Twenty-twenty vision?

The sun is high in the sky, the neighbours are in their garden playing songs from Mamma Mia at blood-from-the-ears volume, and the smell of barbequed meat is overpowering the subtler perfumes of early summer. British Members of Parliament are eagerly awaiting the moment to forsake Westminster for the ill-gotten delights of their second homes in the suburbs. It’s time for English 20/20. Some drink to remember, some drink to forget.

In one of the higher scoring games of the week, Surrey dealt comprehensively with last year’s 20/20 competition winners, Middlesex. They did so by constructing a single major partnership around Usman Afzaal and Mark Ramprakash which carried the Brown Caps (Oh, puh-lease!) to 186 in their twenty overs. This proved far too difficult a target for a Middlesex side reduced by players lost to international cricket and by defection.

Afzaal, a one-time England prospect, who actually played a game or two for the international side without distinction, looked ugly but was highly effective. The elusive Ramprakash, now in his fortieth year, looked in sublime touch and reminded us for the umpteenth time that on technique he could have been one of the all-time greats. The two of them ran like greyhounds when they couldn’t find the boundaries and showed that even in this truncated form of the game fitness is a real issue.

Pinch yourself. 186. In twenty overs. That’s a rate of more than nine runs an over. Transatlantic readers may not grasp the significance of this, but if you’d suggested to cricket-lovers even a generation ago that such a run-rate was achievable, they’d have questioned your sanity. When I was a kid two an over throughout the day wasn’t uncommon. I’ve seen days of Test cricket when not many more than 186 were scored. And in one way, so much the worse for such occasions – that wasn’t entertainment, it was self-indulgence, and disdain for the paying public.

Of course, entertainment – or at least – satisfaction isn’t necessarily guaranteed even in 20/20. There are always going to be ‘dead’ games of cricket. It’s written into the structure of the game. Sometimes one side will be overwhelmingly superior, and will show it early in the contest. Or (more rarely these days) the bat will excel over the ball to such an extent that no result is possible. Or the weather will prevent a result. Quite commonly one day (or three hour) matches will display the former fault too. What keeps longer games of cricket going in these sort of circumstances are the little battles between batsmen and bowlers, which may have some influence on events in three, six or eighteen months time. The individuals are working each other out. The shorter the game, the less opportunity there is for this. When it’s over, it really is over. There’s very little left to play for. But then why stay at a soccer match if your team’s 5-0 down at half-time? All sport can be boring.

It’s often said that 20/20 is a batsman’s game i.e. the often substantial crowds (and the numbers attending are holding up well, though let’s review that again at the end of the season!) come to see the ball being mightily dispatched. But actually it’s the bowlers who are the point of interest on television, where the ploys they use to maintain a fig-leaf of respectability in the midst of sporting carnage are fascinating. Sadly, the subtleties are hidden from those sitting out on the ring, sweltering inside their Elvis costumes, cans of XXXX in their hands.

There’s a guy playing for Middlesex, a South African by the name of Tyron Henderson, who’s taken more 20/20 wickets than anyone else. He has an extremely wide range of deliveries at his disposal, and the batsman never has a clue what’s coming next. He’ll bowl from close to the stumps, from as wide out as he’s allowed, from 23 rather than 22 yards. One ball will be fired in at over 80 mph, the next will be a slow leg break. He’ll try a slow-speed bouncer, and then with the next ball attempt to break the batsman’s toes. It’s great to watch, but even then it can all go horribly wrong. In Middlesex’s next match later in the week, Henderson’s allotted four overs cost him 56 runs without a wicket.

There are other things to admire too. The constantly improving standards of fielding. The way spin bowling is coming back into its own. But one thing really takes getting used to. The players look as if they can’t believe their luck to be paid for doing so little, and in these value-for-money recessional days that sticks in my craw. Sport is surely a little about suffering, and if we the public perceive there’s reward without pain, 20/20 (and ultimately all forms of the game) may go the way of snooker. And I imagine even fewer Americans have heard of that than have heard about cricket.

Making a meal of it

As far as this summer’s Great Cricketing Menu is concerned, cooked up by the English Cricket Board, we’re almost through the first course – the desultory Test and one-day matches with the West Indies. It looked appetising and turned out to be underdone. Next comes the rather fishy 20 overs World Cup (for almost a whole month all major cricket in England is going to be played in this most limited of limited overs’ format. I wonder how many of us will finish what’s set upon our plates?) Thereafter follows the sumptuous main course – the Test series versus Australia, and lastly what may well be a tedious dessert – seven one day internationals against the same opponents. If we’re well and truly on the losing side by then, expect a lot of sickness and vomiting.

Viewed from a distance, my American friends, this intense sporting rivalry between England and Australia must seem parochial and perhaps even a trifle forced. It’s not only about cricket, although it is chiefly so. Equally high passions can be induced on the rugby field. In swimming the Australians assume they’re much better – which they are. In track and field and field hockey the two nations are evenly matched. In tennis, we’re both weak – the Australians surprisingly so. In football (soccer) the Aussies are also-rans in world terms. They always have been bar a brief flourishing about ten years ago.

The shameful thing is – there are three times as many of us as there are of them, which tells you a lot about attitudes to sport in the two nations, and perhaps also a little about the respective climates. It’s rather slack stereotyping to say that the sunshine makes Australians outgoing and ebullient, and that our cold and rain makes us huddled and withdrawn, but there often appears to be an element of truth in that. The average Australian sportsperson isn’t given to understatement in respect of their own superhuman potential and the incredible goofiness of the opponent. We English have been known to be unconvincing once out of our own specialist field of self-deprecation. There may be interesting questions of genetics to be discussed – the convict issue is one which is always likely to surface at moments of high alcohol consumption. But in fact both countries have benefited from immigration. In this Australian team there’s a Hauritz and a Hilfenhaus, and Di Venuto and Dimattina have, amongst many others, provided a touch of the exotic to the sound of their domestic cricket rosters. Often it’s only people of gumption who get up to move to the opposite end of the world. And you can’t go much further than Australia. Culturally of course the poor dears will always be challenged, for this precise reason – which is why it matters so desperately to excel at sport, I guess. Loss of empire is usually our excuse.

I’ll leave you to read elsewhere the much documented and quaint story of how cricket matches between the two countries came to be known as a contest for ‘The Ashes’. If you like Beefeaters and royalty, you guys will love it. It’s a useful reminder in times of stress that the essence of sport is the trivium at its heart.

Suffice it to say, there’s a great deal of anticipation here and there about this sporting contest. We surprisingly beat the Australians in 2005, in a series of such nail-biting tension that many of us were regularly cowering behind our sofas, gibbering. It was possibly the best series of five Test Matches ever. Possibly the most exciting sport ever. England thought they might do well in Australia two years later, and were done up like a kipper. In public relations and playing terms it was a near disaster. This time the two teams are said to be neck and neck. It’s proposed that we have some exciting talent, while they are restructuring. I don’t agree, and fear a nasty surprise awaits anyone who thinks this will even be close, although like everyone else I’m hoping something of the spirit of ’05 can live again. Apart from anything else the camaraderie displayed between some of the principal actors was good to see. Expect no repeat of that this time out.

