Tag Archives: World Cup

Manufacturing a cricketing spectacle

10 Monday Jun 2019

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Scholars are divided on whether Elizabeth Barrett Browning was writing about Robert Browning or about cricket but her words came to me as I pondered my experience as a spectator in the crowd at the England V Pakistan World Cup match last Monday at Trent Bridge. (An intelligent, passionate poet, I think Elizabeth might have enjoyed cricket – although would have struggled with eight hours in the opium-free stand.)

Anyway. Her words dropped into my brain as I sat quietly watching the match while the Pakistani supporters leapt around me with ineluctable vigour. While there is no doubting their love of the game and their team, it became apparent that much of their more outrageous dancing and chanting came at the same time as the appearance of a TV camera.

And it wasn’t just the Pakistan supporters. The England-supporting schoolkids in front of us were frequently briefed by the cameraman to perform on cue. The camera didn’t just happen to capture some 10 year olds playing air guitar along to the terrible guitarist who was playing live during breaks in play, it captured them doing it because the cameraman had told – and shown – them what to do and when to do it, each of them performing on cue as he pointed at them one by one. The camera then moved away and they settled down to resume watching quietly and eating sweets.

Beyond the choreographed enjoyment, the simple presence of the camera changed the crowd dynamic. When it pointed at anyone, they leapt up to cheer and shout and wave. When it pointed at the Pakistan supporters, they launched into chants and dances.

We’re sophisticated enough to know now that just because something is on the TV or t’internet, that doesn’t mean it’s a true record of events. Selective editing, angles, re-takes and so on all mean that we are being shown a version of the truth. But live TV – most people would surely assume that what you see is exactly what you get? Well, it’s not. And not only that but the camera is not just a recorder of events but a shaper of events; not a neutral, objective presence but a presence that is an active part of the very spectacle it purports only to record.

As part of a broader picture that sees 4 and 6 cards and thundersticks handed out to everyone, that sees the Cricketeers hyping up the schoolkids to sing and chant, that sees music played in the ground to get the crowd singing along, and the picking out of anyone in fancy dress on the big screens for everyone to cheer – we are encouraged to express our pleasure at the spectacle and our support of our side in a very particular way. It’s a way that feels distinctly at odds with how many people might want to enjoy it but it’s the only way the authorities appear to want us to enjoy it. It’s not a 90-minute football match, it’s an 8-hour cricket match: we really don’t need to pretend that every minute is action-packed, every spectator is out of their seat with excitement, do we?

Without wanting to sound too curmudgeonly, I wonder if there is anything wrong with enjoying the game of cricket for what it is rather than feeling like you’re in a piece of performance art? In an era where scores of 300 are the norm and 400 is regularly within reach, and when so many truly thrilling players are showing spectacular skills, is this not enough? It feels as if cricket-the-product has become more important to the powers-that-be than cricket-the-game.

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On supporting Pakistan

07 Friday Jun 2019

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Three sounds echoed in my mind as I left Trent Bridge on Monday, having watched England play Pakistan in the World Cup: the incessant dull resonant thud of thundersticks being whacked together, the exquisite sound as the ball hit Jos Buttler’s bat before disappearing through extra cover, and the soundtrack of the day: the chant of ‘Pakistan! Zindabad!’

I went to the match alongside teachers and children from the school where I am a governor – all of us the fortunate recipients of tickets through the commendable World Cup Schools Programme. It was a first big-match experience for all the children who went and they loved it. Our seats were allocated, sensibly, in the alcohol-free stand; this, of course, was also where the vast majority of Pakistan supporters were too. We had quite an experience.

If I know nothing else, I know now that Pakistan supporters love their cricket, their team and winning. They live and breathe every delivery. They walk a tightrope of joy and despair every single ball, they are the very antithesis of stoicism.

How has it come to this, I wondered. How is it that all the England supporters (unfuelled by stiff-upper-lip-inhibiting alcohol) sit quietly, applauding gently, and trying not to eat their lunch before midday, while the Pakistan supporters punctuate any quiet moment with a series of loud call-and-response chants, chatter excitedly, and leap from their seats and run down the steps to dance with impressive vigour and enviable disinhibition every time there is a four, six or wicket? This is no hyperbole: there was not one boundary hit that was not celebrated as if the match were won.

