Mash it up Harry!!

Harry is a fellow cricket obsessive with whom I've been having an ongoing e-mail conversation over the past six months or so. The conversation has tended to take the form of one or other of us ranting at length about the latest English failures, followed by the other wading in with some equally trenchant views. Harry was the first to point out that, from the safety of 550-6, there was only one possible way England could lose the Adelaide test - and they chose it. He's also a big fan of Mal Loye.

When I got Harry's latest message (the day after the Australia defeat) I thought, 'why suffer alone - let's share it with a wider audience...'

So here it is: -

Apparently the reason why Michael Vaughan is absolute pants as a one-day batsman is that the pressure of captaincy weighs heavily. So says Fletch.

Well excuse me, but isn't he in the side, as was the case with Brearley, because of his fantastic leadership, brilliant decision-making and all-round inspirational qualities ..... which, in this tournament, have taken us to defeat every time we have faced a test-playing nation. And for those who want to argue that two of those losses were narrow: isn't that when a world-class captain might have found a way to find that extra few percent to convert them to wins?

(I'll skip over the "Loye should've been there" bit, because I'm a stuck vinyl platter on that subject now, but I'm bloody well right.)

So, Fletcher has become an idiot, evolving from the inscrutable master cricket coach & tactician for our national side, into something resembling a failing football manager. Sad.

And, whilst I'm feeling disenchanted, let me move on to Pietersen, the gloriously talented South African who now plays for Kevland. What a fantastic day he had on Sunday! A century in the World Cup! The crowning glory for all his magnificent efforts on behalf of, err, Kevland. How wonderful to see him cavorting around the pitch as he notched up his ton. And doesn't it speak volumes for ihs single-minded concentration that it never seemd to cross his mind that whilst the flashbulbs were a-poppin' for him, that team called England was heading inevitably towards a comfortable defeat. 5 an over on a perfect batting track is nowhere near enough, either for a team, or its star batsman.

His ton was by today's standards, in those conditions, almost Boycott-esque. As is his attitude.

Two Sevens Clash

According to Vic Marks (admitted not the most reliable of sources, but sometimes you justhave to go with what you can get) England are seriously considering letting Michael Vaughan bat number seven and twirl his occasional off-spinners for the rest of the tournament.

Three problems with this...

1) It smacks of utter desparation

2) If you want someone to bowl the occasional over of off-spin, what's wrong with Kevin Pietersen? This might also help address another problem that I can forsee a few years down the road when KP starts getting mega pissed off with carrying the England ODI team around on his shoulders and starts looking round for another country to play for - after all, he does have 'form' in this regard. Giving him some extra work to do might occupy his mind and keep him on board a bit longer.

3) We've got a perfectly good number seven who bowls a bit in Jamie Dalrymple - and Dalrymple is probably the second best fielder in the squad after Collingwood.

Dedicated Followers of Fashion

Fancy dress is pretty commonplace at international cricket these days. The guy in the Pink Panther costume is a seemingly ever-present fixture at all England test matches. You do wonder on some baking hot days whether he ever thinks to himself - 'why the hell am I doing this?' It's a paradoxical form of anonymous self-publicity - matched only by the weirdos you'd see dressed in gimp outfits at punk gigs over the years.

Every test match brings out it's fair share of exhibitionists and human billboards and you always get a fair smattering of people dressed up as 'village idiots' - you recognise them because they're wearing Manchester United football shirts to a cricket match.

The most popular costume in this World Cup however, is far more subtle and can be best described as the 'Empty Seat'. it's not the most colourful or exciting of costumes, but has really caught the imagination of Carribean cricket fans to the extent that at most grounds there seem to be whole blocks of fans dressed in this way - demonstration of an extraordinarily efficient organisation

To get so many people to fall in with a specific dress code like the 'Empty Seat' is amazing. The nearest equivalent I can think of is the 'orange' display of Dutch football supporters at international tournaments - but even with them, there's always one person who lets the side down by turning up in blue or white. The 'empty seat' crew have a 100% success rate in some stands, and around 50% elsewhere - a remarkable effort.

it's all the more commendable when you realise that the much-criticised ICC ticket pricing policy means that a lot of these people are paying out almost half their weekly wage to watch games.

Armed Forces

Assuming Simon Jones makes a full recovery, the England selectors will have an interesting problem putting a bowling attack together from this summer.

With Freddie presumably a 'given' for one of the four fast bowling places, you're effectively picking the remaining three from the following seven names: -

Harmison
Hoggard
Mahmood
Plunkett
Anderson
Jones
Broad

A nice problem to have I'd suggest.

