be too damn clever.

Morgan has a century amongst all these ducks, had one in Australia last year as well, and when he makes runs, he makes them at an electric pace. He is in shocking form, but he has more likelihood of getting it back than Cook, who was never really suited for ODI cricket in the first place. Stop using your anti-KP blindness to avoid the truth. Yes, Morgan isn’t doing well. But Cook never would have. We tried for so long that even these clowns in the ECB realised it. There are plenty of this apologists on the Guardian, but some absolute sockpuppet on the Telegraph who trolls incessantly is being wilfully obtuse. You’ll know him if you read below Boycott’s article today.

The KP appearances on BTL are now as tiresome as they are inevitable. Again, no doubt, people will be saying I want him in the team instead of someone else. Again, these people will just pass on their ignorance and not be bothered with what I am saying. That’s increasingly their problem, not mine. KP’s points need addressing, deny it if you want, but he’s not exactly being proved wrong on much at the moment (and hold your gums on Taylor – plenty of others agreed with him given he didn’t play for ages). It’s tiresome he does a Q&A on this evening, but he’s right about Downton, and deep down, you all know it. Admit it.

I also tried to get a fight like cornered… meme going on Twitter this morning, but no-one was biting. They were supposed to be English related, as we don’t have many tigers. Here’s some examples…

Be interested in your own suggestions.

UPDATE:

David on the comments on The Full Toss pretty much nails it for me…

The big thing to me between Aus and Eng is look at Finch, Maxwell & Warner, then look at Hales, Stokes & Roy. If Finch, Maxwell & Warner were English they’d be looked at with suspicion, not trusted, criticised in the press and be kept at a distance from the international side, they don’t play like the establishment men want, they don’t follow the MCC, Eton & Harrow coaching manuals, yet all match winners for Australia. Hales & Stokes, 2 players gone backwards big time under Moores, and Roy wouldn’t be trusted by the current management.

That Man Downton

LordCanisLupus4 Comments

The fisk I never did, the article that deserved it.

Paul Hayward interviewed Paul Downton the other day. The results were the usual bombast, bonhomie (false) and another word beginning with bo that I’m not putting here. Let’s read his statements:

“The England and Wales Cricket Board is still trying to bury the winter of discontent (2013-14) and Hugh Morris’s successor as managing director of the England team is not ducking questions. With a new chairman (Colin Graves) and chief executive (Tom Harrison) at the game’s governing body, which was lambasted for its handling of the Pietersen saga, Downton insists the time has come to recognise a mood of change. “The collapse in that side was total,” he admits.”

So where was the review as to why that happened. It isn’t merely age when other great players around the world last much longer than our players do. Sangakkara is still playing on, Mahela will be at this World Cup, Tendulkar was great until his very late 30s, as was Dravid. Kallis was a great all-rounder well past 35. Shiv’s still going strong. But no, we are to accept that at 35 or so, it is inevitable a team will collapse. It means you don’t have to do hard stuff, like look at coaching techniques, schedule, captaincy, that sort of thing. It’s frankly insulting. As if a 5-0 humping to a barelu above average Australia team was a startling inevitability.

 “We’ve blooded 10 players in Test cricket in 18 months and seven have made very positive contributions,” Downton says. “The big question [after the Ashes] was: how are we going to replace [Graeme] Swann. Moeen came along and, so far, a year into international cricket, has been phenomenal, and a breath of fresh air.

Ten players. List them, and you find Woakes, Kerrigan, Rankin, Ballance, Stokes and Borthwick were before Downton “officially” took over, so who is the “we” here. Of the four he was in charge of, Robson is officially on “drop watch” despite hitting more test centuries in his last seven tests than Cook has done in 18 months. Buttler was brought in once they prised Prior off the pitch with his shot achilles. They really didn’t want to do it, so don’t bruise yourself from patting so hard on the back on that one. Chris Jordan is Mr Inconsistency, and although he is exciting, he hasn’t nailed a place down. That leaves Moeen, who they really want to bring to our attention. Well done on that one. I’ll give them Ballance, but he was on the radar before Downton took over, but one thing you know that credit has many parents, but failure is an orphan.

