G&C 169
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 169
January 2017
Old Wanker’s Almanac
It is quite uncanny how I bump into the venerable wise man at this time of the year. As usual he was more than willing to give me his predictions for 2017
January
Anderson and Broad say they are delighted not to have been selected for the one day series and T20s in India since they are both exhausted from the 168 overs they bowled between them in the five test matches. They will be preserving their energies for the first test match of the summer which is coming up imminently in July.
In his assessment of the India tour Trevor Bayliss enigmatically says the 4-0 drubbing “did not fairly recognise the difference between the two sides….”.
Ugly demonstrations greet the inauguration of President Trump. He tweets: “These people are mainly intellectuals and blacks. They will regret it”. His next tweet is “I nominate President Putin for the Nobel Peace Prize. They gave it to Obama for nothing and so our friend, Vlad, should get it too”.
Teresa May calls a snap election saying it is “not a re-run of the Referendum, but that she is seeking approval to sign Clause 50”. In a surprising show of adroit thinking Labour joins forces with the SNP on a “Stay in the EEC” ticket.
A major change to the Sky contracts with the Premier League releases all foreign managers from their obligations to attend post-match interviews because of the incomprehensible drivel they all spout. The viewing numbers immediately show an enormous increase in the post-match period.
The Rangers lose again. Ian Holloway is sacked. Alan Pardew replaces him.
February
The Labour/SNP coalition wins a landslide victory and the new Prime Minister, a triumphant Jeremy Corbyn, refuses to go to the Palace and is sworn in on the Andrew Marr show. Nicola Sturgeon is his deputy. Corbyn announces that there will not be a Referendum over his new legislation abolishing the monarchy.
Andrew Strauss says that when assessing the performance of the England team, results on the sub-continent should be discounted.
Donald Trump refuses to move into the White House saying he can govern more effectively from Trump Towers in New York. He tweets: “Washington is finished”.
Harry Redknapp, Sam Allardyce and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink become the founder members of the Bent Managers Club, whose principal and only objective is to line the pockets of its members.
Alistair Cook resigns as England’s test captain. Joe Root says that he doesn’t want the job. Nick Compton is the selectors surprise choice to take over.
The Rangers slip into the relegation zone.
March
There are no English players in the PFA team of the year. The team is made up entirely of players with no vowels in their surnames.
Donald Trump meets with Presidents Assad and Putin. He tweets “I have done a major deal with these guys”.
Angus Fraser says that it was too hard winning the Championship last year on the dead wickets at Lord’s and that they will be returning to greentops and taking their chances with the toss.
Corbyn scraps all Brexit plans and announces that he will nationalise the banks. With immediate effect all Banking salaries will be restricted to £100k.
Mark Wood misses pre-season training at Durham following an unfortunate incident in which he stubbed his toe against a Lego structure.
The Rangers are relegated.
April
The Railways are nationalised and the Unions mark the occasion by striking over the Easter period.
Donald Trump closes Guantanamo Bay and the former internees start work on the Mexican Wall alongside POWs proffered by Assad and Putin. President Trump tweets: “They have got off lightly, Vlad was going to shoot them”.
Tyson Fury teams up with Ron Atkinson and Andy Gray to host a new politically incorrect chat show called “Go Home Sambo”.
Ben Duckett scores a triple hundred in his first innings of the domestic season.
Mark Wood recovers well and reports for his first game of the season only to strain his back lifting his kit bag out of his car at the Riverside ground.
May
Ben Duckett reaches 1000 runs for the season by the end of the first week in May. The fastest ever.
The Royal Mail and the Post Offices are Nationalised. To make it all workable, deliveries of post will be weekly from now on.
England find themselves drawn against West Indies in the Champions Trophy. Ben Stokes says that if he gets the chance to bowl at Brathwaite he will bowl “all yorkers”.
In a unique double Leicester City win the European Cup and are relegated from the Premiership. Gary Lineker starts a campaign for them to be reinstated and for Hull to be relegated as they “deserved to go down more”.
“Go Home Sambo” is regaled by the House of Commons Media Committee because of its exclusion of women.
June
Following the nationalisation of Accountancy and Legal firms there is only 20% of the working population remaining in the private sector. This number is halved when Jeremy Corbyn cancels all arm sales to Saudi Arabia and all contracts relating to Polaris missiles. He says that it has been a tiring but exhilarating six months.
Cook, Anderson and Broad report for preparation for the first test of the summer and are sent home because they are too relaxed to participate after a six-month layoff.
California secedes from the Union. President Trump tweets: “Good riddance”.
The Mexican Wall is finished in double quick time. President Trump tweets: “These Muslims work real fast with a Kalashnikov up their jacksies”.
“Go Home Sambo” is taken off the air when Tyson Fury invites a reunited Spice Girls to “Show us your tits, ladies”.
Out and About with the Professor
So, the England team are home safe and sound (most of them) for Christmas with their friends and families. Which is how it should be. Or is it? I read that one Virat Kohli is a bit put out about the long Christmas break that our boys are taking. He had already given his view that an eight-day holiday in Dubai might give England some advantage in the latter part of the Test series but now all of the players have departed for 25 days. Kohli does not think it fair. Or, to put it another way, if it is to be fair then India should disappear for the best part of a month in the middle of their next tour of England.
I don’t think that Kohli is making a religious point here – why should anyone want to spend a month celebrating a ridiculous myth from the late Iron Age? – after all, Indian religions abound in myths of their own, most of even greater antiquity. Rather his view is that there is no need to go “home” to do this. How would it be if the Indian team did indeed take, say, July off to celebrate Dwali or Holi or some such event (pedants will know that Dwali is an autumnal festival – but the general point is made). There is, of course, a hint of disingenuousness here; the schedule was set a long time ago and Kohli must have known all about it. Perhaps he objected then and is now making that objection public? I detect, also, in his remarks, a bit of post-colonial ire; it’s fine for England to do this in India but not the other way around. We are always being told that the power base in world cricket has now shifted to India because of their money but perhaps the dismissive wave of the privileged hand of Empire can still be glimpsed.
