The Silly Mid Off

The end of childhood dreams

2012-01-28T14:15:00.000-05:00

I was the best bowler in my school. This isnot an idle or an arrogant boast. At the time, aged thirteen, it was agenerally recognized fact among my peers and demonstrated during my firstseason at secondary school when I took a bagful of wickets. Admittedly closeranalysis makes this status less impressive; there were only sixty students ineach year and of that number only thirty were boys. Take from this theinjured, incompetent and apathetic and getting an eleven together was no smallfeat.

My illustrious abilities were recognized atthe start of the next school year with an invitation to attend trials forWarwickshire. I had not been scouted by some gnarled ex-professional but pickedby the school’s sports teacher, a man known more for his love of rugby than anycricketing knowledge. Nevertheless I was not concerned by the finer points of selection. After all, I was on the way to achieving my dream of becoming aprofessional cricketer.

The trials took place in the indoor nets atEdgaston. Test venue for more than a century, witness to one of the greatest matches of all time in 2005 and to the highest ever first-class score in 1994, there isno escaping from the inalienable truth that the ground is and always has beenan ugly blot on the landscape. Situated in the confines of a green, middle-classneighbourhood, its concrete walls are as forbidding as they are monotonous. Thestands are featureless and, until it was replaced last year, the pavilionlooked like a 1960s office-block had eaten a Victorian church. The indoorcricket centre was a new building which combined state of the art facilitieswith the antiseptic atmosphere of the rest of the ground.

The first hints of trouble emerged in thechanging room. Due to the oddities of the British educational calendar I wasone of the oldest students in my school year but I looked little more than atoddler compared to many of the eighty or so children who were donning whites.Some were hulkish, others improbably tall, while a few looked old enough to begrizzled veterans of the game. A coach gave a brief speech, welcoming back thesquad from the previous season but insisting that selection for the year aheadwas an open contest. Naively, I had not contemplated that many of my fellowcompetitors were already known to Warwickshire. And didn’t an open and fair competition gowithout saying?

It took less than two minutes for me torealize that I was out of my depth. My first couple of deliveries were easilydefended, the next one gracefully but powerfully cover driven. The otherbowlers in my net were all obviously better than me, some of them hurled theball down with genuine pace, or at least what a thirteen year old kid who hadonly played for school and village sides considered to be genuine pace.Compared to their Curtley Ambrosesque deliveries I was like Chris Harris butwithout the variety.

After forty or so minutes of bowlinginviting medium pacers without a hint of swing or seam, it was my turn to bat.I quickly padded up and made extra certain that my abdominal protector was ableto fulfill its job if required. So many years after the event I forget how manytimes I was bowled during my ten minutes batting. I know that it was lots.Possibly lots to the power of lots. I had never faced this level of qualitybowling and was beaten by swing, seam and spin but mainly sheer pace. By theend I was instinctively going back to give myself more time to see what washurtling towards me and just trying to get some part of bat onto ball. It would hyperbolic to describe batting inthose nets as hellish but I certainly gained an insight into the concept ofpurgatory. Eventually my trial came to a conclusion and the judgment was beyondobvious. So ended my dream of becoming a cricketer.

A small part of my childhood ended thatevening at Edgbaston. It was certainly not the dawn of adulthood, I had severalyears of annoying adolescence ahead, but it did mark the beginning of a newrelationship with cricket. I carried on playing of course, first with theschool, then for my college and after that for social sides and third elevensacross England. More and more though I preferred watching cricket, enjoying mydreams vicariously through others. Eventually, when I found myself living thousands ofmiles away from Edgbaston, I discovered the unexpected pleasures of writingabout the game. It may not be the stuff of which dreams are made but it sure isa lot of fun.

Saeed Ajmal and the misplaced moralism of chucking

2012-01-22T12:23:00.001-05:00

It would not be a series between England and Pakistan without controversy. So it was that Saeed Ajmal was forced to defend his bowling action after a match winning performance in the first test.

As Willow TV did not stream the game I have no idea on whether Ajmal is a chucker. However the naked eye is a poor tool to determine such things. Muttiah Muralitharan’s supposedly dodgy deliveries were the catalyst for studies of the bowling action, which demonstrated that it was impossible for bowlers not to bend their arms. Rather than a binary chucker or non-chucker all bowlers were on a throwing spectrum, meaning that most deliveries had effectively violated the law on throwing. In response to these findings the ICC quickly amended the regulation, allowing the elbow joint to straighten fifteen degrees after the arm has reached shoulder height during the delivery.

Ajmal’s main critic during the first test was Bob Willis, with King Grumpy saying “they changed the rules to allow these bowlers to bend their elbow 15 degrees, which is what makes it so difficult for the batsmen.” This entirely misses the point of the rule change, that even bowlers whose actions look perfect extend their elbow by up to 15 degrees. Forgive me if I don’t entirely trust either Willis’ judgment or the Daily Mail’s protractor superimposed over Ajmal’s arm. I favour the tests which cleared him at the University of Western Australia. Dr. Bruce Eliot, a professor of biomechanics at the university, stated “during a comprehensive analysis it was apparent that the amount of elbow extension in Saeed Ajmal’s bowling action for all deliveries was within the 15-degree level of tolerance permitted in the ICC regulations.”

The game has a long and inglorious history in dealing with dubious actions. Throwing was one of Lord Harris’ many bugbears. After a failed attempt at a gentleman’s agreement on the issue among the counties, Harris used all his considerable powers to expel anyone he felt was a chucker from the game. He refused a fixture between his side, Kent, and Lancashire after the red rose county refused to exclude two players, Jack Crossland and George Nash. Harris was ultimately successful, forcing Nash to retire and Crossland out of the game when it was discovered that he had broken the residential qualification rules, another of his Lordship’s hobbyhorses.

Over the next two decades Lord Harris continued his crusade against what his Wisden obituary termed the “evil” of throwing. At least during his days many of the potential chuckers were fast bowlers, with the attendant fear of injury, but since the dodgy deliveries of Geoff Griffin and Charlie Griffith in the 1960’s nearly every throwing controversy has involved a spinner. Unfortunately infractions are still viewed through the lens of morality first laid out by Lord Harris, none more so than Muralitharan. Even after numerous biomechanical tests of his action and bowling with an arm cast, Bishen Bedi termed him a “javelin thrower” and a “monster” who was “killing the game.” All this for a technical infraction of which he had already been found innocent.

Of course some bowlers do exceed the 15 degrees of elbow straightening. The only English bowler with a doosra in his armory, Maurice Holmes, was suspended from bowling in July 2011 after his action was deemed illegal. Happily by the end of the season he was allowed to continue bowling his regular off-breaks, but not the doosra, although as he was released from his contract by Warwickshire it may be a moot point. Such action is of course necessary, after all there needs to be a difference between a bowler and a pitcher, but casting a talented player out of the game seems more a tragedy than a reminder of the spirit of cricket.

The periodic spasms of righteous anger over the issue are even stranger given that cricket has such a poor record on issues of actual moral significance. While Lord Harris was hunting down the bendy of arm he was instrumental in blocking the non-white nations from the game. Throughout the whispering campaigns against the likes of Griffith and Tony Lock an apartheid government was treating world class cricketers as second class citizens. And as the Murali controversy convulsed the international game a genocidal dictator was patron of a national cricket board.

I have no idea if Ajmal throws the ball. I hope he does not because cricket can ill-afford to lose any more talented players. But more than that I hope that we can end this misplaced moralism, celebrate the awesomeness of Ajmal and refocus on the real problems.

Pom Africans and posh lads

2012-01-14T20:19:00.002-05:00

As England begin a busy year of cricket against Pakistan on Tuesday it seems as good a time as any to challenge a longstanding criticism of the side.

The national team are apparently not English at all but a band of mercenaries who arrived in the mother country dreaming of a big pay day. Malcolm Conn has been the most vociferous journalist to travel down this path, delighting in calling England “the team of old empire” and labelling Andrew Strauss a “Pom African” on Twitter. The stupidity of this last remark is particularly staggering; Strauss left South Africa aged six. Similarly Matt Prior moved to England aged eleven and Jade Dernbach arrived in the country at fourteen without playing much cricket. In a country where more than 11% of the population were born outside its shores, Conn’s accusations are as absurd as they are obscene.

Talk of half a team from South Africa quickly boils down to two players, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott. Both left South Africa at the start of their careers and are products of two cricketing cultures and systems. For all his chuntering about quotas, Pietersen was known more for his off-spin at Natal and against the touring England team in 1999 bowled fifty-five overs and batted at number nine. His exceptional batting skills were developed in the grind of the county circuit. Similarly Trott spent six years at Warwickshire honing his talent until he burst onto the international scene in the Ashes finale in 2009.

International sport has always grappled with these issues. From Ranjitsinhji and Billy Midwinter in the early days through Hick, Lamb and Robin Smith to our globalized world today, players have travelled for social, economic, political and sporting reasons. What would Conn have in replacement of a qualification period? Beyond his bitter snarkiness he certainly does not attempt to offer an alternative. For me the multicultural roots of the national team, like the nation itself, are a cause of celebration rather than despair.

The irony is that there is a far more pertinent criticism of this England side that rarely gets aired. They are a bunch of posh lads. Five of the likely starting line-up for first test went to some of the best private schools in the country, including Radley College (Strauss), Bedford School (Cook) and Oakham (Broad), while a sixth, Eoin Morgan, briefly attended Dulwich College.

Squint at the scorecard next week and it could be a century ago. None of the top order or the wicketkeeper attended British state schools while of the bowlers only Mr S. C. J. Broad would have been an amateur of old. The jazz hats at the top of the order and the toiling professionals doing the donkey work was a strange cliché of a supposedly golden age but history seems to be repeating itself for cricketers of the IPad generation.

There is no great secret as to why these schools have turned out excellent cricketers. They have the resources to employ excellent coaches and the flexibility within their curriculum to devote more time to the game. By contrast, despite the excellent work of Chance to Shine, state schools can’t employ ex-professionals or put aside entire afternoons for cricket. Instead the focus has shifted to clubs and family, for example James Anderson was playing for Burnley in the Lancashire League at seventeen and Graeme Swann’s father was a keen league cricketer.

Apart from the squandered talent that seeps out of the game there is a danger that the English side is no longer perceived as representative in a country where around 7% of children attend fee-paying schools. Perhaps we do need to worry about the accents of the English team, but we should be more concerned about the rah rahs and the yah yahs than Afrikaans.

Two masters

2012-01-08T11:27:00.001-05:00

“I feel this fella is playing much the same way that I used to play.” With these words Don Bradman anointed the young Sachin Tendulkar as his heir apparent and legitimized comparisons between the two. However as Tendulkar enters the autumn of his career many of the similarities appear to have faded. Most obviously, like every other batsman who has played international cricket, his test match average of 56.03 pales next to the infamous 99.94. Beyond statistics the two are different cricketers and characters; whereas the Don was a scientific accumulator of runs, Sachin constructs glorious works of art and where Bradman was often a divisive figure in a sectarian dressing room, Tendulkar is beloved by all.

No, a better comparison with the Little Master is the original Master himself, Jack Hobbs. Beyond the unquestionable greatness of both men’s batting their legacy is their longevity. One is interminably approaching the most modern of batting landmarks, a hundred international centuries, while the other set the unbeatable record of 199 first-class centuries (or 197, depending on which statisticians you choose to follow).

A whole generation, me included, has not known cricket without Tendulkar. My first memory of him is that wonderful catch running in from long off in 1990. I was seven years old then and he has been an ever-present during primary school, high school, university and now deep into adulthood. The same was the case for a previous generation with Hobbs, whose thirty year career meant that many cricketers played alongside or against their childhood idol. Such was Alf Gover’s veneration of the great man that Hobbs had to tell Gover to call him Jack rather than sir after they had been playing in the same side for two years.

Hobbs was in many ways the antithesis of Bradman. Batting for him was an expression of joy rather than a ruthless accumulation of runs. Stories abound of him deliberately losing his wicket once the game was in the bag or after reaching a century, which is demonstrated by the 51 occasions he was dismissed between 100 and 110 runs. In the modern game such uncompetitive instincts are unthinkable but anyone who has seen a great Tendulkar innings has witnessed a work of sublime art far beyond scorecards or statistics. Like Hobbs, his batting is expression of everything we love about cricket.

Tendulkar and Hobbs came from very different backgrounds, one father was a Marathi novelist and the other father was a labourer and groundsman. Working class Britain could see themselves in Hobbs, oldest of twelve children and born in genuine poverty, and who conducted himself at all times with restrained dignity. Not for him the climbing of social ladders or the challenging of class convention, just in Pat Murphy’s words “an ordinary, decent man of wonderful skills.” Tendulkar’s career has coincided with the economic expansion of India and throughout the past two decades he has shown a social and economic path for the new middle class. Dignified rather than brash, always polite and respectful, yet able and willing to become rich beyond the imagination of his forebears, Tendulkar, like Hobbs, embodies his nation.

Despite a natural shyness the two Masters both adjusted to the pressure of national expectation to not only produce remarkable performances but become beloved figures. I have not heard one negative story about either Hobbs or Tendulkar, with peers and fans alike united in their devotion. Hobbs ensured that younger players bowled against him in the nets and made sure that at least one of them would get him out while Jack Mercer, a professional for Glamargon, tried to model his life on the values of Hobbs. Compare this to Bradman, whose teetotal Protestantism alienated his gregarious Catholic teammates Jack Fingleton and Bill O’Reilly. Their dislike of the Don became so obsessive that they were reputed to have laughed with joy when he was bowled for a duck in his final test. It is perhaps not a coincidence that neither Tendulkar nor Hobbs was successful or seemed to enjoy the burdens of captaincy while Bradman relished the opportunity of moulding a team in his own image.

As Hobbs was approaching W.G. Grace’s record number of 126 first class centuries an extraordinary phenomenon developed. Journalists and photographers started following him around, transforming the genteel county cricket circuit into something akin to the modern media jungle. “England is waiting with an almost expectant hush” intoned an editorial in The Times. Hobbs later admitted that these developments had “frayed his nerves” and it took more than a month to equal and then break Grace’s record (with a camera crew filming it for posterity). Tendulkar, who has now gone the best part of a year without his hundredth international hundred, has experienced the frenzied expectation of a billion people throughout his career. He might though take solace from the deeds of original Master, who scored more than seventy centuries after reaching his landmark. Dozens more Tendulkar centuries; now that is a thought to terrify bowlers around the world.

Cricket podcasts and internet commentaries

2012-01-02T12:20:00.000-05:00

Until the dawn of the internet cricket fans relied upon the tried and tested print, radio and television journalists to bring the game into their home. The technological revolutions of the past decade have changed this forever, creating the space for a proliferation of amateur content. First came the bloggers but in the internet era we are elderly relatives compared to the flourishing young podcasters and live-stream commentators.

Podcasts have been on the scene since 2005 but the critical mass of listeners occurred in 2008 and since then they have become an increasingly respected and influential media. Despite the many digital carcasses that litter ITunes several cricket podcasts have come to the fore. Some, such as the Switch Hit Cricket Show, the wonderfully grumpy Bowl at Boycs and Andy Zaltzman’s World Cricket Podcast, are produced by Cricinfo. My favorites though are two independently produced podcasts; The World Cricket Show features Adam Bayfield and Tony Curr’s amiable banter from Guernsey while Radio Cricket is based in the Czech Republic, with James Marsh and Nishant Joshi discussing the week’s events in cricket.

Both shows are charming, funny, and neither involve ex-professionals or hackneyed journalists trotting out tired cliches or tedious intereviews. Instead the listener quickly warms to the natural, unscripted and flowing conversation. This is especially the case with Bayfield and Curr, whose chemistry is derived from their childhood friendship and results in wonderful off kilter discussions, including Curr’s inexpert captaincy of the school cricket team.

A more recent development has been live radio-style commentary. The most well-known is Test Match Sofa, which includes a roster of regular commentators alongside occasional guests including Iain O’Brien, Andy Zalzman and Mark Steel. The tone is partisan (or at least anti-Australian), blokey, often sweary and even more often delightfully funny. Don’t expect the polished commentary of the other TMS and don’t listen if you want to understand the finer points of the game but for an amusing and engaging experience it is hard to beat. An Indian counterpart, Pitch Invasion, was started during the 2011 IPL season, by the blogger behind the “Fake IPL Player” controversy, and from the two times I have listened has a similar model and tone to Test Match Sofa.

Comparisons between the amateur and professionally produced offerings miss the point. There will always be a need for journalists and commentators, and at their best they can reveal insights which allow us mere mortals a greater understanding of the game that we love. Gideon Haigh beautifully summarised the attractions of Test Match Sofa and its siblings when he wrote, “to an era of hyperprofessionalism, Test Match Sofa introduces a kind of hyperamateurism, turning work into play, play into work.” Listening to these podcasts and commentaries is a reminder that too often cricket gets caught up in the fine art of the batting and the technical skills of bowling. Most of us are supporters more than we are players and at their best these shows don’t merely replicate the experience of following cricket, they elevate it to glorious new levels. Go listen.

Umesh Yadav, Harold Larwood and modern India

2011-12-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

One of the joys of watching cricket is the first encounter with a talented player. Yesterday at the MCG provided such a moment with my first sighting of Umesh Yadav. In the first session he had David Warner out hooking after a rain break, made Shaun Marsh drive to point and pinned Eddie Cowan and Ricky Ponting with painful blows.

All this and he only started playing with a cricket ball at the age of nineteen. Equally remarkable is Yadav’s journey from rural India to stardom. Hailing from the eastern Chandrapur district, his father is a coal miner and as a child Umesh broke stones to bring in extra cash for the family. After impressing in a trial match for his local state, Vidarbha, he was brought into their Ranji Trophy side and three years later he became the first player from the state to represent India. Even a decade ago Yadav’s rural roots would have made him the odd man out in the Indian dressing room. Now, as Rahul Dravid mentioned in his Bradman Oration, the national side is representative of India’s diversity, with Varun Aaron and Ajinkya Rahan also hailing from the boonies and fifteen languages spoken by the squad

I don’t claim to be an expert in Indian cricket but there appear to be three factors that have caused this development. Firstly the IPL has changed the Indian cricketing economy, broadening the base of players who can make a good living through the game. For example, Yadav was set to join the police force but his family allowed him to pursue his cricketing dreams knowing it could well provide much more for the family than the local law and order. Secondly, reforms of the Ranji Trophy a decade ago allowed the traditionally weaker states to play more games and the introduction of promotion and relegation encouraged greater competitiveness. This has fostered talent in what used to be the backwaters of Indian cricket, exemplified by Rajasthan winning the trophy for the first time last year. Lastly, the economic development of India has reached the hinterland and offered opportunities, sporting and otherwise, unavailable a generation ago.

If Yadav’s ascent from his rural background is part of Indian cricket’s transformation to a truly representative national sport then his coal mining heritage ties him to a great line of fast bowlers. Seventy-nine years ago another miner’s son was terrorizing Australian batsmen in the Bodyline tour. Harold Larwood’s father worked double shifts down the pit to pay for his son’s cricket equipment. By fourteen Larwood junior was working at the pit, driving ponies that pulled trains of coal to the surface. He saw the toll that the back-breaking drudgery brought on his fellow miners and knew that his one chance of escape was his cricketing ability.

Despite its dangers, the sweaty labour in the pits forged perfect bodies for fast bowling. At 5 feet 8 inches Larwood was shorter than most bowlers but the extraordinary upper body strength that he developed in the mines allowed him to bowl as fast as anyone in history. His shifts in the hellish heats of the colliery ensured that he had the stamina to bowl lengthy, hostile bowling spells despite the prodigious amount of beer consumed throughout his career.

For much of the twentieth century many counties appeared able to whistle down the local mine for a strapping fast bowler. The presence of so many bowlers from mining communities simply reflected the composition of the country, with more than a million people employed in the coal mines during the 1920s and 1930s. As late as the 1960 a significant proportion of the population worked in collieries but by privatization in 1994 there were only 20,000 miners.

Dravid placed the rise of India’s rural cricketers into historical perspective in his lecture when he said “a sport that was played first by princes, then their subordinates, then the urban elite, is now a sport played by all of India.” Yadav’s ascent symbolizes modern India just as Harold Larwood represented the Britain of his time. I like to think that Larwood, who was ostracized by the establishment after Bodyline and ended up half a world away from England, would be proud that another miner’s son is causing problems for Australian batsmen.

E.W. Swanton and the joy of text

2011-12-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

Of all the great innovations during the past two decades one of the most significant for cricket has been the advent of the internet, and specifically Cricinfo. The website serves as a hub for live scores, a comprehensive database, a statistical mecca and a home for many of the greatest writers on the game. Cricinfo, along with Cricket Archive, online newspapers and blogs has ensured that anyone with an internet connection can access more information and analysis than they could possibly consume.

Of course, excellent books coexist alongside this online ecosystem, with the likes of Duncan Hamilton, Ed Smith and Gideon Haigh continuing the great tradition of cricket literature. However one of the treasures nestled in my bookcase is utterly obsolete. Weighing more than five pounds, Barclay’s World of Cricket lurks menacingly over other books, a little like I imagine its editor, E.W. Swanton, enjoyed towering over his fellow journalists.

First published in 1966, the World of Cricket professes to chronicle the game, “exposing the ancient roots of cricket and tracing its growth and spread all over the Commonwealth and beyond.” Time has not been kind to Swanton’s grand ambitions. World of Cricket’s 320 potted biographies are puny compared to Cricinfo’s database of every first-class player, while its statistical coverage pales in comparison to Wisden. The smugness of the British Empire bristles through the pages, even (or perhaps because) it was compiled years after the sun had set on the Raj. There is, for example, more coverage of English cricket than the entire rest of the world and five times as many pages on English schools than on the International Cricket Council.

