17.10.10

Let's Get Ready to Rumble

The news that Jimmy Anderson cracked a rib during England's 'boot camp' about a month ago was as depressing as it was belated.

It's about time the sainted Mr. Flower realised that:

A. There's no need for England to imitate what Australia do any more. Australia aren't very good.

B. Cricketers training for cricket by doing other sports they're no good at - football, boxing - tend to get injured. Best just to leave them playing cricket.

C. Players who've been playing and travelling together for months on end don't need to 'bond'. They need to bond with their friends and family instead.

D. If you do insist on cricketers fighting each other, think about matching people according to height and weight. According to a good source (Michael Vaughan) Anderson was boxing Chris Tremlett, who, for all his famed lack of aggression, is a huge bloke.

No wonder someone got hurt.
Posted by at 7:30 AM
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4 comments:

Dean @ Cricket Betting Blog said...

Hi Brian,

Point D is the most telling one for me.

I likened it to matching Amir Khan up against Vitali Klitschko.

Whether or not the trip was necessary is a seperate argument.

But who the hell let those two blokes get in the ring together, that is just the most stupid thing of all.

Also, what effect could this have on Tremlett mentally if he has to play in the 1st test as a result of this?

We are led to believe he is a bit fragile mentally. So if he has to play knowing he put Anderson out of the test, who knows how it could effect the way he bowls.

12:49 PM
Brian Carpenter said...

Thanks, Dean. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty dubious about the value of this sort of thing at all, especially at the end of an English season when the players probably just wanted some time to themselves. But I agree that the decision to ask Anderson to spar with Tremlett looks about as crazy as you can get.

As I say, the whole idea seems like a relic from the time when everyone thought England had to imitate Australia to be successful. I would hope we've moved on a bit from that.

1:26 PM
diogenes said...

totally agree with...and I would loike to mrefer you to Hoggard's memoirs where he talks about training methods....walking the dog seems to have done just about what he needed and everything else was just an irritation. How mahny wickets did Hoggard take?

11:59 PM
Brian Carpenter said...

Thanks Diogenes. Have only skimmed through the Hoggy memoirs but that tends to hold with the general tone.

Maybe I'm becoming an old fart but sometimes you have to feel that sport's just too regimented and analysed these days. International 'camps', whatever the sport, are a bit of a job creation scheme for 'video analysts' and fitness trainers.

7:32 AM

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