Sound-bytten

In its pre-Ashes trails, BBC’s Radio 5 has been re-playing a clip of commentary by cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew from fifteen or so years ago. It makes the hairs on the neck of this cricket-lover bristle each time it’s played in.

The year was 1993, and it was the first Test Match of the series against Australia at Manchester’s Old Trafford ground – which sadly will not feature in this year’s contests. Back then we’d all heard just a little about a young man called Shane Warne, still relatively new to the Australian side. We knew he was rated highly, and that after a slow start in Test Match cricket he’d begun to take wickets. We could now see that, if a tad on the porky side, he had a fashionable laddish demeanour, complete with trendy haircut, and a knowing, teasing smile. We were curious to know just how good he was.

Agnew describes Warne’s first ball to the English batsman Mike Gatting, then in the twilight of a distinguished career. In fact it’s Warne’s very first ball in Ashes cricket. Warne takes only a few steps to the crease, and he bowls. Agnew thinks at first that the ball has taken Gatting on the pad, and then reports, clearly astonished, that Gatting has been clean-bowled. Quite quickly this moment became known as the ‘ball of the century’.

What happened was this. Like Shahid Afridi in the previous blog, Warne is a leg-spinner, but the methods of the two men are very different. Warne is shorter than Afridi, and bowls more slowly, often throwing the ball up above the batsman’s eyeline. A typical Warne delivery might come at the batsman between 49 and 53 miles per hour. When you consider that a second serve in professional men’s tennis will still register 90 or 100 miles per hour, you can get a feel for the pace of Warne’s bowling. The point is that there’s time for doubt to register in the batsman’s mind, as the ball comes down.

Like most leg-spinners, Warne bowls from the back of the hand. This requires strong and flexible wrists and fingers, and has the great virtue of disguise. The amount of torque applied to the ball can be varied, and depending on the angle at which the wrist is rotated the direction of spin can change too. This sounds counter-intuitive at first, but experiment and you’ll see how it could be so. The batter needs to watch very carefully as the ball leaves the bowler’s hand, and may take other cues from the bowler’s arm movement or approach to the crease, but even so she may find it very hard to ‘pick’ whether the ball will turn away from her, or into her, or if the wrist has gone right over the top, over-spinning the ball, she may find the ball hurrying off the pitch awkwardly when it bounces.

I don’t know that there will have been many spin bowlers in the history of the game who have spun the ball more than Warne. You hear people talk about Clarrie Grimmett, George Tribe and other greats of the past, and sometimes they make it sound as if such ability was routine ‘back then’. The best I can say is that Shane Warne is unique in the last fifty years. It’s a guess, but he’s probably the finest spin bowler the sport has ever seen. Like many that were to follow over the next fifteen years, the ball which did for Gatting, was spun hard, and because it was spun hard it drifted in the air towards and then outside Gatting’s pads. When it hit the pitch, outside the leg stump, the ball bit into the turf and turned back in behind the batsmen maybe a foot and a half, to hit the middle and off stumps. The wicketkeeper, Ian Healy, was fooled as much as the batsman: he was still expecting to take the ball down the leg-side. Hearing the clatter of the wood behind him, Gatting stood transfixed, unable to believe what had just happened. In other circumstances his attitude might have been interpreted as dissent. In fact it was just shock. And a legend was born.

As the series progressed, and during subsequent series, we learned a lot more about the Warne repertoire, which never made him any easier to play. His googly (the ball which turns the opposite way from normal) was never spun very much, but in his early days was still an effective weapon. As time went on, and his craft took toll of his shoulder, the googly became less obvious. So did the ‘slider’, his much faster, flatter ball, which in those early days accounted for many of his wickets. Four things supported him throughout his career. The first was his enviable accuracy for a bowler of his type. Loose balls just didn’t seem to happen. He was ‘at’ the batsman all the time, and there was never a loosening of the stranglehold. The second was his reputation. In particular English batsmen never ever recovered from that ‘Gatting moment’. At times they were completely strokeless and clueless against him. Each series he played, he claimed to have invented yet another new variation or two, but the chances are this was mostly smoke and mirrors. More important was his ability to out-think the batsmen he played against. The third thing was Warne’s relentless, cheery aggression. Every ball bowled was apparently carefully considered before and after delivery. There would be talk to the batsmen, of a bantering but undermining nature. He never once lost his head on the cricket field, even if occasional antics off it attracted the attention of the press. Fourthly he had an excellent team around him, often great players in their own right. He got many wickets for other bowlers, as batsmen relaxed, glad not to be facing the demon Warne for once.

