'Weathering the World Cup' (9 May 1999)

9 May 1999

'Weathering the World Cup'

Tony Cozier

IT was, of course, inevitable. As soon as the teams turn up for what have been euphemistically called "warm-up" matches for the World Cup, England's springtime weather returns to type.

A week of what was, reportedly, warmth and sunshine turned to chill and damp on Friday and yesterday and the practice games against the counties have been thoroughly spoiled or lost altogether.

The most fickle climate in cricketdom could well change several times over the coming six weeks so that it could be blazing hot and desert dry one day, or freezing cold and soaking wet the next.

It is this meteorological unpredictability, and the uncommonly early start to the tournament, that makes the World Cup itself so unpredictable.

In Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, teams could be pretty certain that neither the weather nor the pitches would differ much from day to day, ground to ground. It was similar in Australia and New Zealand. Not so in England.

None of the three previous World Cups held there began as early as this. In 1975, 1979 and 1983, there were only eight teams and the earliest start was June 7. The format was expanded in 1983 but, even then, there were still only eight teams and 27 matches. Now there are 12 teams and 42 matches.

By getting underway in mid-May, it generally means the pitches haven't had time to fully recover from the lengthy winter. The grass is still prominent and, in horse racing terms, there is give in the going.

More often than not, as over the past couple of days, there is also low cloud cover.

These are conditions that have made the reputations of hundreds of English medium-pace seamers who then get hammered, even by club teams, when they trundle in warmer climes. They have certainly raised England's hopes of transforming their recent unflattering away record into a genuine challenge for the Cup.

They will also dictate tactics, so critical in the limited-overs game.

In 1992, New Zealand caught everyone by surprise by using the left-handed Mark Greatbatch as gung-ho opener and off-spinner Dipak Patel with the new ball.

The former strategy has become standard operating procedure, perfected by the Sri Lankans and, more recently as we saw in the One-Day series here, by Adam Gilchrist and Ridley Jacobs, two carefree left-handed wicket-keepers. The latter has been more or less abandoned.

In the last tournament, in India and Pakistan, the slow bowlers were considerably more effective than pace on slow, lifeless pitches.

When the West Indies beat South Africa in the quarter-final, Roger Harper, Jimmy Adams and Keith Arthurton took eight of the wickets, the famed fast bowlers Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh one. Sri Lanka won the Cup with their brilliant, uninhibited batting and with four spinners.

It is not a scenario likely to occur in England in the coming weeks.

Brian Lara reckons it will be a bowlers' tournament, more specifically a fast and seam bowlers' tournament, and that a good total will be between 230 and 240. Outside of England, 250 is generally considered moderate.

England's Graeme Hick has put forward the theory that a solid start will be more meaningful this time than the flyers that Mark Greatbatch gave New Zealand in 1992 and Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitherana provided for Sri Lanka the last time.

"The last 15 overs in this World Cup may be as important as the first 15 were in the last," Hick says. "The ball should be easier to hit at the death and it may be possible to score at eight or nine an over so it will be vital to have wickets in hand."

If this view is accepted, it would mean a reversion of the old modus operandi of building a foundation for the slog at the end. The "pinch-hitter" would be kept for the last third of the innings, not the first.

The weather could have another profound impact. Points are now carried forward from the first round into the second, the so-called "Super Sixes", so that any slip up against the lesser teams - such as the West Indies against Kenya in 1996 - could be decisive. So, too, could a point lost through an abandoned match.

For any number of reasons, captains, players and supporters will be paying as much attention to the weather forecasts as to their opponents.

Outstanding batsman Evan Mandeville, who died suddenly last week, was one of the many outstanding club batsmen of the late 1950s and early 1960s who would have walked into any Barbados team at a more opportune time.

He was at his peak when the middle order roughly coincided with the West Indies middle order - Everton Weekes, in his later years, as captain, a great player to the end, Seymour Nurse, Peter Lashley, Rawle Brancker and, every now and again, a useful all-rounder by the name of Garfield Sobers.

There was simply no space. But there was another obstacle.

Mandeville played all of his Division 1 cricket for YMPC, a relatively new club without influence in the corridors of power. That counted even more in those days than it does now.

He was eventually YMPC president, a BCA member and a keen horse racing fan.

I played a lot of cricket with Evan at Wanderers in the Over-40s and on our tours to England. He loved the game and took delight in talking intelligently and humorously about it, not least at Kensington where he hardly ever missed a major match.

No eyes twinkled more than his as he related his jousts with some of the opposing bowlers of his time, so many of them feared by Test batsman the world over - but never by Evan.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)