These days one-day internationals are played anywhere and everywhere, throughout the globe, on an almost daily basis. Few mean much. But when two teams with the historic baggage of Australia and India clash, as they did before a cacophonous Motera crowd on Thursday, things happen which you can't help getting excited about and reflecting upon later.
For all India's ultimate success - and any innings in which the sainted Yuvraj plays a pivotal role is music to this Englishman's ears - it was again Ricky Ponting who held the attention in the way he so often has during the period in which his team's decline has moved from the marginal to the terminal.
For too long now Ponting has been living on borrowed time and glorious memories. As his team were crushed by England he came across as a man who hadn't quite grasped the fact that his powers were waning, but now things seem crucially different. For all that he could never say it you get the distinct feeling that he knows that the final curtain may be about to fall. In press conferences the familiar furrowed brow has often been replaced by a relaxed grin, and in the middle extra care is taken in the knowledge that it's all just a little harder than it used to be and there will not be many more opportunities to do what he does best.
When you're only 36 - still, as someone living in a developed country in the twenty-first century, a young man - this realisation must be hard to take. Especially when Sachin, more than eighteen months older, still appears to embody the iron invulnerability of the great player.
Ponting has always shown the maker's name early on but on Thursday this seemed clearer than ever. Play straight, accumulate, try to take sting out of the opposition and their myriad support, and cash in later.
Ultimately the Australian total wasn't good enough to prevent another brick falling from what once seemed an impregnable wall. For them a new era of austerity has long been under way, and it remains to be seen what part Ponting will play in it.
Once again, though, Ponting, at Ahmedabad on 24th March 2011, proved that the greats make their own rules
14.3.11
Grace and Pace
Thirty years ago today, on 14th March 1981, at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, the over of all fast bowling overs was bowled by Michael Holding to Geoff Boycott.
England, one down in the series after a heavy defeat in Trinidad and a cancelled game in Guyana, had bowled West Indies out for 265. There seemed to be hope. Within a few overs, though, their first innings was in ruins and another heavy defeat lay ahead.
I remember it well. A cool, grey Saturday afternoon in London, the customary crackly TMS transmission and Tony Cozier going noisily mad as first Boycott and then Mike Gatting were swiftly dismissed to leave England rocking.
With the passage of time and Holding safely ensconced behind a Sky microphone you don't hear so much about it these days, but in the years afterwards that over attained the status of legend. There were no highlights on TV apart from a minute or two on the news each evening, and I hadn't managed to convince my parents to buy a video recorder. I was out that night and so didn't actually see it until years later.
In an age in which raw speed of the type Holding purveyed is increasingly rare, watching the man who combined grace and pace in the most complete way possible is like a window on another world. What really stands out is the smoothness and rhythm of Holding's approach to the wicket. As I said about David Gower a while ago, there's simply nobody like him around now.
Boycott, whose stumps were shattered by the final ball of the over, was, for once, almost lost for words. But less is sometimes more, and, as he said in In The Fast Lane:
'It was a bit rapid, to say the least'.
England, one down in the series after a heavy defeat in Trinidad and a cancelled game in Guyana, had bowled West Indies out for 265. There seemed to be hope. Within a few overs, though, their first innings was in ruins and another heavy defeat lay ahead.
I remember it well. A cool, grey Saturday afternoon in London, the customary crackly TMS transmission and Tony Cozier going noisily mad as first Boycott and then Mike Gatting were swiftly dismissed to leave England rocking.
With the passage of time and Holding safely ensconced behind a Sky microphone you don't hear so much about it these days, but in the years afterwards that over attained the status of legend. There were no highlights on TV apart from a minute or two on the news each evening, and I hadn't managed to convince my parents to buy a video recorder. I was out that night and so didn't actually see it until years later.
In an age in which raw speed of the type Holding purveyed is increasingly rare, watching the man who combined grace and pace in the most complete way possible is like a window on another world. What really stands out is the smoothness and rhythm of Holding's approach to the wicket. As I said about David Gower a while ago, there's simply nobody like him around now.
Boycott, whose stumps were shattered by the final ball of the over, was, for once, almost lost for words. But less is sometimes more, and, as he said in In The Fast Lane:
'It was a bit rapid, to say the least'.
13.3.11
Fading Motivation
With time fading for England in the World Cup in a familiar manner, it's impossible to be certain about what's behind their rank inconsistency. However, as it can't be attributed to lack of technical ability, or, these days, to one-day international inexperience, I fall firmly within the camp which - as Simon Hughes exemplified in the Telegraph last week - puts the variable nature of their form down to the brutal and unforgiving nature of their recent itinerary.
You will never get any of them to admit it in public, but, for those players involved, the summit of their winter's achievements - in some cases of their entire careers - came in Sydney on 7th January. Perhaps uniquely now, Test cricket, especially against Australia, means more to the average English player (and follower), than a one-day international competition ever will, even if it's the World Cup. And if you've only spent a handful of days at home since the autumn, the type of iron motivation you need when the likes of Ireland and Bangladesh come gunning for you is going to be even harder to summon.
However, as both the Indian and South African games showed, even a weary and reduced team can produce the goods when it's really threatened, so, with one qualifying game to go, salvation and a passage to the quarters is well within their grasp.
Unlike Ireland, though, they might want to think about how they bowl to Kieron Pollard...
You will never get any of them to admit it in public, but, for those players involved, the summit of their winter's achievements - in some cases of their entire careers - came in Sydney on 7th January. Perhaps uniquely now, Test cricket, especially against Australia, means more to the average English player (and follower), than a one-day international competition ever will, even if it's the World Cup. And if you've only spent a handful of days at home since the autumn, the type of iron motivation you need when the likes of Ireland and Bangladesh come gunning for you is going to be even harder to summon.
However, as both the Indian and South African games showed, even a weary and reduced team can produce the goods when it's really threatened, so, with one qualifying game to go, salvation and a passage to the quarters is well within their grasp.
Unlike Ireland, though, they might want to think about how they bowl to Kieron Pollard...
An Englishman in Nagpur
The shocking form of Jimmy Anderson and the more prolonged decline of Kevin Pietersen may be symptomatic of their reduced levels of desire, although it seems certain, at least in Pietersen's case, that there's something more complex going on. This is something to be examined at greater length another day.
One Englishman at the World Cup who certainly won't be struggling for motivation is Ian Gould. After a long career in the English county game, Gould failed to make an impression as a coach and said a while back that becoming a first-class umpire was the best thing he'd ever done. He's a sharp, proficient official with a businesslike but avuncular manner that seems to create a good rapport with all the players he comes into contact with.
Yesterday he was standing at square leg as Sachin Tendulkar sent one of the most sublime straight drives that even he has surely ever hit back past Morne Morkel to move from 14 to 18.
Even from the viewpoint of a gorgeous Spring morning in England, it would have been a privilege just to be at Nagpur. To be on the field and play a part, when your playing days are far behind you, must be just about as good as it gets.
One Englishman at the World Cup who certainly won't be struggling for motivation is Ian Gould. After a long career in the English county game, Gould failed to make an impression as a coach and said a while back that becoming a first-class umpire was the best thing he'd ever done. He's a sharp, proficient official with a businesslike but avuncular manner that seems to create a good rapport with all the players he comes into contact with.
Yesterday he was standing at square leg as Sachin Tendulkar sent one of the most sublime straight drives that even he has surely ever hit back past Morne Morkel to move from 14 to 18.
Even from the viewpoint of a gorgeous Spring morning in England, it would have been a privilege just to be at Nagpur. To be on the field and play a part, when your playing days are far behind you, must be just about as good as it gets.
3.3.11
Happy Birthday
Andrew Strauss was 34 years old yesterday. I hope he lives to celebrate many more birthdays. One drawback: For the rest of his days, once a year on March 2nd, he'll think of Bangalore and a big Irish bloke with funny hair hitting his team all over the place.
Happy birthday, mate.
Happy birthday, mate.
28.2.11
Keep Calm and Carry On
One of the chief qualities of limited-over cricket is the way in which it compresses and intensifies the pressures which the participants are under, while one of Andrew Strauss's impeccable strengths is the ability to look calm in the field when all logic would suggest that his head should be about to explode. Take yesterday: The greatest batsman the world's seen in many a generation going well on a Bangalore shirtfront with a potent range of supporting actors at the other end, and the job of trying to stem the flow of runs is down to you and your bowlers. That, in a cricket context, is real pressure, but with Strauss it rarely - if ever - shows.
Then, just when you might fancy sitting with a towel on your head for a couple of hours, no such luck. A twenty minute break and it's down to you to mastermind the chase: All but seven an over under lights, with a partisan crowd willing you to fail. So you make a superb 158, the only fault being the fact that you don't quite stick around long enough to assure the victory which should really have been your ultimate reward.
It's difficult to be sure who will take most from yesterday's epic. England should have won and still have form and selection concerns, India's bowling and fielding doesn't look what it needs to be. But, with weeks and weeks to go, there's plenty of time for teams to find form, lose it and find it again. And it still might not be enough.
We rarely use the word 'great' around here, but what we can definitely take away from yesterday is that Andrew Strauss is a very, very, good cricketer indeed, and not just in the game's longer forms.
It's a pretty safe bet that he'll need to show how just how good again if England are still going to be in with a shout when April comes around.
Then, just when you might fancy sitting with a towel on your head for a couple of hours, no such luck. A twenty minute break and it's down to you to mastermind the chase: All but seven an over under lights, with a partisan crowd willing you to fail. So you make a superb 158, the only fault being the fact that you don't quite stick around long enough to assure the victory which should really have been your ultimate reward.
It's difficult to be sure who will take most from yesterday's epic. England should have won and still have form and selection concerns, India's bowling and fielding doesn't look what it needs to be. But, with weeks and weeks to go, there's plenty of time for teams to find form, lose it and find it again. And it still might not be enough.
We rarely use the word 'great' around here, but what we can definitely take away from yesterday is that Andrew Strauss is a very, very, good cricketer indeed, and not just in the game's longer forms.
It's a pretty safe bet that he'll need to show how just how good again if England are still going to be in with a shout when April comes around.
24.2.11
A General Air of Predictability
From a distance the World Cup so far has seemed like a succession of fairly predictable non-contests, although, as far as the 'debate' about Associate Members' participation in future tournaments is concerned, I'm happy to come down on the side of what their players think. And the majority seem to prefer the experience of being there and getting beaten to not being there and hence not having the opportunity to win. The ICC, in their wisdom (of course, I use the word satirically), have clearly forgetten all about the past successes of Kenya and Ireland. For all that it may seem like the future, increased Associate participation in future World Twenty20s is a poor substitute, always assuming ODIs in their current format remain a central part of the game.
An exception to the general air of predictability was England's relatively shaky win over the Netherlands. While all the Dutch players deserve huge credit, it applies especially to Ryan ten Doeschate, because to be your side's best player and the focus of everyone's expectations and then deliver the goods in such coruscating fashion takes real strength of temperament. Jonathan Agnew, with a lack of awareness of the county game that is typical if understandable, described ten Doeschate as a 'journeyman'. As more than a few Essex fans will tell you, he's a good bit more than that.
As for England, well, they were shambolic at times, but, at the tail-end of a winter itinerary like they've had, where's the surprise in that? Most of them are probably either knackered or sick of cricket or both. Add some ring-rustiness, poor form, experimentation and subsconscious complacency, and you have a recipe for problems.
They'll need to be a bit better on Sunday.
An exception to the general air of predictability was England's relatively shaky win over the Netherlands. While all the Dutch players deserve huge credit, it applies especially to Ryan ten Doeschate, because to be your side's best player and the focus of everyone's expectations and then deliver the goods in such coruscating fashion takes real strength of temperament. Jonathan Agnew, with a lack of awareness of the county game that is typical if understandable, described ten Doeschate as a 'journeyman'. As more than a few Essex fans will tell you, he's a good bit more than that.
As for England, well, they were shambolic at times, but, at the tail-end of a winter itinerary like they've had, where's the surprise in that? Most of them are probably either knackered or sick of cricket or both. Add some ring-rustiness, poor form, experimentation and subsconscious complacency, and you have a recipe for problems.
They'll need to be a bit better on Sunday.
20.2.11
(Not) Being There
A nice piece from Siddhartha Vaidyanathan's excellent, varied blog.
This must strike a chord with anyone who's ever struggled to follow cricket as they go about the rest of their crowded lives. It certainly did with me.
With all the major cricket events of my lifetime I can instinctively remember where I was. And, while there are many exceptions - The Oval, 12th September 2005, Shane Warne's hat-trick in Melbourne, the Broad-Trott stand, Michael Vaughan's 197 at Trent Bridge - more often than not I wasn't there.
I was often in front of a TV set, which is the next best thing, but I've frequently been in all kinds of other places - exam rooms, weddings (not my own), hospitals, trains, planes and automobiles. For the last twenty years, during which period I've had a full-time job which only occasionally allows me to listen to the radio, I've mostly been at work, at least in body.
Apologies to anyone with whom I've had a work-related discussion while my mind was elsewhere. And equal apologies to my colleagues for the odd disappearing act down the years. As Brian Lara was gaining on 365 at St.John's in April 1994, I retreated to the toilet with a radio and nobody knew where I was for about half an hour.
As you get older it gets harder and harder both to follow the cricket exclusively and to convince people who don't know or care about the game that you have as much interest as they do in what's going outside the Test match bubble.
But I like it that way.
This must strike a chord with anyone who's ever struggled to follow cricket as they go about the rest of their crowded lives. It certainly did with me.
With all the major cricket events of my lifetime I can instinctively remember where I was. And, while there are many exceptions - The Oval, 12th September 2005, Shane Warne's hat-trick in Melbourne, the Broad-Trott stand, Michael Vaughan's 197 at Trent Bridge - more often than not I wasn't there.
I was often in front of a TV set, which is the next best thing, but I've frequently been in all kinds of other places - exam rooms, weddings (not my own), hospitals, trains, planes and automobiles. For the last twenty years, during which period I've had a full-time job which only occasionally allows me to listen to the radio, I've mostly been at work, at least in body.
Apologies to anyone with whom I've had a work-related discussion while my mind was elsewhere. And equal apologies to my colleagues for the odd disappearing act down the years. As Brian Lara was gaining on 365 at St.John's in April 1994, I retreated to the toilet with a radio and nobody knew where I was for about half an hour.
As you get older it gets harder and harder both to follow the cricket exclusively and to convince people who don't know or care about the game that you have as much interest as they do in what's going outside the Test match bubble.
But I like it that way.
19.2.11
Giving it the Big Build Up
Tweets and blogposts from people employed in the heart of the cricket media are usually good reading. It's what they're there for after all. This week I've had the pleasure of knowing that Jonathan Agnew, Michael Vaughan and Patrick Kidd (of the Times and The Questing Vole) have all been on their way to the World Cup and have now successfully arrived.
I've been watching my letter box intently for the last few weeks in the hope that some kind soul would be prepared to pay for me to go to the competition and send me some tickets to the sub-continent. Sadly, it hasn't happened. Instead I'm going to be spending the duration of the tournament in England, relying on Sky to keep me in touch with events in the east.
There are compensations, though. For me this is still very much the rugby season, and there are plenty of big games coming up, both for the club I follow (the major success story of the English season) and in the Six Nations. I'm happy to be at home for these. Also, I experienced a deep frisson of world-weariness when Ricky Ponting said something the other day about having to play well 'over the next six weeks'.
Six weeks?! Well, I knew that the mistakes of the last World Cup were going to be repeated this time, but with so much interesting Test cricket going on over recent months I hadn't been thinking about it too much and it's hardly as if the world hasn't already got enough ODIs going on to last an epoch.
I'm sorry to sound so negative, and I'm happy to admit that my views would probably be different if I was fortunate enough to be there.
I gather it all starts in half an hour, so I'd better go and turn on the TV...
I've been watching my letter box intently for the last few weeks in the hope that some kind soul would be prepared to pay for me to go to the competition and send me some tickets to the sub-continent. Sadly, it hasn't happened. Instead I'm going to be spending the duration of the tournament in England, relying on Sky to keep me in touch with events in the east.
There are compensations, though. For me this is still very much the rugby season, and there are plenty of big games coming up, both for the club I follow (the major success story of the English season) and in the Six Nations. I'm happy to be at home for these. Also, I experienced a deep frisson of world-weariness when Ricky Ponting said something the other day about having to play well 'over the next six weeks'.
