G&C 174
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 174
June 2017
Caption Competition - 1
1. Eion Morgan: Why are we doing this?
Trevor Bayliss: Its just a rehearsal today.
Paul Stirling: How do they know its going to snow on Sunday?
2. Northamptonshire member: What will happen to all the Kolpak players post Brexit?
PCA spokesman: They will change their names.
3. David Gower: How are things going at Durham, Beefy?
Sir Ian Bower: (Expletive deleted)
4. Jeremy Paxman: How will you vote in the election?
Nigel Farage: I will vote the Chicago way.
Jeremy Paxman: What is that?
Nigel Farage: Early and often.
Out and About with the Professor
Australians are, as they say, great travellers.
This is often explained as the result of their being a long way from anywhere. The people who say this tend to think that wherever they are is, of course, the “anywhere” that a self-respecting Australian might wish to travel to.
I am thinking of hotfooting it to the land of cold beers and bar-b-ques this winter to see some of the Ashes, and last week I found myself discussing this possibility with four Aussies. We were all in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela (as visitors not as pilgrims – although it was possible in the Cathedral to make obeisance to the name-saint of our distinguished Googlies editor). It was even possible to give the old-chap (the saint, that is) a bit of a cuddle…or at least his effigy, his bones having been declared authentic by the Pope some centuries ago.
My Aussie interlocutors asked where I might go when visiting the former penitentiary and I said: “Anywhere but Perth”. The problem with this as an answer was that all four were from Perth. The difficulty for the traveller, as they readily agreed, is that while Australia is a long way from here, Perth is quite a long way from Australia (or at least the rest of it). “Yes” they said “and that’s the way we like it”.
Still the attraction of a visit to the west would be, of course, to see the first Test match on the new ground.
“Ah”… “that might not happen”.
“Really? I thought it was all organised. The last match had been played at the WACA and a new stadium would be ready for the Ashes?”
“Well, it’s not that simple”
“What’s the problem?”
“Local politics”.
Apparently, there has been a hold-up in the building programme due to, well, local politics. This follows an earlier hold-up to the redevelopment of the WACA which had been planned and approved for several years but fell victim to…local politics. Seemingly it all started with a plan to redevelop the WACA which had too small a capacity for Ashes tests and, of course, the famous oxymoronic game, “Aussie Rules”. This could only be financed by building lots of apartments and doubtless the odd mall or two. A new bigger ground would pull in more revenue but, at this stage, it seems that the Australian cricketers woke up to the prospect of some higher wages for themselves and (as with the recent proposed “strike”) looked to scupper the whole thing. Right, so abandon that idea and build a new ground in somewhere called “Burswood”. The new ground will be, so I was told, “state-of-the-art” with drop-in pitches. Sadly, at present, it isn’t sufficiently ready to have pitches dropped into it. Local politics have again played their part.
I confess I don’t think this is really very good news. I recall reading somewhere that we have only ever won one Test at the WACA. And while it may have lost some of its fearsome pace in the last couple of years it does have the feel of a banker home win. I suppose the only “Perth-like” bowler we have is Wood and his fitness record is not encouraging. While our other essentially swing and seam bowlers may struggle on a rock-hard surface. Ball’s performance the other day, for example, was decidedly poor; might we be looking to yet another Yorkshire player to come into the side? It seems fanciful that young Ben Coad could play for England so soon in his career but if he continues to develop (having just demolished Lancashire) he might, someday, find himself in the team. He, of course, is not lightning fast but rather in the swing-seam tradition of Anderson, et al. His dramatic success this year appears, from what I have seen, to be based on a very Anderson-like full length and a bit of movement either way. Could be very good someday - but not I think at the old WACA. In fact, I doubt any English player, bowler or batsman, looks forward to playing there. So, let’s give the Burswood builders all the encouragement they need to produce a nice new ground, with a nice greenish drop-in track and a bit of nip off the seam.
Some hopes.
This and That
I have long doubted the ability of batsmen to hit the ball away from fielders and, in general, I think that they just like to time it well and hope that it misses them. This theory was supported in the Headingley ODI when three top batsmen, Stokes , Duminy and Miller, all hit long hops straight to the only fielder on the leg side boundary.
In the Royal London Cup there were a series of notable performances which all ended up with the protagonists finding themselves on the losing side. First James Vince scored 178 for Hampshire against Glamorgan and then his team mate, George Bailey scored 145 not out against Surrey at the Oval. But at Swansea Glamorgan racked up a formidable 356 for 7 against Kent. In reply Kent had reached 76 for 3 when Darren Stevens came to the wicket to join Sam Billings. In the next 81 minutes he proceeded to score 147 from 67 deliveries with 14 sixes and 10 fours. He was dismissed with the score at 258 for 6 and so made his runs out of 182 added whilst at the crease. Kent had 17 overs left after he was out but they were eventually all out for 341 to lose by 15.
I watch most of my cricket on the television and often find that I announce “That’s out” when the ball strikes the pads in a plumb position only to discover on the action replay that it was bat first, the pad was outside the line of off stump, the ball had pitched outside the line of leg stump, the ball was tailing down the leg side or was going over the top of the stumps. The umpire makes the correct decision in the vast majority of cases and my admiration for their skills and coolness under pressure continues to grow.
What score is enough these days? As if to underline the problem in one of the IPL matches the Gujarat Lions made a substantial 208 for 7 but the Delhi Daredevils knocked them off with fifteen deliveries to spare. Their wicket weeper, Rishabh Pant, scored 93 from 43 balls in an innings which included nine sixes. In the Champions Trophy, at least in the early stages, the captains seem to want to put the opposition in but this could change if the sides batting first start to score in the upper 300s.
Ben Stokes has become one of the nation’s darlings who can do no wrong, but we should remember that underneath his ginger exterior he is baddy with a track record. Indeed, he previously suffered the ignominy of being sent home from an England tour and his indiscretion was bad enough not to have been disclosed. There have also been self-inflicted injuries which kept him on the sidelines after a fight with a locker. So, when he is seen mouthing off at the Bangla Desh opener Tamim, after he had played a perfectly satisfactory shot down to third man, it should not be put down to fun and exuberance but seen as his sinister side beginning to erupt again.
