GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 215
November 2020
Winter Tour
Captain: When we leave the ICC at the end of the year how many fixtures will we have against other nations?
Best Friend: So far we have one game against Japan scheduled for 2024. But don’t worry we can always fix some matches against EEC members.
Captain: I thought that they had refused to play us on a home and away basis?
Best Friend: They will play if we don’t pick any farmers or fishermen in our side.
Captain: You mean treat them like the Northern Irish players?
Best Friend: Yes, rather than in the team bus they will be under it.
Captain: Well that is very reassuring. Perhaps you can help with some other dilemmas I seem to be facing. When will the new beer be available which will stop us getting out to straight balls?
Best Friend: That idiot Hancock keeps saying it will be ready this year, but we won’t have it ready in any serious quantities before the end of next year and then it will take another year to distribute it to all the clubs.
Captain: That’s very worrying so what can we do about Christmas nets?
Best Friend: Tell everyone to get together and bat and bowl to their hearts’ content.
Captain: But won’t that mean that the R rate will go up in January>
Best Friend: Of course it will and so you can deny ever having said it, state categorically that its not your fault and blame the northerners for behaving irresponsibly.
Captain: But won’t that be lying to the members?
Best friend: It’s a bit late to start worrying about that.
In and Within with the Professor
Jimmy Anderson is pretty good at golf. In fact he is rather better than pretty good. He plays off 6 and my guess is that most Googlies readers who also play the stupid game would agree that 6 is pretty good indeed. He is better, by his own account, than the “rest of the squad”. I imagine that Master Stokes might hit it a good deal further but I have discovered, after several years, that trying to hit a golf ball as hard as possible is not always the best approach to getting a low score.
A somewhat surprising revelation is that he plays golf right-handed. Given that he is more than pretty good at right-handed golf, Marcus Trescothick had, some years’ ago, the not unreasonable thought that Jimmy had been batting the wrong way round all these years. They found some right-handed gear and went off to the nets. It didn’t go well. Anderson’s conclusion was that it was only stationary balls that he could hit right-handed.
I have learned all this from reading Jimmy’s autobiography. It was given to me as a Christmas present and I had deferred the excitement of reading it until a morning of desperation last week. Whether Jimmy has read it is, of course, difficult to know, but it is the handicap of six that caught my attention. I know very little about golf, notwithstanding that I own a set of clubs, but I do know that maintaining a handicap of six requires a fair amount of time on the golf course. But he has a full-time job as a professional cricketer and we are forever being told how overworked they are.
Anderson’s book came out in December last year. How overworked was he? Well, Googlies readers will recall that he only bowled 4 overs in the first Ashes Test on August 1st and following that injury, played no more domestic cricket that season. So his 163 total of First-Class overs is of limited value for comparative purposes.
However, in 2018 he bowled 337 First Class overs at 21.11, and in 2017, 415 at 15.63 (3rd. in the averages in both cases for the domestic season). ODI, T20 and county limited overs games can up the work rate a fair amount but Anderson doesn’t do too much of that.
A perhaps not entirely fair comparison is with Lancashire and England’s premier bowler of 40 years’ ago, JB Statham. His equivalent stats were: for 1959, 977 overs at 15.01; for 1958, 893 overs at 12.29, and for 1957, 896 overs at 15.03. These figures, incidentally placed him first, third and third respectively for those seasons. (Anderson’s 163 overs in 2019 placed him first with an average of 9.4.).
Anderson’s workload may not be typical of course, many of his England colleagues play limited overs cricket domestically and in Australia, “India” and elsewhere, but he is often referred to in articles about burn-out, overload, rotation and what-not and the need to be taken care of at (then) 36. In 1959, “George” was a frisky 29 but at the same age in 1966 he still delivered 624 overs at 14.5 and was again 3rd in the averages.
It is important to factor in overseas tours which, in addition to the actual cricket must be tiring, especially when the authorities seem to arrange schedules that maximise travel and disruption. Three tours in 2018 (Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka) with varying degrees of success but with excellent Test match statistics for the year of: 43 wicket at 22.5 in 12 Tests (to go exactly with his 43 runs scored) and I think we must concede that bowling all day to Virat Kohli in England might be a touch on the enervating side. He was, of course, “rested” for the final match in Sri Lanka.
If all this reads as insufficiently sycophantic to a National Treasure that is not really the point. I think most England supporters would be happy if he bowled in Tests in England until he was fifty, it is just the workload that seems, well, light. Even with time out for injuries, 337 overs in a domestic season that runs from mid-April to mid-September works out at around 15 overs a week. 13 balls a day doesn’t sound too knackering.
Now I know that Statham’s were different days and a modern top-class cricketer like Anderson spends many hours in the gym and, or so we are told, at practice in the nets. (Also, I rather suspect he doesn’t smoke quite so many cigarettes as Statham did.) But, but...a handicap of 6? Must be some “down time” tucked in there somewhere… and I find it hard to believe that too much of it was spent writing books.
IPL Stuff
T20 is often described as a young man’s game. As this season’s IPL progresses, though, the youngsters seem to have been found out and it is the older hands who are making the most significant contributions. The Chennai Super Kings have often opened with du Plessis and Watson who are almost 80 between them. Early on they knocked off 180 odd to win by 10 wickets. Dhoni captains this side and he is also almost 40, although it has to be admitted that his powers are visibly declining.
