Campaign by Kent members gathers momentum

The campaign by a group of members of Kent County Cricket Club to persuade the County to rethink their 2010 membership structure and subscriptions is gaining momentum. Helped by the running of stories in the national media, including in today’s Times, the campaign is well on its way to gaining the 100 signatures it needs to call for a Special General Meeting of the county to discuss the matter.

The campaign was launched shortly after Kent’s current membership received details of the County’s proposals for 2010. In 2009 you could be a member of Kent for £128 (£115 if you were over 65). For 2010 this was to be increased to £200 with no senior discount at all. An increase of 56% or of 74% for seniors. Various categories of membership were to be abolished including that of Country member, Senior (Over 65) and Student (18-23 for full time students). Within days of the protests starting Kent relented on the Country member category and re-introduced it at a 50% discount but at the time of writing the other categories remain abolished and the minimum membership cost for ordinary members is still £200.

Members have pointed out that neighbouring county Sussex has full membership available for as little as £100 and that most other counties have similarly affordable deals. In the case of Sussex the membership offer is “tiered” with the £100 deal including “only” One Day games and with a top membership category at £210 to include the County Championship games. There is no such choice available to Kent members who are offered a take it or leave it “All matches” membership at £200

The outcry has come particularly from members who, for various reasons, can only attend a few matches each season but value their membership and the right to wear the county tie and sit in the members areas at the grounds when they do attend matches. Many of these members are not interested in Twenty20 so the inclusion of these games in the new package is of little value to them. The opposition is understandably strong from older members who have seen the greatest increase and it is often the case the these members find it difficult to attend more than a few matches each years - and also that they are not amongst the most enthusiastic supporters of Twenty20. Many pensioner members struggle on fixed incomes and the extra £85 they are being asked to pay is unaffordable. This means that many long-standing members will simply drift away from the county and that their membership subscriptions will be lost entirely. The result is that the income generated from the sale of membership may even decrease despite the swinging subscription increase.

The campaign has opened a dialogue with the club on this matter and it is hoped that Kent will rethink their whole 2010 membership offer and avoid the cost of having to arrange a Special General Meeting. The introduction of a “tiered” membership structure similar in principle to that of Sussex seems the likely way forward.

English cricket should welcome David Davies’ recommendations

It has now been confirmed that David Davies has recommended that The Ashes should be shown on terrestrial television as a “crown jewels” event and everyone involved with English cricket should welcome the news. They won’t of course – expect a strong anti reaction from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) who will their future income streams being under threat. But in fact the news is just the shot in the arm that English cricket needs and not only the fans should celebrate. Because it should prompt a root and branch review of the finances and governance of cricket in Britain so that a fit-for-purpose domestic structure is established along with a far greater spectator/viewer imperative than currently exists.

The ordinary cricket fan has been the principal casualty of the disproportionately commercial bias of the ECB in recent years. Ticket prices for international matches are by some margin the most expensive in the world and with the only alternative for the fan requiring a satellite or cable subscription, which may cannot afford, cricket has slipped in the public interest compared with that glorious summer of 2005. That year, of course, The Ashes were on free-to-air Channel 4 and the viewing figures were huge. This year, although the cricket was almost as enticing as in 2005, the viewers were hardly surprisingly far fewer in number.

Why does the ECB seek to market its valuable international cricket properties to the highest bidders disregarding, in the process, the needs of the ordinary cricket fan? The answer, of course, rests not with the drive for income per se but with the grossly overblown expenditure that the ECB indulges in. This brings us, inevitably, to the subject of the structure of domestic cricket in England and Wales. The only way that an 18 county domestic structure can exist (just!) is if its costs are subvented by handouts from the ECB. These handouts amount to around £2million per year per county and we all know what the counties do with a significant proportion of that money and who the eventual beneficiaries are – and that they are not qualified to play for England!

It may seem slightly perverse to argue that the likely reduction in ECB income that the Davies recommendations will mean is actually good for the game. But if, as is likely, it forces the whole basis of the financing and operations of the ECB to be reviewed then only good can come out of it. And the start point for all this should be the ordinary cricket fan who wants affordable international cricket and, I would suggest, a far higher standard top-tier domestic cricket structure. A structure that is above all a developing ground for players who have the ability to get through to the international team and who are given the opportunity to do so in domestic competitions which are not primarily, as at present, nice little earners for itinerant cricket mercenaries!

The ECB still cagey about it's "staging agreements"

Cricket lovers will be aware that the playing field for the allocation of major international matches to England and Wales cricket grounds is far from level. The ECB’s Major Match Group, chaired by Lord Morris of Handsworth, has confirmed that an Ashes Test match will take place at The Oval in 2013 as a part of their “long term staging agreement” - and Yorkshire also has such an agreement with the ECB which guarantees international cricket at Headingley until at least 2019. It is not known whether any other grounds have similar long term deals with the ECB and the ECB won’t tell! An ECB media spokesman told me “You would need to contact the individual venues. We don't release this type of information” – quite why this should be is not clear. What have they got to hide? The Oval and Headingley’s advantageous arrangements are no doubt linked to their ground redevelopment plans which needed to be underpinned financially by guaranteed international cricket at the venues.

This of course brings us to Lord’s which as it stands may not even get an Ashes Test match in 2013 (although one has been promised for 2016). Lord’s has ambitious plans for its redevelopment including taking the capacity up to approaching 40,000. But these plans can surely not go ahead unless the MCC has some certainty about the long term future of international matches at the ground. MCC members and the general cricket-loving public alike will be wondering whether the ECB and the MCC can do a deal which will allow Lord’s plans to proceed. And visiting sides will also, I’m sure, be hoping for a successful outcome – how many players from around the cricket world would happily forgo a Lord’s Test match in favour of the Rose Bowl, the Riverside or Sophia Gardens!

Boxing demeans us all...

I wonder how many of those who watched the Haye versus Valuev fight yesterday remember the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 when the shambling figure of Muhammed Ali struggled nobly to light the Olympic flame.

In Atlanta, and since, Muhammed Ali’s suffering from “Pugilistic Parkinson’s syndrome” was visible for all to see. Like other great champions before him – Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Floyd Patterson amongst many others – the effects of repeated blows to the head over years in the ring was finally taking its toll. It would be churlish to deny David Haye his moment in the spotlight and no doubt he will now climb aboard the gravy train big time before he throws in the toel for good. But will it by then be too late? It may take up to fifteen years for the damage of repeated concussion to emerge in the way that it has with Ali and countless others.

Defenders of boxing often argue that many other sports are dangerous and that that the death or serious injury rate in the sport is lower than in (say) mountaineering or sky diving. This argument misses the point completely. It is only in boxing where you will have your head pummelled continuously for more than thirty minutes by an opponent whose primary purpose is to knock you senseless. That is the point of the sport – to strive sufficiently to injure your opponent that you beat him physically into submission. The world of professional boxing is an anachronism in modern sport in that attacks by one fighter on the head of another are a normal part of the tactics - and it is this aspect of the sport that is its biggest source of controversy and shame. Whilst contests in many contact sports (like Rugby, for example) can be tough and very physically and mentally demanding there is no legal sport, other than professional boxing, where the primary intention is to put your opponent in a comatose state. Boxing legitimises and glorifies violence. There is a glamour, of sorts, in boxing of course but a pretty vulgar one with “A list” celebrities occupying the ringside seats only intensifying the repulsion that many of us feel that modern society still tolerates this vulgarity.

Estimates indicate that around 900 people have died from boxing related injuries over the past seventy years or so – it is, therefore, no surprise that all medical authorities have called for the sport to be banned. The American Medical Association puts the case very clearly “All forms of boxing are a public demonstration of interpersonal violence which is unique among sporting activities. Victory is obtained by inflicting on the opponent such a measure of physical injury that the opponent is unable to continue, or which at least can be seen to be significantly greater than is received in return. This particularly applies to professional boxing”. But it is the individual cases that really bring the barbarity into sharp relief. Take, for example, that of the former world Middleweight champion, Gerald McClellan, who sustained a brain injury in a fight in 1995 as a consequence of which he is now deaf, blind and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Yes such things could happen accidentally in other sports – but in boxing, as the AMA rightly says, the causing of such injury is deliberate.

There are multi-million dollar purses in boxing at the top and nobody can blame David Haye and others for reaching for them. With money at this level is it surprising that the sport survives, despite all the medical evidence against it? And is it surprising that it is the sport with historically more corruption and criminality in it than any other? The history of professional boxing is littered with the debris of fixed fights, dysfunctional and greedy promoters and crime syndicates. Surely sport should not be part of this shady world at all. Sport should set an example to society not reflect back its darker images. The charter of the Olympic Games says that “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Boxing fails this test.

Brains and Brawn in Formula one

Unless something very strange happens in the Brazilian Grand Prix later today it now looks certain that the Brawn F1 team will win both the Constructors’ and the Drivers’ Championship this season. It is the most remarkable, and in many ways pleasing, outcome in the history of the sport. Remarkable because before the season began nobody gave Brawn a prayer – not the experts, not the fans and certainly not the bookmakers. One preview by a long-in-the-tooth and distinguished writer about F1 said about Brawn that “…they must surely struggle near the back of the field” and The Guardian’s Maurice Hamilton predicted that Jenson Button would finish 14th in the championship and Rubens Barrichello 16th. The bookies agreed - Jenson was 66-1 and Rubens 125-1 to win the Drivers’ title and Brawn were 80-1 to win the Constructors’! The outcome is pleasing because in a sport not over-burdened with people at the top who you would admit to having as friends Ross Brawn has always been one of the good guys.

I was reasonably close to Ferrari for a few years in the late 1990s and the early part of this decade. I visited Marenello and met all of the key players including the then team boss Jean Todt and the drivers – Schumacher, Irvine and Barrichello. It was a hugely impressive operation – Schumi was a genius (if a slightly flawed one), Todt a clever and calmly effective leader and Schumacher’s team-mates, first Eddie Irvine and then Rubens, were personable and rightly popular. But the guy I rated most highly was Ross Brawn who was Ferrari’s Technical Director. He was quiet, modest and articulate and when he spoke you listened – not just because he knew what he was talking about but because he seemed to be telling you the truth. My love affair with Ferrari was somewhat tarnished in 2002 when Todt ordered Barrichello to let Schumacher through to win the Austrian Grand Prix – the sort of gamesmanship that gives sport a bad name. I was at the race and Brawn was clearly uncomfortable with what had happened – although he kept his silence.

Ross Brawn is a pleasing exception to the rule that F1 team bosses and the sport’s senior administrators have to have about as many morals as a tomcat on the prowl. So for Ross to triumph this year is truly a delight – and the same applies to whichever of Jenson or Rubens is crowned world champion. My patriotism favours Button, but my heart leans towards the veteran Rubens. He was the loyal number two at Ferrari and this was at times highly frustrating for him – as at the A-Ring in 2002. He has always had the talent to be World Champion, but aged 36 at the beginning of this season and with a drive in an unknown car the bookies weren’t far out in their assessment that it was the longest of long-shots. If Rubens wins today at his home Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, and Button and Vettell fail to score many, or even any, points (the likely outcome) then a fabulous fight to the finish between the two Brawn drivers in Abu Dhabi is a mouth-watering prospect. Whatever happens Ross Brawn has comprehensively upset the complacent Formula one applecart this year and shown that you don’t have to have giant corporate backers and sponsors with bottomless pockets to win in this most commercial of sports – and this surely pleases all of us whose Formula one memories go back to the days when it was possible for the private entrant like Raymond Mays, Tony Vandervell, Colin Chapman or Ken Tyrell to win.

Monty Panesar and the Afrikaaners

Division 2 cricket County Championship side Northamptonshire have been captained in 2009 by the South African Test cricketer Nicky Boje and with him in the side have been fellow Springboks Rike Wessels, Johannes van der Wath and Andrew Hall. In a recent article in The Guardian Mike Selvey suggests fairly unequivocally that England and Northamptonshire spin bowler Monty Panesar has been the victim of a “lack of respect” from the overseas players at the county (all of them South Africans) and he hints that this has been manifested by chats about Monty between these players in their common language - Afrikaans. These chats have been overheard by visiting South Africans from other counties.

Now Selvey has his finely-tuned ear always to the ground when it comes to picking up the scuttlebutt in the world of cricket and I doubt that he would have reported the story unless he had pretty firm evidence that the gentle Monty’s difficult cricket year has not been helped by his being at times in an alien environment in his own county dressing room. The idea that in the once genteel environment of English County cricket, a place that over the years has welcomed players from all over the cricketing world, there is now the possibility of Afrikaner-speaking cliques demeaning fellow players is a pretty nasty thought. At Northants itself many of us will remember with pleasure the contribution that Panesar’s fellow Sikh, Bishan Singh Bedi, made for many years. Bedi was a popular figure at the County Ground in those distant days and he also had a foreign captain, the Pakistani Mustaq Mohammad for some of that time. It wouldn’t have happened in Mushie’s days, but perhaps times have changed and maybe it is now the smart thing to do when two or three Afrikaners are gathered together to put down a colleague. Possibly especially so if that colleague, like Monty, comes from a distinctly different background and wears a Patka.

How's this for Renault's Corporate Social Responsibility?

When in 2002 the Benetton Formula One team morphed into Renault it was clear that what the French car giant was seeking to do was to secure brand value from the move, in return, of course, for funding. Constructors' and Drivers' championships in 2005 and 2006 will undoubtedly have given the brand a major boost and whilst it is never easy to draw a direct and quantified line between success of this sort and brand equity there can be little doubt that Renault's substantial investment will have paid off. But the recent revelations about what Simon Barnes of The Times called "…worst single piece of cheating in the history of sport" will not just have damaged Renault's F1 credibility beyond repair but also have done almost irreparable damage to the corporate brand as well. Let's see why.

Like most major corporations Renault trumpets loudly its commitment to "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR). Here is what they say on their website:

"Renault maintains relations with a wide range of stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, local communities and residents, associations, and international organisations… These relations are based on two guiding principles: dialogue and transparent, loyal behaviour. Renault’s commitment also extends to the key social issues linked to the automotive industry, such as sustainable mobility and road safety (sic), and to initiatives for civil society."

Fine words, albeit words that are easy for a skilled copywriter to craft. Much more difficult of course is to walk the talk - to actually put into practise what you say you believe in. Major corporations can always be tripped up by determined investigators who can usually find some Achilles heel where practices don't match up to the high ideals of its stated CSR policy. But in Renault's case this was not some quiet little known business where standards were slipping - it was one of the most visible manifestations of the corporate brand - Formula One.

Now it may be that the big chiefs of Renault feel that they had in a way contracted out the running of the Renault F1 team to Flavio Briatore and that their big corporate hands are squeaky clean. Briatore has been banned from F1 activities indefinitely, and Pat Symonds, the former chief engineer has been suspended from the sport for five years. They even feel that they are clear to continue with their F1 involvement with their reputation untarnished because the World Motor Sport Council has only given the team a suspended sentence - in effect no punishment at all.

But if CSR does mean anything at all surely Renault at the very top must accept that this has been a shocking breach of their CSR policy by one of the most visible parts of their empire? It is reasonable to ask whether Renault's CSR commitment to transparency and to road safety applied to their F1 team. If it did then how to they feel now? And if it didn't then surely it should have!

Michael Vaughan to join a winning Test Match Special “A” Team

On the fallow day between England’s failure to defend a total of 299 on Tuesday and their even more woeful attempt to get a similar total on Thursday, both at Trent Bridge, I had the pleasure of spending some time with the Producer of Test Match Special Adam Mountford. Now attentive readers will know that I have a wee bit of previous with Mr Mountford but he, to his credit, offered an olive branch and we eventually got together deep in the heart of the Vale of Belvoir for a spot of lunch. And very enjoyable it was to for whatever the doubts may have been when Mountford took over from the long-serving Peter Baxter in 2007 can there be any doubt that this has been a bit of an Annus Mirabilis for the programme and its producer?

Test Match Special (TMS) is one of the very few iconic programmes on the Radio where the programme brand is its strength and where the presenters or performers may come and go but the core values of the brand stay constant – or should. The “Today” programme, “Woman’s Hour”, “Desert Island Discs” and of course “The Archers” are among the few in this category and TMS is up there with them. But one of the problems with icon status is that listeners are fiercely defensive about the programme and often very reluctant to accept changes. This was certainly the case with TMS and Mountford was accused of dumbing down and of being too willing to adopt the tabloid style culture of Radio 5Live. These accusations were mainly attributable to the choice of commentators and summarisers that he made in his first months in charge. Radio 5 has been criticised for having “homogenised” voices with one presenter’s accent and tones being indistinguishable from another. There is some truth in this gibe and when Adam Mountford introduced similarly cloned voices to TMS there was adverse comment - can you distinguish your Mann, from your White from your Pougatch? Not to mention the estuary tones of Phil Tufnell – a celebrity superstar replacing our much loved old grump Mike Selvey! Oh my Johnners and my Arlott of long ago – how you must be looking on at it all from on high with horror!

Those of us who remember the early days of TMS can recall how the programme gradually evolved from rather stilted and formulaic cricket commentary into what Jonathan Agnew has described as a “roomful of mates chatting away”. Would this survive in the new regime and in particular how would the Ashes Tests of 2009 be produced – would strict ball by ball commentary endure and would those carrying it out be our old chums – Aggers and Blowers and Jenkers? (Christopher Martin-Jenkins really was called “Jenkers” by Brian Johnston but somehow this didn’t survive the great man’s passing!). So when I sat in my seat in Sophia Gardens on Wednesday 8th July, the first day of the 2009 Ashes, and tuned in to TMS’s build up to that first day’s play it was with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried. At Cardiff we had all three of the TMS heavies as well as the hugely experienced Aussie game-caller Jim Maxwell. Not only that but the “A” team of summarisers was there as well – Boycott and Marks and the superb Ian Chappell. And when Tufnell took his turn he held his own admirably and soon showed that he is a clever reader of the game with an engaging communications style and a strong voice – albeit one that now seemed a bit more “Radio 4” than I remember from when he was crowned King of the Jungle! Mountford says that four commentators is probably one too many in any one match – although it was certainly justified for the first Test. So for the foreseeable future we can expect some rotation between Aggers, CMJ and Blowers and also the occasional match for the very good Simon Mann. The experiment with Arlo White and Mark Pougatch as Test match commentators is unlikely to be repeated – although they will continue to work on limited overs matches. And the summarisers rota will comprise Boycott, Vic Marks and Phil Tufnell – to whom can now be added Michael Vaughan, something that was finalised by the BBC at Trent Bridge where the ex England captain made his debut on TMS.

The Ashes listening figures were, Mountford believes, around six million – more than three times the number of viewers for Sky’s television coverage. It is surprising how vague the listenership figures are for BBC radio and it is virtually impossible to be anything like precise about the numbers that tune in to TMS. Within the BBC itself the programme is high profile with senior suits from the DG downwards listening to and taking an interest in the programme. I sensed that Mountford rather relishes this even though the degree of attention must be a bit wearing at times. Perhaps the uniqueness of TMS and that fact that it is one of Radio’s Jewels in the Crown has ensured that if there ever was a risk of serious dumbing down and absorption into Radio5 Live this has not happened. The innovations are really quite modest, Tuffers for Selvey, on pitch interviews before the start of a day’s play and greater responsiveness to listeners who text or Email the programme. The much reported interviews with Lily Allen and Daniel Radcliffe may be seen as an attempt to go pop but there has always been a tradition on TMS of interviews with those who are famous for other reasons and have an interest in the game - and Aggers is very good at these interviews and for most listeners I suspect that there is no problem with them. Mountford said that 75% of the messages after the Lily Allen interview were positive and given that a fair number of the traditional TMS listeners had probably never heard of her this was a good result.

As with any live unscripted programme there are elephant traps for the unwary and Mountford has had one or two dodgy moments. My own personal moment of disgust came during the New Zealand Lord’s Test Match in 2008 when former New Zealand captain Jeremy Coney said of incoming batsman Ross Taylor that he was “From the South Pacific in the sense that he is not a New Zealander at all” and moments later couldn’t identify “which of the islands” Taylor came from. In fact Ross Taylor, whose mother was from Samoa, was born in Lower Hutt in North Island and is very much a New Zealander. Mountford describes Coney as having made an “error of judgment” and there the matter rests – although I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that there is no place on as iconic a programme as TMS for an expert summariser who reveals prejudice or ignorance, or maybe both, on air.

But whilst errors of the Coney type are unacceptable that does not argue for blandness or over-sensitive political correctness. You want some creative tension and we did get this year from time to time – particularly between Boycott and the commentators and especially Jonathan Agnew. CMJ, Aggers and Blowers are mostly very polite to one and all and so was Jim Maxwell. Vic Marks and Ian Chappell were also very courteous – as was Matthew Hayden who summarised in the later Tests and did an excellent job. The genial Tufnell didn’t really wind anyone up or try and start an argument and on his Trent Bridge showing nor will Michael Vaughan – good though his debut was. So for the future Mountford, who has clearly been treading rather carefully this year, might want to have a bit more attack from time to time in the box and move a little bit away from the blandness-risking “Radio Old Chum” style.

BBC Radio has negotiated a home matches broadcasting contract with the ECB that will keep TMS going until 2014 and most overseas tours will be covered as well. But the upcoming Champions Trophy in South Africa will not have ball by ball and listeners will have to rely on updates from Alison Mitchell on Radion 5Live – or watch Sky. The international matches against South Africa will have the full TMS treatment though and the core “A” team will be in the Republic for the Test matches along with the local commentator Gerald de Kock.

Adam Mountford resents the suggestion that he was a parvenu who was out of his depth when he took over from Peter Baxter pointing out that not only that he had been Baxter’s assistant for five years but that during that time he had produced a number of matches and tours himself. Nevertheless I sense that he was seen as a bit different by the rather cosy, public-school educated and supremely self-confident TMS team that he now had to lead, and that this was a bit of a problem. It may be that he has had to rein in his instincts for change in order both to keep the team together and to deflect the critics who had him in their sights for a while. But his success in 2009 has surely silenced some of the doubters and raised his credibility and profile both within the corridors of power in the BBC and with his TMS “chums”.

3000 people, no dogs - and precious little sense either!

As a previous winner of “The Wisden Cricketer” (TWC) letter of the month award (note to friends – the Cockspur Rum was excellent and there is none left) I naturally always look at the prize-winning letter each month with particular interest. Now John Stern, TWC’s estimable editor is a sensible sort of chap (I flatter him not because I want a review of my John Shepherd biography in his organ, although that would be nice, but because he is genuinely on the side of the good guys on cricket). Given his commonsensical approach I can only assume that behind his stern (sorry!) and rational facade there is a cove with an impious sense of humour. Why else would he publish Jack Endacott’s hilarious “defence” of the County Championship – I think that on this occasion the editor’s tongue has been not unadjacent to his cheek!

But given the letter’s prominence I had better gently demolish the arguments in it and, whilst I have no wish to be unkind to Mr Endacott, in the search for truth I am afraid that I have to show why he is, on this matter anyway, deluded. Let’s start with the assertion that a “crowd” of 3,000 is in some way something worth boasting about. True it is way up at the top end of the spectator count for County Championship matches – most of this years hundreds of days of Championship cricket will be watched by a ‘“crowd” nearer to the “one man and his dog” than they will be to Taunton’s three thousand. The County Championship is England’s premier domestic cricket competition but compare it with the premier competition in other major sports such as Football, Rugby Union and Rugby League and it is nowhere. Indeed to get crowds as low as this in Football you would have to go down to the lower reaches of Division 2 of the Football League – the fourth tier of the professional game! And comparable matches in the two Rugby codes get proper crowds of at least three or four times the Taunton masses. Limited overs county cricket fixtures do, of course, sometimes attract much larger attendances – but it is the County Championship that Mr Endacott is writing about and which he claims is the “bedrock of the game”.

I have mentioned before veteran sports writer Frank Keating’s mournful assessment of the modern County Championship but it is worth quoting again:

“…another summer of what has tragically become a drawn-out primeval charade, the English County Championship. For decade upon decade it was a cherished adornment of the summer sub-culture, certainly for my generation when heroes were giants and giants were locals. About a quarter of a century ago the championship began fraying and then in no time unravelling. It is now a pointless exercise, unwatched, unwanted, serviced by mostly blinkered, greedy chairman-bullied committees and played by mostly unknown foreign and second-rate mercenaries.”


Keating is right on all counts. Somerset’s eleven for the two matches that Mr Endacott enjoyed contained no fewer than six players who are foreigners and not qualified for England plus a couple of old internationals who won’t play again (Trescothick and Caddick). So the home team had just three players in it that might, if good enough, one day play for England! Yes it is true that “No England player would have made it without starting in [the Championship].” But they had little choice did they – it’s the only game in town! But is it the best that English cricket can do to prepare players for Test cricket – of course not.

The County Championship is the bedrock of only one thing – and that is the County system itself. Without it the structure of domestic cricket in England would unravel, and not before time. The model for the future is indisputably one that has far fewer teams, higher standards of competitiveness, a minimum number of overseas players and which is largely self-financing without the need for huge handouts from the ECB. A six or eight team domestic cricket structure with proper competition in both the four day and the limited overs games with matches played in proper grounds offering spectators decent facilities is what is needed. Our national fondness for nostalgia and sentiment and our often dogged determination not to see the bleeding obvious even when it is staring us in the face has kept the County Championship, a Victorian invention, just about extant even into the third millennium. And the vested interests at the ECB and the eighteen counties are such that the replacement of the “charade” will not be easy – but if England is to be properly competitive, and consistently so, as a cricketing nation the time is ripe to try.

Grim stuff at The Oval and Lord's

For my sins I saw nearly every ball of the first two One Day Internationals live at The Oval and Lord’s – and a pretty depressing experience it was as well. Not because England played poorly or that Australia didn’t play much better but because the matches lacked edge and were almost entirely bereft of memorable moments. At The Oval there were only two innings over twenty which were scored at more than a run a ball (Wright and Rashid) and only Rashid and Bracken bowled well enough to be given ten overs by their captains. In 100 overs there was just one six and fours came at less than one every two overs– it was pretty dire stuff England’s belated run chase excepted. Indeed it was only during the last nine overs of England’s innings that the crowd was stirred up at all – most of the time they were eerily quiet with the monotony only broken by the odd nutter in fancy dress. And so it was at Lord’s as well – a match almost completely without excitement or interest. Not one six in the match and even fewer fours than at The Oval – and only one innings of merit, Mitchell Johnson’s excellent (and match-winning) 43 off 23 balls.

The very first competitive and professional One Day match in England took place in May 1963 at Old Trafford and in the first Innings Lancashire scored 304 runs in 65 Overs – a rate of 4.68 an over – not bad although admittedly there were no fielding restrictions in those days. Forty-six years on Australia and England scored at much the same rate in their two recent matches. So what has happened to the much heralded acceleration in ODI scoring rates which was predicted followed that extraordinary match at The Wanderers in March 2006 when South Africa scored 434 in 50 Overs and Australia chased the total down scoring 438-9? Well I think what has happened is Twenty20. England has played 22 Twenty20 internationals from 2006 onwards and Australia about the same. So whereas pre Twenty20 the 50 Over game was the only limited overs version of the game and it was, therefore, the place where improvisation and attack was rife (there were 26 sixes and 87 fours in that Wanderers match) now it is Twenty20 where the excitement takes place and it is on that stage that the batsmen try and take hard-hitting control.

Frankly at the first two matches of this seven match ODI series neither side really seemed to know what they were doing. Ravi Bopara opened the England innings and presumably he was expected to hit hard in the initial power-play overs. In fact his strike rate was only 56 and his patchy 49 took him 28 overs. Michael Clarke took 72 balls to make his 45 with only three fours and the promising Callum Ferguson looked like a Test player, and potentially rather a good one, rather than a limited overs biffer in his two innings.

