(Not) Played in England

I know that cricket is played in England. I've seen it on TV. Indeed, in the last nine days or so I've seen three One-Day Internationals played to a finish.

But can I see any live? Can I hell.

Can I play? Oh no.

On Sunday 24th June I plan to go to Bovey Tracey to see Devon play Wiltshire. However, it's clear from the torrential rain sweeping down my road that there won't be any play. There isn't any on the following day either and the match is put out of its misery and moved to Exmouth, where it's done and dusted in a few hours. I'm at work.

The following Sunday, 1st July, I'm selected to play for my club, the Erratics, against Cheriton Fitzpaine, but the Cheriton ground, a 'secluded' (in other words impossible to find) patch of mid-Devon countryside about the size of the average back garden is so sodden after weeks of virtually incessant rain that the game's called off on the preceding Friday evening.

At around the same time, the County Ground at Worcester, one of the most famous grounds in the world, disappears under the lapping waters of the River Severn, something which hasn't happened during the cricket season since 1969.

So, on Sunday 8th July, there's only one thing for it. A trip to Worcester. On the road from Exeter at 8, a quick drive up the M5, park up and walk down to the ground to be confronted by a notice which announces that there will be no play before lunch and that there will be an inspection at 1.15. A polite enquiry to the corpulent and testy turnstile operator elicits the gruff statement that 'There will be no refunds!'. Right. I don't think I'll pay then.

The atmosphere outside the ground is pungent in more ways than one. The hideous stench of raw sewage from the receded floodwaters mingles with the tense imprecations of the punters turning back at the gates. Indeed, one older gentleman is so irate that he conducts a loud and prolonged verbal dialogue with himself about the merits of the club's decision not to move the game to another venue.

Time to meet my friend Alan and go for a walk around the nondescript, seagull-spattered centre of Worcester. After a while the sun begins to beat down and we return with some hope at 1.30 only to find that there will be another inspection at 3, but that play looks doubtful. So it's off across the road to sit by the bowling green where we meet a man who is happy to talk at us for over an hour about subjects as diverse as the batting of Cameron White, the social composition of the population of Budleigh Salterton and what you do if you go to China for two weeks and don't like Chinese food.

At 3 we return to the ground to find that any hope of play has been abandoned for the day, if indeed, there ever was any hope (a member of the groundstaff later tells us that they knew at eight o'clock in the morning that there wouldn't be any play). It's depressing, if predictable, news, but not half as depressing as hearing the strident tones of the Kent supporting woman with a voice like a broken foghorn who's notorious from Canterbury to Taunton.

After a stroll round the ground, one section of which bears a disturbing resemblance to a dried-up river bed, it's time to return home.

In Worcester the weather has been perfect but on the way back I encounter a violent rainstorm in north Somerset which turns the motorway into a river and forces me to stop. However, by the time I'm back in Exeter, some twelve hours after leaving, the sun is beating down so brightly that I can barely see where I'm going. I wearily park the car and look at the dials. Oh dear.

I've driven 285 miles and I haven't seen a ball bowled. I'm hungry and I'm tired. I'm wondering why I bother with cricket.

I'll try again at Taunton on Friday.

Monsoon Season

Meanwhile, India got their tour under way at Hove, with Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid scoring half-centuries.

It's good to have them here, but, unless the British summer monsoon stops, their presence won't count for much.

It stayed dry and sunny today, the nicest day for almost a month, but it looks as though the showers will be back tomorrow. I'm stupid enough to be driving up to Worcester to try to see some cricket and preserve my failing sanity by watching Worcestershire and Kent line up on a ground that was under water less than two weeks ago.

All a bit mad, but that's what English summers like this lead to.

Demolition Derby

One of the English counties I follow is Derbyshire. Not as closely as I follow Middlesex and Somerset, but I tend to keep an eye on what's going on via my father, who lives in Derby and used to be a member of the club.

So my ears pricked up when I heard on the radio this morning that Dave Houghton, the former Zimbabwe Test captain who's done a lot to improve the club's fortunes over the past few seasons, was leaving the club. My initial suspicion was that it was just another piece of infighting at a club for whom turbulence has been a leitmotif in recent years, but it appears from Cricinfo as though Houghton is going to be Bangladesh's next coach.

They need him, having done much to dispel the memories of their engaging performances in the World Cup by sliding to a predictably ignominious 2-0 Test series defeat to a Sri Lankan side driven by Sangakkara's runs and the wickets of Murali and Malinga.