In the early stages of the competition it seemed that 200 was almost a requisite minimum score particularly on the smallest playing area at Sharjah. However, with only the three stadiums in use the wickets are being used repeatedly. The experts then proclaim that they are playing slower and, heaven forbid, there is some movement off the wicket. This of course means that the modern batsman is completely perplexed since he can only perform his big hitting on non-deviating shirtfronts. The exception to this is when the batsman faces a bowler who tries to bowl yorkers. The margin for error in length here is minimal and as a result many deliveries end up being full tosses which he can despatch over the ropes where the ball makes its first contact with the ground.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore continue to make surprising choices regarding their batting order. The regular openers are Finch and Paddikal followed by Kholi and then ABdeV and sometimes someone else comes in before ABdeV. In Match 28 Finch was second out in the 13th over with the score on a pedestrian 94 for 2. ABdeV and Kholi then added 83 from the last five overs of which ABdeV contributed an amazing 63. He ended up 73 not out from 33 balls with 6 sixes.
In Match 31 AB de V was bizarrely relegated to number 6 and RCB made 171 for 6. However, it was Chris Gayle’s comeback match and after his customary slow start he started hitting sixes at will and by the final over his side needed just 2 for victory. He took 1 off the first ball but Rahul (the highest scoring batsman in the tournament) failed to score off the next three. Gayle was run out on the fifth leaving Pooran to face the last ball off the match. This was a welcome full toss which he despatched for six. Incidentally, earlier in the competition he reached 50 from just 17 balls.
The players in the IPL have outfits that would do Motor Racing drivers proud these days. The shirts and some of the trousers are covered with adverts. The Rajasthan Royals have “Sanitary Napkins” plastered across their backs.
In Match 35 Lockie Ferguson made his debut for the Kolkata Knight Riders, now captained by Eion Morgan. He produced critical figures of 3 for 15 and everyone wondered why he had been on the sidelines for so long. The match went into a Super Over which Ferguson bowled. In the IPL Super Over you only get three batsmen and since Ferguson took wickets with his first and third deliveries the Sunrisers Hyderabad were all out for 2 after 3 balls.
On the same day in Match 36 another tie resulted and indeed the Super Over was also tied and so a second Super Over took place. The batsmen and bowlers used in the first Super Over have to be retired for the second innings but this worked in the King’s XI Punjab’s favour as they brought up Chris Gayle who dealt with matters in his inimitable way.
Jofra Archer continues to hit sixes at will and has at last realised that he is paid all this money to bend his back and bowl fast. In Match 37 he got up above 150 kph, which is over 90mph and toyed with the Chennai Super Kings. However, once they were on the rack at 100 for 5 in the 18th over he produced a series of comical errors. He was stationed in one of the critical fielding positions at Long Off when he let a straightforward stop though his legs for 4. He then dropped a “down his throat” catch before a couple of balls later he fumbled thus enabling Dhoni to go back for a second run. However, clearly exasperated with himself Archer grabbed the ball and returned a torpedo throw to the keeper’s end which ran Dhoni out by inches.
In the same match, which had been dominated by bowlers, Josh Buttler scored a peerless 70 not out batting at four, his first significant contribution of the tournament. He has also been relieved of wicket keeping duties.
The leg spinners have come into their own as the wickets have got slower but this year it is the quicks who catch the eye and have dominated the wicket taking. The leader is Rabada who is admired even more than Archer. Rabada is accompanied in the Delhi Capitals attack by fellow South African Anrich Nortje who has also been mighty impressive. Bumrah is one of the fastest bowlers, regularly over 90 mph, and he manages this from a fifteen-yard walk followed by three run-strides.
Shikhar Dhawan has got better and better as the Tournament progresses and crowned his performance with back to back hundreds, the first player to achieve this in the thirteen-year history of the Tournament. In the first of these Chennai had made 179 for 4 and Delhi Capitals still needed 17 from the final over. Axar Patel and Dhawan are both left handers but Dhoni, incredibly gave the final over to Jadeja, who would be bowling into their legside slot. Dhawan took a single off the first ball and Patel then hit the next four for 6,6, 2, 6, giving the Delhi Capitals victory with a ball to spare.
In Match 41 Chennai Superkings managed only 114 which the Mumbai Indians knocked off in 12 overs with the superbly named Ishan Kishan leading the way. In Match 42 the KKK were believing the pitch talk and dawdled to 42 for 3 in the eighth over. The bowlers after a couple of years had worked Sunil Narine out and so he no longer opens. In this match he strangely came in at number five ahead of Morgan but soon was clobbering it to all parts and KKK ended up with 194. The Delhi Capitals were stunned and lost by 60 runs with Varun Chakravarthy taking 5 for 20 in his four overs.
This match featured Pashchim Pathak as the most visible umpire since David Shepherd. There is actually nothing odd about him other than his hair which is chest length and curly. This makes him look almost as ridiculous as Shimron Hetmyer who has adopted a “cheese on toast“ style for the tournament.
After all the big hitting runs were now getting hard to come by and in Match 43 the King’s XI crawled to 126 in their 20 overs and failed to score a boundary between the eighth and nineteenth over. The Sunrisers reached 56 for 0 and then 110 for 4 before losing their final six wickets in two overs for just 4 runs. This was a staggering case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Match 44 featured the unlikely spectacle of Kholi and ABdeV falling for the slow pitch hype as they ground out 145. In reply the talented young Gaikwad showed them the way to do it as Chennai, for once, took an easy victory.
In Match 45 Hardik Pandya played an amazing innings at the end for the Mumbai Indians scoring 60 not out from 21 balls including 7 sixes, after taking 9 balls over his first 8 runs. He therefore scored 52 from 12 deliveries. He takes guard deep in his crease outside the off stump and hits anything straight over mid-wicket. The rest goes over extra cover. Their total of 195 was thought to be more than enough for the Rajasthan Royals but Stokes and Samson made light of it with nearly two overs to spare. Stokes reached his hundred with a six over cow corner having earlier in his innings hit, belatedly, his first of the competition. So much for problem pitches for batting.
All of the fielders now throw at the stumps for run outs from anywhere in the field. Consequently, many run outs are missed because the bowlers sensibly don’t go anywhere near the stumps for fear of collecting broken fingers and worse. The wicket keepers do sometimes make some attempt to get to the stumps, but they have extraordinary difficulties collecting the low flat and often wide returns.