Six weeks?! Well, I knew that the mistakes of the last World Cup were going to be repeated this time, but with so much interesting Test cricket going on over recent months I hadn't been thinking about it too much and it's hardly as if the world hasn't already got enough ODIs going on to last an epoch.
I'm sorry to sound so negative, and I'm happy to admit that my views would probably be different if I was fortunate enough to be there.
I gather it all starts in half an hour, so I'd better go and turn on the TV...
12.2.11
Trevor Bailey (1923-2011)
I was surprised by how sad the death of Trevor Bailey on Thursday made me feel. He was just a couple of years older than my own father, and the circumstances in which he died were tragic. But I think the strength of my feelings had as much to do with the fact that another key element of a central part of my childhood, adolescence and cricket-infected maturity had gone for good.
Despite his illustrious playing career, as The Old Batsman says, those of us in our forties and below knew Bailey only as a radio summariser. If you grew up in Britain in the 1970s, the 1980s or the 1990s and were interested in cricket, you will have listened to Test Match Special. In fact there's every chance that you will have listened to it for hours and hours and hours.
And this will mean that you will have become very familiar with Bailey's particular brand of acerbic perspicacity, individualistic, clipped delivery and precise, orthodox vocabulary. At times he could appear pompous and slightly deficient in the humour department, but, having had the pleasure of meeting him during an England supporters' tour to South Africa in the mid-nineties (when, for a range of reasons, a good sense of humour was required), I know that this impression was illusory. He was a genial and tolerant man, who, in a cricket sense, had really been around the block but wore his vast experience and knowledge lightly.
Like everything, TMS has changed and evolved. In some senses for the better, in others for the worse. But the loss of Bailey, following Arlott, Johnston, Trueman and Frindall, means that one more link with what many regard as the programme's golden age has been lost.
Despite his illustrious playing career, as The Old Batsman says, those of us in our forties and below knew Bailey only as a radio summariser. If you grew up in Britain in the 1970s, the 1980s or the 1990s and were interested in cricket, you will have listened to Test Match Special. In fact there's every chance that you will have listened to it for hours and hours and hours.
And this will mean that you will have become very familiar with Bailey's particular brand of acerbic perspicacity, individualistic, clipped delivery and precise, orthodox vocabulary. At times he could appear pompous and slightly deficient in the humour department, but, having had the pleasure of meeting him during an England supporters' tour to South Africa in the mid-nineties (when, for a range of reasons, a good sense of humour was required), I know that this impression was illusory. He was a genial and tolerant man, who, in a cricket sense, had really been around the block but wore his vast experience and knowledge lightly.
Like everything, TMS has changed and evolved. In some senses for the better, in others for the worse. But the loss of Bailey, following Arlott, Johnston, Trueman and Frindall, means that one more link with what many regard as the programme's golden age has been lost.
6.2.11
No Backward Glances
With the dust still settling, this probably isn't the time or place for a homily on the verdicts handed down to the Pakistan Three.
However, a couple of things require comment. Firstly, the strong implication in Osman Samiuddin's Cricinfo report that the tribunal would have preferred to hand down more lenient sentences, and then the sense of injured pride embodied by Amir's statements - such as 'two no-balls should not be five years' punishment' - both of which tend to indicate that both the accused and those judging them still don't quite appreciate the seriousness of what went on at Lord's last August.
The fact that it was 'only' two no-balls (if that's all it was) is irrelevant. Players deliberately under-performed as a result of outside influence. They cheated their fellow players, they cheated the spectators and they cheated the integrity of the game. They weren't the first, sadly they probably won't be the last, but they deserve everything they've got.
As this shows, I thought Mohammad Asif was a genuinely outstanding bowler who could have been great. In all probability, though, his career at the highest level is now over, and nobody who cares for the game should shed a single tear or cast him a backward glance. The same - apart, of course, from the possibility of greatness - goes for Salman Butt.
Mohammad Amir, who will only be 23 when his ban finishes, may yet have the opportunity to fulfil his huge potential.
Let's leave it there for now.
However, a couple of things require comment. Firstly, the strong implication in Osman Samiuddin's Cricinfo report that the tribunal would have preferred to hand down more lenient sentences, and then the sense of injured pride embodied by Amir's statements - such as 'two no-balls should not be five years' punishment' - both of which tend to indicate that both the accused and those judging them still don't quite appreciate the seriousness of what went on at Lord's last August.
The fact that it was 'only' two no-balls (if that's all it was) is irrelevant. Players deliberately under-performed as a result of outside influence. They cheated their fellow players, they cheated the spectators and they cheated the integrity of the game. They weren't the first, sadly they probably won't be the last, but they deserve everything they've got.
As this shows, I thought Mohammad Asif was a genuinely outstanding bowler who could have been great. In all probability, though, his career at the highest level is now over, and nobody who cares for the game should shed a single tear or cast him a backward glance. The same - apart, of course, from the possibility of greatness - goes for Salman Butt.
Mohammad Amir, who will only be 23 when his ban finishes, may yet have the opportunity to fulfil his huge potential.
Let's leave it there for now.
5.2.11
As Mad as O'Keefe, as Good as Trott
One of the only entertaining aspects of the deathless one-day series between England and Australia (for anyone who's fallen asleep, it's still going on but mercifully ends tomorrow) has been the commentary of the one and only Kerry O'Keefe. I've heard snatches of him before, but the fact that TMS has taken the ABC coverage wholesale has brought his genius to a wider audience.
With O'Keefe you get some of the most bizarre comments you'll ever hear, delivered with the wit and timing of a superb natural comedian, but mixed in with the stuff that makes you laugh are shafts of observation which make you sit up and think, even if he's not saying anything that's unusual or extraordinary. An example of this came the other day, when O'Keefe described Jonathan Trott as 'the best leg-side player to come to Australia in the last twenty years'.
This was noteworthy, not because it isn't true but because it still seems a little strange that people who have really seen some cricket are saying such things about Jonathan Trott. Yes, that's Jonathan Trott. Plays for Warwickshire, rising 30, losing his hair, with a perpetual scowl on his face and a batting style which even his best friend wouldn't write home about. But currently the owner of some of the best damn batting stats on the planet and a man who looks as sure of his place as anyone in an England side which is as stable as they come (in Test cricket, anyway).
Before Trott came into the England team in the late summer of 2009 I'd seen bits and pieces of him on TV. At times he looked quite classy, but he never seemed to have that many runs to show for it, and it's hard to assess people's temperaments on the basis of a truncated innings in a county hit-and-giggle game. He made runs here and there for the Lions, but if anyone had told you that two years on he'd be up there with the world's greatest run-machines, you'd have thought they were as mad as Kerry O'Keefe.
Trott, though, is tough. His unemotional demeanour reflects both his upbringing in a country where cricket is taken a bit more seriously than in England, and the fact that he has had to fight every step of the way to establish himself in an England side to which many people felt he didn't belong. Like Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan before him, this is a man who breathes more easily in the rarefied air of Test cricket than the safer surroundings of the county game. In a country which has had more than its fair share of players who have done things the other way round - at least one of whom also began life in Africa - such players are like gold dust.
Late in a long winter, two English batsman stand out. Alastair Cook, who had the good sense to get out of Australia before a constant diet of limited-over cricket started to sap his will to live, and Jonathan Trott. Both could be flashier and more elegant, but both hate, really hate, getting out.
To use the oldest phrase in the book of timeless cricket cliches, it's not how, but how many.
And Jonathan Trott is currently making as many runs as anyone, anywhere.
With O'Keefe you get some of the most bizarre comments you'll ever hear, delivered with the wit and timing of a superb natural comedian, but mixed in with the stuff that makes you laugh are shafts of observation which make you sit up and think, even if he's not saying anything that's unusual or extraordinary. An example of this came the other day, when O'Keefe described Jonathan Trott as 'the best leg-side player to come to Australia in the last twenty years'.
This was noteworthy, not because it isn't true but because it still seems a little strange that people who have really seen some cricket are saying such things about Jonathan Trott. Yes, that's Jonathan Trott. Plays for Warwickshire, rising 30, losing his hair, with a perpetual scowl on his face and a batting style which even his best friend wouldn't write home about. But currently the owner of some of the best damn batting stats on the planet and a man who looks as sure of his place as anyone in an England side which is as stable as they come (in Test cricket, anyway).
Before Trott came into the England team in the late summer of 2009 I'd seen bits and pieces of him on TV. At times he looked quite classy, but he never seemed to have that many runs to show for it, and it's hard to assess people's temperaments on the basis of a truncated innings in a county hit-and-giggle game. He made runs here and there for the Lions, but if anyone had told you that two years on he'd be up there with the world's greatest run-machines, you'd have thought they were as mad as Kerry O'Keefe.
Trott, though, is tough. His unemotional demeanour reflects both his upbringing in a country where cricket is taken a bit more seriously than in England, and the fact that he has had to fight every step of the way to establish himself in an England side to which many people felt he didn't belong. Like Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan before him, this is a man who breathes more easily in the rarefied air of Test cricket than the safer surroundings of the county game. In a country which has had more than its fair share of players who have done things the other way round - at least one of whom also began life in Africa - such players are like gold dust.
Late in a long winter, two English batsman stand out. Alastair Cook, who had the good sense to get out of Australia before a constant diet of limited-over cricket started to sap his will to live, and Jonathan Trott. Both could be flashier and more elegant, but both hate, really hate, getting out.
To use the oldest phrase in the book of timeless cricket cliches, it's not how, but how many.
And Jonathan Trott is currently making as many runs as anyone, anywhere.
23.1.11
Decisions, Decisions
Andy Flower is an outstanding cricket coach. Well-organized, tough, uncompromising, but flexible and sensitive when he feels he needs to be. The latter quality is underplayed but it was evident in the way he spoke about Samit Patel.
It was obvious that England wanted to pick Patel for the World Cup. As Flower said, 'all we were saying was 'get into reasonable shape'. It didn't have to be perfect. In fact, all we wanted to see was an improvement...'.
The fact that Patel will be at home in Nottingham when the World Cup starts, is, therefore, nobody's fault but his own.
I've written about Patel and his fitness issues before here, but I'm less sympathetic now. It's clear that the management were prepared to cut him a small amount of slack but he simply didn't want to do the work.
But, as The Old Batsman says, the inability, or unwillingness, of certain players to conform can be symptomatic of a less tangible fear of exposure at the highest level of the game. In the days when the England team was rubbish and county cricket was a cuddly oasis of mediocrity, the county game was full of players like that. Times have changed now, and Patel, for sure, knows it.
Flower also knows stuff. Like the fact that when you're doing his job you have tricky, sometimes ruthless, calls to make. The decision to replace Davies with Prior was one such, and, while it didn't look too bad when it was made, it's not looking quite so sound now.
It was obvious that England wanted to pick Patel for the World Cup. As Flower said, 'all we were saying was 'get into reasonable shape'. It didn't have to be perfect. In fact, all we wanted to see was an improvement...'.
The fact that Patel will be at home in Nottingham when the World Cup starts, is, therefore, nobody's fault but his own.
I've written about Patel and his fitness issues before here, but I'm less sympathetic now. It's clear that the management were prepared to cut him a small amount of slack but he simply didn't want to do the work.
But, as The Old Batsman says, the inability, or unwillingness, of certain players to conform can be symptomatic of a less tangible fear of exposure at the highest level of the game. In the days when the England team was rubbish and county cricket was a cuddly oasis of mediocrity, the county game was full of players like that. Times have changed now, and Patel, for sure, knows it.
Flower also knows stuff. Like the fact that when you're doing his job you have tricky, sometimes ruthless, calls to make. The decision to replace Davies with Prior was one such, and, while it didn't look too bad when it was made, it's not looking quite so sound now.
19.1.11
Kumble
Having put it to one side a few days ago, I've finally got round to reading this by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, about Anil Kumble.
The story which opens it is another brick in the wall of tales of Kumble's legendary modesty, and the later stuff about bowlers' tactics offers a valuable glimpse into the mind which made him such a terrific bowler.
Many in the Anglo-Australian cricketing world have probably forgotten about Kumble already, but, in an understated way, he was something very special.
The story which opens it is another brick in the wall of tales of Kumble's legendary modesty, and the later stuff about bowlers' tactics offers a valuable glimpse into the mind which made him such a terrific bowler.
Many in the Anglo-Australian cricketing world have probably forgotten about Kumble already, but, in an understated way, he was something very special.
16.1.11
Faint Praise Be Damned
When I wrote about the sense of underachievement that attached itself to Shane Watson during the Test series, I didn't necessarily mean to damn him with faint praise. As part of the uncertain batting efforts of a poor side, his muscular if unconsummated fifties were valuable as far as they went.
More was needed though, and today he provided it, with a one-day innings for the ages.
Of course, facing a denuded England attack in the artificial environment of a one-day international on a benign MCG pitch isn't the same as doing the hard yards against Jimmy Anderson armed with a red ball, but you still have to make the runs.
In a changed Australian landscape this is a player of quality and high importance, somewhere near peak form, fitness and performance. The more complex and troubling demands of Test cricket can wait awhile.
More was needed though, and today he provided it, with a one-day innings for the ages.
Of course, facing a denuded England attack in the artificial environment of a one-day international on a benign MCG pitch isn't the same as doing the hard yards against Jimmy Anderson armed with a red ball, but you still have to make the runs.
In a changed Australian landscape this is a player of quality and high importance, somewhere near peak form, fitness and performance. The more complex and troubling demands of Test cricket can wait awhile.
9.1.11
A Long Road Ahead
In many ways Shane Watson is representative of the difficulties faced by his side, the only diference being that he was (at least while he lasted) in something resembling decent form.
Talented, sincere and competitive, but also lacking in concentration, fitness, and, when it comes to running between the wickets, basic technique, he's made a decent fist of filling one of the openers' berths in the Australian side over the last eighteen months. One's suspicion is, though, that his natural home lies further down the order and that he ought to be bowling more, and with more intent, than he currently does. Given his history of injuries, this is partially understandable, but, watching him over the last couple of Tests, it was hard not to think of him as a player who simply isn't achieving anything like his potential and wouldn't be worth a place in the England side.
He's not alone.
Everyone knew before the series started that Australia were in decline. This impression was confirmed and hastened by some strange decisions by their selectors and the confidence, virility and power of England. For now Watson himself, Khawaja, Hussey, Clarke (who, let no-one forget, is a superb batsman) and possibly Ponting offer the nucleus of a batting order, but Hussey and Ponting will soon be gone for good and the bowling cupboard looks bare. Some extra work on fielding, fitness and running is essential.
All the things that are being said about Australia now used to be said about England. For them it's been a long road back, starting with the appointment of Duncan Fletcher as coach in 1999 and the subsequent adoption of central contracts.
For Australia it will be no different.
Talented, sincere and competitive, but also lacking in concentration, fitness, and, when it comes to running between the wickets, basic technique, he's made a decent fist of filling one of the openers' berths in the Australian side over the last eighteen months. One's suspicion is, though, that his natural home lies further down the order and that he ought to be bowling more, and with more intent, than he currently does. Given his history of injuries, this is partially understandable, but, watching him over the last couple of Tests, it was hard not to think of him as a player who simply isn't achieving anything like his potential and wouldn't be worth a place in the England side.
He's not alone.
Everyone knew before the series started that Australia were in decline. This impression was confirmed and hastened by some strange decisions by their selectors and the confidence, virility and power of England. For now Watson himself, Khawaja, Hussey, Clarke (who, let no-one forget, is a superb batsman) and possibly Ponting offer the nucleus of a batting order, but Hussey and Ponting will soon be gone for good and the bowling cupboard looks bare. Some extra work on fielding, fitness and running is essential.
All the things that are being said about Australia now used to be said about England. For them it's been a long road back, starting with the appointment of Duncan Fletcher as coach in 1999 and the subsequent adoption of central contracts.
For Australia it will be no different.
8.1.11
The Best of Times
For virtually anyone associated with the England cricket team, and especially the young men talented and fortunate enough to play for it, the 43 days between 25th November 2010 and 7th January 2011 will have been among the best times they will ever know on a cricket field.
For some among them those times have been better - or more memorable for different reasons - even than that.
To many, Alastair Cook seemed destined by virtue of his hesitancy and looseness to be Mitchell Johnson's fall guy. He leaves Australian shores an unlikely hero - still young, undemonstrative, slightly coy - but with a counter-intuitive stamina and toughness which nailed the Australian coffin shut. He may never quite pass this way again, but simply to watch the shape of his body as he defended the ball in Sydney was to see a man at ease, doing what he was put on earth to do.
