G&C 179
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 179
November 2017
Caption Competition
1. Andrew Strauss: I think that our best chance this winter will be to arrange for a crossbow bolt to be fired onto the ground.
2. Gary Ballance: Look at it this way. Even if we don’t get any runs this winter its bound to be warmer than back home.
James Vince: I suppose so.
3. James Anderson: How quick will we have to be to get wickets this winter?
Stuart Broad: 90mph as a minimum, I would think. How quick were you last year?
James Anderson: I topped at 86mph. How about you?
Stuart Broad: 88mph.
4. Paul Stirling: Will Dawid be dropped from the tour now that he is a second division player?
Out & About with the Professor
Jonny Bairstow has written a book. To be a touch more specific, he has written an autobiography. He is 28. He has clearly had a bit of down-time in preparation for the battle Down under and so he has put finger to keyboard (with some help) and the autobiography is the result.
It is easy (and in some cases almost irresistible) to deride the efforts of very young “celebrities” producing their life stories. The teenage pop star or footballer on the advice, one assumes, of his/her agent, gets a book out in the month before Christmas, often with a dreadful punning title and a strap line of “my life so far”…or somesuch. I doubt, in some cases, whether the young person has even read the book let alone written it.
Somehow I doubt if Bairstow’s book is quite like that. I haven’t read it; rather I have followed the great tradition in my profession of having read a review of the book so that I can appear to speak with authority about it. And it was the review which held my attention. Bairstow does follow the dire tradition in such things of having (what I assume) is a punning title, “A Clear Blue Sky”. Even that in itself is well ahead of some truly grim ones: Run-Digger Bill Lawry, Opening Up Geoff Boycott, Fifteen Paces Alan Davidson, Chucked Around Charlie Griffith (…add your own favourites). But in this book – so I read – he deals with the issues surrounding his father’s death: of suicide and bereavement. What is more, he is quoted as saying that “not a week goes past” when he isn’t asked about it…and it was 20 years’ ago.
We have talked before, in Googlies, about cricket and mental health and there are a number of very recent cases of depression often, so it seems, associated with being away from home for long periods. I imagine that if you have some element of mental fragility of that sort, an Ashes tour in Australia might be the very last place you would want to be. We all recall the apparent disintegration of Jonathan Trott.
But what is it about cricket and mental health – especially suicide? I recall David Frith writing a book about this (which I did read) some time ago. The list of famous cricketers who have killed themselves is, depressingly, long: A E Stoddart, A E Trott, A Shrewsbury, S Barnes, H Gimblett, J Iverson, S Leary, P Roebuck, many others and, of course, David Bairstow. I think Frith found a statistically significant difference between cricket suicides and those of other professional sports (although the data are always problematic in such areas) and tries to investigate the causative factors associated with the game (the alternative hypothesis – that potential suicides are attracted to cricket – seems a little too far-fetched). Of course retirement (at an early age) from a high profile position must involve a major readjustment but that is equally true of many other sports – indeed rather more so I would have thought. Playing county cricket to empty grounds is not exactly rock-star adulation and most ex-professional cricketers that I have met seem to be very matter-of-fact, “normal” people. Not that such appearances are, of course, any meaningful guide in this area.
Perhaps it is a question of the data; that a lot of people have played professional cricket and we just notice (and remember) those who died in this most miserable of ways. Also there are well-attested problems of inference from suicide data which, classically, go back to the 19th century studies of Emile Durkheim, et al. It does however seem very strange – are we all really fans of a sport which has such a dark aspect?
Perhaps even stranger is that “every week” someone asks Jonny Bairstow about his father’s death. Apart from the lack of good taste, he was 8 years’ old at the time…what is he supposed to say? Can anyone imagine the turmoil and anguish that a child of that age would have to confront? How on Earth did he get from that to the seemingly positive, jovial, determined young man he is today?
I imagine there is only one way to find out…I shall have to buy his book.
This and That
The Sky Cricket Channel has been showing a series of master classes which normally run for fifteen minutes and involve Ian Ward or another presenter discussing technique with major players which incorporates footage demonstrating how they did it. I managed to see one recently featuring Jack Russell and it made me realise that he may be England’s last proper wicket keeper. Much of the sequence involved standing back strategies but it was, of course, the standing up ones that were most interesting and were those that the current number seven batsmen gang would do well to study.
Russell recognized Bob Taylor, of course, as the great exponent of the art in his lifetime but went on to say that it was Alan Knott who made him realise that he would have to make some contribution with the bat and not bat at nine or ten. I had not taken much notice of Russell in the past, having been put off, I suppose, by his painting, ancient gloves and silly hat, but I found him captivating in this masterclass. I guess he is England’s last wicket keeper.
The Stokes affair has stayed very quiet, at least nothing much has reached me. I suspect that the ECB are hoping for a prosecution as that will enable them to react rather than take the initiative and claim that someone else has administered a punishment. Either way there will be talk of contrite reaction, regret, attendance at counselling and future constraints on nocturnal outings. The problem is that he is such a big star that they will want to take him back when everyone knows they should ditch him. Nothing will be able to erase the fact that he had to be stopped from continuing to punch someone lying on the ground even after he had sustained a broken finger himself. He may well have gone on to kill the guy.
Who would be comfortable in future having him come into the opponents dressing room for a post-match drink, in case someone looked sideways at him? Indeed, which umpires would be happy giving consecutive not out decisions to Stokes’ appeals in case he snapped again. All of this is without any consideration of role models in modern society. Anyone else would be dropped both by the ECB and probably their county. Stokes has an explosive demon which has emerged publicly several times now. It may, and probably should, have now cost him his career.
Do you watch international soccer matches? Does anyone? I long ago gave up as they are invariably tedious tactical defensive exercises. I kind of assume that professed England supporters are the sort of people who voted for Brexit. Fairly recently I realised that the reason why the English soccer season lasts so long is because there are the interminable international breaks, which serve no useful purpose. Scrap the qualifiers for the international competitions during the season and it would revert to a sensible length.
In their home match against Auckland Wellington won the toss and decided to field. In 23 overs that decision was vindicated as Auckland were all out for 62, having at one stage been 12 for 7. You might be thinking that there would still be something in the pitch for the bowlers but the Wellington openers were not parted until their opening stand had reached 432. They eventually declared at 553 for 3, with Michael Papps undefeated on 316. You probably don’t care but Auckland batted a little better the second time around.
