G&C 238
GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 238
October 2022
Spot the Ball
Charles Colville: What are the plans for the ECB?
ECB Spokesman: We are going to play Trickle-Down Cricket.
Charles Colville: How will that work?
ECB Spokesman: I have no idea.
Charles Colville: Why are you adopting this policy?
ECB Spokesman: We have to do something radical that has not been tried before.
Charles Colville: Could it mean that all cricket will soon be like The Hundred?
ECB Spokesman: You speak as if that would be a bad thing.
Charles Colville: Is it true that the ICC have warned you of the dangers of adopting this policy?
ECB Spokesman: Yes, but what do they know?
Out & About with The Professor
The connections between the game of cricket and the Italian island of Sicily are, it would not be unreasonable to suggest, a little tenuous. In two weeks here I have only met one resident who has ever seen the game played on the island, by: “two teams of immigrants”. There are quite a lot of immigrants in southern Italy but I doubt they will generate much of a cricketing tradition. In the area around Mt. Etna there is scarcely a piece of land flat enough to take a cricket ground, while, as another elderly English hotel guest suggested (perhaps a little ungenerously), the traditional Sicilian way of business management might not be compatible with the honoured concepts of: “sportsmanship (sic) and fair play” (I think he was remembering his school days).
I haven’t checked, but I suppose the MCC, in their missionary zeal, might have sent an exploratory team out here and Sicily would provide an excellent venue for the hosting of the two matches which have been a the centre of a protracted “debate” at HQ. The two games: Eton v Harrow and Oxford v Cambridge, are euphemistically referred to by their supporters as, “the historic fixtures” (which should not be confused with the non-historic ones like, say, the Ashes). The St. John’s Wood illuminati have been wrestling with the reaction from a few members to the suggestion that these two games might be played elsewhere. Debate, consultation (sort of), a Special General Meeting, letters to all members, including proxy voting forms, have all been abandoned - at a day’s notice in the case of the SGM - in what looks very much like a supine capitulation by the Board to the “traditionalists” who declare that the “historic fixtures” are “Indelibly etched” into the fabric of the MCC. For a study in euphemisms this little episode provides a useful exercise: for “historic” read “privilege” and “traditionalist”, “reactionary”. Other synonyms are available.
One might think that an Italian island was a good place to get away from these trivialities as well as the travails of domestic cricket, but not so. The seductive tyranny of the Internet plus the ownership of an iPad means that I have been able to watch every ball bowled in the T20 internationals on YouTube and, sadly, ball by ball commentary of the shambles that was Yorkshire’s County Cricket campaign. While England have thrashed Pakistan in four games and gone on to lose two others which seemed easier to win, Yorkshire have added relegation to what must count as the most disastrous couple of years in the Club’s history…a title for which there is some serious competition.
Yorkshire’s problems are scarcely new, nor private. Listing them is to chronicle the implosion of a club: virtual bankruptcy salvaged by a £multimillion loan from Colin Graves; the resignation of his successor, having failed a “fit and proper person” test; the truly dreadful Azeem Rafiq racism scandal and the (almost) equally dreadful reaction in the Club, polarised as denial on the one part to evisceration of the support and medical staff on the other; the appointment of new support staff - like the Director of Cricket, Darren Gough - presumably on the basis of his popularity rather than any record of astute direction of cricket…or indeed anything else; and finally (finally?) the dire performance on the pitch of the county side - six defeats in the last eight with only one win all season. I’m sure I’ve left a few things out.
I suppose the absence of six international players hasn’t exactly helped (I read that Root was playing golf during Yorkshire’s last match; he plays, it seems, “too much cricket”). While the issue of the captaincy, with Patterson resigning halfway through the season, Tattersall taking over when he wasn’t even in the side at the start of the year, only to now be replaced by Masood when (if?) he arrives from Derbyshire/Pakistan, doesn’t have the feel of clear insightful “direction” which Gough was supposed to give. The fact that the Club was waiting until the last afternoon of the season to see if relegation could be avoided by Hampshire beating Warwickshire, might well serve as a metaphor for the whole sorry mess.
Nor, of course, are we finished yet. The sacking of the entire coaching and medical staff has generated a string of compensation claims, the latest producing a “substantial” payout to Andrew Gale. Added to that, physiotherapist Wayne Morton has revealed that he was sent a letter by the then Secretary, accusing him of having “unprotected” (how could they know?) sex with a prostitute who then, “engaged in sexual activity with at least one other member of staff”.
What sounds like a quiet night out for some professional footballers has prompted a £500k claim for damages from Morton. (The ECB, of course, still has much on its racism agenda to deal with, for which the anodyne and vacuous phrase: “there is no place for racism in cricket” might not be regarded as an entirely sufficient response.)
A final (and no one believes it will be) twist is the call yesterday by the former Chair of Yorkshire (he who failed the “fit and proper” test) for the whole Board to resign, with the suggestion that they had bought the name of the Club into disrepute. This was not, I feel sure, an attempt at West Riding irony.
It is difficult to think of anyone coming well out of this - although there may be some smiles across the Pennines - but as an exercise in how not to run a cricket club, or indeed anything at all, this grim example would be hard to beat. Perhaps the traditional management style associated with some Sicilian families might have some elements the Yorkshire Board might wish to emulate.
This & That
As I recall it Toby Roland-Jones was never dropped from the England side but after injury was never recalled. To be fair this is the first season since then that he has stayed fit but with one round of matches to go he is the leading wicket taker with 63 in the County Championship. Next is Kyle Abbott with 58. So why is it that he has not been mentioned for international recall? He has also become a useful contributor with the bat at number eight.
I have watched the first four T20s from Pakistan. These matches were all played in Karachi where there were sell out crowds of over 30,000 for each match. But the England players must have thought they were at Chelmsford as none of their efforts were rewarded with any applause.
