G&C 182
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 182
February 2018
Caption Competition
1. Joe Root: Well I would put the girl with the big tits third and the blonde second.
2. Steve Smith: Now I’m confused. I thought you said that to put X against Out was for Brexit?
3. Joe Root: How about I swap Tom Curran for Mitchell Starc?
4. Joe Root: Alright, I’ll put your whole squad down for the next Presidents’ Club Dinner.
5. Joe Root: No, you’ll have to forget Paul Stirling - he’ll be at Davos.
6. Joe Root: Ok I’ll see you at the IPL, then.
Steve Smith: I don’t think so.
7. Joe Root: Who have you got lined up as our next England manager?
Steve Smith: How about Paul Hogan.
Out & About with the Professor
This is a photograph of myself kneeling down on a patch of grass. It is entirely probable that this is of limited interest to Googlies readers or indeed any other sentient being on the Planet. However, this isn't just any old patch of grass. It is a patch right in the middle of the Rupertswood Oval. Then again, the Rupertswood Oval isn't much to look at either. In fact it is just a piece of rough ground behind the car park to the side of the Rupertswood Mansion. The good news is that there are plans to restore the Oval to a proper cricket ground with a small square and a white picket fence all the way round. Which would be lovely.
What is this all about?
Well, the Ashes of course.
The Mansion and its grounds, just outside the small town of Sunbury, north west of Melbourne, have been the property, for several years, of the Sunbury Salesian College and I was told about the plans by the Senior Administrator, a Ms Emma Smith. But in 1882 it belonged to Sir William Clarke who invited the Hon Ivo Bligh and his merry men to stay for a few days. Given that it would keep them out of the pubs, the invitation was accepted - a ploy that the current management might consider. Sir William organised a game against some locals which, happily, "England" won. Bligh is almost always described as a "dasher". This evocative but elusive characteristic seems to have set the hearts of a few of the Melbourne ladies a flutter, one of whom was Florence Morphy music tutor and companion to Lady Clarke.
It is at this point, Ms Smith admits, that things become a little vague. Florence and perhaps Lady C and perhaps a couple of lads in the household, perhaps burnt some wood/perhaps a bail and put the ashes into what was perhaps a perfume bottle and awarded it to the Hon. Ivo...thereby turning the metaphore into reality. The trophy was then presented - perhaps near the same patch of grass. Bligh then had to dash off to England but dashed back to wed Florence and take her to Kent where they lived as Lord and Lady Darnley; his dashing days (presumably) done.
I suggested to Emma (we were on first name terms by now) that the reinstated cricket ground would be a major tourist attraction, especially should it be ready for the Ashes series in 2021. Ah, but that presents a problem. The Salesian College is a Catholic school and the good brothers who run the place are very concerned about issues of child protection. Given the appalling track-record of institutionalised child abuse from Catholic organisations in Australia they are right to do so. Somehow the thought of dozens of elderly male cricket fans and several bus loads of the Barmy Army arriving at the place might be thought, by some of those clerics, as incompatible with with that objective.
It seemed impolite to suggest that the danger to children came from within the clergy rather than from outside and that, having spent a week with the Barmy Army in Dubai, I could assure her that they offered no threat to anyone...except perhaps music lovers.
Moreover, visitors bring income. And what a venue for the Army's charity cricket match that they play at each Test venue! So, we wait and see.
...Billy Cooper's trumpet may yet be heard at Rupertswood.
The Professor also sent me this photo of his wife, in pink, explaining to Gladstone Small the art of field placing…
This and That
I haven’t seen any footage of the 4-0 drubbing nor the 4-1 victory. I read somewhere that the numbers who watched on BT were desperately low which cannot have done anybody any good. I still don’t think that the Aussie test team was any better than ours except in the fast bowling department. But we don’t care about quicks and will continue to use our specialists to roll over the oppo on our green tops and in overcast conditions. I think that the Aussies just played better which is worrying, or should be, for the ECB.
Morgan’s gang did the business most impressively and showed the test boys that it is possible to play down under. The runs were spread around as were the wickets.
I have seen more of New Zealand v Pakistan and South Africa v India. The third test in Johannesburg was a strange affair. I didn’t see the buildup or opening exchanges but the wicket must have been a major topic of controversy even before the match as neither side picked a spinner. The ball swung but more significantly seamed all over the place and neither side scored freely although the Indian tail hacked it about better than the Proteas’ did which ultimately was probably the difference between the two sides.
The umpires warrant comment. Alim Daar has grown one of those Moeen/ Amla style chin only beards which makes him both more and less distinctive. Gunner was at the other end and I am afraid is becoming one of those umpires who wants to get in the game. He started making a fuss about the wicket on the third day and after Elgar got hit on the helmet from a ball which pitched halfway down the wicket because he misjudged it, he called on the Match Referee and took the players off. This grossly disadvantaged the Indians who could have got a couple more wickets before the close of play. Fortunately, sanity prevailed, and they reappeared the following morning.
