tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47348751742544241772024-03-13T08:32:52.131-07:00Si's effing cricket columnsThese are my columns published in The Cricket Paper in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 seasons. You can find my book "The effing c-word" at www.thewhitewords.com, my cricket club at www.damerhamcc.com, and you can join me on twitter @siwhite0. Comments welcome.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-26236329520012039222015-09-11T05:01:00.001-07:002015-09-11T05:01:59.942-07:00Column 31, 2015 – The Future<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 134, Friday September 11, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is my last column for <i>The Cricket Paper</i>, at least for a
while. So this seems an appropriate time to peer into the crystal ball, and
have a look into the future of cricket, to see how it all turns out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2017 </b>South Africa
hit 500 in an ODI. New Zealand chase it with four balls to spare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2019</b> The World
Cup in England is investigated under the Trade Descriptions Act, and ordered to
re-name itself the FEENIO Cup [Former Empire Elite Nations Invitation Only]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2022</b> Akira Sharma
becomes the first woman to play men’s international cricket. The tiny
17-year-old makes a hundred on debut against men twice her size and age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2027</b> In his last
game in an England shirt, Ben Stokes scores the first quadruple century on day
one of a Test match.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2031</b> N Srinivasan
and Giles Clarke demand an $80bn ransom from the ICC for something called ‘The
Spirit of Cricket’. The organisation initially shrugs it off, as no one there
has the faintest notion of what it could possibly be. No one that is, except
the janitor, who has a vague nagging memory from his childhood. He becomes
chairman, and injects joy back into the game. Clarke and Srini are banished to
Napoleon’s exile island of St Helena in the south Atlantic, and forced to give
the $80bn to kids’ cricket in developing nations. Everyone lives happily ever
after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2037</b> The
full-body ‘nerve suit’ becomes commercially available, allowing the wearer to
completely experience the physical sensations of others. Marketed as a sex toy,
it is soon subverted by ingenious hackers and used to resurrect Michael
Vaughan’s cover drive for everyone to experience as if they’d hit it
themselves. A software engineer fined £1m and jailed for a month says it’s “a
small price to pay”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2044</b> Sir Joe Root
fills fellow pundit Gary Ballance’s shoes with mayonnaise live on air for the
12th consecutive season, and is finally rewarded with a knighthood for Services
to Practical Jokes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2052</b> After the
successful colonisation of the moon, cricket is struck off as a Star Fleet
Approved pastime when Jamaican astronaut Christopher Gayle the Third breaks the
glass ceiling on the life support dome and becomes the first person to
literally hit a six into orbit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2069</b> I play my
last game for Damerham CC, aged 101, declaring: “I can’t complain, I’ve had a
pretty good knock.” Needing just four runs to achieve a lifelong career average
in double figures, I am run out without facing with an average of 9.94.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2077</b> Bicentenary
Ashes Series. England beat Australia 5-0 in Australia. Again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2091</b> The Cricket
World Cup is held in New Argentina, contested by 247 of the world’s 292
recognised countries, a team of expats from Mars, and a delegation of visiting
Nnncrulians. The time-dilation technique used in ‘Relativity Tests’ allows each
nation to simultaneously compete in a five-Test series. Finland beat China by
eight wickets in the final. Some things never change.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-79599112878582030832015-09-04T03:49:00.002-07:002015-09-04T03:49:54.752-07:00Column 30, 2015 – Death of a Gentleman<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 133, Friday September 4, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In
the fast paced, cash obsessed world of modern sport, what hope is there for the
gentleman’s game? Is Test cricket’s fate already sealed? And is T20 the prime
suspect? These are the questions cricket journalists Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber
set out to answer with their documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death
of a Gentleman</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cinéma vérité</i> style is reminiscent of
Nick Broomfield, or more recently the likes of Michael Moore: the journey of
the film-makers forms part of the narrative. Initially they’re motivated by the
frustration of watching something wonderful wither, but during the course of
its making, the film solidifies into something else, and the power-grab by the
‘big three’ of India, England and Australia dominates its third act.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
most remarkable thing about this outrageous coup d’état was just how little
outrage it caused. Implicit in this is that those who might have been outraged
– the ‘lesser’ full nations and associates – had already been effectively
silenced by the big three. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That’s
the real story at the heart of this film, and if it doesn’t entirely succeed in
fully unearthing it, it does succeed in shining an unforgiving light on its
shadowy architects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As
in most films, the most striking figures are the baddies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Former
BCCI president and current ICC chairman N. Srinivasan wields all the power, and
is so entrenched in the centre of his own web, that he appears impossible to untangle.
As Kimber puts it, “Any committee that could possibly get rid of him, he’s on”.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
the real boo-hiss baddy of the piece is Giles Clarke. The former chairman and
current president of the ECB conducts every interaction from a position of
lofty entitlement. His bellicose brand of arrogance borders on open aggression,
and he appears genuinely affronted by the idea that anyone might question his
actions, or hold him to account. How DARE they. Haughty disdain wafts around
him like cologne. He’s a real pantomime villain, and the screening I was in
shuffled and bristled in indignation at his every utterance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By
contrast, there’s a strand of the film following batsman Ed Cowan and his
family as he makes his Test debut for Australia. Cowan is engaging and
likeable, and his story is by turns heart-warming and heartbreaking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
its relation to the film’s thrust is peripheral. It represents all that’s good
and pure and worth saving in Test cricket, but this film is about the boardroom
battles rather than those on the field, and Cowan’s story, poignant though it
is, only highlights that disconnect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
that is not to detract from its worth. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death
of a Gentleman</i> its an important film for anyone who loves cricket, as
Collins and Kimber and many of their contributors so evidently do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Seek
it out, and decide for yourself if their campaign to #savecricket is worth
supporting, before the corruption, greed and short-termism of the
administrators at the heart of our game destroys it before they’ve even
finished counting the money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death of a Gentleman</i> is showing at selected
cinemas nationwide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-71503881225130721022015-08-28T07:38:00.003-07:002015-08-28T07:38:36.229-07:00Column 29, 2015 – Alternate thrashings<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 132, Friday August 28, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s an odd situation to find
yourself in, that of suddenly winning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not just winning either, but
really convincingly being the ones doing the thrashing, rather than the ones
being thrashed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This Ashes series has been
most bizarre. Surely the most one sided 3-2 scoreline ever. This was far more
one sided than either of England’s 5-0 down-under drubbings in the last decade.
It’s just that it wasn’t always the same side being drubbed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After Trent Bridge I touched
on that curious suspended limbo a team experiences when staring down the barrel
of an almost certain heavy defeat, and how that detached air of inevitability
robs the game of drama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s extraordinary to have
had that for all five matches in a series. Five Tests between England and
Australia, the conclusion of each not in doubt from early in the piece, and
played out with a total absence of tension.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In club cricket, such
roller-coaster inconsistency is normal. Weekend warriors with more important
things to worry about all week than where their off stump is, can expect to
swing wildly between competence and ineptitude.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But when the very best in the
world meet to battle it out in five games over five days (A five day Test match!
Can you imagine such a thing?!) such reckless profligacy is as disappointing as
it is baffling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Don’t get me wrong, it’s
great that England won. But it’s hardly as much fun as a proper, competitive,
knife edge, can’t-call-it-till-the-death game of cricket, is it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As you may have gleaned,
Damerham have been on the receiving end of our share of heavy defeats of late,
to the extent that, with just two games to go, we found ourselves flirting with
relegation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last week we self-destructed
from 100-2 to 120 all out. This week, in our own tribute to this Ashes of
ferocious contrasts, we bowled the opposition out for 66 then knocked off the
runs without loss before tea, for a most emphatic maximum-point win. We were
done by 4.30, in the pub by five (five!). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Recently I talked about the
ritual dissection after the game: who did what, the turning points, the
successes and failures. Well, we’ve never really had occasion to find out
before, but it turns out that winning that comprehensively leaves a lot less to
talk about. There weren’t exactly any awkward silences, but once you’ve got
over the initial novelty of being in the pub by five, (five!) it turns out
there’s just less to say. “So. We did pretty well and they did pretty badly,
eh? Mmm.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Again, don’t get me wrong.