The Sky team was split between the ground where only David Gower and Mark Butcher appeared to have travelled and the London Studio where Ian Ward and Michael Atherton are lounging around on sofas. Given Gower’s love affair with Pakistan one would have expected him to have some idea about the playing conditions. Both he and Butcher continually called the wickets incorrectly saying that they would be quick when they were slow or that they would get slower when in fact they got quicker. The local experts who included Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis kept diplomatically quiet during these predictions and would repeat periodically that the Karachi wickets were always slow.
In Match 6 Babar Azam joined Virat Kohli as the fastest man to reach 3000 runs in IT20 matches. They are followed by: Martin Guptill, Rohit Sharma and Paul Stirling.
The deciding match 7 was a huge disappointment. After England had scored over 200 after being put in Pakistan showed no interest or capability of chasing down the necessary runs after Babar and Rizwan were out. They won’t get far in the World Cup without some other contributions. Incidentally neither Babar or Rizwan went on to significant scores other than in their ten wicket win match. They are going to have to work out what their roles are going to be. Meanwhile England have the opposite problem of who to leave out. One of their best batsmen in Pakistan, Ben Duckett, is not even in the World Cup party. It is assumed that Buttler, Stokes and Livingstone are shoe ins which means that not all of Salt, Hales, Malan, Brook and Moeen will be in the team. Professional sport can be a hard employer.
The commentators heap much praise on the new shots and especially the ramp and its variations as well as the reverse sweep and its variations. However, it seems that an increasing number of players are getting out to them and the broadcast goes silent as no one can believe the imbecility of a new batsman being bowled when trying to ramp a yorker over the keeper’s head.
A ridiculous feature of the modern television presentations is that at a certain point during the play the commentary team hands over to a colleague who at pitch side interviews someone who may have nothing to do with the match. During the third match when the third over of the Pakistan innings started the broadcast transferred to a woman who started talking to Ramiz Raja and some English bloke all with their backs to the cricket. The over chosen for this pointless interview was the momentous first over bowled by Mark Wood in which he first got Babar leaping away from a bouncer and then had him caught at third man by Reece Topley. Meanwhile the commentary crew had to try to pretend that nothing of significance was being missed by the viewers.
Even I have to admit that there has been some progress in the Women’s game but to pretend that it has become an attraction to rival the men’s is ludicrous. When I turned on early for the fourth T20 on Sunday I caught a little of the final of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy from Lord’s. This was the climax of the domestic season for Women’s cricket and the equivalent of the Kent v Lancashire sell out match played earlier in the month. As the cameras panned around the stadium there was the occasional person amidst banks of empty seats. There can’t have been more than a couple of hundred spectators in total. The match attracted neither supporters of the two competing teams nor other cricket fans.
The run glut in the County Championship largely dried up in September. Lancashire took a slim first innings lead in their match at Chelmsford despite having been dismissed for only 131. However, in their second innings they slumped to 7 for 6 with only Jennings of the top five troubling the scorers. They crept up to 73 all out leaving Essex just 98 to win. But this was more than enough for victory as Essex slumped to 59 all out, leaving Lancashire winners by the relatively huge margin of 39 runs. During the Lancashire v Surrey game in the final round of matches Paul Allott reported that the players related that every ball in the Chelmsford match did something making batting almost impossible. They should give uncovered wickets a go.
The Glamorgan captain, David Lloyd, added his name to the list of batsmen who have enjoyed playing against Derbyshire this season. At Sophia Gardens he batted throughout the innings finishing on 313 not out.
In the final round of games the Division 2 leaders Notts enjoyed themselves at Trent Bridge against Durham. Four batsmen (Hameed 115, Montgomery 178, James 164 and Mullaney 146) reached triple figures before they declared at 662 for 5. Durham's day was made even worse by a 10-point deduction imposed on them after Australian batter Nic Maddinson's bat failed a size test during the game with Derbyshire earlier this month.
Middlesex got promoted in this final round of matches in no small part due to Sussex who were playing their rivals for the promotion slot, Glamorgan. Sussex were forced to follow on after conceding a first innings lead of a colossal 275. Many sides would have crumpled but Ali Orr and captain, Tom Haines, came out swinging. They added 328 for the first wicket before Orr was run out for 198 scored at over a run a ball and which included 10 sixes. Haines scored his second hundred of the match and Sussex eventually declared at 554 for 8 and the match was drawn.
Morgan Matters
Our man completes another season without leaving his sofa
England's Test head coach, B McCullum, who has 6 wins from 7 Tests, says he has "not been doing a lot"! J Root says that the England team "are making Test cricket so exciting that the Hundred might end up redundant". He also says that J Anderson and C Broad will definitely be selected for England's 2023 Ashes squad.
Rs had a good 0-2 away win at Millwall (always nice to win there) with goals from Willock and Johansen. Rs are 8th, but level on points with 5th place.
RLODC Final: Kent made 306-6 (Evison 97, Denly 78) and Lancs could only manage 283 a/o (Jennings and Croft 72 apiece) so Kent took the trophy by 21 runs. The O does not tell us who won the MotM, but I should think it would be Evison as he made the top score of the match and he also picked up a couple of wickets and a catch.
Indian pace bowler Umesh Yadav will miss Mx's last 2 Championship matches with a thigh injury.
The October Cricketer tells us that:
What a Load of Crap Dept: English cricket's bid to regain the men's and women's Ashes from Australia will play out over a compressed six week period next year as the decks are cleared for the Hundred to take centre stage in August: thank goodness I retired when I did!
A Strauss is rightly facing huge criticism over his ludicrous plan to reduce the number of Championship matches so that more crap like the Hundred can be fitted in!
