England's Brave New World (Chapter 382)

Let’s forget, for the moment, all those horrid stories about performance-boosters, match-fixers and vengeful umpires. If anyone fancies making a movie about the sporting year of 2007, they could do a lot worse than call it Daze of the Underdogs. Or even The Year They Bashed the Bookies.

Ireland beat Pakistan at the World Cup; Gretna FC, representing a town hitherto known only for servicing impatient marriage-seekers, skipped up to the Scottish Premier League; Catalan Dragons, from the rugby league coldbed of France, reached the Challenge Cup final; Argentina’s rugby unionists beat the French and the Irish to qualify for the World Cup semi-final. As I write, the perennially unfancied Colorado Rockies (18 wins in their last 19 games) are marching towards baseball’s World Series armed with a bunch of rookies. And England, perhaps least probably of all, have just taken an ODI series in Sri Lanka armed with a worn-out KP and a non-ringing Ian Bell. And no Fredster.

Granted, some might reasonably argue that beating the World Cup finalists without having to contend with Muttiah Muralitharan is the contemporary equivalent of invading Carthage while Hannibal’s on holiday. Besides, as any fool knows, England’s one-day dawns of the past 15 years have proved about as genuine as Joan Collins’ eyelashes. Nevertheless, advances on six key fronts on a single tour – half of them perpetrated by those rejected by the previous coaching regime - are not on any account to be sniffed at. Given the oft-propounded theory that Englishmen are too critical of their cricketers, and notwithstanding today’s ghastly surrender in Colombo, please consider the following a proudly treacherous antidote.

From the top, all hail the versatile verve of Graeme Swann, ebullient contributor with bat and ball in the first three games, Man-of-the-Match in the third. This column was berated for allegedly going overboard on the evidence of his chirpy return to national colours in the series opener, but nothing he did subsequently dulled that glowing impression. In Colombo he did an anti-Monty, decelerating to 48 mph and lobbing those grenades ever higher: when was the last time you could describe an English offie as a big tease? And when, more to the point, was the last time you could justly accuse England of fielding a match-winning one-day spinner?

The first of those victories, furthermore, showcased another revitalised 28-year-old, Owais Shah, flourishing in the pivotal No .6 role and gracing Dambulla with his most mature international innings yet. That trimly elegant beard soon vanished, but despite a rash charge against Sanath Jayasuriya in Colombo, it is hard to stifle the conviction that he has finally attained manhood, a process that his graduation to fatherhood this weekend should only cement. The next step is to ensure more crease time, which can only mean a place in the top four.

Fearlessly touted by his PR company as “The Next Big Thing In English Cricket”, it is now more than 10 years since the Middlesex man had his A-level studies interrupted by a call-up to tour with England A. Back then he and Ben Hollioake, teen prodigies stationed on opposite banks of the Thames, appeared to be the most unfairly gifted prospects the counties had thrown up in a generation.

The first 18-year-old to don the non-baggy blue cap in almost half a century, Hollioake, soon fell from favour, and was killed just as he was beginning to fulfil a fraction of those pumped-up visions; under Duncan Fletcher, Shah, who’d struggled to satisfy the demands of either county or parents, also drifted in and out of contention. To be fair, only after a brief dalliance with county captaincy did he emerge as a consistent force in the shires (in the most recent campaign, Mark Ramprakash was alone among Poms in bettering his first-class average of 70.92).

All too well does this father remember Shah’s reaction when he requested an autograph for his three-year-old son in 1999: to call it a sullenness born of youthful insecurity might be too kind. Brattish is possibly more accurate. He led England to triumph at the Under-19 World Cup, and celebrated catches with the most elaborate routine I’ve ever seen, throwing the ball up and firing an imaginary arrow at it from an equally imaginary bow. A poppy begging to be cut down? I’m sure that was how many saw it.

Prior to his return this summer, indeed, Shah had seldom done much of worldwide note since his second ODI, at Lord’s in 2001, when he added 170 with Marcus Trescothick to put England within sniffing distance of overhauling Pakistan’s 242, only for the restless new boy’s needless run-out to trigger a collapse that left them three runs shy. Only once in his next 16 ODI innings, prior to being ditched after the 2002-03 series in Australia, did he reach 40. Self-inflicted deaths, the handiwork of a spirit straining at the leash, were not uncommon.

That England won just three of Shah’s first 18 ODIs, including two against the un-might of Zimbabwe, spoke of a discouraging environment. Fletcher’s approval, moreover, was rarely apparent: just once did Shah play more than two consecutive games. Like father, like coach? Quite possibly. Shelved for the best part of three years, forgiveness proved fleeting: he was dumped again for another 18 months after failing to translate an audacious 82 on his belated Test debut against India into 50-over plunder.

