G&C 263

GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 263
November 2024
 
Spot the Ball
        

 
Out & About with the Professor
Imagine, if you will, in 30- or 40-years’ time, a cricket fan (assuming they still exist) looking through the details of this last Test series. S/he will see a dramatic change in fortune of the two sides after the first match. Nothing too surprising in that, we can all think of examples of a series which has swung one way or another – makes it all the more interesting. But this? An utterly overwhelming defeat for Pakistan in the first Test followed by two comprehensive victories in the next two. As we all know, the first Test produced a raft of records, (perhaps a record number of records?) and 823 runs for 7 wickets. Subsequently, that same batting line-up returned totals of 144 and 112 in two of their next four innings. What, our future reader might ask, can possibly have happened?
 
Now we know all the answer to that. We know about the three changes in the Pakistan side. We know about the English players supposed inability to play spin. We know that the County Championship timetable generates limited ability for these players to face spin in first-class matches – assuming they are available to play anyway. We saw a couple of them played grim shots: think of Crawley’s lunge, well outside off stump, or Brook’s missed sweep/hoick to get him bowled round his legs. Similarly, the English spin bowlers have, in general, less opportunity to learn control of line and length, vary their speeds, etc… and two of them are very inexperienced. We know all this, but the single crucial determinant factor in the extraordinary change that the match figures show, can be given by the use of just a single noun…the Pitch.
 
On commentary Ramiz Raja said that the English batters couldn’t cope with “the change in the pitch’s DNA”. Now I like a metaphor as much as the next man but the state of the surface that the last two Tests were played on had very little to do with nucleic acid but a very great deal to do with pitch “preparation”. Stephen Finn was rather closer to reality when, in a radio interview, he called the playing of consecutive Tests on the same pitch and the raking of the Rawalpindi strip, “unprecedented”. Now it may be, of course, that somewhere/sometime two five-day Tests have been played on the same pitch but it is hard to call it to mind. The same can be said for the preparation in Rawalpindi. Has anyone, anywhere, seen such a collection of equipment on a Test match square: patio heaters, industrial fans, windbreaks and, of course, rakes. All apparently overseen by the Australian “curator” Tony Hemming, flown in for the purpose. Both Stokes and Brook said that the pitch had been raked and I haven’t read a denial. But I did hear an explanation. In a lengthy radio interview, I heard Shoaib Akhtar explain the reason for the raking, etc. It was: “because we wanted to win”. Well, quite.  He subsequently accused the PCB of selfishness and incompetence, caring more about winning (and by implication, themselves) than behaving properly in staging Test matches.
 
The traditional description for all this is “doctoring”, and the morally bankrupt reaction is to say that “everyone does it”. Students of moral philosophy will recognise the vacuous nature of this response (it is so old it even has a Latin tag: Tu Quoque). We might accept that ground staff have always sought to provide some “home advantage” in their preparations, and we all recall the Rice and Hadley days where the Trent Bridge staff were economical with the use of the mower. But taking a rake to the surface? Isn’t this a degree of difference? Perhaps Googlies readers can come up with other examples, but it seems to be overstepping any reasonable boundary. Why not a harrow or a rotavator or a plough? After the third Test on a dreadful surface in Ahmadabad in 2021 (India’s match-winning total in their first innings was 145), Jonathan Agnew said: “Why not just play it on the beach?”. If its OK to play two Tests on the same strip, why not three, or four, or five?
 
The ICC give pitch ratings after a match, and I wonder what they said about these two. I imagine they might look at the scores and decide there was nothing untoward. Reasonable first innings scores in each match which fell away in the second innings (dramatically in England’s case, batting on the Day Nine strip). So, England just didn’t bat well. And they didn’t. But could anybody seriously suggest that the outcome in the series would have been the same if all three pitches were anything like that of the first Test? That is to say, if they were the result of the normal attention ground staff give to producing a Test match pitch. And what was the reaction of the boys in the Sky “Comm Box”? Outrage at the doctoring of pitches? Not at all. Atherton thought it made the game “more interesting”. More interesting for whom? Him? If he finds the record breaking first Test dull, then perhaps he might consider some alternative employment. Perhaps he thinks he is speaking on behalf of us all; educating us in understanding what is and is not interesting cricket. I suspect that he might have been rather more energised if this had happened in his playing days. But then again, I do recall he wasn’t, at the time, very critical of the Australians use of sandpaper (if you can’t scrape the pitch, scrape the ball) – but back then I supposed that he was just rather understandably sensitive on the ball tampering subject. If ball tampering is frowned on, why not pitch tampering? Could you not make a case for ball tampering making the game “more interesting”?
 
