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England's No. 3 obsession
Jos Buttler is a perfect one-day No. 7, so of course they'll try to transform him into a failing No. 3
Alex Bowden
11-Jun-2014
Three years ago, Jos Buttler's then coach at Somerset, Andy Hurry, said of him: "He knows his game inside out, knows where he wants to hit boundaries. His one-day game is nailed on."
It struck me at the time as being an oddly unequivocal thing to say about a 20-year-old cricketer. You're supposed to use words like "promise" and "development" and "not yet the finished article" and yet here was a player's coach basically saying: "No, he's cracked one-day cricket. Not really any point working on that any more."
My interest was piqued, but then again, coaches always talk up their own players. A few days later Buttler hit 94 off 56 balls against Nottinghamshire, and not long after that, I saw him play. I've followed his progress ever since.
Full postThe future will be at Lord's
The proposed revamp of HQ: paradise for those who wish to play football, eat whole grains, and relieve themselves in the KP Memorial fountain
Alan Tyers
09-Jun-2014
Lord's is to be given a £55 million revamp to get it ready for the 2019 World Cup after the MCC signed off on plans to spruce up the Home of English Cricket. Could the following be part of the development?
* Hi-tech biomechanics facility for reprogramming of the actions of young England fast bowlers.
* Injury rehab clinic for young England fast bowlers.
Full postThe healing powers of the IPL
Look, for instance, at the miraculous recoveries made by Saha, Uthappa, Tambe, Gauti and Mitch
James Marsh
06-Jun-2014
For many years humans have been in thrall to the idea that there exists an elixir that can restore lost vitality. As such, the world swooned when renaissance explorer Juan Ponce de León claimed to have discovered the fountain of youth in - a little ironically, given its present demographics - what is now Florida. To this day, around five million people a year make the pilgrimage to Lourdes in the French Alps in the hope its holy waters will cure their illnesses, an act of blind faith many believe on a par with backing England's ODI top order to score at more than 5 an over in the Powerplay.
Cricketers usually take a less spiritual route to battling against the ravages of time, often via various cosmetic enhancements. The former England captain Graham Gooch scored over 67,000 professional runs and once played an innings of such lone-gun brilliance it could retrospectively be labelled Buttleresque, yet perhaps his most trail-blazing effort was in the field of artificial hair implants. Although the Essex stalwart kept the rest of his body youthful by famously jogging up and down tour-hotel stairwells, when his crown started to look balder than a fifth-day Lahore wicket, Gooch dead-batted away public ridicule to try out an innovative enhancement process. This courageous step paved the way for fellow players from Michael Vaughan to Shane Warne to undergo the procedure, though this male-grooming trend has since led to the latter being dogged by persistent allegations of face-tampering and cheek-fixing.
For on-field healing properties, however, look no further than the IPL, which has recently rescued the greying career prospects of a number of receding players. Take Gautam Gambhir, for instance. So long the imperious admiral to Sehwag's carefree pirate at the top of India's order, Gambhir suffered a substantial loss of form towards the end of 2012 and start of 2013, which saw him lose his place to the thrusting, irrepressible Shikhar Dhawan. Now, on the back of his IPL performances, Kolkata's winning captain has returned to the Test squad for the tour of England, although to look at his perpetually gloomy disposition you'd think he had instead just been named FIFA's head of public relations. Granted Gauti had previously enjoyed a more than handy Ranji season, but his form for Knight Riders was almost certainly a factor in the Indian selectors granting him an international recall. Forgotten men also feature on the list of names selected for the ODI tour of Bangladesh, which is largely comprised of the tournament's high achievers. Suresh Raina, previously dropped from the Asia Cup, will lead an admittedly weakened squad, which also includes the Pepsi remaximised Wriddhiman Saha (last ODI in 2010) and Robin Uthappa (last ODI in 2008).
Full post'India, I wuz ere!'
Players put themselves on the map in our Twitter round-up
Alex Bowden
04-Jun-2014
This week's Twitter round-up focuses on beverage temperature, questioning oneself, and the importance of being factually accurate in your tweets.
The brew
There's nothing quite like a hot cup of tea.
Full postThere's nothing quite like a hot cup of tea.
Why cricketers shouldn't celebrate like footballers
For those about to take their tops off, a word of advice: don't
R Rajkumar
02-Jun-2014
One of the reasons cricket is known as the gentleman's game is because it cannot, in good conscience, be called the beautiful game. And the reason it can't is that cricketers just aren't as good-looking, of course. Which is why it's very important that cricketers not try and celebrate like footballers do. Because, unlike their more glamorous counterparts, they simply can't pull it off.
In fact, they should never, ever pull it off. Certainly not in the manner that Aditya Tare took it upon himself to do after the knockout game against Rajasthan Royals, when in what will surely be remembered as the most gruesomely definitive footballing celebration gone wrong on a cricket pitch in recent times, he lifted up his jersey, presenting for the viewing pleasure of millions on TV an abdomen that can perhaps best be described as a "one-pack" (uni-pack?). He also managed to somehow get his shirt hooked around his head in such a manner that it covered his face. Team-mates who eventually caught up with him were as much celebrating as desperately trying to cover up the sight.
Tare is by no means the only one guilty of wobbling fleshily above his station. The collective psyche of the game is still struggling to come to terms with the whole Flintoff-Ganguly stripgate saga, widely considered to be the definitive yin and yang of bodily exhibitionism.