What is the dancing all about? Is it simply a message of joy? Surely it cannot be – it is too orchestrated, too deliberate (though undeniably joyful too). It appears to be a bonding experience, a moment for men (for it was exclusively so) to bond under one flag, one religion, one nation. It is perhaps a rare space to express themselves and the pride in the nation from which they or their forbears come. In a British society that sadly appears to be becoming less tolerant, this is a rare opportunity where they feel safe just to be.

That’s not to say there aren’t tensions. The interactions with the stewards are uneasy, both parties trying their best (some individuals succeeding, others not) to find a light-heartedness in their interactions that doesn’t come easy. Despite the supporters’ ebullience, there is an underlying sense of nervousness, a tacit awareness that despite the freedom they have here in the ground, it is still one that could be curtailed at any moment. At one point someone from the back of the Pakistan section throws a bottle of water which lands in the area in front of the seats. Every Pakistan supporter turned to look, repugnance writ large on their faces, followed by several exasperated cries of ‘Come on, bro’. There are a few minutes’ uncomfortable silence.

There is little tension in the crowd, however (apart from, understandably, the old couple who can’t see the cricket every time the Pakistan supporters leap up to dance. They were moved after a while – a sensible decision from the stewards). There is no sense of aggression or pending confrontation bubbling beneath the surface. Ultimately we all share a huge love of the game, even if we express it differently. Everyone of us is amused by national loyalty tensions that are embraced by the fans: the chants of ‘He’s one of our own’ whenever Mo or Rash come on to bowl (see this great piece from Mo for more on this https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/jun/05/england-moeen-ali-cricket); the pantomime booing of an Asian man in an England shirt; the fans in half-and-half wigs and shirts proclaiming support for ‘EngPak’. A be-turbanned Indian supporter with a huge flag is embraced and sits amongst the Pakistan fans.

The schoolchildren we are with watch in bemusement and amusement everything that is going on, looking to the adults with perplexed faces as the famous Chacha Cricket sweeps regally around the stand, leading chants, greeting fans, taking selfies. I’m not sure how much adulation one man needs but clearly he is yet to reach his limit.

So I leave Trent Bridge having watched a wonderful match and experienced an extraordinary atmosphere that has left me curious to understand more about this group of cricket supporters, whose fervour is untrammelled, whose joy is unsurpassed and whose enthusiasm unimaginable. Where does it come from? What is it all about?

It makes me think back to the wonderful film Fire in Babylon in which one comes to understand the critical importance of the West Indies cricket team to the Caribbean diaspora, and I wonder if it’s the same for Pakistan today. There’s so much more than cricket at stake.

Oh, England

10 Tuesday Mar 2015

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England’s World Cup capitulation is not easily explained. I suspect the combination of factors will defy a simple solution and anyone who claims to know all the answers is probably misguided. Or Geoffrey Boycott.

We can point to any or all of the following: the wrong county structure, uncompetitive county one-day competition (including playing the  wrong number of overs for four years recently), the lack of a franchised T20 competition, a World Cup mental block, no left-arm seamers, no left-arm spinners, no express pace bowlers, no-one who can bowl Yorkers, persistence for too long in picking the likes of Bell and Cook when other countries were picking the likes of Warner, Finch, Miller, Roussow etc, not introducing power hitters like Maxwell, somehow taking natural talent and flair and homogenising it through the prescriptive coaching machine, not allowing international players to play county cricket, replacing the desperately out-of-form captain with a desperately out-of-form captain, playing a warm-up series on completely different pitches to what we’d find at the World Cup, shambolically ditching arguably our best batsmen for reasons still not yet clear,  a county coach rather than an international one, a muddled vision, a hopeless ECB hierarchy, unconscious and debilitating post-colonial guilt…(ok, that one might need further consideration) – and I’m sure there’s more. Feel free to add to the list by writing a comment below.

Why can’t our players just play like Australian or New Zealand or Sri Lankan or Indian players? Just smash it to the fence, bowl yorkers, catch everything. Somehow freeing themselves from the shackles of doubt, uncertainty and fear just doesn’t seem to come naturally to England players.

