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.
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.