In the IPL a side may only contain four overseas players and this leads to some interesting selection dilemnas. Match 47 was a must win one for the Sunrisers and they elected to pick Holder, Warner, Rashid and Williamson and leave Bairstow out. This brought in Wriddhiman Saha to open with Warner. They laid into Nortje, Rabada, Ashwin and co and they reached 219 for 2 with Saha making 87 from 45 balls. It is hard to see Bairstow matching this, even at his best. The Delhi innings never got going and Rashid mesmerised them in the middle overs taking 3 for 8 from his four overs. He must also have enjoyed having a proper wicket keeper in place.
The leg spinners cause plenty of problems for most of the batsmen since few can read their googly or topspinner and so all sides have at least one. But another slow bowling option has become something no batsmen is confident against. Varun Chakravarthy bowls spinners or not and no one can work him out. Sunil Narine has had to change his action since being banned for throwing. He now approaches the crease with his bowling arm rigidly at his side. The ball is gripped between just a couple of fingers and at the last minute he whips his arm over and the ball is delivered with amazing accuracy. He can also make the ball deviate either way with this technique which keeps him in the category of mystery spinner and someone to be very wary of. It may be why the spinners have got less wickets than the quicks this year- the batsmen are just happy to see them off.
There are also two additional excellent reasons for holding the IPL in the UAE – there are no rain interruptions and they never go off for bad light. Perhaps England should start to play their home test matches there.
Morgan Matters
Essex have apologised for their alcoholic celebrations at Lord's, but they have not apologised for playing for a draw, when they should have been trying to win.
The Women's T20 series reached a highly appropriate conclusion at Derby as rain reduced the match to a 5 over bash and WI made 41-3 and England replied with 42-7 to win by 3 wkts and the series 5-0!
Jeetan Patel looks likely to be rehired as the England spin coach after the visa problem that denied England his services last "season".
Rs nicked a point at Hillsborough with an equaliser in stoppage time. FA Cup 2nd qualifying round: Corinthian 0 Hampton 1.
T20: play has started at Edgbaston, it looks like 11 overs a side.
C Woakes is the PCA's Player of the Year and Z Crawley is the Young PotY.
ECB chief exec T Harrison says English cricket has been "saved from oblivion" by playing behind closed doors.
Graham Wagg is leaving Glamorgan after 10 seasons.
In the October Cricketer:
i) there is a minute picture of JSM in the "crowd" at Lord's in 2011 (page 27); ii) Vic says that J Hildreth "has been unlucky to be overlooked by England", I agree;
iii) Richard Gibson does not think much of Middlesex's appointment of Andrew Cornish (sacked by Somerset last year) as an "advisor to the board"; iv) JM Brearley's new book "Spirit of Cricket" gets only 3 and a half stars from M Jakeman, while Mark Peel's new book "Cricketing Caesar" (a biography of JMB) gets only 3 stars from R Whitehead; and
v) editor S Hughes interviews Frances Edmonds, who sees little of hubby Phil these days and said "we are not divorced" but "we do not spend a lot of time together".
Ex-NZ captain and oldest surviving Test cricketer John Reid is dead aged 92. He played 58 Tests between 1949 and 1965 inc 34 as captain. He scored 3,428 Test runs (av 33.28) and took 85 wkts (33.35). Against England at Christchurch in 1963 he made 100 out of a total of 159, which remains the lowest completed Test innings to include a century.
Some clarity is finally emerging regarding the Championship and England's tour plans. Next year's Championship will be played in a conference system comprising 3 groups (Middx are in group 2 with Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire) and there will be a separate Bob Willis Trophy competition at the end of the season. Championship: the top 2 sides from each conference will progress to Division One and the top team will be the official county champions. The other teams will play out their final four matches in Divisions Two and Three, while the season will end with a 5-day final between the champions and the runners-up. England's white ball team appear set to travel to South Africa on November 17 for 3 ODIs and 3 20 over games. Also proposed is a 3 match T20 series in Pakistan in January which would be England's first visit to Pak since 2005. This has not been confirmed, but Wasim Khan (chief exec of the Pakistan Cricket Board) is "quietly confident".
Rs' 0-0 draw at Bournemouth did not sound very thrilling, but it was a useful point as Bournemouth are third in the table.
Colin Graves has failed to gain enough support to become the next chairman of the ICC. The post will be contested by Imran Khwaja (Singapore) and Greg Barclay (NZ): never heard of either of them.
England's white ball tour of SA in Nov has been given the go-ahead. It is confirmed that they will play 3 T20s and 3 ODIs from 27.11.20, all behind closed doors and they depart on 16.11. 1st T20: 27/11 @ Cape Town, 2nd T20 29/11 @ Paarl, 3rd T20 1/12 @ Cape Town; 1st ODI 4/12 @ Cape Town, 2nd ODI 6/12 @ Paarl, 3rd ODI 9/12 @ Cape Town.
England are likely to have a 3 match T20 tour to Pak in the new year, but they are also likely to be touring SL (for 2 Tests only, I think) around the same time and a 5 Test series against India is due to follow soon afterwards. Andy Bull thinks this is all a bit too much. Meanwhile, Eng players' win bonuses are set to be "slashed in half" by the ECB and the players are said recognise the need for pay cuts.
The England v Barbarians game is off. Wasting a million pounds by cancelling just seems ridiculous to me. Why not just give them 100 lines and a prefect's detention?
Jonathan Liew has a long article in today's G, saying that the "ECB should break the global silence on Pakistan's sad and strange IPL exile". I am not counting this as "coverage" of the IPL!
Mark Wood may eventually become a white ball specialist. He has not been awarded a Test contract at present, though C Silverwood has earmarked him for the Test series in SL and India in the new year. However, it is thought that he is considering "the global T20 circuit, where the workload to money ratio is more favourable" and it might be easier to avert injury.