Not much to say other than to wish Houghton good luck. And tell him to keep working on Mohammad Ashraful, because that boy really has something.

A Kind of Redemption

There were a lot of complaints doing the rounds in the media a few weeks ago about the poor quality of the Test series between England and the West Indies. The West Indians just weren't good enough they said. England had nothing to beat. Ergo it was 'poor' Test cricket.

I agreed that the West Indies were poor - who couldn't? - but I tended to demur from the prevailing opinion that the Test series was worthless just because of that, together with the poor quality of much of England's bowling. If nothing else, the West Indies, and the series, had Chanderpaul, but it was hard, at the time, to see where their next win was coming from.

The Twenty20 and ODI series have been something entirely different, though, culminating in today's game at Trent Bridge, which saw a united and vibrant West Indian side lay waste to England. Their display had everything - positive captaincy from Gayle, high pace and aggression from Edwards and Powell, powerful runs from Morton, brilliant catches greeted with celebrations direct from the carnivals of the Caribbean.

Whether it was the fact that they had the sun on their backs for the first time since Old Trafford or simply that they were playing England at a game which England can't play is uncertain. Equally, who's to know whether this, like The Oval in September 2004, is another false dawn or the start of better times for a team - and a cricket culture - that sure as hell needs it.

Whatever the case, Trent Bridge, Saturday 7th July 2007, looks, from this short distance, like a kind of redemption.

One Year On, One Year In

It's exactly a year since I began writing this blog. After years of writing articles for magazines and journals I'd started to feel frustrated by the length of time it took for anything I'd written to appear in print and I felt that this format would give my work greater immediacy and the opportunity to write about whatever was in my head at the time, rather than what an editor wanted me to write about or what they were prepared to accept.

I'd spent some wonderful hours in the early part of last season watching Graeme Hick bat at Taunton and Worcester and wanted to write something about a cricketer whose career I'd been associated with since he was a youngster and who was nearly as old as me but was still performing with distinction. That piece, still one of the best things I've written, can be found here, and, a year on, Hick is still batting superbly; on Friday evening he made 110 from 49 balls in a Twenty20 game for Worcestershire against Northants.

It's been a crowded and intriguing year for world cricket. I've seen and commented upon the first forfeited Test match and all the controversy that went with it, Australia regaining the Ashes with dismissive excellence and then going on to dominate the World Cup in much the same way (although it's questionable how many people were still awake by the end to see them do it). I've also covered the shockingly sudden death of Bob Woolmer and the retirements of three of the greatest cricketers of this or any era, Brian Lara, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. It's been hard work at times, but I'm still enjoying it.

To my regular readers - you know who you are, even if I don't - thanks a lot for dropping by and coming back. And special thanks to Andrew Riley, Simon Orpen, Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian, Patrick Kidd of The Times, Mark Ray for the photos, Russell Degnan, Homer, and anyone else who's been kind enough to add me to their blogrolls.

The only thing that's disappointed me slightly is that thousands of people read the blog but few comment. I've gone through spells of getting reasonable numbers of comments (usually when I've written something about the Indian team) but things usually go dead again after a while. It's one of those spells at the moment.

So, if you're reading the blog and feel that you've got something to say, leave a comment. It's not difficult and I always reply.

At the last count this site had been visited by people from 62 countries, although a large proportion of those simply wanted to know about the different shades of green. To them, and the people whose searches for 'Guildford Swingers' on Google always lead them to my appreciation of Martin Bicknell, sorry I couldn't help you.

Six Things

Six things which were apparent at Lord's today:

1. Ian Bell needs to work on his running.

2. Fidel Edwards is very quick, and, unusually for a modern West Indies cricketer, has the right attitude.

3. Dwayne Bravo is a quality all-rounder, and, unusually for a modern West Indies cricketer, has the right attitude.

4. Owais Shah, whisper it, is starting to look at home in international cricket.

5. And so is Stuart Broad.

6. Allan Donald is having a positive effect on England's bowlers.

A (Former) Prodigy's Progress

I didn't see any more of the second Twenty20 game than the first, but I did catch the closing stages of England's chase, and really enjoyed seeing Owais Shah bat so well. Those of us who've kept more than half an eye on his progress since he was a Middlesex prodigy in the mid-nineties have felt for a long time that he had a lot more to give than he was allowed to show under Fletcher, and, after failing twice in the summer's first Test at Lord's we wondered when we'd next see him in an England cap. Moores is clearly a fan though, and his presence in the one-day squad is welcome recognition of the way in which he's advanced his over-limit game in recent seasons.