One comparison, parenthetically, that can be made, might be the exacting and carefully controlled arrangements for work on the pitch during the game, with those before the match starts. We all see the third umpire carefully monitoring the length of time a pitch can be rolled between innings (7 minutes, from recollection – and not a moment longer) but what sort of official involvement is there with the work on the pitch before the game starts? And, if there is any, what on Earth were they doing at Rawalpindi? Perhaps, if rakes are acceptable before the match, they could be utilised during: the batting team could call for the heavy roller, the bowling team for the sharp-spiked rake.
 
But – and it is a very reasonable but – is this all just sour grapes. England teams have a history of batting badly against spin. I was in the UAE, in 2012, when the entire team collapsed against Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman – I can still see Ian Bell’s terrified face as he went out to bat (briefly); but there was no suggestion that the pitch had been doctored – it just spun. And…what of England’s spinners? If the pitch is raked for Noman and Sajid, it is also available for Leech and Bashir. Sadly, they made much less use of it. Leech, in particular, was exposed in technique by comparison with Noman. I have always felt that Leech tends to bowl too quickly and with little variation. One classic case was in Barbados, in 2022, when Root and Stokes had set up what should have been a winning total in the first innings. As the game went on the ball spun more and more and England had an excellent opportunity to bowl the Windies out on the final day. Instead, Leech bowled both too fast and too full, so that two very short West Indian batsman (Brathwaite and Blackwood) could just rock forward and block for hour after hour. Braithwaite opened the batting and scored a not out 56 from 184 balls… “interesting” it wasn’t. Leech’s response, however, was just to bowl quicker and quicker and fuller and fuller. “Toss it up!” was the shout from more than one person sitting near me, but the call went unheeded.
 
So, England neither batted well nor bowled well in the last two Tests but that isn’t the explanation for the extraordinary change from the first game, that our future observer will see. It was, as we all know, the pitch.
This & That
 
India completed a remarkable seven-wicket win over Bangladesh on the final day of a rain-hit second Test in Kanpur to seal a 2-0 series victory. The win was set up by a record-breaking performance with the bat on day four, and means they have won 18 home Test series in a row - extending the record they already held. Bangladesh were skittled out for 146 before lunch on Tuesday, leaving India needing 95 to win. Opener Yashasvi Jaiswal hit 51, his second half-century of the match, as India comfortably chased down their target to secure victory in a match that lost two-and-a-half days to rain. They now lead Australia at the top of the World Test Championship by eight points. India set the platform for victory during a record-breaking fourth day that saw them become the fastest team to reach 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 in Tests.
 
Now New Zealand have beaten India who had won their previous eighteen home test series. New Zealand had just lost both tests in their series in Sri Lanka, which included being bowled out for 88 after conceding 602 for 5. In the first test in India Matt Henry took 5 for15 as India were bowled out for 46. In the second Mitchell Santner, who had taken 1 for 197 in Sri Lanka, took 7 for 53 and 6 for 104.
 
Meanwhile South Africa racked up 575 for 6 against Bangla Desh with de Zorzi, Stubbs and Mulder all scoring centuries.
 
Chad Bowes scored the fastest double century in a list A match when he made 200 from 103 balls for Canterbury against Otago, beating the previous record of 114 balls held by Travis Head and Narayan Jagadeesan. Bowes’ innings included 7 sixes and 27 fours.
 
If you are planning to go to Lord’s or Radlett or even Chelmsford next season you won’t see the following Middlesex players: Ethan Bamber has gone to Warwickshire, Martin Andersson to Derbyshire, Robbie White has retired and Mark Stoneman and Thilan Walallawita have been released.
 
