Quis est porcus?

Geoffrey Boycott apologises to Aggers

2011-08-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many people have ever received an apology from Sir Geoffrey Boycott, resident loon in the Test Match Special commentary box.

Fiery has something of a reputation for being a combative character, which is, of course, a euphemism for narky old fruitloop, but we've always had a soft spot for Geoffrey.

The man's mischievous mirth, particularly at the misfortune of others, is a delight to behold, particularly in his partnership with Aggers on TMS - an unlikely due that put one in mind of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon.

The best example of Boycott's spiteful hooting is the famous 'Bad luck you Aussies!' - a sound clip I'd gladly have as a ringtone.

The second Test against India at Trent Bridge, however, brought forth a completely different side of Boycs, who apologised to an astonished, and clearly rather touched, Agnew for being 'too forceful' in his commentary on Bell's run out that wasn't the previous day.

I didn't hear it - I expect Fiery called Aggers an idiot or something similar - but have been delighting in this peculiar, rather lovely exchange on the radio all day.

There's a wonderful lack of side to Boycott, especially evident in his gauche apology to Agnew, whom he addresses bashfully as his "best friend". Agnew is so taken aback he can initially manage a simple "...Geoffrey," like a colleague on the receiving end of a passionate, if somewhat unexpected, emotional confession.

And there they are - the words probably every single person who has ever met the man has failed to elicit.

"I'm sorry."

Normal service is soon resumed with some spluttering laughter - and it ends with an amusing observation from Aggers that "it's Yorkshire day as well," - completing the image of Boycott and Agnew as a pair of old bachelors in a parallel world version of Radio 4 comedy series The Shuttleworths.

I think that's how we all like to imagine these ridiculous fellows, perhaps in some sort of nursing home with a shed at the bottom of the garden, from which they somehow manage to broadcast to Radio 4 Longwave. One pouring tea, another cutting cake. Tufnell round the back smoking a rollie.

It's 30 seconds that encapsulates TMS beautifully. Funny and touching. And quite, quite mad.

Yes, we do mean 4.43AM

2011-05-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

If you came here from the Guardian (or not) looking for details about the Solstice Cup game we play at 4.43AM on the longest day of the year you should hit up the club's official website at Sefton Park Cricket Club and stay tuned.

Otherwise, you could just turn up on the day. It starts when the sun comes up at 4.43AM and consists of a 20/20 game between two teams of Sefton players and was done and dusted by about 8AM last year - so plenty of time to get to work.

Here's a press release we did about it last year that should cover any further required details.

The genius of Shastribot

2011-03-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

You'd think that during a World Cup we'd be writing about KP's commitment, the end for Strauss and Collingwood, Yardy's collapse and general wailing about the paucity of quality in England's squad... blah blah tired, blah blah crowded international schedule.

Instead there's the unmitigated brilliance of the Twitter account @shastribot. For the uninitiated, Shastri rivals Mark Nicholas, Ian Botham and Robin Jackman as the worst cricket commentator ever.

However, at least Shastri is enthusiastic - as far as the seven phrases he uses throughout any given game he's commenting on anyway.

Since the mid 90s the phrase 'hit like a tracer bullet' has been in regular use by players at Sefton Park CC; a Shastri special used to denote a ball struck particularly powerfully towards the boundary.

A tracer bullet, of course, is not especially fast. - not any more so than any other bullet. Nevermind. Another of Ravi's sayings that stuck with is describing someone struck in the lunchbox as taking a hit 'right in the unmentionables'.

Shastribot fires off a Ravi classic to anyone talking about cricket on Twitter. It's not big or clever - but it's damn funny.

In the end Twitter was the winner.

• You can follow Sefton Park CC on Twitter

Hoggy: The not-so peculiar world of Matthew Hoggard

2011-01-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

Someone told me that Matthew Hoggard's autobiography was one of the better entries into the genre, among a load of ghost-written stocking fillers that are stacked high post-Ashes series, like Fray Bentos pies in a Home Bargains.

No doubt we can soon expect Colly: My Autobiography and Belly: My Ashes Autobiography and Cooky: My Autobiography soon. Say what you want about KP, he gives good copy.

Recent cricket autobiogs I've read include Hussain's Playing With Fire – a typically gritty and rather stolid effort, but Nass doesn't mind sticking the boot in and dishing the dirt on some of the unlikely events under his captaincy - and Darren Gough's effort which, with all the will in the world, is what you'd expect.

Hoggy's effort, like his role in the England squad, is a little left-of-centre but it's not exactly Herschelle Gibbs or even Geoffrey Boycott.

The former Saffer's book is all sex, drugs and rock'n'roll; the latter tends to focus on Fiery's contempt for Mike Denness, among many many others. Suffice to say, Hoggy: WElcome to my World is hardly Mike Brearley either.

Hoggard comes across rather like his bowling always did. Honest, hard-working, with a touch of guile and oddity. Imagine what a cricket-playing sheepdog's autobiography might be like and you're on the right lines.

The swing bowler is, by his own admission, pretty daft but comes across as a good lad. The book promises that Hoggy is as mad as a box of frogs, but it's all of the "we put some shaving foam in Bumble's kit bag, he didn't have a clue, everyone fell about" variety. The back cover, featuring Hoggard looking like an idiot on an elephant, kind of says it all.

He's fairly circumspect on the dressing room disagreements, though he does have a dig at Peter Moores' focus of fitness above all else and is clearly ambivalent about Duncan Fletcher. He gives a good impression of Michael Vaughan's measured captaincy, though, and paints a familiar picture of Hussain as a prickly, if respected, character. His impressions of Strauss are predominantly of observation on Strauss's poshness and his "loud, booming voice".

Hoggard does give the impression of a huge gulf between the outlooks of test bowlers and batsmen, something akin to a caste system in cricket teams, and his criticism of trying to 'overthink' bowling and complaints over the fast bowler's lot seem spot on.

Hoggard's notion of a 'pisstaking coach' in dressing rooms also seems wise – witness the difference between a team enjoying each others' company during the current Ashes series and the miserable bastards that populated 90s squads. It's enough to make you wonder whether, under the daft hair and dafter banter, there's a very astute cricket brain – certainly Hoggard's bowling tended to be the most thoughtful of his England contemporaries.

Hoggy's supposed madness comes across in a number of basic pencil drawings and 'Hogfacts' - irrelevant miscellaneous factoids peppered throughout the book presented as footnotes, like a print version of pop-up intext adverts. An intro narrated by his dogs and sidelines from his wife and son, Ernie, also give the impression of a different kind of cricket book, but it's only really in the presentation that the book veers away from the traditional cricket autobiog rules.

Given Hoggard's fondness for silly voices, silly jokes and, well, silly everything it comes as quite a shock when he admits to almost breaking down while bowling in a Test in New Zealand – 'doing a Tres' as he puts it. Other tribulations include difficulty in conceiving and that peculiar sports brand of depression mixed with a crisis of confidence that afflicts cricketers in particular.

Hoggard is an engaging narrator, but 90 per cent of the anecdotes consist of the sanitised "Harmy blasted out the top order, then Gilo and Jonah weighed in with a couple, Freddie picked up a key wicket and I chipped in with a four-fer to wrap things up" variety. Further, chapters on the Hoggard exercise regime are hardly the stuff of wonder.

More serious a problem are the lack of details on the more interesting events that Hoggard's career covered. The Ashes stuffing of 2006/07, his dropping from the England team and his release from Yorkshire are barely mentioned.

There are tantalising glances of Hoggard's unique take on life, but they've either been excised from the book or they are simply that - the odd glances. It's a valuable reminder that what passes for 'mad' in the uncomplicated minds of many pro sportspeople - reading books, knowing things, actually having a sense of humour and the like - is actually nothing of the sort.

Throwaway spread on the hardest hitters in cricket and the like are diverting but hardly indicate the insanity we're led to expect by quotes from fellow cricketers. Neither is there much meat, beyond the few scraps we're thrown. Perhaps that's for another book in the future, when the dust has settles a little more.

I hope to see more from Hoggard on TMS and the like - he's a character with a lot more about him than anyone in the current Sky box - but, as a book, Hoggy rarely delves beneath the surface, beneath the hair, beneath the daftness.

It's a book that's neither particularly mad, nor by any means bad, but it's only a few steps removed from the quickfire My Autobiographies we can expect when Colly, Belly, Broady et al get back to Blighty.

Whingeing Aussies

2010-12-27T16:59:00.000-08:00

It's been noticeable that few have expressed any sympathy for the Australian cricket team during their various trials and tribulations during the 2010 Ashes series.

So abject have they appeared, and so quick the fall in Ricky Ponting's star as a captain and as one of the best batsmen of his generation, that it would seem only human to express a modicum of pity for the Aussie team and its struggling skipper.

But several reasons have prevented me from feeling this way. Firstly, as was shown at Perth, it only takes a different track, a couple of England off days and the rub of the green for the Aussies to get right back into the series.

Secondly, Australia became so feared throughout the nineties and noughties because they were so ruthless. Leading into my third reason, another key trait, at least until 2005, was how unpleasant a team they were reputed to be.

The Aussies like to believe they're a little bit tougher, a little more stoic and generally more manly than their opponents – especially the Poms. The idea of English cricketers as perpetually whingey, self-indulgent and flaky has been a popular one for a couple of decades.

I think a number of myths sprung up in the 15 years or so when England were handed out repeated whuppings in Ashes series. That they were naturally more querulous, lacking in spirit and prone to complaining rather than getting on with the game were popular theories among the Aussie players (see Justin Langer's secret dossier) and press. No-one paused to wonder whether it was simply a case of having an inferior team.

Now the boot is on the other foot. The behaviour of some in the Australian team during this series, particularly from the skipper, has been pretty disgraceful. It paid off in Perth, where the Aussies probably preferred to think of it as 'mental disintegration', but it's looked curiously like the whingeing that is apparently so despised down under in most of the other Tests.

To see Ponting continually complaining about bad decisions, good decisions, bad batting or good batting – continually whining at umpires and England players; the former for doing their job; the latter for doing their jobs well – has been appalling, amusing and vaguely pitiful by turn.

And while some of the England players are hardly the most likeable of sportspeople – Jimmy Anderson's perpetual sledging similarly ridiculous - Punter's behaviour has been among some of the worst on the international cricket stage for some time.

Understandable, perhaps, for a man probably facing the twilight of his career as an Aussie skipper to lose three Ashes series and possibly as a declining force with the bat – but there will be plenty of English cricket fans who will enjoy seeing Ponting, so long their tormentor, whingeing like the biggest bitch in cricket as England edge towards an Ashes win on Aussie soil.

Tennis-ball bounce and bowling a heavy ball

2010-12-26T10:05:00.000-08:00

Cricket goes through periods of coining new, unusual and meaningless phrases and terms that seem designed to baffle casual spectators and act as an affront to users of the English language.

The phrase 'very adjacent became very fashionable in the late 90s, invariably used to describe an LBW that looked plumb. However, instead of describing a ball hitting a pad in line with the stumps as 'very close' on something similarly descriptive, the term 'very adjacent'.

This always struck me as an unnecessarily roundabout and fairly meaningless way of saying 'it looks out'.

To be fair, Channel 4 seemed to do their best to combat this with the excellent jargon buster segments - but Sky seems to be doing its level best to introduce a whole new series of baffling terms, including the currently popular 'tennis-ball bounce' and 'bowling a heavy ball'.

The latter has been around for some time, and I remember Kenny Benjamin being described as bowling a 'heavy ball', though I've never heard a description of what this is supposed to mean, beyond the similarly bemusing term 'hits the bat hard'.

Bowling a heavy ball seems to be a term applied, mainly, to fat bowlers. Jacques Kallis, Freddie Flintoff, Mitchell Johnson, Darren Gough, Ravi Bopara, Ryan Harris and Tim Bresnan have all been described as bowlers of the heavy ball. Most could be described as a bit porky. Perhaps it's a kind of cricketing euphemism.

Bowls a heavy ball=fat?

At its most basic, bowling a heavy ball must mean that the bowler has some decent speed behind them, but I don't remember genuine out-and-out quicks like Brett Lee, Steve Harmison or Shoaib Akhtar every having the 'heavy ball' moniker directed at them.

So what is a heavy ball? A ball that isn't actually that quick but feels harder when it hits the bat or body? How does that work? A ball that has more power behind it but not necessarily speed? Does that work within the laws of physics? A ball that's simply back of a length and therefore likely to hit the top of the bat? Or, most basically, a ball that's quicker than you expect?

The only thing I can think that the heavy ball means - when commentators refer to it - is that it's delivered by a skiddier bowler, who may lack the pace of a Lee or Akhtar but will skid the ball off the pitch, meaning the ball doesn't drop as much of its initial speed as a delivery speared in from a height, at an acute angle, and losing more of its initial pace.

The fact that cricket followers are bemused by exactly what a 'heavy ball' is supposed to mean strikes me as particularly absurd, and something of a lazy shorthand for commentators. Type 'bowls a heavy ball' and you get 3,200 results, probably referring to just about every international bowler imaginable.

Asking some of the cricketers from Sefton returned the following explanations:

'a ball that thumps into the bat, as opposed to a fast one being easy to slice away'

'one that seems to pick up pace off the pitch, rather than from the hand... traditionally back of a length and hitting the splice of the bat, thus hard to get away'

'a ball that looks faster than it is and hits the bat harder than expected'

'one that rushes on to you after pitching'

All of which seem like rather differing and somewhat vague explanations as to what the heavy ball actually is.

So, what of the tennis ball bounce? This one seems a little more obvious to me, being applied to pitches rather than bowlers. Presumably it refers to a pitch that's springy, rather than hard, that saps the pace of a ball but may provide unexpected, steepling bounce.

The WACA Test pitch, we were told, had a lot of tennis-ball bounce. The MCG, by comparison, hasn't had a lot of tennis-ball bounce. I imagine the likes of Broad, Finn and particularly Tremlett should be able to get 'tennis-ball bounce', as they're all pretty tall (probably thin) chaps.

Tennis-ball bounce and bowling a heavy ball should, therefore, be pretty much opposites. And so are the bowlers who deliver them. Heavy ball=fat. Tennis ball bounce=thin. Simple as that.

Shane Warne continues to trouble England - but they myth of natural Aussie superiority is shattered

2010-12-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

There was a great moment in the Adelaide test when Kevin Pietersen stepped away from a Doug Bollinger delivery at the last minute, having been alarmed by the sudden appearance of a gigantic Shane Warne advertising a chicken burger on the sight-screen.

It was amusing to see the fat, be-wigged leggie genius still troubling England, far more than the current Aussie attack has been able to do in this series thus far. How 'Straya' must long for a spot of Warnie magic. Or even a spot of assistance from McGrath or Lee. Or Kasprowicz, McGill or Gillespie, come to that.

Seeing the Aussies have their noses rubbed in the dirt hasn't really pleased me as much as I thought it would. Partly because it's too easy; partly because things can change very quickly.

But mainly because we're going through a cycle where England is in the ascendancy. In a few years time it will be the turn of the Aussies again. That's how it goes, and it's what made the 90s bearable for me as an England cricket fan; I knew it would come back to England.

This is something a lot of Aussies totally failed to grasp over the last 20 years. They convinced themselves that they kept beating England not because of having a superior team, but because Aussies were naturally superior to the English.

This was most evident in the Aussies' secret dossier around the time of the last Ashes, written by Jason Langer and making this 'Aussie dominance' belief most explicit. Here's an excerpt:

"Aggressive batting, running and body language will soon have them staring at their bootlaces rather (than) in the eyes of their opponent - it is just how they are built.

Langer clearly believed, at the time, that Australian cricketers were simply tougher and less mentally or psychologically fragile than their English counterparts.

That was essentially blown by an England series win, although the Ashes series of 2009 was tight and England had home advantage.

But the first two tests of the Ashes 2010 have totally scotched the idea. Ponting has been shown to be a limited skipper; the Aussie bowling attack have looked weak, old and bereft of ideas; the fielding team has looked totally demoralised.

Look again at Langer's phrase about having the opposition 'staring at their bootlaces' - it could easily apply to Australia at the moment.

But I'm not getting carried away. There's a long way to go, even though I expect England to win. Not because England are more manful, or tough, or because my team are natural winners and the opposition natural losers. But because England are currently the better team. Sometimes, it's just as simple as that.

Top travel tips for the barmy army

2010-12-03T02:53:00.000-08:00

Although the barmy army looks like all it cares about when packing for Oz are cans of warm beer; bermuda shorts; a distinct lack of suntan lotion; a steady supply of English tabloids and a copy of Swanny's Christmas-rush autobiography, probably named Swanny: Taking Flight (does this exist? we do hope so) - this press release from Insurewithease.com points out a few more considerations the inebriated gaggle of boozy cricket fans should consider.

For the army - formerly belonging to Michael Atherton, before passing through the hands of Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain, Micahel Vaughan and ending up in the current possession of Andrew Strauss - could face 'hefty medical bills' (liver, face, genitals most likely, at a guess) if they're not insured.

"Good travel insurance can cover the cost of medical treatment, which could run into thousands if you fall ill or have an accident abroad," says Sarah Findlay, Online Marketing Manager at insurewithease.com.

"But more than just medical costs, travel insurance also covers life’s little upsets, including lost luggage, flights cancellation and theft of possessions.

Sarah goes on to explain the genesis of the term 'barmy army' before delivering the chilling warning that the self-proclaimed crazy gang 'need to make sure they don’t make a ‘barmy’ decision as far as travel cover is concerned'. Oof!

"With a little preparation, fans can head down under and remember the 2010 Ashes tour for all the right reasons."

We're intrigued to know what those 'right reasons' are. Nevertheless, we feel obliged to reprint Insurewithease.com's tips, in case a pissed-up Paul Collingwood fan falls off a cliff and loses his passport.

Top travel safety tips for the barmy army:

Remember to apply for a visa ahead of the trip
If you plan to drive in Australia, you will need a valid UK driving licence and passport – take these with you whenever you are driving
You must carry ID to prove your age to buy alcohol
A proof of age card, which can be purchased from Proof of Age Standards Scheme allows you to party all night without the risk of losing your passport or driving licence
Look after personal belongings at all times, especially during games – a bag tucked under a seat could be an easy temptation for opportunistic thieves
Buy travel cover for your entire stay – it could save you thousands of pounds if things go wrong

Welcome to the new Kia Oval...

2010-12-02T03:09:00.000-08:00

Selling naming rights for grounds has to be among the more egregious examples of sports marketing twattery, with historic, memorable, meaningful names falling to King Cash left, right and centre.

Perhaps the worst example in sport was the replacement for the atmospheric, if rather basic Ayresome Park with the gloriously-titled BT Cellnet Stadium.

Current examples include the Reebok and the Emirates, although the wholesale naming of entire teams seems to have dies out with Airbus and Total Network Solutions (which inspired the superb 'they'll be dancing in the streets of total network solutions' gag) from Jeff Stelling.

Cricket, as is its wont, has been slower to adapt than football (barring Yorkshire Carnegie), and thus far has only Headingley Carnegie (Headingley, as any sane man prefers to call it) and The Brit Oval (The Oval, as far as we're concerned) really taking to selling their souls.

Bacon-and-egg ties were almost burned in disgust earlier this year when it was suggested that the Lord's naming rights could be prostituted around London agencies. What a wonder that would have been. Go Compare Lord's. We Buy Any Car Lord's. Iceland Lord's.

Of course, the powers that be may be greedy, but they're also stuffy. So we would have ended up with something like The Coutts' Lord's, Jaguar Lord's or Lord's Harrods.

Which is why the following press release took me by surprise. The Brit Oval sounded naff, but you could almost convince yourself it was a reference to Britain. Plus insurance should fall squarely within cricket's conservative demographics.

But a (whisper it) budget car manufacturer? From KOREA?!* I can almost smell the angina. Clearly that South London air has relaxed a few airways down in Kennington.

Could be worse, I suppose. The Fosters Oval, perhaps?

Kia Motors (UK) Ltd., has today announced that they are to be the lead sponsor of Surrey County Cricket Club and The Oval cricket ground.

Kia has signed a five year deal, and will have full and exclusive naming rights to the historic ground and become the primary shirt sponsor for Surrey County Cricket Club. The deal is worth over £3.5m to the Club over its duration.

Kia - part of the third biggest auto group in the world - takes over from Brit Insurance as the Club and ground’s primary partner. As well as the ground naming rights and the firm’s logo on Surrey shirts, Kia will also have a number of hospitality and promotional benefits throughout the season. The deal will come into force on January 1st 2011, from whence the ground will be known as the Kia Oval.

The deal is Kia’s first entrance into the cricket market; the company currently has worldwide commercial partnerships with the FIFA World Cup and Australian Tennis Open. Further to this, it employs current world number one Rafael Nadal as a brand ambassador and is also the Official Automotive Partner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States, sponsoring thirteen individual teams.

Speaking about the deal Paul Sheldon, Chief Executive of Surrey County Cricket Club, said: “To sign a deal with a leading International brand such as Kia is a fantastic boost to the Club.

“It is also hugely beneficial to us that we have been able to agree a five year deal as this allows us to plan for the future – both financially and on the field – with certainty. I have great confidence that our partnership has a long and strong future ahead of it.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Brit Insurance, which had been our lead sponsor since 2004. Throughout this time they have been a great support and I am delighted they are still a major supporter of our sport.”

