The Long Handle

Wednesday, 27th July At Lord’s India went about their business with all the urgency of a party of elderly tortoises going for a Sunday afternoon stroll. But this does not mean that captain MS Dhoni is grounded for the second Test. The ICC’s Procrastination Committee has adjudicated and today released this statement explaining why he can come out to play in Nottingham after all:

"The committee felt that, on mature reflection, taking a rounded view, having weighed up the pros and cons, and without wishing to undermine or undercut those regulatory guidelines without which the administration of such eventualities would be rendered inviable, not to say untenable, it was nevertheless felt that, giving due regard to the wider implications of the application of the regulations in any particular case and weighing the balance of probabilities in such a way as to not detrimentally affect matters of public perception falling necessarily outside the purview of this body…"

Saturday, 23rd July Steve Waugh says that 56 players have come forward to report approaches by bookmakers in the last year, compared with five for the previous year.

“That suggest the players have confidence in the system and confidence it will work.”

Absolutely. Or it might suggest that what happened to Salman Butt and chums has put the wind up every player in the game and they’re not leaving anything to chance. But let’s not be uncharitable. The important thing is that they are coming forward.

Wednesday, 20th July On the eve of the 1999th/2000th Test match*, MS Dhoni believes that the five-day flavour of cricket is still appetising. And why? Because, despite the worldwide epidemic of empty stadia, lots of people are still “following” Test cricket.

I don’t blame MS. He’s not going to run down Test cricket just before playing Test cricket. He’s not Chris Gayle, after all. But this word “following” is an odd one. Some English hacks brandish it like a shield when people point out that virtually no one watches the County Championship. “Aha!” they say, “Maybe no one watches it but lots of people follow it and that’s more or less the same thing.”

But is it? Does it really count as support if your only commitment is to occasionally check the score whilst idly surfing the web? If Test cricket is relying on thousands of invisible supporters to demonstrate its popularity, then it really is in trouble.

Saturday, 16th July Sri Lanka’s new interim coach has warned his players to be wary of Australia.

“They will be like a wounded tiger after losing the Ashes and the World Cup and they will be hungry.”

A wounded tiger? Really? I don’t blame Rumesh for trying to whip up a bit of pre-series hype, but I fear those Sri Lankans who do turn up expecting a wounded tiger are going to be a bit disappointed when they find themselves watching an asthmatic possum with a dodgy hip.

Tuesday, 12th July “The best man who walked the face of the earth never did anything wrong, but he was still crucified. And I am nowhere close to that.”

So now we know. Darren Sammy is not the Messiah. He can’t walk on water, but he does at least know how to get to the water and if you asked him, I’m sure he’d borrow a dinghy and row you across. He’s one of life’s triers. He doesn’t boast. He doesn’t score any runs. But he does at least give the impression that he quite likes being West Indies captain, which is always nice for Caribbean fans to hear.

And I know he isn’t quite good enough to be in the team, but there have been some very successful captains who weren’t quite good enough to be in the team. There was Mike Brearley, for example, and, well, the other ones, whose names escape me at the moment. Anyway, good luck Darren, I hope you succeed in your aim of getting West Indies into the top five by 2015, although it might depend on at least four of the other Test nations withdrawing from the ICC.

Sunday, 10th July One series in and Duncan is already hitting his grumpy straps. After the Dominica Test, he came to the media party, stepped up to the plate, picked up the plate and helped himself to a steaming portion of grumble pie. Old chubby cheeks was in the firing line because his new team had offended a certain section of Indian fandom by settling for a draw. Having explained to the gentlemen of the press that he thought it was the right thing to do, he was most put out to have to repeat himself and it kind of went downhill from there. Good to see that Fletch hasn’t lost his PR touch.

But was a draw so bad? The blessed Australians are often invoked at such times, but I don’t recall AB’s team risking a series win with a brave run-chase. We would all like cricket to be played in the spirit of the Golden Age, by characters out to entertain, for whom cricket is a pleasant diversion from more serious pursuits like fox-hunting, gambling and partying. But we are in the era of the drab professional and results are everything. Those are the rules. It’s not Duncan’s fault.

Monday, 11th July Shahid Afridi is unhappy and is promising to unmask the people who are running a smear campaign against him. This is a touch melodramatic. And superfluous. When the smearing is carried out in an interview with a major newspaper, unmasking is not required. Even if the smearer had been wearing a Batman mask, and had given his name as Jazzy B Hutt, we would still have known who was behind it.

Sunday, 3rd July Tillakaratne says he’s disappointed at how his chaps went about pulverising England at Lord’s. Absolutely right. Poor show Mr Mathews, you made Cook and chums look awfully silly.

On the other hand, it was quite funny. And it did bring a little pulse quickening to the closing overs of a one-sided encounter. You could hardly blame Chandimal and Mathews. They are entertainers. If England weren’t going to put a fight, they had to do something to give the spectators their money’s worth.

And I don’t know what England’s problem was. That Sri Lanka could have won in 44 overs but instead they won in 49? Really, they had nothing to complain about, but that didn’t stop them. Led by Peter Pietersen the Petulant Pouter, they managed to extract maximum sulkage from the situation. Their expressions at the end of the game were so sour they could have curdled milk.

Wednesday, 29th June So farewell then, Daryl Harper. He had popularity issues, but then he wasn’t paid to be popular. He was paid to stand there and make snap decisions. When it comes to the men in white, I’m afraid I’m old-school. The umpire is always right. Of course we know that he isn’t always right, that he occasionally blinks at the wrong moment, forgets whether he counted that last no-ball and gets the laws mixed up.

But knowing this and still not whinging when you copped a shocker was etiquette worth preserving; a golden thread in cricket’s tapestry. I quite like the DRS. I enjoy the drama of the slowly unveiled replays; it’s like being a detective in the final scene of a murder mystery, discovering the identity of the miscreant (with a 2% margin for error). It’s entertainment. But I can’t quite shake the nagging feeling that the effigy-burners and the tantrum-throwers have won.

Thursday, 30th June I like to think I’m a reasonable sort of chap. And, aside from the occasional brief lapse of judgement, such as my wager on Worcestershire to win the County Championship, I’m relatively compos mentis. But I’m struggling to fathom the latest bit of ICC logic. Apparently, if we increase the number of teams in the World Cup, that means we have to decrease the number of teams in the World Twenty20.

Saturday, 25th June In my experience it’s better to have one really good excuse, than two and a half iffy ones. For example, if you’re trying to get out of a particularly boring social occasion by claiming that your hamster has died, there’s no need to add that your budgerigar has wing rot and that you think your conservatory might be on fire. As Hercule Poirot might put it, one alibi c’est bon, three alibis is the coincidence most suspicious.

Well I’m afraid that Niranjan Shah was guilty of over-egging the excuse pudding today as he attempted to explain why he doesn’t like the DRS. As I understand it, the BCCI’s argument goes like this:

1. DRS is far too expensive and we can’t afford it. 2. And even if we could afford it, think about the poor Sri Lankans and West Indians. 3. Well yes, they all want it, but they don’t know what’s good for them. 4. Besides, it’s not accurate. 5. And even the bits that are accurate are only used a few times each innings. It would be much better if it was used all the time. 6. Not that you could use it all the time, because that would slow the game down. 7. Anyway, it undermines the umpires. 8. And that’s our job.