GOOGLIES & CHINAMEN
An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 72
December 2008
Caption Competition
Well, as anti-climaxes go, that was pretty spectacular. Doubtless you went sensibly to bed and didn't bother to watch the England team make a pig's ear of trying to win a cricket match...but they sure did. Following on from the woeful efforts of Middlesex, it seems we can't even win at the form of the game we recently invented. According to Pietersen, "lessons will be learned" - now just where have I heard that before?
From what I saw of the whole series, the playing surface was pretty poor (although it looks almost perfect) and the cricket was pretty grim, but much more interesting has been the cacophony of humbug that the whole business has generated. No moral ground has been too high for some of the commentators. The spirit of the game has been undermined; test cricket placed in jeopardy; and probably the moral fibre of the entire nation put at risk by this cricket match.
Selvey, for example, called the England team "Bounty Hunters". Since when have professional sportsmen playing for money been "Bounty Hunters". This afternoon, a chap called Hamilton will go whizzing round in a car (is that "sport"?) with a view to earning a vast sum of money...is that a "bounty"? Cricketers are, apparently, supposed to play for the love of the game.
As for the dreadful "Texan Billionaire" who put the whole thing on he is, according to Selvey, "obscenely wealthy" and a "self-publicist" - so unlike those poverty stricken, self-effacing billionaires we all know and love. His altruistic motives of stimulating cricket in the West Indies have been questioned; his real intent being to make money. Really? A billionaire financier out to make money...I can hardly credit it.
I heard Iain McLaurin on the radio yesterday describe the whole event as a "pantomime" and so, to some extent, it was - loud, brash, colourful and (when England were batting) comic. Well, that is pretty much what things are like in the Caribbean. What is wrong with that? Why don't those who don't much like it simply avert their gaze? It's only a game.
In addition to being brash, etc, it was also, whisper it gently, popular. According to Lloyd the final was shown on TV in a hundred countries. But we don't want that do we! We don't want a lot of johnny foreigners watching "our" game (well, certainly not the way we played it last night)! In reality, all the humbug comes down to one thing...money.
Consider this. What would all the Press coverage have been like if Pietersen had taken his team to Antigua to play a 20/20 match for charity? A noble venture which, with TV rights, would have raised (say) $20 million for hurricane relief. How would the reporting been different? ...I think we all know the answer to that.
Stanford Matters When the Professor sent me the above I replied:
“England were conceited, ill prepared and out played. The general demeanour of the team, the press etc was condescending and a disgrace.
If you are invited to someone's party you either decline or go and accept their foibles.”
I then decided to vent some more:
I was appalled at the all the boo ha-ha dished up by Team England and their sundry media hangers on during their visit to Antigua.
1.1 The ground was magnificent and the spectator accommodation appeared comfortable.
1.2 The wickets may not have been the shirtfronts that everyone would have liked but who said they were going to be or that they had to be? Maybe Team England should spend more time playing for their counties at out grounds to remember what real cricket grounds are like.
1.3 The lights were fine particularly after they were adjusted. The problem with Team England was that they elected to practice on arrival in daylight rather than under the playing conditions they would be encountering. If they had opted for night practice they would have been able to ask for the deflectors to be adjusted before they took the field in anger.
1.4 They were lucky to beat Middlesex on their first outing. If Carter had not spent two overs playing and missing at Broad Middlesex would have won. I didn’t see the T&T game but the one run margin speaks for itself.
1.5 The Stanford Superstars game was a magnificent demolition by a properly prepared, highly motivated, professional outfit over a whinging bunch who had decided that they thought that it was vulgar to be participating. Team England had apparently spent an hour of their precious preparation for the big money game deciding how they should celebrate when they won!
1.6 If any of Team England thinks that their WAGS were mistreated by their host they should send them to the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston and see how the Barmy Army treats them.
The history of cricket is built upon wealthy individuals putting up purses to stage big games. Indeed in the UK Sky television pays large amounts of money for the test matches and requires various activities as part of the deal such as attendance and interviews at the toss, arriving and departing batsmen being escorted to and from the crease by a mobile camera, interviews with captains and key players immediately after the finish etc.
The invitation to participate in the Stanford competition was just that, an invitation. It could have been rejected, but once accepted you go along with the style of the host. If you go to someone’s house for dinner do you spend the whole time complaining about the colour of the carpet or lack of crisps? The behaviour of Team England was childish and boorish.
If Team England thinks that it is ok to complain or that their hosts should accommodate them perhaps they should start with the MCC who will be seriously denting their Ashes hopes next year by once again refusing to sell tickets, and in particular blocks of tickets, to the Barmy Army. They will also be banning musical instruments and other distracting paraphernalia from the ground. All of this is desirable but Lords was the ground where England lost their only test in 2005. At all the other grounds the bellowing hordes of football fans brought their appalling behaviour with them and carried Peg Leg’s men to victory. If Team England are right then the ECB should take away the Lords test and hold it where their playing requirements are met.
Team England needs to grow up and smell the coffee. They thought it was beneath them to go and play in a private competition. They were lured by greed. They then looked foolish. There will be plenty more of these temptations. They will have to decide whether they want to play for big prize money or not ahead of time to avoid further embarrassment.