Shane Warne said recently that “ODI cricket should go. It has evolved into Twenty20 - cricket only needs two forms of the game.” You can see where the great Australian bowler is coming from and there is certainly evidence to support his view that natural selection has given us Twenty20 and that ODIs are dinosaurs. The cricket aside the two days at The Oval and Lord’s were enjoyable – the sun was on our backs from time to time and there was a glass or two of something cold readily to hand to anesthetise us from the happenings on the field of play. I will always enjoy a day at the cricket not just a few hours which is the Twenty20 model. But if we want spectators to have an enjoyable and competitive limited overs cricket day there are other models worth trying. How about two innings of 25 overs rather than one of 50? Or maybe double header Twenty20 matches like they sometimes play in baseball. Twenty20 is baseball’s bastard cousin after all so perhaps we could adopt a few more of their ways and means.

The next ODI is at the Rosebowl tomorrow and tickets are still available - should you decide to invest £60 a pop I hope you get some decent cricket for your money. I won’t be there. Struggling with the traffic in darkest Hampshire after the match at 11:00 pm was never a good idea so I’ll watch it on TV – unless, that is, I decide to join the vast majority of Sky Sports enthusiasts who will watch England v Croatia from Wembley instead!

Sky’s the limit for English cricket

James Murdoch’s recent attack on the BBC will have surprised nobody – anyone who dares to inhibit News International’s ability to make money (and the BBC certainly does that) can expect to be in the firing line. Viewers and listeners (and we must now included surfers) of the Beeb’s output get astonishing value for money and whilst it is part of the national character to diminish our establishment, including the BBC, would any of us really hand broadcasting over completely to the likes of Sky? Which brings us to cricket. On the final day of the Oval Test match in 2005 Channel 4’s free to air coverage got 8.4 million viewers – and that on a working Monday. This year Sky’s subscription only satellite and cable transmission was watched by 1.92 million fans – and on a Sunday to boot. Whilst cost was not the only factor in play it was obviously by far the most important.

At the ICC’s celebratory two day centenary conference in Oxford last month the generally genial tone of the proceedings was only upset at one point. The distinguished and candid Australian cricket writer and journalist Gideon Haigh was chairing a panel which was discussing the role of the media in cricket. Haigh made the point that the move away from free to air live international cricket in Britain meant that the millions of serendipitous viewers – the ones who are not a died in the wool cricket fans but just occasional dippers into cricket if it is of interest – would not be able to do that this year unless they had a Sky Sports subscription. The figures above prove that Haigh was right - literally millions of potential viewers could not see the coverage. Haigh’s point was that if it is part of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) mission to widen the appeal of cricket in Britain (it is) then not to have free-to-air access to live cricket is a funny way to go about it. When Gideon Haigh had made his point he was shouted at by a voice from the back of the room where none other than ECB Chairman Giles Clarke began an uninvited harangue. Clarke’s rant was mainly directed at the BBC and their alleged failure to bid when the television contract came on offer. It was an unpleasant moment which Haigh handled will skill and Clarke eventually shut up – but his bias in favour of Sky and against the national broadcaster was clear to all present.

This summer News International’s flagship British newspaper, The Times, has been the “Official newspaper of England Cricket” – quite what this means other than that spectators at the Test match grounds receive a free copy and that the ECB’s link with the newspaper is advertised I’m not sure - presumably The Times pays for the privilege. If so it does suggest that the cosy relationship between the ECB and Sky applies also to other media owned by News International. He who pays the piper calls the tune and whilst I would not wish to imply that independent-minded writers and broadcasters in the Murdoch stable like Mike Atherton, Simon Barnes, Nasser Hussain and Christopher Martin-Jenkins would ever kow-tow to the ECB party line they are also unlikely to cut off the hand that feeds them. The ECB is the piper and its paymaster is substantially the “Dirty Digger” and his empire – witness the nine limited overs matches between England and Australia which are to take place in the coming weeks all, of course, covered live on Sky. If sporting considerations were paramount rather than television income rights then would there really be quite so many one day matches? Of course not.

There is plenty to criticise about the structure, priorities and administration of English cricket at present and in many ways The Ashes triumph was in spite of rather than because of the best efforts of the ECB’s management team. We need all the media to hold the ECB objectively to account without fear or favour. This includes Sky and The Times and the Sun – and it also includes Britain’s leading cricket magazine “The Wisden Cricketer” which is also now a Sky/Murdoch medium. In The Times 24 page Ashes supplement this week there was no mention of the fact that a major difference between this years Ashes and those of 2005 is that far, far fewer people will have seen them on television. Nor was there much discussion of the dearth of batting options that the England selectors had which almost led to the recall of Mark Ramprakash because the County system is patently failing to deliver. Indeed Chris Martin-Jenkins will have comforted the ECB by his assertion that the County game “…provides the players for a national squad that cannot operate in a vacuum,” and that “Jonathan Trott’s wonderfully composed debut…proved that the [county] system still produces tough cricketers.” I suspect that Trott’s toughness was honed more in the South Africa that he grew up in rather than on the County grind! No - for an objective view of county cricket you needed to go to The Guardian’s supplement where Mike Selvey wrote insightfully that “…the structure of domestic competition has to be raised. A new level created in fact. A proposal might be for a six-team competition…with neither overseas players nor Kolpaks or any other flags of convenience. Each to play the other once over four days. Elite players will be made available where possible. It will never happen…too many vested interests.”

Mike Selvey is right – there are too many vested interests and these interests, the counties and the News International media especially, conspire together with the ECB to ensure that the real structural changes that English cricket has needed for so long will be very difficult to achieve. And the one downside of the splendid Ashes win is that it might allow Giles Clarke and his cohorts at the ECB and in the counties to argue that all is well in their kingdom. It’s time for a proper review of the whole fabric of English cricket and for the ECB at the top to acknowledge that everything they do must be subservient not to their media paymasters’ wishes nor to their eighteen county electorate – but to the overriding need to have a successful England team, not just one that has a few fleetingly happy moments.

Triumph of the Lions not the vanities

Would you Adam and Eve it? You wait a couple of decades for a home Ashes series victory – and then two come along in succession! The disparity between the individual talents of the two teams seemed wide - Australia were by some margin the stronger and arguably only Strauss, Broad and Swann (for Watson, Johnson and Hauritz) would have got in the Aussie squad at The Oval. But when it came to the crunch England was, say it softly and out of Punter’s earshot, better led. Was it Napoleon or Montgomery who when choosing a General asked “Is he lucky?” – probably both. Well the luck did seem to go Andrew Strauss’s way at crucial moments but this was not a series win where chance played a disproportionate role. The two Andys, Flower and Strauss, gelled as a team and their bouncebackability was as much cerebral as it was inspirational. And despite the best efforts of the ECB to fire everyone up with phoney chauvinism England’s coach and captain quietly moulded a good team without needing to resort to flag-waving or clarion calls to arms. If Flower and his players were lions led by donkeys they were lions nonetheless and the triumph was all theirs.

The final day at The Oval was full of real imagery on the field of play which will stay hard burnt on the memories of all who saw it. The extraordinary sight of Ricky Ponting, bloody but unbowed, with visible stitches on both lips and with bruises to match was genuinely moving - for Freddie Flintoff to execute a run out of the Aussie Captain was almost a coup de grace. England’s celebrations whilst understandably wild did not ignore their worthy opponents and Strauss paid Ponting and his team a very proper tribute at the end of the match - Ponting was similarly gracious. Over the course of the series the Australian coach Tim Nielsen and his captain made some puzzling calls culminating in the bizarre decision to go into The Oval Test match without Nathan Hauritz. I also think that they were unwise to jettison Philip Hughes so early in the series and well though Shane Watson played he was never likely to be a game changer – which Hughes could well have been.

England overcame injuries to key players, the loss of form of most of their batsmen and a defeat at Headingley which would have taken the stuffing out of most previous England teams to bounce back with determination and style at The Oval. No praise can be too high for Bell, Trott, Swann and Broad who were the major contributors to England’s Oval victory. But it was Strauss who really set it up by his determined batting (130 runs off 292 balls and nearly six hours at the crease) and above all by his leadership. There are two huge challenges remaining for Andrew Strauss – to retain The Ashes in Australia in 2010/11 and then to take England to a Cricket World Cup victory in 2011. Don’t write off his chances of doing both; he’s unlikely to be distracted by IPL dollars remember!

Cut out the jingoism - let's watch the cricket

The England and Wales Cricket Board’s extraordinary capacity for getting in wrong, and for vulgarity, was on view yesterday afternoon and with characteristically crass timing. Stuart Broad had just had the session of his life, Australia were on their knees at 133-8 and the crowd was buzzing. We were all chatting and supping and clapping and cheering – not necessarily in that order - when from nowhere a singer with a microphone appeared at the Vauxhall end. When I say “singer” in fact he was (allegedly) from the Royal Opera House to which grand institution I fervently hope he has now returned. The last thing we need was an attempt to get us to sing along to Land of Hope and Glory – we’d just seen a smidgeon of glory from young Broad anyway and we were well full of hope it goes without saying. The crowd, to their credit, did not hurl fruit at the hapless Tenor but just carried on as if he was not there. Nobody joined in and he slunk away – not his fault of course; some halfwit at the ECB thought that it was a good idea. Hmmm!

This series has been characterised by attempts by the England cricket authorities to hype it up. Draw a veil over Cardiff – although the singer in the silver suit will surely live in infamy as the worst performer ever to appear at Sophia Gardens. But the one sided nature of the official flag waving is improper in the extreme. At the beginning of play we have had a row of kids waving the flag of St George to greet the players – and opposite them another row of kids… waving the flag of St George. And around the ground it is the same, not an Aussie flag in sight. And before play the big screen has shown a grossly over-the-top video designed (one assumes) to fire up the patriotic fervour of the crowd. Message one to the ECB; when it’s The Ashes we don’t need firing up. Message two to the ECB; the more extreme your jingoism the more it might just fire up the other side to stuff you. Especially if they are from Down Under.

Low Key fun at Edgbaston

Driving home after the Twenty20 Finals day at Edgbaston yesterday it occurred to me that, paradoxically, this was the longest day I have ever spent at a cricket match. I write chronologically not metaphorically – the allegorical “longest day” will always be day five at the Adelaide Test in 2006 – an experience regrettably never to be forgotten (or forgiven). But back to Edgbaston. From 11:30am to around 10:00pm there was some entertaining cricket on display – mostly not of the highest class but enjoyable nevertheless. The crown seemed strangely subdued and the attempts to hype the day up with a “Wild West” theme, curious pyrotechnics and the rest fell rather flat. The IPL it was not! But no matter there was much to enjoy – and much food for thought as well.

The enjoyment first. How splendid to see Marcus Trescothick in such wonderful form. In his two innings he scored a total of 89 runs off only 47 balls and he hardly played a false shot. It was interesting to compare Tres with Luke Wright who superficially has some of Trescothick’s talent – he certainly shares Tres’s confidence at the crease. Wright scored 38 runs off 33 balls but his timing and placement was often awry whereas Trescothick’s was sublime. I like Wright – he has an engaging competitive spirit and plenty of talent. But he is no Trescothick – but then who is? There were also good and patient (by Twenty20 standards) innings from Sussex’s Goodwin and Kent’s Stevens in the semi finals the former in a winning and the latter in a losing cause. Kent lost because they crossed the line from thoughtful aggression in the Power Play overs (which would have been good) to reckless violence (which was not). Rob Key set the tone with his supercilious taking of three paces down the wicket to Willoughby - which on one occasion caused the bowler to pull out of a delivery. This was mindless and rather unpleasant stuff from Key who you may recall was being touted by some as a potential England limited overs Captain earlier this year. Not on this showing he isn’t. Also enjoyable was the terrific teamwork of the Sussex side who were worthy winners and the sight of two twenty-one year old English leg-break bowlers, Beer of Sussex and Waller of Somerset. I am glad they got their chances on the big stage of a Twenty20 finals day and they looked very promising indeed – let’s hope they continue to get the opportunities to develop their skills in the big league.

Now the food for thought. On a long day like yesterday there are plenty of gaps in the day in which to play cricket selection games – not least to try and spot players who might help England develop as a competitive international team. Wright we know about and his young Sussex colleague Rory Hamilton-Brown looks a very good cricketer. Kent’s Denly, about whom many speak positively, lasted only three balls but Tredwell bowled tidily – but the young leggies aside there wasn’t much else for the England selectors to get excited about. Not least because 19 of the 44 players (43%) weren’t even English! Here’s one team that I did pick from the four counties:

Van Jaarsveld
De Bruyn
Wessels
Kieswetter (wk)
Kemp
Boje
Hall
Van der Wath
Parnell
Thomas
Willoughby

Not a bad line-up you might think – rather stronger in its bowling than its batting but plenty of all-round talent there – and everyone a South African! Somerset and Northamptonshire led the way with no fewer than six non-England qualified players in their line-ups. Kent had four and Sussex three. It was especially pleasing that Sussex won because not only did they have the least number of mercenaries in their side they also had six young (under 30) England qualified players as well. Well done them.

Where are England's young batsmen ?

Apparently England’s middle order on the evidence of the Headingley debacle ain’t much cop so we need to change it and bring in new batting talent at The Oval. And, it would seem, the cupboard is so bare that we need to consider that excellent “prospect” (c 1990) Mark Ramprakash or the roly-poly promising ex-tyro (c 2001) Rob Key. There is young Trott (a stripling of 28) to throw into the pot and he has the benefit of never having failed at Test cricket – unlike the other two. He hasn’t played Test cricket either – but give him time.

Let’s roll back the years to 1956 – a randomly chosen point in time when the Australians were also around. In that year England’s top order (1-6) included from time to time Peter Richardson, Cowdrey, Graveney, May, Compton, Watson, Sheppard, Washbrook and Trevor Bailey. Not a bad bunch to perm from in the event of injuries – which is what happened. England retained The Ashes reasonably comfortably and all of these batsmen played their part. But what if these batsmen had all suffered a collective touch of the “Boparas” (a bit like the yips in golf but with more sledging). What talent could the England selectors have called upon in extremis? Well there were a few decent batters around in the counties – Brookes, Insole, Wharton, Kenyon, Horton, Mickey Stewart, Parks, Leary, Milton and others – and there were a few promising youngsters at the Universities as well- like MJK Smith, Eagar and Walton at Oxford and Dexter and James at Cambridge. True Washbrook was recalled at the age of 41 which suggests a Ramps-type moment by the selectors (of whom he was one) – but in truth there was no shortage of batting talent all over England in those halcyon days.

So what of the scene in 2009? I have put on my anorak and delved deeply into Wisden and can reveal the state of English batsmanship circa 2008. Please bear with me for some data. 369 players batted in the first-class County Championship last year of whom 96 (26%) were foreigners and not qualified to play for England. A further 94 of the England qualified players were 30 years old or more and most of these had either had their chance or were patently never going to be good enough to get a Test opportunity. This leaves us with 179 players under 30 and England eligble. If we exclude the bowlers and any batsmen who averaged less than 40 in the Championship we are left with the following 22 players who might be considered good enough and young enough to be termed a “prospect”: Clare (Derbyshire), Smith (Durham), Bopara, Foster and Maunders (Essex), Snell (Gloucestershire), Brown (Hampshire), Horton (Lancashire), Cobb (Leicestershire), Morgan and Scott (Middlesex), White, O’Brien and Peters (Northamptonshire), Patel (Nottinghamshire), Trego (Somerset), Newman (Surrey), Prior (Sussex), Bell, Trott and Ambrose (Warwickshire), Moore (Worcestershire) . If we exclude Bopara, Foster, Prior, Bell and Ambrose (who we know about because they have already played Test cricket) that leaves us with just young 17 batsmen who might possibly be potential Test cricketers – less than one per First class county!

The counties differ widely in the extent of their reliance on overseas players in their batting line ups. Top of the list is county champions Durham for whom 54.4% of their runs last year were scored by non-England qualified players. Next are Kent (46%) and Derby (40.2%). The counties which eschewed mercenary batsmen were Worcestershire (just 1.6%), Warwickshire (4.5%) and Glamorgan (5.7%). As far as reliance on the old lags is concerned top of the list were Surrey for whom 57% of their runs were scored by players over 30 like Ramprakash, Butcher and Afzaal. Middlesex also had a bit of a Dad’s Army – more than half their runs were scored by players like Nash, Strauss, Udal, Shah and Joyce all the wrong side of 30.

Of course if you have batsmen in your team who are not going to play for England because of non-qualification or a mixture of age and limited ability they block off places for developing young talent. The Counties which had the highest percentage of their runs scored by English players under 30 were Essex (an admirable 66%), Sussex (60.5%) Hampshire (59.4%) and Glamorgan (55.2%). Those countries who most restricted opportunities for young players either by employing overseas players and/or by sticking with aging professionals were Kent (just 23.1%), Surrey (24.8%) and Somerset (26.1%).

The seventeen players mentioned above are not household names but the circumstantial evidence from 2008 is that they just may be good enough as well as young enough to be considered for England. But the rest of the hundreds of players in the counties, players whose employment is substantially underwritten by grants to the counties from the England and Wales Cricket Board, are either bowlers or if they are batsmen they don’t come into the frame for selection. A very sorry state of affairs indeed!

KP The Biography of Kevin Pietersen - a review

By early summer 2009 Kevin Pietersen has played 52 Test matches in just four years scoring some 4500 runs at an average of around 50. Whilst for KP to cash in with an “autobiography” in 2006 after just a year in the game was premature for there to be a provisional biography now is perhaps not unreasonable. Except that “KP Cricket Genius” is a “cash-in” as well – clearly timed to appear before the 2009 Ashes series and also to attract buyers whilst the KP England captaincy affair is till fresh in the mind. One day, no doubt, someone will write an in-depth and thoughtful analysis of the phenomenon that is Kevin Pietersen. Wayne Veysey’s ill-written, woefully edited, cliché-ridden little book certainly isn’t that. Full of typos, gratuitous factoids, hero-worshipping hyperbole, needless insults and wearying repetitions the book may appeal to the semi-literate KP fan – but cricket enthusiasts looking for real insights into Pietersen will have to wait.

The book could be required reading on a sub-editing training course – as an example of what can happen if editors are slipshod. Sensitive readers will be shaken by the frequent use of the abbreviation “X1” for a cricket eleven instead of “XI”, by the occasional use of the term “cricket player” rather than “cricketer”, by the ignorant assertion that in South Africa all black people were called “coloured” and by countless other inaccuracies and solecisms. To some extent this is a shame because to be fair there are some insights into KP’s character and background and the description of (for example) the struggle between Pietersen and Peter Moores is good. But the insults really should have been edited out. To say that Andrew Flintoff was once “…boozing his hefty Lancashire contract up the walls of Preston’s public houses” is crass and Ian Botham’s lawyers might be interested in Veysey’s allegation that Beefy got “fat and complacent in the second half of his career”.

The best thing in the book is Clive Rice’s thoughtful foreword but Rice’s assertion, that Pietersen “knew full well that in South Africa he wouldn’t be given a chance because of the stupid quota system” is as ignorant as it is offensive. KP would surely have made it in South Africa despite the quotas, just as fellow-whites AB De Villiers, Johan Botha, Albie and Morne Morkel, Roel Van der Merwe, Dale Steyn, Paul Harris and others have recently made it. This key aspect of Pietersen’s life demands more balanced and sensitive treatment than it gets in this pot-boiler.

For England the game is already up at Headingley

Cricket historians might like to suggest when was the last time that the result of any Test match, let alone an Ashes Test match, could be predicted with absolute certainty after the first day. The bookmakers have Australia at 12/1 on and England at 9/1 against and that is about right. With the weather set fair there is no doubt that Australia will win the Headingley Test - I'll go further and say that they will win comfortably within three days. If you have tickets for Monday or Tuesday make other plans now!

Sport is played in the head far more than it is with the ball or the bat or the racquet or the club. From the first ball today (Strauss palpably lbw although not given out) it was clear that the Aussie heads were clear and their minds fully focused. England didn’t really seem as if they wanted to be there at all. They weren't not trying - absolutely not - in some respects they were trying too hard. But the essential connect between tactics, technique, temperament and self-belief was missing. Australia on the other hand had it in spades. They had a plan - bowl line and length and bat with confidence - and they executed it admirably. Ten decent cricketers and one great one combined into a formidable force- only one of the team (Watson) was not involved in at least one England wicket that fell. For England the sum of the parts of eleven decent cricketers managed, not for the first time, to be far less than what their individual talents should have delivered.

And so for England, at Headingley anyway, the game is up. Perhaps the writing was on the wall before the start with all the curfuffle over the fire alarm at their hotel and Prior's injury. With backroom staff to cover every requisite - in numbers that far exceed the number of players - wouldn't it have been ironic if there had been an unfulfilled need for a reserve wicket-keeper? Keepers can get injured just before play begins you know - it happened in the last Test match! But really none of this would have mattered had England's batsmen "relaxed and enjoyed themselves". The clichés always say that no matter how big the occasion sportsmen should "play their natural game" and "go out and express themselves". England looked like they'd been invited to a party where the refreshment was grapefruit juice and there were going to be readings from Proust and music by Birtwistle.

Over much of this Ashes series Australia has played the better cricket. England won well at Lord's, inspired by Flintoff, but Australia was far from humiliated. At Headingley there has been no inspiration at all from an England side who look demoralised and dead in the water. Factor in a motivated and determined Australian team inspiringly led, from the front, by a Ricky Ponting who clearly wanted to answer the drunken, booing rabble in the stands in the best way possible. By performance. Well done Aussie.
　
　
　

How the ECB gave two fingers to their landlords at Lord's Cricket Ground

Rhetoric and reality in the ECB brand

Dabblers in the arcane arts of Brand management know that a brand is not necessarily valued as the owners of the brand like to think that it should be. A brand's value is the sum of the perceptions of all of those that relate to it. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) would like you to think that the pillars of the ECB brand are:

Effective leadership and governance
A vibrant domestic game
Enthusing participation and following especially among young people
Successful England teams

(It's on the ECB website if you don't believe me)

Those of us perceiving their brand more objectively would see the reality:

"Leadership" which gave us the chaos of the England captaincy.
"Governance" which gave us Stanford.
A domestic game which is overblown, unaffordable and of poor quality
"Enthusing participation" which gave us international cricket thrown off free to air TV.
An England team which fails - or at best flatters to deceive.


As we know the ECB is a self-perpetuating oligarchy absolutely impervious to change - other than changes which in some way "benefit" those that vote at its top table meetings - basically the eighteen county chairmen. It is this reality which explains most of the damaging decisions, from Stanford to the Sky TV deal, of recent years. And it is the only explanation why, post Stanford, Giles Clarke and David Collier held on to their jobs despite the clamour from most of the thinking world of England cricket supporters for them to go.

The ECB turns on the MCC

The ECB's decision-making frequently defies logic and is the antithesis of good governance. And just when you thought that it might be safe to go back in the water the shark that is the ECB decides to turn viciously on one of its own - their landlord at Lord's the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). Now the perception of the MCC is like that of the ECB some distance from the reality. MCC is seen as being a fusty institution populated by ageing old buffers and clinging on to the relic that once they were the most powerful force in world cricket by far. The elitism, the long waiting list, the red and yellow ties and (much worse) blazers seem to communicate that the brand of the club is struggling to get into the twentieth century - let alone the twenty-first.

There is some truth in the charge that the MCC is clinging on to its past. The fact that the "Laws of cricket" are still nominally the province of a British private members club is a silly anachronism. Similarly the MCC's pompous claim to be the guardian of the "Spirit of Cricket" is neo-colonial and arrogant - as well as arrant nonsense. The fact that the MCC spends hundreds of thousands of pounds of its members money on its absurd and self-appointed "World Cricket Committee" - a talking shop and dining club for senior ex players like Tony Lewis, Geoff Boycott, Rahul Dravid, Alec Stewart, Steve Waugh and Mike Gatting - is a ludicrous hangover from the days when MCC really did run world cricket. But ignore for a moment all this hubris. What the MCC does supremely well is run the finest cricket ground in the world.

Lord's is Sans Pareil

My visits this year to the Riverside and to Sophia Gardens completed my full set of seeing Test cricket in every ground in England (and now Wales). I have, over the years, also been lucky enough to see England play (and surprisingly often win) in Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and South Africa. I've been to some amazing grounds - the massive MCG, the charming Adelaide, the scary National stadium in Karachi, the delightful Basin Reserve, the deafening Wankhede
in Mumbai and Cape Town's marvellous Newlands amongst them. But it is not national pride that convinces me that, home or away, there is nowhere to touch Lord's. At home Lord's is by far the biggest ground and by far the best equipped with the best drainage and ground care systems. It has the best seating (a lot under cover) the best catering and the best sight lines for spectators. It has a world class museum, an excellent shop - and so on. And architecturally it is beyond criticism - the Media Centre, the Mound Stand and the Grandstand are fine and, in sports stadia, unequalled examples of modern architecture - and the wonderful and well-persevered Victorian pavilion is a gem. And note I haven't even mentioned the heritage and the history.

Over the years I have with pleasure taken guests to Lord's for Test matches - guests from India, New Zealand, Australia and the West Indies all of whom have loved every minute of the experience. The place is full of history - but it is a modern ground par excellence as well. The MCC is rightfully proud of the achievement that is Lord's. But, as ever, the club is not standing still and detailed plans exist to take the capacity up from 29,000 to nearly 40,000 - double the capacity of any other British cricket ground and nearly treble that of some.

The ECB turns on Lord's

Whatever you may feel about the hubris of the MCC nobody can surely deny that Lord's is England's finest venue by far for cricket - nobody, that is, except the apparatchiks of the ECB who clearly don't believe this - or if they do have other agendas to pursue. In 2012 Lord's has no Test match for the first time in living memory. In 2013 there is a Test match against New Zealand in the run up to The Ashes but (would you believe it?) no Ashes Test match at Lord's (the Queen will have to go to Durham). And so it goes on. Whilst The Oval is guaranteed a Test match every year for the foreseeable future no such guarantee exists for Lord's. This means that the MCC's development plans for the ground will have to be put on hold - any chance that we might get a ground in England offering Australian style ground spectator capacity (perhaps at low Australian level ticket prices) is effectively abandoned. True MCC might still get a Test match in 2012 and an Ashes match in 2013 - but only if they put together a sufficiently attractive financial bid. The "home of cricket" may get egg all over its face if other grounds, maybe backed as Cardiff was in 2009 by funny money from some local government slush fund or by the immense personal wealth of a high roller like Rod Bransgrove at Hampshire who would love to bankroll an Ashes match at the Rose Bowl - and to hell with Lord's.

Why?

In trying to understand the ECB we always have to ask the question Why? - and the answer is usually the same. Because the County Chairmen perceive that a particular course of action is in their interests. Vote for Giles Clarke - done! Vote to reject a sensible proposal for a nine-team franchise Twenty20 tournament in favour of the inane eighteen county status quo - done! And so on. So the ECB's facile commitment to take Test cricket around Britain will get the nod - even if it means we have Test matches at Cardiff rather than Trent Bridge and now Durham rather than Lord's. Logical - of course not. Corrupt - I couldn't possibly comment, but you may think so!

Freddie writes his own scripts !

Never mind the smart analyses. Never mind the psychobabble. Never mind the medical theories and the insider stories. Freddie writes his own scripts and the Flintoff clan, massed in numbers throughout the Lord’s Test, seemed not surprised at the heroics. And nor really were the crowd for whom he is way beyond folk hero status. The timing of his announcement about this being his last Test series just before the second Test match seemed a bit crass and a diversion from the real business at hand. I wasn’t the only commentator to think that perhaps Fred might have waited until the end of the Ashes. But little did we all know that in the honest and straightforward world of Andrew Flintoff once he has made up his mind about something he wants to tell us all about it. And little did we also know that far from being a distraction this would be the motivator that drove Fred on – and which was one of the key factors in England’s splendid Test win.

Fred’s 5 wicket haul finally shut the door on a tenuous Aussie fightback – and it got his name on the bowling honours board at Lord’s for the first time as well. And the only time that I saw Ricky Ponting smile today was when he went over to Freddie and shook him warmly by the hand after the presentation ceremony. Andre Flintoff is not the greatest batsman of his era nor the finest bowler. But his happy knack of playing the vital innings or taking the vital wicket, combined with his unaffected charm and his lack of pretension have made him, if fit, the first name on the teamsheet through most of his career. We have three more opportunities, we must hope, to see Fred in England’s Test match colours – don’t bet against him playing a pivotal role for the rest of the summer aching and sore though he may be for much of the time. Nobody puts bums on seats like Andrew Flintoff – and no-one is more deserving of our thanks both for his achievements and for his unique and utterly beguiling style.