World of Cricket is moribund and yet I can’t help regarding its anachronisms as charming curiosities. While Swanton’s pomposity is undoubtedly worth pricking it is too easy to mock the grandiosity of his attempted encyclopaedia. While World of Cricket failed in its herculean ambition of chronicling the game from, as the Americans say, soup to nuts, we should not criticize it for overreaching. Indeed, the book can be situated in a long line of projects, from Erasmus’ Adagia to Samuel Johnson’s efforts and the Oxford English Dictionary, and of course not forgetting Wisden. However it was not until the internet era that information could be stored, retrieved and shared on an industrial scale. A generation after World of Cricket’s publication there is a cricketing encyclopaedia online. Swanton was, perhaps in this regard only, a man ahead of his time.

World of Cricket also reminded me in a most unexpected manner of the unique experiences that only a book can provide. When I first opened World of Cricket two pieces of paper fell out, one was the standard Amazon packaging invoice and the other an extraordinary letter. Written in the 1990’s, it was a wistful note from one man to another, his first lover, who had subsequently married and travelled a different path through life. The writer noted that he had not been invited to the wedding, reminisced on happy evenings spent together in Tunbridge Wells and wished the recipient a happy life. There are, it seems to me, only two explanations, either a spurned lover dashed off a note, left it in his nearby World of Cricket and then forgot to send it, or he sent it and his old flame carefully filed it away in his copy of Swanton’s magnus opus. Such experiences are part of the charm of the printed word, and a glorious antidote to the monochrome internet jam-packed with its caps-locked comments.

Cricinfo is a wondrous website that I visit every day, both as a tool for scorecards and stats as well as erudite opinion. Every month or so I pick up World of Cricket, breathing in its musty odors, enjoying its idiosyncrasies such as sections on cricket stamps, ducks and even the Vic Lewis CC (written in the third person by Vic Lewis). Every day I give silent praise for the world where I can follow a T20 game in Zimbabwe or check on a first class scorecard played a century ago but there is a time to close the browser and revel in the glories of books like World of Cricket.

It's hard work being on top of the world

2011-12-17T18:10:00.001-05:00

England end 2011 on top of the world, the uncontested champions in test cricket after a year in which they did not lose a match. As 2012 approaches they will find their competitors attempting to replace them at the summit by copying their methods.

England’s current crop of players are not blessed with unique ability. Good as the entire team (and squad) is, there is not a Warne or a Muralitharan, a Tendulkar or a Lara in their ranks. Nor have they redefined strategy, as the Australians did in the 1990’s by scoring at four an over, or introduced a new era of bowling, which the West Indies achieved with four hostile pacemen in the 1980’s.

Rather this England set-up have excelled at various aspects of the game that have often been overlooked. The clearest sign of this is the medical regime. The previous English wave of success, which culminated in the 2005 Ashes, was stymied by injuries to Simon Jones and Michael Vaughan. Perhaps as a response to this the ECB invested in their Sports Science and Medicine Team, which now numbers twenty-four medical professionals including not only the traditional physiotherapist but experts in nutrition, strength and conditioning as well as psychologists. The result has been a remarkably fit squad of players with very few injuries. Compare this to India, where Zaheer Khan was selected half-fit for the England tour, allowed to play and then hobbled off in the first innings of the first test, or Australia, whose current injury list includes Paine, Cummins, Johnson, Harris and Cutting, while Watson can’t bowl.

Alongside this is England’s devotion to statistical analysis. Peter Moores’ greatest legacy to the national side might have been when he gave Andy Flower a copy of Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, from which he first learnt about the potential applications of statistics. Nathan Leamon, a mathematician and cricket coach (nicknamed “Numbers” by the England team), has logged every ball in test match cricket for the past five years. With this bank of data, he simulates upcoming test matches and provides information to England’s coaches and players on the opposition’s weaknesses. This, according to Leamon at least, was instrumental in Tendulkar’s poor series last summer. Flower’s analytical zeal has spread throughout the country, with several counties utilizing performance analysts and some universities offering degree-level courses in the subject.

England other major success has been to conquer the arts of selection and coaching. By astute and consistent selection, rotating where necessary but always retaining a critical mass of talent, Geoff Miller has forged a squad that has beaten all-comers (at least in the right conditions, the sub-continent is an upcoming challenge). The contrast between the steady hands guiding England and their giddy, unsure Australian counterparts was never so clear as during the Ashes, when the home side used seventeen players as opposed to England’s thirteen. When England brought Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan into the side their experience, training and ability ensured that they were match-winners. Australia gave debuts to three players and saw two spinners get hit around the park and possibly out of international cricket.

More by luck than judgment England found the best coach in the world game. It is easy to forget Andy Flower was initially associated, in Kevin Pietersen’s mind at least, with the failed Peter Moores era and that his first game as caretaker coach resulted in one of England’s most humiliating defeats. From such unpromising beginnings, Flower’s tenure has blossomed, with twin Ashes victories and a clean sweep over India. His authority is unquestioned but benevolent, his strategies and coaching sound, and all involved in the game appear to admire his sincerity and honesty. It is England’s great fortune that they stumbled across the perfect man for their situation.

There are signs that other sides are already learning from this model of success. Australia have appointed a fresh group of selectors and their new coach, Mickey Arthur, has a strong record in South Africa. Similarly the appointment of Duncan Fletcher as India’s coach is an appreciation of the importance of a world-class coach. Improvements in sports science and statistical analysis are easily replicable for any national board that has enough money. Indeed, if Mr. Srinivasan, president of the BCCI, should read this humble blog I would recommend that he endow an Indian mathematics department for the purpose of cricketing statistical analysis and then clone England’s medical team. Such attempts may of course be derailed, after all the BCCI remains incompetent and Cricket Australia appears ready to sacrifice test match cricket on the altar of T20. It would seem likely though that 2012 will see England, a team more of exceptional application than exquisite ability, discover that life at the top is as difficult as the race to reach it.

Steven Davies: political icon

2011-12-11T19:19:00.001-05:00

Occasionally sportspeople are transformed into political icons. Jackie Robinson represented the struggle for African-American equality, Basil D'Oliveira exposed the iniquities of apartheid and Jesse Owens highlighted the absurdity of Nazi notions of racial superiority. Irrespective of sporting abilities, their privilege and burden was to become synonymous with an idea.

Steven Davies is in this category. Regardless of whether he matures into an exceptional wicketkeeper, he will forever be known as the first openly gay professional cricketer. Make no mistake, with so few precedents among his peers he displayed great courage by coming out. The response was as extraordinary, with acceptance and support from Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower down to bloggers and tweeters.

How far we have come. A generation ago Justin Fashanu’s life was ruined when he told the world he was gay in an interview with The Sun. His manager, Brian Clough, called him a poof, banned him from the training ground and soon sold Fashanu to rivals Notts County. His brother, also a top-flight footballer, disowned him. Eight years later, with his career prematurely ended and falsely accused of assault, Fashanu hanged himself.

In the twenty years since The Sun interview there has been a momentous change in attitudes towards homosexuality in the United Kingdom. Not only have discriminatory laws, such as Section 28, been overturned but two years ago David Cameron apologised on behalf of the Conservative Party for putting those despicable laws on the books in the first place. These days television abounds with openly gay stars, all the political parties include gay members of parliament and the Royal Navy even advertises for recruits in magazines targeted at the gay community. While not free of the scourge of homophobia, the United Kingdom is now a society which views it as socially unacceptable.

This week Davies was included in the squad for the upcoming test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates. He will find a country where people live in fear because of their sexual orientation. The federal law of the Emirates implies that homosexual sex is punishable by death. In the legal system of Dubai, where the first and third tests will be played, sodomy can lead to fourteen years in prison, and in Abu Dhabi, location of the second test, article 177 of the Penal Code states that homosexual acts can be punished by ten years imprisonment. Enforcement of the law appears to be inconsistent. The influx of Europeans and Americans has created an underground gay culture but being openly gay is still not tolerated. For example, 26 men were arrested at a gay party in 2005 with some deported and the others sentenced to five years in prison, two women were imprisoned for a month in 2008 for kissing on a beach, while a man was arrested last year for “enticing men through internet chat rooms to commit homosexual acts.” To put it bluntly, if Davies chose to live his life openly while on tour he could be deported or jailed.

If Davies’ career progresses as we all hope he will find that a significant portion of the cricketing world is more like the Emirates than England. Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Pakistan all have anti-gay legislation on the books, while a tour of the West Indies would include Barbados, Trinidad, Antigua and Jamaica, all of which legislate against homosexual activity. An Amnesty International report in 2004 stated that in Jamaica "gay men and lesbian women have been beaten, cut, burned, raped and shot on account of their sexuality” and hundreds of Jamaicans have claimed asylum for fear of persecution because of their sexual orientation.

When Davies came out in February of this year, several cricket journalists downplayed its significance. Jonathan Agnew, for example, tweeted “I think we are there already. Big call for him. Little interest at the press conference.” While Aggers may have been correct about the media, he was wrong about the wider significance. Whatever his triumphs on the field, Davies will always be an icon and a role model for countless thousands of gay sportsmen and women around the world and his selection on tours such as the UAE will be a silent victory for tolerance over bigotry.

Uptown: A brief history of cricket in Harlem

2011-12-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

Until a few months ago I lived in Harlem. As a white,middle-class Englishman I did not fit into the demographic of the soul of blackAmerica but there were many great things about living in the neighbourhood, notleast the stupendously excellent fried chicken. However, as I furtively watchedcricket in my apartment in this stronghold of hoops and home runs, the gameseemed about as alien as a local soul food restaurant selling muesli.

And yet the story of cricket in Harlem is in many respects amicrocosm of the neighbourhood’s history. Northern Manhattan was a rural idylldeep into the mid-nineteenth century, and a place where the wealthy builtsecond homes. By the 1820s a horse-drawn railway offered an easy route in toand out of the city, allowing respite to those who lived in the filthy,dangerous and overcrowded southern tip of the island. One of the centralattractions for Harlem’s residents and visiting New Yorkers was to watch horsestrot around the course at the Red Horse Tavern on East 106 Street somewherebetween First and Third Avenues. It was here that the St. George Cricket Club,consisting mainly of upper crust Englishmen, moved in the early 1840s, and itwas also the location of two of the earliest international contests.

A team from Canada visited New York in 1846 to play the St.George side. Poor communication and antagonism over ringers from Philadelphiahad caused hostility between the two teams, but this match brought feelings toa head. The description on Cricinfo’s scorecard of the game (from where theygot it I know not) succinctly sums up the situation: “Helliwell hit the ball inthe air, and, thinking he could charge the bowler to prevent him from catchingthe ball, knocked Dudson to the ground. The latter, on recovering, ran andthrew the ball at Helliwell. He was subdued by his team mates and apologised tothe batsman, but the Canadians refused to continue the game.”

It was seven years until the two sides agreed to a rematch,which was again played at the Red Horse Tavern ground. Around 2,500 people madetheir way to Harlem “by stage, railway and all sorts of vehicles, from a milkwaggon up to a trotting buggy” and the crowd went back south happy after the hometeam triumphed by 34 runs.

This victory sparked a new surge of interest in cricketthroughout America but it was also the last significant match to be played inHarlem. By 1854 the St. George Club had moved out to Hoboken, reportedlybecause of the rapidly growing population around the Red House Tavern ground.The ground was used as an encampment by the Excelsior Brigade of the Union Armyduring the Civil War, and after that faded into obscurity, lost to the changingcharacter of its environs.

There were no more cricket matches at the ground, and fewmore in Harlem, as the war cemented baseball in the nation’s affection andconfirmed Harlem’s role as a home to waves of immigrants. First came theGermans, mainly-well educated and quick to assimilate with the locals. By theclosing years of the nineteenth century it was the German community itself wholooked back wistfully on a Harlem “where one could smoke his pipe andpeacefully drink his glass of Rhine wine.” The new residents that caused suchnostalgia had fled the grinding poverty of the old country, which was usuallylocated in southern or eastern Europe. Leisure pursuits changed along with thepopulation, with the crowd who used to admire the St. George side becominginexorably pushed out of the neighbourhood, while few of the new Harlemiteswere interested in what was for them an entirely alien game.

Alongside the urbanization came parks, the most monumentalof which was Central Park, just south of Harlem. A cricket pitch was envisagedin the original plan for the park but by the time it was built these designshad changed, and the park commissioners were steadfast in their refusal to hostany games.

As more and more African Americans streamed eastwards,fleeing their own old country, many found a home in Harlem. By the First WorldWar it had established itself as a centre of black life in the country and wasthe largest black community in the world. There were dozens of Harlems at thistime, for example the Genovese were on East 106 Street, those from Piacenza onthe two blocks below this, while the Calabrians were on East 108 and East 109Streets. The racial, social and ethnic barriers were rarely crossed and were usuallyzealously guarded but one of the few opportunities to come together was at thePolo Grounds. First built in 1880 then moving four times until its final homeon Coogan’s Bluff, the Grounds showcased Major League Baseball, AmericanFootball, boxing, soccer and even Gaelic Football. Indeed almost the onlysports not held at the stadium were polo and cricket.

There was to be one more intrusion of cricket into Harlem’shistory. Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica, and like many West Indians migratedto Harlem. He arrived in 1916, and by April of that year had started preaching thegospel of African repatriation and black nationalism. Garvey’s mission andmovement was more than political, it called for a recognition and promotion ofthe nobility of everything associated with the black population. Hisorganization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), describeditself as a "social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational,institutional, constructive and expansive society.”

Some of its activities, such as selling dolls with either“mulatto”, “light brown” or “high brown” colours highlighted his obsession withrace. Other elements were more benign celebrations of black culture. This wasespecially important for Garvey’s fellow Caribbean immigrants, who oftenexperienced tension with the African American community. One component of this affirmationof culture was through sport, which for the West Indians meant cricket. TheUNIA formed a cricket club, and one of its games was reported on by theorganization’s newspaper:

“The match was held under the patronage of his Highness thePotentate, Mayor G.M. Johnson of Monrovia, Liberia, and his Excellency the Hon.Marcus Garvey, Provisional President of Africa, who graced the function withtheir presence, remaining on the ground the entire afternoon, interestedspectators of the game. The Stars and Stripes and the Red, Black and Greenfloated over the main entrance to the enclosure. A section of the Black StarLine Band was in attendance and entertaining an enthusiastic crowd numberingabout 1,000 persons.”

It must count as one of the most extraordinary match reportsin the annals of the game. Garvey’s love of the trappings of colonialism (notjust the titles, he often wore an extraordinary gown and feathered helmet),rigid racialism and awful business decisions led to his downfall. Arrested andfound guilty of mail-fraud in 1925, for which he blamed Jewish and Catholicjurors, he was expelled from the country in 1927 and never returned. TheGarvey-inspired outbreak of cricket in the empire of baseball was alsoshort-lived. Although the Caribbean community continued to play, gradualassimilation whittled it away to near extinction.

In his book Harlem (to which this article owes a great debt) Jonathan Gill writes of the "transformative power" of Harlem's history. That cricket played a role in this, not merely as a plaything of the old elite but also as part of the immigrant experience, is strangely beautiful to this New Yorker.

Diminishing test match crowds

2011-11-28T09:24:00.001-05:00

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Gang oft agley

With apologies to Robert Burns, this came to mind after writing a piece about the problem of diminishing crowds at test matches only to watch packed houses throughout the recent game at the Wankhede Stadium. The previous two games in the series had been deserted, and a gripping series was just completed in South Africa against the backdrop of empty seats. So why did the fans in Mumbai turn up, unlike their compatriots in Kolkata, Delhi and South Africa?

The main factor appears to have been the cost of attending the game. After a sparse crowd at the ODI against England, the Mumbai Cricket Association announced heavily discounted tickets for the West Indies match. This, added to the prospect of watching the Little Master and the absence of the bureaucratic incompetencies that marred similar attempts at the two other matches in the series, brought in the fans.

However getting people through the gates is not as simple as reducing the price of tickets; a day’s play in South Africa only costs $5 ($2.50 for a student) but few are attracted by this bargain. There are no magic bullets to complicated problems such as declining test match crowds. Some times a simple solution, such as reducing ticket prices, will work, but more often a longer term rebuilding and reconnection of the game to the fans is needed.

There has only been one significant piece of research investigating the issue, when the admirable MCC World Cricket Committee commissioned a survey in 2009 of 1,500 cricket followers in India, South Africa and New Zealand. The picture that emerged was of test matches followed by many but watched by few. While only 13% of people across the three markets listed test match cricket as their preferred format of the game, there was still a clear dedication to five-day cricket. In India, for example, only 2% of those surveyed did not follow tests at all, while 53% of people were dedicated followers of test matches (all the respondents enjoyed cricket). In other words, most cricket fans enjoy test matches but few root for it above T20 and ODI games.

The central challenge therefore is persuading those who enjoy test matches through the turnstiles. 89% of those surveyed said that they followed live games on the television, with a noticeable spike in India towards new media such as watching online and mobile phone alerts (presumably this has increased in the two years since the survey). Of those who have never attended a test match, 63% said because preferred to watch on television, while other popular responses were lack of time, a preference for shorter formats, the cost of tickets and the location. These factors were pretty standard across the three countries, although slow over rates were given as a factor in India far more often in South Africa or New Zealand.

Using the data from the report, the World Cricket Commission made three recommendations. The first, a world test championship has already been shelved until 2017. They also suggested day-night games and a session-by-session pricing structure. The MCC has been at the forefront of working out the logistics of playing first class cricket under floodlights, with tests using pink balls, but I have not heard anything about the introduction of session pricing. Ironically this is probably the easiest of the three proposals to implement as it does not need approval by the ICC or the introduction of new technology.

These are all fine ideas, but I would go further. It goes without saying that attending a test match should be enjoyable but all too often priorities are misplaced. Slow over rates, the scourge of Indian fans according to the report, corrodes the brand of test match cricket and should be heavily punished. I would introduce the six run penalty currently featured in T20 games into test matches, and reduce lunch and tea intervals proportionally when the bowlers have been slow. The spectre of bad light would also be eliminated with the introduction of day-night games and floodlights at all grounds.

Broadcasters face a paradox, with more and more people choosing to follow cricket through television and internet but, as Samir Chopra has demonstrated, small crowds diminish the product. As part of television and internet packages the home broadcaster could therefore receive 500 or 1000 seats to every test match to be used for competitions or rewards. These could form a block of tickets, allowing lots of crowd shots, interviews during the interval and the like, and in the broader picture help convert television supporters into test match attendees.

Burns’ poem finishes with the cry, “An' forward, tho' I canna see/I guess an' fear”. There is much to fear for the future of test matches, but as the wonderful match in Mumbai proved, there is still plenty of hope.

Ian Botham and me

2011-11-19T11:31:00.001-05:00

I almost never made it to my first cricket game. I was abouteight years old at the time and we were a couple of miles away from Worcestershire’sground when I asked my dad to stop the car, just in time for me to be sick.There was brief talk of turning back but we were nearly at our destination andthe chances of throwing up twice seemed slim. Memory is a strange thing; I canremember nothing at all about that game but have a photographic image in mymind of the wall onto which I emptied my guts.

The reason for my regurgitation was that I was going to seemy hero, Ian Terence Botham. By that time, in the late eighties, he was far pasthis best but the aura of great deeds still enveloped him. He was a Hollywoodstar gracing the local amateur dramatics society. I can just about recall agame in which the ageing Viv Richards bowled Botham with his part-time off spin but even twodecades afterwards I can still feel the deep honour of witnessing my idol inthe flesh.

Like typical childhood sweethearts we drifted apart over theyears. I went off to university, moved to America and got a job in the arts.Botham retired and became a caustic and reactionary commentator. Over the yearsI have tried not to pay heed to his columns and comments, preferring to focuson our initial, innocent relationship. But a few days ago I chanced upon hisrecent article about the spot-fixing trial in The Mirror, succinctly titledNever Let Them Play Again. In it he wrote, “But why on earth is there scope forthem to return to the game within five years? In the case of Amir, he wouldonly be 24 when he was able to pull on a Pakistan shirt again as if nothing hadhappened. He could still have a 10-year career despite being a fixer. I cannotsee how any of these convicted men should be allowed anywhere near a cricketteam again. They have brought shame to cricket and they should never be allowedto enjoy the fruits of this great game the rest of the non-cheating cricketersget to enjoy.”

Let us take Botham at his word, that those who cheat shouldbe banned from the game. What about Mushtaq Ahmed, currently the England spincoach but so heavily implicated in the 2000 Justice Quayaam report that the ICC asked the ECB to monitor his activities? What about the activities of Englandcricketers of Botham’s vintage who Lord Condon, former head of the ICCanti-corruption unit, alleges colluded with the opposition to fix domesticgames? And let us not forget Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, who both accepted money from a bookmaker in exchange for information.

How about those who tamper with the ball, which Bothamhimself was accused of committing as part of the libel trial with Imran Khan?That the jury did not find for him on the libel case does not make him guiltyof this action, but during the trial he vociferously described such actions ascheating. We await his calls for Michael Atherton, Rahul Dravid and the 2005 English Ashes team to play no further role in the game.

Botham’s demands for harsh justice are particularlyinappropriate given his own relationship with the law and the cricketingauthorities. He has been arrested for assault on a plane in Australia, punchedIan Chappell in 1977 and apparently tried to repeat the act in 2010. While hisban for smoking weed has an anachronistic feel to it these days, moredisturbing are the allegations that he seriously considered touring apartheidSouth Africa, and only decided against it when he realized his other incomesources might be threatened. Rather than rejecting the ideological basis of thetrip, or that he would not be able to look Viv Richards in the eyes, in PeterWilby’s wonderful words, “he put more cash before less cash”.