There was controversy in the women's 50/50 at Lord's when Deepti Sharma ran out Charlie Dean for being out of her ground at the non-striker's end instead of delivering the ball (known as a "Mankad", I believe). It is legal, of course, but "just not done" in most circles. England lost the match and the series.
The ECB is developing a plan to host Test cricket between Pakistan and India on a neutral ground in Eng.
There was no play at all at Worcester on day four because of rain (we have not had drop here), but that confirms that Middlesex (16 points) have been promoted. Crack open the champers!
Yorkshire's new overseas player Shan Masood has been appointed as the club's new captain from when he arrives at Headingley in 2023...shame they have just been relegated really.
D(aft?) Malan supports the ECB's proposal to reduce the number of County Championship matches.
CC Summary: Surrey are champs of div 1, Lancashire 2nd and Hampshire 3rd, relegated Gloucestershire bottom and Yorkshire next to last. Div 2 Notts top and second placed Middlesex also promoted, wooden spoonists were Leicestershire, 35 points adrift of Sussex.
Former Yorkshire skipper Steve Patterson has retired, Sussex head coach Ian Salisbury has been thanked for his services and sacked! Leicestershire have sacked six, none of them household names.
The Times tells us that the "next big thing" is Ali Orr of Sussex.
Minor Counties
Guy Curry sheds light on my query in last month’s edition
In Googlies 237 you asked a question to which you said “no one knows why”. I might be able to throw some light on it. I am a member of the Devon CCC committee. There used to be, as you well know, a time when leading minor counties (now ill named in my view National Counties) played in the Gillette Cup. This was important for two reasons. It created a link between the First Class game and the next level down which has been sadly and in many ways tragically broken. It secondly encouraged the minor counties and did produce an income stream which was very welcome. There was the occasional upset which angered the First-Class counties but was good for the game and keeping them in their place.
National Counties still make a major input into the First-Class game. Devon for example has produced a large number of First-Class cricketers most going on to Somerset and even currently have three who have played for England in the last two years - Dom Bess and the Overton twins. These have been nurtured through the system (which has been very good in Devon) and on they go to be fed into higher levels. There is no compensation and little recognition of the work and effort (all unpaid) which goes into the nurture. There is now a link (not compulsory though) between all National Counties and their nearest First Class county. As a further forging of that link and as a fairly low-key recognition of the contribution of the National Counties in nurturing players for the good of the game, each of the First Class counties is now mandated to play a friendly against its National County. We would rather see a return to a proper competition in which National Counties can again compete against First Class Counties, but this is unacceptable to ECB and this is the rather feeble (but better than nothing) reward offered to the hard working and as I said totally unremunerated level below the top level.
I think that I must have seen the last game played by James Hildreth in the Somerset first team at the delightful rural ground of Bovey Tracy!
Worthy Champions
Ralph Adelman sent me this
Let’s not beat about the bush. I am thrilled that Surrey have won the county championship again. I am, as would be expected, always delighted when Surrey win anything but the championship is the big deal. Surrey haven’t performed at their best for every session of every match but they have always battled through to win or to get a draw. This, in my opinion, is down to Gareth Batty. The battling qualities that they have shown are what we always saw from him when he was playing. If the Surrey team was a stick of rock, it would have Gareth Batty printed all the way through.
I am writing this after the championship has been won but before the final match at Old Trafford. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that they can remain unbeaten for the season. I attended the first 2 days of the match against Yorkshire – along with a Yorkshireman on day one. The KIA Oval was renamed as the Mickey Stewart Oval for the duration of the match to mark his 90th birthday and he was presented with the “Key to the Oval” on the pitch at teatime on day two. The Stewarts have been so important to Surrey for so many years. Fortunately we still have Alec as manager having lost Richard Gould and Richard Thompson in the last year.
They were the Chief Executive and Chairman respectively until Richard Gould joined Bristol City as their Chief Executive last year and Richard Thompson became chair of the ECB. They had been the only Chief Executive and Chairman that I had known since I became a Surrey member (soon after I retired). They were both exceptionally good. We have to hope that Steve Elworthy can do something approaching as good a job as Richard Gould. And Surrey’s loss of Richard Thompson is undoubtedly the ECB’s gain. I am hopeful that his appointment will prove to be an important one in securing a sensible outcome for domestic cricket from the ongoing review. Surrey are planning consultation sessions on this for members.
OK. Now back to the cricket. I couldn’t attend the third day of the Yorkshire match – the day that we won the championship. But I watched most of the day’s play on the live stream. I also texted back and forth to my mate Ron who was there – a fellow Surrey member and Old Dane. Surrey used 22 players in the championship and lord knows how many more in the Blast and the One-day Cup. They won the championship despite missing many of their best known players who were in one international squad or another for most if not all of the season. That list includes:
We did have both Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes available for the Yorkshire match. Jamie Smith has done a good job in Ben’s absence but it is much better if you can have the best wicket keeper around behind the stumps. And another Oval ton from Ollie Pope played a big part in the battle back from 136-5 to a 1st innings total of well over 300.
Injuries limited some of the playing time for some of the remaining squad. The one-day cup squad was even more limited given that Surrey had 14 players drafted into various teams in the dreaded Hundred. The upside of having all of these players missing, is that it gives opportunities for others to break through into the first team. Most notable of these others this season has to be Tom Lawes. He is a skilled, and for his age, a very disciplined bowler and he has contributed significantly more than once with the bat in the one-day cup and the championship.
It was unsurprising that Surrey didn’t progress in the one-day cup with so many players missing from the squad. When the remainder suffered injuries we had to go on school raids. Schoolboys Yousef Majid and Sheridon Gumbs (that is his real name) both performed well and make the future look bright.
