The Long Handle
The double-chaos burger with a side order of anarchy
Hooray, the IPL is coming to town and there's nothing you can do about it
Andrew Hughes
29-Mar-2014
The arrival of spring is always a relief to those of us living on this soggy wind-swept rock off the north coast of France. After several months of hibernation, the average English citizen can finally emerge into a world in which our fingers no longer become frozen to our breakfast spoons, our teeth do not chatter of their own accor,d and the umbrella attrition rate has fallen to an acceptable level.
Even nature is making an effort. Generally speaking nature is a mediocre performer. It rarely offers us anything memorable, dealing in clichéd sunrises, chaotically arranged forests, sporadic precipitation and the occasional misshapen mountain. But at this time of year, it does at least conspire to raise the outdoor temperature to the ideal level: sufficiently warm to enable you to breathe invisibly, but not yet warm enough to provoke the populace into their habitual summer displays of ill-advised semi-nudity.
This is also a special time of year for cricket fans, as we hear, in the middle distance, but getting ever closer, an unmistakable media fanfare that makes us shiver with innocent joy, like children catching on the breeze the melodic tinklings of the first ice cream van of the year. Yes, the IPL is coming to town!
Full postKP, Adolf, and the art of being honest
Why clear-the-air meetings don't work if everyone doesn't agree to not be honest
Andrew Hughes
26-Mar-2014
It was early March 1945. Results on the battlefield hadn't been going the Germans' way, and having put a line through "Rocket Bombs", "More Rocket Bombs", "Cunning Disguises" and "Time-travelling Robots" on his list of Things That Are Certain to Win the War, Adolf Hitler was down to Plan Z: a clear-the-air team meeting.
So he invited Goebbels, Eva, and his remaining followers: the librarian who transcribed and filed his rants by subject from "Aberdeen" to "zucchini"; the three-fingered dentist responsible for his pet dog Kaiser's dental hygiene; his crack SS moustache-maintenance team; and Gustav, the pharmacist who filled out his daily prescription, to gather in Bunker Conference Room 1 for a brainstorming session.
Adolf himself opened proceedings with a brief seven-and-a-half hour presentation entitled "Why Germany Will Win The War, and Even if We Don't it Isn't My Fault, Any of it, Not Even the Silly Flag, Which Was Goring's Idea Anyway". Then he handed the meeting over to Goebbels, explaining that he was going for a lie-down, that in his absence everyone was to speak freely and that anyone who didn't speak freely would be shot.
Full postThe problem with rugby analogies
Giles Clarke wants English cricket to learn from the rugby team. How presumptuous
Andrew Hughes
22-Mar-2014
As you may have noticed, English cricket is in a bit of state at the moment. The masses are, if not revolting, then fairly close to revolting, and at a time like this, we look to the wise old men of the ECB to calm the situation, to reassure the frightened public, huddled together for warmth as we contemplate the cold, desolate post-KP future.
So on Tuesday, Chairman Giles Clarke emerged on the balcony at Lord's to address a small flock of pigeons that had gathered on the outfield in expectation of birdseed.
Giles had a simple message. He wants us to "move on". Not in a Curtis Mayfield way. By "move on" he means "stop whingeing". He wants us to move on like Tony Blair wanted us to move on after his Mesopotamian misadventure, or like Giles himself wanted us to move on after that unfortunate business with the helicopter, the crate of cash and the international fraudster.
Full postThe Michael Vaughan challenge
Do you have it in you to follow him on Twitter?
Andrew Hughes
19-Mar-2014
My name is Andrew Hughes and I used to follow Michael Vaughan on Twitter.
People think that following Michael Vaughan on Twitter is easy. If you complain about it, they call you weak. I once sent a tweet complaining about it to David Warner. He told me I was weak. He also said that I had scared eyes, which was a lie because he was 10,000 miles away and he couldn't possibly have seen my eyes (I think the eye-thing is just a standard insult with David).
Anyway, my eyes weren't scared; they were tired because I'd stayed up all night studying Michael Vaughan's tweets from February 2011 to September 2011 for my weekly Wisdom of Vaughan test. I got 46%.
Full postAll hail Ashley Giles
He's attempting to to introduce English cricket into the 1990s
Andrew Hughes
15-Mar-2014
It's all over. By guiding his team to a series-deficit-reducing triumph in Barbados, Ashley Giles has seen off his coaching rivals, and the betting market for the next England coach shows old Wheelie as the overwhelming favourite, with Oprah Winfrey, Harry Styles, Michael Gove, Field Marshall Haig and Kaiser Wilhem II all trailing at massive odds.
And in the wake of his triumph, the new coach-elect has made a bold pronouncement on behalf of English cricket: it's time to accept the doosra. After some years on its high horse, it seems that English cricket has decided to climb down, although to be frank, everyone else had forgotten it was up there:
"Didn't you use to be taller, English cricket?"