The Australian team for the first Test in Cardiff is likely to be as follows, in batting order: Katich, Hughes, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Watson, Haddin, Johnson, Lee, Hauritz, and either Hilfenhaus or Clark (the former for my money).

The obvious weakness is the lack of a top-class spin bowler. Hauritz is a tall off-spinner (that is, he spins it into the right hand bat from the off or right-hand side). His height enables him to get bounce when the pitch is hard, but it’s difficult to see him as a major threat. For this reason, even at Cardiff where the pitch may be more conducive to spin than elsewhere (although there may be an element of disinformation about that!), the Australians may decide not to play Hauritz. Spin support will supposedly come from Michael Clarke’s orthodox left arm twirlers, which need to be taken seriously and Katich’s box of unorthodox assorted, which really don’t.

Their quick bowling is the worry. This time Mitchell Johnson will provide the shock and awe, a role formerly played by the once super-quick Brett Lee. Johnson has the additional weapon of being a left-arm bowler, and very fast left-armers are rare. The only one in recent memory was Pakistan’s Wasim Akram, a very different sort of proposition to Johnson. Akram had an incredibly fast arm, and even off a very short run was capable of devastating speed which must have appeared to the batsman to come from nowhere. Johnson isn’t yet in Akram’s league, but still expect speeds in the middle nineties once the weather warms up, and together with the awkward angles he generates this spells danger, particularly for the likes of right-handers Bopara and Pietersen who tend to play across the line. Lee is now a more mature bowler, a little less quick, but perhaps more subtle. I like the look of Hilfenhaus very much indeed. He has good pace, and swings the ball late away from the right-handed batter. His action reminds me of Ian Botham and in England he may prove to be the trump card. Stuart Clark has proven success in England behind him, and if the pitches are in any way green (which would suit the English bowlers) he’ll be a handful too. Watson is a useful fifth seamer with points to prove. If Lee is crocked (and there must be doubts that he’ll last the summer) Peter Siddle is a promising replacement.

Haddin isn’t the best wicket-keeper I’ve seen, but he’s adequate, and his batting has often kept an under-performing Australia afloat over the last year. Like the English the Australians sport two left-handed opening batsmen – which isn’t ideal (better to have one right-hander and one left-hander to confuse the bowlers’ lines of attack). Katich is having a renaissance, but may be vulnerable. Hughes, as previously billed, is the one to watch this time round. Ponting is world-class as a batsman, if not as a captain. Get him early or you suffer. Clarke is due a better tour than last time. Hussey is a formidable accumulator. I back him to score a double-hundred sometime in the series. Seven or eight years ago I saw him compile 329 for Northamptonshire, and was in awe of the fact that at that time he couldn’t make the Australian team. He went on and on batting, with no seeming weakness. If Watson gets going he can be destructive. All the Australians know how to bat. All have resilience. Often they will be five wickets down cheaply, and still manage a good score. Johnson’s recent record is as good as any top-order batsman.

On the English side, I fear a weakness of character which will lead to batting collapses at significant moments. There are signs that the bowling is acquiring the penetration required to work their way through the Australian batting, but it requires a fully fit Flintoff to apply pressure while Anderson and Broad get the wickets. In 2005 it took four quality England quicks to undo the Aussies, and I don’t know where the fourth is going to come from this time – Onions (perhaps?) Bresnan ( no!) Sidebottom (might have done 18 months ago, but has lost form). Then, dear God, we’re down to the likes of Plunkett and Mahmood. So if Flintoff doesn’t recover quickly we’re in trouble. And paradoxically his presence creates a weakness in the batting line-up. I hope in all the great efforts to get his body ready to hurl down 90 mph thunderbolts, the coaches don’t neglect the fact that if he plays we need a minimum 250+ runs from him during the series.

In an alternative universe, the English would prepare pitches where the ball bounced and spun from day 1 of each Test match, and Swann and Panesar would repeatedly expose the Australian batting in an area where they were unable to respond. And there goes another little pink pig floating past my window…

2-1 or 3-1 to Australia. Reach for the indigestion tablets, folks.

Role Models

Watching Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah help steer England to a comfortable one-day (50 overs) win against a hapless West Indies at the anonymous Bristol ground today, one’s mind flipped to the news broadcast earlier in the week of Chris Lewis’ conviction for cocaine smuggling.

The players of colour who’ve most recently made an impact on England’s cricket have been of Asian origin. Maybe it’s no coincidence that when he was captain a decade ago Nasser Hussain revivified an England team as demotivated as the West Indies is now. Dimitri Mascarhenas was also in today’s side, Monty Panesar may be in the team for the next Test match, and the young Yorkshire all-rounder Adil Rashid is said to be knocking on the door. Amjad Khan played a single Test in the Caribbean this last winter, although his complicated pedigree takes in Denmark as well as the sub-continent.

Where are our cricketers of Afro-Caribbean background? There was a time when if they weren’t legion there was at least a healthy representation. Devon Malcolm is one now remembered with misty-eyed affection. Tall and gangling, and possessed of a bowling action which was apt to go AWOL when he got over-excited (which seemed to be quite often), Devon’s finest hour came when, having been clouted ringingly on the helmet in the course of a customarily brief sojourn at the crease, he told an over-brash South African team ‘you guys are history’ and proceeded to take nine of the ten wickets available in the next innings. He became a National Hero overnight, his myopic batting only adding lustre to his legendary status. But there were others. The first black England fast bowler was the late Norman Cowans, shock-haired and bustling, and after him came David Lawrence, whose unforgettable, uncompromising charge to the bowling crease sadly led to a crippling injury in New Zealand, and Alex Tudor, whose early promise of high pace was never quite fulfilled. Philip de Freitas was an England stalwart for many years, although his fine control of cut and swing never seemed to get quite the rewards it should: a lack of genuine pace maybe blunted his great skill to some degree. And who can forget Warwickshire’s Gladstone Small, a real hundred per-center with an unusual body shape, who converted himself from an out and out paceman into a far more subtle bowler as his career developed. He never let England down either.

Chris Lewis was perhaps the most naturally gifted of all of them. His England career should have been long and distinguished. He had everything. As a bowler his loose-limbed, economical action allowed him to deliver the ball rapidly. He was a fine fielder, and an explosive batsman: his highest county score was 247, and he played several fine innings for England. But there was always an angle. Early in his England career he fell victim to sunstroke during a Test Match in Australia, the result of shaving his head and then failing to wear a sun-hat. The ‘Sun’ newspaper (appropriate, that!) labelled him ‘The Prat without a hat’. Lewis was a handsome man, but combining modelling and sport always seems to spell trouble. And he left the game alleging that several England colleagues had been willing to take bribes to throw matches in which they had been involved. It did not make him the most popular person in cricket.

But although the latter turn of events left a bad taste, it’s not a crime to fail to make it at the highest level in your chosen professional sport. One bad decision can be the difference between a celebrated career and a forgotten one, and we who watch or comment have to maintain proper humility – most of us simply haven’t been there. And what on earth is it like when the fame and glamour is suddenly gone overnight, and there’s nothing to fall back on, despite the advice you were given when you were sixteen?

