C Martin-Jenkins: Quality loses out to quantity (3 Sep 1996)

Quality loses out to quantity in the battle for supremacy

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

THERE was never a more prescient piece of sporting advice than Walter Hagen`s "remember to stop and smell the flowers". It is, however, as Hagen might have expressed it, mighty hard in a sum- mer of English cricket. For players and those of us who have the privilege of writing and talking about the game, even perhaps for those who only follow it, the major events run into one another far too quickly.

Yesterday marked the buffer between the end of the international phase of the season and the start of the final three-week period in which county cricket has the stage to itself. It is all too typical, sadly, of the tendency to prefer quantity to quality that Lancashire should be meeting Essex in the NatWest final at Lord`s on Saturday the morning after demanding matches in the Britannic Assurance County Championship.

Lancashire, starting a four-day match at Old Trafford this morning against Middlesex, have agreed to play an extra 10 minutes in the first two sessions of each of the first three days in order to give themselves more time to race down the motorway on the fourth.

Essex, who led the championship before the round of games which ended yesterday but foundered on the rock of Yorkshire intransigence, have another potentially very tough match starting this morning against the champions, Warwickshire, at Edgbaston, and one which will leave them with only a slightly shorter run down the M1 on Friday evening. Nick Knight returns against his old county after his weekend centuries for England, and Gladstone Small and Neil Smith are back in the reckoning for places after Warwickshire`s defeat by Surrey at the Oval.

Surrey`s annual challenge is being better sustained this year under David Gilbert`s cool guidance and the three England players, Stewart, Thorpe and Hollioake, return today against Northamptonshire, which means that there is no place for the unfortunate Alistair Brown. His temporary eclipse, so soon after that assertive hundred for England at Old Trafford in June, may serve as a warning to all the championship aspirants of how the game can elate and then deflate.

Positive thinking will be the command, however, at Taunton, where Somerset`s best chance of upsetting Derbyshire and their powerful band of fast bowlers may well be to set the mower blades low; and at Trent Bridge, where Leicestershire`s adaptability will also be tested on a pitch likely to suit the batsmen. Alan Mullally returns after his mauling by Pakistan on Sunday and Aftab Habib has been added to the eleven who beat Somerset in two days.

Wasim especially can go home to Lahore immensly proud both of himself and his team

Dean Jones, the iron man in Derbyshire`s dressingroom, will play at Taunton despite a sore ankle and bruised ribs suffered when he was hit by a ball from Alamgir Sheriyar on Friday. Glen Roberts, a confident 22-year-old left-arm spinner picked up by Derbyshire from Yorkshire`s Cricket Academy, is in the squad in case of a pitch more suited to him than the likes of Malcolm, Cork and DeFreitas. Roberts turned one or two at Chesterfield on Sunday, which drew the comment from a gnarled Derbyshire observer that "the groundsman will no doubt be severely censured".

THANK goodness there is still some humour in the county game. Even better, it has been restored to the matches between England and Pakistan. They ended at Nottingham on Sunday with both teams retaining their respect for one another, a happy state of affairs which has much to do with the experiences in county cricket of Pakistan`s three great bowlers, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Mushtaq Ahmed.

Thoroughly deserving much of the credit for Pakistan`s 2-0 win in the Test series, the result of attacking cricket with bat and ball, Wasim especially can go home to Lahore immensly proud both of himself and his team. By setting out, with the full support of his urbane manager Yawar Saeed, to be pleasant to everyone in all but competitive match situations, these two and their players have at last cleared the air of the suspicion and bitterness which for too long have attended games between the two countries.

As the Indians, earlier in the summer, used their time in England effectively by introducing three new Test players of quality in Ganguly, Dravid and Prasad, so Pakistan have been able to give valuable experience to three promising bowlers in Saqlain Mushtaq, Mohammad Akram and Shahid Nazir. As for their three outstanding batsmen - Inzamam-ul-Haq, Ijaz Ahmed and Saeed Anwar - the tour must have seemed all too short. Only compare their batting averages with those of England`s bowlers for an explanation of England`s rating as seventh of the nine Test countries.

One can only pity Wasim and his team the programme which now awaits them: an endless merry-go-round of one-day internationals but only four Tests in the next 14 months, against, of all countries, Zimbabwe and New Zealand, the only two left whom England would expect to defeat.

This season`s programme of six Tests and six internationals is the absolute limit if a sane balance is to be maintained

The Test and County Cricket Board can at least be warmly thanked for refusing to over-indulge on the guaranteed money-spinner, the one-day international. This season`s programme of six Tests and six internationals is the absolute limit if a sane balance is to be maintained. Next year against Australia it will be six Tests and three one-dayers. Five and five would be more logical but less lucrative, which is what motivates most TCCB decisions including the indefensible refusal to give Sri Lanka even a threematch series.

Pakistan return home with the laurels, but the international season just concluded has not been without hope for England`s coach and captain, David Lloyd and Mike Atherton, nor without consolation for the retiring chairman of selectors, Ray Illingworth. His appeal to the Cricket Council against a #2,000 TCCB fine for bringing the game into disrepute will be heard today. It will be a surprise if it does not go some way towards restoring his reputation.

Illingworth`s last official duty will be to chair the meeting next Monday which will select England`s touring teams this winter. The six batsmen who played in the last two Tests will undoubtedly form the basis of the side in Zimbabwe and New Zealand, with Jack Russell, Robert Croft and Mullally the only other absolute certainties. Graeme Hick will miss the tour, but a winter`s rest may do wonders for him and may yet be bad news for Australia next year.

The bowlers and all-rounders, meanwhile, have a week in which to claim one of the six places which will remain if, as expected, Dominic Cork is to be rested for the first leg of their tour. Those chosen next week will have a team meeting to discuss when wives and girlfriends may best be accommodated. The report from last winter noted a clear deterioration in form when the wives and families arrived for Christmas.

Shades of Alec Bedser, seeing Chris Old with a baby in one arm and a teddy bear in the other in Australia in 1974-75 and muttering in horror: "Fancy an English fast bowler carrying a teddy bear."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)