Action Men

I've mentioned here before that, having recently had shoulder surgery, the sight of Malinga bowling makes me wince. The thought that a generation of Sri Lankan kids are going to be mimicking that action is something that should have Colombo orthopaedic surgeons rubbing their hands with glee at all the extra shoulder reconstruction work they'll be picking up - Lord knows that must be in clover already with the number of arms they've had to 'straighten' since Murali hit the big time.

As kids growing up in the Seventies, we had a whole range of actions to imitate in our games of park cricket. We'd sit in front of the television committing various actions to memory and then spend hours demonstrating our powers of mimicry.

As the only southpaw in the gang that used to meet over at Kings Georges Recreation Ground, I had the left handers field to myself. I could do a very passable 'Underwood', a pretty good 'Sobers' (the longer run up) as well as a fair 'Bishen Bedi' (no run up whatsoever and a permanent enigmatic smile on the face.)

The right handed version of Bedi was normally described as the 'Illingworth' - the only difference being the facial expression which became 'thoughtful' - probably because none of us knew how to do a 'bloody minded git' at that age.

Everyone had their own specialities - some were very esoteric. Remember Inshan Ali? Big Keith was the first to perfect his wristy toss of the ball from one hand to the other before he started his run up. It became his party trick until he reached puberty and found better things to do with his wrist.

The elder Wheeler brother could do a very good Kerry O'Keefe - and could probably turn the ball just as far as O'Keefe ever did, whilst his younger brother Peter could produce an extraordinary Tony Greig, striding to the crease in huge bounds like a high-jumper - and even managed to adapt his act when Greig suddenly took up off-spin on the 1973/74 tour of the West Indies.

We all struggled with the 'Mike Procter' - ending up sprawled on the wicket through trying to bowl off the wrong leg, and we nearly tore our arms out of our sockets perfecting the whippy 'John Snow' - and then compounded the shoulder problems with the 'Jeff Thomson' - which was adapted by subsequent generations into the 'Fatima Whitbread'.

Dennis Lillee wasn't too difficult - added points given for doing the trademark flicking away sweat with the index finger. The 'Willis' was easy too - run in like a total lunatic with limbs going in all directions and then propel the ball as hard as possible towards the batsman.

Another favourite was the 'Chris Old' - an orthodox straight run up culminating in a blur of activity in the bowling stride. Graham Gooch later entertained fifth day crowds at dead test matches with a run through of his repertoire. His 'Old' used to end up clutching an imaginary strain in his thigh!

We went to great lengths to get our replaca actions as near to reality as possible. When John Arlott described Asif Masood's run up as being like 'Groucho Marx chasing a pretty waitress' Stevie Jones went to the local library to check out who this 'Groucho' was. He reported back, somewhat baffled, that it was 'some American guy with glasses and a big cigar'. Clive, whose Dad was a millitant trade unionist suggested that Arlott had meant Karl Marx - but that just deepened our confusion.

Around the same time Clive fell out of a tree and broke his right arm. In the period it was in plaster, he not only perfected a superb 'Phil Edmonds', but was also told by his doctor that when the plaster came off his arm would be temporarily slightly withered, so he - rather tastelessly I feel, assured us that he'd be doing a 'Chandrasekar' before too long.

Some we never perfected, and some were just too boring to bother with. We found Max Walker's tangle of arms and legs impossible. It resembled someone doing the butterfly stroke standing up - and none of us could do the butterfly either. In the boring category were Indian seamers Madan Lal & Abid Ali, and two off-spinners Pat Pocock and Ashley Mallet.

Sometimes a simple prop could tip the balance between an also-ran action and something clearly recognisable, and admired by the rest of the gang. A weeks pocket money was spent on a couple of white towelling wrist bands from the local sports shop - and hey presto, I was a left-handed Richard Hadlee.

Mention of Hadlee brings me to the serious point of this post. For the best part of the 70's and 80's, the New Zealand bowling attack was effectively Hadlee, plus four others. A whole generation of Kiwi youngsters, therefore, grew up with only one homegrown bowling action worth copying. Luckily for the future of New Zealand cricket, Hadlee's action was as close to near to perfection as makes no difference, which has resulted in a seemingly endless supply of New Zealand bowlers with excellent 'repeatable' actions - side on delivery, left arm up high, good follow through.

Might England's 'lack of fast bowling' woes in the 80's and 90's have anything to do witb the lack of decent role models? After all, the 'Willis' was fun to do, but eventually you'd give up and go and do something less taxing on the human frame like prop forward, or linebacker.

