The Left Hand Path

Well, wasn’t the 2nd One Day International Disasterthon at Edgbaston a complete waste of everybody’s time and money? No wonder cricket has such a fabulous reputation for cock-ups and organisational dysfunction.
Meeting a friend at the ground at the appointed starting time, there was clearly to be no play for a while, due the incessant rain. Whilst the tempest raged outside and sea creatures were spotted cavorting on the out-ground, my buddy and I began, what any self-respecting Englishman would under such circumstances, an epic day of drinking. By lunchtime, with no play imminent, we had progressed to a nearby pub for some lunch. By 2pm the word had got round that play was due to start at 3pm, which brings me to my first complaint, with the weather passable at 2pm, why in the name of Jesus did we have to wait ‘till 3pm to start? Don’t give me all that ‘preparing the pitch’ nonsense, what task is it, exactly, that takes an hour? Then, after the game was reduced to 29 overs a side and then, due to further rain, 24 overs a side, they take a 30-minute break between innings. I’m sure the umpires were following the ICC regulations (which have, 24 hours later, been amended – there’s a fucking surprise) to the letter, but can’t they show just a little initiative? After considerably more beer and not nearly enough cricket, at 7.45pm with 19 overs of the Kiwi innings gone, and the 20 overs needed to constitute a match the umpires called the whole thing off because of the returning rain, and couldn’t return to the field because they had technically used the extra hour allowed for rain, despite the fact they could have been back on the field about 30-minutes later, because the weather had cleared up again. If I were a Kiwi I would be absolutely apoplectic, with just 6 more balls bowled a result would have been achieved and the 20,000 paying spectators, might have felt slightly less aggrieved.
In twenty over cricket in this country, at least, the ground has to be on fire before the umpires take the players off. Why? Because they don’t want thousands of spectators to be short-changed and, they want them to keep coming back to games. Good lord! What a novel idea, putting the punters first. Sport is supposed to be entertainment, but I, and thousands of others on Wednesday couldn’t have been less entertained if we’d caught pneumonia.
I do accept that with cricket, as there is with tennis, a certain element of being at the mercy of the elements, it is part of the game, but what happened on Wednesday was incompetence on an industrial scale, but what do you expect when cricket is run by a bunch of lawyers and accountants, whose don’t-give-a-shit-so-long-as-the-rules-are-being-followed attitude is utterly to the detriment of the game. They’re always going on about the spirit of cricket, but they wouldn’t recognise it if was one of their own children.
A special mention should also go to Paul Collingwood. The game would probably have had a result, had England not bowled their overs so slowly. Apparently, Paul had no idea that they were only getting through an over about once every three days. Really? You were only the captain of the bowling side you muppet. Again, why don’t the umpires step in and start adding penalty runs to the opposition’s total? Then we might see sides get through their overs slightly faster than Thora Hird’s corpse would.

In the first ODI, which England won, some controversy was sparked. God (or Kevin Pietersen as he is better known) quite unbelievably, hit poor old Scott Styris for 2 left handed sixes over cover (or is that mid-wicket?). The MCC, who are still the guardians of the laws of cricket, had a meeting in which they discussed the legality of the shot. Fortunately, sanity has prevailed and the MCC are perfectly happy with KP’s innovation. Could you image if the ICC were in charge of the laws? ‘A left-handed shot by a right-handed batsman may only be played if the batsman has submitted, in writing, at least 10 working days in advance, an Unusual Shot Application Form, if the application to play the shot has been approved, the batsman must present the form to the on-field umpire before the ball for which he has applied to play the shot. A separate application must be made for each left-handed shot played. Any failure to do so will result in a 3-match suspension and fine.’

Away from the sturm und drang of cricket mis-administration, the Twenty20 Cup is in full flow, and I’m loving every minute of it. A trip down to Worcestershire to watch the Bears maul the Pears was immensely pleasurable. And this very evening, as I write, the return match at Edgbaston takes place, which will be marvellous, so long as it doesn’t rain... The Bears are 2nd in the Midlands/Wales division, Northants having won one more game, but both teams are on 8 points, although the Bears run rate is better. The good news is that they are unbeaten, 3 wins, 1 tie (how often does that happen?! – sadly as it was a group game, there wasn’t a bowl-out to decide the result) and one no result. Here’s hoping/praying/offering up blood sacrifices that the Bears can continue their good form and storm into the quarters at the end of next week.

"That Glenn McGrath ... what a bastard.” Mick Jagger

Pulling Teeth

After a mere 13 consecutive games against the might of New Zealand, (just six more to go!) England have their second test series victory in the bag. It could have and indeed looked like at one point, that Harry Potter’s, sorry, Daniel Vettori’s decision to insert England was going to pay dividends. At 86-5, England were staring down the barrel, dead and buried or indeed any other suitable turn of phrase you’d like to select from the MP Vaughan Bumper Book of Sporting Clichés. A tremendous 115 from South Africa’s finest export and a decent half-century from Warwickshire’s teeny-tiny stumper, dragged England out of the pit of embarrassment that they had dug for themselves.
Winning the toss and asking the opposition to bat is a risky business. Bat first and do badly, is forgivable – sort of. Put the opposition in and by the end of day one you are either a captain of Brearley-like genius or you are Nasser Hussain. Sadly for Vettori, he flirted with the former but ended up wining and dining the latter.
Stuart Broad’s contribution with the willow was pleasing, he and Jimmy A put on an excellent 76 for the 8th wicket, with Broad striking a cultured 64, featuring, in particular, some lovely back-foot drives through the covers. Which was more than helpful in England being able to post a respectable, if unspectacular 364. Jimmy scored a test-best 28, which was followed by his test-best bowling figures of 6-43. But, before we move on to that, I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms about the dreadful sawing-off of Monty Panesar by Steve Bucknor. An appalling decision, leaving Monty just 100 runs short of his maiden test match century.
In reply, the Kiwis never really got going. James ‘who’s line and length is it anyway’ Anderson, made sure of that. Bowling at his absolute best, Anderson bulldozed his way through New Zealand’s batting line up, including some delicious clean-bowled-photograph-this-muthafucker moments. Shot-out for 123, Vaughan invited Vettori’s men to have another go, which they did, but not very well. Second time around, Grumpy-Pants Sidebottom was Destroyer-in-Chief, taking 6-67. The only real resistance from the Kiwis coming from Oram, who hit 50 not out. In the end England won by an innings and 9 runs – which appears utterly convincing and marvellous, but as ever, the devil is in the detail.

