England are ruthlessly efficient; Kiwis are ruthlessly fishy

Us fans are a fickle lot. Sure, England are alright, we say, but they’re inconsistent, they can never finish off the weaker sides.

Then our boys, prim with highlights and eye-liner, go out and effortlessly dispatch the demoralised opposition, and we complain that the match was too short.

Sure, England won, we say, but where is the competition? Where are the ups and downs?

Perhaps we like the ups and downs more when they’re not actually happening to us. In my experience, there is nothing worse than an up. Or a down. Especially when it comes to trousers.

This victory wasn’t attractive. Some people say it was. They point out the century and seven-fors and all those pretty things. But those folk think that lieder music sounds nice. And that’s just mental.

The hapless Kiwi batsmen fell feebly this morning. They were playing swing like it was 1965. They were simply far too late. Naïve fools.

Only Jacob Oram attempted resistance, and his runs were due to fortune than fortitude.

Isn’t it marvellous how the English can suck the positivity out of any situation? Let’s say something happy.

Hurrah! Alastair Cook took a catch!

Hurrah! Andrew Strauss was awarded Man of the Series!

Hurrah! Jimmler Anderson didn’t get 10 wickets in the match!

Hurrah! New Zealand are about to prove how rubbish limited over matches are by giving us a pasting in the ODIS!

Hurrah for calculators! Hurrah! Hurrah!

England are getting the fear

Give us a downer. I've gone and fucked my brain.

So, things are cold, wet and dark in England. The Caribbean and Australian umpires are surprised at this, so take every opportunity to hide in their little officials’ room, which, I am told, is equipped with tea making facilities and an attractive open fire place.

Anyway, the first test match of a twenty game series between England and New Zealand is meandering towards a draw. Neither side really wants it any other way. And when it comes to mutual disappointment, the English excel.

There have been a lot of dodgy decisions by the Englanders in this game. They ran away like little girls from an exhibitionist when they were offered the light. Why they did so is beyond comprehension. Perhaps they’re scared of Jacob Oram’s bowling?

This is exactly the sort of behaviour that Australians jeer at. “Rubbish” they say. And, god help me, I am inclined to agree with all 20 million of them.

Although we have to draw some limits. One of my favourite programmes, Peep Show, guested an obnoxious Australian. She generally found herself in rather unseemly situations. Don’t worry, explains Mark to the horrified natives, she’s Australian – they think it’s OK.

We can’t agree with Ausslers on everything. That would lead to anarchy and barbarism.

In the actual cricket, Michael Vaughan scored a century. I think it’s his fifth at Lords, and the first since he performed the same trick at the first test in the series last year. So, well done him.

Daniel Vettori is making a good case to be deified, by taking five wickets. We’ll have to watch this space on that one.

The weather is really depressing. I had a special correspondent sent to Lords and everything. The only wire he sent me was that it was “depressing”.

RAH-bish.

Australia: unworthy winners?

This was a hum-dinger of a series. A really close one. And, if you discount the first two matches, India were the run-away champions.

However, with the run-glut boredom of the last test, everything just faded away. In stead of watching that, I decided to do this. For hours and hours.

We found out some new stuff from this series as a whole. We found out that Irfan Pathan is not really opening batsman material. Virender Sehwag stills has it in him. Anil Kumble is still god-like. Michael Clarke isn’t all that bad. Michael Hussey isn’t all that good. And the Australians are still the embodiment of all that is evil.

This might go down as one of those series that people talk about for ages and ages. Like the Ashes 2005. I hope not, though. I’m English, and I get pissed off when people go gooey and start banging on about the past.

I wish we could all say, “Yeah, there was a series. Some stuff happened, you know?” And then we can get on with appreciating the present world, the new world of Australia being really good and England being really crap.

So yeah. India showed us that Australia aren’t invincible at home. Which no one has done since we realised that Neighbours wasn’t popular at all over there. I suppose that’s some progress in world cricket.

But, truth be told, this series won’t really be remember for the quality of its cricket. India were caught on the hop at the first match, and were robbed of the second test in a highly emotional and unpleasant game. Thereafter, once the administrators stepped in and removed the Ausslers key strength of being complete pillocks, the series rather tailed off.

Yeah, India one a match. The first time Australia lost at Perth since the country was founded in 1975. But, you know, so what? We were all geared up for some eleven-a-side fights; we wanted to see Bret Lee clobbered by Sourav Ganguly with a wicket. We wanted violence, revenge even.

It never happened, and some blokes just ponced about a pitch frolicking about with some sticks for a bit. Disappointing, to say the least. We don’t like Australia.

So, it’s disingenuous to say that Australia didn’t deserve to win this series. They just don’t deserve to win anything.

Bangladesh as useless as a washed up duck

Bangladesh lost to New Zealand by an innings and a million runs. It was an effortless, easy, pitiless victory. Their performance reminded me of this duck. It had been washed ashore near my house. “Poor duck” thought I, imagine how the Kiwis felt.

Well, not too much happened in the international cricket world today. To be honest, I’m to be honest I’m too distracted by tomorrow’s* post. It’ll be a hum-dinger, and will doubtless blow your puny minds into still punier bits.

So, let’s go through the motions anyway:

West Indies, still disappointing.
Shaun Pollock, still good, even though he’s old enough to captain England’s rugby team.
New Zealand, still rubbish.
Bangladesh, still uber-rubbish.

All in all, it has been more of the same. Which is remarkable, when you come to think of it. The cricketing landscape hasn’t really changed in twenty years. Australia are still dominant. Pakistan/India/South Africa are competing for the Number Two status. And England occasionally spark into something that isn’t useless at all.