It’s wonderful to be a thrasher rather than a thrashee for once, and I’m
delighted we catapulted ourselves away from the relegation zone with such
unaccustomed panache. But it’s hardly as much fun as a proper, competitive,
knife edge, can’t-call-it-till-the-death game of cricket, is it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There’s just no pleasing some
people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 485 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-81368978619568596042015-08-21T12:31:00.003-07:002015-08-21T12:31:33.278-07:00Column 28, 2015 – The importance of The Pub<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 131, Friday August 21, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G_j_8JLjGbU/Vdd8X8nXZvI/AAAAAAAABCU/p0Lln98rzVc/s1600/col2815.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G_j_8JLjGbU/Vdd8X8nXZvI/AAAAAAAABCU/p0Lln98rzVc/s1600/col2815.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some
people regard cricket solely as a mechanism for working up a thirst.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
think that’s probably going a little far, but I can appreciate it as a
philosophy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Certainly
I agree that the hour or two spent in the pub garden after a match – dissecting
it, celebrating it, rueing it, even collectively ignoring it – is an intrinsic
part of the game. If for any reason I have to rush off after stumps, it feels
like I’ve missed some vital element. Like having a bat then leaving before we
field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We
are extremely lucky with our pub.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Proximity
is one major plus. If you’re sitting on the bench outside the pavilion, it’s
roughly the same distance to the crease as it is to the bar in The Compasses,
just in the opposite direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
the warmth of the welcome is a bigger bonus. A country pub is a village’s
beating heart, and ours has a good strong pulse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
wasn’t always this way. We’ve had some great landlords in the past, but
recently some less great ones. The previous owners cared little for cricket, or
weekend trade, or the village’s heartbeat. In a famous nadir two summers ago
they pretended to be out after a Sunday friendly, rather than serve two dozen
thirsty punters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shortly
afterwards they did a runner, taking everything that wasn’t nailed down, as
well as several things that were, including most of the kitchen, and even the
woodburners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
sight of those doors boarded over was chilling. Along with the village school,
the pub was a major factor when we settled here. The seeming certainty of my
summer garden pints, my winter pool team and log fires being turned into a
retirement home haunted my dreams those few bleak weeks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
then new landlords Simon and Lee arrived like a breath of fresh air. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Along
with their virtual defibrillator, they brought with them experience,
enthusiasm, and a fundamental understanding of what a village pub should be.
The food is great, they care about beer and know how to keep it, they put on
live music and summer festivals. It is busy, buzzy, and once again the heart of
the village. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Better
yet they have embraced the cricket club, sponsoring our shirts, and – perhaps
best of all – provide us with post match sustenance. A magnificent speciality
sausage roll, about the size and shape of a giant’s cricket bat blade, filled
with eggs through the middle, gleefully christened the ostrich sausage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So
after a game, you will always find us in that beer garden, congregated around
an impressive pastry, discussing that catch (“man that was some catch” / “how
did you drop that?”) that LBW (“plumb” / “missing the next set”) and various
other cricket related nonsense that begins “It’s like that time…” or “Do you
remember that game when…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Socrates
said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” He would have enjoyed the beer
garden after the game. Cheers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 490 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-41800109144356872612015-08-14T04:16:00.001-07:002015-08-14T04:55:58.634-07:00Column 27, 2015 – Earning the fruitbowl<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 130, Friday August 14, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mQ2sNB1K3Nk/Vc3N7_wLDHI/AAAAAAAABCA/kgjYINgbyNI/s1600/col2715.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mQ2sNB1K3Nk/Vc3N7_wLDHI/AAAAAAAABCA/kgjYINgbyNI/s1600/col2715.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A
few months back, Andy rescued a spectacularly kitsch fruit bowl from the dump.
He bought it, for a pound, washed it (I hope), filled it with fruit and brought
it to the game for some light refreshments while we batted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
was so unlovable, we took something of a shine to it, and it’s now taken up
permanent residence as our man of the match award. It seemed fittingly silly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So
whoever stars with runs, wickets, catches or whatever, even in a losing cause,
has to take this ludicrous fruit bowl home and explain it to their family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
reason I bring this up now is that the other week, we were so awful, so utterly
devoid of merit, that we were forced to award the bowl to our top scorer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Extras.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We
shook our heads at our own ineptitude, baffled at how every single one of us
could be that simultaneously dreadful, lamenting aloud how you don’t see that level
of abject collective failure in proper cricket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Except
of course we just did. Our scorebook that day was remarkably similar to
Australia’s titanic collapse at Trent Bridge. We were all out for 59. Only one of
us staggered into double figures, as opposed to their two. Our extras did one better
than theirs though: we managed 15. And we lasted 25.2 overs, 6.5 more than
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Even
though we wanted to, and might as well have done, we couldn’t just get changed
and go home, any more than Australia could.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There
are always examples of stunning wins from unlikely positions, of victory
snatched from the jaws of defeat. Early this season we defended 88. Somebody
somewhere in one of the leagues defended forty-something. There are Test
examples too: Headingly 81 (obviously), and Laxman and Dravid’s 376 run fifth
wicket stand following-on against Australia in Calcutta to secure a wildly
unlikely win. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And
that’s the point, isn’t it? Unlikely. We celebrate these rare examples
precisely because they’re so unusual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">99%
of the time, if you get yourself into that bad a position, you’re going to
lose, and you deserve to. One of the great old clichés cricket has in such
bounty is that though you can’t win a game in the first hour, you can lose it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
you have to work yourself up into believing that it’s not a lost cause. You
have to absorb that psychological hammerblow of building your own mountain to
climb, and construct the preposterous self-delusion that you can still win it.
The fantasy of false hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There’s
something a little bit soul crushing about communally pretending you believe
you have a hope in hell pursuing a lost cause. An unspoken mutual confidence
mirage, wilfully deceiving each other with chirpy optimism. “Where there’s tea
there’s hope, eh lads?” All hope is lost. “Come on boys, we’re in this!” We’re
really not. <s><o:p></o:p></s></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We’ve
all been there. So well batted, Aussie extras. There’s a fruit bowl here with
your name on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 494 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-47233183473894125572015-08-07T04:22:00.003-07:002015-08-07T04:22:23.443-07:00Column 26, 2015 – Spotlight on the ball<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 129, Friday August 7, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4UWla5TQnls/VcSRbSnC6pI/AAAAAAAABBo/F8terGQjnmo/s1600/col2615.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4UWla5TQnls/VcSRbSnC6pI/AAAAAAAABBo/F8terGQjnmo/s1600/col2615.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Either
side of the war, the legendary Compton brothers played cricket for Middlesex
and football for Arsenal. In 1952 a Lord’s colleague of theirs, Jack Young, had
a benefit cricket match between the sides, played at Highbury.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
was not unusual in the north London clubs’ long and happy association. What was
unusual was that this game was played on a Monday evening, under Highbury’s
newly installed floodlights, before an audience of several million, live on the
BBC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
must have looked like the future back in 1952. We wouldn’t see floodlit cricket
again until the Packer Revolution, 25 years later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
balls used at Highbury that evening were literally painted white, and had to be
replaced every few overs when the paint flaked off. They could easily fix that
though, couldn’t they? How hard could it be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Surprisingly
for a civilisation that has advanced so spectacularly in so many ways in the
intervening 63 years, a white cricket ball that stays relatively white, hard
and generally ball-like remains elusive. Hence the two new balls in ODIs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
is a plus for traditionalists. There’s money in Test cricket under lights, so
it WILL happen. If anyone had developed a successful white ball, we’d be
looking at pyjama Tests. But they haven’t, so instead we’re looking at a
compromise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">White
balls don’t work. Red balls under lights are invisible against the sky. So. What’s
halfway between red and white?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s
only five years since the initial first-class trial of the pink ball at the
2010 Champion County fixture in Abu Dhabi. The following year a pink ball was
used in a County match at Canterbury. Last year pink balls were used in
Sheffield Shield matches in Australia. And this summer the first pink ball Test
match was announced: Australia vs New Zealand at Adelaide on 27 November 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That’s
pretty quick. In a similar timeframe, bright orange balls have transformed
amateur evening cricket. At tree-lined grounds at dusk, a dark red ball is all
but invisible, the bright orange much easier to pick up, especially in the
field. It makes a massive difference. Of course that’s visibility in bad light,
rather than artificial light. Which is, if you’ll pardon the pun,
a-whole-nother ball game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Reports
from pink ball trials vary wildly. The main problem is getting it to last 80
overs. Kookaburra have tested 16 different pinks. Their latest, they claim,
wears at the same rate as a red ball. Let’s hope so. The wearing ball is an
intrinsic part of Test cricket. If you have to change it every 20 overs, you
can’t really pretend it’s a Test match.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Visibility
is apparently good. Though some keepers have struggled, batsmen see it fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With
one notable exception – Chris Rogers won’t be opening the batting for Australia
in the Test at Adelaide in November, just as he didn’t for Victoria against
Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield last year: his colour blindness means he can’t
see the pink ball.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 496 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-31894652721457401502015-07-31T06:58:00.000-07:002015-07-31T10:34:24.453-07:00Column 25, 2015 – You'll never walk alone<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 128, Friday July 31, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"> (Not all that delighted with how I was subbed</span> this week.</span><br />
<span style="color: #e06666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Suggest you read the original text, below the pic.)</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M_Yue22gTbo/Vbt-W5bucHI/AAAAAAAABBU/tyil_JcefvQ/s1600/col2515.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M_Yue22gTbo/Vbt-W5bucHI/AAAAAAAABBU/tyil_JcefvQ/s1600/col2515.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I got
myself into another ‘walking debate’ on twitter again the other day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A columnist
(not a cricket specialist; a political commentator writing about cricket)
expressed the opinion that Jos Buttler walking in the second Ashes Test at
Lord’s was refreshing, and caused him to reflect once more on what a shame it
is that cricket is no longer on free-to-air telly, as that’s exactly the sort
of honourable conduct he thought impressionable youngsters should witness from
sporting heroes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A little
dewy-eyed perhaps, but fundamentally I agree. (Somewhat surprisingly, as I
disagree with most of what he says.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A cricket
writer expressed derision for this bleeding heart sentiment. I enquired after
the nature of the contempt. Another writer joined in. Here, in essence, is
their stance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Walking is
not a thing, said one. It doesn’t matter if you do it or not, we shouldn’t
focus on it. All it does is fuel the ‘spirit of cricket’ pomposity which
blights the game. Exactly, said the other. The spirit of cricket is baloney.