At the conclusion of this excellent tournament Team England said that they will have to do better next time. They will be lucky to get invited again. The holders will want better opposition to test themselves against.
England Matters
South Africa must be wondering how they got beaten by England in the one day series last summer so comprehensively. England’s subsequent performances have been woeful. There remain fundamental flaws in their approach to any version of the one day game:
1. They don’t play enough. The most experienced player in their Stanford side was Patel who, not surprisingly, top scored. The next was Swann. You don’t get good at this or any other form of the game in the nets. The Stanford Superstars side trained for six weeks. Team England arrived two days before they played. With hindsight the Stanford Superstars probably think that their time was well spent. Team England arrogantly thought that they were the best side and would win easily.
2. Team England still think that they can play Twenty20 their own way. The only way to get a big score in this form of cricket is to have one, or preferably two openers, playing big shots from the off. Freddie is our best bet to open and he should be elevated ASAP. Team England seem convinced that reverse sweeps and paddle sweeps are the way to score runs. Both Prior and KP both got out to these. Why don’t they watch the videos of how the big scorers do it? They have guys who like to hit the ball a long way. In the Middlesex match the Stanford Superstars hit a dozen sixes. In their game against the Stanford Superstars Team England hit none. How did they think they were going to get enough runs?
3. Why was Wright picked? Surely the days of the bits and pieces player are over? If his bowling is good enough why didn’t he bowl? If he is playing as a batsman why have him at eight? Things have to have gone monumentally wrong in this form of the game for eight to play a key role. Indeed this was the case but he wasn’t up to it. Bopara must be the better choice longer term. All this luxury is because Prior is opening. He needs to play a telling innings to justify this selection. In India Prior’s lack of runs has led to his being dropped down the order. His wicket keeping still isn’t up to it and so if he isn’t going to open there is no case to pick him.
4. Against Middlesex Broad bowled a hostile short length against Carter who was just not good enough to lay a bat on it. Presumably his big hitting feats have been achieved against bowlers who obligingly pitch it up. Against the Stanford Superstars Broad bowled the same length for half of his first over, the second of the innings, against Fletcher. The next ball Fletcher battered for four. Broad then, as he famously did against Yuvraj, changed his length and Fletcher hit both the last balls of the over for four as well. This killed England’s last glimmer of hope. Once Gayle got in on the act it just became embarrassing as it became apparent that there was actually nothing wrong with the apparently appalling surface on which Team England had failed to score a hundred. In the end it was not just the thrashing by ten wickets but more the unused and unrequired overs that spelt the difference between the sides.
5. The argument that you pick your best players and use them in all forms of the game is dead. India went into the ODI series without Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly who had all just figured strongly in the test match defeat of Australia. There are some players who can adapt to both forms of the game such as Sehwag, Gambir and, for the West Indies, Gayle, but India like the West Indies brought in some big hitters. England have finally and reluctantly realised that Shah is their best one day batsman. It is time that they realised and accepted that there is no place at the top level in one day cricket for Bell and Collingwood, alongside Cook and Strauss.
Trainspotter Matters
I suppose that I should not be surprised that the trainspotters among us use the hibernating months to get stuck into their habit. Bill Hart and Allan Cox have been progressing the transcribing of South Hampstead scorebooks from the sixties and seventies into scorecard format. Bill Hart ran out of material to produce and so transferred his attentions to second team performance and has produced averages as well.
I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised to receive this update from the Great jack Morgan:
“Scorecards: a round of applause please for Uxbridge which has consolidated third place and moved on to a well-deserved 50 and leaves Southgate languishing on 19 in fourth place. Others: Lord's 417, Oval 105, Hove 14, Southampton 14 (split between 2 grounds) and Guildford 11. Grounds visited now total 86.”
Nick Reed Matters
The Great Jack Morgan gives enters the debate
I can't agree with Nick Reed that only four bowlers should be selected for England and have the batsmen do the rest of the bowling. England's bowlers are too unreliable in terms of fitness to allow the selectors to pick only four of them. There is a case for using other bowlers (especially second or third spinners when only one front-liner has been selected), but these should be in addition to five main bowlers, not instead of them. Not one of our batsmen is in the same class as Steve Waugh (or Mark Waugh) as a bowler and they should not be expected to take on the load of the fifth bowler. Australia got away with only four front-line bowlers for some years, but this was because i) the four main bowlers were of exceptional quality; ii) they also had outstanding fitness records; and iii) as Nick points out, they also had very useful back-up bowlers like Allan Border, the Waugh brothers, Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann and Andrew Symonds who were a class above the average batsman pressed into turning his arm over.
Well, Australia did have a spinner in India after all. Were they just making it interesting by leaving him out? Or had they been listening to Nick Reed and decided to let the batsmen do the spinning? Either way, Mr Krejza became the first Czech/ Polish off-spinner called Jason to take eight wickets on debut in Nagpur. Of course, 215 is a lot to go for, but he did just give them a glimmer of a chance and when Katich and Hussey were together, they looked as they could actually do it (but at the time of writing, it doesn't look as if they will). I would not have left Sarfraz Clark out to accommodate him though: Stuart is their most accurate bowler and would have been a good foil to Jason at the other end. I would have dropped any one from three: Lee, Watson or White.