So who scored the fastest 50 in the 2017 IPL? The answer is extraordinarily unlikely. It was the West Indian former mystery spinner, Sunil Narine, who was used as a pinch-hitting opener for the Kolkata Nightriders. He scored 50 from just 15 deliveries. His usual opening partner was Chris Lynn who hit two of the other fastest fifties at the relatively sedate rate of 19 and 21 balls.
The Champions Trophy has now started and a scan of the eight sides participating seems odd, someone is missing. Why, of course, it’s the West Indies. How can a top tournament take place without them? It seems inconceivable to someone who lived through the Sobers sides of the sixties and the Lloyd sides of the seventies and eighties that they should have fallen by the wayside. And this isn’t test cricket, it is ODI stuff. Caribbean politics and the dollars offered by the T20 circuit have a lot to answer for.
Vindicated Professor
The Professor sent me this
"Do not expect a mighty mea culpa from the England and Wales Cricket Board but now we have an implicit acknowledgement that the decision, taken more than a decade ago, not to insist upon some cricket remaining on free-to-air television was contrary to the best interests of the game". Thus, wrote Vic Marks in the Gruaniad last week.
Oh, really! How on earth did they come to that conclusion? How could a body of 40 odd men and women used to making critical strategic executive decisions have come to the conclusion that their forebears got it wrong? Could it be that they have been surreptitiously reading Googlies all these years? Could it be that having digested the blindingly obvious truth that if the counties sell out the TV rights to Sky then anyone without Sky won't see any live cricket they have noticed the continued fall in the popularity of the game? Apparently, Harrison, the CEO, has "warned" against the danger of cricket "becoming rich but irrelevant". Oh really! (again) and how could such an idea have come to him? The venial county bosses who made this decision, which was blatantly one of self-interest, have only themselves to blame for the decline in interest in cricket. They feigned concern about the national game while displaying only concern about their counties bank accounts. And now? Now they think they may have made a mistake....Sorry.
Early Days at the ICC
George makes a rare but welcome contribution
Mark Carver and I had not met since his retirement as Commercial Director of Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies last autumn. A stress free cricket match seemed the ideal rendezvous, so we met at Edgbaston on Friday 2nd June to see NZ versus Australia. A fine ground and we had fine seats in the Skyline Stand.
I was reminded immediately of how good and how bad TV is for sport. Good for the close up and fine detail, bad for the panorama. This applies equally to Rugby Union, Cricket, Golf and Football. I intend to get out more to cricket now that we are in Cheltenham. Already we go to Gloucester rugby once a month or so and the perspective on Rugby Union matches alters.
We had a very good day, perfect for catching up on the last few months. All readers will know that the game was curtailed by rain. And I know that you don’t want a ball-by-ball account. Ronchi, Guptill and Taylor were all good to see live. But the real privilege was watching the ease with which one of the world’s finest batsmen scored a quiet century from 97 balls. Kane Williamson was outstanding. We are a handful of games into this competition and Joe Root has made 133 not out, Vihrat Kohli 81 not out. None of the three out to a bowler yet. All display calm, unruffled starts, accumulation then acceleration, more or less as it suits them. It promises to be a good few weeks.
One further point to note was the eerie precision with which several batsmen were caught in the deep. If the fielders had not put their hands up they would have been hit on the chest. So, I suppose, take a bow Steve Smith.
I don’t think it’s too fogeyish to mention that there were six things that Mark and I shared as notably irritating during the day:
1.The wired drone, which wanders around self-importantly (and distractingly) above the field of play. This adds little value to the TV viewer and is an example of technology as ‘because we can do it we will’
2.Ear-shattering volumes of pop music in between overs, when a boundary has been struck, or just when nothing much has happened for a while.
3.Connected to the above, absurdly dressed men in dodgy Royal tartan outfits banging away at drums with or without the pop music above. This often stopped half way through the bowler’s run up.
4.A chirpy holiday camp man with a microphone very loudly trying to create interest where there was none while the players were off.
5.Pissed Australia supporters trying to get Shane Warne to wave to them while being interviewed.
6.It probably is a bit fogeyish to confess that I can’t read the 6th from my post-it.
I saw no evidence that anyone in the crowd took value from 2, 3 or 4.
For what it’s worth I think the best bowling attack will win the competition. I think that would rule out England even with a fit Woakes
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan has been putting in the long hours on the upper deck for us
Gloucestershire captain Michael Klinger won the toss and chose to bowl first (although the announcer had already told us that he had opted to bat first) in the Royal London Cup match against Middlesex at Lord's on April 30th. Openers Paul Stirling (26) and Dawid Malan (31) looked in good form for the home team, but the excellent opening bowler for Gloucester, Liam Norwell (5 for 36), bowled his 10 overs straight through and reduced Middx to a humiliating 97 for 5 after 20 overs and this soon became 114 for 6.
Fortunately, Adam Voges was still there and he received good support from Toby Roland-Jones in a brilliant stand of 111 for the seventh wicket. Toby was the first to go for a splendid 65 from 71 balls with 7 fours and a six before he became one of three victims for medium pacer Benny Howell (one of the few Frenchmen playing county cricket), who finished with 3 for 40 in 10 useful overs. Unfortunately, Adam followed almost immediately for an accomplished 81 off 107 balls with 6 fours as the home team sank to 228 for 9. Steve Finn and Ravi Patel cannot always be relied upon to bat with good skill and sense, but this is what happened here as they added 28* for the last wicket with Finny hitting 21* off 14 balls with 2 huge sixes as the innings closed on 256 for 9.
Tom Helm and Patel both bowled well early on in the Gloucester reply and with Roland-Jones picking up 2 wickets (including the valuable one of skipper Klinger for 30), the visitors slid to 65 for 5 at less than 3 an over. However, the stubborn Ian Cockbain was still there, defending capably and now he was joined by the estimable Howell, who found no demons at all either in the pitch or the bowling, was soon scoring at a good rate and overtaking Cockbain. Howell's form eventually convinced Cockbain that he should also start playing some shots and runs started to flow at an exceptional rate, with Cockbain now becoming the main stroke player and overtaking Howell.
