The Long Handle
Cook's greatest hits
Starring Colossus Buttler and Sir Don Carberry
Andrew Hughes
16-Aug-2014
Modern cricket was moulded in the 19th century, so it is not surprising that for decades it bore the imprint of that era. Victorian ethics were most evident in the treatment of professional cricketers. They were treated like children, since, like children, they lacked the foresight to have established an independent income for themselves.
Well into the 1980s, professional cricketers were seen but not heard. They were put to work playing non-stop cricket for a pittance all summer, then turned out to fend for themselves in the autumn. It was character-building, it taught them self-reliance, and it meant the MCC could keep most of the cash.
But times have changed. We no longer accept that the best way to pass on the wisdom of the ages to our offspring is by lashing them hard with blunt instruments. Education is now child-centred and cricket has become cricketer-centred.
Full postWords cricket needs to ban
We can start with the hideous Moeenalitharan
Andrew Hughes
13-Aug-2014
As a fan of Just a Minute, I was delighted to read that ESPNcricinfo's recently launched Cricket Monthly includes a feature that pays homage to this greatest of radio panel games. In "Just a Thousand Words Or So" a cricket journalist is given a one-word subject and has ten paragraphs to tell us something about that subject without deviation, hesitation or excessive punctuation.
Admittedly, this isn't quite as challenging as the radio version. From a single word, such as "momentum" or "bouncer" or "trousers" any cricket journalist worthy of the name can spin out several hundred more words in the time that it takes David Gower to welcome us back from an ad break. As we speak, millions of fingers are tapping out millions more cricket words, and even these paragraphs complaining about the number of words in cricket are assembled from yet more words. Let's face it, cricket is suffering from a word surplus.
Sometimes the words are assembled in long, winding, snaking sentences, packed with clauses and sub-clauses, often containing digressions into Greek philosophy, or the Declaration of American Independence, or the Battle of Waterloo, before beginning the long and weary trek back to the point, via mixed metaphors, out-of-context historical references and excursive anecdotes about Somerset's 1979 Gillette Cup semi-final, cheese-making in Colombia, and Don Bradman's mother.
Full postThe ECB's pamphlet for professional sledgers
The bottom line is: stuff happens
Andrew Hughes
09-Aug-2014
It wasn't quite the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrilla in Manila, but the Kerfuffle in the Corridor was close enough to cricket-themed pugilism to cause a panic at the ECB. It is determined to ensure such an incident will never happen again, and that if it does happen again (which it probably will) that the board definitely won't get the blame for it.
So this week, it has published a handy pamphlet for centrally contracted professional sledgers, to help them avoid Level 3 charges, acres of tedious newspaper analysis of their mental state, and journalists interviewing their nursery teachers to find out how they used to behave in the sand pit:
Introduction
In a post-Trent Bridge world, we at the ECB realise that you will be under greater scrutiny than ever before. Let's be honest, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we scuffle with opponents in a corridor. Sometimes we appoint the wrong coach. Sometimes we hire out the England team to an international fraudster. Stuff happens.
Full postIn a post-Trent Bridge world, we at the ECB realise that you will be under greater scrutiny than ever before. Let's be honest, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we scuffle with opponents in a corridor. Sometimes we appoint the wrong coach. Sometimes we hire out the England team to an international fraudster. Stuff happens.
Cricket's great video game
It's called PCB Chairman 2014 and it's addictive
Andrew Hughes
06-Aug-2014
As technology evolves at a dramatic rate, many isolated communities are being left behind. For example, there are parts of the Amazon rainforest where entire tribes are still playing Angry Birds, and in some districts of Yorkshire smartphones are burned at the stake.
Yet few sections of human society have suffered more in this regard than cricket gamers. In the 1980s, we tolerated blocky white figures flickering across a bilious green screen because we didn't know better. But in the 21st century, graphic realism is everything, the gaming world is full of awe-inspiring ways to waste your spare time, yet cricket gamers have to sit through more overhyped turkeys than Michael Bay's agent.
No matter how big the game's budget, the result is always the same: fielders drift aimlessly across the field like bored ghosts, bowlers creak through their action like Andrew Flintoff with a dislocated hip, and batting comes in two modes: Phil Tufnell or Chris Gayle.
