Blackie

As I've touched on before here, one of the drawbacks of having a life to lead away from writing about cricket - a life with its bereavements, and funerals, and work demands which, sadly, don't involve writing about cricket - is that those people for whom writing about cricket is work tend to find the time to write about people, and issues, well before you do. They also do the job better, by and large, but so it goes. An example of this is Andy Bull's excellent piece about Ian Blackwell, which couldn't do anything other than touch a chord with me.

As time passes, even if, as he hopes, he's seen around the counties in an umpire's coat, people outside the broad acres of Somerset will mostly forget about Ian Blackwell. In many cases, I'm sure, they already have. Ian Blackwell? That porky bloke who hung around the England one-day side for a while, clubbed a few boundaries here and there but mostly got out quickly, bowled a few overs occasionally notable for parsimony but rarely for penetration, and lumbered about in the field.

Oh, him.

But for people such as myself, who watched him play for Somerset at Taunton in his glory years, the memories will be much less marginal. For to be at Taunton - perhaps in the front seats of the Ian Botham Stand, which catch the sun from early morning, in those largely forgotten days when England still had summer weather - when Blackie walked to the wicket from the Colin Atkinson Pavilion was to be touched by a very individual, parochial, vulnerable type of brilliance.

There was never anything very elegant, or refined, or polished, about Blackie. Although many tried to make him conform to the fitness-conscious stereotype of the modern professional cricketer, he never quite managed it. Like Colin Milburn or John Jameson before him, or Samit Patel or Mark Cosgrove after him, Blackie was more interested in hitting the cover off the ball. Ultimately, as Andy Bull records, his indolence was too much for Justin Langer and the parting of the ways came. For me, and, I'm sure, more than a few others, the County Ground has never quite been the same again.

Blackie did his fair share of bowling, where economy of effort was all and 398 first-class wickets tell the tale of a decent operator, and tended to graze in the field. But he could catch, of course, and throw the ball miles, sometimes even over the top of the stumps. Batting, though, was really his thing.

Although he was brought up in north Debyshire there was always something of the rustic Westcountryman about Blackie. Taunton was his adopted home, and, with his parents always around as they were, it never felt anything but right. As he padded to the crease, his sleeper of a bat by his side, you could fondly imagine that he carried echoes of the way Ian Botham used to do the same. Without the same self-regard and flamboyance, sure, but with just the same murderous intent.

His ability to guide the ball to the Taunton ropes with a sweetly-timed off-drive or a robust leg-side punch, or, when his shoulders really came into play, deposit it into the St.James's Street car park or the Tone, got him noticed by England. In his second ODI he made a powerful, rapid 82 against India on a steamy Colombo evening; he was always ruddy-faced but after that knock he looked as though he was about to explode. But he never built on it. At international level he came to be regarded as a bowler who could bat a bit, but that was so, so wrong. At the very top level his statuesque footwork and relative immobility always undermined him, but at county level he was a rough-hewn gem.

Perhaps the most thought-provoking aspect of Bull's piece is the photo above it, taken at Nagpur in March 2006. Blackie receives his first and only England Test cap from his captain Andrew Flintoff, with his fellow debutants Monty Panesar and Alastair Cook alongside him. Typically Monty looks happy but a little diffident, perhaps unsure of his ability to fulfil the trust placed in him by the selectors. Equally characteristically, Cook looks self-assured, pleased, but without elation. For him this was always going to happen. Blackie just beams. He is simply overjoyed to be there, perhaps unable to believe his luck. He knows the moment may not last, and he is determined to enjoy it while he can. In the game that follows, Cook scores 60 and 104 not out and Panesar gets Tendulkar out. Blackie makes just four and bowls seven insipid overs for twenty-eight runs. For his fellows the rest is history, but he is never asked back.

But for Blackie there is little sadness. There are 11,000 first-class runs at a shade under 40. There are Championship titles in the colours of Durham and Warwickshire. And, at Taunton, as the ground continues to change, there is lasting hero worship.

There are some things fitness can't buy.

Dreadful

Notwithstanding the coruscating but ultimately irrelevant batting of Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann this morning, just about the best that can be said about England's dreadful performance at Headingley is that they held their catches. There was little else, apart perhaps from Stuart Broad's six wickets, although these only came after a long period during which large amounts of unrelieved dross were served up to a series of grateful Australian batsmen.

This has been a series of punch and counter-punch, but now Australia have all but floored England, and it'll be astonishing if England can come back to win at The Oval.