Soon it dawned upon the Middlesex players and supporters that they were in big trouble if this partnership could not be broken... and it could not be broken, with Gloucester winning by 5 wickets with 5 balls to spare. Cockbain finished on an excellent 108* off 123 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes, while Howell ended up with an entertaining 86* off 71 balls with 7 fours and 3 sixes and their unbeaten partnership had been worth 192. Middlesex's cup form is not at all going to plan with one defeat and a no result from their first two matches.
Middlesex brought in Nick Compton for Sam Robson (injured) and Ollie Rayner for Ravi Patel for the Royal London Cup match against Surrey at the Oval on May 5th. Gareth Batty won the toss for the home team and invited Middlesex to bat first. In-form Nick Gubbins dominated the early stages of the visitors' innings, but they had lost 3 wickets for 71 before he was joined by John Simpson in the best stand of the innings. When they had added 66 however, Gubbins fell to the Trinidadian seamer Ravi Rampaul for a praiseworthy 65 off 86 balls with 7 fours. Simpson continued his impressive innings until he was sixth out with the score on 203 for a splendid 75 off 83 balls with 7 fours and a six.
The only other Middlesex batsman to make much impression was skipper James Franklin, batting at 7, who hit 35 off 39 balls before being ninth out just before the innings closed on 243-9. Rampaul was the best of the Surrey bowlers with 4 for 40 from his 10 overs and Ben Foakes took 3 catches behind the stumps. The Middlesex total did not look like being enough, but the visitors were encouraged by the early departure of the prolific Mark Stoneman. Scott Borthwick and Kumar Sangakkara, however, were untroubled in adding 91 for the second wicket. It was something of a surprise when both fell to the occasional legspin of Dawid Malan (2 for 39), Borthwick for an accomplished 45 off 62 balls with 3 fours and a six and Sangakkara soon after for a classy 59 off 68 balls with 5 fours.
Briefly, it looked as if Middlesex were back in the match, but the outstanding fourth wicket pair of Rory Burns and Foakes were untroubled by the visitors' attack and took Surrey home to a comfortable victory by 7 wickets with nearly 5 overs in hand. Burns finished with 67* off 70 balls with 6 fours and Foakes with 55* off 54 balls also with 6 fours. The win took Surrey up to fourth in the table, one point and one place ahead of Middlesex.
Middlesex brought in Tom Helm to replace Tim Murtagh (busy with Ireland) for the Championship match against Surrey which started on May 19 at Lord's. The uncontested toss is a strange business sometimes and from my understanding of the situation in this match, Surrey could have bowled first if they had wanted to, but they did not, so there was an actual toss, which Middx won and asked Surrey to bat first, so everyone was happy! After a good stand of 55 for the first wicket by Rory Burns and Mark Stoneman (both 33), Surrey suffered a slight slump to 83 for 3, before the excellent Kumar Sangakkara (in his last season of county cricket) got some useful support from Dom Sibley (54 with 8 fours) in an admirable stand of 114 for the fourth wicket, but then six wickets fell for the addition of only 49 runs and Surrey were all out for 313. Sangakkara departed for an exemplary 114 off 160 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes, while the bowling honours went to James Franklin (4 for 40, his best for the club) and Tom Helm (3 for 81). Ollie Rayner took four excellent close catches in the second slip and gully positions.
The home openers, Nicks Compton and Gubbins, both looked in good knick, so it was disappointing that both were gone with the score on only 50. Steve Eskinazi (who apparently likes to be called Stevie) came to the rescue with a thoroughly impressive 67 off 87 balls with 12 fours, sharing a top class fourth wicket stand of exactly 100 with Dawid Malan. A mini-collapse saw Middlesex fall to 204 for 5, but then skipper Franklin joined Malan in a magnificent partnership of 130 (dominated by the captain) for the sixth wicket before Malan became one of Stuart Meaker's four victims for an accomplished 115 off 214 balls with 16 fours.
Toby Roland-Jones contributed a robust 30 (off 38 balls) to a useful seventh wicket stand of 53 with Franklin, but then they slumped from 387 for 6 to 411 all out, a lead of 98. Franklin finished with a brilliant 112 off 142 balls with 13 fours and 4 sixes. Meaker ended with 4 for 92, Mark Footitt took 3 for 105 and Ben Foakes held 3 catches behind the wicket.
The Surrey second innings got off to a bad start as Roland-Jones quickly had both openers back in the pavilion with only 16 on the board, but that man Sangakkara again stood in Middlesex's way and this time he received some dogged support from Scott Borthwick (49 off 143 balls) in a third wicket stand of 123. Sangakkara eventually fell for another outstanding 120 (his fourth consecutive Championship hundred) off 211 balls with 14 fours when Surrey's lead was only 112 with 5 wickets standing. Foakes stood firm, however, and Sam Curran provided some entertainment with a lively 51 off 91 balls with 6 fours and a six in a stand of 83 for the sixth wicket with Foakes.
Surrey then collapsed to 339 all out with Foakes remaining 67 not out off 170 balls, with the bowling honours going to Roland-Jones (4 for 76), Rayner (3 for 94 in 45 overs) and Malan, who finished off the innings with a short but effective spell of 2 for 1. This left Middlesex with a tough target of 242 in 39 overs, but many home supporters felt that a win was a realistic possibility if they treated the task as a one day challenge. Their hearts sank, however, as the usual 4-day batting order remained in place and hopes fell further as Gubbins (caught off his thigh pad) and Compton departed early on, leaving Eskinazi (31*) and Malan (37*) to play out the match as the home team finished on 92 for 2 in 28 overs. Middlesex took 13 points (sixth in the table with 35 from 3 drawn matches) and Surrey 11 points (second in the table with 56 points from 4 matches including one win) from the match.
Swing Matters
Ken Molloy sent me this
With the help of a wind tunnel and experts from University of Bath, Simon Hughes tries to answer what really makes a ball curve through the air.
Swing bowling. A phenomenon as baffling to explain as it is to negotiate. The young Yorkshire bowler Ben Coad has taken 22 wickets with it in five earlyseason innings for his county. This summer, which for the first time has balls of three different colours (and two makes) in use in county matches, the issue is more complicated than ever: which balls swing the most, when, and most importantly, why? After a day spent testing balls in a wind tunnel at the University of Bath, I hope that I have the answers.
