P Roebuck: Leicestershire stray from the straight and narrow (12 Jul 1998)

12 July 1998

Leicestershire stray from the straight and narrow

By Peter Roebuck

IT IS hard to recall a worse display of bowling in a respectable Lord's final than Leicestershire managed yesterday. Conditions were helpful, moisture in the pitch, doom-laden skies and the ball swinging and seaming around like a madcap driver swerving through heavy traffic. It had been a terrific toss to win.

Unfortunately the bowlers, and particularly the faster men, could no more contain themselves than a baby about to burp. Repeatedly they strayed from the straight and narrow path commended alike to recalcitrant youths and professional bowlers. Accordingly they were cut and clipped and clattered. Only Vince Wells and, later, the apparently angelic Dominic Williamson, summoned sufficient accuracy.

Admittedly the batsmen had a bit of luck and played some superb strokes - one scarcely expected to see any sixes struck over deep point, let alone three. Nonetheless the bowling was ropable. It was a hanging offence.

To try to explain the infection that befell the bowlers is no easy task. Certainly it is harder to control balls moving around wantonly than those pursuing a straight course. Moreover bowlers have a smaller tunnel to pass through in these abbreviated engagements.

Deliveries starting in an acceptable manner but continuing beyond the batsman's convenience can be declared illegitimate whereupon alarmed bowlers turn their attentions elsewhere and a toll is taken. It is a fate that befell Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock in a Test match so perhaps lesser mortals ought to be forgiven.

Nonetheless Leicestershire's inability to pin down their opponents in fertile conditions was a grievous fault. They bowled without their brains. Chris Lewis and Alan Mullally did not sufficiently test the batsmen's defences and Phil Simmons was so woeful that it was surprising to find him given so much work. It wasn't much of a day for the overseas players.

These are experienced practitioners. It is their job to find a solution. They could have tried holding the ball across the seam. They could have concentrated upon maintaining line and length, rejecting variety in its pursuit. In trouble, the informed returned to basics. Or perhaps they could have forgotten about the off-side wides, regarding them as occupational hazards. Instead they became rattled and they were pulverised. They did not adapt, and could not contain their opponents. Unsurprisingly the game swiftly escaped their grasp.

Not even the caps proudly worn by every player could rescue Leicestershire from this plight. In the field they showed a sense of purpose and still it wasn't enough. Teamwork can achieve only so much. Nor did the huddles into which the players went whenever a wicket fell serve to restore equanimity. They are a remarkable innovation and somewhat foreign. By and large Englishmen do not care for that sort of thing. Intimacy goes against the grain.

Nonetheless these warm gatherings are effective because they reinforce the team and isolate opponents. They have played their part in turning a bunch of idiosyncratic characters from far-flung places into an abrasive, disdainful, dedicated and confrontational team, a team who have moved beyond stardom and into the realms of unity beyond.

Of course credit must be given to the batsmen for disrupting Leicestershire's aggressive intentions. Had they walked out in defeatist mood, determined to defend and mourning the loss of the toss, Essex must have been swept aside. Instead Paul Prichard and Nasser Hussain played some thrilling strokes, especially square of the wicket, itself a comment upon the profligacy of the bowling.

No fielding captain can protect the regions behind point and square leg for the ball flies away at unpredictable angles. Nonetheless the stroke of the day was played by Stephen Peters, another juvenile who pottered to the crease in the Essex way and promptly played a square drive at a blameless delivery which, uninterrupted, would have removed his off stump. It was a strike requiring a combination of eye, power and nerve, not bad for a shrimp of a teenager. Here was a moment of promise to sit beside the awfulness of the bowling and the news that Leicestershire had been obliged to return 2,000 of their allocation of 4,500 tickets.

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