Mushfiqur Rahim's face

Walking photo-shop?

England’s incredible global domination continues, much in the style of Genghis Khan, Napoleon or Starbucks

A step up from its previous opponents, England have locked horns with the Tigers. No opposition is as fearsome as horned tigers.

To those of us who have temporary flicked our attention away from the shrieking international cricket schedule, to, you know, take a glance at burning Bangkok, economic meltdown in Europe and impending nuclear war in the Korean Peninsula, the Bangladesh tour has come as a surprise.

It was only five minutes ago that England were wrapping up a famous win against the Aussies. And only seconds ago since we won the T20 World Cup.

But now, England continue metering out punishment to its lesserlings, with 100% English Jonathan Trott putting the Tigers to the elephant gun.

There were a few eager comments regarding Bangladeshis’ ‘promising’ bowlers, in that there were a few balls that were ok. But, let’s be honest. They’re crap.

The tourists nullified England’s foremost threat, Kevin Pietersen, by cleverly giving the ball to the person who bowls left-handed. And, maybe a few more successes might get them back in the game. But generally, its one way traffic, only, less dangerous. Maybe heavy traffic. A no way traffic jam, perhaps.

But, as we England fans can readily impart, there is always hope.

A few more wickets might get the Bangladeshis really going. There is nothing as fearsome as horney tigers.

A close brush with success

Today, I went to work conference. Don’t worry. I didn’t learn anything, and I came away with my free share of booze and pens. A success. Apparently, though, I shared the hotel venue with none other than the England cricket team.

I should have been alerted to this by the quantity of short sweaty, red-faced bald men shuttling about the rooms kitted out in England gear. I didn’t think much of this. There are small, exhausted looking men everywhere.

But, my colleagues eventually informed me, I missed an obvious equation:

Puffy-faced + red chops + total lack of hair + sports gear = professional cricketer

The place was crawling with Englanders. In my spiral of pen-bingeing booze-outs, I missed all of them. I was probably the only person in the whole bloody place that would take an interest in unseemly idol ogling, and yet it was left to a conference of bland suits to ignorantly glance at the more famous of the puffy-faced gingers.

At least I scored three paper pads.

If anyone wants to know where they are, I will happily tell you. But only in return for a free corporate branded item of stationery.

England cricket team form new government

Engorged with the flesh of their prey, England cricket team's blood-lust and thirst for power saw them attempt a coup which toppled the Con-Dem coalition.

As a rouse for respectability, David Cameron was appointed as puppet prime minister. Mimicking the successful Conservative Party strategy.

The Liberal Democrats were quickly swept aside by Side Bottom’s steady attack. Expert spin by Graeme Swann brought the opposition to mental disintegration.

“Please! Oh please!” supplicated a traduced Nick Clegg, “Oh please, Big Dave, can you help me get into power again. I don’t mind doing that thing that you like again.”

Yet Cameron was stuck on the back foot, his coalition partner was stumped and his own team consisted of red-meated thrashers that didn’t suit current conditions.

“Yes!” announced Cameron. “After much pretend soul-searching and mock consideration, I have decided that it is possible to sell my own party down the river, so long as I we can establish a joint commission on implementing a new selection policy which will recommend no change to the current policy of keeping Northerners out of the batting line-up.”

Foreign secretary Kevin Pietersen later released a press statement: “Do you want any copies made of that, Minister?”

Sources close to the Minister for Gingers believed that he responded with a hearty laugh.

ICC create new synthetic lifeform

Doctors promise to develop anti-biotic to wipe out this simple, if potentially nasty, lifeform.

Somerset win like the demons that they are

In the best match of the English domestic season so far, Somerset somehow managed to chase down 362 in the last innings in the last day. This they achieved off 68 overs.

Yorkshire rather helped them out, field a sporting declaration after their third innings 33-4 and a first innings advantage of 28.

Somerset’s charge was powered mainly by a 68-ball century from James Hildreth. Others also chipped in, notably Zander de Bruyn’s 93 and Marcus Tresocothik’s 53. But it was Hildreth’s fearsome stroke-play that gave the West Country lads belief.

The victory may not have been as assured, had Tino Best been at fall fitness.

But it probably would have been.

There are valuable lessons that we learn from this trouncing:

1) Be less like Yorkshire;
2) Be more like Somerset.

Key gets the early season big score

The season doesn’t really start in England until a freakishly large score comes out of no where. The plaudits for 2010 go to Rob Key, who smote 261 against Champions Durham.

