The Ashes - A family affair

Well, as it turns out, having a national cricket team that is terrible to the point of abject embarrassment, actually sucks big time. Our display in the Lords Test was about as poor a display from an Australian cricket team as I have ever seen. In fact, it was only rivalled by some of our work during the mid eighties against the might of the great West Indian team. But, as Bob Bentley (curator of the wonderful fishing blog The Nervous Mullet) has today said:

"The problem though is the West Indies were a great side. England are just a good side. Therefore this Aussie team is a bunch of" gentlemen who prefer baking cakes and fixing their hair just right (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Too right. So, that might mean, for all my protests before the series began, that this may indeed be the worst Australian side ever. I can't believe it has come to this but it requires some serious consideration at the very least. The final three Tests will show us where are. At this rate, 5-0 really is on the cards.

But that particular wallow in despair and self-pity is for another day. For instead today, we turn our attention to the impact that the Ashes has on family. And, we will do this by looking at some of my very own family; my father and my father-in-law to be exact. Both sent me some correspondence regarding the cricket today and both sum up quite nicely the thoughts of their respective countries. So, to the victor goes the spoils: let's review my father-in-law's thoughts first, for he writes:

"Sally and I watched the cricket over the last two days - only I am afraid your lot were a bunch of big girls playing rounders. Hopefully they'll get it together a bit better for Old Trafford and make a match of it. We are now full converts and are really looking forward to the rest of the series!"

England: happy and looking forward to the rest of the series.

I have to agree with almost everything here, although us being a bunch of ladies playing rounders is probably talking up our skill and resolve a touch too much. Its very nice of him to try and pep me up a little though.

And from the vanquished, my father writes:

"IS PUP DOGGING IT?

 Is Pup the best batsman in the Australian cricket side? Does he possess superior technical batting skills compared to the others in the team? Does he handle both the quicks and the spinners better than anyone else in the side? Is he an excellent runner between the wickets? Does he have a very good cricket brain – after all, he is the Australian skipper? I suspect that these questions would be answered in the affirmative by most cricket followers, even though the batting skills displayed by our recognised batsmen so far in this Ashes series have not really been anything to brag about – to say the least.

 Ok then. Let’s agree that Michael Clarke is the best batsman in the Australian team. His record confirms that doesn’t it?

 SO WHY DOES HE HIDE HIMSELF AT NUMBER FIVE? The Puppy tucks himself down in the middle of the batting order. I have been long under the impression that the best batsman in the team should be at number three, if he isn’t already an opener. Is Michael Clarke trying to preserve his record I wonder? Or is there another reason that I can’t come up with?

 Michael! You are the captain of the Australian cricket team. Show some leadership skills for once instead of coming up with those nicely sculptured lines in front of the microphones. Your team and your country need you to show some Pup mongrel. Surely you have it! Surely! You are a product of western Sydney where they breed them with mongrel in them. Show the cricket the world that you are deservedly the captain. In effect, say to us all, “I’m going to take the hard stuff. I’m going to lead from the front not down where the stuff is, theoretically, easier. I’m going in at three. I’m going to send a message to my team that I am a real leader and that I’ll lead them into battle regardless of the outcome for myself. Follow me you blokes. Follow me my country. I may not succeed but I’ll go down fighting. It’s the Aussie way you know”.

 Show us all Pup. Show us. I hope that you score buckets of runs but, if you don’t, I won’t be criticising you. That is providing that you lead the team as you should. I am waiting.

"

Australia: disappointed and searching for answers.

Again, I agree with most of these thoughts. I have never liked Clarke, never thought he had any man management skills and can't believe he is our captain. He is our best batsman but I not totally convinced he should bat at three. Steve Waugh batted and 5 or 6 and he was pretty tough. Still, the gulf between Clarke and the next best batsman is miles and miles and miles and miles and, yet more, miles larger than the gap between Steve Waugh and the next best batsman in the sides he played in. So, there probably is a strong case for the king of the metro girlymen to bat at 3 after all.