Kia Motors (UK) Ltd., Managing Director Michael Cole said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to put our brand right at the heart of England’s favourite Summer sport and in front of an enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable audience

"We are delighted to be linked with such an iconic location as The Oval - it is rightly famous around the world - and as our UK headquarters are in Weybridge it is a privilege to be so closely linked with Surrey County Cricket Club.”

*Needless to say I have nothing against Korean car manufacturers, or even Kia. Their cars are really good, as it goes.

David Gower screams in agony

2010-11-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

A rare amusing moment from Sky's commentary team, during the fourth day of the first Test between England and Australia in the 2010 Ashes series.

Ashes 2010 live blog - First test

2010-11-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

Follow us below for live updates on Sefton Park Cricket Club's take on the first test of the Ashes 2010.

Quis Est Porcus on The Ashes 2010

Sky's shit advert for the 2010 Ashes

2010-11-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

If I were relying on Botham's limp speech - as wooden as a ash stump - to inspire me before battle, I think I would be in trouble.

Similarly, Andrew Strauss is a fine cricketer, but he looks much more like the Atherton/Brearley style of captaincy - all ironed creases and traditional lemonades and Anna Karenina that someone who might cleave someone in two with a broadsword.

Of the others, Swann, Broad or even Colly, with his Northern dourness, are not men I'd choose to watch my back in a streetfight.

Cricket can certainly be played hard, verbally and physically, and it's no sport at the highest levels for weak characters.

However, to suggest that facing Doug Bollinger, Marcus North or Nathan Hauritz is akin to facing a hungry lion or crazed Roman gladiator in battle is a bit much.

It's typical of Sky's gaudy excess, about which I've already complained at lenght on this blog. Suffice it t say that it's shit.

Compare it to the BBC's effort, advertising its coverage of the Ashes on TMS and it seems particularly overblown, which is as apt a comparison between the two as I can imagine.

At the bottom is Sky's advert for its commentary team, showing a disbelieving Shane Warne seeing Australia taken over by the English, including a surfing, commentating David Lloyd shouting his idiotic catchphrase.

It's fairly daft stuff, but Nasser Hussain's sneering 'What do you think about that, Shane?' is quite amusing. Indeed, it's only Hussain, along with Michael Atherton, who offer any deviation from the standard whingeathon or chummy bromides that the Sky commentary team thrive on.

Anyway, here's to the Ashes of 2010. Book the week off, stock the fridge up, tune in, mute the volume and get TMS on the radio, my dear old things.

Zulqarnain Haider flees Pakistan - what does it tell us?

2010-11-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

The news that Pakistan wicket-keeper, Zulqarnain Haider, has fled his team hotel in Dubai for a hotel in Heathrow, where he has subsequently claimed ayslum, might raise eyebrows but the suggestion of ongoing spot- or match-fixing surrounding the Pakistan team does not.

Neither was the suggestion that Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and former skipper Salman Butt had conspired to deliver no-balls on the say-so of sports 'fixer' Mazhar Majeed, Butt's agent - although it appears that no-one made any financial gain through that particular episode.

Haider said he had received death threats for not following orders from match-fixers in a recent ODI, but the fact that he felt he had flee the team hotel in Dubai raises as many questions as it answers.

Did Haider feel in danger in the hotel? Surrounded by fellow players and PCB officials? Certainly the fall-out from the spot-fixing affiar seemed to sugges that younger, more naive members of the team were leaned on by the higher-ups.

Speaking to two asylum-seekers in the Sefton Park third eleven this year - one from Pakistan and one from Afghanistan - I got the this kind of patriarchal system is rife in sport. If you don't do what you're told - on the cricket pitch or off - you simply don't play again.

Looking at how quickly quality players have fallen out of favour in Pakistan in the past, and how the likes of Abdur Razzaq and Shoaib Akhtar have been bounceed in and out of the side for years, it's easy to imagine that such rigid hierarchical systems are open to abuse, where a colt player is ordered tho throw away his wicket or bowl a no-ball at an agreed time.

But, really, all of this is conjecture. At least until Haider starts talking, if he ever does.

A lovely pair of bouncers

2010-11-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

This turned up in my inbox, from a friend who shall remain unnamed.

It reminded me of a time where a good old-fashioned spot of tit- and willy-flashing was an accepted part of televised sport; whereupon the commentators would have a bit of a chuckle, the cameramen would enjoy themselves and everyone at home tut indulgently.

These days the camera veers wildly into the crowd whenever a streaker rears their ugly, erm , uglies and David Gower frantically starts filling while we stare at the score cars for three minutes.

It's a bloody tragedy as far as I'm concerned, and there are many sporting events that could do with being enlivened by a jiggling pair of breasts while a disbelieving Graemme Swann looks on.

For if the prevailing puritanism in sports TV coverage had always been the norm, how many of us would have enjoyed the thrilling childhood frisson of seeing Erica Roe's gigantic bosom; that bloke vaulting the stumps at Lord's in '75; another chap having his privates covered by a constable's helmet; that picture of a chuffed Botham chating to a topless beauty; and Andrew Symonds absolutely demolishing a streaker at the Gabba.

All those funny little moments are, sadly, no longer a possibility in today's world, where countries go to war over a misplaced nipple of a full moon before the watershed.

No young cricket fan will ever hear Richie Benaud's wry aside on seeing a couple of pert bumpers; no cricketing doubles entendre will again trouble the airwaves; never again will uncontrollable laughter echo around the TMS box on the site of a couple of googlies.

Woaaah! Jeez!

My retirement speech

2010-10-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

This was my retirement speech as third team skipper. I was away with work so couldn't attend myself, so I wasn't able to read it out. It meant a lot to me to say how much I enjoyed playing with my friends and team-mates, but there you go.

With a weary sense of inevitability, it was another case of 'nearly, but not quite' for the 3s this season.

Under the joint stewardship of myself and Matt Child - always the Venables to my McLaren - we had probably the strongest team I can remember, but as ever, lack of availability towards the end of the season derailed our title hopes. We used over 40 players over the course of the season.

In terms of batting we had the always-dashing Sefton superstar Vinny Abel opening with the solid and dependable Adam Flynn, who has made huge strides forward in the last year, in terms of the quality of his cricket if not his running between the stumps. They scored 336 runs at 33 and 400 runs at 36 respectively.

Matt Child batted in virtually every spot this season, and had a poor season by his high standards, but his grit and bloody-mindedness saw us to at least one victory. I'm sure he never enjoyed himself more than when carrying his bat on a sticky wicket for 49* in the rain and wind at Ormskirk.

Coming in at three - and usually the first of the middle-order powerhouse - was Paul Eastham, who kicked on again after a strong year in 2009.

His swatted six into the long grass by the pavilion to bring up a ton was a rare moment of cricketing genius – the perfect shot at the perfect time. Paul's jokes are the worst in cricket, possibly the world.

As if those opening salvos hadn't worn out the opposition, the sight of the eight-foot Heandog striding to the wicket in his floppy hat soon would. The sheer hitting power of Mike is probably unrivalled in the league, but there's a touch there too that few would expect from such a rhinoceros of a man.

The third part of the middle-order engine was Nick Moreton, who quietly amassed runs all through the season, or as much as his hectic social schedule allowed. In Nick, we finally had a replacement for Jonny Woodmsith, both in terms of his weight of runs, and in terms of his wide-ranging and frequent social engagements affecting his availability.

Eastham, Heaney and Moreton scored a combined 1000+ runs at phenomenal respective averages of 49, 58 and 46.

To then have Jim Pearce, Adam Taylor, Ali Khan and the hard-hitting Saj Khan still to bat was testament to probably the strongest order in the league - although this meant that players further down the order were often frustrated by the lack of innings.

Vinay Agrekar proved a valuable asset late in the season, with runs and wickets. The prospect of him playing for us next season with Vinny Abel, if he manages to return to the UK, is a mouth-watering prospect.

Adam Taylor had a great season behind the stumps, with the most stumpings to his name of any keeper in the LDCC at one point. He was ably supported by Alex Miller as a natural fit behind the stumps late in the season.

The bowling department was, at times, equally strong with myself, Ali Khan, Rob Kelly, George Lee, James Sayer, Ted Williams, Saj Khan, Vinny and Adam Brennan all in the wickets this season, though we struggled to bowl teams out at times.

Before Jamie Bowman steals the nickname, I'd like to propose Rob Kelly as the unluckiest man in cricket, having bowled consistently well all season for little reward - ending with 10 wickets at 30 apiece. Rob was similarly unlucky in the field all season – the ball kept going towards him. This often proved to be unlucky for the team too, but a true champagne moment catch against Liverpool almost redeemed him.

George Lee may have been the fastest bowler in the league this season, and certainly troubled batsmen of all abilities in the third team league. More consistency will see him troubling batsmen for years to come, almost as much as his strange outbursts troubled me this season. His suggestion that he might explain how an iPhone works to me will stick in the memory. He took 12 wickets at 17.

Saj Khan. Thank God for the relaxed immigration policies of the last 13 years. Saj's left-arm swing arrived around the time Vinny Abel left us this season, and could not have been better timed. His enthusiastic, if rarely-understood, encouragement and will to win was a great addition to the team half-way through the season. Saj took 22 wickets at 15.

Ali Khan also had a good season, adding a vital part of the spinner's arsenal to his talents; namely the ability to take wickets with the filthiest deliveries imaginable. A well-judged adjustment of length against a particularly destructive batsman during the season was evidence that Ali is becoming a thoughtful slow bowler. He took 23 wickets at 15.

Adam Brennan always stepped up when required, and proved himself ready for third team cricket with some excellent performances. He ended up with nine wickets at ten apiece.

Other bowlers who had strong seasons include Vinny, ever-brilliant with the swinging ball and putting in another 7-for which won us a game, something I think he managed every season I played with him.

Ted Williams played for us twice and took 10 wickets at an average of three. What a bastard.

Jay Sayer played once and took a five-for. Bastard.

I took 30 wickets at 15, and even managed to dispose of both Iwan Williams and Stu Lomas with balls than actually spun. Iwan in particular will never forget the send-off he got in the first 3s versus 4s match.

On a personal note - and I'm speaking as Boyner [Mark Boyns, who was reading the speech] now - Robin is quite simply the best bowler I have ever faced. A fine bowler, a fine skipper and a fine human being, with a fine head of hair.

[some stuff about certain teams probably best to not repeat went here]

On the plus side it's a reminder of the valuable work we do with youngsters at Sefton by people like Howie and Ted. It was also a valuable reminder of the importance of respect and fair-play in competitive sport.

I'll finish on a positive: the second memorable game for me was our home fixture against Liverpool.

With a weakened team, we batted first and had an early collapse, courtesy of their first-team bowler; but steady innings from Mike Heaney, Chris Brereton and Ali Khan – none of whom are given to steady innings - at least made a game of it.

Rob and George had an off-day with the new ball, so myself and Vinny came on to try to peg it back. Liverpool, with nine wickets in hand and with 20 overs to score less than a hundred, still finished some 20 runs adrift of our score.

It was a draw, but it felt like a win to us and no doubt a defeat to them. The way the team pulled together and fought for that draw really made me proud to be the third team skipper that day.

If I had the time I'd gladly continue as captain, as I believe we have squad capable of winning the title and the cup and I love playing cricket at Sefton.

However, with a demanding job and new business I don't feel like I can give it my all - and believe there are several other people capable of doing an excellent job. Not quite as good as myself, but still very good.

My thanks go to everyone I played with this season, some of whom are absent tonight. Chief among them is Vinny, who we hope to see back at Sefton soon. In his honour I'd like to raise a glass to probably the only man to ever hit a ton and take a hat-trick as part of a five-for in the same game at Sefton.

My thanks also to Matt Child, Jim Pearce and Mike Heaney for lessening the burden over the course of the season too. And to other skippers for advice and understanding.

There are lots of people whose hard work goes on, often unseen, at the club in order that we can keep playing the game we love. Stu Lomas, Bob Paisley, Howie Baird and Ted Williams are the ones I'm most frequently aware of, although there are many others.

Perhaps most important; Rob Jobson and Charlie O'Mahony labour away heroically throughout the summer and the winter in order that we can play cricket. We should remember that and be grateful for that fact.

Jan and her team prepare what are routinely described as the best teas in the league; while Dave is a reliable and welcoming presence on frantic Saturday mornings.

It just remains for me to reflect on another good, if not great season for the third team - and definitely a great one for the club.

It was an honour and a privilege for me to be a captain at the club in its 150th year - with amazing events like the Solstice Cup; sixes tournament and MCC visit and plenty of national press coverage - and I look forward to playing for many more years at Sefton.

An interview with Henry Olonga

2010-08-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

Former Zimbabwean cricket legend Henry Olonga recently visited Liverpool to speak at the Slavery Remembrance Day Festival taking place at the excellent Merseyside Maritime Museum. I was lucky enough to have a long chat with Olonga who revealed himself as a hugely polite, knowlegable and principled man still full of regret and anger about what has happened to his beloved Zimbabwe. An edited version of this interview appeared in the Liverpool Echo and Liverpool Daily Post but I've included the full length version here.

In a sporting world seemingly more concerned with money and fame, talking to an athlete who not only has a political conscience but also the will and conviction to risk his life for his beliefs is a rarity indeed. To meet one as humble, modest and inspiring as Henry Olonga only increases the impression you’ve met a pretty special person.

In 2003 Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga made a decision that was to change both his life and career in ways that he is still finds difficult to comprehend. Prompted by his captain Andy Flower’s disgust at the torture of opposition MP Job Sikhala, the two internationals decided to make a stand against the Zimbabwean government at that year’s World Cup by donning black armbands and releasing an incredible statement ‘mourning the death of democracy in our beloved Zimbabwe’.

“We were warned, “says Olonga, remembering that fateful day. “People did sit down and explain the gravity of what we were doing but I still had no idea what was going to happen.”
What happened was that Olonga was immediately dropped from the team and expelled by his home club. Then things got worse.

“It was not until after the event and when my father received a message telling him to get me out of Zimbabwe that I even considered the fact that I might have to leave the country or that my life might even be at risk,” he says.

Zimbabwe’s notorious leader Robert Mugabe was far from pleased with the cricketers’ actions and within days Olonga became an exile charged with treason, travelling first to South Africa and then to England where seven years later he remains in limbo, married to his Australian wife Tara but still deeming it unsafe to travel home.

It’s hard not to contrast Olonga’s fortunes with those of Flower, who after retiring from international cricket continued to play first class cricket with Essex and now successfully coaches the England team. Olonga who has reportedly not always got on with his former captain agrees his treatment has been harsh.

“You’d have to ask Andy if he had similar threats to me. He’s never told me but what you’ve got to understand is that Andy is a legend in Zimbabwe whereas I was just an average player really. I think most people would agree though that I’ve borne the brunt of the outcry.”

Throughout his problems Olonga has always relied on his strong religious faith to provide answers and guidance and he now regularly speaks to Christian groups about his beliefs. I ask him if his actions against Mugabe’s regime were prompted by his religion or a sense of political responsibility and receive a typically eloquent reply.

“For me it is impossible to separate the two. My faith gave me the conscience to make the decision to do what I did. My faith made me feel the political situation needed to be challenged and my faith gave me the moral values to make those judgements.”

It’s a passionate validation of his actions but it’s impossible not to wonder how Olonga feels about his life being defined by his single moment of protest. He readily admits that he was no more than an average international cricketer (he took 68 test wickets) and that much of his fame revolves around the black armband affair.

“As far as it defining my life, you’re probably right and I’m very honest about that,” he muses. “I was never going to be famous or well known for my bowling. Maybe once or twice in my career I hit the heights but not many so I admit that the incident may be why I’m known now and the reason I get media work and give lectures.
“Bear in mind though we had no idea how the world was going to respond or if some people thought we were degrading the World Cup. Yes we knew what we were doing was pretty heavy but we had no idea which way it was going or that I wouldn’t play cricket again.”

Mention of cricket brings us back to the sad story of the Zimbabwean team which for the last five years has lost its Test status and much of the positive ground it gained during Olonga’s playing career. Olonga himself was a supporter of the boycott of tours to his home country and a vocal opponent against Zimbabwe’s cricketing authorities.

“I made a decision a while ago that I wasn’t going to talk about this – I was going to sit back and not do any interviews so not many people have heard my views for a while. For the most part I was opposed to Zimbabwe becoming integrated again because the situation was still so bad.

Inflation was through the roof and the same problems remained but now with the power sharing agreement (between Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai) a degree of stability has returned to the country and there are good people in charge of health and education.”

Olonga is clearly positive about his country’s future and hopes the positivity can extend to the nations cricketers.
“I think the time is right for integration. Would we win every game? No, certainly not but players like Brendan Taylor are only 24 and have played over a hundred One Day Internationals so the experience is there. They need to be at the vanguard of the new Zimbabwe.”

Olonga is in a unique position to cast judgement on England’s current fine form and puts much of it down to his old team mate and captain.

“I don’t know what the winning formula is but I suspect Andy Flower has installed a certain belief. Andy is a tough guy and he won’t wrap his players in cotton wool like past coaches have. If you’re not performing Andy will tell you straight. 90% of success as a coach in any sport is winning respect and he’s certainly done that.

‘“It’s like at the Oscars – Andy is the director but there’re lots of people behind the scenes. The physios and the coaches are like the gaffers or the actors. They all help but Andy is in charge and deserves credit.”

Olonga is full of praise for the current England players. Graham Swann is “a revelation” if “he can stay out of jail” while Strauss is “unrecognisable from the player dropped three years ago. Captaincy obviously does him good.”

As for Olonga’s own career he is proud of certain performances mentioning the six wickets he took against England as a highlight and although he enjoys still playing for the Lashings International XI this year he has struggled with injury.

“The spirit is willing but the body is weak!” he laughs. “I got carried away at the start of the season and tweaked my achilles but it’s just fun for me now. I’ve no interest in coaching.”

Instead Olonga is breaking out into all sorts of other areas. He has already recorded an album of his own music and as his impressive website displays he also enjoys painting and photography.

“I’m at the mercy of whether people enjoy the things I do. If they like my music or my art that’s the direction I will go in. Hopefully my new book will do well otherwise I might have to play cricket again!”

Cricket’s loss could well be literature’s gain.

Blood, Sweat and Treason – Henry Olonga, My Story is available now in all good bookshops.

The C Word

2010-08-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

There is a word in the English language that retains a power to shock that no other word can. As run-of-the-mill insults have been dulled by overuse, this one particular word is as powerful, and as shocking, as ever.

That word, of course, is 'cheat' - at least as far as the cricket pitch is concerned. To openly suggest that someone is a cheat on a cricket pitch is anathema, and is a good as fighting talk. It is, to reference another old cliche, simply not cricket.

In most sports it's possible to cheat, but in lower-league cricket it's childishly simple - and it can be used to turn cricket matches into an absolute train wreck. Such games rarely feature specialist umpires, and are umpired by members of whichever team is batting in either innings.

As such, the umpires are often required to adjudicate on whether to give their own team members out in cases of run outs, catches and LBWs. Inevitably the benefit of the doubt, residing with the batsman at the best of times, is weighted even more heavily in favour of the batting team.

The danger of cricket like this is when a team uses this potential advantage to totally ruin a game, giving their own batsmen not out again and again to the point where a line has been crossed and that team is simply cheating.

I have never seen a game develop in this manner before, but we had received warning that a certain team in the league was planning to cheat in a return fixture.

Following a fractious game, where the said team were on the receiving end of an absolutely hiding - something I always suspected to have been the real issue all along - I got talking to another member of their club at another game.

He warned me that this team were planning to 'give [us] nothing' in the return fixture. In essence, they were planning to cheat by not giving any decisions in our favour.

I decided that this was probably a result of this team being sore from such a massive bumming, and wrote it off as a bit of post-match anger. So we turned up at the away leg of this fixture yesterday willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

We batted first, having been put into bat, scored 200-odd in a little over 45 overs and declared. I gave two decisions myself, a caught behind and an LBW. When we bowled we realised we'd been had.

The opposition did not give one decision out of ten that were extremely good shouts, and probably another five that could easily have been given. A clear nick through to the keeper and a catch off the face of the bat off my bowling were the two worst 'not out' decisions I've ever seen.

In the latter instance, the batsman prodded forward and hit the ball straight into the waiting hands of silly mid off. That it could not be out was not only absurd, it was literally inconceivable, according to various laws of physics.

For two other LBW shouts, the batsman could have walked. Another was off my bowling. "Why was that not out?" I asked in astonishment.

"I just thought it wasn't out," came the reply, looking down. He couldn't think of a reason it wasn't out, so he didn't even try to give one.

During a drinks break, I heard one of the opposition discussing the situation, with the words: "We can't give these [Sefton Park] 25 points." In the end they blocked out for a draw, managing a pathetic 100-8 off over 40 overs, chasing 210.

I've never called any opposition team cheats before, but I'd have no hesitation in doing so in this instance. Neither would anyone else who played in it.

In retrospect, we should have walked off. When you're playing cricket and the cards are stacked that highly against you, what's the point?

Indeed, what's the point in playing any sport when you know one team is going to cheat? It's not even a case of the opposition trying to cheat the referee or umpire. The opposition IS the referee or umpire - and they're cheating.

Pre-meditated cheating too. The umpires who gave these decisions had either been told not to give any decisions, or they had decided, unilaterally, that they were going to cheat. Given our advance warning, it's obvious which one.

What can be done? The only sanction is to return the favour the next time we play this team, but what's the point of that? The game may as well be called off.

And who would that benefit? Not us, as we delivered a lesson in cricket on both occasions, only denied a second crushing win by their cheating.