The only known incident of a match being abandoned because of the state of the wicket was in Jamaica in 1998 but that was on the first morning. Strangely I was in Jamaica at the time but not to see the cricket. It would have made no sense in the era of covered wickets for a wicket to be deemed unfit on the third day as Gunner seemed to want. But why did the Wanderers prepare such a pitch in the first place. Had it been provided at, say, Cardiff or the Riverside there would have been outrage and their status as a test ground questioned.
The South Africans and Indians have now moved onto their One Day series where they are the top two teams according to the ICC rankings. In the first match the South Africans batted first and struggled against the Indian seamers and then really struggled against their spinners. The principal pair were not Ashwin and Jadeja but Chamal the leggie and Kuldeep the chinaman bowler. This pair were followed by the off spinner, Jadhav, who bowls with a lower arm than Malinga and technically releases the ball from around the wicket when bowling from over the wicket. Batting at the pavilion end against Kuldeep, de Kock missed the wrong ‘un, was hit on the pad and he turned and walked off without waiting for the umpire’s decision. The ball tracking replay subsequently showed that the ball would have missed the stumps by some way which his partner, du Plessis, would probably have told him if he had bothered to ask.
Off field bad behavior is an attractive feature of the modern game, apparently, and Harry Brook, the captain of the England Under 19 side, has taken the lead of his seniors and been suspended for disciplinary reasons. The senior guys are all role models, willing or otherwise, and in this age of instant publicity to anything they do will have to change their whole approach to all activities when on tour.
Nobody knows how the ICC rankings are calculated but it enables interesting quiz questions, such as “Who are the top T20 side”. You might have thought Australia or the West Indies or even, England, India or New Zealand but in fact it is Pakistan despite their apparent inability to score runs. I guess it shows that it is all about the bowling.
Which leads us onto the IPL for which the auction has just taken place with some unexpected results. Chris Gayle was only picked up cheaply in the final knockings and Tymal Mills last year’s $1m man wasn’t picked up at all. The perennially injured Mark Wood was bought by the Chennai Superkings who presumably thought that he might be able to manage a four over stint, now and again.
The following will also be missing out on a major contribution to their pension fund:
Joe Root
Eion Morgan
David Willey
Alex Hales
Hashim Amla
Nick Compton
Jack Morgan
Stuart Broad
Anya Shrubsole
Mark Cosgrove
Robert Croft
Ben Duckett
Bob Peach
Jonathan Trott
Steve Thompson
Rocker Robinson
Eric Stephens
Meanwhile, Ben Stokes is having a custom version of his Rajasthan Royals strip made with arrows on it, just in case.
Morgan Matters
The Great Jack Morgan hasn’t missed a thing
S Finn has now had surgery on his knee and says he has been playing in pain for a year, which might explain some ordinary performances last season. Let's hope for better things in the 2018 season.
SCG: another diabolical day for England as Oz declared on 649-7 (S Marsh 156, M Marsh 101). In the circumstances, Anderson’s figures of 34-14-56-1 are quite remarkable; other figures are not quite so good: Broad 1-121, Moeen 2-170, Curran 1-82, Crane 1-193. England lost by an innings and 123, having made 180 in their second innings. What a dreadful tour.
The G gives us the player ratings for the Oz series in today's paper and Oz players average 7.23 per person and England average 4.82. Smith gets 10 out of 10 and S Marsh, Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon get 9. Bird got 1. For England, Anderson gets 8 and Dawid 7.5, while Moeen and Ball get 2, but there are some strange anomalies here eg Crane gets 4 for averaging 193 with the ball and 3 with the bat, while Stoneman and Vince, who did at least get a few runs, get the same mark! It's bollocks mate!
T Bayliss will leave his England role after the 2019 Ashes in Eng... what's wrong with leaving now mate?
The new president of the London Schools Cricket Association is MWW Selvey.
L Livingstone, M Wood and B Stokes have been included in the Test squad for the 2 Test series in NZ at the expense of Ballance, Ball and Curran. This seems a trifle unfair on those dropped as none of them had a decent run in the team (as the likes of Stoneman and Vince had) and Ballance did not get a solitary chance. Livingstone is definitely a good prospect, but Wood's fitness is always in doubt and what are the odds on Stokes being able to play?
J Harris has signed a new contract with Middlesex, but the length of it has not been disclosed.
Melbourne 1st ODI: Oz 304-8 (A Finch 107); England 308-5 (J Roy 180 off 151 with 15 fours and 5 sixes, this was the highest score in an ODI by an England player. The G published the top ten highest ODI scores for England, some of which were quite surprising (to me): 1 J Roy 180, 2 A Hales 171, 3 R Smith 167*, 4 J Roy 162, 5= D Gower 158, A Strauss 158, 7 A Strauss 154, 8 A Strauss 152, 9 B Athey 142*, 10 G Gooch 142.
ECB say that Stokes is now available for the NZ tour! While it was not known whether he would be charged he could not be selected, but now that he has been charged, he can be selected! Where’s the sense in that?
