The Long Handle
KP's not bigger than England, but he's the biggest thing in the team
Take away the saga-meister and what do Flower and Co have left?
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
In recent months, ESPNcricinfo has provided us with some compelling video footage. But the highlights of Monday's post-Test grilling with Kevin Pietersen were a bit of a disappointment. Actually, grilling doesn't really describe it. It was more like watching a group of chimpanzees with sticks repeatedly hitting a rock in the hope that it might turn into a banana.
"I know you said you aren't going to talk about it, Kevin, but could you just put it into words for us, the thing that you said you aren't going to talk about."
"I'm not going to talk about it."
Full postLaws for fairytale giants
Surely they need to be different from those for commonfolk. Time to give Steven Finn an exemption, then
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Friday, 3rd August
The Laws of the game are a treasure house of cricket justice and truth. More complicated than the instruction manual for the International Space Station; thicker than the 17 volumes of the Administrative Affairs and Paperclip Procurement Amendment Act 1971, and more ethical than the Old and New Testaments put together, the Laws are the Alpha and Omega of our glorious sport.
But while it's reassuring to know they exist, almost nobody reads them. This is because we've all been playing the game since we were smaller than Gus Logie's garden gnomes and we learnt what we need to know on the playing fields of our youth. Such as, for example, the Law that states a batsman should not prevent a bowler from being able to see the stumps or the Law that decrees a batsman shall be considered in, regardless of whether he grounds his bat, providing he shouts, "In!" upon nearing the crease.
Most of the time, we rub along just fine. But every so often something untoward occurs and after several minutes of head scratching, someone suggests opening the Great Book of Wisdom. And when you do, you are reminded of how mysterious the game is; in fact, every time I flick through the Laws, I come across something new. It's as though they're being secretly amended every night by mischievous cricket-loving leprechauns.
Full postMorne's Chihuahua
A boy and his dog are reunited; and five-ring frenzy takes over the UK
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Saturday, 28th July
I have a confession. Keep it under your hat, but I didn't watch the Olympic opening ceremony.
I know. As the nation enjoys one of its periodic bouts of hysteria, on account of a £9 billion extended sports day, admitting to an absence of enthusiasm for the whole business is a major faux pas; like announcing that you've just sold your children into slavery and are on your way to burn down Buckingham Palace (with all the corgis still inside).
But nothing can escape the grip of the all-consuming Olympiad and, as expected, the five-ring fanciers couldn't leave cricket alone. They don't want it in the Olympics itself, heavens no, but as they attempted to condense a nation's history into three hours, cricket was bound to be dragged into proceedings. Lo and behold, today I saw pictures that appeared to show 18th century country folk in silly hats lounging about in a mock field. Isn't this what cricket represents: the shire, the village green, the gentility of old England?
Full postCoping with unexpected defeat
Friday, 27th July As the entire population of Britain apart from everyone who doesn’t live in the bottom right hand corner of it goes Bronze-Age-pagan-sports-festival-with-sinister-corporate-overtones crazy, spare a thought for a group of 12
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Friday, 27th July
As the entire population of Britain apart from everyone who doesn’t live in the bottom right hand corner of it goes Bronze-Age-pagan-sports-festival-with-sinister-corporate-overtones crazy, spare a thought for a group of 12 tracksuit wearers and their 74 support staff who have spent the last four days sipping disconsolately from their mulberry and valium flavoured energy drinks in the ECB’s saloon bar, whilst listening to the wistful melancholy stylings of in-house blues duo “Long” Bob Willis (monotone) and “Grumbling Geoff” Boycott (bass growl).
It hasn’t helped that this month’s latest video game release, “Hashim Amla’s Not Out (Ever) Cricket” has received glowing reviews and is steadily outselling the James Anderson-endorsed “Effective In Favourable Conditions Cricket 2011” which used to be No. 1 in the charts, but probably won’t be for much longer.
We shouldn’t be unsympathetic. Coping with unexpected defeat* is never easy and this is the fifth unexpected defeat England have had to cope with this year. At some point, the status of these defeats is going to have be downgraded from “unexpected” to “not that much of a surprise, to be honest” and, with another tour of the subcontinent to come, possibly even as far as “yep, we saw that one coming”.
Full postA 1930s Test, minus the fascism and silly moustaches
Two teams displaying a voracious appetite for runs against a backdrop of financial Armageddon and mass unemployment
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
After three and a half days of largely unmolested chiselling, the monument-erecting competition in South London had a winner. At 3:40 on Sunday evening, Hashim Amla climbed down to admire his handiwork, an enormous, towering 311, and he wasn’t even tired, just a bit of a stiff back, a slight chafing to the leg glance and a sprinkling of masonry dust in his beard.
With two teams displaying a voracious appetite for runs against a backdrop of financial Armageddon and mass unemployment, there was a touch of the 1930s about this Test, albeit without the fascism or the silly moustaches. Amla in particular stands comparison with those Old Testament willow swingers of the inter-war years, men of stone like Ponsford and Hutton; hard-nosed toilers in the dust with granite stares and forward-defensives as impassable as a cliff face.
But what now for the home team? They’ve been comprehensively out-Cooked and out-Trotted. Boring the pants off people was their thing and they’ve been upstaged, like palaeontologists who thought they’d dug up the biggest herbivore. England may have been the Brontosaurus of Bore, but I see their Brontosaurus and raise them a Gigantosaurus, says Biff, the king of the Obduratosaurs.