Speaking of families, Dave Warner's brother Steve was in the news today. Steve has a twitter account and it has always been set to private (only his followers can see his messages). But, for some reason known only to Steve, very recently he made his account public and started sending angry messages to various members of the twitter community (including the pretty hilarious @notdavidwarner). So, predictably (well, to everyone else except Steve), these people then sledged him back, made him look silly and then looked through all of his previous messages ... and in two minutes flat found comedy GOLD. A selection are presented below for the education of young children about the risks of social media (via @fwildecricket)

A selection of what the telegraph.co.uk somewhat called charitably "a series of misguided and illiterate tweets"

Note, the rather expert use of the new phrase "escape goat" in the last message. Sledging Cricket Australia and demanding a business class seat for his brother in the second message, who recently got into trouble for twitter sledging of a journalist, is a particularly nice touch. Calling Watson selfish and a pretender in the first one is obviously completely understandable.

In no time at all, "#escapegoat" was trending on Twitter all over the country. This forced Cricket Australia to put out a statement in which David Warner stated that he was not associated with his brother's tweets, although he had every right to his opinion. By this stage Steve had already claimed he had no idea how the tweets were sent from his account, had set his account back to private and then completely deleted his account. Just what Dave Warner needs after scoring 6 and 11 against a Zimbabwean second eleven as he tries to force his way back onto the Ashes tour and into the team for the third Test. It take son hell of an effort to make David Warner look like Einstein but his brother Steve has done what previously seemed impossible. Well done Steve and well done to the entire Warner clan for their ongoing contribution to cricket related comedy.

The Ashes: bringing families together since 1882

David Warner, as seen when you read Steve Warner's tweets and then squint real, real hard

On Broad, walking and catches down the legside

Who was I kidding with all this "too busy for the blog" business? OK, I am probably too busy but Ashes love has compelled me to pull out the laptop and get typing while watching the first morning at Lords.

Let's get straight to it: Stuart Broad is a rotten stinking cheat who refuses to walk; at least that's what my local news outlets tell me. One paper even printed his face on a dart board and named it the "Stuart Dart Broad". Classy stuff Mr Murdoch, if you please. We are already plotting what sort of insults will be hurled his way during the upcoming series in our summer and are encouraging him to improve his slips fielding so that he can stay away from our rapid supporters in the concourse seats. In short, he is a marked man (well, boy-man). But, is what he did so wrong? Probably not, if we are honest

I walked once. Once. In all the cricket I played, I walked once

And no, it wasn't in a World Cup Semi Final. I was playing in a local game against a team with three guys in it that I, to different degrees, grew up with. In fact, there was a fourth guy I went to school with watching the same team from the stand (OK, small grassy bank where everyone had placed their bags).

On the first morning of the game, I opened and was feeling great. It was my favourite ground that we played on that year; a huge oval but with little grass so you got full value for your shots. I had started pretty well and had skipped along to something decent, I seem to remember getting something like 47 or possibly something in the 60s, and I felt that I was on my way to a big one. One of the guys I grew up with was bowling, another was keeping and the other one was at first slip. The bowler threw one up outside off and I lined up another one of my booming (well, I swung hard anyway) cover drives and was pretty sure I got a thin edge through to the keeper. Now, I wasn't completely sure as I definitely hit the ground at the same time. A huge appeal went up and the umpire deliberated for sometime before shaking his head. 

And time stood still

I remembered playing cricket with these guys in the street they lived in on a 6 metre pitch with a tennis ball with one side taped up. I clearly (really, really clearly)  recalled launching one of them back over their head for six into a neighbours front yard. I remember stealing home brew from the guy keeping, with his younger brother. I remembered helping out the guy bowling by breaking up a fight he was in at school, and was in the process of losing badly

I had history with these guys. They were my friends and we had dragged each other up on the mean streets of West Ryde and Rydalmere. After everything we had been through, I couldn't turn my back on them now, I couldn't betray them. I owed them. On this day, at this time, we were brothers; brothers in cricket. I burned with the spirit of cricket. So I turned and, without a word, walked off.

Sure, my teammates weren't exactly happy with me, and sure I had thrown away a certain triple century (note, triple century was highly unlikely). But I felt good about myself and sat back and quietly, ever so quietly, basked in self congratulatory warmth. Today was a good day and I was a good guy. I spent the next week telling myself what a gentleman I was. That feeling of self wonder lasted all week, right up until the other team batted the following week.