I never tired of watching him, even when he was helping Australia beat us yet again. He toured England four times, and this year he’ll be missing, though no doubt omnipresent in the commentary box. Who knows, he may give us a sound-byte or two of his own for posterity…

Body Chemistry

We who read newspaper articles are familiar with the benefits of exercise: that in sensible quantities it protects the body against deterioration and that because of the production of endorphins it makes us feel good too. Whereas say, sitting in an armchair and watching five days continuous Test Match cricket will invariably lead to physical flabbiness, mental decline and spiritual death. Especially if England lose.

But what of the function of sport in the body politic? How real are the effects of sporting triumph or failure on the wider motivations of a state’s population? What does it add or subtract to the way Britain goes to work?

The Pakistan team won the T20/20 trophy, to the surprise of most, and the enjoyment of many. The England women’s team won their comparable but less-publicised tournament, and have thus secured themselves an invitation to 10 Downing Street. Lucky them. What’s certain is that the politicians are getting quicker and quicker to exploit any sporting success for their own ends. I’m sure the women will really enjoy meeting Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, though goodness knows what they’ll talk about. Supply your own dreadful jokes about bowling maidens over if you must. Nevertheless, while Charlotte Edwards, their charming and talented captain had already secured a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, I wonder if the rest of her team-mates will now be similarly rewarded? I suspect not, which will be a regrettable indication of the continuing gender bias in the British establishment, sporting or otherwise. The women’s team are good to watch, and I mean that purely from a playing point of view. Although of course…not only that. Oh bother, I mean…

What tangles men can get into writing about women’s sport. Perhaps that’s why they don’t do it. Which doesn’t explain why the women sports journalists neglect the subject. Ah, but then there aren’t any women sports journalists, are there? Well, not many.

We in Britain are very lucky, able to flit from flower to sporting flower depending on the degree of success achieved in any of many possible fields. This week we hang on Andy Murray’s drop-shot, as we contemplate the once in a century prospect of a Wimbledon champion in the making. Simultaneously, we have an excellent U21 soccer team, who appear perhaps to have the beating of Europe. Our gallant swimmers are about to be done out of medals at the European event by the machinations of international bodies and swimsuit manufacturers, while Jensen Button leads the field in Formula 1 motor-racing (if you count that a sport!). All these things compensate for the fact that the Lions rugby team have been beaten in the first match against the Springboks (the only one they were likely to win because of the altitude at which the other two will be played). And cricket is somewhere in the mix too. In a fortnight there’ll be high excitement as we anticipate the Ashes series against Australia, but if the English team fail, it will be no more than many if not most expect. We British have so many sports to follow, that at any given moment some of our competitors are always being humiliated somewhere in the world. It takes a really special win to get us going. Students of sexual politics please note the gender of the examples quoted. So are we really talking only about the feelings of 49% of the population?

As with Afghanistan back in April, this T20/20 win really should mean something for the Pakistanis. The past five years have been traumatic for the sport there. Indeed, the rest of the cricketing world has tended to view them with suspicion for the past two decades. Ever since, in fact, they started to get good at the game in international terms. They can never get on with each other, they’re temperamental, they cheat, they probably throw matches, they have a chip on their shoulder, their umpires are biased – all these things have been hinted at, or said openly worldwide, and particularly by those whose skin is white. And to top it all, a white cricket coach beloved of both English and South African fans, died in tragic and slightly mysterious circumstances whilst in charge of the side. And when we in England talk loosely of cricket as a national game, we have to remember that for the Pakistanis, it really is.

