GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 230
February 2022
Spot the Ball
I was sent this photo by Wullers (Alec Cullen), who explained: “I think this might be Labuschagne, but I was a bit distracted when I took it....”
Nasser Hussain: Why not?
Ben Stokes’ agent: We haven’t decided yet, but it will be one of the following: injury, mental stress, compassionate leave or squad rotation.
The Professor spent fewer nights on his sofa than he had planned in early December
In 1852, Karl Marx published a lengthy pamphlet about the restored French monarchy, in which he wrote the now often quoted line that: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”. Marx had often seen cricket played when the family walked to Hampstead Heath for their Sunday picnics, but he always thought it a puzzling game and apparently said that he couldn’t really understand what was going on. Well… join the club!
It would be wrong to describe any sporting event as a tragedy (always excepting Phil Hughes, Danny Hearn, etc.) but “farce”? Oh, I think we could have little difficulty there. How about the last batter being bowled by a wide, and the one before that managing to fetch what would have been a wide on to his stumps, having had the bright idea of taking a couple of steps towards point. It looked farcical enough to me. Oh I know they were both tail-enders but is that really how they wanted it to end? I think a reasonable case could be made for this being the worst post-War effort of any England team to win the Ashes in Australia, (notwithstanding the eked out draw in Sydney) … and there is some competition for that award.
Everyone will have his/her own view as to what needs to happen now, from a modest improvement in preparation, through sack the coach, up to Agnew’s new super-league. But how about just not doing a few things that they did? How about just not doing a few things that everyone who has ever played cricket knows not to do? For example: If it has been raining for a fortnight and the pitch has a greenish hue it is generally better to play seamers than spinners. I know that, you know that, how come they don’t know that?
In a match that takes the best part of a week to play, it’s a good idea to occupy the crease for a reasonable time, especially if you’re at the top of the order. I know this, you know this, how come they don’t know this? In the 4th Test the first four all played attacking shots that would have been fine if they had come off…but they didn’t. Instead of trying to belt the ball around in the first hour, how about just staying in? The result was 36-4 in very little time.
If you want to win the Ashes in Australia, you must not lose the Brisbane Test. It’s almost impossible to win the Brisbane Test and only one team since the War has lost at Brisbane and gone on to win the Ashes. I know this, you know this…perhaps they don’t. Win the toss at Brisbane on a green top and bat! Bizarre.
If you have a net, it is the responsibility of the coach to ensure you are wearing protective equipment. Never mind Root saying it was OK, the nets belong to the coach, and it is just incompetent to allow a batter into the net who isn’t wearing a box. “Safety” is almost the first line in any coaching manual. I know that, you know that, he didn’t. To hold even a brief net session which results in your best (only?) batter in hospital surely is a sacking offence. If it isn’t, what is?
If you’re a tail-ender batting with an established batter it is a good idea to do whatever you can to stay in. Your job is to support the man at the other end and not have a slog and get caught in the deep. I know that, you know that, Robinson, Leach and Broad all didn’t appear to know that.
If you take a wicket with a no-ball it is a waste of effort. It is also a touch dispiriting for the team. England did that three times. Three times! Nobody needs to bowl no-balls. In T20 cricket, where the penalty is (or can be) severe, England rarely bowl no-balls. Why save up this lack of discipline for an Ashes Test series? The normal excuse is that an “effort ball” takes them just over the line. Presumably they are not making an effort in T20. But why is their foot on the line in the first place? All quick bowlers could easily bowl six inches further back without giving a batter any significant extra time (about 0.004 of a second at 90mph). There is no need to be within a fraction of an inch of overstepping the batting crease – it isn’t the bloody long-jump. I know this, you know this, etc.
None of the above, you will note, involves radical surgery in the form of sacking the Head Coach, reorganising the County Championship, abolishing the ECB, arresting Tom Harrison for taking money under false pretences, etc., (although they all might be good ideas – Yorkshire’s third (third!) County Championship match, for example, begins on the 28th April). It is simply making the best use of the resources you have, which is rather important if you start the series as being generally regarded as the weaker team. If we add to that: avoid silly run outs and hold your catches, while I don’t suggest for a moment that this might prove a winning recipe… at least it might be a little less farcical.
This & That
The Indians have been beaten in South Africa in both the test series and the ODI series. This may be a significant move in the balance of strength in the game. India have stopped being the side to beat and South Africa are becoming a force to reckon with.
I always find it difficult to keep a track on who plays for who in the franchised sides, particularly the overseas players. Joe Clarke has been scoring regularly and quickly for the Melbourne Stars. He was out at the end of the sixth over against the Hobart Hurricanes having made 35 from 18 balls with the score on an impressive 97 for1. At the other end was Glen Maxwell who was on his way to 154 not out from 64 balls with 22 fours and 4 sixes. Marcus Stoinis was with him at the end of the 20 overs having made 75 not out from 31 balls. Maxwell’s innings was the highest in the history of the Big Bash as was his side’s total of 273 for 2.
The Sydney Sixers were 55 for 7 against the Perth Scorchers when Ben Dwarshuis came in at number 9. He proceeded to score 66 from 28 deliveries but his innings was in vain as his side was dismissed for 141.
Ian Cockbain, the scourge of Middlesex, starred for the Adelaide Strikers as they reached 165 for 2 with Cockbain making 71 not out from 42 balls. Rashid Khan then took 6 for 17 bowling Brisbane Heat out for 91 in reply. In the knockout stages Cockbain made 65 off 38 balls as Adelaide Strikers beat Sydney Thunder by six runs.
It turns out that Cockbain's wife is Australian, and he spends his winters playing league cricket there. He was in Adelaide on holiday when he was asked by Strikers pace bowler and recent Gloucestershire team-mate Daniel Worrall if he wanted to join the injury-depleted franchise.
In the Melbourne Stars match against the Adelaide Strikers Joe Clarke made an impressive 83 out of his sides 140 for 5. The next best score was 17. Clarke also made 62 from 36 against the Brisbane Heat.
Meanwhile, Alex Hales (remember him?) made 80 not out from 56 balls for the Sydney Thunder and Laurie Evans made 69 from 46 for the Perth Scorchers. Ben Duckett scored 51 for the Brisbane Heat. Laurie Evans was then the star of the Big Bash final, coming in at 25 for 4 he finished on 76 not out from 41 balls which got the Perth Scorchers up to 171 for 6 which was plenty for the Sydney Sixers who only managed 92 in reply.
If I asked you to name an unlikely pair to open for Islamabad United you would be hard pressed to come up with a better pairing than Paul Stirling and Alex Hales who added 112 in nine overs in their first match in the Pakistan Super League(PSL).
New Zealand took it badly when Bangladesh beat them in a test match, and they racked up 521 for 6 in the next match with captain Tom Latham reaching 252. They went on to win by an innings and tie the series at 1-1.
Ireland became the first International Cricket Council (ICC) full member to face the USA on American soil when they played a T20 international at Lauderhill, Florida. They were then duly beaten by 26 runs. The defeat comes only two months after Ireland were dumped out of the T20 World Cup group stages after defeats by Sri Lanka and Namibia.