B Stokes's hearing is scheduled for 13 Feb at Bristol Magistrates Court. According to my diary, this is not only Shrove Tuesday, but is also the date of the 1st T20 v NZ in Wellington. Stokes says he is “rarin’ to go”, yes, but where?
Stokes cannot escape the 13/2 hearing but hopes to be off to NZ straight after. Meanwhile he is one of only 4 players to be named in both the ICC's Test and ODI teams of the year. The others are Warner, Kohli and de Kock.
P Downton is Kent's new Director of Cricket.
Sydney ODI: England now have a winning 3-0 lead in the ODI series. Oz made 4 changes for this one, recalling Paine, Cummins, Hazlewood and Zampa, but it made little difference, though the winning margin (16 runs) was a bit closer. England 302-6 (Buttler 100*, Woakes 53*, Morgan 41, Bairstow 39); Oz 286-5. One factor was that Plunkett (hamstring) bowled only 8 balls in the Oz innings before retiring hurt, leaving England to use 3 spinners whether they wanted to or not. Buttler's ton took him 83 balls, the slowest of his 5 ODI tons though he and Woakes plundered 76 off the final 6 overs.
T Bayliss has persuaded J Root to miss the upcoming T20 series v Oz and NZ.
T Helm has extended his contract with Middlesex, but (as with Harris) the length of the contract has not been disclosed.
As B Stokes is not going to be available as quickly as (some people) thought, S Curran has been added to the England ODI squad. Sam is certainly a promising allrounder, but he is not progressing quite as quickly as (some) people thought, so is this selection just because he happens to already be in NZ?
The small proportion of English snapped up at auctions (10 out of 24) for crap 20 over games is great for English cricket.
The G had an interesting table of the top Test bowlers of 2017: N Lyon tops the table for wickets taken (57, one ahead of Ashwin), but Anderson (15.82) is easily top in terms of average (next best is Rabada 20.96). The only other Englishman mentioned is Moeen who is 13th in the wickets taken table (32), but up to seventh in the average table (26.09).
On the same day, the G published another interesting table about the ten most capped Test cricketers of all time, nearly all of them are batsmen, of course, the main exception being M Boucher, who has easily the worst batting average at 30.30. J Kallis, of course, should be seen as an allrounder with 292 wickets, but he also has the highest batting average at 55.37. Others might attempt to claim allrounder status: S Waugh (92 wkts), S Tendulkar (46) and A Border (39), no one else is in double figures, though I was surprised to see that all 10 have at least one Test wicket... those on one were Dravid, Cook and Boucher. Tendulkar played the most Tests (200), scored the most runs (15,921) and the most hundreds (51), but the highest individual score was 374 by Jayawardene. The best bowling figures were Border's 7-46.
King Cricket - 1
Alex Bowden gives us some thoughts on pitches
What is a bad pitch? We can get some sort of an idea by working out what we deem to be a good pitch – but there’s more to it than that.
Most people will say a pitch is bad when wickets fall too easily. When a pitch gives too much assistance to bowlers and batting becomes a bit of a lottery, that’s a bad pitch.
But where’s your threshold? And is it the same for pitches that aid quick bowlers and those that aid spinners?
Now the obvious point to make at this juncture is that turning pitches will often (but not always) turn more as a game wears on, whereas a seaming pitch is probably more likely to flatten out – so they are different.
But set that aside, because the point we’re making is really just that we impose different standards and that these standards will vary from person to person. There is no universally agreed definition of a bad pitch that will be applied by everyone in exactly the same way.
As we implied earlier in the week, we believe much of the angry hoo-ha about turning pitches is down to people’s perceptions of normality. In England, seam bowling is commonplace and so becomes a major aspect of many county cricket fans’ internal templates for how things should be.
This is what explains the bizarre level of anger that is sometimes directed towards counties who prepare turning pitches. It is a bunch of people with a skewed template of normality struggling to accommodate reality. These people’s response is generally a heartfelt desire to impose their idiosyncratic standards on the world in the firm belief that everyone else’s take on things is wrong.
So this is another reason why the bad pitch debate can at times become surprisingly heated. It tends to pit insularity, parochialism and lack of self-awareness against a bunch of people who like to define themselves otherwise. It is an unusually fundamental disagreement for something seemingly so trivial.
Caley Matters-2
This is the second half of Steve Caley’s reminiscences
Hong Kong as a cricket resort was just starting off. There was a cricket 6’s in Bangkok and a rugby 7’s at the same time marketed as “The 6’s and 7’s”. From that Hong Kong started what has become a major tournament. “All” we had then was the Silk Cut Single Wicket and I was a fielder in this in 1986 (Imran Khan: c Caley b Gooch) at deep point. I got quite pally with Clive Rice through this and saw him a lot when I moved to SA, loved Madan Lal - Richard Hadlee was prickly and Imran aloof but calm. He won the tournament having been close to going out in 1st round, I actually caught him off Madan Lan in row 6 of the crowd.
I went to Melbourne the week after where Mike Gatting’s team were playing. My hands were so bruised from that fielding (they do hit it a bit harder than us) that I could hardly clap Gladstone Small and that famous opening partnership of Broad and Athey.