Either way, his point is that such a long break must benefit England which it almost certainly will, after all, is it possible that the performances in the ODIs will be worse than in the last two Tests? (OK, perhaps they will…but at least they can’t lose by an innings). There have not been that many times in my life when supporting England has been easy or relaxing but the back end of this tour has been hard indeed. A 4am start is a little early for me but pretty much any time since early November has witnessed a fairly shambolic submission. The fact that India have better spin bowlers than us was not, I think, news to anyone. The fact that, in the end, they had better bowlers of all kinds than us, was.
Added to that, the complete muddle about the batting line-up gives yet another example of the James Sharp copyright phrase: Tour Madness. To take two batsmen who were unselectable (and not know beforehand that they were unselectable) is certainly some form of delusion. Stick Moeen up the order, draft in Buttler (there as a back-up ‘keeper), send for Jennings, etc., etc., none of it looks exactly planned. I agreed with Cook in his assessment of the Fourth Test; 600 runs on the Mumbai pitch should have made a game of it. Rashid has been written about as one of the successes of the tour but to take four wickets for almost 200 runs on a pitch that was turning square did not look to me like success. Cook was also right about the final Test – truly dire batting on a very reasonable strip.
So, should he go? I don’t share the commentators’ view that he is too defensive. They were bellowing about his “late” declarations in two of the Pakistan Tests, both of which England won. In the Third Test, England were 100+ behind on first innings and Cook’s declaration was panned as “timid”, “over-cautious”, “defensive”, etc. When you recall the captaincy records of some of the Sky pundits it is something of an affront that they dare offer an opinion at all. Of course, when the “timid” declaration wins the game, it all goes very quiet.
Would changing the captaincy improve things? It can do of course, although they would still be the same players. It might also prove to be true that Root (with precious little experience) may become a fine captain. Would Cook stand down from the team? I have never been a fan of the leader (in any walk of life) hanging around after s/he has given up the control. It has worked in the past; India, not too long ago, seemed to take the field with half a team of ex-captains. Are the new boys viewed as sufficiently good to have a brand new opening pair? Neither of them has been tested against relentless hostile fast bowling and South Africa and Australia will provide just that. Jennings, in particular, might have a tough time.
On balance, I would prefer to see Cook continue as captain up until this time next year. If he decides to stand down from that, then I think it best if he retires. We shall see.
Football Matters
I hadn’t realized that there has been a change the soccer rules at kick off. Formerly you needed two players at the ball to ensure that the ball was kicked forward and possession retained. It was silly but the rule makers insisted on it. Nowadays you often see one lone player at the ball and he unashamedly plays the inaugural pass of the match back to one of his eager midfield players.
Incidentally I can still make no sense of the new off side law. It appears to be applied quite arbitrarily. A player who is not interfering with play is suddenly off side if the passer miskicks the ball. This is madness and adds nothing but confusion to the game.
Technique matters
And cricket effectively has new laws. If you play at test level, you need a different technique for playing forward to the spinners than in ordinary first class cricket. The DRS system means that the fielding side can appeal LBW appeals that were turned down only for the technology to show that the ball hit the pad first and would have gone on to hit the stumps. Consequently, test players push forward with their bat in front of the pad whilst newcomers to this exalted level more conventionally keep their bat tucked in behind their pad, that is until they have been fingered on referral a couple of times and then they change their technique.
Flogging a Dead Horse Matters
I managed to watch a fair bit of the fourth and fifth tests and was appalled by Bairstow’s keeping. Many commentators had started talking about him along the lines of Prior, Stewart and others before him in that he is “better than when he started”. The unsaid bit was “but still way below the level required at test or any other level.” I guess that the exposure came about by England playing three spinners. He has no idea about keeping standing up and the bowlers must despair of his aiding in any dismissal. When Rashid beat Vijay with a non-spinning delivery which went between bat and pad, Bairstow failed to touch the ball with Vijay yards down the track. And so it continued with fumbles and misses coming even when the batsman left the ball. His mindless babble from behind the stumps only drew attention to his ineptitude. The ultimate irony was when Cook positioned a Long Stop behind him which was not to cover his errors but to deter Nair from using the ramp shot.
Morgan Matters
The Great Jack Morgan shares some thoughts
Keaton Jennings will captain the England Lions in Sri Lanka next Feb/ Mar. The four day squad is Jennings, Hameed, Gubbins, Alsop, Westley, J Clarke, Livingstone, Foakes, S Curran, T Curran, TSRJ, Helm, C Overton, Rayner and Leach. In the 50 over squad, Hameed, Gubbins, Westley, TSRJ and Leach are replaced by Bell-Drummond, Duckett, Fuller and Poysden. I am not sure how J Fuller has made selection, his bowling average in 50 over cricket last season was 43... perhaps nobody else wanted to go? I was very surprised to see T Helm in there too, he played no first class cricket last season and in 50 over stuff, took 2-91!
In the Guardian, Rob Smyth sees only five areas where England need to improve: captaincy, spin bowling, batting, keeping and pace bowling! He thinks the team to play South Africa in July will be Cook, Hameed, Jennings, Root (c), Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler (w), Rashid, Wood, Broad, Anderson. I think he could be close, but I also think i) Moeen will be retained, he averaged 42.3 with 2 tons in India, which might put Rashid's place in danger (though I am sure he will go to Oz); and ii) some elderly folks (Anderson?) might not be regulars anymore and could be rotated or axed altogether, while Wood is a permanent fitness doubt, which will keep Woakes in contention and Rob also sees TSRJ and the Curran brothers in the pace bowling picture. Rob thinks that Buttler is a better keeper than Bairstow (so do I), which allows (more sensibly) Bairstow to stay at 5 and Buttler at 7, with Stokes, of course, immovable from no 6, though he used to be a regular no 5 at Durham. All of which might leave Moeen back at no 8, where he used to bat like one!
