The Long Handle
England's wet fortnight in Wales
And the reason why they are doing so badly in New Zealand
Andrew Hughes
09-Mar-2013
It seems that no sooner has a New Zealand cricketer put wine glass to lips than he is transformed into a walking casualty: punching doors, picking fights with pavements, or, in the case of Doug Bracewell, recreating that scene in Die Hard, when an angry man in a vest tries to tiptoe across a carpet of broken glass.
The latest cricketers to enter the confessional booth are Daniel Vettori and Jeetan Patel. Daniel pleaded guilty to a charge of "should have known better at his age" and Jeetan was forced to apologise in person to an innocent stretch of pavement outside the "Silly Spinner" nightclub. Fortunately, the pavement appears to be okay, apart from a minor dent, and the indignity that comes with having a Test cricketer sprawling all over you.
But those members of the New Zealand cricket collective who aren't incapacitated, undergoing rehab or suffering from post-nightclub embarrassment syndrome, are doing rather well at the business with the bat and the ball. After two days' cricket, England are chasing the game, though there's no immediate danger of their catching up with it.
Full postMillion-dollar children of T20
Learnings and suchlike from day four in Hyderabad
Andrew Hughes
06-Mar-2013
If you're an Australian, the fourth day of the Second Inevitable Defeat in Hyderabad was painful to watch, as your chaps headed for the "Making India put their pads on again" landmark with the speed and dynamism of a sloth hauling three bags of heavy shopping back from the supermarket.* For everyone else, it was fascinating, in a brutal, hard-to-watch way, like the fight scenes in Gladiator, or the acting of Russell Crowe.
There was even a cruel twist to the narrative. At 108 for 3, you could hardly say things were going swimmingly, but the green-hatted ones were at least past the paddling stage and were wading trepidatiously out into the ocean that separated them from a respectable second- innings score and a short rest on the island of Dignified Defeat.
And then they were washed away. Bowled by Jadeja, Clarke held his position like a Greek warrior whose eyes had met Medusa's across a crowded temple, and who'd decided that, since he was going to turn into stone anyway, he might just as well stay where he was. Jadeja celebrated in the manner of the modern sportsman, by punching an invisible opponent in the groin, and you could almost hear the sigh as the air departed from the punctured football of Australian hope.
Full postDanger to the BCCI's DRS counter-reformation movement
Their spinners may go on strike if they don't change their stance against technology
Andrew Hughes
02-Mar-2013
Where are all the Indian fast bowlers? For most of us, this is merely a philosophical matter, to be pondered with other perennial chin-scratchers like: what is the nature of existence, how long is a piece of string, and if God exists, what's he been doing all these years?
But philosophy is no use in the harsh wilderness of the Zimbabwean bush. Philosophy won't help you decapitate an angry cobra, wrestle a ravenous lion or repair a bicycle puncture. Duncan Fletcher doesn't care why there are no Indian fast bowlers. He would like there to be, but there aren't. So what is a coach to do?
Nurture the delusion that your medium-paced huffers and puffers are lethal weapons, and appear appropriately shocked if any hack dares suggest they might be more pop-gun than rocket-propelled grenade? Ask Ishant to cultivate a droopy moustache, half-close your eyes and pretend you see Dennis Lillee? Bribe the chap who operates the speed radar?
Full postBat-twirling is not a crime
There are plenty of things to dislike about Ricky Ponting, but his attempts to tease gravity is not one of them
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
If you put a microphone in front of them, most sports professionals come across as personable young men of the kind you'd happily introduce to your grandmother, or entrust with the raffle prizes at a village fete. This is all an act. Left unchecked, they are dangerous hooligans who would bite the ear off an opponent as soon as look at him, and who, if not kept continuously distracted by a ball, would be locked up various institutions, awaiting parole.
If you don't believe me, look what happens when they are allowed to run wild. Premier League football is full of young millionaires swearing as though swearing is about to be rationed; jostling, shirt-pulling, gouging, stamping and crying. And that's just in the warm-up.
So we should be thankful that cricket is thick with rules and regulations, constraining the behaviour of its belligerents, preventing them from following their natural inclinations to carry on like a toddler at an all-the-jelly-you-can-eat birthday party.
Full postThe clammy fingers of inexperience
If cricket was a bowling contest, then Pakistan would be flourishing. Unfortunately our sport requires both batsmanship and ballsmanship
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
If cricket was a bowling contest, then Pakistan would be flourishing. Unfortunately our sport requires both batsmanship and ballsmanship, and no matter how far up the rankings tree their bowlers manage to haul the green-shirted collective, they are forever being pulled back towards the shrubbery by the dead weight of their willow-wielding compatriots.
Sunday in Cape Town dawned with the game tied up in a clearing, waiting for the Pakistan batsmen to take it by the throat. Two hours later the game had slipped its tether, bitten Misbah on the bottom and scampered off into the forest.
Losing to South Africa isn't a problem. It happens all the time. But realising that you are in a position to have a possibility of maybe beating South Africa can cause vertigo. Pakistan dawdled in the shadow of their opponents' immense reputation like innocent tourists pausing to gawp at snow-plumed mountains. Soon enough the mountains were upon them.
Full postWatching Test cricket can be pretty odd
It occurred to me, on the morning of the first day's play at Newlands, that watching Test cricket is a very odd way to spend your leisure time.
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
It occurred to me, on the morning of the first day's play at Newlands, that watching Test cricket is a very odd way to spend your leisure time. It's harmless enough, indeed, compared to some pastimes, it's positively beneficial. For example, the military situation in East Asia would improve overnight if Kim Jong Un could be persuaded to ditch his rocket-building hobby in favour of Test cricket. After all, why would you want to see another dreary missile launch when you could be settling down to watch Dale Steyn take the new ball?