I understand he's also been working hard on his fielding and hopefully this is the start of an extended run in the one-day side. It's obvious that the desire is there, and, with some runs behind him and a bit of confidence, who knows where it might lead?

When interviewed after he'd received the Man of the Match award Owais stated that he'd be prepared to bat at number eleven if England wanted him to.

There's not much chance of that.

One Up

Well, Gayle didn't do a huge amount but the West Indies did. I had to work late and so didn't see any of their innings live, but the way in which they coped with England's superb fightback (with Ravi Rampaul in the box seat) and the joy they showed at the game's end showed that maybe all is not lost.

Somebody pointed out that it was the first time they'd beaten England since the Champions Trophy final at The Oval in September 2004, and the scenes in the grey evening half-light contained resonant echoes of that day.

It's Not Unusual

With things apparently going from bad to worse on the West Indian tour, and everyone settling in for some good old infighting between the players and their masters, Cricinfo carries some purposeful words from Chris Gayle.

Interesting events, but hardly unusual (a bit like a West Indies defeat). But not what's needed to put them in the right frame of mind to compete with England in the one-day series which starts this afternoon with a Twenty20 game at The Oval.

You never know with Gayle, though. Throughout the Test series he looked semi-interested and reinforced his image as a talented waster. This - and maybe even the captaincy itself - might be just what he needs to help him convert a dismal tour into something a bit better.

I'm not putting any money on it, though.

No Brainer

What's been happening these past few days? Well, it's been raining a lot, but Twenty20 has got underway again, in between the showers and in front of the usual fanatical crowds, and England have predictably decided that a brave new one-day world needed a new captain, and have appointed Paul Collingwood.

To me it was a no-brainer: Vaughan has never thrived in limited-over cricket and he needs to save his fragile body for the sterner challenges which lie ahead in the Test arena, and, with Pietersen ruling himself out, Colly - lacking captaincy experience but with every other quality you could wish for - was the logical choice.

With a reshuffled side, including a couple of new foreign-bred debutants in Dimitri Mascarenhas and Jonathan Trott - it'll be interesting to see how things go, even if they are still playing the West Indies, who, unless they can shake off the torpor which led them to defeat by Derbyshire today, won't offer any greater a threat than they did in the Test series.

Going Nowhere

Well, I've seen better Test series, but the one which ended in Durham yesterday did serve a few useful purposes. It confirmed that Shivnarine Chanderpaul is an extraordinary batsman. Maybe not genuinely great, but certainly genuinely extraordinary.

Has there ever been another Test series in which one batsman has been so far ahead of all his peers? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Lara usually had Chanderpaul himself, and Sarwan. After Lord's Chanderpaul had nobody, although Bravo, as always, did his best and Gayle and Morton briefly succeeded in spite of themselves. The rest were nowhere.

The series also showed that there surely can't be any further for the West Indies to fall. Their batting lacks technique, their bowling lacks fitness, finesse, pace and variety, their fielding is an abject shambles. Many of their players - with Gayle the worst offender - look as though they just don't care. This really shows in the field, and, until more of their players can acquire the determination, desire and strength of character of Chanderpaul and Bravo (or even Edwards or Sammy), they're going nowhere.

During the Old Trafford Test it was surprising and concerning to hear Tony Cozier say for the first time that he wondered whether the West Indies would benefit from a sabbatical from Test cricket in which they played other countries' 'A' teams in order to give themselves a chance to regroup, perhaps win some games and restore their lost confidence.

Has it really come to this?

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).

Long Time Coming

I've written more than once about Ian Botham and knighthoods. Once to wonder, as I often had over the years, why he'd never received one, and once, more recently, to welcome the rumours that he was about to do so. Now it's confirmed.

But it all goes back much longer than that. I distinctly remember asking my brother (who was - and still is - a good deal older than me and therefore knew exactly what was going to happen in the world) in the heady days of the summer of 1981 if he thought that Ian Botham would be knighted. He didn't think so and it's taken a hell of a long time - far, far, too long - for things to turn out differently.

As someone who was a young teenager - and a cricket junkie - at the time when Botham was at his best, I have a tendency to go misty-eyed and a bit irrational at times like this, but, as usual, Andrew Miller, whose relative youth probably gives him a bit more objectivity than me, strikes exactly the right note here. I particularly like one sentence: 'Botham has a rightful claim to be England's greatest living sportsman, end of story'.

Rightful claim, Andrew? To some of us it's never been in doubt.