That was weird captaincy from Punter wasn't it? Using batsmen to speed up the over rate instead of going for the win? I reckon you have been sending him Googlies and he has been persuaded by Nick Reed hasn't he? And it was all apparently to avoid punishment for the slow over rates... clearly a higher priority than winning the Test and squaring the series! It is also shocking how their bowling has declined on Troy Cooley's watch: he was regarded as something of a messiah when he was in charge of the England bowlers... will they find a way to blame it on Kevin Shine?
Hart Matters
Bill Hart sent me this
On the subject of "out & about with the professor", I knew Mike Cowan very well. He worked for three years as a sales representative for UniChem in the mid seventies, when I was Marketing Manager. He was just then starting out as an after-dinner speaker, usually as a "sub" when Freddy Trueman couldn't make it. A great bloke!
Hanging About Matters
Charlie Puckett sent me this
“I have just re-read G&C 66 and noticed the Professor's reference to the timings of the Home Counties Premier League matches. Apparently, it is the norm for these 120 overs matches to last from 11.00am until after 8.00pm. The Shepherd Neame Middlesex County Cricket League (to give it the full title) is a minimum of 120 overs, starts at 11.30am and most of the matches finish before 8.00pm. Indeed, many of our games last more than 120 overs - I think Teddington and Winchmore was 131 overs just a couple of years ago. It really is all about educating the buggers that seventeen overs an hour is perfectly attainable. I've lost track of the number of times I have pointed out that the reason we had twenty overs in the last hour was because that was the rate that clubs bowled in 1970.”
At the Old Danes Gathering Roger Kingdon asked me why overs were bowled so slowly in international fixtures. I jumped up onto my soapbox and said that there were two main reasons:
1. The players are overpaid, conceited and don’t consider themselves entertainers. Anyone doubting this should ask why they always, regardless of the state of the match, go off when offered the light.
2. But much more significant is that in this age of crash bang cricket the games rarely last five days. As a result the accusation that if ninety overs a day had been bowled there would have been a result is redundant since most games finish well within the allocated time. In these circumstances the only losers are those, like me, who only attend one day of a test match.
Incidentally, prices for Ashes tickets are about £1 an over and so if only eighty overs are bowled the day you go then the ECB will be robbing you of £10.
Cleaver Matters
I received the following communication from Vic Duncombe
“I have been given your name by Roy Dodson, an old friend of mine from my Willesden days. I'm told that you edit Googlies and Chinamen and that recently have been running stories about another old pal Geoff Cleaver whom I learn with sadness has passed away. Briefly, I lived about fifty yards from Geoff and his brother Rob for over 20 years and during that time became close friends with connections through St Mary’s Church (their Mum was the Verger), then the youth club and then our first love - cricket. We played for Wembley Park along with, at one time, their father. I have a photo of the brothers in the choir which you may care to pass around.”
I can provide Vic’s email address to anyone who wants the “Geoff in the choir” photo.
Old Trafford Matters
The recent Lancashire email newsletter managed no comment about the development programme and no information about the club’s cricketing activities. After reference to the Twenty20 international the following item appeared:
“Lancashire County Cricket Club is delighted to add Coldplay to what is already a packed programme of high profile events taking place at Old Trafford next year. Coldplay are being supported by American Hip Hop mega star Jay-Z, and subject to licence, the concert will take place at Old Trafford on Saturday 12th September, 2009.”
As usual the committee have their priorities right. I will no doubt see all you Jay-Z fans at the concert.
Paddington and Other Matters
Denis Jones sent me this
Comments from one of your Correspondents about playing a Junior School Football Final at QPR jogged a memory of the time I also played there, for Ellerslie, in an end-of-season final. My thankfully vague memories tell me that we came a long way second, but, I no longer wish to, or am able to, recall the opposition and the exact score.
The intriguing thought I have on this, though, is that I cannot believe that we actually played on the full-size QPR pitch. I am sure that with it being towards the end of the season, that the pitch was more just plain soil than grass, making it difficult enough anyway, and I find it difficult to envisage 10 and 11 year old schoolboys coping with normal size goals, and pitch-markings.
Maybe we took corners from the edge of the penalty-box (or rather, the opposition did.) Perhaps one of your Correspondents, with a better memory than me, can clarify this.
Over a quarter of Paddington's scheduled fixtures for 2008 were lost to the weather, but generally we still managed to enjoy ourselves on our trips around the London area, winning more games than we lost, including a victory whilst taking in the pleasant surroundings of our one new fixture, at Knebworth Park.
Our bi-annual trip to Lords to play against Cross Arrows didn't quite go as well as it looked at one time, when we were 190 for 2 chasing 301, and in making an eventual score of 252, we failed to do justice to ourselves.