We were a popular destination even then for a few, mainly Ozzie, clubs and I played against John Inverarity but was sort of pleased to avoid playing against Gary Gilmour and Jeff Thompson.
I think I might have made the 1986 Mini World Cup squad but for that tournament there was a four year qualification period and I had only done three and a bit. As an opener at club level and 1st change bowler in the HK side I batted 6 or 7 and tried to get as many of the 5th bowler overs in before they spotted I was hittable. In the 1984 final in Dacca of the SE Asia Associated Nations Tournament we lost to Bangladesh. We were very close but agreed on the way home to HK that if a bunch of bankers, teachers, lawyers, policemen etc had beaten them it would not have done much for their wannabe test cricket ambitions. On that day they threw open the gates to the stadium (the one where Alan Knott was 96 no when the Bangladesh Independence War broke out – he had to wait a bit for his first ton) and we played in front of 25,000 or so. On the same day England played NZ somewhere in front of 8,000.............
The HKCC had long moved up the hill to Wong Nai Chong Gap Road but was a lovely facility with all of squash, tennis, a swimming pool, gym for the keen, cricket, bowls and top quality restaurants – we also had a good midweek footie team as it was not possible to play more than one weekend sport as all seasons were Oct – March due to climate etc. There were a few ex-pros around and we also played an old-age side from HKFC where qualification to play was being 35+ and also having played in the HK Premier League.
The HK side now seems to be very different, semi or fully professional, and different ethnically with coaches etc and a new ground that meets ICC regulations, the other grounds were small. As the military and UK Govt presence was, even then, being wound down a number of the grounds went from turf to astro which I hated. I could generally, with a UK background, survive on dodgy wickets which many others could not but who prospered on the astro which was very see ball, hit ball through the line.
King Cricket - 2
Bert reports on England v South Africa at Trent Bridge
Whenever Ged goes to the Test, he is literally sustained by a succession of culinary marvels. My test match sustenance, on the other hand, is more metaphorical than literal, being largely a succession of pointless and asinine conversations. But just as when Harry Morgan’s closes its doors for the evening, the source of our interlocutory morsels occasionally fails, and uncomfortable silence falls. It is at moments such as these when the Times Saturday Review section comes to the rescue.
Aside from being very badly named (it is published on a Saturday morning, for god’s sake), its usefulness as a trigger for drunken conversation is unsurpassed. Not the least of its delights is the puzzle section, and the edition I grabbed on my way out of the house could not have been more appropriate. The Two Brains quiz comprised the following questions:
1. Which England cricket captains share their surname with a British Prime Minister?
2. Which first name is the most common among a) British Prime Ministers and b) England Cricket Captains, and how many times does the most common of the latter occur in the list of the former? (This second question I interpreted as asking a numerical question, as opposed to the answer being “Gaz” or “Kev”.)
During an hiatus at the conversation, I asked the lads these questions. Several people in the locality overheard, and soon it became the main point of discussion in our part of the stand. Answers were flying in from all over the place. The first PM / Captain surname combo was knocked off quite quickly, but the others took some time. My suggestion of Derbyshire opening batsman Des Rayleigh was dismissed as made-up nonsense, which was true, but I didn’t think gave it sufficient credit. Therefore, I repeated it a few times till it was at least acknowledged.
The captains’ first name question also didn’t take too long, but the prime ministerial version took a lot longer.
To finish, we did the Word Finder puzzle, to find as many words as you can from the letters Y, D, E, D, S, U, N, T, U, R, four letters or more, all containing the first of these letters (Y), no proper nouns, no conjugated verbs, no comparatives, superlatives or plurals. A ten-letter word does exist, we are told. Getting 13 words is described as “average”. 18 is “good”, 26 is “very good”, and 34 is “excellent”. We also added a rule that any word we could associate with cricket, however loosely, would score two points.
Our combined total of words by stumps, taking into account the double-points amendment, was coincidentally the same as that of England test wins in this series at that moment.
It wasn’t all pointless rambling though. We also asked and answered the question, “Is First Slip the most redundant position on a test match field?” and debated whether or not the observation (made by one of us) that “he preferred the South African whites” was acceptable in this day and age.
Molloy Matters
Ken Molloy sent me these Ron Atkinson quotes
“I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat.”
“I just wanted to give my players some technical advice. I told them the game had started.”
“There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch.”
“Carlton Palmer can trap the ball further than I can kick it.”
In memoriam
Bob Peach told me in his Christmas Card that John Weale had died last year. Charles, as Terry Cordaroy called him, was a powerful opening bat and more than useful spin bowler. He also had a voice which was better than his fellows and consequently he led the singing in the old pavilion at Milverton Road.
Old Danes Gathering
There will be an Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cricket Club on Friday 27 July which is the Friday of their Cricket Week. This event is not a Boys only event and wives, girlfriends, hostesses and escorts will all be welcome. There will be an open bar throughout the afternoon and evening with proceedings commencing around 2pm and continuing until you’ve had enough.