Full postTest cricket's dodo problem
Fans of the five-day stuff think it will last forever, even if nobody is watching
Andrew Hughes
12-Mar-2014
For those of us vaguely interested in the survival of the five-day game, there was exciting news on Monday. Day-night Test cricket is upon us! And by "upon us" I mean "may possibly happen in about a year and a half, fingers crossed".
Why has it taken so long to reach the point where we are ready to dip a tremulous toe in the waters of innovation? I think the reasons can be summarised as follows:
1. Neither the red nor the white ball will do for evening cricket, so officials spent years poring over paint charts and taking the expert testimony of spectrumologists. Eventually, they chose pink. But what shade? The arguments began again immediately. Negotiations were tortuous - the cerise-versus-rose battle alone lasted two years - and it is only recently that the world's cricket boards settled on "embarrassed fuchsia".
Full postThe b-word that symbolises the decline of civilisation
And why it's disappointing to hear Michael Clarke use it
Andrew Hughes
08-Mar-2014
I've always liked Michael Clarke. I enjoyed watching him bat early in his career because he always did the same thing: an elegant leave or two, then a sequence of delicate glides, drives and flourishes on the off side, each more rousing and beautiful than the last, rising like a piece of classical music, from pastoral tinklings to soaring symphony.
Batsmen who always do the same thing are often criticised. But it's not the fact they always do the same thing that's the problem. It's the thing they always do that matters. If their thing is to nudge, poke and prod their way to a snoozy century with all the dash and flair of an elderly tortoise, then by all means fasten them in the stocks of public opinion and pelt them with rotten fruit.
But if their thing is to play perfectly timed late cover drives that would cause a statue of Wally Hammond or Victor Trumper to crack a smile, then let them get on with it. Life is too short and too tedious to stifle a Gower, a Pietersen or a Clarke.
Full postRehman's hat-trick
And why we must thank umpire Johan Cloete for it
Andrew Hughes
05-Mar-2014
Umpiring is not as much fun as it used to be. For one thing, a modern umpire has to be smart. No more crumpled raincoats, tobacco-scented flat caps or elaborate sideburns. In ODIs they are even obliged to wear red shirts. Most people can't pull off red. The Duke of Wellington might get away with it, perhaps Pamela Anderson or Noddy, but for anyone else, wearing a red shirt in public is invariably a cry for help.
In T20 it's worse. Umpires are forced to be part of the show, declaring the game open like the Queen at a boat-launching. I understand that at this year's IPL they will all be asked to dress as their favourite singer and to announce the start of the match in character (look out for Marais Erasmus as Dolly Parton).
Once, the elderly man in white was a cross between a strict schoolmaster and an avuncular local policeman, but now he is reduced to the role of harassed administrator. Laden with microphones, light meters and playing regulations, he is forced to submit to the humiliations of the DRS and to undergo endless performance appraisals, like some junior office worker in the sales department of a tedious logistics company.
Full postWhat, Gilo not England coach?
It may come as a surprise to many that the erstwhile Wheelie Bin is not heading the England set-up. It was to this writer certainly
Andrew Hughes
01-Mar-2014
I'll be honest, I don't follow the cricket news much. I check the scores, I watch the matches, I update Administrator Statsguru (my personal record of who's hot and who's not in the world of executive board meetings), I read every new book by a cricketer (I'm particularly looking forward to Alastair Cook's Doing What Andy Says: The Art of Modern Captaincy) and when a rumour reaches me that Shane Warne has a new tweet out, I drop the priceless sixth century vase / cup of tea / infant I'm holding and reach for my phone.
But the day-to-day, who-said-what-about-whom, who's-got-a-groin-strain-now filler that pads out the day job for cricket journalists largely passes me by - which explains why I am usually grossly ill-informed on most cricket matters.
Take, for instance, the new England coach. I remember a few weeks back, Ashley Giles was the front-runner. Just as I used to stop paying attention when Ashley Giles came on to bowl, I stopped paying attention when I heard that Ashley Giles was the front-runner.
Full postLuke Wright's grilling: the inside story
He allowed the world to believe that he had been on the receiving end of some tough questions, but the transcript reveals a different story
Andrew Hughes
26-Feb-2014
Last week we learned that intercontinental slog specialist and occasional England cow-corner howitzer Luke Wright was interrogated for 45 minutes by a carload of fans when he accepted a lift from the Antigua airport to his hotel.
To the curmudgeonly English psyche, such an incident is a heart-warming example of a modern sports star being taken down a peg or two by ordinary long-suffering members of the general populace; a life-affirming confrontation in which the bubble of the highly paid, out- of-touch, pampered professional is popped with a sharp dose of good old-fashioned call-a-spade-a-spade straight talking, hopefully in a northern accent.
The reality was rather different. As well as being an expert in the Seven Varieties of Slog, a chess grandmaster and a black belt in patisserie, Luke Wright is a consummate professional. He allowed the world to believe that he had been on the receiving end of some devastatingly insightful arguments, and that, on behalf of the England cricket team, he had accepted his chastisement humbly.
Full post