A Degree in People

I generally like reading Mike Brearley's columns in The Observer. His intellect, experience and knowledge are unquestionable, although he's never particularly impressed me as a prose stylist.

Yesterday's piece, here, was something else.

For a start I liked and agreed with the points he was making about Alastair Cook, a player who's come to be taken for granted remarkably early in his career and who embodies a lot of old-fashioned batting virtues which can be hard to find these days. And then there's the style, which carries echoes of my favourite old-school cricket writer, the late Alan Ross.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Write About It

I thought this was interesting.

I agree with some of what Ryan says - Brearley and Atherton are both fine writers - but I think he might have been better off keeping his powder dry.

While it's easy to understand the professional journalist with a limited playing background being frustrated by the rapid advances of those who could really play the game - especially if they think they can't write - it seems a tad hubristic to set yourself up, as Ryan appears to have done, as some sort of arbiter of journalistic quality and taste.

For a start you leave yourself open to the sort of comment which appears after the article from someone who clearly doesn't think much of Ryan's writing either, and, if you're talking about cricket, I think it's ill-advised to get superior with an ex-Test cricketer. Because, at the end of the day, they've been there and done it (even if they can't describe what they've done very well), while you never did and never will. No matter how much cricket you've watched you're always going to come up short against someone who's played the game at the highest level, even for the briefest period. And many people who follow the game, but who may not be connoisseurs of cricket writing, will set more store by the opinions of someone they've seen play than those of someone they've never heard of but thinks they can write well.

My favourite cricket writers - Alan Ross, David Frith, Gideon Haigh, Scyld Berry, Andrew Miller - don't have a Test cap between them, but I wouldn't dream of dismissing the efforts of many of those who do, especially the superb Ed Smith.

Now, where's my thesaurus?

Lara at the Last

Long day, yesterday.

For one thing England and the West Indies fought each other to a standstill in the World Cup's best game. The fact that it was a contest between two of the competition's most uneasy and mediocre teams didn't matter as we at last had a match which encapsulated everything which people hoped for from the West Indies' first World Cup but which it has almost completely failed to deliver - noise, atmosphere, colour, vibrancy, brilliant strokeplay from Gayle, Samuels, Vaughan and Pietersen, passionate athleticism in the field from Collingwod and Bravo, further obvious signs of promise from Ravi Bopara.

And then there was Brian Lara. Run out for a staccato 18 in a mix-up with Samuels, unable in the end to stem the tide of England's run-chase, and finally gone for good from cricket in a welter of flash bulbs, autographs and snatched handshakes.

When I woke up on Friday morning and heard that Lara was going to retire I was surprised but also saddened. At the very first it was selfish personal disappointment as I was looking forward to seeing him bat in person for the last time at Lord's in May, but later it evolved into a wider awareness that cricket currently stands at one of those tipping points in its history when a range of pivotal figures slip from the international stage and we're left to wonder who will take their places. In the past few months Warne, Lara, Langer and Woolmer have gone, McGrath has one or two games left and even Sachin's once unimpeachable seat at the head of the game's top table looks vulnerable.

I've written before about how I was always a Lara man. It started with the 375, which I followed on the radio as I didn't have Sky then, went on through the 501, his destruction of Australia in an ODI at the Queen's Park Oval in March 1995, then to Trent Bridge that August and just about the greatest work of genius I ever saw in person. And on to the peerless 1999 series: 213 at Sabina and his finest hour of many, the undefeated 153 in Bridgetown that saw his side to the narrowest of victories. And on to Antigua again, to the world records, to a walk-on part in his team's 418 in the final innings against Australia in 2003, and the 400 not out against England in 2004. And on into retirement.

The essence of Lara can be hard to capture in words, but the inimitable Alan Ross, in Green Fading Into Blue, did better than most:

'He keeps very still at the wicket and is stillness personified. Alert as a gundog, scenting something, giving nothing away. Leaning on his bat between overs he may be dreaming, perhaps doing mental arithmetic.

The bowler approaches and now everything works together in harmony, the bat an extension of the arms, the legs and feet as in the first steps of a dance, abruptly halted.

In defence he is classically correct, body and head aligned, something of the martial arts in his position, pose held just long enough to be admired.

Runs appear to flow from him rather than he make them. He is anticipatory, a sixth sense making him ready, even before the bowler lets go. He strokes not hurts, times, caresses, even in moments of aggression melodious.'

And Rahul Bhattacharya does pretty well here.

I'm not going to say that things will never be the same again as it's the oldest cliche in the book and they probably will be, one day.

But who will take his place?