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
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 182
February 2018
Caption Competition
1. Joe Root: Well I would put the girl with the big tits third and the blonde second.
2. Steve Smith: Now I’m confused. I thought you said that to put X against Out was for Brexit?
3. Joe Root: How about I swap Tom Curran for Mitchell Starc?
4. Joe Root: Alright, I’ll put your whole squad down for the next Presidents’ Club Dinner.
5. Joe Root: No, you’ll have to forget Paul Stirling - he’ll be at Davos.
6. Joe Root: Ok I’ll see you at the IPL, then.
Steve Smith: I don’t think so.
7. Joe Root: Who have you got lined up as our next England manager?
Steve Smith: How about Paul Hogan.
Out & About with the Professor
This is a photograph of myself kneeling down on a patch of grass. It is entirely probable that this is of limited interest to Googlies readers or indeed any other sentient being on the Planet. However, this isn't just any old patch of grass. It is a patch right in the middle of the Rupertswood Oval. Then again, the Rupertswood Oval isn't much to look at either. In fact it is just a piece of rough ground behind the car park to the side of the Rupertswood Mansion. The good news is that there are plans to restore the Oval to a proper cricket ground with a small square and a white picket fence all the way round. Which would be lovely.
What is this all about?
Well, the Ashes of course.
The Mansion and its grounds, just outside the small town of Sunbury, north west of Melbourne, have been the property, for several years, of the Sunbury Salesian College and I was told about the plans by the Senior Administrator, a Ms Emma Smith. But in 1882 it belonged to Sir William Clarke who invited the Hon Ivo Bligh and his merry men to stay for a few days. Given that it would keep them out of the pubs, the invitation was accepted - a ploy that the current management might consider. Sir William organised a game against some locals which, happily, "England" won. Bligh is almost always described as a "dasher". This evocative but elusive characteristic seems to have set the hearts of a few of the Melbourne ladies a flutter, one of whom was Florence Morphy music tutor and companion to Lady Clarke.
It is at this point, Ms Smith admits, that things become a little vague. Florence and perhaps Lady C and perhaps a couple of lads in the household, perhaps burnt some wood/perhaps a bail and put the ashes into what was perhaps a perfume bottle and awarded it to the Hon. Ivo...thereby turning the metaphore into reality. The trophy was then presented - perhaps near the same patch of grass. Bligh then had to dash off to England but dashed back to wed Florence and take her to Kent where they lived as Lord and Lady Darnley; his dashing days (presumably) done.
I suggested to Emma (we were on first name terms by now) that the reinstated cricket ground would be a major tourist attraction, especially should it be ready for the Ashes series in 2021. Ah, but that presents a problem. The Salesian College is a Catholic school and the good brothers who run the place are very concerned about issues of child protection. Given the appalling track-record of institutionalised child abuse from Catholic organisations in Australia they are right to do so. Somehow the thought of dozens of elderly male cricket fans and several bus loads of the Barmy Army arriving at the place might be thought, by some of those clerics, as incompatible with with that objective.
It seemed impolite to suggest that the danger to children came from within the clergy rather than from outside and that, having spent a week with the Barmy Army in Dubai, I could assure her that they offered no threat to anyone...except perhaps music lovers.
Moreover, visitors bring income. And what a venue for the Army's charity cricket match that they play at each Test venue! So, we wait and see.
...Billy Cooper's trumpet may yet be heard at Rupertswood.
The Professor also sent me this photo of his wife, in pink, explaining to Gladstone Small the art of field placing…
This and That
I haven’t seen any footage of the 4-0 drubbing nor the 4-1 victory. I read somewhere that the numbers who watched on BT were desperately low which cannot have done anybody any good. I still don’t think that the Aussie test team was any better than ours except in the fast bowling department. But we don’t care about quicks and will continue to use our specialists to roll over the oppo on our green tops and in overcast conditions. I think that the Aussies just played better which is worrying, or should be, for the ECB.
Morgan’s gang did the business most impressively and showed the test boys that it is possible to play down under. The runs were spread around as were the wickets.
I have seen more of New Zealand v Pakistan and South Africa v India. The third test in Johannesburg was a strange affair. I didn’t see the buildup or opening exchanges but the wicket must have been a major topic of controversy even before the match as neither side picked a spinner. The ball swung but more significantly seamed all over the place and neither side scored freely although the Indian tail hacked it about better than the Proteas’ did which ultimately was probably the difference between the two sides.
The umpires warrant comment. Alim Daar has grown one of those Moeen/ Amla style chin only beards which makes him both more and less distinctive. Gunner was at the other end and I am afraid is becoming one of those umpires who wants to get in the game. He started making a fuss about the wicket on the third day and after Elgar got hit on the helmet from a ball which pitched halfway down the wicket because he misjudged it, he called on the Match Referee and took the players off. This grossly disadvantaged the Indians who could have got a couple more wickets before the close of play. Fortunately, sanity prevailed, and they reappeared the following morning.