The Guardian's cricket writers' Test Team of the Year is Cook, Root, Pujara, Kohli (c), S Smith, Stokes, Bairstow (w), Ashwin, Herath, Starc and Rabada. Personally, I would not have had Cook in it and the pace bowling looks a little thin with only Stokes to support the opening bowlers. The ICC then announced their Test Test Team of the Year: Warner, Cook (c), Williamson, Root, Voges, Bairstow (w), Stokes, Ashwin, Herath, Starc and Steyn and the same comment applies. Buttler was the only Englishman in the ICC's ODI Team of the Year. R Ashwin is the ICC’s World Player of the Year and also the Test Cricketer of the Year.
The long delayed MCCC winter mailing (which includes the Annual Review and the 2017 first team fixtures) finally arrived on Christmas Eve. The fixtures are always interesting, but in addition to being late this season, they are also quite vague eg we do not know the venue for the home Championship game v Hants starting 12/9 and no starting times are given so we do not know (eg) which RLC games (if any) will be evening games. As expected, there is a massive blast of T20 for 6 weeks in July and August with the only relief being a Championship match v Warwickshire at Lord's starting 6 Aug. I might as well go on holiday for a month.
It turns out that J Leach was not considered as a replacement for Z Ansari in India because of "concerns about his action".
Dawson (freakishly) was top of the batting averages for England, but Root, Bairstow, Hameed, Moeen and Jennings all averaged over 40, while Buttler (38.5), Stokes (38.3) and Cook (36.9) were only just below par. Root (freakishly), Broad and Rashid were the only bowlers with (just about) acceptable bowling records. Cook is going away to "do some thinking" about the captaincy, but almost everyone is saying that it is time for Root to take over.
A Xenophobe Comments
Murray Hedgcock reignites this old chestnut
I think it was The Professor who termed me a xenophobe when I voiced my firmly-held opposition to the “England” cricket team being bolstered by South Africans and other outsiders. Now they’ve done it again – and I wonder what The Prof thinks this time.
Keaton Jennings, rushed to India to shore up distinctly shaky batting, not only was born and raised in South Africa; he played for and indeed captained his country’s Under 19 team. More than one commentator has been reduced to clutching at the stray straw of the lad’s mother’s Sunderland origins - as if that truly made any difference.
Yes indeed, Jennings has fulfilled current residential qualification requirements, and by today’s rules and regulations is entitled to play for England. He appears to be both a cricketer of quality and a good lad.
But I always argue that an England cricketer should truly represent the English game – and Jennings learned his cricket across the seas. He is simply not a product of English cricket, and therefore should not be part of its public face.
I know all about my homeland lately picking Yorkshire-born Matt Renshaw – but he moved to that country at the age of ten, so that he learned the game in Australia, and is clearly a product of its system.
I always wonder how happy, deep in their hearts, are true English cricket lovers when the selectors reach so desperately for players who really belong to another country. Do they approve without question any selection that might just bring international success?
As for the current Test series, I applaud the continuing advance of Kohli’s Indian-born, Indian-raised band. They set a proper example to England in more ways than one.
King Cricket Matters -1
Alex Bowden assesses the fate of Captain Cook
There are two ways of looking upon the England captaincy. You can see it as an important position where the incumbent can have a major positive influence on how the side performs, or you can see it as one more thing that could go horribly wrong.
Rated according to the former, Alastair Cook is not an especially good captain. He is diligent and well-meaning, but ultimately far too insipid to have any significant impact. It’s hard to imagine that he is the author of England’s strategy. He will have a say, but the blueprint is not his. As much as anything he is the guy who flicks the switches and pulls the levers and operates the machine.
Tactically, he has learned to be inoffensively nondescript.
That sounds like a fairly damning report card, but we’re equally inclined to adopt the second perspective expressed in the opening paragraph of this piece. Captaincy can go wrong. You can do a lot of damage as a captain.
Ironically, considering he doesn’t himself possess them, Alastair Cook is a safe pair of hands. Although his captaincy will forever be remembered for one massive world championship title-taking dressing room bust-up, the team does generally function fairly smoothly.
No-one’s lobbying to become the next captain. No-one’s hitting anyone else with a cricket bat. To momentarily indulge in cliché, everyone’s pulling in the same direction. More impressively, when they find they’re getting dragged in the opposite direction, they don’t stop pulling and start arguing, they just sort of press on, refusing to accept the apparent futility of their efforts. That’s actually quite an achievement.
Despite some real low points, England no longer seem liable to completely implode under Cook. That isn’t so bad. Given a bit more talent in a few key areas, nondescript captaincy could take the team a long way.
The answer to the question “should Alastair Cook continue as England captain?” may to some extent depend on which of those perspectives you are inclined to take. However, both views may well be irrelevant.
Alastair Cook has, of late, appeared completely fed up with his job. Getting battered on an away tour will do that to a man, but it’s quite possible the enthusiasm won’t gush back in when he gets home.
If that’s the case, he’ll correctly resign because a man who really, really cannot be arsed is not going to do an especially good job. Trust us on this.
Doshi Matters
The Professor’s reminiscences in the last issue prompted some of the participants to comment
This from Peter Webster. "Geoff" was the one who had to be restrained.
“Remember it well. Geoff gave me a lift. Imagine the state he was in about 10.0pm.
First problem was that we could not remember where his car was parked. He had parked someway away from the ground and we walked the length of Hitchin and back pissed out of our minds. Car eventually found.
Next stop Indian. Problem we had spent up. Emptied our pockets and found some coins, said " bring food to this amount of cash" They did, probably to avoid trouble with 2 drunks. Journey home, Geoff could not negotiate Bayford Lane so he dropped me off on the B197. Manage to walk home. Very late when I got in. Silent interlude from Pat for 2 days.
Re the game our friend Micky Dunn played a part, he and Brian Collins were a formidable opening pair 11 overs 2 for 37. Robin Johns 4 for 31. Of course most of that team are in their late 70s, Burridge in his 80s. Hard to accept that this took place 40 years ago.”