This & That
I have no knowledge of what goes on at Loftus Road (or whatever they renamed it) these days but judging from the results so far I see them as prime candidates for relegation this season. Since there appears to be an increasing tendency to regionalise professional sport they could well be back in Division 2 South which is where, of course, they came from.
Playing out from the back has become fun to watch as you can be certain that sooner or later someone will make a horrendous bad pass or be caught in possession and give away a goal. I understand the theory and it is telling that whenever old-fashioned style clearances are made the ball is invariably collected by the opposition. So, possession is everything or is it? Goals tend to come from turnovers in possession and rapid breakaways which give the attackers at least numerical equality against defenders. So perhaps it is better not to always have possession?
One problem of watching on TV is that you only get to see what the camera shows you. Slow build ups mean the opposition has time to get its ranks of defenders lined up. When the camera zooms out it is chastening to see two lines of four defenders to say nothing of the front two men getting back as well. This was in evidence as Arsenal kept pretty possession against Leicester but rarely got closer than five or six defenders to beat. Arteta’s old boss has the same problem at Man City. It was OK with the genius of David Silva and de Bruyne to bypass defenders particularly with Gundogan and Bernardo Silva buzzing around them. Without them and, of course, Aguero they look a shadow of their former selves. What can be done? It may be that these sides will need to introduce some good old-fashioned dribblers to get past some of these defenders, who are often converted out players and not so good on marking and tackling.
I am no fan of motor racing but if you recognise it as a sport there is no doubt that Lewis Hamilton is the greatest English sportsman ever. His achievements of being the World’s number one driver of all time takes him way ahead of the 1966 World Cup team, Ian Botham, Alastair Cook, Andy Murray miscellaneous golfers, swimmers, runners, cyclists etc. But why is he not recognised?
King Cricket Matters
King Cricket has been playing simulated test matches but they have to first select the sides – this one will upset England fans
We’re going to play a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI. Let’s pick the latter.
Good times.
Rohit Sharma is what is known as a ‘bolter’ here. It’s weird and almost contradictory to have a bolter in a World XI, but it’s a symptom of the fact that the best openers in recent times are all a bit meh.Tom Latham should really be the man in this position, but is there not something more exciting about Rohit, a man who has hit three hundreds in his six innings as opener (one a double) and who averages 46 in Test cricket but who everyone still thinks is probably a bit rubbish?In the absence of a real ‘wow’ option (step away, Dean Elgar), this seems to us the more enticing option.
He is good at batting.
Also good at batting.
.
We’re not quite sure how Steve Smith ended up being the one pushed down to five. It’s probably just that he wouldn’t kick up as much of a fuss about it as Virat would.
Say what you like, but the guy’s averaging 60-odd. And think of all the bits-and-pieces bowling from this middle order as well. Magical! Why would you want an all-rounder with all these ‘options’? Plus who would you pick? Seriously, who? Exactly.
With a Test average of over 40 when playing as wicketkeeper, Quinton de Kock is better than some of you think.Crucially, he is less agreeable than his only real rival, BJ Watling, and for some inexplicable reason we feel that’s pertinent.
Everyone forgets Jason Holder, but Jason Holder is bloody amazing.
This team is not going to be an easy one to bowl out.
Dynamism. You need a bit of dynamism. Dynamism and variety. Few current bowlers are quicker or more left-handed than Mitchell Starc and we actually think there is a very strong case for his inclusion instead of slower, more right-handed bowlers. He’s a pretty handy number nine too.
We don’t feel like we need to explain this one because of all the explaining we’re having to do about the two players either side of him. A pretty handy number 10.
You’re probably thinking R Ashwin and at first we were thinking R Ashwin too because we happen to think he’s brilliant at cricket. But Ashwin gets to avoid playing overseas quite a lot because apparently India don’t agree with us on this. Nathan Lyon, in contrast, pretty much always plays for Australia and pretty much always takes a few wickets. Sometimes he also runs people out.In short, it is very on-brand for Ashwin to leave everyone a little bit confused as to why he hasn’t been picked again.
Strange Elevens
I had a response to last month’s bunch from JSM of Hampton who suggested that they “had all had brief England careers”. I agree with this but had looked for something a little more esoteric: they had all been held out to be England’s great white hope in their respective roles but had not lasted long.
Here is another bunch for you to identify the colour of their jazz hat.
Hall of Shame
This section is reserved for those highly paid athletes who have yet to master the basics of their chosen profession
In Match 36 of this year’s IPL the Mumbai Indians had scored 176 for 6 and in reply The King’s XI Punjab had reached 175 for 5 with one ball remaining. Chris Jordan drove the ball to long on and set off for 2 runs. When he turned at the bowler’s end he inexplicably embarked on a tour of the square and was run out by inches at the keeper’s end by Pollard’s throw. He must have run a couple of yards extra due to his detour.
In the same match, in the Super Over the King’s XI managed only 5 and Mumbai needed 2 from their sixth and last ball. Quentin de Kock hit the ball towards extra cover and sauntered down the wicket. By the time he realised that there had been a mis field he had too much to do to get in for the second run and sent his side into a second Super Over. This was a particularly expensive basic error for his side as the King’s XI won this comfortably.
Maitland-Niles is set to be a regular in this column. Coming on for the final minutes for Arsenal at Old Trafford when Arsenal were desperately trying to keep possession he repeatedly gave the ball away often when trying unnecessarily complex manoeuvres. Hector Belarin during this period of play also conceded valuable possession by committing a foul throw-in.
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.
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 215
November 2020
Winter Tour
Captain: When we leave the ICC at the end of the year how many fixtures will we have against other nations?
Best Friend: So far we have one game against Japan scheduled for 2024. But don’t worry we can always fix some matches against EEC members.