The only known incident of a match being abandoned because of the state of the wicket was in Jamaica in 1998 but that was on the first morning. Strangely I was in Jamaica at the time but not to see the cricket. It would have made no sense in the era of covered wickets for a wicket to be deemed unfit on the third day as Gunner seemed to want. But why did the Wanderers prepare such a pitch in the first place. Had it been provided at, say, Cardiff or the Riverside there would have been outrage and their status as a test ground questioned.
The South Africans and Indians have now moved onto their One Day series where they are the top two teams according to the ICC rankings. In the first match the South Africans batted first and struggled against the Indian seamers and then really struggled against their spinners. The principal pair were not Ashwin and Jadeja but Chamal the leggie and Kuldeep the chinaman bowler. This pair were followed by the off spinner, Jadhav, who bowls with a lower arm than Malinga and technically releases the ball from around the wicket when bowling from over the wicket. Batting at the pavilion end against Kuldeep, de Kock missed the wrong ‘un, was hit on the pad and he turned and walked off without waiting for the umpire’s decision. The ball tracking replay subsequently showed that the ball would have missed the stumps by some way which his partner, du Plessis, would probably have told him if he had bothered to ask.
Off field bad behavior is an attractive feature of the modern game, apparently, and Harry Brook, the captain of the England Under 19 side, has taken the lead of his seniors and been suspended for disciplinary reasons. The senior guys are all role models, willing or otherwise, and in this age of instant publicity to anything they do will have to change their whole approach to all activities when on tour.
Nobody knows how the ICC rankings are calculated but it enables interesting quiz questions, such as “Who are the top T20 side”. You might have thought Australia or the West Indies or even, England, India or New Zealand but in fact it is Pakistan despite their apparent inability to score runs. I guess it shows that it is all about the bowling.
Which leads us onto the IPL for which the auction has just taken place with some unexpected results. Chris Gayle was only picked up cheaply in the final knockings and Tymal Mills last year’s $1m man wasn’t picked up at all. The perennially injured Mark Wood was bought by the Chennai Superkings who presumably thought that he might be able to manage a four over stint, now and again.
The following will also be missing out on a major contribution to their pension fund:
Joe Root
Eion Morgan
David Willey
Alex Hales
Hashim Amla
Nick Compton
Jack Morgan
Stuart Broad
Anya Shrubsole
Mark Cosgrove
Robert Croft
Ben Duckett
Bob Peach
Jonathan Trott
Steve Thompson
Rocker Robinson
Eric Stephens
Meanwhile, Ben Stokes is having a custom version of his Rajasthan Royals strip made with arrows on it, just in case.
Morgan Matters
The Great Jack Morgan hasn’t missed a thing
S Finn has now had surgery on his knee and says he has been playing in pain for a year, which might explain some ordinary performances last season. Let's hope for better things in the 2018 season.
SCG: another diabolical day for England as Oz declared on 649-7 (S Marsh 156, M Marsh 101). In the circumstances, Anderson’s figures of 34-14-56-1 are quite remarkable; other figures are not quite so good: Broad 1-121, Moeen 2-170, Curran 1-82, Crane 1-193. England lost by an innings and 123, having made 180 in their second innings. What a dreadful tour.
The G gives us the player ratings for the Oz series in today's paper and Oz players average 7.23 per person and England average 4.82. Smith gets 10 out of 10 and S Marsh, Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood and Lyon get 9. Bird got 1. For England, Anderson gets 8 and Dawid 7.5, while Moeen and Ball get 2, but there are some strange anomalies here eg Crane gets 4 for averaging 193 with the ball and 3 with the bat, while Stoneman and Vince, who did at least get a few runs, get the same mark! It's bollocks mate!
T Bayliss will leave his England role after the 2019 Ashes in Eng... what's wrong with leaving now mate?
The new president of the London Schools Cricket Association is MWW Selvey.
L Livingstone, M Wood and B Stokes have been included in the Test squad for the 2 Test series in NZ at the expense of Ballance, Ball and Curran. This seems a trifle unfair on those dropped as none of them had a decent run in the team (as the likes of Stoneman and Vince had) and Ballance did not get a solitary chance. Livingstone is definitely a good prospect, but Wood's fitness is always in doubt and what are the odds on Stokes being able to play?
J Harris has signed a new contract with Middlesex, but the length of it has not been disclosed.
Melbourne 1st ODI: Oz 304-8 (A Finch 107); England 308-5 (J Roy 180 off 151 with 15 fours and 5 sixes, this was the highest score in an ODI by an England player. The G published the top ten highest ODI scores for England, some of which were quite surprising (to me): 1 J Roy 180, 2 A Hales 171, 3 R Smith 167*, 4 J Roy 162, 5= D Gower 158, A Strauss 158, 7 A Strauss 154, 8 A Strauss 152, 9 B Athey 142*, 10 G Gooch 142.
ECB say that Stokes is now available for the NZ tour! While it was not known whether he would be charged he could not be selected, but now that he has been charged, he can be selected! Where’s the sense in that?