They have, and always have had wonderfully talented players. Once again, from this lot, I’ll single out Shahid Afridi. On his day (and there were at least three of them in this competition) he’s a devastatingly destructive batsman and to add to that he’s an almost unique bowler too. The Dutch capitulated, having never seen anything like him before, and although his method is well-known by the other playing countries, no one handles him well. His stock ball is the leg-spinner, which turns away from the right handed batsman, not sharply, but just enough. It comes from a considerable height and it’s never delivered exactly slowly, but is varied by balls which with no obvious change of action may come at the batsman much, much quicker than any other bowler of his type I’ve ever seen.

In the Times this week Michael Atherton remarked how radical Islam dislikes sport: like the arts and fashion it’s seen as distracting from the job of obedience to Allah. Islam means ‘submission’ after all, and it’s possible to read that as the laying down of all rights to human pleasure in the service of the Almighty. Christians too, are sometimes polarised in their understanding of the value of these gifts. Are they part of God’s creation, to be enjoyed and fulfilled? Or the Devil’s work, to be abhorred. In my experience the clergy will frequently call upon us to sacrifice what we most love. The less body chemistry that’s going on, the more they’ll be happy.

One can only hope that this win gives consolation and encouragement to the mass of Pakistan’s people to resist their would-be oppressors. Even given the current economic diffculties in the UK, they probably need the endorphins more than we do.

Half full...half empty

Sport is a selfish, chauvinistic business. And even supporters do navel-gazing, though I suppose I have a preference for some navels over others. Denise Lewis’ was always pretty good. I might pass up the opportunity if it involved rugby teams (male).

The semi-finals of T20/20 begin today with South Africa (who will probably win the competition) playing Pakistan (who are lucky to still be there). England didn’t deserve to be part of the later stages. In the course of the tournament, they beat Pakistan and India, but lost embarrassingly to Holland, were outplayed in every department by South Africa, and then were shaded by the West Indies in a rain affected game which they might have won if it had gone the whole distance.

The English team seemed mildly disappointed that they hadn’t done better. On the other hand the Indian team, who fancied themselves to win the tournament, looked thunderous after the defeat by England which condemned them to an early ride home. As with all Indian teams which fail to measure up to expectations, they knew what to expect on de-planing. The captain and wicketkeeper M.S. Dhoni will have to live with a guard on his house these next few weeks. Indian fans can be just that – fanatical to the point of dangerous.

India lost to England by a narrow margin – just three runs – and had it not been for two balls which contrived to go for five wides each (on each occasion the bowler bowled a wide ball, and Dhoni failed to gather it as it sped to the boundary) the result would have been reversed. In both this match and particularly the game against Pakistan England showed energy and skill, even if they relied on Pietersen too much for impetus.

However the differences in 20/20 ability between England and South Africa were starkly drawn. England are a good fielding side, but South Africa are outstanding, with De Villiers especially brilliant. And young Van der Merwe held a brilliant catch to get rid of Pietersen and rock England’s equilibrium. Pietersen’s shot was mistimed but still forceful, Van der Merwe threw himself high to his right at a wide mid-on and held on to the ball at full stretch. Pietersen’s wry smile said it all: he was unlucky. England’s batting is one-paced, without the ability either to regularly accelerate when required or hit sufficient boundaries. Collingwood is especially puzzling. He’s evidently a whole-hearted cricketer, but as a batsman seems to be one of those who lose timing for whole periods of their career. He’s not in such bad touch as he was early last summer when a big innings seemed an impossibility, but he’s temporarily lost the art of big hitting, and is reduced to pushing the ball around – which doesn’t seem to be what the team needs. Much has been made of his shortcomings as a captain – perhaps too much. Moving people around ostentatiously in the field every ball isn’t necessarily the hallmark of good captaincy. I suspect that if he’d scored more runs in this competition, commentators would have thought him a better skipper too.