It’s still immensely sad that a great opportunity has been wasted: Chris Lewis could have been a fantastic role model, and the effects might have been felt way beyond sport. Instead the reverse has happened, and he’ll now have many years in prison to review what has happened, with uncertain consequences. But…he’s still only 41, and maybe he’ll be free in seven years or so with a chance of doing something to redress the balance. And we really need for this to happen. This bunch of touring West Indians aren’t going to have Britain’s black youngsters flocking to the nets in emulation of their heroes. And I wonder if Messrs Gayle & co. will consider that when they pocket their appearance money after today’s miserable display?

But what about Bobbie Simpson?

May 22nd

On the other hand, what about those CMJ left out? Was it something personal?

(Yes I know, these questions make no sense as they stand. But here we are in the virtual world, where time’s arrow flies a mysteriously non-Einsteinian path, disappearing and then appearing again. You will need to refer to yesterdays’ blog to see where I’m coming from. Or rather going. Sorry.)

Bobbie Simpson for one. R.B. Simpson played for Australia over a span of nearly twenty years from 1957 – which is unusual for an international cricketer – but there were unusual circumstances. He was a formidable batsman, who averaged over 45 in Test cricket, which is a benchmark for the very good. He was perhaps not a memorable player in terms of strokeplay – although he was positively extrovert compared with Bill Lawry his sometime opening batting partner – but my, he was effective. His career highlight came when he amassed 311 against a toothless English attack at Manchester in 1964, batting England out of the series. It was a typically ruthless piece of play. He was fast between the wickets, and very fit. He was a very underrated leg-spin bowler, although he might have been more successful had he been prepared to risk more. He was always a man who seemed to prefer to play the percentages. He was without doubt the best close to the wicket fielder of his age. And having retired, he came back to playing for the sake of others, captaining Australia in the late nineteen seventies at a time when the country’s cricket administration was being torn apart by the arrival of large quantities of TV money. In many ways he sowed the seeds of the great Australian teams which were to follow.

Damn it. You see, there I go, doing exactly what CMJ wants me to. But anyway Christopher, I want to know. What about Bobbie Simpson?

I haven’t mentioned the outcome of the recent Test Match against the West Indies. England won, but it caught no one’s imagination. England put together a large total, losing only six wickets in doing so. Cook was finally out for 160. Pietersen, Collingwood and Prior all contributed handsomely, and from the outset the West Indies looked unlikely to hold out provided the showery, blustery weather allowed sufficient time. Ramnaresh Sarwan scored a very good hundred in their first innings, but that was about it as far as resistance went. Bowled out for 310 and then 176, they looked a poor, demoralised, side. The English bowlers found much more life in the pitch than their West Indian counterparts, and even Tim Bresnan, until then the invisible man of the English team, got in on the act with three second innings wickets. It would be a pity if this extended his tenure of a place in the side. The man of the match was the English quick bowler James Anderson who looked extremely menacing. He made the ball snake around at high pace. At the present time his approach to the wicket is smooth and controlled. The delivery appears effortless. If he can maintain his form when the Australians arrive he should pose a major threat to their batsmen. Or so we really hope…

But this really was a hollow victory, because we all know it raises questions about the long-term viability of cricket in the West Indies, and more generally the pattern of Test cricket in the future. The game of cricket has undergone huge changes over three hundred years. Are we about to see another revolution, far greater than that which Bobbie Simpson confronted?

Hot 100

May 21st

In Britain, the Bank Holiday weekends often see the evening TV screens occupied by compilations of clips you’ve seen a million times before with titles like ‘Top 100 screen pratfalls’ or ‘Your favourite 100 newsreaders’. The choice of item is often said to be governed by viewers’ votes, though no one’s ever asked me. One screen kiss merges into another as far as I’m concerned, though obviously a lot of people care enough to complete a survey. From the TV company’s point of view of course this kind of thing is great telly. Dead cheap. Zero creativity. Fire and forget. You will have these programmes in the US. Hell, you probably invented them.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins is a man some of us have grown up with. It comes as a surprise to find him now the senior ‘voice of cricket’ on BBC radio (though not their cricket correspondent), insofar as it only seems like yesterday that he was the rookie, pitching himself nervously alongside radio greats like John Arlott and Brian Johnson. But that was probably nineteen seventy-something. In comedic terms he’s still a straight man (he has a son who plays county cricket with moderate success so it’s a fair assumption this is also true in the sexual sense), and maybe there are too many straight men in the radio commentary box these days. Sometimes indeed he seems entirely devoid of a funny-bone. But that’s not his fault. He’s a sound judge of the game, as befits a man until recently the Times’ cricket correspondent. He obviously loves it to pieces: it’s been his life.

I find him less compelling to read than listen to. And I won’t be rushing out to buy his latest offering ‘The Top 100 Cricketers of all time’, for which the Times newspaper is offering much support this week. It turns out I’ve seen 61 of Martin Jenkins’ 100 play, either on screen or in the flesh, which gives one pause for thought. He’s selected only from the game’s modern era, but that still gives at least 132 years to look at, if one takes as a starting point the first accepted Test Match in 1877, so clearly his choice his canted towards the very modern. On the other hand, I have to face it. I am now quite old.

Readers of this blog may be interested to know that Donald Bradman is no 1 in CMJ’s list, but as I’ve suggested, few will argue about that. Les Ames is there at 64, Vijay Merchant at 96. Tendulkar makes it to no 9, but poor old Brian Lara languishes at 24, surely too low. The leading bowler is the near-contemporary Shane Warne at 4, and the first wicket-keeper on the list is the recently retired Australian Adam Gilchrist at 10, although it’s a combination of Gilchrist’s keeping and his electrifying batting which gets him there.

But while it makes for a good evening’s argument down the pub on about the third pint after a moderately awful local league game, I can’t see the sense of a list which somehow rates F. R. Spofforth (27 – ‘The Demon’) many places higher than C.T.B. Turner (95 - ‘The Terror). In their day (both nineteenth century figures) they were deemed to be the best there was. Sorry, Christopher, and not that you’ll care what I think or possibly ever know, but this is a pointless exercise, and one that smacks of a desperate search for a new angle on a book.

The thing which strikes me as I look down the list of great names (and of course there’s not a dud one among them, for all that I’m cavilling about the nature of the project) is not a query about whether no. 74 or is better than 47, but the elusive memory that each provokes. It arouses a profound and genuine regret for the lost moments from past time, and a longing to have seen the thirty-nine of whom I have no personal knowledge.

Even the replay on TV of relatively recent great moments of cricket history carries little charm. To see again, as we frequently will on wet days this summer, the highlights of the 1981 series against Australia, when Ian Botham in his pomp won the unlikeliest of victories for England, reduces the experience rather than enhances it. The greatest cricket moments for me are entirely in the head. They still conjure up the tastes and sounds of an era in a way old clips can never do. Colin Cowdrey’s (78) smooth, elegant, cover drive or nonchalant slip catching (his party trick was to pocket the ball after he’d caught it, and look behind him towards the boundary, pretending to search for its onward direction), Ted Dexter’s (75) ferocious raging bull square cut, Fred Trueman’s (22) mop of dark hair and perfect aggressive bowling action, all define my late childhood and teenage years. I don’t want to see the pictures again. And I don’t care a jot where the individuals are ranked. It’s the ephemeral image located somewhere in the middle brain, complete with what I had for tea that day and what was no 1 in the pop charts, fading a little with each year rather like Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, which makes these people so close to my heart. We are so literal these days. Let it go. Let it go.

