Setting Sons

A recent favourite cricket question of mine is this - Of the 16 teams at the last World Cup, why were Holland unique?

Leaving aside some red herrings like matting wickets, the answer is that Holland are the only ones who were never part of the British Empire.

It's not much of a stretch from there to say that an integral part of the history of cricket is the history of empire.

I was originally going to say 'early history of cricket' - but then thought of what's going on in Zimbabwe, which still has its roots in decisions taken when 'the sun never set...'. - so is the reason you could fill Wembley Stadium for five days on the trot for an India/Pakistan test match.

When you're growing up, these things tend to pass you by. I suppose I must have wondered by Pakistan only start playing test matches in the 50's, but it never concerned me enough to ask. Same goes with why did India only played their first test in 1932, and why did Pakistan and India play each other so infrequently.

Then there was the lack of South Africa from the international arena - another story entirely.

Then pushing the envelope a bit further, why did the MCC play tests abroad rather than England (for some time I thought the MCC were some sort of touring organisers - a bit like the Barmy Army)

It was only when I read Beyond a Boundary that the coin started to drop, and I started to realise that there was a whole rich history of the game out there - one that seemed to run in a parallel universe to the one I was used to.

It's an ongoing catching-up process, which is why one of my poolside books this summer was 'Corner of a foreign field - the Indian history of an English game' was high on my reading list.

It's not as good as 'Beyond a Boundary - then again, very few sports books are. It's not as overtly political as it - probably because the author, Ramchandra Gula, has grown up in post-imperial India, rather than having to rail against existing iniquities as CLR James was doing.

It has a fascinating hero in Panwankar Baloo, and as many stories of British ruling class idiocy as anyone could need.

And it does ask some pertinent questions about India and Pakistan today, that really do need answering.

Blogging by the Pool

- I surely wasn't the only one who was looking around for the 'resety' button at 2pm on Friday afternoon was I? "Ok - let's start again - it's 11am, and Australia are going to bat first."

Of course, England would probably still have been as utterly inept as they were when the game was played in this universe, rather than a parallel one - but at least the game might have lasted beyond tea on the third day...

- All the claims from the England camp about Fred's fitness, and then the counter-claims from his agent/publicist yesterday suggest only one thing - Freddie has an incredibly inflated level of his own place in cricket history, and a rather tactless approach to ensuring that that place looks better and better by the day.

- It must have been nice being an England quick bowler over the past four days - not having to let anything like logic or realism enter your tiny little brain. Bang it in short - get clobbered to the boundary - go back to your mark and run in again. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

- Wonder if we'll be singing 'Super Mitch' at the Oval, like we did at Edgbaston....

- As for the eleven for the fifth test - the selectors, maybe with a slight nudge from the ECB, need to simply pick the side that they think gives us the best chance of winning the game. That means batsmen who don't look as though they'd rather be any place else than out in the middle, and a bowling attack that can take twenty wickets.

So that means Key and Ramps for Bell and Bopara.

Pope's religion questioned!

Every morning in the Grauniad Sport section, they ask a 'referendum' question on a topical sporting issue of the day to which readers are invited to e-mail a yes or no response. Normally the result is quite close, but I don't think the 'nays' will have it on today's poll -

"Andrew Strauss claims Australia's cricketers are no longer as feared as they were in the days of Glenn Mcgrath, Shane Warne and Matthew Hayden. Is the England captain right?"

St Swithin's Day

The forecast for the next week for Birmingham is pretty dire. Rain, rain, rain -and then when you get bored of all the rain, heavy showers.

Actually, did I say 'dire'?

A mis-statement. After all, four more weeks of this, and it's 'game over - cheerio Ricky!'

Bell is in for KP. Could be a positive move actually -after all, Bell - more than anyone, is likely to get a huge psychological boost through not having Warne and McGrath bowling at him.

Assuming the floods do recede at some time over the next seven days, here's a quick thought. That it, bearing in mind how foul the weather predictions are, and the comments from the groundsman about how the wicket is going to be as soft as jelly, might it be an idea to hold Freddie back for Headingley?

Favourite Shirts

See the quote above - the one below the title of this blog? Well, those frightfully nice people at Philosophy Football have stuck it on a T shirt.

As they say in their blurb -

"A great historian, GM Trevelyan had a touching belief in the ability of cricket to quell the revolting masses and keep the guillotine at bay. Given that large parts of the former British Empire combine independence with beating their past colonial masters at cricket (Australia currently excepted of course) GM perhaps need to do more work on his cricketing recipe for class collaboration."

Follow the link here.

And while we're at it, they've also committed some of the words of cricket's greatest ever commentator to cotton too.

''Say that cricket has nothing to do with politics and you say that cricket has nothing to do with life'' - John Arlott.

You can order that one here.

The Special One

Awesome.

So many flashbacks to the Oval 2005. Totally driven, reaching a different level and getting wickets through sheer will-power, feeding off the noise of the crowd and we fed off him.

But today, he was bowling on one leg.

And we won this one!

You could almost imagine him telling the rest of the team to climb on board and he'd take them to victory.

How long can it last?

Membership Rights

There's something wonderfully counter-intuitive about MCC members starting to queue at 3am before Day 1 of the Lords Test.

After all, they would all have had to wait at least twenty five years to join the 'blood and pus' brigade (cf John Arlott) - paying an initial fee, an annual retainer to stay on the waiting list and then an annual fee once the actuarial Gods had granted them membership. Finally joining the club gives you free access to probably the best viewing position in world cricket -

So to then queue up seems totally insane.

And why didn't any of them get their butler to queue for them?

A Master's Voice

Drop everything you're doing right now, unless it's breast feeding or something, and read this.

You seriously won't regret it - it's awesome.

A taster -

"I have been asked to say a few words - well more than a few. “You’ve twenty minutes to fill,” I was firmly told by the organisers. 20 minutes. Not sure how I’ll use all that time up. Perhaps in about ten minutes or so Andrew Strauss would be kind enough to send on a a physio, that should kill a bit of time."

Read it all.

Gold Diggers

This from the BBC online commentary today -

1741: 340-6 A charming sight on the England balcony. Alastair Cook, deep in conversation with Paul Collingwood, sticks a long finger up his nose, has a little rummage and pulls out a prime specimen. He stares at it for a while, rolls it between thumb and first finger and then flicks it dismissively over the edge of the balcony. Good luck down below.

That'll give the G&T a bit of an edge...

Temporary, like Achilles

So that's that then.

Only it's not.

Typically, there's no clean break. It's now the natural order of things that sports fans are kept hanging on, the drama played out for as long as possible.

So we're left with a 'will he won't he' six weeks. Maybe he'll miss Lords and Edgbaston, and then return at Headingley when we're one down to smash a match-winning eighty, or take a couple of key wickets.

Or maybe he'll simply break down after a couple of overs at Lords, and that will really be that.

There are two positives. The first is that, at last, all the uncertainty is over - or at least it will be by August 25th. The second is that, because there is now a final cut off point, he's liable to play when he perhaps wouldn't have done if he thought he could prolong his career at bit further.

A selfish view - but we are talking about Australia here!