England’s bowling was OK. No one was outstanding throughout. Swann was steady, and Broad was perhaps the best overall performer. Anderson had his moments. Mascarhenas’ mojo was never fully working. Rashid made a useful debut. Sidebottom provided some left-arm variety. But there’s no really immediately threatening bowler such as Sri Lanka’s Mendis or South Africa’s Steyn. And in a tournament where left arm spinners often seem to be the most awkward to score from we’ve no one deemed good enough. Panesar languishes, more or less wicketless, in Northampton. At this rate they won’t be able to select him even for the Tests against Australia. Samit Patel will apparently never get a game until he can show more evidence of trunk curls, press ups and half a dozen miles before breakfast. Breakwell seems to be old hat, although he can still hit the ball a fearsome distance, and is having a rather good season at county level. I think Patel would have been a better bet than Rashid here.

And yet…and yet... We weren’t the worst team in the competition by a long chalk – probably better than at least two of the semi-finalists. And there’s a philosophical question which lingers. Do we think 20/20 is a really good example of sport insofar as anyone can beat anyone on the day? It’s a lottery, even without the weather intervening. But wouldn’t we rather our sport decided who truly, simply was the best?

Compare and contrast: 1) Premier League Soccer which over the course of forty or so matches in a season reduces the element of chance very greatly. Granted, even then two teams might be near inseparable until one random event tips the scales one way or another – usually a referee’s disputed decision. 2) The Wimbledon Tennis championships in which either Nadal or Federer may have an off day and be beaten in the second round, so depriving the public of the opportunity to see the two undoubtedly best players in the world slug it out in another ‘epic final’. (Sorry, Andy Murray!) 3) T20/20 in which Ireland beats Bangladesh, Holland beats England, and England beats India. In none of these three matches do we think the best team won, yet we loved it all.

I think it’s all trivial, and a certain randomness in results merely adds to the charm of sport, but I doubt they’d agree in Mumbai or Kolkata. And what do the bookies think, I wonder? Where would they want the balance to lie? Is their cup running over right now, or filled with bitter tears?

Many a Slip

There’s an ancient and annoying cricket adage which maintains that ‘dropped catches lose matches’. It’s annoying because of course it’s true, and because inept coaches, captains and commentators have a habit of trotting it out when a team or individual is feeling at their lowest.

There’s nothing quite so intoxicating for a cricketer as taking a blinding catch (or so I imagine: it hasn’t very often happened to me). And nothing quite so misery-inducing as dropping a dolly (= very simple catch. Don’t ask me why. But there’s a good book by the pundit Simon Hughes which will tell you! ) As if one wasn’t upset enough on one’s own behalf, there are the accusing stares and muttered resentments of former team-mates to deal with.

In 20/20’s over the past couple of days there have been outstanding instances of both, which have proved the rule by being exceptions. In the Sri Lanka v. Australia match the Australians posted a good but not completely formidable total of 160, which the Sri Lankans reached reasonably comfortably, thus knocking the much-vaunted Aussies out of the tournament at the first hurdle, because the Australians had also previously lost to the West Indies in this qualifying round for the ‘Super Eights’.

Just into the Sri Lankan innings, their opening bat Sanath Jayasuriya absolutely nailed a pull shot from a short ball by Brett Lee, the likeable, express Australian bowler. It went hard and flat, one of those shots which at no point seem to rise much above ten or twelve feet from the ground. About half a second later, out on the distant boundary, David Warner leapt to pull the ball down, and although it knocked him from his feet by sheer velocity he managed to keep clear of the boundary rope. Poor Jayasuriya left the field looking over his shoulder at the TV screens which were now looping the moment of the catch and Warner’s subsequent elation, shaking his head, unable to believe he’d seen what had just occurred. It was as good a catch as you’re ever likely to witness, but Australia lost nonetheless.