Ian Bell is a man who, after years of wondering, knows his limitations. He knows that when it comes to batting he has no limitations. With Cook the lingering feeling is that he has surpassed himself in recent weeks, but with Bell there is the certain knowledge that there is much more to come.
Watching Bell these days can be an almost epiphanic experience. This was never true of Paul Collingwood, but few England players have ever made as much of their talent, responded as well to adversity or fielded with as much versatlity and athleticism. His vital role in the development of what could be England's side of sides should never be forgotten.
In a similar way to Ian Bell, James Anderson is now a mature man of high skill who knows his own game and his own mind. And, as with Bell, this should be no more than the beginning.
In 1956, John Arlott, looking back to 1947, wrote of a 'fair-haired, athletic-looking young man with a sweeping run-up and a high, easy, natural delivery-swing. It was as exciting a spell of bowling as I have ever watched and in the poverty of our post-war game, the man responsible for it was a heady promise of resurgent greatness in English cricket'. The man Arlott was writing about was Chris Tremlett's grandfather Maurice, and, at the start of the second decade of the 21st century, his late-flowering grandson exemplifies the future promise of another England side in a similar way.
These have been the best of times. But, for Strauss's England, there will be many more.
For some among them those times have been better - or more memorable for different reasons - even than that.
To many, Alastair Cook seemed destined by virtue of his hesitancy and looseness to be Mitchell Johnson's fall guy. He leaves Australian shores an unlikely hero - still young, undemonstrative, slightly coy - but with a counter-intuitive stamina and toughness which nailed the Australian coffin shut. He may never quite pass this way again, but simply to watch the shape of his body as he defended the ball in Sydney was to see a man at ease, doing what he was put on earth to do.
Ian Bell is a man who, after years of wondering, knows his limitations. He knows that when it comes to batting he has no limitations. With Cook the lingering feeling is that he has surpassed himself in recent weeks, but with Bell there is the certain knowledge that there is much more to come.
Watching Bell these days can be an almost epiphanic experience. This was never true of Paul Collingwood, but few England players have ever made as much of their talent, responded as well to adversity or fielded with as much versatlity and athleticism. His vital role in the development of what could be England's side of sides should never be forgotten.
In a similar way to Ian Bell, James Anderson is now a mature man of high skill who knows his own game and his own mind. And, as with Bell, this should be no more than the beginning.
In 1956, John Arlott, looking back to 1947, wrote of a 'fair-haired, athletic-looking young man with a sweeping run-up and a high, easy, natural delivery-swing. It was as exciting a spell of bowling as I have ever watched and in the poverty of our post-war game, the man responsible for it was a heady promise of resurgent greatness in English cricket'. The man Arlott was writing about was Chris Tremlett's grandfather Maurice, and, at the start of the second decade of the 21st century, his late-flowering grandson exemplifies the future promise of another England side in a similar way.
These have been the best of times. But, for Strauss's England, there will be many more.
6.1.11
Punch Drunk
The Sydney Test will end later today. England will win.
But at least the game will be allowed to reach its natural conclusion.
If this was a boxing match they would have stopped it by now.
But at least the game will be allowed to reach its natural conclusion.
If this was a boxing match they would have stopped it by now.
4.1.11
Vying for Superiority
Going back to work in January is never great. It's even less enjoyable when it means you have to forsake the TV for the Cricinfo commentary on one of the best day's cricket of the winter.
With Australia and England vying for superiority in Sydney, South Africa and India produced a minor classic at Newlands.
Tendulkar we know to be one of the greatest batsmen of all time. But a few people, especially, perhaps, in England, may not yet have quite realised what a magnificent fast bowler Dale Steyn is.
But not so good that Harbhajan Singh can't drive him for one of the purest straight sixes you could ever see.
With, respectively, two and three days to go, each match is beautifully poised.
With Australia and England vying for superiority in Sydney, South Africa and India produced a minor classic at Newlands.
Tendulkar we know to be one of the greatest batsmen of all time. But a few people, especially, perhaps, in England, may not yet have quite realised what a magnificent fast bowler Dale Steyn is.
But not so good that Harbhajan Singh can't drive him for one of the purest straight sixes you could ever see.
With, respectively, two and three days to go, each match is beautifully poised.
3.1.11
Clutching at Straws
One of the central thrusts of the media coverage of the Ashes series is the way in which Australia, with all their obvious problems, are seen as the 'new England'. In other words they resemble the England team of the mid-1990s, with a glaring void in ability, leadership and selection. Whenever a straw comes along, however flimsy, it is clutched for dear life.
This was exemplified today by the response to Usman Khawaja's undeniably promising maiden innings in Test cricket. Such seems to be the shock at seeing Australia's Test number three perform with a modicum of composure and class that even writers as good as Christian Ryan are treating him like some sort of messiah. If ever there's an example of how far Australia have fallen and how poorly Ponting was playing, this is it.
With the game in Australia apparently going to hell in a handcart as a result of the rising tide of obesity, the nation's kids' obsession with computer games and the popularity and financial muscle of Australian Rules Football, it's seemingly the sole responsibility of a 24 year-old Muslim to single-handedly rescue his adopted nation from the wolves.
Get real. He's made 37 runs in his Test career.
This was exemplified today by the response to Usman Khawaja's undeniably promising maiden innings in Test cricket. Such seems to be the shock at seeing Australia's Test number three perform with a modicum of composure and class that even writers as good as Christian Ryan are treating him like some sort of messiah. If ever there's an example of how far Australia have fallen and how poorly Ponting was playing, this is it.
With the game in Australia apparently going to hell in a handcart as a result of the rising tide of obesity, the nation's kids' obsession with computer games and the popularity and financial muscle of Australian Rules Football, it's seemingly the sole responsibility of a 24 year-old Muslim to single-handedly rescue his adopted nation from the wolves.
Get real. He's made 37 runs in his Test career.
31.12.10
Ring Out The Old
Best wishes for 2011 to all my regular readers and anyone else who's dropping by.
Having enjoyed The Old Batsman's take on the year's best innings, I've been mulling over what I've seen.
The innings I can't get out of my head is Jonathan Trott's 184 in the final Test against Pakistan, which I watched from the Warner Stand. Deliberate no-balls or not, he came in on as difficult a batting morning as you'll ever see at Lord's with more than a few people still wondering if he was the best England could do at number three. Hours later he left the field with Stuart Broad to a standing ovation. Just before he went up the pavilion steps he raised his bat and looked back towards the Grandstand with a broad smile on his face. He belonged.
This is what I wrote at the time.
Having enjoyed The Old Batsman's take on the year's best innings, I've been mulling over what I've seen.
The innings I can't get out of my head is Jonathan Trott's 184 in the final Test against Pakistan, which I watched from the Warner Stand. Deliberate no-balls or not, he came in on as difficult a batting morning as you'll ever see at Lord's with more than a few people still wondering if he was the best England could do at number three. Hours later he left the field with Stuart Broad to a standing ovation. Just before he went up the pavilion steps he raised his bat and looked back towards the Grandstand with a broad smile on his face. He belonged.
This is what I wrote at the time.
29.12.10
The End of the Beginning
While England's success in Australia hasn't been especially surprising, the same can't be said of the way in which it has been achieved. Leaving aside Perth as an exception which proves the rule (that England are the better team), Adelaide and Melbourne have seen England dismantle and humiliate Australia in ways that would have been completely implausible just a few short years ago.
They have been assisted by Australia's timidity and confusion, both on the field and in the selection rooms, where there are deluded people who think that Steve Smith is a Test match number six batsman, or that Ryan Harris is a number eight, or that Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer are better cricketers than Nathan Hauritz. This was a team which used to set the standards for the whole world. At times these past few weeks they have been a shambles.
And, as Andrew Strauss made certain to acknowledge in his post-victory interviews, much of England's achievement can be attributed to that satisfyingly familiar cliche, the 'team effort', to which everybody contributed. This is broadly true, but some players contributed more than others.
Paul Collingwood has many virtues, but these cannot obscure the fact that he is the only one of England's specialist batsmen who has failed even to make a single half-century, and much of the time he has batted with the elegance and sure footedness of an inebriated man trying to walk across an ice rink. Not that you ever went to him for elegance - just resolution, unquenchable spirit and the best damn catching ever seen in an England shirt - but this must have been one of the last great days he will ever know in England whites.
Today has been a clammy, foggy day in the English Midlands and Stuart Broad's thoughts will, of course, have strayed far from his
Nottingham home. Unlike Collingwood, though, he will have further opportunities to be part of triumphs such as this, for the England team forged by Strauss and Flower will have many more days like these before they're done.
Two contrasting players. One old, one young. One in Australia, one at home. One at the beginning of the end, the other at the end of the beginning.
Now that the MCG cheers have faded, a penny for their thoughts tonight.
They have been assisted by Australia's timidity and confusion, both on the field and in the selection rooms, where there are deluded people who think that Steve Smith is a Test match number six batsman, or that Ryan Harris is a number eight, or that Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer are better cricketers than Nathan Hauritz. This was a team which used to set the standards for the whole world. At times these past few weeks they have been a shambles.
And, as Andrew Strauss made certain to acknowledge in his post-victory interviews, much of England's achievement can be attributed to that satisfyingly familiar cliche, the 'team effort', to which everybody contributed. This is broadly true, but some players contributed more than others.
Paul Collingwood has many virtues, but these cannot obscure the fact that he is the only one of England's specialist batsmen who has failed even to make a single half-century, and much of the time he has batted with the elegance and sure footedness of an inebriated man trying to walk across an ice rink. Not that you ever went to him for elegance - just resolution, unquenchable spirit and the best damn catching ever seen in an England shirt - but this must have been one of the last great days he will ever know in England whites.
Today has been a clammy, foggy day in the English Midlands and Stuart Broad's thoughts will, of course, have strayed far from his
Nottingham home. Unlike Collingwood, though, he will have further opportunities to be part of triumphs such as this, for the England team forged by Strauss and Flower will have many more days like these before they're done.
Two contrasting players. One old, one young. One in Australia, one at home. One at the beginning of the end, the other at the end of the beginning.
Now that the MCG cheers have faded, a penny for their thoughts tonight.
27.12.10
Confronting Mortality
There are aspects of all our lives which we know we're good at. And there are things we think we're good at, but which, in fact, we can't do as well as we think we can. And, eventually, our capabilities are changed and diminished by the vagaries of time, age and misfortune.
Ricky Ponting knows he's a great batsman and has probably always fancied himself as a pretty good captain too. He would be unlikely to admit that it was his good fortune to find himself in charge of a team which, at its best, could make anyone associated with it look good. The innate psyche of a great sportsman will always be reluctant to admit to inadequacies and failures. You don't spend 152 Test matches breaking the best bowlers of your generation by having a clear sense of your own weaknesses.
Eventually, though, everyone has to confront their mortality. In Ponting's case, the runs have dried up, his team is a pale shadow of what it was and a permanent reputation as the man who lost three Ashes series is staring him in the face.
Bearing all that in mind, as well as the fact that he's got a long list of previous convictions, it's no wonder he gave Aleem Dar an extended piece of his mind earlier today. This is not to excuse it. He got off lightly, but this was a man simply raging against a dying of the light over which he has little control.
When Ponting turned his attention to Pietersen, the batsman's face signified a mixture of astonishment and humour, but no real concern. He knows that he will still be playing Test cricket long after Ponting has gone.
Ricky Ponting knows he's a great batsman and has probably always fancied himself as a pretty good captain too. He would be unlikely to admit that it was his good fortune to find himself in charge of a team which, at its best, could make anyone associated with it look good. The innate psyche of a great sportsman will always be reluctant to admit to inadequacies and failures. You don't spend 152 Test matches breaking the best bowlers of your generation by having a clear sense of your own weaknesses.
Eventually, though, everyone has to confront their mortality. In Ponting's case, the runs have dried up, his team is a pale shadow of what it was and a permanent reputation as the man who lost three Ashes series is staring him in the face.
Bearing all that in mind, as well as the fact that he's got a long list of previous convictions, it's no wonder he gave Aleem Dar an extended piece of his mind earlier today. This is not to excuse it. He got off lightly, but this was a man simply raging against a dying of the light over which he has little control.
When Ponting turned his attention to Pietersen, the batsman's face signified a mixture of astonishment and humour, but no real concern. He knows that he will still be playing Test cricket long after Ponting has gone.
26.12.10
Ricky Ponting's Barmy Army
These are confusing, possibly distressing, times for the Australian cricket follower. If you are one you would have to be in your early thirties, at the very least, to have any conscious memory of a time when your national side was as poor as it is now, and, even if you're older and were around in the days of Murray Bennett and Andrew Hilditch (I wonder what happened to him?), there's a good chance that you've forgotten what it's like to see your side repeatedly humiliated at home by superior opponents. The fact that the team raised your hopes by beating the very same opponents with ease in the previous match probably just serves to increase the feeling of disorientation.
And it's no better for the players. The last time this sort of thing was going on Punter was playing for Mowbray under-10s and Steve Smith and Philip Hughes hadn't even made their debuts in the human race.
So what, as a spectator, when your flagging, toothless team needs your support more than ever, do you do?
Well, if the first day at the MCG is anything to go by, you decide before tea that you can't take any more and you simply walk out of the ground.
And it's no better for the players. The last time this sort of thing was going on Punter was playing for Mowbray under-10s and Steve Smith and Philip Hughes hadn't even made their debuts in the human race.
So what, as a spectator, when your flagging, toothless team needs your support more than ever, do you do?
Well, if the first day at the MCG is anything to go by, you decide before tea that you can't take any more and you simply walk out of the ground.
22.12.10
Real Test Match Batting
In a week when England bit the Perth dust again, the one and only Sachin reached a milestone which once would never have seemed possible and another all-time great, Jacques Kallis, reached his first double-century in Test cricket, it could have been difficult to decide what to write about.
But to me the biggest story in the cricket world these past few weeks has been the form of Mike Hussey. A man who had been virtually written off as an international batsman but who has kept his team in the series with as measured a display of batting technique as you could ever hope to see.
Technical rigour, patience and stamina are unfashionable virtues these days. Relentless innovation and the hitting of boundaries can often seem to be all that matters as the more impulsive charms of the shortened forms of the game engage the senses of its newer acolytes more rapidly than Test cricket can. But this, from Hussey, has been real Test match batting: the advance selection of an appropriate gameplan, the persistence to see it through to its conclusion, and the shotmaking skill to bend England's often naive bowlers to his will.
At 35 Hussey is no tyro. But, while he is only a few months younger than Ponting, he belongs to a different generation of Australian cricketer. The generation who could never break into the Test side during the glory years and who instead were forced to earn their living abroad. While Hussey's basic skills were forged on the quick tracks of Western Australia they were polished on the English county circuit; at Wantage Road in Northampton, in the shadow of the Jessop Stand at Bristol, and at the Riverside. Holding poor sides together and piling up huge scores.
Hussey's batting over the past few weeks has been that of a man reluctant to give up something which he had to wait a long time to achieve. England have yet to discover an effective way of attacking him, but, with the series in the balance and Melbourne almost upon us, they need to do so soon.
Because, given the chance, he will bat, and bat, and bat.
But to me the biggest story in the cricket world these past few weeks has been the form of Mike Hussey. A man who had been virtually written off as an international batsman but who has kept his team in the series with as measured a display of batting technique as you could ever hope to see.
Technical rigour, patience and stamina are unfashionable virtues these days. Relentless innovation and the hitting of boundaries can often seem to be all that matters as the more impulsive charms of the shortened forms of the game engage the senses of its newer acolytes more rapidly than Test cricket can. But this, from Hussey, has been real Test match batting: the advance selection of an appropriate gameplan, the persistence to see it through to its conclusion, and the shotmaking skill to bend England's often naive bowlers to his will.
At 35 Hussey is no tyro. But, while he is only a few months younger than Ponting, he belongs to a different generation of Australian cricketer. The generation who could never break into the Test side during the glory years and who instead were forced to earn their living abroad. While Hussey's basic skills were forged on the quick tracks of Western Australia they were polished on the English county circuit; at Wantage Road in Northampton, in the shadow of the Jessop Stand at Bristol, and at the Riverside. Holding poor sides together and piling up huge scores.
Hussey's batting over the past few weeks has been that of a man reluctant to give up something which he had to wait a long time to achieve. England have yet to discover an effective way of attacking him, but, with the series in the balance and Melbourne almost upon us, they need to do so soon.
Because, given the chance, he will bat, and bat, and bat.
