Rob's Lobs
Yes please, Prime Minister
Labour won the 2005 General Election on the back of an Ashes triumph
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
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I know you’ve been having a tough time since moving from No.11 to No.10, what with all the economic worries, the cash-for-gongs saga, record levels of dissatisfaction with your premiership and that curious-looking Milliband chap sniffing your throne, so I’m not entirely surprised to see you taking such pleasure in the performance of all those “Team GB” cyclists, oarsmen and sailors in Beijing. However, I don’t think it would be fair on you to let you get too carried away. Which is why I am here to set you straight.
"Success in rowing, sailing and track cycling can essentially be bought by siphoning off money from the public purse and handing it to the athletes who are then able to train like professionals ... Success in sport - like in the agricultural market - is easier when it receives huge state subsidies." So wrote Matthew Syed, a former Olympian, in The Times the other day. OK, so he was a ping-ponger, out for himself from first bobbled serve to final fluffed smash, but the point remains. If you really want to give yourself a worthwhile goal, let’s see what you can do about our regular national teams, notably the lot who endeavour to play cricket.
To be honest, and I reckon most of your subjects would back me up, I would far prefer our soccer-rockers, rugger-buggers and willow-wielders win a few more games than a ragtag collection of largely university and/or public school types bring home more golds in more unwatchable sports than China and the US combined from a quadrennial event that costs more to stage than the GDP of Southern Africa. If you are tempted to believe I am one of those people who regard the “winning” of the right to stage the 2012 Olympics to be something of a costly and catastrophic defeat, I will not take offence.
Full postRob the Key to renewal
The biggest factor in Robert Key’s favour is that he played no part whatsoever in the 2005 A****
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Funny how things come back to bite even the hardiest bum. But for English wariness, the review system trial that appears to have gone down so well in Colombo and Galle would have been in force during the Basil D’Oliveira series, in which case England might well have won the third Test and levelled a series that in all other respects showcased why modern Test cricket, at its most competitive and invigorating, is streets ahead of where it has ever been.
Indeed, had but one of the balls that James Anderson fizzed across a clueless, groping Graeme Smith during the opening phase of South Africa’s chase caught the edge they deserved, Poms might well be celebrating a remarkable comeback against a side, lest we forget, that could well end Australia’s seemingly interminable dominance before next year’s over-hyped and undermining A**** debate. That, though, would merely have papered over those widening cracks and deepening holes, which makes what actually happened, and their inevitable consequences, more desirable.
Full postNew regime on Stats Island
Averages have long held sway in the first-class fray, but the right and proper accent on economy- and strike-rates means that runs per innings and wicket are no longer sufficient as arbiters of quality
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
What with the Acronym War in full flight, the game’s governance in disarray, umpire referrals being trialled, the Kolpak Era showing encouraging signs of drawing to an unlamented close and Mohammed Asif being a very silly boy indeed, it hasn’t been easy of late to focus on what really matters – runs and, um … oh yes, wickets. Unfortunately, even in the safe, profoundly apolitical arena of Stats Island, I can’t seem to get much, if any, satisfaction.
While watching Wednesday’s Pro40 game between Durham and Somerset, the thrilling sight of Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett adding 81 for the last wicket - and only just in vain - set me wondering about the highest such stand to win a senior match. Not exactly a left-field query, one would have thought. Certainly not an unnatural one for a fully-qualified anorak.
Full postA tale of two pities
By failing sundry drugs tests, Mohammad Asif was the one who actually broke some written rules, rather than merely ignored the urgings of a spiritual manifesto
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Two years ago, Mohammad Asif was on a roll, whipping out 29 Indians, Sri Lankans and Englishmen in four Tests to confirm himself as Pakistan’s next planet-conquering fast bowler. In Adelaide a few months later, Paul Collingwood became the first Pom to score a double-century in Australia for nearly 70 years, matching the matchless Wally Hammond. Now, for both, the doldrums beckon. In neither case is sympathy unconfined. But neither is it negligible.
By failing sundry drugs tests, Asif was the one who actually broke some written rules, rather than merely ignored the urgings of a spiritual manifesto. So it is curious, yet entirely typical of cricket, that there appears to be more compassion for him. As Kamran Abassi wisely points out in his blog, the Pakistan Cricket Board, in failing to provide a proper lead on drug education and then indulging him, convincing him he was fire-proof, have hardly been blameless.
Full postIn praise of quotas
Without quotas, would one of the most successful fast bowlers of all time have ever scaled such heights, paving the way for a Cape Coloured and a grandson of Indians to follow?
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
“That’s why it’s the best game in the world.” So texted my best pal after last Sunday’s Wimbledon epic between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, which had made me forget for the best part of five hours that tennis has left me cold ever since John McEnroe threw off his Superbrat cape a couple of decades ago. “Best individual game, yes,” I texted back, still dizzy at the rediscovery of a lost love but not so dazed that my faculties had fled in their limited entirety. Yesterday’s fare at Lord’s underlined why I still feel fully entitled to make the distinction.