Unfortunately it’s far more complicated than saying ‘just play with no fear’. It’s like telling the arachnophobe not to fear spiders. They might know a particular spider can’t do them any harm but their way of being is not a rational construct. Knowing something only gets you so far. (By contrast, being a know-it-all gets you to be editor of the Daily Mirror). In the same way, until a player, or we as a nation, understands why they play with fear, they cannot be expected to simply overcome it.

At the moment we have an awkward middle ground. We hate the player (yes, KP I’m looking at you) who says after holing out to long-on and throwing the game away, ‘that’s just the way I play’ yet we laud the likes of Warner, Maxwell, McCullum for their no-fear approach to the game which appears to involve very similar risk. (And to be fair to KP, there were times towards the end of his career where he did try to rein it in for the sake of the team and then got criticised for not playing his natural game. Sometimes you really can’t win.)

The commentator on the radio during the game against Bangladesh exhorted Morgan to play with no fear, at which point he deposited the ball down deep-square leg’s throat. A fearless shot. And a dreadful one. Utterances of this banality add nothing to our understanding of the highly complex and utterly debilitating mindset England have got themselves into.

We tell our players to ‘express themselves’ but I have no idea what this means, and my guess is that the players aren’t too sure either. It’s one of those phrases that has entered the lexicon, been used until it is but a husk of a word devoid of the marrow of meaning and now floats about, falling off the tongues of captains and coaches who can’t be bothered to think of anything better to say. See also: ‘put them under some pressure’, ‘you’ve got to back yourself’, ‘we’re playing the right brand of cricket’ and ‘he hasn’t hit his straps’.

When Peter Moores got the job again, I was perfectly prepared to give him another chance. But now I’m starting to believe there really is something in this perception of him being too much of a stats man, a pre-planned, inflexible, stats-rule kind of coach. When questioned about this approach, he always utterly refutes any claim that he is too stats focused.  Then straight after the Bangladesh match– which presumably he had been watching – he was asked for his view on what went wrong and he said “We’ll have to analyse the game data”. Oh lordy. Mind the petard on your way out Peter.

I don’t want my coach hunched over a computer or wheeling out percentages. I want him to watch the game, understand it, spot patterns, strengths, weaknesses. To look at his players, understand them too and what it takes to allow them the freedom needed to play with pleasure, with passion and with brilliance. To only use stats to add to his intuitive knowledge, not as the source of all knowledge, inherently second-hand, filtered and inferred. To make every interaction with the players count. To inspire. To be a presence. To be a leader.

England players have forgotten both how to play on instinct and also how to think for themselves. If you come off the field and wait for one of 17 support staff or a computer to tell you how you did, then you’ve stopped thinking and you’ve stopped reacting to the situation. How can we expect players to think on their feet in the middle of a match if they have to be told what to think by a computer programme (or its cipher, Moores)? This is a game played on a pitch not on a computer. Let’s replace artificial intelligence with the real thing.

I know it’s easy from the sidelines but when so many people can see the problems but Moores seemingly cannot (dropping Taylor from no.3, bringing in Ballance, not playing Hales, not putting Buttler up the order etc), surely it’s time to ditch the laptop and just watch the game. The way Moores watches cricket is like spending your holiday looking at all the sights through the viewfinder of your phone. Put the phone down and soak in the big picture.

So, what next? I imagine someone – probably Colin Graves – will announce a ‘root and branch’ review of the system, especially one-day cricket. He’ll announce it like it’s a bold new idea and be hurt when no-one jumps up and down with excitement and gratitude.  I don’t know if Moores and Morgan will carry on but I’d be surprised if there weren’t casualties somewhere among the hierarchy. Downton isn’t exactly sitting pretty. If I were looking to ‘take the positives’, I couldn’t think of a single one Downton has brought.  County one-day cricket will have to change, I think, and T20 might do too.

But these things will take time. In the meantime, what are we going to do about our team? Well, it really is the perfect opportunity to be radical.