I am hopeful that Surrey can have an even more successful season in 2023, that there will be a better structure to the 2023 fixtures list and that the ECB realise that the overlap of domestic and international cricket is down to too much international cricket and do not damage the domestic structure that develops the players ready for the international stage. I am an optimist.
Season’s awards
Tanya Aldred presents the Spin’s Awards for the season
The Spin is laden with gongs to dole out to the best, worst, and most memorable events of the 2022 Championship season. This is a Championship that may – depending on which way the counties vote on the Strauss report, probably before the fixtures come out in November, possibly sometime in the spring of 2048 – be in its final incarnation of two divisions with promotion and relegation. Much then, to celebrate. With no further ado: please put your hands together for …
The Micky Stewart award for team of the season
Surrey, a cut above the rest. Well led by Rory Burns, 22 focused players, 10 of them homegrown, who took a 16-point lead into September and didn’t slip up. Most tellingly, Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes were desperate to come back and play for their club in the penultimate match of the year and help seal the title. A class act.
The Kwasi Kwarteng award for inept announcements.
The ECB, for publishing the final results of the High Performance Review on the very day Surrey won the championship. This ensured that players were asked about their thoughts on Strauss’s fine print just after doing a victory lap of the Oval and were pushed to the side of their own story.
The Joe Root award for outstanding excellence with the bat
Harry Brook, head and shoulders above other young English contenders, who dominated the first half of the season before being called up by England. His absence in September proved a glaring hole in Yorkshire’s batting lineup as they fought to avoid relegation.
The are-we-there-yet award
The Cricket Disciplinary Committee’s investigation of the Azeem Rafiq saga at Yorkshire, which drags on and on. Interviews are due to happen this autumn with a final report expected before Christmas. Don’t hold your breath.
The canary-in-the-coalmine warning 19 July 2022
The UK’s hottest day on record, where the temperatures around the grounds nudged towards 40C. It is a huge issue for cricket to contemplate: as the experts say – this is the coldest summer of the rest of your life.
The Steve Waugh award for brotherly love
Surrey’s Jamie Overton, who sent down a bouncer to brother Craig which knocked him to the Taunton turf. As others gathered round, Jamie scowled and strutted away. Not so long afterwards, a beaming Craig handed Jamie his first Test cap.
Moment of madness award for dropping the ball
Hampshire, whose chances of winning their first championship since 1973 disappeared in the blink of an eye after being bowled out for 57 at home against the most unlikely opponents, Kent.
The Ciderabad award for interesting pitches
Chelmsford, in the penultimate round of the season, where 26 wickets fell on the first day, 14 on the next, as Essex failed to chase 98 and everything was wrapped up just after lunch on the second afternoon. To the gnashing of teeth at Taunton, and despite the pitch being marked as poor, and reports of unexpected holes, no points were deducted because it couldn’t be proved that Essex had done it on purpose.
The cricket diplomacy award for image of the season
Mohammad Rizwan and Cheteshwar Pujara batting together for Sussex – joyful to see after India and Pakistan had played no bilateral cricket since 2012-13.
The New Coke award for worst product launch
The 2022 Dukes ball, which for reasons still unclear – the hides? The dye? – behaved erratically, often not lasting 80 overs. At the Riverside, there were five unscheduled ball changes in one day and the sight of disgruntled players watching the umpire squeeze a ball through his callipers became one of the images of the season.
The Muttiah Muralitharan award for best overseas signing
Almost impossible to call after the first part of the season was brightened by an influx of high-class players from Pakistan, unable to play in the IPL, with bowlers as brilliant as Shaheen Shah Afridi taking their turn to fathom the Dukes ball. Left-arm spinner Zafar Gohar has toiled away for struggling Gloucestershire but the prize is shared between Cheteshwar Pujara at Sussex and Shan Masood at Derbyshire – who both made over 1,000 runs and became figureheads at their counties.
The shop-window award for winter tour ware-waving
Keaton Jennings long-discarded by England, is the leading run scorer, and, until Jamie Overton trapped him lbw for 199, was on course to join Frank Watson as the only players in Championship history to score a triple and two double centuries in one summer.
Barnet Watch
I spotted Rory Burns (remember him?) fielding in a televised match earlier this season and there appeared to be nothing untoward. But later when he batted it seemed that he was sporting a Chris Gayle style bandana but not just at the back but around his head leaving just the face exposed. Closer inspection revealed that this was his hair which had grown to at least shoulder length. One wonders if he has, perhaps, lost a bet.
Reece James’ tonsorial efforts always merit an entry in this column and his recent appearance in Milan was no exception where he had bleached hair with a red and yellow flash in it which gave the appearance of an incomplete traffic light.
West Ham’s Maxwel Cornet has bleached mini curls over his head which look like a game of marbles.
Molloy Matters
In the last edition I somewhat gratuitously included a photo of Ken Molloy with his Spanish wife, Maria. After publication I received an email from Ken saying: “Given the gender issues these days I think you should have told googlies readers that in the photo you included I am the one in the suit, not the dress”.
Googlies Website
All the back editions of Googlies can be found on the G&C website. There are also many photographs most of which have never appeared in Googlies.
www.googliesandchinamen.com
Googlies and Chinamen
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 238
October 2022
Spot the Ball
Charles Colville: What are the plans for the ECB?
ECB Spokesman: We are going to play Trickle-Down Cricket.
Charles Colville: How will that work?
ECB Spokesman: I have no idea.
Charles Colville: Why are you adopting this policy?
ECB Spokesman: We have to do something radical that has not been tried before.
Charles Colville: Could it mean that all cricket will soon be like The Hundred?
ECB Spokesman: You speak as if that would be a bad thing.
Charles Colville: Is it true that the ICC have warned you of the dangers of adopting this policy?
ECB Spokesman: Yes, but what do they know?