Full postWhat the Cook-Trott partnership says about you
Your personality revealed through a pair of deadbatters
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Thursday, 19th July
Today’s cricket has been intense, boring, nervy, relaxed, boring again, occasionally brutal, a bit dull, and has ended with matters fascinatingly poised, as though a crane operator had clocked off for the evening in the middle of hoisting Michaelangelo’s David from one rooftop to another and left it swinging gently in the breeze.
Those emerging from the day with most credit are, in no particular order: Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott who have nurtured another mammoth partnership to go with the herd of mammoth partnerships they have already released into the big partnerships enclosure of the statistical safari park; Dale Steyn for swallowing his pride and letting Morne have the shiny new ball to play with; Morne for his Tyrannosaurus Rex impersonation, and the team of welders, surgeons, fixers and sculpters responsible for Jacques Kallis’s hair.
After Gangulypunzel and Rooneylocks, Kallis’ follicular furnishing is a reminder of what heights the delicate art of the hair-weaver was once able to attain, the kind of work that makes you want to stand up and applaud every time it comes into view. No straggling locks, no suspicious joins, no disturbing highlights; a nice, sensible coiffure that would look perfectly respectable perched atop a former nineties boy band star launching his comeback album after six months in rehab or a thirty-something real estate agent called Nigel.
Full postThe Dale Steyn world ranking method
In which a South African fast bowler determines which team is top dog
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
With one bad omen after another, South Africa’s tour has been like the opening scenes of a horror film. They arrive in a dingy, obscure European country where the skies are always heavy and sinister and where the rain falls constantly. Their reliable and much-loved old wicketkeeper suffers a horrible accident and then, without even bowling a ball, they hear they’ve dropped down the Test ranking table. All that’s missing is Bob Willis banging out some sinister organ music on his pipes of doom. Welcome to England.
As any horror-film aficionado knows, what is needed in these circumstances is to keep your head down; don’t, whatever you do, split up to try to find the way home; and never say anything that could be construed as tempting fate. But Dale clearly hasn’t read the script.
“We’re the No. 1 team. We’ve got all the players, we cover all bases, so is there something wrong with me thinking we’re the best team in the world?”
Full postGiving up cricket for Him
But does He want you to?
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
There are many reasons to retire from international cricket: because you’ve always wanted to work with Danny Morrison; because the colour of the new one-day shirt clashes with your neck tattoo; because when your partner draws the curtain on the morning after a match you creak like a recently disinterred Egyptian mummy; because the idea of being clapped through one more round of press-ups and shuttle runs by an adrenalin-crazed cone botherer with a loud hailer is more than flesh and blood can stand.
But Tatenda Taibu, the youngest ever Test captain, is to retire at 29 because he’s heard the call. Not the kind of call you get from a sheepish chairman of selectors assuring you that it is nothing personal and that you’re very much a part of future plans. No, this is a different kind of call altogether.
“My true calling now comes in doing the Lord’s work.”
Full postAussies go to the dogs
Their coach wants them to exhibit canine behaviour
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Sunday, July 8th
Don’t worry, Australians, Mickey Arthur knows why his team are 3-0 down.
“We’ve allowed ourselves to be bullied. I want to see a bit of mongrel come Tuesday. I know the guys are bursting a gut to go out and do well.”
Leaving aside what dogs of mixed parentage and intestinal hernias have to do with winning cricket matches, the reference to bullying is entirely predictable. It’s the standard southern hemisphere reaction to losing at sport. The English blame a lack of “passion” or the presence of foreigners, whichever is easiest, but on the other side of the globe, it’s always because their players weren’t growly enough. To this day, some folk think Australia’s 2005 debacle was down to politeness rather than reverse swing.
Full postCitizen Trott
Friday, 6th July Jonathan Trott is British
Andrew Hughes
25-Feb-2013
Friday, 6th July
Jonathan Trott is British. It says so on his passport and he long ago passed the ECB’s cricket immigration test*. In an interview with George Dobell this week, he revealed that when he goes to South Africa, he doesn’t enjoy it much and usually flies back early. Booking a holiday, and then moaning about it from the time you arrive until the time you catch an early flight home: what could be more British than that?
Jonathan Trott is British. It says so on his passport and he long ago passed the ECB’s cricket immigration test*. In an interview with George Dobell this week, he revealed that when he goes to South Africa, he doesn’t enjoy it much and usually flies back early. Booking a holiday, and then moaning about it from the time you arrive until the time you catch an early flight home: what could be more British than that?
I’ll be honest, as willow wavers go, he’s not one of my favourites. I respect his work, in much the same way that I might admire a really solid bit of bricklaying. You can appreciate an impressive accumulation of identically coloured rectangular bricks, one on top of the other in orthodox fashion, and you can nod approvingly at the impeccably neat mortar work, but you aren’t going to plan a day trip to see it.
He’s very good at what he does, though. Test match cricket rewards obduracy and HMS Trott is perhaps the modern game’s most successful anchor dropper. And anyone who voluntarily leaves the climate of South Africa to dwell in the land that dry forgot deserves some kind of credit. Yet, he still feels as though he has to justify his presence on these shores.
Full post