The guy who had taken the catch off me opened the batting and truth be told, wasn't much of a batsman. But, he was their skipper so I guess he got to choose (Hello Andrew, if you are reading). He scratched around for a while before we slipped one down leg side, he got a massive glove to it and a huge deflection and he started to take off for a run. It's about then when he saw what he must have presumed was Ian Healy flying down leg and taking quite simply the best leg side catch ever witnessed (modesty prevents me describing just how fulfilling a catch it was). When I came to ground and stopped rolling around for extra effect, I looked down into my gloves to check that the ball was still there and then let out a huge yelp before starting to jump up and down in pure cricket ecstasy

My celebration was cut a little short when I couldn't help but notice the umpire was unmoved. After a few short, rapid fire checks with said official, it was clear that the decision would not be changed. Not a problem, I thought, my old mate would do for me what I did for him the week before: he would walk, one keeper to another and gentlemanly nods of the head all round. Except he didn't. He stood there and looked grumpy. When I was moved to enquire as to the reason for his lack of walking he simply said:

"Umpire said not out"

Somewhat surprised, I replied

"But Andrew, I walked for you last week, surely you will walk for me. We both know it hit your glove"

I'll never forget Andrew's next words, for they were as potty like as they were firm:

"You c*nts cheated all last week so you can f*ck off"

Hmm, not walking then hey? 

I never got to ask how we had cheated during the previous week but I did I sledge him every 
second of every ball he faced for the rest of his innings, and quite a few seconds of quite a few balls when he wasn't even facing and a few more when he came out to umpire at square leg and, from memory, a couple as he walked to his car at the end of the day, but it didn't matter by then. The magic spell of walking was broken. 

I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Actually, I learnt two. The first was that people are disgraceful things who should never be trusted under any circumstances and should be given exactly no legs up in any fields ever and have no more loyalty than a stray cat, roaming from home to home to see who has the biggest fire and largest stock of un-eaten fish heads.

The second lesson was that walking as a batsman is a fool's game. Not only is there very little chance that one good deed will generate another, but for all the times you are given not out when you are, there are just as many times when you are given out when you are not. The umpire isn't there just to hold the coats and spot ball tampering. They are there to make decisions. Respect their decision at all times and let them do their job. To do otherwise, is a slippery slope indeed.

Which is probably what Stuart Broad thought when he absolutely smashed a square cut to first slip in the first Test. OK, cutting one to slip and standing there is as shameless as a man born with a genetic inability to feel shame taking a shirt with a huge "Shame Stuart, Shame" printed on it off and throwing it in the bin whilst all the time yelling "Out damn shame, out I say", but the point is it is his right. It's the petulant act of a spoilt man-child who has a sense of privilege like almost no other; but it certainly is not cheating. In the same way it wasn't cheating when Haddin stood his ground, even knowing he had edged his eventual dismissal in the final innings at Trent Bridge. 

So kids remember: walking might be good for getting home from school but it aint no good for cricket. 

These rather scruffy club cricketers might have walked a bit but I never did ... and Broad didn't need to either

Victory on a knife edge

So, having turned TMS off with Australia needing 20 runs to win I headed off on a family day out too stressed to listen any further.  On a pitch most pundits said Australia would struggle to post more than 250 runs they rattled along on Sunday morning imperious to the supposed gremlins that lurked in the pitch.  With only the outstanding Anderson posing a threat Brad Haddin accumulated runs in an alarming fashion causing the panic stricken England captain to start setting ODI type fields to try and prevent the flow of runs.  Steven Finn, almost a hat trick hero in the first innings froze in the bubble of Australian pressure and his confidence visibly crumbled as did his Skippers confidence in him.  Yet, England were fortunate.  Anderson was there.  I remember telling Brownie years ago that Anderson wouldn't amount to anything in test cricket.  How wrong I was.  I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen a finer swing bowler in test cricket.  I think he's even better than Akram or Younis.