Out & About with The Professor
The connections between the game of cricket and the Italian island of Sicily are, it would not be unreasonable to suggest, a little tenuous. In two weeks here I have only met one resident who has ever seen the game played on the island, by: “two teams of immigrants”. There are quite a lot of immigrants in southern Italy but I doubt they will generate much of a cricketing tradition. In the area around Mt. Etna there is scarcely a piece of land flat enough to take a cricket ground, while, as another elderly English hotel guest suggested (perhaps a little ungenerously), the traditional Sicilian way of business management might not be compatible with the honoured concepts of: “sportsmanship (sic) and fair play” (I think he was remembering his school days).
I haven’t checked, but I suppose the MCC, in their missionary zeal, might have sent an exploratory team out here and Sicily would provide an excellent venue for the hosting of the two matches which have been a the centre of a protracted “debate” at HQ. The two games: Eton v Harrow and Oxford v Cambridge, are euphemistically referred to by their supporters as, “the historic fixtures” (which should not be confused with the non-historic ones like, say, the Ashes). The St. John’s Wood illuminati have been wrestling with the reaction from a few members to the suggestion that these two games might be played elsewhere. Debate, consultation (sort of), a Special General Meeting, letters to all members, including proxy voting forms, have all been abandoned - at a day’s notice in the case of the SGM - in what looks very much like a supine capitulation by the Board to the “traditionalists” who declare that the “historic fixtures” are “Indelibly etched” into the fabric of the MCC. For a study in euphemisms this little episode provides a useful exercise: for “historic” read “privilege” and “traditionalist”, “reactionary”. Other synonyms are available.
One might think that an Italian island was a good place to get away from these trivialities as well as the travails of domestic cricket, but not so. The seductive tyranny of the Internet plus the ownership of an iPad means that I have been able to watch every ball bowled in the T20 internationals on YouTube and, sadly, ball by ball commentary of the shambles that was Yorkshire’s County Cricket campaign. While England have thrashed Pakistan in four games and gone on to lose two others which seemed easier to win, Yorkshire have added relegation to what must count as the most disastrous couple of years in the Club’s history…a title for which there is some serious competition.
Yorkshire’s problems are scarcely new, nor private. Listing them is to chronicle the implosion of a club: virtual bankruptcy salvaged by a £multimillion loan from Colin Graves; the resignation of his successor, having failed a “fit and proper person” test; the truly dreadful Azeem Rafiq racism scandal and the (almost) equally dreadful reaction in the Club, polarised as denial on the one part to evisceration of the support and medical staff on the other; the appointment of new support staff - like the Director of Cricket, Darren Gough - presumably on the basis of his popularity rather than any record of astute direction of cricket…or indeed anything else; and finally (finally?) the dire performance on the pitch of the county side - six defeats in the last eight with only one win all season. I’m sure I’ve left a few things out.
I suppose the absence of six international players hasn’t exactly helped (I read that Root was playing golf during Yorkshire’s last match; he plays, it seems, “too much cricket”). While the issue of the captaincy, with Patterson resigning halfway through the season, Tattersall taking over when he wasn’t even in the side at the start of the year, only to now be replaced by Masood when (if?) he arrives from Derbyshire/Pakistan, doesn’t have the feel of clear insightful “direction” which Gough was supposed to give. The fact that the Club was waiting until the last afternoon of the season to see if relegation could be avoided by Hampshire beating Warwickshire, might well serve as a metaphor for the whole sorry mess.
Nor, of course, are we finished yet. The sacking of the entire coaching and medical staff has generated a string of compensation claims, the latest producing a “substantial” payout to Andrew Gale. Added to that, physiotherapist Wayne Morton has revealed that he was sent a letter by the then Secretary, accusing him of having “unprotected” (how could they know?) sex with a prostitute who then, “engaged in sexual activity with at least one other member of staff”.
What sounds like a quiet night out for some professional footballers has prompted a £500k claim for damages from Morton. (The ECB, of course, still has much on its racism agenda to deal with, for which the anodyne and vacuous phrase: “there is no place for racism in cricket” might not be regarded as an entirely sufficient response.)
A final (and no one believes it will be) twist is the call yesterday by the former Chair of Yorkshire (he who failed the “fit and proper” test) for the whole Board to resign, with the suggestion that they had bought the name of the Club into disrepute. This was not, I feel sure, an attempt at West Riding irony.
It is difficult to think of anyone coming well out of this - although there may be some smiles across the Pennines - but as an exercise in how not to run a cricket club, or indeed anything at all, this grim example would be hard to beat. Perhaps the traditional management style associated with some Sicilian families might have some elements the Yorkshire Board might wish to emulate.
This & That
As I recall it Toby Roland-Jones was never dropped from the England side but after injury was never recalled. To be fair this is the first season since then that he has stayed fit but with one round of matches to go he is the leading wicket taker with 63 in the County Championship. Next is Kyle Abbott with 58. So why is it that he has not been mentioned for international recall? He has also become a useful contributor with the bat at number eight.
I have watched the first four T20s from Pakistan. These matches were all played in Karachi where there were sell out crowds of over 30,000 for each match. But the England players must have thought they were at Chelmsford as none of their efforts were rewarded with any applause.
The Sky team was split between the ground where only David Gower and Mark Butcher appeared to have travelled and the London Studio where Ian Ward and Michael Atherton are lounging around on sofas. Given Gower’s love affair with Pakistan one would have expected him to have some idea about the playing conditions. Both he and Butcher continually called the wickets incorrectly saying that they would be quick when they were slow or that they would get slower when in fact they got quicker. The local experts who included Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis kept diplomatically quiet during these predictions and would repeat periodically that the Karachi wickets were always slow.
