Silly walks and silly warm-ups
Joe Denly's injury while warming up with a football match has raised the ire of Mike Atherton, who writes in the Times that such warm-ups are a waste of time.
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Joe Denly's injury while warming up with a football match has raised the ire of Mike Atherton, who writes in the Times that such warm-ups are a waste of time.
Football itself is not the issue - although plenty wonder why cricketers prepare for a day's work playing with their feet and not their hands - nor is preparation or practice, two essential ingredients of success. What irritates players of a certain vintage is the ridiculous warm-up routines that they go through on the morning of a match that have gained universal currency and are nothing more than an exercise in job justification for the ever-growing backroom staff.
Next time you are at a first-class game, check out the playing area before the start of play. More cones than the M1. These have been assiduously placed by a jobsworth and, once the pretty pattern is complete, players are forced to go through a variety of silly games. Over the past few years I have watched wheelbarrow racing, “the ministry of funny walks” racing, as well as football, tag rugby, volleyball and American football.
In his blog at the Times, Patrick Kidd considers some of the other potential sports England could use as warm-up activities, including bear-wrestling and cheerleading.
Stephen Brenkley in the Independent writes that the one-day series itself is the perfect warm-up - for the Champions Trophy.
The one-dayers also give England the chance to begin to develop their own brand of limited-overs cricket looking ahead to the 2011 World Cup, argues Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here