The ECB has killed their Golden Goose

When Michael Vaughan resigned as England’s Test Captain, and simultaneously Paul Collingwood stood down as limited overs captain, Kevin Pietersen was the obvious if courageous choice to replace them both. He was by some distance England’s best batsman and commentators close to the game all agreed that he was a thoughtful cricketer with a good tactical brain. The skunk-haired tyro had gone and KP’s personal life had settled down with his marriage to the sensible and supportive Jessica Taylor. That is was a choice that required courage came not from the risk that Pietersen would not be worth his place in the team, nor that he lacked tactical awareness, although his captaincy experience was minimal and he would clearly have to learn on the job some aspects of the role. The risk of Pietersen’s appointment was the mirror image of its potential potency – KP is utterly unlike anyone who has ever been an England cricket captain in the past. His fellow South African Tony Greig had a similar southern hemisphere approach which was the reverse of the Cowdrey/May tradition – although his style was not dissimilar to that of Hutton or Illingworth. But Greig grew up in a Cape Province and his father was Scottish – this was the world of English speaking white South Africa and although the culture was obviously different to that of the old country those differences were not huge. Kevin Pietersen, on the other hand, grew up in Pietermaritzburg which was in the heart of Voortrekker country – and that is very different indeed.

To those who may be unfamiliar with white South Africa the differences between those of British Isles origins and those who are Afrikaners are enormous. Language and religion – those most decisive of differentiators are different and so are attitudes to life in general. It is no exaggeration to say that someone like Tony Greig would have far more in common with the British than he would with his Afrikaner fellow South Africans. And Kevin Pietersen, his English mother notwithstanding, grew up in a solidly Afrikaner environment. His strong father seems an archetypical Afrikaner and the values that he instilled in the young Kevin must have been much more South African Dutch than they were South African English. Far more Hansie Cronje than Graeme Smith.

When the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) appointed Pietersen as captain they could not have been unaware that his personality and style were completely un-English. True KP had proclaimed his allegiance to England and had an England cricket tattoo on his arm. But one of the reasons that he had already sharply divided opinion among the cricketing chattering classes was that inbred into him was an “in-your-face” competitive style which came in no small measure from his Pietermaritzburg upbringing. This is seen as arrogance and a bit show-poneyish by those for whom Peter May or Colin Cowdrey were the epitomy of how a cricketer should behave. But those on the other side of the argument argued that this was exactly what England cricket needed. In the same way that England only won an Ashes series when they appointed a Southern African coach if we were to do this again, and maybe even win a Limited Overs tournament as well, we need the shock to the system that Kevin Pietersen would bring.

So the ECB took courage in their hands and appointed the very foreign Kevin Pietersen as England’s captain. Results came in immediately with a Test match win and a One Day series victory against South Africa. KP also handled the communications duties of an England captain with aplomb and he looked to be an inspiring captain on the field as well. His body-language was excellent and the England players were clearly responding to the KP enthusiasm. The tour to India was more difficult on the field but Pietersen did well in the hugely different circumstances post the Mumbai attacks. But KP wanted to be in charge, which is what he was taught as a child - there can be only one leader in a team. The trouble was that the England coach Peter Moores thought that he was in charge as well and he was not only a hands-on manager but he had a personal style that was anathema to Pietersen. Moores had been comfortable in the supremely English and rather deferential world of Sussex and this, combined with a pride and bloody-mindedness which came perhaps from his North-country upbringing was a recipe for conflict with Pietersen. The ECB had to choose whether to back their captain or to back their coach – and in the end they backed neither! KP was sacked and Moores dismissed as well.

From the moment that Kevin Pietersen lost the job as England captain he has seemed a totally different person – hardly surprisingly, nobody likes being humiliated. True his natural talent has seen some decent performances but he is indisputably not the same man he was. The smiles, when they come, look forced and in the interviews what were once self-confident statements of intent now sound like parroted platitudes. And at Cardiff we saw a side of Pietersen that suggests that the ECB have more than just the loss of an original and potentially inspiring captain to answer for. KP’s first innings showed that he still has the ability to play a long and careful innings if the circumstances require it – 69 runs off 141 balls is snail-like but it was appropriate, up to the point when he got himself out. Petersen’s shot against Hauritz was not a misjudgment – all batsmen do this from time to time. It was a predetermined unorthodox swipe at an innocuous wide ball that would have been out-of-place on a school playground let alone in a Test match.

It would take a combination of Freud, Jung and Brearley to even begin to understand what is presently going on in Kevin Pietersen’s mind. His second innings dismissal was bizarre not because of the foolishness of the shot, as in the first innings, but because KP usually knows well where his stumps are. Leaving a ball, which then bowls you happens of course but rarely to someone of Pietersen’s natural cricketing talents. Was it fear that led him to leave a ball he could easily have blocked? Who knows – but what is clear is that England’s best batsman has lost the plot and that his mind and his emotions are in turmoil. And the cause of this malaise is clear as well. In the world of competitive sport in which young Kevin grew up you have to win and you have to take personal responsibility for your actions. If you make mistakes you learn from them. Draw a line and start again. That Pietersen made a mistake in his feud with Peter Moores and in the near ultimatum that he gave his employers at the ECB is true. But the ECB, and especially Hugh Morris the ECB’s “Managing Director”, should have been far more understanding and considerate and should have reflected that the change in England’s cricket fortunes that they wanted from the Pietersen appointment would not come if they summarily dismissed him. If they had wanted the May/Cowdrey style of Andrew Strauss the ECB had a couple of earlier occasions when they could have appointed him but they chose the very different Andrew Flintoff and then Kevin Pietersen instead. Strauss’s captaincy at Cardiff has been uninspiring and has been a contributor to England’s downfall. Would things have been different if Kevin Pietersen had still been in charge - I have not the slightest doubt that they would. Not only would Pietersen’s leadership style have been likely to make the Aussies think more that the rather diffident and apologetic Strauss. But KP would have led from the front and by example. If he had been captain it is inconceivable that he would have played the shots that led to his dismissal in both innings.

So the ECB have not only denied themselves the chance of having a competitive Ashes series with Pietersen and Ponting standing foursquare up to each other at every match. They have also turned off and discomforted their best batsman and it is by no means impossible that we have already seen the best of Kevin Pietersen and that instead of being the force that leads England to real international success he becomes little more than a long footnote in modern English cricket history. And if that happens the suits in the ECB offices at Lord’s should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Five counties down, thirteen to go for Marcus North

“Look mate, you have to be patient if you want to wear the Baggy Green” says Marcus North* when asked how it feels to make an Ashes debut at the age of nearly 30. North impressed with his solid innings of 54* yesterday in a partnership with Michael Clarke which finally killed any remote chnace that England might have had to force a win the first Test match at Cardiff. Asked whether his County experience had helped him North was clear: “Look, my time at Durham in 2004 definitely taught me how to bat on English pitches like this one at Cardiff, then my move to Lancashire in 2005 helped me develop further. Obviously also my spell at Derbyshire in 2006 was very valuable. In 2007 I moved to Gloucestershire and put some firm roots down and played almost a full season for them in 2008. I am also grateful to Hampshire for letting me play for them this year in preparation for the Ashes”.

Asked what he thought of the English county system North was very enthusiastic “It’s bonza mate. Most of us are at a bit of a loose end during the Aussie winter which is our “off-season”. Professionals need to hone their skills and you only have to pick up the phone to one of the counties and offer your services and they jump at the chnace. Mike Hussey showed me the way. He played for Northants, Gloucester and Durham before he played for Oz and reckons that without this experience he might never have got the call-up. Obviously the standard isn’t that high and the games can be a bit of a bore but it’s quite tough now that there are so many South Africans at the counties. I suggested to young Hughesie that he give it a go at Middlesex before The Ashes got underway and they were only to pleased to help. Watch Hughesie go next week on familiar ground at Lord’s!”

* Marcus North's words were crafted for him by Paddy Briggs

Never mind the cricket - try the Chardonnay

The self-congratulatory air in and around Sophia Gardens this week, from Simon Jones to Max Boyce and every Taff in-between, has been stomach churning. Add in the truly ghastly singing by all the male singers who couldn’t be prised away from the microphone (Katherine Jenkins was wonderful though) and you have an event of cloying sentimentality to remind us English why we only under duress cross Offa’s Dyke. That Glamorgan has a cricket tradition I happily acknowledge and that from time to time they have delivered quality players for England (even an England Captain) I thank them for as well. But in truth this tradition gives them no more right to host an Ashes Test match than Gloucestershire or Leicestershire or Sussex or Kent or any of the other counties which play at small country grounds. Quite what the economics of the Welsh Development Agency’s decision to subvent the redevelopment of Glamorgan’s ground are will no doubt remain opaque. In Cardiff this week in the media there was plenty of unaudited bombast about how much money one Ashes Test was bringing to the City. Unaudited and unchallengeable like most of these things it will no doubt become an urban myth that the millions spent on the SWALEC stadium will be covered by all the English and Aussie fans that descended on the city and tried to drink it dry. The Glamorgan board is congratulating themselves about how little the SWALEC cost compared with other grounds – maybe so but surely they could have spent these millions more elegantly; this is a modern ground utterly devoid of any architectural merit. The Pavilion looks like a 1960s secondary modern school.

At the ground my impression was that by far the majority nationality was English and that the Aussies outnumbered the Welsh comfortably. Plastic daffodils and leaks were not much in evidence but there were plenty of Kangaroos. Now this may all sound churlish and bigoted and I apologise for that. But whilst it is true that the organisers have put on a decent show (the flat wicket aside) so they should have – that is a necessary condition of hosting a Test match anywhere. Had this Test been at Trent Bridge or Old Trafford (with their historically far superior claims and their bigger grounds) then of course we know for sure that they would be well organised – they’ve done it for a hundred years or more. And had it been at Durham with their bigger ground and far stronger claim (they have after all already successfully hosted Tests) then few would have complained. There was even a strong argument that the Rosebowl was well ahead of Cardiff in the queue to host a Test. The process by which Cardiff was selected to host an Ashes Test ought to be thoroughly investigated – not by the complicit members of the England and Wales Cricket Board and all their past and present Morgans and Morrises but by an independent body concerned about the way public money is spent. But I doubt that it will happen.

Underpinning the finances of Cardiff’s Test match adventure, aside from public money, was the determined pursuit of commercial sponsorship and of corporate hospitality in particular. That’s the modern world of sporting profit and loss - offensive though it might be for ordinary fans to see hundreds of guests at events who are there to be entertained not by happenings on the field of play but by the food and drink in the corporate lounges. At Cardiff these free-loaders have been given the best seats in the “Really Welsh” (sic) Pavilion and when one of the best passages of play was underway after lunch on the second day, with Freddie Flintoff challenging young Philip Hughes, these seats were virtually empty (see photograph). So were the rows of the pavilion occupied by cricket fans eagerly anticipating the Ashes Test match? Or were they there for the food and the wine and only eventually returned to their seats to sleep off their lunches. You decide!

The Ponting and Katich masterclass

NOTES FROM AN ASHES SUMMER (5)


I hope that Kevin Pietersen and the rest of the England top order were watching intently as events unfolded at Cardiff yesterday. Not just at the Ponting and Katich batting masterclass during the last two sessions of the day but also the splendid attack launched by the England lower order in the morning. In their vastly different ways Broad, Anderson and Swann (for England) and Ricky Ponting and Simon Katich (for Australia) showed how to bat on a pudding of a pitch. There are two approaches and international batsmen of quality should be able to follow either. If the wicket is benign and the attack no better than adequate then depending on the state of the match you either get your head down, use your technique and experience and quietly graft your way without taking any risks to a decent score. If, however, you want to dominate the bowling and the state of the match requires that you do this then you can become more adventurous and try and take the attack apart.

On Wednesday afternoon with England 97-3 at lunch Pietersen and Collingwood needed to restore their side’s position so grafting was necessary. They did this well, survived the next session and took England to 192-3 at tea. A few overs later Colly lost his concentration when on 64, and with an Ashes hundred for the taking, he edged a catch to Haddin off an innocuous ball from Hilfenhaus (228-4). Then with the score at 240 Kevin Pietersen played the most gormless shot I have ever seen in cricket at any level to put England back in trouble. All the good work of the afternoon session was undone in two shots – one ill-advised and the other just plain brainless. Back in 1965 the great Ken Barrington was dropped from the England side for taking seven and a half hours to make 137 against New Zealand. And a year later Geoffrey Boycott suffered the same fate for his exceptionally slow batting against India. Pietersen’s wilful, self-centred and grotesque dismissal at Cardiff was surely just as culpable as Barrington and Boycott’s tardiness. Will the England selectors of 2009 have the courage to follow the lead of their predecessors of forty years ago? They certainly should.

Back to the masterclass. Ponting and Katich soon realised that the much hyped slow turner apparently due to appear at Sofia Gardens was either a myth or was a long time a-coming. England were bowling OK but nothing was helping the swing or pace of Flintoff, Anderson or Broad and there was nothing in the pitch for Panesar or Swann either. If they kept their heads they could put Australia into a decent position by the close, and knock on to biggish personal scores as well. Where Colly and KP had blown it from a similar position Punter and Kat clearly weren’t going to do the same. Today if the weather holds and there is no sudden deterioration in the pitch there is no reason at all why Australia can’t push on entertainingly and have a lead of perhaps 150 by the close – and they can win the match from there.

This Cardiff pitch is not fit for competitive Test cricket – at least on the evidence so far. It seems that fears that the pitch would break up and Glamorgan would be shamed by a three day Test (or less) lead not only to the sacking of a groundsman but to a gross over-compensation by his successor. You could play a Durban 1938 length Test match on this pitch and not get a result. Just like in Adelaide in 2006 when after four days the curator was lambasted by all and sundry for the run-rich and bowler unfriendly pitch he delivered in the second Test of the 2006-7 Ashes series. Well we all remember what happened on that fifth day – the pitch didn’t crack up but England did! And don’t write off the possibility of the same happening at Cardiff 2009. This Test match is far from over!

The 2009 Ashes begin at last!

Mock ye not! Certainly I won’t be laughing at Glenn McGrath for his 5-0 (to Oz of course) Ashes whitewash prediction – not with my record as a Nostradamus anyway. Only a few weeks ago I predicted confidently that The British Isles Rugby team (aka The Lions) would be beaten by at least 20 points in each of the Test against the Springboks. The final points tally over the three Tests was Boks 63 Lions 74 by the way in case anyone forgets to tally it up. And how wonderfully well the Lions played from that moment in the first Test when they looked down and out at 7-26 early in the second half. Moral victors in the series? Well not quite – South Africa perhaps just about deserved to win but The Lions did all of the inhabitants of our little group of British islands proud didn’t they?

And so to Cardiff. Well I’ve vented my spleen enough about the iniquity of the choice of venue for the first Ashes Test – so now I’ll just head for the M4 and hope for the best. Having discovered laverbread on my last visit to the Principality I’m looking forward to breakfasting again on this mouth-watering dish. At the opening ceremony we are apparently going to hear “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” along with “Advance Australia Fair” with the British National Anthem with its reference to Her Maj (Head of State in both participant counties in The Ashes contest) not featuring. I wonder if this is the first sporting occasion when not one member of the home team could understand a word of the “home” anthem – let alone sing it.

Rumours abound about the Cardiff wicket and whether there is a cunning plot underway for Panesar and Swann to roll the Aussie over with their twiddlers. Decent bowlers both but I really do doubt that they strike fear into the hearts of our friends from down under. There will be one or two young Australian batsmen appearing in an Ashes Test for the first time – as a certain Don Bradman did 79 years ago at Trent Bridge. Wisden wrote of the young Don that summer that he was “A glorious driver, he hit the ball very hard, whilst his placing was almost invariably perfect. He scored most of his runs by driving, but he could cut, hook, or turn the ball to leg with almost the same certainty.” Bradman was 21 years old that summer – about the same age as the tyro Philip Hughes this year. I’ll try and put the mockers on Hughes by making the comparison with the Don but it really does seem that he has the same range of shots as his illustrious predecessor. Has he the nerve as well? We shall see.

It is customary to say that bowlers win matches and so it is on the bowling attacks that many commentators are concentrating in there pre-Ashes pieces. I’ll do the opposite and suggest that the key players, other than Hughes, will be the indisputably great Ricky Ponting, the reliable and solid Hussey, the now in-form North and the almost Gilchrist- like Haddin who could be the reason that Australia will have the edge. Mind you if Strauss, Bopara and Pietersen all strike form on the same day – backed up by Cook and Colly and the rest England might post the occasional formidable total themselves. I also have strange gut feel that Ian Bell is going to feature some time during the series and that he will do well – but that as near as I’ll get to a prediction.

Well “Iachydd Dda” to you all – let’s hope for some fine cricket this week!

Lions led by money men....

I’ll be watching the telecast from Durban on Saturday – of course I will you can’t break the habit of a lifetime. But I find the whole bonanza of a modern Lions tour grotesquely overblown and rather vulgar.

I reckon that I was at the very last Lions international that really mattered – at Ellis Park back in 1997. In those days the Lions were still called the “British Lions” of course – the correct colloquialism for what was, and always had been, the “British Isles” rugby team. And in those days rugby was still (mostly) an amateur sport. The excitement came from the fact that top class rugby would be played by two teams most of whose players played only for the love of the game. And the team had still its traditional name without anybody, least of all the Irish players, really caring that some ignoramus might think that the “British” in the “British Lions” referred to a country rather than to geography. But now so as not to upset a few dim-witted Irish nationalists we have to use the ghastly solecism “British and Irish Lions”. What nonsense.

The Lions famously won that tour in 1997, but they haven’t won since (one lone Test in Australia aside) and the last tour to New Zealand was an embarrassment. But whilst the tours have become more and more one-sided the hype and the commercialisation has escalated. The replica Lions shirt in the RFU shop costs £99.99 - a mark-up, I suspect, of perhaps £95 over the production costs. And the advertisement from Thomas Cook offered tours starting from £1999 to see one "Test" and £2499 to see two. And that pretty much sums up the rationale for this year's commercial bonanza in South Africa.

The Lions in 2005 were not humiliated by the All Blacks because of the deficiencies of Alastair Campbell nor by the mistakes of Clive Woodward. They were beaten because a southern hemisphere side will never again be beaten by a rag, tag and bobtail assemblage of British Isles players, however individually talented these players may be.

The South Africans are full time professionals both individually and as a unit. The hastily assembled Lions cannot possibly be expected to gel together as efficiently and skilfully as the Springboks – they will be lucky to avoid defeat by less than twenty points in any of their matches against the Boks.

In the days of amateur international rugby there was a logic and, yes, a romance about the Lions that led to some heroic achievements. But in the professional era a side which plays together continuously for a year or more, as the South Africans will have done, will have a huge edge over a mishmash of players who cannot possibly be as familiar with one another as their opponents will be.

The only justification for the continued existence of the Lions is the commercial bonanza that a Lions tour creates. For me that is insufficient reason for the tour to go ahead - and certainly there is no case at all for international caps to continue to be awarded for these one-sided and irrelevant matches.

John Shepherd - The Loyal Cavalier

John Shepherd – The Loyal Cavalier
by
Paddy Briggs

Published by ACS Publications

John Shepherd was a leading allrounder in first-class cricket in England in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a loyal servant of Kent for seventeen seasons and of Gloucestershire, as player and coach, for seven more. 'Shep' was born in Barbados where his natural talent was spotted and nurtured by Everton Weekes, one of the 'three Ws'. He was brought to England by Kent in 1965 and his successful adaptation to county cricket led to awards as the leading allrounder in English cricket in 1968, Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1979, and to recognition in five Tests for the West Indies.

Paddy Briggs brings a journalist's eye to Shep's early years in the Caribbean, his brief Test career, his controversial involvement in tours to Southern Africa in the apartheid era, his clumsy sacking by Kent in 1981 and his late‑flowering achievements with Gloucestershire in the 1980s. In a thoughtful and challenging “Introduction” Paddy also unravels some of the complex influences on cricket in Shep’s years in the game and draws some telling contrasts with cricket today. Throughout his career Shep was the most loyal of players and colleagues: his gloriously cavalier batting made him a special favourite with fans. His loyalty and effort are well‑described in a candid telling of his story.



The book was successfully launched on a gloriously sunny day at Tunbridge Wells this week. The popular Shep drew a long line of well-wishers (and book buyers!) to the marquee of the Kent Supporters Club.

Signed copies of "John Shepherd - The Loyal Cavalier" are avaialable @ £12 post free from the author, Paddy Briggs, at 40, Broom Park, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 9RS. Cheques made out to P.S.Briggs please

Fine catch by one of the MCC faithful...

The modest celebrations of the MCC member who took a fine catch in the Pavilion at Lord's on 9th June 2009. Your correspondent is extreme left standing to applaud (and relieved that the ball didn't come to him)!

Hats off to Lord’s, thumbs down to England

NOTES FROM AN ASHES SUMMER (3)

Hats off to Lord’s, thumbs down to England


The orange Dutch hats were thrown high in the air last night to cap a famous and fully deserved victory for the team from The Netherlands against hosts England in the opening match in this year’s ICC World Twenty20. We were denied the pleasures of hearing and seeing Alesha Dixon perform as the opening ceremony was cancelled for “Health and Safety” reasons (quite what these reasons were we weren’t told). For a moment I did wonder if a hastily arranged song from a new “Three Tenors” group had been substituted, but no - it was only ICC President David Morgan, ECB Supremo Giles Clarke and the Duke of Kent who were on the makeshift días in front of the Pavilion. Morgan and The Duke made speeches of predictable banality (we were spared Clarke) – and then, at last, the stage was set for the real business of the day. That we saw play at all we must thank the MCC who have installed permanent floodlights at the home of cricket that not only look elegant but work superbly -they weren’t supposed to be used yesterday but the skies were leaden and without them I suspect we wouldn’t have had a full match. Similarly the modern Lord’s drainage system is so good that within minutes of the rain ceasing the ground was fit for play – a stark contrast with Headingley a couple of weeks ago.

At the end of the eleventh over England was 100-0 with Bopara and Wright coasting along nicely. A score of approaching 200 seemed in prospect but the Dutch were not wilting and stuck to their task to good effect. The final nine overs delivered only 62 runs with just four boundaries - and there was not one six in the whole innings. Shah, Morgan and Collingwood were out to particularly inept shots and with all due respect to his talents Rob Key was not the figure you might hope to see coming to the wicket when you are 144-4 with 22 balls to go. He duly failed to hit a boundary off any of the eight balls he received. Note for Morgan: if you are going to decide before the ball is bowled that you will play a reverse sweep do check that there isn’t a fielder standing in the way! Surely given the good start a team of (mostly) experienced professional cricketers should have been able to put the game out of reach of a Dutch side many of whom play only for the love of the game. The killer instinct was missing, as was the injured Kevin Pietersen, and England’s total was respectable when it should have been unreachable.

That the Dutch won was mostly, I think, attributable to their greater will-to-win and self belief. The batted with enterprise and skill attacking the bad balls and hitting four towering sixes in their innings (one of which might have woken up a few people in the MCC President’s box). By the time it dawned on England that they really good lose the match it was almost too late – the Dutch paced their chase wonderfully well. In the end there was a nail-biting final over and there could have been any one of three results off the final ball. But the Dutch deserved their win and England added a new item to their list of disappointments in international limited overs cricket by losing to a “minnow” for the first time. The Dutch have an expression “Goed is wel, maar beter wint” which in a sporting context roughly means “It’s alright to play well, but you need to play better than that to win” – a lesson England could certainly learn.

A typically English farce at Hove

Back in 1956 John Osborne wrote a play, The Entertainer, which captured brilliantly the muddle and complacency of Englishness. The story of an aging Music Hall artist, Archie Rice, in a third-rate and crumbling theatre, was a metaphor for what many felt to be an England with an anachronistic leader (Eden) presiding over a country which was once famously described by an American Secretary of State as a nation which had “lost an empire and failed to find a role.”

It may be rather fanciful to describe last night’s Twenty20 match at Hove as a metaphor for anything but at the end of the farcical proceedings I couldn’t help feeling that there was something utterly English, and particularly something which typified the state of English cricket, about the proceedings. For those who missed it the match was between Sussex and Kent and it took place on the home county’s rather ugly little ground at Hove. The ground appeared to be perhaps half full – maybe a little more – a disappointing crowd for what should have been a money-spinner between local rivals. It was a day/night match starting at a time which would allow spectators to come from work and it was also televised live by Sky. It was pretty lacklustre stuff from the start with only a small amount of excitement generated in Sussex’s uninspiring innings of 131-3 with only thirteen boundaries. The star performer was the West Indian Dwayne Smith who scored a decent 69 not out off 59 balls but the Kent bowling looked far from threatening and Sussex really should have scored more and taken more chances with plenty of wickets in hand. As the dull Sussex innings proceeded it became clear that there was a problem with the lights – only two of the four floodlight masts appeared to be working. The culpability of the Sussex County Club was clear, although they will no doubt pass the blame to others. But the facts speak for themselves – they failed to provide proper floodlighting for a high-ish profile and televised day/night match!

But whilst Sussex’s administrators should this morning be wriggling with guilt those in charge of the cricket proceedings on the day, on and off the filed, should feel embarrassed as well. No decision was made about an agreed limit to Kent’s innings (it was clear that they would not get 20 overs in). So the Kent batsmen knew only that if they batted for five overs there would be a match but that how long the match would last was, literally, in the lap of the Gods – and of the umpires. Everything was stacked in Kent’s favour. With the end of the match fast approaching all they needed to do was attack the bowling so that they were well ahead on the Duckworth/Lewis rule whenever the match ended. The loss of a couple of wickets wouldn’t have mattered too much if they could pile up the runs quickly. Instead the two openers Denly and Stevens plodded along at less than six runs an over and with only eight boundaries in the eleven overs they were at the crease before the light became too bad and the umpires called the players off. Unbelievably Kent managed actually to be a couple of runs behind the D/L par score when this happened so despite not having lost any wickets they lost the match! It was tactically inept, spineless batting which defied comprehension.

And so this absurd and derisory spectacle came to an end with the home side winning a match that they should have lost and the visitors being denied points by their own ignorance and incompetence. The Sussex administrators, the umpires and many of the players seemed confused by the proceedings which were a parody of competitive sport and about as far removed from the excitement of the Indian Premier League as it is possible to get. And the metaphor? Well nobody took charge, the spectators were kept in the dark (quite literally, some of them), the match descended from one which was dull and unambitious into a farce. All very English you might think in these cheerless old times. Oh Dear!

OCCASIONAL NOTES ON AN ASHES SUMMER (1)

The 2009 “Ashes” summer opened for me with a most unexpected early skirmish. Mrs B and I were en route to the launch party for Peter “Test Match Special” Baxter’s charming new book of reminiscences “Inside the Box”. We were trying to find the hidden entrance to the Lord’s adjacent Danubius hotel when I was aware that someone else was similarly lost and confused. “Are you looking for the Baxter bash?” I said cordially to the chap. “Yes. Round the corner I think” he replied “I’m Adam Mountford by the way”. Mountford (pictured), as TMS fans will be aware, took over as Producer of the programme from Baxter in 2008. Now in my occasional scribblings about the great cricket institution that is Test Match Special I have, I admit, been less than polite about the direction in which it has sailed under Mountford’s tyro stewardship. But, as far as I can recall, I have never directly abused or insulted said Adam in any way. So imagine my surprise when after I had introduced myself Mountford took a deep breath and launched into an unprovoked verbal assault on me and my scribblings as we continued to navigate our way towards the hotel entrance. The essence of Mountford’s accusations was that I should be more sensitive to the feelings of those that I write about – presumably starting with him!