17.12.10
A Chill Wind
There's something supremely enjoyable and evocative about listening to Test Match Special as you walk through your home town in a snowstorm, with the pale light of a freezing December morning slowly making itself felt and the cold stinging your face like a sharp catch stings the hands. Christopher Martin-Jenkins, sheltering from the Perth heat, dutifully said something about welcoming listeners waking up on 'a frosty morning in England', but round my way it was a bit more severe than that.
Things were similar in another part of the WACA. A few hours before, a chill went through an England dressing room which has barely missed a beat since Brisbane, as Mitchell Johnson finally remembered what he was supposed to be good at. Six rapid victims later and match and series had taken on a different hue. A few of us - a bit like it used to be with snow itself in the days when English winter after English winter would go by without a hint of the stuff - had forgotten in three weeks that Australians could actually play cricket.
The characteristically fluent 62 which Johnson made on the first day was vital. An interview with him in the last Wisden Cricketer revealed him to be sensitive about his failures in England in 2009 and the type of player whose confidence needs regular regeneration. While the nets with Troy Cooley will have assisted with the mechanics of his technique, the reminder of his capabilities and the justification of his place which his runs gave him will have helped him to conquer his anxieties and bowl as he did.
England will need a supreme effort tomorrow to haul themselves back into the game, but this is not to say that all the Australians have left their demons behind. While his team suddenly look stronger on the back of a good day, the future for Ponting still looks clouded with an uncertainty which only a series victory and major runs will dispel.
Things were similar in another part of the WACA. A few hours before, a chill went through an England dressing room which has barely missed a beat since Brisbane, as Mitchell Johnson finally remembered what he was supposed to be good at. Six rapid victims later and match and series had taken on a different hue. A few of us - a bit like it used to be with snow itself in the days when English winter after English winter would go by without a hint of the stuff - had forgotten in three weeks that Australians could actually play cricket.
The characteristically fluent 62 which Johnson made on the first day was vital. An interview with him in the last Wisden Cricketer revealed him to be sensitive about his failures in England in 2009 and the type of player whose confidence needs regular regeneration. While the nets with Troy Cooley will have assisted with the mechanics of his technique, the reminder of his capabilities and the justification of his place which his runs gave him will have helped him to conquer his anxieties and bowl as he did.
England will need a supreme effort tomorrow to haul themselves back into the game, but this is not to say that all the Australians have left their demons behind. While his team suddenly look stronger on the back of a good day, the future for Ponting still looks clouded with an uncertainty which only a series victory and major runs will dispel.
8.12.10
Start the Car
The world of cricket was rocked to its foundations this afternoon when, with just 35 overs gone in the third Ashes Test at the WACA ground in Perth, Western Australia, the 41 year-old international poker player and cosmetic dentistry model, Shane Warne, made a shock decision to come out of retirement.
Although there had been calls for Warne to rejoin the Australian side after their humiliating defeat in the second Test at Adelaide, he had given no indication that he was prepared to make a comeback. However, with England on 242 without loss, and both Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook choosing to bat right-handed in order to combat what Strauss later described as 'the mind-numbing tedium of scoring huge totals very quickly against people who can't bowl', Warne could take no more.
Warne, who has been working for Sky Television, suddenly stood up in the commentary box, removed his jacket, handed it to his co-commentator, the former England captain Mike Atherton, and said, simply, 'Hold that, Athers, I won't be long'.
Warne strode out to the middle, grabbed the worn Kookaburra from a startled Ricky 'Punter' Ponting and began setting an eccentric attacking field which included seven close fielders. The sense of expectation throughout the cricket world was palpable, but Warne's first delivery in Test cricket for almost four years proved to be a disappointment. It failed to spin and was very short, inviting the wide-eyed Strauss to pull it ferociously. The ball cleared the boundary by some 50 metres and was seen on TV to be heading towards a dark haired man with numerous tattoos and a strong resemblance to the discarded Australian player Mitchell Johnson. Johnson was on his ninth beer of the day, but interrupted his thirst-quenching routine to make an unavailing attempt to catch the ball, which rebounded from his right hand and nearly hit the former Test cricketers Ian Botham and Ian Chappell, who, in accordance with time-honoured cricket tradition, were fighting each other in the corner of the bar.
Warne threw his hands in the air in disgust and was heard to mutter something about Australian fielding not being 'what it used to be in the days of the great David Boon'. 'And Boonie could drink. If Johnson could hold his grog he would have caught that no worries'.
Warne returned to the commentary box, arriving just in time to hear David Lloyd deliver an uncomplimentary dissection of his bowling which concluded with the familiar but meaningless phrase 'start the car'.
At close of play England were 654 for 2 off 90 overs, with their coach, Andy Flower, expressing some discontent with the way they had 'let their advantage slip' after tea.
Don't do it, Warnie.
Although there had been calls for Warne to rejoin the Australian side after their humiliating defeat in the second Test at Adelaide, he had given no indication that he was prepared to make a comeback. However, with England on 242 without loss, and both Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook choosing to bat right-handed in order to combat what Strauss later described as 'the mind-numbing tedium of scoring huge totals very quickly against people who can't bowl', Warne could take no more.
Warne, who has been working for Sky Television, suddenly stood up in the commentary box, removed his jacket, handed it to his co-commentator, the former England captain Mike Atherton, and said, simply, 'Hold that, Athers, I won't be long'.
Warne strode out to the middle, grabbed the worn Kookaburra from a startled Ricky 'Punter' Ponting and began setting an eccentric attacking field which included seven close fielders. The sense of expectation throughout the cricket world was palpable, but Warne's first delivery in Test cricket for almost four years proved to be a disappointment. It failed to spin and was very short, inviting the wide-eyed Strauss to pull it ferociously. The ball cleared the boundary by some 50 metres and was seen on TV to be heading towards a dark haired man with numerous tattoos and a strong resemblance to the discarded Australian player Mitchell Johnson. Johnson was on his ninth beer of the day, but interrupted his thirst-quenching routine to make an unavailing attempt to catch the ball, which rebounded from his right hand and nearly hit the former Test cricketers Ian Botham and Ian Chappell, who, in accordance with time-honoured cricket tradition, were fighting each other in the corner of the bar.
Warne threw his hands in the air in disgust and was heard to mutter something about Australian fielding not being 'what it used to be in the days of the great David Boon'. 'And Boonie could drink. If Johnson could hold his grog he would have caught that no worries'.
Warne returned to the commentary box, arriving just in time to hear David Lloyd deliver an uncomplimentary dissection of his bowling which concluded with the familiar but meaningless phrase 'start the car'.
At close of play England were 654 for 2 off 90 overs, with their coach, Andy Flower, expressing some discontent with the way they had 'let their advantage slip' after tea.
Don't do it, Warnie.
4.12.10
A Full House of Negatives
Whatever happens as this game plays out, things look truly grim for Australia. Grim in a way they haven't against England for a quarter of a century.
One of my favourite memories from the summer before I went to university is the day Gooch and Gower flogged a pallid Australian attack all over Kennington. Today, with the hapless Xavier Doherty playing the part of Murray Bennett, and Shane Watson as Simon O'Donnell, Cook, Trott and Pietersen did much the same.
For the majority of the twenty-five years which have elapsed since that day, the Australian cricket team has had it all. It still has, only now it is a full house of negatives: a threadbare, poorly selected attack; batsmen who are ageing, or lack form, or both; fielders who cannot take catches which should be routine at Test level.
It's still possible, given the benign pitch and the possibility of rain later in the game, for Australia to escape defeat in Adelaide, but the psychological damage being done here is huge.
Australia's glory years were really over as soon as all the greats had retired, but full confirmation of what this has meant on the pitch has taken a while longer to come.
Now, though, it is over. And there is nothing that anyone - least of all Ponting - can do about it.
One of my favourite memories from the summer before I went to university is the day Gooch and Gower flogged a pallid Australian attack all over Kennington. Today, with the hapless Xavier Doherty playing the part of Murray Bennett, and Shane Watson as Simon O'Donnell, Cook, Trott and Pietersen did much the same.
For the majority of the twenty-five years which have elapsed since that day, the Australian cricket team has had it all. It still has, only now it is a full house of negatives: a threadbare, poorly selected attack; batsmen who are ageing, or lack form, or both; fielders who cannot take catches which should be routine at Test level.
It's still possible, given the benign pitch and the possibility of rain later in the game, for Australia to escape defeat in Adelaide, but the psychological damage being done here is huge.
Australia's glory years were really over as soon as all the greats had retired, but full confirmation of what this has meant on the pitch has taken a while longer to come.
Now, though, it is over. And there is nothing that anyone - least of all Ponting - can do about it.
3.12.10
All You Need to Know
Ricky Ponting comes to the crease. He has won the toss for his side and chosen to bat, but, in the first over of the match, they have already lost a wicket and are yet to score a single run.
Jimmy Anderson pitches the ball up, compelling Ponting to play forward. He does so, hurriedly, and the ball moves just enough to take the outside edge of his bat. Graeme Swann, at second slip, makes a difficult catch look profoundly easy.
This single delivery, one of 521 bowled in the day, tells you all you need to know about the relative strengths of the two sides.
God, England look good.
Jimmy Anderson pitches the ball up, compelling Ponting to play forward. He does so, hurriedly, and the ball moves just enough to take the outside edge of his bat. Graeme Swann, at second slip, makes a difficult catch look profoundly easy.
This single delivery, one of 521 bowled in the day, tells you all you need to know about the relative strengths of the two sides.
God, England look good.
30.11.10
Don't Believe The Hype
I don't usually bother reading the British tabloids. They're occasionally amusing - sometimes intentionally, sometimes unwittingly - but what they write rarely bears much relation to the real world.
So I had to laugh when I happened to catch part of the sports slot on BBC Breakfast this morning and Chris Hollins showed the back pages of various papers to the camera.
One (I think it was The Sun but I couldn't swear to it) appeared to be describing Alastair Cook's innings (which deserves credit for being made, initially, under huge pressure, but which ended as an exercise in filling his boots against a poor attack on a bland pitch) as 'The Greatest Innings Ever'. There was no question mark.
Er, not quite, lads, in fact not even close to the top 50. But thanks for the laugh.
So I had to laugh when I happened to catch part of the sports slot on BBC Breakfast this morning and Chris Hollins showed the back pages of various papers to the camera.
One (I think it was The Sun but I couldn't swear to it) appeared to be describing Alastair Cook's innings (which deserves credit for being made, initially, under huge pressure, but which ended as an exercise in filling his boots against a poor attack on a bland pitch) as 'The Greatest Innings Ever'. There was no question mark.
Er, not quite, lads, in fact not even close to the top 50. But thanks for the laugh.
28.11.10
Hard to Love
I began writing here in 2006, just a few months after Alastair Cook came into the England team, and, in the first few years I was writing, I mentioned him a lot.
Over the last couple of years I haven't written about him so often, as for much of that time he's been battling a range of technical demons and his runs haven't been as plentiful or consistent as they were in his early days.
He's a player, and person, of contradictions. Still young, boyishly good-looking, often uncertain of manner, but with an old pro's patience, steely determination and hatred of getting out.
He can be hard to love, but when he plays like that it's not hard to see why his record's so good.
Tomorrow morning he and his partner, Jonathan Trott, can take the game right away from Australia.
Over the last couple of years I haven't written about him so often, as for much of that time he's been battling a range of technical demons and his runs haven't been as plentiful or consistent as they were in his early days.
He's a player, and person, of contradictions. Still young, boyishly good-looking, often uncertain of manner, but with an old pro's patience, steely determination and hatred of getting out.
He can be hard to love, but when he plays like that it's not hard to see why his record's so good.
Tomorrow morning he and his partner, Jonathan Trott, can take the game right away from Australia.
27.11.10
Deja Vu
As Hussey and Haddin took the game away from England in the small hours of this morning, it was Michael Vaughan, on TMS, who first mentioned the feeling of deja vu. This was roughly thirty seconds after I and millions of other English cricket followers had thought it. As the crowd noise rose and the scoreboard started to revolve at a pace which England could do nothing to contain, the only thing that could be thought was that it was just like every other Ashes series in Australia that you could really remember.
I deliberately didn't comment here yesterday as I wanted to see how many Hussey finished up with, but his batting on the second day was a timely reminder that while advancing age always affects people in ways that can't be easily felt or defined, it doesn't always whither the way in which they do their job. Hussey has always been a pleasingly compact and technically sure player, and here his fortitude under pressure, judgement and footwork were of a calibre which it's hard to see anyone on the England side, with the possible exception of Ian Bell, who's in the best form of his entire career, matching.
Now, though, at least two of them will have to if England are to avoid defeat. The pitch could be a lot worse and the Australian attack could be a lot better.
But it will be tough.
I deliberately didn't comment here yesterday as I wanted to see how many Hussey finished up with, but his batting on the second day was a timely reminder that while advancing age always affects people in ways that can't be easily felt or defined, it doesn't always whither the way in which they do their job. Hussey has always been a pleasingly compact and technically sure player, and here his fortitude under pressure, judgement and footwork were of a calibre which it's hard to see anyone on the England side, with the possible exception of Ian Bell, who's in the best form of his entire career, matching.
Now, though, at least two of them will have to if England are to avoid defeat. The pitch could be a lot worse and the Australian attack could be a lot better.
But it will be tough.
25.11.10
Welcome to Australia, Welcome to Sleep Deprivation
The start of Ashes series can be captivating, exciting and emotional. This can lead to a strange type of nostalgic reflectiveness.
As I climbed into bed this morning, three overs in, Strauss already gone and CMJ broadcasting to the world, I found myself thinking about the fact that I'd been doing this sort of thing since before anyone from either side was born. When England pitched up at Brisbane to be sacrificed to Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in November 1974, satellite television hadn't been invented and radios were still sometimes called transistors. I loved it. Still do.
Conclusion: I started bloody young, I'm getting older, and it's a good job I wasn't playing. There are many reasons for this - not least the fact that I'm not a very good cricketer - but also the awareness that too much emotion can affect the way you play.
It's hard to say whether this was a factor in what was, for England, a poor day, but if anyone had become even slightly carried away with the favourable predictions and lavish publicity, today's events will have brought them sharply back to earth.
Australian sides come, and Australian sides go, but they always, always, compete very hard. Today Peter Siddle was the embodiment of this attitude - fast, direct, immune to pressure and frequently successful. No matter what you have going for you (and England are currently very fortunate to have Ian Bell), going to Australia and winning Test matches is never easy.
Judgement is suspended until both sides have batted once, but, with one day gone, Australia hold the aces.
As I climbed into bed this morning, three overs in, Strauss already gone and CMJ broadcasting to the world, I found myself thinking about the fact that I'd been doing this sort of thing since before anyone from either side was born. When England pitched up at Brisbane to be sacrificed to Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in November 1974, satellite television hadn't been invented and radios were still sometimes called transistors. I loved it. Still do.
Conclusion: I started bloody young, I'm getting older, and it's a good job I wasn't playing. There are many reasons for this - not least the fact that I'm not a very good cricketer - but also the awareness that too much emotion can affect the way you play.
It's hard to say whether this was a factor in what was, for England, a poor day, but if anyone had become even slightly carried away with the favourable predictions and lavish publicity, today's events will have brought them sharply back to earth.
Australian sides come, and Australian sides go, but they always, always, compete very hard. Today Peter Siddle was the embodiment of this attitude - fast, direct, immune to pressure and frequently successful. No matter what you have going for you (and England are currently very fortunate to have Ian Bell), going to Australia and winning Test matches is never easy.
Judgement is suspended until both sides have batted once, but, with one day gone, Australia hold the aces.
21.11.10
On The Edge
There's currently a lot - and I mean a lot - of writing about the series in the English media. Most of it tells you things you already knew, or things you didn't want to know, or draws conclusions you could reach yourself if your life wasn't so crowded that a man can make 333 in a Test match (and another can make 278 not out a few days later) and you can barely find the time to think, let alone write, about it.
This, by David Hopps, is different and brilliant.
There's a very real feeling that Ponting stands on the edge, and the ground underneath his feet, in the shape of the Australian cricket system, is less firm than it's been for many years.
Such was the evidence of Hobart, where, if you looked past the sublime quality of Ian Bell, the Australian second team fielded some decent players. But in amongst them were a good few - chiefly Mark Cameron and Steven O'Keefe - whose levels of experience, when set against their ages (rising 30 and 26 respectively), were pitiful.
With everything changing, it may be that what was once held to be one of Australia's strengths - the lack of a professional career structure and the seamless relationship between club and first-class cricket - has now become a weakness.