In the first ODI between South Africa and Bangladesh most of the crowd probably wanted to see the phenomenon that is AB deVilliers bat. They had to wait a while as Bangladesh batted first and accumulated a modest 278 for 8 and then had to wait some more as de Kock and Amla set about their reply and then had to wait till the end of the match as these two reached 282 for 0, and ABD was not required.
In the second ODI the crowd had to wait again until South Africa reached a modest 90 for 2 after 18 overs. In the next thirty overs ABdeV scored 176 out of 253 added in two hours during which he faced just 104 balls. Probably worth the wait.
Meanwhile in Australia there has been an internal round of OD matches none of which were particularly exceptional until I noticed that the NSW keeper, Peter Nevill, in one innings had caught six and stumped two batsmen. I know that it is not first class, but it must be some sort of record?
Back in South Africa at Potchefstroom for the second T20 International, David Miller made the most of being dropped first ball by going on to hit the fastest century in T20 international cricket. He scored 101 not out off 36 balls, reaching his century off 35 deliveries. This beat the previous record by a staggering ten balls. Miller hit nine sixes, including five off successive balls from Mohammad Saifuddin, and seven fours.
At Kanpur India racked up 337 for 6 against India who mounted the almost perfect chase. That is until de Grandhomme came in at 312 for 6 with 13 balls left. He is on the international T20 circuit as a high paid slugger but on this occasion he dominated the strike but managed only 8 from 11 balls as his team lost by 6 runs.
Morgan Matters
The Great Man has been twiddling his thumbs since the end of the season
I kept away from the news about the Rose Bowl ODI and managed to watch it "live" on Saturday am. Despite some ordinary pace bowling WI only managed 288-6, which used to be a good score, but is no longer, mainly because of the tiny boundaries and huge bats almost everywhere. The WI bowling was also ordinary and England had no trouble in reaching 294-1 in 38 overs and clinched the series 4-0. And that is the end of a long season which started back on March 26 in Abu Dhabi where MCC took on Middlesex, the Champion County of course, though it is difficult to remember how that came about now that we are in Div 2.
I keep thinking about there being the same number of games in Divs 1 and 2. I thought the idea was to reduce the amount of cricket played by the top division and the top players, but as they play the same no of games in both divs, what was the point in reducing the no of teams in div 1?
Ali Martin in the O is already blaming Stokes for losing us the Ashes even before the lads have got anywhere near Oz! It would be handy to have him on board, but you do not give up just because one player is missing, do you? Anyway, we do not know for certain (yet) that he will be missing.
Stokes will not travel to Oz with the rest of the squad and is replaced by S Finn. It is nice for Finny to get a call up for an Ashes tour, but I wish I had more confidence that he was up to it. His bowling this season lacked both pace and accuracy most of the time and he was averaging in the thirties for most of the season. He did brilliantly to take 8-79 v Lancs at the end of the season (and brought his average down below 30) and that is what gives us a glimmer of hope.
Ireland will play their first ever Test at home to Pakistan in May, but we do not know the exact date or the venue yet.
The ICC has approved:
a. a Test World Championship for 9 teams over 2 years to start in 2019;
b. 4 day Tests, though I have no info on which matches will be 4 days and which will still be 5 days except that all TWC matches will be 5 days;
c. a 13 team ODI league to begin in 2020 and this will also be the World Cup qualifier. The top 2 teams in the TWC will play a final to decide the Championship and this will be in England (Lord's, I suppose) in June 2021.
Matthew Engel has a long and interesting article in today's G in which he complains about (almost) all aspects of the modern game eg the "one night stands" of countless T20 competitions which are making Test cricket seemingly irrelevant. ME does not care about St Lucia Zouks and will not care about the "wretched new English T20 competition", indeed, he hopes "the damnable thing is a total flop". He also slags off the ECB for "taking the game away from the public and handing it to Sky" and for "farting around with the fixture lists" so that no one knows when county matches start "heaven alone knows... but you can generally rule out June, July or August" and in 2018 there will be no Tests at all between 5 June and 1 August. He continues in his cantankerous (but amusing) fashion about the modern game and concludes that "the current omnishambles will never be resolved by the dunderheads in Dubai" (he means the ICC who now reside there). In the same edition, Richard Williams has a good go at “the oaf” D Warner for his recent crass remarks about Eng.
Max Holden has accepted a new Middlesex contract taking him up to the end of 2020.
I could not get the G today, so I had to settle for the Times. I much prefer the G, but I was bowled over by the T's non-league footy coverage. For example, I knew from the O that Hampton had beaten Bath City 3-1 in the Vanarama South, but now I know that somebody called Morgan opened the scoring for Bath after 16 mins, Hampton equalised through Napa on 44, took the lead through Kretzschmar on 80 and clinched it through Crawford on 90; 562 attended and like Rs, Hampton have now shot up to the "dizzy heights of mid-table". They have only lost 3 of their 16 (only East Thurrock have lost fewer (2 out of 15), but they have had 8 draws and they now have 5 wins.
Carlin Matters
Paddy Carlin sent me this
Two days at the Lord’s test, one of them with the Professor, and apart from wondering at the fantastic drainage we marvelled at the movement the bowlers, especially Stokes, were achieving at pace too. I cannot remember two days of cricket when there was so much playing and missing by batsmen and it also seemed impossible to catch the ball. Are September tests a good idea?
A totally contrasting day in the Kennington Club, now much improved before they pull it all down again, with an upmarket coffee/snack bar plus Wimbledon Common beer at $4 a pint. Stoneman and Burns batted beautifully against Yorkshire’s formidable Brooks, Sidebottom, Bresnan and Patterson attack. To be followed by Sangakarra and Foakes as 398 runs were served in the day. No or almost no playing and missing and dozens of glorious boundaries all along the deck and to all parts of the ground. A pretty flat Oval wicket as Surrey got nearly 600 and Yorkshire amassed slightly more, but after Lord’s it was nice to see the bat on top.
Despite your correspondent’s pessimism WGCCC completed the double of League winners and Grand Final Premier Play-Off winners. Radlett were dispatched in the semis and Totteridge/Millhillians in the final. Watching the game with the Professor, it had its ups and downs but when we took our last walk around with two set batsmen, five wickets in hand and 32 needed in ten overs, we had entered “What could possibly go wrong territory”.