So, we can only go into the next game as if it's any other game and hope for the best. No doubt the team in question will feel they have won some sort of victory by cheating us out of win, but the not only diminished themselves, they diminished cricket and everything it should stand for in the process.

On the way out they charged us £55 for teas - sandwiches and crisps - a full £15 more than teas at Sefton, which is a sit-down affair with all manner of cooked foods. Again, we knew we were being mugged, but could do little about it.

The previous week, this team had played our 4th team and been heard plotting to take all the food from the buffet so there would be none remaining for the Sefton team. One of the WAGs, helping out with preparing the teas, had to ask them to put some of the food back.

Cheating is obviously a way of life at this club.

Swann subterranean cat screwdriver rescue: Great cricket excuses

2010-08-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Not much to say about this, beyond the obviously-brilliant headline, which comes from Graemme Swann's defence against drink-driving charges.

Swanny says that he was forced into his car to venture to a supermarket in order to fetch tools to lever up the floorboards in his house to rescue his trapped cat.

Whichever way you look at it, that's a hell of a story; made even better by a quote from the police who attended Swann because he was driving a Porsche Cayenne (reason enough in my book) in an area known for burglaries.

Here's the BBC's report of what arresting officer PC Voce saw that fateful night:

"As he approached us, from the manner of driving I thought we had a burglar or a stolen vehicle.

"He was waving the screwdrivers, saying, 'It's not for what you think, the screwdrivers aren't for what you think'.

"He stated the cat was trapped under floorboards and he continually asked us to contact (his wife Sarah) and a call was made to a sergeant to attend the address and make sure the cat was okay.

"He had had the builders in and the cat was trapped under the floorboards but he couldn't find the screwdrivers in the house so he went to Asda."

'Slurred speech'

After arresting the cricketer and escorting him to the police car, Pc Voice said she had to wind down the driver's side window because he smelled so strongly of alcohol.

So there we have it. Bleary-eyed, slurred-of-speech and waving a bag of screwdrivers around, Swann repeatedly asked the police to turn up at his house and ensure his cat was OK. That all sounds perfectly reasonable to us.

The BBC has certainly had some fun over it, with two effort at a funny headline: ''Drink-driving' Swann blames cat' and 'Drink-drive charge Swann in 'cat rescue attempt''. We prefer the latter.

All joking aside, whatever Swann may or may not have done, he seems anything but the stereotype of the spoilt, arrogant, stupid sportsman on frequent display in this day and age.

In his 'cat rescue attempt', he does, however, join the pantheon of cricketers wielding unlikely excuses. I've rounded up a couple, which may be familiar but are nonetheless still amusing:

• Derek Pringle was said to have once damaged his back while writing a letter so badly that he was forced out of Test contention. In fact, the chair he was sitting on at the time collapsed, which is pretty much every bit as funny.

• Chris Lewis was late for a Test against Pakistan in 1996, claiming he had a puncture. Ray Illingworth simply went to inspect his car, which showed no signs of a punctured tyre.

• While apologising for biting a cricket ball in full view of cameras during a T20 match against Australia, Shahid Afridi also claimed that all international teams tamper with cricket balls, implying that to do so was acceptable, and it was only his chosen method of ball-tampering that was beyond the pale.

• Michael Clarke claimed that the Aussies did not win the 2009 Ashes because of a lack of playing facilities. Well, he implied it. And it's always nice to remind ourselves of what happened in that series.

• Mike Atherton claimed that what looked suspiciously like a V sign directed towards Philo Wallace in 1999 was in fact nothing more than an indication of the whereabouts of the dressing room.

• Matthew Maynard forced himself out of a few games on the 1993 Windies tour by picking up a sea urchin.

All good, but none come close to subterranean cat screwdriver rescue.

Reading The Pitch - a Top Ten of Cricket Books (part one)

2010-07-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

Of all sport, cricket (with the exception of boxing) seems to attract the most wonderful writing. With its moments of high drama, unfolding plot and an obsession with statistics and detail perhaps it’s no surprise that figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle, A.A. Milne, Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett all played and loved the game.

As a result of this rich literary heritage my book shelves seem to be stuffed with tomes relating to cricket (although comparing Dazzler – The Autobiography of Darren Gough with Waiting For Godot is perhaps pushing it a little). Go into any second hand book shop and you’re bound to find either Geoff Boycott’s autobiography or Ian Botham’s latest list of all that is wrong with English cricket (a list that usually begins with ‘administrators’). In between the many bitter, self serving biogs or the cosy, crumpet stained memories of Bradman, Sutcliffe and Swanton you’ll find some genuine gems which made me regard recent article in The Wisden Cricketer on the best 50 cricket books with such interest.

I consider myself pretty well read but was amazed to find that I had read or owned only seven of this illustrious list. Admittedly many of them seemed to be by Neville Cardus and date from the twenties but it still made me think about the books I had read that were missing and the impact some of them had made on me. So here in no particular order are ten cricketing books which I have loved for a variety of differing and sometime strange reasons:

10.

When Freddie Became Jesus
Jarrod Kimber

This strange and incredibly rude book about the 2009 Ashes series is surely the only one on this list to contain the phrase “the pitch was a shitty slow son-of-a-bitch”. Kimber, an Australian, who seemingly can’t believe his luck to be getting paid to watch cricket, swears like a docker with haemorrhoids, throughout this story of the series that never quite lived up to 2005’s legendary contest.

Despite the swearing, or more accurately because of it, Kimber catches in brilliant and vivid detail the frustrations of fan and player alike as they attempt to somehow recapture the wonder that flowed through that glorious summer like cheap lager. Neither team quite manages it but Kimber plays a blinder, putting all thoughts of his impending nuptials to one side as he produces a hilarious book that is worth twenty Stuart Broad autobiographies.

Here’s a few one liners from the book:

On seeing Richie Benaud for the first time in flesh in the media box:

“He was so close to me that I could have turned around and licked his trouser leg. And don’t think that it didn’t cross my mind”

On the difference between the previous 2 Ashes and the 2009 version:

“Where 05 and 06/07 had greatness, 09 had Ravi Bopara and Nathan Hauritz”

On Ian Bell:

“If I were a mad billionaire who hosted parties that people came to just because there was a lot of booze and freaky shit going on, I’d hire Ian Bell, strip him naked, oil him up and make him practice his cover drive for hours on end in a giant birdcage.”

09.

Coming Back To Me
Marcus Trescothick

From the hilarious to the heartbreaking. When Marcus Trescothick returned home from a tour of Pakistan in 2006, his explanation that he was suffering from a stress-related illness confused many cricket fans who refused to consider that depression was just as serious an injury as a broken arm. As Trescothick recently said “If I had cancer, no one would dream of taking the mick, so why should they over this illness?”

Trescothick’s account of his mental health problems is incredibly moving and honest. As someone who has also had a number of similar issues, I found the book incredibly helpful and Trescothick has stated that he gets letters every week from people thanking him for writing it. The passages where he describes his helplessness after his father-in-law suffers a life threatening accident while Trescothick is the other side of the world are beautifully written.

Thankfully the book is equally direct on Trescothick’s cricket career and his insights on England’s transition from the dark days of the noughties to the 2005 Ashes win are interesting and perceptive. It also reminds England cricket fans what a wonderful player we have missed.

08.

Life Worth Living
C.B. Fry

This is a ridiculous book about a ridiculously talented man. It reads more like one of Michael Palin’s ‘Ripping Yarns’ and is almost as funny, although in this case perhaps unintentionally.

A summary of Fry’s life could include the following: He set a world record for the long jump, played football for England, appeared in the 1902 FA Cup Final, scored over 30,000 First Class runs, met Churchill, Hitler and Ghandi, represented India at the League of Nations, stood for Parliament and even turned down the throne of Albania.

Fry’s chapter titles are a delight on their own:

Chapter 7: Motorin’, Huntin’, Fishin’, Shootin’
Chapter 15: India of the Princes
Chapter 18: Adolf Hitler
Chapter 20: Hollywood

Sadly the great Corinthian lets himself down with some ill advised upper class nonsense about Hitler:

“The fact that we have come to look upon the Nazi system as hostile and dangerous to our interests does not prove that the means whereby Germany has reformed herself into such a capacity are not worth our close attention.”

But let’s try and ignore that and revel in passages like this instead, possibly my favourite in any book:

“It is half-past ten: time for the caravan to start from Brown’s Hotel. The Bentley is at the door; Mr Brooks, the chauffeur, is wise-cracking out of the side of his gutta-percha mouth. Aboard are writing pads and binoculars and travelling rugs, a copy of Herodotus, a box of Henry Clay cigars and reserve hampers of hock and chicken sandwiches. A monocle glitters. A silver crest passes, high and haughty, above the cities of the plain. C.B. Fry is off to Lord’s.”

07:

On and Off the Field
Ed Smith

This was one of those books that sneaked up on me and ingrained itself in my memory without me expecting it. The diary of the season is one of cricket literature’s go to books, but apart from the brilliant Simon Hughes, most players turn it into a dull tale of dressing room ‘japes’, moaning about the weather and the contents of the tea at Lords.

Ed Smith’s book was always going to be a bit different: Smith got a double first in History from Cambridge and reviews books for the Telegraph so amusing anecdotes about Gatt’s love of pickle sandwiches were always going to be thin on the ground. Instead what we get from Smith is an incredibly intelligent insight into the mind of the professional county cricketer which is full of gripping descriptions of matches, players and spotting pretty girls in the crowd.

It helps of course that Smith’s 2003 season was amazing. Playing for Kent he has a Bradmanesque July with the following run of scores: 135, 0, 122, 149, 113, 203, 36, 108, 32 and is picked for England.

It’s here that the book really touches greatness with his descriptions of the pressure and nerves of playing for your country and his colorful descriptions of fellow internationals: Flintoff prepares Smith a vodka and tonic after his first England innings, Mark Butcher confesses to reading a Graham Greene novel every week, Nasser Hussein is described as “burning with an anger that often borders on hatred”, while a touching portrait of Smith’s county colleague Andrew Symonds belies his drunkard reputation.

Using the word ‘journey’ smacks of reality show blandness but that’s exactly what ‘On and Off the Field’ is. It’s a brilliant book and one which leaves you full of admiration for Smith, possibly the most intelligent player to put pen to paper since Mike Brealey.

06.

Morning Everyone
Simon Hughes

Hughes’ 1997 book A Lot of Hard Yakka: Triumph and Torment – A County Cricketer’s Life is rightly hailed as a classic but I enjoyed Hughes’ 2005 Ashes cash in just as much. In similar self-deprecating style Hughes describes his misadventures in journalism with an honesty that must have lost him a large number of friends and contacts. The book reaches a climax with Hughes joining the cast of Channel 4’s excellent and much missed cricket coverage as he settles into his role as ‘the analyst’.

He bravely criticises Boycott (“a sharp eye but his attitude and turn of phrase is a little old hat”), is constantly amused but impressed by Mark Nicholas’ hair, idolises Richie Benaud (Benaud describes his daily 6.15am walk as taking “between twenty-nine minutes and fifty-five seconds to thirty minutes and five seconds”) and to his credit even broaches the sticky subject of Dermot Reeve’s burgeoning cocaine habit:

“On the second day, Reeve looked rather the worse for wear, with staring eyes and hair all over the place and his manner veered wildly from confrontational to dopey.”

Things reach a head when Reeve criticises Fred Trueman in front of Boycott and shows Benaud his recently pierced nipple.

If nothing else reading this book has made me all the more determined to write about cricket.

05.

Netherland
Joseph O’Neil

I'm reading this book called Netherland by Joseph O'Neil...it's fascinating. It's a wonderful book.'

Barack Obama

One thing which struck me about The Wisden Cricketer’s list of cricket books was there was no fiction. How could a sport with such literary pedigree not attract some wonderful novelists? Thankfully, Joseph O’Neill, an Irishman like that fellow cricket lover, Beckett, comes to the rescue with his excellent 2008 book Netherland.

On paper it’s an unlikely tale. A dislocated Dutchman, alone in New York after 9/11, turns to his love of cricket to try and make sense of his life. As a result he finds himself entering the murky world of cricket US style – a rough and violent game played on marginal urban parks by various characters from America’s immigrant population. It’s here he finds Chuck Ramkissoon, a West Indian dreamer who longs to bring cricket to the States and in true Field of Dreams style decides to build a stadium.

The novel is beautifully written and Dutchman Han’s lyrical descriptions of the various games he plays in are worthy of C.L.R James:

“I cannot be the first to wonder if what we see, when we see men in white take to a cricket field, is men imagining an environment of justice.”

Given the recent farce of the first Twenty20 game to be played on American soil, a match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand which saw all of 5,000 people turn up, Chuck Ramkissoon’s dream could be a long way off.

Cricket 3D - The View from the Pub

2010-07-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve watched cricket in some beautiful places. From the beer garden of the Bat and Ball Inn in Hambledon, beneath the pink cherry blossom at Maghull and of course the rose garden at Sefton Park. It’s safe to say Yates’ Wine Lodge on Allerton Road won’t be joining this list.

Still this was history in the making and with the extra enticement of the classic burger and a pint for £3.50 offer, I wandered over to the only pub in South Liverpool showing England playing Bangladesh in full 3D.

The initial signs weren’t good. A quick phone call to the pub brought the manager to the phone: “We’re on Sky’s website are we? I better have it on then – to be honest we don’t get much call for the cricket.”

Taking my seat about 3 m from the screen, I was heartened to see two other punters wearing glasses which they had paid a £5 deposit for. Mine had been ‘borrowed’ from a recent screening of ‘Avatar’.

Unsurprisingly, given the time of day and location the pair are students but even after a couple of beers they were unsure of whether this experiment with the third dimension was working.

“It needs a lot of work I think” said Matt Brown, 20. “The close ups work and when the fielders move towards you but the actual bowling which you think would be best, is pretty hopeless.”

He’s right. Like most things in cricket it seems to be a question of angles. Occasionally you’re left very impressed – the slow mo shots from mid off look great but then you realise you can’t see if Tamim Iqbal is out or not when he’s rapped on the leg.

Sky seemingly are using this game as an experiment and it shows. Players come in and out of focus and rather than show replays they keep reverting to wide, panoramic shots featuring Stuart Broad’s gangly frame at fine leg. Admittedly these look good but they are just fluff really. A further criticism comes with the ridiculous realisation that you can’t read the scorecard.

What does work is quite surprising. Hawkeye and the graphic projections of where balls are pitching jump out at you like arrows and the controversial Hawkeye actually gains something, making 3D an interesting future option for decision making.

Overall though, the experience is disappointing. The feeling remains that the lack of close ups and multi player action means cricket lacks the dynamic punch of football or rugby, a fact constantly brought home by many of the ad breaks featuring those sports.

“I think it’s got potential”, says doctor, Ben Thompson, who pops in for a pint after work. “They need to pick some of the angles that work and stick with them.”

A bit like Stuart Broad’s bowling really.

Solstice Cup appreciation

2010-07-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Right, finally, I did a bit of a colour piece on the Solstice Cup on ny new site - Seven Streets - which I expect everyone to visit.

There's also the images I did on the day on this post too - a bit mixed, but I was batting badly and talking shite on the radio at the time.

Solstice Cup images

Sefton Park CC Solstice Cup

2010-07-04T04:23:00.000-07:00

Solstice Cup - BBC Radio Merseyside interview

2010-06-28T04:25:00.000-07:00

You can hear Robin Surtees, Jamie Bowman and Robin Brown interviewed by Jimmy McCracken on the Sefton Park Solstice Cup shortly after the game ended.

Click on the link if you don't know what the Solstice Cup is.

Sefton Park CC plans dawn start to Solstice Cup match

2010-06-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

On 21 June 2010, Sefton Park Cricket Club is attempting that rarest of cricketing beasts – a 4.43AM start to a game of cricket in the inaugural Solstice Cup.

Scheduled for the longest day of the summer, the game will start at the crack of dawn and consist of a Twenty20 game that should be over in time for every to turn, bleary-eyed, into work at 9AM.

The game will celebrate Sefton Park Cricket Club's 150th anniversary, and is one of a series of events designed to promote the south Liverpool oasis, which is situated within Sefton Park.

Anyone interested in attending or wanting more information should contact robinbrown78@yahoo.co.uk.

Full press release follows.

Liverpool cricketers set alarm clocks for dawn start

Cricketers at Sefton Park Cricket Club are preparing to celebrate the club's 150th anniversary, and the Summer Solstice in style - with a 20/20 cricket match played at the crack of dawn.

The two teams, made up of cricketers from the club, will set their alarm clocks in time for a scheduled 4.43am start and will be donning gloves and pads in time for sunrise.

The match is scheduled to last for four hours, and Sefton - known locally as The Shack - expects a small, but hardy, group of supporters to be in attendance for the solstice game.

Solstice matches are not unheard, but Sefton Park CC believes this is the first example played in Liverpool, and a fitting celebration for the club's anniversary year.

“I’ve often been told I miss out on the best part of the day,” declared Robin Surtees who came up with the scheme.

“Well, what better way to test this theory than by using every shred of light on the solstice whilst playing cricket! The only downside is I have to go to work afterwards!”

The match dovetails with Sefton's efforts to promote the club as a place to play cricket and relax amid picturesque surroundings.

"What we're hoping to do with the Solstice Cup, and a raft of other events staged at Sefton this Summer, is to raise awareness of this great ground and its facilities," said Third Team Captain, Robin Brown.

"Playing cricket is certainly about playing to the best of our abilities, but above all it's about having fun, and public events like the Solstice Cup are certainly what cricket is all about for the club."

Cricket Chairman Stuart Lomas added “Sefton Park CC is now in its 150th year and has played on this ground since 1876 yet this game will be completed earlier in the day than any other played in its history will have started.

"In spite of the unorthodox time we hope members of the club and the community will come down to Sefton to enjoy this curious match; one of the quirks which help to make cricket the great game it is.”

The Solstice Cup promises to be a unique event in Liverpool and is intended to be one of the highlights of Sefton's 150th anniversary celebrations.

Contact:

Stuart Lomas - Club Cricket Chairman: stueylum@yahoo.co.uk

Robin Brown - Third Team Captain: robinbrown78@yahoo.co.uk

Jamie Bowman - Fifth Team Captain: bowmanjam@hotmail.com

About the Solstice Cup

Sefton Park Cricket Club intends the 2010 Solstice Cup to the first of an annual event at the South Liverpool cricket club.

The game is scheduled to commence at 4.43am and will continue until around 8am. Refreshments will be provided to any brave spectators and media.

About Sefton Park Cricket Club

Founded in 1860, Sefton Park Cricket Club is one of South Liverpool's oldest and most historic clubs and a founder member of the Liverpool and District Competition.
Situated within Sefton Park, the club boasts two pitches, two pavilions and two bars - and is a popular destination for social events.

The club currently fields six teams every week, boasts a thriving junior section and is host to a number of teams without their own playing facilities.

Lancashire Cricket Club's Paul Horton is a Sefton member and the former club captain can still be seen playing the occasional game for Sefton's first team.

Other events planned in the club's 150th anniversary year include Summer Ball on 25 June, club barbecue on 9 July, a visit by the touring MCC side on 15 August and an end-of-season dinner with Derek Underwood on 24 September.

Address: Croxteth Drive, Sefton Park, Liverpool L17 1AP
Tel: 0151 733 5678
Website: www.seftonparkcc.co.uk
Directions - Click here for a link to MultiMap: http://www.multimap.com/s/1U0i3Y0D

ENDS

Images of Sefton Park Cricket Club

2010-06-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

I took some images of The Shack, as it's known locally, in its 150th anniversary year.

I'm obviously biased, but for me it's one of the most beautiful cricket ground I've ever played at, with only a couple of tower blocks looming above the trees to remind you you're not in the countryside.

Sure it's a bit battered around the edges, but some of the views are spectacular, with the hazy sun filtering through the row of trees that seaparates the two grounds at dusk something rather special.

I didn't capture it at its best on this occasion as there was a junior game on the bottom pitch, and bearded men with cameras are rarely welcome at cricket clubs.

ALso included in the set is some of the 3rd, 4th and 5th teams enjoying a net. If you look closely, you can see Paul Eastham having his off stump knocked back. Tsk

Nick Knight's shame

2010-06-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Sefton Super League calls in The Power

2010-04-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

There's no small level or irony in the fact that, of all Sefton Super League darters, it should James 'Two Darts' Pearce - so called because he only ever got two darts in the board out of every three - who is the League's most famous member.

Stuart 'Killer Ken' Lomas, the club's own answer to Taylor, is a star within the four walls of the Shack, but has never been thrown darts in front of many more than eight people, never mind 8,000.

Not content with throwing a few arrows on the sacred Liverpool Echo Arena oche last year, accompanied to the stage by a young lovely who insisted on holding his hand all the way, James Pearce is now getting darts lessons from Phil 'The Power' Taylor - undoubtedly the most dominant force in darts of his generation.

Jim quickly benefited from The Power's tutelage, casually nailing together three-dart aggregates as high as 36, but – despite his darter's physique - was advised to stick to his once-a-year public humiliation.

Sefton Super Leaguers, and those at Sefton responsible for the upkeep of carpets and wallpaper, may be breathing a sigh of relief.

Is it summer?!

2010-04-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, there are a couple of buds on the most ambitious of trees – it must be cricket season. As has been repeatedly reported for the last week, the counties kick off the championship today earlier in the year than ever before basically at the behest of the Board of Cricket Control for India so they can play some more pointless Twenty20 in September. Of course it feels like 99% of the populace have no idea what the County Championship is.