Justice requires a retributive and rehabilitative element.It is easy to demand that people who have done wrong be thrown into jail andthe key thrown away, but such impulses usually only create further problems. IndeedBotham himself might be at risk of a very long stretch in the clink if he livedin one of the twenty-four US states which have enacted a “three strikes” law. Ratherits purpose is to act as a deterrent to others and a punishment to thewrongdoer while also moulding all but the worst criminals into productivemembers of society. Cutting five years out of a sporting career seems to be astrong deterrent and punishment, and it seems to me inconceivable that afterspending time in prison Amir would repeat his crime.

And yet for all this absurdity and all the bombast, howevermuch I disagree with Botham’s worldview (and I am sure the feeling would bemutual), we have an unbreakable bond. He was my first hero. The challenge, likeall former relationships, is to remember him as he was and not what he hasbecome.

Peter Roebuck and Joe Paterno

2011-11-13T16:17:00.001-05:00

This past week has seen the demise of two figures who tried to change the stifling conventions of their sports.

Peter Roebuck’s suicide robs cricket of one of its most distinctive voices. For my sins I have not read his books but his columns conveyed a unique view and perspective. For sure, it would probably be impossible to find anyone who agreed with Roebuck on everything (I once singled him out for criticism in the original iteration of this blog) but it was a boon for the game that somebody brought forth wonderfully written and original ideas.

On this side of the Atlantic, the major story has been the enforced retirement of Joe Paterno. Paterno is, in the American lexicon, the winningest coach in the history of top-flight college football. Joining the Penn State coaching team in 1950, and becoming head coach in 1965, Paterno won 409 games and took the side to 37 bowls. By the end he was an icon across the country and pretty close to a god on the Penn State campus.

Earlier this month one of Paterno’s former coaching staff was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing children. Paterno was made aware of these allegations in 2002 and informed the Athletic Director but, critically, did not contact the police or ensure that they had been notified. He also allowed the coach continued use of the Penn State facilities after his retirement and to keep his emeritus status in the program. When his former colleague was arrested and the allegations became public Paterno indicated that he would retire at the end of the season but on Tuesday the university’s trustees voted to fire him with immediate effect.

Roebuck and Paterno were very different personalities, one was beloved and gregarious while the other was solitary and socially awkward, but what united them was the notion that there was a life beyond sport. Paterno was known even to those with no interest in football because of his insistence on the importance of academia. He donated millions to rebuild the Penn State library, and during his lengthy tenure the graduation rate of his players was consistently higher than other college sports programs. The events of the last week have shattered Paterno’s “Grand Experiment” of creating scholar athletes and suggest the incessant pressure on Paterno to win overcame his moral compass.

Like Paterno, Roebuck preached a world where sport was not of ultimate importance. Malcolm Knox’s obituary of Roebuck includes his advice to aspiring cricket journalists that “the world is bigger than cricket.” Roebuck applied this motif across his writing, on subjects including match fixing, the future of Zimbabwe and the spirit of cricket. The thread running through these columns was that morality should trump money, with the game as a living organism that needed protection. As a man who had spent time in nearly every test playing country, he cared more for cricket than any particular nation and at his best his writing situated the game within the wider world.

Cricket has lost a man who, in the words of another journalist who took his own life, was “doomed to affront those to whom cricket is a quasi-religion.” Football has lost a man who tried, unsuccessfully, to create a more benevolent, humane vision of college sports. Between them they suggested a better future. Despite their very human failings, it has never been more important to remember their aspirations and fill the vacuum they have left.

The sad fate of Leslie Hylton

2011-11-09T09:37:00.000-05:00

Is 30 months too long for Salman Butt’s crime? Or too short?Either way, at least Butt and his co-conspirators can be grateful that theirsentences, and crimes, pale in comparison to Leslie Hylton, the only test matchcricketer to have been executed.

Leslie Hylton was good enough to play six times for the WestIndies, and toured England in 1939. The Jamaican retired from professional cricketafter being dropped for the last test match of the trip and joined the civilservice as a foreman. The following year, fatefully, he fell in love with alady named Lurline Rose. The relationship was tense from the start, with theRose family several rungs on the social ladder above the Hyltons, so that whenmarriage was proposed Lurline’s father, the inspector of police in Jamaica,insisted on a search of the police records for any files on Leslie.

Eventually parental permission was granted and the weddingtook place on October 6, 1942 and a son, Gary, was born in 1947. By 1951 thefamily were living with Lurline’s mother (the chief inspector father havingdied a few years previously) while Lurline spent time in New York City tofurther her dressmaking career. In April 1954 Leslie received an anonymousletter detailing how his wife was living with Roy Francis in Brooklyn Avenue,who the letter claimed, “boasts of his immoral life, especially when it happensto be another man’s wife.”

After showing the letter to his mother-in-law and othermembers of the family, Leslie sent a telegram ordering Lurline back to Jamaicaimmediately and after some initial excuses she made the journey home a coupleof weeks later. Lurline denied that she had a sexual relationship with Roy, andclaimed that he was a “casual acquaintance.” On the couple’s first eveningtogether again, in the wonderful language of the Daily Gleaner newspaper, “thematter was settled in true matrimonial form.”

Only a few days later however, as Leslie was relaxing on theverandah, he noticed one of the young domestic servants walk out of the housewith a letter addressed to Roy Francis. Not wanting to involve the boy indomestic issues, Leslie rushed to the post office but was informed that the letterwas now property of the crown and therefore could not be read. He went back tothe family home and brooded on the situation.

Unable to sleep, Leslie woke his wife and told her that heknew she had written to Roy and that he had arranged to intercept the letter inthe morning. Unaware that this was not actually possible, Lurline confessed tothe affair, saying, “You are out of my class. What have you done to make mehappy? You are a hindrance to me. Look at the likes of you. Roy is a better manthan you. I love him. Just the sight of you makes me feel sick … I am Roy’s,Roy’s, Roy’s.” Leslie then reached for his gun on the windowsill and a struggleensued before, in his own account, the former cricketer saw blood and realizedthat he had shot his wife, who died within an hour.

The trial took place in October 1954, and was focused onwhether Leslie’s crime was murder or manslaughter. Doctor Vernon Lindo gave thecritical piece of evidence, revealing that Lurline had been shot seven times,meaning that Leslie would have reloaded the gun to fire the final shot. As theprosecution stated in their closing address this action was “out of allproportion to the provocation” necessary for a manslaughter conviction.

The jury reached a unanimous verdict that Leslie Hylton wasguilty of murder, along with a strong recommendation for mercy. After thankingthe jury, the judge donned his black cap and passed a sentence of death.Several appeals followed, and the case even reached the Judicial Committee ofthe Privy Council, but all upheld the original verdict. When the Governor ofJamaica refused to grant a reprieve, there were no further avenues of hope. Alittle before half past eight on the morning of May 17, 1955, Leslie walkedcalmly to the gallows of St. Catherine’s District Prison, recently acceptedinto the Catholic Church and by all accounts accepting of his fate.

Leslie Hylton’s Wisden obituary does not mention his demise,merely passing judgment on his cricketing career. How Butt, Asif and Amir mustwish that history would judge them only on their averages and abilities.

Which counties should be ditched?

2011-11-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

I rarely dabble in statistics but there is an area in the now stats-riddled world of cricket in which utilizing them might shed some light.

The debate on the future of county cricket is focused on how effective the system, and each county, is at forming cricketers who excel on the international stage. All too often claims are made based on gut feeling rather than objective study. Mark Nicholas epitomized this last year when he said "It would be no shame for some counties to relinquish their first-class status ... Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire – to name four of six or seven – exist for no obviously justifiable reason." I have yet to see an analysis on which counties contribute most to the England team so I made a start.

I analyzed every cricketer who represented England from 2006 to the end of October 2011 (effectively the end of 2011 as England will not play again until January) to determine which counties provided the most players and the most appearances for the national side. The only caps counted are those after January 1, 2006.

First, the assumptions and weaknesses of this analysis:

Where players have represented more than one county I used the side they played for first on the theory that the initial years of somebody's cricketing life are formative. This seems to be correct in most cases but there are some possible exceptions, for example did Ian Blackwell benefit more from Derbyshire than Somerset?
A T20 appearance counts the same as test matches and there are more ODIs played than test matches. However weighting caps seems inherently objective (should a test appearance be worth five ODIs? How many T20s?)
It assumes that the selectors made the right calls (after all, Darren Pattinson is included in these figures).

Looking at the figures the first point to note is that Nicholas' Hampshire would be at risk under his plan to remove 6 or 7 counties (especially as their one player of note during the period, Chris Tremlett, only excelled once he left the club). Six of the seven counties with most caps play at test grounds, with only Surrey among the traditional test match venues who are in the bottom half of the table. The performance of the newer international grounds is more varied. Durham's players have won most test caps and is second highest overall but Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Glamorgan are rooted near the bottom.

Taking the analysis on a level I compared performance in the county championship against international caps. The average championship position figure was calculated by adding the final championship positions from 2006-11 and dividing by six.

There seem to be a reasonably strong correlation between the two factors for most of the teams but there are some intriguing anomalies. At the top of the caps ranking is Middlesex who sit only 13th in the championship positions. I think we can afford the club some sympathy as Andrew Strauss has made 154 international appearances, and therefore barely played for the club (indeed, he played for Somerset briefly last year) while Eion Morgan has also been absent for much of the last two years. Leicestershire however, appears to be flattered by their fourth place in the caps rankings, which has been inflated by Stuart Broad, who moved to Nottinghamshire to help his international career, and Luke Wright, who moved to Sussex before playing for England. The likes of Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Worcestershire and Surrey all have better championship rankings than international caps, with possible explanations including Kolpak signings and a solid but not international quality squad of players.

It is hard to demonstrate, in Nicholas' words, 6 or 7 counties which obviously merit exclusion. Of the four that he mentions by name, Derbyshire and Gloucestershire have provided neither competitive cricket or international quality players, but it is more difficult to make the case against Worcestershire and especially Northamptonshire. It is interesting to speculate why he did not name Glamorgan, who fall bottom of both tables, but perhaps have managed to deflect criticism by developing their ground to a test match standard.

Two broadcasters under threat

2011-10-22T13:30:00.003-04:00

Professional cricket often feels very distant from New YorkCity but two broadcasters have bridged the oceans to bring the game into myhome (and don’t tell anyone but occasionally into my office as well). Forinternationals I have stumped up the money to watch Willow TV and for countycricket I have tuned in to BBC local radio. Both, in very different ways, areunder threat.

Willow TV found a niche providing reliable streaming ofgames to North America. With millions of South Asians in Canada and the States,plus the odd Australian and Brit, Willow TV was possibly the only company toturn cricket into profit on this continent. The first sign that things weregoing downhill was at the start of this year. Devanshu Mehta lays out Willow’sdispute with various movers and shakers in Indian cricket, which meant thatthey were not awarded this year’s IPL and Champions’ League matches. At thesame time, and possibly not coincidentally, their customer service plummeted. Iknow because I emailed them in February and March requesting the cancellationof my subscription and never received a reply. Samir Chopra detailed similar issues,and it appears to have been a widespread problem.

Over the summer things improved (or at least their streamingworked; I gave up on the cancellation in favour of the cricket). But now theBCCI has created another issue for Willow TV by setting internet rights forIndian games at an exorbitant level. In the first round they requested aminimum of $600,000 per game but were forced to bring this down when no companymet the reserve amount. Even at the lower price there were no bids so the BCCIannounced that they would stream the England ODI series free on their website,ostensibly to help make the game more accessible. It is obviously welcome tolegally watch any cricket for free (of course there are always many illegalstreaming sites) but given the BCCI’s money-seeking reputation it does not seemmore than a short-term solution. Willow TV’s popularity was based on securingrights to all international matches; without Indian home games or potentiallythe IPL many of their current customers are likely to jump ship, leaving the companywith a doubtful future.

A very different funding environment faces BBC local radio.With the government freezing the license fee for the next five years the BBCannounced a range of cuts earlier this month, including a 4.2% cut to localradio. The result will be job losses, for example BBC Hereford and Worcesterwill see nearly a quarter of its staff leave, plus fewer locally producedprograms. Understandably there have been rumours that county cricket coveragecould be threatened. Expensive to produce, with a relatively small audience andalmost entirely broadcast online, it would be an easy way to save money.

I acknowledge that I am a freeloader of this service but,unlike some of the Corporation’s output, their county cricket coverage is aclassic function of a public service broadcaster. The BBC Trust’s Delivering Quality First consultation paper describes the goal of the cuts as “to largelyprotect those services and content that provide the most value to audiences.” This,while contentious, depends entirely on defining value to audiences. Is it moreimportant to maintain content which provides life-enhancing value to relativelyfew people or focus more on shows which bring higher audience ratings? In thecontext of cricket we can compare county to internationals: if the BBC lost theradio rights for international games then Talksport would step in (whileTestmatchsofa already does a good job) but the free market does not providesufficient demand to warrant a competitor providing ball-by-ball countycommentary.

The consultation states that “our broad approach is toprotect and promote the quality and distinctiveness of the BBC’s core radiooutput.” It goes on to proclaim the value of Radio 3 for its depth of classicalmusic coverage unavailable elsewhere. The focus for local radio however will bepeak time programming. This seems paradoxical, in local radio money should bespent where the audience is larger but classical music should be preservedbecause it can’t be done better elsewhere. The public service elements of BBClocal radio are those which focus on issues distinctive to its listeners, andwhich can’t be accessed elsewhere. Coverage of county cricket would fit intothis. A comparison with the National Public Radio model in the USA isinstructive, where popular programs are syndicated alongside in-depth coverageof local news and sports.

There are precedents for public pressure to influence theBBC, with the Asian Network and 6 Music saved after initial plans to close thestations. For those in the UK please respond to the BBC consultation, even ifit is simply a one-line email. There is also a Twitter handle and a Facebook group,plus of course the more traditional word of mouth.

Ranji and Ollivierre

2011-10-16T16:45:00.001-04:00

July 1904: a drab, damp county championship game at theCounty Ground, Derby. The home side bowled first and was kept in the field formost of the first two days as Sussex progressed in slow and stolid fashion. Tenbowlers, all but the wicketkeeper, turned their arms over until C.B. Fryfinally declared the innings closed on 363 for 4. In response Derbyshire couldonly muster 25 for 2 before the rain came, washing out the rest of the game. Atedious, uneventful match, lost to history. But on one side was an Indianprince and on the other a black batsman from the tiny island of St. Vincent.

This was not the first time that foreign-born playersfeatured in English domestic cricket. Australians such as Albert Trott and the“Demon” Spofforth had stayed on in the country after tours, and there was evena mixed-race South African, Charles Llewellyn, in the Hampshire side around theturn of the century, although he vehemently proclaimed the whiteness of hisskin. The main opportunities for Victorian English public to see non-whitecricketers were the Australian Aboriginals tour of 1868, two teams of IndianParsees in the 1880’s and a West Indian side in 1900.

It was on this first West Indian tour that Charles Ollivierre came to Britain. Rated as the best batsman in the side and a usefulbowler, Ollivierre finished the tour with the most runs and the highest battingaverage. Wisden praised his “strokes all around the wicket” and thought him“particularly strong in cutting and playing to leg”. Derbyshire, who finishedthird from bottom of the championship table in 1900, saw in Ollivierre anopportunity to strengthen their batting. However Lord Harris’ rigid policy ofqualification meant that it would be two years before Ollivierre played in thechampionship, during which time he lodged in Glossop and played for the townside in the Lancashire League.

Ranjitsinhji’s route to that tedious game in 1904 wasaltogether different. Born into a noble Indian family, he first came to Englandin 1888 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge the following year. It was onlyat university that he started playing cricket seriously, and developed a newshot, the leg glance. Stanley Jackson, the varsity captain, was shocked when hefirst saw Ranji play the shot. To his establishment mind the only acceptableresponse to a well-directed delivery was to tap it politely back to the bowler.Anything else was verging on immoral, and such decadent play was almostcertainly a reason why Ranji was not awarded a blue until his second year atCambridge.

Such innovation was one of the most important qualities thatboth he and Ollivierre brought to the English game. Batting belonged toamateurs, many of whom learned their game at Harrow and Eton during a time whensport was seen as an opportunity to develop the character of a Victoriangentleman. It is not surprising that it took W.G. Grace, another batsman whodid not go to a public school, to develop batting in new directions. While weknow less about Ollivierre’s style, he too appears to have approached battingdifferently than his county teammates. Arthur Knight describes him batting witha “certain allusive nuance, suggestive of a far away glamour which no Englishplayer possesses”.

Their distinctive, flamboyant styles made Ranji andOllivierre crowd favourites. A week before the game against Derbyshire,Ollivierre was instrumental in one of the best results in Derbyshire cricket,described by Wisden as “the most phenomenal performance ever recorded infirst-class cricket.” Responding to an Essex total of 597, Ollivierre hit adouble century to help Derbyshire to 548, before they skittled the southernersfor 97. In the final innings the West Indian scored 92 not out to ensure thatthey achieved a remarkable victory. The newspapers reported “one of thegreatest ovations ever given to a Derbyshire batsman” as Ollivierre walked backto the pavilion.

There was undoubtedly a large degree of exoticismsurrounding Ranji’s popularity, with his status as an “Indian prince” and hislavish lifestyle (which left him perpetually in debt) encouraging images of anopulent Raj. His phenomenal first season for Sussex brought him to nationalattention, and soon his name alone drew larger crowds, with people gatheringaround grounds hoping to catch sight of the master batsman. As importantly hegained the approval of the Establishment, with a celebration in Ranji’s honourat the end of the 1896 season attended by the master of Trinity College, 2 MP’sand 300 other dignitaries.

This popularity masked the challenges that faced the twobatsmen in England. The theories and notions of racial superiority upon whichthe Empire was based crossed over into the sporting realm. Lord Harris loomedlarge in these strange assumptions, with comments such as “wear[ing] down goodbowling … is easier for the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon than the excitable Asiatic”.The Telegraph described Ranji as possessing “wrists supple and tough as acreeper of the Indian jungle, and dark eyes which see every twist and turn ofthe bounding ball.” It was Lord Harris who delayed Ranji’s test debut, refusingto select him against the Australians at Lords in 1896. Ultimately the prospectof attracting more people through the turnstiles won out when he was picked forthe next test at Old Trafford (at the time the ground committee selected theside). Less is known about Ollivierre but at least one of his colleagues, BillStorer, was apparently “not fond of importations, especially of the ebony hue”.

Ranji and Ollivierre were pioneers long before the era ofmass migration. On the field they could play as equals, and through theirexceptional talent they won the affection of the English public at a time whenthe vast majority of people had never seen an Indian or a black man. That theyachieved this against a background of racism, social Darwinism and plainignorance is remarkable. On their shoulders sit generations of cricketingmigrants who have come to England to grace the game.

A Sabreless Somerset

2011-10-10T09:00:00.001-04:00

On Saturday I watched the Champions League T20 semi-final between the Mumbai Indians and Somerset. Not Somerset Sabres but just plain old Somerset. The club dropped Sabres from their name at the start of the 2010 season because they had not been allowed their preferred choices of Wyverns or Dragons. This delights my inner Fred Trueman but it also seems to make excellent marketing sense.

Two decades since the counties changed their names for one day games it is clear that the experiment has failed. It has annoyed existing fans, while Joe Bloggs is still more likely to recognize that Worcestershire is a cricket team than the Worcestershire Royals. Switching between names has not helped, with Middlesex switching from Crusaders to Panthers after complaints from local Jewish and Muslim groups, and Surrey procrastinating between the Lions and the Brown Caps.

The names reek of artificiality. Some appear to be chosen merely for alliterative value (Durham Dynamos, Gloucestershire Gladiators, Essex Eagles) while others are simply ugly (Northamptonshire Steelbacks, Nottinghamshire Outlaws, Kent Spitfires). The Premier League and Major League Baseball are replete with strange team names but they realize that changing them would risk brand recognition, loyalty and continuity.

One day team names contribute little if anything to the success of Twenty 20 cricket. People are attracted by lots of sixes, innovative shots and deliveries, great fielding and generous dollop of music, jacuzzis and fireworks. How many of these new fans have gone on to follow the four day game? It cannot help that the side changes its name between games. After cheering on the Leicestershire Foxes, who is this other Leicestershire side playing during the next week?

Somerset lost the match, ensuring a final between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore. In the dying overs, and the game in the balance, Jos Buttler turned face-on to Lasith Malinga’s slinging 90 mph delivery and guided it over the wicketkeeper’s head. During the next over Buttler hammered a drive down the wicket, destined for a boundary until it smacked into his non-striking colleague, Craig Kieswetter. Somerset could not find a way back from these lost runs but it was a thrilling spectacle full of nerves, uncertainty and physical danger. And there was not a Sabre in sight.

Yorkshire spin

2011-10-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

From Peate to Illingworth: a spin tradition that ensured greatness for God’s own county.

When Ted Peate and Bobby Peel made their debut for Yorkshire in the early 1880’s they joined a club described by Derek Birley as “ten drunks and a parson.” Neither Peate nor Peel, it should be said, were the parson, but both were among the best spinners in England. Their liquid-fuelled approach to the game came to a shuddering halt with the appointment of Lord Hawke as captain, the county’s first amateur skipper and one determined to forge a side of respectable professional cricketers.