It may have come to your attention that England test innings of late have been sans les runs de Collingwood et Bell. Collingwood, because he’s forgotten how to play cricket and Bell, because he is a big girl’s blouse. Collingwood is a first-rate athlete, but not a natural cricketer. His work in the field is amongst the best in the world, but his batting relies on a good eye and physical strength. Sure, he’s a scrapper and a fighter, and he has certainly saved England from humiliation on more than one occasion, but, there are simply better players waiting in the wings. As for Ian Bell, I really do want to slap him around the face with a big wet fish. Unlike Collingwood, he is stuffed full of cricketing ability. In full flow, he is almost as good to watch as Vaughan or Pietersen. His failing is that he can’t score runs under pressure. His 3 ball abomination of an innings at Trent Bridge is the perfect example. At 84-3, England are having a wobble, but nothing disastrous, all Ding-Dong needs to do is hang around and steady the ship, not play ‘round a straight one from cricket’s least threatening bowler, Iain O'Brien. 45 runs in four innings is a pathetic return for a top 6 batsman. For years Bell has been ‘coming good’, but I think we need to admit to ourselves that Bell is too fragile, mentally, to play international cricket. I’m not someone who calls for players to be given the proverbial boot at the drop of a cricket ball, but push has come to shove and I have the perfect candidates to replace these two floundering underachievers. Owais Shah for Bell and Ravi Bopara for Collingwood. Give them both the nod for the South Africa test series, and give them the four test matches to prove themselves. Surprisingly, I have been over-looked for the position of England selector, so what will actually happen is that the same team will be picked for the first test, because nobody wants to upset the supposed balance of a winning team and then everyone will go on and on about how it’s the first time since the extinction of the dinosaurs that England have picked the same starting XI in six consecutive test matches, like that is some kind of an achievement.
Anyway, in a few weeks England will finally be rid of the Kiwis, who will be returning home with a test series defeat to ponder and a ODI series victory to celebrate (probably). It will be nice to actually play someone else. I really wasn’t lying in my opening sentence, by the end of this tour England will have faced New Zealand 19 games in row. (6 test matches, 10 One Day Internationals and 3 Twenty20’s) – whoever organises these things needs shooting.

A Champions League for the winners and runners up of the domestic Twenty20 competitions in England, Australia, South Africa and the Indian Premier League has been announced. Which all sounds like jolly good fun, but will probably end up in the courts. Lalit Modi, the chairman of the IPL and a mover and shaker behind the Champions League, has said that in the event of a player having played in the IPL and say an Australian state side, the IPL franchise gets first dibs on him. Err... why? What if Mike Hussey, who is stuck between Western Australia and Chennai Super Kings wants to play for Western Australia, with whom, I assume, he played all of his professional cricket, until he was picked for Australia, rather than a team who only came into existence 10 minutes ago? How exactly are they going to stop him? If he says he doesn’t want to play for the Chennai Burger Kings they’re not very likely to pick him are they?
Originally, Modi also declared that any team who have players who appeared in the rebel Indian Cricket League will be automatically disqualified from the Champions League. So, that’s 15 out of 18 counties all out on their collective ears then. With $5 million at stake, counties should not have to put up with this kind of shit from Modi and the BCCI. The only teams eligible under this ludicrous edict would be Essex, Middlesex and Somerset. With this in mind a ‘softened’ stance of banning the individual players from this year’s Twenty20 Cup and Champions League, has been thrown up. This is grossly unfair to the county players, who in the off season are not under contract by their counties and the ECB never explicitly stated that players couldn’t play in ICL. Modi, in particular, needs to pull his head out of his arse and realise that he can’t throw his weight around like the school bully, and remember that it was the BCCI’s failure to properly and fairly negotiate and award TV rights for Indian cricket that led to the creation of the ICL in the first place. Dickhead.
What I would like to see happen is the South African, English and Australian boards, club together and refuse to take part in any Champions League featuring IPL teams unless fair terms are agreed with BCCI and IPL. If they can’t be reached because of the fascist tendencies of the Indian board, then they should invite the Stanford Twenty20 winners and runners up to compete in place of the IPL champions and runners up, and I would put this ultimatum to them now before moron Modi sours relations any further.

On a happier and final note, (sorry, I have droned on rather a lot this week – I can’t help it, there’s lots going on...) the Bears have just beaten Glamorgan by 5 wickets to stay top of LVCC Division 2. Some excellent batting by Ian Westwood (176 and 58) and some good bowling from Jimmy Anyon, (6–82 and 2-70) setting up a last day, last 5 overs, to be precise, win. Warwickshire have played one more game than everybody else, except last placed Gloucestershire who they have played two more games than, but they are 16 points clear of 2nd placed Leicestershire, so with some favourable results, things could be looking good. Oh yeah, and the Twenty20 Cup kicks off this week, I’m so excited I might have a seizure.

Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.