Unfortunately the ECB’s meek climb-down to cricket’s global powerhouse hasn’t been greeted with the covering of snow it deserved (which much of the country had a week ago) but what is looking like it will be a very pleasant weekend to bowl seam-up on a greentop. You never know, there might even be some positive results if the rain stays off for a couple of days. Despite rising crowds in the four day game, this year half this season’s championship games will be played by the end of May, or the start of summer as it’s commonly known, to accommodate yet more Twenty20, which suffered from lower crowds last year, some of which will include additional overseas prima donnas to stretch county budgets further. Can we not leave the complete over-the-top grandstanding of the most one-dimensional form of the game to the IPL? The original T20 Cup worked well because it was new, cheap (£6 at Old Trafford in the first year, £18 at Liverpool last), brief and exciting; however, there were also only 3 or 4 home games for each county

A hidden product of this early start was the shift in date for the Cricketforce weekend, dubbed the biggest volunteer event in the country by the ECB, into March which, at Sefton at least – admittedly never the greatest club so far as volunteering goes – led to fairly scant attendances for both the preseason players meeting, season launch fundraising event and Saturday’s work for bringing the grounds and facilities up to scratch for the forthcoming season. The reason given that Cricketforce couldn’t be this weekend, immediately prior to our season, was that the occasional county pro wouldn’t be able to give a sightscreen a lick of paint to promote the whole shebang – something that a handful of clubs nationally benefit from. To many cricketers and club members, the thought of going to a cricket club before April is apparently completely alien so it’s hardly any wonder we were left with an unfulfilling race night.

I wonder if Lalit Modi would consider sharing any of his or the BCCI’s millions to refund the difference?

Sefton Super League Darts: Fun, funds, friendship and filth

2010-04-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

It's pretty tough to get people to do things nowadays, with so many distractions and mobile communication devices meaning everyone's bored of everything.

It's hard enough convincing people to go down the pub, or even leave the house at all. So it's pretty bloody impossible to get them to do anything involving cricket club administration.

Sefton needs to generate cash more urgently over the winter than over the summer - as there's not a steady stream of thirsty and hungry cricketers turning up to part with their cash. Over the winter things can get lean, and Sefton Park CC is not especially well-placed geographically to attract passing customers being situated, as it is, in the middle of Sefton Park.

So, current Sefton Chairman and fourth/fifth team stalwart Stuart Lomas hit upon a killer wheeze that would combine his three greatest loves: cricket, darts and Excel spreadsheets. The Sefton Super League was born in 2008, and Sefton has never looked back. Lomas, a man best described as grumpy and officious, deserves significant credit.

The first year attracted 16 players, turning up over the long winter months to throw arrows and down Trad. By the time the final came around there were dozens of spectators pouring money into the tills and bitter down their necks to see two of the four finalists whitewashed.

It was a successful start, but there was more to come. the 2009-2010 season saw two separate divisions - the Sefton Super League and Sefton Plate - and a spin-off knock-out tournament. There were also forays beyond the realms of Sefton to other pubs to take on other teams, and the women who play darts at the club got a darts hiding they aren't likely to forget.

The darts nights will have sent thousands into the club's coffers, and many enjoyable nights are the result.

A weekly newsletter, The Arrow, goes out to subscribers, detailing many and varied amiable slurs against the character of Sefton members; another weekly pre-match report, Darts AM, goes out hosted by characters as diverse as Sir Roger Moore, Trevor Jesty and the Transporter bridge; a mainly-nonsensical betting ring has sprung up surrounding the leagues; photos go on Flickr and videos of entrance music and presentations go on Youtube; a hack from a national broadsheet writes up the final.

The culmination of this effort is the finals night, which saw not one but two specially-made videos: one a brilliantly-executed Rocky spoof, and the other a video version of Darts AM, with contributions from Roger Moore, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Brum and Kendo Nagasaki involving interviews, voiceovers, animation and audio and video editing. It's probably fairly baffling and unfunny if you're not in on the jokes, but to me it symbolises the effort that people are willing to put into something they care about.

The success of the darts night gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. It shows what you can with a bit of effort, a bit of help, and a bit of support. It's an enjoyable way of keeping the wolf from the door from the club's point of view, and it allows a lot of men brought together by a mutual love of cricket to express their fondness for each other in the only way they know: through competition; through forensic discussion of obscure sport and sportsmen; and through viciously defaming and ridiculing one another.

As the club moves towards its 150th anniversary, the darts nights have shown how it is possible to engage and mobilise a membership at a time when it's hard to convince someone to leave the sofa, nevertheless trudge through the mud and wind and rain to get beaten 3-0 by the club's reigning champ.

The video below may mean little to you if you don't come down to the club on a regular basis, but to me it's proof that people are willing to freely give of their time and money to make something they believe in work.

And it's not often you can say that about a video featuring Sir Roger Moore making knob gags.

Darts AM 2010

Peter Kelly's Rocky spoof

Sefton Super League video playlist

So, Michael, do you miss cricket?

2010-03-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

Here's the best England Captain for a generation, Michael Vaughan, taking some time out of his busy schedule to paint a car using cricket and paint-covered cricket balls. He calls it 'artballing'.

While Alistair Cook was out in Bangladesh, boring the pants off everyone with his meat-and-two-veg skippering, Vaughan was busy indulging in a spot of art, no doubt followed by a Pimms then having sex with (edited by Quis Est Porcus libel lawyers).

Says Chevrolet:

Vaughan, 35, who led England to a historic Ashes victory in 2005, has been compared to artists Jackson Pollack and Damien Hirst due to the unique way he creates his art. An original “artballing” painting can fetch as much as £20,000 at art auctions with celebrities including Lily Allen and Piers Morgan counting themselves as fans.

Says Vaughany:

“Creating art with cricket balls is completely different, modern and new. It changes the rules of art because it’s instinctive and raw – covering a ball in paint and whacking or throwing it against canvas. A few of the other players initially took the mickey, but they are now “artballing” fans – and have had a go themselves.”

It took him eight hours, by which time Geoff Boycott would have racked up 47 runs.

• You can see a picture of Michael's artballing here

2010 Sefton darts quarter finals

2010-03-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

Every winter Sefton park Cricket Club stages a darts tournament, with players and members alike competing in the premier Sefton Super League and supporting Sefton Plate divisions.

Drinking, personal abuse of friends and team-mates, inane nicknames and - occasionally - some great darts are the result.

Walk-ons from the quarter finals feature below, with an appearance from Paul Stairhands Stairmand as MC for the night.

Top Cat V The Mexican Prince

Scotty 2 Hotty V The Enigma

Dr Fun V The Jockie on the oche

Alum V Goz

Brutal batting, brutal bowling

2010-02-24T01:50:00.000-08:00

Picked up from the Grauniad's weekly trawl of internet sport wonders are these videos of two equally violent characters from the gentle game.

In between some fairly bizarre on- and off-field behaviour, Shahid Afridi is a combative leggie and absurdly destructive batsman.

Boom-Boom may enjoy eating cricket balls as if they were apples, but he's equally fond of swatting them like flies, as this 37-ball century indicates.

Meanwhile, the great Malcolm Marshall terrorised batsmen of all colours throughout the 80's, but his control and mastery of swing should not be forgotten among the sheer pace and hostility.

Marshall succumbed to cancer over a decade ago, but he's guaranteed to be remembered as a fast-bowling great.

Cricket's back (sort of)!

2010-01-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

There's nothing quite like the first indoor net session of the 'season' on a midweek January evening.

The daylight hours barely long enough to fit a full cricket game; the trudge through the snow, ice and slush of the car park and into the bright lights of the hall; stand in line and try not to kill the batsman as your first couple of deliveries as inevitably wayward beamers; spend half the evening socialising with the players you haven't seen much of in the last couple of months, and another quarter talking to those you saw last night; facing your first ball you're pinned on your inner thigh as a newcomer makes an early bid to prove his worth before you spend the rest of your ten minutes ducking and weaving a barrage of back-of-a-length stuff from people beginning to find their range again on the lively indoor surface - the perfect preparation for the inevitable raging greentops of April.

Then back out into the cold night safe in the knowledge that tomorrow you'll be walking around the office nursing your back and your shoulder, complaining about your knees and the soles of your feet, whilst keeping the bruise on the inner thigh to yourself.

And you know the pain won't leave until well into next week. 12 weeks and counting until the season - will I make it?

Bring Ashes cricket back to Old Trafford

2010-01-07T03:48:00.000-08:00

For the rest of my life I'll remember being at the last day of the Old Trafford Test during the Ashes 05. This was the day when an estimated 10,000 people were locked out of a thrilling day's play that saw one of the great escapes from Australia who escaped with a draw after England got them 9 wickets down.

I have never experienced an atmosphere like it at any sporting event and it showed what a passion the people of the north west have for the game. Liverpool, were I live is traditionally seen as a football obsessed city but I know many, many people who make the pilgrimage over to Manchester every year for international cricket and Lancashire's fitful visits to play in Aigburth are similarly regular sell outs.

From a cricketing point of view Old Trafford is viewed as a 'result' pitch too, with England having a pretty good record there down the years.

It was a great shame then that the ECB decided to take the Ashes away from Old Trafford and investigate instead, new upstarts like Cardiff and Durham. This year the ground did not host an Ashes Test for only the third time in 150 years.

On the face of it you can see why they made the decision: Old Trafford is not a particuarly pleasant place, tricky to get to and in desperate need of a lick of paint or two.

However, thankfully plans are afoot to rehabilitate the ground and bring it up to the ECB's tough new standards.

The Old Trafford Partnership comprising Lancashire County Cricket Club, Tesco and Ask Developments has submitted a planning application to Trafford Council to redevelop Old Trafford cricket ground and the surrounding area.

The £47m development would see Old Trafford hopefully become one of the best grounds in the country and more importantly for us Ashes starved northerners, secure the future of International Cricket in the North West.

There's a very good website to promote the proposals where you can pledge your support for the bid - http://www.oldtraffordashes.co.uk/index.html

Finger Lickin' Good?

2010-01-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's surely a very rare occurance that cricket ever hits the headlines in the good ol' US of A.

It was after all Robin Williams who described the great game as "basically baseball on valium".

This week however, our cousins across the pond have been seriously upset by, of all things, a 20 second Australian advert for Kentucky Fried Chicken which shows an 'outnumbered' Australian cricket fan passing round pieces of fried chicken, in an effort to placate a rather stereotypical band of all singing, all drumming West Indian cricket fans.

The fan (called 'Mick' apparently) wearing the yellow and green of Australia poses the question "need a tip when you're stuck in an awkward situation?" He then hands out the drumsticks to the apperently ravenous West Indians who immediatly stop their pesky drumming. "Too easy" the smug Mick remarks.

The avert is as unfunny as it sounds but is no more guilty of racism than those awful Ashes adverts Sky ran featuring Shane Warne cooking a BBQ in the commentry box, much to the dismay of Botham and Gower (Botham, you may have observed, if you've been watching the current South African series, mentions his love of BBQs about every 10 minutes).

The Australians have always struck me as a race of people quite prepared to take the mick (Dundee) out of themselves and perhaps understandably they've come out fighting against the criticism the advert has recieved in the States.

Apparently to many in the US fried chicken remains closely associated with age-old racist stereotypes about black people in the once segregated south.

A writer at one US newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, questioned whether the ad was a spoof, remarking: "If it is a genuine KFC advertisement, it could be seen as racially insensitive."

I particuarly enjoyed the response of Professor Brendon O'Connor from Syndey University who said the association between fried chicken and ethnic minorities was a distinctly US issue.

He said: "They have a tendency to think that their history is more important than that of other countries."

Anyway judge for yourself but surely the most innacurate aspect of the ad is the unlikelyhood of this many West Indian fans being at a cricket match.....

Sky Cricket commentary team cooking TV advert

2010-01-02T17:37:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

The best cricket team of the noughties

2009-12-30T07:26:00.000-08:00

Sky's famously terrible commentary team has unveiled its picks for the team of the decade, echoing a rather heated discussion that took place at Sefton Park's club house a few weeks ago.

The Sefton members were pretty much universal on their choices of Ponting, Lara, Tendulkar, Gilchrist, Kallis, Murali, McGrath and Warne – leaving few other places up for grabs.

Both opener spots were heavily debated, with Hayden and Sehwag most frequently mentioned.

Trescothick, Dravid and Jayasuriya were also mentioned in despatches, but Hayden's brutality and Sehwag's sheer speed and weight of run-scoring won out. I think Tresco would have won one of the spots if he'd continued to play test cricket though.

The only other bone of contention were the all-rounder/second seamer spots. I think Kallis has to take the all-rounder spot, but I think there's room to slot in Flintoff as the second seamer to McGrath.

His ability to raise his game, inspire sides to victory through sheer force of will and destructive ability with bat and ball makes him a better choice than Pollock for me. It's not an obviously snug fit in the team, but I don't see how you can leave Flintoff out.

Picking Murali and Warne as spin twins may be controversial, but they're the best bowlers of the last ten years for me, along with McGrath.

Finally, I suppose I'd have Ponting as skipper, though I've always doubted how effective he'd be with an inferior team, something which was borne out – to my mind at least – this summer.

Below are the Sky commentators' picks, along with some thoughts of my own on the respective teams.

Hussain

Hussain indicates that he struggled over including Pollock, which may be a touch of the tedious matey banter that Sky reeks of, or may indicate that that's one of the most contentious spots.

Hussain's choice of Dravid says rather more about Hussain, I think, than Dravid.

Hayden
Dravid
Ponting*
Tendulkar
Lara
Kallis
Gilchrist
Pollock
Warne
Murali
McGrath

Pollock

"I've got for entertainers," says Pollock, which obviously explains why he's picked Kallis – perhaps the most stolid test batsmen since Sir Geoff hung up him broom handle – at number six.

Smith and Steyn also seem rather parochial choices.

Smith
Hayden
Ponting*
Lara
Tendulkar
Kallis
Gilchrist
Warne
Steyn
Murali
McGrath

Bumble

Trescothick's inclusion is an interesting one. It seems certain to me that if Tresco had kept playing test cricket he would have eclipsed Sehwag and Hayden.

Wasim seemed a spent force for most of this decade, and I don't see how you could leave out Murali.

Similarly doubtful about Steve Waugh as he wasn't one of the ten best batsmen of this decade.

Trescothick
Sehwag
Ponting
Tendulkar
Lara
Waugh*
Gilchrist
Pollock
Warne
Wasim Akram
McGrath

Sir Beef

Sir Ian proves what a hopeless administrator/manager/captain he always was, or would have been, by picking his big mate Warne as skipper.

Donald was a much better bowler in the 90s for my money.

Smith
Sehwag
Ponting
Tendulkar
Lara
Kallis
Gilchrist
Pollock
Warne*
Donald
McGrath

Athers

Athers has gone for a more mercurial team, with the likes of Jayasuriya, Flintoff and Zaheer potential match-winners in their own right.

Atherton's explanations show what a more astute skipper he made than most of the others, to my mind.

Sehwag
Jayasuriya
Ponting
Lara
Tendulkar
Flintoff
Gilchrist
Warne*
Zaheer Khan
Murali
McGrath

Gower

Rather more by-the-book, though the inclusion of Donald and Akram is suspect by virtue of them hardly playing in this decade, and certainly not to the height of their powers in the noughties.

Smith*
Sehwag
Ponting
Lara
Tendulkar
Kallis
Gilchrist
Warne
Wasim Akram
Donald
McGrath

Lament for the released

2009-12-28T04:22:00.000-08:00

It's the time of year when people start perusing lists to see who's getting a CBE for managing to be famous, or who's getting a knighthood for managing to live long enough.

But for cricketers and cricket fans there comes the dubious pleasure of scanning the lists of the retired and released, to see who was unlucky enough to get the bullet in 2009, and who finally called it a day on a career that could have been more.

The most obvious is John Crawley, a man associated with the England batting line-up for almost a decade.

Like a couple of peers, he seemed star-struck on the big stage and never fulfilled his promise. His strength against spin was heralded as England's Ashes answer to the mastery of Shane Warne. But of never worked out like that.

Crawley got the reputation of what I remember Ian Chappell terming a 'second-innings Sid' – implying he only ever got runs when the game was beyond competition.

A stuttering career came to an end at a point where Creepy had started to suggest he could make it, but like Ramprakash he was finally discarded just as he seemed to get going.

Other former England cricketers calling it a day include Jason Gallian, most famous for throwing KP's kit out of the dressing room; Alex Wharf, another in the battery of ODI all-rounders; Martin Saggers, trusty Durham seamer and occasional England fill-in; Chris Silverwood, a rapid seam bowler who should have been so much more; Mark Ealham, chubby England all-rounder who looked like a throwback; Jason Brown, another feted England spin-bowling whizzkid during the wilderness years; Andy Caddick, one of the best England seamers of a generation; Alex Tudor, who probably should have been; Mark Butcher, evergreen in the top three for several years; Jimmy Ormond, perhaps most famous for one of the best sledges ever at Mark Waugh; and Michael Vaughan, destined for the TMS box with a new head of hair.

But there's more to it than the passing of of a few former England pros. It's the names that have graced sports pages and Ceefax screens for years that will also be missed.

Tony Frost, Jason Lewry, Chris Murtagh, Steven Crook, Stephen Adshead, Stephen Stubbings, James Pipe. Names to conjure with, though I could tell you little about any of them, bar Lewry.

All have plied their trade around the country circuit for years, and Lewry was often thought of as England material.

In the end all it comes down to is a brief footnote in the end-of-year country round-ups before their names are forgotten by most casual cricket fans forever.

Not much to show for a career perhaps, one last moment in the national spotlight before fading away to minor county or club cricket; back to careers stalled for 20 years; fading away back into everyday life.

Cricket makes rare decision not to sell own soul

2009-11-18T01:13:00.000-08:00

In a rare move that will presumably horrify Giles 'Family Silver' Clarke, Lord's has ruled out any suggestion that it could sell naming rights to pay for its £400m Vision for Lord's redevelopment.

The redevelopment will include a larger museum, greater capacity, retractable floodlights and a vaguely Bondian (James, not Shane) underground cricket academy.

Speculation had grown that the vast amounts of money require could lead to the MCC flogging the naming rights to the ground or stands, a suggestion categorically ruled out.

The likes of Headingley Carnegie and the Brit Oval have led the way towards a football-style model when naming rights for grounds, teams and competitions are open to the highest bidder.

Sadly there is always a financial imperative cricket in this day and age, and some might say that it's good money for not very much.

But cricket is a traditional and, frankly, conservative sport that has done its best to resist the steady infection of hard cash – in the UK at least.

It's a hopeless battle, but it's nice to see that some things are sacrosanct. After all, hat cricket fan could stomach the Edrich Stand renamed the Samsung Jet stand? Not this one.

David Shepherd 1940–2009

2009-10-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

The news that David Shepherd has died saddened me, as he always seemed to represent what was good about the game.

Known to be one of the best umpires in the game, and known to be fair-minded, he was universally respected.

His ruddy cheeks and portly stance earned him the nickname The Fat Butcher from my younger brother, whose Cricketer's Who's Who Shep once signed.
Although I never met him he once umpired a Durham game at Hartlepool and apparently spent most of the time regaling the club with stories of cricket at both international and village levels.

Alonside a lovely photo of Shep, here's what David Hopps in The Guardian says of him:

He was a romantic, sentimental man, especially when it came to cricket, and resented what he saw as examples of greed creeping into the modern game.

Shep first came to my attention when I was very young as his superstitious tics – skipping on multiples of 11 – stood out. Unlike some other umpires in the modern game it did not seem attention-seeking or affected.

I'll always remember Shepherd like this – the very best of the whimsical, gentle lunacy of cricket.

The Duckworth-Lewis Method - Meeting Mr Miandad

2009-10-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

There's a full review of The Duckworth-Lewis Method's album, The Duckworth-Lewis Method, scheduled for some time next century but in the meantime I thought I'd post this music video for first single Mr Miandad.

It's probably the best mix of whimsy upbeat chart-friendly stuff that's vaguely about cricket on the album, which is presumably why it's been afforded a single release and music video.

Because while the DLM may guarantee some strong album sales and a likely devoted live following I can't imagine there's a huge market for chart-busting singles.

I actually fancy The Age of Revolution is a wittier and funkier slice of pop and Mason on the Boundary a more melancholy dreamy evocation of the gentle spirit of cricket, but then again the former is about the paradigm shift in cricket politics between former empire and former subjects, while the latter features a spoken section about Denis Compton by Matt Berry alongside the phrase 'hopelessly panglossian'.

And, of course, Jiggery Pokery is the funniest track on the album, galumphing along with all manner of cricket puns and pay-offs - but how commercial can a single narrated by Mike Gatting about a ripping leg break be?

Nevertheless the album is praiseworthy simply because it exists, such is the difficulty of crafting pop songs solely about cricket. On one hand nerdy and in-jokey references to cricket are a necessity to justify the album's moniker as a cricket concept album, one the other there needs to be some allowances for the non-cricket listeners.

Surprisingly it does. It's easy to imagine a sunny day at a summer festival, with the jauntier tracks giving way as evening creeps in to the sweeter, more relaxed songs.

But I don't think there'll be any more singles. So do enjoy Meeting Mr Miandad below, along with its basic but nontheless rather charming video.

Superb or terrible - the strange case of TV cricket commentary

2009-09-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

I noticed two things watching the latest ICC Champions Trophy match between England and New Zealand today that reveal a bit of how cricket commentary has changed over the years.