The Professor had another response:
“Enjoyed your piece on Dilip Doshi although Robin Johns, who also took four wickets, would be disappointed for his brush with stardom had not been mentioned.”
King Cricket Matters - 2
Alex Bowden assesses the tour
England haven’t stagnated. They’re just worse at bowling and facing spin than India. And playing Test cricket in India involves bowling and facing an awful lot of spin.
So rather than howling about normality, now might instead be the perfect time to revisit the monumental achievement that was England’s 2012 tour. Reviewed through the prism of the last few weeks, we can better see that series win for the glorious aberration it truly was.
But back to stagnation. There was no point in the last few years when England were a better spin conditions side than India. If there’s been a significant change, it’s that England have been obliged to play Test cricket in India. They should be able to avoid that activity in the immediate future, so the side’s already on the up-and-up.
Yesterday we wrote about perceptions of pitch flatness. We’re less than delighted but not entirely surprised to have had our subtext made explicit. England lost ten wickets for 104 runs in 48.2 overs today. The last six wickets fell for 15. But this doesn’t sum up the tour. You don’t lose a marathon by half-an-hour in the finishing straight. This last collapse was just the cracking of a side subjected to prolonged stress. The ‘lazy’ shots and apparent incompetence were just a manifestation of all that had gone before.
What had gone before? Just an awful lot of being worse. India weren’t twice as good – as today’s result perhaps implies – they were just reliably better at almost everything, day after day after day. It wasn’t just the obvious elements, like spin bowling, it was also the related ones, such as bowling seam on Indian pitches.
Playing at home does confer certain advantages. A necessary reliance on spin bowlers is a major one that is always likely to make an India side more effective and an England side less effective. However, it’s hard to avoid concluding that this particular version of England has been more affected by this than most.
Every team is skewed towards some style of cricket or other, but the relative paucity of good spinners and turning pitches in the county cricket ecosystem means England don’t just struggle for bowlers, they also lack spin-adept batsmen.
Can you summarise this with some sort of reference to DIY? If you need to saw through a floorboard, you can get the job done with a hand saw. It’ll take you a few minutes. However, if you have a circular saw, you can do the job in seconds. This is before you even get started on the plumbing, rewiring or corpse-concealing that necessitated the floorboard removal in the first place.
England set out for their winter tours with a plastic box full of hand-me-down tools and they made do. In Bangladesh, they managed to get some sort of a job done by improvising with pliers and adjustable spanners. Against India and their van full of professional equipment, they simply couldn’t keep up.
King Cricket Matters -3
Alex Bowden meets Ged
We weren’t going to do this, but when we started writing something else we sort of felt obliged to ‘fess up that we’d actually been at the ground yesterday and by that point a match report seemed unavoidable.
New rule
We always include a brief italicised outline of what we want from match reports submitted to this site (send them to [email protected]), but one thing we increasingly feel the need to mention is that you don’t actually have to be Ged Ladd to contribute one. Much as we enjoy the man’s offerings, it would be good to break the Ged hegemony because variety and fenugreek are the spices of life.
Ged doesn’t even have to be there.
Although he was on this occasion.
We know Ged through this website. A couple of years ago, we met Ged for a pint and we now know him in that sense. But we don’t know Ged. For example, until yesterday, we didn’t know that Ged was the kind of person who could tell you in what year you’d met him for a pint and Ged didn’t know that we were the kind of person for whom past, present and future are just one murky impenetrable dream state, meaning we rarely know if things happened yesterday, five years ago or not yet.
So this was not one of those we-always-meet-up-for-the-cricket things. It was a very kind invite from Ged which was completely unexpected. We were particularly struck by it because we would never even dream of inviting someone to something unless we’ve known that person for at least 20 years (a threshold which also increases by the year).
Ged told us he would take care of food and kindly reminded us that Lord’s Cricket Ground’s greatest attribute is that you’re allowed to take some booze in.
Going by the guidelines, a bottle of wine seemed the most sensible thing to bring. However, we have never drunk wine at a cricket match and what little we know of Ged also made us suspect that a bottle of Spanish red wine probably wouldn’t be to his normal standards, so we instead plumped for the two beers option.
At the same time, we didn’t want to be the northerner who turns up with two cans of Skol, so we opted for two bottles of Belgian beer as this seemed nicely ambiguous.
What we didn’t bring was a bottle opener. Fortunately, Ged’s front row seats provided us with a perfectly adequate concrete step in front of us and we were able to put this to use for the old ‘position bottle top on corner and hammer with side of hand’ opening technique.
We were somewhat taken aback when not just Ged, but also his two companions Charley “The Gent” Malloy (slight suspicion of a made-up name) and Big Al Delarge (slight suspicion of a made-up name) were astounded by this hitherto unseen method. When we employed it a second time later on in the day, people in neighbouring seats also looked on in awe. One guy, wearing a blazer, said: “That’s pretty impressive,” and really seemed to mean it.
We felt a little like we’d just cracked open a can of Skol, but mostly we felt proud to have helped spread a vital life skill which we had always taken for granted.
While there certainly were a few beer drinkers in our stand, it wasn’t 98 per cent of the crowd as it is at the cricket grounds we normally attend. The most popular beverage was instead Champagne and the day was punctuated by popping sounds.
Surveying the patch of grass beyond the boundary, we put it to Ged that a more appropriate nickname for Lord’s would be The Home of Corks. He seemed to find this amusing. Acutely aware that we are nowhere near as witty in real life as people sometimes expect us to be, we made a note and repeated the joke hourly.
At the end of the day’s play, Ged offered to show us the ground’s real tennis court. This was everything we hoped it would be – which is to say an almost entirely baffling experience. As far as we can work out, those who commit to real tennis from an early enough age must at some point hit some sort of sweet spot where they have had sufficient time to attain a rough grasp of the rules without yet having been consigned to a wheelchair through old age.