Disrespect, man!

May 15th

I’ll keep it short. Yesterday was one of the more troubling days of Test cricket I’ve watched or listened to. On the face of things, it was a good day for England. They batted serenely through the day to a total of 302 for only two wickets down by the close of play. Two batsmen scored centuries, Alastair Cook and (again) Ravi Bopara. They’re team mates at Essex, and their styles are nicely complimentary. Cook accumulates, Bopara can be violent, as when he moved to his century against the left-arm spin bowler Benn with a series of biffs past and over the bowler.

But the West Indians brought little to the proceedings, apart from some keen fielding early on. The bowling was often half-hearted, lacking in energy except when late in the afternoon Edwards inexplicably decided to rough up the English tail ender Anderson, sent in shortly before the close when Bopara had been dismissed by one of the day’s few good balls. In the context it seemed a particularly sour moment. Anderson had been painfully hit on the head in the first Test.

Earlier, part-time bowlers were employed apparently to save the limbs of more experienced ones. Spin was used, perhaps only to get the day done with (spin bowlers take shorter run-ups, and therefore get through an over more quickly). The captain, Chris Gayle, seemed absolutely disconnected with the game. It’s one thing not to be sufficiently talented to compete, quite another just not to bother.

It was cold, despite the sunshine. The pitch was slow and flat. Only 3000 seats had been sold before play started: there were fewer in the ground than for recent inter-county matches. And the weather forecast suggested we’d be lucky to get a result from this match even by the end of Monday. But these aren’t excuses. There should have been pride at stake, and the attitude of the West Indies team was disrespectful. They appeared to agree with the sentiments of Gayle before the game when he said more than once that Test cricket no longer mattered, or something pretty close to that.

It’ll matter in mid-summer, when the Australians are here, you see if it doesn’t, as much as sport ever can.

Stumpers

May 14th

Lester Martin’s dad once played for England: just the once in 1947, but he did, he really did, and Lester still sported the England sweater to prove it. Jack Martin was a burly fast bowler for Kent, called up in his country’s time of need, and junked, like a politician, immediately thereafter. Lester was captain of my school’s under 15. I was his deputy. I didn’t have a dad who’d played for England, after all – but don’t get the feeling I’m in any way bitter about this forty years on. And the one match I captained, when Lester was ill, we beat the City of London School easily, thanks to my unusual and cunning bowling changes. (City of London all out 57: P. Wootton four wickets for three runs, Cross three for seven) I don’t remember us winning any others that season.

Anyway, leaving personal animus to one side, one great thing Lester did was to get me the autograph of Les Ames. If I hadn’t carelessly mislaid it in my late teens it would still be a treasured possession.

Ames was probably the best wicketkeeper/batsman Kent and England ever produced, playing regularly for the national side in the nineteen thirties. The only one to rival him would have been the more recent player Alec Stewart, and although the stats suggest the two were comparable in their batting skills, anecdotally Ames was the better of the two ‘keepers.

The wicketkeeper is the lynchpin of a cricket team. He gets a lot of batsmen out, by catching them, or stumping them (if the batsman leaves his ‘ground’ when trying to play a ball), or completing a run-out if the batsmen try for a run injudiciously and fail to complete it before the ball is returned. He makes bowlers feel good, constantly telling them they’re the world’s best and how the last delivery didn’t dispatch the hapless ****** batter he’ll never know. He supplies energy to a flagging team, and keeps fielding standards high. He knows more about the prevailing conditions because he, best of all, sees what the ball is doing in the air or off the pitch. He can get in the batsman’s ear, and unsettle him with humour or comment. There’s a lot of standing around in cricket, and it’s possible to spend the whole of a multi-day match without contributing a great deal, but the wicketkeeper’s always in the action. Wicketkeepers are often eccentrics: rarely introverted.

But being a great wicketkeeper often isn’t enough. Les Ames’ contemporary in the Kent side was a man called ‘Hopper’ Levett. From what I’ve told you, you might think the hopping bit referred to some unusual quirk of his movement, but in fact Levett was the son of a hop farmer, born in the Wealden hill-top village of Goudhurst, as lovely a place as any Tuscan town, even today. Levett was a fantastic wicketkeeper, perhaps even better than Ames, ticking all the boxes outlined above. But he was a poor batsman, and although he had a fine career deputising for Ames in the Kent team, he never played at the highest level. Touchingly, the county indoor cricket school in Canterbury was named after the two of them.

This balance of requirements between ‘keeping and batting troubles England team selectors still. Prior, the English wicketkeeper of the moment is a fine bat – one of the radio commentators offered the opinion the other day that he’s worth his place in the side for that alone, which is maybe only a slight exaggeration. However pretty well everyone’s agreed he’s not the best wicketkeeper in the country. He dives for the ball when a simpler movement would do. He too often has hard hands. There’ll be some moments this summer when he’ll make important mistakes.

We’ve tried a few in recent years. There was Geraint Jones, the Kentish Australian, who played against the Aussies in the last home ‘Ashes’ series. Jones is spunky and a most attractive batsman (in good form at the moment), but his keeping can be gawky. Another adopted Antipodean, Tim Ambrose, has been tried and found marginally wanting because bowlers too easily find his batting limitations and bowl to them. James Foster is the best wicketkeeper, and has scored stacks of runs, but rather unfairly he’s having to live down memories of fallibility for England earlier in his career. However he has the English coach on his side: they share the county of Essex. Paul Mustard from Durham is tall for the job (there’s a lot of bending involved!), and on his day can be a devastating hitter. In the wings is the very talented Steven Davies, who has perhaps been unlucky not to have been previously selected at national level. His time must surely come.

We’ll perhaps see more than one of them play during this summer. I wonder whose autograph the boys will be collecting in twenty years time?

The Bradman Factor

May 12th

This is going to sound serious. For me, part of the attraction of studying sporting history is the contemplation of what it might tell us about humanity’s potential. What could it imply for our future intellectual, moral, and spiritual development – fields where the notion of ‘improvement’ is even more disputed, philosophically and medically? We watch Usain Bolt and wonder how much faster human beings can run. Over the next, say, two hundred years is 9 seconds flat for the 100 metres even a remote possibility? And what then? Eight seconds? Seven seconds?

Why did Ralph Beamon suddenly leap right out of the long jump pit at the Mexico Olympics and set a record which would last for decades? And why, statistically speaking, is the Australian Don Bradman the best batsman the world has ever seen by a country mile?

He ended up averaging a very little under one hundred runs every time he went out to bat. No one else has ever managed to average eighty over a long career. Relatively speaking, that’s a huge difference, and leads to speculation about the nature of genius. The thing is with J.S. Bach, you can be overwhelmed by the extraordinary nature of the music he made, arguably more beautiful, complex and mathematically subtle than anyone else’s – but you can’t quantify his excellence. It’s just a notion which a lot of people accept at a feeling level. In the case of Bradman we apparently have a statistical argument for superman status.

