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.
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.
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