The first was the dismissal of Paul Collingwood by Grant Elliot, the latter a very average international cricket in my book.

Having just been pulled for an imperious four on a track immensely helpful to bowling, Elliot immediately bowled another 70mph half-tracker which Colly duly swatted, unluckily to an amazing midwicket catch by Ross Taylor.

It was a jammy wicket for Elliott, who looked like he'd just cleaned up Brigadier Block with a 95mph inswinging yorker rather than a rank long-hop that deserved to be lashed out of the park.

I'm not sure who the commentator was now, but he lauded Elliott for his persistence. I was a bit baffled by this, as I'm dubious that Elliot's 'persistence' would have met with such praise if Colly had repeated the dose.

Later on the game Kiwi batsman Martin Guptill his the flukiest 50 I've ever seen, repeatedly hitting balls just over the heads of fielders, surviving very good shouts throughout his innings and being tied in knots by not just Jimmy Anderson but also Private Pie (the aforementioned Shotley Bridge terrier).

Upon Gutpill's inevitable and long-overdue dismissal, Sergeant Suicide, Bob Willis, declared it to be a 'superb innings'. In the context of the game a contribution of 53 was a valuable one, but in no way could his innings be declared superb. It was scratchy, flukey and probably should have been curtailed much earlier by the umpires.

This highlights something I've been noticing for a while about cricket commentary, where the skill of critiquing seems to have been overtaken by one of two extremes: superb and terrible.

Any wicket that takes a delivery is now labelled brilliant, likewise any shot that goes for a boundary - regardless of how ugly or lucky the shot it is.

It's hard to say whether this is because critical faculties are in short supply among the commentators in question (hello Sky!) or whether it's simply a case of the way the sport and cricket have gone. Too much overhyped cricket, jaded commentators.

As ever, TMS tends to be rather more guarded in its garlanding of players. Over on Sky David Lloyd is perhaps the ultimate purveyor of hyperbolic praise, and that seems to be Sky's thing - brilliant or rubbish.

It should come as no surprise that my opinion of Sky's commentary lies squarely within one of those two extremes.

Why was the Ashes 2009 so mediocre?

2009-09-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write an article about the Ashes – bad luck, you Aussies, bad luck! – for a couple of weeks now, but I haven't been able to find the enthusiasm to sit down and bash it off, as it were.

I suppose in itself it's symptomatic of a fairly boring and somehow anti-climactic Ashes battle that was played out between two fairly poor teams, certainly in comparison to the two teams that battled it out four years ago.

2005 was all about England having to pull out every stop to (barely) get the better of one of the best teams of all time. Barring the injuries to McGrath in that series it seems unlikely England would have prevailed, despite Freddie's heroics, KP's emergence, Vaughan brilliant tactics, Tresco's bludgeoning at the top of the order, Strauss' catch, Harmy's vicious fast bowling and the quietly effective bowling of Hoggy and, in particular, Simon Jones.

This time around both teams played their hearts out, but it seemed to be inferior by several leagues to the cricket played four years ago.

Clearly the two teams are not the forces they once were. England had two match-winners in the shape of Freddie and KP. The latter failed, and the former only flickered, albeit brilliantly.

Looking at the Aussies there was only the threat of significant runs from Punter and Pup (the worst nickname ever?) and the occasional threat from a mainly-shot Johnson. Siddle wasn't as dangerous as I expected and Hilfenhaus was nagging, but no-one threatened to precipitate a collapse in the same way that Freddie, Jimmy, Swannny or (God help us) Broad(y) did.

So, the cricket wasn't great, and no-one seemed as up for it as they did in 2005. Only Flintoff, Swann and, latterly, Broad had Ashes moments that will stick in the mind.

The whole country seemed rather less bothered about everything this time around. I witnessed the last wicket with a kind of faint smile and shrug, whereas last time I whooped, jumped, drank and openly wept like a girl.

Could it be, I wonder, because cricket simply did not have the profile it did last time around? Certainly Sky's coverage is only a few rungs above abject, but at least those having to suffer Botham, Ward, Warne, Colville and Willis can actually see cricket.

I'm guessing there are 2–3m cricket fans who can't these days – most of my family among them – and wonder whether an Ashes series can ever be as over-archingly significant again as they did in 2005, when a nation watched with baited breath.

There is currently zero live cricket on free-to-air stations in the UK by my reckoning. There are highlights of England internationals and nothing more. No foreign tests, one dayers or 20/20. No country cricket of any flavour. Certainly no foreign domestic cricket.

I happen to think that this is an absolute disgrace, for reasons ideological, sporting, quaint and selfish. But, most of all, I think it's bad for cricket. Was 2009 the proof of the public's fading awareness of, and affection, cricket? Perhaps, perhaps not.

But at the very least there would have been several million more viewers, and more public awareness. Perhaps then there would have been more coverage, more buzz and more excitement.

Either way there would have been less Bob Willis

• Image by mailliw via Creative Commons

RIP Devrill

2009-09-01T14:42:00.001-07:00

For some years Sefton Park CC has had an unlikely fan in the shape of Devrill – a man apparently of no fixed abode and immense drinking capacity.

Devrill was essentially a tramp who hung around the cricket club. It wasn't initially clear why, though at a guess the club is situated between two popular drinking spots. Sefton's first contact with Devrill was marked by a threat to 'burn down' the cricket pitch - an intriguing suggestion - and the first airing of his favoured 'woollyback jedis' insult.

As time went on he seemed to develop an interest in the cricket and formed unlikely friendships with various people at the club, particularly groundsmen. He became a kind of unofficial mascot, of great amusement to many of the club's younger people and great consternation to opposing teams.

Frankly he was, also, a nuisance and often abusive to anyone and everyone. There's often a funny side to alcoholism, but it never totally masks the tragic nature of alcoholics and substance abusers. The two parts were never really lost on me and I regarded him as a rather pathetic character.

This duality was marked by a spell where Devrill lived under a downed tree in the Sefton garden. In many ways this was amusing, but when the tree was cleared I once noticed him sleeping on the stone steps of the lower pavilion one night, wrapped in a blanket and at the mercy of the elements.

Poor Devrill. It seemed he had got himself a flat, but his life didn't seem to change much. I last saw him a couple of weeks ago promising to smarten himself up and expressing his apologies for previous behaviour. He was clearly drunk at the time, but I expect life looked rather more pleasant through a fog of addiction than in the cold, hard light of day.

Devrill was a pain in the arse and was often a source of abuse and vitriol aimed at people in and around the club. And I'm fairly sure he once did my car over. But I felt sorry for him - he was a walking warning against falling into a trap that so many do.

Most people have a story about a funny alco, but I'm betting every one of them dies a lonely, slightly pathetic death. I can almost see Devrill stumbling across Ullet Road, another day's hard drinking behind him. He will, in his own way, be missed at the club but there will be no bench plaque, no minute's silence - just a moment's contemplation.

So, this one has little to do with cricket, but it says a lot about the nature of cricket clubs and the bizarre mix of people they tend to attract. No doubt, in the future, the club will attract another oddball. They always do. Poor Devrill.

When Aggers met Allers

2009-08-25T05:38:00.000-07:00

TMS is always likely to throw up some unexpected events from time to time, as you'd expect if you were to pack a daily eight-hour live radio show with eccentrics, egomaniacs and oddballs.

I say this with fondness, and my enjoyment of Test Match Special is well documented, but I don't there's any getting away from the fact that it is hardly representative of the common man.

It's a strange mix between public-school chaps and working-class lads, an unlikely mix that nevertheless comes off brilliantly.

One of the former is Jonathan 'Aggers' Agnew, probably the man most heavily associated with the programme now that Johnners has gone to the big commentary box in the sky, CM-J taking a back seat and Blowers is seemingly semi-retired.

The juxtaposition of Aggers and Boycott and Aggers and Tuffnell respectively are two all-time great TMS pairings to my mind, and it's this clash of styles and characters that makes the programme so unique.

It's a commonly-held idea in TV land that opposites attract, a mantra that is patently untrue as often as it works, hence bizarre pairings such as Tess Daly and Bruce Forsyth, Des O'Connor and Melanie Sykes and Vic'n'Bob with Alice Beer.

But it works on TMS because of the mutual love of cricket. That theory was rather tested to its limit during the last test when the View From the Boundary interview segment featured urchin-like coquette Lily Allen.

Allen, a recent convert to cricket, had been entranced by the hairy delights of Graham Onions and had formed an unlikely friendship with Aggers via Twitter.

Naturally an interview was arranged and, to be fair, Aggers did seem rather more excited than he would if he were interviewing, for example, Chris Tavare.

The interview passed off in much the same way as most Agnew interviews do. I'm a great admirer of his technique, which consists of being so nice to the interviewee that they inevitably drop their guard, at which point Aggers starts firing off some rather more tricky posers - albeit in the nicest possible way.

The TMS commentator certainly did his best with Allen, but seemed occasionally flustered as Lily giggled, teased and flirted outright. It was like listening to Harry Potter interview Lolita.

Somehow, in an article in The Grauniad, this has been recounted as a leering, panting Agnew slavering all over a repulsed Allen.

I'm baffled at this piece of writing by Will Buckley (though The Grauniad has form with deliberately provocative articles), even accounting for the mischievous 'I'm joking, of course' tone.

Agnew has not seen the funny side, and has publicly called for an apology from Buckley on Twitter.

I can see why. While there exists a definite schoolboy level of Carry On-style smuttiness in the TMS box - I recall two distinct occasions recently when Agnew had to scold Tuffers for his innuendo, and another where Boycott teased Agnew that he fancied another guest - the accusation that Aggers was 'perving' over Allen rather crosses an imaginary line beyond which TMS does not venture.

The programme exists, rather uniquely, in a slightly rose-tinted vaccuum, sealed off from the real world and its sex, politics and beastliness. Therein lies its appeal – the crackly 198 LW Radio 4 broadcast, the cakes, gentlemen in whites, claret and TMS ties.

Even the likes of Matty Hayden and Russell Crowe seemed a little altered, a little more pleasant, by its effect, and the complicated Tuffnell and Boycott are lent an air of the scampish and avuncular respectively in the TMS surroundings.

Buckley's assertion that Agnew spent the Allen interview lusting over a young girl does not sit comfortably in this world, and the notion is grossly unfair.

It's not simply Not Cricket, it's simply Not Test Match Special.

• UPDATE: Lily Allen has defended Aggers, The Torygraph has waded in, and Buckley has apologised.

He admits to a joke not really finding its mark, which is fair enough, though someone probably should have seen this coming.

My secret leaked dossier on the Australian squad

2009-08-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

Reading Justin Langer's secret dossier on the England team, I'm struck by a few things. Firstly is that Langer – certainly one of the 'decent' Aussies – is spot on about a few England players, and some of the supposed aura around the team. Secondly is that it's equally as revealing about the Australian psyche as England's.

I think the current England team is one of the least likeable in recent years. The problematic Pietersen and Flintoff are very much their own men in that team; Broad is a mouthy git for a guy with a test bowling average of 40; and there's still a powerful lingering impression that there's something of a clique surrounding the team and management.

I don't believe in the impression that Team England is supposedly a solid unit – I think it's riven with factions and people intent on furthering their own interests.

Having said that I believe England, with Flintoff and Pietersen, is a superior team to Australia at the moment. And this is where Langer is wrong.

Langer lets his personal pride and hubris get in the way of his analysis so instead of being a sober, objective analysis, his dossier veers into the personal and biased. Many of his judgements on certain players amount to attempts to psychoanalyse the players, to what end I'm uncertain.

Among the pearls of wisdom are the observations that Anderson can be 'bit of a pussy if he is worn down'; Swann and Prior have 'massive' egos (and?); and Bopara is a 'strutter'.

It smacks of the mental disintegration Australia are so fond of, and is reminiscent of Warne's commentary, where the former leggie is unable to hide his personal feelings about certain England players.

Langer's folly is revealed in the phrase about the supposed psyche of England players, suggesting that they're psychologically fragile because they're built that way.

“English players rarely believe in themselves. Many of them stare a lot and chat a lot but this is very shallow. They will retreat very quickly.

"Aggressive batting, running and body language will soon have them staring at their bootlaces rather (than) in the eyes of their opponent - it is just how they are built.

"They [English cricketers] like being friendly and 'matey’ because it makes them feel comfortable.”

“In essence this is maybe the key to the whole English psyche — they love being comfortable. Take them out of their comfort zone and they don’t like it for one second.”

This is all about the Aussie fantasy that they're inherently more manly, resolute and tough than any other team – a kind of smug cultural superiority complex of the kind that Aussies like to level at the English.

Michael Vaughan has suggested that Langer's dossier should come as something of a wake-up call – and it should. To ignore England's obvious problems and not learn from the valuable information would be a mistake.

But I'd suggest that it should also come as a it of a lesson to Australia – their belief in a form of natural superiority in attitude and resolve has been exposed as a nonsense in this series, when Punter and his men have seemed as clueless and bereft of ideas and guts as England often have in the past.

To this end I've compiled my own dossier on the Australian Ashes team, in the same skewed and rather far-fetched manner as Langer.

My secret leaked dossier on the Australian squad:

Ricky Ponting - Stripped of the best team for a generation, his captaincy is exposed as flat and unimaginative. Proves unable to rouse his team when under pressure, and prone to hypocritical outbursts about playing in the spirit of the game. Recent hair transplant operation indicates deep lack of self-confidence.

Michael Clarke - Nickname is 'Pup'. Therefore a pussy.

Peter Siddle - An ugly cricketer in more ways than one. Head goes when put under pressure.

Simon Katich - An able batsman with no guts for a scrap.

Michael Hussey - Deeply lacking in confidence for a man named Mr Cricket

Shane Watson - A decent one-day slogger one tour away from being a forgotten man.

Ben Hilfenhaus - Tim Munton in a baggy green

Mitchell Johnson - A fast erratic bowler who has been afforded far too much respect with bat and ball. Get after him and he falls apart.

Nathan Hauritz - Simply not a test bowler. Probably a nice guy.

Brad Haddin - Chip away at him for his poor keeping.

Michael Hughes - Doesn't like the short stuff, and no guts for a scrap.

Marcus North - Probably a decent grade cricket player one tour away from being an Australian Mark Lathwell.

In praise of....Andrew Caddick

2009-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

In all the hype surrounding the Ashes, a piece of cricket news slipped out last week that seemed to go rather undetected. The retirement of Andrew Caddick at the age of 40 was barely mentioned by commentators too busy bemoaning England's one dimensional attack (an attack currently being picked on the sole premis that it'll be cloudy outside).

In a way this lack of interest seems to sum up Caddick's career - but consider the facts - Caddick is one of England's ten leading Test wicket takers of all time. It's sobering to realise that Caddick played 62 Tests taking 234 wickets at an average of under 30 while also claiming 69 victims in 54 one-day internationals. Eighth in the list of all-time England Test wicket-takers, he made his Somerset debut 18 years ago and in 2005 he became one of only six current players to take 1,000 first-class wickets. Stats in this case clearly make the case for Caddick to be an England legend but he's barely mentioned these days. Why?

The main reason seems to be that Caddick never seemed to fit in. Perhaps it was his massive ears, or the fact that he was born in New Zealand but whatever the reason a succession of England management teams never seemed to know quite what to do with him. It wasn't until Hussain and Fletcher instigated their revolutionary idea of actually backing players that Caddick, who like so many bowlers clearly fed on confidence, actually felt at home. The fact that he made his debut in the same series as Graham Thorpe who went on to play 100 Tests to Caddick's 62, is a perfect example of how he was messed around.

Another reason seems to be his apparent spikiness and trawling through the usual suspects' autobiographies only Caddick's Somerset team mate Marcus Trsecothick repeatedly sings his praises. Darren Gough, Caddick's opening bowling partner, shows downright hostility describing how the New Zealander constantly took the piss out of him for not taking 5 wickets as many times as he did. At one point they came to blows after Gough called him a 'twat' in front of the England dressing room.

When not playing for his country, Caddick did another rare thing. He rolled up his sleeves and got on with the business of taking wickets for his county. He never made himself unavailable for England and in 2007 was the country's leading wicket taker prompting many including Andy himself to wonder why he'd never had a sniff of a recall since his last match in 2003. Team mate Justin Langer even compared him to Glenn McGrath saying "I cannot believe he hasn’t played every Test for England over the past ten years.”

Unlike contemporaries such as the aforementioned Gough, Phil Tufnell or Dominic Cork it seems unlikely that Caddick will move into a media career. Instead he'll have to content himself on that top ten place and a twenty year career as an excellent fast bowler. Sometimes that's enough.

Caddick's greatest England moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd-HU7dSYeQ

Shane Warne is starting to annoy me

2009-08-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

As I've detailed before, I'm far from impressed with the quality of Sky's commentary, despite the odd chink of light.

I'd expected the introduction of Shane Warne to liven things up a bit, and take the focus off whining about cricket and cricketers all the time. After all, Warne has been fulsome in his praise of England players since 2005, especially those he's played with and he can be quite amusing.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Warned is like a parody of himself, all "Aw look"s as he prepares to offer more excuses or criticism. It's as if he's sledging from the commentary box.

Warne spends a lot of his time saying that England's players aren't good enough to be Test cricketers, but only offers vague criticism of Aussie players, presumably because most of them are his mates.

England's Ravi Bopara, batting at number three, has borne the brunt of Warnie's ire. Bopara certainly doesn't look like a number three in Tests, but Warne has written off his entire career.

The reintroduction of Ian Bell to the team has given Warne an excuse to trot out his tiresome 'Sherminator' gag ad infinitum, a joke than was quite funny four year ago.

Elsewhere Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior, both of whom comfortably average over 40 with the bat at the highest level, are found wanting by Warne.

Meanwhile, you'd think everything is rosy on the Aussie side, despite the fact that the Aussies have spent pretty much all of the last two Tests on the rack.

Any questions on the abilities or form of the Australian XI meets only with an "Aw, look. Phil Hughes/Mitchell Johnson/Nathan Hauritz/Marcus North is a great player..." followed by an explanation that the under-pressure player is ever-so-slightly out-of-form, though Warne is backing the player in question to hit back.

The most instructive moments have come from Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton, easily the best commentators on Sky, ribbing Warne over his fall-out with Ricky Ponting or his whingeing about England's sledging or luck with umpiring decisions.

Warne's ire was as obvious as his wig-like hair, porky belly or whitened teeth as Atherton probed him about his well-known bust-up with Punter in 2005, when Australia slipped to defeat.

Back on TMS Matthew Hayden and Jason Gillespie are proving to be able and amusing summarisers, who fit in very well with the Test Match Special ethos.

It's another example of Sky going for the big name and the Beeb exercising more consideration.

TMS 1 - Sky 0

Big in Japan?

2009-07-31T04:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve done my research. Japan competed in Division 5 of the World Cricket League in the Channel Islands last summer, having qualified thanks to winning the East Asia Pacific Cricket Trophy in 2007. Their global debut in the ‘big time’ didn’t go too well, however, with the only fillip being a tie with the Bahamas between defeats to the cricketing powerhouses of Jersey, Botswana and Singapore. They were mercifully rained off against the eventual tournament winners, Afghanistan, who have risen meteorically since to gain official ODI status in April. This summer they held their own in Division 7 of the pyramid, finishing third out of six.

Unlike most lowly-ranked cricket nations, however, it appears that most of Japan’s squad are both homegrown and homebred, with the only reliance on the ex-pat community being a couple of English names and one of apparent sub-continental provenance.

The reason for this preamble isn’t just for showing off my knowledge of barely club-standard international cricket played in distant reaches of the globe (though St Helier is hardly that far), but for the slightly odd episode from cricket nets at the club on Friday night. A young man named Tatsuo from rural Japan walked over to join in. He is studying English in Liverpool over the summer during which time he had seen Pakistani children playing cricket in the park, seen a little on TV in the pub, and was intrigued enough to see what he could do. He’d never seen cricket growing up in Japan and had never played before. It struck me as something akin to me trying to join in a game of Kabaddi whilst touring the Punjab. A very brave thing to do which had the potential to go very wrong indeed.

After an hour or so, with a style very much of his own, he had developed a bowling technique approaching legality with more than a hint of off-break from the pitch. He’d also developed what could generously described as a healthy respect for the ball as well so we left his batting debut for another week but we had an entertaining conversation in the bar afterwards during which he calmly handled all the questions semi-ignorant Englishmen could muster on Japan - yes, of course we asked about the bullet trains. And whaling. He was such a pleasant chap we invited him down to watch the games at the club the following day to experience a game in the flesh for the first time.

I know I’m not the only person to have found it hard enough to explain either the rules of, or merely an enthusiasm for, cricket to English people who are surrounded by the game whether they notice it or not. This includes my manager just this week who has recently watched more cricket than ever before because the Ashes are on the TVs in front of him at the gym. And he still only just about gets the scoring system. What would Tatsuo make of it all?

He arrived in the last hour to see Sefton chasing Southport’s 231. It all seemed to be going fairly swimmingly; I thought he was beginning to understand how the game was ebbing and flowing as a partnership would build and then a wicket would fall in what was turning out to be quite a tense finish. Then, with about five overs left, the bombshell: he didn’t understand why the ‘pitcher’ kept changing ends when Southport were batting at one end and Sefton the other. In the end the chase closed on 230-8 so I then had to try to explain how the draw works.

Fortunately he hadn’t come the week before when the last over had contained a six and three wickets including a stumping off a wide and the most ludicrous and unnecessary run out off the last ball to throw the game away. Fortunately there wasn’t an lbw and bonus points are still some way beyond him.