There are many myths and fallacies about swing. The wind tunnel immediately dispelled a principal one: that moist, humid air will encourage swing. It was bone dry inside the machine, yet some balls swung prodigiously. Humidity is largely irrelevant, but cloud cover is a big influence. Swing, as every bowler knows, is a very fragile art conditional on various factors. One is the stability of the air directly above the pitch, to a height of, say, three metres. The sun shining on the surface generates heat and convection currents rise disrupting that stability. That is why the ball swings considerably less on a sunny day. Cloud cover prevents the ground from heating up; there is no convection and therefore the stable air is likely to be more conducive to swing.
Darkness can, of course, have the same effect. During Middlesex’s Champion County match against MCC in Abu Dhabi last month, batsmen became spooked in what became known as the “twilight hour” as the pink ball dipped and swung around. Wickets fell at regular intervals. There is a whole round of day-night County Championship matches in late June as England prepare for the first pink ball Test against West Indies at Edgbaston in August. Expect a glut of wickets at about sunset.
Professor Gary Lock, the head of mechanical engineering at Bath, gives lectures on the aerodynamics of a cricket ball and, under his guidance, we experimented with a variety of balls of different colours in varying states. Each ball was inserted on to a thin metal arm in the wind tunnel that was connected to a number of sensors measuring the deviations of the ball as the wind was blown towards it, simulating a ball being bowled fast through the air. The speed was regularly cranked up to 100mph.
One of the keys to swing is the slight tilting of the seam in the direction of intended movement. The ridge on the seam “trips” the air coming towards it, creating turbulence in a thin layer around the ball on the rougher side. That causes drag and the ball is pulled off its straight-line path. Keeping the other side smooth and shiny enhances this effect as the air slips past that side, known as laminar flow.
I sucked a mint and added sugary saliva to the shiny side of a Dukes ball about 40 overs old. After polishing, it swung more consistently and at higher speeds. Bowlers have been doing this for years, of course. Murray Mints are best. Note to Faf du Plessis, the South Africa Test captain: just don’t do it by transferring your finger straight from mint to ball, especially when there are about 38 TV cameras watching.
It was noticeable that the white (and pink) Kookaburra balls swung far less than the red Dukes. This is borne out by the experience of most one-day batsmen around the globe who flay the white ball about with alacrity, much to the chagrin of their red-ball counterparts who have to handle frequent and prodigious deviation. The reason for this is explained by Dilip Jajodia, the owner of Dukes.
“Our Dukes balls are hand-stitched in Pakistan and the stitching is done forwards and backwards so that the seam is thicker and prouder compared to Kookaburra balls, which are machine-stitched in one direction only,” he says. [The seam creates a rudder on the ball that controls swing.]
“Also, we add grease to the leather for red English balls to make them more water-resistant so you can achieve a better polish than on an Australianmade Kookaburra which does not have the grease added.”
Kookaburra balls are still used for all ICC tournaments, which is why every country plays with the white Kookaburra in their domestic competitions, but interestingly Australia have changed to the red Dukes for the Sheffield Shield, their first-class competition. Pink Dukes will be used for the day-night matches in England this summer.
Now we come to the complex phenomenon of reverse swing. This happens when a ball becomes scuffed and cut on a dry, cracked pitch. In such conditions teams are good at (legally) allowing the rough side of the ball to become badly damaged while still looking after the shiny side. At some point, usually at about 40 overs, the ball held for a conventional outswinger — seam tilted to the left, shiny side on the right — starts curving the opposite way if it is bowled at high pace.
Essentially this is due to the air around the very rough side becoming so turbulent that it forces the movement — swing — in the other direction. We watched this happen in the wind tunnel. An older ball scuffed up on one side swung in a conventional direction until the speed was about 75mph and then it began to reverse swing. A tennis ball with tape stuck to one side does this at almost any speed.
Professor Lock illustrated that this could happen even to a relatively new ball with a bit of appropriate doctoring — applying a few scrapes of sandpaper to one side — although again the pace has to be above 80mph. Players have experimented with sandpaper attached to the inside of their shirt cuffs for this purpose, though of course this is illegal.
So, to sum up, Dukes balls generally swing more because of the prouder seam and more-polishable leather but the seam should be tilted to 15 degrees for best results and maintained in that position as the ball flies towards the batsman. A wobbling seam will nullify swing. Both types of ball will reverse swing with the right sort of abrasions and if bowled at high speed.
An old ragged ball damaged on both sides that had been at the bottom of my bag for years moved not a jot in the wind tunnel even at 100mph. This was reassuring as I remembered how consistently it had flown straight on to, and off, the middle of a succession of Somerset players’ bats. It is still really a batsman’s game.
Caption Competition - 2
This is the opportunity that you have all been waiting for. You can compose your own captions to the above photo which may or may not be relevant to the action, and then send them to me at [email protected] . You may then swell with pride as they appear in the next edition of Googlies.
Shepherds Bush Matters
Jim Revier confesses his nocturnal activities
I was reading the 2017 Wisden the other evening and came across an article entitled "Cricket's battle for the working classes ". This is an extract from it :
Pockets of hope can still be found among the white working class. Five years ago, Ciaran O'Sullivan and his mates were discovered by a Chance to Shine coach playing cricket in a park in West London, and persuaded to join the charity's White City Estate street project. Cricket hadn't really been a thing at O'Sullivan's school (“We'd just play during lunch to pass the time"), but the project fired a passion that propelled the boys to Shepherd's Bush CC and, in O'Sullivan's case , a Level 2 coaching badge and a place in the first team. "Cricket, for me?. It's done a lot!" he says. "I used to be really quiet. I wouldn't talk. I'm more confident now. When I joined Shepherd's Bush, I didn't know about cricket - it was just something to do to get me out the house. But then I got integrated into the club". And what do his non - cricket mates from White City make of it? "Nah they just think it's a waste of time standing around in a field all day......."
I found this heartwarming and good "press" for the club. Tim Howard tells me Ciaran is a nice lad. It also disabuses me of the notion that every time I walk down Bromyard Avenue to support the Bush that I won't be cheering for an entire side of public schoolboys!
Old Danes Gathering
The next Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush CC is scheduled for 2018.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also a large number of photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
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High Peak
SK23 9XA
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 174
June 2017
Caption Competition - 1
1. Eion Morgan: Why are we doing this?
Trevor Bayliss: Its just a rehearsal today.