In a domestic first class match in South Africa against Eastern Cape Linyathi, Northern Cape Heat made 525 for 5 which was noteworthy in that each of the seven batsmen who went to the crease reached 50:
Mahlangu
c Marais
b Kaber
60
Kemm
c Jamison
b Bosch
106
Dikgale
lbw
b Bosch
54
Vandiar
c Malika
b Peters
67
Swanepoel
not out
111
Moonsamy
run out (Yikha)
51
Jones
not out
50
Morgan Matters
M Labuschagne has replaced J Root at the top of the ICC Test batting rankings.
Andy Zaltzman has dug out statistics that show that England are doing worse than on any previous Ashes tours: i) for only the fourth time in a series in Oz only 2 England batters have reached 50 in the first 2 Tests; ii) the last time no England bowler recorded a 4 wicket haul in the first 2 Tests was more than 100 years ago; iii) England are only the 2nd team in Ashes history to fail to post either a century or a 4 wicket haul in the first 2 Tests of a series; and iv) the last time England conceded first innings leads of more than 200 in both of the first 2 Tests in Oz, post-war rationing was still in full swing. Doesn't it make you feel good?
The January Cricketer tell us that:
D Gough has been appointed director of cricket at Yorkshire and is understood to have taken a pay cut of £150,000 per year in putting his media career on hold. In the wake of the Azeem Rafiq affair, the ECB have published a 12-point Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, while the PCA has launched an investigation into how personal information relating to Rafiq found its way into the media, while M Vaughan was removed from Ashes commentary with TMS and BT Sport on "editorial" grounds.
Did you know that ex-Warwicks batter Andy Moles (now coaching Bahamas) had his left leg amputated below the knee in April 2020?
Jos Buttler apparently became the first Englishman to score centuries in all 3 international formats when he made 101 v SL?
Did you know that Hugh Cornwell (of the Stranglers) got into cricket because his dad used to listen to commentaries by the likes of B Johnston and J Arlott and it was Devon Malcolm who inspired him to leave the Stranglers?
Mark Baldwin tells us that Sam Billings is a potential "Test batsman hiding in plain sight".
Middlesex news: i) Monty Panesar is one of three new borough coaches recruited to make more of local talent; and ii) S Eskinazi and R White have both signed new contracts for the next 3 years.
Pat Pocock complains that far too many "new county contracts have gone to public school people".
Illingworth has died aged 89. He played 61 Tests for England scoring 1,836 runs and took 122 wickets. He captained England in 31 Tests winning 12 of them. In first class cricket he made 24,134 runs and took 2,072 wickets and led Yorkshire to 3 consecutive Championship titles in 1966-68. He was also England coach 95-96 and chairman of selectors 1994-96.
Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has retired from all forms of cricket: he took 417 Test wickets (putting him 14th on the all-time leading Test wicket-takers list) and 269 in ODIs.
Ali Martin thinks that C Silverwood is going to pay the price for England's dire performances in Oz. He is already going to miss the next Test in Sydney as one his family has contracted the virus and while J Root is getting strong support, Silverwood is not.
Over the last 12 months J Root has made 1,708 Test runs, R Burns is second on 530 and extras are third on 412!
SA keeper/ batter Quinton de Kock has retired from Test cricket with immediate effect. He says he wants to spend more time with his family, but CSA had already agreed to give him time off from the rest of the Test series v India. He played 54 Tests scoring 3,300 runs at 39 and claiming 232 victims behind the stumps.
In the "i" Richard Edwards gives us his "Future England XI":
1 Tom Haines (Sussex), 2 Chris Dent (Gloucs), 3 Rob Yates (Warks), 4 James Bracey (Gloucs), 5 Harry Brook (Yorks), 6 Tom Prest (Hants), 7 Harry Swindells (Leics), 8 Matt Critchley (Essex), 9 Matthew Fisher (Yorks), 10 Amar Virdi (Surrey), 11 Brydon Carse (Durham).
While Chris Stocks gives us his "Ten-point plan to help to get the England Test side back on track":
B Stokes has thrown his full support behind J Root and C Silverwood and says he has "no designs" on the Test captaincy himself.
International teams of 2021
In the wake of the Ashes debacle several commentators have reminded the English cricket public of recent success in the white ball formats. If this were true you might expect the ICC ODI Team of the year to be packed out with Englishmen but in fact none of them made selection. Nor indeed did anyone from India or Australia. The side is:
The Guardian’s Test team of the year was selected before the Boxing Day test and features no Australians:
1) Rohit Sharma, India
906 runs at 48
A unanimous pick. Made important contributions during India’s series win in Australia, then stepped up a gear when he made a match-defining 161 in India’s 317-run victory against England on a spinning pitch in the second Test in Chennai. He followed that with 15 consecutive double-figures innings, a run that finished with his first overseas century, another match-winning innings against England, in very different conditions, during their 157-run victory in the fourth Test at the Oval.
2) Dimuth Karunaratne, Sri Lanka
902 runs at 69
The captaincy has been the making of Karunaratne, who had the best year of his long career. Away from home, his 103 was the one bright spot in an embarrassing defeat to South Africa at the Wanderers, and he also batted four hours to secure a draw in the second Test on tour in West Indies. England’s 2-0 victory in Sri Lanka might have worked out differently if he’d been fit, because his home form has been imperious. He made 244, and 118 against Bangladesh, and 147 against West Indies.
3) Kane Williamson, New Zealand (captain)
395 runs at 66
Williamson has been struggling with an elbow injury, which he nursed through tours of England and India. It meant that more than half his runs came in one innings, when he made 238 against Pakistan in Christchurch. But he was back, and right in the thick of it, for the biggest match his team played, the World Test Championship final against India in Southampton. He made an over-my-dead body 49 in the first innings and was there unbeaten on 52 at the finish. It was a fitting reward for the most impressive captain in the sport.
4) Joe Root, England
1,708 runs at 61, 14 wickets at 30
No Englishman has had a year quite like Root did in 2021, when he finally became the truly dominant batsman he always promised to be. He started with 228 and 186 in two Tests against Sri Lanka in Galle, and followed that with his monumental 218 against India in Chennai. Back home, he peeled off 109, 180* and 121 in successive matches against India. Which meant his 89 in the first Ashes Test almost felt like a failure. Right now, he is the world’s best batsman.
5) Fakhar Zaman, Pakistan
571 runs at 57
Ungainly, unorthodox, but irresistibly effective, Alam lapped up a first full year of Test cricket. He had spent a decade waiting for a second chance after he made his debut in 2009, 88 Tests on the sidelines, and this was his chance to show the Pakistan selectors what they had been missing. Made the top score of 109 in Pakistan’s victory over South Africa in Karachi, after the team had been 27 for four, followed it up with 140* against Zimbabwe in Harare and 124* against the West Indies at Sabina Park. He was the only century-maker on either side in all three matches.