[I’m paraphrasing.] In fact, I’ll go further: it does matter, walking is
selfish, no professional cricketer should ever walk as it’s never in their
team’s best interests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
understand this attitude, especially in the professional game with professional
umpires. But I disagree with it. Which is fine, of course. Other opinions are
available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In their
view, the issue is whether the umpire thinks you hit it. In mine, the issue is
whether you think you hit it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You hit it,
they catch it, you’re out. That’s cricket. I don’t mean that’s ‘the spirit of
cricket’, I mean that’s cricket. That’s the game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Their
version seems to be “don’t-get-caught-getting-caught”. Which, as well as less
fair, to me also seems a lot less interesting than cricket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Saturday
was the last of our league derbies, against Hyde. We know them well, share nets
and players for friendlies, midweek and indoor leagues. This always lends
Saturday derbies spice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I turn my head to see the ball hit
the keeper’s gloves and the slips go up. I didn’t hit it. I’m sure I didn’t hit
it. If I thought I had, I’d be walking.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The cordon’s clearly convinced, but
only one opinion matters. I turn back to see it delivered via an unequivocally
raised index finger as the appeals turn to celebrations. I feel that momentary
flash of indignation at being given out, usually reserved for LBWs. That’s
life. No one said it was fair. Head down, I turn for the pavilion.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’m not
even halfway there when a second, rather larger indignation creeps over me.
This one is much more complicated and subtle. These people I play cricket with,
teammates on other days, are going to assume I did that on purpose. They’ll
think I hit it and deliberately stood my ground. That’s what it’ll look like:
like I’m playing “don’t-get-caught-getting-caught” instead of cricket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Talk about
not fair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 485
words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-84197925482354405882015-07-24T05:12:00.005-07:002015-07-24T05:13:59.363-07:00Column 24, 2015 – Four day endurance test<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 127, Friday July 24, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vKNW2HtFPTU/VbIq8kuUHVI/AAAAAAAABBA/b9VMyxwjE3w/s1600/col2415.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vKNW2HtFPTU/VbIq8kuUHVI/AAAAAAAABBA/b9VMyxwjE3w/s1600/col2415.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Every
club cricketer harbours daydreams of playing a full, first-class-style-two-innings
match. If I’ve had this conversation once, I’ve had it a dozen times. “11am
start. Lunch and tea. No bowling restrictions, no over restrictions, just bat
till you’re out. Twice. Amazing – we should so do that!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They
usually happen at either end of the season, these conversations, when
enthusiasm is high, or the prospect of the long cricketless months is looming
large again. Or in the depths of January, when the winter tours are in full
swing and we’re up into the early hours watching England toil in equatorial
sunshine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
conversations invariably conclude with the doubtless accurate assertion that it
would either result in a very long game with very low scores, or it’d be all
over inside a day. These are village cricketers we’re talking about, after all.
Besides, 22 blokes off work and domestic duty for three <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">extra</i> cricket days? The organisation alone is surely beyond us.
It’ll never happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
like to delude myself that my batting lends itself to a longer game. You know
the sort of thing: patience, defend the good balls, leave anything off-line,
punish the bad balls. Brigadier Block. The Wall. I indulge this delusion,
despite a convincing pile of evidence to the contrary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
latest neatly provided by England’s attempts to staunchly bat out the draw for
a day and a half at Lord’s, crushed in 37 overs. TMS had a telling stat:
batting five sessions to save a Test has only ever happened five times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
that doesn’t stop us weekend warriors wanting a crack at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
other factor is fitness. If I bat for 30 overs, I know about it all week. If I
bowl 10 overs of gentle leggies, my shoulder aches for days. Bat all day? Bowl
25 overs? Three days on the trot? Not sure I’d make it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Doing
the fixtures this winter, a next-best-thing opportunity presented itself. Old
Wimbledonians, a big London club, were touring the New Forest and had one
fixture left to fill – did we fancy a game on the Monday?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With
a league game on Saturday, and a friendly scheduled for the Sunday, this could
be the closest I ever get to the full game. Not one three day game, admittedly,
but three consecutive days. To top it off, I’d be at Lord’s for the Test on
Friday. I’ve been looking forward to it all year. Would I survive this four day
endurance test!?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
answer, somewhat predictably, was deeply disappointing. Saturday we got almost
as soundly thrashed as England at Lord’s. I was one of several ducks, clean bowled
through the Delusional Brigadier Block Wall. I’ve had more tiring bowel
movements. Sunday the opposition couldn’t raise a side so I spent the day being
dad-taxi, and Monday I was out for 8 in two overs and took 1 for 8 in two
overs, comprehensively cancelling myself out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My four
day endurance test turned out to be basically a weekend off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 500 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-21735096970909504682015-07-18T04:23:00.002-07:002015-07-18T04:23:32.535-07:00Column 23, 2015 – Useless tosser<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 126, Friday July 17, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zGF4T-H6YFQ/Vao26QyZ2xI/AAAAAAAABAo/Ynwb0PLwU1o/s1600/col2315.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zGF4T-H6YFQ/Vao26QyZ2xI/AAAAAAAABAo/Ynwb0PLwU1o/s1600/col2315.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">An
old friend of mine, who’s also a psychologist, a statistician and a game-theory
geek, almost convinced me once that there is no such thing as luck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Chance,
Tom says, yes of course. But one’s propensity to succeed in matters of chance
is merely an illusion of our own devising. “A quantifiable parameter of a
statistical distribution”, luck is a convenient way to talk about how chance is
apportioned, nothing more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That
makes sense. Though it’s hard to buy it completely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What
is lucky? Lucky socks or similar are clearly a ludicrous construct, worthy of
the snorts of derision usually reserved for astrology. But it remains hard to
resist the notion that there’s some element of luck in the toss of a coin. And
the toss is the only aspect in all forms of cricket that is entirely down to
chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Napoleon
famously said that he’d rather have lucky generals than good ones. Our captain
Henry is a fine all round cricketer, but frankly a useless tosser. If you see
what I mean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of
the ten Saturday tosses this season, he’s lost eight. That’s actually quite
unlikely in itself. Each in isolation is a 50/50 chance, and of course the coin
cares nothing for history. But if you take them as a sequence of 50% chances,
it’s tempting to see the likelihood of repeating the result halving each time. So
in a five Test series like the Ashes for example, if Cook won the first four,
he’d have a 96.875% probability of losing the last one. (At the Oval. Now, is
that wise?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Total
nonsense, of course. If you toss a coin 10,000 times, you’ll get roughly 5,000
heads and 5,000 tails. Five is too small a sample to be statistically relevant.
And each time it happens it’s still a 50/50 chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A
more important question might be: do you want to win the toss?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There’s
always much discussion about it on Saturdays, but the truth is, in good
weather, it comes down to whether you as a team prefer setting or chasing a
target. Test cricket is different. Ask Nasser Hussain about Brisbane 2002, or
Ricky Ponting about Edgbaston 2005 – Michael Vaughan has gone so far as to say
that Ponting’s decision to bowl first that game cost him the Ashes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Statistically
this year, we are more likely to win when we bat first (five out of seven) but
only when we’re put in. Of H’s two successful tosses, he batted once and bowled
once. We lost both.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Which
has led him to pose an interesting question: if you win the toss, can you still
defer the decision to your opponent?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
laws don’t help answer this question. Law 12.4 states: “The captains shall toss
for the choice of innings…” but it doesn’t say that the winner must decide. So
how about: “My decision is: you decide”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Or
he could just keep doing what he’s doing. Stay lucky mate: lose the toss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-
ends 493 words -</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-53868997249276232012015-07-10T04:53:00.004-07:002015-07-10T05:07:13.941-07:00Column 22, 2015 – The best catch ever<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 125, Friday July 10, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t1hcyoDf7a8/VZ-xOJwQLHI/AAAAAAAABAU/cUfe_EmnON4/s1600/col2215.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-t1hcyoDf7a8/VZ-xOJwQLHI/AAAAAAAABAU/cUfe_EmnON4/s1600/col2215.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ben
is a first-year uni student, back for the summer seemingly twice the size and
twice the player. Under a high one at deep square leg last week, he was
composed enough to take his eye off the ball and note that his heels were just
inside the rope – any step back would mean six. As it happened, he pouched it cleanly
without moving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
think it was probably Adam Voges, Australia’s late blooming Test batsman, (who
may or may not have made his Ashes debut by the time you read this,) [he did] who
raised the bar for the boundary catch, as recently as 2009.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Every
aspect of cricket has changed at a dizzying rate these last few years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If
you were to draw a graph for the pace of change in human history, it would be a
more-or-less horizontal line for tens of thousands of years, curve sharply from
the start of the industrial revolution, and in the latter part of the twentieth
century, go more-or-less straight up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A
compressed version of this graph has happened in cricket in the last few short
years, with the IPL standing in for the industrial revolution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">KP’s
reverse-slog-sweep six off Murali ushered in the ‘switch hit’ paradigm shift. A
few years later Voges was, I think, the first to pull off the type of
spectacular solo relay catch that has yet to be satisfactorily christened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He
caught the ball right on the line, realised he was going to overbalance, tossed
it up before he did so, then scrambled back inside the rope to complete the
dismissal, in the process redefining the boundaries of the phrase ‘good catch’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ridiculously,
this kind of audacious athleticism has become commonplace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When
Boult and Southee combined with slick precision in a full pelt duet version at the
Oval last month, it only just made the highlights package.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Wednesday
evening we were away at a picturesque little club in the grounds of a private
estate. The boundary was an indistinct fluffy strip where the cut grass merged
into meadow. Under one at long on, mindful of Ben’s check, I set myself inside
the last definitely mown bit, knowing that any backward step would probably
mean conceding the benefit of the doubt to the batsman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
ball was going over me, so my only option was to blindly stick one arm out
behind me and hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
reckon I could try it 100 times, and the next 99 the ball would land with a
disappointing thud in the long grass. This time though, that fizzing
angry-hornet sound a well-struck cricket ball makes stopped abruptly behind my
head in my outstretched hand, making me look like the nonchalant catching
genius I’m definitely not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Amongst
the exuberant high-fives, Ben declared it to be the best catch he’d ever seen. Hardly.