It’s not the whole story though, is it? We have to take the quality of the opposition into account. Perhaps he faced a comparably weak series of bowling attacks. Or played on particularly benign pitches. The quantitative becomes infected with the qualitative. Actually, one doubts that either of these two factors played a major part. We know that in one highly controversial series (in Australia in 1932-33) the English formed a plan to limit his effectiveness by aiming the ball at his body with extreme velocity, in such a way that those matches became forever tainted – and caused an international incident. And the pitches were often uncovered when the weather was adverse, and so were more susceptible to damage by rain, and thus rendered unreliable.

Whatever, the memory of this great player, perhaps the most famous Australian ever, has become an albatross round the neck of the game’s other great batsmen. Every one of them is likely to be compared with him somewhere down the line, especially if they hail from the Antipodes. Bradman himself said that Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian, now in the glorious twilight of his playing career, was the player who most reminded him of himself. It seems to have been the range of shot and the placement which impressed. Brian Lara, the Trinidadian, one of the two or three players to have brought me most personal pleasure – Tendulkar never has for some reason - performed individual batting feats as stunning as Bradman’s (maybe even more so) but with far less consistency. Going further back into history, Merchant was described as the ‘Indian Bradman’, although of course I never saw him play, any more than I saw Bradman himself. And then there was the celebrated, bearded doctor, W.G.Grace, playing mostly in the nineteenth century at a time when pitches were often dire, although the bowling was certainly weaker overall.

In recent years, at the beginning of their careers, both Ricky Ponting, the current Australian skipper and Darren Lehmann were mentioned as candidates for the ‘New Bradman’ slot. Ponting became a great player of the second rank, and Lehmann was eventually merely good, judged by the highest standards.

But whisper it quietly, Philip Hughes, the New South Walesian who has come to England to play briefly for Middlesex before the Ashes series, may yet deserve consideration in respect of this title. He’s only 20, and the next year or two will tell us more. His background bears at least superficial comparison with Bradman’s, and his scoring thus far is spectacular. At present I gather his range of shot is more limited, but with confidence that may change. When Bradman first appeared, there was criticism about his allegedly rustic technique too –it just proved more effective than anyone else’s. However, the rhythm of the contemporary game, with its requirement for a batsman to continually keep adjusting the pace of his batting depending on the format of the game he’s playing in, will set the young man problems Bradman never had to contend with.

What seems fairly obvious is that, new Bradman or not, Philip Hughes will set the English bowlers a big challenge this summer. Personally I can’t wait.

Out of the Comfort Zone

10th May 2009

As commentators say rather too frequently, cricket’s a funny game. The bare details: England won in three days (bad business, good cricket!) England all out 377. West Indies 152 and, following on (I’ll explain later!) 256 all out. England then 32 for no wicket, winning by ten wickets - a big win.

Following the soap opera with some of the characters you’ve already been introduced to (‘Previously, in the Test Match…’), Graham Onions the debutant (and darling of the headline writers for his name’s punning potential) took seven wickets in the match and so proved an inspired pick. Tim Bresnan by contrast was, one lovely catch apart, completely anonymous. As a counterpoint to Bopara’s accomplished innings, Graham Swann for the first time in his international career showed what he can do with the bat, and played very assertively towards the end of the first English innings for 63 not out, bringing up his fifty with a hook for six, a shot not thought to be in his repertoire. He also bowled with intelligence, skill, and luck, and picked up the ‘man of the match’ award. What appeared a somewhat casual, arrogant attitude early in his career, has now turned into a chirpy, media-aware confidence. England must hope that he can maintain his strut: Swann’s a breath of fresh air. And he hails from Northampton, too. Around here we’ve always known he can bat well when he puts his mind to it.

Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, didn’t have a happy game at all. In their first innings the West Indies openers set off like a train, but Gayle set the pattern for his team’s subsequent collapse by a daft waft at a delivery from Stuart Broad which demanded far greater respect, chopping the ball onto his stumps. In the second innings he played a poor shot to a good ball and failed to score. Before the Test he’d arrived so late from South Africa that even his coach John Dyson had offered criticism: Gayle (Crystal as I always think of him) needed to show more application to avoid more negative comments. I imagine the press back home will have been rather unkind. Fidel Edwards at times bowled with pace and guile.

The West Indies’ collective heart didn’t seem in this match. The climatic conditions were challenging – although it was no colder than they should have expected, and not as cold as it may be for the next game up in County Durham this week. But there was a brisk and chilly breeze throughout which no doubt added to the problems always set by the slope of the Lord’s pitch. Across the water you may find this hard to believe, but at the ‘home of cricket’ there’s a ten foot drop from one side of the ground to the other, such that depending on which way you’re bowling, the ball will naturally follow the slope when it bounces - either into or away from the batsmen. It’s not easy for the bowlers either. When running hard into the crease to deliver they may suddenly find themselves unbalanced by the cant of the pitch, and find it hard to achieve any accuracy. On the plus side the outfield at Lord’s means that a firmly struck ball will often find the boundary ropes. For instance, the diminutive West Indian wicketkeeper Ramdin hit thirteen boundaries in his second innings of 61. It’s always been that way. When I was an avid reader of cricket literature in my teens, I remember an account by Sir Pelham Warner (how’s that for a name!), a one time grandee of English cricket and captain of a famous tour to Australia in 1903. He was remembering the first occasion he played an innings at Lord’s, some time before the turn of the 19th century. “I leant on a ball outside the off stump,” he wrote, “And she flew to the ring. I can still feel her on the bat now.” It’s a memory with which many cricketers will identify.

Cricket is played in many different climatic conditions around the world. In particular the Asian sub-continent is often seen as difficult for visiting teams – the humidity, the constant heat, the pollution, the dusty pitches. England sometimes offers the starkest contrast – cold, wet, green. And being English we often feel a little apologetic for this, although there’s nothing which says the game must be played in shirt-sleeves. Locally in Northampton, a Boxing Day game of cricket is regularly played in the village of Litchborough, and I’m sure the villagers aren’t alone in their folly. But maybe it wasn’t just the meteorological conditions which caused the West Indians’ downfall here. They were a late substitute for Sri Lanka to play this series against England, and are probably reluctant tourists. Relations between their Board and the players are indifferent, and the history of sport tells us such a psychological backdrop rarely brings out the best.

And the ‘following on’ thing? In Test cricket if a team batting second scores more than two hundred less than the team batting first, the opposition captain can choose whether to have them bat again immediately rather than take turn about as would normally happen. This isn’t a straightforward decision. Think about it. A lot of interest in long games of cricket comes from the supposition that the pitch will wear during the match, and become increasingly difficult to bat on. So by asking a team to ‘follow-on’ a captain is taking the gamble of having to score runs to win when the pitch is at its worst. It’s a nice check and balance. Strauss here chose the attacking move, and ‘enforced the follow-on’. But there have been increasing instances in recent times of this proving an unsuccessful strategy. Here it worked to perfection, despite England’s inexperienced bowling.

Hail and farewell

6th May

The first four West Indians to bowl in this Test Match have the given names: Jerome, Fidel, Lionel and Suleiman. Strauss, the English captain will have to choose from a Stuart, a James, a Tim, and two Grahams. If you like a romantic, even swashbuckling tinge to your cricket, you should like the West Indians. Their tradition’s notable for packs of bowlers who value speed above all other virtues, and a succession of batsmen who value style over accumulation.