6) Rishabh Pant, India (wicketkeeper)
706 runs at 42, 26 catches, six stumpings
If the only thing Pant did in 2021 was hit that one reverse-lap sweep for four off Jimmy Anderson, you would still remember his year. As it was, his devil-may-care batting made him one of the key players in India’s series victory in Australia, where he made a crucial 97 in the draw at Sydney and an extraordinary 89* in the win at Brisbane. He worked over England, too, with 91, 58*, and 101 in the series at home. His form fell away on the return tour later in the summer, but he still finished with a fine 50 at the Oval.
7) Ravichandran Ashwin, India
337 runs at 28, 52 wickets at 16 (not including current Test v South Africa)
Ashwin played only eight of India’s 13 Tests this year, and somehow he still ended up as the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket (at the time of writing). After years of ceaseless tinkering and thinking, he has turned himself into the greatest spin bowler of his era. At home, he’s unplayable. He picked up 32 wickets in four Tests against England, and another 14 in two home Tests against New Zealand. In among all that, he made a handsome century against England in Chennai, and was unbeaten on 39 at stumps when India drew in Sydney.
8) Jason Holder, West Indies
253 runs at 23, 22 wickets at 23
Holder may have lost the captaincy after five and a half years in charge when the selectors replaced him with his friend Kraigg Brathwaite, but he has plenty to be getting on with, batting at No 6 or 7, often opening the bowling, and catching bullets in the field. His batting has suffered, although he played two crucial innings when he made 71* in a draw against Sri Lanka and 58 in a victory over Pakistan, and his parsimonious medium pace means he’s currently the world’s top-ranked all-rounder.
9) Kyle Jamieson, New Zealand
27 wickets at 18
Took to Test cricket like he had been built for it in a laboratory hidden somewhere in the reaches of New Zealand’s South Island. He destroyed Pakistan when he took 11 for 117 in Christchurch at the start of the year and at the moment it mattered most turned in a man-of-the-match performance in the World Test championship final. He took seven wickets in the match, including five for 31 in the first innings when he dismissed Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli when they were threatening to run away with the game.
10) Jasprit Bumrah, India
25 wickets at 29 (not including current Test v South Africa)
Bumrah is way off the sort of electric form he showed in his first year of Test cricket but with his clockwork toy action and wicked yorker, he’s one of the reliably entertaining bowlers in the game. He dominated England in the first Test of India’s summer tour at Trent Bridge, where he took four cheap wickets in one innings and five more in the other, and was even better in India’s victory at the Oval, where he turned the game on its head with a wildfire six-over spell on a tarmac-flat track late on the fifth day.
11) Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan
47 wickets at 17
Still only 21, Afridi has grown into the most electric player on the international circuit. His devilish left-arm pace, all waspish full balls and ripping bouncers, cut through every team he’s played this year. He has taken wickets in New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and against South Africa in Pakistan, but was at his best in the second Test against the West Indies at Sabina Park, where he took career-best figures of 10 for 94.
For completeness the ICC Men's T20I Team of the Year 2021 is :
Jos Buttler
Mohammad Rizwan
Babar Azam
Aiden Markram
Mitchel Marsh
David Miller
Tabriz Shamsi
Josh Hazlewood
Wanindu Hasaranga
Mustafizur Rahman
Shaheen Afridi
Colin Price matters
Allen Bruton received the following from Colin Price
Q What do you get if you cross the English cricket team with an OXO cube?
A. A laughingstock.
Q What is the height of optimism?
A: English batsman putting on sunscreen.
Q. What is the difference between an English batsman and a Formula 1 car?
A. Nothing! If you blink you will miss them both.
Q. What do English batsmen and drug addicts have in common?
A. Both spend most of their time wondering where their next score will come from.
Q. What does an English batsman who is playing in The Ashes have in common with Michael Jackson?
A. They both wore gloves for no apparent reason.
Q. What is the difference between Cinderella and the Pommies?
A. Cinderella knew when to leave the ball.
Q. What's the difference between the Pommies and a funeral director?
A. A funeral director isn't going to lose the ashes.
In memoriam
I heard from Bob Peach that Roy Phipps had died. He sent me the following
As a local schoolboy I regularly cycled to watch South Hampstead. From 1948 these games often included a young ‘donkey drop’ slow bowler whose exceptionally high deliveries were frequently sent even higher to or over the boundary.
By 1971 when he moved to Somerset Roy had taken over 1700 wickets as a top-class leg spinner mainly in competitive week –end matches against the strongest club sides in London and the Southeast.
With a highest yearly total of 143 wickets in 1955 throughout the sixties he continued to provide a successful compliment to a mainly seam attack and his career record was the second highest in the club’s history at that time.
Roy’s batting was basically limited to a left-handed forward prod which competed keenly with Don Wallis’s similar right hand push for the No 11 spot. In addition to several match saving performances two memories stand out.
1965 was the most successful results year of the decade with only two losses. One of which was against Old Merchant Taylors when out of a total of 41 the Phipps/Wallis partnership of 9 for the last wicket was the highest of the innings. Rather more successful was Roy’s 26 at no 10 out of 103 versus Shepherds Bush in 1960 leading to a 16-run victory.
Roy’s considerable bowling achievements on a batting friendly pitch with small boundaries made a significant contribution to the club’s performances for many years. It also created a better understanding of slow bowling and a precedent for the later arrival of other fine spinners. Without doubt he features in my best ever club side.
Alvin Nienow noted
Roy was such a 'looker' too; and a fine sporting gentleman whether playing with or against him in addition to his bowling skills. I also remember some young and very attractive girl being introduced to him and exclaiming "not the Roy Phipps!" Of course, I also remember being the losing Bush captain when he and Norman Cooper pulled ‘the frying pan out of the fire’ at the Bush in 1960. A lesson I learnt about not using a heavy roller between innings on saturated pitches.
Steve Thompson sent me this
As the baby of these communications I never had the benefit of playing with Roy and if I did ever see him play the memories are possibly more imagined than real. What I do remember from conversations with him at the earlier reunions is just what a lovely, gentle and engaging man he was. When South Hampstead ‘greats’ are listed he will obviously be inked in.
Robin Ager noted
I didn’t know him very well, as he was already a seasoned member when I joined the club in 1963 and had begun to play once a week. However, I recall him as a good bowler who I found difficult to ‘pick’, and an unassuming character.
And finally, me
Robin is right. When I joined South Hampstead in 1963 there were a number of fine keepers ahead of me not least were Robin Ager, Dickie Brooks and, of course, Norman Cooper. However, there were occasions later in the sixties when I got to keep in the first XI and if Roy Phipps was playing I new it would be a nightmare. Roy was over six feet tall and bowled with a high arm action. His leg spinners would loop and consequently the ball would bounce much more than it would for front of the hand bowlers. As a result, the trajectory for taking the ball behind the stumps was completely different and I would fumble around often spilling the ball. Don’t be misled by Peach’s comments above either. Roy was not a very slow lob bowler. As for reading his googly, I never got round to even worrying about that!