Captain: I thought that they had refused to play us on a home and away basis?
Best Friend: They will play if we don’t pick any farmers or fishermen in our side.
Captain: You mean treat them like the Northern Irish players?
Best Friend: Yes, rather than in the team bus they will be under it.
Captain: Well that is very reassuring. Perhaps you can help with some other dilemmas I seem to be facing. When will the new beer be available which will stop us getting out to straight balls?
Best Friend: That idiot Hancock keeps saying it will be ready this year, but we won’t have it ready in any serious quantities before the end of next year and then it will take another year to distribute it to all the clubs.
Captain: That’s very worrying so what can we do about Christmas nets?
Best Friend: Tell everyone to get together and bat and bowl to their hearts’ content.
Captain: But won’t that mean that the R rate will go up in January>
Best Friend: Of course it will and so you can deny ever having said it, state categorically that its not your fault and blame the northerners for behaving irresponsibly.
Captain: But won’t that be lying to the members?
Best friend: It’s a bit late to start worrying about that.
In and Within with the Professor
Jimmy Anderson is pretty good at golf. In fact he is rather better than pretty good. He plays off 6 and my guess is that most Googlies readers who also play the stupid game would agree that 6 is pretty good indeed. He is better, by his own account, than the “rest of the squad”. I imagine that Master Stokes might hit it a good deal further but I have discovered, after several years, that trying to hit a golf ball as hard as possible is not always the best approach to getting a low score.
A somewhat surprising revelation is that he plays golf right-handed. Given that he is more than pretty good at right-handed golf, Marcus Trescothick had, some years’ ago, the not unreasonable thought that Jimmy had been batting the wrong way round all these years. They found some right-handed gear and went off to the nets. It didn’t go well. Anderson’s conclusion was that it was only stationary balls that he could hit right-handed.
I have learned all this from reading Jimmy’s autobiography. It was given to me as a Christmas present and I had deferred the excitement of reading it until a morning of desperation last week. Whether Jimmy has read it is, of course, difficult to know, but it is the handicap of six that caught my attention. I know very little about golf, notwithstanding that I own a set of clubs, but I do know that maintaining a handicap of six requires a fair amount of time on the golf course. But he has a full-time job as a professional cricketer and we are forever being told how overworked they are.
Anderson’s book came out in December last year. How overworked was he? Well, Googlies readers will recall that he only bowled 4 overs in the first Ashes Test on August 1st and following that injury, played no more domestic cricket that season. So his 163 total of First-Class overs is of limited value for comparative purposes.
However, in 2018 he bowled 337 First Class overs at 21.11, and in 2017, 415 at 15.63 (3rd. in the averages in both cases for the domestic season). ODI, T20 and county limited overs games can up the work rate a fair amount but Anderson doesn’t do too much of that.
A perhaps not entirely fair comparison is with Lancashire and England’s premier bowler of 40 years’ ago, JB Statham. His equivalent stats were: for 1959, 977 overs at 15.01; for 1958, 893 overs at 12.29, and for 1957, 896 overs at 15.03. These figures, incidentally placed him first, third and third respectively for those seasons. (Anderson’s 163 overs in 2019 placed him first with an average of 9.4.).
Anderson’s workload may not be typical of course, many of his England colleagues play limited overs cricket domestically and in Australia, “India” and elsewhere, but he is often referred to in articles about burn-out, overload, rotation and what-not and the need to be taken care of at (then) 36. In 1959, “George” was a frisky 29 but at the same age in 1966 he still delivered 624 overs at 14.5 and was again 3rd in the averages.
It is important to factor in overseas tours which, in addition to the actual cricket must be tiring, especially when the authorities seem to arrange schedules that maximise travel and disruption. Three tours in 2018 (Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka) with varying degrees of success but with excellent Test match statistics for the year of: 43 wicket at 22.5 in 12 Tests (to go exactly with his 43 runs scored) and I think we must concede that bowling all day to Virat Kohli in England might be a touch on the enervating side. He was, of course, “rested” for the final match in Sri Lanka.
If all this reads as insufficiently sycophantic to a National Treasure that is not really the point. I think most England supporters would be happy if he bowled in Tests in England until he was fifty, it is just the workload that seems, well, light. Even with time out for injuries, 337 overs in a domestic season that runs from mid-April to mid-September works out at around 15 overs a week. 13 balls a day doesn’t sound too knackering.
Now I know that Statham’s were different days and a modern top-class cricketer like Anderson spends many hours in the gym and, or so we are told, at practice in the nets. (Also, I rather suspect he doesn’t smoke quite so many cigarettes as Statham did.) But, but...a handicap of 6? Must be some “down time” tucked in there somewhere… and I find it hard to believe that too much of it was spent writing books.
IPL Stuff
T20 is often described as a young man’s game. As this season’s IPL progresses, though, the youngsters seem to have been found out and it is the older hands who are making the most significant contributions. The Chennai Super Kings have often opened with du Plessis and Watson who are almost 80 between them. Early on they knocked off 180 odd to win by 10 wickets. Dhoni captains this side and he is also almost 40, although it has to be admitted that his powers are visibly declining.
In the early stages of the competition it seemed that 200 was almost a requisite minimum score particularly on the smallest playing area at Sharjah. However, with only the three stadiums in use the wickets are being used repeatedly. The experts then proclaim that they are playing slower and, heaven forbid, there is some movement off the wicket. This of course means that the modern batsman is completely perplexed since he can only perform his big hitting on non-deviating shirtfronts. The exception to this is when the batsman faces a bowler who tries to bowl yorkers. The margin for error in length here is minimal and as a result many deliveries end up being full tosses which he can despatch over the ropes where the ball makes its first contact with the ground.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore continue to make surprising choices regarding their batting order. The regular openers are Finch and Paddikal followed by Kholi and then ABdeV and sometimes someone else comes in before ABdeV. In Match 28 Finch was second out in the 13th over with the score on a pedestrian 94 for 2. ABdeV and Kholi then added 83 from the last five overs of which ABdeV contributed an amazing 63. He ended up 73 not out from 33 balls with 6 sixes.