Then, in a match the English had to win against Pakistan to keep their interest in the tournament alive, Bopara made an utter mess of a chance given by one of the middle-order Pakistan batsmen. In fact England had more or less won the game by then, so it didn’t matter greatly, but every club cricketer will have been familiar with the gamut of reactions Bopara went through to justify the miss. For the Oval’s lights, which he claimed had temporarily blinded him, read the sun which, honestly skip, was right in my eyes at the crucial moment. Well, Ravi, it may be so, but what we TV watchers saw was the ball looping off the outside edge of the bat at the most leisurely rate straight into – and out of – your hands.

Actually, and here’s another cliché from Old Possum’s Book of Cricketing Saws, there’s no such thing as an easy catch. Sometimes the catches which come to you without time for reflection are rather easier to cling onto than ones you’ve much time to think about. The one dropped catch – from many – which made me look most stupid hung in the air just in front of the batsmen, seemingly for minutes. All I had to do was to run forward and pouch the ball. In fact, the false stroke had imparted so much spin that when my rather small hands made contact with the leather, I had no chance of holding on. Well, at least, that’s my story. Worst of all are sky-high steeplers, which have fielders running this way and that for the honour of claiming the victim, but which are subject to the vagaries of the wind. Just when you’re convinced you’ve got it covered, the wretched ball drifts away from you. You sprawl to make it look like you’ve tried, but actually it was always Ball 1 Fieldsman Nil.

At least if you’re standing in the slips (back to Simon Hughes again if you want to know – but geographically they’re the field placings next to the wicketkeeper and to his right, if it’s a right-hand batsman) the ball may come fast off the edge of the defeated bat - very fast indeed, if it’s a quick bowler and the batsman has gone hard at the ball. Get it wrong and you’ll probably break a finger, so other members of the team may feel obliged towards some sympathy. Hold on and you can be a hero, just for the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time. One tip. It helps if you keep your eyes open.

The 20/20 World Cup is beginning to envelop me in its ghastly grip. Apart from the exit of the Australians which will keep them duly humble, and to everyone’s amusement has secured them a couple of weeks time off in Leicester ( a local Leicester tourist board person recommended the town on BBC Radio 5 with the claims that it was only five hours from Paris, and was the birthplace of ‘The Elephant Man’), Ireland has made it through to the next stage by virtue of a win over a struggling Bangladeshi side. And a number of games have been very tight: even the ‘dead’ game between South Africa and New Zealand last evening came down to the last ball.

But, and I don’t know by now whether this will gladden your heart or not, O American People, it’s beginning to look more and more like baseball. For one thing the full pitch (the ball that doesn’t bounce before it gets to the batter) has always been deemed a bad ball in cricket – too easy to hit. But in 20/20 it becomes a weapon. Johan Botha, the South African spinner bowled four in one over of six balls yesterday evening without undue punishment. And Malinga the Sri Lankan paceman has proved that if you can successfully aim at the top of the stumps, a full toss can be devastating, particularly at his pace and with his slingy trajectory.

In cricket however, ordinary fielders wear nothing on their hands when they try to catch the ball. They are, in other words, real men. And women. And please God, for entertainment’s sake, it shall always be that way.

The Long Barrier

Fielding matters. Team England, please take note.

Basics again: the disposition of forces! Eleven players to a team. The bowler bowls. There’s a wicketkeeper to stop the ball if the batsman misses and it evades the stumps. That leaves nine others people distributed around the cricket field as the captain and bowler think fit, either to catch or run the batsman out, or to stop the scoring of runs.

There’ve always been great fielders. In the nineteen sixties there was the legendary Zimbabwean (Rhodesian!) Colin Bland who could throw down the stumps from any distance or angle. He was a star back then, but these days there are many more like him. The further you go back in the history of the game, the more probable it is that a team carried fielding passengers who regarded this aspect of the game as a chore. And in many amateur teams, this would still be true. In today’s professional game however, you probably won’t play unless you pull your fielding weight. The very talented but under-confident England bowler Monty Panesar is widely mocked for his lack of fielding ability, and his international opportunities may in future be limited unless he can show a significant improvement.