Yet in the first dozen ODIs since his recall against the West Indies in July, he made 604 runs at 60.40, more than double Kevin Pietersen’s average output over that span. England won seven of those games, six of them against purportedly superior rivals. The link is fiendishly tricky to resist. Deft against spin and with trips to Kandy, Colombo and Galle next on the schedule, now, surely, is the time to give “Ace” a decent chance to trump Test bowlers.

Ryan Sidebottom has already had an extended run and all the signs are that he is growing in stature with every outing. So much so, the absence of the owner of the country’s most famous dodgy ankle was barely noticeable. As Richard Hobson noted in the Times, the Yorkshireman could be to Moores what Marcus Trescothick was to Fletcher – a productive hunch plucked from county middling-ness.

Only Farveez Mahrouf matched Sidebottom as a wicket-taker in this series. That he had the guts not to jettison those decidedly unhip Jacobean curls says as much about his inner iron as having a one-cap-wonder for a dad says about his motivation.

Stuart Broad has the opposite sort of paternal act to follow: his father, Chris, enjoyed conspicuous if short-lived success internationally. Stuart has also had to cast off the shadow of those six sixes Yuvraj Singh swashed off him at the World Twenty20. In Sri Lanka, the fact that he outbowled James Anderson, the anointed spearhead, would have been sufficient evidence of inner strength; that nerveless match-winning knock in the third match underlined it in indelible red ink.

Then there was Paul Collingwood. If looks could kill, Phil Mustard would have been six feet under by the time the scoreboard had registered the fall of Sri Lanka’s eighth wicket in the second ODI. “Get up,” roared England’s conductor at his Durham confrere, who had somehow contrived to act as if Chaminda Vaas’s fairly blatant edge had missed contact by a couple of pitch-lengths. One TV commentator was so bemused he suggested Collingwood’s verbal blast was directed at Vaas.

What bothered Collingwood, exactly? That his keeper had made him - as bowler, let alone captain - look like a cheat? That, by not “going up” and supporting his bowler-captain, Mustard had put the dismissal at risk (as he would do again when Sangakkara walked for that wafer-thin edge in Colombo)? It is perhaps best not to wade overlong through such a philosophical minefield, but there was no mistaking Collingwood’s ire during the ensuing huddle. Even though Vaas’s departure effectively spelled the end for the hosts, that tense, Gary Cooper-ish smile took an age to emerge.

It was good, nevertheless, to see an England ODI captain have a bit of a growl. I’m quite prepared to accept that Ottis Gibson, the bowling coach, had something to do with it too (and his influence on the execution of slower balls and deployment of bouncers seems plain). But maybe it was simply fear of the skipper’s wrath that did most to fuel the bowlers’ remarkably steadfast refusal to overstep?

The nation’s first such specialist captain since Adam Hollioake (if one discounts Michael Vaughan’s brief reign) looks to have much in common with his scandalously under-used predecessor: serious all-round nuisance value, an aura of matey authority that encourages self-expression but defies disobedience, and a severe dose of defeatophobia.

Collingwood’s fielders, as flawless a unit as any boasted by an English team in recent memory, have followed Collingwood’s personal example: quick, agile and accurate, thoughtful and proactive. Much the same can be said of the running between the wickets. Multi-faceted, happiest confounding expectations and largely uncowable: this could, in short, be a side constructed in its captain’s image. Maybe getting caught in a lap-dancing club has its career benefits. Discovering that your leader is human can do wonders for morale.

Nor does it seem entirely coincidental that all this has been happening on the watch of the personable Peter Moores, whose tolerance of individuality and respect for county cricket are both distinct improvements on the previous incumbent’s mostly admirable modus operandi. As is the non-aversion to free(ish) speech, though Fletcher’s lip-zipped pragmatism and passion for platitudes could be traced to some extent, as a Zimbabwean, to his outsiderhood.

For a coach to blithely confess to the media that he has been passing on the teachings of Buddha is to wave a red rag at the bull of ridicule. That Moores was prepared to do so confirmed him as a fellow longer on perspective than ego. It spoke even greater volumes for his awareness that a coach’s fate depends on events over which, ultimately, he has scant if any control.

Moores gives his charges pearls from the Dhammapada, wherein Buddha offers his son, Rahula, the benefit of his otherworldly wisdom. "Thus, Rahula, you should train yourself: 'I will purify my bodily actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my verbal actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my mental actions through repeated reflection.' "

Constant, objective and rigorous self-analysis as the route to enlightenment? Not exactly a novel concept. Still, after Shah’s dismissal of Sangakkara today, one can only conclude it to be a philosophy hell-bent on enhancing self-esteem and destroying self-imposed limitations. As Elliott Gould’s laconic Phillip Marlowe never tired of saying in The Long Goodbye, that’s okay by me.