English cricket is in disarray – and it’s a metaphor for the whole country
Martin Kettle, Guardian associate editor and columnist, explains
Cricket is ruled by upper-class white men, deluded about their abilities. It’s hard not to see a parallel between the Ashes shambles and Brexit
It has been years since football surged past cricket to become England’s favourite sport. Even so, more than a century after cricket’s “golden age”, an Ashes Test series between England and Australia remains one of the most resonant contests in the sporting calendar. This week, after the latest ignominious England defeat in Australia, it seems sensible to ask two questions. How come? And for how much longer?
For some of us, cricket is still the most wonderful of all sports, uniquely balancing individual skill, collective effort and the need for time and strategy. But why are England now playing it so badly? The Ashes contest is uniquely deep-rooted in national legend. The Bradmans and Bothams cast long shadows. But why has this inspired Australians to heroic feats, while reducing England to nervous wrecks?
It was predictable that the latest humiliating defeat of Joe Root and his team would trigger a bout of cricket soul-searching. The finger of blame has been pointed at inadequate preparation, defective batting technique, dropped catches, poor spin bowling, and lacklustre coaching and captaincy. All these are relevant. But they don’t get at a deeper underlying “why?”
The BBC’s Jonathan Agnew is among those who cast the net more widely. He points to enduring structural defects within English cricket itself. These include the marginalisation of the long form of cricket, of which Test matches are the pinnacle, in favour of the limited over “white ball” short forms that TV companies, advertisers and many supporters prefer. Not that this clash of codes seems to have troubled the Australians much.
Few have yet tried to take a larger view. One who has is my Guardian colleague Jonathan Liew. He identifies a basic cultural difference between the Australian and English approaches. “To play Test cricket for Australia in 2021 still essentially means something,” Liew wrote this week, citing the match-winning performance of Scott Boland, only the second cricketer of Indigenous Australian heritage to wear the trademark baggy green cap. By contrast, Liew points out, “the very point of the England Test team has become somehow blunted, dissolved, obscured”.
Again, one asks – why? The question would have been grist to the mill of arguably the 20th century’s most original writer on English cricket. It is half a century now since Rowland Bowen wrote what is still, for all its flaws and quirkiness, the single best cricket book of its era. But Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development Throughout the World, published in 1970, stands the test of time.
On the face of it, Bowen was a character out of English cricket central casting. A retired Indian army officer and perhaps a former spy, he was one of that tribe of white, private school, upper-middle-class men whose fanaticism about cricket still forms a significant stratum of the English game’s support. To call him an eccentric would be an understatement. This was a man who, believe it or not, amputated his own right leg in his bathroom in 1968 to prove it could be done.
His book, though, was another matter. Its central argument was that cricket’s rise reflected the flourishing of the industrial and imperial ages, and that English cricket was becoming unsustainable as industrial and imperial Britain came to an end. Bowen also thought cricket’s decline was intertwined with English racism – he pointedly chose the great Caribbean cricket writer and Marxist CLR James to write the introduction to his book – and he believed that most of the agonies of English cricket were caused by the wishes of those who controlled the game to preserve something that was historically doomed.
As misguided determinists do, Bowen sometimes let his vision of epochal decline get the better of him. Fifty years on, cricket has not been reduced to “rough and ready” status, metal bats have not replaced wooden ones, Wisden still comes out each year and the counties continue to provide the basis of the English game. Cricket’s adaptability has been greater and more successful than Bowen expected. The shift in power over world cricket from England to India was not something he foresaw either.
Even so, Bowen would have had a pretty clear understanding of why England get beaten in the Ashes so often. He would have put cricket’s problems in a larger social context. He would have said the pathways to cricket’s renewal and growth have been cut off, closed and neglected, making the game increasingly unsustainable at the grassroots, especially in state schools which have either had to sell their playing fields or never had them in the first place.
He would have said cricket suffers because it is no longer even visible, either in the flesh or on terrestrial TV. He would have said this is because the game has become overprofessionalised, existing too exclusively for the benefit of those who play, administer, promote and make money out of cricket for a living rather than being encouraged to grow more organically and in new ways within English society as it is now. He would have looked to the popularity of cricket in the subcontinent as a striking alternative model.
And he would have said cricket has not come to terms with its own racism. English cricket has a long, bad record on race, embodied by its support for apartheid-era South Africa. You know something is structurally wrong by comparing Gareth Southgate’s England football team, which often has five or more minority ethnic players and which is comfortable in its diversity, with Root’s side, which had just one player of non-European heritage this week. England footballers take the knee. Its cricketers do not. As Michael Holding powerfully says, cricket is simply not serious enough.
By far the most important thing that happened in English cricket this year was not the Ashes defeat but the exposure of the game’s institutionalised racism. A third of recreational cricket players in England are of south Asian heritage; that dwindles to just 4% at the elite county level. The complaints made by the former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq have at last blown a hole in the culpable complacency of his former county. But Yorkshire – of which I am a member – is not the only club that needs to start again from scratch.
It requires particularly powerful blinkers not to see links between these factors and England’s Ashes defeats. England cricket – and its overindulged Barmy Army of supporters – is too complacent, not very good and spends too much time in a bubble of Anglosphere exceptionalism. It is at risk of becoming a metaphor for Brexit, deluded about its abilities and achievements, promoting itself as the envy of the world when it is not, and resentful of its critics. The world has moved on. Perhaps cricket lovers should do so too.
Odd Man Out
Who is the odd man out in this bunch?
Billy Godleman
Ryan Higgins
James Fuller
Joe Denly
Laurie Evans
Chris Wright
Gareth Berg
Adam Rossington
Peter Trego
Josh Davey
Dawid Malan
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 230
February 2022
Spot the Ball
I was sent this photo by Wullers (Alec Cullen), who explained: “I think this might be Labuschagne, but I was a bit distracted when I took it....”
- Jonathan Agnew: How many Asians will be in the Yorkshire side for the first match of the new season?
- Nasser Hussain: Will Ben be playing in the first test match this summer?
Nasser Hussain: Why not?
Ben Stokes’ agent: We haven’t decided yet, but it will be one of the following: injury, mental stress, compassionate leave or squad rotation.
- Rob Key: If you think Cummins, Starc and Boland were a handful in Australia just wait till we get Boult, Southee and Jamieson in English conditions this summer.
- Haseeb Hameed, Dawid Malan, Rory Burns: We’re already feeling good in the nets!
- New England Selector: I don’t understand the rotation system. If tests only last three days, they are shorter than County matches.
The Professor spent fewer nights on his sofa than he had planned in early December
In 1852, Karl Marx published a lengthy pamphlet about the restored French monarchy, in which he wrote the now often quoted line that: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”. Marx had often seen cricket played when the family walked to Hampstead Heath for their Sunday picnics, but he always thought it a puzzling game and apparently said that he couldn’t really understand what was going on. Well… join the club!
It would be wrong to describe any sporting event as a tragedy (always excepting Phil Hughes, Danny Hearn, etc.) but “farce”? Oh, I think we could have little difficulty there. How about the last batter being bowled by a wide, and the one before that managing to fetch what would have been a wide on to his stumps, having had the bright idea of taking a couple of steps towards point. It looked farcical enough to me. Oh I know they were both tail-enders but is that really how they wanted it to end? I think a reasonable case could be made for this being the worst post-War effort of any England team to win the Ashes in Australia, (notwithstanding the eked out draw in Sydney) … and there is some competition for that award.