This, by David Hopps, is different and brilliant.
There's a very real feeling that Ponting stands on the edge, and the ground underneath his feet, in the shape of the Australian cricket system, is less firm than it's been for many years.
Such was the evidence of Hobart, where, if you looked past the sublime quality of Ian Bell, the Australian second team fielded some decent players. But in amongst them were a good few - chiefly Mark Cameron and Steven O'Keefe - whose levels of experience, when set against their ages (rising 30 and 26 respectively), were pitiful.
With everything changing, it may be that what was once held to be one of Australia's strengths - the lack of a professional career structure and the seamless relationship between club and first-class cricket - has now become a weakness.
Similar But Different
It's always risky to draw inferences and parallels from phoney wars, but over the past week I've found myself thinking about the months leading up to the Rugby Union World Cup in the English autumn of 2003.
Clive Woodward's side was the best in the world and had laid many a marker down over the preceding years. The passage of time was against them but all that remained was for them to win the biggest prize in the game in the backyard of the world champions. In those days I had real faith and throughout that summer was telling anyone who would listen that they would do it. They did, but it was the final act of a team which rapidly broke up and cast the side into a period of headlong decline from which they've only really started to emerge in the last six months.
Flower's England is similar - tough, talented, highly professional, increasingly ruthless - but different in that they are a less dominant force on the world stage. But they are also younger and will not break up once the impending contest is over, victorious or otherwise. On this occasion it is their opponents, and their captain in particular, who are feeling the chill winds of change.
This time I haven't felt the same type of faith. Years of humiliation and defeat on the cricket ovals of Australia have a tendency to sap the confidence, and, unlike the players, I've been there before (in mind and spirit, if not body), time and time again.
I still say that it will be close, but one's feeling, as the cold and gloom of an impending English winter draws down, is that this England team has what is required - as much skill as their opponents and as much, if not more, confidence - to do the job.
The first few days in Brisbane will be telling.
Clive Woodward's side was the best in the world and had laid many a marker down over the preceding years. The passage of time was against them but all that remained was for them to win the biggest prize in the game in the backyard of the world champions. In those days I had real faith and throughout that summer was telling anyone who would listen that they would do it. They did, but it was the final act of a team which rapidly broke up and cast the side into a period of headlong decline from which they've only really started to emerge in the last six months.
Flower's England is similar - tough, talented, highly professional, increasingly ruthless - but different in that they are a less dominant force on the world stage. But they are also younger and will not break up once the impending contest is over, victorious or otherwise. On this occasion it is their opponents, and their captain in particular, who are feeling the chill winds of change.
This time I haven't felt the same type of faith. Years of humiliation and defeat on the cricket ovals of Australia have a tendency to sap the confidence, and, unlike the players, I've been there before (in mind and spirit, if not body), time and time again.
I still say that it will be close, but one's feeling, as the cold and gloom of an impending English winter draws down, is that this England team has what is required - as much skill as their opponents and as much, if not more, confidence - to do the job.
The first few days in Brisbane will be telling.
11.11.10
On Its Knees
The first time that virtually anyone in this country became aware of Zulqarnain Haider was when he came into the Pakistan side for the first time for the second Test against England at Edgbaston in August. After a first innings golden duck and a lucky first ball escape second time round, he made a resourceful and gutsy 88 in the second innings to prolong Pakistan's ultimately forlorn fight for survival.
This was clearly a cricketer of some substance, and, while we don't yet know the truth behind his flight from Dubai, it was repulsive and revealing that a representative of the Pakistan authorities condemned him as strongly as he did yesterday.
Yes, he chose not to inform the team management of his concerns before he fled, but that was a choice he was perfectly entitled to make.
With attitudes like that, no wonder cricket in Pakistan is on its knees.
This was clearly a cricketer of some substance, and, while we don't yet know the truth behind his flight from Dubai, it was repulsive and revealing that a representative of the Pakistan authorities condemned him as strongly as he did yesterday.
Yes, he chose not to inform the team management of his concerns before he fled, but that was a choice he was perfectly entitled to make.
With attitudes like that, no wonder cricket in Pakistan is on its knees.
9.11.10
The Right to Review
Although they ultimately lacked the power to drive home their advantage, it was a significant achievement for New Zealand to push India as far as they did in Ahmedabad.
The Black Caps came straight from an unprecedented 4-0 ODI series defeat by Bangladesh (which I never found the time to write about when it happened, so belated credit to the Tigers) while India were sharpening their claws by winnning both their Tests against Australia.
For all Harbhajan's deserved maiden century, the most significant moments of the final day were the two transparently incorrect lbw decisions given by Steve Davis which put Dan Vettori - a man who's done most things - on the verge of what would have been one of the hollowest Test hat-tricks of them all.
It was a pity, because Davis has always looked to me to be an excellent umpire, but it threw into sharp relief the fact that we still have certain series being played without any form of Decision Review System while in others it increasingly appears to be working as its proponents intended. With India still choosing to lag behind the thinking of most other countries on this issue, it's salutary to think of what might have happened if they had lost the game as a result of those decisions, something which could also easily have happened in the first Test against Australia.
It would be interesting to know what VVS thinks, but, then again, it was only a (very) dodgy lbw decision and he's already passed three figures sixteen times in Test cricket.
If the rumours doing the rounds have anything in them, Zulqarnain Haider had a bit more to worry about.
The Black Caps came straight from an unprecedented 4-0 ODI series defeat by Bangladesh (which I never found the time to write about when it happened, so belated credit to the Tigers) while India were sharpening their claws by winnning both their Tests against Australia.
For all Harbhajan's deserved maiden century, the most significant moments of the final day were the two transparently incorrect lbw decisions given by Steve Davis which put Dan Vettori - a man who's done most things - on the verge of what would have been one of the hollowest Test hat-tricks of them all.
It was a pity, because Davis has always looked to me to be an excellent umpire, but it threw into sharp relief the fact that we still have certain series being played without any form of Decision Review System while in others it increasingly appears to be working as its proponents intended. With India still choosing to lag behind the thinking of most other countries on this issue, it's salutary to think of what might have happened if they had lost the game as a result of those decisions, something which could also easily have happened in the first Test against Australia.
It would be interesting to know what VVS thinks, but, then again, it was only a (very) dodgy lbw decision and he's already passed three figures sixteen times in Test cricket.
If the rumours doing the rounds have anything in them, Zulqarnain Haider had a bit more to worry about.
7.11.10
Never a Truer Word
Thanks also to Andy Bull for having spotted and pointed up this apposite quotation (hidden away at the end of the column) from Dan Vettori, speaking about Sachin Tendulkar:
"He has been in form longer than some of our guys have been alive."
As Andy says:
Dan Vettori wasn't even joking. Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut on 15 November 1989. New Zealand's Kane Williamson was born on 8 August 1990.
And, as I write, he has a Test debut century under his belt and New Zealand, against every set of odds you can think of, have India on the ropes.
You simply have to love Test cricket.
"He has been in form longer than some of our guys have been alive."
As Andy says:
Dan Vettori wasn't even joking. Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut on 15 November 1989. New Zealand's Kane Williamson was born on 8 August 1990.
And, as I write, he has a Test debut century under his belt and New Zealand, against every set of odds you can think of, have India on the ropes.
You simply have to love Test cricket.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
As autumn sets in in England and everyone's attention turns to what is and isn't happening and what might or might not happen in any one of a number of cricket-related locations around the globe, sometimes it can be educative and not a little perplexing to turn one's mind back to events and people which everyone seems to have forgotten about in a world which turns too fast for its own good.
Andy Bull's columns in The Guardian are often wry and well-crafted, and are encapsulated in The Spin a weekly e-mail to which I subscribe. When this dropped into my inbox last week it really made me think.
At a time when one of the key off-field sub-plots involves what will happen to the Pakistan Three, it was a timely reminder of the fact that other people have drenched cricket in disrepute many times before.
At times the whole Stanford debacle seems like a bad dream. I wonder if Giles Clarke feels the same?
Andy Bull's columns in The Guardian are often wry and well-crafted, and are encapsulated in The Spin a weekly e-mail to which I subscribe. When this dropped into my inbox last week it really made me think.
At a time when one of the key off-field sub-plots involves what will happen to the Pakistan Three, it was a timely reminder of the fact that other people have drenched cricket in disrepute many times before.
At times the whole Stanford debacle seems like a bad dream. I wonder if Giles Clarke feels the same?
30.10.10
Time Passing
Talking of the phoney war, it was great to listen to Michael Vaughan, Gladstone Small and Allan Lamb reminiscing about past Ashes series on the radio during the week.
The fact that, prior to their triumphant Test series in 1986-87, Mike Gatting's side only had three things wrong with them* has passed into English cricket folklore. So it was great to hear from Small that there were reasons for this. From the sound of it the side spent most of the first few weeks of the tour enjoying themselves, only putting their minds to the main objective of the trip the night before the Brisbane Test, which they went on to win handsomely. The clear implication was that the odd alcoholic drink was consumed.
This time, unlike the last time they were in Australia, England have the opportunity to prepare properly. But I suspect their methods of refreshment might be a little different.
Such is the passing of time and the change of eras.
* According to Martin Johnson, writing in The Independent, England's only faults at the time were that 'they can't bat, they can't bowl and they can't field'.
The fact that, prior to their triumphant Test series in 1986-87, Mike Gatting's side only had three things wrong with them* has passed into English cricket folklore. So it was great to hear from Small that there were reasons for this. From the sound of it the side spent most of the first few weeks of the tour enjoying themselves, only putting their minds to the main objective of the trip the night before the Brisbane Test, which they went on to win handsomely. The clear implication was that the odd alcoholic drink was consumed.
This time, unlike the last time they were in Australia, England have the opportunity to prepare properly. But I suspect their methods of refreshment might be a little different.
Such is the passing of time and the change of eras.
* According to Martin Johnson, writing in The Independent, England's only faults at the time were that 'they can't bat, they can't bowl and they can't field'.
Desire
Of course, in this time of phoney war, the headline focuses on what he said about the possible outcome of the Ashes series, but this interview with Sachin Tendulkar by the outstanding Donald McRae is much more interesting and wide-ranging than it appears at first.
Among many nuggets is the following:
'I'm really focusing now on how I can get to the next level as a batsman. How can I get even more competitive? How can I get even more consistent? How can I get better?'.
As McRae says, he speaks with the aspiration and focus of a young professional, and, such is Tendulkar's famed modesty and lack of artifice, I've got no doubt that the comment faithfully reflects where he stands in his twenty-first year as a Test cricketer and his thirty-eighth on earth.
Of course, as a player ages, everything depends upon his physical faculties, and, good as the signs are, no-one can say how long Tendulkar's body will last. But the desire to go on and on is clearly there.
We haven't seen anywhere near the last of this great batsman.
Among many nuggets is the following:
'I'm really focusing now on how I can get to the next level as a batsman. How can I get even more competitive? How can I get even more consistent? How can I get better?'.
As McRae says, he speaks with the aspiration and focus of a young professional, and, such is Tendulkar's famed modesty and lack of artifice, I've got no doubt that the comment faithfully reflects where he stands in his twenty-first year as a Test cricketer and his thirty-eighth on earth.
Of course, as a player ages, everything depends upon his physical faculties, and, good as the signs are, no-one can say how long Tendulkar's body will last. But the desire to go on and on is clearly there.
We haven't seen anywhere near the last of this great batsman.
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.
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.
13.10.10
When the Music Stops
Ricky Thomas Ponting is, in more ways than you can count, a typical Australian Test cricketer. Indeed, he embodies the emotional makeup of virtually any successful professional sportsman. He doesn't do sentiment, or regret, or wistfulness. Such feelings are the privilege of the retired player, who can afford to look back at his career in anger, sorrow or pride with the certain knowledge that it can't blunt the sharpness of the competitive response that's vital for survival at the highest level of the game.
But Ponting wouldn't be human if he didn't reflect a little on the way things have changed for Australia in recent times. This is a man who's played nearly all his career in a team without peer; for much of that time he has been its leader and its best batsman. Now, as the autumn of his own great career draws in, he finds himself in charge of a team which just can't do what it used to. He knows it, his team-mates know it, and now other teams know it too.
Ponting said back in the English summer that he was relishing the different challenges that captaining a lesser side presented. I've no doubt he meant what he said at the time, but that was before they were beaten by Pakistan at Headingley; their two recent defeats, the second ultimately comfortable, to India have nailed the coffin lid shut on the invincible years. The music has stopped, and Ponting is still holding the parcel. The only trouble is that he doesn't know what to do with it.
While the batting is still respectable, it is far, far more vulnerable than it ever used to be, and his attack is too dependent on a spinner he doesn't trust and a quickie so erratic that it would be a shock if he really trusted himself. For all the optimism, promise and doggedness of Watson, George and Hilfenhaus, they're just not good enough to carry an attack, especially in unfamiliar conditions. There are alternatives - Bollinger, Siddle, Lee, Smith - but nobody capable of intimidating opponents with their sheer excellence in the way that was second nature to Warne and McGrath.
For me the outcome of the Ashes series still appears magnificently uncertain. Home advantage will tell, and, as everyone knows, Australians are never beaten. England's batting is a concern, but they will have seen nothing whatever to worry them over the past two weeks.
For every uncertainty, though, there is a certainty. While today's outstanding innings was Cheteshwar Pujara's first fifty for India, it sure as hell won't be his last.
But Ponting wouldn't be human if he didn't reflect a little on the way things have changed for Australia in recent times. This is a man who's played nearly all his career in a team without peer; for much of that time he has been its leader and its best batsman. Now, as the autumn of his own great career draws in, he finds himself in charge of a team which just can't do what it used to. He knows it, his team-mates know it, and now other teams know it too.
Ponting said back in the English summer that he was relishing the different challenges that captaining a lesser side presented. I've no doubt he meant what he said at the time, but that was before they were beaten by Pakistan at Headingley; their two recent defeats, the second ultimately comfortable, to India have nailed the coffin lid shut on the invincible years. The music has stopped, and Ponting is still holding the parcel. The only trouble is that he doesn't know what to do with it.
While the batting is still respectable, it is far, far more vulnerable than it ever used to be, and his attack is too dependent on a spinner he doesn't trust and a quickie so erratic that it would be a shock if he really trusted himself. For all the optimism, promise and doggedness of Watson, George and Hilfenhaus, they're just not good enough to carry an attack, especially in unfamiliar conditions. There are alternatives - Bollinger, Siddle, Lee, Smith - but nobody capable of intimidating opponents with their sheer excellence in the way that was second nature to Warne and McGrath.
For me the outcome of the Ashes series still appears magnificently uncertain. Home advantage will tell, and, as everyone knows, Australians are never beaten. England's batting is a concern, but they will have seen nothing whatever to worry them over the past two weeks.
For every uncertainty, though, there is a certainty. While today's outstanding innings was Cheteshwar Pujara's first fifty for India, it sure as hell won't be his last.
8.10.10
The Art of Cricket
I've always followed the county game closely.
Every season new names come along. They make a few runs or take a few wickets, and you notice them. Sometimes they go on to great things in the game, at others they fade from view and you forget all about them, perhaps occasionally wondering what happened to them when you flick through an old Wisden and their name catches your eye.
So it is with Elliott Wilson.
In 1999, Wilson, an opening batsman, broke into the Worcestershire side, making his maiden century against Middlesex at Worcester as the season's end approached. He followed this with two further tons in 2000, and, if the world wasn't quite at his feet, a career seeing off the new ball in the shadow of Worcester Cathedral beckoned (and that, my friends, strikes me as a pretty great way to earn your living).
Then it all went wrong. Wilson, in Australia to spend the winter playing grade cricket, sustained severe damage to his back as a result of a badly-administered injection. There were serious complications and he never played first-class cricket again.
Elliott Wilson is now an artist, and the gallery on his website reflects the depth and diversity of his talent.
Every season new names come along. They make a few runs or take a few wickets, and you notice them. Sometimes they go on to great things in the game, at others they fade from view and you forget all about them, perhaps occasionally wondering what happened to them when you flick through an old Wisden and their name catches your eye.
So it is with Elliott Wilson.
In 1999, Wilson, an opening batsman, broke into the Worcestershire side, making his maiden century against Middlesex at Worcester as the season's end approached. He followed this with two further tons in 2000, and, if the world wasn't quite at his feet, a career seeing off the new ball in the shadow of Worcester Cathedral beckoned (and that, my friends, strikes me as a pretty great way to earn your living).