Western Australia lost their last eight wickets for just one run in an extraordinary collapse against Tasmania in Australia's domestic 50-over competition. The three-time defending champions reached 52-2 but were bowled out for 53 amid a flurry of wickets on a bouncy, green pitch in Perth.
The one run added came from a wide, with numbers five to 10 in the batting order all dismissed for ducks. Tasmania seamer Beau Webster took 6-17 and fast bowler Billy Stanlake 3-12. Tasmania chased their target in 8.3 overs for a seven-wicket win. The collapse was made more remarkable by the fact all 11 of Western Australia's XI were Australia internationals.
 
Virat Kohli’s recent performances have been just a shadow of his earlier feats. King Cricket worked out his contemporaries for output over the last five years:
 
Virat Kohli: 34.24 (with 3 hundreds in 35 Tests)
John Crawley: 34.61 (with 4 hundreds in 37 Tests)
Lou Vincent: 34,15 (with 3 hundreds in 23 Tests)
Wavell Hinds: 33.01 (with 5 hundreds in 45 Tests)
Shaun Marsh: 34.31 (with 6 hundreds in 38 Tests)
Alviro Petersen: 34.88 (with 5 hundreds in 36 Tests)
Yuvraj Singh: 33.92 (with 3 hundreds in 40 Tests)
KL Rahul: 33.87 (with 8 hundreds in 53 Tests)
 
Most nations would hope they could find someone a bit more productive. Kohli's career batting average remains high, at 48.48, which really only highlights how far his output has slipped.
 
 
 

 
Kagiso Rabada has become the 39th man and sixth South African to take 300 Test wickets. He joined the greats of the game by taking three wickets on day one of the first Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka. And South African seamer's record stacks up well compared to the rest. Rabada has taken his 300th wicket in his 65th Test. That puts him joint-10th among all bowlers and joint-seventh among pace bowlers. But in terms of deliveries bowled to get to the landmark, Rabada is the quickest having taken 11,817 balls. That is 785 fewer than Pakistan great Waqar Younis. Aged 29 years and 149 days, Rabada is also the eight-youngest player to take 300 Test wickets, with that record held by India all-rounder Kapil Dev. He reached 300 Test wickets in 1987, aged 27 years and 363 days.
 
Nicholas Pooran scored 101 for the Trinbago Knight Riders against the Guyana Amazon Warriors. Pooran is easily the West Indies highest scorer in IT20s with 2195, Gayle is second with 1899.
 
Thompson Matters
Steve takes us down the Roads to Rawalpindi
 
Within minutes of the first ball being bowled in the First Test the social media wags were out in force pleading for the groundsman to come to Britain and rebuild our roads.
 
There are only so many kicks you can get on Root 66, known locally as the A823. Of course it’s great when you can cruise along in the team bus in sixth gear for hours with just one finger on the wheel but on the second trip to the ground  with Baz and Ben in the back seats giving it their own renditions of Climb Every Multan and Ain’t No Multan High Enough you take your eyes off the road, ignore the diversion signs and suddenly you’re on the B144 to Rawalpindi with a puncture and being overtaken by a couple of joyriders who know the backroads better.
 
The morning after the record-breaking all-Yorkshire partnership in the First Test, Barney Ronay wrote an excellent thought-provoking article in The Great Jack Morgan’s G which reflected on the brilliance of their performance but within the context of the Test format’s gradual demise as franchise cricket takes its toll. It was all prefaced with the phrase ‘Et in Arcadia ego’ a bit poncy perhaps (I certainly had to look it up) but in essence, even in the moment of perfection death is present.
 
‘Because when you really start to pick at this,’ he wrote, ‘ to ask why Joe Root is still operating at this level, it can start to feel like something else. Step outside the pleasure of the spectacle and Root-Brook 454 is also a kind of memento mori, a slice of life that is also a sign of end days for this thing....Let us not forget how absolutely abysmal Pakistan are as a Test team, and for sound structural reasons. The bowlers have barely played. This was Naseem Shah’s second Test match in 15 months, during which he has played white-ball games in eight different competitions. It is basically impossible for him to develop as an A-list Test player like this......And Test cricket is, let’s face it, pretty dreadful right now. Every team outside the well-funded Big Three are constantly undercooked, depleted and run down. Bowling attacks are poor. Test-class spin is disappearing. South Africa’s elite bowling attack basically just doesn’t do this any more.....England can at times seem like pros playing amateurs, their best players among the only people who are still paid large amounts to do this. Jimmy Anderson’s late career is testimony to this. Unbelievably skilful, but basically bowling straight and with enough movement to destroy part-time defences.’ Hmmmmm.
 