Hopefully it won’t be the last we see of Tatsuo; he did seem enthusiastic and was keen to learn more. Even if it is just a passing fancy to see this absurd game the English play which can last five days and still be a draw, I hope when he leaves our shores to teach English back in his homeland that he leaves with something of an idea of how cricket works.

Another cricket revolution

2009-07-31T04:10:00.000-07:00

About a year ago the ECB appeared determined to go toe-to-toe with the IPL with its own version of an overhyped twenty over tournament overpaying a plethora of foreigners. There was money everywhere if the number twenty was said twice it seemed; who cared about nearly 135 years of history of the County Championship. That much history surely guarantees its old hat credentials.

It was initially undecided whether to follow the IPL’s template to the breach of copyright and invent some city based teams or to discard the unfashionable counties as 8 or 10 teams were all that could apparently be supported by such a model (such a model being the IPL, obviously).

At around this point Lalit Modi’s legal team must have been on the blower as a competition containing all 18 counties, and possibly a few guests XIs too, was hastily put forward as the preferred option much to the disbelief of most cricket, television and finance experts. As a follower of Derbyshire, one of those unfashionable counties already at a massive financial disadvantage to the Test-hosting teams, it was something of a relief that none of the first-class counties would be missing out though there was immediately a nagging doubt as to whether this pipedream would ever take place, and that if it did it would surely be some kind of unmitigated washout.

Sure enough the proposal of the English Premier League was finally laid to rest back in April when the loss of the Stanford deal, no doubt coupled with the overarching uncertain economic conditions (for they must appear in every news story) led to the ECB finally realising that one IPL was actually more than enough and that the naturally cynical English were unlikely to have gone for it in a very enthusiastic manner anyway. It’s certainly tougher to envisage the razzamatazz of the Chennai Super Kings when you relocate it to Grace Road; more like the razzamatazz of trying to light a Superking on a gusty Thursday in early May.

The ECB still weren’t done with hair-brained schemes though; the short-lived plan to run both a league, now to be named the P20, and cup in the twenty over format finally died last week, handily buried in the news surrounding Flintoff’s retirement and the build-up to the Lord’s Test match.

After all this ongoing talk of a domestic cricket revolution on these shores, the rough outline for the 2010 county season was announced yesterday, again conveniently on the eve of an Ashes Test match. This incendiary press release maintains the status quo in a 2 division, 16 four-day game County Championship; there will still be one Twenty20 tournament, enlarged and renamed the P20 for no reason other than stubbornness one assumes, and what appears to be a welcome return to the Sunday League.

This means that the Friends Provident Trophy, which had been pretty much the FA Cup of cricket for most of its history under a variety of sponsorships, will be the one making way for more flexibility in the schedules and yet more Twenty20. I’m sure the bookies favourite for the chop would have been the Pro40, a league with no point except for filling the Sky Sports schedules every evening until the Premier League is back on. However, the Pro40 has been given a reprieve and what appears to be its old slot back on a Sunday afternoon.

In my eyes the FP Trophy had been devalued since they stopped allowing all the minor counties in and brought in the group stages a few years back but this was hardly an irreversible step. I’ll be quite sad to see it go, there’ll be no big day out at Lord’s for the counties to aim for, but don’t be fooled by the ECB’s supposedly progressive outlook; Friends Provident’s sponsorship deal was up after this summer and I can’t imagine it’s the best time for renegotiating contracts or trying to attract new sponsors just at the minute. Lest we not forget that the ground-breaking Twenty20 Cup only came about in the first place because their hand was forced by the demise off the B&H Cup due to the ban on tobacco advertising.

It’s no great surprise that the revolution threatened over the past 15 months has failed to come to fruition in England; that the counties themselves make the final decision leads to the most consistent use of the phrase ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ in the national press. Also in the length of time that the ECB has dithered over the decision the world has changed.

First up, it has to be a good thing that the primacy of the Championship has been maintained; whether 16 games are required is debatable but a necessity with 18 first-class counties. Although the infrastructure isn’t currently in place I would advocate a move towards including the minor counties with promotion and relegation, with 2 divisions of 7 or 8 playing four day cricket and another playing 3 day cricket to allow a greater level of semi-professionalism, before the remainder of the minor counties could continue in a similar vein to now. The obvious argument against is that it would make planning investment for the future much trickier, but with promotion a club should be able to budget to manage for a year or two on lesser funding. It also gives the opportunity of a proud and wealthy Cumbrian, say, to invest heavily in their county set-up and make significant progress within the game, and surely increases competition.

The return of the premier one-day tournament to Sunday afternoon is an excellent idea, and it seems the ECB may have listened to the fans who actually pay on the turnstiles here. The only stakeholder I can’t see being happy with this is Sky which is currently able to show several Pro40 games a week; this will surely hit TV revenue? It would be nice to see the Beeb throw its hat back in the ring, though this is more likely a purely nostalgic pang of mine.

Interestingly the format of the games in the ‘new’ Sunday League have yet to be decided with talk of 2 innings 40 over games gaining the early publicity. I assume this is an attempt to guarantee close finishes but to me the more ways in which the format is convoluted, the more compromised it is as sport; and that’s before you consider any possible implications of no one-day domestic cricket.

I’d probably plump for a straight 40 over competition as it’s popular with the fans and is close enough to ODIs for me to require the same skills and tactics. 2pm starts without the need for floodlights would do away very early starts and late evenings for fans from out of town, too. One thing which I think is worth considering is rearranging washed-out games on a midweek evening; it may also be a way to fulfil the Sky deal as they could then maintain their level of coverage.

Personally I’d maintain the FP Trophy as a straight knockout 50 over competition, meaning a maximum of 5 or 6 extra games even if you made the final; certainly fewer than the group stages of the current format.

Which brings us to the already much maligned P20. From what I can interpret it appears we’re looking at a north and south group, presumably playing each other home and away, with the top 4 from each proceeding to quarter-finals. Basically the number of group games will increase from 10 to 16 for each county and the main other amendment will be an attempt to play most games between Thursday and Sunday, as crowds have probably proven to be better around the weekend. Whether additional group games will spread the crowds too thinly remains to be seen. That a 3 hour format should take up the entire calendar through the long daylight hours of June and July doesn’t seem like the greatest use of midsummer either. One good thing which the counties have started recently to do is take Twenty20 to outgrounds; something which should be done far more in all forms of cricket.

So another English domestic cricket revolution has come. Will anybody notice the difference?

Cricketers on Twitter

2009-07-30T05:57:00.001-07:00

The news that Phil Hughes revealed his omission from the Australia side to face England in the Third Test at Edgbaston has propelled Twitter to the forefront of the cricket-loving public's consciousness.

OK, it probably hasn't, but if you use Twitter and would like to follow your favourite cricketers, I've compiled a list of cricketers using the microblogging service.

Boycott and Aggers are my favourite, and the updates from actual Test cricketers veer between the downright fascinating and mind-numbingly mundane. No surprise there then.

I make no claims for their authenticity, though they all seem real enough to me. All you need to do is click on the URL and follow the cricket person of your choice, assuming you have an account.

If you don't and need to set one up, don't worry - it's easy. Have a gander at this handy guide to using Twitter if you need to.

Until then: Start the car!

Kevin Pietersen
http://twitter.com/kevinpp24
Bio: N/A

England's go-to man over the last few years, right up to the point where they dropped him anyway. Famously reacted to said news with 'foul-mouthed' 'rant' on Twitter.

Married to that girl who used to be in Liberty X.

Best tweet: "Done for rest of summer!! Man of the World Cup T20, and dropped from the T20 side too. It's a fuck-up ..."

Michael Vaughan

http://twitter.com/VaughanCricket
Bio: Manchester born sheffield lad. Ex England cricket skipper.Wednesday supporter and very keen golfer

England captaincy great, forever to have 2005 etched on his bio. Followed Warne and Gooch down the hair route (allegedly) and taken to increasingly odd exploits such as artballing. Good on TMS.

Best tweet: A run for every spectator at Trent bridge... Notts 59 all out

Shane Warne
http://twitter.com/warne888
Bio: father to my lovely 3 children , motto keep smiling, be true to yourself

Aussie ledge, famous for the ball of the century, rowing with Ricky Ponting, dodgy phone exploits, fake hair and rubbish commentary that generally starts with "Aw, look...".

Best tweet: "Ps feel for people in country Vic and some parts of nsw, we need the rain desperately to fill dams, but terrible re floods, glad sun out!"

Dimitri Mascarenhas
http://twitter.com/DimiMascarenhas
Bio: N/A

England all-rounder apparently bred for one-day cricket and T20, bizarrely dispatched by England in favour of player like Michael Lumb and Alastair Cook. Looks a bit like a pirate.

Best tweet: "Chairman of selectors came and didn't even come and say hi.. What a p***k.. Doesn't take much to say hello does it?"

or

"Geoff Miller is a complete k**b.. He had no clue what he is doing.. Fing p***k"

Graeme Swann
http://twitter.com/Swannyg66
Bio: N/A

The new England team jack-the-lad. An old mate of mine played cricket with him as a schoolboy. He didn't like the England tweaker, but I get the feeling Swanny's changed a bit since then.

Follows Clint Boon.

Best tweet: i shall talk in the third person here...the swannatron apologises for dropping a clanger this morning.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins
http://twitter.com/cmjcricket

TMS' veteran double-barreled commentator

Best tweet: Should have picked Ramps. Had to have a century-maker. Good luck toi Trott but 30 won't be enough. Australia to win despite Freddie?

Test Match Special (Alison Mitchell)
http://twitter.com/bbctms
Bio: Alison Mitchell in the TMS box and around the ground

Blow-by-blow updates from Tests, one-dayers, T20s and county games.

Best tweet: Dinner chez Boycott tonight!

David Lloyd
http://twitter.com/BumbleCricket
Bio: Start the car!

Everything you'd expect from Bumble, the clown prince of cricket. Look at his bio!

Best tweet: bad light looming

Jonathan Agnew
http://twitter.com/Aggerscricket
Bio: BBC cricket correspondent, following the fortunes - or otherwise - of the England cricket team

As English as warm beer, and as comforting as a warm blanket. Plus he's a very good journalist.

Best tweet: Geoffrey is officially mad! Confirmed

Phil Tufnell
http://twitter.com/philtufnell
Bio: I am Phil Tuffers Tufnell former England Cricket Professional and Jungle superstar!

Everyone's favourite loveable cricket wide boy, who surprised everyone when he turned out to be a great commentator. His royal jelly exchange with Aggers was something to behold.

Best tweet: The samba is a Brazilian party dance , I live in bloody surrey

Simon Mann
http://twitter.com/Cricket_Mann
Bio: Test Match Special cricket commentator, freelance sports broadcaster

Test Match Special commentator, broadcaster rather than ex-cricketer, who is OK in our book.

Best tweet: trying to explain cricket to 8yo. 'How many points for that?' after rare England four.

Tim Bresnan
Tim Bresnan
Bio: Play Cricket Yorkshire and England love travelling and good banter

Banter-loving big-bottomed all-rounder. Probably less enamoured with the bollocking he received for some expletive-laden Twitter banter last year.

Best tweet: Don’t mind my mates dishing it out but who the fuck are you. Crawl out of your basement. U knob

Malcolm Ashton
http://twitter.com/TMSscorer
Bio: Relatively new Grandad, TMS scorer and Bury FC supporter

Ever wondered when England last played with three seamers whose names all ended in -son?

Best tweet: Go Strauss dog!!

Henry Blofeld
http://twitter.com/blowersh
Bio: this is Blowersh in the TMS box for real

Blowers on Twitter, whod'v'e thunk it? An insight into what it's like to live like a 1920s gentleman adventurer.

Best tweet: A parking ticket in Bond Street outside Charbonnel & Walker - best chocs ever. Bridge this evening softened by Blowers brill Cote du Rhone!

James Anderson
http://twitter.com/JimmyAnderson9
Bio: N/A

Live cricket tweets from the England locker room, from Jimmy.

Best tweet: On this day each year I always think about the U2 song - "One".

Gary Keedy
http://twitter.com/keeds23

Veteran tweaker. Surprisingly never played for England.

Best tweet: is queuing up at the rubbish tip!

Darren Gough
http://twitter.com/DGoughie
Bio: Cricketer come dancer. Radio pundit come 'all rounder' good egg!!

Darren follows @PorkFarms. We shouldn't be too surprised.

Best tweet: To win a ball, complete the following sentence: #GoughiesBalls I should win a Goughie ball because ...

The Spin (Lawrence Booth)
http://twitter.com/the_spin
Bio: N/A

The Guardian's Spin section, usually edited by Lawrence Booth, who I presume is behind the Twitter account.

Jason Gillespie
http://twitter.com/Jason_Gillespie
Bio: I am Jason Gillespie former Australian Cricket player over in England for the Ashes 2009

Very good on TMS, Gilly is obviously a nice bloke. That's another for the burgeoning 'nice Aussie' category.

Best tweet: Congrats to England. Well played. Thank you to those who have followed my tweets during the series. Take care all. Dizzy, signing off!!!!!!!

Geoffrey Boycott*
http://twitter.com/GeoffreyBoycott
Bio: Former Yorkshire and England cricketer, turned commentator.

Typically pessimistic stuff from the Yorkshire legend. Says 'daft' a lot.

* No less than Jonathan Agnew has informed me that Boycs' Twitter account is not genuine

Phil Hughes
http://twitter.com/PH408
Bio: N/A

The blistering Aussie opener supposedly revealed that he'd been dropped from Ashes XI via Twitter. Didn't tweet the subsequent bollocking he received from Cricket Oz.

Best tweet: Disappointed not to be on the field with the lads today, will be supporting the guys, it's a BIG test match 4 us. Thanks 4 all the support!

Iain O'Brien
http://twitter.com/iainobrien
Bio: Get my blog updates from here...

Kiwi fast bowler on life in the counties. Blogged a match I was at. That was weird.

Best tweet: the 4.25 to Upper Hutt does not stop at Petone,nor Ava,nor Woburn. It's now a long walk from Waterloo. I'm not to to good with public trnspt

Kyle Hogg
http://twitter.com/hoggy22

Play for Lancs, likes good music

Bio: play cricket, big music fan,love joy division,led zep,smiths,etc,etc,etc

Best tweet: Bleep test in the morning, oh shit

ECB
http://twitter.com/ECB_cricket
Bio: News and live cricket scores from England and Wales Cricket Board. Plus general cricket info and updates every day on the cricket scene

Not as boring as you'd think.

Best tweet: Swann no longer an ugly duckling

Sachin Tendular
http://twitter.com/Sachin_rt

Monosyllabic tweets from the Little Master.

* Have updated this one to what I'm assured is the correct account

Yuvraj Singh
http://twitter.com/yuvsingh09/

Engaging stuff from the Indian bruiser and KP nemesis

Best tweet: http://twitpic.com/voru9 - Eliminating negative ions through the feet - treatment with Dr Jatin

MS Dhoni
http://twitter.com/msdhonis

Indian skipper intermittent tweets some interesting stuff

* Also updated this one

Robin Brown
http://twitter.com/robinbrown78

Updates from me, often about Sefton Park CC and cricket in general. Not the former Zimbabwean coach.

Surprise ICC Tournament Success

2009-07-29T06:15:00.000-07:00

It will come as little surprise to those who know me that I’m not the greatest fan of Twenty20 cricket. Nor am I very often impressed with major international cricket tournaments. However, the two combined last month to prove me very wrong. I’m not sure I’ll be wrong forever as I’m almost certain the ICC will overegg the golden goose; this is probably already happening with the next World Twenty20 in the West Indies, where the 50 over World Cup of tedium was played out in front of empty grounds only 2 years ago, only a matter of months away. Not forgetting the ICC Champions Trophy in the South African spring (host to the inaugural World Twenty20 all of 21 months ago as well as the IPL) crammed into a calendar which has already squeezed four nips into a pint pot. For now, however, I feel happy to look on a few positives.

The World Twenty20 worked well because the entire tournament matched the format; fun and quickfire. The whole thing was done and dusted in three weeks leaving little time for dead matches – a curse of all sports but especially the way previous cricket competitions have been organized you would imagine the ICC looked upon them as a unique selling point. It was helped by the first game being a massive upset as the Stuart Broad gifted the Dutch victory, the surprise of the Australians going out at the first hurdle (especially with the shadow of the Ashes looming over the tournament for the old enemies) and the eventual victorious captain coming out to say that they weren’t taking it too seriously. It may also have been aided by English conditions offering a little more to the bowler to make the game a slightly fairer contest between bat and ball.

The tournament was supported by large and enthusiastic crowds at the three grounds used and was exceptionally lucky with the English weather – not one game a total wash-out. Of course, England is the ideal place to hold a large cricket tournament so far as crowds are concerned with its immigrant populations from most cricketing countries, and an Aussie working in every other pub in London but it was still good to see. The only problem was the earlier games were often less well attended as the more partisan fans were only interested in seeing their own team or people couldn’t get out of work. It would also have been nice to have spread the tournament to other corners of a country which will boast 9 Test grounds by 2011. Hopefully in due course this will become possible as the tournament becomes more established, though in doing this the ICC will probably see the opportunity to lengthen it to 3½ months.

Another plus point was the concurrent Women’s Twenty20 which sidled in nicely as both a fabulous warm-up for the men’s final at Lord’s and a fabulous advert for the women’s game which has certainly improved massively since the cloudy memories of watching Rachel Heyhoe-Flint lead England to a World Cup victory sometime in my childhood. It’s good and somewhat surprising (to me at least) to see England leading the way there too.

The Twenty20 format also works far better in a TV highlights package which is a godsend for those of us who decline the Sky subscription. It is pretty obvious that it will be much easier to cram 3 hours’ action rather than 7 into an allotted hour, despite the supposed non-stop action of the format. Having said that, the international brigade of commentary ‘experts’ who landed the gig were just about trite and useless enough to make you think the usual Sky team do a good job. Apologies here to Ian Chappell who I thought did make some excellent comments, though anyone can be made to sound intellectual when sitting next to David Lloyd as he’s screaming “41 off 8 balls and only 2 wickets left!!! Can they do it?? It’s bedlam in here!” as the camera pans to people leaving early or, worse, the pathetic dancing girls who appeared to employ a typically English ambivalence in their routines. Also, anyone verbally using the phrase “T20”, which all the TV pundits were guilty of, needs to take a good look at themselves. Before doing themselves in.

Although there are still a few issues with the way the tournament plays out and the format of Twenty20 is still too one-dimensional for me personally – a clutch of early wickets and it’s game over, how about doing away with the 6 over powerplay which heightens the chance of a wicket with close catchers? – it was an excellent example of what cricket can give to the global masses who will probably never understand the nuances of the longest form of the game. Now the serious business of the Ashes is on though, does anyone really care?

Cricket – should it come with a health warning?

2009-07-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

The sad news that Kevin Pieterson’s Ashes are over combined with the realisation that it’s going to take an effort of almost Bert Trautmann proportions for Andrew Flintoff to drag himself through the rest of the summer has brought to attention the severe risk of serious injury the modern cricketer seemingly has to accept if he wants to ply his trade on the increasingly lucrative world stage.

Pieterson was a sad sight as he scratched his way to 40 at Lord’s, turning down easy twos and lacking his usual dominant self confidence. The fact that his achilles was so damaged seemed something of a shock to both him and us and various experts have confirmed risk of rupture could have meant the end of KP’s strutting permanently.

Freddy meanwhile showed almost super human strength in bowling a quite wondrous spell on Monday morning considering his various injuries. As this brilliant interactive guide on the Guardian’s website showed it’s a wonder he’s still walking let alone bowling at 90mph. Add all this to a rather gruesome description given by former England man Mark Butcher on the excruciating key hole knee surgery he’s face which I caught on 5 Live and it does make you think that cricket is actually pretty dangerous to long term health. The image of the England team limping back to their hotels not from the side effects of drink but rather a series of cortisone injections does not seem far from the truth and we have to look no further than the sad cases of Simon Jones, Ashley Giles and Michael Vaughn to see how quickly injury can become terminal. For those of us who grew up with cricket in the late eighties, the image of poor David Lawrence writhing in agony after his knee popped is surely ingrained on the memory.

The best Cricket Injury research has come from Australia and reveals a worrying tendency to grit ones teeth and get through it. Cricket injuries at elite level in Australia have been demonstrated to occur at a rate of around 18 injuries in total for a squad of 25 players who play twenty matches in a season. On average, around 9% of cricketers have an injury at any given time, although in fast bowlers over 15% are injured at any given time.

Low back pain is particularly prevalent among younger fast bowlers. The repetitive action of bowling for long spells places excessive stress on the tissues of the lower back, where stress fractures of the vertebra (spondylolysis) can develop. It was this condition which caused Michael Atherton such problems and ensured a constant diet of stiffness, pain and 200 grams of voltarol a day. As Athers himself says “that’s a lot of tablets and a lot of damage to the stomach lining.”

Research has indicated that muscle injuries such as hamstring strains and side strains are the most common cricket injuries. These injuries are due to the functional demands of the sport where occasional sprinting and ball throwing may be repeated across a seven hour day.

This description of ‘occasional sprinting’ made me think of my own cricket career and the fact that as I’ve turned 30 things really are beginning to hurt more. I’ve spotted it in friends too whose complaints about shin splints, back ache, dodgy knees and the like are becoming as frequent as their complaints about dodgy umpires.