The emergence of a third generation of the Bunning family continues, with Dominic Bunning taking the Player of the Season award; his outstanding performance being an innings of 163 at Hoddesdon, when we successfully chased a score of 327-8 dec., winning with one ball and 2 wickets to spare. Next season, Dom's brother, Matthew, will be sharing the Captaincy duties with Anthony Saunders, with 'Uncle' Steve Bunning taking a well-earned rest from this task.
The Perils of Prediction
The Professor has been checking through his box of 2008 newpaper clippings
The pages of G&C have occasionally (when contributors were feeling extra brave) contained predictions about forthcoming series or “competitions” like the Wisden 5. This is always fun, and is a kind of virility test for the soothsayer. We are not, of course, “experts”, but our amateurish efforts, once proffered, are there for all to see. Of course, you sometimes hear people say that you: “can’t predict the future”, whereas, in reality, you can only predict the future…the problem is one of accuracy.
Given the (slightly) chequered record of G&C in the prediction department, I decided, at the start of the season, to keep a piece from the Guardian. It was written by an undoubted expert and contained predictions about the County Championship. “I shall hold on to this”, I thought, “because it is clearly written by a man who knows a great deal about cricket and is being paid to give his opinion”. The man’s name was…Bob Willis. Old Grumpy Face had reviewed all the Division One teams and come up with the following:
Hampshire - “With no Shane Warne and no Kevin Pietersen, I really don’t think Hampshire can stay in the division”. (They finished 3rd )
Lancashire – “Will finish in the top three” (they didn’t) and “are my tip to win the FP Trophy”. (That was Essex).
Somerset – “are my tip to win the Twenty/20 Cup.” (Middlesex, of course)
Yorkshire – “are my tip to win the Championship” (they avoided relegation in the last match). Rana Naved will be their “key player”, having been “so prolific” in the past. (Naved took 16 Championship wickets at 38 each).
Surrey – were “due to improve on their 4th place last year” (They were, of course, relegated). The same fate befell Kent, but Big Bob confessed that he couldn’t be sure about how Kent might fair…they were, “something of an unknown quantity”.
…And what of Durham? The eventually champions were consigned by the gangly pundit to Division Two… “One of my tips for relegation. They punched above their weight last season and could struggle this year”.
Perhaps we should replace the phrase, “You can’t predict the future” with, “Bob can’t predict the future”.
Did he get anything right? Well, he thought Andrew Flintoff would have to “prove his fitness”, Charlie Shreck “has potential”, Chris Jordan is “very mature for 19”, and Matthew Prior will be “determined to win his England place back”. Why do they pay him for this stuff? More to the point…why do I buy the bloody paper?
Old Danes Gathering
The Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cc at the beginning of August was a convivial affair attended by some forty alumni. Since the school packed up and emigrated in a different format to Hertfordshire in the late seventies all old boys are of a certain age or older. This provides a comfortable reassurance for all prospective attendees.
It was good to see a number of faces who had missed the inaugural gathering last year. The most significant among these was Bob Hunt who has built and maintained an Old Dane web site which has enabled many of us to make contact in recent years. He encouraged several of his contemporaries to join him for the occasion, including Hugh Lindsay, Willy Luckett, Bill Braidman and Jeremy Goldblum. Helen Nienow accompanied her husband Alvin and she was able to reminisce about primary school days with some other Ellerslie Road Primary School alumni.
Bob Hunt with Ken Bromfield Graham Shortell, Alvin & Helen Nienow
John Adams appeared in his old school blazer complete with colours and prefect badges. He impressed everyone by not only getting into it but also by managing to button it. Russ Collins was the sole representative of the staff and it was good to seem him more mobile than of late following continuing problems with his knees.
John Adams Mick Jordan, Wynne Sharp & Russ Collins
Gary Rhoades drove down from the north eat to join us and it was good to see Laurie Valentine again, although he is not an Old Dane.
Laurie Valentine, Gary Rhoades and Allan Keates
Bob Peach and Roger Kingdon
Our thanks go to David Perrin and Shepherds Bush CC who have made these enjoyable Gatherings possible.
Book Matters
There are now three volumes of Googlies & Chinamen available in hardback format. Each covers twenty editions of this monthly newsletter. They can be obtained direct from the publisher www.lulu.com or I can supply you with copies. They are £15 each.
I have also published my scrapbooks for the last two seasons- Farrago 2007 and Imbroglio 2006. These are enormous volumes of match reports, scorecards and comment featuring mainly Middlesex and England. These are available from the same sources.
Football Matters
Contrary to some opinion Andrew Baker takes his responsibilities as Manager of Kelvin West’s Ladies Team extremely seriously. He is also gaining repute for developing innovative training techniques. He recently told me that he was introducing cycling as their latest training aid to improve "reaction time off the mark". Fortunately Kelvin was on hand to record the inaugural session.
Googlies and Chinamen
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Broad Lee House
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Tel & fax: 01298 70237
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An Occasional Cricketing Journal
Edition 72
December 2008
Caption Competition
- K.P.: Remember, anyone who tells that prat Moores the new game plan gets dropped.
- Broady: Skip, please don’t make me bowl at Yuvraj again.
- Belly: What do you mean if I open I have to score quicker? I’ve got my average to think about.