But 2009 is an aeon ago to a teenager, so coming from Ben, I’ll take it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 485 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-21708896635593520672015-07-03T03:24:00.002-07:002015-07-03T03:24:10.374-07:00Column 21, 2015 – When bad is better than good<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 124, Friday July 3, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dUKVX7KG3k8/VZZim9sot-I/AAAAAAAABAA/SYqE0mSZ4To/s1600/col2115.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dUKVX7KG3k8/VZZim9sot-I/AAAAAAAABAA/SYqE0mSZ4To/s1600/col2115.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part of cricket’s unusual dynamic is that you can have a bad
game personally and win, and a brilliant game personally and lose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the spirit of anticipation, here’s two Ashes examples.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Adelaide 2006, England threw away a virtually certain draw,
destroyed almost singlehandedly by the relentless will of Warne. The
indomitable Paul Collingwood made a double century in the first innings and
carried his bat in the second. A personal career high point, in a game no
England fan wants to remember.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Edgbaston 2005, a game every England fan remembers: The
Greatest Test; one of our most famous victories over the old foe. Ian Bell
scored 6 and 21. In one of the all time great games, our greatest stylist just
never got in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Getting in is everything. Batting gets easier as your
innings goes on. The more you’re there, the more you get used to the pitch, the
light, the weather, the bowlers – swing, seam, turn. You become attuned to this
particular task, not just batting in general: batting here, today, now. You
pick the right shots. Your timing is crisp.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Different players take more or less time to get in.
Old-school Test openers in bowling-friendly conditions may not allow themselves
an aggressive shot until well into the afternoon session. 40/50 overs – a whole
game’s worth getting your eye in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Chris Gayle, for all his ferocious hitting, invariably plays
himself in, even in t20. He doesn’t take long about it, but he has a look. His
jaw-dropping 151 off 62 balls for Somerset a month ago (in a losing cause,
incidentally) included 10 fours and 15 sixes. It also included at least one dot
ball from every Kent bowler: their first to him. Even in full bludgeon mode,
Gayle allows himself time. Imagine if he was in a hurry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It may happen sooner, but for most of us less gifted mortals,
half a dozen overs is usually enough to get yourself in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Saturday I batted for half our innings and didn’t get in at
all. Instead of getting easier, it seemed to get harder as it went on. I’ve no
idea why. The pitch was a bit sticky, but it’s not like we’re not used to that.
I didn’t time a single ball off the front foot, only the odd pull finding the
general vicinity of the middle. It was a desperate, scratchy knock. I tried
everything: batting two yards outside the crease, hanging right back, charging
down. Nothing really worked. Just one of those days. The 39 runs look fine in
the book, but I’ve had ducks that felt better. It was ghastly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And yet we won comfortably. A maximum 24-pointer, finally
sealed by their tenth wicket with just three balls to spare. An excellent all
round team performance, in which I was personally horrible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Still, better that way round. In this area at least, it’s
better to do an Ian Bell than a Paul Collingwood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 489 words -</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-91913870508723725682015-06-26T03:38:00.001-07:002015-06-26T03:38:11.809-07:00Column 20, 2015 – Playing with a smile<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 123, Friday June 26, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XB_W4Lpn6ec/VY0rVqiLnwI/AAAAAAAAA_s/ueuCAx3ea-w/s1600/col2015.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XB_W4Lpn6ec/VY0rVqiLnwI/AAAAAAAAA_s/ueuCAx3ea-w/s1600/col2015.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Giving
up every summer Saturday to play cricket is a big ask.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not
just for you, but for your wife and kids. Or husband, girlfriend, boyfriend,
mum and dad: whoever it is you share your life with.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There
are myriad reasons to do it, untold ways in which cricket enriches our lives,
characters and friendships, many of which this column has touched on in the
past.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But
the most important thing is to enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, there really
isn’t much point. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And
it’s not just us on village greens. The visiting Kiwis have reminded everyone,
not least England, the importance of enjoying the game.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Brendon
McCullum, short of runs this tour by his own lofty standards, has not stopped
smiling. His charges, too, go about their business as if they’re actually enjoying
being well paid to travel the world playing cricket. Fancy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When
McCullum got the captaincy two years ago, his countrymen regarded their
national cricket team as “overpaid, under-delivering prima donnas,” he says,
“and a lot of that was fair. One of the things we decided we had to change was
the public perception of us as people.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Coach
Mike Hesson played his part, encouraging the team to “play like the kids who
fell in love with the game in the first place.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
shows.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Win
or lose, the fun they’re having is infectious, and the joy of it permeates
their cricket. They have reminded us all of the value of playing with a smile.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But
the game is not always joyful. Saturday was probably the least fun I’ve ever
had on a cricket field.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We
were generally sloppy in the field, but the worst of it was 10 dropped catches.
TEN! Two of us had hat-tricks of drops. I was one of them. They got easier too:
the first was difficult, the second regulation, the third so straightforward I
remain at a loss to explain how it ended up on the floor. It was gloomy and
drizzly; we were off twice for rain; the ball was an oval bar of soap; the
straight boundary was unprotectably short; we only had 10 men – we had plenty
of excuses. Bottom line: we were dreadful, we got thrashed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s
difficult to enjoy a game like that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Particularly
difficult, after that abject nonsense in the field, to remain chipper having
got out cheaply, then sat there watching all your teammates get out cheaply.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Difficult,
but important.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
About
the only thing you can do when you’ve been that bad is shake the opposition by
the hand one by one, look them in the eye, smile, and tell them well played. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then
go home, mope a little bit, but not too much. We owe it to our loved ones and
the sacrifices they make to put a brave face on this nightmare of ineptitude,
struggle through it, and turn up next week with full ear-to-ear grins ready to
pretend it never happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">-
ends 492 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-51594280305262027572015-06-19T02:28:00.003-07:002015-06-19T02:28:24.363-07:00Column 19, 2015 – Full throttle<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 122, Friday June 19, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8MOD-b75cxs/VYPf_swBkVI/AAAAAAAAA_U/QfWhEdlrgcc/s1600/col1915.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8MOD-b75cxs/VYPf_swBkVI/AAAAAAAAA_U/QfWhEdlrgcc/s1600/col1915.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Traction
control is designed to help you not crash. It regulates power, minutely applies
brakes and adjusts suspension to individual wheels, increasing grip and
reducing skid risk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s
actually quite difficult to lose control of a modern car. It creates a false
sense of confidence. I drove through town with a flat tyre the other day. It handled
so smoothly I didn’t even notice. It masks problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Turn
traction control off, however, and you have a very different beast. A drunken,
lumbering, overweight behemoth with all the cornering prowess of an oil tanker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
a car designed to function without all that nonsense in the first place – now
that’s a different proposition altogether. No power steering, no ABS, no
traction control. Just raw, stripped engineering. You can feel the tarmac
through your fingers on the wheel and the seat of your pants. A beautifully
balanced chassis and a honed engine perched directly over the drive wheels,
right behind your head. There’s an elegance, excitement and sense of eager
purpose to it that traction control can never give you. But if you lose it,
you’ll lose it big time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That’s
a long set up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I hope
it’s worth it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Attempting
to play hard, aggressive, foot-to-the-floor, fast and furious cricket in a luxury
family estate with the traction control off is asking for trouble. The England
we saw at the World Cup was just not equipped for that kind of ride. They were
still driving like they had a boot full of shopping and the kids’ bikes on the
roof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
engine – let’s keep this metaphor revving into the red zone – of that side is
the same as this new one: Morgan, Root, Buttler. But it’s built on an all-new
chassis with state-of-the-art running gear. And boy, does it go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
shiny new vehicle, besides being a metaphor, is a mindset. It’s an attitude, a
sense of belief, a statement of intent. And it has worked wonders in very short
order.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In
their first four outings, they scored over 400 for the first time, very nearly
chased down 400 for the first time, made their third consecutive score of 300+
for the first time, and then their fourth, chasing 350 with six overs remaining.