In Match 31 AB de V was bizarrely relegated to number 6 and RCB made 171 for 6. However, it was Chris Gayle’s comeback match and after his customary slow start he started hitting sixes at will and by the final over his side needed just 2 for victory. He took 1 off the first ball but Rahul (the highest scoring batsman in the tournament) failed to score off the next three. Gayle was run out on the fifth leaving Pooran to face the last ball off the match. This was a welcome full toss which he despatched for six. Incidentally, earlier in the competition he reached 50 from just 17 balls.
The players in the IPL have outfits that would do Motor Racing drivers proud these days. The shirts and some of the trousers are covered with adverts. The Rajasthan Royals have “Sanitary Napkins” plastered across their backs.
In Match 35 Lockie Ferguson made his debut for the Kolkata Knight Riders, now captained by Eion Morgan. He produced critical figures of 3 for 15 and everyone wondered why he had been on the sidelines for so long. The match went into a Super Over which Ferguson bowled. In the IPL Super Over you only get three batsmen and since Ferguson took wickets with his first and third deliveries the Sunrisers Hyderabad were all out for 2 after 3 balls.
On the same day in Match 36 another tie resulted and indeed the Super Over was also tied and so a second Super Over took place. The batsmen and bowlers used in the first Super Over have to be retired for the second innings but this worked in the King’s XI Punjab’s favour as they brought up Chris Gayle who dealt with matters in his inimitable way.
Jofra Archer continues to hit sixes at will and has at last realised that he is paid all this money to bend his back and bowl fast. In Match 37 he got up above 150 kph, which is over 90mph and toyed with the Chennai Super Kings. However, once they were on the rack at 100 for 5 in the 18th over he produced a series of comical errors. He was stationed in one of the critical fielding positions at Long Off when he let a straightforward stop though his legs for 4. He then dropped a “down his throat” catch before a couple of balls later he fumbled thus enabling Dhoni to go back for a second run. However, clearly exasperated with himself Archer grabbed the ball and returned a torpedo throw to the keeper’s end which ran Dhoni out by inches.
In the same match, which had been dominated by bowlers, Josh Buttler scored a peerless 70 not out batting at four, his first significant contribution of the tournament. He has also been relieved of wicket keeping duties.
The leg spinners have come into their own as the wickets have got slower but this year it is the quicks who catch the eye and have dominated the wicket taking. The leader is Rabada who is admired even more than Archer. Rabada is accompanied in the Delhi Capitals attack by fellow South African Anrich Nortje who has also been mighty impressive. Bumrah is one of the fastest bowlers, regularly over 90 mph, and he manages this from a fifteen-yard walk followed by three run-strides.
Shikhar Dhawan has got better and better as the Tournament progresses and crowned his performance with back to back hundreds, the first player to achieve this in the thirteen-year history of the Tournament. In the first of these Chennai had made 179 for 4 and Delhi Capitals still needed 17 from the final over. Axar Patel and Dhawan are both left handers but Dhoni, incredibly gave the final over to Jadeja, who would be bowling into their legside slot. Dhawan took a single off the first ball and Patel then hit the next four for 6,6, 2, 6, giving the Delhi Capitals victory with a ball to spare.
In Match 41 Chennai Superkings managed only 114 which the Mumbai Indians knocked off in 12 overs with the superbly named Ishan Kishan leading the way. In Match 42 the KKK were believing the pitch talk and dawdled to 42 for 3 in the eighth over. The bowlers after a couple of years had worked Sunil Narine out and so he no longer opens. In this match he strangely came in at number five ahead of Morgan but soon was clobbering it to all parts and KKK ended up with 194. The Delhi Capitals were stunned and lost by 60 runs with Varun Chakravarthy taking 5 for 20 in his four overs.
This match featured Pashchim Pathak as the most visible umpire since David Shepherd. There is actually nothing odd about him other than his hair which is chest length and curly. This makes him look almost as ridiculous as Shimron Hetmyer who has adopted a “cheese on toast“ style for the tournament.
After all the big hitting runs were now getting hard to come by and in Match 43 the King’s XI crawled to 126 in their 20 overs and failed to score a boundary between the eighth and nineteenth over. The Sunrisers reached 56 for 0 and then 110 for 4 before losing their final six wickets in two overs for just 4 runs. This was a staggering case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Match 44 featured the unlikely spectacle of Kholi and ABdeV falling for the slow pitch hype as they ground out 145. In reply the talented young Gaikwad showed them the way to do it as Chennai, for once, took an easy victory.
In Match 45 Hardik Pandya played an amazing innings at the end for the Mumbai Indians scoring 60 not out from 21 balls including 7 sixes, after taking 9 balls over his first 8 runs. He therefore scored 52 from 12 deliveries. He takes guard deep in his crease outside the off stump and hits anything straight over mid-wicket. The rest goes over extra cover. Their total of 195 was thought to be more than enough for the Rajasthan Royals but Stokes and Samson made light of it with nearly two overs to spare. Stokes reached his hundred with a six over cow corner having earlier in his innings hit, belatedly, his first of the competition. So much for problem pitches for batting.
All of the fielders now throw at the stumps for run outs from anywhere in the field. Consequently, many run outs are missed because the bowlers sensibly don’t go anywhere near the stumps for fear of collecting broken fingers and worse. The wicket keepers do sometimes make some attempt to get to the stumps, but they have extraordinary difficulties collecting the low flat and often wide returns.