Thoughts along the lines of Harry Truman’s “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” spring to mind for although I am still learning my craft as a sports writer one thing that I have learned is that it is a pretty rough profession at times. Michael Henderson referred to Radio 5 Live in a recent article in The Guardian as “Radio Halfwit” and described comments on a Test match by one of that channel’s presenters as being of “…mind-boggling stupidity from the kind of folk who gave the station its reputation.” Now Mr Mountford hails from Radio 5 and is overseeing the integration of TMS into Radio 5’s style – a process regarded by Peter Baxter and most of the traditional TMS team with horror. As Baxter says in his book TMS is popular “…precisely because it did not sound like the Rest of Radio 5”.One of the TMS veterans told me at the book launch that Mountford is only doing what his masters have told him to do - although this has led to accusations that the programme is dumbing down. Few TMS aficionados welcome this process and you can be quite sure that the old TMS team are appalled by any suggestion that TMS needs to move down market - I have heard Henry Blofeld close to apoplexy at the thought as you can imagine.

My criticisms of the Mountford approach to Test Match Special are far from a lone voice in the wilderness so quite why he harangued me so strongly I’m not sure. I told him in response that many of us feel that he is in danger of ****ing up TMS and that that would be a disgrace. We then parted rather roughly and steered clear of one another for the rest of the evening. When I told one TMS stalwart what had happened he suggested that Adam Mountford was not over-burdened with social skills. Hmmm!

If I have never wittingly personalised an attack on Mountford the same perhaps might not be true of all my writings on the ECB Chairman Giles Clarke – a bête noire of many (all?) of us who really care about England cricket. Clarke was also at the Baxter book event and perhaps emboldened by a glass or two of Veuve Clicquot I introduced myself to him - “I’m afraid I have been rather rude about you in my writings” I said to him by way of introduction. “That’s alright”, he said, with what I think was a smile – he was perfectly affable to me. Clarke has a reputation for not always being the most charming man in the room but he treated me perfectly courteously and whilst I cannot claim that he is my new best friend I think that, as Blowers might say, I have more chance (albeit slim) of being on his Christmas Card list then I do of being on the prickly Mr Mountford’s!

Seeds of revolution sown in the Long Room

The remarkable success of William Buckland’s iconoclastic book “Pommies” in reaching the short list of four in the Cricket Society/MCC “Book of the Year” Award 2009 will have surprised some of the more traditional members of the two venerable sponsoring institutions. If they are inspired by Buckland’s success actually to read the book they will find that it is a devastating, well-researched and cogently argued assault on England cricket’s decades of failure. Central to Buckland’s argument is the comparison he makes with cricket in Australia – in every single area of cricket performance and governance England’s approach and structure lags far behind what have for years been the successful norms down under.

For Buckland’s book to reach the short list was a triumph for those who have argued for years that just tinkering with England’s archaic cricket structure will not work. A revolution is needed, and Buckland provides the rationale and the reasoning to support the case for a radical insurgency of action – and as a result that may now be at last be about to happen. Chief amongst the author’s contentions is that the traditional county structure of eighteen County Clubs is unsustainable. He advocates that there should be only five “second tier” teams (International cricket is the first-tier) based on five English and Welsh regions. The current county structure would be abandoned entirely in the interests of creating genuinely competitive second-tier cricket and of ensuring that the huge revenues of the ECB are spent far more effectively than at present.

Although “Pommies” did not win the award at the presentation ceremony in the Long Room at Lord’s on Monday 27th April (that went to the rather more traditional book of reminiscences by Cricket Society President John Barclay “Life beyond the Airing Cupboard”) the book is now very firmly launched as a major contribution about the future of cricket in England. The MC of the event was Christopher Martin-Jenkins – one of county cricket’s most vocal and passionate supporters. In his speech CMJ spent as much time on “Pommies” as he did on the other three shortlisted contenders put together and even he had to admit that “perhaps” the case for fewer first-class counties has its merits. There may be room for give and take somewhere between the extremes of Buckland’s revolution and CMJ’s hints of more gentle and measured approach. But William Buckland is unlikely himself to be too keen on compromise. For, as he so emphatically puts it at the end of his book:

“Despite the example and the lessons [of Australia] we [in England] remain clinging to the flotsam of the past like deluded children. That’s why they call us Pommies”

Twenty20 – The Future?

If it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it? True of course but has the success of Twenty20 in its present form clouded thoughts as to whether the construct as we now have it is the best that we could have? These thoughts have been promoted by watching the Melrose Sevens in Scotland and considering why Sevens Rugby is such a success – without it in any way damaging the value of the “real” rugby game (80 minutes and 15-a-side). The answer in respect of Rugby Sevens is that it is an abbreviated form of the game in every way. It lasts 14 or in some case 20 minutes rather than 80. It has seven-a-side rather than fifteen. It eliminates things like line-outs which could slow up the action. In short it is a close cousin of fifteen-a-side rugby without the pretence that it is just a sidestepping variant of the big game. It’s a sport in its own right.

Consider the Rugby precedent for cricket. The parallels are clear. Twenty20 has 40 overs rather than 100 in traditional limited overs matches. It lasts a few hours rather than a day (or more). And yet it is still an eleven-a-side game. Why? With eleven batsmen available in just twenty overs wickets are somewhat devalued. Even if you are 30-4 after five overs you still have six batsmen available to help you out of the mire. Slog your way into trouble and you can finesse your way out of it. But what if wickets were given more value – the bowlers, currently seen as being economy rather than wicket-taking operatives, would surely come back into their own?

So why not make Twnety20 6-a-side rather than eleven? Suddenly the game changes and ironically it changes back in the direction of traditional cricket (with its battle between bat and ball) rather than further away from it. With six-a-side batsmen might thrash and slog a wee bit less because their wickets would be rather more valued. And if you legislated that of the fielding side all five players (i.e. other than the wicketkeeper) would bowl four overs each what fun that would be! The Captains would have to decide when to bowl their star batters who don’t normally bowl at all – and the batsmen would have to “go for” these bowlers in order to take advantage of their more limited bowling skills.

Warming to the theme there would be no need for field restrictions or power plays. With only five outfielders the captains would have to think hard about field placement. Putting them all on the boundary wouldn’t work because with the opponents only having six batsmen you have to go for wickets don’t you? Indeed the fielding captain would have a great challenge in respect of handling his bowling attack given that he knows that all of his players must bowl. Why not – bowlers have to bat, so why not have a rule that in the shortest from of the game batsmen have to bowl?

The recognition that Twenty20 is a different game from traditional cricket is surely not too great an intellectual leap to make. The creation of a revised version of the game that restores the balance between bowler and batsman and makes wickets valued (which in proper cricket they must surely always be) is a step forward. And the idea that all cricketers have to bat, bowl and field like panthers is surely an appropriate interest-raising novelty – and good for improving the for the athletic image of the game. Worth a try – why not?

ENGLAND AND WALES CRICKET BOARD FRANCHISE INVITATION

ENGLAND AND WALES CRICKET BOARD FRANCHISE INVITATION
1ST APRIL 2009


The "England and Wales Cricket Board" (ECB) is calling for suitably qualified sports institutions to bid for one of eight Superpro franchises which will commence operations in the 2010 cricket season.

The Superpro franchises will receive substantial financial support from the ECB including assistance towards operating costs, capital investment programmes and promotional and other expenses. In return each franchise will offer the ECB the following:


At least one sports stadium and associated infrastructure capable of hosting international cricket matches attended by at least 30,000 spectators - and preferably 40,000.

State of the art and suitably staffed coaching facilities including an indoor cricket school, medical and fitness facilities etc. To include a Head Coach of international standard supported by coaches covering all physical and mental aspects of the game of cricket.

A squad of players identified as meeting the highest standards as measured by cricket's "Centre of Excellence" and all of whom are on contracts for at least two full seasons. The squad would be expected to comprise around 18 players of whom no more than two should not be qualified to represent England now or within the next two years.

Teams selected for the Superpro franchise will compete in Four-day and Limited Overs tournaments during the English cricket season. These tournaments will be well sponsored and well funded. Each Superpro franchise will be allocated three players who are currently on England central contracts and these players will appear for the Superpro franchise, at no cost to the franchisee, whenever international commitments permit.

With the establishment of the Superpro franchises ECB support for existing County Cricket Clubs will cease. It is expected that some existing County Clubs will wish to bid for a Superpro franchise along with other suitably qualified institutions such as Football, Rugby and other sports clubs.

Applications to the ECB at Lord's Cricket Ground.

Who is responsible for the corpse of England cricket?

Events of the last few months, which has seen England cricket descend into a shambolic mess, almost defy comment or parody. If we forensically try and identify the guilty party I suspect that it will turn out to be rather like “Murder on the Orient Express” where it transpired that everyone had killed the victim and there was no single culprit. But in keeping with the mood of these difficult economic times, when most of us point the finger at the well-heeled fat cats at the top of the pile as being to blame for the mess we are in, I personally have no hesitation in naming the Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Giles Clarke as the main reason for our cricket malaise.

Clarke must go
Rants passim have covered Clarke’s elitism (he referred to those with no access to satellite TV as “less fortunate members of society”) ignorance (which led to the nonsense of Stanford), and complacency (he has failed completely to get to the heart of English cricket’s problems with reform of the unsustainable county structure). To this list we can now add gross insensitivity. Clarke sits on top of a hierarchy but seems to have no feelings for the inter-personal issues down the line – Vaughan, Collingwood, Moores, and Pietersen. And he can’t opt out by saying, as he did, that the coach/captain spat was "… a matter for Hugh Morris". The buck doesn’t stop with Mr Morris or even Morris’s boss David Collier. It stops with Clarke - and he better wake up to the fact soon. For the first time in living memory the flagship BBC current affairs programme Newsnight covered the English cricket disarray – and Clarke should have been there to face up to Jeremy Paxman and tell it as the ECB saw it - not leave it to his predecessor but one Lord MacLaurin.


England’s Ashes chances have been weakened
You are left numb by all the shenanigans and the conclusion that you come to is that England cricket has some sort of death wish. Shane Warne said shortly before the hurricane hit Lord’s that if “If England play well and win a couple of series …then I think you’ve got a real good chance and [The Ashes] should be one hell of a series”. But now, whilst Australia certainly struggled a bit at home they seem reborn in South Africa with some startlingly good new young players. Who would now confidently bet on England regaining The Ashes this summer? With KP in charge (and I mean IN CHARGE) I would have been reasonably confident. Whilst he is a different character in many ways from Graeme Smith he shares his fellow South African’s will to win and bloody-mindedness. Just what you need successfully to take on Ricky Ponting – as Smith has so recently shown. Andrew Strauss is a good bloke and a fine cricketer. But I don’t expect to see him in Ponting’s face in the same way that KP would have been and my guess is that Punter will not be quaking in his boots at the prospect of facing Straussy.

The Establishment versus the maverick captains.
Over the years there has always been a struggle in England selection circles between the competing claims of the more establishment figures and the riskier but bullish appeal of the less respectful and non-conformist captains. Colin Cowdrey (Tonbridge and Oxford) versus Ray Illingworth (Pudsey and the University of Life). Mike Brearley versus Tony Greig. Mike Atherton versus Nasser Husain and so on. For the ECB to take the risk of appointing Kevin Pietersen was surprising – that they failed to manage him and ditched him pretty unceremoniously after only five months is not.

Trying to cheer up
My usually sunny disposition has been dealt a blow recently and I’m sure that this is some thing that I share with most of my blogs knowledgeable readers. So as we go around with our countenances dull I suspect that for most of us it is more in sorrow than in anger. I’m angry that just when it seemed we would be safe to go back into the stands to watch a brave and buoyant England take on the old enemy under a leader with charisma and style instead we will start on the back foot. The performances in the West Indies have shown what happens when you have shambles at the top - the lack of spine, focus and intent has been deplorable. I’ll never forgive Giles Clarke for so incompetently and thoughtlessly landing us in this almighty mess. I wonder if he really cares?


Grounds for concern
Somewhat lost in the deluge of publicity about the England captaincy and coach was the announcement from the ECB about the allocation of Test matches to grounds in the future. This included the statement that Lord’s will not automatically get even one Test match per year from 2012. This came as a bolt out of the blue to the Marylebone Cricket Club and if followed through it will scupper their redevelopment plans completely. These plans, which would have seen significant investment and a substantial increase in seating capacity, were predicated on Lord’s having at least one Test match per year - plus some of the other big occasions such One Day Internationals and domestic finals as at present.

One of the many good things in Williams Buckland’s excellent book “Pommies” was his contention that one of the things that holds England cricket back is the low capacity of our main cricket grounds compared with the Aussies. Australia’s smallest ground Perth is bigger for Ashes matches than England’s largest, the current Lord’s. The redevelopment of Lord’s would have a least meant that we have one decent -sized ground but that now looks unlikely to happen. Buckland recommended that we should have fewer but much bigger international grounds – the ECB looks to be going for the exact opposite and no doubt if Giles Clarke gets his way we’ll have a Ashes Test match at Taunton in 2013 - his predecessor David Morgan shamelessly got one for Cardiff this year after all!. Morgan’s fellow member of the Taffia, Hugh Morris, explained the ECB’s thinking: "It's important for people in different parts of the country to see cricket.”. Indeed it is Hugh boyo – and the best way to do that is to get bigger grounds - and to get International cricket back on terrestrial television!

An earlier version of this blog appeared in the cricket fanzine Yes, No, Sorry.

Meet John Shepherd at Tunbridge Wells

Kent CCSC members have a special opportunity to renew acquaintance with Kent stalwart and favourite John Shepherd on the first day of the County Championship match versus Essex on Tuesday June 16th.

Paddy Briggs (a Kent CCSC member) has written a biography of Shep and it is being published in early June. Both Paddy and Shep himself will be in the Supporters Club Marquee at lunchtime on the first day of the match to meet members and to sign copies of the book which will be on sale.

MCC Members want an enquiry into the England and Wales Cricket Board

Some members of the Marylebone Cricket Club have called for an enquiry into the affairs of the ECB and hope to rustle up enough support amongst fellow members to call a Special General Meeting (SGM) of the Club.

The activist members are calling for an SGM “to approve the creation of an MCC Board of Enquiry to investigate the affairs of the English Cricket Board (ECB) and recommend a Cricket Constitution that is appropriate for the governing body of our national sport”

The allegations, which can be seen in full on the website accessible by visiting mccmembers.co.uk say that English cricket is under “…the unregulated control of a private company that is neither publicly accountable nor properly constituted” and that “recent events prove the ECB is guilty of bringing the game into disrepute”

Paddy’s Sports View has previously described the deteriorating relationship between the MCC and their tenants the England and Wales Cricket Board. Clearly a significant body of members want to use the MCC’s status as a guardian of the sport of cricket aggressively to challenge the ECB’s role, particularly in the light of the recent debacles of the England team’s captaincy and the Stanford affair. As this blog has also argued the ECB has no mechanisms whereby it is accountable to anyone in English cricket other than the Chairman of the eighteen First Class Counties along with the Secretary of the MCC. The MCC however as a private members club is owned by and accountable to its members. So whilst there is no forum, other than in the media, whereby the ECB can be held to account by ordinary cricket followers the MCC Committee is constitutionally required to call an SGM if 180 members support a request to do so.

In the event that the MCC Committee is required by sufficient members to call an SGM the meeting would not be in the public domain but it is likely that everything discussed at the meeting will become public knowledge. The MCC’s membership is a broad church and is by no means made up only of establishment figures! A robust debate of the ECB’s recent actions, constitution and performance can be expected with no holds barred. Whilst the ECB cannot be required to attend any such meeting some of the Board’s members are themselves alos members of the MCC and may choose to attend and to speak.

That a number of members of MCC are so aggrieved by the ineptitude and questionable governance of England cricket carried out by Giles Clarke, David Collier and others is admirable and their attempts to get 180 members in total to support their call for the membership fully to discuss the matter deserves support.

Open Letter to David Collier

Dear David

It seems that you feel that you have no reason to resign over the Stanford debacle and that Giles Clarke and the rest of the ECB board support you – well they would say that wouldn’t they?

A recent poll in The Guardian reported that 86% of respondents thought that Giles Clarke should resign. And even allowing for a bit of bias from the medium and statistical error that shows what the vast majority of the cricket loving public in England think as well. And as Clarke himself has made clear the monkey sits as much on your back as it does on his. After all you are the senior employee of the ECB and you had a clear accountability for the Stanford deal.

The overwhelming tenor of the comments in the media, on cricket websites and throughout the country is that this scandal is one too far for the ECB and that the responsibility lies fairly and squarely with Giles Clarke and with you. You might argue about the minutiae of the due diligence carried out on Stanford and whether it should have covered more that just his ability to pay. You may argue, as you have, that you "believe therefore that I could not have done more at that time and I don't think the board could have done more.” Few objective observers would concur with that self-promoting claptrap.

David the time has come to go. Your position is untenable. "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."


Sincerely

Paddy Briggs

Scandalously the ECB is accountable to those they pay, not those who pay them

The series of disasters at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), culminating in the Stanford scandal, can at least in part be attributable to the fact that the ECB is accountable to those they pay, not those who pay them. It is a tenet of proper systems of governance that leaders are accountable to their paymasters or their electorates – whether it is a vote of shareholders or of politicians from time to time an election takes place which holds business and political leaders to account, nominally at least. At the ECB the reverse applies.

Only a couple of weeks ago the chairmen of the First Class counties, plus a representative from the MCC, re-appointed Giles Clarke as Chairman of the ECB. The evidence against Clarke, well articulated by his rival Lord Marland and others, was damning and had it been the cricket loving public in Britain who were making the choice he would have been out on his ear. But it wasn’t. It was the Chairmen of the counties and like turkeys they weren’t going to vote for Christmas. The Christmas they wanted to avoid was the proper and structural review of English domestic cricket that the ECB has been ducking for years. Such a root and branch review, which Jonathan Marland would certainly have instituted, would have properly investigated not just the way that the ECB is funded and the rather opaque corporate structure that it has, but also and most importantly how that money is spent. The likelihood that a proper and honest review would have recommended a substantial reduction in the number of First Class counties in England and Wales is high. And that is where the turkeys come in.

There can be little doubt that Giles Clarke will have given behind-the-scenes assurances to the counties that there futures are secure and that ECB funding will continue – at least so long as he remains Chairman. Such an overblown future for English cricket has been condemned by many objective observers who are not themselves reliant on ECB patronage. Even Lord MacLaurin, no enemy of the ECB, has called for the number of counties to be reduced from 18 to 12 and many other critics of the present system would go much further. William Buckland in his thoughtful and well argued book “Pommies” said that second tier English cricket (currently the County system) should have no more than five or six teams in it – in line with the systems that exist in most of the rest of the cricket world.

The counties fear of radical change combined with the patronage they have received from Giles Clarke has probably protected his position for the time being - even though his hands and those of his CEO David Collier are tainted by their association with Stanford. Unless these two fall on their swords - and the loss of a substantial salary (in Collier’s case) and munificent perks and privileges (in both cases) are such that they will no doubt fight to the end to avoid this honourable step. And the County chairmen? Will they really continue to contemplate their own navels and look away from the ugliness that hangs over the ECB at present? Don’t bet against it!

Giles Clarke's position is unsustainable

The "temporary restraining order on charges of major fraud" in respect of Sir Allen Stanford shows beyond any reasonable doubt how ill-advised Giles Clarke and the rest of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) were to get themselves involved with this dubious individual. But whilst these revelations are perhaps the most damning to the prospects of Clarke remaining at the helm of English cricket they are just one in a long line of errors of judgment and taste that has seen the ECB descend into a fetid and morally indefensible pit. The failure to permit live International cricket on terrestrial TV, the squandering of the ECB’s substantial income on an unsustainable and moribund county structure and the total inability of the ECB’s management to apply firm and sensitive leadership over the England captaincy are by no means the only examples which along with the Stanford fiasco have dragged England cricket into the mire. Clarke must go.

MCC members in anoraks - shock horror

"Cricket is a leisure activity and we have to decide whether we want a number of anoraks at matches or a large crowd who are keen to be entertained." Giles Clarke recently re-elected Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Mr Clarke was commentating on the MCC’s embryonic plans to hold floodlit Test matches at Lord’s Cricket Ground – something that will be technically feasible once Lord’s new retractable floodlights are operational and providing a solution is found to the problem of getting a Test match ball of a colour that can be picked out by fielders against a dark sky.

In these straightened times one would have thought that Clarke would have wanted to encourage all cricket lovers to come to England matches, anoraks or not. But as Richard Williams in “The Guardian” has pointed out there is a possibility that Clarke’s “Casual dismissal of anoraks could be interpreted to include most of those occupying the seats in the [Lord’s] pavilion”.

Put aside for a minute the grave sartorial implications of an MCC member being allowed to occupy a pavilion seat in an anorak and assume for a moment that Clarke did indeed mean those of us privileged to wear the egg and bacon tie and sit in splendour in the magnificent pavilion of the world’s greatest cricket ground. If Williams is right that Giles Clarke has us in his sights then the evidence to support that this is so is compelling. The MCC has a £200million redevelopment plan that will see the capacity of Lord’s increase substantially from around 30,000 to nearer 40,000 spectators - further widening the gap between what is already England’s largest cricket ground and the rest. This plan will be funded from MCC’s own resources and borrowings and for this to be viable some certainty about the future of international matches at the ground is required. But whilst the ECB, whose home is at Lord’s, is fully aware of the MCC’s plans their reaction has been less than encouraging.

Rather than supporting MCC’s plans to create a cricket ground that is not just full of history but actually can be full of a world class sized crowd the ECB looks to be going in the opposite direction. The ECB’s Managing Director of England Cricket Hugh Morris, explained the ECB’s thinking at the end of last year when he said that the ECB’s new “international staging agreements” will guarantee Lord's only two Tests from 2012-2016. "It's important for people in different parts of the country to see cricket” said Morris – this from the organisation that has cast live international cricket from terrestrial television for the foreseeable future by renewing their deal with Sky! It defies belief that the ECB could shun Lord’s in this way whilst giving longer term deals to the much smaller grounds at The Oval (23,500 capacity) and Headingley (planned capacity 20,000) until 2022 and 2019 respectively.

Back to the anoraks. The ECB’s contempt for Lord’s is no doubt built on a dislike of what Giles Clarke and his mercenary band see as the presence of a superior elite amongst its owners at MCC. Members do not pay to attend international or any other matches at the ground – other, that is, than by paying our annual subscriptions and none of the cash from this source finds its way into the ECB’s coffers. We also, in defiance of ICC and ECB rules, may take into the ground a modest amount of alcoholic drinks to accompany us through the long cricket day. Many MCC members feel strongly about the inadequacy they see in the ECB’s governance of cricket “The ECB is not properly accountable and no constitution exists that should reflect its role as a public body governing a national sport” as one outspoken MCC member puts it. There is no love lost between many in the MCC and their tenants at the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The Chairman of MCC, Charles Fry, remains hopeful that sanity will prevail and that he can persuade the ECB that they should give long term security to Lord’s for at least one Test match per year well into the 2020s and beyond. Fry has been a behind-the-scenes supporter of Giles Clarke in the recent contest for the ECB chairmanship in which Clarke secured a pyrrhic victory. Whilst many of us would have preferred, in the overall interests of English cricket, that Fry had joined those who wanted Clarke cast aside we must hope that his alliance with Clarke will at least secure for MCC the reward that Lord’s will be confirmed as an international venue for the long term.

Bill Frindall – the last, best defender of the integrity of cricket’s records

The world of commercial imperatives and ignorant expediency that is the governance of International cricket will be sighing in relief at the passing of Bill Frindall – the last and best defender of the integrity of cricket’s records. Unlike the unspeakable apparatchicks of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Frindall was determined that the well-established principles that governed the designation and status of matches, especially international matches, be rigorously applied. So when the ICC created the so-called “ICC Super Series” in October 2005, an event which comprised one six-day match and three fifty over matches between Australia and an “ICC World XI”, Frindall was in the forefront of the campaign to deny these matches official “One Day International” (ODI) and “Test Match” status.

The ICC had decided that the commercial prospects of the “ICC Super Series” would be enhanced if the matches were given the same status as official contests between countries and that performances in them would count in the Test and ODI records of the players who took part. This “decision” flew in the face of precedent and logic – Frindall called it “witless” and argued, irrefutably one would have thought, that the international records should only cover “contests between nations”. Bill declared that the six day match, a game which he said was “bordering on the farcical”, would not be included “…in any international records that I compile”. The Playfair Cricket Annual, of which Bill was the long serving editor, strictly applied this rule but sadly other cricket records such as those of Wisden and Cricinfo have not followed Frindall’s lead.

The best tribute that the world of cricket could pay to Bill Frindall would be to recognise that on the matter of the status of the failed hoopla of matches in the “ICC Super Series” Bill was one hundred percent right. Cricket’s international records should now officially be revised to exclude these matches - the Bearded Wonder would smile forever in eternity if common-sense prevails in this way!

Blues for the Clarets in the Carling Cup

It was an inspiring and moving experience to be present at both of the Carling Cup semi-final matches between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and whilst as a Spurs supporter I was of course pleased that Tottenham scraped through, triumph is the last of the emotions I feel. This was football at its best and, in many ways, football as it used to be. Whilst the prima donnas of the top clubs in the Premiership fill the tabloid columns and the shenanigans surrounding there ownership creates headlines on the financial as well as the sports pages Burnley v Spurs was all and only about football. It was as far removed from the grotesquery of Manchester City’s owners trying to buy Kaka and success as it is possible to get.

The core attraction of football, the quality that gave rise to the perhaps overused descriptor "The Beautiful Game", is its simplicity and the way that this allows spectators instantly to relate to the action. We saw two five goal matches at White Hart Lane and at Turf Moor – ten goals in 210 minutes of pulsating football. The goals, one every twenty minutes or so, were the just rewards for effort and ambition – especially so in Burnley’s case. Football, above all cup football, can be a great leveller and no more so than in this clash in which one team, Spurs, had many players who individually earn more than the total staffing costs of the Burnley squad. I use “earn” with a slight sense of irony because although there was no lack of effort from Tottenham on the two nights few of the players really justified their big transfer fees or their mega earnings. With far lesser resources at his disposal Owen Coyle has created a team that completely outplayed Harry Redknapp’s bunch of stars for much of both games.

At the Lane Burnley were by far the better side in the first half and deserved their one goal interval lead – it should have been more. Then in a twenty minute spell in the second half Spurs played their best football of the season to score four goals and seemingly put the tie out of Burnley’s reach. But from the start at Turf Moor there was no feeling of doom, gloom or resignation on the part of the Burnley faithful – nor, crucially, among the players either. There is a symbiosis here which Alastair Campbell (yes that Alastair Campbell) referred to prophetically in the programme: “Winning 3-0 against a Premiership side of course won’t be easy. But if the players don’t believe it nobody can. And if the players do believe it, then so can we”. Well win 3-0 is exactly what Burnley then did – over 90 minutes. And had this been a European two-leg tie rather than the Carling Cup that would have been it – Burnley would have been on their way to Wembley. But quirkily the rules of this competition meant that they had to play another thirty minutes without conceding a goal – and that was just beyond them and Spurs escaped with the latest of strikes from Pavlyuchenko and Defoe.

If you are a seeker-after of justice then don’t be a sports fan – that’s not always how it works. The Burnley team and their superb supporters certainly deserved to go to Wembley not just for their efforts and their style but also for their skill and bloody-minded determination not to give up – and for their belief. They have two more chances this season in the FA Cup and possibly in the play-offs from the Championship. I won’t be the only Spurs supporter wishing them well. On March 1st whilst I’ll be hoping that the Tottenham All-Stars win the Carling Cup I will have a slight embarrassment that the Spurs are there at all and a memory of two semi-final encounters that transcended sport and restored my faith in human nature, if not in natural justice.

Brearley’s time has come

Cometh the hour cometh the man and of England cricket could there be any doubt that the hour is nigh and that there is a desperate need for capable and moral leadership at the top? Under the malignant Chairmanship of Giles Clarke the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has plumbed new depths – as the events of the past few months in respect of the England captaincy have shown beyond doubt. I use the timeframe “Months” not “Weeks” because it stretches back to the day in early August when Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood stood down as captains of the England Test and One Day sides respectively. To stand down in the middle of a series is not unprecedented but for men of Vaughan and Colly’s status and integrity to feel that they had no alternative but to fall on their swords says clearly that all was not right in the England set up.