There was a time when it all seemed far more amusing. A warm up could consist of a fag and maybe a poo, while the idea of warming down anywhere rather than a bar seemed laughable.

Even England internationals joined in the fun with a litany of amusing injuries. Former England spinner Phil Edmonds once cricked his back getting out of his car at Lord’s, while Chris Old managed to damage a rib on the morning of a game by sneezing. Derek Pringle, meanwhile, sat down to sort out some complimentary tickets for friends on the eve of the Headingly Test of 1982. He stretched and leant back in his chair, which promptly collapsed, sending his back into spasm, and he missed the match. If only his bowling was as threatening as that chair.

We obviously live in different times these days and maybe it’s time for the average village cricketer to take the risk of injury more seriously. One of the great things about playing for Sefton is that you could conceivably still be doing it at 60. Many of us remember Ronnie Stringer who played reguarly in his eighties. I'm sure Ronnie wouldn't have risked his brittle limbs in the IPL so maybe KP shouldn't have either. Me? I'm off for an ice bath and a rub down.

Cricket in the Park

2009-07-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

NPower's Cricket in the Park roadshow came to Sefton Park in Liverpool this weekend, on a day during the second Lord's test that should have been a bit of a thriller, but instead became a bit of a runfest for the Aussies.

Needless to say, it was all good fun but the promised speed gun wasn't in evidence, and the Virtual Cricket game was something of an embarrassment.

If you imagine what a virtual reality cricket game in 1989 may have consisted of, you're probably on the money. A poor bloke appeared to spend the entire time we were there providing commentary on the virtual cricket, describing everyone who had a go repeatedly missing the ball over and over again.

Anyway, there was some coaching, which was surely much more valuable and Nick Knight sitting on a deck chair. I was loath to approach him, having described him as 'blandness personified' in his commentary stints in a previous post, but watched from afar as he rather charitably managed to give his wicket away to some little kids in an impromptu game.

The big screen itself gave us the opportunity to see Peter Siddle's beast-like face blown up to the size of a house and Shane Warne's annoying voice as loud as any nuclear explosion. What we did enjoy was a description of David Gower by Mike Atherton as 'jazzness personified' in a rare break in the dour boredom of Sky commentary.

We didn't manage to win an npower cricket set, a CD of Jerusalem was as good as it got, but since we had lots of beer we weren't too bothered.

All in all, a good idea, but the promotion of Cricket in the park was hopeless - why no publicity materials sent to nearby Sefton park Cricket Club, of all places?

Steady Freddie

2009-07-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

So, Freddie's retiring at the end of the Ashes series to concentrate on his ~~lucrative business opportunities~~ one-day career , an admission cannily wheedled out of him by Aggers.

Time was, cricketers retired from the shorter forms of the games - always thought of as distractions - to concentrate on their Test careers.

Now it seems the other way around, and I wonder whether Flintoff may be the first in a procession of players to simply give up Test cricket to earn more money in one-day and 20/20. His stated desire to play for England in the 2015 World Cup seems at odds with his inability to play any more Test cricket.

I think there'll be others, but in Freddie's case I'm probably doing him a disservice. His body, we're told, has been telling him things (I'm guessing his kidneys and liver have been among the most vocal) and his fitness record is terrible; he's been available for only half the test played since his debut.

There are probably only so many cortisone injections a body can handle. Factor in the size of Flintoff's body and a bowling action that looks like it was designed to place the maximum amount of stress on various joints and muscles, and then add in England's over-reliance on him as a bowler and you have a recipe for a broken body.

On the face of it, Flintoff's Test career hasn't been much to write home about. In the case of his batting, his average around 31 is about right. His bowling is done a disservice by the statistics, though, even though he should have taken more wickets.

Barring short spells from Simon Jones and the occasional bout from Grievous Bodily Homesick, Flintoff has been England's best bowler since Darren Gough was at his best. He was England's most reliable bowler for years, and his steady, nagging, aggressive line and length is the reason he's been bowled into the ground. In support of this statement, I offer the following:

Fred's off-the-field activities, which have been positively Bacchanalian if North-West cricket gossip is to be believed, are by-the-bye as far as I'm concerned, and would probably have passed without comment in the 80s.

Flintoff's muscle-flexing in the dressing room, again according to locker room gossip in cricket clubs, may have been rather more malign.

It seems certain that Pietersen, for all his faults, received a fairly sturdy Flintoff axe in his back last year - a situation that threatened a total meltdown in English cricket depending on Pietersen's reaction.

England's over-reliance on their talismanic all-rounder may also have become problematic. In the past his insistence on batting at six, and consequential effect on the England line-up, was also difficult to accommodate.

Nevertheless, despite the problems that Freddie has brought with him, he has had spells where he was a scintillating, exceptional cricketer. I'd prefer to remember him for his cricket, rather than his controversies, though his late-night inebriated encounter with a 'Fredalo' must go down as one of the funniest cricket-related incidents of all time.

Not out...

2009-07-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

This video has found its way to me via Twitter, and is apparently advertising the government-sponsored drinkaware campaign.

In it Jimmy Anderson is denied a plumb LBW when the umpire is so beered up that he's busy wazzing all over the wicket, an incident I've never seen on a cricket pitch, although a few opposition umps have metaphorically pissed all over my bowling figures by denying me full-and-straight leg befores that were knocking middle stump out.

In lower league club cricket the umpiring is conducted by the batting team's own men, or by an ageing short-sighted chap whose playing days are decades behind him.

There;s quite often a low-level gamesmanship that goes on in umping. The majority of people are straight down the middle, but tend to be not outers on the basis that they're not going to risk giving their own batters out unless all three stumps were likely to cartwheeling out of the ground.

Decisions at the death of a game, where a wicket could swing the balance, are not likely to go in favour of the bowler. Likewise it's probably not even worth appealing for close run outs or stumpings as no-one can be sure either way.

The other form of gamesmanship in umping is to deploy an umpire so hopeless that they probably don't even know the laws of cricket. Young kids are a speciality, and most young uns these days seem to be coached into a kind of 'give-em-nothing' attitude that basically promotes out-and-out cheating.

At the other end of the scale is the hopeless old duffer, who miscounts balls in an over, gives patently absurd decisions and does it all with a smile on his face. One opposition ump allowed the bowler to continue into a ten-ball over that was devoid of extras. Off the tenth ball the opposition batsman was out. They went hopping mad, but it was their own man. We chalked it down to cricket karma.

I find it hard to be tough on these old guys, as the weekly cricket match is clearly a highlight for them, but they're among the worst not outers in the game. This is particularly galling when you're a bowler.

At Sefton Park CC I honestly think we mainly play it fair. If anything I think we're probably too generous, though my own umping was described as 'embarrassing' by a particularly obnoxious bowler with an absurd name this season when a decision didn't go his way.

Although respect for umpires seems to be going the way of all things in the game I think it's important to uphold, and though I reckon I've kissed goodbye to a couple of dozen extra wickets over the years (I bowl wicket-to-wicket seam so LBWs form a big part of my attack) I don't think slating the umpire is really, well, cricket.

So I'm resigned to meeting the 'down leg's and 'too many variables' from umpires in club cricket with a wry smile or baffled stare, though the day I see an umpire openly urinating on the pitch in answer to an appeal may be the day I finally snap.

The Fat Slogger

2009-07-03T04:56:00.000-07:00

Every bowler will know the archetype of the fat slogger, and every bowler will have suffered at the hands of the FS.

They're usually in their 40s, red-faced and aggressive. They feast on pies and pints as readily as half volleys and long hops. They're essentially fat bastards.

The fat slogger has one aim in life – to dispatch your best deliveries to the boundary with a meaty forearm and bat, and a significant degree of luck.

If you bowl a really good ball – one just back of a length – the fat slogger will contemptuously pat it down in front of him or simply pad up.

Because the Fat Slogger is quite tall he gets a good stride in, reason enough for the opposition umpire to give FS not out.

The FS will go hard at every ball, and will edge balls fast through the slips, or just get enough of the ball to clear the fielder you've placed at Cow.

The slower ball that is often the nemesis of the Fat Slogger can be just as easily dispatched mercilessly if your length or line are slightly out.

Fat Sloggers are flat-track bullies, and as such can be tied in knots by sticky wicket or a moving ball, but they've probably biffed a few lucky 4s by the time they're out.

Most are blessed with an extraordinary eye, or were once quite useful. And they're fat - so the ball goes further.

They're nearly always obnoxious and full of themselves, and project an air of lofty disinterest in proceedings.

After a slogged, fat 70 not out, the FS will almost certainly come on to bowl some pies and bafflingly take five wickets.

I hate Fat Sloggers.

PJ Horton lbw b Whelan 5

2009-06-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

The above would almost certainly be breezed past by many cricket fans and many more may not even recognise it as a line from a County Championship scorecard from last month but to some in a small corner of south Liverpool it stood out as sure as an ill-informed reactionary headline screams hysterically off the front page of the Daily Express.

For this slice of a rather one-sided victory for Lancashire over Worcestershire is one former Sefton player dismissing another; in fact the only thing missing was Paul being caught by Worcestershire’s other ex-Seftonite, Ashley Noffke, who played for the club as an overseas player a few years back but was absent from their starting XI in this game.

It’s one of those odd things with cricket that most of the populace don’t realise the quality of players who are paid for plying their trade on the league grounds around the corner from their house, mixed in with the better local amateur players. In some ways it’s a little like Gareth Bale signing for Prescot Cables.

There are various arguments as to whether these overseas professionals are good for the game; are they raising the standards of the league or do they push clubs to the brink of bankruptcy, leave first teams overly-reliant on one man and take the place of a playing member? It does, however, help to show that despite playing in the lower echelons of the club most of the scribes on here aren’t completely hopeless on the field.

What is lamb? Are good cricketers stupid?

2009-06-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

Simon Wilde's excellent Graeme Swann interview in the Sunday Telegraph reveals the startling fact that it's not just Sefton youths who have trouble identifying meat (see sidebar).

In amongst some choice quotes about the lack of complexity of several team mates, Swann reveals that Rob Key (a man who looks like he should be familiar with food of all kinds) was of the opinion that lamb comes from, er, cows.

Apparently nonplussed by the clue in the title, Key was forced to seek an answer from colt leggie Adil Rashid – a man ten years his junior.

This episode reveals something that hitherto overlooked - the fact that most sports people at the top of their game are as thick as two short planks.

It's interesting to note whether this is cause or effect, nature or nurture but it's surely not controversial to speculate whether there's an inverse ratio between sporting ability and intelligence.

Certainly any club cricketer will attest to the uncomplicated minds of the demon fast bowler or hard-hitting opening batsman. It's generally only the cunning spinner or fidgety keeper who display any signs of a strong mind.

That may be unfair. The Swann interview makes no mention of levels of intellect, but rather reveals an innate inability to function as a real human being.

Swann voices his wonder that several team-mates – Panesar, Luke Wright and Ravi Bopara among them - have not simply walked in front of a car or stuck their fingers in a socket, only just stopping short of suggesting that left to their own devices they may have starved to death, unable to grasp the fundamental concept of replenishment.

Disturbingly, Swann also seems to suggest that Bopara is some sort of Ballardian proto-human, frequently making 'a lot of noise, a lot of noise, and strange noises too ... he shouts and screams.'

Many modern sports stars seem to be rather protected throughout their lives, at first by parents or coaches, then by agents and management - cosseted through the rough and tough bits of life and rarely coming face to face with any kind of recognisable reality.

This may simply be the best way of getting the most out of your talent. it's always the players that suggest they have rather more about them that tend to struggle most. Shah, Hick, Ramprakash, Tufnell are all recent examples of the brighter cricketer blessed with immense talent, but undone by their neuroses.

And most club cricketers will recognise the archetype of the enigmatic talent, destined to never fulfill potential.

Perhaps in sport it pays to be a bit of a dunce. If all you have rattling around inside your relatively empty head is the name of the meat you had for lunch, you can't fail to be focussed.

Kilted cricket

2009-06-09T16:45:00.001-07:00

YOU’RE Scottish and you play cricket? Sometimes it feels like being a mujahedin with a soft spot for George Bush, or a member of the High School Musical cast whose thing is bestiality. Still, there are worse guilty secrets, sports-wise. I could, like my brother, be a football referee.

It feels both liberating and strange to at last be playing the game in the country of its birth. Back home (Aberdeen) there is a lot of cricket played (it was once claimed Aberdeen had more cricket clubs per capita than any UK city except Bradford) and yet most people there are unaware of that. When I’d tell people I was a cricketer I always added the caveat “but my main sport is football” and that would just about halt eyebrows in mid-raise. In England what I do is accepted, though my nationality still ensures I’m seen as slightly odd. The fact I don’t play it especially well is probably reassuring. I guess Mike Denness, Dougie Brown, Brian Hardie - or back in the day, Douglas Jardine - had a lot more explaining to do. My other consoling thought: at least I’m not Gavin Hamilton.

I like to think of Jardine as being the player who imbued his cricket with the most Scottishness. Born in India to Scottish parents Jardine was like Graeme Souness or Andy Murray, a craftsman who had a bit of what Australians would call ‘a bit of the mongrel’ about him. Scots like their sporting heroes on the rough side (when we miraculously produced a champion skier, Alain Baxter, he was stripped of his Olympic medal within days of winning it for taking recreational drugs) and Scottish education promotes independence and hard work. We seem to feel a lot less guilty about success and being driven about achieving it than the English. I was going to say, look at Gordon Brown, but maybe that’s no longer a good name to invoke. Gordon Ramsey, then.

I digress. Jardine, Scotland. Think of what my country is very best at when it comes to sport: Surely it’s producing football managers. Jardine was an Alex Ferguson of cricket - with all the good and bad associations that suggests. For us to have produced two good England cricket captains, the other being Denness, is not at all bad. Which leads to another thought. Cricket is not a major sport north of the border but it’s bigger than the rest of the world realises. About 0.7% of us play regular cricket. In England the figure is larger, but not exponentially so: 2.5%.

Denness and Jardine, of course, are bygone figures. Currently, despite a couple of decent recent Twenty20 showings against New Zealand and England, Scotland probably isn’t pulling its cricketing weight. It’s partly because the structure of Scottish cricket does not enable players to stretch themselves on a regular enough basis before entering ICC competitions: without a national academy, and with a declining club game, talents aren’t maximised. The only solution is to go and play for an English county, a path followed by Kyle Coetzer, who now is doing well for Durham and has ambitions of playing for England. But with the examples of Scots prospering in the county scene limited the upheaval does not seem worth it to others and Colin Smith, who could easily have succeeded at first class level, decided early on to concentrate on his other career - in the police force - and keep cricket as a hobby.

If there were more Coetzers, Dennesses and Jardines I might not be seen as so odd. That said, I feel lucky to be playing in England because it’s a pleasure any cricket lover would savour. The clubs are bigger, friendlier, and with far lovelier grounds and better facilities. The standard is higher, the social scene greater and - not to be underestimated - the teas are better. Then there’s the weather. Here you don’t play in gale force winds or freezing rain. In Aberdeen you simply have to, or the league programmes would never get played. Numb, wet hands: that’s one of my earliest associations with playing as a youngster. Maybe it’s why I never learnt to bowl spin or play the late cut. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Ian Bishop recommends cricket fans openly urinate on London Eye

2009-06-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

I was a little surprised during Scotland's whooping at the hands of South Africa in the latest T20 match to hear ex-Windies fast bowler and Sky commentator urging viewers to have 'a little tinkle on the London Eye'.

What can this mean?

England's useless opening 20/20 World Cup ceremony

2009-06-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

First off, Lord's was dealt an unfortunate and unforeseeable twist of fate when the clouds opened, but it went on to shoot itself in the feet completely by cancelling the opening ceremony and having two old men deliver stultifying speeches announcing the opening ceremony.

ICC head honcho David Morgan delivered his speech like a man reading his last will and testament, followed by the Duke of Kent, who wouldn't have looked out of place if he'd been opening a garden centre in 1972.

Mike Atherton's face when the camera returned to the studio said it all. It was very, very boring, conservative, mournful, depressing stuff. Brian Close would have thought it too dour.

Who on Earth is in charge on this? I may bemoan Sky's coverage as excessively loud, stupid and showy, but to try to launch world cricket's most exciting event in this way was tantamount to sabotage.

Paul Collingwood's tuneless but voluble frowned rendition of God Save the Queen rounded off the most absurdly inappropriate ten minutes perhaps ever seen in English cricket.

I hate to come over all Botham, but English cricket needs to wake up, and fast.

Genital short

2009-06-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

You have to wonder how and why the state of Shoaib Akhtar’s lunchbox has become quite so publicly known; these things must’ve come up and been hidden before in a game in which players spend so much time away from home. Thinking of the tabloid traps that Botham fell into on tour in the 80s, you could easily conclude that we all misinterpreted a ‘groin injury’ of his; the whole TMS ‘legover’ incident was so funny was because it was Botham, it wouldn’t have worked if it were David Sheppard. Well it would, but for very different reasons.

Slightly odder is that it was the Pakistani Cricket Board which brought this information into the public realm; openly mocking one of their star players (unless such things are seen as run-of-the-mill as a chipped fingernail in Pakistan).

Now it’s true that Shoaib hasn’t been the easiest chap to manage over the years: the briefest research reveals a plethora of allegations; failed drug tests, chucking bans, attitude problems, ball tampering, jet-skiing whilst supposedly injured, throwing a bottle into the crowd, being sued by and counter-suing the PCB during the spat over his ban due to repeated disciplinary breaches last year.

This is just the latest in a long line of problems, now his “sexually active” lifestyle (as a drugs tribunal put it in 2006) appears to have caught up with him. There’s one thing I know after this: you wouldn’t see me taking the board to court.

The World 20/20 – can you have too much cricket?

2009-06-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

I reckon I know more about cricket than 99.9 per cent of people in the country, and will gladly watch any cricket put in front of me, from tests through to 20/20s and club cricket. I can tell you things like Mark Ramprakash's nicknames (Ramps, Bloodaxe); name every single position on the field; bowl a leggie, a top spinner and a googly; and name at least two people I saw on the telly the other day involved in country cricket who I've played in the same team as (well, nearly.)

In all honesty though, I've got a bit bored of cricket. This is since around the time I got a Sky package, something I really resented because I don't believe people should have to pay to watch national sport (perhaps a blog for another day), and I don't really want to do anything to bolster Sky's position as a kind of Death Star of sport, hoovering up everything in its path.

Why? Quite simply there's too much cricket. Far too much cricket. I can't work out what competitions involve any more, who's playing for whom, when it's all on. I really miss the days when Tony Lewis would pop up on a Thursday morning looking like an avuncular Welsh vampire and announce that England were 40-3 off 27 overs. You knew where you were in those days.

I can honestly say I do not give a toss who wins the World 20/20, and that's not because I'm one of those farts who sneers at innovation in cricket. It's simply because there's overkill. I can't invest anything in a sport I've lost touch with and feel vaguely bored by. I'd go so far as to say I'm slightly irritated that there's so much cricket on. It's incomprehensible.

Once again, England is left looking the most stupid. The ECB can be trusted to get it wrong nearly every time – broadcast rights, Stanford, Pietersen – and they're making a right royal cock up of branding and selling cricket at the moment, though they're probably swimming with cash.

The image of David Lloyd above and the ad for Sky's coverage of the 20/20 – you can read my previous thoughts on the Sky commentary team and this particular advert – kind of sums up how I feel about cricket at the moment. It's confusing and annoying.

A blur of players in various colours, David Lloyd shouting, some slick graphics. If I'm confused and jaded you can bet your bottom dollar, and your bottom for that matter, that the general public is.

If it were solely up to me I'd consider jibbing off the Sky package. I only got it for the cricket, and now I'm sick of that.

I can foresee a day when Sky shows 24-hour cricket, and it's probably not far off. Cricket fans will have no other choice but to stump up £40 a month and sit dazed in front of another competition they've never heard of, with Lloyd jumping around like a lunatic in the background.

Familiarity breeds contempt. The ECB needs to realise this and slim down its roster of competitions. Ideally they'd hive them off to different broadcasters too. Maybe we don't all have to be bored to tears by cricket after all.

Chris Lewis

2009-05-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

It's hard to have much sympathy for Chris Lewis. he was, after all, found guilty of smuggling several kilos worth of Grade A shit into the country – a move as stupid as it is reprehensible.

But Chris Lewis was my favourite cricketer when younger. A swashbuckling, and frustratingly mercurial, talent he could be equally destructive with bat and ball and was probably the greatest England fielder of his generation.

So many cricketers fail to become that which they may have otherwise been, and Lewis was no different. I'd guess that this is because cricket is as much about confidence, frame-of-mind, toughness, touch and rhythm as raw talent.

If those stars are not in alignment, a cricketer is likely to be found lacking much of the time at the highest level. Couple that to a personality the country's cricket writers singularly failed to pin down when the coke story first broke, and you have a recipe for a troubled and unfulfilled talent on your hands.

Punctured tyres, Playgirl spreads, a career change to become a preacher, match-throwing allegations, an unlikely late-in-the-day recall to Surrey as a 20/20 specialist. All of them conspired to lend Lewis an aura of a difficult and slightly unhinged character, in a sport filled with unhinged characters.

None of this, however, goes towards explaining how he ended up trying to carry a bag of cocaine into the country.

I'd guess that the same fate that befalls the Gazzas, Alis, Stone Cold Steve Austins, Kirk Stevens' and Jocky Wilsons of this world.

The pressures of living a normal life – away from the routine, the money, the glamour, the attention, the camaraderie, the discipline – can be tough for sportsmen, as it often is for actors and musicians who fade from the spotlight.