B Stokes's hearing is scheduled for 13 Feb at Bristol Magistrates Court. According to my diary, this is not only Shrove Tuesday, but is also the date of the 1st T20 v NZ in Wellington. Stokes says he is “rarin’ to go”, yes, but where?
Stokes cannot escape the 13/2 hearing but hopes to be off to NZ straight after. Meanwhile he is one of only 4 players to be named in both the ICC's Test and ODI teams of the year. The others are Warner, Kohli and de Kock.
P Downton is Kent's new Director of Cricket.
Sydney ODI: England now have a winning 3-0 lead in the ODI series. Oz made 4 changes for this one, recalling Paine, Cummins, Hazlewood and Zampa, but it made little difference, though the winning margin (16 runs) was a bit closer. England 302-6 (Buttler 100*, Woakes 53*, Morgan 41, Bairstow 39); Oz 286-5. One factor was that Plunkett (hamstring) bowled only 8 balls in the Oz innings before retiring hurt, leaving England to use 3 spinners whether they wanted to or not. Buttler's ton took him 83 balls, the slowest of his 5 ODI tons though he and Woakes plundered 76 off the final 6 overs.
T Bayliss has persuaded J Root to miss the upcoming T20 series v Oz and NZ.
T Helm has extended his contract with Middlesex, but (as with Harris) the length of the contract has not been disclosed.
As B Stokes is not going to be available as quickly as (some people) thought, S Curran has been added to the England ODI squad. Sam is certainly a promising allrounder, but he is not progressing quite as quickly as (some) people thought, so is this selection just because he happens to already be in NZ?
The small proportion of English snapped up at auctions (10 out of 24) for crap 20 over games is great for English cricket.
The G had an interesting table of the top Test bowlers of 2017: N Lyon tops the table for wickets taken (57, one ahead of Ashwin), but Anderson (15.82) is easily top in terms of average (next best is Rabada 20.96). The only other Englishman mentioned is Moeen who is 13th in the wickets taken table (32), but up to seventh in the average table (26.09).
On the same day, the G published another interesting table about the ten most capped Test cricketers of all time, nearly all of them are batsmen, of course, the main exception being M Boucher, who has easily the worst batting average at 30.30. J Kallis, of course, should be seen as an allrounder with 292 wickets, but he also has the highest batting average at 55.37. Others might attempt to claim allrounder status: S Waugh (92 wkts), S Tendulkar (46) and A Border (39), no one else is in double figures, though I was surprised to see that all 10 have at least one Test wicket... those on one were Dravid, Cook and Boucher. Tendulkar played the most Tests (200), scored the most runs (15,921) and the most hundreds (51), but the highest individual score was 374 by Jayawardene. The best bowling figures were Border's 7-46.
King Cricket - 1
Alex Bowden gives us some thoughts on pitches
What is a bad pitch? We can get some sort of an idea by working out what we deem to be a good pitch – but there’s more to it than that.
Most people will say a pitch is bad when wickets fall too easily. When a pitch gives too much assistance to bowlers and batting becomes a bit of a lottery, that’s a bad pitch.
But where’s your threshold? And is it the same for pitches that aid quick bowlers and those that aid spinners?
Now the obvious point to make at this juncture is that turning pitches will often (but not always) turn more as a game wears on, whereas a seaming pitch is probably more likely to flatten out – so they are different.
But set that aside, because the point we’re making is really just that we impose different standards and that these standards will vary from person to person. There is no universally agreed definition of a bad pitch that will be applied by everyone in exactly the same way.
As we implied earlier in the week, we believe much of the angry hoo-ha about turning pitches is down to people’s perceptions of normality. In England, seam bowling is commonplace and so becomes a major aspect of many county cricket fans’ internal templates for how things should be.
This is what explains the bizarre level of anger that is sometimes directed towards counties who prepare turning pitches. It is a bunch of people with a skewed template of normality struggling to accommodate reality. These people’s response is generally a heartfelt desire to impose their idiosyncratic standards on the world in the firm belief that everyone else’s take on things is wrong.
So this is another reason why the bad pitch debate can at times become surprisingly heated. It tends to pit insularity, parochialism and lack of self-awareness against a bunch of people who like to define themselves otherwise. It is an unusually fundamental disagreement for something seemingly so trivial.
Caley Matters-2
This is the second half of Steve Caley’s reminiscences
Hong Kong as a cricket resort was just starting off. There was a cricket 6’s in Bangkok and a rugby 7’s at the same time marketed as “The 6’s and 7’s”. From that Hong Kong started what has become a major tournament. “All” we had then was the Silk Cut Single Wicket and I was a fielder in this in 1986 (Imran Khan: c Caley b Gooch) at deep point. I got quite pally with Clive Rice through this and saw him a lot when I moved to SA, loved Madan Lal - Richard Hadlee was prickly and Imran aloof but calm. He won the tournament having been close to going out in 1st round, I actually caught him off Madan Lan in row 6 of the crowd.
I went to Melbourne the week after where Mike Gatting’s team were playing. My hands were so bruised from that fielding (they do hit it a bit harder than us) that I could hardly clap Gladstone Small and that famous opening partnership of Broad and Athey.