- Wrighty: Anything you say Kev. I’m just pleased to be here.
- Cooky: Can anyone explain why I went to Antigua and why I am in India?
- Harmy: I think that I could be feeling homesick soon.
- Colly: I think that I put my finger up someone else’s nose.
- KP: We can beat anyone. Just remember Freddie and I will do all the batting, then when we field Freddie and I will do all of the bowling.
Well, as anti-climaxes go, that was pretty spectacular. Doubtless you went sensibly to bed and didn't bother to watch the England team make a pig's ear of trying to win a cricket match...but they sure did. Following on from the woeful efforts of Middlesex, it seems we can't even win at the form of the game we recently invented. According to Pietersen, "lessons will be learned" - now just where have I heard that before?
From what I saw of the whole series, the playing surface was pretty poor (although it looks almost perfect) and the cricket was pretty grim, but much more interesting has been the cacophony of humbug that the whole business has generated. No moral ground has been too high for some of the commentators. The spirit of the game has been undermined; test cricket placed in jeopardy; and probably the moral fibre of the entire nation put at risk by this cricket match.
Selvey, for example, called the England team "Bounty Hunters". Since when have professional sportsmen playing for money been "Bounty Hunters". This afternoon, a chap called Hamilton will go whizzing round in a car (is that "sport"?) with a view to earning a vast sum of money...is that a "bounty"? Cricketers are, apparently, supposed to play for the love of the game.
As for the dreadful "Texan Billionaire" who put the whole thing on he is, according to Selvey, "obscenely wealthy" and a "self-publicist" - so unlike those poverty stricken, self-effacing billionaires we all know and love. His altruistic motives of stimulating cricket in the West Indies have been questioned; his real intent being to make money. Really? A billionaire financier out to make money...I can hardly credit it.
I heard Iain McLaurin on the radio yesterday describe the whole event as a "pantomime" and so, to some extent, it was - loud, brash, colourful and (when England were batting) comic. Well, that is pretty much what things are like in the Caribbean. What is wrong with that? Why don't those who don't much like it simply avert their gaze? It's only a game.
In addition to being brash, etc, it was also, whisper it gently, popular. According to Lloyd the final was shown on TV in a hundred countries. But we don't want that do we! We don't want a lot of johnny foreigners watching "our" game (well, certainly not the way we played it last night)! In reality, all the humbug comes down to one thing...money.
Consider this. What would all the Press coverage have been like if Pietersen had taken his team to Antigua to play a 20/20 match for charity? A noble venture which, with TV rights, would have raised (say) $20 million for hurricane relief. How would the reporting been different? ...I think we all know the answer to that.
Stanford Matters When the Professor sent me the above I replied:
“England were conceited, ill prepared and out played. The general demeanour of the team, the press etc was condescending and a disgrace.
If you are invited to someone's party you either decline or go and accept their foibles.”
I then decided to vent some more:
I was appalled at the all the boo ha-ha dished up by Team England and their sundry media hangers on during their visit to Antigua.
1.1 The ground was magnificent and the spectator accommodation appeared comfortable.
1.2 The wickets may not have been the shirtfronts that everyone would have liked but who said they were going to be or that they had to be? Maybe Team England should spend more time playing for their counties at out grounds to remember what real cricket grounds are like.
1.3 The lights were fine particularly after they were adjusted. The problem with Team England was that they elected to practice on arrival in daylight rather than under the playing conditions they would be encountering. If they had opted for night practice they would have been able to ask for the deflectors to be adjusted before they took the field in anger.
1.4 They were lucky to beat Middlesex on their first outing. If Carter had not spent two overs playing and missing at Broad Middlesex would have won. I didn’t see the T&T game but the one run margin speaks for itself.
1.5 The Stanford Superstars game was a magnificent demolition by a properly prepared, highly motivated, professional outfit over a whinging bunch who had decided that they thought that it was vulgar to be participating. Team England had apparently spent an hour of their precious preparation for the big money game deciding how they should celebrate when they won!
1.6 If any of Team England thinks that their WAGS were mistreated by their host they should send them to the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston and see how the Barmy Army treats them.
The history of cricket is built upon wealthy individuals putting up purses to stage big games. Indeed in the UK Sky television pays large amounts of money for the test matches and requires various activities as part of the deal such as attendance and interviews at the toss, arriving and departing batsmen being escorted to and from the crease by a mobile camera, interviews with captains and key players immediately after the finish etc.
The invitation to participate in the Stanford competition was just that, an invitation. It could have been rejected, but once accepted you go along with the style of the host. If you go to someone’s house for dinner do you spend the whole time complaining about the colour of the carpet or lack of crisps? The behaviour of Team England was childish and boorish.
If Team England thinks that it is ok to complain or that their hosts should accommodate them perhaps they should start with the MCC who will be seriously denting their Ashes hopes next year by once again refusing to sell tickets, and in particular blocks of tickets, to the Barmy Army. They will also be banning musical instruments and other distracting paraphernalia from the ground. All of this is desirable but Lords was the ground where England lost their only test in 2005. At all the other grounds the bellowing hordes of football fans brought their appalling behaviour with them and carried Peg Leg’s men to victory. If Team England are right then the ECB should take away the Lords test and hold it where their playing requirements are met.