The thing is, when England pick what they believe is their best, most experienced, balanced side we supporters tend to watch their games through the lens of positive expectation because, frankly, we are England supporters and want them to do well. Even in this World Cup after thrashings by Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, I was looking forward to England making the quarters and then a couple of upsets and then…well. But when England experiments with the side, we expect the worst and are quick to point it out when it happens. We ask why Bell isn’t in the side and why Stokes is (well, some people do anyway). We crave familiar mediocrity rather than the challenging sight of talented players learning on the job, and mostly losing. But the fact is, whoever is picked, the side mostly loses. So let’s get radical.

Ditch: Morgan, Anderson, Broad, Ballance, Bell, Bopara, Finn, Jordan, Tredwell.

Choose players who look like they might have a bit about them: Root, Moeen, Stokes, Woakes, Taylor, Willey, Hales, Gidman, Vince, Roy, Trego, Rashid, Footit, Mills, Dunn.

Then give these players a couple of years to play. Expect them to lose, rejoice if they win. Expect them to be exposed, enjoy seeing them defy the odds. Let them play without expectation.

And if this frightens you off, remember these stats: England’s leading wicket-taker this World Cup is Chris Woakes with five wickets in five games at an average of 46.80. Stuart Broad? Three wickets at 79. James Anderson, our highly-regarded, best in the world, king of swing? Four wickets at 57. Two against Scotland, two against Bangladesh. Moeen Ali had England’s best bowling economy rate – 5.28 – while there are 44 other bowlers at the tournament with a better economy rate.

In a tournament where 300+ was commonplace and 400+ seen a number of times, we had just two batsmen scoring at a run a ball – Moeen and Buttler. Elsewhere there are 47 other players with a SR over 100, seven of them in the Australian side.

To recap, we spent years planning, five months playing dozens of ODIs in preparation and took our very best squad to the World Cup and were ignominiously dumped out at the stage it was meant to be impossible to be dumped from. Why not give a team of greenhorns a go?

It’s an interesting exercise to go back to my pre-World Cup blogpost ‘Yeah but no but yeah but’ where I looked first at the squad as positively as possible, then more negatively – or as we were to later find out, realistically. Don’t bother with the positive list but have a look at the other. I’d say only Buttler and Root failed to live down to expectations.

Yeah but no but yeah but…

23 Friday Jan 2015

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Now this is frustrating. For so long, I’d been certain that following England at the World Cup would be quite straightforward. We would stumble along in the Pool matches, win a game against one of the big boys and be full of optimism – then have a stinker against Scotland, Bangladesh or Afghanistan and not even make it to the quarters.

I was determined to enjoy the World Cup simply as an opportunity to see some great matches and if England did, by some miracle, make it to the quarters then my cup would have runneth over.

And then England did the decent thing and relieved Cook of his position. Morgan came in and talked straight and talked sense. He scored a ton. Then England smashed India. And I could feel that sensation again, that feeling that I thought had been banished when it came to England in ODIs. Hope.

They beat India by nine wickets. Surely that meant they could beat anyone? Nine wickets!

I sniffed a chance for England. So back to their squad for a quick look…

Morgan – Positive skipper, solid bloke, evident new energy in the side since his appointment, always gets runs as skipper.

Moeen – Rapidly becoming a legend. Free-flowing bat, fearless smasher of the ball from the start, rapidly improving and important bowler.

Anderson – Still the swing king, four cheap wickets the other day, well rested and raring to go.

Ballance – A real find last year, adaptable player, great cricket brain.

Bell – 187…141…smooth stroking, late cutting, cover driving, finally delivering.

Bopara – Finally found his role with the bat and has an ability to smash it miles; canny bowler.

Broad – Experience, pace, accuracy with the ball; mercurial ability with the bat; loves showing Aussies what he can do.

Buttler – Was the first of England’s new generation to seal his place. Plays shots that appear to be impossible; feared by opponents; secure in his position; improving with the gloves and pretty decent now.

Finn – Tall, quick, awkward. A five-for to boost his confidence the other day. Has stopped raising his arm, smoothing his hair and looking bemused after every delivery that the batsman misses. Finny’s back!

Hales – Devastating opener who scored a spectacular T20 ton for England and scored county runs for fun last year. Exciting.

Jordan – What a find. Lively bowler with a knack for picking up wickets, top catcher and half-decent biffer. A ‘makes things happen’ kind of cricketer.