Where were the man-management skills in the England playing set up when we needed them? Surely if the relationship between Hugh Morris, Peter Moores, Vaughan and Collingwood had been as it should have been then any need for change in the captaincy would have been anticipated and handled in a less panicky way. Vaughan’s stress and disappointment was for all to see in his tearful press conference – he didn’t (quite) lose his dignity but there is no way that he should have felt obliged to walk the plank so publicly in the way that he did. The Test series was already lost – surely Vaughan could have been given support by the ECB hierarchy for one more Test match - and then any issues over the captaincy could have been dealt with in a calmer environment at the end of the series. And Collingwood was treated an a pretty cavalier way as well – he was clearly pushed, he didn’t jump, when the ECB decided that they wanted one captain in future and that he was not that man.

Whilst Hugh Morris as Managing Director of England Cricket was the man with the monkey on his shoulder above him was the highly paid CEO of the ECB, David Collier and the controversial Chairman of the board Giles Clarke. What role did they play in the whole affair – and more recently what role have they all played in the extraordinary events of the past couple of weeks with Kevin Pietersen?

“A fish rots from the head” – as the Russian proverb has it, and it’s a pretty apposite comment on the main reason for the rotten state of English cricket at the moment. The head of English cricket since September 2007 has been Giles Clarke, who is Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – and the charge sheet against him is a long and damning one. Fortunately his tenure runs only to March 2009 and the 18 first-class counties will have the chance to send him packing shortly. This is why they should:

Elitism. He referred to those with no access to satellite TV as "less fortunate members of society” and sold us down the river to Sky.

Ignorance. He is a businessman, with no real knowledge of the game, which led to the vulgarity of Stanford, and the continued confusions on Twenty20.

Insensitivity. He sits on top of a hierarchy but seems to have no feelings for the inter-personal issues down the line – Vaughan, Collingwood, Moores, Pietersen...

Complacency. Whilst Clarke is blusteringly bullish on frivolities like Stanford (etc.) he has failed completely to get to the heart of English cricket’s problems with reform of the unsustainable county structure.

There has to be someone of substance out there to challenge this man or he will be re-elected unopposed for a second term. Mike Brearley, since retiring from the First Class game in 1983 has concentred on his second career as a psychotherapist and he has until recently never held an executive role in the game. He has, however, written wisely and often both as a journalist and, particularly, in his seminal book “The Art of Captaincy”. His knowledge and track record as a leading thinker on cricket is not in doubt. Nor is his moral integrity and courage – as he showed, in particular, back in 1968/9 over the D’Oliveira affair. Brearley was the previous President of the Marylebone Cricket Club – a role he performed with distinction showing that he love for the game and his understanding of what matters on and off the field are undiminished.

Mike Brearley would make an honourable, skilful and respected chairman of the ECB and I have little doubt that if he stood against Giles Clarke he would be elected by the 18 counties (plus the MCC) who vote on the appointment. If ever there was a time when there was a need to restore harmony in English cricket and have the game driven with somebody who has other criteria of judgment than just the commercial/financial it is now. Cometh the hour cometh the man indeed!

Leading England cricket over the cliff

In those increasingly distant days when I was corporate man (sort of) management training courses often liked to characterise management style in shorthand. One of the theories, which I always rather liked, was the idea that as individuals we can all be seen as being more or less task oriented and more or less process oriented. In general an extreme propensity to focus pragmatically on the task in hand is unlikely to be compatible with an individual also having a strong emphasis on ensuring that the correct processes are followed – and vice versa. It’s not quite as black and white as that, but as a quick description of different styles it is quite handy. Organisations need both types and ideally amongst their more senior people they need those with a blend of task and process orientation. In reality the head honchos in any hierarchy are far more likely to be process focused whilst the more junior staff are more likely to be effective if they concentrate on the task in hand. But at all levels in the hierarchy you will find those who will cut corners and bend the rules in order to achieve an immediate goal – and also those who will be anxious to stick rigorously with the process - and sometimes miss opportunities as a result.

OK enough of the management speak – what’s this got to do with cricket and the role of the captain in the game? Well for me it is reasonably self-evident that the captain of a cricket team should be primarily task oriented – indeed you could argue that this is the case for any sportsman at any time. Ask Steve Waugh or Roger Federer or Tiger Woods. But the Captain has not only to focus on the task in hand but get his team to do so as well – and in modern sport there are plenty of distractions around. Steve Waugh’s recipe sounds like a pretty good one “Captaincy is about empowerment, about making your players responsible for their actions and, in turn, accountable. It’s about treating everyone equally but differently by recognising there are varied characters and personalities who need to express their individual flair and instincts inside the ultimate team vision”. If that makes the job sound difficult then Mike Brearley makes it sound even more so “The captain…is bound to be the recipient of emotional demands and pressures from those he is responsible for. A good leader or manger is interested in what makes people tick, particularly when they seem to be difficult or withdrawn or under-achieving.”

Steve Waugh and Mike Brearley were both great captains – albeit that they have very different personal styles. But neither was an instant success. Although they had both led other teams before becoming an international captain the demands of the bigger job are such that in a way nothing really prepares you for it. And when Kevin Pietersen took over from Michael Vaughan just before the Oval Test against South Africa match in August 2008 he was even less prepared – his captaincy experience was virtually nil. Chutzpah and adrenalin carried KP to a fine win in his first Test match as captain and he followed this with a wonderful 4-0 win in the one-day series as well. Piece of cake. Except of course that it couldn’t last and the team fared less well in India – although there were not too many criticisms of KP’s captaincy, more of the failures of key players in the team like Bell and Panesar. But in his first matches as captain Pietersen can be seen to have done pretty well – not least when account is taken of the fact that the role had been thrown rather unexpectedly at him after Michael Vaughan’s sudden resignation.

Now let’s return to the management theory about task and process leaders. KP looks like the archetypical task leader to me. This is not to say that he lacks a tactical cricket brain nor that he doesn’t have an “ultimate team vision” as Steve Waugh called it. But Pietersen seems like the sort of man who really wants results and won’t let anyone stand in his way. More Shane Warne than Steve Waugh - although nobody would really call Waugh anything less than task focused! But Waugh probably wouldn’t have said about the role of the cricket coach that the “only coach a cricket team needs is the one to transport them from their hotel to the ground” as Warney once famously remarked. And one suspects that Kevin Pietersen would strongly agree with his friend Shane – and that that has been the cause of the recent trouble in the England camp. KP and Peter Moores were two girls trying to share the same stove – and that never works!


So then we have an imperative for our captain to be strongly task oriented, but not to the exclusion of the need also to be a hands-on motivator of men in the Brearley mould. What about process? Well in reality isn’t that someone else’s job? If the skipper is leading his men into battle and leading by example as well isn’t that enough? If he has a good cricket brain and a good feel for tactics on the field of play, as well as being able to inspire his team and the disparate individuals in it, can’t we leave the process management to someone else? The answer has to be yes. So when recently KP chose to pick a fight and one that seems at times to have been fought by surrogates and in the media, surely the process folks in the England hierarchy should have intervened? Maybe Hugh Morris did make the ‘phone call to KP and say to him something like “Kevin. We are hearing what you say about your relationship with Peter Moores. Please don’t do or say anything precipitate and when you are back in England lets get urgently together to discuss it. The ECB appointed you as captain for the long term and we want you to succeed. But we really must follow a proper process in respect of the definition of roles – including yours and of the coaching team. Please hold fire and we will sort it out together as soon as possible.”

If Hugh Morris did make a call along the lines that I have suggested and KP chose to ignore such a reasonable plea then KP is culpable and deserved to have been sacked. But if the ECB apparatchiks fumbled and flustered when they saw what KP seemed to be up to in relation to Moores and if this led them to private denunciations of KP’s insolence and arrogance but not to a serious attempt to avoid disaster then it is the ECB officials who are seriously to blame. On TV yesterday both Nasser Hussain and Lord MacLaurin were critical of the behaviour of Kevin Pietersen. Hussain said "Definitely, Kevin Pietersen himself should have gone about this in a much more professional way. You can't just sit on safari in South Africa and issue ultimatums to the board about the England cricket captaincy," and MacLaurin said "It is a mess and it is very sad the captain was away in South Africa but as I understand it he put a pistol to the head of the ECB and said, 'Back me or sack me', and I think the ECB were absolutely right. The ideal solution would have been to put Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen in a room and said, 'Sort out your differences'. Sadly they were unable to do that."

We don’t yet know the full story. Whether the process management of the ECB failed - perhaps because it has been a holiday period and communication was difficult we don’t yet know. Whether KP was really as crass as suggested by Husain and MacLaurin we don’t know either. But if you accept the principle that you want your suits to manage all the processes well whilst you equip your captain and your team to win cricket matches then on the face of it it is the process managers who have completely failed in this instance. Unless it really is true that KP has acted with a total disregard to appropriate behaviour – in which case the suits shouldn’t have appointed him in the first place! As Nasser Husain also perceptively said "The ECB knew from his history what sort of guy (Pietersen) was. He was abrasive, he took people on, he asked questions of people. When he took over the captaincy, he was going to be in your face. They must have known that eventually it was going to come to a clash between Pietersen and Moores and they should have been able to react to that."

England cricket is rotten at the very top

The departure of Moores and KP must surely be the final nail in the coffin of the incompetent and malignant regime of Giles Clarke and David Collier at the ECB. It actually defies belief what damage these two have done to the good name of England cricket and if they had any decency they would go – NOW!

The charge sheet against Clarke is long and shaming. It isn’t only the Stanford debacle that must be laid firmly at his door. Far from it. He has single-handedly ensured that by his complete failure to manage his staff, starting with the otiose Collier and including the selectors and above all the Coach that he couldn’t run the proverbial piss up in a Brewery. Whilst Clarke was gallivanting with Stanford and his tainted millions England cricket was sailing into very squally waters indeed.

The finances of the ECB are huge, but under Clarke no serious effort has been made to correct the imbalance which exists between the money that is needed to create a credible cricket infrastructure in England, and the ridiculous handouts that sustain the untenable County system. In short Clarke wastes our money.

The next charge is in respect of the media rights to England cricket. Surely the imperative has to be to ensure that the maximum number of TV viewers can see the game – not to maximise revenues. Clarke’s ignorant and abusive diatribes at the BBC were uncalled for and counter-productive. The BBC has walked away from covering England international cricket largely because Clarke, in his pursuit of riches from Sky, gave them no encouragement and his arguments otherwise are utterly disingenuous.

It is the vulgarity of the man and all that he does that sticks in the gut. The departure of Michael Vaughan had all the hallmarks of an organisation riddled from the top with people who haven’t a clue about man management. The failure to create a hierarchy within which the Coach and the Captain worked harmoniously together is also a direct consequence of the Clarke/Collier axis’s incompetent management behaviour and style.

The enduring memory of Giles Clarke will be Stanford which reduced the game of cricket to a fairground attraction and did untold damage to the reputation of the game. It was the antithesis of the Spirit of Cricket.

I’m very sad to see Pietersen go – rather less so to see the departure of Moores. But let’s put the monkey fairly on the right shoulder – stand up Giles Clarke and wave goodbye.

Kp versus Moores - only one winner!

The English cricket establishment finds it hard to cope with a Captain with cojones. Vaughan had them, but was quite a diplomat and had a strong ally in Duncan Fletcher. Pietersen runs on a supreme self-confidence which comes in no small part to never having been part of the flaccid and unambitious world of English cricket – especially English county cricket. KP used Nottinghamshire and Hampshire simply as necessary tools to realise his ambition to play international cricket. Once he achieved this he has never looked back. KP’s leading by example started in his very first Test match when he top-scored in each England innings at Lord’s in the first Ashes Test of 2005. He almost immediately became part of a triumvirate who were the real inspiration behind England’s Ashes triumph (Fletcher, Vaughan and KP). Of course other players played out of their skins in 2005 – but KP was absolutely key to the regaining of the Ashes as much from his attitude and style as from his contributions on the filed of play.

Moores is a product of the English County system as player and coach. This system is moribund, outdated and complacent. It produces people like Moores – jobsworths with no real thirst for a fight and none of the get up and go we see from Australia and South Africa.

KP, like Tony Greig before him, doesn’t think much of county cricket and doesn’t think much of the putrid English cricket establishment. He is a winner and he doesn’t want banal and pedestrian plonkers like Moores in the dressing room!

Saving Stanford

Playing games whilst tyrants rule...

Cholera is rife. Urban residences are without water. There is a total lack of effective government. Inflation is at 231,000,000%. A tyrant holds on grimly to power. Famine is widespread. Life in Zimbabwe is cheap.

The West does not stand idly by and many individuals and agencies are doing what they can to try and alleviate the suffering of the Zimbabwe people. But their hands are tied because Mugabe and his henchmen do little to help humanitarian movements and charities make progress.

What as observers of the chaos and the disaster can we do? We are not powerless and there are both practical and symbolic actions that we can take both to help Zimbabwe's stricken population and to demonstrate to the military backed Mugabe regime that nothing can be normal in our relations with his benighted country. Which brings me to cricket...

Can you believe that over the past two weeks properly sanctioned and approved international cricket has been taking place in Harare? The full international Sri Lankan cricket team has played five One Day Internationals against Zimbabwe in the country's capital. There is no secret about this grotesque and offensive parody of the so-called "Spirit of Cricket". Under the auspices of cricket's governing body the International Cricket Council "Sri Lanka Cricket" has seen fit to play sport in Zimbabwe at a time when the country is in total turmoil.

Behind tightly guarded gates cricket was played whilst in the city and beyond there was starvation, death and destruction. This grotesque charade brings the good name of sport and of cricket in particular into disrepute. The Sri Lankan Government and cricket authorities have done themselves no favours in the wider world. And the International Cricket Council (ICC) have not only seen fit to authorise this charade but have even sent a delegation to Harare to watch the cricket and to

"...establish the current state of cricket in Zimbabwe as it relates to the management and development of the game and also to conduct an assessment of the policies and programmes executed with the view to restoring the senior team to Test cricket."

What planet do the apparatchiks of the ICC come from? Can they seriously believe that there is any case for playing international cricket with and in Zimbabwe at this time?

"What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?"

Can England's cricket failures learn from British Olympic success ?

Will the England and Wales Cricket Board study the success of British Olympic competitors in Beijing and learn any lessons from them? More likely it won't even occur to the top people in the ECB that to make a comparison could be fruitful - in recent times the only comparative outsider at the top of English cricket (Ian MacLaurin) gave up in disgust. And one of the reasons was the cliquey, clubby insularity of the ECB board members all of whom had a vested interest in perpetuating the absurd 18 County system - a system that has so demonstrably failed to deliver.

England has yet to win a Cricket World Cup and has abjectly failed in the last couple of World Cup events. England's one-day side is easy meat for almost anybody and we have failed to create one single One Day player of true quality (the imported Kevin Pietersen is not, of course, a product of the English domestic system). In the Test arena it is not much better. Again KP is the only player we have that other countries would covet. The ECB was blinded by the successes of 2005 and was bereft of a plan to build on them. In 2005 twelve players ably led and skilfully coached worked together as a unit for a few glorious weeks and managed to make the team bigger than its collective parts. Not one player has pressed on from 2005 (KP again excepted) and the 2006/07 Ashes tour was a shameful shambles. To succeed the inspiring and clever outsider Duncan Fletcher the ECB appointed a County stalwart in Moores who has done no more than preside over decline. Michael Vaughan has walked away from this whole farrago in disgust, and who can blame him?

Back to the Olympics. The British rowers and cyclists and sailors and boxers are succeeding for a whole variety of reasons that the ECB could learn from. Well coached and motivated they also have a work ethic that would mean that they would look down with scorn on Pedallo excesses and their like. Every medal-wearing interviewee has paid tribute to his or her coach - and every coach has paid tribute to the efforts of their charges. That's why they win. There are no distractions like phoney dollar-spinning frolics in the Caribbean to look forward to - "just" the honour or representing your country. Compare that with, say, Steve Harmison telling England that he would personally pick and choose the games that he would appear in. And the ECB cravenly going along with this.

But it does, as things so often do in sport, also come back to money. Whilst the ECB squanders its substantial resources from TV rights and ticket sales by handing them to 18 counties these very counties are in return contemptuous of the needs of England cricket in their selfish pursuit of spurious glory. So what if half a County team (or more) is not even English - that's better than the Arsenal isn't it? Can you imagine the British Olympic Association funding the development of athletes who are going to appear for another country and compete against Britain? Of course not. Then why do we tolerate this in English second tier cricket? It's amateur and insular and run by ignorant men with narrow vision. Thank God for the Olympics.

What's wrong with England cricket ?

I am amazed how the bloggers on the blogosphere, including some that should know better, think that England's problem is one of selection. They roll out their tired old diatribes about the inadequacies of one player or another and then honour us with their XI, as if they have some extraordinary insights denied to mere mortals (like the Selectors, for example). The twenty or so cricketers in the frame for England at the moment are all decent cricketers and you should be able to perm any eleven from the twenty and get a side that will win you matches - even against the toughest opposition. So why don't we win?

The answer is to do with leadership and motivation, pride and cojones (or the lack of them). Under Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan twelve players (all of whom, bar Trescothick, are still in the frame by the way) fought like tigers and played, at times, like Kings. They built a relationship with the spectators in the packed grounds and vicariously via the media with millions around the country. Every over, every session, every day and every match mattered to every single one of them. Each player did what he was best at and every player fought like hell to support his team-mates. When Geraint Jones had a few problems at Trent Bridge an interviewer asked Fred Flintoff whether there were doubts about Jones - "Not in our dressing room there aren't" he said.

The focus, the pride, the ambition, the courage, the flair and the style (day one at Edgbaston for example) of England in 2005 was quintessentially Australian! England out-Ozzed the Aussies over those glorious weeks. Roll forward to today and a squad made up of broadly the same (or the same type) of players under the same Captain is nowhere. Outplayed in every department at Headingley and out-battled by a cojones-full Saffer side at Lord's. Was the Second Test eleven that much worse than England 2005? I don't think so. Cook is a different player to Trescothick but no less talented. Monty is a better bowler than Gilo. Ambrose looks to be as good as Jones. Anderson, on his day, is on par with Simon Jones. And so on. Nothing much wrong with the selection of the England sides in the first two Test matches in my opinion - quality players all (I leave out Pattinson whose selection was an aberration which hopefully won't be repeated).

So what's wrong? Well lets start with the ECB and their unspeakable head Giles Clarke. Clarke has his eye not on the ball of creating an environment within which England cricket prospers but solely on the main chance of $$$$. The Stanford deal is an obscenity with no cricketing justification whatsoever. I for one don't begrudge the players their chance to get rich. But not like this. Inevitably every England squad player will have at least part of his mind on Antigua, and when a part of your mind is distracted then you are sub-optimally using the rest. Even Michael Vaughan, no Twenty20 star he, started to play a bit of Twenty20 almost as soon as the Stanford deal emerged. I don't blame him for that, but it was a distraction that our Test Captain could have done without. So Clarke, and his sidekick Collier, instead of focusing on a challenging series of international matches that really matter, home and away, spent their time trying to screw as much money out of cricket as possible whilst keeping the counties happy. They would have been better advised to read William Buckland's "Pommies" which brilliantly gets to the truth of what is wrong with English cricket and suggests that we need to be more Australian, not just in style and ambition, but in our domestic structure as well. I agree.

I am unimpressed by Peter Moores who seems far too much of a county insider to me. Fletcher had some county experience that he used shrewdly, but he was a winner because he wasn't hidebound to the so-called traditions of English cricket at all. And, glum old bugger that he could sometimes be, he built a partnership with Michael Vaughn and the other senior players in the squad which won The Ashes. Not a bad model!

So what to do? Firstly try and get Clarke and Collier to focus on the real job in hand - or get rid of them if they can't. Second get rid of Moores - he looks like a loser and that rubs off on the side - and get a foreign coach of real quality (welcome back Rod Marsh?). Third select a squad of the best twenty cricketers in England with a balance of youth and experience (welcome back Ramps) and every single one of whom can play cricket in any of the three forms of the game. Work with this squad in every which way - boot camps not excluded if that is what the coach thinks will help! Fourth get rid of the selectors. Give your new top coach full control over selection - aided by a small team of experienced talent spotters if you like - but make the coach an Alex Ferguson or an Arsène Wenger. Finally make Michael Vaughan the Ricky Ponting of England - captain of all the England sides in any form of the game and the honoured, trusted and respected leader.

Beijing 2008 - Count me out

For four years in the late 1980s I lived and worked in Hong Kong – it was an exciting time. Hong Kong’s political future had been decided by the signing of the Joint Declaration with China in December 1984 and the Territory would revert to Chinese sovereignty with effect from 1st July 1997. But although that deal had been signed and sealed the future for the around 5 million people of Hong Kong was far from certain. Among the professional and business classes there was an imperative to secure citizenship of a safe haven country such as Australia or Canada, mainly as an insurance policy in case all went belly up after the handover. You could understand the concern – whilst some changes were underway in China it was still a largely closed country with aged autocratic leaders and not even the smallest semblance of an elective democracy. It was also still very economically backward, although change, especially in the cities, was gradually gathering momentum. The fear for the Hong Kong people, many of whom were themselves escapees from Communist China in the years after the revolution of 1949, was the insanities of Mao’s “Cultural revolution” would one day return – and that Hong Kong would not be able to escape the impact as a sovereign part of the People’s Republic.

For a couple of years I travelled frequently into China and especially to the Capital Beijing. Progress was underway – smart new hotels were being built and western businesses were scurrying around like bees round a honey pot. The attraction, of course, was China’s principal resource – a potential workforce of over a billion people which was both a massively attractive market in the long term as well as a source of cheap labour for multinational manufactures. Form 1986 to early 1989 I found it stimulating, if at times a little bizarre and frustrating, to be watching the changes underway and to be working with mostly quite young people who were the drivers of this change. Amongst the many things I did at the time was to make a TV documentary with China Television which I fronted in vision – it was shown on prime time TV and had an audience of over 300million – a humbling and sobering thought!

Whilst the most visible signs of change were the gradual presence of western brands on display in the cities there was also a very tangible change in expectations amongst the young people that I met and worked with. True their main hope was that they would be able to accrue personal wealth as the moribund and arthritic pillars of the centrally planned “Marxist” economy began to be dismantled. Suddenly it was OK to aspire to be rich. But whilst the main ambition was to become as wealthy as their contemporaries across the border in Hong Kong, and to be able to create a life of comfort for their families, many of the young people I met also believed fervently that China needed to change politically as well. The two underling necessities were for the gerontocracy to fade away and for democratic processes gradually to be introduced. There was admiration of the West not just for our riches but also for our freedoms. Indeed the two aspects of a modern society – a social democratic system which was essentially capitalist at its core was seen only to be possible if there was a representative democratic system in existence in parallel. Capitalism was the most successful economic system yet developed by mankind – but absolute laisser-faire was not desirable. There had to be checks and balances to prevent exploitation and corruption – and to allow a measure of all joining in and benefiting from the earnings from growth.

Freedom of expression was at the heart of the necessary changes that the young people I met were seeking. And looking at the rest of the world it was an almost irrefutable fact that freedom of expression, including freedom of the media, was a necessary condition for economic change. So in early 1989 when I went to Beijing I found a gathering hope on the part of many of the young Chinese I came into contact with for a raft of changes in their country –political as well as economic. Incidentally it is important to stress that the people I me were not students – they were young people, often very well educated, in business and the media. In mid April these aspirations tuned into action when pro democracy protesters started to gather in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The following week I was in the City and visiting the offices of China Television in connection with the film that we were making with them. In the Square that week the numbers reached around 50,000 – an impressive and moving site and amongst them were many of the young people that I had got to know over the previous two years or so.. Back in my hotel I tuned into CNN to see what the rest of the world was saying about what I could see with my own eyes. But every time the CNN presenter said “And now China” the screen went blank and the sound went away – only to return a few minutes later when the China story had finished – censorship in action and the first time that I had experienced it and very chilling it was! At the end of that dramatic week I flew back to Hong Kong – I was never to return to China that year and I have never been back since.

At the end of May Chinese troops began to mass around Tiananmen Square and on June 3rd they moved in. The death toll from the action remains a State secret but probably a thousand or more protesters and some soldiers died on those fateful days. I never knew how many, if any, of the dead or wounded were young people that I had got to know. But what I did know was that something indescribably evil had happened and although my own connection with the events was tenuous I had been in Beijing and in Tiananmen Square at a fateful time, and I would never forget it.

Since 1989 we have all witnessed the economic miracle that is modern China and thousands of Chinese and no small number of westerners as well, have become very rich indeed on the back of China’s wholehearted embrace of capitalism. But whilst the pursuit of wealth goes on almost untrammelled and western companies exploit the Chinese market and benefit, as they had hoped, from the low labour costs of Chinese workers, there has been little or no change in the repressive political system that operates in this autocratic dictatorship. Nearly twenty years after Tiananmen China remains a tightly controlled one-party and totalitarian State in all areas of life, except the economic. Human Rights abuses are endemic and, externally, state inspired Chinese imperialism keeps Tibet firmly under their thumb and state-inspired capitalist imperatives lead Chinese companies to operate anywhere that money is to be made irrespective of the Human Rights implications and ignoring sanctions – Sudan just one example of this .

Back in 1936 another totalitarian State used an Olympic Games to demonstrate their power and promote their nationalism and their ambition. At the time Avery Brundage, President of the American Olympic Committee was against the boycott, stating that he believed that politics played no role in sports, and they should be considered two different entities during Hitler’s Olympics. 72 years on the same solecisms are being spluttered by Olympians and Politicians alike who expect us to go to Beijing to celebrate a Games in a country, which like Nazi Germany back in 1936, has no respect at all for the values that are supposed to underpin the Olympic movement. One of these values is “Cooperation with public and private organisations to place sport at the service of mankind”. In Beijing, as in Berlin, the IOC is placing sport at the benefit not of mankind but of a evil totalitarian regime some of whom were directly involved in Tiananmen and all of whom cover up to this day what really happened. Count me out.

© Paddy Briggs July 2008

The defining class of Wimbledon

The great anthropologist Margaret Mead always described the formal rituals of the societies she studied as a way of illustrating the core values and mores of those societies. Had she studied the Britain of modern times the Wimbledon tennis fortnight would have been an essential ritual for her to examine - indeed sport and sporting events in general would be a rich source of material. In the United Kingdom there is a curious exercise underway, sponsored by Government, to try and identify "British Values" - the House of Lords even debated the subject last week. Quite what the point of this exercise is I am not sure - and whether they will have the honesty to report that an ingrained class structure is inherent in these values I doubt. But the truth is that aspirations that we could celebrate the creation of a "classless society" in Britain and the statement that "We are all Middle Class now", as former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott once erroneously claimed, are very far from the mark indeed. Entrenched class distinctions are embedded in British society - and the rituals surrounding sport offer convenient shorthand for describing and explaining this phenomenon.

Let's start with Wimbledon, which is a once a year celebration of the values and priorities of the British Middle Classes. For two weeks the men, and especially the women, of the leafiest suburbs descend on this otherwise forgettable corner of south-west London to watch world class tennis in pleasant surroundings. Wimbledon has a social ambience which whilst rather intimidating and eccentric to the outsider no doubt seems perfectly normal to them. They queue overnight in tents for tickets, eat over-priced strawberries and cream and, if they are lucky, behave like the over-excited schoolgirls they once were if a British player is on the court. Their all-time hero was Tim Henman, a product of the same comfortably privileged background as them, who never reached the final but was the best British hope for years. Henman is gone now and there may not be quite the same enthusiasm for the only other Brit of any skill Andy Murray who is Scottish and dour - not a particularly popular combination amongst the middle classes in today's Britain. But if Murray does do well no doubt the Wimbledon matrons will take him gladly into their amble bosoms - even though they would be reluctant to do the same for Gordon Brown.