Well it did, or very nearly did. Four stupid shots, nine overs and 26 runs later our number 11, Simon Bridgewater, entered the field of play. He had batted four times this year and scored three runs for an average of 1.5. However, his partner hit a four and a single to leave Simon three balls to get one run. Two plays and misses and an inside edge off the last ball gave WGCCC the win and the trophy. So the season went to the final ball and it was appropriate that Simon, who is the Ground Manager and had done so much to get ground fit for play, took three wickets and hit the winning run. Sometimes you get what you deserve.
Ashes Stuff
George sent me this from The Spin
For much of Monday, the Guardian’s cricket homepage led with two stories from two very different ends of the sport’s pyramid. In one, Australia’s David Warner pledged to unleash “hatred” and “war” when the Ashes get under way next month; the other told of a 15-year-old umpire who had been assaulted in an under-11 game in Melbourne. And the juxtaposition called to mind something that Ted Dexter once said, suggesting: “The general atmosphere in cricket as a whole is determined by the cricket at the top, Test match cricket.”
In 1909, Lord Alverstone, then president of Surrey CCC, spoke of his attitude to the game. “Success does not solely depend upon the number of games that are won,” he said. “Success depends on playing games in a true and sporting manner, in acting in a friendly and sporting manner towards opponents, in valuing friendships made on the cricket field, for real cricket friendships last always. In every phase of life, in defeat or in victory, the endeavour should be to ‘play the game’.” It is a handy definition of the so-called “spirit of cricket”, a vague notion of gentlemanliness that has for ever doused the sport with tiresome streams of sanctimony. It is a competitive sport, and should be played hard. But there must surely exist a line that should not be crossed.
“As soon as you step on that line it’s war,” Warner had said, looking ahead to the Ashes. “You try and get into a battle as quick as you can. I try and look in the opposition’s eyes and try and work out: ‘How can I dislike this player? How can I get on top of him?’ You have to delve and dig deep into yourself to actually get some hatred about them to actually get up when you’re out there.”
Warner is not the first cricketer to talk in such terms. “If I was getting into a batsman it was to convince myself that this was the worst bloke in the world and I didn’t want him out there,” Merv Hughes, among the most infamous sledgers of the modern era, once said. “That usually happened at innocuous times, when the game was going through a little flat patch. I had to get up for the contest, and my way of doing that was to take it out on the batsman.”
Hughes actually had a distaste for cricket when it was played in an atmosphere of friendliness, considering the sport inferior when “there’s no spite in it”. “But then not everyone shares my view on how to play cricket,” he said. “Some people don’t have to hate the opposition to motivate themselves. I’d hate them and try to kill them. To me that’s easier than to like them and maybe back off in crunch situations.”
In an excellent interview with the Observer published in 1964, Dexter spoke at length about his views on the spirit of cricket. In it, he was asked why he disapproved of, in the words of the interviewer, Kenneth Harris, “sportsmen who favour ‘the acid’”. “Perhaps because I see no reason at all why people should be miserable when they are competing with each other, whether it’s sport, or anything else,” he replied. “And partly because proper personal relationships make for better cricket anyway.”
The idea that a sportsman might, in order to motivate himself, need to despise his opponents, to “hate them and try to kill them”, seems to meet with approval in some quarters. To this writer it seems deplorable. In 1993 the Times’ then cricket correspondent, John Woodcock, responded to the idea flourishing at that time that Hughes’s aggression embodied what Test cricket is “all about”. “Hughes has many admirers. He is a rousing member of this Australian side, and at times even its inspiration,” he wrote. “Test cricket, too, is a very hard game, as is right and proper. But if the day ever comes when open and unfettered abuse becomes what it is ‘all about’ then we really shall have been betrayed.”
Warner also said that history “is a big part” of the reason he feels so hateful. And there certainly is a historic and largely unrequited enmity between the Australians and the British, both in cricket and in life. The latter is a subject that John O’Neill, then chief executive of Australian Rugby Union, memorably spoke about a decade ago last week, during the 2007 Rugby World Cup. “Whether it’s cricket, rugby league or rugby union, we do all hate England,” he said. “All I’m doing is stating the bleeding obvious. No one likes England. If they want further proof, how do they think France won the right to host this World Cup? It’s simple. No one would vote for England and they were the only other country in the running. The only votes England could be assured of back then were their own. Sadly, this is all a by-product of their born-to-rule mentality. It’s been there for a long time now and nothing has changed.”
Neville Cardus travelled to Australia for the 1954-55 Ashes, and identified a general background hostility among its sportsmen, and its residents in general (warning: what follows will feel wildly anachronistic). “The brilliance and gallantry of Australian cricket at its gayest is hard and aggressive at bottom; no art for art’s sake about it,” he wrote. “Graciousness and charm are the most rare of all characteristics in the Australian character and scene. The girls that come out of the offices in Martin Place at five o’clock every evening, dressed as though appearing in the latest musical, are nearly all remarkably pretty; but charm is missing. The voices suggest hardness of purpose. No romantic nonsense. The wonderful beauty that night brings to Sydney, covering city and the waters of the harbour in purple, apparently has no effect on the Australian imagination or the aesthetic sense. I was once asked by a sub-editor of a Sydney newspaper if I wouldn’t mind eliminating from a cricket article the word ‘beautiful’. I had described one of Stan McCabe’s strokes. ‘It’s cissy,’ said the sub-editor.”
In cricket terms, the enmity is widely seen as having started with Bodyline, the brutal and unsportsmanlike tactic employed by the English to counter Don Bradman’s brilliance in the 1932-33 Ashes series. Back in 1964 Dexter spoke of how he and Australia’s then captain, Bobby Simpson, were trying to create “better cricket” between the nations. “We are playing Test matches in a better atmosphere,” he explained. “We chat to each other at the wicket, we spend quite a bit of time with each other socially, after the game. When the game is on, we spend quite a bit of time in each other’s dressing rooms. We’re still just as keen to get each other out, and we play just as hard, but the atmosphere is good-natured. This may sound very corny to you, but it makes a hell of a difference to us, and I think it will make a hell of a difference to cricket.”