The team in England this year may struggle to live up to their illustrious forebears but two players stand out. Captain Chris Gayle is a cricketer I’d always pay to watch. In the field he’s phlegmatic to the point of apparent doziness, which doesn’t make for convincing captaincy, although in the middle of a dodgy period for West Indian cricket, his players seem right behind him. But his batting can be excitingly violent and prolonged: even if he plays the ball softly it seems to be the immediate prelude to some act of batting savagery. As they say, when he hits the ball, it stays hit. Given his chosen sartorial style I suppose you could say he bats with bling. And his slow bowling is severely under-rated. It’s not that he turns the ball, although he does just enough with it – it’s more that with his height he manages to disguise subtle changes of pace and flight. The batsmen never find it easy to attack him, for all that the proposition seems simple.

The other man to watch is opening bowler Fidel Edwards. He’s the first of a little crew of recent international bowlers who bowl quickly with an unconventional low, slingy action. Like England’s hero of a decade ago, Darren Gough, he prefers a knowing smile to an insult when he almost but not quite defeats a batsman. His figures don’t flatter him. For a short man he generates a lot of speed (up around 94 mph at his quickest), but maybe that same lack of inches means consistently threatening bounce eludes him.

Now you know the characters. So how did they do? Gayle won the toss and asked England to bat. This may have been an attacking move – when the two teams played each other last winter, England’s batting proved vulnerable early in that series – but I rather think it was defensively minded. The tourists had lost their previous match and struggled in the other warm-up game as their own batsmen tried to fathom sappy English conditions, where the ball cuts (seams) off the pitch far more than it would in the Caribbean. Had they batted and lost wickets on the first morning, the game might well have been decided then and there. So it was safety first for Gayle, and a closing score of 289 for 7 shows his decision to be marginally the right one. If the Lords pitch does what it has done in the recent past and flattens out, it may turn out to have been a very good option, but right now, it’s too close to call. Edwards bowled very well. He dismissed Kevin Pietersen first ball with an unplayable delivery which squared the batsman up. Many would have played at air but unfortunately Pietersen was good enough to get an edge to the wicketkeeper. Dinesh Ramdin took the smartest of catches, having initially moved the wrong way. That’s how good the ball was. For England, two of the immediate returnees from the South African tournament had a day to forget. Pietersen was unlucky, and Collingwood made only eight. But don’t blame international travel. The third, Bopara, made an excellent century with confident shots all round the ground. He’s stocky and wristy, and when he hits straight he looks very convincing indeed, a little reminiscent of his mentor Graham Gooch, in stature, swarthiness and follow-through. England owed a lot to him today: the other contributions were minor, although Prior played with enterprise.

Hard luck, Michael Vaughan. Unless something most surprising happens, Bopara’s innings today spells the end of his international career. Publicity was given to some of Vaughan’s ‘art’ last week, but on the evidence offered I’m not sure that’s a way to go.

Clouds, cuckoos and ducks

5th May

Tomorrow a little piece of history is made. Never before has a Test Match begun as early in the English season as May 6th. And it must be a long time since one has begun on a Wednesday either, if ever, although doubtless someone will immediately remind me it happened just last year - usually they begin their five day span on a Thursday.

What’s so good about a Thursday then? Forty or fifty years ago, in a gentler, more amateur, maybe less secular, certainly less commercial age, Sunday was literally a day of rest for cricketers. So, the routine for a Test was to play three days, have a break and then finish the match on the Monday and Tuesday. What’s slightly puzzling is that if this match is over in three days (unlikely on recent experience at London’s Lord’s ground) the two most celebratory, financially satisfactory weekend days will be blank.

Who will face the West Indies this morning in St. John’s Wood? It looks likely there’ll be two new players for England, both of them quick-ish bowlers from the north. The Yorkshireman Tim Bresnan seems to have been around the county scene for a long time, but he’s still the younger of the two, a very solidly built young man. His stats in county cricket haven’t been headline-grabbing: the suspicion must be that he’s been picked because he ‘won’t let anyone down’, and can bat nicely. Maybe I’ve been unlucky, but every time I’ve seen him (only on the television) he’s provided easy pickings. He has no great pace, and although he swings the ball in the air both into and away from the batsman, it starts to swing early in its trajectory, which is far less dangerous than swinging it less extravagantly but late. I’m more interested in Graham Onions, the other debutant. He has a whippy, more explosive action, and unlike some other English bowlers at the moment, he seems to have a good idea what makes batsmen uncomfortable. In recent years the Lord’s pitch has broken bowlers hearts. Maybe there’ll be enough early season juice in the grass to change that pattern.

There’s a lack of depth to the English batting. They’ve decided to go with the future and pick Bopara at number three in the order. No Vaughan (who has had an unfortunate start to the season, including hurting his ankle playing a warm-up game of football – duh!), no Bell, no Shah. After Bopara come two players in Pietersen and Collingwood who, like the West Indian captain Chris Gayle, are just off the plane from the Indian league in South Africa. How long will it take them to adjust to different climatic conditions, and a different kind of cricketing challenge? These things often don’t work out quite the way you expect. Sometimes everything seems ridiculously easy the first time out in a different situation: it’s only later that the mind plays tricks. After that in the order comes the wicketkeeper Matthew Prior, carrying too much responsibility for my liking, and then the bowlers who bat a bit – Broad, Bresnan and Swann, and then finally two men with no pretensions to batting at all – Anderson and Onions. This is thin stuff for an international side, but they may get away with it if the pitch is benign and against a West Indian bowling attack which probably won’t enjoy the likely chilly conditions.

So then, cloud cover, a Test match earlier than the first call of a cuckoo, and as for ducks – well, colloquially getting a duck in cricket means you return to the pavilion having scored no runs. The idea is that a zero resembles the shape of a duck’s egg. I don’t think the pitch at Lord’s will be fast enough to have the batsmen ducking and weaving.

And perhaps the sport’s administrators are living in cloud-cuckoo land if they think the amount of cricket played around the world can be endlessly expanded without causing damage to its quality or the enjoyment of the spectators. This particular game feels wrong at this particular moment. Too little anticipation from either the players or the watchers. Lords won’t be full tomorrow.

Basics

3rd May 2009

Kids in school and sports clubs get told all kinds of stuff by their teachers and coaches about the ‘right way’ to play. But sometimes rules are meant to be broken…Here are some well-rehearsed cricketing lines.

‘Cricket is a side-on game’. This is kind of true – a good working principle, and a helpful way of thinking about how to bat, bowl and field. But even the most side-on bowler relies for speed and hostility on the torque achieved by throwing his leading leg across his body in a braced position as he delivers the ball. Then as the bowling arm pulls down across the body, he twists and breaks away sharply to his left to avoid tearing up the pitch with his boots, and incurring the umpire’s displeasure. And many bowlers approach the bowling crease front-on: it helps them with their accuracy. Batters need stereoscopic vision to locate the trajectory of the ball. The intriguing Northamptonshire batsman Colin Milburn, eighteen stone of pure relocated Geordie, was a magnificent hitter of a cricket ball until the car smash in which he lost one eye. He was never the same player thereafter. Some players, like the West Indian Shivnarine Chanderpaul watch the ball from a stance that starts with their whole body facing down the pitch, before they shift to a side-on position as they attempt to play. And to avoid falling over, a batsman must shift to front-on when playing the ball to leg (left-hand side for a right handed player).