In Match 6 Babar Azam joined Virat Kohli as the fastest man to reach 3000 runs in IT20 matches. They are followed by: Martin Guptill, Rohit Sharma and Paul Stirling.
The deciding match 7 was a huge disappointment. After England had scored over 200 after being put in Pakistan showed no interest or capability of chasing down the necessary runs after Babar and Rizwan were out. They won’t get far in the World Cup without some other contributions. Incidentally neither Babar or Rizwan went on to significant scores other than in their ten wicket win match. They are going to have to work out what their roles are going to be. Meanwhile England have the opposite problem of who to leave out. One of their best batsmen in Pakistan, Ben Duckett, is not even in the World Cup party. It is assumed that Buttler, Stokes and Livingstone are shoe ins which means that not all of Salt, Hales, Malan, Brook and Moeen will be in the team. Professional sport can be a hard employer.
The commentators heap much praise on the new shots and especially the ramp and its variations as well as the reverse sweep and its variations. However, it seems that an increasing number of players are getting out to them and the broadcast goes silent as no one can believe the imbecility of a new batsman being bowled when trying to ramp a yorker over the keeper’s head.
A ridiculous feature of the modern television presentations is that at a certain point during the play the commentary team hands over to a colleague who at pitch side interviews someone who may have nothing to do with the match. During the third match when the third over of the Pakistan innings started the broadcast transferred to a woman who started talking to Ramiz Raja and some English bloke all with their backs to the cricket. The over chosen for this pointless interview was the momentous first over bowled by Mark Wood in which he first got Babar leaping away from a bouncer and then had him caught at third man by Reece Topley. Meanwhile the commentary crew had to try to pretend that nothing of significance was being missed by the viewers.
Even I have to admit that there has been some progress in the Women’s game but to pretend that it has become an attraction to rival the men’s is ludicrous. When I turned on early for the fourth T20 on Sunday I caught a little of the final of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy from Lord’s. This was the climax of the domestic season for Women’s cricket and the equivalent of the Kent v Lancashire sell out match played earlier in the month. As the cameras panned around the stadium there was the occasional person amidst banks of empty seats. There can’t have been more than a couple of hundred spectators in total. The match attracted neither supporters of the two competing teams nor other cricket fans.
The run glut in the County Championship largely dried up in September. Lancashire took a slim first innings lead in their match at Chelmsford despite having been dismissed for only 131. However, in their second innings they slumped to 7 for 6 with only Jennings of the top five troubling the scorers. They crept up to 73 all out leaving Essex just 98 to win. But this was more than enough for victory as Essex slumped to 59 all out, leaving Lancashire winners by the relatively huge margin of 39 runs. During the Lancashire v Surrey game in the final round of matches Paul Allott reported that the players related that every ball in the Chelmsford match did something making batting almost impossible. They should give uncovered wickets a go.
The Glamorgan captain, David Lloyd, added his name to the list of batsmen who have enjoyed playing against Derbyshire this season. At Sophia Gardens he batted throughout the innings finishing on 313 not out.
In the final round of games the Division 2 leaders Notts enjoyed themselves at Trent Bridge against Durham. Four batsmen (Hameed 115, Montgomery 178, James 164 and Mullaney 146) reached triple figures before they declared at 662 for 5. Durham's day was made even worse by a 10-point deduction imposed on them after Australian batter Nic Maddinson's bat failed a size test during the game with Derbyshire earlier this month.
Middlesex got promoted in this final round of matches in no small part due to Sussex who were playing their rivals for the promotion slot, Glamorgan. Sussex were forced to follow on after conceding a first innings lead of a colossal 275. Many sides would have crumpled but Ali Orr and captain, Tom Haines, came out swinging. They added 328 for the first wicket before Orr was run out for 198 scored at over a run a ball and which included 10 sixes. Haines scored his second hundred of the match and Sussex eventually declared at 554 for 8 and the match was drawn.
Morgan Matters
Our man completes another season without leaving his sofa
England's Test head coach, B McCullum, who has 6 wins from 7 Tests, says he has "not been doing a lot"! J Root says that the England team "are making Test cricket so exciting that the Hundred might end up redundant". He also says that J Anderson and C Broad will definitely be selected for England's 2023 Ashes squad.
Rs had a good 0-2 away win at Millwall (always nice to win there) with goals from Willock and Johansen. Rs are 8th, but level on points with 5th place.
RLODC Final: Kent made 306-6 (Evison 97, Denly 78) and Lancs could only manage 283 a/o (Jennings and Croft 72 apiece) so Kent took the trophy by 21 runs. The O does not tell us who won the MotM, but I should think it would be Evison as he made the top score of the match and he also picked up a couple of wickets and a catch.
Indian pace bowler Umesh Yadav will miss Mx's last 2 Championship matches with a thigh injury.
The October Cricketer tells us that:
- Middx's Tom Helm has been called into the Eng squad for the first time for the 3 Tests in Pakistan in December;
- the East Gate at Lord's has been formally renamed after Rachel Heyhoe Flint;
- A Strauss has been asked to lead a review into English cricket, which George Dobell describes as "asking a fox to oversee security in a hen house... he is the reverse of King Midas";
- Jamie Fox "is an MCC assistant secretary in charge of operations at Lord's and the famous old club's cricket programme";
- Mark Baldwin tells us that Darren Stevens has earned the right to make his own decision about when he hangs up his boots;
- Mike Brearley tells us that "T20 tournaments are killing Test cricket" and that "the Hundred sows damage and confusion";
- head coach James Franklin will leave Durham at the end of the season;
- Gloucs have begun a necessary rebuild after the exits of key allrounders Ryan Higgins and Benny Howell bringing in Marchant de Lange from Somerset;
- Darren Stevens has no intention of quitting the professional game despite his release by Kent;
- Otis Gibson is "putting his stamp" on Yorkshire's squad with the signings of Matt Milnes, Ben Mike and Shan Masood;
- Barney Ronay tells us that "there is a section of the cricketing public who will automatically dismiss the Hundred as the most execrable, mind-numbing plasticised invention in the history of sport"... sounds fair enough to me!