“For Gary Ballance to be voted emerging Test player of the year was sensational. Root has recovered and scored six centuries: three in Tests and three in one-dayers. In the background was the turmoil that was going on in the media about Alastair and Kevin. To my mind, what was going on on the cricket side was being missed: the turnaround against India, after we went 1-0 down. That was huge testament to that group of players, the coaches that had come in, to Alastair, the environment they created, the way young players were thriving.”

Yes, we know. Well done. But who created this turmoil, and indeed, hindered our players by making it Cook v KP, which is what it was. Step forward, Paul. You and your interview, your breaching of confidentiality, your unequivocal backing to a non-performing captain, prior to a year of non-performance? No, didn’t think you would. Credit to the good environment where of four series played last summer, we are told to remember one, and forget the other three, as well as the one in Sri Lanka.

Of the World Cup, Downton says: “I think people will look at us now and say we’re a bit of a side to be reckoned with.”

You can actually hear him say that, can’t you. In that smug, supercilious way of his. Self-congratulatory, self-justification seeping from every pore. It’s that awful condundrum. I want this team to do well, but if they do, Downton will barge everyone out of the way to claim the credit. It’s what they do.

On Cook, the more recent casualty, Downton starts out: “His Test success has been frozen in time. We had a difficult summer, which we got through really on the up at the end – won three Tests in a row. The sense of achievement at that stage was huge – from [Cook’s] point of view, and the young guys coming in.

“I think his credentials in one-day cricket are less obvious than in Test cricket. He’s a good player – and his one-day record is good. The thinking at the time was: ‘You’ve just created this winning environment, you deserve the right to go on,’ and, also, we were trying to pick a side for a World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, so we backed him and gave him every opportunity to lead that side. Bear in mind he was appointed after the last World Cup with this World Cup in mind, so we didn’t want to give that away.

Where do you start? Note the lovely use of “difficult summer”. We all recall, those of you who may know me from another parish, of the beautiful usage of “difficult winter”. Note no mention of two abject losses, but three wins against a team that packed it in. A great batting side, supposedly, that just gave up. Ignore the two defeats as we played utterly brainless cricket. How we let down our newbies, like Robson and Moeen at Headingley and Ballance at Lord’s.

Then he rambles along some justification for sticking with Cook, and saying that they’d backed him this far and didn’t want to give it away because, I think we are being told, that his leadership was a key factor in our winning the India test series. It’s a peculiar narrative. It seems to place more faith in the runes than in identifying performance and adaptability. Because I’m a bit fast for a chunky, you ain’t sticking me at fly half in a rugby team. I’m a prop. Cook is a test opener at best, not one in modern ODI cricket. He’s had his best shots starved in tests and not been able to break free, so what on earth is he going to bring to an ODI team when he’s playing poorly at his strengths? This must be the analysis that banks would pay Downton a fortune for.

“In the end, the pressure was on him for the whole year, when he became the lightning rod for a lot of criticism, some of it fair, a lot of it unfair. Then it was clear we had just reached a tipping point, when he wasn’t going to be able to perform and the pressure was just immense. It maybe got to the stage where it was impacting the side. We had several chats. He would have no complaints in terms of [that] – he just hadn’t got enough runs, he knows that.

Disingenuous in the extreme. You put the pressure on him, Downton. You made him the lightning rod. He should have been dropped from test matches on form after the Sri Lanka series, and no, that 95 does not change my mind. He should have been left out of the ODI side as soon as possible to prepare for the World Cup, but you didn’t. It wasn’t just the pressure making him underperform, because if so, what was the excuse for the previous 12 months? The strong suspicion in this parish is that Cook was sacked when the heat REALLY turned on Downton after his arrogant interviews in Sri Lanka. You know how it is with football, when the heat turns on the Chairman, he sacks the manager.

“The opportunity we have is to reintroduce Alastair now. He’s an asset to English cricket. My view is that he will continue to captain the Test side. There’s a huge amount to look forward to: 17 Tests in 10 months, with an Ashes series and South Africa. He deserves the opportunity to get back to doing what he does best, which is scoring Test runs.