‘Try to tread on the ball’…is what kids are told to think about when batting. In fact in all my years of watching cricket, I’ve never seen anyone actually achieve this, and if they did, presumably severe ankle injury would result. What the coach means is more commonly put as ‘Get to the pitch of the ball’. It’s sensible to cut down the risk of what will happen once the ball lands on the surface by hitting it as close to that point as possible. That way the ball, once hit, stays on the ground, and is more likely to go where you intend it. Needless to say the bowler will stop you trying to do this, perhaps by bowling at your head.

‘Never run on a misfield’. The greatest batsmen know where the fielders are standing, and can guide the ball into the gaps between them. When this happens and one of the two batters judges there’s time to do so, she’ll call the other one through to run to the opposite end of the 22 yard pitch (= one run scored). The good batsman also has the judgement as to which ball is ripe for hitting extra hard through the fielders to the boundary (= four runs scored - or the maximum six if it clears the ropes without bouncing). If the ball isn’t quite hit to the boundary, the batsmen can judge how many times they can run up and down before the ball is returned. On the largest grounds around the world, such as Melbourne, Australia, or The Oval in London an all-run four is possible. The fielders are always on the alert to throw the ball such that the wickets (stumps!) can be broken before the batsman makes their ground. I suppose that sometimes a fielder might kid on that they’re not in control of the ball when they really are, and lull a batter into thinking there’s a run when there isn’t – hence the advice given above. A lot of fun can be had when a batsman isn’t the best judge of a run. Anecdotally the worst of the lot was a man called Denis Compton, for whom any call to run was described as a basis for negotiation. Since it takes less than three seconds to run from one end of the pitch to the other flat out, you can see that he who hesitates or indulges in prolonged conversation is generally speaking lost! (Today Compton would have been an even bigger star than he was in the forties and fifties – suave, rakish, multi-talented, and the head which for years advertised Brylcreem. He liked a drink too.)

‘Play with a straight bat’. It’s said that to be sure of hitting the ball in the middle of the bat, the bat needs to come down straight. Actually, some of the greatest batters don’t do/haven’t done this. And thinking about whether your bat is coming down straight (behind you!) is about the quickest way to get bowled out.

‘Get behind the line of the ball’. This makes good sense, but can be hard to train the body to do when a rock is being hurled very fast in your direction. Sometimes when the bowling is very hostile batsmen evolve a survival strategy by standing very slightly to the leg-side of a high-bouncing throat-threatening ball. The courageous Surrey batsman/wicketkeeper Alec Stewart tried this against the brutal West Indian bowling of the early nineties, and it worked for a while. But it’s a measure of last resort.

‘Wait for the ball to come to you’. The greatest batsman, like all great sportspeople, seem to have more time to do what they want than ordinary folk. In cricket this means that they play the ball late (although we’re talking fractions of a second here), delaying a decision as to what to do and thus widening the options. For most players, the advice comes down to being optimally relaxed. Too much effort and snatching at the ball never got anyone anywhere. Too laid-back and you’ll be on your way too. I once watched a fellow-student try to bat after a 20-pint night on the beer. He was still playing a hopeful waft at the previous ball when the bowler was running in for the next one. (Bit of a stretch – but you know what I mean!)

‘Find the corridor of uncertainty’. Bowlers hold the cards. Theirs is the action from which comes the batter’s reaction. So the clever bowler is always looking for a weakness to exploit. He may bowl a sequence of balls to unsettle the batsman or get him over-confident about their respective abilities. But the best place to bowl – the banker – is in a channel just to the off-side of the batsman on a ‘good length’ such that she can neither go forward comfortably to the pitch of the ball or step back to a position where she can accurately judge the bounce. This channel is the ‘corridor of uncertainty’.

‘Do what the opposition least wants’. This is good advice for a captain. It works in business too. And politics. In fact, there’s a whole book to be written applying cricket’s moral and practical principles to the rest of life. I won’t want to read this particular piece of self-help (‘Men are from Lords, women are from the Gabba*’?) although the royalties from writing it might be nice.

* A well known Brisbane cricket-ground

Wham, bam, that's quite enough of that thank you

19th April

The story so far. Less than a decade ago, the English invent a short form of professional cricket. It’s called 20/20. It lasts roughly two and a half hours. Each side can bat twenty overs (120 balls). No batsman has the time to play himself in. As soon as he gets to the crease, he must try to hit the ball as far as possible, or if he can’t do that, at least score something from each ball bowled at him. The risks of batting are accordingly enhanced. Wickets are bound to fall. In the small gaps between something exciting happening, the crowd is bombarded with blasts of music. Girls dance. The public is thus very entertained for a period of time only slightly longer than the duration of a soccer match. And since in soccer, obscene amounts of money are routinely made, it’s hoped a little of this will rub off onto cricket.

But England already has soccer. The function here is already adequately fulfilled. However, over in India cricket is a national passion. There 20/20 really can become the star sporting event. Using the British/European soccer model, millionaires pump money into the game, seeking to increase their commercial and political profiles. A league of teams featuring international stars is formed. In its second year, the dates clash with the protracted Indian general election. The cricketers’ safety can’t be guaranteed. At a month’s notice the whole circus is transferred to South Africa. Doesn’t really matter where it’s played of course. The TV rights are the most important thing.

And yesterday was one of the first significant matches of this year’s Indian Premier League. For the record the Chennai Superkings beat the Bangalore Bashers (or some equally daft name). Not that many of us will care. The matches have no more meaning than the fantasy cricket games we used to play as kids between Mars and Alpha Centauri featuring Batman’s fast bowling (where was Bowlerman when you needed him?) and Vlad the Impaler’s unusual fielding techniques.

Even 20/20 works when it has a context. Put up a genuinely Australian team against a genuinely English one and you have a game to be watched, even if for some the vital spark of ‘proper’ cricket is missing. No anticipation, you see. No seduction. No foreplay. Just a few minutes of desperate mechanics.

But the financial logic is ineluctable. The big stars (and their agents) will do this thing, whatever ordinary cricket-followers think. And the two biggest stars of English cricket were there last night. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Tarzan and Superman. I heard on the radio Pietersen was out without troubling the scorers. They didn’t say what Flintoff may or may not have done.

You’ll hear more of these two Big Men this summer. And they are big, both in marketing terms and physically. I remember seeing a). Muhummad Ali b). an early seventies All Blacks rugby team in the flesh, and both times my reaction was to be flabbergasted by the physical presence of the men concerned. Pietersen and Flintoff come into that category. On the other hand, the personal behaviour of both has occasionally been lamentable, which somewhat devalues their charisma.

