Different Strokes
Much ado about nothing
I find it hard to work up the degree of passion that drives this event’s opponents to apoplexy
Mike Holmans
25-Feb-2013
They fixed the pitch, they fixed the lights and Sir Allen Stanford kept mainly to his own hospitality box, so most of what had been at fault earlier in the week was cleared out of the way for the big event.
In the first half, each member of the England team was dragged up on to the stage to be made to look ever so slightly foolish as one of the magicians made his leg stump fall over or willed him to bash the ball high in the air to fall neatly into the hands of a fielder placed just there. After the interval, The Great Gayleini spent the second half repeatedly performing his magical ball trick in which perfectly decent bowling disappears in a puff of smoke and the big screen lights up with a huge figure six. It was a consummate performance by the entire troupe.
Sir Allen was clearly delighted that his team won, and will have taken great pleasure in creating a few more Caribbean millionaires. JJDW took me to task after my last post for not expressing outrage that Stanford chose to spend his money on building a pleasant cricket ground rather than a hospital: I take the point, but at least his team’s triumph means that all his money is staying in West Indian economies. A couple of other respondents were keen to point out that he will be ploughing money into West Indies cricket, which may be the intention but depends on the venture becoming profitable. As it will probably make a loss this year, massive financial benefits will not accrue to WI cricket just yet, if at all. But I can’t really get myself worked up either way just because this event centres around amounts of money which are very large by previous cricket standards but small beer when measured against golf, Premiership football or major league baseball.
Full postIt's a rich man's world
What is less easy to fix is Stanford himself, who seems the sort whose main topic of conversation is how awesome he is, which makes the timing of this event unfortunate, because this month the market in awesomeness has been cornered by Barack Obama.
Mike Holmans
25-Feb-2013
The Stanford circus has never enjoyed a high reputation in the English press, so the first hint of problems has caused the vultures to descend on it before it has even died. One report went so far as to say that it was hard to see any “positives” from the venture, and that is surely going too far.
First, there’s the venue. The Stanford Cricket Ground looks to be an excellent place for watching cricket, with comfortable stands, informal grassy banks, and pavilions and other buildings which please the eye. Transplant this to Worcester, below the magnificent cathedral, or even Taunton with the old church at the corner, and you would have a perfect English county ground.
But the playing surface is not ideal. Sir Allen has made clear that he does not think much of Test cricket: this is a pity, because the pitches used so far would have been ideal for the fourth day of a Test match. Crumbling, two-paced and bouncing unpredictably, it could provide a fascinating duel as batsmen attempt to grind it out – Test cricket at one of its bests.
As a stage for Twenty20, though, this is inadequate. I don’t like slogfests much: watching a team rattle up 220 in 20 overs gets monotonous. The ideal is a game where par is about 156, nudging eight an over, but on Stanford’s pitch par seems to be about 128, or barely above a run a ball, the kind of total which does not encourage the enterprise and invention which characterises the best Twenty20 batting.
Full postStop walking
Walking was an admirable trait in the gentleman’s game but it is no longer that
Michael Jeh
25-Feb-2013
One of the great ironies of last season was one of Cricket Australia’s biggest sponsors, a famous Scotch whiskey brand, continuing to remind us to “Keep walking”. At a time when the Andrew Symonds incident in the acrimonious Sydney Test caused so much controversy and debate over the issue of ‘walking’, the regular advertisements from this sponsor is an unfortunate reminder that cricketers themselves might prefer a clear universal policy on the issue.
After the Test Match in Mohali last week, one can only hope that this bone of contention is well and truly buried. Forever. Never to be exhumed.
Full postThe old order changeth?
Like all dynasties, Australian cricket may be re-discovering that nothing last forever
Stephen Gelb
25-Feb-2013
I was thrilled of course that India beat Australia so handily in Mohali – South Africans are almost always happy to see anybody beat Australia (perhaps because we seldom manage it). But Graeme Smith’s and Jacques Kallis’ reaction worried me – you could see the hubris oozing out as they seized on the poor Australian performance as evidence for a massive boost for their (our) chances in Australia in December. Don’t these guys learn? Only four months ago in England, the South African ‘spin machine’ had a lot to say about our pace attack leading up to the Tests (‘up there with the 1980s West Indians’), only to see it go for 600 in the first innings at Lords’. Yes, we got a draw there and won the series, but surely the lesson is to shut up and keep one’s counsel.
Kallis and Smith are not alone in believing that Mohali shows Australia going the way of Wall Street. A lot of commentators have jumped to the same conclusion. I’m not so sure that we can decide, after one bad match, that they are truly in decline. After all, just a week earlier in Bangalore, India had been in some difficulty. The difference between the two matches was perhaps the magnificent first innings centuries by Ponting and Hussey and Stuart Clark’s presence.
Yet, if we look a little deeper at Australia, there may well be grounds for ‘cautious optimism’. (An economist cannot be more positive than that right now.)