In the IPL a side may only contain four overseas players and this leads to some interesting selection dilemnas. Match 47 was a must win one for the Sunrisers and they elected to pick Holder, Warner, Rashid and Williamson and leave Bairstow out. This brought in Wriddhiman Saha to open with Warner. They laid into Nortje, Rabada, Ashwin and co and they reached 219 for 2 with Saha making 87 from 45 balls. It is hard to see Bairstow matching this, even at his best. The Delhi innings never got going and Rashid mesmerised them in the middle overs taking 3 for 8 from his four overs. He must also have enjoyed having a proper wicket keeper in place.
The leg spinners cause plenty of problems for most of the batsmen since few can read their googly or topspinner and so all sides have at least one. But another slow bowling option has become something no batsmen is confident against. Varun Chakravarthy bowls spinners or not and no one can work him out. Sunil Narine has had to change his action since being banned for throwing. He now approaches the crease with his bowling arm rigidly at his side. The ball is gripped between just a couple of fingers and at the last minute he whips his arm over and the ball is delivered with amazing accuracy. He can also make the ball deviate either way with this technique which keeps him in the category of mystery spinner and someone to be very wary of. It may be why the spinners have got less wickets than the quicks this year- the batsmen are just happy to see them off.
There are also two additional excellent reasons for holding the IPL in the UAE – there are no rain interruptions and they never go off for bad light. Perhaps England should start to play their home test matches there.
Morgan Matters
Essex have apologised for their alcoholic celebrations at Lord's, but they have not apologised for playing for a draw, when they should have been trying to win.
The Women's T20 series reached a highly appropriate conclusion at Derby as rain reduced the match to a 5 over bash and WI made 41-3 and England replied with 42-7 to win by 3 wkts and the series 5-0!
Jeetan Patel looks likely to be rehired as the England spin coach after the visa problem that denied England his services last "season".
Rs nicked a point at Hillsborough with an equaliser in stoppage time. FA Cup 2nd qualifying round: Corinthian 0 Hampton 1.
T20: play has started at Edgbaston, it looks like 11 overs a side.
C Woakes is the PCA's Player of the Year and Z Crawley is the Young PotY.
ECB chief exec T Harrison says English cricket has been "saved from oblivion" by playing behind closed doors.
Graham Wagg is leaving Glamorgan after 10 seasons.
In the October Cricketer:
i) there is a minute picture of JSM in the "crowd" at Lord's in 2011 (page 27); ii) Vic says that J Hildreth "has been unlucky to be overlooked by England", I agree;
iii) Richard Gibson does not think much of Middlesex's appointment of Andrew Cornish (sacked by Somerset last year) as an "advisor to the board"; iv) JM Brearley's new book "Spirit of Cricket" gets only 3 and a half stars from M Jakeman, while Mark Peel's new book "Cricketing Caesar" (a biography of JMB) gets only 3 stars from R Whitehead; and
v) editor S Hughes interviews Frances Edmonds, who sees little of hubby Phil these days and said "we are not divorced" but "we do not spend a lot of time together".
Ex-NZ captain and oldest surviving Test cricketer John Reid is dead aged 92. He played 58 Tests between 1949 and 1965 inc 34 as captain. He scored 3,428 Test runs (av 33.28) and took 85 wkts (33.35). Against England at Christchurch in 1963 he made 100 out of a total of 159, which remains the lowest completed Test innings to include a century.
Some clarity is finally emerging regarding the Championship and England's tour plans. Next year's Championship will be played in a conference system comprising 3 groups (Middx are in group 2 with Somerset, Hampshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire) and there will be a separate Bob Willis Trophy competition at the end of the season. Championship: the top 2 sides from each conference will progress to Division One and the top team will be the official county champions. The other teams will play out their final four matches in Divisions Two and Three, while the season will end with a 5-day final between the champions and the runners-up. England's white ball team appear set to travel to South Africa on November 17 for 3 ODIs and 3 20 over games. Also proposed is a 3 match T20 series in Pakistan in January which would be England's first visit to Pak since 2005. This has not been confirmed, but Wasim Khan (chief exec of the Pakistan Cricket Board) is "quietly confident".
Rs' 0-0 draw at Bournemouth did not sound very thrilling, but it was a useful point as Bournemouth are third in the table.
Colin Graves has failed to gain enough support to become the next chairman of the ICC. The post will be contested by Imran Khwaja (Singapore) and Greg Barclay (NZ): never heard of either of them.
England's white ball tour of SA in Nov has been given the go-ahead. It is confirmed that they will play 3 T20s and 3 ODIs from 27.11.20, all behind closed doors and they depart on 16.11. 1st T20: 27/11 @ Cape Town, 2nd T20 29/11 @ Paarl, 3rd T20 1/12 @ Cape Town; 1st ODI 4/12 @ Cape Town, 2nd ODI 6/12 @ Paarl, 3rd ODI 9/12 @ Cape Town.
England are likely to have a 3 match T20 tour to Pak in the new year, but they are also likely to be touring SL (for 2 Tests only, I think) around the same time and a 5 Test series against India is due to follow soon afterwards. Andy Bull thinks this is all a bit too much. Meanwhile, Eng players' win bonuses are set to be "slashed in half" by the ECB and the players are said recognise the need for pay cuts.
The England v Barbarians game is off. Wasting a million pounds by cancelling just seems ridiculous to me. Why not just give them 100 lines and a prefect's detention?
Jonathan Liew has a long article in today's G, saying that the "ECB should break the global silence on Pakistan's sad and strange IPL exile". I am not counting this as "coverage" of the IPL!
Mark Wood may eventually become a white ball specialist. He has not been awarded a Test contract at present, though C Silverwood has earmarked him for the Test series in SL and India in the new year. However, it is thought that he is considering "the global T20 circuit, where the workload to money ratio is more favourable" and it might be easier to avert injury.
This & That
I have no knowledge of what goes on at Loftus Road (or whatever they renamed it) these days but judging from the results so far I see them as prime candidates for relegation this season. Since there appears to be an increasing tendency to regionalise professional sport they could well be back in Division 2 South which is where, of course, they came from.