Last year, Anthony McGrath scored a double hundred in Yorkshire’s first match of the season. In the previous season, Nicky Boje struck a 226* in April. In 2007, Marcus Trescothick battered an early triple century.

There is no reason why this is. All-knowing convention suggests that wet and windy early season matches are dominated by seam and swing. The flat pitches of late summer offer the best opportunity to cash in.

Yet, there are always flamboyant big scores that stand out for attention.

Of course, there it could always be statistical happenchance, but, there is something special about these early big scores. Even if they are coupled with other large centuries, our attention is unfairly directed towards the towering figure, that we see lording the coming season in a Ramprakash-like dominance.

They never do mind, and those that are first out of the blocks are soon over-taken by others.

But the specialness of the crisp big hundred of the summer, still fresh upon the eager eyes of fans, will happily rest in our minds as the other figures, calculations and statistics as gradually dispersed.

‘England’ win

We live in a multi-cultural age. Sharing identities in different religions, professions and ethnicities. People are more Venn diagrams of various interests, collating diverse understandings of what it is to be a person. We are living in an enlightened age of acceptance, tolerance and openness.

Yet, why the buggering bumblebees must we to pack our side with bloody Saffers?

Why in the name of all that is Sir Garfield and holy do we persist in this farce? Even my local mumbling librarian can see that this is wrong. And she wears purple corduroy jackets.

Now, I don’t want to get all BNP on you, but, really, what is the point of international sports if it doesn’t provide an acceptable vent for our racist, nationalist, parochial, aggressive, bastardly tendencies?

Great. A load of guys acting under the England brand beat some other guys. Now, let’s flick over to the IPL and watch the same again, only with reshuffled players and more gratuitous boob wobbling.

International cricket is special because it can tap into my grey, crusty heart, and enliven some passion in my otherwise monotone world. The stirring of petty and tribal instincts are considered base and unworthy. But why? Other appetites are pandered universally: sex and food are vulgarised and over-elaborated requirements, whose rituals extend far beyond rational necessity.

Yet, these twin appetites probably constitute 90% of human mental activity. (Not ours, obviously.) Huge industries focus and heighten these demands, channelling them to ever more frenzied levels.

So, why can’t we enjoy a good old fashioned bit of tribal chest thumping? Why is that so different?

I found it very hard to obtain much pleasure out of Kevin Pietersen’s and Craig Kieswetter’s championship-winning innings. I could appreciate them, and enjoy them as a cricket artefact, much as I would when watching, say, Chris Gayle bat, but I could not cheer them on for the greater glory of Twickenham.

They were just some guys. They weren’t my guys. And, because of this, an elevation of ‘my’ team as supposedly the best in the world, does not feel as special as it should. Rather, the team that is currently based in the same country as me has one some trophy.

So. Give me good old fashioned English slumping at the second hurdle, and take your clinical, detached ‘successful’ cricket.

Australia choke

It was there for them. It was so close. But, once again, Australia CHOKE and FAIL to win another Twenty20 competition. This is perhaps due to their status as biggest chokers in the game.

Although, this, of course, isn’t true. AYALC's experimenting with real reporting, by making things up, and ensuring those things are wrong.

Australia were outplayed in all three disciplines in the game, plus the crucial fourth discipline of bribing the umpires to give you wildly generous decisions.

England’s early wickets bowlers contained Australia to a reasonable low score, with more than a hint of mental disintegration during the first Power Play. Some lower order big-hitting at the end lifted the score from carpet-level to crud-that-sits-on-the-carpet-level.

The fireworks at the back-side of the innings came too late. Only the bowlers could save them the Australians.

Only they couldn’t. Because they are shit.

Happily, the inexperienced flappers failed to take crucial early wickets, allowing England’s finest passport-dodgers to take them over the line.

Does this mean that Australia choked?

I have no idea. I honestly have no clue what ‘choking’ means. My theory is that choking is losing to Australia in any important match. This especially applies to South Africa. If South Africa lose to Australia, in any manner, this automatically becomes choking.

So, as Australia lost to the better team, they failed themselves. They choked themselves.

Much like Stephen Milligan.

Stupid cricket game

An evil, as well as ex-, work colleague recently introduced me to a cricket game: www.fromthepavillion.com. After a period of reluctance, I eventually joined up.

Normally, of course, I am above silly games. I am, just about, an adult. I have a job, a suit and a library card. Although, I do have a weakness for potato smilies, which it seems, has proven a slippery slope to childish preoccupations.

From the pavilion, emerged from an object of distant ridicule, to an urgent obsession. The effect of workplace boredom is to quickly transform any mildly distracting interest into the forbidden fruit of precious stolen moments away from productive activity.

