Angus Fraser makes dangerous statement

Generally, I don’t like to get involved in county politics. It’s boring. I prefer to focus on the actual cricketers – and their filthy private lives.

But, if you must know, there are rumours that Angus Fraser will take over as “Managing Director” of Middlesex.

The only reason that this is news is because a) people have heard of Angus Fraser and b) Graeme Smith is in hospital awaiting a mouth transplant.

I love Fraser. He, along with Andy Caddick and possibly Phillip J Tuffers were among my favourite players of England’s 1990s Golden Era.

Fraser’s main tactic was to spend half an hour running in and by the time he got to the crease he was visibly exhausted. When Brian Lara dispatched him to the boundary, Gussy would kick at the ground and blame the captain for asking him to bowl an unreasonable number of overs. Just look at how knackered I am you heartless bastard. He would say that. Only, without quotations marks.

Then the captain was changed. Hopefully to one who would put our Angus in at slip.

On the speculation regarding this county position, Fraser has said:

"I'm keen to chat with them and find out what they [Middlesexian big-wigs] have to say because it's still a place close to my heart. I currently have a very good job with the Independent newspaper but…”

And this next bit requires a severe buttock-clenching bracing position.

“….there is no harm in listening to what people have to say.”

Oh Gussy. Gussy. Gussy. Gussy.

Angus. Angus Robert Charles Fraser. Angus. You may need to know all there is about doggedly plugging away off or around the women’s changing room, but your understanding of human behaviour is somewhat lacking.

Personally, I feel that this dangerous and frankly inflammatory statement should preclude him from any position of authority. Obviously, he’s fine in his current role as a journalist. But any job where people should actually listen to him should be immediately ruled out.

Perhaps send him back to the ICC?

In my experience, the most harm has come from listening to people. In fact, I have given it up altogether.

Look at Stalin. He spent most of his early days listening to Lenin. And then look what happened.

It’s the same storey with Gordon Brown.

Do you want to end up like that, Gussy? Do you? Do you?

Well then.

Right. Now then.

It is time to whine. But this time, I can hold my head up high and whine with pride.

England, the place of my birth and the bosom of my life, has produced a useless cricket team. A team of staggering incompetence that is capable of losing to literally any girl scouts group in the world.

Michael Vaughan said that there were some “confidence” issues, whereas I think there are “competence” issues here. Firstly, we bowled badly: 470 runs are too many. Number eights should not get 88, especially when we had them at 190-5.

Secondly, the batting was spineless. The pitiable collapse on the last day on a mundane pitch had to be seen to be believed.

Useless bunch of melons.

Peter Moores wants to see a bit of passion to see England bounce back and win the series. I hate it when people say things like that.

“I’m passionate about food.” I can’t stand that. Or when people express passion for any subject. I fairness, I don’t like it when people say anything really. Or people at all.

Peter Moores is that people. The annoying ones.

England bowled better in the second innings. Monty Panesar rediscovered his grove. And Ryan Hairybottom, the Atlas of the attack, wallowed in some deserved glory with a five-for and a sensational hat-trick.

I’m not sure whether it’s within the rules, but the entire England squad, with the possible exception of the Hairy One, should be replaced by the women’s team. They’d show the Kiwis a good hiding.

Lastly, New Zealand is an awkwardly placed country. It seems to make filing reports for newspapers impossible. I remember listening to Angus Fraser on TMS rue submitting a piece for the Independent just before lunch on the third day. It suggested that either Paul Collingwood or Tim Ambrose would go on to score a century. Neither made it past the second over after lunch.

I suspect that the Sunday Times suffered from the same time-zone cock up. Their headline was “England show positive signs.” Signs of positive rubbishness.

Slinging Goliath

Oh, the press are full of it this morning.

Gussy Fraser, as always, has produced an interesting article on England’s chances against Sri Lanka.His argument is that the Sri Lankan’s unorthodox method endows a flamboyance that provides the team with an edge in ODIs. Whereas England’s players are “over-coached”, making them too rigid and uncreative to excel at limited overs cricket.

“English cricket is continuously attempting to find reasons why the national side is not competitive in the one-day game. The quality of pitches and the scheduling of limited-over matches in domestic cricket are cited as reasons, but another widely held view is that it is a result of batsman being over-coached. Facing thousands of balls from a bowling machine and being told to play with a straight bat will tighten up a batsman’s technique, but there is a real danger that it turns him into a robot, possessing neither the flair nor the instinct to perform the unpredictable.”

I have spoken previously on this issue: I argued, and still believe, that talk of “England’s natural game” is nonsense. Technique applies to any version of the game. England are rubbish at all forms of cricket at the moment. That's why they're losing ODIs.

However, this issue of “unpredictability” is interesting. It stems, in the main, from bowling at the death. A bowler must surprise the batsman in the closing overs, as consistency can allow the batsman to get into position early. This issue was made more obvious with the advent of twenty20. Every ball, every stroke and every fielding position had to have some innovative element if you wanted to exert control. The MCC manual limited the realm of run-scoring opportunities, so had to be ditched for pressing expediency.