With New Zealand proving to be about as ‘undercooked’ as a bhaji that’s been on 200 degree fan for the best part of an hour and  two ‘disappearing’ Pakistani spinners raking in wickets like over-zealous croupiers  I bet Barney now wishes he’d had the luxury afforded Googlies’ contributors; a full series upon which to reflect before putting pen to paper.
 
That said, despite these two unexpected series wins against the odds does his sense of foreboding carry as much weight as it did when he went to press? The few still images available of the Pakistan games showed many more empty seats than were occupied in both stadiums. There’s nothing more likely to thin a home crowd than a losing hosting team. There was inevitable criticism, much from its own former players, of Pakistan’s decision to recycle in Multan and even more when they recruited the local Monty Don to spend an hour or two beside the fans and driers of Rawalpindi. However, had the home side not rolled the spinning dice, would Smith’s and Root’s unexpected lapses in concentration counted for anything other than a stumble on the way to a three-nil formality? Ultimately the clue is in the name. Test cricket. Perhaps it was questionable but if it has made England and Bazball ‘ think on lad’ then maybe that’s no bad thing
 
For the first time in ages I listened to much of the series on TMS. For much of the time you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d mistakenly found Radio 4’s More or Less.  If my listening was interrupted by the events of daily life when my ear returned to its focus it would be bombarded by yet another stream of record-breaking figures from an increasingly excited Andy Zaltzman.  At some point in the 2nd Test his attention quite understandably turned (no pun intended) to each slow bowler’s degree of spin. I suppose sub-consciously of course I’d been aware that this concept exists but its use in this series was, for obvious reasons, on a different level. To be fair it is clearly highly useful as an analytical tool for players and coaches alike but on top of the inevitably abundant use of all  the other more traditional stats the series demanded, I began to feel somewhat arithmophobic.
 
That said perhaps the last word should remain with the TMS scorer whose analysis of lateral deviation in the second and third Tests revealed that in the ball-tracking era neither pitch was in the top sixth of Bunsens.  Neither has Pakistan been a happy hunting ground for spinners, statistically the least rewarding country in which to bowl slow in the 20 years before this tour.
Perhaps on reflection the road wasn’t so much the problem as the drivers.
 
 
The Bush v Ealing
Peter Burke sends us a 2024 Cricketing Drama in five parts
 
Shepherds Bush and Ealing have been Middlesex and West London rivals for ever! From the days of Ingram, Coxon, Fisher, Price, Lindley, Poore, Stevens for Ealing and Talbot, Langhorne, Goldsmith, Jones, Wright, Cutler, Langley for the Bush, right up to today’s teams ably led by Martin and Easton.
 
This seasons five match cricketing drama starts on June 29th with the 60 over Middlesex League game at Corfton Road. The Bush posted a challenging total of 294-7 thanks to a first league hundred by Idris Otto Mian. Ealing responded with top class innings from White and Petta, getting home in the 57th over for the loss of five wickets. A truly excellent game of league cricket.
Ealing 1-0 up.
 
Four weeks later on July 21st they meet again in the final of the Middlesex T20 Cup. A solid all-round batting and bowling performance saw The Bush home by 10 runs. A pleasing win!
Ealing 1 Bush 1
 
We move on to the final two weeks of the Middlesex league season.
 