If Wimbledon defines the societal middle ground, with a slight leaning towards the upper middle, then the sports where you need a boat, a horse, expensive equipment or a costly annual membership rest firmly slightly above this milieu. Whilst there are some golfing artisans on the public courses golf is, like tennis, definitively comfortable middle class in character. Members clubs are exclusive with judgmental committees interviewing prospective new members to make sure that they are of the right standard, social as well as golfing, to be admitted. The very "best" clubs go to great lengths to keep the riffraff out with formidable barriers to entry predicated more on social exclusiveness than golfing ability. And the sports right at the top of the social ladder do the same and their exclusiveness is reinforced by the sheer price of entry. To be an active equestrian, even at pony club level, you need plenty of dosh to buy and keep your horse. And to be an "Eventer" or show jumper at the top you need a very substantial income indeed. There won't be many boys and girls from the council estates in Britain's equestrian team at the Beijing Olympics. The same applies to the rowing and sailing squads - these (still) predominately amateur sports can only be afforded by those with rich mums and dads. At the social apex we have sports that are participant rather than spectator sports and which have not only huge financial barriers to entry but social barriers as well - Polo and the "Field sports" of hunting and shooting in particular. If you are very rich and can afford a good tailor you might be able to break into these worlds of privilege and no doubt many have. But you might need to fabricate a fictitious past, preferably one where you grew up in a distant colony, to substitute for your lack of verifiable social standing

The sport of choice of the proletariat is of course Association Football - "Soccer" as it is sometimes called - usually by those for whom "Rugger" (Rugby Union) is the real football game. Rugby Union is often called a hooligan's game played by gentlemen whereas soccer is a gentleman's game played by hooligans. (Rugby league is a hooligan's game played by hooligans). Indeed in the three British forms of the football game we have the class system neatly encapsulated. Rugger, Soccer, League - in that stacking order. Football, the most popular variety, is the very essence of a mass society phenomenon with its strange crowd and bonding rituals, fierce allegiances and obsessive behaviour. It also has its barriers to entry, or it did in the past - you wouldn't take your sister or girlfriend or mother to a professional football game. That has changed and the stadia are now more comfortable and, at a price, you can sit comfortably and enjoy the "beautiful game". But the odd minority "toff" element apart (especially at Chelsea) football is so quintessentially a working class supported game that it almost defines that social milieu. The working class minority sport equivalents of the upper classes horsey and field and water games require rather less money and equipment and have rather nosier crowds. Boxing, wrestling, snooker and darts bring out the working class spectators for a good night out and help fill the gaps on mainstream television if the boys decide to have a night in.

All of this is, of course, a light-hearted and simplistic study of sport and class in Britain. There are some sports which transcend this sort of analysis and are perhaps genuinely classless (athletics and motorsport spring to mind). But it is to cricket that we must finally turn to show the reliability of the sport and class linkage theory. Cricket was once run by toffs - nearly every President of the MCC once had a title. But now it is mostly run by the same sort of chaps that you would see at Wimbledon or at the golf club. The MCC membership, whilst still exclusive by virtue of its long waiting list, is similarly middle-middle in its social positioning - as are many of the spectators, at Lord's at least. But the advent of One-Day cricket, and especially Twenty20, has widened the social mix at cricket considerably. There are even football chants at a Test match now and football shirts are as common as blazers (actually much more so). Cricket has traditionally prided itself on its classless appeal – and for years it was about the only place, and certainly the only sport, where toffs and the proles ever mixed. The "Gentlemen" and the "Players" distinction is gone but a big cricket match is still perhaps the one sporting event that mirrors British society - well male society anyway!

(c) Paddy Briggs, June 2008

The video the England and Wales Cricket Board tried to ban!

This is the video that the absurd England and Wales Cricket Board tried to ban. It shows the dismissal of Daniel Vettori by Ryan Sidebottom at the Lord's Test match in May 2008. It is a self-made amateur video which I made on a small digital camera from my seat in the Pavilion! It was, of course, not made for commercial purposes and it was uploaded by me to YouTube just for fun and for general interest. The ECB then used a massive sledgehammer to crack this tiny nut instructing YouTube to remove the video because it infringed ECB copyright! I don't doubt that technically the ECB is right. But how utterly ludicrous that they should think it necessary to take action against a 61 year old diehard cricket fan who was just having fun! What tossers!

Больше ca изменись

Roman Abramovich’s dismissal of Avram Grant (and make no mistake it was the Russian who fired the bullet) is typical of the way that even successful managers are treated by their bullying billionaire bosses. Sven-Goran Eriksson received the same treatment from the Thai takeaway king Thaksin Shinawatra. It’s all very unpleasant - sure the dismissed managers run away with a bag full of loot, but don’t you just love these self-important pricks at the top? Len Shackleton, the legendary clown prince of English football, entitled one chapter of his autobiography "What your average club director knows about football." He then left the next page totally blank.
Plus ca change or rather Больше ca изменись.

Jeremy Coney's offensive Gaffe

New Zealander Jeremy Coney was commenting on Test Match Special today (May 15th) when Ross Taylor was batting for the Kiwis. Here is what he said:

"[Ross Taylor] is not a New Zealander"...and

"He's from a Pacific Island, but I don't know which one"

Coney's remarks were offensive and ignorant. Taylor was born in Lower Hutt which is a town just north of Wellington - as Coney should know as he comes from Wellington himself. Taylor is of mixed race - his father is a white New Zealander (Pakeha) and his mother an immigrant from Samoa. There had never been the slightest doubt that Taylor is as much a Kiwi as anyone else in the NZ squad (and, for that matter, as Coney).

Coney should not be commenting on TMS if he reveals such ignorance and prejudice on the air.

UEFA should move the Champions League Final to a British stadium!

There is often a load of rubbish talked about the environmental damage one individual’s decision to take a commercial scheduled flight can do. The answer to the question, by the way, is NIL. Schedule flights will fly whether you are on one or not – you don’t save one millilitre of carbon emissions by choosing not to fly. Obviously if, over time, we all choose to fly less then the airlines would have to change their schedules and reduce the number of flights and if you want to contribute to this by choosing not to fly whenever possible that’s fine by me. But don’t put pressure on me not to take a scheduled flight for my annual holiday by suggesting that that decision would in itself be environmentally beneficial - it will not be.

Having said all the above there are actions that can be taken in the very short term which would be environmentally beneficial. Take the Champions League Final to be played on 21st May in Moscow between two English teams. 80% of the spectators at this match will be English and will have to take the three and a half hour flight from the UK to Moscow (and back) to be there. The schedule flights will be full so most of these travellers will be going by charter flights – flights that just would not take place if the match was moved to a British stadium. Hundreds of long charter flights to and from the UK and Moscow will burn precious and expensive aviation fuel and create carbon emissions quite unnecessarily. UEFA should move the match to a British stadium!

The end of the County Championship

Frank Keating on County Cricket in The Guardian on 15th April.

Keating’s comments deserve quoting in full:

“In with the new; out with the old. One thing's born, another dies. With near perfect timing, tomorrow morning, two days before the dollar-strewn Bangalore bash, sheepishly stirs another summer of what has tragically become a drawn-out primeval charade, the English County Championship. For decade upon decade it was a cherished adornment of the summer sub-culture, certainly for my generation when heroes were giants and giants were locals. About a quarter of a century ago the championship began fraying and then in no time unravelling. It is now a pointless exercise, unwatched, unwanted, serviced by mostly blinkered, greedy chairman-bullied committees and played by mostly unknown foreign and second-rate mercenaries.”

Those of us of a certain age (baby-boomers like me or even older, like Keating) have to cope with change and it isn’t always easy – especially when some new realities creep quietly up on you almost unnoticed and then become unavoidable truths. I am busy at the moment writing the biography of that great servant of County Cricket the estimable John Shepherd once of Kent and Gloucestershire. Researching Shep’s past and talking with him about it is reliving for me vivid memories of those distant days when the County Championship really did matter. But, as Frank Keating rightly says, it no longer does to any but a few diehards. And it is not just the Championship for which we will before long be saying the last rites – it is the whole anachronistic County system. Shorn up only by annual grants from the ECB the 18 (18!) counties muddle on from year to year pretending that they are credible sporting and business entities. They are not. There are too many counties and for most of them their only justification for existing at all is that they always have.

Cricket in England has a rosy future – our grounds are full for Test matches and international limited overs matches and that is the cricket that really matters. To support the development of young English-qualified talent to feed our national squad we need a small number of clubs (eight would seem about the right number) playing top level cricket (first-class and the shorter form of the game) in a financially secure structure - and playing matches that people actually want to see. The IPL has shown the way – the ECB must act soon.

New Zealand's rising star

The excellent cricket museum at the Basin Reserve in Wellington celebrates New Zealand’s proud cricket history very well. One of the displays is a selection of “New Zealand’s greatest ever XI” - from the present team only, and rightly, Daniel Vettori makes the team although Stephen Fleming must have been a near miss. Should the Kiwis repeat this exercise in five or so year’s time I suspect that one more of the current team will be firmly in the frame. Ross Taylor, playing in only his fourth Test match, looks a truly outstanding prospect. Taylor had a faltering start to Test cricket last November in South Africa where he failed to impress – he was subsequently left out of the Kiwi team for the one-sided home Bangladesh series. Recalled for the First Test against England in Hamilton Taylor scored a fine century – and he has now followed this with a fifty in each innings in the Second Test at Wellington.

Ross Taylor, at only 24 years of age, lacks First Class cricket experience – he has played only 67 First Class innings – although he has already played 38 One Day Internationals. Given this imbalance it was perhaps not surprising that, at Wellington, he seemed to lose concentration in both innings once he reached his half-century and almost immediately got out. Nevertheless he is a player with all the shots – including the defensive ones - and it will be a surprise if he does not succeed in all forms of the game.

Brave Ambrose runs with his luck

Ambrose was excellent. I enjoyed his innings from the top of the Museum stand - great view! But he did have his luck - perhaps a dozen plays and misses that Bell or Strauss might have nicked! Fortune favours the brave and Ambrose was certainly brave - run a ball for a while. Colly looked good in a supporting role - what a battler he is.
I may be wrong (not for the first time) but 350 looks a potentially winning score if they can get there.

Casey Stoner the fag brand peddler

Notice anything about the photo of Casey Stoner celebrating his win in the Moto GP in Qatar last weekend? No not the young man’s charming smile – it’s the logo visibly splattered on his overalls I mean. Marlboro if I’m not mistaken. A fag brand. Promoted by a fine young athlete to the young man’s world of motorcycle racing. Glamorous Ha? So as the young men and not a few young women as well, revel in the success of the young Aussie I bet just a few might be inclined to reach for their Marlboro’s next time they want a gasper. I’m sure Philip Morris hopes the same – otherwise why would they sponsor Ducati and Stoner? But isn’t it time that the world of motorcycle sport caught up with the more civilised sporting world and banned the impropriety of tobacco giant sponsorship of their sport. And shouldn’t the clean- living young Stoner turn down the tobacco shilling as well?

A double whammy blow to England’s sporting reputation

Whilst I was chilled and a bit damp in the North stand at Murrayfield watching England’s abysmal attempt to overcome Scotland in the Calcutta Cup match our cricketers were shaking in their beds at the thought of having to face the might of New Zealand on the final day at Hamilton. What is it that makes England sporting teams so incapable of playing to their real abilities time and time again? A failing in national character? A lack of confidence when push comes to shove? Coaches who think that solutions are technical not in the mind? A total lack of self belief?

At least the rugby players did try – they were just to afeared to be up to the task against an opposition team that hitherto was the worst in the 6 Nations. The cricketers really made no effort to take on (and I mean take on) the Kiwis who by any standards are not great shakes (the excellent Vettori excepted). Does Vaughany really think that scoring 199 runs in a whole days play is what Test cricket is about? Has he forgotten Edgbaston 2005? And what about the overpaid backroom staff? There’s a couch there for everything – even bottom wiping I would think (though not drinking – here we lead the world).

Cricket Burn Out ?

Hoggy and Harmy just don't bowl enough. Burn out? Don't make me laugh. By Napier (when England could well be two down) they could have just about got in the groove.
Solutions:

1. 
   Pick the best squad (and the same squad) for all forms of the game. Don't allow a player to pick and choose between Tests, ODIs and Twenty20. If you can play you can play in any form of cricket. Get rid of the phoney One Day and/or Test specialists.
   




2. Get the selfish counties to stop loading their sides with non England qualfied players. How the hell can the Harmison's of this world improve if they are not challenged constantly by potential internatonal players from around the counties.
   




3. Play more not less. In 1953 Alec Bedser bowled 1253 First Class overs. In his whole eleven year First Class career Steve Harmison has bowled less than 5000 0vers in total.

Back to the glory days?

Tottenham Hotspur’s stirring victory in last Saturday’s Carling Cup final has understandably prompted the Spurs faithful to wonder if, at last, the glory days are returning. There are too many false dawns in sport and caution would seem to be prudent – but this knarled old Tottenham fan is happy to suspend the doubts for a moment and hope that this time, indeed, we might just have grounds for hope.

The reality check first. The “League Cup”, as it was always known before the sponsors hijacked the name, has always been the least of the English domestic competitions. For the last few years the top three clubs (you know who they are) have used the cup as a sort of youth tournament playing their younger players through most of the rounds. Arsenal and Chelsea reached the final last year doing just that – and entertaining stuff it was as well. But in the 2008 final there were no gifts or favours – Chelsea were there to win as much as Tottenham and their star-studded side fought hard, but were beaten by a better side on the day. What a delight it is to write those words!

Quick and fit and focused

Since Juande Ramos took over as Spurs Manager they have lost only five of their 28 games and there has been a remarkable improvement in all aspects of the team’s performance. The most significant change has been in respect of the players’ fitness. Under Martin Jol earlier in the season some of the players looked as if they had been rather too regularly eating at the same generous trough as the Dutchman. The talented young midfielder Tom Huddlestone especially bulked up rather too much – and it wasn’t just puppy fat. But under Ramos there has been a huge change and Huddlestone and the others now look properly match fit and as a consequence they are quicker and decidedly more focused as well. In truth it was pretty scandalous that some players who earned the equivalent of well over a million dollars a year ran out of puff towards the end of the match (Huddlestone was one) – but Ramos has put a stop to all that.

The lure of the Lane

There is always a tinge of nostalgia at a football club with, it seems, the ghosts of the past shimmering silently behind every pillar. I first went to White Hart Lane back in the 1950s and although the old ground has changed a lot it is still recognisable as the same place that Danny Blanchflower and Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith and the rest graced in those distant days. It is hard to put a finger on quite why there is something just that bit different about Tottenham Hotspur, but the memories of distant days at the Lane is part of the reason. To be fair it was the same for that other north London club at Highbury and whilst their new home at the Emirates Stadium is splendid in every way would I really want Spurs to follow the Gunners’ example and move to a grand new home? Maybe I would – you have to have ambition, but if the Lane could somehow be magicked into a 60,000 seater ground that would be ideal!

The special Spurs style

I have many friends who have Spurs as their “second club”, if not their first. It’s a strange phenomenon but unless you are a supporter of another London club it is not uncommon to have a soft spot for “the Tottenham”. Even Manchester United fans – especially the older ones - tell me that they have always enjoyed the Spurs style of play. It comes originally from the great “push and run” team which, under Arthur Rowe, made Spurs champions back in 1951. The double winning side of 1960-61 had a similar style scoring 136 goals in 49 matches in that amazing season. But that was Tottenham’s last top flight league success, and although there have been some splendid wins in the cups, the Spurs fan really hankers for a Premiership trophy above all. But for now we are happy that the silverware cabinet has something in it again at last!

The Tottenham board have impressed me in recent years under their smart Chairman Daniel Levy. Levy doesn’t quite fit the traditional stereotype of a Football Club chairman – he is a Cambridge University graduate for a start. But he is fiercely ambitious and has a ruthless streak – as we saw with the sacking of Martin Jol. The basics now look to be right at White Hart Lane – strong finances, a good playing squad and an excellent Manager. And the fans are special as well. Every sports team has its loyal fan base that sticks with the team through thick and thin and Tottenham is no exception. But there is a quirky difference about the boys from the Lane which comes from their collective anarchic sense of humour. Mind you at times if you didn’t laugh you would cry, but maybe, just maybe, the smiles will be for the right reasons from now on! Come on you Spurs!

The return of running rugby?

Exciting ‘though they were the later stages of last year’s Rugby World Cup, culminating in a try-less Final, were not exactly feasts of running rugby. So one of the interesting features of this season’s 6 Nations is watching to see whether one or more of the teams can break away from the shackles of the defensive kicking game and entertain the crowds with running rugby. On the evidence so far it is only the French who really look like doing this.

Les nouveaux Bleus

After the bitter disappointment of the World Cup – losing to England in Paris in the Semi-Final (Sacré bleu!) - The French, under a new coach Marc Lievremont, are building a brand new team. “Les nouveaux bleus” have been exciting so far. They got off to a good start in the campaign with an impressive victory against a very poor Scotland at Murrayfield with Vincent Clerc scored two tries, one in each half, to give Lievremont success in his first match. Clerc then followed up with a hat trick of tries in France’s next match at home to Ireland and although they faltered badly in the second half in this match – allowing the determined Irish to get back to 21-26 from a seemingly down and out 6-26 deficit – they held on to win and now look favourites in the Tournament.

Comebacks

The Irish comeback in Paris was only one of a number of surprising reversals, or near reversals, in the competition so far. Pride of place has to go to Wales who, in front of a stunned crowd at Twickenham, came back from a losing 6-19 position shortly after half time to beat England 26-19 on the opening day of the season. England were like Longfellow’s little girl who “…when she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid.” To allow Wales to fight back and score 20 unanswered points during a remarkable 13-minute second-half spell was as horrid as it gets – for the England supporter anyway. But take nothing away from the Welsh who built on their familiarity with one another as players (they nearly all play for the same club side) to overcome a disjointed, confused and eventually traumatised England.

Lighting doesn’t strike twice in the same place they say but it certainly nearly struck twice against England when, just a week after their Twickenham disaster, they almost did the same again in Rome. Here a 20-6 interval lead versus Italy became a nerve tingling 23-19 by the end of the match. What on earth was going on? It is tempting to suggest a failure of a national character was in play – after all England’s cricket and football teams have demonstrated a similar ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in recent times. But, in reality, I think that there was simply a lack of the ability to close out a match combined with an admirable Welsh and an Italian determination not to give up – we saw that also with the Irish in France.

A Royal at Croke Park

Next Saturday your correspondent is off to Dublin to see Ireland play Scotland at the famous Croke Park ground. Amongst the other spectators will be HRH Princess Anne who is the patron of the Scottish Rugby Union. This will be the first visit by a member of the British Royal family to a ground that is a symbol of Irish nationalism and which has a tragic history in the Anglo-Irish conflict of the early part of the Twentieth century. Most of the spectators will take this in their stride I expect and their main interest will be to watch an improving Irish side beat the Scots. Scotland has yet to score a Try in 160 minuted of Rugby this season – perhaps they are stuck in a World Cup timewarp?

The competition is France’s to win or lose

Whilst there may be a slip along the way everything in this year’s 6 Nations does seem to be building to a great climax in the final match at the Millennium Stadium on 15th March when it is likely that Wales and France, both unbeaten, will contest the Grand Slam. The French have the easier path to this “Final” with a home matches against England and Italy which they should win comfortably. Wales have to face Ireland away en route and that is a fixture which could easily trip them up. But neutrals will be hoping that the two teams are unbeaten for the final match showdown. The last time France played at the Millennium Stadium I was privileged to see them beat the All Blacks in the World Cup – the greatest game of rugby I have ever seen live. But in this year’s 6 Nations nothing is quite predictable and whilst it is logical to say that the French are the team to beat I’m not clairvoyant or foolish enough to make a prediction. But if they do win it will be by carrying on playing running rugby – and we can all be grateful for that.

Paddy’s Letter from Barbados

In keeping with the laid back nature of this lovely island this is not my usual intemperate rant but more a few thoughts prompted by being in the country which in the post war era was an unchallenged leader in cricket achievement. My visit to Barbados is part labour of love and part sybaritic slobbing. The former is that for part of my time here I am doing some research into the early life of the Barbados, Kent and West Indies cricketer John Shepherd. Shepherd, for those too young to remember, was one of the key players behind Kent’s success in the 1970s and arguably one of the best all-rounders in county cricket in the post war era. He also played five times for the West Indies – and would certainly have played more Tests if the Windies side of the time had not been so phenomenally strong. He grew up in Belleplaine, a small hamlet in the north of the island – his exact contemporary Keith Boyce grew up nearby and the great West Indian Conrad Hunte was born in the same village. Three world class cricketers born in an area no bigger than Richmond Park! But the total population of the island is only 250,000 (smaller than the London Borough of Bromley) and to think that from that tiny number they produced, at roughly the same time, players of the stature of Sobers, Hall, Griffith, Hunte, Nurse, Garner, Marshall, Haynes, Greenidge, Holder… not to mention Walcott, Worrell and Weekes!

It was to the last surviving of the three Ws, Everton Weekes that I turned to explore John Shepherd’s early days as a young cricketer - Sir Everton had played an important part in coaching Shep as a schoolboy. Now in his eighty-third year Sir Everton is fit and active and his love of cricket is undiminished. He has trenchant views about the current state of West Indies cricket (as you might expect) and whilst I suspect that he casts a somewhat jaundiced eye at the rewards that today’s international cricketer receive he is far to polite openly to say so. The three Ws were motivated solely by their love of the game and whilst they did receive rewards, recognition, honours and fame none of them ever became seriously rich from the game. Weekes is arguably one the top five of all time batsmen – his Test average of just under 59 is higher even than Sobers and in his eighties he is well worth listening to for anyone who cares about the game. It was a privilege for me to be able to do this.

Anyone who argues that the three Ws era was a golden age needs to temper their views with a few reality checks. When they started their careers racism was rife in West Indies cricket. There was discrimination at club level (five of the best clubs in Barbados in the 1950s did not allow black players) and also at Test level. It was only in 1960 that the West Indies appointed a black captain Frank Worrell) for the first time. The financial rewards for these great players were also very modest – a real burden as they all came from humble backgrounds (an ordinary working class family was how Sir Everton described his relatives).

So fresh from my moving chat with Sir Everton I then explored the modern day world of the international player – and how very different that is. On the rich west coast of Barbados there are many exclusive hotels, golf courses and housing developments. The “Royal Westmoreland Golf Club” is perhaps the pick of the crop and it is here that Andrew Flintoff, Michael Vaughan, Mike Gatting and Marcus Trescothick have luxury homes. The cost of these rather vulgar villas is out of the reach of the likes of Sir Everton Weekes – not that he would want to live in one if he could. But today’s stars – most of whose achievements fall rather short of those of the great man – have earned themselves all the ostentations of the celeb lifestyle. To explore this further I drove to the Royal Westmoreland intent not on 18 holes with Vaughney but just to see what the fuss was all about. To my wife’s great amusement they wouldn’t let me near the place – the first time I can ever recall being denied entry to a golf club! For the Royal Westmoreland is that ultimate symbol of celebrity – a gated community into which only other celebs or very high rolling others are admitted. Had my rejection been on golfing grounds I could have understood it (my golf is execrable) but to be turned away just because I am a nobody grated a bit!

I don’t begrudge our cricketing stars their fortune or their privacy and I hope that they enjoy their times under the Bajan sun - and that they sometimes allow themselves to escape the confines of their luxury world to see the real Barbados as well. The Barbados of Everton Weekes and John Shepherd is delightful – a land of green sugar cane fields, fine fishy fare at simple beachside bars, of people who smile at you and talk to you – especially if you mention cricket. Only in Barbados could there be a University department dedicated to “Cricket Research” – and only in Barbados is a day incomplete if somebody hasn’t taken you aside to talk up the merits of calypso cricket. For me a labour of love indeed!

"Head On" by Ian Botham

The updated tale of Sir Ian Botham OBE, England's beefiest ever cricketer, is a good read - an open, revealing and well written "autobiography". Unlike Botham's previous foray into the genre, "Don't tell Kath", no ghost is credited - the publishers say only that Botham had "editorial assistance"- but it is difficult to believe that there was one skilled writer who had a firmly guiding hand on the text. Whoever that was has done an excellent job.

In 1983 Botham was having a lean spell and some in the media were calling for him to be dropped. At a press conference England captain Bob Willis responded to these calls by asking "Which two players do you gentlemen suggest we should bring in to replace him?" This sums up the unique feature of Botham's game - he was one of the few international cricketers who could have been chosen either as a specialist batsman or as a specialist bowler - but as an all-rounder he was irreplaceable. His fame and his devil-may-care personality always made Botham a target and anyone who thinks that the "feral media" is a modern phenomenon should turn to Both's accounts of how he was first pursued by them more than twenty years ago. True he brought some of the problems on himself - a fact that he honestly acknowledges - but he was certainly hounded and shabbily treated at times.

Writing about his long stint as a Sky commentator Sir Ian says "I'm simply stating things as I see them" - and that neatly describes the whole book. There are heroes (Viv Richards, John Arlott and his long-suffering wife Kath...) and villains (Ian Chappell, Imran Khan, Ted Dexter, Peter Roebuck...) and Both is not a forgiving man when aggrieved. But he is passionately loyal to his friends and his work for Leukaemia research reveals that deep down his heart is perhaps his beefiest organ of all.

Botham is perceptive on some of the ills of modern cricket - and especially England cricket. Here he is on England in Australia for example:

"We looked like schoolboys playing against the world's best, never more so than on that last morning in Adelaide. What was going on in that dressing room? What on earth had been said, so that when the English batsmen came out they scored just 30-odd runs in the whole of the thirty-over morning session? What were they thinking? But it wasn't just in Adelaide. Every single pressure session was lost right through the series. Whenever the pressure was on, the Australians came to the party and the England players stayed at home. I can't think of a single crucial passage of play where we came out ahead. Many of the same players were on the winning side against Australia sixteen months previously, but Australia learned lessons from that and England did not."

Spot on! And it's difficult to disagree with Botham's diagnosis of (one) of the causes of the problems either:

"I counted twenty-five people wearing England shirts out in the middle before the start of one Test - who the hell were they all? As well as the players, the coach and the physio, England had a batting coach, a bowling coach, security men, flunkeys of one sort and another, a dietician to tell them what to eat and even a team psych¬ologist to motivate them. Since when did you need a psychologist to play cricket? I never took any notice of those idiots - how many overs have they ever bowled? From the results the team achieved, the psychologist obviously did a great job."

Both is no fool, but like Shane Warne who in some ways he resembles, he can sometimes be a fool to himself. When truly great cricketers like Warne or Botham speak the current crop of players and administrators would do well to listen. But will they? Don't hold your breath!

Andrew Flintoff's challenge

The conspiracy of silence didn’t help Fred

It’s only a little more than two years ago but it might as well be seen on archive film in flickering black and white so distant does it seem. The six summer weeks when England regained The Ashes – that glorious carnival of cricket when we fought back from the pain of humiliation at Lord’s to out-play and out-think the invincible Aussies over the next four Tests. And it all began at Edgbaston when Ricky Ponting, thinking that after Lord’s we were on the run and that a series whitewash was on the cards, put us in after winning the toss. And we scored 407 runs on the first day at 5 runs an over and Freddie hit a glorious 68 with six fours and five sixes and then hit 73 in the second innings and took 3/52 in the Australian First Innings and 4/79 – including one of the finest overs ever bowled in any form of the game to Ponting (caught behind for a duck). Fred’s finest hour – an all-round performance perhaps unequalled in Test cricket history. And he added unselfconsciously to his stature by his spontaneous action at the moment of victory when he consoled the forlorn Brett Lee – the “image of the summer” Richie Benaud called it. When the series was over, and The Ashes had been won, Andrew Flintoff had 402 runs and 24 wickets to his name and was a national hero and even in Australia, where the bashing of any Pom is a badge of honour, Fred was held in the highest esteem. He was even offered honorary Australian citizenship at the high profile “Lindsay Hassett Club” lunch in October 2005 where he shared the speaking honours with Shane Warne.