Paul Stirling: How do they know its going to snow on Sunday?
2. Northamptonshire member: What will happen to all the Kolpak players post Brexit?
PCA spokesman: They will change their names.
3. David Gower: How are things going at Durham, Beefy?
Sir Ian Bower: (Expletive deleted)
4. Jeremy Paxman: How will you vote in the election?
Nigel Farage: I will vote the Chicago way.
Jeremy Paxman: What is that?
Nigel Farage: Early and often.
Out and About with the Professor
Australians are, as they say, great travellers.
This is often explained as the result of their being a long way from anywhere. The people who say this tend to think that wherever they are is, of course, the “anywhere” that a self-respecting Australian might wish to travel to.
I am thinking of hotfooting it to the land of cold beers and bar-b-ques this winter to see some of the Ashes, and last week I found myself discussing this possibility with four Aussies. We were all in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela (as visitors not as pilgrims – although it was possible in the Cathedral to make obeisance to the name-saint of our distinguished Googlies editor). It was even possible to give the old-chap (the saint, that is) a bit of a cuddle…or at least his effigy, his bones having been declared authentic by the Pope some centuries ago.
My Aussie interlocutors asked where I might go when visiting the former penitentiary and I said: “Anywhere but Perth”. The problem with this as an answer was that all four were from Perth. The difficulty for the traveller, as they readily agreed, is that while Australia is a long way from here, Perth is quite a long way from Australia (or at least the rest of it). “Yes” they said “and that’s the way we like it”.
Still the attraction of a visit to the west would be, of course, to see the first Test match on the new ground.
“Ah”… “that might not happen”.
“Really? I thought it was all organised. The last match had been played at the WACA and a new stadium would be ready for the Ashes?”
“Well, it’s not that simple”
“What’s the problem?”
“Local politics”.
Apparently, there has been a hold-up in the building programme due to, well, local politics. This follows an earlier hold-up to the redevelopment of the WACA which had been planned and approved for several years but fell victim to…local politics. Seemingly it all started with a plan to redevelop the WACA which had too small a capacity for Ashes tests and, of course, the famous oxymoronic game, “Aussie Rules”. This could only be financed by building lots of apartments and doubtless the odd mall or two. A new bigger ground would pull in more revenue but, at this stage, it seems that the Australian cricketers woke up to the prospect of some higher wages for themselves and (as with the recent proposed “strike”) looked to scupper the whole thing. Right, so abandon that idea and build a new ground in somewhere called “Burswood”. The new ground will be, so I was told, “state-of-the-art” with drop-in pitches. Sadly, at present, it isn’t sufficiently ready to have pitches dropped into it. Local politics have again played their part.
I confess I don’t think this is really very good news. I recall reading somewhere that we have only ever won one Test at the WACA. And while it may have lost some of its fearsome pace in the last couple of years it does have the feel of a banker home win. I suppose the only “Perth-like” bowler we have is Wood and his fitness record is not encouraging. While our other essentially swing and seam bowlers may struggle on a rock-hard surface. Ball’s performance the other day, for example, was decidedly poor; might we be looking to yet another Yorkshire player to come into the side? It seems fanciful that young Ben Coad could play for England so soon in his career but if he continues to develop (having just demolished Lancashire) he might, someday, find himself in the team. He, of course, is not lightning fast but rather in the swing-seam tradition of Anderson, et al. His dramatic success this year appears, from what I have seen, to be based on a very Anderson-like full length and a bit of movement either way. Could be very good someday - but not I think at the old WACA. In fact, I doubt any English player, bowler or batsman, looks forward to playing there. So, let’s give the Burswood builders all the encouragement they need to produce a nice new ground, with a nice greenish drop-in track and a bit of nip off the seam.
Some hopes.
This and That
I have long doubted the ability of batsmen to hit the ball away from fielders and, in general, I think that they just like to time it well and hope that it misses them. This theory was supported in the Headingley ODI when three top batsmen, Stokes , Duminy and Miller, all hit long hops straight to the only fielder on the leg side boundary.
In the Royal London Cup there were a series of notable performances which all ended up with the protagonists finding themselves on the losing side. First James Vince scored 178 for Hampshire against Glamorgan and then his team mate, George Bailey scored 145 not out against Surrey at the Oval. But at Swansea Glamorgan racked up a formidable 356 for 7 against Kent. In reply Kent had reached 76 for 3 when Darren Stevens came to the wicket to join Sam Billings. In the next 81 minutes he proceeded to score 147 from 67 deliveries with 14 sixes and 10 fours. He was dismissed with the score at 258 for 6 and so made his runs out of 182 added whilst at the crease. Kent had 17 overs left after he was out but they were eventually all out for 341 to lose by 15.
I watch most of my cricket on the television and often find that I announce “That’s out” when the ball strikes the pads in a plumb position only to discover on the action replay that it was bat first, the pad was outside the line of off stump, the ball had pitched outside the line of leg stump, the ball was tailing down the leg side or was going over the top of the stumps. The umpire makes the correct decision in the vast majority of cases and my admiration for their skills and coolness under pressure continues to grow.
What score is enough these days? As if to underline the problem in one of the IPL matches the Gujarat Lions made a substantial 208 for 7 but the Delhi Daredevils knocked them off with fifteen deliveries to spare. Their wicket weeper, Rishabh Pant, scored 93 from 43 balls in an innings which included nine sixes. In the Champions Trophy, at least in the early stages, the captains seem to want to put the opposition in but this could change if the sides batting first start to score in the upper 300s.
Ben Stokes has become one of the nation’s darlings who can do no wrong, but we should remember that underneath his ginger exterior he is baddy with a track record. Indeed, he previously suffered the ignominy of being sent home from an England tour and his indiscretion was bad enough not to have been disclosed. There have also been self-inflicted injuries which kept him on the sidelines after a fight with a locker. So, when he is seen mouthing off at the Bangla Desh opener Tamim, after he had played a perfectly satisfactory shot down to third man, it should not be put down to fun and exuberance but seen as his sinister side beginning to erupt again.