On August 31st, The Bush host Ealing in the 50 over league match with The Bush in second place in the table and Ealing in fourth. Ealing demolished The Bush bowling attack from the start and posted a mammoth total of 313-6, then bowled the Bush out for 146. A crushing victory for Ealing and a devastating blow to the title hopes of the Bush.
Ealing 2 Bush 1
 
The next week September 7th was the last weekend of the League season and, by chance. The top four sides, Crouch End, Ealing, Shepherds Bush and North Mid, all played each other.
After their bad defeat the previous week The Bush were not favourites to beat Crouch End, the league table toppers, on their own ground. However, a solid batting performance saw The Bush to 245-9 and then, much to their supporters surprise, demolished a strong Crouch End batting line up for 122!
A great win and this unexpected result meant that Ealing just had to beat North Mid to snatch the league title - which they did, much to the chagrin of their old rivals The Bush!
 
The drama continues as the next week Ealing and The Bush meet for the fourth time in the final of the Middlesex 45 over Cup at Corfton Road. A league and cup double for Ealing or a cup double for The Bush?
 
Both sides were two short of their full squad and then the Bush lost their wicket keeper, number three bat and overseas player, Mitch Crane, with a broken finger in the sixth over. Down to 10 men and facing a strong Ealing batting line up the odds were not favouring the Bush! With some excellent bowling, keen fielding and some astute captaincy, the Bush restricted Ealing to 172-9.
 
An eminently gettable total, but knowing the closeness of the two sides, past history and down to ten men, the Bush supporters nerves were going to be tested!
However, the Bush openers Idris Otto Mian and Ikjot Thind pulverised the Ealing bowlers from the start putting on 143 before being separated! Otto Mian continued to flay the bowling to all parts ending up with a magnificent 117 not out off 77 balls, 8 sixes and 11 fours! The Bush cruised home with the loss of just one wicket in 24 overs!
Ealing 2 Bush 2!
 
A truly remarkable and memorable season featuring two old rivals and two excellent teams. Two Cup wins for The Bush and a league win for Ealing (Thanks to the Bush!)
All Square in love and war?
 
 
 
England in Stats
Andy Zaltzman assesses England failings in numbers
If a three-game contest can be a series of two halves, then Pakistan's 2-1 series win over England was it, producing one of the most startling reversals of fortune in Test history. England faced 356 overs and three balls in Pakistan. In the first 191.2 overs, they made 1,034 runs for nine wickets - 115 runs per wicket, at 5.40 per over, losing a wicket every 21 overs. In the last 165.1 overs of the series, they aggregated 603 for 38 - 16 runs per wicket, at 3.65 per over, losing a wicket every 26 balls.
 
The pitches for the second and third Tests were undoubtedly challenging, but it is worth noting that the first innings combined in those games aggregated, respectively, 657 and 611 runs. The average for all Tests in Asia since 2010 is around 730; worldwide, the figure is around 690.
 
In terms of average lateral deviation for spinners, these games were in the top quarter of matches where ball-tracking data is available, but not in the top sixth. Obviously, the amount of spin off the surface depends on the specific bowlers playing, as well as the surface itself. Nonetheless, the data suggests that these pitches were difficult, but not outlandish.
 
They were also very different to the prevailing trend of pitches in Pakistan. In the 20 years before this tour, Pakistan had been, statistically, the least rewarding country in which to bowl spin in Test cricket. Collectively, either side of the 10-year hiatus during which Pakistan had to play their ‘home’ Tests in the United Arab Emirates, all spinners had averaged 45.8 (42.0 since Test cricket restarted here in late 2019).
 
Australia had had the second worst collective average for spinners - 43.1 since October 2004, 40.3 since October 2019 - and in other Asian countries, the world’s tweaksters averaged in the low 30s. In the 20 years before that, Pakistan had been much more productive for slow bowlers - they averaged 33.4, in line with other Test-hosting countries in Asia. This series, therefore, was a striking outlier in recent Test cricket in Pakistan. It presented England with a completely different challenge to the one they faced two years ago on the same grounds, and scuppered the Bazballistics that had won four consecutive Tests in this country.
 
Just as those four successful Tests generated some astonishing stats, so too did these two defeats. England were bowled out in their second innings in under 40 overs for the third time in their last four matches, having been speed-skittled at The Oval against Sri Lanka, and in the second of the Multan Tests. England had only three under 40-over team innings in the 1980s, and three in the 1990s (their least successful Test decades in terms of results).They were not bowled out in under 40 overs for 55 years between being bowled out in 37 overs by Australia at Trent Bridge in May 1921 (England’s first home Test innings after the First World War), and in 32.5 overs by the searing West Indies pace attack at Old Trafford in July 1976, in between which England played 387 Tests.
 