That there’s been a change in attitude and skill is a lot to do with baseball, where a much greater athleticism has been observed. So now in cricket too we see the sliding stop and all in one throw – and very exciting it is too. And the throwing itself is much more accurate and subtle in its variations. And average speed of travel over the ground is much greater.

I remember with dreadful clarity the first occasion I was truly terrified as a fielder. I was at college, and we were playing one of the itinerant midweek teams made up of ex-pros and self-made men, who could afford to take time off to indulge their cricketing passions. Such teams tended to have names like ‘The Nitwits’ or ‘The Bunnies Club’: I can’t recall the moniker for this one. A man called Richard Jefferson strode to the wicket, tall, tanned, hardened of body. He’d played for Surrey for some years, where he would probably have been described in their promotional literature as a ‘hard-hitting batsman and fast bowler’. Yes, well, that was one way of putting it. As the first straight drive exploded off his Gunn and Moore bat like a shell and crashed into the white sightscreen behind the bowler, causing a shower of splinters to decorate the surrounding grass, I started genuinely to pray the ball wouldn’t come so close to me that that my inevitable acts of avoidance would have me accused of cowardice. I’d never seen such timing and power on the cricket field. Fortunately after half an hour of violence and mayhem, Jefferson R.I. retired to the pavilion, forty or so runs to the better. He later bowled me middle stump with what was undoubtedly his slower ball, but which was still substantially too quick for me. I was just grateful to get out of the match alive and undamaged.

There are different sorts of terrors on the fielding front. Fielding at mid-off or mid-on, the positions to either side of the bowler and maybe thirty yards from the batsman, the ball is more likely to be drilled in your direction from a straight swing of the bat. There are fewer complications about this, but the ball’s sheer velocity may be greater than elsewhere. The best ground fielders often find themselves placed in ‘the covers’ – square of the wicket on the off-side. They too may have to cope with velocity, but also with confusing spin imparted by a scything action of the bat, and with bounce if the ball is hit hard into the ground. Fielders like the now retired South African Jonty Rhodes, or England’s Paul Collingwood are a delight to watch in this position, taking off like a soccer goalkeeper to save balls seemingly certain to reach the boundary. Further round on the edge of the playing area and nearly behind the wicketkeeper is a position called third-man. There the direction of the ball’s travel is sometimes difficult to work out, and you can easily be made to look silly moving one way when the ball is going another. Miscued strokes to the leg-side can confuse too – the ball may spin one way when hitting the ground the first time, only to break the other way on the second bounce.

Spectators love nothing better than a fielder in confusion. Back in the nineteen seventies a lovely and highly renowned Indian Sikh bowler named Bishan Bedi came to play for Northamptonshire. His coloured patkas were in that era an unusual sight, although beards were ‘in’ amongst even white English players. At the time he was one of the world’s greatest bowlers but by no means the greatest fielder. From successive balls the ball was spanked to near where he stood at deep square leg, and twice it eluded him by going between his legs and over the boundary rope. The crowd hooted in derision, and Bishan Bedi gave a gracious bow while his exasperated captain clasped his hands to his head.

For most law-abiding citizens there’s not much in life to compare with the humiliation of committing a fielding howler, and it takes a lot of grace and self-confidence to properly acknowledge one’s fault to long-suffering team-mates. At very amateur levels a pocket deep enough to buy a full round of drinks after the game can suffice. I’m only guessing, but probably this doesn’t work if you’re playing for England. I wonder what Stuart Broad was feeling like last night…


* The long barrier: Every young cricketer is (or at least, used to be) taught that the best way to prevent fielding embarrassment is as follows. When the ball is hit towards you, kneel with one leg extended in front of you so that you present as big a defence towards the ball as possible. I recall that in ‘back country’ situations where one is likely to encounter large wild animals, similarly misguided advice is sometimes proffered i.e. ‘make yourself look as big as possible’. Of course, a cricket ball won’t eat you, but it will, if the ground is uneven, bounce in such a way as to re-arrange your facial features substantially, if you’ve adopted the long barrier approach. I imagine most cricketers have had an experience of this sort. These days the need to ‘get rid of the ball’ as quickly as possible, means that this doctrinaire approach to fielding is used more sparingly.