Plenty to Prove

Following the announcement of the Indian team for the forthcoming tour of England and Ireland, the omissions of Sehwag and Harbhajan have made the headlines, but Anand Vasu sums things up well at Cricinfo, indicating that Harbhajan, at least, had it coming to him.

It's interesting to see Ranadeb Bose there, who I've never seen, but have written about previously here, and also Ramesh Powar, who's looked a decent bowler in his ODI appearances but, you feel, has a way to go to make an impression in Test cricket.

Personally I think they could struggle, especially at the top of the order, and the absence of Sehwag (who's surely too good not to come again) could be regretted, while the attack lacks experience and will have plenty to prove.

Winners (and Winners)

There were a number of winners at Old Trafford: England, who finally wrapped up a series they always seemed destined to win, Monty Panesar, who took six more wickets on the way to his first ten-wicket Test match, and Steve Harmison who finally, finally, seemed to be getting back to somewhere near his best. The balls which put paid to Taylor and Edwards were fresh out of his heyday, circa 2004.

But the biggest winner of all, in my opinion, was Chanderpaul. His typically resolute and utterly magnificent century didn't secure victory (do they ever?) but he showed again why he's fit, despite all the illusory rough edges, to be spoken of in the same breath as his nation's greatest batsmen.

He's his own man, though. Not the power of Lloyd, Kanhai or Kallicharran - just heaps of rough-hewn Guyanese technique leavened with timing, dedication and courage.

With Lara gone for good and Sarwan out he's carrying the weight of the side on his tiny shoulders and he's doing it well.

The West Indies lost but the way they came back in the second innings seemed like a victory of sorts, however tiny and irrelevant.

Maybe there's hope.

Raw Pace

Well, Marcus didn't make the 300 (or even the 200), but 182 wasn't too bad, and, with Strauss failing again at Old Trafford, you can see the clamour for his return to the England side starting again soon. It was also good to see Hildreth and White make further tons, and Leicestershire stand on the brink of what's certain to be a very heavy defeat.

At Manchester it seemed like a more even, and therefore more interesting day. The standard half-century from Cook, further signs of form from Vaughan, quality from Bell and some refreshingly raw pace from the recalled Fidel Edwards.

Good stuff, for a change.

Carnage

As the tit-for-tat discussions over what exactly Michael Vaughan did or didn't say continued (I had no problem with any of it, by the way, unlike the rather precious Jim Cumbes), I was at work today and so didn't get to witness any of what must have been some rare old carnage at Taunton. Leicestershire 168, Somerset 357 for 1 off 60 overs by the close with the Cornishman Neil Edwards out for 133 and Marcus still going strong on 153 overnight.

He'll start tomorrow with more than half an eye on 300, never mind 200.

Born to Bat

While I was making this afternoon's contributions to the blog I was watching the Friends Provident Trophy game between Essex and Surrey from the highly impressive setting of Whitgift School in Croydon, on Sky.

Once again Alastair Cook was making runs (125 of them) and it occurred to me that here is someone who, very simply, was born to bat. Cook, like I always used to feel when I was watching Richard Hill play rugby, is a complete natural.

Many people have this type of talent but Cook seems to have all the conceivable temperamental bases covered as well, and all at the age of 22.

It's too late now to form any real judgements about how or why, so that can wait for another day.

Because there will be many more.

Natural Causes

It's seemed likely for some time, but Cricinfo is currently carrying a story which indicates that the Jamaican police are about to acknowledge that Bob Woolmer did, after all, die of natural causes.

As I say, things have been heading this way for a while, so it won't come as a great surprise to anyone. Of course, the effects on the Jamaican police will - should - be severe, but aside from that one can only hope that his family can reconcile themselves to the fact that there was less to his demise than was initially apparent to the police.

Another One to Watch

As a former member of Middlesex and a member of Somerset since 1996, I've been keeping a close eye on events at Lord's over the past few days. At the moment it looks as though Somerset are on top in the Friends Provident Trophy game today, but Middlesex won the championship match with some comfort after reducing Somerset to 50 for 8 on the first morning after which Justin Langer declared.

However, I was especially pleased to see that the young Somerset batsman James Hildreth had made a century. It doesn't seem three years since he burst onto the Taunton scene with a composed maiden century against Durham, and he hasn't managed to kick on with any consistency since.

He is, though, a compact, talented and stylish player, who's often reminded me of the young Mark Ramprakash.

It's early days but there have been some good signs for Somerset so far this season; if James can finally go on and produce a haul of runs to match his ability it will be a sweet return indeed.