Peter Roebuck, the curmudgeonly Anglo-Australian writer on cricket, once said that “Cricket is a game played in the mind. Give a man confidence and he will walk among kings. Drag him down and he will scurry among crabs.” For a couple of glorious months Freddie Flintoff had walked among the kings - so was it inevitable that from these heights the only way was down? Maybe it was because, despite his hulking frame, Fred is fragile at the edges. Fragile from his proneness to physical injury and fragile from, not to put it too unkindly, his love of a drink. At that same Melbourne lunch Shane Warne said that Fred “was a better drinker than anybody in the Australian team. He used to come in and say 'you want a beer?' straight away after the game. He'd sit next to you and have a beer and if you couldn't find an opener he'd open it with his teeth. He'd have five beers to our one." No wonder he was offered Aussie nationality!

The sight of an unsteady Freddie Flintoff at The Ashes victory celebration in London only reinforced his status as a folk hero in the minds of his devoted fans. But boozing in celebration is one thing – boozing to drown your sorrows is quite another. Duncan Fletcher, Fred’s England coach, has copped some stick for revealing just how much of a problem Flintoff’s drinking was during the Australian Ashes tour in 2006/07. But at the time his irresponsible behaviour went unreported in the media. In “The Spectator” at the end of the tour Peter Oborne wrote “It is impossible to overstate the shame and ghastliness of England's winter tour of Australia. Our cricketers were a disgrace to their sport, to their country and to themselves…some of our players have morally collapsed as a result….” Even Oborne, who is not part of the cricket writers cabal, pulled his punches and did not name Flintoff as one of those who had “morally collapsed”. The rest of the media followers, who had lived close to the Tour party for months, followed a self-imposed conspiracy of silence about Fred and his antics. It was only when the problems resurfaced in the West Indies during the Cricket World Cup in the infamous “Fredalo” incident that at last the press started to write a bit more openly about Flintoff’s boozing.

It is all too easy to talk down from the moral highground about the dysfunctional behaviour of some modern sportsmen and those of us who occasionally do this can expect abuse from the macho brigade which makes up so many of the sports fans of England. “Crack on big fella, you deserve to enjoy yourself and getting drunk is better than a lot of the alternatives which other celebs constantly indulge in. Have fun and live life to the full” wrote Keith a typical blogger on the BBC website. And no doubt the failure to report the “Getting Freddied” stories from Australia was in part a reflection of the same point of view – and of the fact that everyone in the media party loves Fred and many of them drink with him.

Cricket series are often a tale of two captains. Michael Vaughan cleaned up Ricky Ponting in England in 2005 but Ponting’s revenge was not on the absent Vaughan but on the very different and much more vulnerable Andrew Flintoff. And remember that Punter Ponting has been there – done that. Back in 1999 he was given a suspended $5,000 fine and banned for three matches as punishment for his part in a brawl in a Sydney nightclub. After the incident Ponting admitted that he had a drinking problem and sought counselling and it was reported that the Australian Cricket Board only suspended the fine on condition that Ponting underwent alcohol rehabilitation. All this was openly reported at the time and Ponting’s subsequent move to the Australian captaincy, and his status right at the top of world cricket, can be in no small measure attributable to the shock therapy he had received.

All of us who love England cricket, and who have huge affection and respect for Andrew Flintoff, will hope that he will use the coming months of enforced absence from the game to do more than just getting his body in order. At times we all go into denial about the problems we have - and there is usually somebody around to make you forget these problems over a glass or seven. But right now Fred needs these mates like a hole in the head. Perhaps he should pick up the ‘phone to Ricky Ponting and have a heart to heart with a man who has conquered similar demons. Nobody wants Freddie to be scurrying with the crabs – the next few months will be crucial to ensure that this does not happen to him.

.

Not so sweet Adelaide

From "Yes, No Sorry" Volume 6 Issue 1

Not so sweet Adelaide

The Brisbane Test had, from an England perspective, been a bit less of a debacle than it might have been. True we were thumped and we had allowed Punter to score a modest 256 runs in the match for once out and (even more annoyingly) the oracle McGrath had taken seven wickets. True we had batted like plonkers in our first innings and Steve Harmison had bowled the first ball of the series directly to second slip. But after Ponting’s curious decision not to enforce the follow on we did bat quite well in our second go – and there was a brief moment when it seemed that rain might let us off the hook and that would mean that the rabid Aussie press would turn on their Captain for not finishing the match in three days – as he probably could have done. But in the end it faded away, KP and Colly just missed tons that had fought hard for and the enemy went to Adelaide one up.

They’re a holy lot in South Australia’s capital (or judging by the number of churches they once were) and the cathedral provides a lovely backdrop to this splendid cricket ground. The cricketing globetrotter in me had always wanted to come to the Adelaide Oval and this time I was to be there. Over the years I have been lucky enough to see England win in some unlikely places- the MCG, Karachi, Sharjah, Colombo, Port of Spain, Cape Town and most recently Bombay - so I was optimistic that I might have a talismanic effect on the team. Whilst the lads were hardly on a roll at least they had turned humiliation into some respectability at the Gabba with Kev and Paul’s gutsy partnership. My private hope was that the second Test would be a respectable draw and that we could go on to Perth where our quicks could then get them in trouble on a fast pitch and force a win. Yep I had decided to settle for that. Not to mention a few days in the sun and a few evenings sampling the wonderful products of the Barrossa and McLaren Vale. Need to win the toss and bat though…

The toss was won and although we muffed it a bit at the start (45-2 in the twentieth over) and then Belly played an adrenalin driven vertical hook (after two consecutive boundaries) to be caught and bowled by Lee (158-3) things were in good shape by the close of the first day. 266-3 was respectable and Colly and KP were going well again. Would Colly (98* overnight) get his ton? Wouldn’t he just, and another as well! And Pietermaritzburg Piet got one too and we declared and Fred whipped out Langer before the close. We might nick this one – we really might and even if not at least the draw is secure!

Could it get better – you bet it could! Hoggy was on fire at the beginning of day three first Hayden and then Martyn – Aus in trouble at 65-3 and the Hogster wanted more. He was to get them, too – but not for a while. Punter scratched around a bit and then mis-hooked Hoggard to deep square leg when on 35. I can see that ball now a speeding parabola in the sky only fifty or so yards from where I was watching. It hovered a bit and there was dependable old Gilo under it – but he had to leap a bit to make sure and his leap never really left the ground… and it was gone. And so, as it turned out, were the Ashes.

By the end of the third day (Aus 312-5) there was still a fair bit of optimism in the Barmy Army camp. Punter was gone and the irritating Hussey as well. Get Clarke or Gilchrist out and we could be through the rest and a lead of 150 or so. KP and the lovely Jessica were on the next table to Mrs B and me in an Italian restaurant that night. Mrs B likes KP and I thought Ms Taylor looked rather tasty as well – although she left most of her lasagne (KP wolfed his down). Nice couple we thought and so lovey-dovey too. Kev stuck to the diet Coke and played footsie with Jess under the table in his flip-flops (which had little Flags of St George on them). Bless!

Day Four and the papers were saying that the pudding of a pitch was a disgrace and that the curator should be sacked and Geoff Boycott said that his Granny could score a hundred on it and Michael Clarke did. Then Aus collapsed from 502-6 to 513 all out and Hoggy had seven wickets! Young Cook was out before the close but Strauss and Belly looked OK and there would be a chance for some nice runs tomorrow - easy picking on the pudding.

We took our seats square of the wicket halfway up the Chappells stand (named after two of the brothers, the underarm bowling third one isn’t mentioned) and looked forward to the day. I plugged in my radio to listen to the pre-start chat. “Funny”, said Jim Maxwell, “I just saw the England boys getting off their bus and they looked really edgy”. “Oh dear,” said Aggers, “don’t like the sound of that”. “And Flintoff was limping a bit too” says Jim just to cheer us up. But they all think that a draw is just about certain as do all the know-all hacks in the Aussie press. Play begins and I watch Warney through my binoculars – he looks a bit manic. “Shit that turned a lot” says a gentleman in an MCC blazer behind me. “It does seem to be gripping a bit” I reply. And it was.

Ten overs or so into the day Strauss gets a shocking decision from umpire Bucknor. He and Bell have put on ten runs today at a rate of one per over. Well at least they aren’t taking any risks with quick runs! They leave that to Bell and Colly who contrive a run out. Well at least they weren’t playing any foolish shots. They leave that to KP who plays an ill-judged sweep to a ripping Warne leg break. Warney loved that one! Brett Lee looks a bit off the pace – until Freddie helps him by flashing a catch to the keeper. 77-5 in the 38th over. Looking dodgy. But Colly and GoJo hang on to lunch and beyond and if they can keep going the Aussies might just run out of time. No silly shots though Geraint – nice four, and another to a wide ball. Best leave those alone I think. Ah, there’s another wide one – straight into Hayden’s hands in the gully. 94-6. “Jones you’re a tosser” cries an apoplectic Pom in a Barmy Army shirt. It’s not quite a procession and Colly hangs on and even Jimmy A does his bit to survive for ten overs at the end. But the rest is history.

So how did England lose? Hindsight is great but first they declared too early in their first Innings. Then there was Gilo’s drop of Ponting. And finally, and crucially, there was the rabbit in the headlights batting on the final day. Warne bowled really well and had good support - but it was the same pitch on which he had laboured to 1-167 in the first innings. “Has Warne got special hands to do that?” asked a young boy sitting near me as the screen replayed the ball which got KP. “No son “said his Dad, “He’s got a special head.”. And so it was. The genius of Warne is to link his brain, his hands and his mouth in such a way that the batsman is afeared. It was genius at work – and in truth England never had a prayer.

No mercy as Austrlia bash their opponents all around the ring and the referee can't intervene to stop the fight

If it was a prize fight the referee would have stepped in long ago to save England from further punishment – perhaps as early as the end of the second round in Adelaide when they all looked shaky on their legs and eventually dead on their feet on the fifth day. The great Muhammad Ali used to dance around and taunt his opponents before he administered the coup de grâce – perhaps feeling that the audience who had paid their money were entitled to a prolonged exhibition.

Ricky Ponting might have been in Ali’s mood when he failed to enforce the follow on in Brisbane and scored a quite unnecessary extra 202 runs for 1 run out in the second innings – he could probably have forfeited that innings completely if he had wanted to - as the eventual margin of 277 runs demonstrated. But Justin Langer helped himself to a hundred (having missed out by 18 in Australia’s first innings) and there was a century in the match for the Aussie captain as well. Mike Hussey also just missed a ton in the First innings but one suspects that having kicked himself for his error back in the dressing room he reasoned quite understandably that there would be more rich pickings ahead. It was help-yourself time for the bowlers as well and Glenn McGrath eased himself back with a gentle seven wicket limber up in the match. Warney wasn’t really needed in England’s first innings but he tweaked a few past the bat and, despite conceding a few runs, looked good as he took four in the second innings. Stuart Clark did the holding job and helped himself to four scalps without giving away many runs.

At Adelaide the match meandered along for four days with there not being much between the sides on the flattest of pitches. Ponting took another comfortable hundred off the England attack, as did Michael Clarke and again the dressing room door shuddered as the formidable Hussey just missed a hundred again – this time by nine runs in the first innings. Warney slept his way through the EnglandEngland batters into a false sense of security. There was no security at all as it turned out as like a gambler whose reason has left him completely they piled the chips on the wrong numbers throughout the final day to lose a match which it was impossible to lose. It was perhaps the most incompetent batting ever seen in a Test match, but take nothing away from Australia - it was their self-belief and the way they instilled fear in their opponents that deservedly won them the match. first knock – but the concession of 167 runs for just one wicket may have been a smart move lulling the

At Perth Hussey missed out on a hundred that was there for the taking yet again in the Oz first innings when he ran out of partners on 74. Perhaps the modest Australian total of 244 was a deliberate ploy to fire up the bowling attack – if so it worked as England were swept away in their first innings and failed to get the first innings lead that even some Aussie gamblers were punting on. The bowlers shared the wickets – even the improbably selected Andrew Symonds took a couple to celebrate his recall to the side after the withdrawal of Damien Martyn (who had perhaps decided that he had tired of the sight of blood). In the Aussie second innings this time Hussey made no mistake and carved and drove his way to a calm hundred and he was joined by Clarke who improved his average further with another hundred (not out this time). Perhaps the league against cruel sports were off duty later in the day when Adam Gilchrist went completly mad scoring 102 off 59 balls to take the game completely away from England (if that had not happened already). As at Brisbane England batted better in the second innings, but again as at Brisbane the writing was already on the wall. Warne stretched himself a bit with four wickets (five if you include the way that the bemused Geraint Jones committed suicide rather than face more punishment at Warne’s hands).

And so to Melbourne where the chat in the Aussie dressing room must have been about whose turn it was to score a hundred. Few would have argued when Hayden put his hand up but there may have been a few sighs when Andrew Symonds said that it was high time he got a hundred as well and now was as good a chance as he would ever get. The rest of the batsmen took the day off as these two helped themselves to 309 runs between them out of Australia’s total of 419. So the first seven in the batting order at Sydney have already scored at least one hundred each earlier in the series – I suspect that this may be a record but I can’t really be arsed to wade through Wisden and check! Oh and England managed to be out twice for well under 200 for the third and fourth times in the series and lose by an innings. Pedants like me (who fail to acknowledge that the knockabout exhibition match against a “World XI” in October 2005 was a proper Test match) will be pleased to recall that Warney’s 700^th wicket came with his last in England’s second innings and not as he thought his first in England’s first. But what the hell the boy done great again as did his back up crew all of who chipped in with wickets when needed.

And so to Sydney – a round too far in this Ashes “no contest”. Surprises do happen in cricket (how could this Aussie team have nearly lost a Test match to Bangladesh only nine months ago?) but England aren’t on the ropes, they are down and out, gasping for breath and wanting to get the hell out of the ring. Well it’s Warney’s turn for a hundred and that would make it eight in the team who have at least one in this series. I wouldn’t put it past the old thespian to make his last tread on the boards an Oscar winning and nail-biting ton. For England there is talk of playing for pride, but pride usually goes before the fall not after. Getting up off the canvas in order to be hit down again will be an achievement in itself. It can’t be much fun – as Orson Welles once said “When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.”

© Paddy Briggs December 2006

Paddy's Sports View 28th August 2006

From the "Bahrain Tribune"

There was an awe-inspiring inevitability about Tiger Woods’s recent victory in the PGA, as there had been at his similar triumph in the previous Major at Royal Hoylake. In both wins we saw a “new, improved Tiger” – one who has now added the component of exceptional course management to his already peerless game. It seems that Tiger, working so effectively with his caddy Steve Williams, has worked out that if he plays to his strengths and manages his weaknesses then he will be almost unbeatable. Weaknesses? Well to start with Woods is one of the least accurate drivers on the PGA tour. His current record of hitting fairways with just under 60% of his drives puts him a lowly 152nd on the tour. Then there is his putting. The conventional wisdom is that to win golf tournaments you have to be a master on the greens. Well this year Tiger’s putting record is pretty average – his number of putts per hole record places him only 61st in the rankings. What about bunker play then, surely Woods is a master at getting down from the sand? No again, Tiger is only 44th in the list when it comes to “sand saves” – getting down in two or less from a trap.

So how can this inaccurate driver, who is only an average putter and struggles in the bunkers be having such a successful season? Well the sand play record gives us a clue. True, Woods is a long way from being the best bunker player – but he doesn’t get into them that often! His record this year is that he has only been in a bunker 54 times – slightly over once per round, a record that is close to being the best on the tour. The traps are placed to penalise wayward iron shots – on approach on a Par four or five and from the tee on the Par 3 holes. And it is with the approach irons that Tiger is unrivalled – the statistics indicate that Tiger is the most accurate player around on approaches to the green. And this is where his new found confident course management comes into play. At Hoylake Tiger rarely took a driver off the tee because he didn’t need to. He knew that to be well-positioned for the crucial shot to the green was all-important so he concentrated on position rather than length - and he did the same in the PGA. It is this astute and focused tactical play that has given Woods the best birdie record of all – he has more birdies on Par 4 and Par 5 holes this year than any other player.

Whilst the statistics of Tiger Woods 47 rounds of golf this year give some clear pointers as to the reasons for his success (six wins out of 13 events played) they only tell half the story. The real key to Tiger’s success comes from the fact that he is very hard to beat when he has victory in his sights – especially during the final round. His final round partners Sergio Garcia (at The Open Championship) and Luke Donald (at the PGA) found that their games wilted in the face of Tiger’s will to win. Garcia had a final round 73 to Woods’s 67 at Hoylake and Donald a 74 to Woods’s 68 at Medinah – they were both blown away!

The combination of technical excellence, unrivalled iron play, shrewd course management and still hungry ambition makes Tiger Woods the complete golfer and the consummate professional – especially in the tournaments that really matter. So what can we expect in the Ryder Cup next month – the only form of golf where Tiger has under-performed (he has won just 7 of his 20 Ryder Cup matches)? How can a man who destroys his rivals so completely in final day head to heads have such a modest record in Ryder Cup match play? My guess is that Tiger’s Ryder Cup record (whatever the reasons for it) is something that he will want to put right this year. Tiger, like all the greatest sportsman, hates to lose and he has been on a losing Ryder Cup team three times out of four. Whilst nothing in golf is certain I have a feeling that US Ryder Cup Captain Tom Lehman can bank on the maximum points from his leading player this year!

Paddy's Sports View 21st August 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

The repercussions of Sunday’s extraordinary events at The Oval will be felt in cricket for a long time. Tribune sports columnist Paddy Briggs was at the ground – here is his special report.

My seat at The Oval on Sunday was close to the off-field action as the extraordinary events unfolded - events which were to lead to the unprecedented forfeiture of the match by Pakistan. Whilst acres of newsprint will no doubt be covered around the cricket world in discussion of the controversy, and there will be differences of opinion as to who the heroes and villains were, to me the issue boils down to one cardinal principle. The Laws of Cricket state that “The umpires shall be the sole judges of fair and unfair play.” This is one of the shortest of all the laws and it is quite unequivocal. The preamble to the Laws adds that “The umpires are authorised to intervene in case of…tampering with the ball” and further that “It is against the Spirit of the Game…to dispute an umpire’s decision by word, action or gesture.” It is beyond argument, therefore, that the umpires at The Oval were within their rights in their actions in respect of what they saw as unfair play (ball tampering) and also that Pakistan was in serious contravention of the Laws (and their spirit) in the “protest” that they made.

At 4:40pm the umpires took the field after the rain break and the England batsmen were ready to resume, but the Pakistan side did not appear. Their dressing room door was closed, only to be opened from time to time to admit first their manager Zaheer Abbas and then their coach Bob Woolmer (neither of whom stayed in the room for very long). The umpires left the field and at that point there was a prima facie case that (as the Laws of cricket put it) there was “…action by any player or players [which] might constitute a refusal…to play”. The duty of the umpires in such circumstances is to “…ascertain the cause of the action [and] then decide together [if] this action does constitute a refusal to play” they then have to inform the captain and “if [he] persist in the action the umpires shall award the match [to the other team]”. So when at just before 5:00pm the umpires walked to the wicket again, this time accompanied by the two England batsmen, and for a second time (and despite the warning) the Pakistan team did not appear then the umpires were quite right to remove the bails, end the match and award it to England. And that should have been the end of the sorry matter.

The match was over at 5:00pm, the Laws and the spirit of the game had been upheld by the umpires and, sad though it all was, we should then all have gone home. But never underestimate the ability of cricket’s besuited officialdom to make bad situations immeasurably worse. Although the umpires had made their decision, and although it is undisputed that they have sole charge of the match, the Chairmen of the two cricket boards (David Morgan of the ECB and Shaharyar Khan of the PCB) took it upon themselves to get involved. I watched the two of them earnestly talking to one another outside the Pakistan dressing room and then each of them went in to talk to the Pakistan team. A little while later Shoaib Akhtar emerged and I asked him was what going on “They’re coming out” he said, and shortly afterwards out trooped Inzaman and his players (to a chorus of boos from the crowd).

The blatant and very public attempt by the two cricket Board chairman to undermine the decision that the umpires had made and try and get play restarted is perhaps the most shocking part of this whole sorry event. Remember these two men are not just the most senior cricket administrators in their respective countries, they are also both personally members of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) executive board. To their great credit the umpires, Billy Doctrove and Darrell Hair, (both ICC employees, of course) refused to be intimidated and refused to be party to the squalid little deal that Morgan and Khan had brokered with the Pakistan team. It was the umpires’ entirely honourable decision not to stand in any restarted match which finally scuppered the match for good.

Passions are running very high at the moment and a period of calm would be welcome whilst the ICC looks closely at the whole affair (as they must). But it is important to state from the outset that, as in any sport, play can only happen if there is a framework of rules which delineate the limits of behaviour and which clearly decide who is in charge. The Laws of cricket certainly do this and these Laws are backed up by the ICC’s 8,700 word document “Standard Test Match Playing Conditions”. Reference to these Laws and conditions shows that the Pakistan team seriously contravened them in what they did (whether they had actually tampered with the ball or not) and that the umpires were wholly correct in their actions throughout. In this respect it is most regrettable that Shaharyar Khan should have made a disingenuous statement which defended the Pakistan team’s actions “We feel there is no evidence,” he said, “of deliberate scuffing of the ball. Once you accuse a team of deliberately tampering with the ball, it becomes a very big deal. We felt we should make a protest but we simply said that we would stay inside for a few minutes, and go out when the protest had been registered.” So a member of the Executive Board of the ICC is publicly endorsing an action by his players which has been in contravention of the Laws of the game and which has undoubtedly brought the game into disrepute! I wonder what his friends at the ICC will have to say about that. No very much, probably.

The root cause of Sunday’s Oval fiasco was a lack of proper leadership when it mattered most. Inzaman-Al-Haq should have said to his players “Look guys we are not happy about the ball-tampering allegations but the right time to progress this is after the match. Let’s get on and win it”. When he failed to do this Bob Woolmer or Zaheer Abbas or the ineffable Shaharyar Khan should have stepped in and said something similar. Instead there was vacillation and they all bowed to player power. Inzy has built a strong team with his distinctive brand of captaincy and it is quite clear that his players would do anything that he asked them. But it seems that in initiating the “protest” he put the rather arrogant conviction that he and his players had the moral high ground above common sense. And a match which could, and should, have ended with Pakistan (who played well throughout the game) gaining something from a series they had lost ends with them looking very foolish indeed.

Paddy's Sports View 8th August 2006

From the "Bahrain Tribune"

Among my collection of “Wisden’s Cricketers Almanack” (that famous yellow bound book that is eagerly awaited every year by all cricket fans) are some thin editions which record the English seasons between 1940 and 1945. Although there were other priorities than cricket at that time the game was not entirely suspended and matches took place from time to time all around war-torn Britain. Sport had a role to play during these years in helping people keep some link with normality, even when most of the rest of life is abnormal. So when we look at the tragedy which is the country of Lebanon at the moment and our hearts go out to the bereaved and the dispossessed we could think that perhaps, in time, sport can play a role in helping the nations’ rebuilding. But for now sporting events have, of course, had to be cancelled and numerous sports facilities are being transformed into centres to shelter the displaced.

I have always written that as much as so many of us enjoy sports we have to have a sense of perspective – in the end sport is ephemeral, even trivial when compared with the “big issues” of life. But sport can influence things in surprisingly positive ways sometimes – look at how India/Pakistan relations have been improved following the restoration of international cricket between the two nations. Think also of the crucial role that sport had to play in helping break down and eventually eliminate apartheid in South Africa. In this context it is truly unforgivable that the International Cricket Council (ICC) continues to give their blessing to the playing of cricket with (and even in) Zimbabwe at the moment. The odious Zimbabwe regime of Robert Mugabe and his cronies is openly discriminatory throughout its society, not least in cricket. Who will ever forget the brave protest during the 2003 Cricket World Cup by Andy Flower, and his equally brave team-mate Henry Olonga, about what they called the "death of democracy" in Zimbabwe? Notwithstanding this protest the ICC continued to turn a blind eye to the horrors of life in that benighted country and claimed that their only concern was “cricketing issues”. ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed and President Percy Sonn are just back from a visit to Harare after which Speed said “It's apparent Zimbabwe is going through a difficult time” - well I suppose that is one way of putting it!

The ICC has many paymasters and despite the pomposity of many of its statements about the “Spirit of Cricket” it has never taken a moral stand on anything. The international sporting community’s response to Israel may well be similar. Many of us with strong ties to the Middle East would find the idea of playing sport in and with Israel at the moment repugnant - this is about principles, not security. Liverpool Football Club’s (and Uefa’s) decision to play a Champions League football match against Maccabi Haifa at a neutral venue is not surprising, but disappointing. Did they ever think about putting the moral case and cancelling the fixture completely? I doubt it.

The idea that you can “keep politics out of sport” is as absurd as the idea that you can “keep sport out of politics”! Politicians of all colours will happily bask in the reflected glory of national sports team successes – the doors to presidential and prime ministerial offices are always open when a photo opportunity with a trophy winner presents itself.


So if sport is part of life (as it is) surely it should operate within the same moral imperatives as other parts of life? Why give succour to vile regimes which have abandoned any pretence to human rights and universal values by playing sport with them? And it is not just the canny politicians in the West who will happily use sport to their advantage when they can. History teaches us that most dictators love to parade their power in front of large crowds when they can create the opportunity - so when Hitler took the salute at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 it was a barefaced promotion of his power and of the “glories” of the Third Reich. In a couple of year’s time the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will be doing much the same in Beijing. Much as I love sport that is one event you can certainly count me out of!

Paddy's Sports View 31st July 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

England bowler Steve Harmison checked out of his hotel room last Sunday morning which, with ten Pakistan second innings still be taken and three days of the match nominally still to go, was an act of supreme self-confidence. Harmy's confidence was well justified and together with the excellent Monty Panesar, he bowled England to a comprehensive three-day win. I hope that Harmison enjoyed Sunday evening back home with his feet up and surrounded by his family - he certainly deserved to.

Other things being equal the sportsman with self-belief will usually defeat the sportsman with self-doubt. The truly great performers in any sport always have oodles of self-belief, which is why they are sometimes called arrogant. No doubt sometimes a touch of arrogance can creep in and it is also true that some of those at the very top believe that they can do what they like - that their special talents give them a right to behave in a way that ordinary mortals would not. Why else would (for example) Michael Schumacher, or John McEnroe, or most recently Zinadene Zidane, have behaved so disgracefully on occasion?

Tiger Woods win in the "Open Championship" was, as I commented last week, founded on a superb game plan and excellent course management. But it was also driven by self-confidence bolstered by the fact that the game plan was clearly working. The more you do something, and do it well, the more likely you are to be able to continue doing it well. The more that you are outfought or outwitted by your opponent the more that self-doubt creeps in and you begin to wonder if you will ever win again. There has been a touch of that in the England cricket team since last year's "Ashes" triumph. Missing key players (which has reinforced the self-doubt) and with some of their better players searching for form England has under-performed. When these doubts were conquered (as at the Mumbai Test match when England took advantage of the good fortune of being invited to bat first on a good pitch) they have played to their potential. But when the doubts have crept in (as during most of the home Sri Lanka series) the performances have been sub-standard. At Old Trafford last week the "old" England turned up to play and with Harmison firing well, Monty fizzing the ball off the hard wicket and a couple of young batsman (Cook and Bell) playing really well an innings victory was assured. The challenge is now to build on the self-belief that this win will have engendered and go on to clinch the series at Headingley - don't bet against it!

Self-belief was also to the fore at Hockenheim on Sunday when Ferrari sailed to a brilliant one, two in the German Grand Prix. There were paddock rumours before the race of discontent in the Renault camp - something that I predicted might happen in my pre F1 season preview. Flavio Briatore, the Renault chief, is a flamboyant character and a brilliant tactician as well. Flavio bows to nobody in his knowledge of the sport and in knowing how to convert that knowledge into race victories. But Flavio's self-confidence turns to arrogance rather more than his rivals at McLaren and Ferrari - that is how he lost the services of Fernando Alonso at the end of last season and that is the reason that his grip on the 2006 championship may be weakening. Whereas Ferrari is clearly on a roll - the smiles on the faces of Schumacher and Massa on the podium were smiles of genuine pride rather than relief - Renault is visibly slipping. Alonso is getting edgy and Flavio angry, and that is not good news for the Renault fans. Ferrari, on the other hand, is marshalling all their considerable resources to push for a final championship for Schumi - and to launch a new era for the Scuderia without him - on a high note.