While you think on that - I'm off out into the back garden to perfect my 'Monty'...

Up for the Cup

Random thoughts and idle musings as the second phase kicks off: -

- We now have a best part of a month to look forward to with a meaningful game of cricket every day. The time difference means that most of the game is in prime time, even for us wage -slaves who do the 9-5 shift.

- There have been some comments in the press about how the lack of India and Pakistan in the Super 8's somehow detracts from the competition. One of the BBC Five Live reporters went as far as to say that "it shouldn't be allowed to happen again" - which at a time when the words 'match fixing' are on everyones lips, is a rather ill-advised comment.

- Talking of match fixing, Ireland beat Pakistan fair and square - Pakistan lost because they didn't play well enough on the day. Same with Bangladesh over India. If people don't like sporting upsets like this, maybe they should just stick to watching sports where a small number of teams are totally dominant and win everything - the English Premiership for example.

- I've learnt more about sports betting in the past week than I did in the previous 42 years of my life. Next thing you know there'll be a feature on Blue Peter - 'Here's a match I rigged earlier...'

- Who'll be in the 'Final Four'? Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa look pretty certain to make the cut, and I'm guessing that the final place will come down to a 'winner take all' match between England and the West Indies. England need to win a minimum of two games out of the four they have against Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa & West Indies.

- Much has been made in the media about the fact that the head of the police investigation into Bob Woolmer's murder is an ex British detective. Presumably this is supposed to offer some sort of reassurance that Dibble will get a quick result and that good old Anglo Saxon justice will be seen to be done - rather than having to trust things to the 'colonials'. On the other hand, based on previous Scotland Yard performances, we can obviously expect confessions to be beaten out of suspects, evidence fabricated and prime suspects to be walking the streets years later due to downright incompetence.

- Talking of the investigation, has Freddie Flintoff been interviewed yet? After all, he was caught fleeing the island on a pedalo...

- It's too late now, but why hasn't Steve Tikolo ever played County Cricket?

- On the face of it, Australia have been pretty dominant so far - but against South Africa they were only a couple of salt tablets away from losing, having posted the highest ever World Cup score.

- In the next couple of weeks England are going to have to chase a 300 plus score to stay in the competition - with a top three of Vaughan, Joyce, Bell.....

Yours is no Disgrace

There's a well known journalistic trick, whereby you pose a false proposition early on in the article and then spend the rest of the article knocking it down in order to make your case and justify your argument.

The propostion that Simon Hattenstone poses in this Guardian article is that Andrew Flintoff has become a national disgrace - and by definition, those of us who censure him for his pedalo antics are being hypocritical because we were happy to laugh at his drunken behaviour after the 2005 series, and are now critical of him for doing exactly the same thing in the West Indies.

I'd say the national response (if there is such a thing) is more subtle than that. Without trying to sound too much like a censorious teacher, I'd suggest that we're annoyed with Freddie because he's let us, and himself down - and, more importantly, because we fear that his drinking antics are going to detract from his effectiveness on the cricket field.

We waited eighteen years for someone to come along who could stand up to the Australians for us - look them in the eye and not blink. Glory be, in 2005 Flintoff did just that - but now we see that he's on the road to pissing all the talent down the drain, and we'll end up with a shell of a player whereas before there was a world-beater.

Ian Botham has adopted similar line to Hattenstone, along the lines of 'drinking never hurt me, therefore let him carry on drinking'. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but after the 1986/87 tour Botham was a total shadow of his former self - partly through injury, but partly, I'd suggest, because he body finally rebelled against the excessive revellry and lack of sleep. Hattenstone quotes Beefy saying that 'sleep is overrated'. Oh, ha bloody ha... how terribly radical and extreme. Let's encourage all our professional sportsmen to stay up all night on the lash, and then see how well they do the next morning.

Hopefully, losing the vice-captaincy has been the wake-up call that Flintoff needs to bring him to his senses. However, I have a little nagging feeling that it won't. I fear that some of his so called mates (that means you Steve Harmison, judging by this article) will tell him not to worry, that the Fletcher response has been a terrible overreaction, and that Freddie should just carry on as he is now.

If that happens it'll be the Australians who'll have the last laugh, and a generation of English supporters will never forgive Flintoff.

Cricket's Darkest Hour

Where the hell do we go from here?

Golden Years

"Those were the days my friend,
We thought they'd never end..."