Remember the last man to be called an asset, Alastair. Be bloody careful. “My view is that he will continue to captain the test side” is Downton’s carefully worded statement. I’d be careful there, too, Alastair. Notice how Cook deserves the opportunity to do what he does best, but that isn’t open to others. He really talks out of his hat. The my view part is directly linked to the twaddle at the end of the Sri Lanka tour. He backed Cook and having shut up Moores who seemed to let the cat out of the bag, then within a week presided over a meeting (though may or may not have voted) that fired the captain. Thus, arguably the most hands-on MD for many years, can claim decisions are made by others. Disingenuous throughout his steely core.

“I’m not pretending that this won’t have damaged him. He’ll be incredibly hurt. But he’s incredibly strong-minded and I hope he would come back rejuvenated, utterly determined and with a view that he’s just turned 30 – so he’s got potentially five years more, and 10, 15 more Test hundreds in him. He’ll blow every record in England away.”

With “friends” like Downton, who needs enemies. Build him up, make him the lightning rod, back him as if he were your prodigal son, then dump him before the life’s ambition he had, and you give him this “sympathy”. As for the last bit, he will blow the records away if he is given a divine right to do so. Note, he expects Cook to collapse at 35 too. Also, note to Downton. Number of centuries since June 2013 = 0. Magic beans time again.

His first mistake, you could argue, was turning up too early for his new job. He says: “I was due to start on Feb 1 [last year] but in fact I went to Australia on New Year’s Eve [2013] and really met Andy [Flower, the head coach] for the first time that day. I watched the Test and was immediately into the aftermath of a disastrous series.

Maybe you should have started a few months later. Or not taken the post up at all. Instead you went out there, talked to the one man who was particularly keen to protect his legacy and made decisions based on that feedback. You flew out into a disastrous series, so instead of a full review, we got the decisions you made. And you want to treat this approach as a virtue? Aw shucks.

“From that point, six centrally contracted players were out of the side. Swann had gone home, Trott had gone home, Prior was dropped, Root was dropped, Bresnan was out and Finn was out. Six of our 11 weren’t playing. We’d still not replaced Strauss, 18 months on. Carberry had had a decent series but hadn’t nailed it down. We had an issue to deal with in Kevin.

Carberry scored more runs than Cook, did he not (281 to 246)? No fear…. who gives a stuff about performance? Then we have the irreplaceable Bresnan, and let’s not go there with who played a part in Finn falling apart. Swann was, it seems, patently unfit or a deserter (either of which pose huge management questions in themselves) and we all know about Trott. Prior was injured and woefully out of form. Hey! Pick on the top run scorer as the “issue”. Because all we have is the FACT that our most disconnected player made the most runs for us on this tour. I don’t know how this happens. One would suggest the others might have got more disconnected as well….

I’ve heard all the corporate twaddle, and I don’t care. I read the book, and I don’t care. I have heard KP speak since, and I don’t care. Downton nailed his “good old chaps” mantra to the wall and we can’t prise it away now.

“From that low point, taking the decision that Kevin and ourselves would part company, and then moving on, what we’ve done has surpassed our expectations. There’s a group of players now who’ve almost grown up together, from Woakes, Taylor, Buttler, Root, Stokes. We’ve got a real core of people who can potentially come together.”

Surpassed expectations. Bovine excrement. What was it Clarke said about picking a team to win matches and go up the World Rankings, whereupon we promptly lost to Sri Lanka. We lost two ODI series at home to teams who travel badly (and we’ve shown how by beating one of them in Australia) and by flaming out a World T20 based on ego. I know the spin I put on beating India at home, but this clown has a different one.

“I’m not going to go into the detail. What I’ve said in the past is that I arrived in Sydney and saw someone who was clearly quite disconnected from the team. You can tell, just watching,” Downton says. “And, of course, that’s subsequently been proven by what he’s written. All you need to do is read Kevin’s book to understand why that decision had to be made. What I said at the time was that he found himself disconnected.

I……can’t…….speak. The book “proved” your decision was right, but any accusation in it was not worth investigating? Having your cake and eat it? All you need to do is read the book to tell you why. I tell you what Downton, stop the prevarication, stop the innuendo and tell us why. In plain words other than disconnected.

“It became a unanimous decision from senior players in the dressing room, captain, all the coaching staff, through the management to the board that actually now is the right time to part company. We settled with Kevin. Kevin wanted to get his future sorted out before the IPL as well. So, we settled.

