England in Wonderland

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay” – Lewis Carroll.

At last, England have won a match on tour this winter. Break out the champers, light the fireworks, let joy be unconfined.

Yes, I know it’s pathetic, but there has been all too little to be pleased about this winter, so it will have to do.

Still, this was a special win. Unlike most of England’s rare victories, this one will be remembered for many years. Pub quizmasters will be reminding their punters for decades that for the first time in the history of ODI cricket, batsmen were ordered from the sidelines to accept the offer of light when they would be declared the losers – and when they had been ahead on Duckworth-Lewis until the previous ball.

Both sides’ supporters will claim that their side would have won if the game had run its full course, but the incontrovertible fact is that West Indies carefully laid out a banana skin and then demonstrated how to fall over on it without taking into account that they were doing it for real – unless, that is, they were actually bent on proving that they could equal any incompetence England had managed at Sabina Park.

And it’s West Indies as a whole, not just the coach. John Dyson honourably stood up and took the rap, but ultimately ordering players on and off the field is a captain’s prerogative and he does not escape blame simply because he delegated his responsibility to a member of the support staff.

So West Indies have gone one better than South Africa did when bundling themselves out of the 2002-3 World Cup when they too misread the Duckworth-Lewis rules, thought they didn’t need an extra run to take the win which would have kept them in the competition and blocked out the last ball.

Which, meandering further back into history, recalls the remarkable end to the semi-final of the 1983 NatWest Trophy. Middlesex had managed 222/9 off their 60 overs, and at the beginning of Somerset’s 60th over, they were 222/8 with Botham on strike on 96*. Botham was the captain, and he checked on the rules with the umpires, who confirmed that if the scores were level at the end of 60 overs, the side losing the fewer wickets were the winners. So Botham blocked out a maiden, knowing that that was all he had to do to win.

Returning to the present, there is clearly a distinct risk that several England players will be unavailable for training tomorrow, being on sick parade with sides split through laughing manically at their good fortune. They should stop laughing pretty quickly, though, for they only scraped though by the proverbial coat of varnish.

Shiv Chanderpaul came oh so close to ripping the game out of their hands with that astonishing assault on Steve Harmison. Even Kevin Pietersen must have blinked at the audacity of the sweep over fine leg for six, but the rest of the over was just as destructive. If he hadn’t been out the next ball, he would have won the game and added the Man of the Match award to his string of honours – which as of Tuesday includes Guyana’s third-highest national award, the Cacique’s Crown of Honour. (I’m most disappointed to find out that the Crown of Honour is only a medal with a crown on it: it would have been such fun to see a crowned head walk out to bat.)

But still, a win’s a win, and England’s pro tem coach Andy Flower will be much relieved; it may even get him over the embarrassment of KP revealing in a Sky TV interview that the players refer to him as ‘Petals’.