This first generation of Yorkshire spinners were bred in the old ways, and not even Hawke’s increasingly dictatorial role at the club could force them to change. Peel’s exit was the more dramatic. Arriving late for what proved to be his final county game, at Sheffield in August 1897, it became clear that Peel was inebriated. In an attempt to demonstrate otherwise Peel bowled a delivery, accurate and spinning as ever, but unfortunately he mistook the sightscreen for the wicket. Much myth has grown up around Peel’s last game, and there is no evidence that he relieved himself on the pitch, but with Hawke’s order to “leave the field at once” he never played serious cricket again.

Following the exits of this rambunctious couple, Wilfred Rhodes took Yorkshire’s spin bowling to new levels. Along with his bowling partner George Hirst, he was born and raised in Kirkheaton, a small town described by A.A. Thomson as “dug in” to the Pennines. This upbringing chiseled Rhodes into the archetypal Yorkshireman, with relentless yet beautifully flighted deliveries that seemed to be a part of his being. His brilliance is seen in Victor Trumper’s plea to “have a bit of mercy” and his extraordinary career included 4,204 first class wickets plus uniquely bowling at both W.G. Grace and Bradman. For Rhodes cricket was not a game to enjoy, it was something to win, and for thirty years he did just that, making Yorkshire into the supreme power of county cricket

The next generation benefited from Rhodes' genius. Not surprisingly he was not an orthodox coach; his appointment at Harrow was not successful, the future ruling class presumably not taking kindly to his gruff ways. Instead his legacy was the development of new spinners for Yorkshire’s first team, especially Verity. After the close of play, Rhodes dragged Verity and Bill Bowes into a bedroom and formed a spin-bowler’s field on the quilt with assorted toothbrushes and shaving brushes. “Now Hedley”, Rhodes demanded, “What did you do wrong today?” It was a tough, uncompromising education but underpinned with a strange, Yorkshire, love.

Verity was the product of what came before him and in time almost matched Rhodes’ abilities and achievements. Beyond the many extraordinary bowling performances and an average of under 15, the greatest testament to his ability was that Bradman rated him as one of the best bowlers of his time, saying “with Hedley I am never sure … there’s no breaking point with him.” Robertson-Glasgow thought that Bradman might have finished with a test average of 150 if he had not faced Verity.

Verity’s last first class game was in the final damp days of the 1939 season, taking seven wickets for nine runs to bowl Sussex out for 33. He had first been warned of the impending conflict a year earlier by Douglas Jardine, who realized that Verity would soon have to fight and had given him an army training book. Walking off at the end of the game, with Yorkshire once more county champions, Verity spoke the fateful words, “I wonder if I shall ever play here again.” On the journey back north, as the coach chugged through blacked-out cities, the military manual remained in Verity’s jacket pocket.

Verity signed up with the Green Howards, rising to the rank of captain. After postings in India, Egypt and Syria the battalion was sent to fight in the invasion of Sicily. As he led his company in a charge at the Germans the great spinner was struck with a bullet. Unable to move, and with the fields around him in flames, Verity fell into the hands of the Germans and despite two operations he left this life on July 31, 1943. His final instructions to his men, still in the terrible midst of battle, deserve to live through the ages: “Keep going.”

Not even the devastating loss of war could terminate Yorkshire’s spinning lineage. During the 1946 season a 43 year old, Arthur Booth, was pulled from obscurity to prize out 111 victims with an average of only 12. Such form could not last however, and this one season wonder was replaced by Johnny Wardle. A good spinner for Yorkshire, for whom he bowled orthodox slow left-arm spin, Wardle was probably a better one for England, especially on tour where he was allowed to deliver bamboozling chinaman deliveries. However there was no tuition from past greats, who were either in uniform or in their dotage, and even as Wardle was turning his arm over and over as a stock bowler, delivering a combined 20,723 deliveries in 1952 and 1953, Yorkshire did not seem to appreciate Wardle’s talents to the degree they had marveled at his predecessors.

This tension between players and committee would become commonplace in Yorkshire’s future and Wardle, like his predecessors Peate and Peel, was forced into premature retirement. In 1958 he scribed (or ghosted) an article criticizing the appointment of another amateur captain. The Yorkshire committee and the MCC could not forgive such impertinence, dropping him from the side, withdrawing his invitation to Australia, and even refusing registration with another county.

As in the past the county was blessed with the appearance ofthe final link in our unbroken chain, who by the time of Wardle’s enforced departure was already established in domestic cricket and an England international. Ray Illingworth, from Pudsey, that breeding ground of great Yorkshire cricketers, was educated in the tough school of the Bradford League. A genuine all-rounder, he was a modern spinner, who turned it little and took many of his wickets with an arm-ball.

Illingworth’s career began with Yorkshire dominant but by the ended with the county in the worst state for a century. He left for Leicestershire in 1969, while still at the peak of his powers, lured by the attraction of captaincy. By the time he returned to his home side as manager nine years later the county was engulfed in Boycottian civil war. In 1982, desperate for the success he had experienced in the 1960’s, Illingworth donned his whites again and captained the side. At the age of 50 this was, to put it mildly, unwise. The next year, with Illingworth still playing and a century after Bobby Peel was leading the national averages, Yorkshire finished bottom of the county championship. The line had ended.

What are we to make of this extraordinary succession of spinners? Such a concentration and continuation of talent seems unique in cricket and possibly in sport itself. Certainly, there have been many silken batsman who have emerged from the maidans of Mumbai, and generations of greatness have popped up in the Carribbean and in Australia. But nowhere, let alone such a relatively sparsely populated area as Yorkshire, has produced so many good players at one specific skill for so long. Let us also not forget that this potted history has left out still more of the White Rose county’s spinners: we have not payed homage to Ted Wainwright or Alonzo Drake, Bob Appleyard or Brian Close.

The globalized nature of the modern game premeditates against such continuity of talent. Spin camps at the professional level are now as likely to take place in Hyderabad as Headingley, while, while young hopefuls watch Shane Warne’s action on television or Youtube. Adil Rashid, the current Yorkshire’s leg-spinner, has probably been influenced more by Terry Jenner and Warne than his county peers or coaches. Add to this the greater migration of players between counties and international players only making fleeting visits on the county scene, and Yorkshire’s century of spinners appears to be a unmatchable feat.

No, we shall never see their like again.

Nudity in 1896

2011-09-25T12:30:00.000-04:00

Cricketers used to be a conservative lot. I think it was Phil Edmonds who claimed that his teammates did not need a trade union because they were more rightwing than their employers. A few eyebrows were raised therefore, and possibly a little tea spluttered, when Alistair Cook, Stuart Broad and James Anderson posed in Cosmopolitan with nothing but cricket bats a few years ago. Anderson repeated his almost naked act last year by appearing on the front cover of Attitude, the biggest selling gay magazine in Britain. It is hard to picture Peter May, Colin Cowdrey or Jim Laker in such poses. And yet in the 1890's, when merely a nude knee could cause palpitations, one of the best cricketers of all time went further even than our modern exhibitionists.

Charles Burgess Fry, for it was he, was described by Wisden as “probably the greatest allrounder of his or any generation” but his life involved more, much more, than bat and ball. He was a university superstar during his time at Wadham College, Oxford, mainly for his sporting exploits. In his first year Fry secured blues in football, cricket and athletics, and played football for England. In the second he equaled the long-jump world record, and by graduation he was the varsity captain of cricket and football and president of the athletic club. Fry’s standing in the university was recognized by Isis, the university magazine, which twice named him one of their idols, while Wadham became known as “Fry’s College” and parcels to him could simply be addressed “Lord Oxford.” His classical looks furthered his popularity, with no lesser assessor of male beauty than Plum Warner exclaiming that Fry was "like a Greek God." His fame spread past the cloisters with Spy drawing him for Vanity Fair, and the accompanying text describing him as "the best all-round man that has lately been produced either on the Cam or on the Isis ... it has lately been suggested that he should be called Charles III."

Fry's status as the best all-round man extended into all crevices of university life. He was a part of the college literacy and debating societies, and even appeared in A Merchant of Venice with the Oxford University Drama Society, although this was mainly noticeable for his exclamation of "damn" when he was forgot a line. Wadham's social life revolved around Fry and F.E. Smith, later enobled as the Earl of Birkenhead, with their friendship sealed through a blend of schenanigans, cameraderie and socializing. They formed Wadham Cat Club after escaping from their college rooms despite being gated for missing lectures, which was formalized into the Cat Club, whose members had to break into and out of five colleges without alerting the porter. More socially prestigious was the Wadham Olympic Club, which Fry helped to revive and which quickly became one of the most fashionable, elite, institutions at Oxford.

This remarkable university life was built on financial sand. His scholarship was barely enough to cover academic expenses, let alone the extra costs that came with his sporting and social commitments. Unfortunately Fry showed little budgeting ability, and indeed at times he spent to excess, including an insistence that the Olympic Club dined in evening dress along with a specially designed club waistcoat. There was no rich family or wealthy mentor for assistance, and such were the financial pressures on Fry that his biographer, Iain Wilton, suggests that during his final term he suffered what would prove to be the first of several mental breakdowns. This is borne out by Fry graduating with only a fourth class degree, a considerable embarrassment for such a high profile student. In an attempt to lessen his debts, Fry worked as a tutor and wrote articles, including one for Wisden. He also accepted an offer from one of his football teammates “to be photographed for scientific purposes in all sorts of poses for the purpose of portraying muscular structure.” It only took an afternoon and presumably offered substantial reward. The photograhs were published in A Handbook of Anatomy for Arts Students, and with the wonders of Google Books can now be viewed online.

Victorian male models were often boxers or soldiers, who could be relied on for muscular physiques but needed extra money. Guardsman Higgins, for example, was a favourite of William Etty. Fry's social circle and expensive clubs suggest a socially ambitious man, who aspired to be part of the ruling class. Such a gentleman was simply not meant to strip off. Fortunately for Fry news of his nudity did not spread too far. The consequence was limited to a lost beau when a lady by the name of Molly Dawson, whom Fry was courting, happened to spot the anatomical text book on display in a bookstore and "nearly had a fit backwards" upon seeing Fry in his altogether. Thankfully, causing fainting fits in young ladies is not something that needs to concern Cook, Broad or Anderson.

Clown Cricketers

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000-04:00

"The company consisted of eight acrobats, eight talkingclowns, and eight cricketers” said Ted Peate, the first great Yorkshire spinbowler, describing his experience as a clown cricketer.

Peate joined Arthur Treloar’s Clown Cricketers in 1875, a period of flux for English professional cricket. The All England Eleven hadlong since splintered into dozens of professional elevens but the increasingcontrol of the MCC was beginning to threaten such sides. With structured countycricket still in its infancy but no dominant professional sides as of old therewas an opening for a distinctive touring team. Into this niche stepped twoclowning troupes, Treloar’s group, also known as the Imperial Cricketers, andCasey’s Cricketers.

During Peate’s year with the side, Treloar’s ClownCricketers played 63 games but not everyone enjoyed their antics. Peatedescribed how he “finished our tour at Sheffield by getting well mobbed andsodded. The 'grinders' saw no fun in booby cricket; they preferred the genuinearticle, and gave us an emphatic reminder of the fact.” Clowning was evendiscussed in the crusty home of cricket, with a Dr. Gaye complaining during theMCC members meeting in 1875 that Lords refused to host the clowns. The minutesdiplomatically record Dr. Gaye stating that he “received an answer which hethought was scarcely polite”, and the secretary made the club’s position clear,“that the Clown Cricketers were a burlesque upon cricket that could not betolerated at Lord's Ground.”

If Lords refused them then the New World welcomed sportsentertainment and Treloar’s team departed for a tour of America in 1876. Howeverthe clown cricketing phenomenon ended with the tour, probably because Treloarstayed in the States: some reports have him founding the Omaha Cricket andAthletic Association while an A.T. Treloar was groundsman for both Manhattanand Brooklyn Cricket Clubs during the 1890’s. With the growth of county cricketand the rise of the respectable professional cricketer it seems likely that theflowering of clowning and cricket was destined to be short-lived.

As for Peate, unsurprisingly God’s Own County never took toclown cricket but his increased national exposure allowed him to securepositions at clubs and then break into the county’s first eleven. He would notsurvive the puritanical reign of Lord Hawke but his name lives on as thefounder of the legendary tradition of Yorkshire spin. Not bad for a clown

A final word on clowning cricketers. The video linked below is part of the British Pathe collection but the Pathe archivists don't seem to know much about it. My best guess is that it is an early James Williamson film dating from 1898. That is speculation and unlikely to be proven but whatever its origin it is a curious piece of cricketing social history and an interesting peek into clowning cricket.

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The curious case of Arthur Coningham

2011-09-13T07:40:00.002-04:00

Last week Nathan Lyon achieved every aspiring cricketer’s dream by snaring a wicket with his first ball in a test match. However the first man to accomplish this feat, and the only other Australian, was more than an obscure cricket statistic.

Arthur Coningham was a natural athlete, and superb cricketer, footballer and billiards player. He was selected for the 1893 tour of England but his eccentricity ensured that he was not in the test team. Most infamously, Coningham was so cold fielding in the outfield during a game at Blackpool that he started a small fire, which was quickly supplemented by two hot potatoes donated by a spectator. Not even the heroic saving of a child from the Thames could change his rapscallious reputation.

Coningham had to wait for the visit of England in 1894 before his first, and only, cap. On a wicket described by Wisden as “in a very bad state from the recent rain” his impact was immediate. With his first ball, and the first of the match, Archie MacLaren was caught by Henry Trott, making Coningham the first man to get a wicket with his debut ball at the highest level. However the rest of the game did not proceed as smoothly for Coningham or for Australia. After bowling England out for 75, with Coningham earning figures of 2/17, they were dismissed for 123. England’s captain A.E. Stoddart scored a century in the second innings as the visitors amassed an impregnable total, during which Coningham was no-balled for supposedly deliberately throwing a delivery at the centurion.

Coningham was dropped for the next test and did not play for Australia again, and his cricket career ended in 1898. Initially he worked as a chemist however finances were always precarious, mainly due to gambling, and one job quickly followed another until he found a measure of stability as a bookmaker, with a briefcase inscribed with the legend, “Coningham the Cricketer.”

It was almost certainly a need for money which led him down the path that secured his notoriety. Coningham concocted a plan. Alice, his Catholic wife (Arthur was an Anglican), was a regular worshipper at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, seat of Cardinal Moran. Coningham sent letters to the cathedral claiming that the cardinal’s private secretary, Denis O’Hanan, had conducted an affair with Alice. $5,000 would keep the silence. When the letters were ignored, Coningham took his case to court.

O’Hanan was born in Ireland and after training in Rome was recommended to Cardinal Moran by Pope Leo XIII. The charismatic Irishman became a friend and confidant to Moran, and became so well-known among Sydney’s Catholics that his photo could be bought at church bazaars across the city. Alice Coningham claimed that her third child, Vincent, was fathered by O’Hanan. Furthermore in the trial, at the prompting of her husband, she went into salacious detail about her encounters with the Irishman: they had consummated their passion in the sacristy, in the Cardinal’s Hall, in the waiting room, in the Presbytery and many more locations in and around the Cathedral. The affair was conducted on Friday nights, she said, so that O’Hanan could go to confession on Saturday.

Not surprisingly these details in the trial shocked, or more likely titillated, many Australians and the case quickly grew to assume wider implications. Many Catholics were appalled at the allegations, seeing them as a broader assault on their religion. Coningham, who was representing himself after his lawyer walked out upon learning that Alice and Arthur were still sharing a bed, was happy to receive help wherever he could find it. This came from Protestants such as William Dill Macky, president of the local Orange Order.

The battle lines had been drawn, and the plot became murkier. An anonymous Catholic priest contacted Coningham under the pseudonym Zero. For reasons never made clear he hated O’Hanan and during the trial helped Coningham concoct a variety of attacks on him. The most dangerous was the theory that if a priest admitted a sin at confession he could he deny it later. The implication was clear and seemed to many Catholics as confirmation of their fears. The theory would become the basis of a long-running newspaper debate between Dill Macky and local Catholic clergy.

Eventually the all-protestant jury returned to announce that they could not reach a verdict, to the disappointment of the 5,000 people who had assembled outside the courtroom. Cardinal Moran decided that a new tactic was needed to ensure success in the retrial. Reaching out to his influential friends, Moran asked W.P. Crick, Post Master General of New South Wales for assistance. Crick discovered the letters between Zero and Coningham, informed the cardinal of Zero’s identity and in a cunning twist designated his assistant to impersonate the disenchanted priest. Between the two trials “Zero 2” fed Coningham misinformation, which would prove to be his downfall. Despite a five hour closing speech, Coningham’s case was thrown out by the second jury.

O’Hanan emerged with his reputation saved and a hero to Australian Catholics, who contributed all his court costs. Dill Macky saw further evidence of a Catholic menace in the case and founded the Australian Protestant Defense Association, which quickly grew to more than 20,000 members and helped cement the religious divisions in Australian society. Cricket was still feeling the tremors of this sectarianism in Bradman’s era. Coningham avoided the aftershocks of the trial by escaping to New Zealand but his financial position never did improve and his life took an inexorable downward path. He saw six months in jail for a petty crime, and in what was perhaps an ironic inevitability, was found to have committed adultery with a Mrs. Ryman. After Alice successfully petitioned for divorce in 1912, Coningham summarized his position, “In Sydney my wife said she did and the jury said she didn’t, in Wellington I said I didn’t and the jury said I did.” He moved back to Australia but his decline was such that he was admitted to Gladesville Mental Hospital in 1937, and died in the institution in 1939.

Hopefully Nathan Lyons will stick to cricket and curating pitches.

And we're back

2011-09-12T17:15:00.002-04:00

How was the last 23 months for you?

After nearly two years of inactivity on this blog I am going to try getting some new pieces out into the world.

My goal is for a post every week, hopefully each will be meaty and perhaps even thought-provoking. First up tomorrow will be a look back at an interesting Australian who stirred up sectarianism through some saucy allegations.

Thanks,

David

A broken ECB promise

2009-11-13T22:04:00.003-05:00

First up, please accept my apologies for the two weeks of inactivity. Some times the real world simply gets too busy. Posting may be light (or less) for the next week but after that it should be full speed ahead.

In two weeks of absence several remarkable things have occurred, including England winning a T20 game and Ray Price rising to third in the ODI bowling rankings. These are clearly strange times we are living in but what finally forced me to thrash about on my keyboard once more is the hoary issue of cricket broadcasting.

To summarize developments, the United Kingdom government asked a panel led by former Football Association Executive Director David Davies (and inexplicably including Eamonn Holmes) to come up with recommendations on the future of the sporting "crown jewels" - the events which must be on free-to-air television. One of their conclusions was that the home Ashes series should not be on Sky. This has led to predictably apocalyptic forecasts from the ECB, and on both sides of the argument in the media. The most balanced case I have read is from John Stern, who cuts to the heart of the issue in attempting to measure exposure against revenue.

An element missing from the coverage is that ECB never actually should have sold the rights to Sky. In the early years of the Labour government, when the England cricket team were still floundering under the captaincy of Alec Stewart, the ECB chairman managed to get test matches taken off the list of "crown jewels." Somewhat naively (these were the days when a Labour minister could still be described as such) the Culture Secretary came to a gentleman's agreement with the ECB; home test matches could come off the list as long as most of them remained on free-to-air television. Fast forward a few years and Sky gobbled up the rights, with the ECB collecting a sizable check.

Following the public uproar at this decision, the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee investigated the issue. In their findings they wrote:
“It is very evident to the Committee no matter what description it is given and no matter how its precise ramifications are interpreted, the understanding between Lord Smith and Lord MacLaurin constituted an agreement. And the content of that agreement was unequivocal: live Test match cricket played in England was not to be removed completely from free to air TV. What is equally evident to this Committee is that the terms of that agreement have manifestly been breached by the ECB with the tacit approval of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport."

It is clear that the ECB broke a promise to keep most test match cricket on free-to-air television. As such it is hard to feel too much sympathy for their protestations. Let's hope we can finally strike the balance which the "gentleman's agreement" was meant to create; enough revenue to sustain cricket at all levels and the exposure necessary to keep it as one of national sports.

Autobiographies

2009-11-01T13:07:00.003-05:00

Five of England's players during the last Ashes series have already written their autobiographies, and it was with some alarm that I read about 23 year old Stuart Broad's soon-to-be published Bowled Over. The Amazon description promises a "lavishly illustrated book", which does not seem to bode well, but Broad joins Monty Panesar, Alastair Cooke, Andrew Strauss, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pieterson in the autobiography club. I admit, not without a little pride, to have read none of these, but the general consensus from reviews seems to be that Strauss, Flintoff and Pieterson's tomes were perfectly readable, Cooke's merely pointless and poor Panesar's utterly anodyne.

Player biographies are nothing new, and the standard seems always to have been poor; even my ten year old self was disappointed with Graeme Hick's "My Life So Far." This also leads to the subject of titles; some players seem to opt for a variation of Hick's as part-apology for writing about their life when it has only just started (Cooke's is "My Early Life, even Flintoff's was called "Being Freddie:My Life so Far"), the senior pro must call his book something akin to "Time to Declare", and the opening batsmen usually calls his "Opening Up." Praise be for exceptions to the rule, such as Steve James' "Third Man to Fatty's Leg" and "There are only 2 Tony Cotteys."

There are some excellent cricketing autobiographies, such as Michael Atherton of recent vintage or Fred Root from many years past, allowing us mere mortals an insight into the world and mentality of professional cricket. However it is not a coincidence that both Atherton and Root wrote after their retirement. Not only did their age allow them greater insight into their game but they were also freed from the pressures of playing. This is seen in another autobiography which is about to be published, Michael Vaughan's "Time to Declare." Some of the book's serialization in The Times has been rather sensational but one passages stands out. Vaughan talks about "a terror of the ball coming to me" in the field, admitting that he placed himself in the field in positions where catches would not come. This is an admission which no current player could ever make, but such weaknesses are essential if the reader is to begin understanding the subject.