Everyone will have his/her own view as to what needs to happen now, from a modest improvement in preparation, through sack the coach, up to Agnew’s new super-league. But how about just not doing a few things that they did? How about just not doing a few things that everyone who has ever played cricket knows not to do? For example: If it has been raining for a fortnight and the pitch has a greenish hue it is generally better to play seamers than spinners. I know that, you know that, how come they don’t know that?
In a match that takes the best part of a week to play, it’s a good idea to occupy the crease for a reasonable time, especially if you’re at the top of the order. I know this, you know this, how come they don’t know this? In the 4th Test the first four all played attacking shots that would have been fine if they had come off…but they didn’t. Instead of trying to belt the ball around in the first hour, how about just staying in? The result was 36-4 in very little time.
If you want to win the Ashes in Australia, you must not lose the Brisbane Test. It’s almost impossible to win the Brisbane Test and only one team since the War has lost at Brisbane and gone on to win the Ashes. I know this, you know this…perhaps they don’t. Win the toss at Brisbane on a green top and bat! Bizarre.
If you have a net, it is the responsibility of the coach to ensure you are wearing protective equipment. Never mind Root saying it was OK, the nets belong to the coach, and it is just incompetent to allow a batter into the net who isn’t wearing a box. “Safety” is almost the first line in any coaching manual. I know that, you know that, he didn’t. To hold even a brief net session which results in your best (only?) batter in hospital surely is a sacking offence. If it isn’t, what is?
If you’re a tail-ender batting with an established batter it is a good idea to do whatever you can to stay in. Your job is to support the man at the other end and not have a slog and get caught in the deep. I know that, you know that, Robinson, Leach and Broad all didn’t appear to know that.
If you take a wicket with a no-ball it is a waste of effort. It is also a touch dispiriting for the team. England did that three times. Three times! Nobody needs to bowl no-balls. In T20 cricket, where the penalty is (or can be) severe, England rarely bowl no-balls. Why save up this lack of discipline for an Ashes Test series? The normal excuse is that an “effort ball” takes them just over the line. Presumably they are not making an effort in T20. But why is their foot on the line in the first place? All quick bowlers could easily bowl six inches further back without giving a batter any significant extra time (about 0.004 of a second at 90mph). There is no need to be within a fraction of an inch of overstepping the batting crease – it isn’t the bloody long-jump. I know this, you know this, etc.
None of the above, you will note, involves radical surgery in the form of sacking the Head Coach, reorganising the County Championship, abolishing the ECB, arresting Tom Harrison for taking money under false pretences, etc., (although they all might be good ideas – Yorkshire’s third (third!) County Championship match, for example, begins on the 28th April). It is simply making the best use of the resources you have, which is rather important if you start the series as being generally regarded as the weaker team. If we add to that: avoid silly run outs and hold your catches, while I don’t suggest for a moment that this might prove a winning recipe… at least it might be a little less farcical.
This & That
The Indians have been beaten in South Africa in both the test series and the ODI series. This may be a significant move in the balance of strength in the game. India have stopped being the side to beat and South Africa are becoming a force to reckon with.
I always find it difficult to keep a track on who plays for who in the franchised sides, particularly the overseas players. Joe Clarke has been scoring regularly and quickly for the Melbourne Stars. He was out at the end of the sixth over against the Hobart Hurricanes having made 35 from 18 balls with the score on an impressive 97 for1. At the other end was Glen Maxwell who was on his way to 154 not out from 64 balls with 22 fours and 4 sixes. Marcus Stoinis was with him at the end of the 20 overs having made 75 not out from 31 balls. Maxwell’s innings was the highest in the history of the Big Bash as was his side’s total of 273 for 2.
The Sydney Sixers were 55 for 7 against the Perth Scorchers when Ben Dwarshuis came in at number 9. He proceeded to score 66 from 28 deliveries but his innings was in vain as his side was dismissed for 141.
Ian Cockbain, the scourge of Middlesex, starred for the Adelaide Strikers as they reached 165 for 2 with Cockbain making 71 not out from 42 balls. Rashid Khan then took 6 for 17 bowling Brisbane Heat out for 91 in reply. In the knockout stages Cockbain made 65 off 38 balls as Adelaide Strikers beat Sydney Thunder by six runs.
It turns out that Cockbain's wife is Australian, and he spends his winters playing league cricket there. He was in Adelaide on holiday when he was asked by Strikers pace bowler and recent Gloucestershire team-mate Daniel Worrall if he wanted to join the injury-depleted franchise.
In the Melbourne Stars match against the Adelaide Strikers Joe Clarke made an impressive 83 out of his sides 140 for 5. The next best score was 17. Clarke also made 62 from 36 against the Brisbane Heat.
Meanwhile, Alex Hales (remember him?) made 80 not out from 56 balls for the Sydney Thunder and Laurie Evans made 69 from 46 for the Perth Scorchers. Ben Duckett scored 51 for the Brisbane Heat. Laurie Evans was then the star of the Big Bash final, coming in at 25 for 4 he finished on 76 not out from 41 balls which got the Perth Scorchers up to 171 for 6 which was plenty for the Sydney Sixers who only managed 92 in reply.
If I asked you to name an unlikely pair to open for Islamabad United you would be hard pressed to come up with a better pairing than Paul Stirling and Alex Hales who added 112 in nine overs in their first match in the Pakistan Super League(PSL).
New Zealand took it badly when Bangladesh beat them in a test match, and they racked up 521 for 6 in the next match with captain Tom Latham reaching 252. They went on to win by an innings and tie the series at 1-1.
Ireland became the first International Cricket Council (ICC) full member to face the USA on American soil when they played a T20 international at Lauderhill, Florida. They were then duly beaten by 26 runs. The defeat comes only two months after Ireland were dumped out of the T20 World Cup group stages after defeats by Sri Lanka and Namibia.
In a domestic first class match in South Africa against Eastern Cape Linyathi, Northern Cape Heat made 525 for 5 which was noteworthy in that each of the seven batsmen who went to the crease reached 50:
Mahlangu
c Marais
b Kaber
60
Kemm
c Jamison
b Bosch
106
Dikgale
lbw
b Bosch
54
Vandiar
c Malika
b Peters
67
Swanepoel
not out
111
Moonsamy
run out (Yikha)
51
Jones
not out
50
Morgan Matters
M Labuschagne has replaced J Root at the top of the ICC Test batting rankings.
Andy Zaltzman has dug out statistics that show that England are doing worse than on any previous Ashes tours: i) for only the fourth time in a series in Oz only 2 England batters have reached 50 in the first 2 Tests; ii) the last time no England bowler recorded a 4 wicket haul in the first 2 Tests was more than 100 years ago; iii) England are only the 2nd team in Ashes history to fail to post either a century or a 4 wicket haul in the first 2 Tests of a series; and iv) the last time England conceded first innings leads of more than 200 in both of the first 2 Tests in Oz, post-war rationing was still in full swing. Doesn't it make you feel good?