What a Load of Crap Dept: English cricket's bid to regain the men's and women's Ashes from Australia will play out over a compressed six week period next year as the decks are cleared for the Hundred to take centre stage in August: thank goodness I retired when I did!
A Strauss is rightly facing huge criticism over his ludicrous plan to reduce the number of Championship matches so that more crap like the Hundred can be fitted in!
There was controversy in the women's 50/50 at Lord's when Deepti Sharma ran out Charlie Dean for being out of her ground at the non-striker's end instead of delivering the ball (known as a "Mankad", I believe). It is legal, of course, but "just not done" in most circles. England lost the match and the series.
The ECB is developing a plan to host Test cricket between Pakistan and India on a neutral ground in Eng.
There was no play at all at Worcester on day four because of rain (we have not had drop here), but that confirms that Middlesex (16 points) have been promoted. Crack open the champers!
Yorkshire's new overseas player Shan Masood has been appointed as the club's new captain from when he arrives at Headingley in 2023...shame they have just been relegated really.
D(aft?) Malan supports the ECB's proposal to reduce the number of County Championship matches.
CC Summary: Surrey are champs of div 1, Lancashire 2nd and Hampshire 3rd, relegated Gloucestershire bottom and Yorkshire next to last. Div 2 Notts top and second placed Middlesex also promoted, wooden spoonists were Leicestershire, 35 points adrift of Sussex.
Former Yorkshire skipper Steve Patterson has retired, Sussex head coach Ian Salisbury has been thanked for his services and sacked! Leicestershire have sacked six, none of them household names.
The Times tells us that the "next big thing" is Ali Orr of Sussex.
Minor Counties
Guy Curry sheds light on my query in last month’s edition
In Googlies 237 you asked a question to which you said “no one knows why”. I might be able to throw some light on it. I am a member of the Devon CCC committee. There used to be, as you well know, a time when leading minor counties (now ill named in my view National Counties) played in the Gillette Cup. This was important for two reasons. It created a link between the First Class game and the next level down which has been sadly and in many ways tragically broken. It secondly encouraged the minor counties and did produce an income stream which was very welcome. There was the occasional upset which angered the First-Class counties but was good for the game and keeping them in their place.
National Counties still make a major input into the First-Class game. Devon for example has produced a large number of First-Class cricketers most going on to Somerset and even currently have three who have played for England in the last two years - Dom Bess and the Overton twins. These have been nurtured through the system (which has been very good in Devon) and on they go to be fed into higher levels. There is no compensation and little recognition of the work and effort (all unpaid) which goes into the nurture. There is now a link (not compulsory though) between all National Counties and their nearest First Class county. As a further forging of that link and as a fairly low-key recognition of the contribution of the National Counties in nurturing players for the good of the game, each of the First Class counties is now mandated to play a friendly against its National County. We would rather see a return to a proper competition in which National Counties can again compete against First Class Counties, but this is unacceptable to ECB and this is the rather feeble (but better than nothing) reward offered to the hard working and as I said totally unremunerated level below the top level.
I think that I must have seen the last game played by James Hildreth in the Somerset first team at the delightful rural ground of Bovey Tracy!
Worthy Champions
Ralph Adelman sent me this
Let’s not beat about the bush. I am thrilled that Surrey have won the county championship again. I am, as would be expected, always delighted when Surrey win anything but the championship is the big deal. Surrey haven’t performed at their best for every session of every match but they have always battled through to win or to get a draw. This, in my opinion, is down to Gareth Batty. The battling qualities that they have shown are what we always saw from him when he was playing. If the Surrey team was a stick of rock, it would have Gareth Batty printed all the way through.
I am writing this after the championship has been won but before the final match at Old Trafford. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that they can remain unbeaten for the season. I attended the first 2 days of the match against Yorkshire – along with a Yorkshireman on day one. The KIA Oval was renamed as the Mickey Stewart Oval for the duration of the match to mark his 90th birthday and he was presented with the “Key to the Oval” on the pitch at teatime on day two. The Stewarts have been so important to Surrey for so many years. Fortunately we still have Alec as manager having lost Richard Gould and Richard Thompson in the last year.
They were the Chief Executive and Chairman respectively until Richard Gould joined Bristol City as their Chief Executive last year and Richard Thompson became chair of the ECB. They had been the only Chief Executive and Chairman that I had known since I became a Surrey member (soon after I retired). They were both exceptionally good. We have to hope that Steve Elworthy can do something approaching as good a job as Richard Gould. And Surrey’s loss of Richard Thompson is undoubtedly the ECB’s gain. I am hopeful that his appointment will prove to be an important one in securing a sensible outcome for domestic cricket from the ongoing review. Surrey are planning consultation sessions on this for members.
OK. Now back to the cricket. I couldn’t attend the third day of the Yorkshire match – the day that we won the championship. But I watched most of the day’s play on the live stream. I also texted back and forth to my mate Ron who was there – a fellow Surrey member and Old Dane. Surrey used 22 players in the championship and lord knows how many more in the Blast and the One-day Cup. They won the championship despite missing many of their best known players who were in one international squad or another for most if not all of the season. That list includes:
- Ollie Pope
- Ben Foakes
- Reece Topley
- Chris Jordan
- Sam Curran
- Jamie Overton
- Will Jacks
- Jason Roy
We did have both Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes available for the Yorkshire match. Jamie Smith has done a good job in Ben’s absence but it is much better if you can have the best wicket keeper around behind the stumps. And another Oval ton from Ollie Pope played a big part in the battle back from 136-5 to a 1st innings total of well over 300.