Banned for two games for blogging

2009-10-29T05:23:00.001-04:00

Tom Redfern writes a great blog cataloging his efforts to score a "pure" century, which for him means against decent bowling and scored in fifty balls or less. He was recently banned for two games for allegedly swearing at the umpire after being sawn off in a game. For his side of the story read Tom's post on the game, but the inexplicably stupid part of the decision was that they also charged him for the comments he wrote on the blog.

The committee cited section 2 (b) ii of the Middlesex County Cricket League constitution in claiming that the blog brought the spirit of the game into disrepute. Section 2 (b) ii states that"disputing an umpire’s decision or reacting in an obviously provocative or disapproving manner towards an umpire at any time" is not within the spirit of the game. Not only does it seem absurdly petty to include post-game writing in their deliberations, the MCCL handily defined their parameters in the preamble to section 2 (b):

"Each player shall conduct himself with the spirit of the game on the field at all times. For the purposes of this sub-paragraph, the field shall include any part of the cricket ground and not merely the field of play."

It would take a very selective reader not to understand that the drafters of this constitution viewed that their powers to enforce behaviour was limited to the ground and the day of the game. Put simply, punishing somebody for writing their opinion on a cricket game is unacceptable. If anybody can spare five minutes out of their day to email the MCCL Chairman and Secretary asking them to rethink the decision, their emails are available here.

Getting back on the train one Hitler mask at a time

2009-10-28T09:32:00.002-04:00

For various reasons (well two really - lots of work and lots of fairly uninteresting Twenty 20 games) I have not watched that much cricket in the last couple of months. I managed to catch the last few overs of India's innings against Australia this morning and a couple of things embedded themselves into my mind.

1) Ricky Ponting dropped an easy chance. Having to endure the snickers of the thousands at the ground and millions watching at home he looked more like the hapless captain of 2005 than a father-figure nurturing a new team towards greatness.

2) As Dhoni and Raina blasted India towards 350, the camera panned to the crowd and found a fan wearing a mask. Fair enough, apart from it was very distinctively an Adolf Hitler mask. This raises several questions: Why did the fan choose to wear this mask to show his support of India? Does the Nagpur joke show carry a range of genocidal dictator masks? Maybe one can browse through Stalin and Mao before deciding upon the fall-back of Adolf? And why did the television company decide that of all the thousands of enthusiastic fans this was the one to put on screen? To make the moment even stranger, the Australian commentator (it might have been Michael Slater but I'm not sure) opined on seeing the Adolfed face that "everyone in the ground has a smile on their face at the moment." Tis a strange world...

The baggy green

2009-10-24T13:32:00.005-04:00

Before the Ashes, when he was still seen as Australia's great weapon, Phil Hughes described his relationship with the baggy green cap that he had been given on debut. His words are so odd that they deserve to be quoted at length:

"I keep it locked away in a pouch in the top left-hand corner of my wardrobe ... every day I make sure it's there. I'll have a peek. It might be in the morning, at night, or even if I'm having a coffee, I'll walk upstairs and look at it. I'll smell it sometimes. It smells like alcohol because of the couple of wins we had in the first Tests in South Africa."

The much missed Amy S. described this as "like something a sex-obssessed teenage boy would do," but now Phil Jacques has gone a step further by attributing the cap with healing qualities. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Jacques said that before and after an operation for a bulging disk in back he would stare at his baggy green to top up his motivation and beat the pain barrier.

It has been well documented by among others Gideon Haigh that this fascination with the cap is a modern phenomeonon. The baggy green first started being worn in the 1920's; before then the national team donned green and gold skull caps. The baggy green remained merely an accessory for generations; Bill Lawry was reputed to have worn his while cleaning out his pidgeon coop, and one of Richie Benaud's caps was sold for 50c at a charity shop.

The cap began being attributed with greater significance under Mark Taylor's captaincy in the 1990's. All players wore the cap during the first fielding session of a test match, and whereas caps used to be liberally distributed before a tour, now one cap was expected to last an entire career. Steve Waugh took up all matters baggy green with gusto until the skipper in his tattered cap became one of the defining images of sporting greatness.

As ever Gideon Haigh summons the appropriate concept, looking to Eric Hobsbawn for the notion of "invented tradition," which aims to create practices to link the present to the past. One senses that Waugh's motivations lay beyond mere patriotism and that he deliberately created rituals around the cap to forge a link with earlier Australian cricketers, a link which had been severely dented only a few years before he started playing with World Series Cricket. Indeed, he came close to admitting as much when he said that he introduced the on-field presentation of a baggy green to a debutant from a former player as it "gives me power and the team aura."

Several past players have criticised the legend that has grown around the cap. Some, such as Bob Simpson think that it should only be worn when clean and new. Former captain Brian Booth is perhaps more revealing when he says that he is uneasy about growing "idol worship." It is hard to disagree with him when one sees the photo of Hughes (above) or reads about Jacques. With the Australian team shawn of their legendary players and with Ponting the only link to the Taylor and Waugh eras, the younger players appear to look to the baggy green as an almost mythical object. And it can never be good when a cricketer, when anyone, unthinkingly and unquestioningly accepts something.

American variances on cricket

2009-10-21T20:53:00.004-04:00

Samir Chopra has discussed recently (here and here) the possibility of introducing baseball-style fielding statistics into cricket, for example a catch to dropped catch ratio, runs saved, fielding errors and so forth. Having finally finished reading Tom Melville's excellent The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America, I can report that such experiments (and several more) were tried a century ago.

Melville's central argument is that cricket failed to take hold in America not for social, political or historical reasons but "because it never established an American character." Towards the end of the book he outlines some of the various failed attempts to achieve this Americanisation after the Civil War, most of which were heavily influenced by baseball, which by then had become the dominant bat and ball sport in the country.

In the 1874 match between the Merion club and St. Georges of New York a distinction was made between earned and unearned runs, as well as a recognition of fielding errors on the scorecard. It seems that these were trialled more widely in Philadelphian cricket during the 1888 season before being abandoned. During the 1880s there were also suggestions to allow double-plays, where the two batsman could have been dismissed in the same delivery (it is hard to imagine that this would have occurred very often!) as well as sporadic calls for all fielders to be permitted to wear gloves, something which was eventually trialled in Chicago and judged a "dismal failure."

Not all American innovations failed. Philadelphian cricket modified the MCC's LBW law for their 1885 season, a move that quickly proved popular for its relative simplicity, and the Philadelphians also allowed declarations years before the MCC. Nevertheless, most of the attempts to change cricket reflect the increasing dominance of baseball, and many are little but attempts to mimic it's structure. One such was the "American Plan" to alternate the batting side at the fall of every third wicket during the second innings of each team. The plan was proposed in 1882, and several college matches played under the new rules, but it never gained more than a foothold before disappearing into oblivion.

As Melville comments, none of these ideas cut to the heart of how Americans viewed (and still view) cricket; as simply too long. It would be tempting to consider Twenty 20 the answer to these long-held prayers, but that is to forget that a century and more has passed since the American Plan and its' ilk. Cricket's appeal will always be on the margins of American society, and there is nothing wrong in that. For now, lets try to get fielding errors back on the scorecard.

The ICC Super Series

2009-10-18T16:22:00.005-04:00

In an alternative universe, where everything the ICC decreed came to pass, we would just have witnessed the second Super Series, presumably between South Africa and a World XI side. Four years ago, the first meeting ended in a thumping victory for an Australian team determined to prove their Ashes humiliation was only a temporary blip. Alongside the international all-stars of a World XI, the series (there were three ODIs and a test match) experimented with extra technology for umpires and a six-day test match (it was finished in four.)

The reaction from all and sundry was resoundingly negative. Gideon Haigh described the play as "pretty grim", Geoffrey Boycott decided that "there was nothing that resembled cricket", and Peter English wrote that "throwing money at a team can only make it show up." Perhaps most damning, the World XI captain Graeme Smith criticised "the fact that there were no consequences for losing so badly."

Four years on, with the advent of the Indian Premier League and the Champions League Twenty 20, it is possible to be a little more sympathetic towards the idea. After all, the teams at IPL teams are brought about through little more than the deep pockets of the franchises' owners, and the only real incentive in the current Champions League is financial. The differences are of scope, duration and support; the architects of the IPL recognised the need for a competition based in urban areas and lasting several weeks to enthuse fans, while the pot of money has grown exponentially over four years. Wisden summed up the problems of the series well, calling the series "OK in theory, but the World XI did not want to be there ... and nor did the people of Sydney and Melbourne." In other words, what the ICC began, Lalit Modi and the BCCI perfected.

An update on Mark Vermeulen

2009-10-14T09:36:00.001-04:00

The Telegraph have interviewed Mark Vermeulen in an interesting piece charting his descent and subsequent renaissance. Although the general tone is similar to that which I wrote a few weeks ago, a few new facts emerge.

The details of his injury are horrific, with the bone fractured over his eye and a piece lodged in his sinuses - as he was going into surgery the doctor said "this is the riskiest operation you could have." We also learn that the night before he burned down the national academy, he tried to destroy the Zimbabwe headquarters building, only failing when somebody noticed the smoke from burning curtains. Clearly this was not a spontaneous gesture but a result of his distorted mental processes.

Apparently since he has started playing for his country again Vermeulen has been giving all his match fees to the Zimbabwe Cricket Board - paying them US $150,000 to date. Apart from wondering how playing in some one-day internationals against Bangladesh could have been quite so lucrative, this is a touching story, and one of the few good news cricket stories to come out of Zimbabwe for many years.

Page 2

2009-10-12T19:42:00.003-04:00

Cricinfo is one of the great success stories of the internet, something which I documented in one of my first posts on this blog. However it seems that the folks at ESPN have undertaken a brand analysis and decided that the website comes across as too serious and staid. Certainly that would seem to be the motivation behind Page 2, which appeared when Cricinfo underwent a redesign about six months ago.

There are some good parts of the Page 2 section, although most of them, such as Andy Zaltzman's blog, were underway before it's inception. Overall it feels like an uncool uncle trying to get down with the kids. The section's home page, for example, includes a quasi-amusingly captioned picture, a cartoon and a look-a-likes section. The feel is less a world-beating website and more a high school attempt to mimic Private Eye.

Page 2 aims for irreverence and user-involvement, co-opting two of the most well known bloggers, and including a whole host of fan diaries. Perhaps not by coincidence, the sections that work, Zaltzman and Tyers, are from professional writers. The design may be glitzier on Page 2 but my preference remains with Cricinfo's long standing blog page, which offers thoughtful analysis allied with oddball stories. Rather than fret about the youth market or getting the fan's viewpoint, Cricinfo should realize that most of their readers want the site's statistical weight along with commentary from the best writers on the game - there is no reason why that can't be on every page of the website.

The bad and the good from Pakistan

2009-10-06T21:04:00.003-04:00

Ostracised from test match cricket, Pakistan overperformed in both the World T20 and the Champions Trophy this summer. Reaching the last four of the Champions Trophy was on the face of it a good result, certainly proving that their earlier Twenty 20 victory had not been a fluke, but unfortunately for the national team they have to compete not only with the geopolitical situation but also with bonkers parliamentarians.

The country has an inglorious history of politcians meddling in the game, which Jamshed Khan Dasti, head of the parliamentary committee on sport, is doing his best to maintain. According to Dasti "there is evidence that the team lost the match to Australia on purpose," going on to say that "there might have been some hanky panky" in the semi-final. Leaving aside that he does not seem to understand all the meanings of hanky panky, Dasti does not provide any actual evidence, just unpleasant suggestions, which at a distance I would surmise were meant to tap into populist anger at the loss.

All very depressing, so I suggest that anybody wanting to get a flavour of Pakistani cricket check out one of the best writers on the game at the moment, Osman Samiuddin. His recent blog about his South African trip was one of those rare pieces of cricket writing which soared beyond mere sport and into the realms of beautiful literature. I can only urge people to check it out.

Cricket up north

2009-10-03T01:32:00.004-04:00

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the first successful trip to the North Pole, and motivated by moving into the same apartment complex in which the remarkable Matthew Henson used to live, I have been learning more details about the extraordinary enterprise (for example, several Inuit people were brought back to New York for display in the Natural History Museum, all but one of whom died within months from exposure to unfamiliar diseases.)

What does this have to do with cricket? Well, to be honest absolutely nothing, but it does allow a tangential riff on playing cricket in northern venues.

For decades the most northerly test match ground was Headingley, which unsurprisingly gained a reputation for rain and cloudy conditions. The rise of Durham as a first-class county ended Yorkshire's reign, with their first test held in 2003. Grumbles about the weather in both northern outposts have continued, with Tony Cozier tutting after the Windies defeat in May "that the temperatures have varied between chilly and downright arctic and it was either raining or threatening to rain."

As far as I can make out the most northerly first class venue used has been Aberdeen's Mannofield Park, which has hosted several Scottish one-day internationals in the last couple of seasons (with only the most recent abandoned due to the weather.) Apart from its' location, Mannofield Park's other claim to fame is that it was the site of Don Bradman's final century.. The presumably knackered Don (by that point the tour had lasted nearly five months and over 30 matches) scored 123 not out (including an uncharacteristic two sixes) from 87 minutes in front of a reputed 20,000 Aberdonians. Perhaps more tellingly he went in at number six, and in Scotland's second innings let nine of his teammates bowl but could not be persuaded to turn his arm over.

There seems to be some dispute over the northernmost cricket club. Sweden's Guttsta Club claims on its' website to have "the most northerly located cricket ground." This is a bold claim, especially as more than 400 miles north we have this rather charming Youtube clip, clearly showing cricket being played over Eid at Umea University. Hop east to Finland and new claimants crop up. Vaasa's website states that it is the country's most northerly club (they also seem to be one of the most successful), and while south of Umea (which does not seem quite to have reached club standards yet) it is most definitely north of Guttsta. However a newcomer seems to have stolen their crown, with the town of Oulu, 200 miles north of Guttsta and above even Umea, having formed a club earlier this year (see images of their training here.)

Historically the most northerly cricket seems to have been played by Arctic explorers around 1823 (h/t Dreamcricket.) It is hard to conjure up a figure more representative of the British Empire than William Parry, who combined his expeditions with evangelical Christianity along with naval reform and developing new methods of food preservation. On his second trip to the Arctic Parry and his ships got stuck in ice near Igloolik, 3 degrees north of the Arctic Circle. With measuring the temperature the only task at hand, it seems that they decided that a game of cricket was the best way to spend their time. There may of course be other, ever stranger and more arctic games played, and I am pretty sure that Matthew Henson, that great forgotten African American icon, would not have cared, but this one will do for me.

Bowling keepers

2009-09-30T14:26:00.005-04:00

Something strange happened in the game between India and West Indies. Not the Windies batting collapse, which was as predictable as it was depressing, but Mahendra Dhoni took off his pads to bowl some seam up dobblers. As India needed Australia to lose against Pakistan to stand any chance to qualify, something that did not look very likely as they were hurtling towards a modest target, he must have decided that the match was pointless. A few hours later, with Australians scrambling in the final over, Dhoni may have been thinking that he should have treated things a little more seriously.

Nevertheless, his efforts proved surprisingly successful, taking the wicket of a presumably embarrased Travis Dowlin. It all brought to my mind an earlier generation of very-part time bowlers - the likes of Mike Brearley used to come on to bowl underarm lobs, which even then harked back to a bygone era. However, according to Statsguru, only two other wicketkeepers have taken a wicket in one-day internationals, both in the last few years. Tatendu Taibu, possibly the most talented bowler/keeper of the lot, completed an entire ten over spell in a match against Sri Lanka in 2004, snagging a couple of wickets. Only a couple of months ago the West Indies' keeper, Devon Thomas, was brought on when the fast bowler Kemar Roach bowled two beamers, and got wickets with his second and seventh balls.

The strange case of Mark Vermeulen

2009-09-26T16:58:00.006-04:00

Earlier this month Mark Vermeulen managed a couple of decent scores in the reemerging Zimbabwean first class league (innings of 47 and 73 runs), following it up with another score of 73 in the one day competition. Last month, in his first one day international for more than four years, Vermeulen anchored the innings with a knock of 92 against Bangladesh.

So far so relatively normal, however Mark Vermeulen's absence from cricket has been extraordinary. The story starts in a game against India, part of the VB series in Australia, on January 24, 2004. Opening the innings for Zimbabwe, Vermeulen had made 14 runs before being struck above the right eye by an Irfan Pathan short ball. This was the second time in a month he had suffered a blow to the head (the first was batting in the nets), and more just than the diagnosed skull fracture, the incident seems to have caused much of Vermeulen's ensuing behaviour.

Even before the head injury the Zimbabwean all-rounder was known for disciplinary problems, being sent home from the tour to England in 2003 for "persistent misconduct." However his erratic behaviour hit the headlines after a violent incident while playing for Werneth in the Lancashire Leagues in 2006. Some crowd barracking led Vermeulen to throw a cricket ball into the crowd (narrowly missing a child). He followed this by threatening a spectator with a spike marking the boundary and then fought his teammates (for the video, which is more sad than anything, click here.) For this incident Vermeulen was initially banned from all English cricket for ten years, which was quickly reduced to one year, with another two years suspended.

Travelling back to Zimbabwe, Vermeulen's life soon reached it's lowest ebb. On an October evening he set fire to the buildings of the national cricket academy, destroying the pavilion, administrative building and changing rooms. The fire, and even Vermeulen's situation, seemed somehow to mirror the wider disarray and malaise within Zimbabwean cricket. Taken into custody, Vermeulen faced 25 years in prison with hard labour. Eighteen months after the crime he was cleared at trial on grounds of his psychiatric problems. During the case his psychiatrist, Vladimir Rajkovic, commented: "The illness causes loss of impulse control and compromises anger management ... Mark needs lifelong medication to prevent any stressor causing an epileptic discharge because of that injury."

Back playing cricket, it seems that Vermeulen has finally discovered the help and drugs needed to maintain a more stable and productive life. And in a country still experiencing an economic catastrophe plus innumerable human rights violations that counts as a good news story.

A pedant's take on the Champions Trophy

2009-09-22T21:45:00.001-04:00

There are good cricketing reasons not to like the Champions Trophy. After all Wisden called a previous version "the tournament that veers between being the second most important in world cricket and a ludicrous waste of time," but pedant that I am my disdain is more linguistically based.

The first two tournaments were titled the ICC Knock Out Trophy and then, presumably because the format was changed into mini-leagues, the Champions Trophy was born. I have not been able to find any official explanation about this name, which, a little like the tournament itself, makes no sense.

It could be that it refers to the fact that at the end of the tournament a champion will be crowned (or trophied). I suppose that this might require an apostrophe but more significantly it about as as tautological as such things get - all trophies need a champion. With the exception rather ironically from the first outing of the Champions Trophy in 2002, where India and Sri Lanka shared the spoils when rain intervened. The other explanation is that the name is meant to refer to all the competition's participants as the champions of international cricket. With every major test playing nations represented except Bangladesh, and the USA, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Kenya having participated in previous tournaments, this meaning would lower the bar of champions by several rungs.

The third possibility, and probably the most likely, is that the ICC plucked the name out of the sky as it sounded suitably grandiose. If anybody has suggestions for a better name please feel free to either write in the comments section below or send straight to the ICC.

A one-day English mystery

2009-09-21T17:48:00.005-04:00

Let's review the situation for a moment: England have an obviously flimsy batting line-up in the one day game. Without Pietersen and Flintoff it lacks aggressive intent, the test players Bopara and Collingwood are short on confidence and the rest are either inexperienced (Denly) or just mediocre (Shah). How useful would a player with a one-day average over forty be to strengthen the batting? What about one who is able to up the tempo and in the form of his life? Somebody who scored an Ashes-winning century in his last match against the Australians?

It is a complete mystery to this blogger why Jonathan Trott did not get a look in during the series. He played in the washed out Twenty20 games and in the one-day warm-ups but then - zip. Even stranger is the decision to keep with Owais Shah and Eion Morgan, neither of whom seem very likely to feature in the test side over the winter or be fixtures in the one day team over the next few years. As defeat followed defeat Trott's absence seemed all the crazier, not least because he continued to churn out the runs for Warwickshire. As the circus moves on to the Champions Trophy he is still not in the squad. At the very least it would seem wise (and merciful) to bring him in for the obviously tired Collingwood. Maybe the selectors know something we don't?

A good news story, and a class-based observation

2009-09-18T22:30:00.005-04:00

Growing up my dream, above even scoring the winning runs against Australia, was to play for Worcestershire. Needless to say this has remained an ever diminishing hope (although in this, one of the worst seasons in its' history, I was half expecting a call-up), but Ben Cox has been living out his own schoolboy fantasy this week. With Steve Davies moving to Surrey and reserve keeper Josh Knappett mysteriously released from his contract earlier in the season, Cox was drafted from the under 17's into the first team. Interestingly the rather patchy internet records seem to suggest that Cox has not scored that many runs in senior cricket this season, but he has certainly made an impressive debut, with a fifty, a stumping and only four byes (so far) in nearly 200 overs. Cricinfo reports that he dropped a difficult chance in Somerset's second innings but quickly made amends with a catch down the leg side.

If Cox does progress into a first team regular it would make him the first person to rise through the Worcestershire academy since Steve Davies. Is a sample of two too few to surmise that coach Steve Rhodes can groom promising keepers but can't do much with batsmen or bowlers?