So who scored the fastest 50 in the 2017 IPL? The answer is extraordinarily unlikely. It was the West Indian former mystery spinner, Sunil Narine, who was used as a pinch-hitting opener for the Kolkata Nightriders. He scored 50 from just 15 deliveries. His usual opening partner was Chris Lynn who hit two of the other fastest fifties at the relatively sedate rate of 19 and 21 balls.
The Champions Trophy has now started and a scan of the eight sides participating seems odd, someone is missing. Why, of course, it’s the West Indies. How can a top tournament take place without them? It seems inconceivable to someone who lived through the Sobers sides of the sixties and the Lloyd sides of the seventies and eighties that they should have fallen by the wayside. And this isn’t test cricket, it is ODI stuff. Caribbean politics and the dollars offered by the T20 circuit have a lot to answer for.
Vindicated Professor
The Professor sent me this
"Do not expect a mighty mea culpa from the England and Wales Cricket Board but now we have an implicit acknowledgement that the decision, taken more than a decade ago, not to insist upon some cricket remaining on free-to-air television was contrary to the best interests of the game". Thus, wrote Vic Marks in the Gruaniad last week.
Oh, really! How on earth did they come to that conclusion? How could a body of 40 odd men and women used to making critical strategic executive decisions have come to the conclusion that their forebears got it wrong? Could it be that they have been surreptitiously reading Googlies all these years? Could it be that having digested the blindingly obvious truth that if the counties sell out the TV rights to Sky then anyone without Sky won't see any live cricket they have noticed the continued fall in the popularity of the game? Apparently, Harrison, the CEO, has "warned" against the danger of cricket "becoming rich but irrelevant". Oh really! (again) and how could such an idea have come to him? The venial county bosses who made this decision, which was blatantly one of self-interest, have only themselves to blame for the decline in interest in cricket. They feigned concern about the national game while displaying only concern about their counties bank accounts. And now? Now they think they may have made a mistake....Sorry.
Early Days at the ICC
George makes a rare but welcome contribution
Mark Carver and I had not met since his retirement as Commercial Director of Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies last autumn. A stress free cricket match seemed the ideal rendezvous, so we met at Edgbaston on Friday 2nd June to see NZ versus Australia. A fine ground and we had fine seats in the Skyline Stand.
I was reminded immediately of how good and how bad TV is for sport. Good for the close up and fine detail, bad for the panorama. This applies equally to Rugby Union, Cricket, Golf and Football. I intend to get out more to cricket now that we are in Cheltenham. Already we go to Gloucester rugby once a month or so and the perspective on Rugby Union matches alters.
We had a very good day, perfect for catching up on the last few months. All readers will know that the game was curtailed by rain. And I know that you don’t want a ball-by-ball account. Ronchi, Guptill and Taylor were all good to see live. But the real privilege was watching the ease with which one of the world’s finest batsmen scored a quiet century from 97 balls. Kane Williamson was outstanding. We are a handful of games into this competition and Joe Root has made 133 not out, Vihrat Kohli 81 not out. None of the three out to a bowler yet. All display calm, unruffled starts, accumulation then acceleration, more or less as it suits them. It promises to be a good few weeks.
One further point to note was the eerie precision with which several batsmen were caught in the deep. If the fielders had not put their hands up they would have been hit on the chest. So, I suppose, take a bow Steve Smith.
I don’t think it’s too fogeyish to mention that there were six things that Mark and I shared as notably irritating during the day:
1.The wired drone, which wanders around self-importantly (and distractingly) above the field of play. This adds little value to the TV viewer and is an example of technology as ‘because we can do it we will’
2.Ear-shattering volumes of pop music in between overs, when a boundary has been struck, or just when nothing much has happened for a while.
3.Connected to the above, absurdly dressed men in dodgy Royal tartan outfits banging away at drums with or without the pop music above. This often stopped half way through the bowler’s run up.
4.A chirpy holiday camp man with a microphone very loudly trying to create interest where there was none while the players were off.
5.Pissed Australia supporters trying to get Shane Warne to wave to them while being interviewed.
6.It probably is a bit fogeyish to confess that I can’t read the 6th from my post-it.
I saw no evidence that anyone in the crowd took value from 2, 3 or 4.
For what it’s worth I think the best bowling attack will win the competition. I think that would rule out England even with a fit Woakes
Middlesex Matters
The Great Jack Morgan has been putting in the long hours on the upper deck for us
Gloucestershire captain Michael Klinger won the toss and chose to bowl first (although the announcer had already told us that he had opted to bat first) in the Royal London Cup match against Middlesex at Lord's on April 30th. Openers Paul Stirling (26) and Dawid Malan (31) looked in good form for the home team, but the excellent opening bowler for Gloucester, Liam Norwell (5 for 36), bowled his 10 overs straight through and reduced Middx to a humiliating 97 for 5 after 20 overs and this soon became 114 for 6.
Fortunately, Adam Voges was still there and he received good support from Toby Roland-Jones in a brilliant stand of 111 for the seventh wicket. Toby was the first to go for a splendid 65 from 71 balls with 7 fours and a six before he became one of three victims for medium pacer Benny Howell (one of the few Frenchmen playing county cricket), who finished with 3 for 40 in 10 useful overs. Unfortunately, Adam followed almost immediately for an accomplished 81 off 107 balls with 6 fours as the home team sank to 228 for 9. Steve Finn and Ravi Patel cannot always be relied upon to bat with good skill and sense, but this is what happened here as they added 28* for the last wicket with Finny hitting 21* off 14 balls with 2 huge sixes as the innings closed on 256 for 9.
Tom Helm and Patel both bowled well early on in the Gloucester reply and with Roland-Jones picking up 2 wickets (including the valuable one of skipper Klinger for 30), the visitors slid to 65 for 5 at less than 3 an over. However, the stubborn Ian Cockbain was still there, defending capably and now he was joined by the estimable Howell, who found no demons at all either in the pitch or the bowling, was soon scoring at a good rate and overtaking Cockbain. Howell's form eventually convinced Cockbain that he should also start playing some shots and runs started to flow at an exceptional rate, with Cockbain now becoming the main stroke player and overtaking Howell.