This is supposed to be the moment in cricket history when virtually every conversation and headline concerns the Twenty20 golden goose. (If the ICC wasn’t supremely confident about the lasting impact of this particular revolution, why else would Haroon Lorgat’s first action as the new Malcolm Speed have been to announce that the best part of US$300 million will be lavished over the next seven years on spreading the gospel?) The quality of the first episode of the first five-day play for more than three weeks came, therefore, as a blessed relief. It was also a glowing reaffirmation of why team sports in general, and Test cricket in particular, beat all that selfish individualistic stuff.
Full postFor the good of the game
Test cricket should be added to the burgeoning heritage industry, as a living, breathing, vibrant slice of 21st-Century culture that also encompasses a sense of history
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
“Other people might feel different.” Such were Nasser Hussain’s ominously heartfelt words the day after the announcement of the Champions League. He was referring to the notion of Test cricket as the game’s pinnacle. All-too wisely, he expressed the fear that future generations, of players and spectators, could well disagree, that the appeal of a five-day ballgame might soon dwindle even more quickly for players than it currently is for spectators who prefer bucket seat to armchair. It was difficult not to share his fears.
So much has happened to cricket over the past year, at such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it rate, that keeping pace with developments is becoming akin to plotting the emotional graph of a teenager. One thing, though, must be clear to anyone who holds the game dear: we have reached a crossroads. The past and future will soon be considered the modern equivalent to BP and AP (Before Packer and After Packer). Enterprise, player power and Mammon sit in one corner, fear, loathing and rose-tinted nostalgia in the other. The prize is cricket’s future – and its soul.
Full postForgive H***** C*****? Not me
In the background was a shot of a barely-occupied South African ground in the middle of a Test
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
I’ve just finished watching a BBC TV documentary about a recent former captain of South Africa, someone I hesitate to dignify as a “man”, someone on whom I hoped I would never waste another word. To be honest, I can hardly bring myself to type his name. So please forgive these brief thoughts on the subject of H***** C*****.
It was, remarkably to some no doubt, the first time I’d seen coverage of the King Commission, seen the way the falling icon had suddenly aged; the clarity of the voice undercut by the shiftiness of the speaker; those moony child-like eyes, imploring for forgiveness; the tears; the two men it took to escort his buckling body from court. For the first time, too, I saw the poker-faced denials to television cameras, not to mention those three wides Henry Williams bowled in that fateful opening over in India.
Even though the dots were never completely joined up, what came across most clearly was what I had always suspected: that, at bottom, as Dr Ali Bacher hinted, it was C*****’s refusal to help the transformation/integration process – or even acknowledge that it was important - that did most to fuel the anger and cynicism that ultimately allowed him to take money and gifts from Marlon Aronstam and others. A cynicism that made it oh-so-easy to bring two insecure coloured players, Williams and Herschelle Gibbs, into his web of conceit and deceit. That, for me, was his greatest crime.
Full postSimon says – Aussies beware!
If, come July and August, the fire of Messrs Steyn, Ntini and Nel is to be returned with anything approaching interest, the temptation to draft Jones and Flintoff back ahead of schedule may prove far too strong
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
For British cricketers at least, the need to keep up with the Joneses has never been the most inspiring means of motivation. Only five members of the tribe – Arthur, Alan, Geraint, Jeff and Simon - have played for England. Illness, injury and sudden lapses cost four of them dear; Alan was simply stripped of his status.
In other words, therefore, he amassed a hell of a lot of first-class runs, all 36,049 of them, without being capped. Has any batsman worked so hard, so fruitfully, for so little recognition? Not so far as the statisticians are concerned. The three-sentence “note” at the top of page 241 of the latest Wisden is a masterclass in pithy heartlessness:
Full postThe Spirit of Cricket 2008
A Welshman is due to take over as president and a black South African as CEO
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
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A Welshman is due to take over as president and a black South African as CEO. Meetings of the ICC Chief Executives' Committee and the ICC Board are scheduled to run until July 4. With proceedings about to begin, the gathering remains a man short. Butter-mountain-sized mounds of Kentish pasties, ostrich pies, wombat burgers, rhubarb-flavour rotis and cherry-topped chapatis are being consumed with much relish and chutney, and no patriotism or partiality whatsoever. But patience is wearing thinner than Harbhajan Singh’s list of alibis for what the more patriotic and/or diplomatic call “inappropriate behaviour”. Just inside the door, unnoticed by most and ignored by the rest, lurks a lone protestor in a cable-knit V-neck sweater, holding a placard that reads “ICC – Idiotic, Corrupt, Crap”.
Then, as watches are consulted, heads are shaken, tuts are exchanged and formal introductions are about to be made, the missing delegate is shepherded into the room under blanket and armed guard.
(For legal reasons, any vague, distant or mildly plausible relationship between persons alive, dead or in purgatory quoted in the following unedited transcript is strictly coincidental.)
Full postThe Trouble With Freddie
To pick Flintoff now would send out the wrong signal
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
How do you solve a problem like dear Fre-ddie?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Fre-ddie?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Fre-ddie?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!
(With thanks, and profuse apologies, to Rodgers and Hammerstein)
How do you solve a problem like Andrew Flintoff? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? Such is the knotty problem that the new England selectorial team, under lone survivor Geoff Miller, will be attempting to unravel this summer. Good luck, lads.
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