Then it all went wrong. Wilson, in Australia to spend the winter playing grade cricket, sustained severe damage to his back as a result of a badly-administered injection. There were serious complications and he never played first-class cricket again.
Elliott Wilson is now an artist, and the gallery on his website reflects the depth and diversity of his talent.
6.10.10
Gould Will Live
Ian Gould is a friendly, avuncular man. I've been watching him around cricket for more than thirty years and he's always been like that. He likes a joke, and, despite the odd recent howler (of which more below), he can umpire bloody well. Players like him, and he's been one of the best recent additions to the ICC Elite Panel.
However, while allowing for his obvious and unquestioned impartiality, he would barely be human if he didn't feel a small hint of reflex pleasure when India flopped over the line yesterday. If they'd lost after he wrongly sent Ishant on his way then he would really have needed his sense of humour to deal with some of the stick that would have come his way.
He, and India, and Ishant, and the glorious Laxman, live to fight another day.
However, while allowing for his obvious and unquestioned impartiality, he would barely be human if he didn't feel a small hint of reflex pleasure when India flopped over the line yesterday. If they'd lost after he wrongly sent Ishant on his way then he would really have needed his sense of humour to deal with some of the stick that would have come his way.
He, and India, and Ishant, and the glorious Laxman, live to fight another day.
26.9.10
Ifs and Butts
When English cricket summers end I usually experience a feeling of disappointment and regret. Not this time.
Not just because of what's gone on in the past month, but also because this has been a messy, badly constructed season. England switching formats and opponents as frequently as Eoin Morgan switches hands. A needlessly divided and therefore denuded County Championship, a Twenty20 tournament expanded to the point of meaninglessness and another competition of a length, as Neil Kinnock said twenty-five years ago this coming week, 'irrelevant to the real needs'. For someone who loves the game but has an increasing number of competing demands on his time, it is becoming harder and harder to follow what is going on, let alone write about it. But the love will endure. It always does.
Talking of irrelevancies, a final word on Ijaz Butt, who's been making all the headlines this past week and will probably find himself on the receiving end of a writ before long. It would be interesting to know what the Pakistan players think of him, given that his statement simultaneously undermined the diligent efforts of the Pakistan team (especially the outstanding Umar Gul) and gave extra motivation to their opponents. Not much, I would guess.
England go to Australia in good shape. For the first time in many years they have the world's leading current spin bowler in their ranks, and they have a decent - I wouldn't put it any more strongly than that - chance of retaining the Ashes. I'll be with them in spirit, if not in person.
With or without the shadow of corruption, the endless carousel that is modern international cricket never stops (which, of course, is part of the problem), and Australia are now in India for a short series which will supply some further pointers as to what may happen in November and December.
See you soon.
Not just because of what's gone on in the past month, but also because this has been a messy, badly constructed season. England switching formats and opponents as frequently as Eoin Morgan switches hands. A needlessly divided and therefore denuded County Championship, a Twenty20 tournament expanded to the point of meaninglessness and another competition of a length, as Neil Kinnock said twenty-five years ago this coming week, 'irrelevant to the real needs'. For someone who loves the game but has an increasing number of competing demands on his time, it is becoming harder and harder to follow what is going on, let alone write about it. But the love will endure. It always does.
Talking of irrelevancies, a final word on Ijaz Butt, who's been making all the headlines this past week and will probably find himself on the receiving end of a writ before long. It would be interesting to know what the Pakistan players think of him, given that his statement simultaneously undermined the diligent efforts of the Pakistan team (especially the outstanding Umar Gul) and gave extra motivation to their opponents. Not much, I would guess.
England go to Australia in good shape. For the first time in many years they have the world's leading current spin bowler in their ranks, and they have a decent - I wouldn't put it any more strongly than that - chance of retaining the Ashes. I'll be with them in spirit, if not in person.
With or without the shadow of corruption, the endless carousel that is modern international cricket never stops (which, of course, is part of the problem), and Australia are now in India for a short series which will supply some further pointers as to what may happen in November and December.
See you soon.
19.9.10
The Glorious Uncertainty of the Unrefined Talent
My first clear memory of Andrew Flintoff dates back to a Test match between England and India at Lord's in 1996. David Lloyd, then the England coach, had invited the likely lad from Lancashire to act as his country's Twelfth Man. I stood and watched for a while at the gap between the Allen Stand and the pavilion and soon became aware of a looming presence next to me, blotting out the light. I'd seen his picture so knew when I looked up that I was literally being overshadowed by Andrew Flintoff. Despite regular exposure to the behemoths turned out by the professional Rugby Union academies, he remains one of the biggest eighteen year-olds I've ever seen.
Just two years later he was in the England side; raw, over-promoted, destined to take a very long time to rise and an equally long one to fall. But for a relatively short time his best was as good as anyone's around, and my favourite memories all come from that brief heyday between 2003 and 2006: Dispatching South Africa in an ODI uniform at Edgbaston in partnership with Michael Vaughan, July 2003, one sublime cover-drive instantly awakening memories of Ian Botham; raging against the dying of the light at Lord's and The Oval, same summer; repeatedly turning games in partnership with Geraint Jones, a contrasting man if ever there was, but someone he always seemed to bat well with, in 2004 and 2005; that over to Ponting and a wealth of other moments from the summer the Ashes came back.
Other than in one specific area of his game - his bowling in one-day cricket - Andrew Flintoff wasn't a truly great cricketer. Simply a very good one whose greatest individual Test series happened to coincide with what was perhaps the greatest Test series of all. But, to the average English cricket follower, his huge popularity owed far more to his image as an outwardly unsophisticated, often gauche everyman who embodied and fulfilled people's hopes while retaining an endearing sense of vulnerability. The British tend to be wary of self-conscious sporting excellence, preferring those who succeed in spite of themselves and who routinely appear to be only a step away from failure. The glorious uncertainty of the unrefined talent.
One image to leave: It is September 2003. Makhaya Ntini bowls, and the coiled, vengeful power of Flintoff's drive lofts the ball upwards, seemingly destined for space. It only makes it as far as the upper tier of the Oval pavilion but no matter. This is something we've waited since 1985 to see. It is special, he is special, and we want more.
Flintoff's future also has more than a tinge of uncertainty about it. But he, and we, will always have his past.
Just two years later he was in the England side; raw, over-promoted, destined to take a very long time to rise and an equally long one to fall. But for a relatively short time his best was as good as anyone's around, and my favourite memories all come from that brief heyday between 2003 and 2006: Dispatching South Africa in an ODI uniform at Edgbaston in partnership with Michael Vaughan, July 2003, one sublime cover-drive instantly awakening memories of Ian Botham; raging against the dying of the light at Lord's and The Oval, same summer; repeatedly turning games in partnership with Geraint Jones, a contrasting man if ever there was, but someone he always seemed to bat well with, in 2004 and 2005; that over to Ponting and a wealth of other moments from the summer the Ashes came back.
Other than in one specific area of his game - his bowling in one-day cricket - Andrew Flintoff wasn't a truly great cricketer. Simply a very good one whose greatest individual Test series happened to coincide with what was perhaps the greatest Test series of all. But, to the average English cricket follower, his huge popularity owed far more to his image as an outwardly unsophisticated, often gauche everyman who embodied and fulfilled people's hopes while retaining an endearing sense of vulnerability. The British tend to be wary of self-conscious sporting excellence, preferring those who succeed in spite of themselves and who routinely appear to be only a step away from failure. The glorious uncertainty of the unrefined talent.
One image to leave: It is September 2003. Makhaya Ntini bowls, and the coiled, vengeful power of Flintoff's drive lofts the ball upwards, seemingly destined for space. It only makes it as far as the upper tier of the Oval pavilion but no matter. This is something we've waited since 1985 to see. It is special, he is special, and we want more.
Flintoff's future also has more than a tinge of uncertainty about it. But he, and we, will always have his past.
Seeing is Believing
A recurrent theme in the first few years of this blog was the discrepancy between Ian Bell's transparently exceptional batting ability and his failure to establish himself in the England team. I well remember writing a sentence which began 'if Ian Bell ever realizes how good he could be...'.
Over the last year the disconnect between potential and performance has become less noticeable, largely as a result of his batting in South Africa last winter. After an injury-interrupted home season, his return to the Test side for the start of the forthcoming Ashes series appears a formality. At last, in his 29th year, there are signs that he's finally started to really believe in himself. And there's plenty to believe in.
Yesterday evening, as Bell steered Warwickshire to victory against Somerset in the final of the Clydesdale Bank 40 at a floodlit Lord's, he put together an innings which served both as reminder and confirmation of what he is capable of. Mark Turner is a journeyman seam bowler. He's just been released by Somerset and is joining Derbyshire, the team cricketers join when they can't go anywhere else. So, when he came on to bowl the 38th over of the Warwickshire innings with Bell facing, things didn't look good. Six balls later, with Bell having creamed Turner for twenty runs and the Warwickshire win assured, things looked even worse.
But, in fairness, it probably wouldn't have made much difference who was bowling. Bell was playing with such a potent mix of command, assurance and even, whisper it, arrogance, that many another more talented bowler would have gone precisely the same way. It looked to me suspiciously like the work of a player who finally knows how good he is, and that, my friends, is very good indeed.
Of course, attempting to hold together the England batting in the febrile cauldron of the Gabba, or amid the brutal partisanship of the MCG, is a different thing. We will see, but the signs are good.
The 'CB40' feels like an unloved competition, and Ian Bell has frequently appeared an unloved batsman. Defending his corner against the doubters has often been difficult; more than once I've given up and embraced the majority opinion.
Ian Bell won't be giving up any time soon. Last night he showed the British cricket community what he can do, but it's time he showed the world.
Over the last year the disconnect between potential and performance has become less noticeable, largely as a result of his batting in South Africa last winter. After an injury-interrupted home season, his return to the Test side for the start of the forthcoming Ashes series appears a formality. At last, in his 29th year, there are signs that he's finally started to really believe in himself. And there's plenty to believe in.
Yesterday evening, as Bell steered Warwickshire to victory against Somerset in the final of the Clydesdale Bank 40 at a floodlit Lord's, he put together an innings which served both as reminder and confirmation of what he is capable of. Mark Turner is a journeyman seam bowler. He's just been released by Somerset and is joining Derbyshire, the team cricketers join when they can't go anywhere else. So, when he came on to bowl the 38th over of the Warwickshire innings with Bell facing, things didn't look good. Six balls later, with Bell having creamed Turner for twenty runs and the Warwickshire win assured, things looked even worse.
But, in fairness, it probably wouldn't have made much difference who was bowling. Bell was playing with such a potent mix of command, assurance and even, whisper it, arrogance, that many another more talented bowler would have gone precisely the same way. It looked to me suspiciously like the work of a player who finally knows how good he is, and that, my friends, is very good indeed.
Of course, attempting to hold together the England batting in the febrile cauldron of the Gabba, or amid the brutal partisanship of the MCG, is a different thing. We will see, but the signs are good.
The 'CB40' feels like an unloved competition, and Ian Bell has frequently appeared an unloved batsman. Defending his corner against the doubters has often been difficult; more than once I've given up and embraced the majority opinion.
Ian Bell won't be giving up any time soon. Last night he showed the British cricket community what he can do, but it's time he showed the world.
6.9.10
To Tweet or Not to Tweet
I tried 'Tweeting' for a few months late last year and early this. I tried to be the Tweeter with the fewest followers in the world until the pointlessness of it all became clear and I gave up participation in favour of seeing what people more famous and interesting than me had to say about their lives.
Most of the people I follow are involved with cricket in some way, and are well-known. Graeme Swann's Tweets are ebullient and slightly childish. David Lloyd's reflect his humour and wide range of passions. Jimmy Anderson's tend towards the dull and worthy, but are notably well structured and punctuated. It's clear, unlike some, that he went to school. Agnew's reflect a life so utterly wonderful that he must wake up every day thanking some higher authority (the BBC Appointments Board, I suppose) for its munificence. Michael Vaughan is a late adopter who shows promise.
Something worth keeping in mind, though, is that if you put something on Twitter, more or less anyone, anywhere, can see it. And if they don't see it for themselves, someone will tell them about it.
If someone's responsible for selecting a cricket team that you'd like to play in, it's best only to refer to them as a c**t (or even a k**t) or a w****r in private. People generally don't like that sort of thing, and if you give them another reason not to select you, well, as good old Devon Malcolm apparently once said, 'you guys are history'.
Don't expect a call anytime soon, Dimitri.
Most of the people I follow are involved with cricket in some way, and are well-known. Graeme Swann's Tweets are ebullient and slightly childish. David Lloyd's reflect his humour and wide range of passions. Jimmy Anderson's tend towards the dull and worthy, but are notably well structured and punctuated. It's clear, unlike some, that he went to school. Agnew's reflect a life so utterly wonderful that he must wake up every day thanking some higher authority (the BBC Appointments Board, I suppose) for its munificence. Michael Vaughan is a late adopter who shows promise.
Something worth keeping in mind, though, is that if you put something on Twitter, more or less anyone, anywhere, can see it. And if they don't see it for themselves, someone will tell them about it.
If someone's responsible for selecting a cricket team that you'd like to play in, it's best only to refer to them as a c**t (or even a k**t) or a w****r in private. People generally don't like that sort of thing, and if you give them another reason not to select you, well, as good old Devon Malcolm apparently once said, 'you guys are history'.
Don't expect a call anytime soon, Dimitri.
31.8.10
On Reflection
It's hard to believe that it's barely been three days since the only story in town broke. It already seems like weeks, but the dust has barely settled.
The best moment I've had over the last few days was reading on Cricinfo yesterday - while loitering around Horse Guards Parade, of all places - that the ICC has scope for leniency when it comes to the imposition of suspensions for activities such as 'spot-fixing', and that, should it come to it, they'll be able to take into account Mohammad Amir's youth and possible naivete, which may mean that he could end up with a ban of 'only' five years rather than something much longer. Immediately after the event I got caught up in the prevailing mood which seemed to be suggesting that a life ban was the only acceptable outcome, and the thought of that happening to Amir was starting to genuinely upset me.
So, the future may not be quite as bleak for Amir as it may seem. Or, then again, it might.
Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif appear different. They've been around for long enough to really know the implications of what they were doing, and for all my deep admiration for Asif's bowling, if it's shown that they were complicit in this I'll be happy to see them both out of the game for good.
The best moment I've had over the last few days was reading on Cricinfo yesterday - while loitering around Horse Guards Parade, of all places - that the ICC has scope for leniency when it comes to the imposition of suspensions for activities such as 'spot-fixing', and that, should it come to it, they'll be able to take into account Mohammad Amir's youth and possible naivete, which may mean that he could end up with a ban of 'only' five years rather than something much longer. Immediately after the event I got caught up in the prevailing mood which seemed to be suggesting that a life ban was the only acceptable outcome, and the thought of that happening to Amir was starting to genuinely upset me.
So, the future may not be quite as bleak for Amir as it may seem. Or, then again, it might.
Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif appear different. They've been around for long enough to really know the implications of what they were doing, and for all my deep admiration for Asif's bowling, if it's shown that they were complicit in this I'll be happy to see them both out of the game for good.
29.8.10
History Repeated as Tragedy
On a grey, slightly chilly, autumnal morning, Lord's, on this of all days, was a strange place to be. The air of confusion, regret and uncertainty was tangible, and more MCC members were reading the News of the World than can ever have been the case before. Buying it felt a little dirty, but it had to be done.
Although Umar Akmal finally showed his true colours, defeat came quickly, but the ramifications of what may have been done in the course of that defeat will take a lot longer to play out. On the face of it, the evidence is strong, and, if it's as solid as it appears, the ICC will need to hit this one hard to stand any chance of rolling back what may, in the Indian sub-continent at least, be a rising tide of corruption.
No matter the lifelines it's thrown, it seems as though Pakistan cricket will always find a way to drag itself back into the mire. But, as it sinks, individual images linger.
From Lord's I'll go with the haunted, shuffling figure of Mohammad Yousuf, dismissed twice in an afternoon on Saturday and looking for all the world like a shattered man. This was someone who lived and played through the last great series of Pakistani match-fixing scandals, and, in retrospect, you have to wonder whether his crushed demeanour reflected the fact that he had discovered that history was repeating itself.
And then you had Mohammad Amir, striding off after succumbing to Graeme Swann for his second duck of the game. If things go badly for him it may be the last thing he ever does on a Test match field.