It is sometimes forgotten that in a sport that is so much about the familiar faces of the great champions (Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost, Senna and Schumacher) that behind each champion there has to be a formidable team. When doubts creep in to the team (last year's under-performing Bridgestone tyres at Ferrari, for example) then winning is difficult. But when self-belief is all around, as it was with Renault last year and seems to be with Ferrari now, then success becomes almost easy!

Paddy's Sports View 24th July 2006

For the Bahrain Tribune

Over the past few weeks we have seen remarkable wins by three master sportsmen, coincidentally all against young Spanish pretenders. Roger Federer continued his domination of Wimbledon with an impressive win in the final against the brilliant twenty year old Rafael Nadal. Michael Schumacher confounded his critics not only by winning the United States Grand Prix (which many predicted might happen) but also by following this with another win in France (which few expected) - leaving Fernando Alonso to have to settle for second place on both occasions. And last weekend the final round of "The Open Championship" paired Tiger Woods with the charismatic and ebullient Sergio Garcia who wilted under the Tiger's ruthless and tactically astute assault.

Federer, Schumacher and Woods all have technically superb sporting skills - but over and above this they have a combination of bloody-mindedness and matchless ambition which really does make them, on their day, unbeatable. Nadal played well for the first time on Wimbledon's grass courts and his time will surely come, but Federer's genius, his intelligent game plan and his nerve at the vital moments, were too much for Nadal this year. Schumacher knew that the performance gap between Ferrari and Renault (and especially between Bridgestone and Michelin) was at last beginning to narrow and that if he is to stay in with a chance in the Drivers' championship he had to start winning. Alonso may be the favourite to retain his crown but this clearly won't be without a fight from the old master Schumi. And Woods was simply matchless.

If there has been a more tactically brilliant approach to a Golf Major than Tiger's at Hoylake I have never seen one. Before the tournament it was Woods' bitter rival Phil Mickelson who seemed to have prepared more thoroughly. To his great credit Mickelson spent two weeks in Britain prior to the Open and, in particular, he played and studied the Royal Liverpool course from every angle. Tiger Woods' approach was also to prepare thoroughly - but this preparation was more in his head than with his clubs. Woods decided to eliminate error from his game by the simple expediency of keeping his driver and his other wooden clubs in his golf bag. In recent years the Tiger's only weakness has been inconsistency off the tee - especially on the ever-longer American courses. Woods realised that Hoylake does not require a driving contest - it is a superb links course, which tests all the facets of the game, but by modern-day standards it is not long. Woods knew that his long and medium iron play could be trusted and that it was just as valid a method to hit a two-iron off the tee followed by (say) a five iron to the green as to hit a booming drive and a wedge. These tactics worked to perfection - not least in that final round when he was playing with Garcia. The young Spaniard out-drove Woods on most of the holes - but their respective final rounds of 73 and 67 tell the story of whose approach was the more successful. There is an old adage in golf that you "drive for show, but putt for dough" and Tiger Woods' approach in the Open showed how true this is. But whilst he did hole quite a few longish putts this was not the principal reason for Woods' success on the greens - this came from the unerring accuracy of his approaches into the greens, which meant that he would rarely have to sink a long putt to stay in charge.

Modern pro golf has been criticised as being mainly a power game and even the great and historic courses like Augusta (home to "The Masters") have been lengthened in an attempt to make them more of a challenge for today's long-hitting professional. It is possible that after the 2006 Open Championship this may begin to change. Woods demonstrated that accuracy is far more important than length - and it was notable that over the course of the championship some others started to do the same thing. There is a lesson here for the ordinary club player as well. We all have the big-headed drivers in our bags these days and relish the opportunity to try and hit a booming drive 300 yards (or more) down the fairway. I wonder how many recreational golfers will see (like Tiger at Hoylake) that a well-hit iron to the centre of the fairway might be preferable in future!

Paddy's Sports View 10th July 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

The tale of Zinedine Zidane’s Football World Cup 2006 (prior to the Final) was told in my London newspaper last Saturday (a day before the final) under the headline “How Zidane rose from the depths to a glorious finale”. Twenty-Four hours is a long time in sport, indeed half a minute is a lifetime if it is a 30 seconds filled with madness which, as we now know, was to be Zidane’s final act on a football pitch. The tension of sport at the highest level gets to even the most sanguine of players and even the calmest succumb when the stakes are just too unbearably high. Sometimes the end of a player’s dreams comes with a whimper, like Wayne Rooney’s petulant little stamp on Ricardo Carvalho which let to his red card in England’s quarter final. But sometimes they come with a mighty bang – and such was the case with Zidane whose attack on Italian defender Marco Materazzi was as premeditated as it was violent. Quite how Zidane will live with himself I have no idea – he certainly can’t deny the facts which a billion television viewers around the world have seen in grisly close up.

I have never managed a sporting team – undoubtedly a relief for any group of players who have escaped the benefits of my tactical nous and my motivating calls to arms. But if I had been in charge of a team at this world cup I would have had one absolutely clear message. It would have been along the lines of “You will be provoked at some time in the ninety minutes. It will happen. And when it does then just walk away. Don’t plead with the Ref to book the miscreant. Don’t return abuse when abused. Remember if someone wrongs you then you then it is up to the officials to deal with it. If they don’t you won’t be able to persuade them to change their minds. And if you retaliate that puts you in the wrong as much as whoever committed the original offence. Two wrongs never make a right!” A simple and rather pompous little homily perhaps but if Rooney had received it and remembered it then he and England might have beaten Portugal. And if Zidane had similarly lodged these truths in his brain then not only would his career not have ended ingloriously but France might have won the World Cup.

As we saw at Monaco when Michael Schumacher tried to cheat his way onto pole position in the Grand Prix even the most respected, admired and talented of sportsmen are vulnerable when glory is within reach. Top cyclists are banned from this year’s Tour de France because of drug suspicions and Track and Field has been besmirched by similar stories for too long. That Marion Jones is now back on the track after all the furore around her alleged drug abuse many will find offensive and that a whole sport (cycling) is riddled with this problem is a disgrace. Perhaps Zidane (naively) thought that the cameras were not on him in Berlin – but more likely like Schumacher, or Jones or all the others who transgress perhaps he thought that he could get away with it. Most likely, though, is the theory that he did not think at all and was operating on a sort of high where there was no reality only illusion. The truth that unbelievable fame and approval was within his grasp was clouding his mind and he suspended the norms of usual behaviour for one fatal moment. To paraphrase C.S.Lewis “…of all the passions, the passion for [success and fame] is most skilful in making a man, who is not yet a very bad man, do very bad things”. Hero to Zero in thirty seconds.

At its most trivial level fame and fortune can make top sportsmen just very silly. All the hype over the celeb footballers and their shopping addicted WAGS (Wives and Girlfriends) is harmless, if vulgar. But the blacker side of this coin is when the same fame can lead a man to think that he is above the law and whether that tendency is truly horrific (like O.J.Simpson) or just grotesquely foolish (Zidane) it does not show human nature at its best. But for every Zidane or Rooney there is a Federer or a Nadal (excellent role models both) – so all is perhaps not lost!

Paddy's Sports View 4th July 2006

For the Bahrain Tribune

The challenge for the coach in any team sport is, above all, to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Sometimes a great coach will be able to work with a group of players each of whose individual ability might be modest but who he can mould together into a formidable team unit. In football we have seen this in recent times with the remarkable Dutch coach Guus Hiddink who took South Korea to the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2002 and was unlucky not to quite achieve the same with Australia in 2006. We also saw it last year when Duncan Fletcher moulded England into a cricket team strong enough to beat an Australian team which was comprised of more experienced and higher rated individuals. Any coach would prefer to work with a squad made up of the very best players – but the truly excellent coach will be able to mould more limited individuals into a very good team. This brings us to Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, the England team coach for the past six years, leaves the job without a trophy in the cabinet and with the abuse of fans ringing in his ears. He was by far the best paid coach amongst the teams in Germany – his opposite number Marco van Basten of Holland said that Sven earned the same in a week as he (van Basten) did in a year! But for its money the English Football Association has not only failed to win anything but has also employed a man who has turned a silk purse into a sows ear. The silk purse has been, of course, the cadre of truly fine footballers that Eriksson has had at his disposal. The English Premier league is the strongest in the world and with the money in the league being so great the top clubs can afford to buy almost any player they fancy. So for a club like Chelsea or Manchester United or Liverpool to have English players in their team, alongside the overseas stars, then these players must be the very best. Joe Cole, John Terry, Frank Lampard, Gary Neville, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard are unquestionably world class talents at the core of the squad along with Beckham and Hargreaves who perform at the highest level outside England (at Real Madrid and Bayern Munch respectively). So what went wrong? How did Eriksson manage to turn a group of highly talented and successful individuals into a lousy team – because that, in essence, is what has happened under his stewardship?

There are three key requirements of any good coach. The first is to pick the best players. The second is having the technical understanding of the sport to introduce the right tactics (team formations etc.). And the third, and most crucial, is to motivate the team to perform over and above their individual abilities - to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Over most of his tenure Sven-Goran Eriksson failed on all three counts, but most culpably at the 2006 World Cup a tournament which, given the quality of the players available, England could well have won. Sven’s selections were bizarre – most obviously bringing four strikers of whom two (Rooney and Owen) were far from match fit, one (Walcott) who had never played a top class match of any sort and the fourth (Crouch) who is also comparatively untried at the top level. Eriksson compounded his odd squad selection with tactics which were inconsistent and eccentric. Instead of having a clear idea as to what the coach wanted long before the team arrived in Germany the players had to change formations and styles as they went along. FIFA President Sepp Blatter got it right when he criticised England saying that they should not have “appeared in the second round with just a single striker. This isn't the kind of offensive football you expect from a contender for the World Cup title." (Blatter, in his position, should not have made the statement – but he was right in what he said!).

But it was on the third requirement that Eriksson was most deficient. He could not motivate the players to perform well – and most of the time he seemed not to try. England’s second half performances during most of his time in the job were far worse than their first half efforts. So Sven’s team talks at half-time (such as they were) were actually demotivating! Don’t blame the players for their uninspiring World cup and their under-achievement. It was the icy Swede who made two plus two equal three.

Paddy's Sports View 28th June 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

One of the great clichés in sport, used by fans and the media alike, is that a sportsman or a team “deserves” to win an event. Keen students of this column over the years will no doubt find that I have used this solecism myself – it is a convenient way of celebrating a popular win (or mourning a sad loss). But the reality is that sport is not about “just desserts” any more than it is (only) about style or entertainment. An “undeserved” win is always preferable to a plucky, brave loss in any sport, anywhere, anytime. As the American Football coach Vince Lombardi said “If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep the score?”

The neutral spectator might like to see the gutsy trier or the underdog triumph over the knarled, cynical old pro - or the “unlucky” loser eventually get his win. Sure the tears came to the eyes when Jaroslav Drobny eventually won Wimbledon in 1954 after nearly twenty years of trying. And the same would have happened if Colin Montgomerie had won the US Open last week at Winged Foot. But however much most of us would have liked Monty to win, in reality such a win would have been no more “deserved” than that of the actual winner – the comparative rookie Australian Geoff Ogilvy. Monty comforted himself after his loss by saying that he has a good record in Majors having been second five times. Some comfort! Monty knows, in his heart, that nobody ever remembers the Runner up. No trophy, no green jacket, just that feeling deep down that it hasn’t happened AGAIN and now, at the age of 43, that it probably won’t ever happen.

It would need a skilled psychotherapist to dig deep into Colin Montgomerie’s psyche to find out why he has never, in 67 attempts over 16 years, won one of the big four despite his great success on the European Tour and in the Ryder Cup. To carry the descriptor of the “Greatest golfer never to have won a Major” (which he undoubtedly is) must continue to be deeply frustrating for this most driven of men. In fact if you dig a little deeper into Monty’s career record you will see that (one “Skins” game apart) he has never won a tournament of any sort in the United States. He doesn’t travel well - except (of course) in the Ryder Cup, the competition that really brings out the very best in him. It is this that may reveal the real reason that Montgomerie has never won a Major (three out of four of which are played in America). He only feels comfortable in the US when he has the comradeship of a team around him – perhaps in a tournament he is isolated, finds the American crowds hostile and this eventually affects his play. How different from Phil Mickleson who, like Monty, played his first Major in 1990 and also then struggled for years to win one. Then in 2004 the hugely supportive mainly American crowd at Augusta played a key part in helping him to his first win in The Masters. Maybe if Montgomerie had felt that the crowd was behind him at Winged Foot he could have won. Who knows – the crowd were certainly not hostile (as they have been on occasion in the past) but in Monty’s complex mind he may subconsciously have felt that they weren’t really behind him.

I certainly hope that Colin Montgomerie can summon up the necessary strength of character to win a Major – perhaps next month in The Open Championship at Hoylake? It is, I think, all about character not really about technique or natural ability (both of which he has to a very high level). If the conditions are right, and with a friendly crowd behind him, Monty might just break his duck in The Open. I hope that he does - not because he “deserves” to win, but because a player of his talent and one who (despite the odd ups and downs) has brought great credit to the game would be a worthy champion. Montgomerie himself certainly knows that you only win when you play at least one stroke better than the next man, not because the gods have decreed that you “deserve” your turn. Mind you, as always in golf, luck plays its part and if Monty needs the odd lucky bounce along the way few but the churlish would begrudge him that good fortune!

Paddy's Sports View 21st June 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

The Football World Cup, by far the oldest established of the quadrennial sporting tournaments (the Olympics aside), has never produced a surprise winner, which is curious given the nature of the game. Soccer, with its low scoring, is a game in which upsets often do occur with underdogs winning against the odds. The last European tournament was won by Greece who were rank outsiders at the start - could this be a precedent for a similarly unfancied team to win in Germany? After the first ten days of the Group stages this looks unlikely - although a number of the lesser teams have performed creditably at times. The Ivory Coast, Paraguay, Trinidad, Angola and (especially) Ecuador and Australia have worried the more fancied teams. There are few really poor teams amongst the 32 and it could well be that two more of the "minnows" (Australia and perhaps Angola) will join Ecuador in the second round. My record as a tipster is not one to follow too closely - but if I was to choose a dark horse candidate to go even further it would be Australia, not only because they have some very good players but because we all know that the Aussies are tough competitors in every sport in which the take part. The "Socceroos" have a few points to prove, as their breed of football is well behind the other codes (Rugby Union, Rugby League and Aussie rules) in Australian esteem.

The Football World Cup is a magnificent event - a month packed full of football with hardly an irrelevant match in prospect. Compare that with the 16 nation Cricket World Cup which lasts two weeks longer and which incorporates a plethora of unnecessary games just to keep the sponsors and the broadcasters happy. But then Football is truly a world game (the only one) whereas cricket, despite the efforts of the ICC, has still to spread out significantly from its base in the old Test cricket nations.

In England there is huge interest and a palpable feeling that the national team might just be able to repeat their 1966 success. Having made the second round they certainly have a chance despite bad luck (the injuries to Owen and Neville) and the eccentric squad and team selections made by manager Sven Goran Eriksson. Forty years ago the late Alf Ramsey revolutionised football by eliminating wings and concentrating on midfield domination as the key to success. Alf's "wingless wonders" (as they were called at the time) did however have some formidable goal scorers in Hurst, Hunt and Charlton. Eriksson seems to have taken Ramsey's model a stage further by only fielding two strikers and then (in the game against Paraguay) taking one of them off in the 55th minute! If this is all part of some predetermined cunning plan on the part of the enigmatic Swede most commentators say that they can't see one. You don't win tournaments without scoring goals and you don't score goals by leaving many of your best strikers back home in England. The folly of this decision has been brought into sharp relief by the Owen injury and by the fact that Wayne Rooney is clearly not match fit. At his best Rooney is up there with Ronaldhino, Ronaldo and Henry as a finisher - a footballer of quite exceptional talent. But he is unlikely to be able to keep going for 90 minutes and is (understandably) not yet at his sharpest. This leaves Eriksson with the rather weird Peter Crouch (who has yet to convince) and the untried teenage Theo Walcott as a potential strike force. If Sven has a plan to cope with this problem then that it is probably to rely on goals from his excellent midfield unit of Gerrard, Terry, Lampard and Beckham. It might just work.

I have a feeling about the 2006 Football World Cup that it will be an attacking and bold team that wins it - and in that respect Germany, Argentina and (especially) Spain look the pick of the bunch. Never write off the Germans - you would expect a team managed by the great Jurgen Klinsmann to attack, and so it is proving with eight goals in their first three games. Germany v Argentina and Spain v Brazil (two of the likely Quarter-Finals) will be games not to miss!

From "yes...no...sorry" Spring editon 2006

The YNS "Cricket Administrator of the year" award

Cricket awards go to players and sometimes coaches, but the tireless and selfless efforts of the men without whom the game could not exist are often forgotten. YNS puts this right with its annual tribute to the cricket administrators of the world the "Golden Hawke" award. Here are this year's four finalists:

1. Malcolm Crack


Bestriding international cricket like a colossus Malcolm Crack, Chairman of "World Cricket" (WC) has moved the international game positively into the new millennium. "When I took over the WC needed a good flush", he said "and that is what I gave it". Crack is beloved by all as a result - not least for his great political sensitivities. "When it looked as if we were going to have to play cricket in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's tyranny Crack soon put a stop to that" says former England Captain Nasser Hussain (no relation). "Crack is the sort of man who puts the honour of the sport at the top of his agenda - not for him the vulgar pursuit of commercial advantage" he added. Crack attracted much admiration when he and the twenty others running the WC moved from Lord's to the Cayman Islands, a country not known for its cricket traditions. "For myself and my colleagues life in the Cayman's will be much less taxing than in England" he explained, "this allows us to concentrate even better on keeping the WC running well". This typically unselfish attitude makes Crack a leading contender for the 2006 "Golden Hawke" award.

2. David Daffodil

There was some surprise when the modest David Daffodil replaced the abrasive Lord Tesco as head of the English Cricket Council (ECC) - some said that his previous experience ruining (surely "running"? Ed) a small Welsh company "Merthyr Tydfil Widgets" would ill equip him for the task. But Daffodil soon surprised the critics with his eloquence and intelligence. A towering orator Daffodil has often been compared with fellow Welshmen Lloyd-George (Glamorgan 1901 - 1931) and Bevan (Australia 1996-2004). When questioned about the ECC's controversial decision to award cricket rights to a satellite broadcaster he commented incisively "You can't get Channel Four in the Vale of Glamorgan at all, so this is much better for all of us". The Iraq affair caused Daffodil some sleepless nights but he built a good relationship with Malcolm Crack of World Cricket who described him as "A man of great integrity with whom I always enjoy discussing things before I tell him what to do".

3. David Miner

The second "David" at the English Cricket Council Miner, like his namesake Daffodil, came to cricket after a successful business career. Appointed as successor to rough diamond Timothy Sheep, Miner cuts a classier figure and has drawn extensively on his long career as an airline steward in his new job. At cricket dinners his hilarious anecdotes about his years with All-American Airlines often keep his audiences awake for many minutes. A fitness obsessive Miner cuts a trim figure as he walks the ten miles to Lord's every day "How could you expect to set a good example of athleticism to England players if you were short, fat and out of breath" he rightly says. On the subject of TV rights Miner is very clear "We needed to raise more money so that we could give it to the counties so that they could afford to pay for more overseas stars to improve their skills in County Cricket" he says. Clearly a visionary administrator with no lack of lateral thinking Miner is a worthy man on the short list for the prestigious "Hawke" Award.

4. Jagmohan Balti

The doyen of cricket administrators Balti earned his unchallenged popularity as the leading figure in Indian cricket by his honesty, integrity and avoidance of politics. "You always knew where you were with Jaggy," says his great friend and fellow Calcutta man Sourav Ganguly, "in the team as Captain". When the diffident and blameless Balti was ousted in a coup Ganguly was only one of the many innocent casualties. Along the length and breadth of India men and women were openly crying in the streets as the man, often compared to his fellow Calcutta-ite Mother Teresa, was unceremoniously removed from office. The "Keep Jagmohan Out of Jail" campaign (S.Ganguly, Chairman) to fight the obviously trumped up charges against the great Balti soon gained dozens of signatures and raised over twenty rupees in funds within weeks.

Paddy's Sports View 6th June 2006

For the "Bahrain Tribune"

There was a rather surreal atmosphere at the Third Test match at Trent Bridge which finished on Monday. That the sun shone for most of the time was a surprise - although the fact that some in the crowd (ignoring the warnings) removed their shirts in a salute to Apollo rather less so. Nor was it a surprise that fairly large numbers attended the match in fancy dress – a rather strange tradition that has grown up at English grounds for international matches over the last few years. At the end of the match a fellow spectator, who was as disappointed as me at home side’s inept performance, suggested that the winners of the fancy dress contest should have been the eleven England players whose appearance in the England Test kit seemed as improbable as the group of Nottingham policemen (presumably off duty) dressed as Carmelite nuns!

When Sri Lanka was 139-8 not long after lunch on the first day it seemed that this was to be a grossly unequal contest. And so it turned out, but not in the way that we all expected. That England failed to finish off the Sri Lankan tail was not a surprise – their failure to go for the jugular when on top has been a feature of the whole three match series. But England’s inability to build on the advantage of (eventually) having dismissed Sri Lanka for 231 in their own first innings was culpable. To score only 229 runs on a good pitch and with a side containing six players in the top seven in the batting order who were present in the Ashes winning line up from last year was a dire effort. Worse they took 91 overs amassing their paltry total and only Pietersen and Jones were out to Muralitheran (both slogging). The rest fell to the other Sri Lankan bowlers or (in Trescothick’s case) to a daft run out. Yes this was ultimately to be one of Murali’s finest matches and his eight wicket hall as England’s second innings crumbled was a just reward for the Tamil master. But he only had the opportunity to do this because England played so below par and because his team-mates in the Sri Lankan side batted, bowled and fielded with determination and skill.

Tom Moody, the Sri Lankan’s Australian coach, will have been immensely proud of the efforts of his team during this Test series. The auguries were unpromising as the usual power struggles in Sri Lankan cricket had led to some bizarre selection confusions (not least Sanath Jayasuriya jetting in unexpectedly to play despite having retired from Test cricket). But it all worked out alright in the end and Moody can be particularly pleased that the young players like Malinga, Tharanga and the teenage Kapugedera all played their parts at Trent Bridge and throughout the series. As for England there is little to take away to comfort them from the matches and nothing at all from the third Test match. Pietersen aside the batting was below par (there were only four scores above 50 in the series - apart from Petersen’s two brilliant hundreds). And England’s bowling lacked the penetration and power to support the admirable and always reliable Matthew Hoggard. Even worse England’s injury woes continue with (it seems) Andrew Flintoff now likely to join Vaughan, Jones, Giles and Harmison in the treatment room.

Winning Test matches away from home is the mark of a good side and Sri Lanka’s achievement is put into perspective when we reflect that this was only the second time that England has lost a home Test match in nearly three years (the first Test against Australia at Lord’s last year was the other one). There are some big lessons to be learned for the rather complacent and confused England management before the Pakistan Test series begins in July. Whilst they will with justice say that England’s bowling attack has been severely weakened by injury this is not the case with the batting (Vaughan aside). Meanwhile the Sri Lankans can look forward to the One Day internationals with some confidence. The team spirit is very good and they are well led - Mahela Jayawardene gave Andrew Flintoff a tactical master class at Trent Bridge and I will be surprised if he doesn’t also lead his team to a comfortable win in the five match One Day series.

Paddy's Sports View 25th May 2006

From the "Bahrain Tribune"

The remarkable achievement of Martina Hingis in winning the Italian Tennis Open in Rome on Sunday will be especially welcome to those sporting spectators who favour style over power and finesses over brute strength. Although a chronic foot injury was the main cause of Hingis’s early retirement from the sport it was also clear that she felt at the time that she would struggle to compete with the power game of the likes of the Williams sisters, Lindsay Davenport and the formidable Amélie Mauresmo. Perhaps the emergence of other players in the women’s game (notably the diminutive Justine Hedin-Hardenne and the tall but slight Russian stars like Sharapova and Dementieva) has persuaded Hingis that there is still a chance that her more artistic style can compete with those who succeed with a more muscular game. Since she first emerged as a bubbly teenager (she was only 16 when she won three of the four Grand Slam events in 1997) Hingis was always been a crowd favourite but it asks a lot of any sports person to come back after a lay-off over nearly four years. And if at 25 Hingis has matured as a competitor as well (and if she stays fit and focused) she might yet win another Grand Slam event – and that will be a delight for all of us who have missed the Swiss Miss.

It is not just in Tennis that the battle between style and force always leads to an intriguing contest – sporting history is enriched by the battles between the artist and the artisan. When the young Cassius Clay beat that old brute Sonny Liston more than forty years ago the sporting world rejoiced. And when Sachin Tendulkar, during the 1996 Cricket World Cup, overcame a West Indies attack which included Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop with an exquisite 70 from 91 balls it was again the triumph of the artist. The point about Clay and Tendulkar and Hingis is not just that their artistry is more pleasing on the eye (although it is) but that it is complementary to a sound technique as well. You don’t succeed in any sport if you don’t get the basics right – but if you also have that extra dimension of colour and style as well then the stadia will always be full.

In the search for power Tiger Woods put on more than twenty-five pounds in weight over the years taking him from a gangly, 155-pound 21-year-old into the 180-pound athlete that he is now. All of that weight gain was in muscle not fat and it came from Woods following a rigorous gym regime to build up his upper body strength. Each to his own, of course, but I can’t help wondering if Woods really needed to build his power game in this way. Surely a golfer of his supreme natural talent did not also need to be the weight-lifting champion of the tour as well? Indeed golf is the game that perhaps you most think of when you realise that big is not always best. The finesse of a Gary Player or an Ian Woosnam or a Corey Pavin (all small men) can sometimes prevail over the big hitters. Player augmented his natural talent with a fitness regime just as determined as that of Tiger Woods but this was designed not to bulk him up nor make him physically stronger but to help him keep alert. At 70 Player looks the same at a distance as he did fifty years ago – close up he is a bit more gnarled but there is no sign of a paunch! And the style is still there.

And so to Kevin Pietersen the England cricketer who I think is one of the most remarkable talents to have come into the game in recent years - and one who has both the rapier and the bludgeon as a weapon. I have been cautious about hailing the talent of Pietersen up until now but having seen him play a long and mature knock of 158 in the recent Lord’s Test (which brought him to over a thousand Test runs in only 23 innings) I am convinced that he is something special. Not Tendulkar (although it took Sachin five more innings to reach his thousand) – but far from a grinding run machine either. KP has it all - power and timing and shots that you won’t see in any coaching manual – a style that makes him a unique artist who plays the game in the brightest colours and (like Clay, or Hingis or Player) always with a smile on his face.

Paddy's Sports View 3rd April 2006

from the "Bahrain Tribune"

With only three of the eighteen races in this years Formula one season now completed it is too early to detect any real pattern in the relative performances of the teams and drivers – with the one exception that Fernando Alonso looks head and shoulders above the rest of the field. His performance in Australia at the weekend was exceptional and confirmed what his 2005 World Championship had told us – that this is a driver of rare talent. Starting from third on the grid, and taking advantage of Giancarlo Fisichella’s problems at warm up which banished him to the pit lane for the start, Alonso was able to take the lead by the fourth lap with a finely judged, but aggressive manoeuvre which took him past pole sitter Jenson Button. From that point on there was only one likely winner and as the other drivers struggled with tyres, mechanical failures and driving errors Alonso moved on serenely to victory.

Whilst Alonso had a day to remember life was much more difficult for his team-mate Fisichella and at one point his was very openly being berated by Renault team boss Flavio Briatore for his lack of pace. Television viewers around the world heard Briatore tell his driver on the team radio that he was driving far too slowly despite having the same car and set up as the flying