Soon it dawned upon the Middlesex players and supporters that they were in big trouble if this partnership could not be broken... and it could not be broken, with Gloucester winning by 5 wickets with 5 balls to spare. Cockbain finished on an excellent 108* off 123 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes, while Howell ended up with an entertaining 86* off 71 balls with 7 fours and 3 sixes and their unbeaten partnership had been worth 192. Middlesex's cup form is not at all going to plan with one defeat and a no result from their first two matches.
Middlesex brought in Nick Compton for Sam Robson (injured) and Ollie Rayner for Ravi Patel for the Royal London Cup match against Surrey at the Oval on May 5th. Gareth Batty won the toss for the home team and invited Middlesex to bat first. In-form Nick Gubbins dominated the early stages of the visitors' innings, but they had lost 3 wickets for 71 before he was joined by John Simpson in the best stand of the innings. When they had added 66 however, Gubbins fell to the Trinidadian seamer Ravi Rampaul for a praiseworthy 65 off 86 balls with 7 fours. Simpson continued his impressive innings until he was sixth out with the score on 203 for a splendid 75 off 83 balls with 7 fours and a six.
The only other Middlesex batsman to make much impression was skipper James Franklin, batting at 7, who hit 35 off 39 balls before being ninth out just before the innings closed on 243-9. Rampaul was the best of the Surrey bowlers with 4 for 40 from his 10 overs and Ben Foakes took 3 catches behind the stumps. The Middlesex total did not look like being enough, but the visitors were encouraged by the early departure of the prolific Mark Stoneman. Scott Borthwick and Kumar Sangakkara, however, were untroubled in adding 91 for the second wicket. It was something of a surprise when both fell to the occasional legspin of Dawid Malan (2 for 39), Borthwick for an accomplished 45 off 62 balls with 3 fours and a six and Sangakkara soon after for a classy 59 off 68 balls with 5 fours.
Briefly, it looked as if Middlesex were back in the match, but the outstanding fourth wicket pair of Rory Burns and Foakes were untroubled by the visitors' attack and took Surrey home to a comfortable victory by 7 wickets with nearly 5 overs in hand. Burns finished with 67* off 70 balls with 6 fours and Foakes with 55* off 54 balls also with 6 fours. The win took Surrey up to fourth in the table, one point and one place ahead of Middlesex.
Middlesex brought in Tom Helm to replace Tim Murtagh (busy with Ireland) for the Championship match against Surrey which started on May 19 at Lord's. The uncontested toss is a strange business sometimes and from my understanding of the situation in this match, Surrey could have bowled first if they had wanted to, but they did not, so there was an actual toss, which Middx won and asked Surrey to bat first, so everyone was happy! After a good stand of 55 for the first wicket by Rory Burns and Mark Stoneman (both 33), Surrey suffered a slight slump to 83 for 3, before the excellent Kumar Sangakkara (in his last season of county cricket) got some useful support from Dom Sibley (54 with 8 fours) in an admirable stand of 114 for the fourth wicket, but then six wickets fell for the addition of only 49 runs and Surrey were all out for 313. Sangakkara departed for an exemplary 114 off 160 balls with 11 fours and 2 sixes, while the bowling honours went to James Franklin (4 for 40, his best for the club) and Tom Helm (3 for 81). Ollie Rayner took four excellent close catches in the second slip and gully positions.
The home openers, Nicks Compton and Gubbins, both looked in good knick, so it was disappointing that both were gone with the score on only 50. Steve Eskinazi (who apparently likes to be called Stevie) came to the rescue with a thoroughly impressive 67 off 87 balls with 12 fours, sharing a top class fourth wicket stand of exactly 100 with Dawid Malan. A mini-collapse saw Middlesex fall to 204 for 5, but then skipper Franklin joined Malan in a magnificent partnership of 130 (dominated by the captain) for the sixth wicket before Malan became one of Stuart Meaker's four victims for an accomplished 115 off 214 balls with 16 fours.
Toby Roland-Jones contributed a robust 30 (off 38 balls) to a useful seventh wicket stand of 53 with Franklin, but then they slumped from 387 for 6 to 411 all out, a lead of 98. Franklin finished with a brilliant 112 off 142 balls with 13 fours and 4 sixes. Meaker ended with 4 for 92, Mark Footitt took 3 for 105 and Ben Foakes held 3 catches behind the wicket.
The Surrey second innings got off to a bad start as Roland-Jones quickly had both openers back in the pavilion with only 16 on the board, but that man Sangakkara again stood in Middlesex's way and this time he received some dogged support from Scott Borthwick (49 off 143 balls) in a third wicket stand of 123. Sangakkara eventually fell for another outstanding 120 (his fourth consecutive Championship hundred) off 211 balls with 14 fours when Surrey's lead was only 112 with 5 wickets standing. Foakes stood firm, however, and Sam Curran provided some entertainment with a lively 51 off 91 balls with 6 fours and a six in a stand of 83 for the sixth wicket with Foakes.
Surrey then collapsed to 339 all out with Foakes remaining 67 not out off 170 balls, with the bowling honours going to Roland-Jones (4 for 76), Rayner (3 for 94 in 45 overs) and Malan, who finished off the innings with a short but effective spell of 2 for 1. This left Middlesex with a tough target of 242 in 39 overs, but many home supporters felt that a win was a realistic possibility if they treated the task as a one day challenge. Their hearts sank, however, as the usual 4-day batting order remained in place and hopes fell further as Gubbins (caught off his thigh pad) and Compton departed early on, leaving Eskinazi (31*) and Malan (37*) to play out the match as the home team finished on 92 for 2 in 28 overs. Middlesex took 13 points (sixth in the table with 35 from 3 drawn matches) and Surrey 11 points (second in the table with 56 points from 4 matches including one win) from the match.
Swing Matters
Ken Molloy sent me this
With the help of a wind tunnel and experts from University of Bath, Simon Hughes tries to answer what really makes a ball curve through the air.
Swing bowling. A phenomenon as baffling to explain as it is to negotiate. The young Yorkshire bowler Ben Coad has taken 22 wickets with it in five earlyseason innings for his county. This summer, which for the first time has balls of three different colours (and two makes) in use in county matches, the issue is more complicated than ever: which balls swing the most, when, and most importantly, why? After a day spent testing balls in a wind tunnel at the University of Bath, I hope that I have the answers.