Both have done extraordinary things on the cricket-field. Flintoff’s obvious body-on-the-line whole-hearted commitment to his bowling is something unique, though his actual stats aren’t. In his prime (now past) his uninhibited hitting of a cricket ball was something which made the heart leap. His smile can light up a stadium. His good nature and encouragement of friendly but intense competition are not to be underestimated in an age of sporting cynicism. But on every occasion he runs in to bowl, one asks whether the body will take it this time. Bowling was once his second skill but it’s become his first, and there’s a mismatch between body and activity. *

Pietersen is simply a batsman unlike any other. He can switch himself round in the crease and hit the ball almost as far from the lefthanded position as he can from the right. No one else in the history of the game has ever done this. He will never be beautiful. In fact, the way he closes the face of the bat as he hits though the off-side produces a shovelling motion which looks plain wrong. But the thing is, even if you’d never coach it, it’s a technique which works mighty effectively for him. He scores fast. He’s confident to the point of arrogance. And behind the bluster appears to be a young man who cares enough about his game to work very hard at it. He has yet to convince us that he cares equally about any team’s success. He came from South Africa to play for England. He’s fallen out with county colleagues, and with England team managements. He’s briefly been captain of England, but is so no longer. Whisper it softly, but it’s possible that as with Flintoff, we may now have seen the absolute best of Pietersen, although he will score many more runs for England.

They will play for another fortnight – half the Indian Premier League tournament – and must then return to England to play Test match cricket. Where will their heart be?

* Two days later it was announced that Flintoff had ‘done a knee’ and was heading back to the operating theatre for what seems the umpteenth time.

First wicket down

18th April

Judgement day. The two opening batsmen don leg-pads, protective gloves, thigh and arm guards, an abdominal protector, maybe some extra chest protection and a helmet. They cross themselves a few times and then jog down the pavilion steps to face the worst the opposition bowling can do. Given their intention will be to stay out in the middle all day if they can, and that cricket’s best played in hot weather, and you can see why dehydration may be a problem.

The bowlers have a brand new ball to work with. The leather, divided into two hemispheres by the prominent stitched seam, is covered in lacquer, and to begin with is therefore equally shiny right across the two halves of its surface. The ‘new ball’ is a significant factor in long games of cricket. It may curve through the air (swing) more readily than an old one, and at first the batsmen will be vulnerable as they adjust to the pitch and the light. However, sometimes the bowler may find this early swing hard to control. The lacquered ball may slip slightly from the hand and the ball will pitch (land) in a place where it’s easy to hit. Cheap runs may be made. On the other hand at this early point in the game the ball may bounce more because of its hardness, and the extra lift will sometimes provoke misjudgements from the batters. Later on, as the ball becomes softer, life will become easier until the bowlers are offered another new one, after eighty six-ball overs, if the innings lasts that long. The new, hard ball isn’t all bad news for a batsman though. It tends to come off the bat pleasantly, with a zingier, more higher-pitched sound. And if you’re a fieldsman it’s nicer to catch too, seeming to stick easily in the hand and with less pain than it will when its leather’s been distressed by repeated heavy contact with a stick of willow.

So, despite the fact that the order of a team’s batting tells you something about the relative skills of the batters ( numbers 1-6 will probably all be specialists, but thereafter the batsmen will present themselves in rough order of ability), a wicket is always likely to fall early. And strategically, the number three position in the batting order is crucial. If he or she also gets out quickly, the opposition are bossing the game. A pattern for the innings may be set.

At the start of this season there’s a bit of doubt as to who will fill this no. 3 slot for the English team. One who might is a bloke called Michael Vaughan. He’s been a successful captain of the team (and in cricket the captain’s role is important), but those days in charge are well behind him now. Since he resigned, things have moved on. Vaughan is a Yorkshireman, but despite the stereotypes, is urbane and drily witty, a man of character and emotion, clearly liked by fellow-players and the press. Those of us who merely watch the game often like him too. He’s tall and slim, and when he bats his movement is graceful, the shape of his shots always elegant. Particularly memorable are his hook shots off quick bowling, where the ball is played off the upper body or face to the leg-side of the pitch (that’s the the left hand side as a right handed batsman faces the bowler) with bat parallel to the ground. When Vaughan plays a hook, he seems to pick up the line of the ball unusually quickly, his follow through is full and certain, and he hits down, rolling the wrists as the textbooks suggest, to avoid the possibility of being caught out. In Vaughan’s repertoire, it’s a clinical, counterpunching shot, and the man’s temperament and quality is such that the chastened bowler tends not to offer verbal commentary after the event. Either he’s just admiring the skill too, or he knows the ball deserved it. He also probably knows nothing will be gained from abuse. Insults are water off Vaughan’s back.

The stats suggest Vaughan is a big occasion player. Unusually, his figures are rather better in Test cricket than they are at lower levels. But here’s the problem. Once away from the larger stage (and it’s been that way for a year or so) it’s hard to assemble the evidence for his recall. How do we know if he’s ‘over the hill’ and patience or eyesight have started to fail? Or do we stick to the old ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ cliché? Injury’s been a problem for him in the past.

The man to some extent in possession is Ian Bell. When he’s played for England the rather diminutive Bell has done little wrong. The accusations are that he somehow lacks character, and has been guilty of rarely converting his many good starts for England into really match-winning innings. Isn’t there research which suggests smaller men always lose out to the tall guys when it comes to life-chances? At any rate there is perhaps something of a question-mark about Bell’s body-language. He doesn’t impose himself on the opposition, and can seem rather anonymous at the crease even when he’s playing really well. Despite the good figures, there’s never been a memorable ‘Bell Moment’ in international cricket. But he’s relatively young, so maybe this is still to come. He’s a good timer of the ball, and his trademark shots are a square drive to the off which has a provenance stretching back to Michael Atherton and Geoffrey Boycott (two more or less recent England batting heroes), and a clip off his legs at which neither of those other two batters excelled. He’s a slightly more mobile fielder than Vaughan. Having been dropped for the last few Tests, Bell has said to the press he knows he’ll have to score heavily in the early season if he’s to regain his place. He’s made his words good with a fine 172 in the recent match at Taunton.

The third obvious candidate is Owais Shah. Early in his career, like Bell, Shah was singled out as a player with a big future. At that early stage there seemed to be occasional insinuations that he was an awkward character, although perhaps this was blatant prejudice, racial, or anti-urban. Shah very definitely can impose himself on the opposition when he’s on song. When he bats, he’s capable of both a long hit, and considerable grace, with a phenomenal ability to use his wrists to whip the ball to the leg side when it has no business being sent in that direction at all. It’s a skill which is more often seen in batsmen from the Asian sub-continent: the disgraced former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin is one who comes first to mind. Of other current English Test batsmen only Pietersen has the ability to do this, although he’s added his own eccentric variations to the shot. When played it gives the bowler an apparent chance as the batsmen reduces the window of timing by marginally playing across the angle of the ball. But if the eye is sound, and the shot is played with repeated success, it drives bowlers to distraction. Shah is only a moderate fielder: one wonders why.

And down in Somerset is a young man called James Hildreth. After Bell’s century in that opening county match, Hildreth went to the crease and scored 303 without losing his wicket. Big scores are the province of young men. If this kind of stat stuff is beginning to draw you in, look up the figures of legends Donald Bradman, Vivian Richards, Brian Lara and Graham Hick to see how it’s true. The conditions for good scoring at Taunton will have been benign, but anyone who scores 300 should be taken seriously. Vaughan has never done it, nor has Bell, and nor has Shah. One day Hildreth will play for England and with distinction, but not yet.

And then there’s Ravi Bopara.