After that, it was time to shake hands and part ways. We politely reminded Ged to try and keep his match reports as short and pithy as possible and then the next day wrote 800 words about meeting him.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 169
January 2017
Old Wanker’s Almanac
It is quite uncanny how I bump into the venerable wise man at this time of the year. As usual he was more than willing to give me his predictions for 2017
January
Anderson and Broad say they are delighted not to have been selected for the one day series and T20s in India since they are both exhausted from the 168 overs they bowled between them in the five test matches. They will be preserving their energies for the first test match of the summer which is coming up imminently in July.
In his assessment of the India tour Trevor Bayliss enigmatically says the 4-0 drubbing “did not fairly recognise the difference between the two sides….”.
Ugly demonstrations greet the inauguration of President Trump. He tweets: “These people are mainly intellectuals and blacks. They will regret it”. His next tweet is “I nominate President Putin for the Nobel Peace Prize. They gave it to Obama for nothing and so our friend, Vlad, should get it too”.
Teresa May calls a snap election saying it is “not a re-run of the Referendum, but that she is seeking approval to sign Clause 50”. In a surprising show of adroit thinking Labour joins forces with the SNP on a “Stay in the EEC” ticket.
A major change to the Sky contracts with the Premier League releases all foreign managers from their obligations to attend post-match interviews because of the incomprehensible drivel they all spout. The viewing numbers immediately show an enormous increase in the post-match period.
The Rangers lose again. Ian Holloway is sacked. Alan Pardew replaces him.
February
The Labour/SNP coalition wins a landslide victory and the new Prime Minister, a triumphant Jeremy Corbyn, refuses to go to the Palace and is sworn in on the Andrew Marr show. Nicola Sturgeon is his deputy. Corbyn announces that there will not be a Referendum over his new legislation abolishing the monarchy.
Andrew Strauss says that when assessing the performance of the England team, results on the sub-continent should be discounted.
Donald Trump refuses to move into the White House saying he can govern more effectively from Trump Towers in New York. He tweets: “Washington is finished”.
Harry Redknapp, Sam Allardyce and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink become the founder members of the Bent Managers Club, whose principal and only objective is to line the pockets of its members.
Alistair Cook resigns as England’s test captain. Joe Root says that he doesn’t want the job. Nick Compton is the selectors surprise choice to take over.
The Rangers slip into the relegation zone.
March
There are no English players in the PFA team of the year. The team is made up entirely of players with no vowels in their surnames.
Donald Trump meets with Presidents Assad and Putin. He tweets “I have done a major deal with these guys”.
Angus Fraser says that it was too hard winning the Championship last year on the dead wickets at Lord’s and that they will be returning to greentops and taking their chances with the toss.
Corbyn scraps all Brexit plans and announces that he will nationalise the banks. With immediate effect all Banking salaries will be restricted to £100k.
Mark Wood misses pre-season training at Durham following an unfortunate incident in which he stubbed his toe against a Lego structure.
The Rangers are relegated.
April
The Railways are nationalised and the Unions mark the occasion by striking over the Easter period.
Donald Trump closes Guantanamo Bay and the former internees start work on the Mexican Wall alongside POWs proffered by Assad and Putin. President Trump tweets: “They have got off lightly, Vlad was going to shoot them”.
Tyson Fury teams up with Ron Atkinson and Andy Gray to host a new politically incorrect chat show called “Go Home Sambo”.
Ben Duckett scores a triple hundred in his first innings of the domestic season.
Mark Wood recovers well and reports for his first game of the season only to strain his back lifting his kit bag out of his car at the Riverside ground.
May
Ben Duckett reaches 1000 runs for the season by the end of the first week in May. The fastest ever.
The Royal Mail and the Post Offices are Nationalised. To make it all workable, deliveries of post will be weekly from now on.
England find themselves drawn against West Indies in the Champions Trophy. Ben Stokes says that if he gets the chance to bowl at Brathwaite he will bowl “all yorkers”.
In a unique double Leicester City win the European Cup and are relegated from the Premiership. Gary Lineker starts a campaign for them to be reinstated and for Hull to be relegated as they “deserved to go down more”.
“Go Home Sambo” is regaled by the House of Commons Media Committee because of its exclusion of women.
June
Following the nationalisation of Accountancy and Legal firms there is only 20% of the working population remaining in the private sector. This number is halved when Jeremy Corbyn cancels all arm sales to Saudi Arabia and all contracts relating to Polaris missiles. He says that it has been a tiring but exhilarating six months.
Cook, Anderson and Broad report for preparation for the first test of the summer and are sent home because they are too relaxed to participate after a six-month layoff.
California secedes from the Union. President Trump tweets: “Good riddance”.
The Mexican Wall is finished in double quick time. President Trump tweets: “These Muslims work real fast with a Kalashnikov up their jacksies”.
“Go Home Sambo” is taken off the air when Tyson Fury invites a reunited Spice Girls to “Show us your tits, ladies”.
Out and About with the Professor
So, the England team are home safe and sound (most of them) for Christmas with their friends and families. Which is how it should be. Or is it? I read that one Virat Kohli is a bit put out about the long Christmas break that our boys are taking. He had already given his view that an eight-day holiday in Dubai might give England some advantage in the latter part of the Test series but now all of the players have departed for 25 days. Kohli does not think it fair. Or, to put it another way, if it is to be fair then India should disappear for the best part of a month in the middle of their next tour of England.
I don’t think that Kohli is making a religious point here – why should anyone want to spend a month celebrating a ridiculous myth from the late Iron Age? – after all, Indian religions abound in myths of their own, most of even greater antiquity. Rather his view is that there is no need to go “home” to do this. How would it be if the Indian team did indeed take, say, July off to celebrate Dwali or Holi or some such event (pedants will know that Dwali is an autumnal festival – but the general point is made). There is, of course, a hint of disingenuousness here; the schedule was set a long time ago and Kohli must have known all about it. Perhaps he objected then and is now making that objection public? I detect, also, in his remarks, a bit of post-colonial ire; it’s fine for England to do this in India but not the other way around. We are always being told that the power base in world cricket has now shifted to India because of their money but perhaps the dismissive wave of the privileged hand of Empire can still be glimpsed.