This new game is a strange fish. It does not connect to real, actual cricket. The players’ names are randomly assigned. The games’ commentary bizarre and incoherent. The numbers of streakers reduced to nil.

The game is essentially a fantasy management game, where you nurture, train and ruthlessly sack a computer-generated roster of number to which you attach an unnatural level of affection. The computer rules, with the all-encompassing ‘engine’ solely determining the conduct of the games.

For some reason, I find myself daydreaming over imaginary batting line-ups, constituted by imaginary batsmen. “Perhaps I could sell him, and by a new spinner.” It is, of course, all bollocks. But, it allows your email backlog to mount pleasingly as you occupy yourself elsewhere.

There are problems. For instance, the servers are rubbish, meaning that half your login attempts are stymied by ‘site maintenance’, which only makes your more desperate to return management activities. The other problem is that, the game is terribly slow. To the point that, when you do finally login, there is nothing to do. Players' skills improve, literally, over years, as your troops battle it out with other players’ teams. You mope around the site, desperately searching for some managerial decision which directly demand attention.

About twenty seconds a day should suffice, yet somehow you find yourself spending hours of the day planning what you will do in those twenty seconds.

Ridiculous.

When Freddie Became Jesus

The problem with cricket is that far too many cricketers are involved. The problem is journalism is that it is shot through with journalists. Cricket journalism often is the worst of both words.

Ex-pros spew out retrospective platitudes; hacks shower us with irrelevant gossip and group-think rhetoric.

Jarrod Kimber, the industrious author of cricketwithballs.com, is a writer. His writing is liberated from the ingratiating brown-nosing of hacks, and the hackneyed brow-beating of former pros. His voice is unique, and sings out sharply from the melee.

On the soul-trembling closeness of the first Ashes Test, he writes: “Note to all future Ashes series: start like this, or fuck off.”

The grey-beards of the printed press would not, and could not, entertain even the most fanatic fan for nearer 300 pages as JRod.

Although rip-roaringly fast, the book is well-paced. And we rattle around JRod’s mind throughout the course of the Ashes, bumping into travels in England, piss ups with the journos and battling beds with wheels on.

JRod’s reflects back to the fans with their experiences. Cricket is a demanding game, and often interest wanes. Do we really care about cricket when we are recovering from a massive cooked breakfast?

But, it is the depiction of cricket that the book excels. Episodes of violent intensity, are analysed with a perspective, independent eye. Unfairly, JRod’s style has become characterised as hard-hitting, but it is his lightness of touch when engaging easily into the maelstrom of cricket debate as he compels the reader along a narrative of cricketing drama.

The quality of writing, sharpness of view and the wit will delight Balls fans. The book will satisfy any cricket, and will stand as a enjoyable read for many years to come.

England’s success is proof of T20’s randomness

Sorry for the delay in getting back to, but I was preparing my excuse for you.

So I AYALC returns. Various stuff happened to me; various other, more glamorous things, did not.

Prior to the tournament Stuart Broad, no longer the virginal Bambi figure when I started blogging, busied himself by lowering our expectations over the result of the tournament: total England victory.

This shagged out old pro has been around long enough now to recognise a winner, and England’s formula of tedious seamers and buying in foreigners has proven a surprising success. Notwithstanding a rather anomalous loss against the West Indies, which owed more to Duckworth-Lewis peculiarities than superior opposition, England have stormed the competition.

So have Australia, mind you, but we like to be parochial in AYALAC’s dusty, dilapidated towers.

There are some clichés that we can draw out of the hack’s bollocks box of tricks:

• Have England peaked too soon?
• Will the mercurial Pakistan emerge into unexpected success?
• Will England choke in the final?

I offer to you, the traditional AYALAC line, that none of these factors, nor any others relating to skills or confidence, obtain. It’s T20. And therefore we are well into the realm of randomness.

To decide the result, I have thrown my house mate’s stupid little pot plant at the wall. The pathetic carcass of an ex-Bonsai tree is pointing towards the toilet. Chance has spoken: England will win the tournament.

Surprise! We were rubbish after all

Somehow, England have blagged their way to test match success throughout 2009. They live not so much a charmed life, but a life over-brimming with rabbit foots, newt’s legs and sexts from Beelzebub.

There were perhaps immorally lucky to have escaped in so many matches. The same team was beaten by the West Indies no long ago.

And you remember the West Indies, right?

No. Neither do I.

So, does this display of impetrative bowling and feeble batting mean that England fans can point out that: Most of our players are South African.

All the metaphysical laws of double standards say: yes. Yes you can.