As an intentional sport, cricket is very small: with the “elite” countries numbering only eight. This said, the relationship between these teams have stable throughout the past two decades. Of course, the decline of the West Indies has been dramatic. But other than that, nothing has really happened.

Bangladesh has been granted the status of a test nation. Sri Lanka are pretty decent at the five-day stuff now. But there’s nothing else of note, is there?

That’s quite depressed me. I’ll go away and do more interesting things now. Be sure to tune in tomorrow. It’ll be more amazing than this post. Honestly.

*Hopefully.

England: psychologically ill-equipped for success

England, feeling pity for their toiling Ceylonese chums, and remorse for doing so well in their recent test match at the Singhalese Cricket Club, decided to give away whatever advantage they gained.

By contrast, Sourav Ganguly, an Indian, when he’s on top he rams home the advantage by relentlessly battering his way to a double hundred. England, on the other hand, are happy to simper out into the sunset.

In an interview, England captain Michael Vaughan said,

“Well, it’s like this: we rolled up to Colombo in a satisfactory “under-dog” position, ready for a plucky, British come-back, and upon enacting that spirited recovery, we rather, well, you know, we felt sorry for winning and held a vote and decided to sort of let Sri Lanka win.”

There was some gestures toward out-cry by the press, but Vaughan was only saying what every Englishman thinks. We don’t like winning. Victory on the field is like beating your dad at chess, you want to do it, you yearn to do it, but when you do, you are overcome with a strange guilt. Perhaps it’s best just to lose, we think. Avoid all that unseemly smugness.

This, I deeply suspect, is a pervasive and sub-conscious presence that guides all Englishmen’s actions. We have the loser gene. Look at football, Eurovision, primary school results, etc.

There are some players that have had intensive shovel-around-the-head therapy, enabling them to turn off this gene – take Ian Botham. Others have evaded it through foreignness – take Kevin Pietersen. The rest of us, however, irresistibly follow instinct. Trying to fight it is foolish. You’ll just go all Matt Priory, and no one wants that.

Not even Matt Prior's mum.

No, it’s best just to accept failure. This is why English beer is the best in the world – we have so many opportunities to drown our sorrows.

By the way, the answer to the last blog’s question was, inevitably, overpoweringly, crushingly, “no”.

India versus England

So, the series that was too short ended in an Indian victory, and deservedly so.

They bowled better, the batted better and they tossed better. All qualities, in my mind, that a just world rewards with success.

You rather feel that India were a bit timid in the last test, and should have pressed for a second win. Not enforcing the follow-on was, in George III’s terms, madness. There would have been no way in South London that England could have chased down and surpassed a first innings lead of a jillion.

You could compare this move with Australia. Australians play Total Cricket (because they’re Total Prats) and push for victory at all points. Sadly, and inexplicably, they have publicly dropped enforcing follow-ons. Nevertheless, it would have been the aggressive approach. If not Australian…never mind…you know what I’m saying.

Michael Vaughan said there are a lot of positives to take from the loss. Like, him not looking like a muppet. And Paul Collingwood turning into a dangerous bowler.

So, I’m going to take some negatives from India’s win. Only one player got a hundred. They kept on bowling Sachin Tendulkar, when they have loads of perfectly good bowlers. Their middle order is old. Their fielding is at times a bit shaky – I think they dropped at least four catachable catches. They have, on the whole, crap hair.

Feel free to sort that list out, analyse it and perhaps publish it in a blog. I, along with the rest of the world, won’t read it.

Now, it’s on to the ODIs. And don’t we all look forward to another England pasting with glee? Oh bloody joy.

Lords, day two: Praying for gloom

The forecast seems good, perhaps a light shower in the afternoon. It looks like the best the Ayalac can hope for is bad-light. It looked gloomy enough outside the station this morning, but then again, it's London.

Well, as was noted by Trapper John, the Predictoron made a balls-up of it already. The international season has just started, and we are way off any sense of reality here. I blame the cat.

Bloody cat.

Like all the boys, I like Alastair Cook, and respect his batting ability. Unlike the girls, I don’t really think he’s that attractive and, judging my last night’s TV performance, he seems to be a bit of an Essex muppet, too. He reminds me of the young builder’s mate that was doing some work in my house over the summer. He also smiles too much. I’m suspicious of people who smile. What’s he hiding, thinks I.

But, for me, Cook’s approach epitomises good, old-fashioned Test Match cricket. Like the Michael Athertons and Geoff Boycotts of yore, Cook grafts out a sensible innings, battling it out with bowlers. Yesterday, the young chappie from Essex was aided by poor bowling, but this tactic of tediously wearing down the opposition looks like a promising addition to England normal bloody “positive” tactics.

The bowlers looked rusty, and seemed to struggle with the slope. However, the West Indies’ control and command of swing improved mightily as the day wore on. Interestingly, they also seemed to bowl tighter lines to the right-handers: Owais Shah never looked comfortable; Corey Collymore outplayed Kevin Pietersen in a beautiful spell; and Paul Collingwood, as always, looks like he’s struggling to stay in.

It’s a shame that the Windies weren’t as well prepared, but it seems as England will find it tougher going on Day Two.

Nevertheless, I’m hoping for a full-on, action day of looking at the megatron.

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/

At last! Blessed negativity.

According to Viv Richards (another God) reckons that Australia are stuck in an inevitable decline.

"A lot of the other sides see the Aussies as a team with stars of the past nearing the end of their careers. They now believe they can beat the Aussies - and none more so than South Africa and New Zealand."

They are old and finished. This is a truly refreshing outlook on cricket: you are crap, don’t bother. I wish more people thought like this.

But they don’t.