Why, he was asked, had none of this happened before? “Because human nature is what it is,” he replied, “and history is what it has been. It all goes back to the early 30s really and, well, ever since then there’s been a kind of cold war in cricket, which I’m glad to say is coming to an end.” Or not, as it turned out.
Cardus, writing in 1935, hoped that Bodyline had had one positive side-effect. “It has been responsible for the fact that nobody nowadays is likely to talk of cricket in terms of the old moral unction,” he wrote. “A year or two ago orators in thousands came out with the old cant about playing cricket – ‘it isn’t cricket’ – whatever their theme and whatever the occasion. Footballers, tennis players, and jockeys had reason to look upon cricket as a dreadfully priggish affair. Larwood and Jardine performed a sanitary service in a direction which probably did not enter into their intentions, which were strictly tactical; they cleared out of cricket a humbug which would have made WG Grace pull at his whiskers in some impatience and bewilderment.”
And yet here we are, still with the hate and the humbug. Considering the case of Warner it strikes me as tremendously depressing that something as joyful as sport should need to be fuelled by something so antithetical as hatred, but perhaps with his words Australia’s vice-captain is holding a mirror up at us all. As Woodcock wrote in 1991, when describing another ill-tempered Australian tour – in the West Indies, on that occasion: “To some extent cricket has always been a reflection of the age in which it is played. And nobody would suggest that the world in which we live gets any more elegant, or less violent.”
Three Days at The Lord’s Test, England v West Indies
Ged (Ian Harris) reports
Day One - Thursday 7 September 2017
One guest today, Escamillo Escapillo, our Lancastrian nephew-in-law. A veteran of The Lord's Throdkin, he appreciated the slight variation to the recipe from last time and agreed with me that the flavour and texture were somewhat improved. Some conjecture on this point might well follow on Ogblog, King Cricket or both. There was also some ingratitude in the matter of special cream cheese and its pairing with smoked salmon. But other than those controversial culinary matters, the day progressed as only a relaxing day of test cricket at Lord's could and should.
West Indies chose to bat and struggled through a difficult morning and early afternoon, only to collapse in a heap as the afternoon went on. Ben Stokes bowled beautifully and deserved the bulk of the wickets. England found it no easier once they were asked to bat that day.
By that time, Escamillo Esapillo had left early to go to a function with his wife, our niece, Lavender. Daisy had spent the day with Lavender and took pains to bring the young couple together in Marylebone, while also swiping Escamillo Escapillo's ticket and spending the last 90 minutes or so of play with me.
It got very dark and very cold towards the end of play - so much so that we escaped early, but only an over or two before bad light (even with floodlights) intervened.
Day Two - 8 September 2017
The weather forecast was distinctly iffy for Day 2. Brian sent me a "what's happening if...?" e-mail and I sent my response to both of the others as well as Brian. There was general consensus that we go to the ground, hope for some cricket before the rain and see what happens. Brian came round to my place just as I was finishing the picnic and getting ready to go; we travelled to the ground together. As we were nice and early, I showed Brian the real tennis which immediately grabbed his fascination.
I left Brian with the tennis (at his request) so I could meet the others and he could join us when play started, just a few minutes late. But soon after play started the rain came and we all decided to wander round to the dedans to watch real tennis; Brian wanted to see more, Graham had never seen it before and wanted to, the other Ian had seen it before but was happy to see it again.
Brian observed that we had four very similar, uber-English names; Ian, Ian, Brian and Graham. As everyone traditionally has a pseudonym in my cricket pieces, I think we can improve and simplify. As it happens the other Ian is already "Iain Spellright"; King Cricket has not yet published the outstanding piece about him from 2014, but it does exist. Brian should be known as "Ian Borne" and Graham should be "Iain Insteadman". That should make the rest of this piece really easy to follow.
It was clear from the TV screen in the dedans that the rain was getting harder and harder; I went to rescue our picnic around 12:30 in the sodden gloom and felt very little optimism for the prospects of play. At least we had the picnic, so we tucked into The Lord's Throdkin with Iain Spellright's utterly delicious bottle of Barollo. Janie was envious when I told her.
By around 13:30, Ian Borne, being the most sensible of us, concluded that the prospects of play were very poor. Also, having told me excitedly about the interesting projects he's working on at the moment, I suspect that the lure of those projects was greater than the lure of watching it rain at Lord's. However, soon after Ian Borne left, the announcer reported an expected start time of 14:15 and the weather forecast changed from "no hope after 15:00-16:00" to "no more rain expected until after stumps". So, we the remaining threesome resumed our seats and hunkered down with a super-sized picnic and several hours of cricket to watch.
Good cricket it was too, with England working hard in still difficult batting conditions to press ahead with a reasonable lead. We had some interesting number-crunching business, trying to decide what a decent and realistic first innings target might be. Iain Spellright was looking to double the West Indies score, but soon backtracked a little. Iain Insteadman and I thought 50 to 60 would be a decent, admittedly not insurmountable lead. 71 lead was the outcome.
Then England started bowling and very, very soon, Jimmy Anderson took that historic 500th test wicket.
West Indies then batted in the fading light, but not gloom, so the floodlights could keep the show on the road and I don't think I have ever seen Lord's looking quite so special at dusk before - aided by the double-rainbow to the south-east as some heavy clouds threatened but passed us by. Against all the odds, we got a more than decent day's play; very relaxed, relaxing and enjoyable. I think this was the latest test match finish I have experienced live; 19:30. After saying goodbye to Iain and Iain, I (Ian) walked home.
Day Three - 9 September 2017
I stayed at the flat overnight and got my few bits and pieces together quickly and easily enough - Daisy was doing the main picnic. I walked to Lord's and secured some good seats. I ran into one of my real tennis pals so we chatted for a while. Then Daisy arrived. Then Alan and his pal Jonathan came over in search of some throdkin cookies, which I had promised Alan the last time I saw him at Lord's.
England made reasonably light work of finishing off the West Indies; three more wickets before lunch, then the last four soon after. Jimmy Anderson was the pick of the bowlers.
We continued to tuck in to Daisy's enormous picnic while England tucked in to West indies demoralised bowling and won the match.
.
Daisy and Ged(Ian)
That's three days at Lord's for Daisy this year - all three being days when England won the match at took the ceremonial plaudits. Daisy must be a lucky mascot for England when she's in that new stand. She should visit more often.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
[email protected]
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 179
November 2017
Caption Competition
1. Andrew Strauss: I think that our best chance this winter will be to arrange for a crossbow bolt to be fired onto the ground.