It’s the fastest scoring ODI series ever. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Previously,
England’s approach to batting in one day cricket was not unlike our efforts in
club cricket: play yourself in, keep wickets in hand, go hard when you’ve got a
platform. Us mere mortals have to play that way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
we’re an ageing hatchback to their race-tuned track cars. They can go, and keep
going, at full throttle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Occasionally
of course, they’ll spin off the track. This has already happened to an extent:
that record-breaking 300 was universally regarded as disappointing. Imagine
that six months ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">300
being a bit disappointing is a remarkable place to suddenly find ourselves.
It’s going to be a fun ride. Buckle up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 487 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-31071045512355905472015-06-13T02:41:00.004-07:002015-06-13T02:41:53.922-07:00Column 18, 2015 – Girls allowed<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 121, Friday June 12, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AJDzBq0LB30/VXv6gVI3ZJI/AAAAAAAAA_A/P5o9E5lYv6c/s1600/col1815.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AJDzBq0LB30/VXv6gVI3ZJI/AAAAAAAAA_A/P5o9E5lYv6c/s1600/col1815.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What
does it mean to throw like a girl, run like a girl, play like a girl? These are
the questions in the Always #likeagirl campaign, a major winner in last month’s
D&AD awards, advertising’s equivalent of the Oscars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For
the world’s biggest advertiser (Always is owned by Proctor & Gamble, whose
annual ad-budget is around $5 billion) this is provocative, unusual stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With
not a product demo in sight, the campaign sets out to reclaim the phrase ‘like
a girl’, and flip its meaning from insult to empowerment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
stole the show at this year’s Superbowl, dominating the conversation in both
mainstream and social media. If you’re not in either advertising or America,
you probably missed it. It’s worth Googling and pretty inspiring, even – perhaps
especially – for those of us not generally in the market for sanitary towels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My
youngest daughter plays cricket after school on Mondays, and my niece plays in
the U9 section of a big club. My oldest tells me cricket isn’t an option for
her at school, just as netball isn’t an option for boys. This means I don’t
know any females over the age of eight who play cricket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So
it was most heartening that the league side we played Saturday included three young
women. They were not making up the numbers. One batted at four, one opened the
bowling, the other was first change. All three had played district or county.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In
sports like rugby where physical power is so central, girls playing in men’s
teams is neither sensible nor common, but in cricket there is no reason why
not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
girls we played Saturday all said they enjoyed the challenge of playing men’s
league.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Women’s
cricket has come a long way in a short time. Believe it or not it was only 1999
when the MCC admitted its first women members. Former captain and women’s membership
campaigner Rachael Heyhoe Flint was among those inaugurated in The Long Room at
Lord’s, ending 212 men-only years. (The only woman previously admitted during
play was Queen Elizabeth II.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
women’s national side and the funding and support it received is probably the
only unqualified success story of the Sky TV deal swelling English cricket’s
coffers this last decade. Last year they entered the professional era with 18
centrally contracted players.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Two
years ago there was quite a stir caused by the prospect of Sarah Taylor playing
first class cricket for Sussex men’s team. It never happened, despite many high
profile observers declaring her good enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
will happen. Like the 450 Test run-chase and the 10-ball limited overs 50, it’s
inevitable. Another of those firsts just sitting out there waiting to be ticked
off someone’s list. That someone may even now be out there learning their game in
men’s club cricket.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And
as for the ‘like a girl’ comparisons, on Saturday’s evidence, running and
throwing like a girl seems like a pretty good idea to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 491 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-11188436434191218942015-06-05T07:11:00.003-07:002015-06-05T07:13:56.459-07:00Column 17, 2015 – Umpires and mistakes<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 120, Friday June 5, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m6qi0LEnpOE/VXGtgNPV68I/AAAAAAAAA-s/DG67Rtcsoq0/s1600/col1715.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m6qi0LEnpOE/VXGtgNPV68I/AAAAAAAAA-s/DG67Rtcsoq0/s1600/col1715.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last
Saturday, neither side had an umpire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They
are not mandatory at our level, but both sides are ‘expected to provide’ an ECB
ACO qualified umpire, and normally do. Sometimes there’s only one, but it’s
rare to have none. You need them. You miss that neutral authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Player-umpires
are always problematic. It’s difficult to accept the bloke who was bowling an
hour ago and batting five minutes ago as a neutral voice of authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also
they invariably officiate over their teammates as batsmen – never as bowlers,
as they’ll always be in the field with them for that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
is very tricky. You always risk the wrath of ‘triggered’ teammates, or ‘robbed’
opponents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now.
I am not going to dwell on detail or specifics here – we did enough of that in
the pub afterwards, which is where it should stay. Suffice it to say that as an
umpiring side, we may have fallen short of elite level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
never mind, I say. Everyone did what they thought was right at the time, at a
task they were performing reluctantly, and if there were mistakes (there were
mistakes) they were honest ones, driven by the compulsion to be fair to our
opponents – to the detriment of our own team – rather than biased against them.
They were, if anything, admirable mistakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mistakes
are not such a bad thing anyway. They usually even out. Perfection is
unattainable. As long as the intent is pure, we must accept any errors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Whatever
you think of DRS (I have expounded on it in the past, and if anything am
becoming less of a fan as time goes by) the one thing it consistently
highlights is just how difficult the umpire’s job is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Umpire’s
Call – a somewhat preposterous construction which basically reduces decision-making
to tiny parameters within which the machines can’t agree – appears to be where elite
umpires now operate. It is, as someone said on twitter during the proliferation
of Umpire’s Calls during the second NZ Test, like arguing with your spouse: identical
information can prove they are right or wrong depending on which apparently
arbitrary position they took in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
thing is, mistakes are part of the game. They’re what get you out, and other
people’s are how you get away with your own. They’ll never be entirely eradicated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And
would we want them to be?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
conclusion of ‘The Greatest Test’, Edgbaston 2005, was a mistake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Kasprowicz
gloves Harmison behind to the keeper and we cut to the umpire raising that flamboyantly
crooked finger, the moment immortalised by the late great Richie Benaud simply
shouting their names in breathless excitement: “Jones!” (pause) “Bowden!” It’s
spine-tingling stuff even a decade on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
replays clearly show that the glove was off the bat in the moment the ball
struck it. DRS would have overturned that decision. Not out. Match and Ashes
almost certainly lost. Is that what you want?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’ll
keep the mistakes, thanks. They’re all part of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 494 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-75358810110899049212015-05-29T11:50:00.002-07:002015-06-05T07:13:46.536-07:00Column 16, 2015 – Playing on the mind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 119, Friday May 29, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pUhEkml3S8I/VWi0ZdJFtcI/AAAAAAAAA-M/dL4Z0k9CaXc/s1600/col16.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pUhEkml3S8I/VWi0ZdJFtcI/AAAAAAAAA-M/dL4Z0k9CaXc/s1600/col16.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Screwing
up in cricket has a unique way of messing with your head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Most
team sports you’re part of a bigger whole, and it’s often hard to tell where
the chain broke or who messed up. And if you miss a straight black on the pool
table, or slice into the cabbages on the golf course, it’s only you it annoys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
in cricket, your incompetence lets your mates down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
core of it lies in that oft-quoted aphorism that it’s a team game played by 11
individuals. It is you – just you in the spotlight – who must do it. Make the
runs, take the wicket, stop the boundary, CATCH IT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This
is why it’s fun. That pressure is wonderfully focussing, you will push yourself
harder because others rely on you, and success is all the sweeter for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
it makes failure even more bitter. Dropped catches and disasters with bat or
ball are harsh because it’s not just you they punish, it’s the team. Your
inadequacies are manifest, laid bare for all to pick over. And, most cruelly of
all, the structure of the game means there’s always plenty of time for you to
mull over your mistakes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cricket
definitely provokes self-analysis. Meeting with triumph and disaster (and
treating those two imposters just the same) shapes your character, as well as
your game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don’t
think I’m overly sensitive, but I am not beyond kicking myself, and certainly prone
to dwelling disproportionately on my failings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A
few weeks back I brought a low-scoring game to an abrupt conclusion, gifting
the 14 runs they needed in four filthy deliveries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It was a nasty time to bowl
your first ball, the batsmen were set, the game was gone anyway</i> – no matter how many
excellent get-outs I am handed by commiserating teammates, or how true I know
them to be, I also know I blew it. Not a day has passed since when I haven’t thought
about it and shaken my head in disgust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Occasionally
I’ll daydream about what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> have
happened. How the game <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">might</i> have
gone if those four deliveries hadn’t been ludicrous full-tosses. Wickets,
maybe. Or dots. Dots would be fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next
time. There’s always next time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So
here’s a question: are introspective self-flagellating dreamers naturally drawn
to cricket, or does cricket itself provoke that response in people? The game
has its share of grumpy brooders, but it’s also full of happy-go-lucky idealists
and self-aware, well adjusted realists. Few of any cast are exempt from this
phenomenon. It’s not a simple question. I’m not sure it’s answerable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But
there is one thing we can be certain about: cricket plays on the mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’m
away with the family for half term, and as I write just played my last game for
a fortnight. Clearly the best way to leave it is to bowl two overs for 20, and then
nick off for a third ball duck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Brilliant.