This slightly panicked attitude has, through osmosis, transferred into 50-over cricket. The mantra is now “runs anyway, anyhow and now”, and consequently fielding teams respond by also moving to the unorthodox to jar a batsman’s concentration and drag them out of their comfort zone. Yet, this is not a sustainable strategy over the longer period; unusual bowlers like John Iverson, Paul Adams and even Lasith Malinga eventually lose their novelty and therefore their impact. Once they are “found out” a key part of their threat is diffused, as Michael Vaughan stated today:

“Not many of us have faced [Malinga] but they tell me the first few deliveries are a little bit strange and if you get over them there are plenty of scoring opportunities.”

If bowlers are putting their energies into originality, once this has worn off, what do they have left? Darren Gough, in today’s Metro, says Malinga is:

“exciting to watch purely because he is very different. But I think he’s nothing for our boys to really worry about. I’m sure there are a lot better bowlers in the world than Malinga. In fact there are a lot better bowlers in Sri Lanka than Malinga. Chaminda Vass for one.”

The same Vaas who bowls orthodox and consistent medium-fast stuff for years and still takes wickets.

Those names that survive are those with the quality techniques. Sanath Jayasuriya, for all his panache, has a Test average of over 40, with a top score of 340. You don’t hit 14 Test hundreds by reverse sweeping all day.

I have already told the ECB how they can win, but I feel that England should have the confidence to stick to their game plan, and not become bededazzled by the ephemeral charms of the unconventional. Talk of pinch-hitters up the order, altering tested techniques is distracting and potentially destabilising to an already dubious outfit. But, by the very fact that such fundamental restructurings are being discussed at this juncture does not bode well. Gussy to finish:

“These plans should have been thought through months ago but, as is the case with England and one-day cricket, they appear to be winging it.”

Playing it slow

England have announced another ex post facto change of tactics. Instead of promoting a pinch-hitter to take advantage of the early fielding restrictions, they will “build a foundation”. Angus Fraser states:

“The plan is for England to make up for a slow start by scoring heavily in the final 15 overs of each innings. It is hoped the tactic allows them to consistently post scores of 260-270, totals that will ensure they are competitive in every match.”

Weirdly, this puts a lot of pressure for the bowlers to perform well. As others* have pointed out, the days of an “unchasable score” seems to be over. This means that the bowlers must (and there is not derogating this) must contain or skittle the batsman. Achieving containment is extremely difficult given the quality of current international slogging, and taking wickets depends on the penetration of the bowlers. However, considering last summer’s performance, I doubt Sajid Mahmood, Liam Plunkett, James Anderson et al. are capable of defending scores below thee-hundred.

Saying that, the approach is a practical and realistic acknowledgement of England’s modest boundary-spanking resources. Thus, we must make the most of Kevin Pieterson and Andrew Flintoff by giving them a licence to slog towards the end of the innings. As always, we can only hope for the best with the bowlers.

Anyway, is this really a conservative return to old-fashioned one-day play? Well, consider this: if Adam Gilchrist gets out swinging the bat, there’s plenty of talent below him to recover the innings and put on a decent score through nudging ones and twos. But, what happens when England lose their upper-order cheaply? The sloggers are exposed and, if they lose their wickets, an imperfect start turns into a disastrous end.

Arguably, the insurance of consequence-free early hitting provides a greater buffer to a side wanting to “play it safe”; obtaining quickly the comfort of runs. Whereas nurdling singles can only succeed if executed over a long duration, and with wickets in hand. Pinning our hopes on preserving wickets might undermine confidence further, and place more pressure on the lower order to “catch up”. Digging ourselves further into a hole of negativity. Which is something I generally approve of.

So, accepting reality might be another ECB cock-up. Who knows? So, we’ll see how it goes with England. But at least Michael Vaughan has implemented some strategy to proceedings.

* The link feature appears to be broken on blogger. Here's the article I wanted to link to: http://www.cricket-blog.com/archives/2007/03/5/Preview-of-Australias-World-Cup-chances/

Obsession with injury

OK – I may not have a great memory,but I don’t remember
cricketers always being a bunch of old crocks. Angus Fraser (champion) used to plug away for years without injury. Alright, that may not be entirely true, but in my unfounded opinion, cricketers are receiving more injuries. There are two schools of thought explaining this development:

1. Geoff Boycottism (They’re all a bunch of girls). This thesis asserts that modern cricketers have become increasingly fragile because of universal use of “shoes” and banning corporal punishment in schools.

2. They’re over-worked. This re-iterates the usual complaint that cricketers play too much cricket.

The reality is probably a mixture of the two. Or probably not. Anyway, here is a list of international players that are either injured or have an injury “scare”.

- Mathew Hayden
- Michael Vaughan
- Herschelle Gibbs
- Justin Kemp
- Jacob Oram
- Andrew Symonds
- Abdul Razzaq
- Brett Lee
- Simon Jones
- Shoaib Akhtar
- Mohammad Asif

I decided to stop at eleven. But it’s enough for a whole team – a pretty good team, now that I look at it. It seems that at any point 5% of the world’s cricketing talent has some sort of injury.

It’s worth noting that none of the above crocks is a spinner. Look at the above picture. Anil Kumble continuing to win matches, despite the major head trauma. What does that tell you about spinners?