For Test cricket to lose a player of his staggering ability so soon would be little short of tragic, and, for his career to end prematurely would be unutterably sad. This time, though, people really need to hang for this, and if the case against Amir and others is proved, there should be no coming back.
We move on. Or we try to. This, like a partnership between Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad, will run and run and run.
Although Umar Akmal finally showed his true colours, defeat came quickly, but the ramifications of what may have been done in the course of that defeat will take a lot longer to play out. On the face of it, the evidence is strong, and, if it's as solid as it appears, the ICC will need to hit this one hard to stand any chance of rolling back what may, in the Indian sub-continent at least, be a rising tide of corruption.
No matter the lifelines it's thrown, it seems as though Pakistan cricket will always find a way to drag itself back into the mire. But, as it sinks, individual images linger.
From Lord's I'll go with the haunted, shuffling figure of Mohammad Yousuf, dismissed twice in an afternoon on Saturday and looking for all the world like a shattered man. This was someone who lived and played through the last great series of Pakistani match-fixing scandals, and, in retrospect, you have to wonder whether his crushed demeanour reflected the fact that he had discovered that history was repeating itself.
And then you had Mohammad Amir, striding off after succumbing to Graeme Swann for his second duck of the game. If things go badly for him it may be the last thing he ever does on a Test match field.
For Test cricket to lose a player of his staggering ability so soon would be little short of tragic, and, for his career to end prematurely would be unutterably sad. This time, though, people really need to hang for this, and if the case against Amir and others is proved, there should be no coming back.
We move on. Or we try to. This, like a partnership between Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad, will run and run and run.
27.8.10
A Sense of Belonging
Until today there was an uncertainty about Jonathan Trott's status in the England side. Of course, there was a nerveless maiden century in the deciding Test of an Ashes series, and a double century at Lord's, and a record-breaking ODI partnership, but there was also the timewasting fussiness of his guard-taking ritual, more than a hint of strokelessness under pressure and an innate lack of charisma and batting elegance. Earlier in the season it began to look as though many in the media wanted him to fail, simply so as the sainted Eoin Morgan could be welcomed into the Test side.
Today, though, he resoundingly came of age with a truly magnificent combination of patience, technical rigour and impeccable shot selection; as good a century as has been made in England colours in the past couple of decades.
And Stuart Broad, for once rejecting hubris in favour of simply showing what he can do with a bat in his hand, was equally impressive.
As the runs mounted, their body language between overs reflected the way in which their partnership moved from uncertainty to realisation to fulfilment. By the end they were pumping each other's hands like long-lost friends, and they resume tomorrow at 11 requiring a further three runs to break a record which has stood for 79 years.
If Jonathan Trott lives to be 79 he'll never play better.
This is a player who really belongs.
Today, though, he resoundingly came of age with a truly magnificent combination of patience, technical rigour and impeccable shot selection; as good a century as has been made in England colours in the past couple of decades.
And Stuart Broad, for once rejecting hubris in favour of simply showing what he can do with a bat in his hand, was equally impressive.
As the runs mounted, their body language between overs reflected the way in which their partnership moved from uncertainty to realisation to fulfilment. By the end they were pumping each other's hands like long-lost friends, and they resume tomorrow at 11 requiring a further three runs to break a record which has stood for 79 years.
If Jonathan Trott lives to be 79 he'll never play better.
This is a player who really belongs.
25.8.10
(Raining) Cats and Dogs
I'm in London for the Test, just down the road from Lord's. It's raining cats and dogs. Even with the famed Lord's drainage, early play tomorrow looks a tall order indeed.
If I was Graeme Swann I'd probably tweet about it. And if I was him I'd be staying in a better hotel.
If I was Graeme Swann I'd probably tweet about it. And if I was him I'd be staying in a better hotel.
19.8.10
Solidarity
International cricket - all international sport, in fact - is a cloistered world, inhabited by privileged people. People, on both sides of the boundary and touchline, with the talent and good fortune to be able to earn what, by most people's standards, are huge riches, while doing something they'd happily do for nothing if their lives had turned out differently. Not that everything (unless, perhaps, you're a member of the media) is wine and roses; playing professional sport well requires a high level of discipline and far more hard work than many people realize.
Perhaps it's because of this - the fact that their own lives are so pleasurable and absorbing - that people in sport often seem so unaware of what's going on in the outside world.
Like my fellow blogger at the idiosyncratic and excellent Down at Third Man, I've been surprised and concerned (to put it mildly) that there's been very little mention of the Pakistan floods during the media coverage of the Test series. Pakistan is nothing if not a country at the heart of the world cricket community, and one which required a huge amount of solidarity and support from the rest of that community even before the latest disaster came its way. Now it needs even more.
As I type, TMS is doing its bit to redress the balance by interviewing James Caan, who's heading a fundraising campaign on behalf of the British Pakistan Foundation and is about to travel to Pakistan, but much more can, and should surely, be done.
Watch this space, and, in the meantime, visit Third Man's Facebook page here.
Perhaps it's because of this - the fact that their own lives are so pleasurable and absorbing - that people in sport often seem so unaware of what's going on in the outside world.
Like my fellow blogger at the idiosyncratic and excellent Down at Third Man, I've been surprised and concerned (to put it mildly) that there's been very little mention of the Pakistan floods during the media coverage of the Test series. Pakistan is nothing if not a country at the heart of the world cricket community, and one which required a huge amount of solidarity and support from the rest of that community even before the latest disaster came its way. Now it needs even more.
As I type, TMS is doing its bit to redress the balance by interviewing James Caan, who's heading a fundraising campaign on behalf of the British Pakistan Foundation and is about to travel to Pakistan, but much more can, and should surely, be done.
Watch this space, and, in the meantime, visit Third Man's Facebook page here.
16.8.10
Chaos Theory
More often than not Twenty20 finals day ends in thinly-veiled chaos.
Saturday was one of those days. It ended at nearly 11 p.m. with the faintly surreal sight of a middle-aged man with a pot of paint and a big stick emerging into the glare of the Rose Bowl floodlights to paint a couple of white lines on a strip of turf as many thousands of cricket fans laughed, drank, cheered and looked at their watches. Oh, and wondered who out of Hampshire and Somerset would end up winning the thing.
The cricket wasn't bad either, with Jos Buttler showing a wider audience the virtues which those of us who inhabit Gimblett's Hill at Taunton have known about for a while. A technique both unfussy and innovative, backed by the iron temperament of the natural finisher. No sooner has the world started to recognize the remarkable ability and potential of Eoin Morgan than someone else comes along with many of the same qualities.
And then there were two of the most naturally rhythmical left-arm spinners you could ever wish to see. For once, though, Murali Kartik was put in the shade by Hampshire's highly-impressive 19 year-old from the Isle of Wight, Danny Briggs. In a snatched post-victory interview Briggs said something along the lines of 'I didn't know this many people watched cricket'.
You'd better get used to it, Danny, because, where you might be heading, they assuredly do.
Saturday was one of those days. It ended at nearly 11 p.m. with the faintly surreal sight of a middle-aged man with a pot of paint and a big stick emerging into the glare of the Rose Bowl floodlights to paint a couple of white lines on a strip of turf as many thousands of cricket fans laughed, drank, cheered and looked at their watches. Oh, and wondered who out of Hampshire and Somerset would end up winning the thing.
The cricket wasn't bad either, with Jos Buttler showing a wider audience the virtues which those of us who inhabit Gimblett's Hill at Taunton have known about for a while. A technique both unfussy and innovative, backed by the iron temperament of the natural finisher. No sooner has the world started to recognize the remarkable ability and potential of Eoin Morgan than someone else comes along with many of the same qualities.
And then there were two of the most naturally rhythmical left-arm spinners you could ever wish to see. For once, though, Murali Kartik was put in the shade by Hampshire's highly-impressive 19 year-old from the Isle of Wight, Danny Briggs. In a snatched post-victory interview Briggs said something along the lines of 'I didn't know this many people watched cricket'.
You'd better get used to it, Danny, because, where you might be heading, they assuredly do.
9.8.10
Rebuilding Respect
Regardless of what happens now - and as I write England are well on the way to victory - there was, in a counter-intuitive, old-fashioned, slightly grim way, something uplifting about yesterday afternoon's proceedings at Edgbaston.
After their shambolic displays with the bat and in the field on Friday and Saturday, and with Graeme Swann wheeling away with a venom few in the current international game can match, Pakistan needed something different, both to preserve their own credibility and to revive a series which was beginning to look like a barely-twitching corpse a matter of days after it had started.
The combative, brave and occasionally stylish batting of Zulqarnain Haider, Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal, did just that, providing a template for their supposed superiors at the top of the order (although much of the devil seemed to have gone both from the pitch and England's bowling by the afternoon) and showing that all is not lost. On a ground that currently resembles a building site, this was the brick-by-brick rebuilding of Pakistan's self-respect.
God, they need to learn how to catch, though.
After their shambolic displays with the bat and in the field on Friday and Saturday, and with Graeme Swann wheeling away with a venom few in the current international game can match, Pakistan needed something different, both to preserve their own credibility and to revive a series which was beginning to look like a barely-twitching corpse a matter of days after it had started.
The combative, brave and occasionally stylish batting of Zulqarnain Haider, Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal, did just that, providing a template for their supposed superiors at the top of the order (although much of the devil seemed to have gone both from the pitch and England's bowling by the afternoon) and showing that all is not lost. On a ground that currently resembles a building site, this was the brick-by-brick rebuilding of Pakistan's self-respect.
God, they need to learn how to catch, though.
2.8.10
The More Things Change...
In a performance which, in the field anyway, went beyond the realms of mere competence and into those of outright brilliance, James Anderson was England's stand-out player.
It was time. He's had an uneasy few months in the one-day game, omitted entirely from the T20 triumph in the Caribbean and intermittently expensive in the ODIs against Australia and Bangladesh. But he remains a bowler of talent, ingenuity and skill, best suited to the rhythms and attacking imperatives of the five-day game, especially when the conditions weigh as heavily in his favour as they did at the weekend.
As Vic Marks has written, he's the best exponent of genuine swing England have had since the heyday of the young Ian Botham, who, for anyone too young to remember him at his best, could really, really bowl. From visual memory (no speed guns then), Botham wasn't as quick as Anderson usually is, although, when riled by a batsman, an umpire, an Australian or any combination thereof (which was often) he could really charge in. Though attacking by nature Botham at his best probably had a slightly more consistent command of line and length than Anderson, reflective of the era in which he played and a parsimonious Westcountry cricket education at the hands of Tom Cartwright.
Plus ca Change. For Ian Botham at Lord's, June 1978, knocking over a range of hapless Pakistani batsmen like so many skittles, read Anderson at Trent Bridge, August 2010.
But sterner challenges, presented by the batsmen, pitches, cricket balls and climate of Australia, lie ahead.
It was time. He's had an uneasy few months in the one-day game, omitted entirely from the T20 triumph in the Caribbean and intermittently expensive in the ODIs against Australia and Bangladesh. But he remains a bowler of talent, ingenuity and skill, best suited to the rhythms and attacking imperatives of the five-day game, especially when the conditions weigh as heavily in his favour as they did at the weekend.
As Vic Marks has written, he's the best exponent of genuine swing England have had since the heyday of the young Ian Botham, who, for anyone too young to remember him at his best, could really, really bowl. From visual memory (no speed guns then), Botham wasn't as quick as Anderson usually is, although, when riled by a batsman, an umpire, an Australian or any combination thereof (which was often) he could really charge in. Though attacking by nature Botham at his best probably had a slightly more consistent command of line and length than Anderson, reflective of the era in which he played and a parsimonious Westcountry cricket education at the hands of Tom Cartwright.
Plus ca Change. For Ian Botham at Lord's, June 1978, knocking over a range of hapless Pakistani batsmen like so many skittles, read Anderson at Trent Bridge, August 2010.
But sterner challenges, presented by the batsmen, pitches, cricket balls and climate of Australia, lie ahead.
1.8.10
Go Back To What You First Thought Of. And Ignore It.
On balance, it's probably a good thing that I didn't write what I was thinking of writing before the Trent Bridge Test began, namely that Jimmy Anderson 'needed a big performance'. I've learnt from experience that the immutable Law of Sod as applied to blogging means that as soon as you write something like that it's rendered redundant by events which, in retrospect, have a terrible inevitability about them.
With this in mind, I won't be writing anything similar about Kevin Pietersen (for a week or two, anyway).
I'm not too sure about the Pakistan team, though. They, with bat and in the field at least, are really struggling. And I'm not sure that they're capable of proving me wrong.
With this in mind, I won't be writing anything similar about Kevin Pietersen (for a week or two, anyway).
I'm not too sure about the Pakistan team, though. They, with bat and in the field at least, are really struggling. And I'm not sure that they're capable of proving me wrong.
25.7.10
The Great Lost Bowler
The excellent short series in England between Pakistan and Australia was a contest of contrasts. Pakistan youthful, unavoidably inexperienced, slightly disorganised but hugely talented. Australia, inevitably diminished, ageing in important areas, but innately professional and as naturally competitive as ever. One side raging against the injustices and political complexities which compel them to play all their Test cricket away from home, the other against the passing of time and a cricket generation.
The lasting impressions include the manner in which Pakistan recovered from the Lord's defeat and its anarchic aftermath to stagger over the line at Headingley, and the fact that, with the coming winter ahead, Australia look to be vulnerable in a way they haven't been against England since Mitchell Johnson was in short trousers.
The abilities of Mohammad Aamer are so self-evidently extraordinary as to require no elaboration, but some of the spells and deliveries bowled, at Headingley in particular, by Mohammad Asif, set the mind rolling over Pakistan's lost years.
When he came to England for the first time in 2006 I was very impressed by Asif, and, for a time after that, he looked like taking his rightful place at the top table of world seam bowling. It never quite happened, mainly because he simply hasn't played enough, and his marginalisation carries echoes of the way in which Pakistan cricket as a whole has been confined to the shadows these past few years.
He looks slower now - presumably by choice, for he's yet to reach 28 and has, amazingly, only played in 19 Test matches - but his memory is good. He still knows how to probe a batsman's weaknesses around off-stump with a precision and control rarely seen from anyone since Glenn McGrath retired. It's a commonplace in most sports that in order to be regarded as truly great you have to play for a long time, but it's not an iron law. Mohammad Asif may be one of the exceptions.
In Pakistan cricket little is ever clear or transparent, but one thing currently is. Over the next few weeks Pakistan's attack will test the England batting to its very foundations.
The lasting impressions include the manner in which Pakistan recovered from the Lord's defeat and its anarchic aftermath to stagger over the line at Headingley, and the fact that, with the coming winter ahead, Australia look to be vulnerable in a way they haven't been against England since Mitchell Johnson was in short trousers.
The abilities of Mohammad Aamer are so self-evidently extraordinary as to require no elaboration, but some of the spells and deliveries bowled, at Headingley in particular, by Mohammad Asif, set the mind rolling over Pakistan's lost years.
When he came to England for the first time in 2006 I was very impressed by Asif, and, for a time after that, he looked like taking his rightful place at the top table of world seam bowling. It never quite happened, mainly because he simply hasn't played enough, and his marginalisation carries echoes of the way in which Pakistan cricket as a whole has been confined to the shadows these past few years.
He looks slower now - presumably by choice, for he's yet to reach 28 and has, amazingly, only played in 19 Test matches - but his memory is good. He still knows how to probe a batsman's weaknesses around off-stump with a precision and control rarely seen from anyone since Glenn McGrath retired. It's a commonplace in most sports that in order to be regarded as truly great you have to play for a long time, but it's not an iron law. Mohammad Asif may be one of the exceptions.
In Pakistan cricket little is ever clear or transparent, but one thing currently is. Over the next few weeks Pakistan's attack will test the England batting to its very foundations.
24.7.10
Time and Circumstance
With Australia and Pakistan engaged in a virile exchange of punch and counter-punch at Headingley, in the quieter surroundings of Taunton the home side came up just short of a victory which would have enhanced their claims to a title they've never won.
Central to Somerset's attack was a 33 year-old Indian left-arm spin bowler called Murali Kartik, whose enchanting blend of persistence, aggression, variation and variety was as impressive and elegant as anything anyone will see on the playing fields of England this summer.
For someone who appears to embody all that is traditional and great about Indian slow bowling, Kartik has had an uneven, unfulfilled career. Eight long-forgotten Tests, with unspectacular, journeyman's results; thirty-odd ODIs for a high average in an era when they were ten a penny. Sporadically outstanding county cricket for Lancashire, Middlesex and Somerset.