The January Cricketer tell us that:
D Gough has been appointed director of cricket at Yorkshire and is understood to have taken a pay cut of £150,000 per year in putting his media career on hold. In the wake of the Azeem Rafiq affair, the ECB have published a 12-point Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, while the PCA has launched an investigation into how personal information relating to Rafiq found its way into the media, while M Vaughan was removed from Ashes commentary with TMS and BT Sport on "editorial" grounds.
Did you know that ex-Warwicks batter Andy Moles (now coaching Bahamas) had his left leg amputated below the knee in April 2020?
Jos Buttler apparently became the first Englishman to score centuries in all 3 international formats when he made 101 v SL?
Did you know that Hugh Cornwell (of the Stranglers) got into cricket because his dad used to listen to commentaries by the likes of B Johnston and J Arlott and it was Devon Malcolm who inspired him to leave the Stranglers?
Mark Baldwin tells us that Sam Billings is a potential "Test batsman hiding in plain sight".
Middlesex news: i) Monty Panesar is one of three new borough coaches recruited to make more of local talent; and ii) S Eskinazi and R White have both signed new contracts for the next 3 years.
Pat Pocock complains that far too many "new county contracts have gone to public school people".
Illingworth has died aged 89. He played 61 Tests for England scoring 1,836 runs and took 122 wickets. He captained England in 31 Tests winning 12 of them. In first class cricket he made 24,134 runs and took 2,072 wickets and led Yorkshire to 3 consecutive Championship titles in 1966-68. He was also England coach 95-96 and chairman of selectors 1994-96.
Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh has retired from all forms of cricket: he took 417 Test wickets (putting him 14th on the all-time leading Test wicket-takers list) and 269 in ODIs.
Ali Martin thinks that C Silverwood is going to pay the price for England's dire performances in Oz. He is already going to miss the next Test in Sydney as one his family has contracted the virus and while J Root is getting strong support, Silverwood is not.
Over the last 12 months J Root has made 1,708 Test runs, R Burns is second on 530 and extras are third on 412!
SA keeper/ batter Quinton de Kock has retired from Test cricket with immediate effect. He says he wants to spend more time with his family, but CSA had already agreed to give him time off from the rest of the Test series v India. He played 54 Tests scoring 3,300 runs at 39 and claiming 232 victims behind the stumps.
In the "i" Richard Edwards gives us his "Future England XI":
1 Tom Haines (Sussex), 2 Chris Dent (Gloucs), 3 Rob Yates (Warks), 4 James Bracey (Gloucs), 5 Harry Brook (Yorks), 6 Tom Prest (Hants), 7 Harry Swindells (Leics), 8 Matt Critchley (Essex), 9 Matthew Fisher (Yorks), 10 Amar Virdi (Surrey), 11 Brydon Carse (Durham).
While Chris Stocks gives us his "Ten-point plan to help to get the England Test side back on track":
- split the England coaching roles;
- sack Ashley Giles and bring back the national selector role;
- replace Mo Bobat the ECB's performance director;
- give Joe Root until the end of 2023 Ashes in England which he has to win;
- implement a minimum preparation period for all future Test tours eg a minimum of three warm-up games;
- cut the number of games that England play: in 2022 there are 27 white ball games plus another T20 WC, this leads to exhausted players under performing in "marquee series like the Ashes";
- delay the start of the County Championship until mid-May then keep it running until August leaving just a couple of rounds of games for the back end of the season in September;
- scrap the Hundred and replace it with a new T20 Competition;
- do not allow players to miss England games for IPL;
- move out the ECB's T Harrison and S Patel (who are both taking a share of a £2.2m bonus in April) and install new leaders who are more concerned about the good of the English game.
B Stokes has thrown his full support behind J Root and C Silverwood and says he has "no designs" on the Test captaincy himself.
International teams of 2021
In the wake of the Ashes debacle several commentators have reminded the English cricket public of recent success in the white ball formats. If this were true you might expect the ICC ODI Team of the year to be packed out with Englishmen but in fact none of them made selection. Nor indeed did anyone from India or Australia. The side is:
- Paul Stirling, Ireland. Stirling was the highest run-scorer in ODIs in 2021 with 705 runs at an average of 79.66. Paul Stirling scored three centuries and two half-centuries
- Janneman Malan, South Africa. Malan scored 509 runs in eight matches at an average of 84.83 with two centuries and two half-centuries.
- Babar Azam (capt), Pakistan Despite having played only 6 matches in 2021, Babar still managed to score 405 runs at an average of 67.50 with two centuries.
- Fakher Zaman, Pakistan. Playing 6 matches, he aggregated 365 runs at an average of 60.83 with two centuries. One of the centuries came against South Africa, in a knock which will be remembered for ages. He scored 193, almost taking Pakistan home in their chase of 342 in Johannesburg.
- Rassie van der Dussien, South Africa. Playing impactful knocks and masterfully rotating the strike, he scored 342 runs in 8 games at an average of 57.
- Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh. In nine matches, he managed to score 277 runs at an average of 39.57 with two half-centuries. He also scalped up 17 wickets at an average of 17.52.
- Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Bangladesh. Playing 9 matches, he aggregated 407 runs at an average of 58.14 with one century.
- Wanindu Hasaranga, Sri Lanka. He scored 356 runs at an average of 27.38 with three half-centuries in 14 matches. Hasaranga was also a constant menace with the ball, picking up 12 wickets at a miserly economy of 4.56.
- Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh. Lethal up front and at the death, he scalped 18 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 21.55. He also proved tough for the batters to get away as proven by his economy of 5.03.
- Simi Singh, Ireland. Singh's off-break bowling saw him pick up 19 wickets at 20.15 while he contributed 280 runs at 46.66.
- Dushmantha Chameera, Sri Lanka Playing 14 matches, he scalped 20 wickets at an average of 29.30 with one five-wicket haul.
The Guardian’s Test team of the year was selected before the Boxing Day test and features no Australians:
1) Rohit Sharma, India
906 runs at 48
A unanimous pick. Made important contributions during India’s series win in Australia, then stepped up a gear when he made a match-defining 161 in India’s 317-run victory against England on a spinning pitch in the second Test in Chennai. He followed that with 15 consecutive double-figures innings, a run that finished with his first overseas century, another match-winning innings against England, in very different conditions, during their 157-run victory in the fourth Test at the Oval.
2) Dimuth Karunaratne, Sri Lanka
902 runs at 69
The captaincy has been the making of Karunaratne, who had the best year of his long career. Away from home, his 103 was the one bright spot in an embarrassing defeat to South Africa at the Wanderers, and he also batted four hours to secure a draw in the second Test on tour in West Indies. England’s 2-0 victory in Sri Lanka might have worked out differently if he’d been fit, because his home form has been imperious. He made 244, and 118 against Bangladesh, and 147 against West Indies.