2. Gary Ballance: Look at it this way. Even if we don’t get any runs this winter its bound to be warmer than back home.
James Vince: I suppose so.
3. James Anderson: How quick will we have to be to get wickets this winter?
Stuart Broad: 90mph as a minimum, I would think. How quick were you last year?
James Anderson: I topped at 86mph. How about you?
Stuart Broad: 88mph.
4. Paul Stirling: Will Dawid be dropped from the tour now that he is a second division player?
Out & About with the Professor
Jonny Bairstow has written a book. To be a touch more specific, he has written an autobiography. He is 28. He has clearly had a bit of down-time in preparation for the battle Down under and so he has put finger to keyboard (with some help) and the autobiography is the result.
It is easy (and in some cases almost irresistible) to deride the efforts of very young “celebrities” producing their life stories. The teenage pop star or footballer on the advice, one assumes, of his/her agent, gets a book out in the month before Christmas, often with a dreadful punning title and a strap line of “my life so far”…or somesuch. I doubt, in some cases, whether the young person has even read the book let alone written it.
Somehow I doubt if Bairstow’s book is quite like that. I haven’t read it; rather I have followed the great tradition in my profession of having read a review of the book so that I can appear to speak with authority about it. And it was the review which held my attention. Bairstow does follow the dire tradition in such things of having (what I assume) is a punning title, “A Clear Blue Sky”. Even that in itself is well ahead of some truly grim ones: Run-Digger Bill Lawry, Opening Up Geoff Boycott, Fifteen Paces Alan Davidson, Chucked Around Charlie Griffith (…add your own favourites). But in this book – so I read – he deals with the issues surrounding his father’s death: of suicide and bereavement. What is more, he is quoted as saying that “not a week goes past” when he isn’t asked about it…and it was 20 years’ ago.
We have talked before, in Googlies, about cricket and mental health and there are a number of very recent cases of depression often, so it seems, associated with being away from home for long periods. I imagine that if you have some element of mental fragility of that sort, an Ashes tour in Australia might be the very last place you would want to be. We all recall the apparent disintegration of Jonathan Trott.
But what is it about cricket and mental health – especially suicide? I recall David Frith writing a book about this (which I did read) some time ago. The list of famous cricketers who have killed themselves is, depressingly, long: A E Stoddart, A E Trott, A Shrewsbury, S Barnes, H Gimblett, J Iverson, S Leary, P Roebuck, many others and, of course, David Bairstow. I think Frith found a statistically significant difference between cricket suicides and those of other professional sports (although the data are always problematic in such areas) and tries to investigate the causative factors associated with the game (the alternative hypothesis – that potential suicides are attracted to cricket – seems a little too far-fetched). Of course retirement (at an early age) from a high profile position must involve a major readjustment but that is equally true of many other sports – indeed rather more so I would have thought. Playing county cricket to empty grounds is not exactly rock-star adulation and most ex-professional cricketers that I have met seem to be very matter-of-fact, “normal” people. Not that such appearances are, of course, any meaningful guide in this area.
Perhaps it is a question of the data; that a lot of people have played professional cricket and we just notice (and remember) those who died in this most miserable of ways. Also there are well-attested problems of inference from suicide data which, classically, go back to the 19th century studies of Emile Durkheim, et al. It does however seem very strange – are we all really fans of a sport which has such a dark aspect?
Perhaps even stranger is that “every week” someone asks Jonny Bairstow about his father’s death. Apart from the lack of good taste, he was 8 years’ old at the time…what is he supposed to say? Can anyone imagine the turmoil and anguish that a child of that age would have to confront? How on Earth did he get from that to the seemingly positive, jovial, determined young man he is today?
I imagine there is only one way to find out…I shall have to buy his book.
This and That
The Sky Cricket Channel has been showing a series of master classes which normally run for fifteen minutes and involve Ian Ward or another presenter discussing technique with major players which incorporates footage demonstrating how they did it. I managed to see one recently featuring Jack Russell and it made me realise that he may be England’s last proper wicket keeper. Much of the sequence involved standing back strategies but it was, of course, the standing up ones that were most interesting and were those that the current number seven batsmen gang would do well to study.
Russell recognized Bob Taylor, of course, as the great exponent of the art in his lifetime but went on to say that it was Alan Knott who made him realise that he would have to make some contribution with the bat and not bat at nine or ten. I had not taken much notice of Russell in the past, having been put off, I suppose, by his painting, ancient gloves and silly hat, but I found him captivating in this masterclass. I guess he is England’s last wicket keeper.
The Stokes affair has stayed very quiet, at least nothing much has reached me. I suspect that the ECB are hoping for a prosecution as that will enable them to react rather than take the initiative and claim that someone else has administered a punishment. Either way there will be talk of contrite reaction, regret, attendance at counselling and future constraints on nocturnal outings. The problem is that he is such a big star that they will want to take him back when everyone knows they should ditch him. Nothing will be able to erase the fact that he had to be stopped from continuing to punch someone lying on the ground even after he had sustained a broken finger himself. He may well have gone on to kill the guy.
Who would be comfortable in future having him come into the opponents dressing room for a post-match drink, in case someone looked sideways at him? Indeed, which umpires would be happy giving consecutive not out decisions to Stokes’ appeals in case he snapped again. All of this is without any consideration of role models in modern society. Anyone else would be dropped both by the ECB and probably their county. Stokes has an explosive demon which has emerged publicly several times now. It may, and probably should, have now cost him his career.
Do you watch international soccer matches? Does anyone? I long ago gave up as they are invariably tedious tactical defensive exercises. I kind of assume that professed England supporters are the sort of people who voted for Brexit. Fairly recently I realised that the reason why the English soccer season lasts so long is because there are the interminable international breaks, which serve no useful purpose. Scrap the qualifiers for the international competitions during the season and it would revert to a sensible length.
In their home match against Auckland Wellington won the toss and decided to field. In 23 overs that decision was vindicated as Auckland were all out for 62, having at one stage been 12 for 7. You might be thinking that there would still be something in the pitch for the bowlers but the Wellington openers were not parted until their opening stand had reached 432. They eventually declared at 553 for 3, with Michael Papps undefeated on 316. You probably don’t care but Auckland batted a little better the second time around.