The final score reads: the good bit of South Africa (the bit that, you know, could get a job) beat the rubbishy, whiney part of South Africa.

How very interesting.

The spirits of cricket

The English fanbase in peculiarly weds itself to “the spirit of cricket.” I, too, admit to having found baffled and inarticulate at the need to justify a principle.

“Well, it’s just not cricket.” Is my meek offering, when asked why sconing the short leg whilst the umpire looks elsewhere is wrong.

There’s something about cricket that evokes the more romantic sides. Like the idea of battering to death your sister’s Care Bears, cricket washes over us with warm, nostalgic feelings.

Cricket is a game apart. Unchanging in its intrinsic goodness and we should not risk losing its unmoving fairness for pyjamas and hissy fits. It is what it was, and always shall be.

Here’s what Jack Hobbs had to say on the matter in his 1922 book Cricket for beginners:

“Perhaps the surest evidence that we have regarding the unwritten law, which doubtful is, ‘above all things play in the right spirit and be hanged the book of laws,’ is the oft-repeated action of a captain who allows a side to complete a match after the allotted time has expired, when his opponents would be absolutely certain to win if only another ten minutes were left to play.”

Erm…

So, ‘playing for a draw’ isn’t within the spirit of cricket?

Right. So bugger the spirit of cricket, let’s pull out the seams and murder the bastards. We all know you can only reverse swing by cheating anyway.

I bet Jack Hobbs would have been rubbish against reverse swing.

FACT. England are the most annoying side in the world.

Clearly we should all hate the English. They don’t have much going for them: bad food, bad teeth and now a successful Ian Bell.

The ultimate insult to the world.

Today, the legacy of the phrase “a Paul Collingwood-type” player has been secured for good. Ian Bell has become a Paul Collingwood-type player. He’s not as good as Collingwood, though, obviously he’s much better which makes Bell all the worse.

All-out attacking cricket may be glamorous, but saving a match from certain defeat should also be an achievement worthy of celebration.

I have long criticised Collingwood. He looks ugly and can cock-up at times. But who amongst us can honestly deny that they too are unsightly incompetents? But, for some reason, he keeps coming up with the goods. He's hard. And increasingly, England are becoming hard like him.

England can now justifiably categorise themselves as a side that is Hard To Beat. It doesn’t matter that South African are the better side, and should be 2-1 up in this series, England are a bunch of hard cases that will take a severe battering before they’ll yield.

But still, as an England fan, it’s hard to know how to view you team. It was tempting to scream around the office once the draw was drawn, but surely it’s within our rights to hate them for inflicting an entire day or stress and worry upon us?

Best to pick and choose. Hate KP. Love Strauss. Hate James Anderson. Love Graham Swann. Have a love/hate relationship with Ian Bell.

Or just stick to hating the Australians?

Are England the most annoying side in the world?

Outside of the imagination of charmed yanks and the patronising guffaws of continentals, the English are not much liked in this world. Populated by arrogant, pompous, humourless po-faces that are much deserved of pull to reality and a punch in the mush.

English see themselves differently. Wrongly still, but differently.

English see themselves essentially as Tintin. A tiny, yet powerful, hero, battling against the overwhelming injustice and certain defeat. Although he’s never going to change the world (well, at least for the good) he can maybe grind-out a reasonable compromise with the local chieftain to only eat half of Tintin’s friends.

It’s when England drudge-out a draw that these perspectives collide. For Englanders, snatching a non-result from the jaws of defeat is the pinnacle of sporting achievement. It’s sort of a win without the guilt.

For everyone else, it represents that smug, lazily, aristocratic line of “well, we will only try if we really have to” is infuriating. If you are going to try to win, win. If you are going to lose, for Christ’s sake lose.

With Australians, it’s straight-forward hatred through jealousy. With South Africans, it’s straight-forward hatred.

With the English, it’s complex. Heck, they’re rubbish. They never go anywhere. They have a few interesting characters. But Christ, can’t they all just go to hell?

The big three compared

OK – final note on stats, I promise. So, I have looked at data relating to the test match performance of Australia, India and South Africa.

First off, I have made an index of the three teams performances over the past five years, with 1 January 2005 being 100.
Still Australia beat the pants off the other two still, holding a commanding +10 margin over India and South Africa.

But, as Fred the commenter mentioned yesterday, perhaps this overstates their performances for the last two years. So, here’s the same graph, with the index starting on 1 January 2008.

In this graph, Australia have made next to no progress in the last two years. Whereas the other two, especially South Africa, have increased their score.

