Night cricket just child's play (21 January 1999)

21 January 1999

Night cricket just child's play

By Simon Hughes

THEY say having kids changes your life and it's true. Getting up in the dark to give the boy child his milk does have its plus points if Australia v England is live on television. But now the little blighter has worked out how to switch channels to watch Teletubbies.

If I try to switch it back to the cricket there is a performance rivalling any Dominic Cork appeal for lbw, and I'm stuck with Dipsy prancing about instead of Gough strutting his stuff or Warne spinning his web.

And yet, the closer you look, the more similar the programmes are. Teletubby-land is a green swathe with herbacious borders like the Adelaide Oval (one of TV's commentators, Allan Border, used to be known as Herbie.) Their colours mirror the pyjamas worn in one-day series and Teletubby house is a modern take on a cricket pavilion with lookouts and automatic doors making gatemen redundant.

Inside are all the things you're familiar with in a modern English cricket pavilion. Beds, a toaster, large amounts of custard (chief sampler G A Gooch) and a machine that hoovers up all the leftovers (Robert Croft?). And, of course, no trophy cabinet. No point in having one with bare shelves is there?

That's not all. The rabbits running about everywhere are symbolic of anyone who bats in the lower half of the England order. And whereas the announcement "Time for Tubby bye-byes" might two years ago have been dreamt up to headline an article on Mark Taylor's poor batting form, it is now the equivalent of the man on the Tannoy at the SCG saying, with England's eighth-wicket pair together, "And now, from the Randwick End, Glenn McGrath".

The sight of a third umpire's monitor built into Tinky Winky, Lala, Po and Dipsy's stomachs is final proof to me that Teletubbies is the focus of the ECB's crafty plan to bypass school cricket and promote the game to the under-threes. Its practically indoctrination, to which Darren Gough and Dean Headley have fully subscribed with their frank admission that Tellytubbies is their favourite TV programme (fact). Hey, Dipsy even looks a bit like Goughy, and Lala was certainly modelled on Shane Warne. He even tosses a ball from hand to hand.

Gough and Headley have definitely been two of the major plusses Down Under and long may that continue. Here are two guys who have hostility, heart and humour. One of the minuses was the continued inability of English players to conquer good spin bowling.

Check Wisden 25 years ago, reporting England's 1972-73 tour to India and Pakistan. "Amiss, Wood and Roope are all gifted and often devastating players in England. But in India, against bowlers like Chandrasekhar or Bedi, they seemed to be handicapped by the sort of cricket that produced them. Years of stereotyped cricket against seam bowling produces only good players of seam bowling. That is how limited English cricket has become." Sound familiar?

So what to do? I've said it before and I'll say it again. Get the British-born Asians involved more. It is in these communities where England's spinning strength lies. There could be more than 500 ethnic minority cricket clubs in Britain, though no one knows for sure, as most play in unaffiliated competitions outside the league system. There is undoubted spinning talent there. I've seen it.

The plight of 19-year-old leg spinner Imran Zafar, who was twice promised an invitation to the Yorkshire nets but none materialised, is typical. An ethnic minority select XI has applied for matches against some county second XIs, but has so far heard nothing. The more the counties can encourage these people, the better our playingof spin will become. Perhaps the ECB's best step is to encourage the makers of Teletubbies to introduce an Asian one. Perhaps they could call him Abra-cadabra.

MANCHESTER United are more likely to win the Premiership than Liverpool. Wanna know why? Look at the video of last Saturday's games. Both teams won handsomely, and Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole (31 goals between them) hugged each other after every one of United's six they put past Leicester.

But look at the Liverpool celebrations after each of their seven goals against Southampton. Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen (30 goals between them) were never once in the same shot, even though Owen made two of Fowler's three. A touch of professional jealousy, perhaps? Not quite in the spirit of Team, eh?

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