Trevor Bailey is a revered ex-England player, now in his eighties, a bit of a toff, who became a cultured and accomplished commentator on cricket throughout several decades. In his playing days he acquired the soubriquet ‘Barnacle’ because of his sometimes valuable, but sometimes tediously tenacious batting. Thankfully his radio commentaries were rather more flambuoyant: he was rarely boring in the studio. One thing sticks in the mind. Cricket, he said very often, is a situational game. I think what he meant by that was that the fascination often lies in speculation about how a game will develop. The shorter the game, the less scope for such speculation there is, which is why for many, five day Test cricket remains the truest form. How odd that in this developing virtual world, what seems to increasingly draw people is certainty rather than contingency. Discuss.
In a good day’s cricket, the advantage will switch from one team to another, maybe a number of times. Cricket isn’t alone in this: the stupendous Men’s Final at this year’s Wimbledon Tennis Championships showed how it can be true in that sport too, although significantly the five hours’ match duration very nearly equalled a complete day’s playing time in cricket. Roddick and Federer were so evenly matched that when it was finally over, the difference was pretty much the one service game which Roddick lost in the last set: amazingly the only one he lost in the entire match. This year tennis commentators seem to have taken to describing these phenomena of back and forth as ‘momentum shifts’. Cricketers haven’t caught on to that particular piece of jargon yet and talk more folksily about ‘ebb and flow’, which isn’t a perfectly apt description, but sometimes does justice to the palpable sense of loss of control a team may be suffering at any given moment.
Well, today in Cardiff there was plenty of ebb and flow, or if you will, a whole pile of momentum shifting, and at the close it was hard to say who the tide was carrying away. The opening ceremonies tried very hard to set the Australians on their heels with heart-tugging melodies from soprano Katherine Jenkins and co., though I noticed most of the best tunes were Welsh rather than English, but after that setback, the Australians took three prime English wickets before lunch, and would have been the happier team munching on their chicken and pasta. During the afternoon session, Pietersen and Collingwood took the fight back to their opponents, batting looked suddenly much easier, and at 228 for 3 after tea, England were clearly in the ascendant. But then Collingwood offered a weak shot at a not particularly threatening delivery, Pietersen lost the plot and tried something ghastly which might have been appropriate if his personal score had been 169 rather than just 69, and suddenly England looked in poor shape. At which point Flintoff strode to the wicket to join Matthew Prior, and for an hour or so the two of them simply took the Australian attack apart in an exhilarating display of hitting. And if they’d managed to stay together at close of play, England would have declared the day a triumph. As it was, both batsmen lost their stumps to the enthusiastic Peter Siddle, and we’re left wondering where this match is going.
What’s peculiar is that this is a pitch which suggests the probability of boring crcket – it’s low and slow. However today was anything but bum-numbing, and as a first day of Welsh Test cricket, has probably exceeded anyone’s expectations. Where will the momentum shift tomorrow?
In a good day’s cricket, the advantage will switch from one team to another, maybe a number of times. Cricket isn’t alone in this: the stupendous Men’s Final at this year’s Wimbledon Tennis Championships showed how it can be true in that sport too, although significantly the five hours’ match duration very nearly equalled a complete day’s playing time in cricket. Roddick and Federer were so evenly matched that when it was finally over, the difference was pretty much the one service game which Roddick lost in the last set: amazingly the only one he lost in the entire match. This year tennis commentators seem to have taken to describing these phenomena of back and forth as ‘momentum shifts’. Cricketers haven’t caught on to that particular piece of jargon yet and talk more folksily about ‘ebb and flow’, which isn’t a perfectly apt description, but sometimes does justice to the palpable sense of loss of control a team may be suffering at any given moment.
Well, today in Cardiff there was plenty of ebb and flow, or if you will, a whole pile of momentum shifting, and at the close it was hard to say who the tide was carrying away. The opening ceremonies tried very hard to set the Australians on their heels with heart-tugging melodies from soprano Katherine Jenkins and co., though I noticed most of the best tunes were Welsh rather than English, but after that setback, the Australians took three prime English wickets before lunch, and would have been the happier team munching on their chicken and pasta. During the afternoon session, Pietersen and Collingwood took the fight back to their opponents, batting looked suddenly much easier, and at 228 for 3 after tea, England were clearly in the ascendant. But then Collingwood offered a weak shot at a not particularly threatening delivery, Pietersen lost the plot and tried something ghastly which might have been appropriate if his personal score had been 169 rather than just 69, and suddenly England looked in poor shape. At which point Flintoff strode to the wicket to join Matthew Prior, and for an hour or so the two of them simply took the Australian attack apart in an exhilarating display of hitting. And if they’d managed to stay together at close of play, England would have declared the day a triumph. As it was, both batsmen lost their stumps to the enthusiastic Peter Siddle, and we’re left wondering where this match is going.
What’s peculiar is that this is a pitch which suggests the probability of boring crcket – it’s low and slow. However today was anything but bum-numbing, and as a first day of Welsh Test cricket, has probably exceeded anyone’s expectations. Where will the momentum shift tomorrow?
England 336 for 7 wickets