“Am I confident it was right for English cricket? Absolutely. I think young players have flourished and thrived. And I think you get to the point where performances start to dip away. We’d managed Kevin for 10 years and it was time just to move on. It’s very good to see Kevin enjoying his cricket again [at the Big Bash]. Seeing him wearing a head cam or mic’d up to the commentary box – he’s thrived in that kind of atmosphere. He loves it.”

The last part is insulting shite and we all know it. As if freeing KP from the torture of playing for England is making him happy, and Downton can claim some credit. You don’t want him enjoying his cricket. Don’t pretend otherwise. The inference also, that KP is past it, is particularly laughable, as if that played a part in it.

Also, a unanimous decision by the senior players? Did KP vote for himself? That’s a lovely picture, with the new MD, fresh in the role, thinking it appropriate to seek decisions from players he thought were senior. Sounds like someone organising a witch hunt to me. (Hey, we’ll keep faith with you, want to ditch the mouthy one?). Something is rotten in the ECB… in Team England. Their Downton’s words. Read them.

You know something with Downton. These interviews aren’t short. He’s got more to say.

Downton is in no discernible rush to defend the ECB’s handling of Pietersen’s eviction – the dodgy dossier myth – but will not be changing his story. Instead, he aims to shift attention to the next Ashes series and the array of potential Test stars at Peter Moores’s disposal.

Yes. I’d ignore that dodgy dossier too. Did it ever happen?

Especially Root. “He’s a very, very impressive young man who’s got a very clear focus and very astute cricketing brain. You forget he’s only just turned 24. I watched him score a hundred in Antigua [in March]. He had a broken thumb. Luckily, there was a rain break for 20 minutes that allowed the painkillers to come on.

“He basically constructed a hundred with one hand, couldn’t put any power through his right hand, and played the most extraordinarily mature innings, which was just pure grit, game nous, cricket sense. Nobody had a good tour of Australia. He was one, and got dropped. To come back and score six hundreds in a year has been a phenomenal achievement.

“He was the one that said, ‘It may be that the middle order will suit me well’. Andy Flower had identified that he played spin extremely well. His temperament in the middle order seems terrific. He was given the opportunity to bat at five and absolutely nailed it in the summer. He’s a real cricketer of substance now.”

Joe Root, watch out mate. He’s claiming the credit for you. The fact we know you had grit and ability is by the by. Your undressing by a quality pace attack isn’t to be worried about, just rejoice that he smacked friendly bowling on slow pitches all over the shop. Rejoice at that news.

“I just think it was his time,” he says of Moores. “To me, Peter was the outstanding coach in England. What I felt we needed was someone with substance and confidence to take on what was going to be a difficult start. It’s always exciting to be part of a rebuilding. But he’d already been coach, there were some people who questioned him; certainly there were ex-players who’d played with him who were quick to point out some faults, and the honeymoon period was always going to be quite slim.”

He’s been a winner so far. Good grief. You sack KP and big up other failures. Why isn’t he being nailed by the media for this. Please God. He’s a walking duck shoot, you could pick this nonsense off at will. Why don’t you?

New blog. Same theme. He is more confident now, with the World Cup on the way, and expectations low. They’ve done that job well, and you can, as he does, put it on the turmoil he created by sacking a top player and putting another one in the firing range as the anointed one. He then appointed a coach very few of us believe in, and made mistake after mistake in the role. He’s been atrocious, he’s been disingenuous, he’s been a disaster. Sadly, he’ll be there to claim any credit when it is there, even if it is hard for us to see.

He returned to the game from a banking career with HSBC, Cazenove and JP Morgan to appoint Moores as Flower’s successor.

Some people claim that this CV means he’s not to be questioned. Some people don’t remember 2008. Some people suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. He’s not the ECB’s banker, he’s there manager of the shop floor. I wasn’t aware banking made you good at that. Still, life continues to surprise. To quote a phrase from another blogger – he’s done so much bungling, I’m surprised Zippy and George aren’t turning up, and Rod, Jane and Freddie will be appointed the new selectors.

Welcome to Being Outside Cricket. Meet the new boss…..