Rob's Lobs
Ten positives of the ICC World Twenty20
Four days into the first major event to showcase cricket at its most bastardised and most, if not quite all, the signs are encouraging
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Four days into the first major event to showcase cricket at its most bastardised and most, if not quite all, the signs are encouraging. Please forgive the shameless boyish enthusiasm.
Ten Reasons to be Disgustingly Cheerful
Full postAnd on the seventh day...
Contrary to received wisdom, humble pie doesn’t actually taste that awful
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Contrary to received wisdom, humble pie doesn’t actually taste that awful. Or need not. Granted, it doesn’t exactly boost the confidence and self-esteem to be proved totally and utterly wrong. On the other hand, when the wider interest is as admirably served as it has been by England and India over the past fortnight, only a fully-qualified curmudgeon could complain.
Before the one-day series began, two thoughts were uppermost, one a good deal more widespread than the other. First, that tours comprising three Tests and a seven-part one-day series should be never, ever be deemed worthy of a nation’s time or money again. Second, why on earth had those entrepreneurial ICC mandarins of ours not heeded the leaders of the major team sports in North America, home of the best-of-seven series? Over there, they have it sussed. If the outcome of a septet or quintet of playoff games is decided in the minimum number, that’s it. No 7-0s or 6-1s or 5-0s. No room to question motivation. No scope to subdue the heat of battle. True, this does mean medium-sized migraines for clubs, supporters and media, forced as they are to make last-minute decisions depending on the previous night’s result, but they cope.
Full postFive jewels for Wisden
He should be extra careful and avoid getting excited while playing, else, it may dampen his game.” So says astrologer Bejan Daruwalla’s Tarot card reading for Guyana’s gutsiest
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Editing Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack may be the plummest job in cricket journalism but that doesn’t mean the man on the throne doesn’t need a helping hand. (And yes, it’s always the hairier of the species: after all, now that Moira Cameron has become the Tower of London’s first female beefeater, the post remains one of this green and sometimes pleasant land’s few unstormable male bastions.)
Scyld Berry, arguably the most broad-spectrumed, lateral-thinking writer ever to grace a cricket pressbox, is acting as locum for the yellow bible’s 2008 edition as Matthew Engel takes a richly-earned sabbatical. As ever, his trickiest task will be to choose his Five Cricketers of the Year, an honour recently restored to its original confines – prime consideration is given to those summering in England. In other words, before you start shouting at me for bypassing Stuart Clark, Yousuf Youhana and Kumar Sangakkara, exploits overseas count for little or nowt. In the interests of brotherhood and posterity, therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to proffer some fairly humble suggestions. And yes, I know the season isn’t quite over, but on the basis that achievements over the last three weeks of a five-and-a-half-month campaign can, and should, only count for so much, that should not be a deterrent.
First, though, a rider. The rules have always precluded the nomination of any previous Cricketer of the Year, which is an especial pity this year. The star county turns, after all, have been the oldies – Andy Caddick, Ottis Gibson, Mark Ramprakash and Mushtaq Ahmed, of whom only Gibson has not hitherto been a recipient. So with that in mind, the nominees are…
Full postWarne remains at his entertaining best
Shane Warne’s list of his 50 finest flannelled fools, published in the Times over the past few days was delightful on so many counts, most notably the irate reactions
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Like the born showman that he is, he kept us waiting, and wondering, and bitching.
Little things please cricketing minds, and annoy them even more. Which is why Shane Warne’s list of his 50 finest flannelled fools, published in the Times over the past few days and culminating in this morning’s Top 10, was delightful on so many counts, most notably the irate reactions. How could he possibly rank Waqar Younis behind Steve Harmison? And what the blazes was Kapil Dev doing as low as No.40? The fact that he only opposed Warne once in a Test had evidently been forgotten.
Full postThe heavy price of cost-cutting
It didn’t have to be this way
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
On the ever-revolving merry-go-round that is county cricket, it’s that time of year again, the time when the horse-trading shifts from grapevine gossip, newspaper plants, surreptitious nods and conspiratorial winks to full-blown contract offers and negotiations. That import quotas for 2008 will be halved promises to make the upheavals more divisive, if, admittedly, more entertaining.
Although the planet’s premier domestic circuit still has no formal transfer system – there’s nothing so shamelessly or shabbily capitalistic as an actual fee – recent years have, rightly and properly, seen repressive tradition, underpinned by the feudal benefit system, consigned to a home in the neighbourhood of oblivion. Just four decades ago, Barry Knight, a Test allrounder, was obliged to sit out an entire season after having the unmitigated gall to leave Essex for Leicestershire; in 1972, Bob Willis was ordered to miss the first half of term after quitting Surrey for Warwickshire. The unsatisfactory List system having finally been discarded, and with decent wages having rightly replaced benefits as the most effective bait, freedom of movement is now enshrined.
Full postThe Bell Curve
In the first ODI against India, Ian Bell scored his maiden one-day century and turned the corner separating boys from men
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Sometimes all it takes is a single moment of inspiration fired by a modicum of perspiration. Sometimes one small step beyond the ordinary can evolve into an extraordinary leap. Whatever form that defining instant takes, it does not seem altogether fanciful to speculate that, at the Rose Bowl on Tuesday, Ian Bell turned the corner separating boys from men.
For all the stoutness of his Test average (42.39), he has seldom convinced during his four years at the highest level. He has always looked even younger than his years – and not simply because of that slight frame, those cherubic cheeks and that almost sheepish air. It was as if he, too, could not believe he belonged.