Never before had a pair of bowlers taken 39 wickets in a two-Test sequence, as the series-discombobulating pair of Noman Ali and Sajid Khan achieved this month. In 1956, England’s Jim Laker and Tony Lock took 38 in the third and fourth Tests against Australia - Laker took 11 and Lock seven at Leeds, followed famously by Laker’s mind-bending 19 at Old Trafford, with Lock hoovering up the other one.
 
CricViz’s ball-tracking data illustrates how the Pakistan pair skilfully adapted their approach. Noman bowled notably slower than his average speed recording in his previous appearances, and Sajid bowled a little quicker on average than he had in his Test career before this series, and with a significantly higher percentage of quicker balls.
 
To give further statistical evidence of the rare nature of their success, it is worth looking at bowlers who have taken six or more wickets in an innings in consecutive Tests against England since 1985. Prior to Sajid and Noman, the last to do so was Mehedi Hasan Miraz, for Bangladesh, when he baffled England in his debut series with 19 wickets in two Tests. Mehedi has since constructed a fine, if not world-beating, career, but the nine bowlers on the list before him contain some of the greatest in the history of the sport - Rangana Herath, the infinitely cunning Sri Lankan left-arm spinner who took more than 400 Test wickets; then the four leading non-English wicket-takers in Test history: Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
 
Before them, three of the best pace bowlers ever seen - Malcolm Marshall, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee - plus Pakistan’s Abdul Qadir, the best leg-spinner of the 30 years before Warne and Kumble. These icons of cricket have now been joined by Sajid, an off-spinner who had had one good Test match out of his eight previous appearances and had played once for Pakistan in the previous two-and-a-half years. And Noman, a left-armer who, before running through Sri Lanka in his most recent Test in 2023, had managed only 21 wickets at 53.6 in the nine Tests he had played since November 2021.
 
IPL
 
England’s nonplaying white-ball captain Jos Buttler has not been retained by Rajasthan Royals for the 2025 Indian Premier League season. Buttler has been with Rajasthan since 2018, but they have opted not to keep him before the Mega Auction. Teams are allowed to retain up to six players from 2024, including five international capped players. No England players have been retained, meaning the likes of Phil Salt, Sam Curran - who commanded a then-IPL record £1.85m in 2023 - Liam Livingstone, Jonny Bairstow and Jofra Archer could be available in the auction.
 
Australia seamer Mitchell Starc, who became the IPL's most expensive player in the 2024 season when Kolkata Knight Riders paid 24.75 crore Indian rupees (£2.3m) for his services, has also not been retained. The highest retention price is for South Africa wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen, who has been retained by Sunrisers Hyderabad for 23 crore Indian rupees (£2.1m). Klaasen is just one of 10 overseas players retained, with others including Australia captain Pat Cummins and batter Travis Head (both Sunrisers Hyderabad), Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan (Gujarat Titans) and West Indies' Nicholas Pooran (Lucknow Super Giants) and Andre Russell (Kolkata Knight Riders).  Indian superstars Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma (both Mumbai Indians), Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) and Ravindra Jadeja (Chennai Super Kings) are among those to be kept.
 
Barnet Matters
 
In this Halloween season I was looking around for the witches in the Premier League. Tahith Chong got relegated down to the Championship last season along with his club, Luton. Cucurella. like so many, seems out of favour at Chelsea and only seems to make occasional appearances. But all is not lost as Leicester gained promotion and Wout Faes has been trailing his locks around, normally behind, Premiership forwards.
 
Antonee Robinson, the Fulham fullback, has dyed the top of his head cream and now looks like a Welsh Rarebit. Whilst three of his Fulham colleagues now have their dreadlocks tied in a ponytail: Calvin Bassey, Adama Traore and Alex Iwobi. But they are distinguishable as Traore has a strange ridge bouffanted up on top and Iwobi has a crimson streak through his.
 
 
 
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