Much the strangest and most surprising aspect of this massacre has been the way in which, like some of the first Test at Cardiff, it's felt like being transported back to any of the series between 1989 and 2001 in which Australia routinely humiliated England. The interim contests at Lord's and Edgbaston, in which England carved out an advantage which looked like it might see them home, might as well never have happened.

It always looked as though England might be in trouble if Australia started to bowl well. In this match they have, with the returning Stuart Clark, the resurgent Mitchell Johnson, the resilient Peter Siddle and the redoubtable Ben Hilfenhaus holding the aces. The fact that this renaissance has been coupled with some awful batting and naive bowling by the home side has cooked England's goose very thoroughly indeed.

Underlying causes are difficult to pinpoint at times like these, but, in this match, and at times earlier in the series, the key distinction between the sides has been the level of discipline, maturity and technical expertise displayed, in particular, by the Australian batsmen. They seem to be less inclined to believe their own publicity and they understand the game - and their part in it - in a way which hardly any of England's players (Strauss fully excepted) do. In part this is because players like Marcus North are older and have been around the block (if not in Test cricket) in a way that Bopara and Bell simply haven't. Although, given the way that England players tend to think and react, you wouldn't bet on either of them ever emulating the type of all-round class which North has shown over the past few weeks (let alone that of Ponting or Clarke).

So many words have been written about the contrasts between the countries' systems (most recently by Justin Langer) that I'm reluctant to go there once again, but it's that which is at the heart of England's failure to produce large numbers of players who can perform consistently well at the game's highest level.

Is anything much ever likely to change? Even if you're at Headingley and the bookies are offering you 500-1, don't bet on it.

Nothing Unusual (but still great)

For all the talk of Kolpaks and the damage (or otherwise) they're doing to the English game, a day at the county cricket can still throw up some real pleasures.

Friday at Taunton, was one such day. A typically dead track, to be sure, and Somerset intent on batting all day to make up for a meagre first innings effort against a threadbare Hampshire bowling attack.

There was one good sign, though: Marcus Trescothick and Justin Langer were together at the start of the day, and, by the time they were parted in mid-afternoon, they had taken their team's score from a distinctly rocky 83 for 1 to 355 for 2. Neither of them did anything unusual, or, for them exceptional; Trescothick was dominant, muscular and powerful, Langer controlled, determined and acquisitive, but it was great to watch two Test players of the past (it still feels uncomfortable to say that about Marcus but there's no getting away from the truth of it) toying with an attack of tyros.

One shot sticks in the mind. Late in Trescothick's innings, James Tomlinson, with eight first innings wickets behind him, dropped one short, just outside off stump. Marcus swivelled and pulled it for four to the furthest boundary on the ground, bisecting two boundary fielders and sending a clear message to Tomlinson: I've done that to some of the finest and fastest bowlers in the world. Don't bowl there to me and expect to get away with it.

Of course, Marcus, never the confrontational or arrogant sort, wouldn't have put it like that (or even thought it), but that's how it appeared.

I look forward to a few more moments like that over the coming months.

Circling Vultures

A couple of afternoons at Taunton gave me the opportunity to see Somerset confirm their promotion to Division One of the County Championship and to take a first look at the seventeen year-old Glamorgan seamer James Harris, who's taken an impressive number of wickets in his first season in the county game.

The table before the game didn't lie and Glamorgan were comprehensively thrashed by a confident, unified and driven Somerset team, under the unobtrusively forceful and experienced guidance of Justin Langer. Just ten years ago to the month Glamorgan themselves secured the title at Taunton - and there was just one division then - but it's now hard to conceive of when the Welsh county will ever win anything again.

However, in this age of multiple overseas players they continue to rely on homegrown products, and, if they can hang on to Harris and produce a few more like him they might just be able to find a way back.

Harris clearly has a lot of physical filling out to do, but his opening spell on Friday afternoon, when he sent Neil Edwards and Marcus Trescothick back to the pavilion in quick succession, was distinctly impressive. He has a smooth, straight approach to the crease, a good, high, delivery stride and the ability to move the ball both ways off the pitch. It seems to me that he needs to inject a bit more pace and urgency into his run-up and this will encourage him to follow through more and give him extra pace. However, with what already appears to be good control of line and length you feel that the rest will come in time.