Have a nice holiday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-45721108886064916732015-05-22T02:36:00.002-07:002015-05-22T02:36:22.631-07:00Column 15, 2015 – Massive trust issue<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 118, Friday May 22, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mk4BeLVZbg/VV74MkwxOSI/AAAAAAAAA9k/FdkwPyTMFUE/s1600/col15.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3mk4BeLVZbg/VV74MkwxOSI/AAAAAAAAA9k/FdkwPyTMFUE/s1600/col15.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In
a grimly ironic mirroring of Downton’s disengagement charge against KP, over
the last year or so there’s been a creeping feeling of disconnect from team
England among fans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some
of it is to do with selection: clinging on to Cook as ODI captain until giving
it to Morgan was a poisoned chalice; the stupefying refusal to pick promising
young talent like Hales and Rashid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And
some is an ongoing frustration with a kind of wilful conservatism of thought,
an obfuscation of truth and reality with tedious, meaningless, cliché-ridden
platitudes, and the apparent conviction that the way to run something
ostensibly joyous and fun is through tracksuited Stasi whose main function
seems to be calculated press leaks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cricket
fans among my teammates, friends and family, colleagues and twitterati,
probably quite accurately represent the general spectrum – from a passing
interest if there’s no football or rugby on, to statistic-chewing fanatics who
will get up at 3.30am to watch Pakistan v Bangladesh. There has been a marked
shift in attitude among them of late. Many don’t feel that the England cricket
team represent them anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another
factor in the loss of hearts and minds has been the consistent and prolonged
lack of respect, for both their employees and their public, shown by the ECB.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Paul
Downton and Peter Moores both probably deserved to lose their jobs, but neither
deserved to find out the way they did. Moores was actually in the middle of an
international fixture when journalists told him he’d been fired. Who, precisely,
did that benefit? What does it say of an organisation that they think so little
of their own people? Something for potential employees to be mindful of, be it
a new coach or a new chef.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
great irony of KP-gate this time around is that it’s not about KP. It is
indeed, as Andrew Strauss insisted, about trust. Just not in the way he thinks.
It is again ironic that he used the word and hid behind the concept so heavily
last Tuesday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Colin
Graves told the cricketing public: forget personalities, if Pietersen went back
into county cricket and scored lots of runs, the selectors couldn’t ignore him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">10
weeks later, Pietersen makes his extraordinary front-page-grabbing 350 for
Surrey, and with jaw-dropping hypocrisy, even by his new employer’s standards,
Strauss publicly declares once more that Pietersen will not be considered for
selection regardless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You’re
damn right there’s a “massive trust issue”, Straussy old bean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For
the first time I’m aware of – perhaps ever? – many English cricket fans are actively
willing England to fail. They’d rather see McCullum with his foot on Cook’s
throat. Because it might lead to change? Because they prefer that stripe of
cricket? Who knows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’m
personally not feeling quite that disenfranchised yet, but I understand why
people are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Graves,
Strauss and whoever they recruit as coach have some serious work to do. And the
most important stuff is nowhere near the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 490 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-14945590277476072252015-05-15T04:01:00.000-07:002015-05-15T04:01:04.245-07:00Column 14, 2015 – All-rounders<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 117, Friday May 15, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P73nrlh0iKA/VVXMa60rcXI/AAAAAAAAA9A/ud679OwN8ow/s1600/2col1415.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P73nrlh0iKA/VVXMa60rcXI/AAAAAAAAA9A/ud679OwN8ow/s1600/2col1415.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Selection in professional cricket, especially at the highest
level, will always depend on the balance of the side, which is invariably dictated
by the available talent pool.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The simple option, taking the keeper as read, is five
batsmen and five bowlers. This can leave you a bit light on batting though, so
what you really want is an all-rounder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So option two is five batsmen, an all-rounder and four
bowlers. This is the classic set up. If you haven’t really got an all-rounder,
you’ll have to compromise on the purity of your batsmen, and pick a couple who
can bowl a bit, as sort of two halves of your fifth bowler.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A luxury version is four batsmen, two all-rounders, four
bowlers. But you don’t see that a lot outside of T20, because genuine
international class all-rounders are very, very rare.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A genuine all-rounder can be defined as someone you could
pick solely as a specialist bat OR as a dedicated bowler – but who just happens
to be both. One of the five best batsman AND one of the five best bowlers in
the country.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Apply that criteria strictly, and you’ll see there really
are very few in the international game. Lots of players we call all-rounders
fall short of it – they’re really bowlers who can bat, or batsmen who can bowl.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In club cricket, standards are naturally a little more
relaxed, so you’re much more likely to have players who satisfy the genuine
all-rounder criteria. Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright, for example, while arguably
slightly wanting in both disciplines internationally, would be blow-them-away
match winners in most clubs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All-rounders in club cricket are pretty common. In fact,
most clubs have got at least a couple, and if they have a good game, it’s
amazing how often they decide it. They are usually the players you remember
from prior encounters in previous seasons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our first league game of 2015 was against old friends and
rivals Godshill. We know them well, and were well aware that their star
all-rounder would be key. Coops is a fine swing bowler and a monstrous batsman.
He doesn’t slog, but he hits the ball as hard as anyone I’ve ever played with
or against. To field close in the covers to him, I would want to be clad in 20
layers of bubblewrap.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s an over-simplification of course, but not by much: the
game would be decided by whether or not we could get him out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We could not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">England have a promising all-rounder in Ben Stokes. Still
maturing as a player – mentally more than physically, as his recent run-in with
Marlon Samuels ably demonstrated – he is prodigiously talented. If he can harness
that temper rather than surrendering to it, he could yet be the real deal. My
money is on England going for option two when they line up against a powerful
New Zealand at Lord’s next week. Let’s hope he makes the difference.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-44414327991871000072015-05-08T04:08:00.005-07:002015-05-08T04:13:28.727-07:00Column 13, 2015 – Mediocrity<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 116, Friday May 08, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F3_jEEJIyjk/VUyY-cE4MBI/AAAAAAAAA8k/qeenqfSWDDY/s1600/col1315.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F3_jEEJIyjk/VUyY-cE4MBI/AAAAAAAAA8k/qeenqfSWDDY/s1600/col1315.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I’d certainly be
disappointed if we don’t win, because I am pretty sure they are going to have a
mediocre team.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It
is unknown whether these words were uttered at Eversley Cricket Club prior to
our encounter in the National Village Cup on Sunday. It would certainly have
been fair enough if they had been. Even at our strongest we would cheerfully
describe ourselves as mediocre. The same could not be said of the West Indies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eversley
is a big club. They have a beautiful ground, an indoor centre, six age group
sides, two girl’s teams, a ladies side and four men’s XIs. I’m confident they
didn’t have people on email, text, WhatsApp, twitter, facebook, and even the
good old fashioned phone all week, trying to get 11 yeses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When
a little single-side outfit like ours plays a big club in a knockout
competition, turning up with 10 players is not only a bad idea, it seems
somehow almost rude. Like we’ve deliberately set out to waste their time with
our mediocrity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Between
Thursday and Saturday we must have gone through 40 people for that 11<sup>th</sup>
spot. If we were going to waste their time, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.