Last throw of the dice?

Forty years on I’m reading again the historian H.H. Scullard’s account of how pre-Imperial ancient Rome drifted by degrees into tyranny. In the background today’s radio and TV pundits are salivating over the current misfortunes of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s beleaguered administration. Will he last beyond the weekend? Twelve hours ago they thought he wouldn’t. Now they think he may. Tomorrow…?

The ‘plots’ of both political stories are exciting, but complex and opaque. Goodness knows what’s really going on at Number Ten. Or what the true motivations of Sulla & Co. were in Rome BC 80 (Isn’t there someone out there who’ll update Scullard’s turgid prose?) At least it’s unlikely Brown will actually murder his opponents. Murdering colleagues might be a different matter.

Sport offers a relief from all that. The narrative’s so linear, so apparently straightforward. And perhaps more often than in other areas of life, perhaps more often than you’d think it should on sheer statistics, the logic funnels in towards a single kick, a single point, a visible, defined, public moment. A single throw even...

The Twenty-Twenty Cricket World Cup began predictably with a damp squib of an opening ceremony on a cold, wet night at Lords. The cricket authorities don’t seem to do this kind of thing very well over here. There was wonderment that the ICC should have decided to begin the tournament with a match between England and The Netherlands. England? Well, yes we’re the hosts, so fair do’s. But Holland? The Netherlands aren’t even a Test Match playing country. They’re just a bunch of ambitious amateurs. Aren’t they? I bet you know where this story is going…

The Netherlands won the toss, and invited England to bat – always a good move in 20/20, particularly at the outset of a tournament. The batting side has to guess what might be a good score…150? 180? 200? At first all went swimmingly for an England side lacking the raw power and personality of a Pietersen or a Flintoff (Pietersen cried off with an Achilles problem overnight, Flintoff still thinks he’ll be ‘ready for The Ashes’ Ha!). However, England still seemed to be on their way towards the 200 mark, until suddenly things stalled. Young Luke Wright biffed his uncomplicated way to 71. He’s learning how to build an innings in this form of the game and he has a good eye. We’ll see if he can adapt to longer types of cricket in the next year or so, but for now in this context, he’ll do just fine. However the England middle order couldn’t find the boundary, and their return over the last nine overs wasn’t much above a run a ball. The final England total was 162 for the loss of five wickets. Good, but not good enough. Not against this bowling. Even so, surely our experience and skill would see off the Dutch?

Not so. The rain began to fall harder, and the English bowlers and fielders found the ball difficult to grip. Paul Collingwood, the England 20/20 captain, later refused to allow this as an excuse, but it was a factor. The Dutch kept their heads and managed to hit three sixes where England had failed to score a single one. There were quite a few run-out chances, but the English throwing at the stumps was often wide of the mark. In the end their lack of accuracy proved to be the margin between the two sides. From six overs out, it always looked as if it would come down to the last ball bowled. Some of Collingwood’s tactics seemed questionable. The English bowlers didn’t attack the stumps, and the field placings didn’t apply pressure. With the last ball of the match, due to be bowled by Stuart Broad who earlier in the over had dropped a relatively easy return catch, The Netherlands required two runs to win. It was hit in the direction of mid-on by Schiferli the Dutch batsman. Broad sprawled to field from his own bowling and prone, threw at the bowler’s stumps. He missed by a distance, no one was by the stumps to collect the ball, and the batsmen ran two when clear thinking should have ensured it was never a possibility. The Dutch players and supporters duly went bonkers. And so they should. It wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t a thrown match, it was a clear unambiguous well-deserved victory, and now England will struggle to stay in the tournament. We’ll know on Sunday. But we may not know about Gordon Brown’s short and medium-term political future for a while after that!