But where arty types can always struggle on gamely, the frailties of the body end careers decisively and suddenly, exposing further frailties of the mind and character.

Footballers used to open pubs, boxers opened gyms, cricketers became umpires. But not everyone gets lucky. Some fall through the cracks.

This is particularly, and peculiarly true of cricketers, and the number of cricketers who have taken their own lives is a bizarre phenomenon.

Perhaps morose characters are drawn to cricket, perhaps cricket makes people morose. But cricketers – even internationals like Lewis – earn far less than most other national sportsmen.

That your professional life can be over before you hit 40, your best years gone and money blown on fast cars and high times must be a galling prospect, and one that many sportsmen and cricketers especially must face.

Perhaps the unlikely comeback or the choice to gamble it all to remain in touching distance of that high life are too attractive. Maybe in that context Lewis' actions make more sense.

To have little to fall back on, little to look forward to, little comfort beyond memories must be unimaginably harsh. If the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, then it must be fearful to be burned out before middle age.

First XI Cricketer Seen at Decent Gig Shocker!!!

2009-05-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

OK, it was only Jeff Lewis; hardly cutting edge stuff but likewise you can't imagine him appearing on the Radio City playlist anytime soon.

However, to be sharing the Barfly with someone who’s actually quite good at cricket initially led me to doubt my own far from impeccable taste in music. Is James Cain the exception who proves the rule that the better you are at cricket (and most other sports it would appear) the less credible your music taste? Or is he just a wannabe third-teamer?

The club darts tournament walk-ons offered a good snapshot of the theory: first-teamers happily strolling out to Tom Jones and Shaggy, lesser cricketers milking the crowd with Nick Cave, PIL, Alice Cooper. Informal games of cricket amongst the chalet lines with the indie fops at All Tomorrow’s Parties have left me feeling somewhere approaching akin to Garry Sobers. Watching the Twenty20 Cup on Sky reveals a litany of aural travesties as players’ favourite songs. Unfortunately we know better than to think it’s all just a massive jape on their part.

From this you could conclude that they play ‘Proud’ by Heather Small or something equally banal in the first team dressing room before they take to the field. It's evidently the kind of inspirational stuff we middling-to-indifferent tryers are lacking.

TMS, Sky and cricket commentary: whimsy versus whinge

2009-05-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's become something of a cliche to say that it's preferable to listen to TMS on the radio while watching the TV footage with the sound turned down, but that's only because it's so prevalent.

This has been common for years, and the reasons behind it are clear when the TMS commentary is compared to TV commentary. For every Johnners, Fowler, Boycott, Aggers, CMJ, Selvey and Marks on TMS there's a Willis, Botham, Knight, Hussain, Greig or (worst of all) Mark Nicholas to endure on TV.

BBC commentary wasn't too bad, with the avuncular Lewis, Benaud, Peter West and token opposition commentator (Ian Smith, Colin Croft, Barry Richards among others).

Things took a turn for the worst with Channel 4's coverage, introducing the horrifying prospect of Mark Nicholas as anchor and frequent commentator. Recruiting Benaud, Boycott and Simon Hughes were good ideas. The pairing of Nicholas with Dermot Reeve was unbearable.

But C4 had nothing on Sky. Sky is where retired cricketers go to serve out their days, offering bitter and dour pot-shots generally devoid of insight or humour.

Whereas Aggers may pass lyrical comment on the state of the weather, Botham will whinge about it. CMJ may offer a vaguely dismayed comment on a poor umpiring decision, like a disappointed schoolmaster; Willis will slate the ump personally. Boycott ribs; Holding attacks. Blowers may spot a sedentary seagull; class clown David Lloyd makes a thinly-veiled reference to some bird's tits.

Elsewhere Atherton sounds like he wants to be somewhere else, albeit with the odd welcome wry remark; Hussain spends all of his time pleading with England to get 'real aggressive'; Nick Knight is blandness personified and Gower is like an ineffectual teacher, forever trying to prevent another tedious Botham rant about administrators.

Last summer Botham actually went as far as to suggest he hoped the day's cricket would be called off, so he could go and play golf. What an astonishing remark to broadcast to hundreds of thousands of fans forced to pay to watch cricket by the government's craven kow-towing to Rupert Murdoch and the idiots at the ECB.

Survive these multi-faceted attacks of miserableness, bile and personal agendas and – like an end-of-level boss – Bob Willis appears.

Presumably because he's too miserable and clearly barking for commentary, he's confined to the studio like a sporting Miss Haversham, only one whose trousers don't fit properly.

Willis never has a good word for anyone, and has made snide rants his stock-in-trade. He calls Pietersen the 'dumbslog millionaire', a funny pun that's undermined by its inherent spite.

There's an idea, clearly shared by Willis, that his depressing opinions somehow constitute a kind of refreshing straight-talk.

Anyone of that opinion has simply mistaken Willis' misery, and eagerness to complain about every possible facet of the game, for verity.

Meanwhile, clearly being lined up as a replacement to Charles 'handbag' Colville is Ian Ward, a kind of Colville/Nicholas Mini-Me.

The sheer ineptitude of Ward as a journalist, exacerbated by his furrowed-brow posing as if he were a latter-day David Frost deconstructing Nixon, was exposed in a confoundedly bad interview with Shane Warne, where the Aussie leg-spinner protected Ward like a batsman protecting a tail-ender, producing interesting answers from Ward's embarrassingly by-the-numbers questions.

The interview heralded Warne's imminent arrival on Sky as a commentator, where he may inject some life into the moribund proceedings, but once again Sky's habit of simply choosing the most high-profile cricketers to fill commentary positions is clear. Expect Michael Vaughan soon.

In short, Sky's commentary effort is truly awful. Common themes among the team are the need for attractive cricket on the pitch and off, but as a whole they have forsaken any effort at entertaining or informing in favour of a 'the-world's-gone-mad' brand of populism, occasionally offset by Lloyd's village idiot routine.

Sadly, there's a quite unwelcome, albeit so-far limited, Sky-ification of TMS going on, benchmarked by the sacking of Mike Selvey.

Last summer the new producer, who is apparently liked by no-one, unveiled an absolutely huge list of recently-retired or benefit-year county cricketers, most of whom have played for England.

Meanwhile, a slew of generic Five Live commentators have joined the ship, some of whom clearly are not sufficiently familiar with cricket to pass comment with any authority.

Whether there is some kind of new-boys network at play here, or a favour to a particular agent or simply a sledgehammer attempt to jazz up TMS – the equivalent of trying to sex up I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue – is unclear, but the parade of monotone voices stumbling through summarising stints was not encouraging.

Two new summarisers, Derek Pringle and Angus Frasier, are at the forefront of the ex-cricketer-turned-journalist movement of recent years, where they purvey their own brands of misery.

The news that both would be in the commentary box simultaneously last year elicited the response from the outgoing Selvey: "That'll be a laugh."

It's a depressing state of affairs that cricket journalists are being phased out. Phil Tufnell may supply some laughs, but the remorseless trudge of boring county cricketers and excitable genera-journalists from other parts of the BBC will kill off what makes TMS special as surely as a ban on fruitcake in the commentary box.

It's tempting to assume that any changes greeted with dismay from loyal followers is simply indicative of a mindset stuck in its ways and resistant to any change.

This is quite simply not the case with TMS, where the quality is clearly suffering. Hearing Blowers trying to cope with the influx of new voices last summer was oddly sad.

BBC radio has form with these kind of sweeping changes, seemingly in pursuit of an imaginary demographic and reeking of the Beeb's pointless attempt to compete with commercial stations.

With Radio 2 and 6 Music also hurtling towards the anodyne mainstream, the obvious conclusion is that the changes are an attempt to smooth off the corners of interesting radio stations and shows. In the case of TMS it could well kill it.

Humour, insight, irreverence, nostalgia, anecdotalism. These are the things that define the quality and popularity of TMS.

It's no coincidence that these are the things entirely lacking in Sky's clinical, downbeat fare. It's whimsy versus whinge.

Take them away and there's just another boring cricket report staffed by former cricketers with no understanding of broadcasting, or broadcasters with no understanding of cricket.

Sky, like Channel 4, is a write-off, but who will we listen to if TMS continues its descent into the same pits of prosaic and miserable fare?

Every team needs a talisman

2009-05-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Every team needs a talisman, someone with the ability to raise a team, to win a game single-handed, to transcend the abilities of his colleagues and opponents.

Sefton's is Vinny Abel, a man who can bowl with either arm and once, in the same game, hit a ton and took a hat-trick as part of a five-for.

Vin has little understanding of the LBW law and does not take a guard when batting. The only part of his game in which he cannot excel is his fielding, which is as languid as his attitude to defensive batting.

Vinny has been out to the first ball of a game three times. He may be out hitting a long hop in the air to mid-off as easily as he may thrash a six that clears the boundary, Mossley Hill Drive and lands in Sefton Park.

His wobbly in-duckers are always a threat at third-team level, but can often be wildly inaccurate. Just as often, though, they are devastating. Vin has an analysis of 7 for 20-odd in at least two Sefton games.

Off the pitch Vinny enjoys Friends, Lost and Harry Potter.

Like every enigma – every Dominic Cork, Chris Lewis, Chris Cairns, Shahid Afridi – Vinny is as often frustrating, because his weight of talent often seems unfocussed.

But just as often Vinny is the best player in the league, bar none. He wins games single-handed.

In his own way, among his peers, at the far-from-heady level of third-team cricket, Vinny is a genius. He's the most valuable player at the whole club.

Every team has one

2009-04-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

So everyone’s understandably cock-a-hoop as we’re five-ninths of the way through a heady spell in which Caldy are collapsing from 28-0 to 38-9 thanks to some typically opening day batting and surprisingly safe hands in the field.

Well, at least ten of us are.

One of our number still isn’t happy; his attention drawn to the architecture of a house overlooking the ground. “Bloody modernism… a thing should look like the thing it looks like…rubbish…”

Pre-season build-up...

2009-04-20T05:46:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are again.

Ian Bell’s already scored more runs than the entire Worcestershire side and almost as many as I made last season in his hopefully fruitless quest for a Test recall, it’s 2 days until the start of the LDCC season and despite a few worries along the way, I’ve made it into the 4th’s XI for the trip to Caldy on Saturday, a year and a day since turning out in the 5th’s inaugural game at the same ground on one of the coldest days on which a cricket field has been graced; a day when I discovered I could bowl inswing in three jumpers, though only with the assistance of a gale blowing across their exposed lower ground. One of those days you’re glad you’re crap at slip.

A week ago the long-range forecast read an ominously familiar 6 degrees Celsius, feels like 2 degrees, thanks to a brisk northerly but it looks like we could have one of the more meteorologically pleasant opening days for some time – last year both Sefton’s grounds were underwater (though the umpires still refused to call off the 1sts’ game until 4pm) – as even Caldy, precariously close to the Dee estuary, looks like it should make double figures with the promise of plenty of sunshine.

After 3 months of scraping ice off windscreens and traipsing through drizzle to net indoors on the bounciest tracks this side of Perth, turning to the traditional damp April greentops should cause enough challenges for those of us who’ve bothered getting a bit of practice in.

Fortunately for the 4ths, most of the top 6 are the other side of 50 (this week’s average age is around 38) and would be as likely seen in the Ukrainian gymnastics team as working on their game so they’ll still be ready to prop onto the front foot and jog the long singles, whilst the interspersed under 35s who’ve still not given up hope of that County cap, or at least another go in the 3rds, have been working on their back foot shots very nicely since the second Wednesday in January. Which will be pretty much useless until at least June.

But expectations are still high for a glorious return to the top flight; the skipper’s kept faith with the same experience which couldn’t avoid the drop last term and we’re ready(ish) to prove we still have some worth.

and so it begins.....

2009-04-19T12:52:00.000-07:00

The first text came through at five to nine on Wednesday: “Game on Sunday at hightown 4 Hazo”. In the next hour I received 8 more asking me to play on both Saturday and Sunday. I should be flattered – I was barely playing two years ago.

This is it – what we’ve been looking forward to for the last six months and I can’t wait. The last text I received from the 4th team captain probably best summed up best what it’s all about – “Do you have Adam’s number? The one who doesn't like ham?” Let battle commence.

Notes from Winter

The onset of the season brings to an end the endless phoney war of winter nets. So what did you learn?

1) That you are really unfit

This might suprise you but none of us are getting any younger or fitter. Yes, many of us have played darts all winter but how many have us have gone running? How many have joined a gym? How many of us gave up smoking properly?

Needless to say the answer’s not many. I’m 31 and these days getting fit means waiting for injuries to heal and drinking lager instead of bitter. Remember the quicker you move the quicker you’ll hurt yourself.

2) That you are still making the same mistakes

How many times did you get out last season playng the same awful shot? The across the line pull? The wafting cut? The ridiculous reverse sweep?

These shots are part of our make up and we need to all accept them as part of us. We wouldn’t be the same without them. No matter how many times you’ve resisted playing these shots in the nets you know that given the earliest opportunity that’s how you’re going to get out this weekend. Accept it and let’s move on.

3) Nets are useless and lie to you

What a joy it is playing on these fast, true indoor wickets. How many times did that nice half volley get cracked through the covers? How many times did those attempted bouncers sit up nicely waiting to be pulled to that imaginary boundary? How many times did you complete your marathon 8 minute innings with a feeling of smug satisfaction and a thought of “yes I really can bat”?

Fast forward to a freezing cold April afternoon at Caldy and you’re playing on pitch that is a cross between runny poo and Formby Beach. The 50 year old slow lobber runs in, the ball pitches on a length, you play your extravagant off drive approximately 8 years too early and you turn around to see the ball roll against your middle stump. Nets lie – don’t ever forget.

I’ll leave you with a quote from recently retired former England batsman Ed Smith. Like me he’s an English graduate. Unlike me he went to Cambridge and once scored three hundreds in a week.

“Don’t think it will be easy tomorrow, imagine it will be difficult; then at least you will practise getting into the right mental state.”

The inevitable nasty game

2009-04-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

So, the cricket season is finally upon us with much creaking of joints and burning of uncovered heads.

Even in the leagues of third-team cricket, sooner or later the unpleasant game rears its ugly head. For some reason the nastiness that is often apparent in lower-league cricket seems much worse that at higher levels, and people who are in all likelihood pleasant enough off the pitch can turn into, for want of a better word, complete bell-ends on it.

Unpleasantness can stem from several sources: a long-standing club rivalry; accusations or suspicions of cheating (potentially widespread as teams umpire over their own batsmen); deliberate go-slow tactics or blocking, tantamount to negative or tactical play (especially evident when clubs field two teams in the same division); excessive or intimidating appealing and sledging; or simply sheer spite and meanness of spirit.

Some teams revel in their unchallenged ability to marry all of the above elements and wear it as a badge of pride. Fisticuffs have been known to result during and following games.

It may surprise those who have never been on a cricket pitch that the worst antagonists are rarely chippy and mouthy youngsters, but fat middle-aged men.

These types seem to derive enormous satisfaction from such verbal confrontations, in what can only be some kind of cricketing equivalent of small-man syndrome.

In Test Cricket – where careers, fortunes and the highest glories in the game are at stake – mental disintegration is an accepted part of the sport, and however unpleasant it's understandable.

On a small, bumpy pitch in the lower leagues the only explanation can be that the exponents of sledging simply enjoy being unpleasant to their opposite numbers, who often include children as young as 14.

It's a tiresome development in lower-league cricket that's designed to sap the will, concentration and mental strength from opponents and it overshadows the cricket being played.

All too often the post-match talk is not of a stunning catch, classical innings or fiery bowling spell, but of the cheating umpire, negative tactics and loud-mouthed twat on the opposing team.

Sadly it's hard to see a change in the way cricket is played in the 21st century, perhaps it was ever thus, but as a feature of the game it sucks so much enjoyment out of simply playing cricket.

And that is its only function and purpose, to crush weaker teams and humble powerful rivals, deployed by those for whom winning is the only thing that matters.

Sefton Super League - The Final (with videos)

2009-03-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

A tale of two whitewashes, with the fancied Boyner and the unfancied Iwan LP Williams on the receiving ends of 5-0 and 8- thrashings from Belly Boyo Bellis and Stu Killer Ken Lomas.

Write-ups are to follow, so for now here are the vids.

Boyner versus Belly - Plate Final

Iwan versus Stu - The Final

The presentation...

Darts finals

2009-03-24T18:00:00.001-07:00

Two whitewashes. Who'd've thunk it?

>More images here.

Sefton Super League: The Final - with Stu Lomas

2009-03-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen!

6 months and a day since the inaugural season of the !Sefton Super League! was kicked off with a crushing win for Chris Wylie, the end is now well and truly in sight with just two games remaining. But what a pair of matches!

First up, from 7.45 comes the final of The Sefton Plate between two players who faded in the second half of the regular season but seem to have rediscovered their darting mojos right on cue.

Chris “Boyo” Bellis has already blown away the second and third favourites for the crown, Robin Surtees and John Garnett respectively, and faces up to former housemate and the plate’s number one seed Mark “Der Kaiser” Boyns who is still smarting from his 3-1 reverse in the regular season and will be looking for revenge.

But this is a completely different kettle of fish. This is a final: the lights, the crowd, the trophy, the glory. Who will come out on top over 9 legs? Even the bookmaker thinks it too close to call (almost).

• Form: Boyns WWDLDL, Bellis WWDLLL
• Boynsbet odds: Boyns 4/6, Bellis Evs

Hot on the heels of one titanic struggle comes another, with the final for the Biggest Prize in Sport™ from 9.00pm. 20 darters set out on the long road for glory; after 421 legs these were trimmed to 8 for quarter-finals. Now only 2 remain.

“Top Cat” Iwan Williams only qualified for the last 8 in the penultimate game of the regular season but, always the man for the big occasion, has raised his game and already knocked out club captain Robbie Houghton, ranked third, and pre-season favourite Robin Lindo, who finished the season second, in a gripping semi-final. Can he go one step further and cause an upset which would dwarf all others.

He meets Stuart “Killer” Lomas whose near-perfect copybook’s only blot was an opening game draw and has reached the final with wins over Robin Brown and Simon Gozzard.

With Official Bookmaker Boynsbet pricing a Lomas victory at 1/6, dare anyone bet against him? There is one man who is certain to be; Iwan Williams has taken to the big stage like a nice guy turned nasty and will be gunning for the favourite over 15 legs.

Form:• Lomas: WWWWWW, Williams WWWLWD
Boynsbet odds:• Lomas 1/6, Williams 10/1

Attendance is naturally compulsory, and surely only a fool would miss this feast of oche action. Make sure you’re down early to sample the pre-match atmosphere and to ensure you have at least a chance of getting the best seats.

Venue: Sefton Park CC, Croxteth Drive L17 1AP. Doors 7.00pm. Toe-the-oche 7.45pm.

www.seftonparkcc.co.uk
www.seftonparkcc.blogspot.com
www.boynsbet.com

Sefton Super League dart pictures

2009-03-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

It's pretty hard to shoot pictures in the club with minimum light and no flash, so I cut a lot of stuff out. The ones that remain aren't perfect but I think there's a good mix of slightly arts pretensions and crowd shots.

• Week one pictures are here: Sefton Super League darts night 1

• Week two pictures are here: Sefton Super League darts night 2

Seton Super League darts night - 2

2009-03-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

The second of the quarter-final evenings was a marathon five-match night, with two quarter-finals and a semi.

Despite the nasty weather there was a good turn out, and a clear five hours of drinking.

Iwan versus Rob

Iwan was underdog, but pulled off a big upset with some superb darts.

Northy, after nearly having a mishap with the camera by almost filming three minutes of his face, thanks to having the camera the wrong way round, then missed off Rob's entrance where the club skipper was compared to Mahmood Ahmedinadjad and Brains from Thunderbirds.

Northy versus Boyner

A pretty poor match, enlivened by the tension of a 100+ dart leg.

Goz versus Stu

An epic between Achilles and Paris. Two heroes battling it out to the last. Luckily Stu didn't drag Goz's dead body to the gates of Troy. He shook his hand instead.

Allum versus Lindo
Lindo was clinical. Allum had no asnwer. Lindo licked him.

Bowman versus Stairhands
A cocksure Bowman got the shock of his life when steplimbs gave him a beating.

Boynsy versus Northy long leg

Sadly not a cricket placement but Boyner and Northy's marathon 100+ dart leg.

Darts night entrances

2009-03-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

The entrances from the first Sefton Super League quarter-final night.

Sadly Stu's disco ball blew a fuse on the night, but Bowser's energetic emceeing and some inspired entrance music choices made up for the lack of visuals.

Highlights were Wylo's Mr Boombastic, Goz's Bastard and RB's Blakes 7 theme tune.

There was sadness for JD and his followers, though, as his latin Pete Kelly-voiced rap didn't survive the transition from computer to club's PA.

A distraught JD never looked like winning after the initial disappointment.

JD versus Goz

The Mexican Prince versus The Bastard in Sefton Super League darts quarter final at Sefton Park Cricket Club.

Brownie versus Stu

Robin 'Geordie Express' Brown versus Stu 'Killer Ken' Lomas in the first Sefton Super League quarter final.

Belly versus Alf

Chris 'The Boyo' Bellis and John Alf Garnett contest the Sefton Super League plate

Wylo versus Surtees

Chris 'Wylo' Wylie and Robin The 'Pontefract Firebird' Surtees contest the second battle of the plate in Sefton Super League darts.