Through arm-twisting and cancellations, we did eventually get 11.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By
drinks they were only going at four an over, and we dared to daydream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“If we don’t win, I can tell
you now there will be some enquiries why we haven’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Outgoing
Yorkshire and incoming ECB chairman (same person) Colin Graves seems to be
eyeing the spring-clean broom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
ECB have also been leafing through dusty address books, doing some frantic
late-evening phone-calling to see who’s up for it. The director of cricket
position has piqued the interest of several old boys who might be tempted back,
a few more have firmly declared their unavailability. Sounds familiar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Additionally,
it may not be insignificant that as England were in the process of losing a
Test match in Barbados, the successful and highly respected coach at the new
chairman’s former county turned down the opportunity to coach South Australia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just
hang on a minute there, Dizzy old son. Stay available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However,
it now appears Moores will be spared the implied threat of a formal enquiry
before the start of the international summer, as apparently ‘some enquiries’
merely meant ‘some questions’. Presumably along the lines of “So. What happened
there, then?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eversley,
too, spared themselves the enquiries, in their case by employing the clever tactic
that eluded England: winning pretty comfortably, as expected. They ramped it up
to nearly 10 an over after drinks, smoothly taking the chase beyond our reach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our
defeat was sealed just as the West Indies began smoothly taking victory away
from England, in a decidedly non-mediocre fashion. Still, there may yet be some
hope. Last time England lost a Test in the West Indies was 2009. Then they came
home and promptly won the Ashes. Perhaps it’s all part of the plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 496 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-30677088773268767452015-05-01T02:57:00.002-07:002015-05-01T02:57:38.889-07:00Column 12, 2015 – 'Bats these days'<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 115, Friday May 01, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tgIsL9noQvI/VUNMLgKYivI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/HikUix_h0do/s1600/col1215.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tgIsL9noQvI/VUNMLgKYivI/AAAAAAAAA8Q/HikUix_h0do/s1600/col1215.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To hear commentators talking about ‘the size of modern
bats’, you’d think cricketers were all wielding telegraph poles. Cricket bats
are allowed to be 38 inches long and 4¼ inches wide. There are no restrictions
on depth or weight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The misconception is about size. A bigger bat is not more
powerful. Only a heavier one can deliver more power, and the truth is that most
bats are lighter now than they were in the seventies and eighties, when Clive
Lloyd wielded his 3lb 4oz Duncan Fernley Magnum, the SS Jumbo left no doubt as
to its selling point, and the Slazenger V12 evoked weighty profligate power.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what is the problem, all of a sudden? The problem is that
today’s bats are simply better than yesterday’s. How they got to be better is partly
science, partly batmaking skill. By way of explanation, let’s briefly visit
another sport.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What should you do when there’s thunder and lightning on the
golf course? Hold a one iron above your head. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Because even God can’t hit a one iron.</i> Anyone who’s played golf
with old blades will understand this ancient gag. Tiny thin faces with sweet
spots the size of a pea, they were almost impossible to hit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the late sixties, Karsten Solheim of PING made his
fortune building up the edges around the back of the club face. This ‘perimeter
weighting’, made a crucial change to what is known as the MOI, or moment of
inertia, which basically in this context means its propensity to twist. Off-centre
strikes cause the face to twist, robbing the shot of power. Perimeter weighting
reduces this tendency, making it more forgiving, and effectively increasing the
size of the ‘sweet spot’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And this is basically what’s happened to cricket bats.
Bigger edges means better middles, and a bat’s middle has always been the
measure of its worth. Modern bats taper towards the top and bottom, removing
wood where it’s not needed, leaving more for the middle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Elegant slender neck and shoulders extending in graceful
curves along the sweeping spine towards the swollen sweet spot – this is the
language we use for bats these days. No wonder we’re seduced by them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If the trend is more Marilyn than Twiggy, more Scarlett than
Kiera, it’s because with those curves, you can middle a cricket ball more
often, and get better results when you don’t. Which is even more seductive. We
love big bats, and we cannot lie.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The downside is that to be both big and light, the
water-hungry willow is dried out so much – moisture content can be reduced
below 10% – that durability suffers. Bats break constantly. A pro’s might not
even last an innings.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Bats for amateurs are necessarily less extreme (new bat
every year, maybe; new bat every game, maybe not,) but they’re following the
same principles. Friends of mine have started www.sticklebackcricket.co.uk,
making custom spec bats for club cricketers. They could be on to a winner. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 491 words -</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-8108325945246744492015-04-24T04:44:00.001-07:002015-04-24T04:54:12.516-07:00Column 11, 2015 – Fit for purpose<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 114, Friday April 24, 2015.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uuine7PklGQ/VTouX7bpgAI/AAAAAAAAA74/9sfF-R5Sq4M/s1600/col1115%2Bcopy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uuine7PklGQ/VTouX7bpgAI/AAAAAAAAA74/9sfF-R5Sq4M/s1600/col1115%2Bcopy.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There
was a time, really not very long ago, when professional cricketers neither
pounded treadmills nor pumped iron. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They
got to be professional cricketers because they were really good at cricket, and
if they wanted to subsist on three bacon sandwiches and 40 Marlboro Lights a
day, it was nobody’s business but theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
stars of the past, from the prominent tobacco endorsements of the Compton era,
through the legendary partying credentials of Botham’s, saw the projection of a
healthy lifestyle as something for the less gifted to worry about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
modern cricketer is not just fit, he is conditioned, strong, and has a diet
containing lots of protein, quinoa and kale, not many chips and very few
kebabs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have
you seen Chris Tremlet up close? He’s a seriously imposing figure. He may look
like he’s got one of those fancy-dress superman costumes with the foam pecs and
six pack, but just like his doppelganger Arnold Schwarzenegger, that stuff is
actually there. The irony is that those cartoon biceps appear if anything to
have slowed down his bowling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
gym time has not hindered Chris Gayle though, who with his shirt off also looks
like a Venice Beach workout freak, but those muscles are very much in evidence
as he wields that 3lb railway sleeper to such devastating effect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Samit
Patel, a cricketer of great talent and promise, is probably the most high
profile to have had his stop-start international career derailed for carrying a
few extra pounds rather than bench pressing them. Which, if you ignore the talent
and promise and the international career, is something most of us can relate
to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We
had our first game at the weekend in crisp spring sunshine, and I made an
overdue 50. The fluffy green outfield was slow, and well over half of it came
in singles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There
are 80 lots of 22 yards in a mile, and along with all the non-striker ones and
twos, I reckon I probably got there – which, not coincidentally, is almost
exactly a mile more than I’ve run since September. It wasn’t warm, but by halfway
through I was sweating like a dodgy bookie being interviewed by the Anti
Corruption Unit. In the forties, my legs took on the qualities of under-inflated
balloons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sat
here at my desk now, I’m fine. But only because I’m not moving. I just got up
to make coffee, and by the time I got back with it, it was cold. Everything
aches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since
the retirement of Inzamam-ul-Haq, the international game has sadly lacked the
kind of insouciant stylist who appears motivated to deal chiefly in boundaries through
a deep antipathy for the very idea of running.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some
would say, and I would be one of them, that obsessional fitness fascism has
robbed the modern game of its more colourful, less identikit characters. But it
does have its advantages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just
as soon as I can walk properly again, I’m off for a run.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">-
ends 493 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-86381861187374035102015-04-17T02:58:00.004-07:002015-04-17T02:58:36.502-07:00Column 10, 2015 – Eyes on the prize<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 113, Friday April 17, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2TvG39m8Wuc/VTDZAJOzcsI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/G8aMEYVBfyg/s1600/col10.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2TvG39m8Wuc/VTDZAJOzcsI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/G8aMEYVBfyg/s1600/col10.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Garrard & Co are high-end jewellers based in Mayfair.
The oldest jewellery house in the world, they specialise in ‘unique creations’
and ‘bespoke services’ such as the Crown of Queen Elizabeth, featuring the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. They are not messing around.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was the firm commissioned by the ICC to create the
World Cup. Two feet high in solid gold and silver, it features a golden globe
held aloft by three silver columns, (which apparently represent batting,
bowling and fielding,) shaped as stumps topped with bails, while the globe
doubles as a ball, the seam angled to represent earth’s axial tilt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It has, perhaps unsurprisingly as it is the ICC’s new home,
a whiff of Dubai’s gaudy ostentation about it, but it’s kind of fittingly over
the top. It is the World Cup, after all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Division One trophy of our midweek league is a solid
silver antique, so valuable that recent winners have been unwilling to display
it, as their insurance wouldn’t cover it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cricket’s – perhaps sport’s – most famous trophy will be
contested again this summer. The myth, legend and romance surrounding that
little four-inch perfume bottle is very much a part of what makes The Ashes
special.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Following the famous mock obituary for English cricket
published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sporting Times</i> the
previous summer, legend has it that it contains the remains of a burnt bail,
and was presented to England captain Ivo Bligh at the Rupertswood estate near
Melbourne where he was a guest during England’s 1882-83 tour of Australia. It
was, basically, an in-joke about England being rubbish, started by the English
press and perpetuated by grinning Aussies. In that respect nothing much has
changed. Since Bligh’s death it’s been at Lord’s, where it remains the biggest
draw at the museum.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Whatever else they are, trophies are important. Or at least,
what they represent is important, and this is reflected in the items
themselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At our club presentation night, the one everyone wants is
the Player’s Player. If your teammates vote for you, you know you’ve done all
right. There are other trophies too, from the hotly contested Duck Pond award
for most ducks (a rubber duck set on a plinth) to Champagne Moments, usually
awarded for feats of notable amusement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But for some time now, the serious achievements of ‘most
runs’ and ‘most wickets’ in our league season have been fobbed off with
disposable plastic tattery. So I decided to invest in some trophies worthy of
our collective sweat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I did not approach Garrard & Co.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Instead, I restored an old bat and purloined a new ball to
form the centrepieces. With a bit of digging we scratched together data back to
2000, so they’ll function as both trophies and permanent ongoing records for
the twenty-first century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Four-inch ceramic urns they are not, but they have a
semblance of the achievements they represent, and the look of things worth
getting your name on, which seems a good place to start.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 493 words -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-36466054025578282852015-04-10T05:21:00.006-07:002015-04-10T05:21:53.665-07:00Column 9, 2015 – Administration balls up<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 112, Friday April 10, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7IR1OYoVpu0/VSfAI3TUUyI/AAAAAAAAA68/BuCWilYb-zQ/s1600/col915.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7IR1OYoVpu0/VSfAI3TUUyI/AAAAAAAAA68/BuCWilYb-zQ/s1600/col915.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For most of us, cricket admin is ‘Who’s going to order the
balls?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Who’s organising friendlies? The scorebook’s nearly full.