Either way, his point is that such a long break must benefit England which it almost certainly will, after all, is it possible that the performances in the ODIs will be worse than in the last two Tests? (OK, perhaps they will…but at least they can’t lose by an innings). There have not been that many times in my life when supporting England has been easy or relaxing but the back end of this tour has been hard indeed. A 4am start is a little early for me but pretty much any time since early November has witnessed a fairly shambolic submission. The fact that India have better spin bowlers than us was not, I think, news to anyone. The fact that, in the end, they had better bowlers of all kinds than us, was.
Added to that, the complete muddle about the batting line-up gives yet another example of the James Sharp copyright phrase: Tour Madness. To take two batsmen who were unselectable (and not know beforehand that they were unselectable) is certainly some form of delusion. Stick Moeen up the order, draft in Buttler (there as a back-up ‘keeper), send for Jennings, etc., etc., none of it looks exactly planned. I agreed with Cook in his assessment of the Fourth Test; 600 runs on the Mumbai pitch should have made a game of it. Rashid has been written about as one of the successes of the tour but to take four wickets for almost 200 runs on a pitch that was turning square did not look to me like success. Cook was also right about the final Test – truly dire batting on a very reasonable strip.
So, should he go? I don’t share the commentators’ view that he is too defensive. They were bellowing about his “late” declarations in two of the Pakistan Tests, both of which England won. In the Third Test, England were 100+ behind on first innings and Cook’s declaration was panned as “timid”, “over-cautious”, “defensive”, etc. When you recall the captaincy records of some of the Sky pundits it is something of an affront that they dare offer an opinion at all. Of course, when the “timid” declaration wins the game, it all goes very quiet.
Would changing the captaincy improve things? It can do of course, although they would still be the same players. It might also prove to be true that Root (with precious little experience) may become a fine captain. Would Cook stand down from the team? I have never been a fan of the leader (in any walk of life) hanging around after s/he has given up the control. It has worked in the past; India, not too long ago, seemed to take the field with half a team of ex-captains. Are the new boys viewed as sufficiently good to have a brand new opening pair? Neither of them has been tested against relentless hostile fast bowling and South Africa and Australia will provide just that. Jennings, in particular, might have a tough time.
On balance, I would prefer to see Cook continue as captain up until this time next year. If he decides to stand down from that, then I think it best if he retires. We shall see.
Football Matters
I hadn’t realized that there has been a change the soccer rules at kick off. Formerly you needed two players at the ball to ensure that the ball was kicked forward and possession retained. It was silly but the rule makers insisted on it. Nowadays you often see one lone player at the ball and he unashamedly plays the inaugural pass of the match back to one of his eager midfield players.
Incidentally I can still make no sense of the new off side law. It appears to be applied quite arbitrarily. A player who is not interfering with play is suddenly off side if the passer miskicks the ball. This is madness and adds nothing but confusion to the game.
Technique matters
And cricket effectively has new laws. If you play at test level, you need a different technique for playing forward to the spinners than in ordinary first class cricket. The DRS system means that the fielding side can appeal LBW appeals that were turned down only for the technology to show that the ball hit the pad first and would have gone on to hit the stumps. Consequently, test players push forward with their bat in front of the pad whilst newcomers to this exalted level more conventionally keep their bat tucked in behind their pad, that is until they have been fingered on referral a couple of times and then they change their technique.
Flogging a Dead Horse Matters
I managed to watch a fair bit of the fourth and fifth tests and was appalled by Bairstow’s keeping. Many commentators had started talking about him along the lines of Prior, Stewart and others before him in that he is “better than when he started”. The unsaid bit was “but still way below the level required at test or any other level.” I guess that the exposure came about by England playing three spinners. He has no idea about keeping standing up and the bowlers must despair of his aiding in any dismissal. When Rashid beat Vijay with a non-spinning delivery which went between bat and pad, Bairstow failed to touch the ball with Vijay yards down the track. And so it continued with fumbles and misses coming even when the batsman left the ball. His mindless babble from behind the stumps only drew attention to his ineptitude. The ultimate irony was when Cook positioned a Long Stop behind him which was not to cover his errors but to deter Nair from using the ramp shot.
Morgan Matters
The Great Jack Morgan shares some thoughts
Keaton Jennings will captain the England Lions in Sri Lanka next Feb/ Mar. The four day squad is Jennings, Hameed, Gubbins, Alsop, Westley, J Clarke, Livingstone, Foakes, S Curran, T Curran, TSRJ, Helm, C Overton, Rayner and Leach. In the 50 over squad, Hameed, Gubbins, Westley, TSRJ and Leach are replaced by Bell-Drummond, Duckett, Fuller and Poysden. I am not sure how J Fuller has made selection, his bowling average in 50 over cricket last season was 43... perhaps nobody else wanted to go? I was very surprised to see T Helm in there too, he played no first class cricket last season and in 50 over stuff, took 2-91!
In the Guardian, Rob Smyth sees only five areas where England need to improve: captaincy, spin bowling, batting, keeping and pace bowling! He thinks the team to play South Africa in July will be Cook, Hameed, Jennings, Root (c), Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler (w), Rashid, Wood, Broad, Anderson. I think he could be close, but I also think i) Moeen will be retained, he averaged 42.3 with 2 tons in India, which might put Rashid's place in danger (though I am sure he will go to Oz); and ii) some elderly folks (Anderson?) might not be regulars anymore and could be rotated or axed altogether, while Wood is a permanent fitness doubt, which will keep Woakes in contention and Rob also sees TSRJ and the Curran brothers in the pace bowling picture. Rob thinks that Buttler is a better keeper than Bairstow (so do I), which allows (more sensibly) Bairstow to stay at 5 and Buttler at 7, with Stokes, of course, immovable from no 6, though he used to be a regular no 5 at Durham. All of which might leave Moeen back at no 8, where he used to bat like one!