Playing out from the back has become fun to watch as you can be certain that sooner or later someone will make a horrendous bad pass or be caught in possession and give away a goal. I understand the theory and it is telling that whenever old-fashioned style clearances are made the ball is invariably collected by the opposition. So, possession is everything or is it? Goals tend to come from turnovers in possession and rapid breakaways which give the attackers at least numerical equality against defenders. So perhaps it is better not to always have possession?
One problem of watching on TV is that you only get to see what the camera shows you. Slow build ups mean the opposition has time to get its ranks of defenders lined up. When the camera zooms out it is chastening to see two lines of four defenders to say nothing of the front two men getting back as well. This was in evidence as Arsenal kept pretty possession against Leicester but rarely got closer than five or six defenders to beat. Arteta’s old boss has the same problem at Man City. It was OK with the genius of David Silva and de Bruyne to bypass defenders particularly with Gundogan and Bernardo Silva buzzing around them. Without them and, of course, Aguero they look a shadow of their former selves. What can be done? It may be that these sides will need to introduce some good old-fashioned dribblers to get past some of these defenders, who are often converted out players and not so good on marking and tackling.
I am no fan of motor racing but if you recognise it as a sport there is no doubt that Lewis Hamilton is the greatest English sportsman ever. His achievements of being the World’s number one driver of all time takes him way ahead of the 1966 World Cup team, Ian Botham, Alastair Cook, Andy Murray miscellaneous golfers, swimmers, runners, cyclists etc. But why is he not recognised?
King Cricket Matters
King Cricket has been playing simulated test matches but they have to first select the sides – this one will upset England fans
We’re going to play a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI. Let’s pick the latter.
- David Warner
Good times.
- Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma is what is known as a ‘bolter’ here. It’s weird and almost contradictory to have a bolter in a World XI, but it’s a symptom of the fact that the best openers in recent times are all a bit meh.Tom Latham should really be the man in this position, but is there not something more exciting about Rohit, a man who has hit three hundreds in his six innings as opener (one a double) and who averages 46 in Test cricket but who everyone still thinks is probably a bit rubbish?In the absence of a real ‘wow’ option (step away, Dean Elgar), this seems to us the more enticing option.
- Kane Williamson
He is good at batting.
- Virat Kohli
Also good at batting.
.
- Steve Smith
We’re not quite sure how Steve Smith ended up being the one pushed down to five. It’s probably just that he wouldn’t kick up as much of a fuss about it as Virat would.
- Marnus Labuschagne
Say what you like, but the guy’s averaging 60-odd. And think of all the bits-and-pieces bowling from this middle order as well. Magical! Why would you want an all-rounder with all these ‘options’? Plus who would you pick? Seriously, who? Exactly.
- Quinton de Kock
With a Test average of over 40 when playing as wicketkeeper, Quinton de Kock is better than some of you think.Crucially, he is less agreeable than his only real rival, BJ Watling, and for some inexplicable reason we feel that’s pertinent.
- Jason Holder
Everyone forgets Jason Holder, but Jason Holder is bloody amazing.
This team is not going to be an easy one to bowl out.
- Mitchell Starc
Dynamism. You need a bit of dynamism. Dynamism and variety. Few current bowlers are quicker or more left-handed than Mitchell Starc and we actually think there is a very strong case for his inclusion instead of slower, more right-handed bowlers. He’s a pretty handy number nine too.
- Pat Cummins
We don’t feel like we need to explain this one because of all the explaining we’re having to do about the two players either side of him. A pretty handy number 10.
- Nathan Lyon
You’re probably thinking R Ashwin and at first we were thinking R Ashwin too because we happen to think he’s brilliant at cricket. But Ashwin gets to avoid playing overseas quite a lot because apparently India don’t agree with us on this. Nathan Lyon, in contrast, pretty much always plays for Australia and pretty much always takes a few wickets. Sometimes he also runs people out.In short, it is very on-brand for Ashwin to leave everyone a little bit confused as to why he hasn’t been picked again.
Strange Elevens
I had a response to last month’s bunch from JSM of Hampton who suggested that they “had all had brief England careers”. I agree with this but had looked for something a little more esoteric: they had all been held out to be England’s great white hope in their respective roles but had not lasted long.
Here is another bunch for you to identify the colour of their jazz hat.
- Chris Rogers
- Desmond Haynes
- Jacques Kallis
- Stephen Fleming
- AB deVilliers
- Mohammed Hafeez
- Dwayne Bravo
- Scott Styris
- Murali Kartik
- Jeff Thompson
- Nante Hayward
Hall of Shame
This section is reserved for those highly paid athletes who have yet to master the basics of their chosen profession
In Match 36 of this year’s IPL the Mumbai Indians had scored 176 for 6 and in reply The King’s XI Punjab had reached 175 for 5 with one ball remaining. Chris Jordan drove the ball to long on and set off for 2 runs. When he turned at the bowler’s end he inexplicably embarked on a tour of the square and was run out by inches at the keeper’s end by Pollard’s throw. He must have run a couple of yards extra due to his detour.
In the same match, in the Super Over the King’s XI managed only 5 and Mumbai needed 2 from their sixth and last ball. Quentin de Kock hit the ball towards extra cover and sauntered down the wicket. By the time he realised that there had been a mis field he had too much to do to get in for the second run and sent his side into a second Super Over. This was a particularly expensive basic error for his side as the King’s XI won this comfortably.
Maitland-Niles is set to be a regular in this column. Coming on for the final minutes for Arsenal at Old Trafford when Arsenal were desperately trying to keep possession he repeatedly gave the ball away often when trying unnecessarily complex manoeuvres. Hector Belarin during this period of play also conceded valuable possession by committing a foul throw-in.
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