As with many a cricketer, Kartik will forever lament that he was born at the wrong time, for the twin shadows of Harbhajan and Kumble, together with the more gaudy attributes of any number of mystery spinners, have hung heavy over his career. For all that, to watch him bowl from the River End at Taunton, unchanged for an afternoon, was to be educated, captivated and reminded of the skill and beauty of the spinner's art.
Orthodox in conception and practice, Kartik's spin comes from an action that appears as natural as breathing. While he can turn the ball prodigiously in the right conditions, the aspect which really stood out at Taunton was the way in which he consistently gave the ball air in a manner that is rarely seen these days outside the movies. In consequence the average young - and not-so-young - English batsman who faces Kartik is forced to play outside his comfort zone in a way he can barely understand, let alone execute. He gets out.
As I wrote earlier in the week, with Warne and Murali gone, Panesar faded from view and Mendis supplanted, the world of spin is now a less colourful place. Time and circumstance mean that Murali Kartik is highly unlikely to play any part in its regeneration at international level; that will be left to the likes of Swann and Vettori, and, in India, to his younger compatriots, Bhajji himself, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla.
In England, Monty will continue to have his days but the future looks uncertain, Adil Rashid continues to look good without taking the decisive step forward his talents deserve, and Hampshire's Danny Briggs looks to have many of Kartik's qualities.
Kartik, though, is special. Enjoy him while you can.
Central to Somerset's attack was a 33 year-old Indian left-arm spin bowler called Murali Kartik, whose enchanting blend of persistence, aggression, variation and variety was as impressive and elegant as anything anyone will see on the playing fields of England this summer.
For someone who appears to embody all that is traditional and great about Indian slow bowling, Kartik has had an uneven, unfulfilled career. Eight long-forgotten Tests, with unspectacular, journeyman's results; thirty-odd ODIs for a high average in an era when they were ten a penny. Sporadically outstanding county cricket for Lancashire, Middlesex and Somerset.
As with many a cricketer, Kartik will forever lament that he was born at the wrong time, for the twin shadows of Harbhajan and Kumble, together with the more gaudy attributes of any number of mystery spinners, have hung heavy over his career. For all that, to watch him bowl from the River End at Taunton, unchanged for an afternoon, was to be educated, captivated and reminded of the skill and beauty of the spinner's art.
Orthodox in conception and practice, Kartik's spin comes from an action that appears as natural as breathing. While he can turn the ball prodigiously in the right conditions, the aspect which really stood out at Taunton was the way in which he consistently gave the ball air in a manner that is rarely seen these days outside the movies. In consequence the average young - and not-so-young - English batsman who faces Kartik is forced to play outside his comfort zone in a way he can barely understand, let alone execute. He gets out.
As I wrote earlier in the week, with Warne and Murali gone, Panesar faded from view and Mendis supplanted, the world of spin is now a less colourful place. Time and circumstance mean that Murali Kartik is highly unlikely to play any part in its regeneration at international level; that will be left to the likes of Swann and Vettori, and, in India, to his younger compatriots, Bhajji himself, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla.
In England, Monty will continue to have his days but the future looks uncertain, Adil Rashid continues to look good without taking the decisive step forward his talents deserve, and Hampshire's Danny Briggs looks to have many of Kartik's qualities.
Kartik, though, is special. Enjoy him while you can.
22.7.10
A Passing Era
In a saying that's been repeated so often that it's become a cliche, when Fred Trueman became the first man to take 300 Test wickets, in 1964, he remarked that anybody who beat his total would be 'bloody tired' (or something like that). It seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that Muttiah Muralitharan, who retired today with a round total of 800 wickets under his belt, is feeling a bit sore just now.
Statistics and experience show that Muralitharan is - was - a great bowler. But there will always be an ambivalence about his qualities and achievements of a type which never accompanied the retirements of Warne, or Kumble, or McGrath. It's become less common to hear people talk openly about the deficiencies of his action as the years have passed, but there are many, many people who were never quite able to accept that he didn't throw the ball.
This suspicion, in its turn, seeped into the minds of those who weren't ever quite sure what to make of the wizard of Kandy (myself included, if truth be told), meaning that his achievements have often received less than their due, at least outside the Indian sub-continent.
But all this is to obscure the point. He was judged to be legal, therefore he was legal, and, in the golden years when the muse was with him, nobody on earth could take wickets like he could.
And, unlike his fellow modern greats, he played for a country with only ten years' Test experience when he made his debut, meaning both that he was under greater pressure and that his wickets carried deeper significance. He, more than anyone else - although the huge contribution of Chaminda Vaas should never be forgotten - showed that Sri Lankans could do more than just pile up runs.
With Murali's retirement a magnificent era has all but passed. The world of spin bowling is a more conventional place, with mystery and innovation increasingly the realm of batsmen, and it'll be down to the likes of Harbhajan and Graeme Swann - two of the most combative and optimistic cricketers you could ever come across - to try to re-establish the hegemony of spin.
It'll be fun watching them try.
Statistics and experience show that Muralitharan is - was - a great bowler. But there will always be an ambivalence about his qualities and achievements of a type which never accompanied the retirements of Warne, or Kumble, or McGrath. It's become less common to hear people talk openly about the deficiencies of his action as the years have passed, but there are many, many people who were never quite able to accept that he didn't throw the ball.
This suspicion, in its turn, seeped into the minds of those who weren't ever quite sure what to make of the wizard of Kandy (myself included, if truth be told), meaning that his achievements have often received less than their due, at least outside the Indian sub-continent.
But all this is to obscure the point. He was judged to be legal, therefore he was legal, and, in the golden years when the muse was with him, nobody on earth could take wickets like he could.
And, unlike his fellow modern greats, he played for a country with only ten years' Test experience when he made his debut, meaning both that he was under greater pressure and that his wickets carried deeper significance. He, more than anyone else - although the huge contribution of Chaminda Vaas should never be forgotten - showed that Sri Lankans could do more than just pile up runs.
With Murali's retirement a magnificent era has all but passed. The world of spin bowling is a more conventional place, with mystery and innovation increasingly the realm of batsmen, and it'll be down to the likes of Harbhajan and Graeme Swann - two of the most combative and optimistic cricketers you could ever come across - to try to re-establish the hegemony of spin.
It'll be fun watching them try.
14.7.10
Put to Bed
As ever, the modern cricket world moves rapidly on. With Australia and Pakistan locked in what looks like it has the makings of a decent match at Lord's, I'm going to hark back to the way in which England secured their short ODI series with Bangladesh on Monday, especially the contribution of the England captain.
Not very long ago many people were questioning whether Andrew Strauss continued to merit his place in the England one-day side - too one-paced, too conventional, not innovative enough outside his natural scoring areas - but his 154 at Edgbaston showed how hard he's been working to develop his game. Several magnificent lofted sixes were coupled with the usual drives and cuts and a leavening of reverse sweeps to comprise an outstanding innings, regardless of the relative weakness of the Bangladesh attack.
At 78 his ODI strike-rate is, without being outstanding, highly respectable, and it's obvious how highly his team-mates respect him.
Any doubts about his place in the side should have been put to bed for the time being.
Not very long ago many people were questioning whether Andrew Strauss continued to merit his place in the England one-day side - too one-paced, too conventional, not innovative enough outside his natural scoring areas - but his 154 at Edgbaston showed how hard he's been working to develop his game. Several magnificent lofted sixes were coupled with the usual drives and cuts and a leavening of reverse sweeps to comprise an outstanding innings, regardless of the relative weakness of the Bangladesh attack.
At 78 his ODI strike-rate is, without being outstanding, highly respectable, and it's obvious how highly his team-mates respect him.
Any doubts about his place in the side should have been put to bed for the time being.
12.7.10
Strangeness
Everyone else has lost to Bangladesh, so, in the end, it was bound to happen to England. A performance that hinted at complacency, coupled with a courageous display from the Tigers, ensured that Bristol, 10th July 2010, will always have a special place in Bangladeshi cricket lore.
For me, the most memorable aspect of the day was the appearance of the injured Ian Bell, batting at number eleven for England. As has often been said, Bell tends to cut a modest, slightly reticent figure, characteristics which haven't helped him to get the most from his undeniably exceptional ability, and English crowds haven't always warmed to him.
So it was nice to see him limp down the steps while being cheered onto the pitch like a conquering hero, with the expression on his face showing that he had picked up on the strangeness of it all.
In all probability, the next time he plays for England will be at Brisbane in November. The crowd there might not be so pleased to see him.
For me, the most memorable aspect of the day was the appearance of the injured Ian Bell, batting at number eleven for England. As has often been said, Bell tends to cut a modest, slightly reticent figure, characteristics which haven't helped him to get the most from his undeniably exceptional ability, and English crowds haven't always warmed to him.
So it was nice to see him limp down the steps while being cheered onto the pitch like a conquering hero, with the expression on his face showing that he had picked up on the strangeness of it all.
In all probability, the next time he plays for England will be at Brisbane in November. The crowd there might not be so pleased to see him.
8.7.10
Less is More
Although he's best known as a football writer, I regard Martin Samuel as just about the best sportswriter currently working in Britain; intelligent, clear-thinking and unafraid to tell it as he sees it. I try not to make a habit of reading the Daily Mail, so I haven't seen much of his stuff recently, but this caught my eye yesterday.
I don't agree with all of it, but the central thrust - that the expansion of the English T20 competition this season has all but ruined it - seems to be me to be pretty accurate.
Because of work, the World Cup and other commitments, I haven't seen as much as in previous years, but the overall impression is of a competition which is just going on and on and on, without many people really knowing or caring where it's leading.
Twenty20 has many virtues - brilliant fielding, an inbuilt focus on innovation - but much of the excitement it generates is repetitive and, ultimately, can be monotonous.
Sports administrators, especially when they've got witless marketing people shouting in their ear, always have trouble understanding that less can sometimes be more.
It'll be interesting to see where they decide to go from here.
I don't agree with all of it, but the central thrust - that the expansion of the English T20 competition this season has all but ruined it - seems to be me to be pretty accurate.
Because of work, the World Cup and other commitments, I haven't seen as much as in previous years, but the overall impression is of a competition which is just going on and on and on, without many people really knowing or caring where it's leading.
Twenty20 has many virtues - brilliant fielding, an inbuilt focus on innovation - but much of the excitement it generates is repetitive and, ultimately, can be monotonous.
Sports administrators, especially when they've got witless marketing people shouting in their ear, always have trouble understanding that less can sometimes be more.
It'll be interesting to see where they decide to go from here.
5.7.10
Words of Caution
The coverage of the England-Australia ODI series highlighted the short-termism of much of the mainstream media, although I'm happy to admit that they don't have my advantage of being able to wait until the end of the series before choosing to write something about it.
After three convincing victories England were suddenly the best limited over side in the known universe; after his blistering spell at Lord's Shaun Tait was going to go through England during the Ashes series (providing Punter could persuade him to play); and after a few cheap dismissals Ponting himself was suddenly fallible, with his advancing years catching up with him.
Words of caution are required. For all the coruscating excitement of his Lord's performance, bowling ten overs - in two or three over spells - in an ODI is a world away from bowling in a Test match, especially for someone with the fragile body, mind and technique of Tait. Australia's pace this winter is likely to have to be supplied by Johnson, Harris and Bollinger, the last two of whom showed during the series that they have plenty to offer both in terms of speed and craft.
And, while there may be signs that Ponting's mastery could be fading slightly, it would be as well not to underestimate his ability to recognize this, recast his technique, adjust his strokeplay and go again. A burning desire to regain the Ashes will do the rest.
The greats make their own rules. So be very, very careful before even suggesting that Ponting is ageing. And make doubly sure that he doesn't hear you doing it.
After three convincing victories England were suddenly the best limited over side in the known universe; after his blistering spell at Lord's Shaun Tait was going to go through England during the Ashes series (providing Punter could persuade him to play); and after a few cheap dismissals Ponting himself was suddenly fallible, with his advancing years catching up with him.
Words of caution are required. For all the coruscating excitement of his Lord's performance, bowling ten overs - in two or three over spells - in an ODI is a world away from bowling in a Test match, especially for someone with the fragile body, mind and technique of Tait. Australia's pace this winter is likely to have to be supplied by Johnson, Harris and Bollinger, the last two of whom showed during the series that they have plenty to offer both in terms of speed and craft.
And, while there may be signs that Ponting's mastery could be fading slightly, it would be as well not to underestimate his ability to recognize this, recast his technique, adjust his strokeplay and go again. A burning desire to regain the Ashes will do the rest.
The greats make their own rules. So be very, very careful before even suggesting that Ponting is ageing. And make doubly sure that he doesn't hear you doing it.
3.7.10
Faded Grandeur
If you were thinking about rating the most picturesque arenas in world cricket, Gloucestershire's County Ground, in the mundane suburbs of northern Bristol, would come well down anyone's list. No Cathedral spire to enhance the view, few trees to provide shade from the sun, and, on a warm Tuesday in late June, with the schools still in and the new age of austerity well under way, a scattering of spectators for the second day of a County Championship Division Two game between the home county and Middlesex. An atmosphere heavy with the pervasive air of long faded grandeur, aptly exemplified by the names - undeniably glorious but oh so old - used to distinguish different parts of the ground: Grace, Jessop, Hammond.
Twenty years ago, when a team containing Gatting, Haynes, Ramprakash, Emburey and Tufnell used to dominate the county game, I'd follow Middlesex around the country. The hot summer of 1990 saw me watch them at Derby, at The Oval, at Uxbridge on a killing day when the temperature was nudging thirty degrees by ten in the morning and Jimmy Cook batted long, and, finally, as autumn drew in, winning the title at Hove. A few months later I moved to Devon, and, after some transitional years when I held a torch for the Seaxes, settled for life in the outer at Taunton.
There are still times, though, when you feel like going back.
But the county game has changed for ever and the gap between the two divisions has long since started to bite. At Bristol the county's current side, an uneasy mixture of bitter experience and callow youth, struggled through the day with an insipid combination of bland bowling and often shoddy fielding as two exiled Kiwis, Hamish Marshall and James Franklin, and an under-rated Englishman, Alex Gidman, put them to the sword. In the mid-afternoon heat, with the game rapidly going away from his side, I found myself wondering about the thoughts of Owais Shah; less than a year ago a member of the England side, and now reduced to this.
When we left the game wasn't over, but the next afternoon saw it to a close, Gloucestershire - a moderate side themselves, in truth - winning by ten wickets and condemning Middlesex to the bottom of the table.
Despite some signs of promise in the limited over game, one of the heroes of 1990, Angus Fraser, now the county's Director of Cricket, has a job of work harder than many of his thankless Test spells on his hands if he is to restore the club to its former eminence.
It was that type of day. Throughout the escapist netherworld that is the English county game the resounding echoes of former glories are a commonplace.
Sometimes, though, they resonate just as loudly on the pitch as in the stands.
Twenty years ago, when a team containing Gatting, Haynes, Ramprakash, Emburey and Tufnell used to dominate the county game, I'd follow Middlesex around the country. The hot summer of 1990 saw me watch them at Derby, at The Oval, at Uxbridge on a killing day when the temperature was nudging thirty degrees by ten in the morning and Jimmy Cook batted long, and, finally, as autumn drew in, winning the title at Hove. A few months later I moved to Devon, and, after some transitional years when I held a torch for the Seaxes, settled for life in the outer at Taunton.
There are still times, though, when you feel like going back.
But the county game has changed for ever and the gap between the two divisions has long since started to bite. At Bristol the county's current side, an uneasy mixture of bitter experience and callow youth, struggled through the day with an insipid combination of bland bowling and often shoddy fielding as two exiled Kiwis, Hamish Marshall and James Franklin, and an under-rated Englishman, Alex Gidman, put them to the sword. In the mid-afternoon heat, with the game rapidly going away from his side, I found myself wondering about the thoughts of Owais Shah; less than a year ago a member of the England side, and now reduced to this.
When we left the game wasn't over, but the next afternoon saw it to a close, Gloucestershire - a moderate side themselves, in truth - winning by ten wickets and condemning Middlesex to the bottom of the table.
Despite some signs of promise in the limited over game, one of the heroes of 1990, Angus Fraser, now the county's Director of Cricket, has a job of work harder than many of his thankless Test spells on his hands if he is to restore the club to its former eminence.
It was that type of day. Throughout the escapist netherworld that is the English county game the resounding echoes of former glories are a commonplace.
Sometimes, though, they resonate just as loudly on the pitch as in the stands.
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