These days, though, when a county such as Glamorgan produces a player with the promise of Harris, the vultures start to circle almost immediately. While Glamorgan are already wealthier than some, and are going to join the select group of counties which stage Tests when Australia come to Cardiff in 2009, there is an increasing gap in playing standards, and, in many cases, salaries, between first and second division cricket. The traditionalist in me was very disappointed by the recent news that Stuart Broad, a cricketer of immense promise nurtured by Leicestershire, had signed for Nottinghamshire, a club which, although Broad's father played for them and they can doubtless offer him a far higher salary than Leicestershire can, haven't even assured themselves of a return to the first division yet. Leicestershire suffered similarly when Luke Wright joined Sussex, and, while I also think it would be a pity if a genuine transfer market developed in cricket, you can't help feeling that counties such as Leicestershire deserve some financial compensation when their players are picked off by rivals with greater financial power.

Unconditional Approval

After a workmanlike day on Friday, Saturday at Taunton was truly wonderful. As nice a day as you're going to get this summer, a very good crowd and fulfilling yet contrasting innings from Marcus Trescothick, Neil Edwards, Justin Langer and James Hildreth.

Langer could have made his 83 in his sleep, and Hildreth fell to his first misjudgement; Edwards was impressive, if not quite as fluent as on Friday evening; Trescothick was simply magnificent. After easing himself into Saturday morning and occasionally looking ugly and dissonant as his mistiming got the better of him, he suddenly went up a gear and began to take apart an attack which, whatever Lance Klusener's empty bluster, wasn't fit to lace his boots.

He reached his hundred with a straight six off Jason Brown (pictured) and continued to extend Somerset's lead to the point where some unwise innovation led to his dismissal, caught at the wicket off Alex Wakely, who added to the good impression he'd created with the bat with some tidy off-spin.

Marcus, of course, received a moving and resonant standing ovation. A player at home with the unconditional approval of his people, but needing, surely, the greater stimulus which only further international competition will provide.

Whatever. Good, good times.

Still Got It

With nothing happening very fast at Chester-le-Street I took myself off up the M5 to Bristol yesterday to see Somerset wrap up a crushing innings win over Gloucestershire to go to the top of Division Two of the championship.

It was an enjoyable day to be a Somerset fan despite the surroundings. I hadn't been there for a few seasons and I was reminded of what a characterless and charmless ground Nevil Road is. The Bristol public weren't exactly breaking down the gates to get in either, and the crowd - containing a substantial Somerset contingent - seemed small, but then the Gloucestershire side was so appallingly bad that you couldn't really blame them.

I left the day with a few lasting impressions, the first of which was the confidence and team spirit of a Somerset side which, in case anyone is liable to forget, finished bottom of the pile last season. It's incredible what a few weeks of consistent run-scoring from Trescothick, Edwards, White, Langer and Hildreth, knitted together with Langer's positive, typically Australian, captaincy, can do.

And then there's the seam attack. The best thing about the day was seeing Andy Caddick clean up the second Gloucestershire innings to finish with twelve wickets in the match. Having taken seven on Saturday he eased himself into his work after his side's mid-afternoon declaration, looking stiff and bowling a little too wide in his first spell, but returning after tea to polish off the innings in conjunction with the equally reliable Charl Willoughby. Even though the most resonant impression was of a man shooting fish in a barrel, it was the sort of afternoon which sent the mind spinning back through the seasons, to the time I first saw him bowl (for Middlesex seconds) in 1989, to his Test debut in 1993, and to the time I stood to applaud him in the Lord's Grandstand as he went through the West Indies in 2000.

At this level, he's still got it (and he had some interesting fields yesterday too).

Easily Forgotten

Amid all the tributes that have been paid to Warne and McGrath, the role of Justin Langer in so many of the Australian triumphs of recent years is easily forgotten.

He was an undemonstrative, diligent and courageous batsman who I've got a lot of respect for, partly because he's played for the two counties which I follow most closely, Middlesex and Somerset, and also because he's a fine, underestimated, writer on the game.

I'd particularly recommend his book about his first season with Middlesex, From Outback to Outfield, and his website, which I've only just come across and which I must have a good surf around one of these days, is here.

Giving It All Away

Shane Warne with Sachin Tendulkar, Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, February 2001

Photograph: Mark Ray (Copyright)

Despite my slightly cynical words earlier in the week, the sight of Warne and McGrath coming off the field together at the conclusion of the England second innings was definitely one of those moments in time which will linger in the memory. It was also good to see Justin Langer being applauded to the wicket by the England players as he came out with Hayden to knock the runs off.

After the victory was secured it all got a bit much, but, for the three men leaving the stage in the Sydney sunshine, it was the way they would have wanted to go.

It's one of the many unimpeachable beauties of cricket that it usually handles the passing of its greatest figures with dignity and style.

This was no exception.

Digging In, Getting Out

A better day for England, with Collingwood and Pietersen both making runs impressively enough to concern Australia a bit, if not about the prospect of defeat, about the prospect of what their media will say if they fail to win.