So what have we learned from this first game in the series?  I think England have really had an escape here.  Were they just slightly starting to believe their own hype?  Really this game should have been out of sight when Australia were 117-9.  When Aghar walked to the crease the England bowlers all decided to remove the brains and bowl utter dross at him.  It was only with the introduction of Broad they finally resorted to some short stuff.  As brilliant as Aghar's debut innings was it has only highlighted was complete rubbish is being written and talked about in the game of cricket at the moment.  Geoff Boycott said his name in the same sentence as Gary Sobers, Damian Martyn said he should be batting in the top six and numerous pundits kept referring to him as the Boy Wonder.  Talk about building some unrealistic expectations on the lad.  I watched the Sky coverage the other day and found myself becoming increasingly irritated with the bland platitudes of Sir Ian Botham and then switching to TMS I had to put up with everyone's friend Phil Tufnell.  Boy, do I miss the insight and thinking of Christopher Martin Jenkins.  One pleasant surprise this week on TMS has been the commentary of Glenn McGrath.  On a personal level I can't stand McGrath.  I hated him for all the times he kept getting England batsman out and then running down the pitch shouting 'Woohoo'.  It happened a lot you see.  On the Radio though I couldn't help warm to him, he actually talked about mindsets, he gave some insight.  Something Phil Tufnell can't even achieve on Question of Sport.

TMS Charm Offensive

Phil Tufnell amuses himself

Further ticks in the McGrath column post career is that he isn't endlessly jumping up and down on Twitter like a hyper active school boy telling the world how he would restructure Australian cricket like everyone's favorite botox junkie Shane Warne.  Thankfully he's off somewhere playing Poker so we've been spared is self satisfying smugness for the time being.   Off course he's just waiting for Darren Lehman to call him anytime now.............

Hats off to Ian Bell for a rather classy century.  Hopefully he's got the 'only scores when it doesn't matter' monkey off his bat.  When Bell bats like he did in this game you really do wonder why he's not a really dominant force in test cricket.  Saying that, you look at his test stats and you have to say they are not too shabby:

Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	89	152	20	6059	235	45.90	12284	49.32	18	35	712	24	73	0

The vilification of Stuart Broad has annoyed me this weekend.  I know, I am getting grumpier as I get older but hear me out.  International cricket is a professional sport, its not a game of moral dilemmas.  There is nothing in the laws of the game to say a batsman must walk.  That is what the Umpire is there to do.  He decides.  Ok, sometimes they get it wrong, that's what DRS is for.  Clarke has learned a valuable lesson about using DRS.  Something he has openly conceded post test.  In an ideal world of fluffy bunnies and fairies it would be great if every professional sportsman played with heart bleeding honesty but on planet earth that his just not going to happen.  Let's not crucify someone for doing what the vast majority of his peers do all of the time.  In this game we had Clarke and Haddin nicking the ball and then standing their ground.  I don't have a problem with this.  Geoff Boycott said, '...the Aussies invented not walking' well they didn't Geoff and that's a mute point anyway.  It's not an eye for eye.  WG Grace famously refused to walk nearly all of the time.  So goody two shoes Adam Gilchrist decided to walk, good for him.  Matt Hayden is a self purported man of God but was apparently one of the nastiest sledgers in world cricket.  The moral compasses are all over the place here.  Cricket is not a moral game.  It has laws and umpires that enforce them, end of.

Moving on to Lords next Thursday England have stuck with the same 13.  It will be interesting to see if they stick with Finn on his home ground or bring in Bresnan.  Looking at the England team there are some concerns going forward.  I though Swann bowled well below par in this test and the expected disintergration of Australia at his hands in the fourth innings just did not happen.  The way Pattinson dismissed for six was very telling.  Root and Bairstow despite their obvious talents are yet to establish themselves in the side so are potentially vulnerable and under greater pressure than the other batsman.  We all know that the Australian top order is vulnerable and surely Clarke has to come up to number three?  Poor Phil Hughes played the best innings I've seen in play in England and it gets completely overlooked by the world in general as Wonder Boy Aghar stole the headlines.  

On a different note, spare a though for Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie who's father died very suddenly this week.  Gillespie has being quietly doing a rather brilliant job at Yorkshire and has been granted compassionate leave.