Someone needs to go to this AGM. Shall we play in a midweek league? Gotta have
orange balls for that, right? Who’s getting those? We need new letters for the
scoreboard. Who’s gonna sit on this committee? What about organising a rota of
people to help with the pitch…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In normal life, I am neither organised nor an organiser, but
in a cricket context I (mostly) don’t mind. Especially this time of year, when
balls being delivered is part of the build up of excitement to cricket actually
happening again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To me, this is what cricket admin means.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In professional cricket though, administration means
something quite different.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are in a period of extraordinary slapstick in
international cricket administration. Not since the golden years of Laurel and
Hardy has this kind of high-sheen polish been meticulously applied to every
detail of an operation, giving the impression of comical ineptitude so
convincing, that you’d be forgiven for thinking that they really are as utterly
clueless as they’ve contrived to look. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">ICC president Mustafa Kamal resigned last Wednesday in what
can only reasonably be described as a huff, ostensibly because ICC chairman N.
Srinivasan presented the World Cup to Australia, not him, as was his
constitutional right as president.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Kamal, fresh from a wincingly inappropriate attack on his
organisation’s own umpires following a disputed World Cup decision, resigned
saying “I can’t work with those who act unconstitutionally and unlawfully.”
Apparently without irony, he went on: “These type of people should be away from
cricket, otherwise cricket will be spoilt.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The ICC then brilliantly issued a press release stating that
“Mr Kamal said that he was stepping down on personal grounds and offered his
apologies to all associated with the ICC, while adding that he had no
complaints to make against anyone.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In Kamal’s defence, (and boy does he need one,) Srinivasan
is a comedy villain to put Boss Hogg to shame. He’s implicated in so many scams
and corruption scandals that it’s very difficult to keep up. As BCCI president,
he conducted an investigation into match fixing at Chennai Super Kings, the IPL
franchise owned by India Cements, which he owns, and run by his son-in-law, who
was the one arrested. This blatant conflict of interest prompted the Supreme
Court of India to order his resignation from the BCCI, pronouncing it
“nauseating” that he was still in office.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was more or less at this point, with (I think, though as
I say it’s hard to keep up) only three major corruption cases pending against
him, that England and Australia thought it best to elect him chairman of the
ICC.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, with all this going on, who has ordered this
season’s balls? Or have they been ordered, but just not turned up yet because
they’re on back-order? These are the perennially burning cricket admin
questions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 493 words -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-4182733053289947402015-04-03T03:37:00.000-07:002015-04-03T03:37:02.818-07:00Column 8, 2015 – Backing the Blackcaps<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 111, Friday April 3, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyJczWeHxIo/VR5s_PblKHI/AAAAAAAAA6o/As11UGUh4MA/s1600/col815.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyJczWeHxIo/VR5s_PblKHI/AAAAAAAAA6o/As11UGUh4MA/s1600/col815.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I shouldn’t have bet on New Zealand. I don’t
bet much, but World Cups are an exception. I made a couple of quid when the
Windies won the WT20 in 2012. I didn’t on England in 2010 – a wise old gambler
once told me: if you care about it, don’t bet on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">New Zealand vs Australia was the best game of
the tournament. No, not Sunday’s one-sided anticlimax, the group game back in
February. It had everything. Attacking and defensive batting, tremendous swing
and spin bowling, tension, drama, 19 wickets and a knife-edge climax. All in
55.3 overs. To cap it all, the good guys won. The perfect ODI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’ve watched it four times already. Most recently
with my 12-year-old nephew, who didn’t know the result.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A right arm seamer with a naturally fluid
action, Jude is probably already a better cricketer than me. If he’s not now,
he will be soon. He’s been training with district coaches this winter, and if
he keeps playing as he gets bigger and stronger, he’s going to be a very decent
quick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He is, self-confessedly, a less gifted bat.
We had a great discussion last weekend about number 11s, and just how crucial a
nought-not-out can be to keep an innings alive, so the guy up the other end can
get the runs. Then we settled down to watch Milne and Southee’s ducks to
spearing Starc yorkers, and Boult (the number 11 whose 5-27 had surely earned
him the right to put his feet up) survive the rest of the over so that
Williamson, the number three stranded up the other end, could hit the majestic,
nerveless straight six that won the game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Boult is at the heart of my favourite World
Cup story, from the New Zealand Herald. His girlfriend is a pretty 24-year-old
blonde called Gert Smith. (Her real name is Alexandra, Gert is a family
nickname because her younger brother couldn’t say Alexandra. You like her
already, don’t you?) Gert is a primary school teacher in Tauranga, on the Bay
of Plenty. Since her charges have discovered that ‘Miss’ is going out with a
national sporting hero, she’s been bribing them. They get tokens for good
behaviour, and she’s promised that if they get to a hundred, Boult will come
and visit the class.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">New Zealand nailed this World Cup. The way
they played, the way they were led, the way they behaved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They had obvious respect for their opponents,
even as they went at them as hard as they could. Relentlessly aggressive, they
were never less than friendly. Committed and unified, they did not gloat or
goad, send-off or sledge. They played with character, won with humility, lost
with grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unimpeachable role models for primary kids in
Tauranga, 12-year-olds in England, and doubtless thousands more across New
Zealand, they were terrific to watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I should not have bet on them because, the
more I watched them, the more I cared that they won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Congratulations Australia. Dammit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 498 words -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14466406718269998912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4734875174254424177.post-58444797344969060832015-03-27T04:13:00.000-07:002015-03-27T04:13:06.984-07:00Column 7, 2015 – Bowling in a rigged game<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Printed in The Cricket Paper, issue 110, Friday March 27, 2015.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.1999998092651px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">[Full text below]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNWj0NRpseA/VRU6cmePsaI/AAAAAAAAA6U/CidJB2x-Sk8/s1600/col715.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNWj0NRpseA/VRU6cmePsaI/AAAAAAAAA6U/CidJB2x-Sk8/s1600/col715.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #535353; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the game’s favourite clichés has recently been pulled
from the dusty recesses of the pavilion to have the cobwebs brushed off it once
again. It remains as true today as it ever was: the balance between bat and
ball.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The recurring critique this month has been that the ODI
playing conditions have tipped too far in favour of the bat. The three usual
suspects hauled up to face the punditry committee are: “bats these days”; the
rule change allowing only four fielders outside the circle; and a new ball from
both ends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The ongoing “bats these days” brouhaha deserves a column of
its own, so let’s come back to that later. The other two are hard to argue
with.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The four-men-out experiment has made the whole concept of
defence, especially at the death, almost redundant. So much so, that even the
ICC may have noticed, and there’s a reasonable chance we’ll see it revert back
to five after the World Cup.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’d love to see a return to the solitary ball, and with it
the potential for fun stuff like sharp spin and reverse swing, but as it’s
apparently beyond the wit of man to make a white ball that stays white for 50
overs, we’re probably stuck with two.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So as it stands the balance does seem skewed. All the more
remarkable then, that despite the game being rigged against them, the cream of
the world’s fast bowlers have put on quite a show.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Two thirds of Australia’s Mitchell triumvirate, Marsh and
Johnson, have been quiet, but Starc has been excellent, as fine an exponent as
you’ll see of the blisteringly fast late swinging yorker. New Zealand’s new
ball (each) pair of Southee and Boult have also been exceptional. But for me it
was two subcontinental quicks who have so far provided the best
edge-of-the-seat moments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The top “Hello, here comes the upset!” contender came
courtesy of the tournament’s surprise package, the 90 mph Bangladeshi quick
with cheekbones you could open letters with, Rubel Hossain. Fresh from
gleefully sealing England’s early fate, when he tempted Kholi into a waft
outside off-stump in the quarter-final against India, those Douglas Fairbanks matinee
idol features were transformed by a primal war cry and, just for a moment, it
all looked possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There was one spell though, that will outlive the
tournament, just as the Donald vs Atherton encounter at Lord’s lives on in the
memory, long after the series it was part of has faded. The brutal six over
assault from Wahib Riaz in Pakistan’s quarter-final against Australia rendered
such trifles as two new balls and four-men-out utterly irrelevant. The working-over
he gave Watson was so comprehensive, so masterful, delivered with such tightly
reined ferocity, that for those 20 minutes, the balance did indeed look skewed
– the other way.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But then Rahat Ali shelled the hard-won top edge, the moment
passed, the spell was broken, and the bat was back on top.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">- ends 492 words -</span></div>
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