In the first ODI between South Africa and Bangladesh most of the crowd probably wanted to see the phenomenon that is AB deVilliers bat. They had to wait a while as Bangladesh batted first and accumulated a modest 278 for 8 and then had to wait some more as de Kock and Amla set about their reply and then had to wait till the end of the match as these two reached 282 for 0, and ABD was not required.
In the second ODI the crowd had to wait again until South Africa reached a modest 90 for 2 after 18 overs. In the next thirty overs ABdeV scored 176 out of 253 added in two hours during which he faced just 104 balls. Probably worth the wait.
Meanwhile in Australia there has been an internal round of OD matches none of which were particularly exceptional until I noticed that the NSW keeper, Peter Nevill, in one innings had caught six and stumped two batsmen. I know that it is not first class, but it must be some sort of record?
Back in South Africa at Potchefstroom for the second T20 International, David Miller made the most of being dropped first ball by going on to hit the fastest century in T20 international cricket. He scored 101 not out off 36 balls, reaching his century off 35 deliveries. This beat the previous record by a staggering ten balls. Miller hit nine sixes, including five off successive balls from Mohammad Saifuddin, and seven fours.
At Kanpur India racked up 337 for 6 against India who mounted the almost perfect chase. That is until de Grandhomme came in at 312 for 6 with 13 balls left. He is on the international T20 circuit as a high paid slugger but on this occasion he dominated the strike but managed only 8 from 11 balls as his team lost by 6 runs.
Morgan Matters
The Great Man has been twiddling his thumbs since the end of the season
I kept away from the news about the Rose Bowl ODI and managed to watch it "live" on Saturday am. Despite some ordinary pace bowling WI only managed 288-6, which used to be a good score, but is no longer, mainly because of the tiny boundaries and huge bats almost everywhere. The WI bowling was also ordinary and England had no trouble in reaching 294-1 in 38 overs and clinched the series 4-0. And that is the end of a long season which started back on March 26 in Abu Dhabi where MCC took on Middlesex, the Champion County of course, though it is difficult to remember how that came about now that we are in Div 2.
I keep thinking about there being the same number of games in Divs 1 and 2. I thought the idea was to reduce the amount of cricket played by the top division and the top players, but as they play the same no of games in both divs, what was the point in reducing the no of teams in div 1?
Ali Martin in the O is already blaming Stokes for losing us the Ashes even before the lads have got anywhere near Oz! It would be handy to have him on board, but you do not give up just because one player is missing, do you? Anyway, we do not know for certain (yet) that he will be missing.
Stokes will not travel to Oz with the rest of the squad and is replaced by S Finn. It is nice for Finny to get a call up for an Ashes tour, but I wish I had more confidence that he was up to it. His bowling this season lacked both pace and accuracy most of the time and he was averaging in the thirties for most of the season. He did brilliantly to take 8-79 v Lancs at the end of the season (and brought his average down below 30) and that is what gives us a glimmer of hope.
Ireland will play their first ever Test at home to Pakistan in May, but we do not know the exact date or the venue yet.
The ICC has approved:
a. a Test World Championship for 9 teams over 2 years to start in 2019;
b. 4 day Tests, though I have no info on which matches will be 4 days and which will still be 5 days except that all TWC matches will be 5 days;
c. a 13 team ODI league to begin in 2020 and this will also be the World Cup qualifier. The top 2 teams in the TWC will play a final to decide the Championship and this will be in England (Lord's, I suppose) in June 2021.
Matthew Engel has a long and interesting article in today's G in which he complains about (almost) all aspects of the modern game eg the "one night stands" of countless T20 competitions which are making Test cricket seemingly irrelevant. ME does not care about St Lucia Zouks and will not care about the "wretched new English T20 competition", indeed, he hopes "the damnable thing is a total flop". He also slags off the ECB for "taking the game away from the public and handing it to Sky" and for "farting around with the fixture lists" so that no one knows when county matches start "heaven alone knows... but you can generally rule out June, July or August" and in 2018 there will be no Tests at all between 5 June and 1 August. He continues in his cantankerous (but amusing) fashion about the modern game and concludes that "the current omnishambles will never be resolved by the dunderheads in Dubai" (he means the ICC who now reside there). In the same edition, Richard Williams has a good go at “the oaf” D Warner for his recent crass remarks about Eng.
Max Holden has accepted a new Middlesex contract taking him up to the end of 2020.
I could not get the G today, so I had to settle for the Times. I much prefer the G, but I was bowled over by the T's non-league footy coverage. For example, I knew from the O that Hampton had beaten Bath City 3-1 in the Vanarama South, but now I know that somebody called Morgan opened the scoring for Bath after 16 mins, Hampton equalised through Napa on 44, took the lead through Kretzschmar on 80 and clinched it through Crawford on 90; 562 attended and like Rs, Hampton have now shot up to the "dizzy heights of mid-table". They have only lost 3 of their 16 (only East Thurrock have lost fewer (2 out of 15), but they have had 8 draws and they now have 5 wins.
Carlin Matters
Paddy Carlin sent me this
Two days at the Lord’s test, one of them with the Professor, and apart from wondering at the fantastic drainage we marvelled at the movement the bowlers, especially Stokes, were achieving at pace too. I cannot remember two days of cricket when there was so much playing and missing by batsmen and it also seemed impossible to catch the ball. Are September tests a good idea?
A totally contrasting day in the Kennington Club, now much improved before they pull it all down again, with an upmarket coffee/snack bar plus Wimbledon Common beer at $4 a pint. Stoneman and Burns batted beautifully against Yorkshire’s formidable Brooks, Sidebottom, Bresnan and Patterson attack. To be followed by Sangakarra and Foakes as 398 runs were served in the day. No or almost no playing and missing and dozens of glorious boundaries all along the deck and to all parts of the ground. A pretty flat Oval wicket as Surrey got nearly 600 and Yorkshire amassed slightly more, but after Lord’s it was nice to see the bat on top.
Despite your correspondent’s pessimism WGCCC completed the double of League winners and Grand Final Premier Play-Off winners. Radlett were dispatched in the semis and Totteridge/Millhillians in the final. Watching the game with the Professor, it had its ups and downs but when we took our last walk around with two set batsmen, five wickets in hand and 32 needed in ten overs, we had entered “What could possibly go wrong territory”.