Root – Looks utterly at home for England in all formats now they’ve allowed him to bat in the right position. A pivotal player in the middle order, and handy fill-in offie.

Taylor – Talk about taking your chance. He basically got one knock to secure a place and nailed it. Looks a great option at no.3. Whacks it harder than he used to and is pretty  inventive.

Tredwell –  As inconceivable as it is to imagine him in his whites for England, it’s equally hard to  imagine another specialist spinner usurping his one day spot. Solid performer.

Woakes – Another fella who’s taken his chance. Looked far too weedy and military medium when he debuted for England but now looks a nailed-on pick and fully deserving of his place. Very decent bat too.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is quite an exciting line-up. So, let’s have a look at that fixture list. So Australia first up. Who have they got? Oh…Warner and Finch. Ah. Smith, Bailey, Maxwell…Johnson, Faulkner, Starc. Well, maybe if we get Warner early. And Finch. And Smith. And hope Maxwell doesn’t come off. And Clarke’s hammy goes. And Johnson’s having an off-day…

Alright, so if we lose that one, who’s next?

New Zealand. OK, well we usually have a chance against the perennial overachievers. So who have they got? McCullum, scorer of four test tons including a triple last year;  Anderson a revelation in recent months and holder of the quickest ODI ton until a few days ago; Elliott – ton today; Ronchi – 170 today coming in at no.7 today…Taylor, Vettori, Williamson, Southee. Hang on, this is a damn good side. This is not a team of underdogs.

Who else? Sri Lanka – just lost to them comfortably. Scotland? Afghanistan? Real banana skins.

So I look at our side again…

Morgan – Until his ton a few days ago, hadn’t scored a run for ages with a recent record worse than Cook’s. Golden duck today.

Moeen – Whack whack whoosh. I fear quick 20s and 30s will be more likely that match- defining tons.

Anderson – If it doesn’t swing, he’s in trouble. On a flat deck – fodder.

Ballance – Unproven. Possibly a bit stodgy for ODIs.

Bell – Surely flattering to deceive. Spent 150 matches promising much and delivering little.

Bopara – Had more drinks at the last chance saloon than anyone. Not as good as we hope he is (average in ODIs 28.3 since 2013, 40.88 with the ball. (Hat-tip for the surprising stats @NickSharland.))

Broad – Injury-prone, has lost the snap in his bowling and underperforms with the bat

Buttler – Hit and miss. Inexperienced.

Finn – Still not firing on all cylinders. His five wickets the other day came from poor shot not great deliveries. Just one of those lucky days. Still bowling well below express pace.

Hales – Selected but not trusted. Limited technique has been found out by international teams.

Jordan – Expensive, inconsistent, inaccurate; has a run-up and action that could go very wrong at any moment.

Root – Playing well, if a little slowly.

Taylor – Unproven against world-class bowlers. Early shuffle across the stumps could prove his undoing.

Tredwell – Best of a bad lot. If a team decides to take him apart, they generally do.

Woakes – See Anderson. No swing = absolute fodder.

I’m trying to persuade myself that the second assessment of the players above is the right one and I should retreat to my position of no expectation of success. But really, I know it’s not true. They could do something at this World Cup, England, couldn’t they? Even if it’s unlikely, it’s not impossible.

I can’t wait for it to start now…Damn you, hope, damn you.

We’ve got all the ingredients but need to sack the Cook

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Peter Moores’ rather equivocal ‘support’ for Alistair Cook after his, and England’s, failure a couple of days ago (not to be confused with their failure today)  was an unexpected speck of light at the end of the tunnel.

Though Moores and now Downton keep insisting publicly that Cook will lead at the World Cup, it must be only them, the selectors and Cook himself who believe he is the right man to lead England into the World Cup. The problem is that the selectors and Moores have gone down a Cook cul-de-sac and can’t find a way out.

They backed Cook and continue to back him largely because they backed him before, and each time they do it they make it harder to go back on that decision. It’s a self-annihilating circle demonstrating the utmost lack of self-awareness.

As for as I can tell, they backed Cook for three reasons – desperate hope, convenience and a sense of him being the right kind of chap.