Finally, not wishing to take anything away from the warm, fuzzy nature of this story, Ben Cox attends Bromsgrove School, one of the more exclusive private educational establishments in the locale. At the risk of going off on a tangent, a friend of mine, back in our school days, once went to an open day at the school, and reported back that their games options included shooting the peasants. He may have made that up for a cheap gag, but it hints at how the school was regarded. More broadly, another promising private school cricketer in the first class game highlights the dearth of prospects groomed at state schools. Incidentally, rumour has it that Worcestershire will sign another local boy as keeper for next season. Steve Adshead went to a state school in a working class town - maybe the class distinctions in the English game are not quite dead?

Is Andrew Flintoff the cricketing David Beckham?

2009-09-17T19:44:00.004-04:00

As I was looking at Andrew Flintoff's website a couple of things struck me. The first was an obvious gag about linking to his physio from the homepage. The other was how his image and personality have become branded like David Beckham. Both occupy fairly similar roles within their respective sports; working class personalities, with a slight edge but also family men and child-friendly. As the pair have entered the latter part of their careers they have also become more iconic than their contributions probably warrant.

From the charitable foundation to the academies, the people behind Flintoff appear to have looked to the England footballer as a model. Not to say of course that either man does not care passionately about charity or youth training, only that they are parts of the brand as well as the reality. Another telling sign is the video gallery on the Flintoff website, not a reel of his wickets or boundaries in sight but just "behind the scenes" footage of various photo shoots and corporate gigs.

Despite the slick website the Flintoff team have made some pretty silly marketing mistakes. The press release to announce his rejection of the ECB's incremental contract was widely ridiculed by just about everybody. It was certainly hard to believe that his main motivation for rejecting the relatively small money on offer was to experience more cricketing culture. This fairly transparent rouse looked even sillier a couple of days later when Andrew Chandler, Flintoff's agent, admitted that the contract was also rejected both because it may have stopped the big Lancastrian from participating in a television series and that "Andrew and his wife Rachel both spend reasonable amounts of cash so he has to make plenty."

David Beckham would never have made such a frank admission, nor would his agents have bungled the initial story so ineptly. It seems that a fair bit more work needs to be done on brand Flintoff before he becomes the Beckham of the cynical cricketing world.

Staying power

2009-09-15T19:12:00.002-04:00

It was my birthday last week and the good lady wife gave me a 2006 edition of Wisden (which surely is an example of true love.) After going to my favorite part of any modern Wisden - the Index of Unusual Occurrences - my eye was drawn to the section on blogs.

Four years on the article looks a little quaint, although I suppose there are still readers of the Bible (W.G. Grace version) who do not know what a blog is or does. It ends with a list of eight blogs which "have shown signs of both permanence and quality." This claim stands up pretty well, with only a couple having bitten the dust. Others, such as Caribbean Cricket, have grown into a larger website, and the majority (for example Rick Eyre and Cricket 24x7) have kept going as blogs, even if the output of just about all of them has considerably reduced since their 2005 heyday. If this little corner of the internet is still going strong in 2013 it surely must deserve a passing mention in Wisden!

Worcestershire - review of a catastrophic season

2009-09-11T23:27:00.004-04:00

As the English domestic season draws to a close it is hard to think of a worse season in the modern history of Worcestershire. Most of us expected the team to struggle in the first division of the county championship, and the bowling line-up looked prone to injury, but not to win a game seemed unthinkable. What looked like a decent side back in April is now probably the weakest in the fifteen or so years that I have been following the club. Beyond these bad results and mediocre players, there are three issues which are especially concerning.

1) Lack of home-grown youth players: The only talents to have emerged from the Worcestershire academy in recent years has been Steven Davies, soon to move to Surrey, and Daryl Mitchell. The other more promising youngsters in the squad grew up in other counties, or in the case of Alexei Kervezee in another country. Why can Worcestershire not produce county-standard, let alone international quality, players?

2) Internal rifts: There have been rumours floating around for a while that the players are not happy with the coach, Steve Rhodes. A former player, Rhodes seems a hard man to dislike, at least from this distance, but there have been calls for him to resign. More broadly there are signs that the club is in disarray. The fitness coach has resigned, and Kabir Ali seems to have taken umbrage at being forced to play when not fully fit. Perhaps most interestingly Stephen Moore spoke earlier this week about how Graeme Hick's retirement has affected his confidence.

3) Finances: Most of Worcestershire's senior players have been, or are likely to be, snaffled up by the richer counties. Several uncontrollable factors (the economy, past floods) alongside the possibly unwise construction of the new pavilion have meant that money is very tight - the cricket budget has reportedly been cut by £300,000. It is hard to be anything other than depressed by the situation. My head says that the only rational solution is to trim the number of counties, to allow more money to go into competitive games that nurture players for the national side. My heart wants professional cricket to carry on evermore underneath the cathedral spires of New Road.

A brief rant about American cricket

2009-09-09T19:49:00.006-04:00

I have previous when it comes to criticism of those wielding power in American cricket (see here and here) but Cricinfo's interview last week with Don Lockerbie, the new chief executive of USACA, made me angry enough to write a third ranty post.

Lockerbie outlines his vision of American cricket. One idea, squeezed into the middle of the article stands out as sensible - his idea of making the sport "more American" by "starting in schools and working our way up." A noble sentiment, and one which would undoubtably help the mainstreaming of the game into American culture, and give many of those who love the game an opportunity for active participation (or at least watch their children play.)

The sentence on schools stands out as an oasis in a desert of corporate and financial goals. An IPL style tournament, making the country "the best neutral venue for international cricket", a professional national side. They are all there, the now staple ideas of those who see America as the untapped market for international cricket. Of course nobody has deigned to ask the fifteen million cricket fans in the country what they want, and how their love of a sport could be better met. Perhaps the most telling part of the article is when Lockerbie talks about "being ready to exploit" the supposed demand for cricket of these people. Lets just bring Sachin to Fort Lauderdale and they will be bound to come (and spend money)!

Cricinfo's article ends with a quote from Lockerbie: "The USA wants to see superstars, so first we'll invite them to play, and then we'll develop our own superstars." Well Mr. Lockerbie, this cricket obsessive in America does not care about seeing superstars in my back yard. The internet has allowed me to watch far more international cricket than I ever could want on my computer screen. Mr. Lockerbie, I want you to realize that having lots of cricket fans in one nation does not equate to a great financial opportunity but is merely an accident of geography. Perhaps if you and your colleagues focussed on providing structures and coaches for youth cricket, doing the unglamorous work of liaising with schools and clubs, you might see those 15 million fans as something other than one side of a supply and demand graph.

A death in the family

2009-09-07T09:06:00.005-04:00

It was with great sadness that I read of the death of Amy, from the blog Amy S. Talks Cricket. Amy's writing was laden with wit, and her blog's content and structure was one which I looked at a great deal while starting up this blog. My thoughts are with Amy's friends and family.

The cricket blogging world is a strange one indeed - we only really know each other through our writing and ramblings - but nearly every blog I regularly read has posted condolences, and reading through the comments section from the last post on her blog the sense of loss is palpable. At times such as this it really does feel like a community, if one completely different from the real world.

Peter Roebuck and the power of the blog

2009-09-06T11:36:00.007-04:00

When Peter Roebuck is in form he offers a style and insight unlike any other commentator on the game; occasionally he overextends into social commentary which is, at best, suspicious, and at worst offensive. His latest Cricinfo piece is an example of Roebuck at his worst, viewing England's Ashes success in terms of the nation's cultural health. Roebuck starts with a reasonable observation, reminding people that England are still fifth in the rankings, but quickly moves onto stranger ground, asserting first that English culture "has lost its vim and vigour." He goes on to make some rather strange arguments that the rise of British Asian players represent the under performance of "Anglo-Saxon England" and that they are a sign of the failure of England's "national will."

Strange verging on unpleasant stuff but refreshingly and rather wonderfully Cricinfo's inbox blog has published a post from Imran Coomaraswamy which utterly destroys the Roebuck argument. Coomarswamy does such a successful job in dismantling the article that I won't single anything out but simply urge people to read the entire post. This highlights what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, that one of the most important parts of blogging is to hold established journalists to account. The comments section on Roebuck's piece was also useful in taking Roebuck to task ("riddled with historical inaccuracy", "scattergun pontificating", "nasty, specious nonsense with clear racist implications.")

This was blogging at its best. In the years before blogging was prevalent, only two years ago, Derek Pringle could get away with writing the following on Bob Woolmer's death: "The impression is that many of the players, like the male-dominated society they come from, are a law unto themselves with allegiance only to Islam and their family. That could be why democracy has failed in Pakistan and the reason military dictator-ships seem to be the only effective form of government." The only criticism I could find of Pringle, and his ilk, was from Mike Marquesee.

So, congratulations to Commarswamy for his piece, and to Cricinfo for having the self-confidence to publish it. Lets hope that this trend will lead Peter Roebuck to think twice in the future about commenting on things of which he know little.

My secret shame...

2009-09-02T19:32:00.009-04:00

In rare moments of leisure I have been known to play the truly awful computer game, International Cricket Captain. As an occasional but experienced computer game player I am here to tell you the gameplay is about as sophisticated as a football management sim dating from 1995. Still, it allows me to get Worcestershire to win the league (sometimes fantasy is much better than reality) and offers an excuse to mention a few other cricket computer and board games over the years.

Stick Cricket: By some distance the best online cricket game, partly because it eschews realistic graphics and focuses in on arcade-style whacking the ball a long way. Reading the list of high scorers makes one realize how many people need to develop better things to do with their time.

Owzhat: One of the older cricketing games, this involves rolling dice to determine runs and wickets. It is utterly and completely random, involving no skill, but this has not stopped several generations of children from playing it.

Test Match Cricket: Coming under various names, this is a table-top board game where players control the batsmen and bowler using rods with little levers (it made sense at the time.) My version from about twenty years ago had Ian Botham and David Gower on the box, but apart from that the modern game (pictured above) seems to be the same. It can not be said to reflect the playing of cricket in any real sense, with deliveries rolled along the ground, but it was a lot of fun.

Armchair Cricket: Possibly the most addictive game for a geeky, cricket-obsessed teenage boy, or maybe I am guilty of extrapolating too much from personal experience. It was played with a special pack of cards, and actually involved a reasonable amount of skill. Best of all, it allowed long games to be played - it took a whole summer for a friend and myself to get through a five-match test series with accompanying one-dayers. I won. Tragically, the game is no longer manufactured but I am sure copies periodically float around Ebay.

For more cricket dice and board games check out http://www.replaycricket.com/

Who won the Ashes for England?

2009-08-29T10:21:00.005-04:00

I suppose Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower must take some credit, and a nod given to the performances of some of the players, notably Broad, Trott and even the batting of Panesar. However the man who, in hindsight, made all correct decisions was Geoff Miller, the chair of selectors.

During the series the media called on the selectors to drop Stuart Broad and bring back Mark Ramprakash, criticised calling up the uncapped Jonathan Trott and for falling back on Ian Bell. The large majority of the selectors' decisions worked and even the wrong moves, such as Bopara at first drop, were corrected. The team may not have performed on occasions, such as at Headingley and Cardiff, but it is hard to argue that different personnel would have made a better fist of things.

By comparison Australia's selections were often muddled and botched. Their policy on spinners since Shane Warne's retirement has been terrible, culminating in a reliance on part-timers like Marcus North at the Oval, and mirrors the handling of the youngster Phil Hughes, who was dropped when the going got tough. Stuart Clark was handled poorly, and the squad in general lacked an extra batsmen. The criticism directed at the Australian selectors, and the lack of plaudits for Miller, is definitive evidence that when things go wrong the selectors get the blame and when the team wins the players are lauded. Who would be a selector?

Some electronic reading

2009-08-27T04:04:00.002-04:00

Never has there been a better time to browse through some of the greatest cricketing literature from across the ages. For the coming week the previous eight editions of Wisden are available online, apparently to mark England's win, showing that the cricketing bible is still undoubtedly English. (h/t to Patrick Kidd.)

Of greater long-term significance is the plethora of classics on Google Books. Google's project is extraordinary (for a piece outlining the wider context and issues read Anthony Grafton's article in the New Yorker a couple of years ago), allowing access to books which many of us, especially a cricket fan in New York, would otherwise be unable to read.

The out of copyright books are full-view and the out of print (but still in copyright) ones have some chapters scanned. I am sure there are many more lurking under Google's alluring search tool but here are some I discovered:
A. W. Pullin ("Old Ebor") Talks with Old English Cricketers
Ranjitsinjhi, The Jubilee Book of Cricket
R.C. Robertson-Glasgow, Cricket Prints: Some Batsmen and Bowlers (1920-1940)
R.C. Robertson-Glasgow, More Cricket Prints: More Batsmen and Bowlers (1920-1945)
Ric Sissons, The Players: A Social History of the Professional Cricketer

The Ashes at home and abroad

2009-08-25T08:19:00.008-04:00

Even from a continent away it is clear that this Ashes victory has not resonated with the great unwashed English public in the way it did in 2005. In a cricketing sense this has a positive aspect, allowing a greater focus on winning in the winter and stubbing out the notion that the team has already reached the peak. The more worrying notion is that people are less interested in the game than four years ago.

The somewhat muted response can be largely attributed to the change in cricket broadcasting; the Ashes were on terrestrial television in 2005 and now they are Sky. Mike Norish in The Telegraph highlights the impact of this move, pointing out that more people watched Songs of Praise on Sunday afternoon than the denouement of the Ashes. The move to Sky must go down as one of the ECB's most catastrophically terrible decisions. The almost comically absurd logic goes that the broadcasting money is being used to support youth cricket whilst allowing fewer people to watch the sport and allowing it to become marginalized in the national consciousness.

I was not watching Songs of Praise on Sunday, and, after viewing most of the series on my laptop I enjoyed the final day with some of New York's cricket community, or at least at an Australian bar which was showing the Ashes. It was also a joy to meet up with fellow New York blogger, Samir Chopra, to watch the proceedings. By the final wicket it was standing room only, with good natured joshing between Anglos and Aussies in the crowd, and the only thing which pulled me back into New York were the confused glances from passers-by.

How far England have come ... and how far they still have to go

2009-08-23T14:27:00.005-04:00

Blimey. Winning the Ashes seemed a long way away in January when Kevin Pietersen was sacked amid rumours of dressing room divisions. As England were getting thrashed by the Netherlands (less than three months ago) it seemed an absurd notion. Throughout the first test, the Pietersen injury, and barring the appearance of hope at Lords, the team never really appeared likely to win the Ashes until last Friday.

The win is tremendous, and confirmation that sport does not lie in statistics (eight Australian to two English centuries) but in match winning performances. Thinking back to 2005 (which hopefully we wont have to do much more) the assumption was that England would go on to become the best side in the world. There is much less talk about that this time around, probably because Australia are not the cricketing powerhouse of four years ago. Hopefully the euphoria of 2005, which did so much to stilt that crop of players, will take the pressure off some of the class of 2009, and allow the younger generation (Cook, Bell, Bopara, Broad and possibly Rashid or Wright) to take the mantle and responsibility over the coming decade.

An update on the worst cricketing blog post

2009-08-22T16:36:00.005-04:00

As the final Ashes test reaches its climax it is worth looking back at the fall-out from England's draw in the first game in the rubber. As I wrote at the time, one Australian publication went beyond criticising England's time-wasting tactics and descended into blatant racism.

David Penberthy, the offending journalist, has publicly apologised and given undisclosed damages to Bilal Shafayat, the twelfth man, who has generously donated the money to the Chance to Shine charity. Cynics (such as myself) might think that he only offered an apology when lawyers stomped in. His apology is also a little misleading - he clearly did not include the racism as a "self-deprecating look at the stupid behaviour of sporting fans" because he called it an "offensive if fair question." Finally, his claim that he did not delete the piece earlier because the critical comments were damage enough is not entirely correct; from memory more comments on the post were supportive than against him (which is pretty disturbing in itself.)

Nevertheless an apology has been given, racism has been challenged and a cricketing charity has a little more money to do its' work. Lets hope that some lessons have been learned.

Well played Stuart Broad

2009-08-21T20:03:00.003-04:00

One of the lingering suspicions about this crop of England players is that they do not perform to their potential when it matters most. Ian Bell, Alastair Cook, Steve Harmison have never contributed signficantly in really important games, but feasted on some of the lesser lights of the international circuit. Before today's play the same could be said of Stuart Broad, with the exception that he had not managed to take advantage of anyone, as a bowling average of over 37 testified.

His five wicket haul puts him ahead of Bell et al in turning around a game which was drifting to Australia, and putting in a potentially match winning performance. Well played sir.

Two cricketing suicides

2009-08-21T09:51:00.001-04:00

An oft commented observation is that cricket seems to draw depressives to the game, and has seen more suicides than other sports. This has also fostered some of the finest cricketing literature; at the moment I am reading David Foot's wonderful book on Harold Gimblett, the Somerset opener who Marcus Trescothick followed in more ways than one. In a terrible twist of irony another writer also penned a portrait of Gimblett - R.C Robertson-Glasgow included him in his Cricket Prints. "Crusoe" committed suicided thirteen years before Gimblett and it must be rare for a depressive and future suicide victim write about another, at least in the sporting world.

Robertson-Glasgow's description of Gimblett is coy about his personality, mentioning only that people considered him too daring for the grey beards in the cricket establishment. He ends his piece reflecting on Gimblett's chances for further national recognition, "There is time yet."

As an afterword, most of Cricket Prints, including the section on Gimblett, is available on Google Books.

Shane Warne agrees with me...

2009-08-19T21:59:00.005-04:00

While I have been away exploring parts of this vast nation Shane Warne (clearly plagiarising his favourite blogger) wrote in his Times column.

"End one-day internationals This is a big call, but cricket evolves and the 50-over game has passed its sell-by date. It’s amazing to think that after the Ashes series England and Australia play seven one-day games, which take about a month. Sorry, but that’s just greed on the part of administrators. From now on, we should be playing Tests and Twenty20 internationals, with a Twenty20 World Cup every two years."

I wonder where he might have read something similar?

In other "I am right" news, Cricinfo reports that the 5,000 seat cricket stadium in Florida, built in 2007, has lost over $1 million in the last financial year. Think how the $70 million which was spent to build the stadium (that has yet to host a major match) could have been used on supporting youth and community cricket throughout the country. As I wrote in an earlier post, if those who profess to love American cricket put aside their dreams of commercial success they could build a thriving cricketing culture in the country.

Blogs, what are they good for?

2009-08-16T05:41:00.007-04:00

This post may not make me many friends, but with the ever proliferating number of cricket blogs it seems an apt time to question their role in the cricketing media. Gideon Haigh set a few bloggers hearts fluttering a couple of weeks ago with a paper on cricket and the media, writing "a lot of the toughest, cleverest, funniest and best informed writing about cricket these days is to be found in the blogosphere." This fits into the broader debate about the future of journalism in an online world - the most extreme position being taken by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, who insists that all information should be set free (he also insists on not using words such as news, media and journalism in interviews, and is ably refuted by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker )

To state the obvious, bloggers will not replace journalists. People are not, and will not, visit blogs to read match reports or cricketing news when trained writers at trusted sources such as newspapers, their electronic equivalents and Cricinfo, and lets be honest here, do it better. Instead bloggers can complement mainstream journalism and even offer things which it cannot. For me the exciting potential of cricket blogging is three-fold; holding the established cricketing media accountable, increasing and adding to the commentariat and injecting a vital dose of humour.

Looking at these in turn, the most important impact of the rise of blogging in general is how it has kept the traditional media on their toes. On both sides of the Atlantic, interested and educated amateurs have been able to point out the multiple inaccuracies and hypocrisies on television and print media (Glenn Greenwald is my personal favorite but their are thousands out there and websites built around them.) More dramatically, in the aftermath of the Iranian election blogs and social network sites were important in circumventing the state's control on other media sources. Cricket is small beer in comparison, but the principle is the same: from pointing out the absurdities of the IPL commentators to demonstrating the cosiness of many ex-professionals journalists, focusing attention on the media is an important and noble task and one which bloggers are well equipped to take on.

The sheer quantity of cricket blogs out there, with most consisting mainly of opinion on the game has led to a democratisation of the commentariat. There are many blogs with interesting takes on the game, such as Samir Chopra, and many voices which would otherwise go unheard have been aired. Attention can also be paid to cricketing outposts and niches, allowing a specialization not easily achieved in more traditional quarters (I enjoy the likes of Dream Cricket for American news and Tim Walton's Bandana for a take on the state of play in Northamptonshire.)

The third, and probably most positive aspect of the blogging world is the rise in humor, chiefly thanks to the sensational King Cricket. I don't know whether it is from others aping it or if it is characteristic of the technological genre, but other blogs which aim to be funny seem to fit into King Cricket's mould of mildly anarchic and laddish comedy. I can only think of Andy Zaltzman, a comedian rather than journalist by profession, who matches their output, and certainly none in the stuffy confines of the newspaper world.

Writing these observations has felt a little like finding a path through a vast forest, for as Gladwell observed at the end of his article, the only iron rule in the digital age is that there are no iron rules. Overlooked here is the role of the megalithic (and free) Cricinfo, the overlap between blogging and journalism (Patrick Kidd being one of my must read blogs.) and much, much more. Nevertheless, the one thing I am sure of is that if we cricket bloggers want to achieve our potential we must move beyond merely celebrating our existence and begin the discussion of what purposes we exist for.

Selection dilemmas

2009-08-13T09:44:00.004-04:00

After the first test of the Ashes I wrote that England resembled the national team from the 1990's. With one test to go it feels like the culmination of a reaction against the mistakes of that period.

The selectors have been so anxious to show faith in their players, and not go back to the bad old days of chopping and changing (and Alan Igglesden) that an injury and some bad form has caused complete panic. Keeping a settled side started with Duncan Fletcher, with excellent results, but ever since his attempts to keep the 2005 side together (Geraint Jones springs to mind) this solidarity with the status quo has introduced a comfort level rather than the desired stability.