Most of the tributes paid to Bob Woolmer have concentrated on his coaching achievements with just a passing reference to his domestic career, but for a generation of Kent fans who are now over 40, memories of Woolmer will automatically kindle stronger memories of the 1970's - a magical decade of success which I'd suggest is unequalled in domestic cricket. Ok, I'll accept Surrey's run of seven championships between 1952 & 1958 as coming close, but it's well known that they used to doctor their Oval wickets to suit their bowling line-up, whereas the only 'doctoring' Kent needed to do was of the 'witch' variety - pray for rain and then mutter 'Underwood' into the opposition dressing room!

In a nine year period from 1970, Kent appeared in no less than six one-day finals (winning four) as we 'White Horse' fans all came to memorise the underground timetable between Charing Cross & St Johns Wood. On top of that, there were three County Championships and three Sunday League titles thrown in for good measure. if you're scoring at home, that's ten trophies in nine seasons. All this was achieved with a team continually denuded by international call ups Denness and Luckhurst made regular appearances, Knott and Underwood were virtual ever-presents in the England team, - and then from 1975, Woolmer joined them.

In the early 70's Woolmer spent his time batting nine behind a phenomonal batting order than included the aforementioned Luckhurst Denness,and Knott, plus Alan Ealham, Cowdrey and overseas stars John Shepherd and Asif Iqbal - plus occasionally Bernard Julien - the first 'next Gary Sobers'.

His medium pace bowling was more important at that time - think Paul Collingwood, but with a much better inswinger, whilst his batting was considered little more than 'steady'. On the face of it, therefore, his selection for England in 1975 was something of a surprise. Fred Trueman's comment was that 'I'm three yards faster than him, right now' (yes Fred, and five stone heavier and seventeen years older) A ton against Lillian Thompson in his second test silenced the doubters and secured his place.

Back at Kent, Cowdrey had retired, Luckhurst had moved onto the coaching staff and Denness was shortly to move over the river to sample the scenic delights of Essex, so at last there was some room at the top of the order - an opportunity Woolmer grabbed with both hands.

His batting style was classical - unhurried and correct, with perfect strokeplay - you could almost call it 'Cowdreyesque'. This piece by Mike Selvey in yesterdays Guardian sums it up nicely. (Scroll down)

He seemed to excel in one day finals - there was a fifty in the B&H final in 1976, followed by another one, in a losing cause, the following year when he was the only Kent batsman who managed to handle a rampant Mike Procter. At one stage Kent were 50-5, of which Woolmer had 38 not out and no one else had got beyond 5. 1977 also saw more test runs against Australia as England regained the Ashes. He scored two consecutive centuries against the old enemy that summer - and all his three test tons were against the 'Baggy Green'.

Then came the Packer Revolution, and things would never be quite the same again. Half the Kent side, including Woolmer, signed up for the circus - and by the time the dust settled and peace had broken out, the names on everyone's lips were Botham, Gower & Gooch rather than the old guard.

For Kent, there was another season of success in 1978 as they won a further County Championship by a landslide as the ban on Packer players meant all the internationals were available all season, and another B&H trophy with Woolmer scoring yet another fifty in the final - three on the trot must be some sort of record.

The 1978 season, however, is now regarded as some sort of 'last hurrah' as gradually the team was broken up and the 1970s elite retired one by one. There have been Lords finals since, but the record has been played six, lost six. But then Woolmer didn't play in any of them so it's no wonder Kent lost them all.

Too Drunk to Field?

Two different issues: -

1) Leaving aside the 'Freddie pissed on a pedalo' story for a second, the subtext of this story seems to be that four players were seen in a nightclub more than 24 hours before the Canada game. They were grassed up by some England supporters - presumably for the going rate for that sort of thing which has always been thirty pieces of silver. Our wonderful tabloid press then contacted the England management and asked what they were going to do about it.

Management response should have been 'it's an internal matter and will be dealt with internally' - instead we get a very public notice of fines and tickings off.

Who's in charge of the England squad anyway - Duncan Fletcher or the editor of the News of The World?

2) No one seems to be sure of the whole Flintoff story yet - but if what the BBC are saying is true (and you can normally depend on the Beeb to get things pretty straight), then the punishment is probably about right. Freddie is a senior member of the squad, vice captain to boot, and needs to be setting an example.

His only defender in the press seems to be Ian Botham, which hardly comes as a surprise. After all, Graham Gooch is still getting a laugh at cricket dinners with his story of being out for a 6am run on one England tour, and meeting Beefy on his way to bed after a night on the lash.

Wonder what the punshment would have been had England's opponents today had been New Zealand rather than Canada?