Full postWhen Mr Angry met Mr Glum
They lived happily ever after, swearing and shouting at everyone who crossed their paths
Andrew Hughes
02-Aug-2014
Mr Angry lived at the bottom of Sweary Street in the rainy district of Sledgetown, Lancashire. He didn't like his house. In fact, it made him angry, which was exactly how Mr Angry liked it.
Every morning Mr Angry woke up and growled at his teddy bear.
"You think you're so f*&^%$ tough, just lying there all f&^%"$£ hairy. I'm going to wipe the f^$%£*%% smile off that stupid f^$&%£^" face, you f$^%*$O$."
Full postWhy we need Cook to succeed
Because there is no one else who can captain this England side
Andrew Hughes
30-Jul-2014
So Alastair Cook has saved his career as England captain by scoring 95 runs - which he will be able to exchange for tactical acumen and man-management skills at the Big English Captaincy Shop, where they also accept American Express, Visa, years spent at public school, and having a relative on the selection committee.
The entire population of England spent their Sunday pacing up and down outside the operating room as Alastair had his failure-ectomy. Every quarter of an hour, regular programming was interrupted by a sombre-looking Jonathan Agnew reporting that we'd nearly lost him but that the vital signs were good, his scoreboard was ticking over and fingers were still crossed. Every hour, newspaper sellers would cry the latest:
"Read all about it! Alastair Cook not out yet!
Full postThe battle for Ageas
Where Alastairmemnon draws up a plan to surprise nobody
Andrew Hughes
26-Jul-2014
It was the 11th day of the return battle between the Greeks and the Trojans. The two armies were drawn up on the Plain of Ageas, named after a minor god of dubious merit, who was the offspring of Zeus and the fair Hampshirea.
Zeus had seduced Hampshirea by taking the form of an accountant and in due course she gave birth to a sponsorship deal. Several months later, Zeus appeared to her via Olympus Messenger to find out what name she had given to their child.
"I have called him Ageas," she said, proudly.
Full postThe reason for England's loss? T20, of course
In this day and age no one appreciates the art of ducking against a short ball
Andrew Hughes
23-Jul-2014
First Mitchell Johnson and now Ishant Sharma. The phenomenon of a much-ridiculed fast bowler returning to kick English bottoms, like a bullied schoolboy who has spent the intervening years in the Temple Of Hurt learning Kung Fu Chin Music under Master Holding and Master Lillee, before returning to wreak vengeance and to reclaim his lunch money with interest, is becoming commonplace.
Monday's comeuppance was delivered by Ishant in concert with Mahendra Singh Jardine, but whereas Jardine spent months planning his brutal assault on the Australians of 1932, Dhoni just threw the ball to the big man and told him to try a few short 'uns. Then again, there are no Don Bradmans in this England team. There are no Vic Richardsons, Stan McCabes, Bill Ponsfords or Bill Woodfulls either.
This wasn't bodyline (a ruthless targeting of the batsman's body) it was Stupidity Line, a ruthless targeting of the English weakness: the bit between their ears.
Full postThe ECB needs you (or maybe not)
The English cricket board is hiring. Here are the leading contenders so far
Andrew Hughes
19-Jul-2014
We've all had a chuckle about Team England's famously extensive army of backroom staff, which includes a feng-shui consultant, a yawn-analyst, a part-time egg-cup warmer, a head taster (whose main job is to ensure that no disgruntled player has tampered with Alastair Cook's breakfast bowl of prune juice and granola) and a nanny for Joe Root.
Yet the real overstaffing is not to be found in the England dressing room but at ECB HQ, where grandiose job titles proliferate like dandelions on an abandoned building site, and where there are so many Bentleys and Jaguars arriving every morning that the ECB is planning to annex a nearby school playing field to extend their executive car park.
The news this week that David Collier is to step down as chief suit has provoked a surge of excitement among the administrative classes, and as we speak the doormat at ECB Towers is already piled high with imaginatively embroidered CVs. Here is the pick of the ripest contenders to take Collier's executive toilet pass.
Full postThe England v India Twitter war
Also known as the latest issuing of bile from cricket's angry glands
Andrew Hughes
17-Jul-2014
To those of you who watch a lot of sport, George Orwell's famous essay on "The Sporting Spirit" might seem a touch melodramatic, particularly lines such as:
"… international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred".
Yes, people get upset when their team lose, but rational adults realise that most teams will fail to win at least 50% of the time, so learn early on in life to take the rough of defeat along with the rough of heavy defeat.
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