None of the alternatives, whether it be Mark Ramprakash, Jonathan Trott or Rob Key, have been blooded for stepping into the breach. Now, in one of the more important games in recent years, there appears to be a collective panic with the media scrabbling around for somebody, anybody, who might be able to score some runs. I have even heard Graeme Hick mentioned, and only a little in jest. One of the lessons from the series must be for selectors to have in mind not just an ideal eleven but a couple of extra batsmen and bowlers who are experienced enough in test cricket that they could play important games if needed.

I am off to see parts of this huge country for the next few days, so blogging will be light - I am scheduling a post for Monday on the state of cricket blogging but apart from that things will be quiet.

The Trott family

2009-08-10T22:21:00.007-04:00

Several media articles and blog posts have mentioned the illustrious relatives of Jonathan Trott, the potential England debutante (although nobody seems quite sure how they are related.) Most have referenced Albert Trott's unique six over the Lords pavilion and his dual nationality, which has similarities to the twenty-first century Trott's journey to England. I too may have been guilty of emphasising his six hitting ability.

However lurking underneath this alluring achievement lies a painful, and ultimately tragic, life. His Wisden obituary, unusually specific for the genre at the time, describes his end thus; "finding the monotony of life in hospital intolerable, he thought a pistol shot the best way out." It was a slow downhill climb from the years around the turn of the century when he could justifiably claim to be the greatest all-rounder in the world. It was in 1899 that he made the great blow at Lords, and alongside his agressive batting was deceptive bowling full of pace changes and brilliant fielding. According to David Frith much of the downturn in his game was caused by attempts to match the huge six.

As the years rolled on and his waistline increased, not helped by the ale given to him by well-wishers on the boundary, Trott retired and turned to umpiring. However, suffering from ill-health, which increased his depression, Trott took his own life on the stroke of the continental suicide of the Great War. To quote from Frith, "he wrote a will on the back of a laundry ticket, leaving his wardrobe and £4 in cash to the landlady." It is hard to imagine a more mundanely awful ending to a life, especially one briefly touched with greatness.

Cricket and revolutionary socialism

2009-08-09T13:29:00.008-04:00

Despite the ideas fermenting throughout Europe in the second half of the nineteeth century, cricket remained nearly immune to the impact of socialism. There were only two attempted strikes, both unsuccessful, in 1881 and 1896, and the Professional Cricketers' Association, the game's trade union in England, was formed in 1967.

However one influential socialist in the era was a first-class cricketer. Henry Hyndman came with impeccable establishment credentials, coming from a wealthy family and attending Trinity College, Cambridge. He played cricket during his undergraduate days, but was never awarded a blue.

Hyndman played a few county games for Sussex, his middle class background betraying him by representing Gentleman of the South against Players of the South in 1865. Not bowling and batting tenth in the first innings and last man in the second perhaps suggests that cricket was never quite his destiny. He finished with an average of sixteen, with a top score of 62, before his attentions were turned to higher matters than thwacking balls.

Becoming a journalist, Hyndman wrote generally in favour of British imperialism until discovering the Communist Manifesto in 1880. The next year, inspired by the ideas of Marx and Engels he formed the Social Democratic Federation, which was effectivly the country's first socialist party. Supported by some of the heavyweights in the labour movement, the party was seen as having much promise but was eventually squeezed by the newly founded Independent Labour party, the breakaway revolutionary groups and the incessant squaking of members unhappy with Hyndman's leadership.

Hyndman continued as leader of the party until the end of his life in 1921. By this time membership had diminished to almost nobody, especially after his support of the Great War, a position which was politically suicidal for those on the British left. However even while most of the British left considered him politically naive, they grudgingly acknowledged Hyndman as an influential writer on Marx's theories. As for the man himself, he recalled in his autobiography bowling to an eighteen year old W.G. Grace for the Gentlemen of Sussex. It is hard to think of two men so dissimilar (beards excepted) in the era. Grace popped the first ball up to mid on, who promptly dropped an easy catch, and then went on to score 276. This seemed to elicit a similar reaction in the old man as his failure to achieve a blue at Cambridge, which he described "a far more unpleasant and depressing experience than infinitely more important failures have been to me since."

The Silly Mid Off blueprint for international cricket

2009-08-07T08:28:00.001-04:00

Simon Wilde at The Times has some pretty radical ideas for restructuring test cricket. The Wildean proposal would involve T20, fifty over and test World Cups, each held every third year. This test match competition would involve knock out games, which would neccesitate eliminating the draw. To get over this drawback Wilde suggests a 110 over maximum per innings and games stretched to six days (if it rains apparently the result would be on first innings scores, something which would hardly lead to exciting cricket.)

Cricket certainly needs revamping but these kind of ideas seem to presuppose that test matches need saving from themselves. Instead the point of any changes should be to ensure the fabric and legitimacy of the game over all formats. The Silly Mid Off blueprint for the international game would be to scrap all fifty over games, which can no longer be justified either as the game's sole cash cow or for quality (how many really great one day games can you remember?) Each year would see a T20 World Cup, which in both its outings has been commercially successful and seen some world class cricket. Less 50 over cricket would open up windows for IPL and other domestic competitions, diminishing the prospect of players being forced to choose one form of the game of the other.

Rather than changing the structure of test matches, the secret lies in fewer games of higher quality. Each team should play one series home and away each year, ensuring that every game is a unique challenge rather than the current never-ending roster of matches. The increase in T20 games will inevitably lead to higher scoring rates (and Boycottian rumbles of discontent) but two more realistic threats to test match cricket are flat pitches and poor crowds. The former is remarkably easy to solve, it just requires the ICC to want to make the change and incentivise grounds to prepare more bowler friendly-pitches. The best solution for poor attendances is to play with market forces - as Samir Chopra suggested in his Cricinfo column, don't charge anything for attendance.

Of course these changes, or anything progressive, will never be implemented by an ICC whose modus operandi is based upon accumulation of money for the sake of profit rather than the broader interests of the game. Somethings never change.

Farewell Andy Caddick

2009-08-05T05:28:00.000-04:00

Amidst all the Ashes news I almost missed the report that one of England's better bowlers of recent times has called it a day. Andy Caddick was one of the few remaining players on the circuit who has been in the game for as long as I can remember (I was eight when he made his first class debut.) There are certain parallels with Graeme Hick, with both coming to England and facing an establishment unable to understand their personalities. Ultimately, like Hick, Caddick's greatest legacy is in the extraordinary contribution he gave to a county over nearly two decades. Not surprisingly his 1,175 first class wickets were the most of any current English player. The new holder of that record is (from cursory inspection on Cricinfo) Robert Croft, with 1076 wickets.

Cricket as business

2009-08-03T07:30:00.002-04:00

Two of the best writers on cricket, Gideon Haigh and Mike Marquesee, have recently published articles on the role of business in the modern game. So good are the pieces I am just going to quote and point people in the right direction.

Haigh wrote in his Wisden Cricketer blog:

"Cricket is tightly in the grip of commerce in the sense that it has lost the sense of existing for any other purpose. The priorities of business can be witnessed in the supersaturation point reached by international competition: television demands a constant supply of new, live product, good or not. Turn on your television, flick idly between the Test match here, the IPL game there and the one-day international everywhere, and one sees not competition but content, created simply to be sold to the highest bidder. ‘Sport is business,’ warned Lamar Hunt, progenitor of World Championship Tennis. ‘And business is business.’

This invites an always useful question: cui bono? To whose benefit? The answer has never been straightforward where cricket is concerned. For all that the game’s past provided for the enjoyment of fans, the ambitions of players and the pride of patriots, it also shored up old imperial structures and political prejudices. But there is a sense that the game’s present has become so thoroughly subverted by economic objectives, the interests of broadcasters, advertisers, a group of entrepreneurial administrators and an elite of international players, that the rest of us must accept our lot as simple customers at the end of the assembly line.

What we’re watching, then is akin to a process of privatisation – that is, we are being sold something we thought we owned. The game, which administrators once held in kind of public trust, is becoming a private sector product – the same kind of transfiguration that occurs in the bottling of water."

Marqueese meanwhile writes:
"Cricket’s governors speak of the game as both a cause and a business. It is neither. It is a trivial but demanding pastime that expresses and elicits a wide range of human emotions - and gives much harmless delight. As such, its provision should be a public service. Not surprisingly, the public service model is never considered by the game’s rulers nor advocated anywhere in the cricket media. Adopting it would require a type of accountability as alien to today’s market-worshipping cricket elite as it was to their aristocratic forebears. It would be the completion of that stalled revolution of the late 18th century."

I can only recommend people read both the articles for complimentary views from writers on top of their game.

Go listen to Andy Zaltzman's Yes, It's The Ashes

2009-08-01T12:55:00.001-04:00

Cricket and comedy have rarely combined. The game has certainly seen its fair share of funny characters, and radio and television broadcasters usually include the amiable buffoon amongst their commentators. However the only comedians I can think of who regularly reference cricket are the Australians Roy and HG, and they have been around for over two decades.

In a brave move, Radio Five Live has brought in Andy Zaltzman for an hour-long Ashes related show, "Yes, It's The Ashes" at 11am on Saturdays. The only review I could find, by Chris Campling in The Times, was inexplicably negative. Not only did the piece spell Zaltzman's name incorrectly, it accused the show of aiming at the masses. After four shows I think we can safely say that it does the opposite - an interview with the ghost of F.S. Jackson is not something which appeals to the average football fan. To add to his argument Campling criticises a guest for not knowing what the number on the England players' shirts represented, writing "if he didn't know that already, what was he doing on a cricket show?" This tradition has gone back all the way to 2003, and hardly seems to be requisite knowledge for interest in the sport. Maybe it is Campling who should be brushing up on his cricketing history?

Although occasionally Zaltzman shows his lack of live radio experience, the show does for cricket (and for Five Live) what Danny Baker achieved for football broadcasting a decade ago with the introduction of 6-0-6. Not only are his elongated metaphors a refreshing antidote to the usual cliched sporticisms found on the station but Zaltzman subtly challenges the accepted contours of the station, witness his leads into the travel reports if you think I exaggerate. That, and he is very, very funny.

Don't believe me? Listen for yourself on BBC's IPlayer.

Where's a brumbella when you need one?

2009-07-30T01:31:00.000-04:00

One of things it was impossible to miss when visiting Edgbaston as a callow youth was the rolled up hulk of covers on one side of the ground. This was the superbly named Brumbella, a cover which could mechanically roll out and protect just about all the ground. The original three tonne machine was first installed in 1981 and replaced in 1999 with a lighter model at a cost of £85,000. This proved to be a rather poor investment as the club decided to get rid of it altogether a couple of years later when it broke down during a county game. The remains of the once mighty tarpaulin were hawked off to interested parties, with Atherstone Town Cricket Club bragging about picking up "a massive section."

With the outfield currently under water the big cheeses at the ground might just be missing the Brumbrella, at the very least their equipment won't have such a wonderfuly idiosynchratic name.

A Jewish cricket XI

2009-07-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

America has produced a handful of great Jewish sporting stars, the most famous being Sandy Koufax and Mark Spitz. Few of the diaspora have taken up cricket, but (although a little batting heavy and with no natural keeper) a pretty respectable eleven can still be made up from the chosen people, with only one honorary Gentile.

Ali Bacher

Coming from South Africa's sizeable Jewish community, Bacher was captain of the national side in the final series before their isolation, winning all four games against the Australians. During the wilderness years Bacher was the leading proponent of encouraging teams to play in the country, even if it meant flouting international agreements. His argument in doing so was that such tours would help the game in South Africa, although there was no doubt that the majority of South Africans did not want the legitimacy attached to their government. However Bacher's career in cricket administration also encompassed the reemergence of South Africa into international cricket, and his long service to the sport led him to be the only cricketer in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Mandy Yachad

Like Bacher, Mandy Yachad's international career was unfulfilled because of South Africa's sporting isolation. His solitary one day interational came when he was already into his 30's, and he was dropped because of scoring too slowly. Yachad's glory days were during the 1980's, but throughout his career he had to balance his Orthodox Jewish faith with cricketing commitments. One journalist recalls Yachad carrying hot pack kosher meals from home around India on the tour in which he played his only one dayer. Three years later he retired, citing the challenge of playing cricket and observing Jewish law. Yachad said "I could not justify playing on the Sabbath when I taught my children it should be a day of rest" and turned instead to a career in law.

Jock Livingston

Reputed to be the best Jewish batsman, Jock Livingston would probably have played for Australia had he not decided to make his career playing for first Royton in the Lancashire League and then Northamptonshire. His batting average of 45 shows his quality, and Wisden Cricket Monthly refers to his "Astaire like footwork." Livingston was influential in developing Frank Tyson into a great bowler, and later became a director of Gray Nichols

Julien Wiener

One of the innumerable players who rose to the surface as the Australians came to grips with World Series cricket, Julien Wiener finished up with an average only a shade over 30. Wiener's parents lived through Nazi occupied Europe,arriving in Australia in 1947, and encouraged their son in the sport which must have been so foreign to them. In an interview with The Age Wiener said that his Judaism never affected his cricket, going on to say that "there have never been any comments," although Rob Steen alleges anti-semitic sledging from Keith Stackpole.

Michael Klinger

Although Michael Klinger is the most successful of the current Jewish players, he has never quite fulfilled his initial promise. Captaining his country at under 19 level, as well as joining Jon Moss in the fateful team for the 1997 Maccabiah Games (see below), Klinger has played for Victoria and South Australia. Klinger's top score of 255 is reputedly the highest first class score of any Jewish player.

Bev Lyon

A decent middle order bat, and in David Foot's words, "the finest captain Gloucestershire ever had," Lyon was by all accounts a stodgy player but charismatic man. Attending the best parties in the finest suits, he was all a little too much for the cricketing establishment, which he regarded with ill-concealed contempt. In one famous speech in 1932, at which he called for the counties to start playing one day cricket, Lyon accused Lord Hawke of fiddling while Rome burned. It was not the way to please the people who chose the national team, but Lyon's Jewish roots also appear to counted against him on the cricketing circuit. All his Gloucestershire players were in awe of him, but according to Foot's interview with an unnamed contemporary, "It was never openly mentioned but you'd hear murmured remarks at social gatherings - to do with Bev's business acumen and the way his brain was always ticking over."

Jonty Rhodes

Rhodes is best remembered for his superb gully fielding with South Africa during the 1990s. He is also a committed Christian (and therefore the lonely Gentile in the team) but last year he was part of an Israeli team who competed against India A in three games to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the nation's founding. Said Rhodes, "I'm a Christian, so for me this place has a massive relevance and I was desperate to come." The Indians won all three games comfortably, but one senses that the games themselves where more important than results for the home team.

Jon Moss

Without ever being in the frame for national recognition, Jon Moss was a handy batsman at Victoria for a few years at the start of this decade before joining Derbyshire in the Kolpak revolution. However as an up and coming cricketer in 1997 his Judaism nearly led to disaster. Moss represented his country in the Maccabiah Games, the international sporting games for the Jewish people, which is held in Israel every four years. As the Australian delegation approached the opening ceremony a bridge collapsed, killing four Australians and injuring a further sixty people. Moss survived but was thrown into the polluted river (three of the fatalities were from the toxic water.)

Steve Herzberg

With a similar, if less successful, career to Moss, Steve Herzberg tried his luck with three counties and two states before realizing he would never make the big time. He now runs a corporate training organization, roping in former cricketers such as Moss to give inspirational speeches to big cheeses in the business world.

Norman Gordon

With his 98th birthday fast approaching, Gordon is the second oldest test player still alive and the only survivor of the Timeless Test. It was this game which ruined his test bowling average, with match figures of 1-256. The Second World War effectively ended his career, but Walter Hammond called him “the greatest seam bowler I faced since Maurice Tate."

Fred Trueman

One of England's greatest ever bowlers, later in his life Fred Trueman discovered that his maternal grandmother had been Jewish, and that his mother had been put up for adoption. As Jewish law dictates that Judaism runs through the maternal line, Trueman was, at least technically, one of the chosen people. According to a Jewish Chronicle journalist the archetypal Yorkshireman said he was happy to be considered Jewish, although he did retort "just don't expect me to stop eating bacon sandwiches."

Cricket, fascism and a redeveloped ground

2009-07-26T12:30:00.002-04:00

Sussex Cricket Club have just completed consultations for the development of their ground, which would include demolishing the Gilligan Stand. Of all the feedback received, one of the comments which kept cropping up concerned the naming of the new stand.

This small controversy hints at the dubious and contradictory legacy of Arthur Gilligan, for whom it was named. A decent all-rounder for the county, with a batting average a shade over 20 and securing more than 800 wickets with fast-medium bowling, he captained England in nine of his eleven test match appearances.

Gilligan's captaincy included the 1924/25 tour of Australia, where despite his team's lack of success (they lost the series 4-1) he was widely hailed for his generous spirit. Former Australian captain Monty Noble wrote that he was the "type of man who, in the most unostentatious way, can do more than all the politicians and statesmen to cement the relations between the Homeland and the Dominions." However, according to Andrew Moore, Associate Professor at the University of Western Sydney, the Australian secret service kept tabs on Gilligan because of his fascist tendencies.

There is no evidence that Gilligan was spreading his political message during the tour, but on his return he wrote an article entitled The Spirit of Fascism and Cricket Tours, in which he argued that on cricket tours it was "essential to work solely on the lines of Fascism." By this it seems he meant subsuming the individual into the greater good, one of the articles of faith of early fascistic thinking. During this time Gilligan was a member of the British Fascists, a forerunner of Oswald Mosley's thuggish British Union of Fascists. The party was characterised by hatred of Communism, and seems to have started out under the wings of Mussolini, briefly benefited from the General Strike of 1926 before the events of the 1930's forced the party into obscurity amidst its' increasing anti-semitism.

By the time of the Second World War (and probably well before it), Gilligan had renounced his former beliefs, and served as a physical trainer with the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Indeed his behaviour as captain on another cricket tour makes his fascism seem even stranger. With his test days behind him he agreed to captain an MCC team to India in 1926/27, not then a test playing nation. In those Indian summer days of the empire the prevailing views of race held by the cricketing establishment were strident and entrenched. The Indians may have their Quadrangular contests on the maidans of Bombay, but they could not govern themselves or play the mother country on an even footing. As Mihir Bose points out, the British team who played in the Quadrangular competition called themselves 'Europeans' to demonstrate that they were a "special ethnic group of white people."

Gilligan's tour was a success, not least because he was happy to depart from the social norms of the British Raj by mixing with the Indians. At one meeting he encouraged the Indians to set up a cricketing board, telling them that if they did so he would lobby the Imperial Cricket Council to recognize the country as a test playing nation. Two years later they were admitted as a full member and played their first test, at Lords, in 1932. To quote Bose again, "Gilligan's influence was immense."

There was a final layer of Gilligan's contradictions, with his bit-part role in one of cricket's most unpleasant events. After the war Gilligan became a radio commentator, after dinner speaker and eventually president of the MCC for 1967. As such he was one of the selectors who decided not to include Basil D'Oliveira in the England team to tour South Africa. Such was the sensitivity of the decision, and the tour more generally, that Gilligan's past came back to haunt him, with accusations that he had sympathies towards the South African government. The presidency was however more symbolic than powerful, and it has always struck me as more likely that the treasurer Gubby Allen, along with arch establishment figures such as Alec Douglas-Home were the ones wielding the power. It seems likely though that by this time Gilligan's racial views were in keeping with the rest of the MCC establishment.

Given his paradoxical views and actions it is unsurprising that the renaming of the Gilligan Stand at Sussex would feature prominently in the redevelopment. My vote would go towards the Mushtaq Ahmed Stand; allowing recognition of a great cricketer, a stalwart of the club, and a suitable successor to the man who indirectly helped Ahmed's country to play test cricket.

The American Premier League is no more

2009-07-23T08:31:00.000-04:00

In one of the more predictable stories of the year, Cricinfo has revealed that the American Premier League has been postponed. Officially the reason is that the International Cricket Council refused to sanction the event, although as it was not going to be run by a cricket board this was never likely to happen. The smell of herring tinged rouge is strong; the players who had signed up were all aging and must have realized that their international days were behind them so had no fear of bans. I presume that the event simply failed to get the neccesary popular and commercial backing.

But what fresh joy should accompany this news but the unveiling of an almost identical plan by the USA Cricket Association, the official cricketing body in the country. The guiding light this time is Don Lockerbie, chief executive of the association, and a man that Cricinfo damns with the faint praise that he was venue director for the 2007 World Cup.

Lockerbie said "The USA is a country that wants to see the superstars, and that's what we have to focus on. We have to invite them to come and play in the USA, and eventually we hope to develop our own superstars." The exact opposite approach needs to be taken. Before thinking about hosting the stars, and making the mega dollars, the association should be focussing on building up a grass-roots movement of youth cricket. I have written before about some of the wonderful youth programs, such as the NYPD league, but while the authorities and bigwigs dream big the game in the States is destined to stay in the darkest of shadows.

Is Ravi Bopara just Ian Bel vol.2

2009-07-21T19:02:00.005-04:00

Not for my money, although the records are starting to stack up. It can all be laid at the hands of that nasty Shane Warne, who used his newspaper column to suggest that Bopara was not mentally tough enough. I suppose England should be thankful for small mercies, four years ago he helped show Bell up with his bowling rather than penmanship.

The two players' test careers look to have followed similar trajectories. After a sticky start against Sri Lanka, Bopara hit three consecutive centuries against a very weak West Indies side, while Bell scored a big hundred against Bangladesh in the run up to the 2005 Ashes. The Australian then exposed technical flaws in both players, which in the case of Ian Bell led to some mental issues in the following years.