Well it did, or very nearly did. Four stupid shots, nine overs and 26 runs later our number 11, Simon Bridgewater, entered the field of play. He had batted four times this year and scored three runs for an average of 1.5. However, his partner hit a four and a single to leave Simon three balls to get one run. Two plays and misses and an inside edge off the last ball gave WGCCC the win and the trophy. So the season went to the final ball and it was appropriate that Simon, who is the Ground Manager and had done so much to get ground fit for play, took three wickets and hit the winning run. Sometimes you get what you deserve.
Ashes Stuff
George sent me this from The Spin
For much of Monday, the Guardian’s cricket homepage led with two stories from two very different ends of the sport’s pyramid. In one, Australia’s David Warner pledged to unleash “hatred” and “war” when the Ashes get under way next month; the other told of a 15-year-old umpire who had been assaulted in an under-11 game in Melbourne. And the juxtaposition called to mind something that Ted Dexter once said, suggesting: “The general atmosphere in cricket as a whole is determined by the cricket at the top, Test match cricket.”
In 1909, Lord Alverstone, then president of Surrey CCC, spoke of his attitude to the game. “Success does not solely depend upon the number of games that are won,” he said. “Success depends on playing games in a true and sporting manner, in acting in a friendly and sporting manner towards opponents, in valuing friendships made on the cricket field, for real cricket friendships last always. In every phase of life, in defeat or in victory, the endeavour should be to ‘play the game’.” It is a handy definition of the so-called “spirit of cricket”, a vague notion of gentlemanliness that has for ever doused the sport with tiresome streams of sanctimony. It is a competitive sport, and should be played hard. But there must surely exist a line that should not be crossed.
“As soon as you step on that line it’s war,” Warner had said, looking ahead to the Ashes. “You try and get into a battle as quick as you can. I try and look in the opposition’s eyes and try and work out: ‘How can I dislike this player? How can I get on top of him?’ You have to delve and dig deep into yourself to actually get some hatred about them to actually get up when you’re out there.”
Warner is not the first cricketer to talk in such terms. “If I was getting into a batsman it was to convince myself that this was the worst bloke in the world and I didn’t want him out there,” Merv Hughes, among the most infamous sledgers of the modern era, once said. “That usually happened at innocuous times, when the game was going through a little flat patch. I had to get up for the contest, and my way of doing that was to take it out on the batsman.”
Hughes actually had a distaste for cricket when it was played in an atmosphere of friendliness, considering the sport inferior when “there’s no spite in it”. “But then not everyone shares my view on how to play cricket,” he said. “Some people don’t have to hate the opposition to motivate themselves. I’d hate them and try to kill them. To me that’s easier than to like them and maybe back off in crunch situations.”
In an excellent interview with the Observer published in 1964, Dexter spoke at length about his views on the spirit of cricket. In it, he was asked why he disapproved of, in the words of the interviewer, Kenneth Harris, “sportsmen who favour ‘the acid’”. “Perhaps because I see no reason at all why people should be miserable when they are competing with each other, whether it’s sport, or anything else,” he replied. “And partly because proper personal relationships make for better cricket anyway.”
The idea that a sportsman might, in order to motivate himself, need to despise his opponents, to “hate them and try to kill them”, seems to meet with approval in some quarters. To this writer it seems deplorable. In 1993 the Times’ then cricket correspondent, John Woodcock, responded to the idea flourishing at that time that Hughes’s aggression embodied what Test cricket is “all about”. “Hughes has many admirers. He is a rousing member of this Australian side, and at times even its inspiration,” he wrote. “Test cricket, too, is a very hard game, as is right and proper. But if the day ever comes when open and unfettered abuse becomes what it is ‘all about’ then we really shall have been betrayed.”
Warner also said that history “is a big part” of the reason he feels so hateful. And there certainly is a historic and largely unrequited enmity between the Australians and the British, both in cricket and in life. The latter is a subject that John O’Neill, then chief executive of Australian Rugby Union, memorably spoke about a decade ago last week, during the 2007 Rugby World Cup. “Whether it’s cricket, rugby league or rugby union, we do all hate England,” he said. “All I’m doing is stating the bleeding obvious. No one likes England. If they want further proof, how do they think France won the right to host this World Cup? It’s simple. No one would vote for England and they were the only other country in the running. The only votes England could be assured of back then were their own. Sadly, this is all a by-product of their born-to-rule mentality. It’s been there for a long time now and nothing has changed.”
Neville Cardus travelled to Australia for the 1954-55 Ashes, and identified a general background hostility among its sportsmen, and its residents in general (warning: what follows will feel wildly anachronistic). “The brilliance and gallantry of Australian cricket at its gayest is hard and aggressive at bottom; no art for art’s sake about it,” he wrote. “Graciousness and charm are the most rare of all characteristics in the Australian character and scene. The girls that come out of the offices in Martin Place at five o’clock every evening, dressed as though appearing in the latest musical, are nearly all remarkably pretty; but charm is missing. The voices suggest hardness of purpose. No romantic nonsense. The wonderful beauty that night brings to Sydney, covering city and the waters of the harbour in purple, apparently has no effect on the Australian imagination or the aesthetic sense. I was once asked by a sub-editor of a Sydney newspaper if I wouldn’t mind eliminating from a cricket article the word ‘beautiful’. I had described one of Stan McCabe’s strokes. ‘It’s cissy,’ said the sub-editor.”
In cricket terms, the enmity is widely seen as having started with Bodyline, the brutal and unsportsmanlike tactic employed by the English to counter Don Bradman’s brilliance in the 1932-33 Ashes series. Back in 1964 Dexter spoke of how he and Australia’s then captain, Bobby Simpson, were trying to create “better cricket” between the nations. “We are playing Test matches in a better atmosphere,” he explained. “We chat to each other at the wicket, we spend quite a bit of time with each other socially, after the game. When the game is on, we spend quite a bit of time in each other’s dressing rooms. We’re still just as keen to get each other out, and we play just as hard, but the atmosphere is good-natured. This may sound very corny to you, but it makes a hell of a difference to us, and I think it will make a hell of a difference to cricket.”