Team England needs to grow up and smell the coffee. They thought it was beneath them to go and play in a private competition. They were lured by greed. They then looked foolish. There will be plenty more of these temptations. They will have to decide whether they want to play for big prize money or not ahead of time to avoid further embarrassment.
At the conclusion of this excellent tournament Team England said that they will have to do better next time. They will be lucky to get invited again. The holders will want better opposition to test themselves against.
England Matters
South Africa must be wondering how they got beaten by England in the one day series last summer so comprehensively. England’s subsequent performances have been woeful. There remain fundamental flaws in their approach to any version of the one day game:
1. They don’t play enough. The most experienced player in their Stanford side was Patel who, not surprisingly, top scored. The next was Swann. You don’t get good at this or any other form of the game in the nets. The Stanford Superstars side trained for six weeks. Team England arrived two days before they played. With hindsight the Stanford Superstars probably think that their time was well spent. Team England arrogantly thought that they were the best side and would win easily.
2. Team England still think that they can play Twenty20 their own way. The only way to get a big score in this form of cricket is to have one, or preferably two openers, playing big shots from the off. Freddie is our best bet to open and he should be elevated ASAP. Team England seem convinced that reverse sweeps and paddle sweeps are the way to score runs. Both Prior and KP both got out to these. Why don’t they watch the videos of how the big scorers do it? They have guys who like to hit the ball a long way. In the Middlesex match the Stanford Superstars hit a dozen sixes. In their game against the Stanford Superstars Team England hit none. How did they think they were going to get enough runs?
3. Why was Wright picked? Surely the days of the bits and pieces player are over? If his bowling is good enough why didn’t he bowl? If he is playing as a batsman why have him at eight? Things have to have gone monumentally wrong in this form of the game for eight to play a key role. Indeed this was the case but he wasn’t up to it. Bopara must be the better choice longer term. All this luxury is because Prior is opening. He needs to play a telling innings to justify this selection. In India Prior’s lack of runs has led to his being dropped down the order. His wicket keeping still isn’t up to it and so if he isn’t going to open there is no case to pick him.
4. Against Middlesex Broad bowled a hostile short length against Carter who was just not good enough to lay a bat on it. Presumably his big hitting feats have been achieved against bowlers who obligingly pitch it up. Against the Stanford Superstars Broad bowled the same length for half of his first over, the second of the innings, against Fletcher. The next ball Fletcher battered for four. Broad then, as he famously did against Yuvraj, changed his length and Fletcher hit both the last balls of the over for four as well. This killed England’s last glimmer of hope. Once Gayle got in on the act it just became embarrassing as it became apparent that there was actually nothing wrong with the apparently appalling surface on which Team England had failed to score a hundred. In the end it was not just the thrashing by ten wickets but more the unused and unrequired overs that spelt the difference between the sides.
5. The argument that you pick your best players and use them in all forms of the game is dead. India went into the ODI series without Tendulkar, Laxman and Ganguly who had all just figured strongly in the test match defeat of Australia. There are some players who can adapt to both forms of the game such as Sehwag, Gambir and, for the West Indies, Gayle, but India like the West Indies brought in some big hitters. England have finally and reluctantly realised that Shah is their best one day batsman. It is time that they realised and accepted that there is no place at the top level in one day cricket for Bell and Collingwood, alongside Cook and Strauss.
Trainspotter Matters
I suppose that I should not be surprised that the trainspotters among us use the hibernating months to get stuck into their habit. Bill Hart and Allan Cox have been progressing the transcribing of South Hampstead scorebooks from the sixties and seventies into scorecard format. Bill Hart ran out of material to produce and so transferred his attentions to second team performance and has produced averages as well.
I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised to receive this update from the Great jack Morgan:
“Scorecards: a round of applause please for Uxbridge which has consolidated third place and moved on to a well-deserved 50 and leaves Southgate languishing on 19 in fourth place. Others: Lord's 417, Oval 105, Hove 14, Southampton 14 (split between 2 grounds) and Guildford 11. Grounds visited now total 86.”
Nick Reed Matters
The Great Jack Morgan gives enters the debate
I can't agree with Nick Reed that only four bowlers should be selected for England and have the batsmen do the rest of the bowling. England's bowlers are too unreliable in terms of fitness to allow the selectors to pick only four of them. There is a case for using other bowlers (especially second or third spinners when only one front-liner has been selected), but these should be in addition to five main bowlers, not instead of them. Not one of our batsmen is in the same class as Steve Waugh (or Mark Waugh) as a bowler and they should not be expected to take on the load of the fifth bowler. Australia got away with only four front-line bowlers for some years, but this was because i) the four main bowlers were of exceptional quality; ii) they also had outstanding fitness records; and iii) as Nick points out, they also had very useful back-up bowlers like Allan Border, the Waugh brothers, Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann and Andrew Symonds who were a class above the average batsman pressed into turning his arm over.