Bopara though appears to be made of sterner stuff than Ian Bell; a street-wise guy rather than a creation of modern cricketing culture. If I was Andy Flower I would be tempted to swap Kevin Pietersen (if fit) and Bopara in the batting order, giving the one more responsibility and a renewed sense of purpose in the team after the degradation of the captaincy kerfuffle and allowing the other a little more leeway to play shots and relax.

Update: Shows how much I know - Bell looks likely to come in, possibly at three. Big and bad news for England

Henry Blofeld on Twitter

2009-07-20T08:42:00.004-04:00

I am presumably the only person in the known world not to be able to comment on the test, having spent the weekend with no internet access (is there a worse fate at such times?) I will therefore limit myself to recommending a beautiful combination of old and new, brief against long-winded, amusing duffer against modern technology. Twitter and Henry Blofeld. If anything was to convert me to its' dubious charms it would be Blowers.

To give you just one example:
"I am just about to go and have lunch at Le Colombier in Dovehouse Stret SW3 the best French restaurant in town. The escargots are to die for."

Check his feed out here.

Cricketers on strike

2009-07-18T08:05:00.000-04:00

Given Andrew Flintoff's retirement from test cricket to seek more profitable ventures and the West Indies interminable player dispute it seemed a good time to recall an earlier clash over finances.

Going into the final Ashes test match at the Oval in August 1896 the series was tied at one game each. However there was deep discontent in the home team. The professionals, made up of Tom Richardson, George Lohmann, Bobby Abel, Tom Hayward and Billy Gunn, felt that they were underpaid and underappreciated. The Australian had proven a great success, drawing crowds across the country and yet winter wages had been reduced from thirty to twenty shillings for the professionals.

Into the scene now steps Dr. W.G. Grace, at the peak of his cricketing powers and only behind Gladstone as the pre-eminent figure of the age. It was little secret that he earnt his living through his sporting prowess rather than his medical abilities. Following his feats the previous season a motley crew of the MCC, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, The Daily Telegraph and The Sportsman rallied around to raise a testimonial for the great man. During the summer of 1896 he was presented with a cheque for £9,703.

To add further insult to the professionals there were rumours that Grace was receiving more than them in expenses for each game. This was still the time when the England team were chosen by the committee of the ground on which the game was played, and the Oval authorities responded with the stiffest of replies:

The committee of the Surrey County Cricket Club have observed paragraphs in the
Press respecting amounts alleged to be paid, or promised to, Dr W.G. Grace for
playing in the match England v Australia. The Committee desire to give the
statements contained in the paragraphs the most unqualified contradiction.
During many years, on the occasions of Dr W.G. Grace playing at the Oval, at the
request of the Surrey County Committee, in the matches Gentlemen v Players and
England v Australia, Dr Grace has received the sum of £10 a match to cover his
expenses in coming to and remaining in London during the three days. Beyond this
amount Dr Grace has not received, directly or indirectly, one farthing for
playing in a match at the Oval.

So if the Surrey committee were to be believed Grace was not paid more than the professionals but the same as them. The five players asked for their pay to double. They were not to be successful. As the intransigence of the authorities became clear Abel, Hayward and Richardson gave up their protest and played in the final test. George Lohmann wrote a letter to the committee, "somewhat fawning in content" according to David Foot, but it did not arrive in time. He was dropped for the game and never picked again (although his tuberculosis may also have played a role in this.) The committee's decision meant that Lohmann's bowling average was frozen at 10.75, the best in the history of cricket. Not a bad legacy to leave and one that Flintoff and the current West Indian strikers can only dream about.

Did Andrew Flintoff learn from Ian Botham?

2009-07-16T19:02:00.005-04:00

While Andrew Flintoff's retirement from test match cricket is another sign of cricket's new priorities it is hard to argue against the decision from a cricketing perspective. Flintoff's batting has been non-existent for several years and his bowling whole-hearted but rarely match winning. One day cricket is much more suited to his current skill-sets and tender body.

According to Sir Ian Botham he advised Flintoff to bow out of test cricket. Maybe he looked back on his own later playing days with some regret (not that he seems to be one for deep analysis). After 1986, or when he was around Flintoff's current age, Botham's batting and bowling average in tests was 26.25 and 44.91 respectively. However the options for an aging cricketer were different in the early 1990's, and rather taking the Indian rupee Sir Ian moved counties, first to Worcestershire and then to Durham, at least partly for better financial reward.

Also useful to bear in mind is that players being concerned with money is not a modern phenomenon. Donald Bradman himself once considered effectively quitting Test match cricket to play in the Lancashire Leagues. The difference is that there is now a feasible and attractive alternative (not that Accrington is anything other than beautiful of course) which offers the same glamour for more money and less work. It would be foolish to blame people for taking advantage, the blame lies with those who allowed such a situation to occur.

Ashes tests at new grounds

2009-07-15T03:35:00.000-04:00

With the dust settling and heart-rates returning to normal from the draw at Cardiff I wanted to look again at the choice of venue. Cricket is a game with much talk of tradition, some of it justified and some less so (for an example in the latter column try out the baggy green for size), but Cardiff was the first new Ashes venue in England for over a century.

In the 1902 Ashes it seems that new grounds were the fad; first Edgbaston was tried out and then the third test was played at Brammall Lane in Sheffield. Wisden called the game a "severe disaster for England," with a conclusive defeat giving the colonials a lead in the series. Nevertheless England's side reads like a who's who of the "Golden Age" from Gilbert Jessop opening the batting to the dastardly skipper McLaren alongside C.B. Fry in the middle order, with Rhodes and that most intriguing of characters, Sidney Barnes, leading the bowling.

The Sheffield crowd however do not seem to have turned out in the numbers hoped, for Wisden intriguingly comments that a mistake was made in not playing on Monday for that was "always the best day for public cricket at Sheffield." In addition to rumours of southern sniffiness at this Yorkshire outpost the game also suffered from the city's industry. Even on the sunniest of summer days the game could be halted at Brammall Lane because of pollution and smog from the factories. In its only test bad light, seemingly helped by the nearby chimneys, descended on the ground on the first day and contributed to the fall of four England wickets before play was stopped.

It seems unlikely that Cardiff will suffer the fate of Brammall Lane, destined never to host another international game, but Edgbaston, which debuted three weeks earlier, shows the differences of a century ago. Steven Lynch writes about how only the ground's secretary and groundsman were available to count up the cash after the game, finally finished their task at 3am. Presumably, after their plan for ensuring five days of cricket by creating a flat wicket succeeded, it will take more than a couple of men working into the night to count all the cash in Cardiff.

The worst cricket blog post?

2009-07-14T03:16:00.002-04:00

I have written before about some of the great blogs covering cricket but today but, unearthed by JRod at Cricket with Balls, we have what must count as the worst post. It comes from The Punch, an online organ of the Australian press which claims to be "provocative, energetic, thoughtful and, on the right occasions, fun." Its' editor, Andrew Penberthy wrote in his blog about whether England's time wasting tactics could be labeled cheating or not. So far so sane. Then comes this paragraph:

The question “Did the Poms cheat?” was perhaps put most succinctly by mate Steve, watching the game online in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who inquired via text message in the final few overs this morning: “WHY IS THERE A MEMBER OF AL QAEDA HOLDING A F***ING GLOVE AND A FAT POM IN A TRACKSUIT OUT IN THE MIDDLE?” It’s a fair if offensively-crafted question, and one which is now on every Australian mind, none more so than Ricky Ponting.

So according to Mr. Penberthy the Australian captain and every Australian is not just thinking about whether the English were going against the rules but also associated its Muslim twelfth man with a terrorist. The most generous interpretation would be to credit his lack of sleep with a failure to read back his writing (although questions would remain about his choice of friends), but as the editor of the magazine does he think this is provocative, energetic, thoughtful or fun?

Well done Monty Panesar

2009-07-12T20:21:00.007-04:00

If, as is entirely possible, this was Monty Panesar's only contribution to the series then it will be more than enough for most England cricket fans. There are major questions over his bowling but his batting was shockingly solid. Last word for now shall go to Mrs. Silly Mid Off. When the commentator mentioned that a ball from Nathan Hauritz had Panesar in two minds, the good lady wife mentioned that he barely looked to have one mind. And listening to his post-match interview with Michael Atherton it was hard to disagree.

1989 Australians v 1990's England

2009-07-12T12:01:00.006-04:00

Watching the fag end of the First Test it is clear that neither side is of the 2005 vintage. Australia without their figureheads are a side in transition but still with considerable talent and immensely competitive. The last day has demonstrated what previously we had only heard whispers of from South Africa - that Ricky Ponting is now truly in charge for perhaps the first time in his captaincy. His role as general, father figure and elder statesman brings to mind Allan Border's captaincy in 1989. That side too was maligned as weak when, in hindsight, they were just between two generations and about to become one of the best teams in the game's history. Whether this group of players can go on to those heights is doubtful but the evidence of this test is that they are way above the current England team.

Which brings us to the home side (although given that the match was played in Wales that may not be specific enough). The bowlers either had no plans, which in the laptop age seems unthinkable, or were just completely unable to bowl to them. The batters showed occasional talent, some grit but collectively failed to create the totals necessary on a high scoring track. To a cricket fan weaned during the 90's on regular England batting collapses and a rolling selection of mediocre fast-medium seamers this all seems depressingly familiar. The difference seems to be that this group of players still believe that they are the world beaters of four years ago (even though most of them were not playing back then) rather than a team with an exceptionally average record.

How to watch the Ashes in the office

2009-07-10T20:02:00.003-04:00

Things have been busy in the world of The Silly Mid Off. This has meant that much time has been spent in a cramped New York office. Now I have never, not once, checked up on the goings-on in Cardiff while at work. However should people find themselves in a similar position, and wish to take advantage of their employer's internet connection, here are some options:

Cricinfo
Ball by ball descriptions, with a well-designed scorecard.

Best bit: Unwittingly waste half an hour looking into Stuart Broad's bowling average, then realize that you have no idea what Chris Broad's test batting average was, and when he played his last test (37,95, 39.54 and 1989 respectively). In other words, it is brilliant for drilling down into the minutae of the game.
Down-side: There is no nice way to put this. The commentary sucks. The basics are fine, but who actually cares that the batsman has played forward to a well-pitched ball. The time constraints involved in writing these descriptions prevent more fluent writing.

Check out: The strange 3D simulation. The coverage is delayed by about an over and the players are straight out of a mid 90's computer game. If you want to see the action this badly just sell your soul and get the subscription to Sky (or Willow TV for those of us in the States)

BBC
Over by over, with content from the other BBC coverage

Best bit: On a good day they will feature a sentence or two from Geoff Boycott dismissing everything about the world since 1970.
Down-side: The Beeb is wonderful at many things but its insecurities about cricket are pretty obvious in its online coverage. It gives so much space to emails, twitters and texts that the page is cluttered but with no overall theme running through a session. My suspicion is that they give the gig to the most junior members of the sports team, which all to often results in pretty dire writing. It would be so much more entertaining if they gave the gig to Henry Blowfeld, and let him jot down anything that popped into his head.

Guardian
The original over by over commentary

Best bit: The Guardian over by over reporting first came to prominence during the 2005 Ashes - they even published them afterwards in a very readable book. The secret of its success is not rocket science; talented writers, each with their own distinctive style, who just about have the time to create a narrative from the session's play.
Down-side: When Ron Smyth is on the commentary often degenerates into a dirge of indie music references of which only the coolest kids understand.

The Times
Ball by ball with nice technology

Best bit: The descriptions are perfunctory but concise, without any of Cricinfo's forced humour. The scorecard is also easy to read, and the Hawkeye graphics pretty funky.
Downside: Opens in a separate window so hard to hide if the situation arises.
Check out: Their predictor game, which appears to be spread betting without the money.

Cricket with Balls
A welcome blog addition to the commentary scene

Best bit: One of the best bloggers on the scene, and delivers witty asides on the days play after most overs.
Downside: Hard to follow because written into a standard blog post. Probably better read for a chuckle during lunch or tea, or after play.

Ashes First Test, Day One player reviews (in three words)

2009-07-08T18:46:00.007-04:00

England

Andrew Strauss: Fair-do's, great bouncer

Alastair Cooke: Hard to love

Ravi Bopara: Class but flaky

Kevin Pietersen: Responsible then stupid

Paul Collingwood: Usual gritty stodge

Matt Prior: Lovely counterattacking stuff

Andrew Flintoff: Gave it away

James Anderson: Erm, nightwatchman, really?

Stuart Broad: Tall isn't he

Australia

Ricky Ponting: Still poor captain

Mitchell Johnson: Swingless, changing pace

Peter Siddle: Important late wickets

Ben Hilfenhaus: Stubble, swing, economical

Nathan Hauritz: Not horrendously rubbish

The start of the Ashes

2009-07-07T19:36:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning I will get up as early as my weary body and groggy mind will allow to catch an hour or so of the first Ashes test before the unfortunate reality of work intervenes. Nevertheless a nagging feeling persists that despite the absurd amount of hype this series can't possibly be as good as four years ago. This is of course is a rather ridiculous comparison to make - by common consent 2005 was one of the greatest series of all time.

More than just the improbability of so many close games and a series going down to the last day, this year's Ashes is not being played between the two best sides in the world. Some wags might even say that without the likes of Warne, Trescothick, Langer and Lee they are not even the two best sides in England at the moment. Missing too is the aura around the Australians. For all the excitement around Philip Hughes he does not create the begrudging wonder of a Justin Langer. Against this seemingly immovable object of legends was the belief of an English side who Duncan Fletcher had built up specifically for the 2005 series (witness how quickly the peak turned into a trough afterwards.) Fast forward four years and it is one pretty good side on a not very good run against a quite average side in fairly good form.

Having knocked it I should explain quite apart from the cricketing drama I feel a personal connection to the Ashes. It has accidentally provided me with four-yearly yardsticks for life. In 1997, the only time I went to an Ashes test (Edgbaston, that most tantalising of false dawns) I was still at school, by 2001 I was about to head to university and during 2005 I was preparing to face the imposing world of work. In the intervening four years I have got married and moved to America.

Who knows what will happen between now and 2013, but lets hope for some fun cricket in the meantime.

Cricket for beginners

2009-07-07T12:48:00.003-04:00

For any Americans (or anybody else for that matter) who do not know a thing about cricket but want to learn about the basics I can thoroughly recommend Peter Della Penna's "Cricket 101" videos. Check them out here and here.

The reserve wicketkeeer

2009-07-07T07:47:00.000-04:00

Is there a more thankless position on tour than the reserve wicketkeeper? Australia's Graham Manou has taken the role for this Ashes tour and is destined to play one or two games against the counties. The frustration must be that regardless of how many runs scored, catches snared and adroit stumpings the only chance of playing in the test matches lies in a misfortune to the other guy. There are occasional exceptions, where keepers have been changed mid tour (such as the realization that Geraint Jones had become really rubbish during the 2007/8 tour of Australia) but by and large the deputy glovesman is relied upon merely to get the drinks ready.

Nevertheless the name of Tim Zoehrer, the perpetual understudy to Ian Healy on 1989 and 1993 tours to England, is embedded as deeply into my mind as the brighter stars of that squad. Perhaps it is just the exotic name, or apparently effective legspin (which brought him to second in the 1993 tour bowling averages), but his name has always been my personification of the frustrated wicketkeeper.

My first baseball game

2009-07-06T08:03:00.001-04:00

A couple of days ago I broke my baseball watching virginity, heading out to the delightful Coney Island for a game between the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Tri-City Valley Cats (which must be one of the worst names of any team anywere.) The teams are in the minor leagues, with the Cyclones an affliate of the New York Mets, but a full house of over 8,000 folks saw a great game, which was decided by a 9th innings Cyclones double, finishing in a 3-2 victory for the home-team.

Some thoughts, in no particular order on the game:

1. Entertainment

The rise of Twenty 20 cricket ignited a debate about whether sports should be viewed merely as entertainment. Baseball has no such qualms, and the result only enhances the crowd's enjoyment. Simple things, such as throwing baseballs into the crowd and making sure that every player signed autographs, kept the many kids absurdly happy. The half-hearted attempts at cricket grounds to "do something for the little ones" always seem to be artificial or ignore the actual game.

2. Fielding

It is just better, no question about it. The throwing is spectacular. But what impact must it have on their shoulders?

3. Similar skill sets

The games really are related. A good baseball player would make a decent cricket player and vice versa (given enough training of course.)

4. America the Brave

I was prepared for the national anthem before the game but did not realize that there was more patriotic warbling in the seventh innings. I had been looking forward to the famous seventh innings stretch and a rendition of "Take me to the ball game." Instead we were ordered to stand for the singing of "America the Beautiful" and remember the troops and other services. All rather tokenistic and best summarised in the reaction of the guy sitting next to me, "You mean I have to get up again?"

5. There can never be a silence.

There are many natural pauses during the game but there seems to be a terror to let these moments pass without some noise. Either an advert will be featured, a local dignitary paraded or failing that the commentator will shout about nothing in particular. It made me miss cricket, with its' comfort in allowing the game to breathe.

6. Affordability can breed a sense of community and family

The two major league sides in New York are usually prohibitively expensive to watch but tickets at the Cyclones range from $8-15. Many families are not able to afford a major league game any more (a comparison can be made to watching the England cricket side), which made this game very family friendly. The Cyclones also seem committed to making themselves part of their local community, even with such oddities as a knish eating contest on their Jewish heritage evening.

The Founding Fathers and cricket

2009-07-05T12:02:00.001-04:00

"I rose at 6 o'clock and read a chapter in Hebrew. About 10 o'clock Dr. Blair, and Major and Captain Harrison came to see us. After I had given them a glass of sack we played cricket. I ate boiled beef for my dinner. Then we played at shooting with arrows and went to cricket again till dark."

So wrote William Byrd on April 25, 1709, thus providing the first reference to cricket in North America. Byrd's diaries, which also include extended information on his philandering and cruelty to slaves, seem to suggest that cricket was a regular part of his life, and we can assume something similar for the other landowners of the time.

Cricket was certainly known to the Founding Fathers, who would have recognised cricket as much an American sport as any other - basketball and American football were not invented until the twentieth century and baseball was only in its birth pangs during the time of independence. Benjamin Franklin brought a copy of the first formalized laws of cricket across the Atlantic in 1754, ensuring that the "London method" became standard for games in America. Cricket was even referenced during discussions about the executive's title. John Adams, future second president of the new nation, harrumphed that there "are presidents of fire brigades and cricket clubs", preferring the grandeur of "His Highness." Apparently many MCC presidents have also been keen on such a title.

Fast forward two and a bit centuries and cricket is of course no longer considered by most Americans to be a national past time, and American leaders do not care so much for cricket. (except in PR shots.) Instead it is the Caribbean and south Asian immigrants who carry on this sporting tradition, bringing their old life to the new world. As NYPD Commissioner Kelly put it so eloquently this is a celebration of America's great diversity, which for this newcomer to the country is something well worth celebrating. Happy Independence Day weekend.

The American Premier League

2009-07-03T11:58:00.001-04:00

A couple of months ago news of the embryonic American Premier League was splashed across newspapers. It has all gone a bit quiet since then so it seemed a good time to look at the tournament and its' chances of success.

1. Lack of official recognition
The ICC put the kibosh on the tournament when it announced they would not recognise its authority, meaning that players would be banned from international cricket if they participated. For all of the wishful thinking that it could be an American version of the Indian Premier League, the New York event will be far more like Kapil Dev's Indian Cricket League, which is gradually being ground into the dust.

2. Players
Not even Graeme Hick can put a gloss on the list of players currently signed up to play in the league. Only those who have retired from international cricket and given up hope of playing in the IPL have lent their support, resulting in some very old cricketers. The Indian squad has yet to be announced, which is probably telling in itself, and will be the main draw for the cricket demographic in New York.

3. John Emburey
Emburey has been announced as the coach for the world team, almost guaranteeing that it will finish last. His previous coaching spells for Middlesex and Northamptonshire were abysmal, while he led the Ahmadabad Rockets to last and second from last place in the Indian Cricket League. Hiring a charismatic former Indian player have made more commercial sense?

4. October
The tournament is scheduled to begin this October. Although there are some pleasant, cricket playing days during that month it can also begin to get cold and wet.

5. Staten Island
All games are due to played on a minor league baseball ground in Staten Island (the team are a feeder side for the New York Yankees). The only way to get from Manhattan to the island is by a ferry which has created a sense of the borough not being part of the city. Many New Yorkers have never ventured out to Staten Island, and hosting the tournament out there ensures that most people in the city will not be aware of its existence.

6. The other cricket in New York
While the APL tries to establish itself, and make money, there are some wonderful initiatives to encourage the game within the city. Last year the New York Police Department started a youth cricket tournament, creating an outlet for children over the summer holidays and allowing the police to forge better relations with the south Asian and Caribbean communities in the city. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly spoke about how the game was a celebration of New York's greatest strength, its diversity, and with tournament completely free it is this kind of American cricket which should be the future of the game in this country.

Why is Vikram Solanki playing for The Lions?

2009-07-02T18:00:00.002-04:00

Without being too much of a partisan Worcestershire supporter, it mystifies me that our captain has been selected for the Lions (or England A in disguise.) All the other players have some hope of either being selected for the Ashes or playing for the national side in years to come. They did not even grant him the captaincy, which would have given him some purpose to playing, awarding that to Ian Bell in the vague (and possibly vain) hope that responsibility would make the man. Or am I being too cynical - can we expect a shock test debut at some point this summer?