The Guardian's cricket writers' Test Team of the Year is Cook, Root, Pujara, Kohli (c), S Smith, Stokes, Bairstow (w), Ashwin, Herath, Starc and Rabada. Personally, I would not have had Cook in it and the pace bowling looks a little thin with only Stokes to support the opening bowlers. The ICC then announced their Test Test Team of the Year: Warner, Cook (c), Williamson, Root, Voges, Bairstow (w), Stokes, Ashwin, Herath, Starc and Steyn and the same comment applies. Buttler was the only Englishman in the ICC's ODI Team of the Year. R Ashwin is the ICC’s World Player of the Year and also the Test Cricketer of the Year.
The long delayed MCCC winter mailing (which includes the Annual Review and the 2017 first team fixtures) finally arrived on Christmas Eve. The fixtures are always interesting, but in addition to being late this season, they are also quite vague eg we do not know the venue for the home Championship game v Hants starting 12/9 and no starting times are given so we do not know (eg) which RLC games (if any) will be evening games. As expected, there is a massive blast of T20 for 6 weeks in July and August with the only relief being a Championship match v Warwickshire at Lord's starting 6 Aug. I might as well go on holiday for a month.
It turns out that J Leach was not considered as a replacement for Z Ansari in India because of "concerns about his action".
Dawson (freakishly) was top of the batting averages for England, but Root, Bairstow, Hameed, Moeen and Jennings all averaged over 40, while Buttler (38.5), Stokes (38.3) and Cook (36.9) were only just below par. Root (freakishly), Broad and Rashid were the only bowlers with (just about) acceptable bowling records. Cook is going away to "do some thinking" about the captaincy, but almost everyone is saying that it is time for Root to take over.
A Xenophobe Comments
Murray Hedgcock reignites this old chestnut
I think it was The Professor who termed me a xenophobe when I voiced my firmly-held opposition to the “England” cricket team being bolstered by South Africans and other outsiders. Now they’ve done it again – and I wonder what The Prof thinks this time.
Keaton Jennings, rushed to India to shore up distinctly shaky batting, not only was born and raised in South Africa; he played for and indeed captained his country’s Under 19 team. More than one commentator has been reduced to clutching at the stray straw of the lad’s mother’s Sunderland origins - as if that truly made any difference.
Yes indeed, Jennings has fulfilled current residential qualification requirements, and by today’s rules and regulations is entitled to play for England. He appears to be both a cricketer of quality and a good lad.
But I always argue that an England cricketer should truly represent the English game – and Jennings learned his cricket across the seas. He is simply not a product of English cricket, and therefore should not be part of its public face.
I know all about my homeland lately picking Yorkshire-born Matt Renshaw – but he moved to that country at the age of ten, so that he learned the game in Australia, and is clearly a product of its system.
I always wonder how happy, deep in their hearts, are true English cricket lovers when the selectors reach so desperately for players who really belong to another country. Do they approve without question any selection that might just bring international success?
As for the current Test series, I applaud the continuing advance of Kohli’s Indian-born, Indian-raised band. They set a proper example to England in more ways than one.
King Cricket Matters -1
Alex Bowden assesses the fate of Captain Cook
There are two ways of looking upon the England captaincy. You can see it as an important position where the incumbent can have a major positive influence on how the side performs, or you can see it as one more thing that could go horribly wrong.
Rated according to the former, Alastair Cook is not an especially good captain. He is diligent and well-meaning, but ultimately far too insipid to have any significant impact. It’s hard to imagine that he is the author of England’s strategy. He will have a say, but the blueprint is not his. As much as anything he is the guy who flicks the switches and pulls the levers and operates the machine.
Tactically, he has learned to be inoffensively nondescript.
That sounds like a fairly damning report card, but we’re equally inclined to adopt the second perspective expressed in the opening paragraph of this piece. Captaincy can go wrong. You can do a lot of damage as a captain.
Ironically, considering he doesn’t himself possess them, Alastair Cook is a safe pair of hands. Although his captaincy will forever be remembered for one massive world championship title-taking dressing room bust-up, the team does generally function fairly smoothly.
No-one’s lobbying to become the next captain. No-one’s hitting anyone else with a cricket bat. To momentarily indulge in cliché, everyone’s pulling in the same direction. More impressively, when they find they’re getting dragged in the opposite direction, they don’t stop pulling and start arguing, they just sort of press on, refusing to accept the apparent futility of their efforts. That’s actually quite an achievement.
Despite some real low points, England no longer seem liable to completely implode under Cook. That isn’t so bad. Given a bit more talent in a few key areas, nondescript captaincy could take the team a long way.
The answer to the question “should Alastair Cook continue as England captain?” may to some extent depend on which of those perspectives you are inclined to take. However, both views may well be irrelevant.
Alastair Cook has, of late, appeared completely fed up with his job. Getting battered on an away tour will do that to a man, but it’s quite possible the enthusiasm won’t gush back in when he gets home.
If that’s the case, he’ll correctly resign because a man who really, really cannot be arsed is not going to do an especially good job. Trust us on this.
Doshi Matters
The Professor’s reminiscences in the last issue prompted some of the participants to comment
This from Peter Webster. "Geoff" was the one who had to be restrained.
“Remember it well. Geoff gave me a lift. Imagine the state he was in about 10.0pm.
First problem was that we could not remember where his car was parked. He had parked someway away from the ground and we walked the length of Hitchin and back pissed out of our minds. Car eventually found.
Next stop Indian. Problem we had spent up. Emptied our pockets and found some coins, said " bring food to this amount of cash" They did, probably to avoid trouble with 2 drunks. Journey home, Geoff could not negotiate Bayford Lane so he dropped me off on the B197. Manage to walk home. Very late when I got in. Silent interlude from Pat for 2 days.
Re the game our friend Micky Dunn played a part, he and Brian Collins were a formidable opening pair 11 overs 2 for 37. Robin Johns 4 for 31. Of course most of that team are in their late 70s, Burridge in his 80s. Hard to accept that this took place 40 years ago.”