Well, Australia did have a spinner in India after all. Were they just making it interesting by leaving him out? Or had they been listening to Nick Reed and decided to let the batsmen do the spinning? Either way, Mr Krejza became the first Czech/ Polish off-spinner called Jason to take eight wickets on debut in Nagpur. Of course, 215 is a lot to go for, but he did just give them a glimmer of a chance and when Katich and Hussey were together, they looked as they could actually do it (but at the time of writing, it doesn't look as if they will). I would not have left Sarfraz Clark out to accommodate him though: Stuart is their most accurate bowler and would have been a good foil to Jason at the other end. I would have dropped any one from three: Lee, Watson or White.
That was weird captaincy from Punter wasn't it? Using batsmen to speed up the over rate instead of going for the win? I reckon you have been sending him Googlies and he has been persuaded by Nick Reed hasn't he? And it was all apparently to avoid punishment for the slow over rates... clearly a higher priority than winning the Test and squaring the series! It is also shocking how their bowling has declined on Troy Cooley's watch: he was regarded as something of a messiah when he was in charge of the England bowlers... will they find a way to blame it on Kevin Shine?
Hart Matters
Bill Hart sent me this
On the subject of "out & about with the professor", I knew Mike Cowan very well. He worked for three years as a sales representative for UniChem in the mid seventies, when I was Marketing Manager. He was just then starting out as an after-dinner speaker, usually as a "sub" when Freddy Trueman couldn't make it. A great bloke!
Hanging About Matters
Charlie Puckett sent me this
“I have just re-read G&C 66 and noticed the Professor's reference to the timings of the Home Counties Premier League matches. Apparently, it is the norm for these 120 overs matches to last from 11.00am until after 8.00pm. The Shepherd Neame Middlesex County Cricket League (to give it the full title) is a minimum of 120 overs, starts at 11.30am and most of the matches finish before 8.00pm. Indeed, many of our games last more than 120 overs - I think Teddington and Winchmore was 131 overs just a couple of years ago. It really is all about educating the buggers that seventeen overs an hour is perfectly attainable. I've lost track of the number of times I have pointed out that the reason we had twenty overs in the last hour was because that was the rate that clubs bowled in 1970.”
At the Old Danes Gathering Roger Kingdon asked me why overs were bowled so slowly in international fixtures. I jumped up onto my soapbox and said that there were two main reasons:
1. The players are overpaid, conceited and don’t consider themselves entertainers. Anyone doubting this should ask why they always, regardless of the state of the match, go off when offered the light.
2. But much more significant is that in this age of crash bang cricket the games rarely last five days. As a result the accusation that if ninety overs a day had been bowled there would have been a result is redundant since most games finish well within the allocated time. In these circumstances the only losers are those, like me, who only attend one day of a test match.
Incidentally, prices for Ashes tickets are about £1 an over and so if only eighty overs are bowled the day you go then the ECB will be robbing you of £10.
Cleaver Matters
I received the following communication from Vic Duncombe
“I have been given your name by Roy Dodson, an old friend of mine from my Willesden days. I'm told that you edit Googlies and Chinamen and that recently have been running stories about another old pal Geoff Cleaver whom I learn with sadness has passed away. Briefly, I lived about fifty yards from Geoff and his brother Rob for over 20 years and during that time became close friends with connections through St Mary’s Church (their Mum was the Verger), then the youth club and then our first love - cricket. We played for Wembley Park along with, at one time, their father. I have a photo of the brothers in the choir which you may care to pass around.”
I can provide Vic’s email address to anyone who wants the “Geoff in the choir” photo.
Old Trafford Matters
The recent Lancashire email newsletter managed no comment about the development programme and no information about the club’s cricketing activities. After reference to the Twenty20 international the following item appeared:
“Lancashire County Cricket Club is delighted to add Coldplay to what is already a packed programme of high profile events taking place at Old Trafford next year. Coldplay are being supported by American Hip Hop mega star Jay-Z, and subject to licence, the concert will take place at Old Trafford on Saturday 12th September, 2009.”
As usual the committee have their priorities right. I will no doubt see all you Jay-Z fans at the concert.
Paddington and Other Matters
Denis Jones sent me this
Comments from one of your Correspondents about playing a Junior School Football Final at QPR jogged a memory of the time I also played there, for Ellerslie, in an end-of-season final. My thankfully vague memories tell me that we came a long way second, but, I no longer wish to, or am able to, recall the opposition and the exact score.
The intriguing thought I have on this, though, is that I cannot believe that we actually played on the full-size QPR pitch. I am sure that with it being towards the end of the season, that the pitch was more just plain soil than grass, making it difficult enough anyway, and I find it difficult to envisage 10 and 11 year old schoolboys coping with normal size goals, and pitch-markings.
Maybe we took corners from the edge of the penalty-box (or rather, the opposition did.) Perhaps one of your Correspondents, with a better memory than me, can clarify this.
Over a quarter of Paddington's scheduled fixtures for 2008 were lost to the weather, but generally we still managed to enjoy ourselves on our trips around the London area, winning more games than we lost, including a victory whilst taking in the pleasant surroundings of our one new fixture, at Knebworth Park.