At the risk of sounding like Geoff Boycott, who's doing a very good job of sounding like himself on Test Match Special, I was disappointed with the way in which Collingwood, and especially Flintoff, got out.

Boycott regularly bemoans the fact that nobody is prepared to play the type of long, attritional innings which is required to secure draws in Test cricket from the type of position which England found themselves in after the third day, and the way in which Collingwood and Pietersen were playing when I got up (with Collingwood on 92) seemed more in keeping with the later stages of an ODI.

It all looked a little bit too frantic and it wasn't that surprising when Colly got himself stumped on 96. Which brought Flintoff to the crease. Having got to 16 with the aid of some superb shots (one cover drive on the up off Lee was vintage Freddie) he carved an ugly hoick to Langer at long on off Warne. For a player with his talent, Flintoff remains depressingly prone to this type of dismissal, and it seems to me that he needs to become a bit less prone to it if England are really going to compete in the series.

With all that said, they have at least shown that they can compete, and, with KP still there on 92 there's a wafer thin chance that they can get out of Brisbane with a draw tomorrow.

But the new ball beckons, and so does England's fragile tail, so it's still odds against. Time for young Geraint to produce the runs which Duncan always seems to be expecting?

Darren the Great

It's the dream of all elite sportsmen to go out with a great performance, but few manage it. Even fewer can turn one on at will just when they need it. Only the very best can do that. Darren Lehmann, who has just made 339 in his final match for Yorkshire, is one such player.

His international record, though good, doesn't do him justice. For a variety of reasons, his career at the top level started too late for it ever to do that. But, as anyone who has followed Yorkshire over the past decade will tell you, this was a truly great batsman.

I didn't see enough of him live myself, although the mind's eye dwells on a good many televised dissections of impotent bowling attacks. One innings, though, was enough.

In August 2000 I had the good fortune to see Lehmann bat for Yorkshire against Somerset at Taunton, and I've never forgotten it. Mainly because I've never seen another innings in which one professional made batting look so easy against another professional team. It really was like watching an experienced adult cricketer play against a team of children. It all seemed so easy for Lehmann that the only surprise was that he didn't give his wicket away through boredom before he got to fifty. He made it to 56 before it all became too much.

This is a player who, thirty or forty years from now, probably won't be all that well remembered. When discussing great Australian batsmen of the end of the twentieth and the start of the twenty-first century all the obvious names will be there - Ponting, Hayden, Langer, both Waughs, Gilchrist.

If I'm still around I have an uneasy feeling that I'll be the old bloke in the corner who says 'Ah, but you should have seen Darren Lehmann bat...'

Twenty's Plenty

It seems to have become fashionable for people who despised the very idea of Twenty20 cricket when it was first introduced (to the professional game - us amateurs have been playing it for years) in 2003 to say how much they like it now.

Well, I try to avoid being fashionable in most areas of my life, but, in this case, I agree.

The competition has removed the often tedious middle overs seen in longer limited over games, giving rise to shorter, more punchy, and frequently more exciting matches.

I haven't been to a game and I don't intend to. My nearest county ground is 40 minutes' drive away and I don't feel like driving for more than an hour there and back to see about three hours' cricket. But, when you get home from work and you're happy just to collapse on the sofa and watch some six-hitting, Twenty20 fits the bill very nicely. Also, while most of us expected when the competition started that batsmen would be reliant on slogging, the majority now play in relatively orthodox fashion, and it has expanded many players' awareness of what they're capable of, both individually and collectively.

In the last couple of weeks we've seen superb innings from Justin Langer, Cameron White, Ronnie Irani, Sourav Ganguly and Mike Yardy, and brilliant catches from Arul Suppiah, Tim Phillips and Simon Marshall. Not much bowling there, but, as Angus Fraser will never miss an opportunity to tell you, 'it's a batsman's game'.

It is also genuinely nostalgic, exciting and just a little moving to see such large crowds on county grounds, especially the huge percentage of children. If just a few are hooked (and they will be) the game's future is surely secure.

Another benefit is that counties are using the competition to blood young players. One of the most significant appearances of the week was that of the 17 year-old Middlesex batsman Billy Godleman, who made a self-possessed and stylish 41 against Essex at Chelmsford to emphasize the unusual talent which those who have followed his progress through the England age-group sides have been aware of for a few years. Middlesex's Irish teenager Eoin Morgan was also impressive, confirming the promise he showed when I saw him in Middlesex's recent Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy win over Somerset at Bath.

I confidently predict that a lot more will be heard of them both.