Desperate hope – he did score a few decent runs when he first took over as ODI skipper. He looked ok. However, he averages under 30 in 2014, has scored one 50 in his last 22 ODI innings, hasn’t scored a ton in 45 and has made next to no runs in this current series. And now he’s dropping catches. It’s not that he’s suddenly turned into Mike Brearley either. His captaincy doesn’t make up for his lack of runs. We’ve just lost this series.

Convenience – it really is ideal if one skipper does all the formats of the game or even a couple of them. But not if it’s all going so very wrong. It’s even counter-productive for Cook himself, who seems to be taking his increasingly shaky technique and crushed confidence into the test match arena.

The right kind of chap – he is the anti-Pietersen. He may be gauche, fumbling and awkward at times, he may be an uninspirational leader, he may to batting what Ed Miliband is to statesmanship but he’s a good egg.

Most infuriating of all is the realisation that the selectors, management and Cook are prepared to jettison England’s chances at the World Cup in order to save face on a poor decision to retain Cook as ODI captain. And ‘infuriating’ just doesn’t cover it if there is truth to the generally-accepted rumour circulating that Cook will quit as ODI captain after the World Cup.

Basically the selectors are saying, ‘We wait four years for this opportunity and players put their hearts and souls into getting in the squad and playing – and this year we’ve even planned six months of our international cricket schedule around it – but, hey, let’s write it off this time so Alistair can play in a tournament he’s always wanted to play in and the selectors won’t be forced to publicly acknowledge they’ve got it completely wrong.’

It makes me furious just thinking about it.

I’d love to dissect the 30 man England World Cup squad in minute detail, wondering what our best eleven is but it feels so pointless. Which is a shame because it feels like we have some players who are starting to show what they can do.

The bowling seems steady rather than spectacular but we can rely on Tredwell, Moeen and Broad when he’s back. Anderson isn’t a given in ODI cricket for me – if it doesn’t swing he gets tapped. Woakes is increasingly, and surprisingly, impressive; then there’s hopefully a resurgent Finn, with Jordan as back-up.

Batting line up should be Hales, Moeen, Taylor, Root, Morgan (assuming he remembers how to bat), Bopara, Buttler. I’d like to drop Morgan as his recent record is as unimpressive as Cook’s but I’d need to be confident that his replacement from the squad of 30 would definitely be better. There are no guarantees.

Having said that, I really wouldn’t mind if the selectors were bold for once and went for Ballance or Bairstow, Samit Patel or Adil Rashid. They won’t of course. (With quite a few dashers in the order I probably wouldn’t risk Jason Roy as well.) Stokes, unfortunately, has lost his way – probably not helped by the management not being able to decide if he’s an all-rounder, a batsman who bowls or a bowler who bats. I wouldn’t be averse to Vince getting a go, while Luke Wright is in there for old times’ sake only.

Unfortunately it looks like Cook will take up a valuable place in that order so some poor sod who deserves a game won’t get one.

There really are some exciting players in the squad – mainly batsmen – but I just feel utterly deflated before we even set off on our World Cup run-in.

The question is, will the powers-that-be find a weaselly way out of this – like Alistair Cook having a sudden flare-up of his back trouble. I wouldn’t put it past them. What they won’t do, of course, is admit they were wrong and actually drop Cook for the World Cup. Fingers crossed for 2019.

UPDATE: Info on the BBC’s live feed of the ODI today provides more crushing evidence:

England’s ODI captains have departed their roles after each of the last four World Cups. 1999: Alec Stewart sacked. 2003: Nasser Hussain resigned. 2007: Michael Vaughan resigned. 2011: Andrew Strauss resigned.

Since the Champions Trophy in 2013, England have completed 27 ODIs against Test-playing opposition (ie not counting Scotland and Ireland) – they have won nine of those, and lost 18.

And even more depressing…

Alastair Cook, speaking to Sky Sports: I’m working as hard as I can, I’m as hungry as ever to score runs, so I’ll go on. “I’ve always had an attitude to play cricket and compete. Yes, it hasn’t gone well over the last 12 months both personally with the bat and in one-day cricket. “I would feel very wrong to walk away from it. If it’s taken away from me, I’ll feel very disappointed, but I certainly won’t be giving it up.”

Pfftt.