Our bi-annual trip to Lords to play against Cross Arrows didn't quite go as well as it looked at one time, when we were 190 for 2 chasing 301, and in making an eventual score of 252, we failed to do justice to ourselves.
The emergence of a third generation of the Bunning family continues, with Dominic Bunning taking the Player of the Season award; his outstanding performance being an innings of 163 at Hoddesdon, when we successfully chased a score of 327-8 dec., winning with one ball and 2 wickets to spare. Next season, Dom's brother, Matthew, will be sharing the Captaincy duties with Anthony Saunders, with 'Uncle' Steve Bunning taking a well-earned rest from this task.
The Perils of Prediction
The Professor has been checking through his box of 2008 newpaper clippings
The pages of G&C have occasionally (when contributors were feeling extra brave) contained predictions about forthcoming series or “competitions” like the Wisden 5. This is always fun, and is a kind of virility test for the soothsayer. We are not, of course, “experts”, but our amateurish efforts, once proffered, are there for all to see. Of course, you sometimes hear people say that you: “can’t predict the future”, whereas, in reality, you can only predict the future…the problem is one of accuracy.
Given the (slightly) chequered record of G&C in the prediction department, I decided, at the start of the season, to keep a piece from the Guardian. It was written by an undoubted expert and contained predictions about the County Championship. “I shall hold on to this”, I thought, “because it is clearly written by a man who knows a great deal about cricket and is being paid to give his opinion”. The man’s name was…Bob Willis. Old Grumpy Face had reviewed all the Division One teams and come up with the following:
Hampshire - “With no Shane Warne and no Kevin Pietersen, I really don’t think Hampshire can stay in the division”. (They finished 3rd )
Lancashire – “Will finish in the top three” (they didn’t) and “are my tip to win the FP Trophy”. (That was Essex).
Somerset – “are my tip to win the Twenty/20 Cup.” (Middlesex, of course)
Yorkshire – “are my tip to win the Championship” (they avoided relegation in the last match). Rana Naved will be their “key player”, having been “so prolific” in the past. (Naved took 16 Championship wickets at 38 each).
Surrey – were “due to improve on their 4th place last year” (They were, of course, relegated). The same fate befell Kent, but Big Bob confessed that he couldn’t be sure about how Kent might fair…they were, “something of an unknown quantity”.
…And what of Durham? The eventually champions were consigned by the gangly pundit to Division Two… “One of my tips for relegation. They punched above their weight last season and could struggle this year”.
Perhaps we should replace the phrase, “You can’t predict the future” with, “Bob can’t predict the future”.
Did he get anything right? Well, he thought Andrew Flintoff would have to “prove his fitness”, Charlie Shreck “has potential”, Chris Jordan is “very mature for 19”, and Matthew Prior will be “determined to win his England place back”. Why do they pay him for this stuff? More to the point…why do I buy the bloody paper?
Old Danes Gathering
The Old Danes Gathering at Shepherds Bush Cc at the beginning of August was a convivial affair attended by some forty alumni. Since the school packed up and emigrated in a different format to Hertfordshire in the late seventies all old boys are of a certain age or older. This provides a comfortable reassurance for all prospective attendees.
It was good to see a number of faces who had missed the inaugural gathering last year. The most significant among these was Bob Hunt who has built and maintained an Old Dane web site which has enabled many of us to make contact in recent years. He encouraged several of his contemporaries to join him for the occasion, including Hugh Lindsay, Willy Luckett, Bill Braidman and Jeremy Goldblum. Helen Nienow accompanied her husband Alvin and she was able to reminisce about primary school days with some other Ellerslie Road Primary School alumni.
Bob Hunt with Ken Bromfield Graham Shortell, Alvin & Helen Nienow
John Adams appeared in his old school blazer complete with colours and prefect badges. He impressed everyone by not only getting into it but also by managing to button it. Russ Collins was the sole representative of the staff and it was good to seem him more mobile than of late following continuing problems with his knees.
John Adams Mick Jordan, Wynne Sharp & Russ Collins
Gary Rhoades drove down from the north eat to join us and it was good to see Laurie Valentine again, although he is not an Old Dane.
Laurie Valentine, Gary Rhoades and Allan Keates
Bob Peach and Roger Kingdon
Our thanks go to David Perrin and Shepherds Bush CC who have made these enjoyable Gatherings possible.
Book Matters
There are now three volumes of Googlies & Chinamen available in hardback format. Each covers twenty editions of this monthly newsletter. They can be obtained direct from the publisher www.lulu.com or I can supply you with copies. They are £15 each.
I have also published my scrapbooks for the last two seasons- Farrago 2007 and Imbroglio 2006. These are enormous volumes of match reports, scorecards and comment featuring mainly Middlesex and England. These are available from the same sources.
Football Matters
Contrary to some opinion Andrew Baker takes his responsibilities as Manager of Kelvin West’s Ladies Team extremely seriously. He is also gaining repute for developing innovative training techniques. He recently told me that he was introducing cycling as their latest training aid to improve "reaction time off the mark". Fortunately Kelvin was on hand to record the inaugural session.
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