There are many myths and fallacies about swing. The wind tunnel immediately dispelled a principal one: that moist, humid air will encourage swing. It was bone dry inside the machine, yet some balls swung prodigiously. Humidity is largely irrelevant, but cloud cover is a big influence. Swing, as every bowler knows, is a very fragile art conditional on various factors. One is the stability of the air directly above the pitch, to a height of, say, three metres. The sun shining on the surface generates heat and convection currents rise disrupting that stability. That is why the ball swings considerably less on a sunny day. Cloud cover prevents the ground from heating up; there is no convection and therefore the stable air is likely to be more conducive to swing.
Darkness can, of course, have the same effect. During Middlesex’s Champion County match against MCC in Abu Dhabi last month, batsmen became spooked in what became known as the “twilight hour” as the pink ball dipped and swung around. Wickets fell at regular intervals. There is a whole round of day-night County Championship matches in late June as England prepare for the first pink ball Test against West Indies at Edgbaston in August. Expect a glut of wickets at about sunset.
Professor Gary Lock, the head of mechanical engineering at Bath, gives lectures on the aerodynamics of a cricket ball and, under his guidance, we experimented with a variety of balls of different colours in varying states. Each ball was inserted on to a thin metal arm in the wind tunnel that was connected to a number of sensors measuring the deviations of the ball as the wind was blown towards it, simulating a ball being bowled fast through the air. The speed was regularly cranked up to 100mph.
One of the keys to swing is the slight tilting of the seam in the direction of intended movement. The ridge on the seam “trips” the air coming towards it, creating turbulence in a thin layer around the ball on the rougher side. That causes drag and the ball is pulled off its straight-line path. Keeping the other side smooth and shiny enhances this effect as the air slips past that side, known as laminar flow.
I sucked a mint and added sugary saliva to the shiny side of a Dukes ball about 40 overs old. After polishing, it swung more consistently and at higher speeds. Bowlers have been doing this for years, of course. Murray Mints are best. Note to Faf du Plessis, the South Africa Test captain: just don’t do it by transferring your finger straight from mint to ball, especially when there are about 38 TV cameras watching.
It was noticeable that the white (and pink) Kookaburra balls swung far less than the red Dukes. This is borne out by the experience of most one-day batsmen around the globe who flay the white ball about with alacrity, much to the chagrin of their red-ball counterparts who have to handle frequent and prodigious deviation. The reason for this is explained by Dilip Jajodia, the owner of Dukes.
“Our Dukes balls are hand-stitched in Pakistan and the stitching is done forwards and backwards so that the seam is thicker and prouder compared to Kookaburra balls, which are machine-stitched in one direction only,” he says. [The seam creates a rudder on the ball that controls swing.]
“Also, we add grease to the leather for red English balls to make them more water-resistant so you can achieve a better polish than on an Australianmade Kookaburra which does not have the grease added.”
Kookaburra balls are still used for all ICC tournaments, which is why every country plays with the white Kookaburra in their domestic competitions, but interestingly Australia have changed to the red Dukes for the Sheffield Shield, their first-class competition. Pink Dukes will be used for the day-night matches in England this summer.
Now we come to the complex phenomenon of reverse swing. This happens when a ball becomes scuffed and cut on a dry, cracked pitch. In such conditions teams are good at (legally) allowing the rough side of the ball to become badly damaged while still looking after the shiny side. At some point, usually at about 40 overs, the ball held for a conventional outswinger — seam tilted to the left, shiny side on the right — starts curving the opposite way if it is bowled at high pace.
Essentially this is due to the air around the very rough side becoming so turbulent that it forces the movement — swing — in the other direction. We watched this happen in the wind tunnel. An older ball scuffed up on one side swung in a conventional direction until the speed was about 75mph and then it began to reverse swing. A tennis ball with tape stuck to one side does this at almost any speed.
Professor Lock illustrated that this could happen even to a relatively new ball with a bit of appropriate doctoring — applying a few scrapes of sandpaper to one side — although again the pace has to be above 80mph. Players have experimented with sandpaper attached to the inside of their shirt cuffs for this purpose, though of course this is illegal.
So, to sum up, Dukes balls generally swing more because of the prouder seam and more-polishable leather but the seam should be tilted to 15 degrees for best results and maintained in that position as the ball flies towards the batsman. A wobbling seam will nullify swing. Both types of ball will reverse swing with the right sort of abrasions and if bowled at high speed.
An old ragged ball damaged on both sides that had been at the bottom of my bag for years moved not a jot in the wind tunnel even at 100mph. This was reassuring as I remembered how consistently it had flown straight on to, and off, the middle of a succession of Somerset players’ bats. It is still really a batsman’s game.
Caption Competition - 2
This is the opportunity that you have all been waiting for. You can compose your own captions to the above photo which may or may not be relevant to the action, and then send them to me at [email protected] . You may then swell with pride as they appear in the next edition of Googlies.
Shepherds Bush Matters
Jim Revier confesses his nocturnal activities
I was reading the 2017 Wisden the other evening and came across an article entitled "Cricket's battle for the working classes ". This is an extract from it :
Pockets of hope can still be found among the white working class. Five years ago, Ciaran O'Sullivan and his mates were discovered by a Chance to Shine coach playing cricket in a park in West London, and persuaded to join the charity's White City Estate street project. Cricket hadn't really been a thing at O'Sullivan's school (“We'd just play during lunch to pass the time"), but the project fired a passion that propelled the boys to Shepherd's Bush CC and, in O'Sullivan's case , a Level 2 coaching badge and a place in the first team. "Cricket, for me?. It's done a lot!" he says. "I used to be really quiet. I wouldn't talk. I'm more confident now. When I joined Shepherd's Bush, I didn't know about cricket - it was just something to do to get me out the house. But then I got integrated into the club". And what do his non - cricket mates from White City make of it? "Nah they just think it's a waste of time standing around in a field all day......."
I found this heartwarming and good "press" for the club. Tim Howard tells me Ciaran is a nice lad. It also disabuses me of the notion that every time I walk down Bromyard Avenue to support the Bush that I won't be cheering for an entire side of public schoolboys!
Old Danes Gathering
The next Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush CC is scheduled for 2018.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also a large number of photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
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