Why, he was asked, had none of this happened before? “Because human nature is what it is,” he replied, “and history is what it has been. It all goes back to the early 30s really and, well, ever since then there’s been a kind of cold war in cricket, which I’m glad to say is coming to an end.” Or not, as it turned out.
Cardus, writing in 1935, hoped that Bodyline had had one positive side-effect. “It has been responsible for the fact that nobody nowadays is likely to talk of cricket in terms of the old moral unction,” he wrote. “A year or two ago orators in thousands came out with the old cant about playing cricket – ‘it isn’t cricket’ – whatever their theme and whatever the occasion. Footballers, tennis players, and jockeys had reason to look upon cricket as a dreadfully priggish affair. Larwood and Jardine performed a sanitary service in a direction which probably did not enter into their intentions, which were strictly tactical; they cleared out of cricket a humbug which would have made WG Grace pull at his whiskers in some impatience and bewilderment.”
And yet here we are, still with the hate and the humbug. Considering the case of Warner it strikes me as tremendously depressing that something as joyful as sport should need to be fuelled by something so antithetical as hatred, but perhaps with his words Australia’s vice-captain is holding a mirror up at us all. As Woodcock wrote in 1991, when describing another ill-tempered Australian tour – in the West Indies, on that occasion: “To some extent cricket has always been a reflection of the age in which it is played. And nobody would suggest that the world in which we live gets any more elegant, or less violent.”
Three Days at The Lord’s Test, England v West Indies
Ged (Ian Harris) reports
Day One - Thursday 7 September 2017
One guest today, Escamillo Escapillo, our Lancastrian nephew-in-law. A veteran of The Lord's Throdkin, he appreciated the slight variation to the recipe from last time and agreed with me that the flavour and texture were somewhat improved. Some conjecture on this point might well follow on Ogblog, King Cricket or both. There was also some ingratitude in the matter of special cream cheese and its pairing with smoked salmon. But other than those controversial culinary matters, the day progressed as only a relaxing day of test cricket at Lord's could and should.
West Indies chose to bat and struggled through a difficult morning and early afternoon, only to collapse in a heap as the afternoon went on. Ben Stokes bowled beautifully and deserved the bulk of the wickets. England found it no easier once they were asked to bat that day.
By that time, Escamillo Esapillo had left early to go to a function with his wife, our niece, Lavender. Daisy had spent the day with Lavender and took pains to bring the young couple together in Marylebone, while also swiping Escamillo Escapillo's ticket and spending the last 90 minutes or so of play with me.
It got very dark and very cold towards the end of play - so much so that we escaped early, but only an over or two before bad light (even with floodlights) intervened.
Day Two - 8 September 2017
The weather forecast was distinctly iffy for Day 2. Brian sent me a "what's happening if...?" e-mail and I sent my response to both of the others as well as Brian. There was general consensus that we go to the ground, hope for some cricket before the rain and see what happens. Brian came round to my place just as I was finishing the picnic and getting ready to go; we travelled to the ground together. As we were nice and early, I showed Brian the real tennis which immediately grabbed his fascination.
I left Brian with the tennis (at his request) so I could meet the others and he could join us when play started, just a few minutes late. But soon after play started the rain came and we all decided to wander round to the dedans to watch real tennis; Brian wanted to see more, Graham had never seen it before and wanted to, the other Ian had seen it before but was happy to see it again.
Brian observed that we had four very similar, uber-English names; Ian, Ian, Brian and Graham. As everyone traditionally has a pseudonym in my cricket pieces, I think we can improve and simplify. As it happens the other Ian is already "Iain Spellright"; King Cricket has not yet published the outstanding piece about him from 2014, but it does exist. Brian should be known as "Ian Borne" and Graham should be "Iain Insteadman". That should make the rest of this piece really easy to follow.
It was clear from the TV screen in the dedans that the rain was getting harder and harder; I went to rescue our picnic around 12:30 in the sodden gloom and felt very little optimism for the prospects of play. At least we had the picnic, so we tucked into The Lord's Throdkin with Iain Spellright's utterly delicious bottle of Barollo. Janie was envious when I told her.
By around 13:30, Ian Borne, being the most sensible of us, concluded that the prospects of play were very poor. Also, having told me excitedly about the interesting projects he's working on at the moment, I suspect that the lure of those projects was greater than the lure of watching it rain at Lord's. However, soon after Ian Borne left, the announcer reported an expected start time of 14:15 and the weather forecast changed from "no hope after 15:00-16:00" to "no more rain expected until after stumps". So, we the remaining threesome resumed our seats and hunkered down with a super-sized picnic and several hours of cricket to watch.
Good cricket it was too, with England working hard in still difficult batting conditions to press ahead with a reasonable lead. We had some interesting number-crunching business, trying to decide what a decent and realistic first innings target might be. Iain Spellright was looking to double the West Indies score, but soon backtracked a little. Iain Insteadman and I thought 50 to 60 would be a decent, admittedly not insurmountable lead. 71 lead was the outcome.
Then England started bowling and very, very soon, Jimmy Anderson took that historic 500th test wicket.
West Indies then batted in the fading light, but not gloom, so the floodlights could keep the show on the road and I don't think I have ever seen Lord's looking quite so special at dusk before - aided by the double-rainbow to the south-east as some heavy clouds threatened but passed us by. Against all the odds, we got a more than decent day's play; very relaxed, relaxing and enjoyable. I think this was the latest test match finish I have experienced live; 19:30. After saying goodbye to Iain and Iain, I (Ian) walked home.
Day Three - 9 September 2017
I stayed at the flat overnight and got my few bits and pieces together quickly and easily enough - Daisy was doing the main picnic. I walked to Lord's and secured some good seats. I ran into one of my real tennis pals so we chatted for a while. Then Daisy arrived. Then Alan and his pal Jonathan came over in search of some throdkin cookies, which I had promised Alan the last time I saw him at Lord's.
England made reasonably light work of finishing off the West Indies; three more wickets before lunch, then the last four soon after. Jimmy Anderson was the pick of the bowlers.
We continued to tuck in to Daisy's enormous picnic while England tucked in to West indies demoralised bowling and won the match.
.
Daisy and Ged(Ian)
That's three days at Lord's for Daisy this year - all three being days when England won the match at took the ceremonial plaudits. Daisy must be a lucky mascot for England when she's in that new stand. She should visit more often.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
[email protected]