3) Kane Williamson, New Zealand (captain)
395 runs at 66
Williamson has been struggling with an elbow injury, which he nursed through tours of England and India. It meant that more than half his runs came in one innings, when he made 238 against Pakistan in Christchurch. But he was back, and right in the thick of it, for the biggest match his team played, the World Test Championship final against India in Southampton. He made an over-my-dead body 49 in the first innings and was there unbeaten on 52 at the finish. It was a fitting reward for the most impressive captain in the sport.
4) Joe Root, England
1,708 runs at 61, 14 wickets at 30
No Englishman has had a year quite like Root did in 2021, when he finally became the truly dominant batsman he always promised to be. He started with 228 and 186 in two Tests against Sri Lanka in Galle, and followed that with his monumental 218 against India in Chennai. Back home, he peeled off 109, 180* and 121 in successive matches against India. Which meant his 89 in the first Ashes Test almost felt like a failure. Right now, he is the world’s best batsman.
5) Fakhar Zaman, Pakistan
571 runs at 57
Ungainly, unorthodox, but irresistibly effective, Alam lapped up a first full year of Test cricket. He had spent a decade waiting for a second chance after he made his debut in 2009, 88 Tests on the sidelines, and this was his chance to show the Pakistan selectors what they had been missing. Made the top score of 109 in Pakistan’s victory over South Africa in Karachi, after the team had been 27 for four, followed it up with 140* against Zimbabwe in Harare and 124* against the West Indies at Sabina Park. He was the only century-maker on either side in all three matches.
6) Rishabh Pant, India (wicketkeeper)
706 runs at 42, 26 catches, six stumpings
If the only thing Pant did in 2021 was hit that one reverse-lap sweep for four off Jimmy Anderson, you would still remember his year. As it was, his devil-may-care batting made him one of the key players in India’s series victory in Australia, where he made a crucial 97 in the draw at Sydney and an extraordinary 89* in the win at Brisbane. He worked over England, too, with 91, 58*, and 101 in the series at home. His form fell away on the return tour later in the summer, but he still finished with a fine 50 at the Oval.
7) Ravichandran Ashwin, India
337 runs at 28, 52 wickets at 16 (not including current Test v South Africa)
Ashwin played only eight of India’s 13 Tests this year, and somehow he still ended up as the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket (at the time of writing). After years of ceaseless tinkering and thinking, he has turned himself into the greatest spin bowler of his era. At home, he’s unplayable. He picked up 32 wickets in four Tests against England, and another 14 in two home Tests against New Zealand. In among all that, he made a handsome century against England in Chennai, and was unbeaten on 39 at stumps when India drew in Sydney.
8) Jason Holder, West Indies
253 runs at 23, 22 wickets at 23
Holder may have lost the captaincy after five and a half years in charge when the selectors replaced him with his friend Kraigg Brathwaite, but he has plenty to be getting on with, batting at No 6 or 7, often opening the bowling, and catching bullets in the field. His batting has suffered, although he played two crucial innings when he made 71* in a draw against Sri Lanka and 58 in a victory over Pakistan, and his parsimonious medium pace means he’s currently the world’s top-ranked all-rounder.
9) Kyle Jamieson, New Zealand
27 wickets at 18
Took to Test cricket like he had been built for it in a laboratory hidden somewhere in the reaches of New Zealand’s South Island. He destroyed Pakistan when he took 11 for 117 in Christchurch at the start of the year and at the moment it mattered most turned in a man-of-the-match performance in the World Test championship final. He took seven wickets in the match, including five for 31 in the first innings when he dismissed Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli when they were threatening to run away with the game.
10) Jasprit Bumrah, India
25 wickets at 29 (not including current Test v South Africa)
Bumrah is way off the sort of electric form he showed in his first year of Test cricket but with his clockwork toy action and wicked yorker, he’s one of the reliably entertaining bowlers in the game. He dominated England in the first Test of India’s summer tour at Trent Bridge, where he took four cheap wickets in one innings and five more in the other, and was even better in India’s victory at the Oval, where he turned the game on its head with a wildfire six-over spell on a tarmac-flat track late on the fifth day.
11) Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan
47 wickets at 17
Still only 21, Afridi has grown into the most electric player on the international circuit. His devilish left-arm pace, all waspish full balls and ripping bouncers, cut through every team he’s played this year. He has taken wickets in New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and against South Africa in Pakistan, but was at his best in the second Test against the West Indies at Sabina Park, where he took career-best figures of 10 for 94.
For completeness the ICC Men's T20I Team of the Year 2021 is :
Jos Buttler
Mohammad Rizwan
Babar Azam
Aiden Markram
Mitchel Marsh
David Miller
Tabriz Shamsi
Josh Hazlewood
Wanindu Hasaranga
Mustafizur Rahman
Shaheen Afridi
Colin Price matters
Allen Bruton received the following from Colin Price
Q What do you get if you cross the English cricket team with an OXO cube?
A. A laughingstock.
Q What is the height of optimism?
A: English batsman putting on sunscreen.
Q. What is the difference between an English batsman and a Formula 1 car?
A. Nothing! If you blink you will miss them both.
Q. What do English batsmen and drug addicts have in common?
A. Both spend most of their time wondering where their next score will come from.
Q. What does an English batsman who is playing in The Ashes have in common with Michael Jackson?
A. They both wore gloves for no apparent reason.
Q. What is the difference between Cinderella and the Pommies?
A. Cinderella knew when to leave the ball.
Q. What's the difference between the Pommies and a funeral director?
A. A funeral director isn't going to lose the ashes.
In memoriam
I heard from Bob Peach that Roy Phipps had died. He sent me the following
As a local schoolboy I regularly cycled to watch South Hampstead. From 1948 these games often included a young ‘donkey drop’ slow bowler whose exceptionally high deliveries were frequently sent even higher to or over the boundary.
By 1971 when he moved to Somerset Roy had taken over 1700 wickets as a top-class leg spinner mainly in competitive week –end matches against the strongest club sides in London and the Southeast.
With a highest yearly total of 143 wickets in 1955 throughout the sixties he continued to provide a successful compliment to a mainly seam attack and his career record was the second highest in the club’s history at that time.
Roy’s batting was basically limited to a left-handed forward prod which competed keenly with Don Wallis’s similar right hand push for the No 11 spot. In addition to several match saving performances two memories stand out.
1965 was the most successful results year of the decade with only two losses. One of which was against Old Merchant Taylors when out of a total of 41 the Phipps/Wallis partnership of 9 for the last wicket was the highest of the innings. Rather more successful was Roy’s 26 at no 10 out of 103 versus Shepherds Bush in 1960 leading to a 16-run victory.
Roy’s considerable bowling achievements on a batting friendly pitch with small boundaries made a significant contribution to the club’s performances for many years. It also created a better understanding of slow bowling and a precedent for the later arrival of other fine spinners. Without doubt he features in my best ever club side.
Alvin Nienow noted
Roy was such a 'looker' too; and a fine sporting gentleman whether playing with or against him in addition to his bowling skills. I also remember some young and very attractive girl being introduced to him and exclaiming "not the Roy Phipps!" Of course, I also remember being the losing Bush captain when he and Norman Cooper pulled ‘the frying pan out of the fire’ at the Bush in 1960. A lesson I learnt about not using a heavy roller between innings on saturated pitches.