The Professor had another response:
“Enjoyed your piece on Dilip Doshi although Robin Johns, who also took four wickets, would be disappointed for his brush with stardom had not been mentioned.”
King Cricket Matters - 2
Alex Bowden assesses the tour
England haven’t stagnated. They’re just worse at bowling and facing spin than India. And playing Test cricket in India involves bowling and facing an awful lot of spin.
So rather than howling about normality, now might instead be the perfect time to revisit the monumental achievement that was England’s 2012 tour. Reviewed through the prism of the last few weeks, we can better see that series win for the glorious aberration it truly was.
But back to stagnation. There was no point in the last few years when England were a better spin conditions side than India. If there’s been a significant change, it’s that England have been obliged to play Test cricket in India. They should be able to avoid that activity in the immediate future, so the side’s already on the up-and-up.
Yesterday we wrote about perceptions of pitch flatness. We’re less than delighted but not entirely surprised to have had our subtext made explicit. England lost ten wickets for 104 runs in 48.2 overs today. The last six wickets fell for 15. But this doesn’t sum up the tour. You don’t lose a marathon by half-an-hour in the finishing straight. This last collapse was just the cracking of a side subjected to prolonged stress. The ‘lazy’ shots and apparent incompetence were just a manifestation of all that had gone before.
What had gone before? Just an awful lot of being worse. India weren’t twice as good – as today’s result perhaps implies – they were just reliably better at almost everything, day after day after day. It wasn’t just the obvious elements, like spin bowling, it was also the related ones, such as bowling seam on Indian pitches.
Playing at home does confer certain advantages. A necessary reliance on spin bowlers is a major one that is always likely to make an India side more effective and an England side less effective. However, it’s hard to avoid concluding that this particular version of England has been more affected by this than most.
Every team is skewed towards some style of cricket or other, but the relative paucity of good spinners and turning pitches in the county cricket ecosystem means England don’t just struggle for bowlers, they also lack spin-adept batsmen.
Can you summarise this with some sort of reference to DIY? If you need to saw through a floorboard, you can get the job done with a hand saw. It’ll take you a few minutes. However, if you have a circular saw, you can do the job in seconds. This is before you even get started on the plumbing, rewiring or corpse-concealing that necessitated the floorboard removal in the first place.
England set out for their winter tours with a plastic box full of hand-me-down tools and they made do. In Bangladesh, they managed to get some sort of a job done by improvising with pliers and adjustable spanners. Against India and their van full of professional equipment, they simply couldn’t keep up.
King Cricket Matters -3
Alex Bowden meets Ged
We weren’t going to do this, but when we started writing something else we sort of felt obliged to ‘fess up that we’d actually been at the ground yesterday and by that point a match report seemed unavoidable.
New rule
We always include a brief italicised outline of what we want from match reports submitted to this site (send them to [email protected]), but one thing we increasingly feel the need to mention is that you don’t actually have to be Ged Ladd to contribute one. Much as we enjoy the man’s offerings, it would be good to break the Ged hegemony because variety and fenugreek are the spices of life.
Ged doesn’t even have to be there.
Although he was on this occasion.
We know Ged through this website. A couple of years ago, we met Ged for a pint and we now know him in that sense. But we don’t know Ged. For example, until yesterday, we didn’t know that Ged was the kind of person who could tell you in what year you’d met him for a pint and Ged didn’t know that we were the kind of person for whom past, present and future are just one murky impenetrable dream state, meaning we rarely know if things happened yesterday, five years ago or not yet.
So this was not one of those we-always-meet-up-for-the-cricket things. It was a very kind invite from Ged which was completely unexpected. We were particularly struck by it because we would never even dream of inviting someone to something unless we’ve known that person for at least 20 years (a threshold which also increases by the year).
Ged told us he would take care of food and kindly reminded us that Lord’s Cricket Ground’s greatest attribute is that you’re allowed to take some booze in.
Going by the guidelines, a bottle of wine seemed the most sensible thing to bring. However, we have never drunk wine at a cricket match and what little we know of Ged also made us suspect that a bottle of Spanish red wine probably wouldn’t be to his normal standards, so we instead plumped for the two beers option.
At the same time, we didn’t want to be the northerner who turns up with two cans of Skol, so we opted for two bottles of Belgian beer as this seemed nicely ambiguous.
What we didn’t bring was a bottle opener. Fortunately, Ged’s front row seats provided us with a perfectly adequate concrete step in front of us and we were able to put this to use for the old ‘position bottle top on corner and hammer with side of hand’ opening technique.
We were somewhat taken aback when not just Ged, but also his two companions Charley “The Gent” Malloy (slight suspicion of a made-up name) and Big Al Delarge (slight suspicion of a made-up name) were astounded by this hitherto unseen method. When we employed it a second time later on in the day, people in neighbouring seats also looked on in awe. One guy, wearing a blazer, said: “That’s pretty impressive,” and really seemed to mean it.
We felt a little like we’d just cracked open a can of Skol, but mostly we felt proud to have helped spread a vital life skill which we had always taken for granted.
While there certainly were a few beer drinkers in our stand, it wasn’t 98 per cent of the crowd as it is at the cricket grounds we normally attend. The most popular beverage was instead Champagne and the day was punctuated by popping sounds.
Surveying the patch of grass beyond the boundary, we put it to Ged that a more appropriate nickname for Lord’s would be The Home of Corks. He seemed to find this amusing. Acutely aware that we are nowhere near as witty in real life as people sometimes expect us to be, we made a note and repeated the joke hourly.
At the end of the day’s play, Ged offered to show us the ground’s real tennis court. This was everything we hoped it would be – which is to say an almost entirely baffling experience. As far as we can work out, those who commit to real tennis from an early enough age must at some point hit some sort of sweet spot where they have had sufficient time to attain a rough grasp of the rules without yet having been consigned to a wheelchair through old age.
After that, it was time to shake hands and part ways. We politely reminded Ged to try and keep his match reports as short and pithy as possible and then the next day wrote 800 words about meeting him.
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