While occasionally allowing it to dribble out, he seldom exuded confidence. All too often he appeared hemmed in by a preoccupation with technique, constricted in ambition, restrained, unable to turn good starts into match-turning scores, unable to impose. Which might explain why he has often done better at No.6. Until last night he reminded me of the primary school swot who always finishes top of the class but struggles to keep up once he rises to secondary school and comes up against all the other swots in the catchment area.
Full postMuralitharan v Bedi
Of course nobody wants to see such a case come to court, especially those of us who recall Bedi’s maverick spirit and unmatchably gorgeous action with huge affection and heartfelt gratitude
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
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So it’s come, finally, to this. Muttiah Muralitharan, the first truly plausible challenger to SF Barnes as the bowler likeliest to win a Test singlehanded, has hired some extremely learned friends to file a defamation case against his most voluble and repetitious critic, Bishan Bedi. A sad week for cricket perhaps, even, arguably, for free speech, but a damned good one for those who maintain that this is one argument that has gone on for far too long.
After a decade of stoicism and cheek-turning, Murali has certainly decided he has had more than enough. The facts seem plain enough. In what was merely his latest tirade, Bedi had not only alleged that he was consciously taking advantage of that deformed right elbow and likened his action to that of a shot-putter (it’s a wonder he didn’t accuse him of taking steroids); he also insisted that the ICC had created a “monster” by allowing the Sri Lankan to continue bowling. The Sri Lankan Cricket Board stood by their man, charging that Bedi’s remarks were intended to "harm the bowler's reputation and achievements".
According to the Daily Mirror in Colombo, Murali’s manager, Kushil Gunasekara, had a series of meetings last Sunday with Sudath Perera from legal eagles Sudath Perera Associates. "We are writing a letter to Bedi,” confirmed Perera, “and if needed, he will be dragged into a court of law." Colombo's leading lawyer Romesh De Silva, the President's Counsel, is also in Murali’s corner. Although Murali is receiving support from his board, Perera and company, who have also represented former Test captain Arjuna Ranatunga, will file an independent case against Bedi without having to bother those busy little bodies at the BCCI.
Full postSchofield, Schofield give us a twirl
But the suspicion remains that the traditional English mindset – cautious, pragmatic, proud, more fearful of embarrassment than failure - is at odds with the art of spin
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Thanks in the main to the rain’s stubborn refusal to stay primarily on the plain, it has been hard to recall an English summer less likely to prove a source of nostalgia than this one. Subtract Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s monumental patience, Kevin Pietersen’s fearlessness, the rise of Adil Rashid, Ottis Gibson’s 10-47 and Kent’s fielding on Twenty20 Finals Day, and there wouldn’t even be any contenders for the time capsule. Yet even in a season worth treasuring, today would have been one of the better days.
The recall of Chris Schofield to the international fold, for next month’s official dignification of Twenty20 in South Africa, was half the reason for this. Dropping out of the professional game and returning is a trick few have accomplished. Even fewer – Paul Taylor and Ian Ward spring to mind – have come back with a sufficient bang to earn national selection. Small wonder that, upon hearing of his selection for the 30-strong longlist, his mother burst into tears. That her determined son happens be a legspinner spoke to the romantic in us all.
No less heartening was the concurrent showing at Scarborough for England Under-19 of two teenage twirlers, Essex’s Tom Westley (18) and Hampshire’s Liam Dawson (17), who had shared eight wickets to make their Pakistani counterparts follow-on on Sunday then scooped up the first five in the second innings, setting up an innings victory.
Full postOf sticks and stones
But let’s not confuse the pros and cons of all this with ethics
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Last night, in an attempt to put “Jellygate” into some sort of context for an 11-year-old mind, I tried to explain the intricacies of sledging to my son. “Very immature,” was his considered response. Which made me feel more than a little guilty about my own initial reaction.
Having spent many summers talking tactics and philosophies with him while he coached Sussex, Peter Moores, in my experience, is an exceedingly bright, hard-working, fair-minded man, a chap of principle. Which made it all the more surprising to hear him infer that it might be better for all concerned if stump mics were terminated with extreme prejudice, the better, presumably, to permit the players get on with their yakkety-yakking without fear of being rumbled.
As for the jelly beans, Moores managed to dig himself an even deeper hole. "Nobody would argue that a couple of lads put a couple of jellybeans down there. It was meant to be a joke and now looks a bit silly. I think people will try and read things into it, but it has no meaning whatsoever."
Full postThe most over-rated sin
If you went to a day’s play in a Test that featured 320 runs, eight wickets and a couple of dazzling catches, would it bother you that “only” 80 overs were served up for your delectation
Rob Steen
25-Feb-2013
Cricket loves numbers in much the same way as plants adore sunshine. Without the one, the other cannot exist. But while most statistics reveal something of value, the one that arouses the greatest controversy, namely over-rates, strikes me as largely irrelevant.
While commentating on yesterday’s play at Trent Bridge, Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton both put forward the case for irrelevance, and not merely to justify their own captaincy tactics. Hussain explained India’s sluggish rate by listing all the causes of delay, from the need to sawdust the run-ups and footholds to the remarkably greater incidence of left-handed batsmen in the modern game (up from 17% in the Fifties to 30%) and the consequent impact on field adjustments. Atherton simply declared that Test cricket was more exciting than it had ever been, so why complain about something so pitifully petty?
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