Steve Thompson sent me this
As the baby of these communications I never had the benefit of playing with Roy and if I did ever see him play the memories are possibly more imagined than real. What I do remember from conversations with him at the earlier reunions is just what a lovely, gentle and engaging man he was. When South Hampstead ‘greats’ are listed he will obviously be inked in.
Robin Ager noted
I didn’t know him very well, as he was already a seasoned member when I joined the club in 1963 and had begun to play once a week. However, I recall him as a good bowler who I found difficult to ‘pick’, and an unassuming character.
And finally, me
Robin is right. When I joined South Hampstead in 1963 there were a number of fine keepers ahead of me not least were Robin Ager, Dickie Brooks and, of course, Norman Cooper. However, there were occasions later in the sixties when I got to keep in the first XI and if Roy Phipps was playing I new it would be a nightmare. Roy was over six feet tall and bowled with a high arm action. His leg spinners would loop and consequently the ball would bounce much more than it would for front of the hand bowlers. As a result, the trajectory for taking the ball behind the stumps was completely different and I would fumble around often spilling the ball. Don’t be misled by Peach’s comments above either. Roy was not a very slow lob bowler. As for reading his googly, I never got round to even worrying about that!
English cricket is in disarray – and it’s a metaphor for the whole country
Martin Kettle, Guardian associate editor and columnist, explains
Cricket is ruled by upper-class white men, deluded about their abilities. It’s hard not to see a parallel between the Ashes shambles and Brexit
It has been years since football surged past cricket to become England’s favourite sport. Even so, more than a century after cricket’s “golden age”, an Ashes Test series between England and Australia remains one of the most resonant contests in the sporting calendar. This week, after the latest ignominious England defeat in Australia, it seems sensible to ask two questions. How come? And for how much longer?
For some of us, cricket is still the most wonderful of all sports, uniquely balancing individual skill, collective effort and the need for time and strategy. But why are England now playing it so badly? The Ashes contest is uniquely deep-rooted in national legend. The Bradmans and Bothams cast long shadows. But why has this inspired Australians to heroic feats, while reducing England to nervous wrecks?
It was predictable that the latest humiliating defeat of Joe Root and his team would trigger a bout of cricket soul-searching. The finger of blame has been pointed at inadequate preparation, defective batting technique, dropped catches, poor spin bowling, and lacklustre coaching and captaincy. All these are relevant. But they don’t get at a deeper underlying “why?”
The BBC’s Jonathan Agnew is among those who cast the net more widely. He points to enduring structural defects within English cricket itself. These include the marginalisation of the long form of cricket, of which Test matches are the pinnacle, in favour of the limited over “white ball” short forms that TV companies, advertisers and many supporters prefer. Not that this clash of codes seems to have troubled the Australians much.
Few have yet tried to take a larger view. One who has is my Guardian colleague Jonathan Liew. He identifies a basic cultural difference between the Australian and English approaches. “To play Test cricket for Australia in 2021 still essentially means something,” Liew wrote this week, citing the match-winning performance of Scott Boland, only the second cricketer of Indigenous Australian heritage to wear the trademark baggy green cap. By contrast, Liew points out, “the very point of the England Test team has become somehow blunted, dissolved, obscured”.
Again, one asks – why? The question would have been grist to the mill of arguably the 20th century’s most original writer on English cricket. It is half a century now since Rowland Bowen wrote what is still, for all its flaws and quirkiness, the single best cricket book of its era. But Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development Throughout the World, published in 1970, stands the test of time.
On the face of it, Bowen was a character out of English cricket central casting. A retired Indian army officer and perhaps a former spy, he was one of that tribe of white, private school, upper-middle-class men whose fanaticism about cricket still forms a significant stratum of the English game’s support. To call him an eccentric would be an understatement. This was a man who, believe it or not, amputated his own right leg in his bathroom in 1968 to prove it could be done.
His book, though, was another matter. Its central argument was that cricket’s rise reflected the flourishing of the industrial and imperial ages, and that English cricket was becoming unsustainable as industrial and imperial Britain came to an end. Bowen also thought cricket’s decline was intertwined with English racism – he pointedly chose the great Caribbean cricket writer and Marxist CLR James to write the introduction to his book – and he believed that most of the agonies of English cricket were caused by the wishes of those who controlled the game to preserve something that was historically doomed.
As misguided determinists do, Bowen sometimes let his vision of epochal decline get the better of him. Fifty years on, cricket has not been reduced to “rough and ready” status, metal bats have not replaced wooden ones, Wisden still comes out each year and the counties continue to provide the basis of the English game. Cricket’s adaptability has been greater and more successful than Bowen expected. The shift in power over world cricket from England to India was not something he foresaw either.
Even so, Bowen would have had a pretty clear understanding of why England get beaten in the Ashes so often. He would have put cricket’s problems in a larger social context. He would have said the pathways to cricket’s renewal and growth have been cut off, closed and neglected, making the game increasingly unsustainable at the grassroots, especially in state schools which have either had to sell their playing fields or never had them in the first place.
He would have said cricket suffers because it is no longer even visible, either in the flesh or on terrestrial TV. He would have said this is because the game has become overprofessionalised, existing too exclusively for the benefit of those who play, administer, promote and make money out of cricket for a living rather than being encouraged to grow more organically and in new ways within English society as it is now. He would have looked to the popularity of cricket in the subcontinent as a striking alternative model.
And he would have said cricket has not come to terms with its own racism. English cricket has a long, bad record on race, embodied by its support for apartheid-era South Africa. You know something is structurally wrong by comparing Gareth Southgate’s England football team, which often has five or more minority ethnic players and which is comfortable in its diversity, with Root’s side, which had just one player of non-European heritage this week. England footballers take the knee. Its cricketers do not. As Michael Holding powerfully says, cricket is simply not serious enough.
By far the most important thing that happened in English cricket this year was not the Ashes defeat but the exposure of the game’s institutionalised racism. A third of recreational cricket players in England are of south Asian heritage; that dwindles to just 4% at the elite county level. The complaints made by the former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq have at last blown a hole in the culpable complacency of his former county. But Yorkshire – of which I am a member – is not the only club that needs to start again from scratch.
It requires particularly powerful blinkers not to see links between these factors and England’s Ashes defeats. England cricket – and its overindulged Barmy Army of supporters – is too complacent, not very good and spends too much time in a bubble of Anglosphere exceptionalism. It is at risk of becoming a metaphor for Brexit, deluded about its abilities and achievements, promoting itself as the envy of the world when it is not, and resentful of its critics. The world has moved on. Perhaps cricket lovers should do so too.
Odd Man Out
Who is the odd man out in this bunch?
Billy Godleman
Ryan Higgins
James Fuller
Joe Denly
Laurie Evans
Chris Wright
Gareth Berg
Adam Rossington
Peter Trego
Josh Davey
Dawid Malan
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
is produced by
James Sharp
Broad Lee House
Combs
High Peak
SK23 9XA
[email protected]