Interestingly, since May 2009 South Africa have been in relative decline, whereas India have been unmoved since then, saved for a slight increase in the past few months. By my calculations, this means that they are about tied with South Africa, by the ICC’s reckoning, India are the undisputed champions of the world!!11!!1!!

What this means for online sports betting is anyone's guess.

Australia depressingly god-like

Continuing my orgy of spreadsheeting debauchery, I decided to map out Australia’s decade in graphical form. And here we go.

And didn’t they do well. It is clear that the mighty Australians piss on all of us from a great height. England’s naughties peak of +18, and India’s current (world-topping) +13 is eclipsed into the toilet by Australia’s current score of +59. Australia peaked on 6 March 2009, with their win at Durban, with a total of 60.

Australia’s performance over the decade is marked by continual progress. Not the one step forward one step back pattern of England: Australia stride continually forward.

Interestingly, however, their “decline” is apparent in a recent plateau. Since the end of 2006, they have only increased their score by 10. Whereas, India’s last ten points took nearly four years, they were on +3 in March 2005.

In January 2008, however, Australia were on +58. And since that acrimonious home series against India, their scores has stabilised. Indeed, their total has increased by +1 in this two year period. It dropped to +57 in December 2008 in South Africa.

It appears that they were not the force that they once were. But hats off to them on a top decade: 117 matches and 77 won.

Better than Twickenham.

Some statistics happen, and India become best in the world

It’s official. Again. Some team other than Australia is the best in the world, accordingly to faceless statisticians hidden in the neglected bunkers of Dubai’s crumbling skyscrapers.

That team is India. They have long held a team capable of destroy all before them, but it has taken them much bedding down and reorganising before they have done so. Although, more or less the same group of bland, school clerkish type men have dominated the side for the last decade, they have only “come good” after Australia have refrained from winning quite so regularly.

So, seeing as I had a touch of spreadsheetitus recently, I thought, how does India’s decade look? Worthy of “best in the world” status?

Here is a graph of some stuff:

Same rules as last time: +1 point for winning, -1 for losing and no points for drawing.

India are currently scoring their highest in the decade, with them presently on +13. Not quite as high as England +19 when the ICC had them as the second best team in the world, but pretty good, nevertheless.

So, what does this say? Exel is good? ICC is bad?

Their recovery from the bogged-down under-achieving period of the early decade seems sustained. But this improvement, although steady since 2005, is not dramatic.

Probably not worthy of Number One status. But, the only problem is that all the Number Twos are shit.

The “Let’s Not Go Too Mad” Theory of English results

I have always suspected that there is an intrinsic karma in English cricket. In test series where they are seemingly swept away, they come from nowhere to produce an ODI win. Similarly, any test series victories are punished by one-dayer drubbings.

There has been recent discussion regarding England apparent (ahem) edge over the South Africans in ODIs, but this trend only developed after the Saffer dispatched the Englanders at home in a test series.

It’s almost as if other boards have a reciprocal arrangement with the ECB, to make sure that the aggregate total of woe and misery in the British Isles never deepens below a specified nadir.

Consider the 2006-07 Ashes series (for those that acknowledge its existence). England were battered in the tests; yet triumphed in the one dayers. In fact, this appears to be a dynamic well-maintained in most Ashes campaigns.

So, I totted up all England’s results and put them into a spreadsheet, covering a period from 2000 until 29 November 2009. For this period, I have calculated their cumulative score. Each victory is given a +1, each draw/tie/abandoned match a 0 and 1 is subtracted when England lose. Here are the results:

Interestingly, the new decade starts brightly, with England soaring to a score of +6, but these heights are rapidly surrendered as they fall to -6 within six months. After a spell of soul-searching, Michael Vaughan’s captaincy finds a winning formula, and the 2004-05 period sees England’s total shoot to +19.

However, this high-water mark slips quickly below the surface, as their scores slides into negative figures.

Thereafter, they manage only to keep their heads above the water, with the score just into the positive. As of today, their score is exactly 0.

What does this signify? That England are unable to ruthlessly exploit advantage? That they are unable to push on? Are we most comfortable at give-and-take mediocrity?

Certainly, starting the decade at zero, and still sitting on a duck as the naughties come to a close is an unlikely statistic. Even given the bounties offered by Bangladesh, the West Indies and Zimbabwe.

This period encapsulates entire careers, and witnesses a number of cricketing generations. Yet, none seem able to permanently impose the success that their talent implies.

Will the English never relinquish themselves from their own averaging tendencies? Are we happiest sitting at a statistical mean?

Maybe we are just rubbish in the mind?