Full postEleven pub records for NZ to chase in Dhaka
Specific challenges have been issued to each and every New Zealand player, demanding that they launch an assault on a particular world record
Paul Ford
25-Feb-2013
New Zealand were embarrassingly scratchy in the first Test against Bangladesh at the magnificently named Bir Shreshtha Shaheed Ruhul Amin Stadium in Chittagong. Redemption can be achieved this week, assuming the rain abates at some point. How? Not by drubbing the "Bangla-Dashers", no, no, no.
Instead I have kicked out Lindsay Crocker and John Bracewell and personally chaired a brutally honest team meeting at the Black Caps’ Dhaka Hilton Hotel. Specific challenges have been issued to each and every player, demanding that they launch an assault on a particular world record and get their names embroidered onto a list somewhere in the Cricinfo archive. Each is a record they will be proud to talk about in the pub whenever they get the chance.
Aaron "Son of Rodney" Redmond: Takes gold in the "slow batting by runs scored" category. He makes it through the first session of the Test - 120 minutes - and goes for a sumptuous lunch of jet planes and pasta, pumped up and on 0*. In the process, Christchurch financier Geoff Allott is knocked off the top of the chart. Against South Africa in 98/99, Allott memorably failed to trouble the scorers for a staggering 101 minutes.
Jamie How: Becomes only the second New Zealander after the maestro Glenn Turner (who did it twice) to carry his bat through a completed Test match innings.
Full postNew Zealand by a freckle
The defeat in the one-dayer to start the series was certainly ignominious, and the win completed in the last 24 hours is my nomination for the most painful New Zealand victory in our history of Test cricket.
Paul Ford
25-Feb-2013
Greetings from Beige Brigade headquarters in deepest, darkest Karori - a part of New Zealand's capital city that is allegedly the largest suburb in the southern hemisphere. It’s lovely to be with you as the new bloke on Different Strokes.
I put my hairy neck on the line before a ball was bowled in the current battle between the team with a firm grip on the wooden spoon in the half-baked Reliance Mobile Test Championship, and another side in the doldrums of the pecking order and just two spots above.
Full postLife of Brian
Things have changed a lot since Brian Brain recorded his month-by-month thoughts on his 1980 season with Gloucestershire and their post-season Caribbean excursion to Barbados for a few friendly one-day matches against club sides in “Another Day,
Mike Holmans
25-Feb-2013
So Middlesex are jetting off to Antigua for a post-season jaunt during which they will play a game for the largest prize ever offered to an English county club – at least until next year, when the prize for winning the Championship goes up to £500K.
Things have changed a lot since Brian Brain recorded his month-by-month thoughts on his 1980 season with Gloucestershire and their post-season Caribbean excursion to Barbados for a few friendly one-day matches against club sides in “Another Day, Another Match”.
Brain was a pace bowler who made his debut for Worcestershire aged 18 in 1959 but did not get capped until 1966, which meant that he was a year short of qualifying for a benefit when they sacked him in 1975. Moving to Gloucestershire prolongs his career, but he spends much of 1980 worrying about his financial future, and there is a happy ending when the county grant him a testimonial for 1981.
He would therefore have approved of the increases in player salaries. As a senior professional in 1980, he was paid £4500. In the wider economy, salaries have roughly quadrupled for equivalent jobs over the period, but his successor is now paid more like 10-12 times as much, which in real terms means that he would be earning two to three times as much today.
Full postWhingeing Aussies?
Obviously umpiring errors that favour Australia are not worthy of mention
Michael Jeh
25-Feb-2013
The headline writer in The Australian today (20 October) is clearly on a mission to secure a posting as Chief Minister of Propaganda. An article by Malcolm Conn, describing the events of the third day’s play from Mohali was headlined as “India’s verbal barrage as Watson fights lone hand".
What makes this headline even more disgraceful is that Watson is later quoted in the piece as saying it was nothing more than “friendly banter”. How that sort of direct quote can be turned into a headline that talks about a ‘verbal barrage’ is laughable, especially from a newspaper that purports to be a serious broadsheet.
Full postLegion of Superheroes
Like Lara and Tendulkar, Murali too seems to be hugely respected by the cricketing community all over the world
Michael Jeh
25-Feb-2013
The great thing about watching Sachin Tendulkar pass Brian Lara was the sense that both men transcend national loyalties. In a world full of false heroes, here are two great sportsmen who are truly worthy of global admiration.
Both great batsmen have enjoyed long careers based on quiet dignity and enormous respect from their own peers. In some senses, this is the real barometer because the only people who really know the full story tend to be those who watched them in battle - team-mates, opponents, umpires, media and support staff. In the case of Tendulkar and Lara, it’s hard to find examples of too many character assassinations from people who know them well.
Full postICC hurting Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s cricket is being stunted because it would mean a loss of face at the ICC’s top table
Mike Holmans
25-Feb-2013
Last week I predicted that Bangladesh would be massacred by New Zealand, so they promptly went ahead and recorded one of their rare wins against a major country.
Unfortunately, though, I cannot regard it as any great evidence that they have improved. As when India and Australia were beaten, it was the senior country’s first competitive outing in the tournament or series and they were caught on the hop. Normal service was rapidly resumed.
Full post