We were a popular destination even then for a few, mainly Ozzie, clubs and I played against John Inverarity but was sort of pleased to avoid playing against Gary Gilmour and Jeff Thompson.
I think I might have made the 1986 Mini World Cup squad but for that tournament there was a four year qualification period and I had only done three and a bit. As an opener at club level and 1st change bowler in the HK side I batted 6 or 7 and tried to get as many of the 5th bowler overs in before they spotted I was hittable. In the 1984 final in Dacca of the SE Asia Associated Nations Tournament we lost to Bangladesh. We were very close but agreed on the way home to HK that if a bunch of bankers, teachers, lawyers, policemen etc had beaten them it would not have done much for their wannabe test cricket ambitions. On that day they threw open the gates to the stadium (the one where Alan Knott was 96 no when the Bangladesh Independence War broke out – he had to wait a bit for his first ton) and we played in front of 25,000 or so. On the same day England played NZ somewhere in front of 8,000.............
The HKCC had long moved up the hill to Wong Nai Chong Gap Road but was a lovely facility with all of squash, tennis, a swimming pool, gym for the keen, cricket, bowls and top quality restaurants – we also had a good midweek footie team as it was not possible to play more than one weekend sport as all seasons were Oct – March due to climate etc. There were a few ex-pros around and we also played an old-age side from HKFC where qualification to play was being 35+ and also having played in the HK Premier League.
The HK side now seems to be very different, semi or fully professional, and different ethnically with coaches etc and a new ground that meets ICC regulations, the other grounds were small. As the military and UK Govt presence was, even then, being wound down a number of the grounds went from turf to astro which I hated. I could generally, with a UK background, survive on dodgy wickets which many others could not but who prospered on the astro which was very see ball, hit ball through the line.
King Cricket - 2
Bert reports on England v South Africa at Trent Bridge
Whenever Ged goes to the Test, he is literally sustained by a succession of culinary marvels. My test match sustenance, on the other hand, is more metaphorical than literal, being largely a succession of pointless and asinine conversations. But just as when Harry Morgan’s closes its doors for the evening, the source of our interlocutory morsels occasionally fails, and uncomfortable silence falls. It is at moments such as these when the Times Saturday Review section comes to the rescue.
Aside from being very badly named (it is published on a Saturday morning, for god’s sake), its usefulness as a trigger for drunken conversation is unsurpassed. Not the least of its delights is the puzzle section, and the edition I grabbed on my way out of the house could not have been more appropriate. The Two Brains quiz comprised the following questions:
1. Which England cricket captains share their surname with a British Prime Minister?
2. Which first name is the most common among a) British Prime Ministers and b) England Cricket Captains, and how many times does the most common of the latter occur in the list of the former? (This second question I interpreted as asking a numerical question, as opposed to the answer being “Gaz” or “Kev”.)
During an hiatus at the conversation, I asked the lads these questions. Several people in the locality overheard, and soon it became the main point of discussion in our part of the stand. Answers were flying in from all over the place. The first PM / Captain surname combo was knocked off quite quickly, but the others took some time. My suggestion of Derbyshire opening batsman Des Rayleigh was dismissed as made-up nonsense, which was true, but I didn’t think gave it sufficient credit. Therefore, I repeated it a few times till it was at least acknowledged.
The captains’ first name question also didn’t take too long, but the prime ministerial version took a lot longer.
To finish, we did the Word Finder puzzle, to find as many words as you can from the letters Y, D, E, D, S, U, N, T, U, R, four letters or more, all containing the first of these letters (Y), no proper nouns, no conjugated verbs, no comparatives, superlatives or plurals. A ten-letter word does exist, we are told. Getting 13 words is described as “average”. 18 is “good”, 26 is “very good”, and 34 is “excellent”. We also added a rule that any word we could associate with cricket, however loosely, would score two points.
Our combined total of words by stumps, taking into account the double-points amendment, was coincidentally the same as that of England test wins in this series at that moment.
It wasn’t all pointless rambling though. We also asked and answered the question, “Is First Slip the most redundant position on a test match field?” and debated whether or not the observation (made by one of us) that “he preferred the South African whites” was acceptable in this day and age.
Molloy Matters
Ken Molloy sent me these Ron Atkinson quotes
“I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat.”
“I just wanted to give my players some technical advice. I told them the game had started.”
“There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch.”
“Carlton Palmer can trap the ball further than I can kick it.”
In memoriam
Bob Peach told me in his Christmas Card that John Weale had died last year. Charles, as Terry Cordaroy called him, was a powerful opening bat and more than useful spin bowler. He also had a voice which was better than his fellows and consequently he led the singing in the old pavilion at Milverton Road.
Old Danes Gathering
There will be an Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cricket Club on Friday 27 July which is the Friday of their Cricket Week. This event is not a Boys only event and wives, girlfriends, hostesses and escorts will all be welcome. There will be an open bar throughout the afternoon and evening with proceedings commencing around 2pm and continuing until you’ve had enough.
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
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James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
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