Injuries limited some of the playing time for some of the remaining squad. The one-day cup squad was even more limited given that Surrey had 14 players drafted into various teams in the dreaded Hundred. The upside of having all of these players missing, is that it gives opportunities for others to break through into the first team. Most notable of these others this season has to be Tom Lawes. He is a skilled, and for his age, a very disciplined bowler and he has contributed significantly more than once with the bat in the one-day cup and the championship.
It was unsurprising that Surrey didn’t progress in the one-day cup with so many players missing from the squad. When the remainder suffered injuries we had to go on school raids. Schoolboys Yousef Majid and Sheridon Gumbs (that is his real name) both performed well and make the future look bright.
I am hopeful that Surrey can have an even more successful season in 2023, that there will be a better structure to the 2023 fixtures list and that the ECB realise that the overlap of domestic and international cricket is down to too much international cricket and do not damage the domestic structure that develops the players ready for the international stage. I am an optimist.
Season’s awards
Tanya Aldred presents the Spin’s Awards for the season
The Spin is laden with gongs to dole out to the best, worst, and most memorable events of the 2022 Championship season. This is a Championship that may – depending on which way the counties vote on the Strauss report, probably before the fixtures come out in November, possibly sometime in the spring of 2048 – be in its final incarnation of two divisions with promotion and relegation. Much then, to celebrate. With no further ado: please put your hands together for …
The Micky Stewart award for team of the season
Surrey, a cut above the rest. Well led by Rory Burns, 22 focused players, 10 of them homegrown, who took a 16-point lead into September and didn’t slip up. Most tellingly, Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes were desperate to come back and play for their club in the penultimate match of the year and help seal the title. A class act.
The Kwasi Kwarteng award for inept announcements.
The ECB, for publishing the final results of the High Performance Review on the very day Surrey won the championship. This ensured that players were asked about their thoughts on Strauss’s fine print just after doing a victory lap of the Oval and were pushed to the side of their own story.
The Joe Root award for outstanding excellence with the bat
Harry Brook, head and shoulders above other young English contenders, who dominated the first half of the season before being called up by England. His absence in September proved a glaring hole in Yorkshire’s batting lineup as they fought to avoid relegation.
The are-we-there-yet award
The Cricket Disciplinary Committee’s investigation of the Azeem Rafiq saga at Yorkshire, which drags on and on. Interviews are due to happen this autumn with a final report expected before Christmas. Don’t hold your breath.
The canary-in-the-coalmine warning 19 July 2022
The UK’s hottest day on record, where the temperatures around the grounds nudged towards 40C. It is a huge issue for cricket to contemplate: as the experts say – this is the coldest summer of the rest of your life.
The Steve Waugh award for brotherly love
Surrey’s Jamie Overton, who sent down a bouncer to brother Craig which knocked him to the Taunton turf. As others gathered round, Jamie scowled and strutted away. Not so long afterwards, a beaming Craig handed Jamie his first Test cap.
Moment of madness award for dropping the ball
Hampshire, whose chances of winning their first championship since 1973 disappeared in the blink of an eye after being bowled out for 57 at home against the most unlikely opponents, Kent.
The Ciderabad award for interesting pitches
Chelmsford, in the penultimate round of the season, where 26 wickets fell on the first day, 14 on the next, as Essex failed to chase 98 and everything was wrapped up just after lunch on the second afternoon. To the gnashing of teeth at Taunton, and despite the pitch being marked as poor, and reports of unexpected holes, no points were deducted because it couldn’t be proved that Essex had done it on purpose.
The cricket diplomacy award for image of the season
Mohammad Rizwan and Cheteshwar Pujara batting together for Sussex – joyful to see after India and Pakistan had played no bilateral cricket since 2012-13.
The New Coke award for worst product launch
The 2022 Dukes ball, which for reasons still unclear – the hides? The dye? – behaved erratically, often not lasting 80 overs. At the Riverside, there were five unscheduled ball changes in one day and the sight of disgruntled players watching the umpire squeeze a ball through his callipers became one of the images of the season.
The Muttiah Muralitharan award for best overseas signing
Almost impossible to call after the first part of the season was brightened by an influx of high-class players from Pakistan, unable to play in the IPL, with bowlers as brilliant as Shaheen Shah Afridi taking their turn to fathom the Dukes ball. Left-arm spinner Zafar Gohar has toiled away for struggling Gloucestershire but the prize is shared between Cheteshwar Pujara at Sussex and Shan Masood at Derbyshire – who both made over 1,000 runs and became figureheads at their counties.
The shop-window award for winter tour ware-waving
Keaton Jennings long-discarded by England, is the leading run scorer, and, until Jamie Overton trapped him lbw for 199, was on course to join Frank Watson as the only players in Championship history to score a triple and two double centuries in one summer.
Barnet Watch
I spotted Rory Burns (remember him?) fielding in a televised match earlier this season and there appeared to be nothing untoward. But later when he batted it seemed that he was sporting a Chris Gayle style bandana but not just at the back but around his head leaving just the face exposed. Closer inspection revealed that this was his hair which had grown to at least shoulder length. One wonders if he has, perhaps, lost a bet.
Reece James’ tonsorial efforts always merit an entry in this column and his recent appearance in Milan was no exception where he had bleached hair with a red and yellow flash in it which gave the appearance of an incomplete traffic light.
West Ham’s Maxwel Cornet has bleached mini curls over his head which look like a game of marbles.
Molloy Matters
In the last edition I somewhat gratuitously included a photo of Ken Molloy with his Spanish wife, Maria. After publication I received an email from Ken saying: “Given the gender issues these days I think you should have told googlies readers that in the photo you included I am the one in the suit, not the dress”.
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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