Still, it is odd. For a start, it's the only field of human sporting endeavour in which the warm-up is more vigorous than the event itself. For an hour or so, while patrons file slowly into the ground, they are treated to the spectacle of two troupes of brightly-attired professionals flinging themselves this way and that, jumping, leaping and rolling about the turf. Then the game gets underway, and everyone stands around, scratching their groins and yawning.
The first few overs were riveting. Well, relatively riveting. More riveting than riveting, for example, which even die-hard riveting fans will admit can be less than riveting. The opening hour was all about flirting, or the absence thereof. Hafeez and Jamshed are well-brought-up young men and know better than to flirt on holiday, besides; flirting with a Steyn outswinger is a foolish as flirting with a crocodile's wife. Ball after ball, they shouldered arms, not attempting to squeeze out the runs, because they knew the run fruit was not yet ripe.
Full postThe inexplicable buzz of Brendon McCullum
Players need time to acclimatise at the start of every tour, and cricket watchers have to go through our own period of orientation
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Players need time to acclimatise at the start of every tour, and cricket watchers have to go through our own period of orientation. These last few days, I've been reacquainting myself with the New Zealand dialect, an amusing version of English, in which all the consonants remain in place but the vowels are moved around.
This takes a little getting used to. When you first hear that fielder A should have het the wecket or that team B have all the momintum going into this game, it can be confusing. For viewers experiencing their first New Zealand tour, I should also explain that "missive sex" is not a reference to erotic communication.
It was raining missive sexes at Seddon Park on Tuesday, although this was a steady shower compared to the sex monsoon we saw at the weekend. After the towering concrete of Eden Park, this setting felt more like cricket country. There were grass embankments, there were picnic hampers, there were flame throwers spewing fire several feet into the air.
Full postNick Knight and the 'Lovely Eoin fan club'
And why New Zealand commentary is so understated
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
I have seen some dull cricket matches in my time, but Saturday's Twenty20 match between New Zealand and England really took the plain digestive. Much was made of the strange proportions at Eden Park, but equally to blame was the concrete pitch. It was the sort of track that Virender Sehwag pictures when the team psychologist asks him to go to his happy place. Boom, bang, crash, boom, six, four, yawn. Then it was New Zealand's turn.
Dropped catches provided the only spontaneous excitement, and the best of those came from Mitchell McClenaghan. Former concert pianist Mitch knows that nothing cramps your ivory stroking style like a bunch of gnarled and knobbly digits, so he was understandably reluctant to impede the progress of the hard leather ball with his delicate pinkies. His look of perturbed innocence, as though he had been the innocent victim of physics, was text book.
Mitch wasn't the only fringe player knocking about the place; the rotation policy even extended to the commentary box, where one Nicholas Knight had been called up. Nick used to play cricket himself, but is perhaps best known as the founder, chairman and head cheerleader of the "Lovely Eoin Fan Club". He regularly bombards the editors of literary magazines with sonnets, haiku and villanelles inspired by the little chap, and is hoping to earn the right to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest with a plaintive ballad of his own composition entitled, "Eoin, Why Won't You Return My Calls?"
Full postThe fickle finger of franchise favour
In which we praise a fine new reality-television series
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
On the whole, I think reality television has not had a beneficial effect on human civilisation. There's only so many times you can watch the desperate efforts of inadequate fellow homo sapiens to crawl a few inches higher up the blasted slopes of Mount Fame, an ascent for which it appears many of them would sell their bodies, their families and their last shred of human dignity, before you begin to warm to sociopathy as a way of life.
Cricket is not immune to this virus. We may not yet ask our captains to participate in a dance-off during the lunch interval or a live-cockroach-eating duel to settle drawn Tests, but every year a number of nervous, trembling cricketers are gathered together for the cruel but dreadfully compelling reality event known as the IPL auction.
Many are called, or rather, many have their agents call, but few are chosen, and those who are chosen are often chosen for no immediately apparent reason. Maybe Player A is in luck because the owner of the Bangalore Headbutts is trying to assemble a squad full of players whose names begin with vowels. Perhaps Player B gets the nod because the PR department of the Chennai Canary Catapaulters thinks he'll look lovely in yellow.
Full postThe charming amateurism of the Bangladesh board
What's money when you can get players to play for the love of the game?
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Professionalism has its place. For example, if I want to sue a television company for continuing to screen the American show "How I Met Your Mother" despite the publication of a recent study proving that exposure to this programme can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, high-blood pressure and psychosis; I hire a lawyer, not a member of the cast of "Law and Order". Similarly, if I'm rushed to hospital with an angry appendix, I want to be probed by a professional scalpel-wielder, not an enthusiastic amateur with a vegetable knife.
But appalling American sitcoms and misbehaving body parts are serious matters. Sport is not. Cricket would improve dramatically as a spectacle if it were played by people who didn't particularly care whether they won or lost. Freed from the straitjacket of professionalism, they could play according to their instincts. Viru wouldn't have to restrain himself for the good of the team. Trott could stop fretting about strike rates. Monty could ditch the twirly stuff, come in snarling off a long run and unleash his inner Agarkar.
So those of us who find professionalism a bit of a bore have been hugely encouraged this week to see the Bangladesh board doing their bit to bring back the amateur spirit, not just in their general approach, which recalls the laissez-faire ineptitude of Edwardian England, but also by their not paying anyone for playing cricket. Owais Shah is now a pioneer, a trailblazer. By playing the game just for the love of it, he's bringing about the dawn of the new Golden Age. He's the CB Fry of 21st-century franchise cricket.
Full post