Full postKevin Pietersen slams XYZ
Why someone should start a newspaper that's devoted to the doings of a legendary former England batsman
Matt Cleary
30-May-2014
Six Degrees of Separation was a 1993 film about an "affluent New York couple who find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is". It starred Will Smith, Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen, and was so crap that its only use now is as a vehicle for a column about news in cricket. To wit:
Jamie Cox, the first victim of Cricket Australia's "Integrity Unit", a body trying to police the un-policeable: people talking about their futures. The Big Bash League has a recruitment policy that stipulates that players, agents and franchises can't talk about players' futures outside of a certain window, a rule that is so against the mores of our race of human beings that you'd sooner expect adherence to borders by the hill tribes of Afghanistan. Anyway, why have this? Like, at all? It's un-policeable. You can't stop people talking. People talk. It's what people do. And Jamie Cox is far from the only person who has ever talked about players moving between BBL franchises outside said window, rather than take it to the bank via Betfair, an outlet that will give you short odds on…
Mumbai Indians (a particularly odd handle, even for a team containing mostly Indians) scoring 195 runs in 88 balls against Rajasthan Royals the other night. Apparently it was good. But I mean… what? Did Royals forget how to bowl? How can bowlers not throw down yorkers? Only one bowler conceded less than 12.50 runs an over. I mean… that's hideous! It's ridiculous! Just bowl at their toes! That isn't hard. All bowlers do is train how to bowl. Test cricket, they can land six in a row on a 20-cent bit. In this T20 malarkey they send down six different ones, all of which disappear into Row Z. I don't get it. Batters aren't this good. They're not. Something's crook in Tallarook. A town never visited by…
Full postIan Bell is better than Sachin Tendulkar
Or why spectators at Chester-le-Street were denied the pleasure of indulging in sarcastic cheering
Alex Bowden
27-May-2014
It's a reasonably well-known fact among web publishers that a large proportion of internet users generally don't read anything beyond the headline of an article. Plenty of people won't even read the first sentence. They just react, as if all the writer wanted to say was being expressed in that handful of words in bold type at the top of the page.
I thought of this phenomenon this week. I was away from home, out of touch, and wanted to check the final score in the second one-day international between England and Sri Lanka.
This website went with "Morgan condemns 'worst' display". The BBC opted for "England suffer humiliating defeat" and "England cannot play worse - Morgan".
Full postCricket's problem families
Some relatives just don't make you look good
James Marsh
26-May-2014
There's no doubting Giles Clarke's commitment to English cricket, but it's fair to say interviews are not his strong point. The ECB chairman has had so many foot-in-mouth moments, he should probably check his gums for verrucas, and his gaffe-prone media appearances show little sign of abating. His latest peculiar comment came in an interview ahead of England's T20I against Sri Lanka last week. Speaking about Alastair Cook's performance as captain, Clarke noted: "He is a very good role model and he and his family are very much the sort of people we want the England captain and his family to be." You could say this was an innocuous enough remark, but it seemed incongruous for the ECB chairman to be making such value judgements, and it was condemned as snobbery by many.
Cook may be lucky to have an untroubled family, but there are certainly cricketers who have not been blessed with relatives who might so readily receive the Clarke stamp of approval. Here are a few examples of family members who, sometimes entirely blamelessly, have proved less than happy for their cricketing kin.
Suresh Raina's nephew
After Pakistan were eliminated in the semi-final of the 2012 World T20 by Sri Lanka, a tweet appeared from the Indian middle-order batsman revelling in the defeat of his country's nearest and dearest rivals. A day later, an apparently aghast Raina tweeted again, saying, "Smart phones r dangerous. Discovered it last night after my nephew posted random tweets. I'm a sportsman and would never disrespect." He carried on digging: "Though I already deleted it, I felt its better to clarify. To all those who r upset, I'm sorry. I'm not one to show disrespect." Remarkably, people didn't really buy this as an excuse and the apology was met with large-scale ridicule. To this day it's not clear who actually sent the offending tweet, though the incident is believed to have caused Raina so much trouble he now reportedly refers to his nephew as "short ball".
Full postAfter Pakistan were eliminated in the semi-final of the 2012 World T20 by Sri Lanka, a tweet appeared from the Indian middle-order batsman revelling in the defeat of his country's nearest and dearest rivals. A day later, an apparently aghast Raina tweeted again, saying, "Smart phones r dangerous. Discovered it last night after my nephew posted random tweets. I'm a sportsman and would never disrespect." He carried on digging: "Though I already deleted it, I felt its better to clarify. To all those who r upset, I'm sorry. I'm not one to show disrespect." Remarkably, people didn't really buy this as an excuse and the apology was met with large-scale ridicule. To this day it's not clear who actually sent the offending tweet, though the incident is believed to have caused Raina so much trouble he now reportedly refers to his nephew as "short ball".
How it went at The Oval
The ECB debriefs phase one of Operation United Marching Forward Together Going Forward
As told to Alan Tyers
23-May-2014
The ECB debriefs phase one of Operation United Marching Forward Together Going Forward
1) Several empty seats. Disappointing. However, the ECB believe that an unnamed individual may have been whistling outside the ground, putting people off coming in. He is without doubt to blame for the mediocre attendance.
2) However, it is very important that we do not have any speculation from people outside cricket as to what exactly the person outside the cricket did to the people outside the cricket to make them not want to come inside the cricket. The ECB considers that to be the end of the matter.
Full post'My love for you is unconditional!'
Besotted declarations and tasty scones in our Twitter round-up
Alex Bowden
22-May-2014
There's a slight culinary theme to this week's Twitter round-up. Apparently chicken, chocolate and scones constitutes a balanced diet for a professional cricketer.
The busy man
There's been much talk about a potential Andrew Flintoff comeback, but how could he find time when there's so much going on in his life. This is a man with major issues to grapple with.
Full postThere's been much talk about a potential Andrew Flintoff comeback, but how could he find time when there's so much going on in his life. This is a man with major issues to grapple with.
